Currently, yes. Next year? It's beginning to look like not, as we see the return of triple digit inflation in food and fuel prices. Not to mention China finally figuring they've got a large enough middle class to turn towards domestic production instead of export production, and dumping the dollar in favor of tangible ownership in the United States.
Your single biggest expense, most likely, is housing, which is still priced in dollars.
And which has seen a 300% increase since 1995, if the history of tax assessments on my house are to be believed (1995 tax assessment, $75,000. 2007 tax assessment, which I just received, $262,000)
Next after that are various services -- the labour of fellow Americans, mostly, as well as immigrants (legal and otherwise), which are all priced in dollars too. This labor is the biggest part of the price of those "Made in America" items, which you dismiss as merely assembled here. It is also a big part of the retail price of just about anything you buy (wherever it is made)...
Assembly is largely done by robots, not by human beings.
Manufacturing? China's currency is pegged to the dollar at the moment, and will be for a while. China-made stuff is thus not getting more expensive, whatever dollar/euro ratio is -- that covers nearly all manufactured items sold in US -- for better or worse.
You must have missed the news last week-China has begun dumping the dollar. A situation that will only increase in the next year.
What did I miss? Oh, yeah, imported wines and cheeses...
And blueberries, beef, wheat, soy, corn, strawberries, milk, peanuts, etc. Ask any farmer- they've all had to compete with cheaper imports from Asia, South America, and Europe. MOST of what you eat is imported these days. Like those tomatos in December? That's globalization.
Amazing. A few months ago we were lamenting, how the techies are underpaid, and how all tech jobs are outsourced to India (as if Indians are any less deserving). Now comes the news of tech-salaries growing rather quickly, but the lamentations don't cease!
That's because it is once again fake numbers, paid for by the upper class. You can't trust the ITAA to put out anything real.
The H-1 visas are all "sold-out" within hours every year -- hundreds of thousands of people dream of coming here to work (white-collar work) for the salary you seem to dismiss as insufficient... Maybe, you ought to pack up and leave to make room for fresh immigrants -- evidently, your family has used up its time in this country, if the latest generation (you) is so unappreciative.
The victims of a con job should not be blamed for being cheated out of a dream. On either side. They'd be better off staying where they are- the United States is the land of slavery, not freedom.
Why would I believe the biased and incorrect data of paid shills for the investor class, over real data like the fact that THIS YEAR farmers are suffering a shortage of pesticides and herbicides, which will result in a doubling of food prices next year? Note also that I said 1995 & 2008, not 2007.
Only if you are spending all of your US dollars on merchandise/services produced outside of the U.S.
Or at least most. If you're not spending more than 75% of your income on imports, then you either must live in one of the few places in the United States where Agriculture and manufacturing hasn't been utterly destroyed by imports, or you actually believe "Made in America" means something more than parts created in Mexico & China and shipped here for assembly.
I dare you to find a 100% made in America computer or car.
Or anything else requiring magnets, capacitors, and resistors (none of which are made in America anymore).
Heck- for that matter- I challenge you to find a US Soldier who isn't dependent upon part of his gear made someplace else than America.
For that reason, yes, the falling US dollar is about to make a 2008 $75,000/year paycheck feel like a 1995 $26,000/year paycheck. Good luck continuing to afford your education, for which you need to keep your techie job more than a couple of generations of languages and operating systems, on THAT.
What we really need is a truth in advertising law with some real teeth. I recommend public stoning for liars- doesn't matter to me if they are CEOs , politicians, or just advertising execs.
Just what part of "unlimited access" in the contract do these ISPs NOT understand?
Well, somewhat. Wildlife Safari treats all their animals as wild, and they've got a herd. Just about as wild as you'll see in Kenya- where if the elephants stray from the protected safari lands, they'll get shot by poachers.
Whether experiencing one of the many wonderous things man has achieved or being within a meter or two of a herd of wild elephants while they bath and play in a watering hole there's an awful lot of great things to experience in the world.
