Meh, I've seen better blue wieners. I believe the real reason Watchmen tanked is that it came out a little bit too late. When times are good, people can enjoy gritty anti-heroes. When times are tight, they hate ambiguity in their heroes and want something a lot more black and white than Watchmen.
But I am not questioning the way statistics are measured. Your statement is similar to statements about God: we must take it on faith. You are the only source you claim we can trust, all facts and figures are suspect.
But as far as crime rates go, they have been dropping pretty steadily all over the world, as measured by police forces, governments, and here is the important part: non-governmental entities such as think tanks and non profits, all of whom have very different motivations. All the data, gleaned from official reports, polls, and other methods, all seem to agree. Given that some powerful groups have a vested interest in making the public believe that crime rates are going up, while others have an interest in making us believe they have gone down, I find it hard to believe that there is much systemic inaccuracy in either direction.
There is something like a conspiracy of the rich to steal our resources. It isn't really a conspiracy, though, because no one needs to talk about it to make it work. They just need to individually realize, perhaps not even consciously, that all rich people are on the same side, and we are on the other, and then act in their own best interests. But a conspiracy to systematically under-report crime? Not possible.
I would say that people are more conditioned to accept that things are infinite. Have you ever run out of new things to experience? I haven't. Every day, I experience something new. If the number of things were finite, I would expect that I would experience repetition far more than I do. Given that the number of new things I experience is unending, I can easily imagine a God that oversees each thing, and therefore, an unlimited number of Gods seems plausible. In fact, the idea of only one God seems far less plausible.
The substance of your analogy is what I disagree with. You think that most people would find one God more plausible than many Gods. That is patently untrue, or monotheism would have been invented first. It wasn't, polytheism and pantheism were around for far longer than monotheism. So which is more plausible to the uninitiated human? Obviously, polytheism and pantheism are, as they are older concepts.
Now I know you never, ever admit that you are wrong, mistaken, or less than perfect in any way, but maybe just this once you can stop beating this greasy horse shaped patch on the ground and admit that maybe your idea was sub-par. I will respect you far more if you can admit that you were wrong than if you continue to abuse logic and common sense in tilting at windmills.
If you do want to continue the argument, please address the fact that polytheism and pantheism existed prior to monotheism.
No, that is very poor logic. Of course everything is finite if you take a finite subset of it. I reiterate, we do not know if the universe is bounded or not. If it is not, you could travel infinitely far in any direction, encountering infinitely many planets. It is not a matter of probabilities or "many universes." It is a matter of the curvature of the universe and the cosmological constant. If the universe is open, there are infinitely many planets we can access from Earth. It would of course take an infinite amount of time to reach an infinite number of planets, but this does not negate the fact that, if the universe is open, there are infinitely many planets.
I did not miss your point, I understood it perfectly. You are missing MY point, which is very simple: you are extrapolating from known qualities of real objects to the nature of God. You are comparing apples and oranges, saying in essence "Apples are fruit, apples are red, oranges are fruit, therefore, oranges are red." But we have no way of knowing if God (an unknown thing, of unknown type) must have the same characteristics as natural objects. Most religions claim God does not have the same qualities as natural objects do.
Putting your argument in the form of a syllogism, we get the following
All natural objects are finite in number All Gods are natural objects. Therefore, Gods are finite in number.
First, we have no proof that God is anything like a natural object, in fact, all religions say God is not like that. Second, nobody is talking about an infinite number of Gods. Polytheism does not imply an infinite number of Gods. Pantheism implies one God indistinguishable from Nature, i.e. God is literally everything. I am unaware of any real religion that postulates an infinite number of Gods.
If one God is illogical, infinite numbers of Gods are not necessarily less logical. We do not know enough about God or Gods to know if they follow the same numbering rules as natural objects.
There is a bit of middle ground between "American society is on the verge of collapse" and "put on your goggles and just watch Disney," but, you know, thanks for assuming that I must be some sort of human-sheep hybrid because I am trying to inject a little rationality into a conversation that started with the laughably over-the-top phrase "It's an all-out war between the forces of good and evil that has never stopped and will never stop."
If *real* fascists ever took control in this country, most of these people would shit themselves on a continuous basis before the secret police killed them, their families, their pets, burned down their houses and killed a few others standing around just to send a message.
Which is why attempting to foil incremental steps in that direction, before they reach fruition, is sort of a good idea, no?
Yes, but there is the whole "boy who cried wolf" aspect to constantly calling everything you don't like "fascism." Not everything presages the immanent collapse of American civilization. And the AC has a good point about people's cartoonish perception of good and evil.
