You lie.


You lie too. OMG, it's a conspiracy!!!  


Euro is worth more than the dollar. I see this party taking place when BTC hits $1,000, and taking place in Germany, the birthplace of the Euro, as a statement that says, "Hey you! That other world reserve currency! You're next!  "

Got a reply to this


Personally, I'm not sure what the difference would be between putting the donation page on their charity, or their parent entity's page.

Yes. In that universe. Not in ours.

Can't argue that. In infinite universes full of infinite possibilities, everything exists somewhere. It just has zero relevance on our universe here. So, until Baba Yaga manages to open a portal into our universe, I won't worry about her.

Isn't this what you are doing, though? Things happen, and you react to them, based on your best assessment of the situation. And if you don't have any assessment of a situation, you just pick a random choice, hope it's good, and go with it. At least that's how I do it. How do you do it?


Free will just means we have a choice on how we react to our surroundings. That's all. It doesn't matter if you're practicing free will within your body, or outside of your body. You're still experiencing something, and racting to things. Unless you don't react to things? Or maybe you react to things not based on your best assessment of the situation (aka based on what you have learned in the past), but instead react based on some outside source of information that comes from outside of this world? (that would explain why you have made so many awful choices...)


Energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Let's consider your side of this. If you have a thought, you have taken one state of how things are, and changed it into another state, whether that's changes in electrochemistry, changes in cosmic consciousness, changes in some ether, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Change, of any kind, requires some amount of energy. Again, doesn't it doesn't matter what the energy is, or where it comes from, just that it requires energy. Pretty much by definition, since nothing can move or readjust without using up some energy. You claim that consciousness can not be destroyed, but that would suggest that it would have to go on thinking about things and changing from one state to another indefinitely, using up energy in the process. That means it would have to use up an infinite amount of energy. But the two things we absolutely know for a fact are 1) energy in our universe is not infinite (entropy will eventually cause all energy in the universe to collapse to zero), and 2) you can't make a perpetual motion device that creates energy out of nothing. Having a consciousness that can never be destroyed, and is thus always using up energy to think, is basically the same thing as having a perpetual motion device that is creating energy, which, as you have also said, can not be created or destroyed.

So, the answer is, consciousness is created by taking some energy source (food, water, electricity, cosmic carma, whatever), and converting it into changes of the state of mind. Biologists, psychologists, and scientists in general would say that the body converts food and water into electrochemical components, sends them to your brain via your veins and arteries, and your brain then uses that energy to run and process things, changing your perception, states of mind, and thoughts, which gives you consciousness. And if your brain ever runs out of energy (you die, or are brain starved from choking), your brain can't convert energy into consciousness any more, and your brain simply shuts off, like your computer would if you were to pull the plug.

People who are not biologists, psychologists, or scientists, say other things.

So, are you saying that you can have consciousness, without actually being conscious? (defined as awake and aware of your surroundings or your existence) I doon't follow, as I understand consciousness as being conscious. So when you are in a comma, you are unconscious, and your consciousness is off. Or do you simply mean that the thing that contains your consciousness still exists, thus your coonsciousness still exists, but it's just not doing any consciousing?



Most observers used to believe the world being flat and being on top of elephants and turtles was possible. Now, many believe that the idea of god is impossible. If you claim that what observers believe makes the world what it is, that suggests to me that if most observers believe the world is flat, then the world is flat, and if they believe that god can't exist, then god can't exist. What am I missing?

Reposting:

The "switch" which gets from from being a theist to being an atheist is at the point where you go from
"I can never be good enough, and need Jesus to get me to heaven"
to
"I am good enough, and if god doesn't recognize that, then he is an unjust god, and I don't want his heaven, anyway."

Basically, you take the external morality/ethics you were raised with, and internalize it to build your own sens of what is right and just. Often, the internal one is much more just than what you have been taught (it was the internal morality that defied religious teachings to fight for things like women's rights, freeing slaves, letting people ask taboo questions, etc.)


