"keep trying, and use logic rather than calling me a troll when I am pointing out facts."
You didn't point out *all* the facts in the earlier post when I called you a troll. You only pointed out TFA (the wuikipedia article on FISA), which contradicted what you were arguing. That is why I called you a troll. You told me to RTFA, which contradicted what you were saying, and in my book, that's trolling.
With the additional information you have pointed out now, I would say that you have won the argument. However, you didn't point that out earlier, and the only reference your cited contradicted your argument.
You are trolling. Allow me to highlight this from the wikipedia article you just quoted:
"the act does not authorize the use of warrantless surveillance on: groups engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor;"
There you go. It says "the act does not authorize". You need a warrant to wiretap Al Qaida. It's illegal to wiretap without a warrant. Bush broke the law.
"Not really. The concept of "now" is relative and depends on the relative velocity of two observers. time is purely relative to observers' relative speed."
Uh... that doesn't contradict what I said at all. Does what you say mean that there is a past and present in existence somewhere? Because that's all I was saying. You are just going into the details of the now that I was talking about.
He seems confused!? You are the one claiming we are at war without a declaration from congress.
So if we have an incoming call from 'Al Qaida' to Joe American, the Feds are allowed to tap it, so you say. Tell me, how do the Feds know that's Al Qaida calling, and not just Mohammed Arab, whose name *sounds like* someone from Al Qaida?
Besides, we were at war with Nazi Germany long before the FISA laws were enacted in 1978. Nowadays we are living under FISA laws. The president does not get to break the law, regardless of wether or not we are at war.
So what does FISA say about warrantless international wiretape? It says: "the act does not authorize the use of warrantless surveillance on: groups engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor..."
So there you have it. We are not allowed to wiretap international terrorist groups without a warrant. We *can* tap them if they get a warrant. But bush went ahead and tapped them anyways, without a warrant, which is a violation of the 1978 FISA act. Bush broke the law, plain and simple. Tell your congresspeople to impeach him.
I don't fully understand the situation with China holding US debt. Is the debt they hold in US dollars? If so, isn't it in their interested to get as much of the debt re-paid ASAP if they think the dollar will collapse in the near future? They still get to maintain their power position over the US with the debt, but the value of that debt has collapsed, so they lose power in the international arena.
Or does the US have to repay the *value* of the debt? I.E. China floats the Yuan, and the dollar collapses, the US has to pay China much more than the would have if the dollar hadn't collapsed?
"That's weird because I could have sworn when I went to bed last night it was yesterday and now its today."
Not really. Now it's now, and that's all that is. You remember yesterday, but that is a memory occuring now. The past doesn't physically exist. Nor does the future. The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.
Well, in that case, premeditated murder is a thought crime. The only difference between manslaughter and murder is *intent* -- a thought. The only difference between murder and pre-meditated murder the the *plan* to commit the murder -- a collection of thoughts. So by your logic, a murder charge is a thought-crime charge -- after all, the only difference between murder and manslaughter is intent.
Personally I have no problem with giving more punishing for hate crimes, because its a kind of terrorism and inflicts fear on a community. If one guy kills another for sleeping with his wife, nobody else should be afraid (unless they are sleeping with the killer's wife). However, if somebody decides to kill a black or gay person *because* they are black or gay, then all blacks and gays have reason to be afraid.
"One trouble with that, as with all utopian visions, is that implementation never follows design. "
Then how did modern representational democracy manage to work? It certainly was a utopian vision when it was introduced in the 1700s.
"If everyone knows what everyone else is doing, a sheeplike uniformity would be the result, with any oddballs subjected to public disgrace."
I disagree. There is nobody that's normal. If someone is calling you out about your choice of bathroom paint color, just go through their records and say, "Oh yeah? What about the carpet you chose for for bedroom?"
"Some of the greatest joys in life are private. A quiet conversation with a spouse. Reading a bedtime story to a wide-eyed child. Singing off-key in the car. Posting anonymous trolls on Slashdot."
I don't think the privacyless future need necessarily cut off all anonymous and private behavior. All that would happen is that if there are blank spots in your public record, people would treat that as extremely suspicious. If you say "Yes, I was with my wife that weekend" then people would say "Then why does this hot young lady who people have seen you with *also* have a blank spot in her schedule that weekend?"
