Better for rich white men like himself, absolutely.
01-04-2017 06:25 PM
#151
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Better for rich white men like himself, absolutely. | |
01-04-2017 06:29 PM
#152
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Explain why you think that. |
01-04-2017 06:32 PM
#153
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You're supposed to be ignoring me. | |
01-04-2017 06:36 PM
#154
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How could I ignore somebody so fantastically intelligent? |
01-04-2017 07:56 PM
#155
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I kinda like my avatar | |
01-04-2017 09:06 PM
#156
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I kinda like it too. |
01-05-2017 07:55 AM
#157
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1. He's assembled the richest cabinet in history. Rich men do not get rich by looking after the needs of the poor or middle class. Expect changes that favor big business over labor (meaning the rich get richer, the middle class continues to shrink, and the poor get poorer). If you make a country wealthier, but all that extra wealth ends up in the hands of the people who are already absurdly rich, how is that good for anyone else? | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 01-05-2017 at 08:02 AM. | |
01-05-2017 10:13 AM
#158
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http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/...nal-objections | |
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01-05-2017 12:59 PM
#159
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01-05-2017 02:42 PM
#160
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01-05-2017 03:21 PM
#161
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That video reminds me of Damasio's theory of decision-making, proposed in the 1990s. The dogma at the time was that emotion and reasoning were separate processes, with emotion residing in the evolutionarily older parts of the brain (limbic system), and reasoning residing in the cortex. | |
01-05-2017 03:33 PM
#162
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People have a way of letting their politics and other beliefs seep into their scientific rigor. Like how in the video he says "97% of publishing scientists who study it say climate change global warming is real, it's happening now, and we need to do something about it." If that is what 97% of climate scientists say, one of those three claims is not their scientific opinion. |
01-05-2017 04:02 PM
#163
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You're implying that the political opinion 'we need to do something about it' somehow influenced the science, when it fact it was the science that led to the political opinion. | |
01-05-2017 04:04 PM
#164
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The hot cognition portion is very good. |
01-05-2017 04:11 PM
#165
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The idea that something needs to be done about it (so to speak) does exist before evidence of climate change, but not in a scientific sense. This is more about ideologies that have been around for a very long time, like the environmentalist anti-capitalist type that more or less assumes anything that alters the environment to benefit human consumption is bad. But that isn't what you're referring to, so I'll not mention it further, just wanted to point it out. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 01-05-2017 at 04:14 PM. | |
01-05-2017 04:17 PM
#166
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Agreed. He's making an argument about how we need to be rational but presenting it in an emotional way. It seems pretty common among these internet stars and why I tend to wince when I see guys like him, The Young Turks, etc.. | |
01-05-2017 04:31 PM
#167
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You're implying that if the typical climate scientist were anti-government involvement, pro-capitalist, he would say 'AGW is real but we should let it continue for reasons x, y and z'. But the issue isn't how the scientists feel about the government's response to AGW, the issue is whether or not AGW is real. We can formulate our own opinions on what should be done about it. | |
01-05-2017 04:54 PM
#168
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Economics is a big one, but it's also a tough one to convince skeptics on. Regardless, economists fall markedly more towards the right than their academic colleagues for reasons of their economics. Economics covers a very wide range of different things, so we don't even have to talk about it in general terms. For example, economics tells us that if the government throws more money at academic educations, we should expect things like an increase in the prices of degrees. But the left doesn't wanna hear that and just charges full speed ahead in thinking that the price of an education has nothing to do with the supply and demand of the industry. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 01-05-2017 at 05:01 PM. | |
01-05-2017 05:00 PM
#169
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I don't mean to imply that. I mean only to say that only an opinion garnered from the scientific process is a scientific opinion. The data on global warming doesn't tell us what *should* be done about it. |
01-05-2017 05:06 PM
#170
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BTW please don't get the impression that I'm saying the left is anti-science while the right is not. The right has its own golden calves it can't do without. It isn't that either side is anti-science, but that they're each pro or anti science in their own ways. Even the reasons that the right likes creationism isn't as steeped in anti-science as one might think. |
