CaptainPanic

Many people in the Scottish Highlands will be understandably annoyed at what they see as "A bunch of Edinburgh politicians telling them what to do" Just my prediction of the situation in 20 years from now, if the YES camp wins. My prediction for the referendum is a NO though. Many people saying YES in the polls will vote NO in the referendum, out of fear for the consequences. The unknown can be more terrifying than a known problem such as a bunch of Westminster politicians telling them what to do.

In Switzerland you voted NO against minarets in 2009, which shows that you may have democracy indeed. It goes so far that the religious freedom of the minorities are no longer protected. Your form of democracy is getting awfully close to a nationalized version of the mob rule (the tyranny of the majority). A government should be there also to protect the rights of the minorities, whether they are religious minorities, age groups, people with disabilities, vegetarians or just opera lovers.

I think there are MANY practical issues that have not been fully resolved, and that are not being discussed. All cross-border traffic will be affected somehow: people living on one side of the border and working on the other side. Goods, waste and energy that crosses the border will now become international traffic. Pension funds, car insurances, and whatever financial agreements exist between people in Scotland and companies in England, and vice versa will be affected. Some of these issues can be easily solved with a treaty between the two nations, and some won't be (otherwise what is the point of being independent if everything stays the same?).

! Moderator Note IM Egdall, We would greatly appreciate it if you indicate the purpose of this thread: discuss something, or answer a question you have (for example). Our forum is not meant as a place to just "share" stuff, like you might on other social media or websites. We like to discuss things, or answer questions here. Since your post most likely is not commercial, we'll leave it this time. We would still appreciate it if you come back here and mention the purpose/topic of this thread.

This. Ironically, the UK has its own UKIP (UK Independence Party), to become more independent from Brussels. Looking at the last European elections, UKIP was very popular in England, but not so much in Scotland, where the Scottish National party won. However, the Scottish national party is a member of The Greens (or: European Free Alliance), who are rather pro-European (although they are against further centralization). It seems therefore that the above quote (joining the EU) is supported by the population of Scotland. It appears to me then that the Scottish don't really want indepencence. So maybe it is just greed after all. Maybe they expect wealth from oil and gas like in Norway? ... or this is just another successful populist political movement. Simple ideas. Good oneliners. Based on emotions.

Don't modern laptops have a protection against stuff like this? Like an automatic shutdown if the temperature gets too hot?

The plastics will not melt until the temperature reaches over 100 degrees Celsius. By then, the laptop would already be too hot to touch. For normal use, that is not an issue. If it would get too hot to touch, something is wrong, and you should take the laptop back to the store where you bought it (or just get a new one if it is really old). Laptops can be used non-stop, if you plug them in while using. The only danger that I have heard of is that laptops will increase the temperature of men's testicles (because that is exactly where you keep that laptop: on your lap.)

Mention some of the common buzzwords in your field in the introduction.

Yes they do, overtly. Have you seem what the Republicans think of "critical thinking"? All of them? Or just some of them? This thread seems to deal with all of them, and how our economy/world is working, not a subset of particularly immoral republicans.

But corporations and wealthy people do not have an agenda to keep the population dumb. They do not block websites with valuable information. They do however sell advertising space on that cat video, because tens of millions people voluntarily watch that stuff. There you touch upon something that is indeed loathsome: Lobbying and commercially sponsored lies about the climate. But I am not entirely sure that this is the topic of this thread. I think we discuss a far broader problem of a very small wealthy class who get all the money, and take from the middle and poorer classes. It is not the case that all corporations and all wealthy people are constantly lying about the sciences that affect their core-business. As others already said, the large majority operate within the law, and often even within what we think is morally acceptable.

For as long as people are satisfied in their primary needs and have sufficient distraction. I think the ancient Romans called is the concept of bread and games. It works. I think that (sadly) the wealthy have not pushed it too far yet. They can take more, because in the end, the rest of the population is so distracted that nobody acts. I actually disagree. The debate of the day is indeed chosen by the owner of the tv-station or website. But it is the viewers who choose to watch it. And especially since the rise of the internet, we all actually have a choice. New large corporations appeared with the rise of the internet. Quite a few actually started off small and relatively poor. Social networks and search engines dominate the list of most popular websites, but news websites also appear frequently. Those news websites are not forced upon anyone. People choose to go there themselves.