I think the most important thing for this is to have politicians be honest about who they are meeting with. You can have your privacy with your immediate family. However, if you are meeting with someone who is not directly related with you, the public needs to know about that if you are in a position of political power.
You know, I was thinking about this, and I'm glad someone spelled it out already. They probably explained it much better than I could have.
The problem is, how do we get there? I think if some political candidate became one of these 24/7 webcam people, the consituents voted for them, and they still managed to be somehow politically successful (none of the people in government or business want to go on record), that would set the standard, and then everyone had to 'go public'. If Joe Farmer does it, he just looks like a nut with a fetish for exposing himself.
"
So, how bad does it have to get before we revolt?"
There's a saying that goes something like "people with full bellies don't revolt."
What has to happen, in order for some kind of revolution, is that the daily grind for most people has to become such a losing proposition that they would rather march around in the streets instead of go to work that day.
Personally, I think the collapse of the dollar would be the most likely scenario that would bring about major change in the US in the next 10 years.
My guess is that it makes sense and is backed up by facts. It's not dogmatic clinging to an outdated idea.
"So are you telling me you can sense the temperature of something if it doesn't touch you? (excluding what you can see, of course, e.g. fire, molten metal.) "
Yes. You can sense heat radiating off of any object radiating heat. Nothing is touching you; all that's happening is electromagnetic waves are hitting your temperature sensing nerves. This is basic physics.
You can also sense heat from conduction and conduction. Technically, in these cases, air molecules or liquid molecules are in contact with you, at the atomic level. But they are not exerting enough force on you to trigger your pressure-sensing nerves.
So again, the nerves that let you know someone or something is rubbing up against you are totally seperate from the nerves that sense temperature. If you don't consider seperate nueral pathways to be seperate senses. I don't know what criteria you are using, besides these outdated categories you got from Aristotle.
You are grouping things together that really don't belong together. I can see how this might make sense if you call 'touch' anything that the nerves in your skin sense, but it doesn't make sense for later examples.
"Of course not, you only know the temperature of things you touch..."
Wrong again. You can sense thermal radiation, which is not conducted through a medium. In other words, you can sense heat without touching anything.
In any case, when you pick something up, it's not the pressure nerves that are sensing the heat -- it's the temperature nerves.
"Tell me, what does CO2 smell/taste like?...
Tell me, what does chocolate smell/taste like?"
What does this have to do with the smell of CO2? Nothing.
CO2 doesn't smell like anything. You can't smell it. We don't have receptors in the nose for CO2. So, when you sense too much CO2, you are not smelling it, as you claimed earlier.
"You can't sense how much C02 is in the atmosphere around you. You only know when there is an excess of C02 in your blood, which causes you to breathe more heavily/faster. This isn't a sense in this context as it tells you nothing of your surroundings."
Why are you chaning your story now? Earlier you said that people smell CO2.
"..."humidity sense - smell/taste and possibly touch;"
Nope, there are man ways to tell if it's humid, but only if it is extreme one way or the other. Inability to cool ones self by sweating, so feeling hot and wet is the most common way to know it's extremely humid. A lack of tracheal mucous, which can feel like a sore throat from extremely dry air."
Yes, those examples are valid, but that is not what I am talking about. I am not talking about "Gee, it's humid outside!" I am talking about the internal, unconscious, body's sense of humidity. There is a specific function in the lungs that senses humidity. You are not smelling it or tasting it or touching it, as you claim.
"..."air pressure sense - sensed by the ear drum using the same mechanism as hearing, and possibly touch."
Hearing and air pressure are totally separate. Auditory nerves hear. They do not sense air pressure. Air pressure is not enough pressure to trigger pressure nerves in the skin..."
You can't sense air pressure anyway, at least not in your normal day to day life. "
What you just said is correct, which is why air pressure sense is not hearing. If you wree hearing air pressure, it would have a sound, a tone. You can't sense it consciously, as in "Hey, it's dense in here!" But the body does keep track of the temperature, unconscious
You are right. The touch sense isn't centered in the middle of your face. It covers the entire fucking surface of your body. How silly of me to have forgotten it.
Kind of ruins my point that Aristotle's five sense are the ones that are big and obvious, huh?
