Honestly. This sounds fake, to get people upset.
Is ISIS a Russian proxy? Honest question. Everything seems to be about LGBT rights lately, so I'm wondering who's the blow-hard enemy trying to piss off the West. I just can't imagine the Arabs having any concept of homosexuality, considering the way they treat women. If you already put black bags over people in the searing hot sun for not having a penis, how are you going to cope with the idea that some people have anal sex or scissoring. They're just going to block it out. |
|
|
|
Agree with you, if nuclear energy is done properly, then it is the most efficient source of energy, and the best choice for the environment. Unfortunately it has a bad reputation because when there is an accident, it's pretty dramatic.
Well, if scientists and engineers could develop methods with which to burn the the vast majority of the nuclear waste in reactors, so that it does not get concentrated in the first place, that would be progress. Ultimately it's the horrific dirtiness of the contents that are allowed to accumulate in reactors that is one of the real problems. In terms of a visual spectacle, even Chernobyl was probably less dramatic than the average cool store fire. But a cool store is just a refrigerated building with thick styrofoam walls. It doesn't have actinides and pressurised gases that could shorten the lives of millions of people with "random"/"unpredictable" cancers that are easily blamed on cigarettes. |
|
|
|
Why do people love to convince themselves that they are okay? Is it because most people can't deal with the painful realities? You are not okay. You are not prepared. You are a sitting duck waiting to be harvested. Rights are bullshit. You have no rights. Your only insurance that you can travel is your preparations to be sure you can travel even without a passport. This is where I think you're being foolish. If, in an ideal world, rights would be a nice thing to have, then why do you feel the need to burst people's bubbles and 'inform' them that they have no rights? Even if you think something is the complete truth, it's still no reason for be motivated to tell it. Motivation is a separate thing. Have you considered that rights "exist" on condition that a collective illusion (of their existence) is maintained? By saying things like "actually, you have no rights -- check out all these loopholes with which the evil authorities could screw you", you're unwittingly playing into the hands of bad actors, getting people to expect evilness and to feel powerless and oppressed. Much like "bad news" could be clever PR to raise expectations about increased prices, the same applies to PR about "more government mischief on the way". |
|
|
|
I was making a quick joke to prove a point. You are on an off topic diatribe. Take it to the gun control threads and I would be glad to decimate your arguments there. BTW, I get all my facts from a spinoff of MAD magazine too! And I wasn't replying to you. I was replying to AutistiMint. He may have a case of perma-anger but he's not stupid  I guess I'm just one of those "rest of the world" type people who are occasionally bemused by the US' obsession with guns. One of these days scientists will discover that the penis actually has neurons (just like the heart and intestines), and then they'll do a scan and discover that it thinks the rest of the body is a complete idiot for having an insufficient sex drive. (I almost did the analogy as America = anus; irrational obsession with guns = obsession with firing shit.) So glad you read the link. Too bad you didn't learn anything so you needn't have bothered. |
|
|
|
Black Swan risk calculations, or STFU and GTFO.  The safety argument reeks of erroneously ignoring the possibility of rare events similar to Chernobyl or Fukushima. Maybe it's expedience, maybe they were taught at school to ignore outliers when drawing smoothed graphs. Or maybe "this time it's different"... because next-generation plants will not be susceptible to unforeseen disasters. If people want efficient solar: grow and harvest high-energy crops and forests for fuel. -land usage is far more efficient than any system of mirrors or panels. -plants produce a natural 3d matrix that has far superior light absorption qualities than panels. (Reflected light is scattered downwards). -It's carbon-neutral, and plays much better with local fauna compared to solar panel factories or arrays of mirrors, or wind turbines. But time consumption regarding growing and processing to eletricity is big. Then use industrial hemp or other annual crops. Battery storage costs for forestry and logging aren't high, the fuel just sits there. In fact it gets better as it dries out. Fuel and food crops competing for space could be an issue, but there are areas that are only suitable for one but not the other. Forests also have high social value as parks and recreational areas (as long as the logging is confined to a small portion at any given time.) In some cases, burning fuel locally is more efficient because what people need is more heat, not electricity. This brings up the issue of fossil fuels and transport costs. At any given moment, the competing prices are seeking an equilibrium. If natural gas is cheaper than wood, people will use more gas and less wood. The price system is a good indicator of how efficient something is. So you should not try to be green if it doesn't pay off financially. The only reservation I have about prices is that they could be skewed by subsidies, but then it's a question of how much do you trust your government to have superior social and planning/risk data than your local data? Another issue with local versus centralised energy production is the scaling and efficiency of furnaces. Household chimneys are notorious creating smog, especially if emissions regulation and enforcement is inadequate. |
|
|
|
The vast majority of murders are not committed by people with mental disorders, and even when you adjust the number considering the prevalence of mental disorders, you find that suffering from schizofrenia dosen't increase the chance of committing a violent act against others.