01-05-2017 05:18 PM
#171
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Don't know. | |
01-05-2017 05:27 PM
#172
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Yeah I'm not saying the right is pro-science on this issue. I think they're more pro-science in certain ways on the issue though. |
01-05-2017 05:37 PM
#173
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01-06-2017 11:30 AM
#174
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01-06-2017 11:32 AM
#175
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philosophy - to theorise using logic and reason | |
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01-06-2017 01:02 PM
#176
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Theories are never confirmed; they can only be disconfirmed. That's the first problem with your definition. | |
01-06-2017 01:14 PM
#177
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Oh, and the third problem i mentioned about past evidence wasn't actually implied by your definition. I just mentioned it because you've previously argued that since global warming hasn't reached a critical point yet, we don't have sufficient evidence to think it will in the future. | |
01-07-2017 12:29 AM
#178
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01-07-2017 01:04 AM
#179
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01-07-2017 01:25 AM
#180
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Climate change is incontrovertible fact. | |
01-07-2017 04:56 AM
#181
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01-07-2017 10:26 AM
#182
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Alright well then we're defining "theory" differently. I don't even care who's technically right, there's a distinct difference between the "theory" of mathematics, and the "theory" of string theory, to throw an example out there. Mathematics is incontrovertible fact, to steal mojo's phrase. | |
Last edited by OngBonga; 01-07-2017 at 10:40 AM. | |
01-07-2017 10:40 AM
#183
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01-07-2017 10:57 AM
#184
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01-07-2017 11:02 AM
#185
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This whole thread has been an excellent example that once we nail the technical language, the actual state of affairs on these topics is much easier to parse. | |
01-07-2017 11:13 AM
#186
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Math is a uniquely separate thing from our usual science. I don't think it's serving the conversation to be comparing mathematical truths to the findings of observational science. We've had great discussions on the philosophical ambiguity over whether math is an inherent property of the universe or if math is an emergent property of mind. It's too blurry a line and the arguments on both sides are sound. | |
01-07-2017 11:21 AM
#187
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I didn't define it myself, I learned the proper definition through study. That gives me more credibility as an authority on the topic than someone who hasn't done that. Do you disagree? | |
Last edited by Poopadoop; 01-07-2017 at 11:23 AM. | |
01-07-2017 11:39 AM
#188
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The coincidence of the famous "hockey stick graph" with the rise of industrialization cannot be proven to be anything but a coincidence. We don't have a control Earth with no industrial revolution to compare it to. We don't know what it would be like if there were no industrialization. Which means it's possible industrialization has had no effect. Also meaning it's possible we should be balls deep in the next ice age already, and the warming is much worse than we've realized. We don't know means we don't know. | |
01-07-2017 11:44 AM
#189
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I don't necessarily agree with this. | |
01-07-2017 11:54 AM
#190
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It's not describing apples or any other objects, its describing quantitative relations. So, if tomorrow you had two items, added two more, and ended up with five, the statement 2+2=4 would be proven to be demonstrably false, as would all of mathematics. | |
01-07-2017 12:08 PM
#191
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In fact, I'm surprised an empiricist and deep skeptic line Ong is so willing to accept mathematics as a proven theory, given the paucity of the evidence. | |
01-07-2017 12:16 PM
#192
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These are 2 different things. | |
01-07-2017 12:18 PM
#193
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01-07-2017 12:33 PM
#194
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I'm not saying I'm sitting in my basement doing an experiment and making a measurement error, or whatever it is you meant by that. | |
01-07-2017 01:15 PM
#195
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I was excellent at Maths at school, way ahead of my peers. Maths is beautifully simple and complex at the same time. Mojo nails the issues at stake here... 2+2=4 will always be the case, because 2 is well defined, so is plus, and so is equals. For 2+2 to = 5, we must redefine either the numbers or the functions. | |
Last edited by OngBonga; 01-07-2017 at 01:18 PM. | |
01-07-2017 01:22 PM
#196
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01-07-2017 01:24 PM
#197
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01-07-2017 01:36 PM
#198
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Climate change for me is rather like the big bang. I could be seen as a big bang denier, because I don't accept what is considered to be the overwhelming consensus that the big bang was the birth of the universe. I find other theories to be more palatable, such as torus theory. In such a model, the big bang is a continuous event at the centre of the universe. | |