I think the evolutionary benefit of having your mom live a long time is that she will get higher up in the social hierarchy the longer she lives.
In most societies, the elders are the decision makers, by a process of simple seniority. the longer a woman lives, the more chance she has to arrange society to benefit her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
"The other 'objective' senses that you mentioned are just special subsets of the general senses. "
Total bullshit. You're just saying that to give youself some kind of reason to cling to the outdated 'five senses'. Let's go through them:
"Temperature sense - touch; "
Wrong. Our pressure-sensitive nerve are totally seperate from our temperature sensing nerves. Different sense altogether.
"CO2 sense - smell/taste;"
Tell me, what does CO2 smell/taste like?
"humidity sense - smell/taste and possibly touch;"
Nope. Happens in the lungs.
"air pressure sense - sensed by the ear drum using the same mechanism as hearing, and possibly touch."
Hearing and air pressure are totally seperate. Auditory nerves hear. They do not sense air pressure. Air pressure is not enough pressure to trigger pressure nerves in the skin.
So you see, you are just lumping all of these seperate senses into whichever of the five senses seems most similar to you.
"
The 'subjective' senses that you mention not senses in the strict sense of the word, because they're internal feedback mechanisms; they don't actually sense anything about the environment. The sense of "orientation" may be an exception. I don't disagree with calling that a sense, because it senses something about the environment - that is, the direction of gravity."
In this sense, I am talking about sensory data that wouldn't exist without the organism that is doing the sensing. Things like hunger and pain. If I wasn't around, I obviously would be unable to sense my own pain. Similary, orientation is not an absolute sense (like, "How much CO2 is in this room?") but is is relative to the body's orientation towards the earth.
"I wouldn't put it at the same level as what we consider the five main senses, though, because its not nearly as developed a sense, and is (arguably) far less important."
Let me ask you this -- where did you get the phrase "the five main senses". Where are you getting these 'levels' from?
It
comes from Aristotle, who was the reigning expert on everything up until about 250 years ago. After we started doing experimental science, it turns out he was wrong about almost everything. We do have a lot more senses that Aristotle thought we did; information is relayed on different nerve cells. Just because different types of information sensing happens in the ear, doesn't mean it's all hearing. Hearing is just sensing sound waves. Air pressure is not sound waves, and it is not sensed by the auditory nerve.
"Most of our main senses "have big fucking organs smack in the middle of our face" because they're most useful there. Our face is high up, highly pointable, and close to our brain."
Right. That's why they're there. However, my point is that the reasons that sight, smell, hearing, and taste are the five senses is that the sensing organs are big and obvious.
Hey, as others mentioned, we have other 'objective' senses such temperature sense, CO2 sense ('stuffy room'), humidity sense, air pressure sense, etc, (along with other 'subjective senses' such as hunger, pain, orientation, etc. ) The reasons that, say, sight is one of the five senses over CO2 sense is that eyes are big and obvious, and we are very conscious of vision.
"Also, there's the well-known trick where you stand in a doorway and press your arms against the side for a minute or so, then your arms feel "light" for a while. That works because you confuse this sense."
I thought this was because you were wearing out one set of muscles that keeps a tension balance in the arms. So, without one set pulling as hard, the other set it still pulling, and your arms feel light.
This is true in Finland also. There is typically a washroom in the house that has a washing machine (dryers are not often used), a sauna in a smaller subroom, and a shower area that has no door or any other seperating thing. There is often a drain in the main section of the washroom.
There is usually another totally seperate smaller room with a toilet and sink. This caused problems for me as an exchange student -- I would wake up groggy in the morning, head into the washroom to take a shower, take of all my clothes, look around for the toilet, and then put my pants back on to go to the other room to take my morning piss.
But what about this -- the 'group' that has signed off on an article is not same same people that got together, butted heads, and wrote the article. Therefore, the 'agrees' of an alternative or extremist articles didn't go through this groupthink process that causes people to come to more extremist views than they began with. This isn't an actual conference with people together in a room, it's just random people on the internet, all over the world.
It's not that the 'agree' people were brow-beaten by the hard liners in the group. It's just that they happened to be browsing along wikipedia one day, and happened to agree. It's just as likely that they might disagree or remain nuetral on any article. They are not going through this polarizing process that you describe.
