I think ultimately, the reason is that a number of people want absolute certainty and security in their lives. Scientific knowledge doesn't offer either. It's very nature makes things uncertain and you most certainly can't know more than a little bit of all the scientific knowledge out there (as a human). Further, it is very disruptive. Many disruptions in our lives and in our history came from fairly simple discoveries or inventions derived from scientific discovery.
So to have the illusion of absolute certainty and security in your belief system, you need to exclude to some degree scientific knowledge and ideas. It's not enough to ignore science in order to exclude it, it has to be wrong.
I think fundamentally that's what creationism is about. It's not about the world being created in a short period of time by a God, it's about science being absolutely wrong in one of its greatest claims. Hence, one can discount in their minds everything that has similar scientific support ("because you're wrong about evolution, then you have to be wrong about anything else that I believe in"). That removes a great source of uncertainty and fear from their lives.
You can't get elected to any national office unless you are religious
There are plenty of counterexamples. Politicians in the US apparently do have to make a public show of being religiously observant. But they don't have to be religious. For example, of the last few presidents since Reagan (who I gather was fairly religious), only George W. Bush (the younger one) was notably religious. We'll probably even find out at some future time that Clinton or Obama were atheist, just not openly so.
They're asking for more than the lowest possible amount the company can get away with paying them.
And what have they done to deserve this generosity? I just hear a bunch of bullshit about "fairness", "ethics", "civilized society", etc. I hear nothing about what we're going to give in exchange. As I said before, this is just greed, with a thin veneer of sanctimony. Those workers will always be asking for a little more.
It's one thing to ask for more, based on excellent work. And another to ask for a raise because it's the morally bullshit thing to do.
Right, because companies totally can't afford to compensate their workers more fairly.
Umm, that is correct even though you were trying to be sarcastic. It isn't companies's jobs to pay workers "fairly". Nor do they have the resources to do so since more compensation is always "fairer" than less. "Fairness" here is just another kind of greed.
Frankly, if there was genuine fairness in compensation, then developed world workers would be paid less not more.
Well, there's little an employee can do to work cheaper than a robot, which is the only way to beat the Chinese in manufacturing costs.
The obvious rebuttal is that the "little" you can do, is more than sufficient. Just work cheaper than a robot. That's what the Chinese are doing, after all, and it works for them. That may mean that you have actually train for a job where you are working cheaper than a robot.
When it should be" "How can I do something to earn my living without being employed on a wage".
That's a non-sequitur. There's no imperative "should" to how you decide to earn your living. Being employed on a wage does have its selling points.
Other countries tried "do nothing" Ireland and Britain for example.
Perhaps you need some assistance on what "do nothing" means. Do nothing would mean that they let banks fail hard. That didn't happen. Instead, they compromised the economic positions of their countries. And that's why they're currently not doing well. For example, Ireland's publicly held debt went from under 30% in 2007 to around 100% in 2012. The UK's was less dramatic, but it still went from 45% to around 80%.
You might recall saying that debt only mattered as a percentage of GDP, right? Well, there's the numbers.
Japan "did nothing" for a decade and almost saw total economic collapse.
Japan is the poster child for kickstart failure. They borrowed and spent heavily. If kickstarting works, then it should have worked in the Japanese case. Your claim is bizarrely wrong.
Japanese spending over the last couple of decades increased debt by vast amounts so that currently the country has over 200% debt per GDP.
What I see here is a very aggressive case of confirmation bias. If a country didn't do well, then you decide after the fact that they must not have tried to kickstart their economy, actual evidence to the contrary be damned.
And that leads to my point. Kickstarting has a history of failure. And here's why. It takes money from people and businesses that needed it and spends it on less useful and productive applications. The result is a net loss for the economy. The taking can be direct, say by taxes, or indirect, such as by interest payments and inflation.
Seriously here, when will the world wise up to the fact that "cheap cinese labor" has costs that don't tabulate out cleanly on expense sheets and quarterly reports?
Developed world labor has its own massive hidden costs, and it starts several times more expensive. How come I never hear "How can we make our labor more competitive with the Chinese?" Instead, it's "How can we fuck over our employers for more money and benefits while simultaneously forcing them to keep employing us?"
