If you answer yes:
1) Do you think there are more or less souls than there are living things on the earth suitable for reincarnation?
2) In other words, would there be a "queue" a soul would have to wait in before getting back in the game?
3) What do you think is the ratio of souls to suitable vehicles for "incarnation"?
I've just never really taken the idea seriously so if these are dumb questions sorry.
Reincarnation is a holdover from Jainism and the Buddha is on record stating that it falls outside the domain of knowable truths. In short there is no way to prove that it is true nor that it is untrue. It's one of those things that doesn't affect our lives no matter what else happens. So I tend not to pay it any heed. That's not an answer to what I said - but that's fine. I pay it no heed either. |
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When does 'you' stop becoming you, before you die, when you undergo certain events?
1. You were beamed planetside by Scotty, but the transporter failed to vaporize you shipside.
2. Three quarters of your brain is spliced with one quarter of another person's brain.
3. Your neurons are all replaced with electronic versions which seem to function like your neurons.
4. Someone else exists on this planet with a brain almost exactly (but not quite) like yours from a molecular standpoint, implying very similar memories, etc.
What does it mean to be you, anyway?
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A. Indict Government that is basically thugs because you didn't get a chance to volunteer
B. Give some reference to how a privately run system for everything is the best way to do anything
C. You logic to make it that all human decision are in self-interest
D. And most importantly remember, Greed is good.
Can you refute any of those? Even if I did, it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't change your mind. Not worth my effort. You can hold those beliefs all you want, that is your right. Myrkul is entitled to his opinions. But he's not entitled to his facts. And he only argues opinions, because that's all he can do. Oh look, my stalker is back. Let's see - you're the one who started a thread with my username in the title. I don't stalk users here - I happen across strange individuals such as yourself obsessively pushing your fantasy pseudo politics. You're welcome to try and refute any of those facts, if you like. I'm sure I'll enjoy trouncing you again.
What facts? Most everything you discuss is about hypothetical fantasy societies in the future. As for global warming, everything you posted that you thought was a fact was crap you pulled from deniers' blogs and sites, each with extensive published refutations. |
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A. Indict Government that is basically thugs because you didn't get a chance to volunteer
B. Give some reference to how a privately run system for everything is the best way to do anything
C. You logic to make it that all human decision are in self-interest
D. And most importantly remember, Greed is good.
Can you refute any of those? Even if I did, it wouldn't matter because you wouldn't change your mind. Not worth my effort. You can hold those beliefs all you want, that is your right. Myrkul is entitled to his opinions. But he's not entitled to his facts. And he only argues opinions, because that's all he can do. |
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What is the monetary dollar value of your life? Mine is priceless and fuck you to anyone who wants to tell me otherwise.
As of this moment, I'd estimate about $10 million USD. That is to say, if my death would leave that much to my loved ones and favorite charities, their sadness would be outweighed by hundreds (maybe thousands) of lives saved. My wife would never work or go without health care again. There are things more important than me. Do you drive to work? Do you sometimes go a long time without exercise, enough sleep, or a checkup with the doctor? So if someone offered you 10 million, you'd do it? Off yourself, that is? I'd like to say yes, but to be honest I'd think long and hard about that number if I got a serious offer. Then maybe 10 million isn't the price of a life (yours, in this case). |
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What is the monetary dollar value of your life? Mine is priceless and fuck you to anyone who wants to tell me otherwise.
As of this moment, I'd estimate about $10 million USD. That is to say, if my death would leave that much to my loved ones and favorite charities, their sadness would be outweighed by hundreds (maybe thousands) of lives saved. My wife would never work or go without health care again. There are things more important than me. Do you drive to work? Do you sometimes go a long time without exercise, enough sleep, or a checkup with the doctor? So if someone offered you 10 million, you'd do it? Off yourself, that is? |
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Predicting the direction of something is 50/50 in a random-walk model, when did you prove this earlier? In a model with causation you generally can predict the direction and magnitude with some level of certainty (and you should be able to generate some error bars as well.)