I guess a good test to try is see how many people are involved in the creation of any article. My guess would be no more than 50. So any extremist article would have say, 5-50 people that went through this groupthink process that has them agreeing to something they would never have agreed to beforehand. The rest of the article readers wouldn't have gone through this polarizing process, so we can't say that they would agree to an extreme article.
Hm, that's a good point. I thought that giving proponents their own place would reduce edit wars in the article, since under the single article header there is limited space in which to get your view across. But it looks like I am wrong.
You know, you're right, there is one part of this idea that I left out. What this also needs to prevent the problems you are talking about is a signing system. All text and revision can be signed off by individuals. You would be able to sign 'agree' and 'disagree'. Controversial articles would have a lot of agrees and a lot of disagrees. Some articles would have only agress, and those would probably be the best, most nuetral articles for public consumption. Some articles would be all disagree, and those would likely be trolls. Some articles would have a lot of disagress, like some conspiracy theories, or white supremacist views, etc. but they would have a strong base of agrees. I think those views have a place in wikipedia, if it purports to be a comprehensive source of information in the modern world.
So if you have a reputation system for articles, there can be default filters for casual browsers so that they see only the most agreed-with articles. However, you can take the filters off and enter the wierd world of alternative viewpoints.
I like the idea of signing, but I don't like the idea of experts or moderators.
I'd rather give everyone the ability to sign articles. That way, over time, wikipedia builds its own reputation for articles and users. I don't want to throw out unpopular opinions or inflammatory articles -- if wikipedia wants to be comprehensive like an encyclopedia, it has to include them. However, in this age of information, the computer's job is to search and filter in the sea of data. A reputation system for articles and editors would make the encyclopedia useful and still allow for all viewpoints.
Slashdot Mirror
"keep trying, and use logic rather than calling me a troll when I am pointing out facts."
You didn't point out *all* the facts in the earlier post when I called you a troll. You only pointed out TFA (the wuikipedia article on FISA), which contradicted what you were arguing. That is why I called you a troll. You told me to RTFA, which contradicted what you were saying, and in my book, that's trolling.
With the additional information you have pointed out now, I would say that you have won the argument. However, you didn't point that out earlier, and the only reference your cited contradicted your argument.
You are trolling. Allow me to highlight this from the wikipedia article you just quoted:
"the act does not authorize the use of warrantless surveillance on: groups engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor;"
There you go. It says "the act does not authorize". You need a warrant to wiretap Al Qaida. It's illegal to wiretap without a warrant. Bush broke the law.
"Not really. The concept of "now" is relative and depends on the relative velocity of two observers. time is purely relative to observers' relative speed."
Uh... that doesn't contradict what I said at all. Does what you say mean that there is a past and present in existence somewhere? Because that's all I was saying. You are just going into the details of the now that I was talking about.
He seems confused!? You are the one claiming we are at war without a declaration from congress.
So if we have an incoming call from 'Al Qaida' to Joe American, the Feds are allowed to tap it, so you say. Tell me, how do the Feds know that's Al Qaida calling, and not just Mohammed Arab, whose name *sounds like* someone from Al Qaida?
Besides, we were at war with Nazi Germany long before the FISA laws were enacted in 1978. Nowadays we are living under FISA laws. The president does not get to break the law, regardless of wether or not we are at war.
So what does FISA say about warrantless international wiretape? It says: "the act does not authorize the use of warrantless surveillance on: groups engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor..."
So there you have it. We are not allowed to wiretap international terrorist groups without a warrant. We *can* tap them if they get a warrant. But bush went ahead and tapped them anyways, without a warrant, which is a violation of the 1978 FISA act. Bush broke the law, plain and simple. Tell your congresspeople to impeach him.
I don't fully understand the situation with China holding US debt. Is the debt they hold in US dollars? If so, isn't it in their interested to get as much of the debt re-paid ASAP if they think the dollar will collapse in the near future? They still get to maintain their power position over the US with the debt, but the value of that debt has collapsed, so they lose power in the international arena.
Or does the US have to repay the *value* of the debt? I.E. China floats the Yuan, and the dollar collapses, the US has to pay China much more than the would have if the dollar hadn't collapsed?