Nor does there need to be. It's worth noting that even with 0% water recovery, it is possible to send people on significant Mars missions. But once you start implementing significant water recovery, you greatly reduce the need for the highest mass consumable used by humans.
Travelling with the astronauts means the food doesn't have to be stored for so long, and can be put inside a normal pressure vessel, so doesn't have to withstand vacuum.
It's not that hard to withstand vacuum especially if the food is already in a vacuum.
Let's not forget that the US is still in the recovery process from a massive recession, that requires increased spending to kickstart the economy.
And how many more years shall it remain in that "process"? Increased spending by government doesn't mean that any economies are getting kickstarted. That's because other parts of the economy are losing spending power as a result. It's worth noting that an alternate strategy, "do nothing" might have a somewhat deeper trough, but the economy would be firing up by now.
1) At one time in the US, tax returns were public information. When the IRS was new, everyone's info was published to show that everyone paid their share. I'm not saying we need to force people back to this precedent, but just saying that there is a a precedent.
Keep in mind that this was during the reign of one of the least democratically inclined presidents in US history, Woodrow Wilson. It's the kind of precedent we should be trying to prevent from ever happening again.
It's like you've never seen propaganda before. Having said that, I agree the claims are greatly exaggerated, I figure reelecting Obama will only result in 20 to 50 years of darkness.
The guy who works two eight hour jobs for his family, six days a week, for 30K a year works harder than Romney ever has. Yet Romney has over 3,000 times the wealth of that man and generally is of the opinion he got their on his own.
And Romney is right. I find it interesting that you realize the wealth versus luck dichotomy is a fallacy, yet you still commit the fallacy.
The missing consideration is that not all work is equally valuable. Romney just happened to be doing work that was orders of magnitude more valuable than the guy working two eight hour jobs. Maybe problem here isn't working harder, but rather working smarter. I'll just say that there is a considerable class of people who'd be working smarter even if the only trick they learned was how to show up at a job on time.
Here, we have a prime example of a multinational corporation using its immense power to control a large national government. Let's cut them off at the knees before they enslave us all!
At some point we will need to turn some of our attention away from cleaning up the blood and actually address the wound.
It's not my fault you can't tell the difference between injuries and illusions. As I noted, there are more important problems than AGW. It is a mystery to me why you continue to insist on obsessing on AGW when these real problems are causing far greater harm now than AGW is ever projected to do.
And it's worth repeating that NASA already has a great deal of experience with these needs. I still think this is something they could throw together in a month. To waste decades on it, while more important things aren't done, is yet another waste of resources which as I've indicated in other threads, shows that NASA can't do useful things with the money it currently gets, much less from any increase in its budget.
we can do this right now. the critical issue is getting the fat idiot senators and represenatives to give NASA 1% of the military budget to actually accomplish the task.
Or they could redirect the funding from the Space Launch System for equivalent results. In another thread, I complain that NASA is already given enough money to do its tasks. This is an example of tasks it could be doing right now with the money it wastes on frivolous projects like the SLS.
They do, and their space efforts are considerably superior to NASA's. Let's consider the ways. First, they do extremely useful things in space such as military reconnaissance, missile launch detection, GPS, and global communications.
They also are, unlike NASA, at the cutting edge of space development with the Evolutionary Expendable Launch Vehicle program (encouraging the first genuine competition in US commercial space launch since US commercial launch first came about in the mid 80s), reusable launch vehicles, space-based solar power, and launching satellites fast and cheap.
We're talking about space exploration. There is no "gets plenty of money" considering the modest goals we can imagine with current technology and the range of missions that can be achieved. I'm not sure why you think "gets plenty of money" is appropriate considering the the kinds of things NASA could do with a real budget and considering the kinds of goals that are out there.
It's simple really. NASA is wasting the money it currently gets, the manned program more so than the unmanned, but neither is a shining example of what can be done in space. So given that, why should we give it more to waste? That's throwing good money after bad.
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I think ultimately, the reason is that a number of people want absolute certainty and security in their lives. Scientific knowledge doesn't offer either. It's very nature makes things uncertain and you most certainly can't know more than a little bit of all the scientific knowledge out there (as a human). Further, it is very disruptive. Many disruptions in our lives and in our history came from fairly simple discoveries or inventions derived from scientific discovery.
