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 No.4712[Reply]

File: 1580187227552.jpg (32.51 KB, 632x422, 316:211, iStock-924918814.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

To what extent is hyperbolic discounting a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic?
13 posts and 7 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4744

>>4733
>I think you're underestimating the loss of quality-of-life caused by diabetes.

Quality-of-life Years is a neat concept when imagining stuff like this, but there's no concrete agreed upon method for even determining a QALY, much less a full consensus that it's a useful tool.  At the very least, every method used to determine QALYs involves subjective questionaires, and you can't really take the average of what people answered as accurate to any given individual.  There are no doubt people out there who could go down every single thing associated with diabetes and say "Yeah, that's perfect health."  And surely there are people who would prefer that to giving up their lifestyle for even a short period of time.

 No.4759

File: 1581337128228.png (129.11 KB, 500x490, 50:49, 1525753319407.png) ImgOps Google

>>4744
>There are no doubt people out there who could go down every single thing associated with diabetes and say "Yeah, that's perfect health."
And there are people who believe that the Earth is flat, that the moon landing was faked, et cetera.  Nephropathy is objectively a disease, by any objective definition of the word "disease".

>>4744
>And surely there are people who would prefer that to giving up their lifestyle for even a short period of time.
Such people would be a tiny minority.  And I'm not sure how much we should credit such 'preferences' anyway.  There are people who 'prefer' death to living and who accordingly commit suicide.  For some of those people, it is a legitimate preference (in particular, for people near the end of their life with progressively worsening disease), but for most, it is a result of a chemical imbalance in their brain.  Many people who preferred suicide received psychiatric treatment that reversed their preference and now they are glad that they didn't commit suicide.

 No.4761

>>4738
There's a leap here that makes me uncomfortable.

The data and theory do not demonstrate that unsaturated fatty acids *prevent* insulin resistance but rather that they fail to trigger it.

Furthermore, I think that intentionally producing ROS in order to induce insulin resistance is missing the forest for the trees. Considering the role that frequent insulin resistance would play in developing actual diabetes and that ROS are more implicated in vascular disease than anything else, especially in the presence of high blood sugar, I am skeptical of the health benefits of weight loss via this method.

 No.4645[Reply]

File: 1578203775014.jpg (50.85 KB, 931x524, 931:524, Soleimani.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Is assassinating the second-most powerful military leader of a foreign country generally an act of war?

And specifically, was Trump's airstrike that intentionally killed Soleimani an act of war?

And, keeping in mind that the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war, did Trump violate the Constitution in ordering the airstrike without authorization from Congress?  And if so, should he be impeached for it?

Relevant source: https://www.vox.com/2020/1/3/21048012/iran-general-killed-qasem-soleimani-legality
19 posts and 6 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4679

>>4677
>Wait a minute, the President CAN pardon State offenses.
Nani???  The president only has "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment".

 No.4680

>>4679
Well how bout that.

My ignorance has no limits.

 No.4760

Yes.

No.  First, it was not a declaration of war.  Second, every president since at least Clinton has been involved in undeclared wars and/or targeted strikes.  Impeachment for it would simply be another partisan instance of Democrat hypocrisy.

 No.4718[Reply]

File: 1580446654604.jpg (20.42 KB, 425x520, 85:104, thinker.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

How would you define "general intelligence"?

I think most people would agree that, for example, AlphaGo Zero is intelligent but not generally intelligent (i.e., it is intelligent only at the specific task of playing Go).  GPT-2 is a little more general, but still nowhere close to human general intelligence.  Do you think existing deep machine learning will ever lead to general intelligence, or is a completely new paradigm needed?
27 posts and 8 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4756

>>4755
So...IQ measures a ceiling of success.  If a successful group scores low, the test is to be revised.  If high scorers are not successful, the test is acceptable.