"That's weird because I could have sworn when I went to bed last night it was yesterday and now its today."
Not really. Now it's now, and that's all that is. You remember yesterday, but that is a memory occuring now. The past doesn't physically exist. Nor does the future. The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.
Well, in that case, premeditated murder is a thought crime. The only difference between manslaughter and murder is *intent* -- a thought. The only difference between murder and pre-meditated murder the the *plan* to commit the murder -- a collection of thoughts. So by your logic, a murder charge is a thought-crime charge -- after all, the only difference between murder and manslaughter is intent.
Personally I have no problem with giving more punishing for hate crimes, because its a kind of terrorism and inflicts fear on a community. If one guy kills another for sleeping with his wife, nobody else should be afraid (unless they are sleeping with the killer's wife). However, if somebody decides to kill a black or gay person *because* they are black or gay, then all blacks and gays have reason to be afraid.
"One trouble with that, as with all utopian visions, is that implementation never follows design. "
Then how did modern representational democracy manage to work? It certainly was a utopian vision when it was introduced in the 1700s.
"If everyone knows what everyone else is doing, a sheeplike uniformity would be the result, with any oddballs subjected to public disgrace."
I disagree. There is nobody that's normal. If someone is calling you out about your choice of bathroom paint color, just go through their records and say, "Oh yeah? What about the carpet you chose for for bedroom?"
"Some of the greatest joys in life are private. A quiet conversation with a spouse. Reading a bedtime story to a wide-eyed child. Singing off-key in the car. Posting anonymous trolls on Slashdot."
I don't think the privacyless future need necessarily cut off all anonymous and private behavior. All that would happen is that if there are blank spots in your public record, people would treat that as extremely suspicious. If you say "Yes, I was with my wife that weekend" then people would say "Then why does this hot young lady who people have seen you with *also* have a blank spot in her schedule that weekend?"
I think the most important thing for this is to have politicians be honest about who they are meeting with. You can have your privacy with your immediate family. However, if you are meeting with someone who is not directly related with you, the public needs to know about that if you are in a position of political power.
You know, I was thinking about this, and I'm glad someone spelled it out already. They probably explained it much better than I could have.
The problem is, how do we get there? I think if some political candidate became one of these 24/7 webcam people, the consituents voted for them, and they still managed to be somehow politically successful (none of the people in government or business want to go on record), that would set the standard, and then everyone had to 'go public'. If Joe Farmer does it, he just looks like a nut with a fetish for exposing himself.
" So, how bad does it have to get before we revolt?"
There's a saying that goes something like "people with full bellies don't revolt."
What has to happen, in order for some kind of revolution, is that the daily grind for most people has to become such a losing proposition that they would rather march around in the streets instead of go to work that day.
Personally, I think the collapse of the dollar would be the most likely scenario that would bring about major change in the US in the next 10 years.
"How on earth did his get modded insightful?"
..."air pressure sense - sensed by the ear drum using the same mechanism as hearing, and possibly touch."
My guess is that it makes sense and is backed up by facts. It's not dogmatic clinging to an outdated idea.
"So are you telling me you can sense the temperature of something if it doesn't touch you? (excluding what you can see, of course, e.g. fire, molten metal.) "
Yes. You can sense heat radiating off of any object radiating heat. Nothing is touching you; all that's happening is electromagnetic waves are hitting your temperature sensing nerves. This is basic physics.
You can also sense heat from conduction and conduction. Technically, in these cases, air molecules or liquid molecules are in contact with you, at the atomic level. But they are not exerting enough force on you to trigger your pressure-sensing nerves.
So again, the nerves that let you know someone or something is rubbing up against you are totally seperate from the nerves that sense temperature. If you don't consider seperate nueral pathways to be seperate senses. I don't know what criteria you are using, besides these outdated categories you got from Aristotle.
You are grouping things together that really don't belong together. I can see how this might make sense if you call 'touch' anything that the nerves in your skin sense, but it doesn't make sense for later examples.
"Of course not, you only know the temperature of things you touch..."
Wrong again. You can sense thermal radiation, which is not conducted through a medium. In other words, you can sense heat without touching anything. In any case, when you pick something up, it's not the pressure nerves that are sensing the heat -- it's the temperature nerves.
"Tell me, what does CO2 smell/taste like?...