I've got both of them right here in Oregon. I don't need to go elsewhere.
If you can provide me with a single religion based on science (that's science, by the way, not faith), then I will still be impressed.
Pope Benedict XVI's version of Roman Catholicism. Of course, that's not quite fair- Roman Catholicism invented science. But then again, there is also Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism (the only religion that takes science to it's logical end), the peer review system.
Religions are not scientific. By definition. Saying that they are doesn't make it true.
And being an idiot who worships the peer review system doesn't make science any different than any other religion.
- you believe that non-scientific analysis is as valid as scientific (which is demonstrably wrong)
I'd say "within it's realm" but yes. It's totally unfounded to claim that non-scientific analysis is wrong MERELY because it is non-scientific- and in fact, in the past, science has a pretty bad track record.
- you do not understand what "objective" and "subjective" mean, hence there's a lot of confusion
Either that, or you don't understand these terms- if you think ANYTHING that relies on information transmitted between human beings can possibly be objective.
you overuse the word "bigot"; as far as I can determine, you use it to mean: "people who disagree with me"
No, that word means "people who have a prejudice against other people merely because of who they are"- such as your bigotry against non-scientists.
1) Not all scientists are white (I have NO IDEA, again, what you meant by that, by the way)
Your rejection of data from non-white cultures, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the Vedas or the Semetic Bible, would indicate to me a deep-seated racism.
2) peer review by scientists IS superior to peer review by non-scientists, because scientists tend to use the scientific method better, and tend to be more objective
Except, of course, in the case of the scientific method itself, where they tend to be completely subjective and religious. But hey, don't let your own logical inconsistencies get to you!
3) "Objective" still doesn't mean what you think it means. Mutliple witnesses are not objective. Double blind tests were developed specifically *because* humans find it very difficult to be subjective, and their observations can taint the evidence if they know what test is being performed. Double blind tests with statistical analysis are not perfect by any means, but they are much better than the methods used by non-scientists, who often fall into the traps which these techniques are specifically designed to avoid.
Thanks for admitting my real main point- objectivity is a myth that human beings, including scientists, are completely incapable of.
Welcome to solipsism. Hope you like the fact nothing exists.
If you have a theory, write it up and submit it for proper scientific peer review. They will tell you what is wrong, you will call them "bigots" and go away quite happily believing that you are, in some way, still correct even when all the actual evidence points otherwise.
The entire peer review system is a method by which one separates one group of human beings from another, and is therefore prejudice and bigotry. Sorry- you seem to be worshiping a logically flawed system.
People used to survive 6 month trips cross country to see an ill loved one. Many times that loved one died before they got there. Was that evil?
If so, I recommend not leaving home.
I'd like to see it a bit more strict- maybe including that new brain scan tech- but yes. That's the point. Looks like the going rate (from the website you mentioned) is $99.95....
I don't travel. I don't see any reason to. Oregon has all I'll ever need. In fact, I don't see any reason for trade or for anybody else to travel either.
I'll take your word for that. So.. the disagreement was with the nature of the orbits, rather than the orbits themselves?
Don't take my word for it- go search out and read the records yourself. That's the whole point. The only way to find objective proof is to try the experiment yourself.
Fascinating - I never knew that. Was that worth putting a man on trial for, then, and demanding that he recant, on pain of death?
Actually, the penalty was a Vatican grant, a 42 room house, a laboratory, and house arrest until he had proof of his theory. Since he never found such proof, he was never allowed out of the house. But that wasn't punishment for his theory- it was punishment for the rather nasty treatise he published that said everybody who believed that they moved in eliptical orbits were jackasses.
Because it looked to everyone else as if the Church was wanting to supress the truth because it disagreed with their religous dogma.
Only to people who thought the movements of the planets were dogma. I'll give you a hint- the Roman Catholic Church has defined dogma as the deposit of faith taught by Jesus to the Apostles. Do you see anything in that about planets and stars? I don't.
Do you agree with the current Catholic dogma? In *every* area?