 No.4757

File: 1581268676659.png (17.32 KB, 400x400, 1:1, 1414520065421.png) ImgOps Google

>>4756
>So...IQ measures a ceiling of success.
Only certain types of success, in particular, success that requires intelligence.  And IQ isn't a perfect measure.  For most humans it is a decent measure of intelligence.  But it doesn't work well for everyone.  Just like the Glasgow Coma Scale doesn't work as well for people who have an eyelid infection that makes it hard for them to open their eyes.

 No.4758

>>4757
OK, IQ measures a ceiling of success, in tasks involving intelligence, for many people, but not everyone.  (Perhaps mostly for people who are neurotypical, if that's the psychological analog to having eyebrows?)

 No.4695[Reply]

File: 1579053155757.jpg (938.27 KB, 900x1200, 3:4, box.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

One of the things they don't really explain well in America: we are to value religious freedom, to not prejudice someone for their religion, however this duty obliges religion to fit into a box where God or The Gods can not encourage criminal or antisocial behavior.  Or perhaps even unprofessional behavior.  Organizations that see God commanding otherwise are called extremist or fundamentalist, and will not be legitimate parts of a religious or faith community.

People who do not understand can see a person obeying Holy commands in a literal sense, attribute that behavior to a religion, and begin to fear or hate other people associated with the religion.  They may become Islamophobic, for example, but that's because they don't understand box theory.

I guess my argument is that a) box theory is correct, and b) not understanding box theory is a big cause of religious prejudice.
6 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4703

>>4700
>Because they don't understand box theory? Or because the person obeying the holy commands doesn't understand box theory?
Well, unless an islamophobe and Muslim exist in the same person, these are two separate, although interconnected problems.  I was raised religious, and although The Christian God, when asked whether it was right to pay taxes, said "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, Give unto God what is God's," to mean, I think, a degree of subjectivity to the state, it was taught that God reigned above all, and when it really came to it, following God's will outranked obedience to law or social order.  So that is one problem.  Believing God can oblige criminal or harmful behaviors in others is the problem that creates fear of religion, I think.

 No.4704

>>4702
Its not the law itself, well, I mean it kindof is, but I think the bigger issue is inconsistency. If youre rich and famous, you can rape someone on the street or kill someone and lawyer your way out of it, but if you're poor and not famous, you could end up in a private prison that squirms its way into essentially making you a slave for the rest of your life, for something like smoking weed. Depends on the judge and jury's mood and your budget to an astronomically larger degree than the actual laws on the books.

 No.4749

>>4704
So, a rich person would have greater freedom for religious practice because not so confined by the box of state enforcement?  Or put another way, their Gods will be more powerful?

 No.4589[Reply]

File: 1577221271540.png (17.86 KB, 306x409, 306:409, Capture _2019-12-24-12-47-….png) ImgOps Google

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/white-supremacist-propaganda-swells-to-record-levels-on-campuses-11561654393

Every mainstream article attests that there is huge focus on recruitment among young especially in college.  And that its all on the rise in a big way.  And a huge problem.

Without advocating squelching free speech (any position purporting this will be considered a derailment), what can be done about this?

My opinion is that this is the product of our education system in the US (maybe others but i know only the US) and that we have to start there.  Obviously even if we did fix that, which we wont, its a bit late to deal with the existing problem.

So.  Lets have some ideas from brains with IQs between 1 and 200 and see if we can get some kind of positive perspective on a dismal problem.  Help!
28 posts and 3 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4707

>>4706
>How do you imagine we can create a computer that is more just than its creators?  Wishful thinking?

Oversight. I think bad results end up happening because judges know what they're doing isn't the right decision, but that they've got enough local authority and enough of a lack of eyes on them that they do it anyway. I don't think the judge who let brock turner off easy did it because he thought it was the correct application of justice, i think he did it either because he was being bribed, he had some bias against this woman or for turner, or some other personal reason not related to how he thinks the law should be applied. A computer with open-source code wouldn't have that issue. We can make good laws, so it's just a matter of making sure they actually get used and it's not just a clusterfuck of inconsistent enforcement. If all eyes are on the computer and what it does, than all we have to do is put in the best of humanity and leave out the worst. Leave out any affinity to a particular race/gender/ect, leave out desire for money or fame, just pure logic. Every line of code would be tied to it's coder, so the moment a coder tries to program something evil, they're on blast immediately, and because it's centralized, there will be eyes on it all the time, and shit like that won't slip through the cracks.