Given that, I don't think that this episode raises many arguments pro or con weapons control. Even in USA, I don't think that after a murder and 10 years of psychiatric asylum they are going to give you a gun...
No the vast majority of murders using guns are gang related, but the vast majority of mass shooters do have mental disorders and are 9 times out of 10 on psychiatric medications, and these horror stories are what push utopian progressives to start crying about gun control as if it is the source of the problem and not just a symptom. The fact is this man did not get the mental healthcare he needed, and he killed some one as a result. My argument was the source of the problem is lack of healthcare in the us, not the availability of guns. Furthermore this incident shows that people do not need firearms to be crazy and murder people. Maybe if psychotropic drugs were readily available without a prescription or oversight, would that help? Surely, the availability of proper medication should be maximised? |
|
|
|
THERE ARE SO MANY CRAZY PEOPLE - WE NEED TO BAN GUNS!
No we all need to carry guns so we can defend ourselves against nutcases who can always find a way to get a gun. Guns are banned in South America (very difficult licensing process), yet the criminals always have the guns. This has turned SA into a freak show where the citizens are powerless. You fucking idiots! When you will ever learn to use your brain stem (if you even have one)  - Gun suicides significantly outnumber all other gun-related deaths.
- Over-availability of easy means to top oneself has (repeatedly) been shown to be a significant factor in the overall death rate.
- Decreased availability causes decreased mortality.
- Suicide-prevention fences on one bridge do not cause people to travel to another bridge, they simply cool off and get on with life. The exact same argument applies with guns.
- Historical reasons for guns as laid out in the US' constitution, such as defending yourself against government tyranny, lost Conquistadores, or POHMs setting out to bring the US back under British rule, are laughable today.
- The consumer fire-arms industry (which is what you're really talking about, and has nothing to do with weapons that could realistically hold off the government), is selling a fantasy so that "big boys" can also have their Barbie Doll accessories.
Besides, South America has been a freak-show for decades with proxy wars and Communist fanatics, which Russia pretends to know nothing about. Let me know if they have Kalashnikovs or some US brand. Educate yourself: http://www.cracked.com/article_20396_5-mind-blowing-facts-nobody-told-you-about-guns.html |
|
|
|
Black Swan risk calculations, or STFU and GTFO. The safety argument reeks of erroneously ignoring the possibility of rare events similar to Chernobyl or Fukushima. Maybe it's expedience, maybe they were taught at school to ignore outliers when drawing smoothed graphs. Or maybe "this time it's different"... because next-generation plants will not be susceptible to unforeseen disasters. If people want efficient solar: grow and harvest high-energy crops and forests for fuel. -land usage is far more efficient than any system of mirrors or panels. -plants produce a natural 3d matrix that has far superior light absorption qualities than panels. (Reflected light is scattered downwards). -It's carbon-neutral, and plays much better with local fauna compared to solar panel factories or arrays of mirrors, or wind turbines.
|
|
|
|
Today there was a clash between the residents of Kharkov and the neo-Nazi supporters of the Right Sector (mostly coming from the Western Oblasts). The neo-Nazis tried to prevent the Opposition Bloc party from registering in the local elections. Opposition Bloc was the most popular party in the Oblast of Kharkov according to the last parliamentary elections. And the neo-Nazis will not allow it to put up candidates in the elections. This is the state of democracy in Ukraine.
