AzurePhoenix

I'm sorry, now you care about logic? Consistent much?

Erm... sense of humor about what? You picked out a bunch of simple and often acceptable (and a few of them practical and sensisible and even commendable) characteristics about people, and then berated them jackassedly for not meeting up to your idealized standard for what you think a man should be, which as far as I can tell, is a hate-all brawling slob of a jerk (not that I like primly-trimmed and nice, I certainly don't). You didn't put them down wittily, you very simply blatantly insulted them outright. That's not being funny or clever (clever being the keystone of good humor), that's simply obnoxious. The whole thing just reeks with the bitter tang of someone who either can't find himself a decent man, or who just recognized that he himself is the personification of pussification and is in one of those republicanesque states of violent denial. I'm putting my money on the first.

All hail King Snorky! Very neat little backtrack. Not sure if it's as cool as the toothed chickens, but almost. Yeah. I'm tired.

heh, maybe they could team up their idea with Jon Stewart's suggestion, but I'm not sure they're taking into account the sheer number of people in the world who get off on negatively-charged sadism and masochism And you'd think that if they were serious they'd link you to some, ahem... helpful material

Trying to be more careful with the semantics here, I'd say Mr.BrainDead would be a biological human, but not a "human being," as in a functional, living entity of the biological human species(to me for the sake of this particular thread).

You mean the moment your unique genetic code was randomly shuffled, probably as result of faulty latex. With a coupla coding mistakes. What makes you you is BEING you, you being a result of your genetics, your experiences, the conditions your body developed under, your unique delusions, the brand of underwear you buy, etc etc etc. Saying a blastocyst IS a human is like saying an acorn IS an oak-tree. Maybe they're the same species at the genetic level, but they aren't the same damn thing functionally. One is big and has leaves, the other is tiny with a funny little hat.

I was of the understanding that people who generally want to dull the pain will freeze it for fiteen minutes or so beforehand then boil it alive under the belief that it deadens their nerves, but the tradeoff is tougher meat, otherwise it's either tossed in whole and alive, or that the head areas is split down the middle with the hammer or knife method, but that doesn't necessarily killl it, just severs a coupla important nerve centers.

Don't you consider every facet of knowledge we could possibly glean an integral part of reaching the most well-rounded understanding we could possibly attain based on the available data? Genes can tell you some things, bones others, neither all. well you're supposed to go out and get the evidence yourself, or if that fails, find the evidence to denounce it and hope to come across new evidence for alternatives. Otherwise this whole science dealio wouldn't get very far at all. And say we have a rock-solid 100% proven unquestionable understanding; what's left to question adn study in the first place? Anyway, when you say "enough" evidence, enough evidence for what exactly? where's the fun and excitement and discovery without that? seems to be the entire point of the whole idea to me. If it were as simple as "let them believe what they want if they so wish" I'm sure few would disagree. But the big picture rests in pressures of creationist propaganda that actively perpetuate myth to new generations and get in the way of educating the general public about the simple facts, allowing the delusion to thrive and spread infectiously. In America at least. You yourself said "fend off," as in to defend against, not "hunt down" or "exterminate" or "opress." Hell, even the head of a nation that supposedly ensures the separation of church and state voiced his support for the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom, basically pressing and pushing the myth onto others. And accepting science is not "against their beliefs," they actively choose to SELECTIVELY whittle out and loudly denounce the bits of science here and there that might counter a few particular beliefs.

It's true. The sun doesn't cause tanning they way the claim either, that's caused by a brown algae beneath the skin that flourishes under daylight

Ermm.... ummm.... what? Dalek banned by who for what now? Have you even read what the hell was going on?

Just when you think you've wiped um all out, another Dalek slips out of the Timestream

well of course I can't argue with any of that, most politicians shouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of a law, much less be allowed to run. But even when the pickings are meager, you still have to eat. Gotta bite your cheek and try to pick the least-wormy apple. And it's sad, but in this game if you're gonna at least try for something you might as well try to advocate the one closest to your interests, which I assume is why MJ is working for whoever. I certainly wouldn't hold it against M.J. for trying to get the guy he considered the lesser evil into office. I mean, it's not as if he has better choice available in all likelihood, so why hold it against him?

and also, would I be right in guessing that these people M.J.'s vouching for want to be elected at the FEDERAL level? Beyond missouri?

There's no such thing as good taste in any political ad. I'd say it's just surprisingly classy that they actually used someone who actually had the frickin' disease in question. M.J. supports a condidate that supports something that's in his interests, so he exploits his natural edge to demonstrate why it's important to him as I'd say he's perfectly entitled to do. Besides, I'd say if it were a more democratic democracy appealing to The People themselves directly would be the better course in the first place. Not that I'm naive enough to believe that's how it actually works, so the best you can do is appeal to The People to position someone who at least MIGHT be able to accomplish those goals to get elected. Perfectly valid to me.

Oh I don't know, two of our most endearing traits our our stubborn tenacity and our refusal to move past the primal survivalist traits that make us so chaotically though predictably and understandably dangerous in the first place. I think killing us off is gonna take one unprecedentedly mean son of a bitch of a cataclysm, but I also don't think we'll be able to "clean up our act" as long as we're a dominant force and aren't forced into it, and that would take a good sized cataclysm in itself to change (or an advanced alien invasion ). I just think there's a huge difference between having the tech available, and getting humanity to siderail from it's nature long enough to use it properly. I mean, humanity might someday work as a whole towards or under the idea of certain principles and utopian dreams, but humanity is just a composite of a bunch of humans, who I don't think will ever be able to advance beyond the fundemental instincts of survival. After all, in the end we are just slightly-more-clever-than-average-animals. We just shifted the survival game from the savannas and forests to a more human-designed playing field. I do think it's possible we'll reach an equilibrium though, not so much "fix it" as simply end up not doing quite as much damage at such a bulldozer pace while the rest of the world will be forced to evolve to precariously work around us.