Yes we have public gallery and judicial review, but they're slow and clunky, and won't be applied to the however-many judges just like Michael Aaron Persky there are out there who pull shit like that but don't reach media fame. It's not a very efficient system.

 No.4708

>>4707
>>4706

So here's a good way of thinking about it. Do you think there is value in a republic? Of informed representatives working on behalf of citizens? Do you think the average congressperson is not more able to make informed decisions about political matters than the average citizen? The computer here would essentially be the perfect representative. It would have all the values we want it to have, while being perfectly informed, and, if we allow it to be, totally unbiased. If you feel like a republic is a terrible way of conducting government, then fair enough. I disagree, but you may have your reasons, and they may be reasonable. If you do not think that a republic is useless, than there stands my argument for computerized public servants. They are potentially the perfect representatives.

 No.4709

>>4707
Well, if dictating uniform sentencing from on high, executed coldly regardless of circumstance, creates "justice" then mandatory sentencing guidelines would have done exactly that instead of the opposite.

How far are you willing to take this?  Let Roe v Wade be decided by your fone?

>judges act without regard for oversight
This is simply untrue.  I have argued issues before several trial court judges who follow the high court to avoid being overturned even though they personally disagree.  Your opinion is not supported by fact.

>>4708
I haven't taken a position on representative government.  However, the complete spaghetti the legislatures in this country produce really doesnt support your argument about politicians being more capable to make law then regular people.

Your assumption that representatives work "on behalf" of citizens also isnt supported by any facts.  Politicians spend many times their salary to get elected.  They work for their financial backers, not their constituency and frankly you should check your assumptions before making arguments.

 No.4635[Reply]

File: 1577871724757.png (388.47 KB, 1024x1024, 1:1, 2020fs.png) ImgOps Google

Happy New Year, Townhall!

Debate:

a) this marks the start of a new decade(!),
b) the new decade starts next year, or
c) both can be right/some other demarkation.
4 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4649

>>4646
>>4648

Since we're calling it an arbitrary label, I think it's okay that "decade" isn't actually always ten years.  We can have a decade that's only 9 years, due to odd numbering conventions of the past.  We could even do something like ditch the BC/AD system if we felt really motivated, and renumber all the years we're aware of from that era, starting at another arbitrary zero somewhere.

 No.4656

File: 1578361799979.png (522.47 KB, 1024x707, 1024:707, 334102.png) ImgOps Google

>>4648
>>4649
Suppose those are the two proposals that will allow decades to align with 2020-2030.  Squid's proposal seems simplest to me, since it corresponds years to a standard number line, although the Christian epoch moves back a year, which might unsettle some.

Calendar changes are rare and slow to be accepted, but do happen.  The shift to the Gregorian calendar comes to mind, which took hundreds of years to perculate through the Old and New worlds.  Changing the B.C. system would be simpler since it would mostly be a change that concerned historians.  I do feel as people have lived with the current system for millennia,  there'd have to be some new reason to switch.  In the case of the Julian calendar, it was a progressive worsening of the alignment of months and seasons.

In the meantime, if you want to think about decades, we're stuck with having to chose whether to please the majority or...I guess you might say...ordinalists.  I've been an ordinalist because I believed that to be the convention, but I see that's a minority (17% according to the poll mentioned in Wikipedia).  A convention contradicted by a majority is not a great convention.  I am willing to buck popular opinion for particularly satisfying or useful conventions,  but I'm not sure this qualifies.

 No.4694

>>4635
Time flows backwards so it's actually the ending of the 2020s even though we dont remember them, and the 2010s lie ahead even tho we "remember" all we're about to suffer.