I agree with dogma in every area- but I'm a bit of a heretic on doctrine. Especially the doctrine that says man is free to migrate for work, and that nations should trade without regard to their citizen's welfare. But I'm not going to say that the Pope is a jackass for believing that people should have the right to migrate for work either- I'm just personally a bit hurt by it.
No. Subjective experiences of god are subjective. That is what "subjective" means. "Objective" is something different. This should not be an issue for debate, surely?
Once something is repeatable, it ceases to be subjective and becomes objective. For instance, it was once subjective experience that panda bears existed. Now that a few have been captured and are living in zoos, it's a repeatable objective experience. The experience of the divine USED to be subjective- didn't work for everybody. It's now an objective, repeatable experience.
Nope. TFA is making no claim to experience "the Divine deity", but rather that they can reproduce the feeling that many people have *claimed* to be a divine deity. But without any divine activity. Whatsoever. Unless you wish to claim that god has a measurable ampage, and that we should change his fuse every once in a while..?
Basically, every human mind has the capability of discerning God. But only in certain physiological states, which before this were very hard to reach. It's now a repeatable fact that it can be reached.
Can you back that up in any way? I ask for evidence. A hundred thousand people shouting "THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT AND TRUE MORE THAN THOSE OTHER 99,999 PEOPLE'S BOOKS" isn't really convincing. I declined to read YOUR book in the same way I decline those other 99,999 people. You have a claim? Fine. Measure it. Analayse it. Submit it for peer review.
What makes your peer review any more special than the peer review of 20 generations of lamas?
"We don't qualify for peer review because we don't NEED it because WE were given the truth before we started" is NOT a valid argument. It's stupid.
No, that's not what I said. I said it's already BEEN peer reviewed, by actual peers, rather than by a bunch of elitest white bigots.
I thought you were a theist, not an atheist!
Look at it this way- if God exists, then he's a part of nature, or rather, nature is a part of him. That means he isn't supernatural- he is NATURAL.
WTF? *Every* religion claims that the supernatural exists. That's what religion means.
Nope. Sorry. That's a media definition of religion, it isn't the actual definition. The media definition is rather bigo
When I was the young guy with no family- I remember having to go home from work one day, pack, come back to work, then drive to Portland to catch a flight in under 3 hours, while the travel agent got me boarding passes at the call desk.
I'd suggest that certain people be allowed to willingly give up privacy in return for fast track at the airport through the TSA.
This is actually what I mean by "moving steadily away" from. Some ideas they admit are false and give up. Others they simply drop and don't talk about any more (such as the movement of the earth around the sun). I expect there was an official notice at some point that it was no longer official church position. But they moved away from these areas in that they no longer claim them to be Truth. If they didn't, they wouldn't survive. I wonder, actually, what %age of official Catholic teachings have been abandoned over the years? It would be interesting to know, especially since they claim that their popes are infallable:)
Well, there's been a huge amount of misunderstanding over the years when it comes to "official Catholic Teaching" as well- a good for instance is the "claim that their popes are infallible". That doctrine actually says that for just about everything, the Pope is as fallible as everybody else- but since they named it the "infallibility doctrine" and most people never look at the actual documents, we get uninformed idiots claiming that the Church "claim that their popes are infallible" or that the Church taught that the earth doesn't move around the sun, without ever actually researching the issues (in fact, the Church had been claiming that the earth DID move around the sun for about 100 years before Galileo- the real scientific question was whether the planets moved in elliptical or circular orbits- with Galileo taking circular).
In reality, the truth is that the Church is extremely careful before throwing out, or adding, stuff to it's teaching: science is recklessly headlong in making claims without evidence from the point of view of the Church. If it hasn't been debated for at least two centuries, you shouldn't claim it as truth.
No, you said that #2 was personal, subjective experience of god. Subjective is the key word. It means to me that the measurement of this is in no way objective.