I agree entirely. I'd say it's essential for learning not only the relationships between species, but why a particular one is the way it is, or at least part of how it got there. Otherwise it's like trying to fully understand and know global geography and culture without the background history. But of course, I've got the bias that I'm as deeply interested in paleontology as I am zoology.

I have a paying job now, SFN's dropped from the fourth most interesting thing in my day to my seventh. I don't believe you were told to speak yet Mr. Prokaryote Don't you know anything boy? All the real important kinds of "jobs" end at marriage. it's a shame that my proposition to have a satelite-controlled quill-projecting rod implanted in the urethras of all trouble-making members didn't pan out.

Aye, it's a simple part of life that you have to take a little to get by, and it's inevitable that even if we were fairly responsible and paced ourselves, bits of harm would still come about, and it's just as unfair for our species to live ascetically for the sake of everything else. Problem is that right now we pace ourselves like locusts, and rather than try to fix things in a practical matter, extremist environmentalists want the world to go in for total asceticism cold-turkey. THings just can't reconcile that way. Entirely true, but can't actual suggestive evidence be taken as evidence for the possibility on its own merit?

If you think that's sick and twisted you should see the real hardcore stuff I frequently support and endorse on this site . Besides, it's simply practical to suggest that a reduced population would ease the pressure on an overgrown species suffering from the hardships of ecological failure and the possibly (worst-case scenario) the collapse of civilization as we know it. It's also practical to suggest that those humans who "win the game" and survive make some use out of their fallen brethren rather than let perfectly good meat go to waste, whether they be used for food or fertilizer. However, it is NOT practical to offer to sacrifice (and thereby remove) yourself; that's just generous and altruistic (an impractical way to live in a disorganized anarchy). The point is to eat your neighbors first so that YOU can survive yourself . However, if you are gonna go in for cannibalism, you have to remember to avoid the parts that might be all priony. Actually, come to think of it, this day and age I don't think I'd trust the safety of human meat; are stds transferable through the consumption of flesh? It's not misanthropy. I recognize that no matter what humanity may be and do as a species, it is composed of countless individuals who likely as not might not deserve such harsh judgement. However, I don't feel that humans are more "special" than the rest of the world, certainly humanity is culturally and intellectually advanced, prominant and impressive, and unquestioningly fairly sympathizable with by it's individual componants. But no matter how impressive the species is, or how well liked it is by the individuals that make it up, sometimes sympathy and naive optimism have to take a back seat to practicality, which is synonomous with survival under the worst-case scenario I was picturing in my head when I suggested that human-eating thing. It's nice to take everyone's feelings into account, and try to make do for all, but nice probably won't get you through a cataclysm (worst-case ). Besides, under the context of what I suggested, the idea isn't "sick" (which I'm guessing you mean to imply "evil"), it's simply mean, and mean has a very important role in the world. Keeps things running. Nearly every damn species on the planet is here today because it outcompeted another (granted the parasites got by through being sneaky free-loaders, and there are a few of those commensalist symbionts). And if you think that being mean for the sake of practicality is sick, you have to remember that this humanity you seem so compassionate about out-compteted the ass off of nearly every species we've come up against, whether they were competing with us or not (a fact that both saddens me but also fills me with pride, I have to admit). "Mean" is life, embrace it and survive.

so much cross over in all this stuff there probably isn't much of anything that couldn't go under pretty much everything else if you break it down right.

well, it's certainly tied in to biology in that the atmosphere is critically influenced by the biosphere, but yeah, that's more relationship between the two than saying "global warming is biology" so on it's own I'd think i'd largely agree, except it does fall under environmental and ecological stuff perfectly, which is squarely under biology. Plus there is the matter that the primary issues with global warming boil down to the effects it has / will have on ecosystems, biology and all (notably and self-centeredly, human life).

While few might, I doubt most responsible sciency peoples would claim certainty about the matter, but just because something isn't absolute doesn't mean it's crap either, especially without anything backing up the denial of the evidence suggesting the likely authenticity of the matter in question.

Maybe I misread you, but in other words, science can't really tell us anything about bad possible future scenarios so we should scoff at all it tells us in favor of.... some other explanation, which itself would be based on what now? I'd think it'd be clear that it's faulty logic to say "these methods were wrong all these times so why should it be right now," (ignoring that they clearly didn't use the same methods) basically comparable to the creationist tendency to shrug off all fossil evidence because one or two were forgeries. Besides, doomsday is a bit farfetched. Disastrous and obscenely destructive perhaps, but as long as humans get smart and ease things up by eating eachother and reducing the excess population before their crops get messed up and swamped or dried out or something I'm pretty certain they could pull through a major-climatic shift scenario without a hitch.

Trust me, I'd never even believe that you meant physical beauty even if you claimed that's what you meant, all gangly and bulbous and anti-streamlined and naked . In counter-perspective from my point of view, I saw a ladybug on a hibiscus blossom a few days back, much prettier than that dot-fest of bascule's if you ask me. I myself only really ever been swayed by the more primal arts, though I do admit, I have a weakness for the "impressive" monuments of man. Pyramids, monolithes and such, certain skyscrapers. Not pretty, but definately "wow"

It's a hell of a lot more effective to belittle someone with actual reasoning rather than just be an ass about it and try to make someone feel bad or whatever emotion you're trying to inflict rather than try to explain why they are either false and hopefully correct them / sway the opinion that you disagree with.