With the exception for the scientific part which obviously has to be original text, imitate as much as possible from successful previous proposals.

wlad was banned for posting discussions from elsewhere on our forum, for continuing such discussions in absence of the other participants of that those discussions, for repeatedly ignoring warnings about that, for not learning from his suspension less than 2 weeks ago, and for soapboxing.

I think `hýsøŕ addressed the main issue already: where would you find the resources for a planet? A planet is huge! Even a dwarf planet, like Pluto, has a mass of 1.3 x 1022 kg. The crust of the earth has an average density of about 3000 kg/m3. We would therefore have to mine for 4.3 x 1018 m3 of material from our earth's crust to make a planet the size of Pluto. To get an idea of just how much that is, we pretend we actually do this. The Earth has a surface area of 510072000 km2 or 5.10072 x 1014 m2. So, we would have to excavate about 8.5 km of the entire surface of the earth (including all the oceans) to make that planet. And then we would have to shoot all that material up into space, make sure it lumps together to form a new planet. And then we would have to find a stable orbit for it, where it won't crash into any existing planet. I hope this answers why we don't "just make a new planet". Frankly, I think we have a better chance to terraform Mars or the Moon.

! Moderator Note [update] I had closed this thread, and requested that the 3 issues be discussed separately. One of our experts on the forum suggested however that this can be discussed in a single thread, and therefore the thread has been re-opened. I apologize for any inconvenience.

burgess has been banned for spamming: posting content on our forum that appears on hundreds of other websites across the internet. Also, posting wiki-style posts without indicating the purpose of the thread (discussion, question, debate) is undesirable behavior. This was in itself not sufficient for a ban, but since warnings did not help, it was added to the list of charges, and it made our decision just that much easier.

Kids lack the self-control that they need to prevent themselves from harming other kids. 2-Year-olds will sometimes even slap each other, while they are barely old enough to walk. It appears to me (while I'm no expert) that kids can make a mistake sometimes and lose their self-control. Of course, some kids are more peaceful by nature than others, and some kids will be on the receiving end of a fight, while others will deal more punches or whatever... but I dislike the whole idea that kids can be punished by law for their actions. Kids must be kids, and they must be allowed to make mistakes. Making mistakes is a very important part of growing up. At least where I live, the consequences of your actions become more severe as you grow up, with a clear line at the age of 18, after which you are considered fully responsible for your own actions to the law. It is my strong opinion that in case of a dispute between kids, adults (parents, neighbors or teachers) must intervene. Not the police or any other government worker who is associated with upholding the law.

Personally, I think it is always easy to be in the political opposition. The Scottish dislike their government in London, and seem to think that it will get better when they have their own government. But I think it will only take them a few years, or a decade at most to start disliking their newly formed government. Then the Highlanders can start an independence movement to split off from the Lowlanders down south, as their minority won't be represented, and the government is listening mostly to the large corporations and the big city dwellers from Edinburgh and Glasgow. Of course, the Western Isles won't just listen to the majority of the Highlands government that live near Inverness. Those highlanders won't represent their interests as well as an independent government of the Western isles... Also, it appears they wish to remain a part of Europe, and since Brussels makes more and more of our laws, they won't get all that much independence of government. Scotland already has a strong cultural identity, and none of it is being oppressed/repressed/suppressed (pick whichever is correct) by anyone. So, according to me, that is no reason for independence. The only real reason I can see for independence is the oil and gas (and maybe the fisheries, but the North Sea is practically empty of fish anyway). So, the only way Scottish independence makes sense to me is from the point of view of short-term greed. And indeed, when I speak to Scottish people, this is a major argument for them, which is rather sad. That oil will run out though. [edit] It appears I did not actually answer the OP's question, how this would affec the world. Economically it wouldn't affect anyone outside the UK. For tourism, little would change either. NATO might lose some territory, but I think that the NATO countries will talk Scotland into being a member, and keeping the military bases where they are now, even if that means there are UK troops there (currently this is discussed only in the UK, with no pressure from outside yet). The only real issue I see is that other groups may want to follow this example. There are only dozens more independence movements in Europe. In most cases, I think these people don't have a strong argument for independence, for similar reasons as I said above for Scotland...

! Moderator Note Ah, good point. This text actually gets 600 hits (!!!) in Google. (Endy, next time you suspect something is wrong, please use the report function rather than a reply - but thanks for spotting it anyway). Thread closed. Member under review for spamming.