This here is the big, monstrous lie that churches have been coonvinciing people with for centuries, for the sole purpose of controling them. "You *think* you are a good person, but trust us, you are not. You are a wretched, evil human being, and the only salvation is through us. You must listen to us, do what we tell you, and give us your money, since that is the only way you will not e an evil person." It's the ultimage brainwashing power-grab, and it took a lot for people to overcome it, accept that they are not evil, and start the renaissance that brought us out of the dark ages. I am sorry to hear that you are still a victim of this lie, and don't even realize it for what is, which is some PEOPLE'S way of forcing their control over you.


If you are at heart an evil person, and are dependent on god to keep you in line, then why would you deserve heaven? If a child is really boysterous, loud, disruptive, destructive, and is downright evil, and the only reason the child behaves is because her parents are forcing her to behave, is she really a good child? I don't think so. I would not reward that child for being forced to follow orders, since I know that she is, in reality, a bad person, and that the good face the child puts on is just a forced lie.

The implications of a killer machine, exposed to and taught to like sexual things, are rather terrifying 

Yes, of course. And I speak from experience.



But you are simply using Jesus as a crutch. You yourself are not a better person, you are a better person only because of your reliance on your belief on Jesus. If for whatever reason you started to doubt Jesus's existence, would you revert to being a hateful, angry, and fearful person who has no self-control? I can control my hate, anger, fear, and desires through my own will power alone, and don't need to deend on anyone else for that, so I feel like a more complete and better person because of it.

I look at you as like a slightly overweight person riding around in a scooter all over the place. You are completely dependent on that scooter, and believe it gives you great mobility and convenience, but I am proposing that you get off the scooter, stop depending on it, and start walking around on your own. Not only will you lose weight and gain access to many more areas that the scooter couldn't go to, but you will also stop hating yourself for being fat and so dependent on your scooter (as you apparently hate yourself for being a bad person inside, and now feel dependent on Jesus to keep you good), and gain the confidence knowing that you yourself overcame your limitations, without depending on anything or anyone else.

There is also the very apparent issue of your Jesus crutch severely limiting what kind of knowledge you are even willing to coonsider, let alone explore. The universe has an enormous amount of wonderful things and fascinating posibilities, but you refuse to acknowledge them because you are limited by where your "Jesus scooter" will allow you to go. This may not hurt you in the long run, since you'll be able to continue to survive in your happy bliss, but I'm afraid it will make your life very limited, and not as fulfilling as it could be. It's analogous to how my in-laws all live in a tiny town in Western Maryland, 2 hours from the nearest hub of "civilization." and they are totally content living there. When asked why they don't travel or explore the world, they just reply with, "I'm not really interested in that" or "I'm comfortable where I am," or "I can just see it on TV, so why bother." Yet they are missing out on so many wonderful experiences and cultures, and they don't even know about it (lucky for me, my spouse went to the Navy, which forced him to experience those things, and opened his eyes to what's outside their little cloistered lives).

Escrow with multi-signature will solve all the problems you have concerns about. Just make it so that 2 or 3 out of, say, 6 trusted people must sign off to release funds, and you shouldn't have a problem with funds not being available. I would also suggest allowing refunds up to a certain point, so that people will be able to make a statement about their commitment to going, while still feeling comfortable about having the money in their control (cutoff point being the stage at which we start actual planning and paying bills). Personally, I would not want to be a single guy responsible for holding all that money, and I'm sure no one else would be either.
With this option, we can actually start accepting tickets at any time, really. If it's just sitting in a distributed holding account, and people can just put money in and take it out at any time (with the need-#-of-people-to-sign delay), then there's not much risk for the holders.

