OK, someone please tell me which is weirder: a guy dressed up as a Stormtrooper, or a guy that paints a blue horseshoe on his face?
While I agree that any sports fan that paints his face/body is pretty weird, it by no means even compares to some of the nuts at GenCon. I was there for the first time ever this year, and had alot of fun. But it sure does bring out the weirdos. Dressing up like a team that actually does exist and dressing up like an elf are two completely different things. One only needs to see a psychologist, the latter needs to have their own team of shrinks.
How is that relavent at all? I am not asking anyone to go out of their way to help me more than any other human. I hate it when morons (who post as ACs) enter a perfectly good discussion.
Yes, I definetly agree that we have to be very careful when we mess with ecosystems. But really the only animals that we usually can safely drive to extinction is large animals such as elephants and lions. We did so with bison and wolves and such without much problem. Sure we have some overpopulated deer, but that is better than wild predators roaming around in our backyards.
It's gonna be a really interesting world with just farm and domestic animals.
I agree with that statement completely, regardless of the fact that I know you said it sarcastically. How do lions and tigers living in Africa make the world more interesting? I find civilization far more interesting. I like zoos, but I like movies and dance clubs and computers far more.
How many people's lives would actually become less interesting if all of a sudden all elephants outside of zoos went extinct? And how much less interesting? Then factor in how much money and effort it would take to save the population of wild elephants. If that money would be better spent making people's lives more interesting in another way, then there is no reason to keep those animals around by your reasoning.
Human beings are the only species that we need to feel a moral responsibility to. Any animal that survives will either have to be useful to us in some way or be able to co-exist easily. If they cannot survive without our intervention then why keep them around?
While it is true that it can be hard to determine if we "need" a species, it is not impossible. From the way things are going in north america it is pretty obvious that we didnt need bison. Human growth is doing just fine without them. And as for elephants and lions, im pretty sure that if we could live without them for 13,000 years we can live without them for a few more.
It doesnt matter if they went extinct from humans hunting them or from volanic activity, it is still just the way ecosystems work. If an animal cannot co-exist with humans without our intervention then they should go extinct.
Apparently its going pretty well. It went from tiny microbes to animal life to human life based completely on the rule of just letting things work themselves out. Whether we make a species extinct by feeding on them or by hunting them for their furs, they still went extinct because they werent built for the new world being created by a more advanced species. Move on.
And BTW, he meant superior as in superior on the food chain. He didnt mean intellectually or morally. You show me one other predator in the world that actively tries to increase the biodiversity of his habitat conciously and then I will feel bad about humans making species go extinct.
Just because they were built for this area 13,000 years ago does not mean they are built for it now. Alot has changed in 13,000 years. You wouldnt want to reintroduce dinosaurs to North America just because they were built for this area. I know that 13 thousand years is alot different than 65 million years, but my point is that the ecosystem is still different now.
Am I missing something, or does this sound alot like a zoo? Or are we actually trying to breed these animals in this country to stop their possible extinction?
I dont really see the point in doing this if it means taking them to a biome where they are not native. I am all for the protection of species, but not introducing them into environments they werent built for.
Argh, too bad you posted this after I left work, now you will probably never even read my reply. Oh well, maybe you check your past posts for replys.
In answer to your first point: Yes I think that a blastocyst is not a body because it is just a ball of cells. Those cells are at that point no different than cells that could turn into any living organism, so they are far different than the cells that make up my body.
I agree that any human life is worth protecting by the law, but you have to be able to draw a line regarding what makes up a human life. If you cannot draw the line at a ball of 30 cells, then how can you draw the line at a human egg. If you consider killing a blastocyst the same as killing a human, then who is to say that the death of a human egg is not the same as killing a human. Both are potential human life. Does that make having a period immoral? Even the sandwitch I am eating is potential human life because some of the enzymes in this food could someday help my body produce sperm that I may use to accidentally make my girlfriend pregnant. That is a rediculous argument, but so is saying that a Stem Cell is a human life. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I think that a ball of 30 cells is definetly not the place to draw it.
I didnt say that you had to be stupid to not agree with me. I just said you had to be uneducated. I know nothing about cars, therefor I am very uneducated about them. I do not think that makes me stupid. And my claim was backed up by a rational argument. You say that an Embryonic Stem Cell is a human life (or at least can be, you may be just playing devil's advocate), while I am providing an argument that it cannot possibly be considered human by any means. I firmly believe that only an uneducated or at least incorrectly educated person could possibly hold the belief that a blastocyst is a human life. That is my rational argument, it could possibly be wrong, but I believe that it is rational.