That was true- before TFA. The whole reason we're having this conversation is that personal, subjective experiences of God are no longer subjective, but objective and repeatable. That's the whole point of TFA.
The experiment in TFA is objective, and therefore cannot back up any subjective experience of god. It gives people what feels exactly the same. It isn't anything to do with god. It suggests, therefore, that there is a very reasonable alternate explanation to a deity which makes people have such expereinces. This was always probable, but it's interesting that somebody has now gone and shown a way to reproduce the effect.
This isn't an "alternate explanation". This is THE explanation- same as it has always been. It's just more repeatable and reproducible, and therefore now objective instead of subjective. Rational religions have always claimed that you can put your brain in an alternate state to experience the divine; this is just more reproducible than older methods.
Why on earth would that be the case? There are thousands of spiritual/philosophical books out there. I often get told by muslims, for example, that "Book X Y or Z will proove it all to you", while Chirsitans refer me to books "A, B, C, D, E, F" and so on. A quick glance at most of them will confirm that they are either chock full of logical fallacies or offer no evidence, just philosphical arguments (often also logically flawed to a huge degree).
If that's your attitude, then I'd say the logical fallacies are in your "quick glance" to which you devote NO thought and NO actual logic, locking yourself into a system where you believe in the existence of "logical fallacies" without any proof that they are fallacies. But hey, it's no skin off my nose if you want to be an ignorant idiot.
I disregard the book as evidence because it's not been presented as such. If it holds valid scientific hypotheses, then by all means write these up in an appropriate manner and submit them for peer review. If they hold any water at all,
Umm, MAYBE the Minbari had them, since we saw characters in their fighters without seat belts functioning quite effectively, but none of the younger races had anything remotely like them. Earthforce pilots were strapped in and the capital ships moved slowly enough that G-forces weren't an issue.
Until, of course, they hit a Jump Gate- or had jump engines accelerate them- at which point without some form of IDF, they would have all ended up jelly anyway. But like I said, varying effectiveness- only the Minbari seemed to have a very effective and quick IDF, and even the Vorlons substituted encasing within another living being, kind of an organic form of IDF.
In fact, I seem to recall Sheridan telling his people that Centauri pilots (a race MORE advanced then Earth) were still subject to blacking out during extreme maneuvers.
Which wouldn't necessarily mean *NO* IDF, just IDF that doesn't react very quickly to extreme maneuvers or changes in direction.
Human beings already have a primative form of IDF- anti-blackout pants, that our current jet fighter pilots use to pump blood back out of the legs and towards the brain during high-G maneuvers. But it's already possible to fly faster than those can react.
I was referring to the motion of the ships in battle scenes- something done on New Voyages with CGI. Even Babylon 5 had inertial dampeners of various effectiveness. In Star Trek Enterprise and TOS story lines, the inertial dampeners are so bad that they're fooled by quick changes in direction- which gave us all the funny scenes of people being thrown out of their chairs (why they never thought about seat belts is beyond me), but they do exist.
Now having said that- my OP comment was in relation to how the ships moved, not how the people within the ships moved. In New Voyages, we've actually got a navigator who is good enough to fly the ship like a fighter jet (and in the first episode, actually threaded the ship through a huge version of the Guardian at the Edge of Forever- after diving through several miles of atmosphere).
Uh, that's the entire point of Trek XI- like http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/'s fan fiction, this movie fits into the continuity between the original series and the movie- therefore they need YOUNGER actors!
I just hope that they learn something else from New Voyages and we get Newtonian-physics-accurate battle scenes in normal space.
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Currently, yes. Next year? It's beginning to look like not, as we see the return of triple digit inflation in food and fuel prices. Not to mention China finally figuring they've got a large enough middle class to turn towards domestic production instead of export production, and dumping the dollar in favor of tangible ownership in the United States.
Your single biggest expense, most likely, is housing, which is still priced in dollars.