Tell me, what does chocolate smell/taste like?"
What does this have to do with the smell of CO2? Nothing.
CO2 doesn't smell like anything. You can't smell it. We don't have receptors in the nose for CO2. So, when you sense too much CO2, you are not smelling it, as you claimed earlier.
"You can't sense how much C02 is in the atmosphere around you. You only know when there is an excess of C02 in your blood, which causes you to breathe more heavily/faster. This isn't a sense in this context as it tells you nothing of your surroundings."
Why are you chaning your story now? Earlier you said that people smell CO2.
"..."humidity sense - smell/taste and possibly touch;" Nope, there are man ways to tell if it's humid, but only if it is extreme one way or the other. Inability to cool ones self by sweating, so feeling hot and wet is the most common way to know it's extremely humid. A lack of tracheal mucous, which can feel like a sore throat from extremely dry air."
Yes, those examples are valid, but that is not what I am talking about. I am not talking about "Gee, it's humid outside!" I am talking about the internal, unconscious, body's sense of humidity. There is a specific function in the lungs that senses humidity. You are not smelling it or tasting it or touching it, as you claim.
"
Hearing and air pressure are totally separate. Auditory nerves hear. They do not sense air pressure. Air pressure is not enough pressure to trigger pressure nerves in the skin..."
You can't sense air pressure anyway, at least not in your normal day to day life. "
What you just said is correct, which is why air pressure sense is not hearing. If you wree hearing air pressure, it would have a sound, a tone. You can't sense it consciously, as in "Hey, it's dense in here!" But the body does keep track of the temperature, unconscious
You are right. The touch sense isn't centered in the middle of your face. It covers the entire fucking surface of your body. How silly of me to have forgotten it.
Kind of ruins my point that Aristotle's five sense are the ones that are big and obvious, huh?
What do you think this placenta is? An impenetrable brick wall?
FYI cells can travel through it.
Markus H Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?! Don't you know that you are arguing with REALITY MASTER?
You must really be a loony if you are so foolish as to ARGUE with REALITY.
I think the evolutionary benefit of having your mom live a long time is that she will get higher up in the social hierarchy the longer she lives.
In most societies, the elders are the decision makers, by a process of simple seniority. the longer a woman lives, the more chance she has to arrange society to benefit her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
"The other 'objective' senses that you mentioned are just special subsets of the general senses. "
Total bullshit. You're just saying that to give youself some kind of reason to cling to the outdated 'five senses'. Let's go through them:
"Temperature sense - touch; "
Wrong. Our pressure-sensitive nerve are totally seperate from our temperature sensing nerves. Different sense altogether.
"CO2 sense - smell/taste;"
Tell me, what does CO2 smell/taste like?
"humidity sense - smell/taste and possibly touch;"
Nope. Happens in the lungs.
"air pressure sense - sensed by the ear drum using the same mechanism as hearing, and possibly touch."
Hearing and air pressure are totally seperate. Auditory nerves hear. They do not sense air pressure. Air pressure is not enough pressure to trigger pressure nerves in the skin.
So you see, you are just lumping all of these seperate senses into whichever of the five senses seems most similar to you.
" The 'subjective' senses that you mention not senses in the strict sense of the word, because they're internal feedback mechanisms; they don't actually sense anything about the environment. The sense of "orientation" may be an exception. I don't disagree with calling that a sense, because it senses something about the environment - that is, the direction of gravity."
In this sense, I am talking about sensory data that wouldn't exist without the organism that is doing the sensing. Things like hunger and pain. If I wasn't around, I obviously would be unable to sense my own pain. Similary, orientation is not an absolute sense (like, "How much CO2 is in this room?") but is is relative to the body's orientation towards the earth.
"I wouldn't put it at the same level as what we consider the five main senses, though, because its not nearly as developed a sense, and is (arguably) far less important."
Let me ask you this -- where did you get the phrase "the five main senses". Where are you getting these 'levels' from?
It comes from Aristotle, who was the reigning expert on everything up until about 250 years ago. After we started doing experimental science, it turns out he was wrong about almost everything. We do have a lot more senses that Aristotle thought we did; information is relayed on different nerve cells. Just because different types of information sensing happens in the ear, doesn't mean it's all hearing. Hearing is just sensing sound waves. Air pressure is not sound waves, and it is not sensed by the auditory nerve.