The number of planets in our observable universe is very large, but limited. However, we do not know whether the universe is closed or open, finite or infinite. Therefore, the number of planets may well be infinite. In any case, the point I was trying to make was that you can not compare the concept of "Gods" to any finite thing, even sand. We do not know whether one God or many are more likely, because we know nothing of the true characteristics of Gods.
Good thing you and I are in that ten percent that can think though, right? I'd hate to be in that ten percent that only think they can think. I mean, you and I, we can see who it is that is manipulating these unseen mechanism of society. We know the big lies from the small truths. Not like those other guys, the fucking sheeple, right?
Do I need to add a sarcasm tag here? Do I need to explain how utterly inane this line of thinking is, how small minded, pernicious, and elitist? I mean, yeah, you and I know it is true, but you don't see me crowing about it, because it doesn't really mean anything. It is only trivially true. Pointing it out is just being an insecure asshole, trying by association to put yourself in that "thinking" category while putting your enemies in the "non-thinking" one. But everyone does that! Obviously, I am enlightened while my opponents are either ignorant or evil. Who isn't nodding their head to that sentence? But if we all do it, then it's just meaningless ego stroking, isn't it?
Some people are more intelligent than others. Some are less swayed by their cultural programming, for whatever reason. But so what? Everyone still has to decide for themselves, based on their own intelligence and experience, who to listen to, what are lies, and what is true.
See, this is a great example of how delusional people keep their delusions at least internally semi-consistent. Facts and figures don't tell you what you want to hear? They were all doctored! Don't trust facts, they come from the conspiracy. Trust only what you know must be correct, even your senses can be fooled by the conspiracy. Here, have this tin-foil hat I made for you...
But dollars are both concrete items, and limited in number. Based on the science of economics and data on wealth distribution, we could estimate the odds of you having a dollar, versus the odds of you having unlimited dollars. Nobody has unlimited dollars, unlimited dollars don't exist. Therefore, based on completely knowable things, we can easily say that it is infinitely more likely that you have one dollar as opposed to unlimited dollars.
A better analogy is "Which is easier for you to accept as reality, I have one unicorn in my pocket, or I have unlimited unicorns in my pocket."
Cyber is the longer, more old fashioned way of saying e- or i-. We use to call it cyberwarfare, now we don't have time for that, and so we call it iWar.
What clients are up 50-60%? That's certainly not what I have read.
Everyone I know called that bubble back in 2002, but we're all a bunch of hippie anticapitalists so nobody listens to us. Only people who were either idiots or part of the kleptocracy failed to see the crisis coming. My friends and I were wrong, of course, it took about four years more than we thought it would. But every hippie in the known universe was saying "Dude, how come houses are so expensive? What's with all these rich assholes investing in property and driving up the market with speculation? This shit can't last!"
I usually am modded informative. Odd thing, that. Maybe most Americans aren't as far right as people think. But you shouldn't be surprised, I've always been this way. I'm a true patriot, fighting the kleptocrats, on the side of the average American. When I see someone talking bullshit Austrian School rich boy talk, I just have to call them on it. There is a reason that the wealthy fund Austrian economics when everyone else has clearly seen it is a bankrupt school of thought. The wealthy fund Austrian School economics because the Austrian School hypothesis tells them what they want to hear. It provides ammunition for them in their fight to steal the fruits of everyone else's labor. Austrian School economics is pure evil, a theory proven incorrect by decades of practical examples, yet still trotted out and paraded around any time the rich feel the rest of us are catching on to what they are doing, which is robbing us blind.
Awww, did I hurt oow widdew feewings? Grow a pair! This is the Internet, you know, you will continue to find people here who disagree with you. That does not make them bad people.
Where is the price of gold now Peter? How come most of your clients lost 40%-70% of their worth in 2008, based on the very, very bad advice you gave them? Seriously, don't listen to this guy or anyone who tells you to listen to him, they are attempting to engage in class war against you and redistribute your hard earned wealth to themselves, that is the whole purpose of Austrian School economics: more money for the rich, less power for the poor.
The idea that FDR lengthened the depression is very, very far outside the economic mainstream. It is a hypothesis put forward by Austrian School economists, who are widely regarded by the majority of economists as cranks and astroturfers in the pay of the wealthy, because, oddly enough, all theories coming from Austrian School economists tell rich people exactly what they want to hear: the rich are good, the poor are to blame for their plight, and government regulations destroy the economy. All completely false.