 No.4658[Reply]

File: 1578451212171.jpg (64.33 KB, 1000x669, 1000:669, shutterstock_1425208127.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

I see various posts on the social medias saying transgendering children involves sexualizing children.  Now, I don't support sexualizing children and I don't feel it would be right to argue against someone's goal of protecting children from these kinds of exploitation.  And we all know transphobia is inappropriate, so I won't accuse of that.

But it occurs to me, the opposite of boy or girl, is again boy or girl.  Perhaps it is in those very categories that the problem of sexualizing lies.  I would propose, then, that gender be forbidden minors.  Perhaps I've missed some fine detail, so I'll open it to discussion, but it seems most rational to me.
7 posts and 3 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4688

>>4687
> Are there other social media where people say smart things instead?
Yes, e.g., a few subreddits and https://news.ycombinator.com/

 No.4689

>>4688
Mostly this looks like computer stuff.  A few about the economy.  You like those kinds of topics, better, I take it.

 No.4690

>I see various posts on the social medias saying transgendering children involves sexualizing children
Seems kinda dubious.

>>4664
>How would one go about raising their kids genderless and how would that work in a gendered society?
I don't think you can. You can approach gender neutral upbringing, but you can never cut out any trace of anything that can be called gendered from children's lives. This is just not possible or pragmatic.

>Would you assign names?
I guess you could let the kids pick their own names, or give them gender neutral names like alex or max.
>How would you deal with whatever questions come up regarding biology.
I think the kindergardens that are around these days that attempt this, tend to just tell them the truth for the most part. That some kids have penises, some kids have vaginas. When people grow up, they tend to sort themselves into one of two types, either male or female, and that these categories are known as gender, and that this is likely to become relevant for them some day, but that in the kindergarden they don't use that yet.

 No.4471[Reply]

File: 1576772286386.png (56.74 KB, 650x487, 650:487, ACMeat1.png) ImgOps Google

I just read a very interesting essay about the harms and benefits of eating meat:
https://SlateStarCodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-net-harm/
The essay was a collaboration between two people, a vegetarian and a meat-eater.  From the introduction:
>The central question is whether factory farmed animal lives are worth living; the realistic alternative to meat eating is not a better life but for those animals to not exist in the first place.
>We begin by investigating which animals are conscious. Then, we compare the happiness literature to the conditions under which animals are factory farmed to figure out if from their perspective non-existence is preferable. And finally, we survey the more easily measurable impacts of meat eating on environment, finance, and health.
They conclude that average beef cows have a positive cumulative lifetime happiness but that factory-farmed chickens exist in a state worse than death.  Quantitatively, they estimate that a typical Westerner annually contributes $373 of net utility to cows by eating beef but imposes $5,913 of net harm to chickens by eating chicken meat (assuming a 75% probability that chickens are conscious in a morally relevant sense).  They also estimate that, for typical adults, eating a meat-based diet reduces lifespan by a few years (compared to a vegetarian diet), a harm that they average out to $3,336 per year of eating meat.  (Note: the essay has a linked XLSX spreadsheet if you want to tinker with their model.)

What do you think about the issues analyzed by the essay?  For those who prefer a vegetarian diet for ethical reasons relating to animal welfare: If you can afford (not just financially but also logistically) to buy meat directly from a small farm that humanely raises their livestock [1], such that you’re contributing to the existence of animals who strongly prefer to be alive, would you consider doing so?  For those who eat meat: Do you disagree with any of assumptions in the model, and if so, which ones?  (I’m aware that there is a large variation in how people’s bodies handle different foods, so for some people, eating meat might be a net benefit to their health, given what alternative diets they can afford.)

I anticipate that some people migPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
9 posts and 4 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4493

>>4490
>"Entitled" in what sense?
In the most basic sense of the word. If you exist, you are entitled to certain rights as a person in your place of living. Probably you have the right to bodily autonomy, the right to self-direct, and so on and so forth. But really it could be anything that you weren't given, but which is in place, merely because of the circumstances you exist in. Animals had these kinds of rights before we came along, and they should have them again, if we are really serious about cutting our interference out of their lives.