So to have the illusion of absolute certainty and security in your belief system, you need to exclude to some degree scientific knowledge and ideas. It's not enough to ignore science in order to exclude it, it has to be wrong.
I think fundamentally that's what creationism is about. It's not about the world being created in a short period of time by a God, it's about science being absolutely wrong in one of its greatest claims. Hence, one can discount in their minds everything that has similar scientific support ("because you're wrong about evolution, then you have to be wrong about anything else that I believe in"). That removes a great source of uncertainty and fear from their lives.
You can't get elected to any national office unless you are religious
There are plenty of counterexamples. Politicians in the US apparently do have to make a public show of being religiously observant. But they don't have to be religious. For example, of the last few presidents since Reagan (who I gather was fairly religious), only George W. Bush (the younger one) was notably religious. We'll probably even find out at some future time that Clinton or Obama were atheist, just not openly so.
Ah, so you're a sociopath.
Am I surprised that someone with such a simplistic view of the world also happens to be a labeler? Not at all.
They're asking for more than the lowest possible amount the company can get away with paying them.
And what have they done to deserve this generosity? I just hear a bunch of bullshit about "fairness", "ethics", "civilized society", etc. I hear nothing about what we're going to give in exchange. As I said before, this is just greed, with a thin veneer of sanctimony. Those workers will always be asking for a little more.
It's one thing to ask for more, based on excellent work. And another to ask for a raise because it's the morally bullshit thing to do.
Right, because companies totally can't afford to compensate their workers more fairly.
Umm, that is correct even though you were trying to be sarcastic. It isn't companies's jobs to pay workers "fairly". Nor do they have the resources to do so since more compensation is always "fairer" than less. "Fairness" here is just another kind of greed.
Frankly, if there was genuine fairness in compensation, then developed world workers would be paid less not more.
Well, there's little an employee can do to work cheaper than a robot, which is the only way to beat the Chinese in manufacturing costs.
The obvious rebuttal is that the "little" you can do, is more than sufficient. Just work cheaper than a robot. That's what the Chinese are doing, after all, and it works for them. That may mean that you have actually train for a job where you are working cheaper than a robot.
When it should be" "How can I do something to earn my living without being employed on a wage".
That's a non-sequitur. There's no imperative "should" to how you decide to earn your living. Being employed on a wage does have its selling points.
Other countries tried "do nothing" Ireland and Britain for example.
Perhaps you need some assistance on what "do nothing" means. Do nothing would mean that they let banks fail hard. That didn't happen. Instead, they compromised the economic positions of their countries. And that's why they're currently not doing well. For example, Ireland's publicly held debt went from under 30% in 2007 to around 100% in 2012. The UK's was less dramatic, but it still went from 45% to around 80%.
You might recall saying that debt only mattered as a percentage of GDP, right? Well, there's the numbers.
Japan "did nothing" for a decade and almost saw total economic collapse.
Japan is the poster child for kickstart failure. They borrowed and spent heavily. If kickstarting works, then it should have worked in the Japanese case. Your claim is bizarrely wrong.
Japanese spending over the last couple of decades increased debt by vast amounts so that currently the country has over 200% debt per GDP.
What I see here is a very aggressive case of confirmation bias. If a country didn't do well, then you decide after the fact that they must not have tried to kickstart their economy, actual evidence to the contrary be damned.
And that leads to my point. Kickstarting has a history of failure. And here's why. It takes money from people and businesses that needed it and spends it on less useful and productive applications. The result is a net loss for the economy. The taking can be direct, say by taxes, or indirect, such as by interest payments and inflation.
Seriously here, when will the world wise up to the fact that "cheap cinese labor" has costs that don't tabulate out cleanly on expense sheets and quarterly reports?
Developed world labor has its own massive hidden costs, and it starts several times more expensive. How come I never hear "How can we make our labor more competitive with the Chinese?" Instead, it's "How can we fuck over our employers for more money and benefits while simultaneously forcing them to keep employing us?"
Well, I'll do my part and volunteer for our non-existent Mars program! Does that make you feel better?
There is not 100% water recovery.
Nor does there need to be. It's worth noting that even with 0% water recovery, it is possible to send people on significant Mars missions. But once you start implementing significant water recovery, you greatly reduce the need for the highest mass consumable used by humans.