The more you complain about the Ukraine, the more it backfires on Russia. We've discussed this before: the Ukraine was only re-formed as an independent state very recently when the Soviet Union collapsed. So in other words, 25 years ago, they were still just another Russian republic, filled with radioactive Russians. I'm sure you'll feel a repressed sexual urge to "correct" me, and complain that Russia is not the USSR, but please... You're only bullshitting yourself and no-one else. It's the same murderous Russian mentality controlling Moscow, as usual. What I see is how Russia is treating its "brothers", and how they steal and destroy everything. |
|
|
|
Hmm.... if the neo-Nazis overthrow the Porky government, then in the long term it will be beneficial to Ukraine. They will exterminate the undesirables, such as the homosexuals and the drug users.  Did you know that homophobia is the single biggest indicator of homosexuality? You may be gay without even realising it. It happens all the time: neocons get married, have 5 children, possibly with the help of viagra and with the full blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, and then later in life discover that their little "gay porn fetish" has expanded to experimenting with gay love affairs and a gradual realisation of their true sexuality. The corruption will be reduced, and the oligarchs will be kicked out of the country. And Russian speaking people will pack up and migrate eastwards, increasing the ethnic Slav population in Russia.
Except for the diaspora of Russian "undesirables" who would be even more oppressed inside Russia? |
|
|
|
It's a social experiment, not a piece of trash. It had an iphone running siri constantly using a solar panel and a face. $2000 worth of robot was destroyed because some blockhead thought it was funny to beat the crap out of it.
Actually it looks like they opened him up to steal his guts... Who the fuck would want black-market robot organs? Isn't it like the only one of its kind? |
|
|
|
You are highly underestimating the power of programmers and math in this coming Knowledge Age.
If ever 100,000 programmers and mathematicians turn against the 0.001%, the 0.001% will be burnt toast.
What do you mean "if"? Don't they routinely use Project Fridays / 20% time for wholesale subterfuge anyway? Somebody has to work on all those large FOSS projects that mysteriously keep-up with the likes of MS Office, Photoshop, or Google Maps. Or maybe I'm being overenthusiastic. (I'm still thinking about the economics there.) You could... guide people in that department. As for having a sovereign island/principality, you seem to be reacting to some kind of fear. (I heard that Australia has at least one of those, so you could probably just speak with them and find out what the issues are). The fear of big bad government is controlling you. Maybe you're legitimately onto something, but you need to be able to present your story in a way will inspire and cut through the average person's scepticism. I've heard you complain along those lines before, inviting others to "do the explaining". Well, write a book. If you don't know how, try it out. Disguise it as science fiction. Why suffer trying to 'convince' people, when you could plant ideas that take on a life of their own? |
|
|
|
The islanders are not desperate right now. You'd have to wait for the coming economic implosion. You could migrate there by the dozens and gain enough political power to help set policy, which I think is more realistic than trying to overtly buy them out in one move. The best would be a gradual infiltration and convincing (with money galore to help in the convincing). I could not accomplish that by myself. With perhaps 5 other like-minded guys and their extended families migrating there, we could probably accomplish it. The UK would fight us, but fuck them. As I explained earlier, there are limits to what they can do. Did you see the rape case on the island? The UK couldn't even put them in prison for a long time. The governor of the island was involved. Looks kind of nice actually...
I would go crazy there. Especially they don't have fiber optic cable so the internet is atrociously slow (Tahiti has it some 1000 miles away). There is no way to land a plane there, so it is 3 days by boat to the nearest island that has air access (the other island under their nation could handle an airport but the UN declared it a private wildlife refuge ). The island is pretty damn small. Be okay if you like the people a lot and enjoy being around them. I'd say if we could upgrade the infrastructure, and accomplish our goal, it might be worth trying? We'd have to invest some time living there. We couldn't just waltz in and take over in one week. This would be a disruption to our lives. Is it worth it? Also we'd really have to maintain the lives of the people there and what they love. I think they are essentially already anarchists, but they have some socialist needs. One thing is the locals are not reproducing and many want to leave. So they would I think over time wither away in political control, if our offspring and immigrations were significant. Chickenshit All talk, no action. If self-flagellation and voluntary imprisonment, to avoid the spectre of government of course, is your thing then go for it. What's the difference between a remote "sovereign" island, and a remote "prison" island? The name. You're probably making it far too complicated btw. Couldn't you just sue the Brits for negligently putting Pitcairn in the path of your expensive container ship? Then buy them out as part of the settlement. Redecorate the ship with a landing strip. Problem solved! Until the next storm... It would probably be a waste of your skills though. Get back to programming. Stop caring so much about imaginary monsters. Make some apps to help people. You've fallen into the trap of being an "expert", who tries to improve the world while forgetting that you're the one learning.
It is a lot of effort to undertake. I would not even consider it, unless I was sure we had a plan to outnumber the existing population.