>I don't think any concept of entitlement enters into the analysis at all?
Well yes that was exactly the problem I had. Because there is such a thing as utility which we did not give the animals, it doesn't make sense to count just any utility associated with the animals' existence as being a consequence of farming. You know if I put a kid in a room for example, and he teaches himself to count while being in that room. I cannot take credit for his achievement just because I placed him in that boring environment. In the same way, we cannot take responsibility for every bit of the self-directed utility animals may experience in captivity, because that was something the animals produced, not us.

>Farming supports a vastly greater number of animals than would exist in nature.  So for most of the farmed animals, I think the realistic alternative would be non-existence.
I think that's one alternative we can imagine. I would hope, though, that there would still be large grazing animals and fowl around in nature reserves, since they're excellent at promoting biological diversity, which is something our overtaxed ecosystems sorely need. I guess it's true that numbers would be far reduced, but I'm not sure exactly by how much. If the space currently allocated to feeding and housing animals was made into nature reserves, something which we know from psychological studies has very positive effects on human populations, and which might help slow the decline of insect populations and the mass extinction currently ongoing in the natural world because of us, I'm not sure if the difference in population would really be that large, if we ignore the hard to ignore fact that the population size of chickens is pretty ridiculous inPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

 No.4643

Charts and graphs anon here.

I won't nitpick too much because this is clearly just a visualization without associated data (which is valid!) but trying to conceptualize what the crook in this graph represents and the meaning of the two axes relative to that is tripping me out.

 No.4644

>>4643
lol

 No.4492[Reply]

File: 1576883189171.png (250.42 KB, 1200x734, 600:367, progress.png) ImgOps Google

This is the last time I'm reviving Zone[Aury]!Tulpa65j4U's thread

Could ultrasound treat benign disease and cancers?

From high-intensity focused ultrasound(HIFU) to Histotripsy, these advanced revolutionary technologies/techniques could one day be the future of treatment for people with tumors, cancers or simply....just to control bleeding. Fortunately, sufficient evidence exists on the efficacy of these treatments. Histotripsy is one type of an emerging and revolutionary technique, which is a non-invasive ultrasonic approach to the treatment of benign disease and cancers. Histotripsy is an experimental focused ultrasound technology where acoustic energy generated by an extracorporeal transducer is focused on a target volume inside the body. Conceptually histotripsy is more similar to shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) than to high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). Histotripsy was initially conceived and developed at the University of Michigan; so much of the refinement and pre-clinical translation has originated from these laboratories. More recently, other groups have begun to experiment with histotripsy both along technical and translational lines of research which serves to validate the concept of histotripsy and further enrich the potential therapeutic value of this new technology.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) is also interested in the practical applications of ultrasound. Elisa Konofagou, professor of biomedical engineering, received a $3.33 million grant from DARPA to work on developing a new way to use focused ultrasound for stimulation of peripheral nerves that will ultimately be able to control organ function

Reputable sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974592/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10069918
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398988/
https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-treatments/m/mr-guided-focused-ultrasound.html
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.
5 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4499

>>4492
>Could ultrasound treat benign disease and cancers?
Probably. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21762242

 No.4503

File: 1577003564668.jpg (20.19 KB, 570x321, 190:107, il_570xN.1634276720_newy.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

>>4492
>Could ultrasound treat benign disease and cancers?

I think it's pretty hard to argue no, especially when it's a 'could.'  I don't know a lot about medicine, but focusing wave energy to a region seems simple-ish.  The speed of sound through a body will vary based on the tissue which would make it less simple, true.  I guess you could contrast using sound energy in surgery to RF energy, both should be able to heat something up, but the pros and cons specific to a medical context are beyond me.