And which has seen a 300% increase since 1995, if the history of tax assessments on my house are to be believed (1995 tax assessment, $75,000. 2007 tax assessment, which I just received, $262,000)
Next after that are various services -- the labour of fellow Americans, mostly, as well as immigrants (legal and otherwise), which are all priced in dollars too. This labor is the biggest part of the price of those "Made in America" items, which you dismiss as merely assembled here. It is also a big part of the retail price of just about anything you buy (wherever it is made)...
Assembly is largely done by robots, not by human beings.
Manufacturing? China's currency is pegged to the dollar at the moment, and will be for a while. China-made stuff is thus not getting more expensive, whatever dollar/euro ratio is -- that covers nearly all manufactured items sold in US -- for better or worse.
You must have missed the news last week-China has begun dumping the dollar. A situation that will only increase in the next year.
What did I miss? Oh, yeah, imported wines and cheeses...
And blueberries, beef, wheat, soy, corn, strawberries, milk, peanuts, etc. Ask any farmer- they've all had to compete with cheaper imports from Asia, South America, and Europe. MOST of what you eat is imported these days. Like those tomatos in December? That's globalization.
Amazing. A few months ago we were lamenting, how the techies are underpaid, and how all tech jobs are outsourced to India (as if Indians are any less deserving). Now comes the news of tech-salaries growing rather quickly, but the lamentations don't cease!
That's because it is once again fake numbers, paid for by the upper class. You can't trust the ITAA to put out anything real.
The H-1 visas are all "sold-out" within hours every year -- hundreds of thousands of people dream of coming here to work (white-collar work) for the salary you seem to dismiss as insufficient... Maybe, you ought to pack up and leave to make room for fresh immigrants -- evidently, your family has used up its time in this country, if the latest generation (you) is so unappreciative.
The victims of a con job should not be blamed for being cheated out of a dream. On either side. They'd be better off staying where they are- the United States is the land of slavery, not freedom.
Why would I believe the biased and incorrect data of paid shills for the investor class, over real data like the fact that THIS YEAR farmers are suffering a shortage of pesticides and herbicides, which will result in a doubling of food prices next year? Note also that I said 1995 & 2008, not 2007.
Not if you're already in debt up to your credit limit on just trying to provide your family with food, clothing, and shelter.
One recent calculation of a LIVING wage is now $80,000 for a family of four with two adult earners. Education is a luxury on top of that.
Only if you are spending all of your US dollars on merchandise/services produced outside of the U.S.
Or at least most. If you're not spending more than 75% of your income on imports, then you either must live in one of the few places in the United States where Agriculture and manufacturing hasn't been utterly destroyed by imports, or you actually believe "Made in America" means something more than parts created in Mexico & China and shipped here for assembly.
I dare you to find a 100% made in America computer or car.
Or anything else requiring magnets, capacitors, and resistors (none of which are made in America anymore).
Heck- for that matter- I challenge you to find a US Soldier who isn't dependent upon part of his gear made someplace else than America.
For that reason, yes, the falling US dollar is about to make a 2008 $75,000/year paycheck feel like a 1995 $26,000/year paycheck. Good luck continuing to afford your education, for which you need to keep your techie job more than a couple of generations of languages and operating systems, on THAT.
What we really need is a truth in advertising law with some real teeth. I recommend public stoning for liars- doesn't matter to me if they are CEOs , politicians, or just advertising execs.
Just what part of "unlimited access" in the contract do these ISPs NOT understand?
Well, somewhat. Wildlife Safari treats all their animals as wild, and they've got a herd. Just about as wild as you'll see in Kenya- where if the elephants stray from the protected safari lands, they'll get shot by poachers.
Whether experiencing one of the many wonderous things man has achieved or being within a meter or two of a herd of wild elephants while they bath and play in a watering hole there's an awful lot of great things to experience in the world.
I've got both of them right here in Oregon. I don't need to go elsewhere.
If you can provide me with a single religion based on science (that's science, by the way, not faith), then I will still be impressed.
Pope Benedict XVI's version of Roman Catholicism. Of course, that's not quite fair- Roman Catholicism invented science. But then again, there is also Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism (the only religion that takes science to it's logical end), the peer review system.