Travelling with the astronauts means the food doesn't have to be stored for so long, and can be put inside a normal pressure vessel, so doesn't have to withstand vacuum.
It's not that hard to withstand vacuum especially if the food is already in a vacuum.
Let's not forget that the US is still in the recovery process from a massive recession, that requires increased spending to kickstart the economy.
And how many more years shall it remain in that "process"? Increased spending by government doesn't mean that any economies are getting kickstarted. That's because other parts of the economy are losing spending power as a result. It's worth noting that an alternate strategy, "do nothing" might have a somewhat deeper trough, but the economy would be firing up by now.
I second Wonko's assertion here. Look at US debt owed to the public as a fraction of GDP. It's gone up a lot in the last few years mostly under Obama.
1) At one time in the US, tax returns were public information. When the IRS was new, everyone's info was published to show that everyone paid their share. I'm not saying we need to force people back to this precedent, but just saying that there is a a precedent.
Keep in mind that this was during the reign of one of the least democratically inclined presidents in US history, Woodrow Wilson. It's the kind of precedent we should be trying to prevent from ever happening again.
It's like you've never seen propaganda before. Having said that, I agree the claims are greatly exaggerated, I figure reelecting Obama will only result in 20 to 50 years of darkness.
The guy who works two eight hour jobs for his family, six days a week, for 30K a year works harder than Romney ever has. Yet Romney has over 3,000 times the wealth of that man and generally is of the opinion he got their on his own.
And Romney is right. I find it interesting that you realize the wealth versus luck dichotomy is a fallacy, yet you still commit the fallacy.
The missing consideration is that not all work is equally valuable. Romney just happened to be doing work that was orders of magnitude more valuable than the guy working two eight hour jobs. Maybe problem here isn't working harder, but rather working smarter. I'll just say that there is a considerable class of people who'd be working smarter even if the only trick they learned was how to show up at a job on time.
I wonder when those "hackers" will get ambitious enough to go looking for Obama's school records.
Here, we have a prime example of a multinational corporation using its immense power to control a large national government. Let's cut them off at the knees before they enslave us all!
At some point we will need to turn some of our attention away from cleaning up the blood and actually address the wound.
It's not my fault you can't tell the difference between injuries and illusions. As I noted, there are more important problems than AGW. It is a mystery to me why you continue to insist on obsessing on AGW when these real problems are causing far greater harm now than AGW is ever projected to do.
Entropy is sinful?
Well, is it?
And it's worth repeating that NASA already has a great deal of experience with these needs. I still think this is something they could throw together in a month. To waste decades on it, while more important things aren't done, is yet another waste of resources which as I've indicated in other threads, shows that NASA can't do useful things with the money it currently gets, much less from any increase in its budget.
we can do this right now. the critical issue is getting the fat idiot senators and represenatives to give NASA 1% of the military budget to actually accomplish the task.
Or they could redirect the funding from the Space Launch System for equivalent results. In another thread, I complain that NASA is already given enough money to do its tasks. This is an example of tasks it could be doing right now with the money it wastes on frivolous projects like the SLS.
No, the Pentagon gets plenty of money.
They do, and their space efforts are considerably superior to NASA's. Let's consider the ways. First, they do extremely useful things in space such as military reconnaissance, missile launch detection, GPS, and global communications.
They also are, unlike NASA, at the cutting edge of space development with the Evolutionary Expendable Launch Vehicle program (encouraging the first genuine competition in US commercial space launch since US commercial launch first came about in the mid 80s), reusable launch vehicles, space-based solar power, and launching satellites fast and cheap.
We're talking about space exploration. There is no "gets plenty of money" considering the modest goals we can imagine with current technology and the range of missions that can be achieved. I'm not sure why you think "gets plenty of money" is appropriate considering the the kinds of things NASA could do with a real budget and considering the kinds of goals that are out there.
It's simple really. NASA is wasting the money it currently gets, the manned program more so than the unmanned, but neither is a shining example of what can be done in space. So given that, why should we give it more to waste? That's throwing good money after bad.
And yet another poster that would do well to heed their own advice.
In space, nobody can hear you scream.
And that's different how? Keep in mind no one can hear you scream in a storm either. Or if you're adrift alone.