A model is a mathematical description of a phenomenon that you have obseved in the real world. I think your first problem is that you don't know what phenomenon you want to model: Examples can be: - The increase in energy of an object as it is heated by the sun. - The trajectory of a tennisball after being served by a world-class tennis player. - The increase of plankton mass in the oceans in springtime. All those things are a function of time. But things don't always have to change in time: - Find out which machine is the bottleneck in a car factory, and prevents an even higher production rate. Generally, you first start off with a question, or something that you need to know. Then you look at how you can describe that using the formulas that you know from your scientific education - and often you need to combine those in a more complicated model. Sometimes you need to create your own correlation, because no formula exists yet. Then, if you are lucky, you know all the variables, and can calculate your answer now. But often you need to look things up, or even take an educated guess for some variables.

! Moderator Note burgess, In our forum rules, it says that you must stay on topic in a thread. For that, it is of course vital that we have a topic. Can you please indicate what you want to discuss? As Ophiolite correctly says: This is not a wiki, and this type of post is not what we expect from our members. For posts like this, please find another website. If you have anything to discuss regarding this topic, please give us a clue what you wish to discuss. Do not respond to this moderator note in this thread.

Indeed. And there's your problem. Several nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine to name a few) have had severe economic setbacks through warfare in the past already. So, these people have little left to lose, and may gain more by war. Their potential gains are related to both money (e.g. income from oil) and power. Their potential losses are small (they do not own much) and if they lose their life, they will be a martyr. Also, the risk of losing your life is not that great. Hundreds may die in battles, but armies in the region measure many thousands. Simple statistics. I don't think that the US wants to bomb them all into obvlivion (although I think some individuals have enough hatred to want this). First of all, it is not as if the entire Arab world is at war with you or your country. The IS is at war with its neighbors, and lots of innocent civilians and a few Westerners were caught in it. I am not entirely sure it is up to the Western world to respond. That is not a matter of "moaning" or something like that. That is a matter of giving the right response to the situation. It is a calculated response. They already have little left to lose. Bombing them some more will only create more hatred and feelings of revenge, while it is not clear to me what the actual strategic purpose of it would have. It would obviously temporarily satisfy some feelings of revenge of some people in the Western nations... but only fools let such feelings guide their geopolitical responses to a crisis. Luckily, the US no longer has such a fool in power.

The USA has only 1 primary goal: To prevent the rise of a nation strong enough to threaten the global domination of the USA. Divide and conquer is therefore the main plan, and it has worked flawlessly. The region is a mess, and they spend most of their energy fighting each other, while in the meantime the oil keeps flowing. The USA never intended to be "good" in the sense that most of us think. But they did surely maintain global dominance. The US has no interest to stop the IS from existing, and it will not even try to completely defeat it. Also, you could argue that a lot of the previous military interventions in the Middle East and Aghanistan only polarized the world more, creating a place for fundamentalists to gain popularity. Any operation against IS will be small scale until some real interests of the US are threatened (oil and gas), and up until that moment, the US will prefer other people to do the fighting. Luckily, it seems that there are plenty of people who are afraid of the IS, so nobody needs to be encouraged to fight the IS, and the US can just look at it from the sideline. Right now, IS threatens mostly some local areas, which means the US would not get sucked into it. Russia is a larger potential threat, and I would be very surprised if the US engages in a large scale conflict in the Middle East, while Russia is flexing its muscles. (And I admit that all of the above is an opinion, and is deduced from all the developments of the last decade. Don't bother asking for citations, because I don't have any. I am not allowed to participate in meetings when the USA discusses its next geopolitical strategy.)

Nature is free to choose its own laws. There is no why. In the case of physics (e.g. law of gravity), we strongly suspect that this law will never really change... which is why people chose to call it a law. In the case of biology, not all life follows the same laws. The predator-pray model is not a law that is unchangable (note that I called it a model, not a law). For example, bacterial spores don't just die when conditions are no longer favorable. They instead enter some survival mode. Ultimately, the predator-prey model will probably still hold, but with significant delay. The wolves are also free to ignore the predator-prey model, but without any rabbits to eat, they will go hungry and won't reproduce as much. Nobody tells them to follow it. They just do.

! Moderator Note It is not clear what this thread is about. I've locked the thread while we wait for a review by other moderators.