This is confused. The actual direction of a 100% stochastic process is 50/50. The actual direction of a deterministic process is obviously not 50/50. However, when there are various unknown initial parameters and relationships between parameters it is 50/50 from the perspective of the investigator. OK, but the point was, this method is for analyzing 100% stochastic systems, not deterministic ones, it has been misapplied. I also have some doubts about that second sentence, on the surface it seems unlikely that you can factor in the massive influences we understand on the climate and still be stuck at 50/50. I don't need to know the initial point, exact impact angle, or velocity for a baseball to know that if it is hit it will likely go forward, but there is a small chance it might go backwards or straight up. Ok, I see the problem. That is just not true. What is your source for this? Your diligence is semi-admirable, but may I suggest something? As I said earlier, you essentially lack common sense. I don't mean common sense as in you can't fix yourself a sandwich, but as in, you don't understand climate science at the general level. Interested laymen know much more than you. Your nose is stuck in spreadsheets, but you have no general understanding of the forces at work, the dynamic interactions, etc. Sort of like someone who has no real 'feel' for hitting a baseball. Learn about the following: - Ice ages and their causes - Ice albedo feedback loops - Current fieldwork on glacier melting - Ice core analysis, tree ring analysis - Climate change induced species migration - Sea level rise and its causes - The changing of precipitation patterns - Political blockades - Consensus view - Prior EPA success stories And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I think you discount scientists doing field work out in the real world too much. I sensed this when you tried to make light of the article which summarized the effects of climate change on the migration of species. It's akin to an armchair mountaineer analyzing the decisions of a team pushing a new route on an 8,000 meter peak in the Himalaya. You're not seeing the things that field workers are seeing - years of study allow them to intuit the truth in ways you're not familiar with. I'm a little insulted that you think you know me so well. I'm not having a misunderstanding in ANY of those areas, and I've been defending YOUR position as well I believe, which causes me to be a bit amazed that you feel I need to go back to basics. Especially after you chimed in with a list of 3 things to add to my list (of which 2 were actually covered in the list at least partially.) My misunderstanding is in statistical math, specifically econometrics, which I have almost no experience with. I have been following IPCC reports, US govt reports, I followed the ozone hole scare, I followed CFC regulation and it's results, and just this morning I was looking at pictures of ice floe coverage and a couple polar bears on a blog. This is not something that I do every day, or systematically, but it has fascinated me for years and I feed my fascinations as much science as they can stomach. You might want to reconsider your way of interacting with folks, I'm pretty unimpressed. My post was clearly addressed to bitcoinbitcoin113, someone I have been interacting with for at least a year, and that was my summary of a year's interaction with him. Thanks for your opinion though. |
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My apologies. I was so caught up in your inability to understand arctic ice melt and general delusional stupidity combined with your complete opposition to regulations that I didn't actually give a fuck about your question to me then. Nor do I now.
In other words, you are arguing completely from emotion. OK, then. Thanks for your honesty, especially since it allows the rational members of this discussion to discard your opinions as emotionally biased. I'll also note that I asked you twice: Are you ever going to answer those questions?
I really don't entertain questions that you might take seriously, given they are derived from your silly statement. No, they're not. This one: Melting ice doesn't absorb heat in your world? is derived from science. The same science my "silly statement" came from, true, but they're independently derived. This one, however: Let's assume this heat energy is directly or indirectly added by human action. What do you propose to do about it? is completely unrelated, and I'd very much like your answer. What do you propose to do about global warming? I'm even allowing you to assume it's all our fault. I'm sorry, but do you have a point, or are you just grasping at straws because the thread you started titled with my username has fell apart for you? |
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My apologies. I was so caught up in your inability to understand arctic ice melt and general delusional stupidity combined with your complete opposition to regulations that I didn't actually give a fuck about your question to me then. Nor do I now. My recent post was in response to scrybe, and was never intended for your eyes or ears anyway. |
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Predicting the direction of something is 50/50 in a random-walk model, when did you prove this earlier? In a model with causation you generally can predict the direction and magnitude with some level of certainty (and you should be able to generate some error bars as well.)