I've seen a renewed ferocity in attacks against FDR recently, although the right has been trying to demonize him and his policies for years. Thankfully, the average American knows better. I believe the right can not stand the fact that their policies do not work, while "leftist" policies like FDR's did.
That paper ignores many reasons that the 1930s were stagnant, such as a lack of new technologies and growth industries predating FDR's presidency.It ignores the fact that Republicans got FDR to overturn his policies in 1938, causing an instant recession until the policies were reinstated. It is an ignorant and biased paper designed expressly to counter the popular and correct assumption that FDR's policies ended the great depression.
There is no comparison between Beck and Colbert or Stewart. You quite obviously don't watch Beck, because you have no idea how vile his shows are. Only stupid people take Comedy Central seriously, and even if they do, Comedy Central in no way distorts the truth like Fox does. Stupid people could learn something from The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. They would not learn anything from Glen Beck's evil rants. Colbert and Stewart don't get harassed because they do not tell lies and have never tried to, for instance, get their audience to kill anyone like Beck has. Beck is seriously deranged.
Christianity is a pathetic religion that won't take out their own trash. Did you read my list? Oh so many Christian terrorists, and the rest of them do nothing.
Does it feel good to have something to hate? Does it fill your life with meaning and purpose? Well, here's hoping you don't end up on that first list, m'kay?
I did not see the word "all" either. If I had seen it, I wouldn't have asked. He certainly did not qualify the word "Muslims" one way or the other. If he had meant some, he would have said some, or specified which he means, such as radical muslims or Jihadists or something. But no, he responded and he actually meant ALL Muslims, who he thinks are ALL worse than any Scientologist or fringe Christian.
And it appears that you agree with him, but are willing to tar the approximately 80% of humanity that believes in religion with the same violent brush. Thanks for helping make we atheists and agnostics look bad.
No, ALL Muslims do not blow people up and cut off their heads while alive, I think we would have heard about that. Do you have any statistics showing that a greater percentage of Muslims commit violence than other religions?
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Meh, I've seen better blue wieners. I believe the real reason Watchmen tanked is that it came out a little bit too late. When times are good, people can enjoy gritty anti-heroes. When times are tight, they hate ambiguity in their heroes and want something a lot more black and white than Watchmen.
But I am not questioning the way statistics are measured. Your statement is similar to statements about God: we must take it on faith. You are the only source you claim we can trust, all facts and figures are suspect.
But as far as crime rates go, they have been dropping pretty steadily all over the world, as measured by police forces, governments, and here is the important part: non-governmental entities such as think tanks and non profits, all of whom have very different motivations. All the data, gleaned from official reports, polls, and other methods, all seem to agree. Given that some powerful groups have a vested interest in making the public believe that crime rates are going up, while others have an interest in making us believe they have gone down, I find it hard to believe that there is much systemic inaccuracy in either direction.
There is something like a conspiracy of the rich to steal our resources. It isn't really a conspiracy, though, because no one needs to talk about it to make it work. They just need to individually realize, perhaps not even consciously, that all rich people are on the same side, and we are on the other, and then act in their own best interests. But a conspiracy to systematically under-report crime? Not possible.
I would say that people are more conditioned to accept that things are infinite. Have you ever run out of new things to experience? I haven't. Every day, I experience something new. If the number of things were finite, I would expect that I would experience repetition far more than I do. Given that the number of new things I experience is unending, I can easily imagine a God that oversees each thing, and therefore, an unlimited number of Gods seems plausible. In fact, the idea of only one God seems far less plausible.
The substance of your analogy is what I disagree with. You think that most people would find one God more plausible than many Gods. That is patently untrue, or monotheism would have been invented first. It wasn't, polytheism and pantheism were around for far longer than monotheism. So which is more plausible to the uninitiated human? Obviously, polytheism and pantheism are, as they are older concepts.
Now I know you never, ever admit that you are wrong, mistaken, or less than perfect in any way, but maybe just this once you can stop beating this greasy horse shaped patch on the ground and admit that maybe your idea was sub-par. I will respect you far more if you can admit that you were wrong than if you continue to abuse logic and common sense in tilting at windmills.
If you do want to continue the argument, please address the fact that polytheism and pantheism existed prior to monotheism.
No, that is very poor logic. Of course everything is finite if you take a finite subset of it. I reiterate, we do not know if the universe is bounded or not. If it is not, you could travel infinitely far in any direction, encountering infinitely many planets. It is not a matter of probabilities or "many universes." It is a matter of the curvature of the universe and the cosmological constant. If the universe is open, there are infinitely many planets we can access from Earth. It would of course take an infinite amount of time to reach an infinite number of planets, but this does not negate the fact that, if the universe is open, there are infinitely many planets.