 No.4640

Thinking about this now, I can't help but feel like that would work by mechanically killing tissue. This could rule out the procedure for large or disperse tumors, patients at risk for developing either tumor lysis syndrome or renal failure, or tumors in sensitive areas where widespread necrosis would risk further damage.

Maybe the risk is minimal for the mass typically involved, or it is mitigated in some way, but if I were a surgeon I would want to hear about how it would affect my patient's post-operative condition before I adopt the technique.

 No.4518[Reply]

File: 1577051612698.png (393.73 KB, 639x711, 71:79, 1F847031-1795-4287-9846-12….png) ImgOps Google

>>>/pony/1011558
How far are we actually taking it? One of the first things I saw when I typed up Mogai was something called Stargender. Definition of Stargender.
Stargender is a gender with at least three different meanings:

Identifying one's gender as a star. Subgenders also exist.[1] For example, a person might identify emself as a blue star, therefore being an O-stargender or B-stargender. If ey identify as a star radiating longer wavelengths, A-stargender, F-stargender or G-stargender are more accurate terms. In addition, a starperson might self-identify as a binary or multiple star system. Fore example, a person self-identified as a binary yellow-orange system with a lonely red dwarf is a GKM-stargender, like the Alpha Centauri system. Under this definition this is a otherkin indenity not a gender one.
The second is “an other-worldly/non-human gender” which is likened to being beyond comprehension.
The third is “no matter how many genders are discovered/coined, none would match for the person.”
Do people expect me to this seriously? Do other people in this thread actually  think Stargenders are valid?

Personally I think the whole concept of Stargenders and other Mogai genders underminer the whole trans community. You’re taking a very serious condition and comparing it to utter nonsense. I refuse to acknowledge them as valid not only because I think they’re ridiculous, but because I think that I’d br insulting the actual trans people I know by doing it.

We have actual scientific studies showing that transwomen have very feminine brains and that they tend to be more androgynous, alongside a bunch of other verifiable physical traits, Mogai have nothing other than their own word, they have absolutely no form of external verification, unlike actual transwomen.
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 No.4615

>>4612
I actually read a book about this once. There's a lot to consider with the foxes IIRC. They reach sexual maturity like 10 times faster than humans, are bred as soon as they do, also the selection pressure is not only heavily focused and 100% consistent, but is also extremely strong with only 20 percent being allowed to have offspring. In 50 years you can have about 50 generations of foxes. In the same amount of time, you usually only go through about 2-3 generations of humans. You can probably see how that's a relatively significant difference.

The belyaev foxes are still relatively wild, and cannot be kept as normal pets even 50 years into the experiment. They require far more care and attention than regular dogs, and are posited to be likely to revert to wild fox behavior quite fast once selection pressure was reverted to a natural state.

Many selective breeding endeavors also run into what is in the realm of evolutionary biology called the grandmother effect, named after the rat experiments conducted at stanford university, where endocrine environments in rats influence the offsprings phenotypical traits many generations down the line from the influenced mother, introducing significant non-mendelian inheritance. It can be really hard to seperate these grandmother artifacts from genetic changes.

All this taken into account I think it's hard to point to the fox experiments as proof that 10 thousand years or however long we might be talking, with no clear and highly signficant differences in selection pressure should offer significant differences in intelligence.

 No.4631

>>4612
>>4615

Domestic breeding certainly confirms the dilatory effects of breeding for "desireable" traits.  Every domesticated "species" is plagued by resultant concentrated traits that do the opposite of making anything actually "better".

Besides evolution doesn't have any "better", thats stupid misinterpretation.  In reality phenotypes are switched between as needed (like the moth that changed colors to match the color of industrial smoke) but "better" means retaining multiple options so that selection can fine tune which stored trait is better right now in just a few generations.

Even a flaw like sickle cell anemia is a cost of malaria immunity.  ANY reduction in genetic diversity especially to solve a short-term problem is bad.

"Smarter" is NOT "better".  There IS no "better" from that perspective.  