Regarding masturbation, I am not saying that pro-lifers think it is a sin because of the loss of potential life. I am saying that because they think that a blastocyst might have a soul, then they must also concede that a sperm might have a soul. So if you think that Stem Cell Research is wrong, then masturbation would have to be wrong also becuase it 'could' be killing a human life unnecessarily. I dont agree with the argument, but I also do not think that a Stem Cell is a human life either.
And I did not fall into the fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc". By definition that is a "Coincidental Correlation", or more directly in Latin means "after this therefore because of this". That fallacy is like saying that if I chew bubblegum before winning the lottery, gum helps make you lucky. What I said in my parent post did not fall into that fallacy. I was saying that my stopping the criminal directly stopped my family from being hurt. If I did not stop him then he could have hurt my family. That is a direct correlation, not a coincidental correlation.
How can you possibly say that a Human Embryonic Stem Cell has a body? The embryos from which these cells are derived are typically 4 or 5 days old and are simply a hollow microscopic ball of cells referred to as a Blastocyst. A Blastocyst is only about 150 cells, and its only descernable shape is that of a sphere. And of these 150 cells only the Inner Cell Mass develop into the fetus, which is made up of only 30 cells.
None of these embryonic cells have differentiated, and therefor you cannot determine if it will someday become a heart, lung, or human. You cannot possibly say that these can be considered human life any more than you can say a sperm is a human life.
There are alot of unanswered questions regarding stem cell research, but none of it is regarding whether or not it is ethical. The only ones who still think its wrong are pro-lifers that think masturbating is unethical because it kills potential life, and uneducated people. I hope you are simply in the second group.
And since when do the ends not justify the means? If I saw a man armed with a gun entering my house I sure would kill him instead of letting him kill my family. I think that the ends (saving my family) definetly justify the means (killing a man). You just need to carefully evaluate each situation to find out if the ends justify the means.
Irreducible complexity cannot be falsified because ID practitioners have never given a model for how to determine if something is Irreducibly Complex. Until they can come up with some scientific reasoning for something being too complex (other than "I cant understand how it could evolve") then it is not a scientific theory.
You dont have to go into college-level biochemisty to teach evolution for the same reason that you dont have to go into relativity to teach Newtonian physics.
F=ma is 100% incorrect, so are many other things you learn in gradeschool / highschool science classes. But they are good enough to get students started in their discovery of science. Let the scientists deal with more exacting theories, such as relativity and such.
The same goes for evolution. You can teach a generalized view of evolution to children because it is what the mainstream of actual scientists believe is our best understanding at this time. Once the mainstream changes, then we can start educating students differently. And all of those students have the opportunity to discover the details on their own, although they will have to take considerable time to learn the prerequisite knowledge to do so.
No, he has said that you have not provided enough information for him to even counter it. You give percentages, but not exact questions that were given on those polls.
I followed your links, and found that there was a jump from 8% Non-Religion to over 16% when the words "if any" were added to the question "What religion do you believe in?"
This goes to show that the exact wording of questions can greatly aschew the results of a poll. Your 45% could just as easily been 20% if the questions were worded differently.
Wait, what is wrong with Windows being easier? The whole reason why many people use Windows is because its easier (easier to learn, easier to buy in stores, already came with computer, etc.). Doing something because it is easy doesnt make you dumb, in fact I would say it makes you smarter. Doing something more difficult for no reason would make you dumb.
You may have a very good reason for using Unix based OSes, so I am not saying you are dumb for using them. I am just saying that if Windows works for most people and is easy to use, there is no intelligent reason not to use it.
Looks like on a rating such as this, only unpopular introverts will be rated as popular. If you have too many friends in the online world, chances are you havent made enough friends in the real world.
I can tell this because I scored WAY to high on this test:-(
While I do completely believe that racism is a horrible thing, that does not mean that all stereotyping is bad. In fact, stereotyping is incredibly necessary.
Stereotyping is a direct result of a human being's ability to categorize things. We dont have to memorize every type of vegetable, because we can categorize them into the group of Vegetables. We can then further break that into groups that provide certain types of vitamins, such as green leafy vegetables.
Then we give characteristics to these groups. We make broad statements such as "vegetables are good for you." That doesnt mean that all vegetables are always good, or that some arent better than others, but it allows us to know certain things about vegetables that we would otherwise only know if we memorized every fact about every type of vegetable.