Religions are not scientific. By definition. Saying that they are doesn't make it true.
And being an idiot who worships the peer review system doesn't make science any different than any other religion.
- you believe that non-scientific analysis is as valid as scientific (which is demonstrably wrong)
I'd say "within it's realm" but yes. It's totally unfounded to claim that non-scientific analysis is wrong MERELY because it is non-scientific- and in fact, in the past, science has a pretty bad track record.
- you do not understand what "objective" and "subjective" mean, hence there's a lot of confusion
Either that, or you don't understand these terms- if you think ANYTHING that relies on information transmitted between human beings can possibly be objective.
you overuse the word "bigot"; as far as I can determine, you use it to mean: "people who disagree with me"
No, that word means "people who have a prejudice against other people merely because of who they are"- such as your bigotry against non-scientists.
1) Not all scientists are white (I have NO IDEA, again, what you meant by that, by the way)
Your rejection of data from non-white cultures, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead or the Vedas or the Semetic Bible, would indicate to me a deep-seated racism.
2) peer review by scientists IS superior to peer review by non-scientists, because scientists tend to use the scientific method better, and tend to be more objective
Except, of course, in the case of the scientific method itself, where they tend to be completely subjective and religious. But hey, don't let your own logical inconsistencies get to you!
3) "Objective" still doesn't mean what you think it means. Mutliple witnesses are not objective. Double blind tests were developed specifically *because* humans find it very difficult to be subjective, and their observations can taint the evidence if they know what test is being performed. Double blind tests with statistical analysis are not perfect by any means, but they are much better than the methods used by non-scientists, who often fall into the traps which these techniques are specifically designed to avoid.
Thanks for admitting my real main point- objectivity is a myth that human beings, including scientists, are completely incapable of.
Welcome to solipsism. Hope you like the fact nothing exists.
If you have a theory, write it up and submit it for proper scientific peer review. They will tell you what is wrong, you will call them "bigots" and go away quite happily believing that you are, in some way, still correct even when all the actual evidence points otherwise.
The entire peer review system is a method by which one separates one group of human beings from another, and is therefore prejudice and bigotry. Sorry- you seem to be worshiping a logically flawed system.
People used to survive 6 month trips cross country to see an ill loved one. Many times that loved one died before they got there. Was that evil? If so, I recommend not leaving home.
I'd like to see it a bit more strict- maybe including that new brain scan tech- but yes. That's the point. Looks like the going rate (from the website you mentioned) is $99.95....
I don't travel. I don't see any reason to. Oregon has all I'll ever need. In fact, I don't see any reason for trade or for anybody else to travel either.
I'll take your word for that. So.. the disagreement was with the nature of the orbits, rather than the orbits themselves?
Don't take my word for it- go search out and read the records yourself. That's the whole point. The only way to find objective proof is to try the experiment yourself.
Fascinating - I never knew that. Was that worth putting a man on trial for, then, and demanding that he recant, on pain of death?
Actually, the penalty was a Vatican grant, a 42 room house, a laboratory, and house arrest until he had proof of his theory. Since he never found such proof, he was never allowed out of the house. But that wasn't punishment for his theory- it was punishment for the rather nasty treatise he published that said everybody who believed that they moved in eliptical orbits were jackasses.
Because it looked to everyone else as if the Church was wanting to supress the truth because it disagreed with their religous dogma.
Only to people who thought the movements of the planets were dogma. I'll give you a hint- the Roman Catholic Church has defined dogma as the deposit of faith taught by Jesus to the Apostles. Do you see anything in that about planets and stars? I don't.
Do you agree with the current Catholic dogma? In *every* area?
I agree with dogma in every area- but I'm a bit of a heretic on doctrine. Especially the doctrine that says man is free to migrate for work, and that nations should trade without regard to their citizen's welfare. But I'm not going to say that the Pope is a jackass for believing that people should have the right to migrate for work either- I'm just personally a bit hurt by it.