This is confused. The actual direction of a 100% stochastic process is 50/50. The actual direction of a deterministic process is obviously not 50/50. However, when there are various unknown initial parameters and relationships between parameters it is 50/50 from the perspective of the investigator. OK, but the point was, this method is for analyzing 100% stochastic systems, not deterministic ones, it has been misapplied. I also have some doubts about that second sentence, on the surface it seems unlikely that you can factor in the massive influences we understand on the climate and still be stuck at 50/50. I don't need to know the initial point, exact impact angle, or velocity for a baseball to know that if it is hit it will likely go forward, but there is a small chance it might go backwards or straight up. Ok, I see the problem. That is just not true. What is your source for this? Your diligence is semi-admirable, but may I suggest something? As I said earlier, you essentially lack common sense. I don't mean common sense as in you can't fix yourself a sandwich, but as in, you don't understand climate science at the general level. Interested laymen know much more than you. Your nose is stuck in spreadsheets, but you have no general understanding of the forces at work, the dynamic interactions, etc. Sort of like someone who has no real 'feel' for hitting a baseball. Learn about the following: - Ice ages and their causes - Ice albedo feedback loops - Current fieldwork on glacier melting - Ice core analysis, tree ring analysis - Climate change induced species migration - Sea level rise and its causes - The changing of precipitation patterns - Political blockades - Consensus view - Prior EPA success stories And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I think you discount scientists doing field work out in the real world too much. I sensed this when you tried to make light of the article which summarized the effects of climate change on the migration of species. It's akin to an armchair mountaineer analyzing the decisions of a team pushing a new route on an 8,000 meter peak in the Himalaya. You're not seeing the things that field workers are seeing - years of study allow them to intuit the truth in ways you're not familiar with. |
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Expecting politics to push science in the right direction is like expecting a pig to push the button on it's own bolt gun. Science generally FORCES our leaders to change by prooving that they are wrong (and in a democracy, getting enough constituents riled up,) but with the current crop of ideologues that refuse to give an inch on any point of dogma (no matter how much evidence is presented) we will be a long time waiting for some of them to come around.
I'm going to ask you the same thing I did FA, and he ignored: You have just been elected world dictator, and presented with irrefutable evidence that not only is global warming happening, but it is happening through human action. What do you do to fix it? That is a big responsibility so I would not be able to make snap decisions, but here are some short-list actions. -Make sure that everyone knows that they DO have an impact on the environment and provide tools to self-determine your impact. Gamification of personal reductions with prizes/awards for those that are willing to go above and beyond. (PoC (Proof of Conservation?) -Reduce emissions where possible, I like a market based approach similar to cap and trade, but it's not perfect. Removing the perception of political bias and preventing off shoring of entire industries is critical a global scale. -Reduce incident radiation where possible, multiple technologies available including sulfur injection and mirror arrays, but most of them require such large numbers to be effective that multiple will have to be used in parallel to have a large enough impact very soon. (this would also reduce the chances of a "runaway" effect that we cannot correct for, if the sulfur injection estimates are off we can re-position the mirrors to compensate (and maybe even help with storm control as well)) -Encourage non-fuel use of petroleum and ban/limit feed-stock biodiesel while incentivising landfill owners, ranchers and others to capture and convert what they can. -Encourage older buildings to be updated and reduce emissions by 40% -Encourage local efforts for green streets and homes -Fast-track a Mars mission with a goal of 1000 permanent inhabitants by 2045 and over 1 million by 2070. -Mandate a highly functional transit system in every major city, and encourage folks to live closer to work (I actually like this one for fostering communities as well) -Require the full lifecycle impact of a new vehicle technology be within 90% of state of the art, shipping battery packs for a new Prius around the world a couple times might not be the best plan, some manufacturing should be better distributed to reduce this (hard drives, other tech that has built a single global center that produces more than 60-70% of world consumption. -Enact distance-based tariffs on food that could be obtained locally at a slightly higher price. (exceptions of you get products from point A to B by sailing or other low/zero emissions method) -Significant expansion of Solar, Wind, Hydro, and Nuclear power (and finally get around to doing something with the waste on the last one) -accelerate deployment of hydrogen power for cases where electric is not going to work. -require carbon sink rigs be used to offset a significant portion of (then current) production. A lot of this is happening already, at least at the research level, just without the urgency that I would feel it important to insist on. I've encountered other ideas, but these are the ones that came to the top of my mind. I think I hit all the major areas, but I was just going off the top of my head. I would also add to that: You had your chance. Show me where you asked me that question. And besides, you're too stubborn and obtuse to digest this information properly. I've been advocating regulations to that effect and more for a year now here. All you do is claim such actions are the government pointing a gun at someone's head. Please, go back to your fringe, crackpot, quack material self published by the pseudo science philosophers you so admire. |
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Expecting politics to push science in the right direction is like expecting a pig to push the button on it's own bolt gun. Science generally FORCES our leaders to change by prooving that they are wrong (and in a democracy, getting enough constituents riled up,) but with the current crop of ideologues that refuse to give an inch on any point of dogma (no matter how much evidence is presented) we will be a long time waiting for some of them to come around.