Whithout this ability human beings could never amass as much knowledge as we do, and society itself couldnt function in the way that it does.
This then leads us to stereotypes. They are simply characteristics that we gives to groups of things (in this case races of people). It is a natural byproduct of the way our brains think.
Stereotypes are only bad when you start to forget that there are exceptions to everything, or when they lead to into hateful beliefs such as racism. Otherwise they are very useful.
Its easy to answer why the Democrats are losing, it is because in the past decades they are being taken over by Liberals. Hopefully it is like the hippy movement, and eventually the liberals will go away.
I know you must be joking, but that is a very stupid way to look at voting. It is like saying that since one person's taxes wouldnt make even a miniscule dent on the goverment's budget, that the government should stop collecting taxes.
That particular argument doesnt really hold up at all. You could argue that everyone's mindframe is biased, regardless of genetic modification, because of random genetic mutations occuring at conception. When a person is genetically modified, that is who they are. Anything that genetic engineering could do, so could mother nature. Its just that in this case humans decide the outcome instead of random chance. The genetically modified children will have no less "free will" than anyone else.
Losing weight perminently is not just about dieting and working out, it is about changing your lifestyle. The first step is to cut out soft drinks. Coke and other sodas are absolutely the largest waste of caloric intake that you can have. And do not replace them with juice drinks like orange juice or apple juice either, these drinks often have just as much sugar in them and pop. Water is perfect, and even though you may have to go through a couple weeks of caffiene withdrawal, you will be a whole lot healthier afterwards.
The biggest thing people dont understand about getting in shape and losing weight is that weight training is far more beneficial than cardiovascular work. By putting on muscle you raise your metabolism, since muscle uses a large amount of energy (calories) just to maintain itself. For a semester a used to run a couple miles for 3 days a week and lost about 10 pounds. The next semester I started lifting weights and cut the running to a quarter mile warmup lap, and I lost 25 pounds. In addition, lifting weights tones your body more and makes you look better than just doing cardiovascular work. It is a great confidence booster when you can start wearing muscle shirts / tank tops while not looking and feeling rediculous.
Changing your eating habits is another tricky situation. I say "changing your eating habits" instead of "dieting" for a reason. Dieting is stupid, because you almost always quit after a while and then put all of the weight back on. But if you simply change the way you eat naturally you can stick with it for the rest of your life. Start by giving up pop and not going to fast food restaurants. You do not have to go cold turkey, just try to cut it down to a max of 1 or 2 times a week. Occasional splurges are okay since they cut down on your cravings (the biggest reason why people quit diets). Then make sure that you do not eat too much snack foods. I cure my snack cravings by eating fruit. Also, if you are going the weight lifting route, try to increase your protein intake a little. Do not become a zealot and eat a gram of protein per pound of body weight, just eat a little more chicken (not fried) and beef. Carbohydrates are still okay, just try to stick with the good kind such as wheat bread and pasta.
It isnt that hard to do all of this, and since it seams that you have friends who are willing to join you it will be even easier. Having a lifting partner is a great way to stick with a weight lifting program. And if your friends are giving up fast food too, it will be easier for you to give up the temptation.
There is a big difference to using a nuke in the modern world and using a nuke when you are the only one who has one. The US used its first nukes to end a war that would have cost millions of Japenese and American lives. Since no one else had nukes at the time, there was no great danger in using them.
If you use one today, there are a great deal more problems to deal with. Now there are many countries with nuclear weapons, and if they are used then the world will be set back into a pre-industrialized era.
So the fact that the US has used nuclear weapons in the past is not relevant at all. So what is your reason that you think only America would use nuclear weapons?
It isnt that conciencenous is simple, it is just that it probably stems from a simple set of conditions. One problem is that it is hard to retrace the end result (conciencenous) back to those simple rules and conditions. It is analogous to Conway's game of life, where 3 simple rules can make very complex results which can never be traced back to their initial states.
You are right. As far as nature is concerned, we are inconsequential (sp?). But as far as planets and stars are concerned, so is nature. The earth would live on even if all life on this planet ceased to exist.
Sentient life is as far above nature as nature is above simple minerals. We should do everything that we can to survive because defying nature is what we humans do best. Humans have been fighting nature and this planet since the first time we took up the plow. Why just stop now?
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OK, someone please tell me which is weirder: a guy dressed up as a Stormtrooper, or a guy that paints a blue horseshoe on his face?