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01-07-2017 02:02 PM
#199
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You only say this because of your blind trust in mathematicians and their so-called facts. You have no way of knowing what might happen tomorrow. | |
01-07-2017 02:43 PM
#200
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I'm interested by this topic but not sure how much value I can add. |
01-07-2017 02:45 PM
#201
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Hey Dame Bonga, what are some alternative theories to the big bang? Torus sounds neat. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 01-07-2017 at 02:48 PM. | |
01-07-2017 02:47 PM
#202
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I do think it is very reasonable to say that in some significant ways, the big bang as thought of today is not correct. I think most (all) physicists would agree with that too. |
01-07-2017 03:29 PM
#203
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That's the beauty of it; it's so outside our realm of experience that we find it inconceivable and absurd. But because it's never happened in the past does not prove that it can't ever happen in the future. There may be an as-yet-undiscovered law of the universe that once every 5 billion years turns maths on its head. | |
01-07-2017 06:45 PM
#204
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01-07-2017 09:34 PM
#205
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01-07-2017 09:42 PM
#206
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I mean that link doesn't say much, I'm playing poker and was lazy, just hit wikipedia. Dig around if you actually find it interesting, I like this model because it's eternal, both in future and past. I really don't think you can go one way but not the other when it comes to the infinity of time. I've always hated big bang theory because a beginning implies an end. | |
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01-07-2017 09:50 PM
#207
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And it's worth noting that big bang theory still works, it's just we no longer see it as the beginning of the universe. Now it's the central region of the universe, around which the rest of the universe rotates. Expansion and contraction, in equilibrium. | |
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01-07-2017 10:32 PM
#208
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2+2=5 for very large values of 2. | |
01-08-2017 08:01 AM
#209
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I've been through that education myself, and am part of that system myself. | |
01-08-2017 02:02 PM
#210
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01-08-2017 06:28 PM
#211
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Perhaps two and two can never equal five because then they would not be two and two anymore. It's like if you wake up tomorrow and all frogs are squirrels. But how can that be? A frog that is a squirrel is not a frog; it's a squirrel. So we're left with a situation in which squirrels are squirrels and there are no frogs. |
01-08-2017 06:35 PM
#212
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^That's not a good comparison. Species are human labels on organisms that fit certain less than exhaustive criteria on their evolutionary paths. Wake up after enough tomorrows and the frogs won't be recognizable as frogs anymore. Otherwise I agree completely, 2 is just a label for an arithmetical value, just quite a bit more constant than a frog, as far as we know. | |
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01-08-2017 06:45 PM
#213
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The idea I'm getting at is that for two and two to be five, it might necessarily mean that they aren't two. Perhaps my analogy is no good. |
01-08-2017 07:13 PM
#214
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Let's try a different tack: | |
01-08-2017 07:28 PM
#215
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You don't, but that could be a different idea. What about if you said that tomorrow you wake up and gravity pushes you away from mass instead of pulls towards. Would it still be gravity then? |
01-08-2017 07:48 PM
#216
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That's right. | |
01-08-2017 11:32 PM
#217
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01-08-2017 11:34 PM
#218
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01-09-2017 12:02 AM
#219
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01-09-2017 12:39 AM
#220
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I have no idea what you're talking about but it doesn't sound like maths to me. | |
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01-09-2017 03:51 AM
#221
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01-09-2017 08:29 AM
#222
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01-09-2017 08:48 AM
#223
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01-09-2017 09:01 AM
#224
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I think I see what you're getting at, but there's no larger or smaller values of 2. When we write '2' we mean '2.0000000000...ad infinitum' So it's not that 2.49999 rounds down to 2 and therefore if 2.49999+2.49999 = 4.999998 and we round that to 5 we show that 2+2=5. | |
01-09-2017 10:36 AM
#225
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I thought you were making an interesting point but it turns out you're just missing the point. It's never not going to be 2+2=4 because the fact it is isn't reliant on anything but maths itself. It might turn out that the whole subject is a crock of shit but it's still consistent with itself. |