I'm going to ask you the same thing I did FA, and he ignored: You have just been elected world dictator, and presented with irrefutable evidence that not only is global warming happening, but it is happening through human action. What do you do to fix it? That is a big responsibility so I would not be able to make snap decisions, but here are some short-list actions. -Make sure that everyone knows that they DO have an impact on the environment and provide tools to self-determine your impact. Gamification of personal reductions with prizes/awards for those that are willing to go above and beyond. (PoC (Proof of Conservation?) -Reduce emissions where possible, I like a market based approach similar to cap and trade, but it's not perfect. Removing the perception of political bias and preventing off shoring of entire industries is critical a global scale. -Reduce incident radiation where possible, multiple technologies available including sulfur injection and mirror arrays, but most of them require such large numbers to be effective that multiple will have to be used in parallel to have a large enough impact very soon. (this would also reduce the chances of a "runaway" effect that we cannot correct for, if the sulfur injection estimates are off we can re-position the mirrors to compensate (and maybe even help with storm control as well)) -Encourage non-fuel use of petroleum and ban/limit feed-stock biodiesel while incentivising landfill owners, ranchers and others to capture and convert what they can. -Encourage older buildings to be updated and reduce emissions by 40% -Encourage local efforts for green streets and homes -Fast-track a Mars mission with a goal of 1000 permanent inhabitants by 2045 and over 1 million by 2070. -Mandate a highly functional transit system in every major city, and encourage folks to live closer to work (I actually like this one for fostering communities as well) -Require the full lifecycle impact of a new vehicle technology be within 90% of state of the art, shipping battery packs for a new Prius around the world a couple times might not be the best plan, some manufacturing should be better distributed to reduce this (hard drives, other tech that has built a single global center that produces more than 60-70% of world consumption. -Enact distance-based tariffs on food that could be obtained locally at a slightly higher price. (exceptions of you get products from point A to B by sailing or other low/zero emissions method) -Significant expansion of Solar, Wind, Hydro, and Nuclear power (and finally get around to doing something with the waste on the last one) -accelerate deployment of hydrogen power for cases where electric is not going to work. -require carbon sink rigs be used to offset a significant portion of (then current) production. A lot of this is happening already, at least at the research level, just without the urgency that I would feel it important to insist on. I've encountered other ideas, but these are the ones that came to the top of my mind. I think I hit all the major areas, but I was just going off the top of my head. I would also add to that: - A reduction in urban and suburban sprawl. Sprawl increases barriers disallowing species to relocate due to changing temperatures, which creates extinctions, which reduces ecosystem services. - Increased city agriculture, hydroponics, garden roofs,, etc. to reduce reliance on crops which could go bad due to increasing droughts. - Improved efficiency within urban areas, attempt to use urban planning to push the limits here. By doing so, get more people walking, better public transit, less suburban sprawl, etc. |
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Oh maybe you really should put me on ignore since you are continuing to insult me. I have no problem with reading your insults, I just won't respond to them.
It seems that 70 plus percent of the members within this forum hold your "wait and see (too late!), consensus doesn't matter (it does), quote all the quack sites (brainwashing), there is no consensus (false), it's the sun (debunked), melting icebergs won't raise the sea level (irrelevant as if there were no glacial calving), fail to see the lies (Oregon Petition, Frederick Seitz), do not understand the general science at all (why don't you pick up a book on ice ages, or something, for god sakes), don't acknowledge ice albedo feedback loops (more failure on your part), fail to realize the potential damages (changing precipitation patterns, extinctions from inability for species to relocate when they hit barriers), and the Earth will heal (sure, but it's now that counts)" attitude. |
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The climate models don't seem to be predicting the temperature all that well, meaning they can be improved.
You're right. They didn't predict that the Arctic ice would melt as fast as it is. But they have been consistently predicting it with an increasing consensus for forty or so years. Myrkul of course likes to pull one of his deniers' memes from his ass about how they were predicting a coming ice age in the '70s, but that's just the deniers picking up on the fact that there was a paper or two published by a few scientists back then, totally ignoring the fact that many more scientists were on board with global warming. |
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Furthermore, I judge you as having very limited knowledge about climate science in general, as evident by your own admission of having no general knowledge of things going in the natural world - for example, the record breaking ice melt in the Arctic this year.
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From what I have observed most public debate regarding science revolves around two issues:
1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment
2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection
How do you determine what to believe (or not) regarding these theories?