While I agree that any sports fan that paints his face/body is pretty weird, it by no means even compares to some of the nuts at GenCon. I was there for the first time ever this year, and had alot of fun. But it sure does bring out the weirdos. Dressing up like a team that actually does exist and dressing up like an elf are two completely different things. One only needs to see a psychologist, the latter needs to have their own team of shrinks.
How is that relavent at all? I am not asking anyone to go out of their way to help me more than any other human. I hate it when morons (who post as ACs) enter a perfectly good discussion.
Yes, I definetly agree that we have to be very careful when we mess with ecosystems. But really the only animals that we usually can safely drive to extinction is large animals such as elephants and lions. We did so with bison and wolves and such without much problem. Sure we have some overpopulated deer, but that is better than wild predators roaming around in our backyards.
It's gonna be a really interesting world with just farm and domestic animals.
I agree with that statement completely, regardless of the fact that I know you said it sarcastically. How do lions and tigers living in Africa make the world more interesting? I find civilization far more interesting. I like zoos, but I like movies and dance clubs and computers far more.
How many people's lives would actually become less interesting if all of a sudden all elephants outside of zoos went extinct? And how much less interesting? Then factor in how much money and effort it would take to save the population of wild elephants. If that money would be better spent making people's lives more interesting in another way, then there is no reason to keep those animals around by your reasoning.
Human beings are the only species that we need to feel a moral responsibility to. Any animal that survives will either have to be useful to us in some way or be able to co-exist easily. If they cannot survive without our intervention then why keep them around?
While it is true that it can be hard to determine if we "need" a species, it is not impossible. From the way things are going in north america it is pretty obvious that we didnt need bison. Human growth is doing just fine without them. And as for elephants and lions, im pretty sure that if we could live without them for 13,000 years we can live without them for a few more.
It doesnt matter if they went extinct from humans hunting them or from volanic activity, it is still just the way ecosystems work. If an animal cannot co-exist with humans without our intervention then they should go extinct.
let's work with the way the world works
How's that going, anyway?
Apparently its going pretty well. It went from tiny microbes to animal life to human life based completely on the rule of just letting things work themselves out. Whether we make a species extinct by feeding on them or by hunting them for their furs, they still went extinct because they werent built for the new world being created by a more advanced species. Move on.
And BTW, he meant superior as in superior on the food chain. He didnt mean intellectually or morally. You show me one other predator in the world that actively tries to increase the biodiversity of his habitat conciously and then I will feel bad about humans making species go extinct.
Just because they were built for this area 13,000 years ago does not mean they are built for it now. Alot has changed in 13,000 years. You wouldnt want to reintroduce dinosaurs to North America just because they were built for this area. I know that 13 thousand years is alot different than 65 million years, but my point is that the ecosystem is still different now.
Am I missing something, or does this sound alot like a zoo? Or are we actually trying to breed these animals in this country to stop their possible extinction?
I dont really see the point in doing this if it means taking them to a biome where they are not native. I am all for the protection of species, but not introducing them into environments they werent built for.
Argh, too bad you posted this after I left work, now you will probably never even read my reply. Oh well, maybe you check your past posts for replys.
In answer to your first point: Yes I think that a blastocyst is not a body because it is just a ball of cells. Those cells are at that point no different than cells that could turn into any living organism, so they are far different than the cells that make up my body.
I agree that any human life is worth protecting by the law, but you have to be able to draw a line regarding what makes up a human life. If you cannot draw the line at a ball of 30 cells, then how can you draw the line at a human egg. If you consider killing a blastocyst the same as killing a human, then who is to say that the death of a human egg is not the same as killing a human. Both are potential human life. Does that make having a period immoral? Even the sandwitch I am eating is potential human life because some of the enzymes in this food could someday help my body produce sperm that I may use to accidentally make my girlfriend pregnant. That is a rediculous argument, but so is saying that a Stem Cell is a human life. You have to draw the line somewhere, and I think that a ball of 30 cells is definetly not the place to draw it.
I didnt say that you had to be stupid to not agree with me. I just said you had to be uneducated. I know nothing about cars, therefor I am very uneducated about them. I do not think that makes me stupid. And my claim was backed up by a rational argument. You say that an Embryonic Stem Cell is a human life (or at least can be, you may be just playing devil's advocate), while I am providing an argument that it cannot possibly be considered human by any means. I firmly believe that only an uneducated or at least incorrectly educated person could possibly hold the belief that a blastocyst is a human life. That is my rational argument, it could possibly be wrong, but I believe that it is rational.