No. Subjective experiences of god are subjective. That is what "subjective" means. "Objective" is something different. This should not be an issue for debate, surely?
Once something is repeatable, it ceases to be subjective and becomes objective. For instance, it was once subjective experience that panda bears existed. Now that a few have been captured and are living in zoos, it's a repeatable objective experience. The experience of the divine USED to be subjective- didn't work for everybody. It's now an objective, repeatable experience.
Nope. TFA is making no claim to experience "the Divine deity", but rather that they can reproduce the feeling that many people have *claimed* to be a divine deity. But without any divine activity. Whatsoever. Unless you wish to claim that god has a measurable ampage, and that we should change his fuse every once in a while..?
Basically, every human mind has the capability of discerning God. But only in certain physiological states, which before this were very hard to reach. It's now a repeatable fact that it can be reached.
Can you back that up in any way? I ask for evidence. A hundred thousand people shouting "THIS BOOK IS DIFFERENT AND TRUE MORE THAN THOSE OTHER 99,999 PEOPLE'S BOOKS" isn't really convincing. I declined to read YOUR book in the same way I decline those other 99,999 people. You have a claim? Fine. Measure it. Analayse it. Submit it for peer review.
What makes your peer review any more special than the peer review of 20 generations of lamas?
"We don't qualify for peer review because we don't NEED it because WE were given the truth before we started" is NOT a valid argument. It's stupid.
No, that's not what I said. I said it's already BEEN peer reviewed, by actual peers, rather than by a bunch of elitest white bigots.
I thought you were a theist, not an atheist!
Look at it this way- if God exists, then he's a part of nature, or rather, nature is a part of him. That means he isn't supernatural- he is NATURAL.
WTF? *Every* religion claims that the supernatural exists. That's what religion means.
Nope. Sorry. That's a media definition of religion, it isn't the actual definition. The media definition is rather bigo
If you can provide me with one single religous leader whose religion is actually based on science, then I will be impressed.
Depends. Are only western white people in lab coats whose salaries are paid by government and corporate grants allowed to claim to practice science?
Hmm- I failed to read it like that. This makes more sense. If it had been the other way, I'd have had to ask, what about the standby market?
We may have to get to that point to satisfy the paranoids who would have me kicked off an airline if I forget to shave.
Like it costs The Dalles Google Center about $10/year at current hydropower prices to turn on an extra processor?
When I was the young guy with no family- I remember having to go home from work one day, pack, come back to work, then drive to Portland to catch a flight in under 3 hours, while the travel agent got me boarding passes at the call desk.
I'd suggest that certain people be allowed to willingly give up privacy in return for fast track at the airport through the TSA.
This is actually what I mean by "moving steadily away" from. Some ideas they admit are false and give up. Others they simply drop and don't talk about any more (such as the movement of the earth around the sun). I expect there was an official notice at some point that it was no longer official church position. But they moved away from these areas in that they no longer claim them to be Truth. If they didn't, they wouldn't survive. I wonder, actually, what %age of official Catholic teachings have been abandoned over the years? It would be interesting to know, especially since they claim that their popes are infallable :)
Well, there's been a huge amount of misunderstanding over the years when it comes to "official Catholic Teaching" as well- a good for instance is the "claim that their popes are infallible". That doctrine actually says that for just about everything, the Pope is as fallible as everybody else- but since they named it the "infallibility doctrine" and most people never look at the actual documents, we get uninformed idiots claiming that the Church "claim that their popes are infallible" or that the Church taught that the earth doesn't move around the sun, without ever actually researching the issues (in fact, the Church had been claiming that the earth DID move around the sun for about 100 years before Galileo- the real scientific question was whether the planets moved in elliptical or circular orbits- with Galileo taking circular).
In reality, the truth is that the Church is extremely careful before throwing out, or adding, stuff to it's teaching: science is recklessly headlong in making claims without evidence from the point of view of the Church. If it hasn't been debated for at least two centuries, you shouldn't claim it as truth.