What kind of evidence would convince you to change your mind?
Why do you place trust (or not) in the consensus of the experts in these fields?
Given infinite resources, how would you determine the "truth"?
No idea if anybody thought of this before, but how about just apply the scientific-method ? Essentially what im suggesting here, is to do opposite of what unscientific "career-scientists" such as Richard Dawkins is doing. This> You try to prove wrong whatever you tried to believe. = science Not this> You try to prove whatever you believe to be right. = religion You could, but it may be time consuming and expensive. Lets take a simple example, convince yourself (or at least design experiments you can plausibly do at home) that gravity has anything to do with mass without any circular logic. Its actually a good exercise for realizing the confusing web of theory, data, and logic that scientists rely on in reality. There are hidden assumptions everywhere. Usually they are recognized by the original proponents, then moved to footnotes by later authors, and finally forgotten altogether leading to "laws". Also there are many who argue that much of what is commonly taken as "science" is actually not due to the fact that scientists often try to "disprove" strawman null hypotheses rather than disprove (or even make any) predictions. What do you think are your most grievous assumptions and most flagrant errors or oversights that you make in your quest (based on your bias resulting from your political ideology) to pinpoint tiny things which might reduce the credibility of climate science? As you like to come off as someone who claims to be objective, I would hope, but don't have much faith, that you could report on these. If we get past the rhetoric, that is an interesting question. I will answer it if you answer the OP. In the EDIT I made to my post, I may have answered the question to you for you. |
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From what I have observed most public debate regarding science revolves around two issues:
1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment
2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection
How do you determine what to believe (or not) regarding these theories?
What kind of evidence would convince you to change your mind?
Why do you place trust (or not) in the consensus of the experts in these fields?
Given infinite resources, how would you determine the "truth"?
No idea if anybody thought of this before, but how about just apply the scientific-method ? Essentially what im suggesting here, is to do opposite of what unscientific "career-scientists" such as Richard Dawkins is doing. This> You try to prove wrong whatever you tried to believe. = science Not this> You try to prove whatever you believe to be right. = religion You could, but it may be time consuming and expensive. Lets take a simple example, convince yourself (or at least design experiments you can plausibly do at home) that gravity has anything to do with mass without any circular logic. Its actually a good exercise for realizing the confusing web of theory, data, and logic that scientists rely on in reality. There are hidden assumptions everywhere. Usually they are recognized by the original proponents, then moved to footnotes by later authors, and finally forgotten altogether leading to "laws". Also there are many who argue that much of what is commonly taken as "science" is actually not due to the fact that scientists often try to "disprove" strawman null hypotheses rather than disprove (or even make any) predictions. What do you think are your most grievous assumptions and most flagrant errors or oversights that you make in your quest (based on your bias resulting from your political ideology) to pinpoint tiny things which might reduce the credibility of climate science? As you like to come off as someone who claims to be objective, I would hope, but don't have much faith, that you could report on these. EDIT: I'll be honest here. I think you have an agenda combined with a lack of commons sense. Add to that a mix of selective cherry picking on datasets and you get worthless speculation. I judge your agenda based on posts you've made about governments. I judge your lack of common sense based on continued posts you made in a year old thread. And I judge your cherry picking by the obvious evidence of your personal selection of only a very few datasets. |
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"Anthropogenic global warming", on the other hand, is a different beast altogether. It began as speculation in search of facts, or put another way, a bias in search of confirmation. It doesn't seek to explain a past, but to predict a future. It also has the unfortunate feature of being a warped political justification for increased wealth confiscation - something all States fundamentally seek to gain. And wouldn't you know it; the State is the single biggest provider of grants and funding research (confirmatory only) into the potential goldmine. "The end is nigh... unless you pay up!"
Is this like the relationship between CFC output and depletion of the ozone layer? You know, where the EPA, and then finally the Montreal Protocol reduced CFC output. All those damned money grubbing scientists getting grants from the nasty governments, showing the detrimental effects of CFCs, and then, god forbid, the passing of regulations which, ahem, reduced CFC production? Sounds exactly the same to me. http://www.theozonehole.com/montreal.htm |
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Ice albedo feedback loops positively accelerate warming. A larger polar cap reflects heat back into space. Minus polar caps (or polar caps of diminishing size), more heat is absorbed into the oceans. Same goes for glacial ice sheets.
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