You talk to the Brits first, because bureaucracy is fascinating, and use your social skills with the locals later. |
|
|
|
Europe is a dying continent, which is dependent upon the Americans for most of the basic needs (especially defense). A few decades ago, one-third of the world population lived within the British Empire. The United Kingdom possessed one of the most powerful armed forces in the world. Look at the situation now. The UK has become another vassal state of the US. And the strength of the British Army is now in the tens of thousands.
I think you are a bit delusional with such claim. Sure, Europe is undergoing an huge crisis, but then again what country isn't? American's multitrillion dollar debt's situation isn't any better. Europe will always have amazing touristic points of interest and is still the leading manufacturer of cars. No one makes cars better than the Germans and I doubt anyone can surpass them. This alone moves millions all over the world. The "huge crisis" is also constantly promoted by media, and anyone who finds it convenient. If a government or business is failing at something -- it's the crisis! See how bad it is?! But if they're succeeding -- look at how great we are in spite of the crisis! Long live the crisis!! Also, the pattern I see is that Western Europe is suffering much more because of natural stagnation. All of the houses and building projects that needed to be done have already been built. Their economies are moving into maintenance mode, which is completely normal if there hasn't been a war (or natural disaster) in a while. Meanwhile, a lot of development is creeping east, into the former Soviet bloc, which is still a lot more shitty because of the legacy of Russian economic incompetence. The Russians don't even seem to realise (or are deliberately blind to it) that the combined EU economy is around the same size as the US, maybe even bigger. |
|
|
|
|
Well, guess what. The free market chose government as the most efficient means of doing large-scale stuff.
|
|
|
|
might be because america has the highest proportion of non white parasitic minorities in the developed world. people don't like being taxed to support black welfare queens with 6 kids by different men.
Nobody likes being taxed, period. Part of the problem with US Libertarian idealists is that they've got this elaborate (yet flaky) house-of-cards built up about how politics and the economy and everything "ought" to be, but at the same time they've got these huge blind spots such as opportunity cost. Thanks to your tax dollars, those welfare queens and their 6 kids aren't hungry enough to murder you in the street for a small amount of pocket money, or just for the protein. Yeah, yeah... you'd much rather have the "freedom" to spend those tax dollars on a private security company to save your ass from being attacked in the streets (and endless toll roads and related shit). And of course that would be far more efficient than public/state services, because free-market competition and stuff, just like Bitcoin miners -- LOL. </sarc>. |
|
|
|
Europe is a dying continent, which is dependent upon the Americans for most of the basic needs (especially defense). A few decades ago, one-third of the world population lived within the British Empire. The United Kingdom possessed one of the most powerful armed forces in the world. Look at the situation now. The UK has become another vassal state of the US. And the strength of the British Army is now in the tens of thousands.
Europe is all about homosexualism and decline. I hope china & russia will do something about it You sound oddly threatened by phenomena that are naturally self-limiting and harmless to onlookers (homosexuality and ageing). The Russians have obviously learnt to "talk big" from the Americans, but if China ever got annoyed with Russian arrogance, they could just round up some of 10s of millions of gays in their population, give them guns, and have them defeat the Russian army by lunchtime. *insert funny meme with Putin imagining that he's securely holding the Chinese bear on a chain, while the bear is thinking about eating Putin for breakfast, and he's already holding a bottle of BBQ soy sauce in his paw (to add flavour to Putin's body).* |
|
|
|
|
If it's all legit, then why can't they just make a friggen diagram that explains it FULLY?
They waffle on about the intense microwave radiation having a group velocity, fair enough, I actually kind-of get that. The horn shape does some impedance conversion, reducing the speed of light at the throat section, thus reducing the momentum of the photons in that region. Fair enough. At the mouth of the horn, there is lower pressure, higher velocity, it's closer to a vacuum so the photons are heavier and faster. Fair enough.
But we're meant to believe that the whole thing will move by itself? Along with the photons that are dragged along for the ride? Bullshit. If it's not reaction-less then where the hell is the reaction mass? Guess what? I can also defy gravity! By slowly decreasing the height of some gym weights while standing on bathroom scales, I can also produce a few milli-Newtons of thrust! Epic government grants -- oh yeah!!
|
|
|
|
*Waits for Putin's fanbois to tell me why the West is even more bad in every conceivable way...* Yes, I'd love to hear more about Obama and Hillary Clinton! Or, maybe they'll just "turn a blind eye" to this thread. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