"Most of our main senses "have big fucking organs smack in the middle of our face" because they're most useful there. Our face is high up, highly pointable, and close to our brain."
Right. That's why they're there. However, my point is that the reasons that sight, smell, hearing, and taste are the five senses is that the sensing organs are big and obvious.
Hey, as others mentioned, we have other 'objective' senses such temperature sense, CO2 sense ('stuffy room'), humidity sense, air pressure sense, etc, (along with other 'subjective senses' such as hunger, pain, orientation, etc. ) The reasons that, say, sight is one of the five senses over CO2 sense is that eyes are big and obvious, and we are very conscious of vision.
"The five senses that humans have are classified as such because they are five distinct ways that we can sense our environment and surroundings."
They are classified that way because each of them have big fucking organs smack in the middle of our face.
We have dozens of other senses that aren't well known because all they are are a few nerves deep inside our body.
"Also, there's the well-known trick where you stand in a doorway and press your arms against the side for a minute or so, then your arms feel "light" for a while. That works because you confuse this sense."
I thought this was because you were wearing out one set of muscles that keeps a tension balance in the arms. So, without one set pulling as hard, the other set it still pulling, and your arms feel light.
This is true in Finland also. There is typically a washroom in the house that has a washing machine (dryers are not often used), a sauna in a smaller subroom, and a shower area that has no door or any other seperating thing. There is often a drain in the main section of the washroom.
There is usually another totally seperate smaller room with a toilet and sink. This caused problems for me as an exchange student -- I would wake up groggy in the morning, head into the washroom to take a shower, take of all my clothes, look around for the toilet, and then put my pants back on to go to the other room to take my morning piss.
But what about this -- the 'group' that has signed off on an article is not same same people that got together, butted heads, and wrote the article. Therefore, the 'agrees' of an alternative or extremist articles didn't go through this groupthink process that causes people to come to more extremist views than they began with. This isn't an actual conference with people together in a room, it's just random people on the internet, all over the world.
It's not that the 'agree' people were brow-beaten by the hard liners in the group. It's just that they happened to be browsing along wikipedia one day, and happened to agree. It's just as likely that they might disagree or remain nuetral on any article. They are not going through this polarizing process that you describe.
I guess a good test to try is see how many people are involved in the creation of any article. My guess would be no more than 50. So any extremist article would have say, 5-50 people that went through this groupthink process that has them agreeing to something they would never have agreed to beforehand. The rest of the article readers wouldn't have gone through this polarizing process, so we can't say that they would agree to an extreme article.
Hm, that's a good point. I thought that giving proponents their own place would reduce edit wars in the article, since under the single article header there is limited space in which to get your view across. But it looks like I am wrong.
You know, you're right, there is one part of this idea that I left out. What this also needs to prevent the problems you are talking about is a signing system. All text and revision can be signed off by individuals. You would be able to sign 'agree' and 'disagree'. Controversial articles would have a lot of agrees and a lot of disagrees. Some articles would have only agress, and those would probably be the best, most nuetral articles for public consumption. Some articles would be all disagree, and those would likely be trolls. Some articles would have a lot of disagress, like some conspiracy theories, or white supremacist views, etc. but they would have a strong base of agrees. I think those views have a place in wikipedia, if it purports to be a comprehensive source of information in the modern world.
So if you have a reputation system for articles, there can be default filters for casual browsers so that they see only the most agreed-with articles. However, you can take the filters off and enter the wierd world of alternative viewpoints.
I like the idea of signing, but I don't like the idea of experts or moderators.
I'd rather give everyone the ability to sign articles. That way, over time, wikipedia builds its own reputation for articles and users. I don't want to throw out unpopular opinions or inflammatory articles -- if wikipedia wants to be comprehensive like an encyclopedia, it has to include them. However, in this age of information, the computer's job is to search and filter in the sea of data. A reputation system for articles and editors would make the encyclopedia useful and still allow for all viewpoints.
I like how your 'rebuttal' containts no facts nor any arguments, just name-calling.
Actually, I don't like it. I was just being sarcastic. There is nothing more hypocritical than 'skeptics' and 'debunkers' who are nothing but trolls.