Regarding masturbation, I am not saying that pro-lifers think it is a sin because of the loss of potential life. I am saying that because they think that a blastocyst might have a soul, then they must also concede that a sperm might have a soul. So if you think that Stem Cell Research is wrong, then masturbation would have to be wrong also becuase it 'could' be killing a human life unnecessarily. I dont agree with the argument, but I also do not think that a Stem Cell is a human life either.
And I did not fall into the fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc". By definition that is a "Coincidental Correlation", or more directly in Latin means "after this therefore because of this". That fallacy is like saying that if I chew bubblegum before winning the lottery, gum helps make you lucky. What I said in my parent post did not fall into that fallacy. I was saying that my stopping the criminal directly stopped my family from being hurt. If I did not stop him then he could have hurt my family. That is a direct correlation, not a coincidental correlation.
A)
How can you possibly say that a Human Embryonic Stem Cell has a body? The embryos from which these cells are derived are typically 4 or 5 days old and are simply a hollow microscopic ball of cells referred to as a Blastocyst. A Blastocyst is only about 150 cells, and its only descernable shape is that of a sphere. And of these 150 cells only the Inner Cell Mass develop into the fetus, which is made up of only 30 cells.
None of these embryonic cells have differentiated, and therefor you cannot determine if it will someday become a heart, lung, or human. You cannot possibly say that these can be considered human life any more than you can say a sperm is a human life.
There are alot of unanswered questions regarding stem cell research, but none of it is regarding whether or not it is ethical. The only ones who still think its wrong are pro-lifers that think masturbating is unethical because it kills potential life, and uneducated people. I hope you are simply in the second group.
And since when do the ends not justify the means? If I saw a man armed with a gun entering my house I sure would kill him instead of letting him kill my family. I think that the ends (saving my family) definetly justify the means (killing a man). You just need to carefully evaluate each situation to find out if the ends justify the means.
Irreducible complexity cannot be falsified because ID practitioners have never given a model for how to determine if something is Irreducibly Complex. Until they can come up with some scientific reasoning for something being too complex (other than "I cant understand how it could evolve") then it is not a scientific theory.
You dont have to go into college-level biochemisty to teach evolution for the same reason that you dont have to go into relativity to teach Newtonian physics.
F=ma is 100% incorrect, so are many other things you learn in gradeschool / highschool science classes. But they are good enough to get students started in their discovery of science. Let the scientists deal with more exacting theories, such as relativity and such.
The same goes for evolution. You can teach a generalized view of evolution to children because it is what the mainstream of actual scientists believe is our best understanding at this time. Once the mainstream changes, then we can start educating students differently. And all of those students have the opportunity to discover the details on their own, although they will have to take considerable time to learn the prerequisite knowledge to do so.
No, he has said that you have not provided enough information for him to even counter it. You give percentages, but not exact questions that were given on those polls.
I followed your links, and found that there was a jump from 8% Non-Religion to over 16% when the words "if any" were added to the question "What religion do you believe in?"
This goes to show that the exact wording of questions can greatly aschew the results of a poll. Your 45% could just as easily been 20% if the questions were worded differently.
Wait, what is wrong with Windows being easier? The whole reason why many people use Windows is because its easier (easier to learn, easier to buy in stores, already came with computer, etc.). Doing something because it is easy doesnt make you dumb, in fact I would say it makes you smarter. Doing something more difficult for no reason would make you dumb.
You may have a very good reason for using Unix based OSes, so I am not saying you are dumb for using them. I am just saying that if Windows works for most people and is easy to use, there is no intelligent reason not to use it.
Looks like on a rating such as this, only unpopular introverts will be rated as popular. If you have too many friends in the online world, chances are you havent made enough friends in the real world.
:-(
I can tell this because I scored WAY to high on this test
While I do completely believe that racism is a horrible thing, that does not mean that all stereotyping is bad. In fact, stereotyping is incredibly necessary.
Stereotyping is a direct result of a human being's ability to categorize things. We dont have to memorize every type of vegetable, because we can categorize them into the group of Vegetables. We can then further break that into groups that provide certain types of vitamins, such as green leafy vegetables.
Then we give characteristics to these groups. We make broad statements such as "vegetables are good for you." That doesnt mean that all vegetables are always good, or that some arent better than others, but it allows us to know certain things about vegetables that we would otherwise only know if we memorized every fact about every type of vegetable.