 No.4637

>>4631
also a very valid perspective

 No.4604[Reply]

File: 1577271467839.jpg (32.78 KB, 429x606, 143:202, 616-YOjOu3L._SY606_.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Well, /townhall/, time-zone dependent it appears to be Christmas morning.  So, Merry Christmas or happy holidays, or agreeable December solstice ± a few days.

And as I suppose I can not simply make a sentimental assertion, a book on astronomy I was reading made reference to a guiding celestial object written about in the Christian Bible (Matthew 2:9):

"    When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the
   star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till
   it came and stood over where the young child was."

Can you tell me what this object could have been?
3 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4608

>>4607
Yeah, well in science class I guess they like to reserve burning for oxidation.  So I think you're taking something like the sola scriptura perspective, where there is no need to add something further to the biblical text, it was exactly a hovering star.

 No.4609

File: 1577284337805.png (911.39 KB, 790x807, 790:807, 4aecbceb7a7f8f87a7852d79e8….png) ImgOps Google

>>4608
I can oxidize without a flame though. But I know what they're referring to. I'd just be as petty an asshole your teacher was.

A moving hovering star isn't the most outrageous thing in scripture. I prefer that to aliens or a flaming balloon 1600 years before it's invention. And while kites did exist in this time, I don't think they made it to Jerusalem.

 No.4632

File: 1577832640855.jpeg (10.79 KB, 225x225, 1:1, images (9).jpeg) ImgOps Google

>"burning" semantics

If its a planet, it appears as a star but does not burn at all.

Could be a new star's first fusion light reaching us for the first time, in which case its still in the sky today.

>what is the object
A thinly veiled excuse to give elaborate gifts.  Just like today.  Probably imaginary.

 No.3964[Reply]

File: 1572857841514.jpg (224.44 KB, 1000x841, 1000:841, fluttershy.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

I want to do an AMA kind of science thread, because I'm not really sure what people's interests are.  But I guess the most appropriate kind of thread is one of debate and discussion.

So: The only hope for maintaining the pace of human progress is fusion power as a useful energy source in the next few decades.

if you want to debate.  Otherwise general science issues on your mind are OK, too.
26 posts and 12 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4560

>>4514
>hunter-gatherer fallacy

Im sorry but drumbeating the linear progress mantra fails to prove itself.

 No.4563

>>4560
I didn't claim that progress was linear or even monotonic.

 No.4594

>>4563
>not claim linearity

My apologies.  The word i should have used was "progressive".

 No.4283[Reply]

File: 1574804560093.jpg (72.21 KB, 1327x865, 1327:865, joker-movie.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Is this year's Joker movie a great film?
47 posts and 10 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4481

>>4467
>Ethics and empathy have exactly Zero relationship because anyone can consider themselves in another's place.  Or care.  Its an intellectual exercise not requiring empathy to perform.

Okay, that was kind of my point in this entire thread.

Not sure what you thought my original point was.

 No.4491

>>4481
I didnt read whatever your originsl point was and didnt address it.

I merely addressed the statements you made about empathy as an intellectual exercise.

 No.4500

I haven't seen a film that slams you over the head with "class oppression and alienation" themes over the head this hard since sorry to bother you. It's a remarkably unsubtle film. Chapo are the only guys I've seen to have what feels like a more or less correct take on what the movie's about.

 No.4482[Reply]

File: 1576805633655.png (250.42 KB, 1200x734, 600:367, progress.png) ImgOps Google

**** I would like to make it clear that trolls or mentally ill people(with the exception of OP...lol) are NOT allowed in this thread. Thank You****
Could ultrasound treat benign disease and cancers?