I'm of course talking about future law. As a homo and a furry I've had to deal with discrimination, studied up on prejudices, and noted a pattern that some people always want something to hate. It was jews, foreigners, other religions, dark skinned people, homos, etc, and every time society changes to accept the group they hated, and laws are written to protect them, those people switch to some new group to hate (is it still muslims and mexicans now? Or did they find some new group to pick on?) As such, with the advances in computer and genetic technology, I've pondered about the future where AI attains comprehension levels close to that of humans, or some people create custom animals that have human traits and intelect (chimeras?) or even modify themselves in such a fashion, and how these new entities will be extremely discriminated against by the same group of haters, whether it's because "they have no souls, and are a result of us playing god," or just because people go "ick" or refuse to empathise with them (as they did with black people during slavery). So, I think there will be laws in the future, but there will be a ton of hurt before we get there.
However, I still wonder, what if we have an AI that knows quite a lot, working for some company, but is otherwise "innocent" in a way, and some weirdo ends up virtually molesting it? Is there a chance he could break it by exposing it to concepts it was not aware of, and changing it's perspective enough to damage the functions everyone else has gotten used to it carying out? Like for example, it only worked in accounting, because it thought those were the only things important to the humans it interracted with, but after the incident it ends up wasting a ton of resources on downloading and cataloguing porn, possibly even erasing old records to increase storage space. Would there be a law that would punish the "molester" because he damaged company property, or because he interfered with the performance of a company employee, or would the AI be consiidered as a free individual, and it would be up to the AI to take the guy to court for screwing with it?

I am 100% sure you are too late, as I think the anime Haruhi Suzumia had that concept (the time-traveler girl from the future was an "adult" that looked like a girl). Also, don't they have that same thing in Tenchi Muyo, where the young girl is hundreds of years old or something? (no, I'm not seeking these things out, I ust watch a lot of Anime, and Japanese are weird).

What about the very simple test of: brain on = you're conscious, brain off = you're uncoonscious, brain on = you're conscious again. Such as what we do when we unduce coma or people go into coma due to brain trauma, or when people go braindead for a while and then come back from it? If I was to see a light being on, flipped a switch and saw it go off, then flipped the switch and see it come on again, the conclusion I would make is that the switch controls the light, not that the light exists outside of the realm of the switch, and simply goes away somewhere else when I flip the switch. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do you have any of that?

Awwwwww! And here I thought that pedos might actually finally get a release for their whateverthefuck by being able to use digital, simulated, (and maybe even AI) virtual stuff. Kinda like how frustrated teens get their release by playing first person shooter games, and shooting the hell out of everything, virtually, as opposed to snapping and doing it at school.

Oh well.

One topic I kinda wondered about: At what point in AI development will pedos playing with virtual avatars go from "they are just playing a game" to "they are molesting an underage entity?" Will it ever get there, if the virtual entity was designed with consent in mind? Will a young AI even be considered to legally be able to give consent? And what happens when people are able to use gene therapy to freeze their age, or revert themselves to a younger body? Would it be creepy if, 1000 years from now, we have a ton of "adults" in 12 year old bodies doing "adult" stuff?

Bleh. The possibilities in the future are so screwy  


EDIT - I can also see this technology leading to a drastic change in these webcam chats: From now on, children will be required to put shoes on head to prove they are who they say they are, meaning all the poor kids who don't have shoes will be discriminated against (p.s. yes I'm joking. Somewhat. I wouldn't be surprised is Sweetie will have to add a shoe on head rendering at some time in the future)

I thought about this, and, you may be right in some sense, but I prefer to think of it as "I don't want to jump to any conclusions until I'm sure."

Thanks for the discussion though. Made me really thing about my stance and place in the universe (plus forced me to do some research)

I am! 


I am!! 


To all our benefit!!! 


Oooh, nice double-meaning sentence! You likely meant it as "those who talk to you and may lie to you, telling you you are free when you are not." In which case my regimentation is coming from me, and I am an unwitting slave to my own delusions, because I am being lied to.