I did not miss your point, I understood it perfectly. You are missing MY point, which is very simple: you are extrapolating from known qualities of real objects to the nature of God. You are comparing apples and oranges, saying in essence "Apples are fruit, apples are red, oranges are fruit, therefore, oranges are red." But we have no way of knowing if God (an unknown thing, of unknown type) must have the same characteristics as natural objects. Most religions claim God does not have the same qualities as natural objects do.
Putting your argument in the form of a syllogism, we get the following
All natural objects are finite in number
All Gods are natural objects.
Therefore, Gods are finite in number.
First, we have no proof that God is anything like a natural object, in fact, all religions say God is not like that. Second, nobody is talking about an infinite number of Gods. Polytheism does not imply an infinite number of Gods. Pantheism implies one God indistinguishable from Nature, i.e. God is literally everything. I am unaware of any real religion that postulates an infinite number of Gods.
If one God is illogical, infinite numbers of Gods are not necessarily less logical. We do not know enough about God or Gods to know if they follow the same numbering rules as natural objects.
There is a bit of middle ground between "American society is on the verge of collapse" and "put on your goggles and just watch Disney," but, you know, thanks for assuming that I must be some sort of human-sheep hybrid because I am trying to inject a little rationality into a conversation that started with the laughably over-the-top phrase "It's an all-out war between the forces of good and evil that has never stopped and will never stop."
If *real* fascists ever took control in this country, most of these people would shit themselves on a continuous basis before the secret police killed them, their families, their pets, burned down their houses and killed a few others standing around just to send a message.
Which is why attempting to foil incremental steps in that direction, before they reach fruition, is sort of a good idea, no?
Yes, but there is the whole "boy who cried wolf" aspect to constantly calling everything you don't like "fascism." Not everything presages the immanent collapse of American civilization. And the AC has a good point about people's cartoonish perception of good and evil.
The number of planets in our observable universe is very large, but limited. However, we do not know whether the universe is closed or open, finite or infinite. Therefore, the number of planets may well be infinite. In any case, the point I was trying to make was that you can not compare the concept of "Gods" to any finite thing, even sand. We do not know whether one God or many are more likely, because we know nothing of the true characteristics of Gods.
Good thing you and I are in that ten percent that can think though, right? I'd hate to be in that ten percent that only think they can think. I mean, you and I, we can see who it is that is manipulating these unseen mechanism of society. We know the big lies from the small truths. Not like those other guys, the fucking sheeple, right?
Do I need to add a sarcasm tag here? Do I need to explain how utterly inane this line of thinking is, how small minded, pernicious, and elitist? I mean, yeah, you and I know it is true, but you don't see me crowing about it, because it doesn't really mean anything. It is only trivially true. Pointing it out is just being an insecure asshole, trying by association to put yourself in that "thinking" category while putting your enemies in the "non-thinking" one. But everyone does that! Obviously, I am enlightened while my opponents are either ignorant or evil. Who isn't nodding their head to that sentence? But if we all do it, then it's just meaningless ego stroking, isn't it?
Some people are more intelligent than others. Some are less swayed by their cultural programming, for whatever reason. But so what? Everyone still has to decide for themselves, based on their own intelligence and experience, who to listen to, what are lies, and what is true.
See, this is a great example of how delusional people keep their delusions at least internally semi-consistent. Facts and figures don't tell you what you want to hear? They were all doctored! Don't trust facts, they come from the conspiracy. Trust only what you know must be correct, even your senses can be fooled by the conspiracy. Here, have this tin-foil hat I made for you...
But dollars are both concrete items, and limited in number. Based on the science of economics and data on wealth distribution, we could estimate the odds of you having a dollar, versus the odds of you having unlimited dollars. Nobody has unlimited dollars, unlimited dollars don't exist. Therefore, based on completely knowable things, we can easily say that it is infinitely more likely that you have one dollar as opposed to unlimited dollars.
A better analogy is "Which is easier for you to accept as reality, I have one unicorn in my pocket, or I have unlimited unicorns in my pocket."
Cyber is the longer, more old fashioned way of saying e- or i-. We use to call it cyberwarfare, now we don't have time for that, and so we call it iWar.
What clients are up 50-60%? That's certainly not what I have read.