No, you said that #2 was personal, subjective experience of god. Subjective is the key word. It means to me that the measurement of this is in no way objective.
That was true- before TFA. The whole reason we're having this conversation is that personal, subjective experiences of God are no longer subjective, but objective and repeatable. That's the whole point of TFA.
The experiment in TFA is objective, and therefore cannot back up any subjective experience of god. It gives people what feels exactly the same. It isn't anything to do with god. It suggests, therefore, that there is a very reasonable alternate explanation to a deity which makes people have such expereinces. This was always probable, but it's interesting that somebody has now gone and shown a way to reproduce the effect.
This isn't an "alternate explanation". This is THE explanation- same as it has always been. It's just more repeatable and reproducible, and therefore now objective instead of subjective. Rational religions have always claimed that you can put your brain in an alternate state to experience the divine; this is just more reproducible than older methods.
Why on earth would that be the case? There are thousands of spiritual/philosophical books out there. I often get told by muslims, for example, that "Book X Y or Z will proove it all to you", while Chirsitans refer me to books "A, B, C, D, E, F" and so on. A quick glance at most of them will confirm that they are either chock full of logical fallacies or offer no evidence, just philosphical arguments (often also logically flawed to a huge degree).
If that's your attitude, then I'd say the logical fallacies are in your "quick glance" to which you devote NO thought and NO actual logic, locking yourself into a system where you believe in the existence of "logical fallacies" without any proof that they are fallacies. But hey, it's no skin off my nose if you want to be an ignorant idiot.
I disregard the book as evidence because it's not been presented as such. If it holds valid scientific hypotheses, then by all means write these up in an appropriate manner and submit them for peer review. If they hold any water at all,
I had one do that once. Of course, I has spilled milk in the power supply......BOOM.
Umm, MAYBE the Minbari had them, since we saw characters in their fighters without seat belts functioning quite effectively, but none of the younger races had anything remotely like them. Earthforce pilots were strapped in and the capital ships moved slowly enough that G-forces weren't an issue.
Until, of course, they hit a Jump Gate- or had jump engines accelerate them- at which point without some form of IDF, they would have all ended up jelly anyway. But like I said, varying effectiveness- only the Minbari seemed to have a very effective and quick IDF, and even the Vorlons substituted encasing within another living being, kind of an organic form of IDF.
In fact, I seem to recall Sheridan telling his people that Centauri pilots (a race MORE advanced then Earth) were still subject to blacking out during extreme maneuvers.
Which wouldn't necessarily mean *NO* IDF, just IDF that doesn't react very quickly to extreme maneuvers or changes in direction.
Human beings already have a primative form of IDF- anti-blackout pants, that our current jet fighter pilots use to pump blood back out of the legs and towards the brain during high-G maneuvers. But it's already possible to fly faster than those can react.
If by a lot, you mean three- but then again, with two out of the original 7 dead, three would be a lot wouldn't it?
Eugene Roddenberry II is also involved with that one.
I was referring to the motion of the ships in battle scenes- something done on New Voyages with CGI. Even Babylon 5 had inertial dampeners of various effectiveness. In Star Trek Enterprise and TOS story lines, the inertial dampeners are so bad that they're fooled by quick changes in direction- which gave us all the funny scenes of people being thrown out of their chairs (why they never thought about seat belts is beyond me), but they do exist.
Now having said that- my OP comment was in relation to how the ships moved, not how the people within the ships moved. In New Voyages, we've actually got a navigator who is good enough to fly the ship like a fighter jet (and in the first episode, actually threaded the ship through a huge version of the Guardian at the Edge of Forever- after diving through several miles of atmosphere).
Uh, that's the entire point of Trek XI- like http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/'s fan fiction, this movie fits into the continuity between the original series and the movie- therefore they need YOUNGER actors!
I just hope that they learn something else from New Voyages and we get Newtonian-physics-accurate battle scenes in normal space.