But the sentence can also be interpreted as "those who tell you what level of freedom you are allowed to have, and will stop you if they believe you are exercising too much freedom." In this case my regimentation comes directly from those who are telling me how much freedom I am allowed to have, and I am a witting, though an unwilling slave to others.

Did you mean the first meaning of the sentence or the second? And did you make this have a double-meaning on purpose? Cause that's really neat!

Um.. Yes, if by "thermometer" you mean us, and "water" you mean the universe. Though some of us don't understand what effect we have as we look, and either believe we have no effect, or ascribe WAY WAY WAY more effect than we actually have. And no if by "thermometer" you mean consciousness and by "water" you mean our brain. Yes, conscious thought physically alters the brain, but consciousness doesn't percieve the brain (which would be the quantum observation thing), but rather exists from it.


Also, Y = a merry fairy princes = hunger = foot
Also, Y = jibba-jabba = fool = pitty the
Y is anything, and anything is undefined, and thus meaningless.


Consciousness and love from Y, meaning consciousness and love from someone I don't know and don't have a hope of ever knowing are completely irrelevant, yes. They should be completely irrelevant to everyone else, too. Is the dust bunny under my bed being "conscious" and loving you with all its filth relevant to you?
The only consciousness and love that matter is that which comes from X, since that is the only consciousness and love that we can actually feel and experience.

Also, you are really overusing the word love. If you just throw it around, you are pretty much making it nothing but a cheap statement. Love is a feeling expressed thorough action. I don't care if you love anyone, or if anyone loves anyone else, as their feelings are worth exactly shit if they do nothing to actually show it. You have a tendency to throw around big "important" terms like "god" and "love" as if you hope they will have some meaning in-and-of themselves. Sorry to break it to you, but they don't. Without action, work, evidence, or any effect on the people you are throwing them at, all they are are just funny sounds created by wind that you blow while you contort your face into funny shapes.

Do we even know anyone *coughbitcoin100* who is trustworthy enough to hold other people's money *coughforumtreasurerfor750btc* or is able to manage money for others *coughaccountingandfinanceforamsterdamconference*? I can't think of anyone. Plus this would best be handled as an M-of-N shared multi-sig transaction if people do decide to keep it in escrow. Maybe even implement a script hash where the money added to the address doesn't go anywhere unless it reaches a certain balance (like kickstarter, but built into Bitcoin where the transaction fails if it doesn't reach some threshold), and if not enough people buy tickets, everyone's money just gets automatically returned.
I wonder if it's possible to set up s transaction where M of N people have to keep signing every month to keep the money pool going, and if they don't, have the pool "fail" and return the money, and let them do a final transaction where M have to sign to move the money to a final destination? That would alleviate the problem of the money being stuck in escrow if enough people disappear that M becomes too low, too.

I guess you didn't quite understand what I was trying to say when I asked you whether you are convinced that (insert random thing you've never heard of before) doesn't exist, after all  


That's nice... Baba Yaga thinks about ways to catch and eat you. How do you feel about that?


OK... But there is absolutely no evidence for that claim as far as I'm concerned, meaning I would have to entirely take your word for it, and I'm entirely unconvinced that you are an authority on how the world works.


Of course. You don't change your mind about anything without first questioning it and then exploring it in detail.


I hope so (though I'm not convinced you do). Something as incredibly brainwashing as belief in how the entire world functions often needs something core-shaking to make you even begin to question it.



For me, god's existence is not about me being upset with how he does or doesn't do things. It's simply something that has no evidence for it's existence, and thus has absolutely no relevance to my life. God's existence to me is like Baba Yaga's existence is to you. Just a zero, in a life full of numbers.

I will wish very hard that you can some day overcome your religious delusion, stop wasting so much time and energy on this ultimately pointless belief, apply all that time and energy to something much more productive and beneficial, and become a better, happier, more independent and complete person as a result.
Though I suspect my wish will be exactly as productive as your prayers for me.