Everyone I know called that bubble back in 2002, but we're all a bunch of hippie anticapitalists so nobody listens to us. Only people who were either idiots or part of the kleptocracy failed to see the crisis coming. My friends and I were wrong, of course, it took about four years more than we thought it would. But every hippie in the known universe was saying "Dude, how come houses are so expensive? What's with all these rich assholes investing in property and driving up the market with speculation? This shit can't last!"
U mad?
I usually am modded informative. Odd thing, that. Maybe most Americans aren't as far right as people think. But you shouldn't be surprised, I've always been this way. I'm a true patriot, fighting the kleptocrats, on the side of the average American. When I see someone talking bullshit Austrian School rich boy talk, I just have to call them on it. There is a reason that the wealthy fund Austrian economics when everyone else has clearly seen it is a bankrupt school of thought. The wealthy fund Austrian School economics because the Austrian School hypothesis tells them what they want to hear. It provides ammunition for them in their fight to steal the fruits of everyone else's labor. Austrian School economics is pure evil, a theory proven incorrect by decades of practical examples, yet still trotted out and paraded around any time the rich feel the rest of us are catching on to what they are doing, which is robbing us blind.
Awww, did I hurt oow widdew feewings? Grow a pair! This is the Internet, you know, you will continue to find people here who disagree with you. That does not make them bad people.
Is "bonch" your pet name for me then? How cute! I shall call you "sminch," my darling.
You replied to the wrong guy.
Peter Schiff is a real economist of the fringe Austrian School, making him a real fringe economist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff
Where is the price of gold now Peter? How come most of your clients lost 40%-70% of their worth in 2008, based on the very, very bad advice you gave them? Seriously, don't listen to this guy or anyone who tells you to listen to him, they are attempting to engage in class war against you and redistribute your hard earned wealth to themselves, that is the whole purpose of Austrian School economics: more money for the rich, less power for the poor.
The idea that FDR lengthened the depression is very, very far outside the economic mainstream. It is a hypothesis put forward by Austrian School economists, who are widely regarded by the majority of economists as cranks and astroturfers in the pay of the wealthy, because, oddly enough, all theories coming from Austrian School economists tell rich people exactly what they want to hear: the rich are good, the poor are to blame for their plight, and government regulations destroy the economy. All completely false.
I've seen a renewed ferocity in attacks against FDR recently, although the right has been trying to demonize him and his policies for years. Thankfully, the average American knows better. I believe the right can not stand the fact that their policies do not work, while "leftist" policies like FDR's did.
That paper ignores many reasons that the 1930s were stagnant, such as a lack of new technologies and growth industries predating FDR's presidency.It ignores the fact that Republicans got FDR to overturn his policies in 1938, causing an instant recession until the policies were reinstated. It is an ignorant and biased paper designed expressly to counter the popular and correct assumption that FDR's policies ended the great depression.
There is no comparison between Beck and Colbert or Stewart. You quite obviously don't watch Beck, because you have no idea how vile his shows are. Only stupid people take Comedy Central seriously, and even if they do, Comedy Central in no way distorts the truth like Fox does. Stupid people could learn something from The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. They would not learn anything from Glen Beck's evil rants. Colbert and Stewart don't get harassed because they do not tell lies and have never tried to, for instance, get their audience to kill anyone like Beck has. Beck is seriously deranged.
Christianity is a pathetic religion that won't take out their own trash. Did you read my list? Oh so many Christian terrorists, and the rest of them do nothing.
Sorry, my workplace uses McAfee Web Gateway which blocks that as a hate site. But I'm sure it is completely accurate and unbiased. Just FYI, here is a list of right-wing terror attacks in the United States:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right
Here is an interesting Wikipedia article on Christian Terrorism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism
Does it feel good to have something to hate? Does it fill your life with meaning and purpose? Well, here's hoping you don't end up on that first list, m'kay?
I repsectfully disagree with your assessment of DigiShaman's comment. Read his reply to me. He is a hate filled bigot.
I did not see the word "all" either. If I had seen it, I wouldn't have asked. He certainly did not qualify the word "Muslims" one way or the other. If he had meant some, he would have said some, or specified which he means, such as radical muslims or Jihadists or something. But no, he responded and he actually meant ALL Muslims, who he thinks are ALL worse than any Scientologist or fringe Christian.
And it appears that you agree with him, but are willing to tar the approximately 80% of humanity that believes in religion with the same violent brush. Thanks for helping make we atheists and agnostics look bad.
No, ALL Muslims do not blow people up and cut off their heads while alive, I think we would have heard about that. Do you have any statistics showing that a greater percentage of Muslims commit violence than other religions?