Whithout this ability human beings could never amass as much knowledge as we do, and society itself couldnt function in the way that it does.
This then leads us to stereotypes. They are simply characteristics that we gives to groups of things (in this case races of people). It is a natural byproduct of the way our brains think.
Stereotypes are only bad when you start to forget that there are exceptions to everything, or when they lead to into hateful beliefs such as racism. Otherwise they are very useful.
Its easy to answer why the Democrats are losing, it is because in the past decades they are being taken over by Liberals. Hopefully it is like the hippy movement, and eventually the liberals will go away.
I know you must be joking, but that is a very stupid way to look at voting. It is like saying that since one person's taxes wouldnt make even a miniscule dent on the goverment's budget, that the government should stop collecting taxes.
That particular argument doesnt really hold up at all. You could argue that everyone's mindframe is biased, regardless of genetic modification, because of random genetic mutations occuring at conception. When a person is genetically modified, that is who they are. Anything that genetic engineering could do, so could mother nature. Its just that in this case humans decide the outcome instead of random chance. The genetically modified children will have no less "free will" than anyone else.
Losing weight perminently is not just about dieting and working out, it is about changing your lifestyle. The first step is to cut out soft drinks. Coke and other sodas are absolutely the largest waste of caloric intake that you can have. And do not replace them with juice drinks like orange juice or apple juice either, these drinks often have just as much sugar in them and pop. Water is perfect, and even though you may have to go through a couple weeks of caffiene withdrawal, you will be a whole lot healthier afterwards.
The biggest thing people dont understand about getting in shape and losing weight is that weight training is far more beneficial than cardiovascular work. By putting on muscle you raise your metabolism, since muscle uses a large amount of energy (calories) just to maintain itself. For a semester a used to run a couple miles for 3 days a week and lost about 10 pounds. The next semester I started lifting weights and cut the running to a quarter mile warmup lap, and I lost 25 pounds. In addition, lifting weights tones your body more and makes you look better than just doing cardiovascular work. It is a great confidence booster when you can start wearing muscle shirts / tank tops while not looking and feeling rediculous.
Changing your eating habits is another tricky situation. I say "changing your eating habits" instead of "dieting" for a reason. Dieting is stupid, because you almost always quit after a while and then put all of the weight back on. But if you simply change the way you eat naturally you can stick with it for the rest of your life. Start by giving up pop and not going to fast food restaurants. You do not have to go cold turkey, just try to cut it down to a max of 1 or 2 times a week. Occasional splurges are okay since they cut down on your cravings (the biggest reason why people quit diets). Then make sure that you do not eat too much snack foods. I cure my snack cravings by eating fruit. Also, if you are going the weight lifting route, try to increase your protein intake a little. Do not become a zealot and eat a gram of protein per pound of body weight, just eat a little more chicken (not fried) and beef. Carbohydrates are still okay, just try to stick with the good kind such as wheat bread and pasta.
It isnt that hard to do all of this, and since it seams that you have friends who are willing to join you it will be even easier. Having a lifting partner is a great way to stick with a weight lifting program. And if your friends are giving up fast food too, it will be easier for you to give up the temptation.
Good luck.
There is a big difference to using a nuke in the modern world and using a nuke when you are the only one who has one. The US used its first nukes to end a war that would have cost millions of Japenese and American lives. Since no one else had nukes at the time, there was no great danger in using them.
If you use one today, there are a great deal more problems to deal with. Now there are many countries with nuclear weapons, and if they are used then the world will be set back into a pre-industrialized era.
So the fact that the US has used nuclear weapons in the past is not relevant at all. So what is your reason that you think only America would use nuclear weapons?
It isnt that conciencenous is simple, it is just that it probably stems from a simple set of conditions. One problem is that it is hard to retrace the end result (conciencenous) back to those simple rules and conditions. It is analogous to Conway's game of life, where 3 simple rules can make very complex results which can never be traced back to their initial states.
You are right. As far as nature is concerned, we are inconsequential (sp?). But as far as planets and stars are concerned, so is nature. The earth would live on even if all life on this planet ceased to exist.
Sentient life is as far above nature as nature is above simple minerals. We should do everything that we can to survive because defying nature is what we humans do best. Humans have been fighting nature and this planet since the first time we took up the plow. Why just stop now?
Last time I checked, Canada is on the North AMERICAN continent.