From high-intensity focused ultrasound(HIFU) to Histotripsy, these advanced revolutionary technologies/techniques could one day be the future of treatment for people with tumors, cancers or simply....just to control bleeding. Fortunately, sufficient evidence exists on the efficacy of these treatments. Histotripsy is one type of an emerging and revolutionary technique, which is a non-invasive ultrasonic approach to the treatment of benign disease and cancers. Histotripsy is an experimental focused ultrasound technology where acoustic energy generated by an extracorporeal transducer is focused on a target volume inside the body. Conceptually histotripsy is more similar to shockwave lithotripsy (SWL) than to high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). Histotripsy was initially conceived and developed at the University of Michigan; so much of the refinement and pre-clinical translation has originated from these laboratories. More recently, other groups have begun to experiment with histotripsy both along technical and translational lines of research which serves to validate the concept of histotripsy and further enrich the potential therapeutic value of this new technology.

Reputable sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974592/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10069918
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5398988/
https://stanfordhealthcare.org/medical-treatments/m/mr-guided-focused-ultrasound.html
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-mri-guided-focused-ultrasound-device-treat-essential-tremor

Other:
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.
3 posts omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4486

Interesting subject, but probably more appropriate for/ townhall/

 No.4487

File: 1576806064923.png (105.57 KB, 486x343, 486:343, AH!.png) ImgOps Google

>>4486
>probably more appropriate for / townhall/
eh?

 No.4488

>>4487

I don't mean there is anything wrong with it. Just seems like a thread more appropriate for townhall.

I dunno, just my impression.

 No.4428[Reply]

File: 1576456226767.jpeg (35.73 KB, 260x195, 4:3, D07EB141-0359-49E8-B934-A….jpeg) ImgOps Google

Are you in favour of National Service, if so how would you set it up?

(Everything in this post is only relevant to able bodied people. Disabled people, either physically or mentally, or those that can otherwise not work, due to age, or other circumstances are excluded. These people would if anything receive better treatment than they currently do under my system.)

Personally if I was setting up a National Service program I’d make singing up a mandatory requirement of gaining any kind of welfare. People would have the choice not to work, but that might mean starvation.

I think the unemployment issue and welfare issue could simply be solved by conscripting the unemployed (excluding students) into labour. They would largely clean the streets, or do any other odd jobs that need done in the public services, if the government ran of odd jobs they could just sell their labour to a private company. I wouldn’t call it forced labour because they have a choice in the matter, both of choosing wether to join National Conscription, and ideally even what job they may want, but if they refuse and are an able bodied adult they’d be left with absolutely no government help.

On top of improving virtually every aspect of our public services, this would keep the streets clean, cut unemployment down to record low numbers, not only lay off a massive tax burden on the government, but probably increase the GDP, and of course give the underclass a meaning, beyond reality TV and fast food.

I really don’t see any downsides, other than that a handful of lazy people will starve.
26 posts and 12 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.4463

>>4460
Im gonna have to go with there is no single right answer.  Each kind of structure has inherent issues all of which begin where i objected to the OP:  someone has to decide who is being lazy.  Theres inherent inequality, bias, injustice and opportunity for fraud and graft in any of them so whether they can be effective depends more on implementation than general definition.

To me, something that you can reach for without someone else presiding in judgment over you, has a chance, whatever it is.

 No.4468

>>4463

I think the UBI looks nice here, since you specifically do not require anyone to determine who is "being lazy".  You're just allowed to be lazy and reap some benefits.  Meanwhile, people who want to get back into the workforce after a tragedy have some cushion they can use to bounce back, and people who never left the workplace also have some extra cash.  Seemingly, there are no opportunies for injustice or bias here, though there's always a chance something else crops up.

 No.4470

>>4468
Ubi has been debated in this country as though its an imaginary thing thats never been done.

I have people like you on the internet to thank for being aware that the whole world isn't the US minus everything good.

Someone irl countered my suggestion that UBI could be good here by pointing out that it would only drive up rents which has some merit, but i dont think it would do so outside the already-gentrified housing markets, and would absolutely cushion whole-town collapses like from plant closures.

Further it would directly tie the government balance sheets to jobs in much more inescapable ways than tax revenue, which is about the only factor that makes the politicians care at all.

Im convinced UBI can be a really good thing if done well.

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