iNow

Well, it's not a single query then end program, if that's what you're asking? It's a dynamic pattern recognition search, with fuzzy matches and the whole 9-yards

Depends on who you ask.

Of course, but irrelevant. It's as if my town is currently flooding during a massive hurricane, we're trying to evacuate my family and prevent my children from drowning, but instead of talking about sending boats and helicopters and life vests, you're choosing to discuss the implementation of new nuclear power plants 15 years down the line to mitigate climate change. Related, but quite obviously separate. The US punished the people responsible and removed them QUICKLY from the ranks. This is a false equivalence on nearly all fronts.

Weird. Misleading title then: Is it rational (for an athiest) to believe in religion?

Religion obviously exists. No belief required.

Maybe a better question is for how much longer before they’re expelled

Sure, but long term projects don’t solve immediate term urgencies

IMO, the answer here will be similar to the answer "where / what is the seat of consciousness?" While photons come in through the retina and stimulate receptor cells, and while those receptor cells send impulses back to the occipital lobe via the optic nerves, the actual concept of "sight" is extraordinarily complex once those signals arrive. There's a bit of a "Fourier analysis" happening unconsciously where the different signal strengths and locations are first sorted and that gives a baseline of data for interpretation, and it's this interpretation part after signals arrive where things get interesting. The parts of our brain associated with memory are sort of queried first... "Have I seen this before? Do I have an existing category bucket into which I can fit this?" The process of recognition saves energy from other brain areas. If we don't recognize it, we then engage the narration and creative parts of our brain... "I've seen something similar to this, but this is clearly different. Could it be X, could it by Y, or is this entirely different and may it's Z?" This all happens faster than the blink of an eye, until a signal is sent to our higher cortical areas and we become aware of it. This awareness is then "colored" by our mental state... are we tired? are we sad? are we angry? are we blissful? Those deeper underlying feelings all shade what we see in the conscious parts of our mind... and it's this conscious part of the mind that one might equate with a "mind's eye." It's just not a single place like a gas station on the corner of two streets. It's instead a town, or a neighborhood, a rhetorical symphony where no single instrument or note makes the music, but all together matter for the end experience being explored.

You can control your response to those urges, but not the urges themselves /pedantic /topic-derail

Correct

We wouldn't be lobbing missiles at Mexican hospitals, rolling tanks against Mexican villages and destroying the residential buildings of non-combatants while people were still inside, having our soldiers rape Mexican women with hands bound in zip ties, nor would we be murdering them and leaving their bodies and the bodies of their children to rot in the streets.

I'd rather imagine an internet where people don't make such ridiculous and false claims.

I also liked todays APOD. The ripples in our magnetosphere from the solar eruption made it an especially cool shot.

Dufuq? I’m super curious to learn about what On second thought… I don’t take you seriously enough to care.

Lots of words. Zero data. Zero evidence. Zero reason for anyone to care.

Yawn

It is

That won’t happen. You’re free to leave voluntarily. You may get banned if you cannot follow rules, but your account will remain as the posts you’ve made are part of a larger fabric where others have replied. Those replies would lose context if the threads you’ve sewn in were simply cut out.

Well, so long as YOU’RE sure. Yep, that’s good enough for me.

As is seizing control from the West more broadly while positioning oneself as a capable suitor with bulldog tendencies willing and able to help a rising China rise even faster.

I still think Russia will ultimately take Kyiv. I’m not the only one surprised that they have taken so long / that Ukraine has fought so well.

I’m devastated. Your opinion means the whirled to me.

The same applies to women. Times change. Also, I misspelled wear. It seems my mind is beginning to wear, but I don’t know where. Perhaps a weir will help me retain the rest of my mental wares.

Russia is acting like an older sibling who grabs the younger siblings arm, starts smacking them across the head with their own arm, then keeps repeating, "Stop hitting yourself... stop hitting yourself... stop hitting yourself."