Someone calling themselves “averagetruth” has popped in a few times over the last few weeks to dump some garbage in the comments — so far, he or she has just been doing fly-bys, never responding to any arguments, but watch for ’em — the three-comment threshold has been passed and you can tear into these idiot remarks without hesitation. Here’s the latest:
Do you really want the US to sign “treaties” with the UN so that people cannot paint their houses whatever the fuck color they want? Are you aware that globally, temperatures have been *declining* for the past 16 years?
You are aware that entropy will eventually cause all temperatures to drop to a few degrees Kelvin in any case?
One serious faux pas here is that it was posted in the Lounge, which is not a place for argument. Just so averagetruth knows, future attempts to crash the social area will get the comment moved to Thunderdome, a more appropriate area, and if averagetruth can’t learn, we’ll just have to ban the dope.
But I just want to point out that I’ve run across a beautiful visual argument against that claim that temperatures have been declining on Skeptical Science. Just go look at it, it’s devastating to that point (and really, the source is the Daily Mail?)
At least the entropy argument is novel. Hey, averagetruth, you’re going to be inevitably dead in less than a century — does that mean you might as well just curl up and die right now? The heat death of the universe really isn’t a good argument against taking action in the span of the life of a species.
Perhaps he is concerned about the quality of his afterlife. Of course that would be just one more thing to be wrong about.
He has a point about entropy. When people criticize my mass murdering tendencies, I just point out that the victims will die anyway.
And the world will suffer a runaway greenhouse effect in 600-800 million years turning it into another Venus, so what’s the point of passing a bunch of environmental laws for a biosphere that is doomed?
— — — — —
The stuff about UN is important. Everyone knows that the UN is a repressive superpower with lots of tanks and stuff, just waiting to invade USA in order to…come to think about it why would anyone want to invade a bunch of rusting factories? And the workers are increasingly unskilled…And even the groundwater is running out in some places.
Hilarious. That would be your local government and your neighbors who may have some veto power over how you paint your house.
Misinterpret locally, imagine conspiracy globally.
Anyway, it’s simply flat out untrue that “temperatures have been declining for the last 16 years”. That phrasing implies a continuous decline, which is very definitely not the case. Temperatures declined, then rose, then declined, then rose, then declined, then rose… It’s called “noise”.
The mail also ‘reports’ that a stealth airship is going to be deployed to find Bigfoot!!!!11!!! Why have been suppressing this paradigm shattering news PZ, why?!!!
I am very surprised that I have been missing Skeptical Science. Many thanks for the link!
Now that he mentions it, I think perhaps regulating roof color, if not house color, would be a spiffy idea. White or reflective roofs and pavement might compensate for some of the polar ice cap albedo we have lost.
And yes, indeed you do detect somebody who hates homeowners’ associations, with their pigheadedness about air-drying laundry, rain barrels, etc.
“averagetruth”, more appropriately, “averagelie”, is the usual willfull and malicious liar who is so desperate to keep his delusions, he cannot actually respond to anyone.
Dunc: … Temperatures declined, then rose, then declined, then rose, then declined, then rose… It’s called “noise”.
Also “seasons”.
I know you’re behin sarcastic, but usually my answer (if I’m in a good mood) is: to gain time until we start building McKendree cylinders and send them polluting the rest of the universe.
Whoever uses the entropy arguement doesn’t think much of humanity. First they’re assuming that we won’t fix that problem in some future era. Second they don’t believe we can figure out a way to move to a different universe (natural or artificial) when the time comes if the first option doesn’t work out. OTOH, I have full confidence that if given the chance humanity can get around these minor problems. The future is a long time and it’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our lives. Let’s not sell it short.
As the background radiation of the Universe is currently about 3 degrees Kelvin, a drop of a few degrees would make the entire Universe inert, without even activity inside atoms.
Doncha just luv people who know just enough science to get the big words right but the facts wrong, wrong, wrong
…..and don’t know enough to realize they are wrong, wrong, wrong?
….. and then proceed to lecture you about how you don’t know what you are talking about?
Global warming threatening the stability of the entire planet? But what about MY FREEEEEEEEEDOM to paint my roof something non-white! THINK OF MY FREEEEEEEEDOM!
I think it is hilarious that the denialists have gone from being willing to watch the world burn because MONEY to being willing to watch the world burn because COLOR CHOICE.
I take it the sharp rise in temperatures when the sun becomes a Red Giant is considered a “statistical blip” in that calculation.
we‽
editorial or imperial?
So eventual heat death of the universe therefore houses can be any colour?
Good to know we’re fighting against some real intellects…
Louis
Global warming is stupid. In 20 yrs or so the scientists will invent what they need to, and the damage will stop. For right now we should just behave practically, do what u need to do.
Hmm, a climate denier. Hadn’t had one of them around here in a long ass time. MRAs have been taking up all the kook space on this blog lately, they really should let the rest of the reality impaired have their chance to make themselves look stupid.
Just looked at the original comment, he is a rabid libertarian as well. Climate change is to libertarians is what evolution is to creationists: utter heresy to their dogma. Exhibit A in the “you don’t need to believe in God to be irrational” file.
@17:
Scientists are not sorcerers.
In 20 years it is highly probable that any fix will be too little, too late.
The practical thing to do is to take action now to reduce carbon levels by 2% a year, in hopes that we can avert an environmental catastrophe.
I would provide links, but it seems pointless to educate someone who starts their comment with “Global warming is stupid”.
I wonder if the OP idiot was thinking of Cool Roofs when ze declared the UN will be decreeing what color you may use on your house?
AGW is science, which is only refuted by more science. Where is your citation to the peer reviewed scientific literature, the only thing that can back up your assertion…Without that citation, your assertion is *POOF* dismissed as fuckwittery it is.
With such an impressive grasp of science xe have a bright future as the 2016 republican presidential nominee, or is averagetruth really Michelle Bachmann.
Ya, vaiyt, but reliable models can predict that the technology is on its way soon. And then, problem solved.
The heat death of the universe may show up eventually, but red dwarf stars are projected to have a lifespan of 0.1 to 1 terayears. It’s also not clear whether accelerating expansion of space will be ripping apart solar systems before those stars finish cooling.
I mean, do u guys realize that your biggest poster boy is Al Gore? Lol.
We already know the technological solution to climate change. It requires reducing global output of CO2.
FTFY. For fuck’s sake, if you’re going to look like an idiot at least do it properly.
They do have a point though – Al Gore is pretty tall.
Your poster boy is Alfred E. Neuman.
@26. thewarrior :
Wrong.
Try Jim Hansen, NASA’s top climatologist. Maybe.
Or Svante Arrhenius perhaps but I’ll bet you don’t even know who he was!
Although really we don’t have “poster boys ” at all.
Just, y’know, all that evidence stuff.*
Oh wait, you do not know – which is why you make that asinine comment.
Isn’t projectile vomiting “Allll-ll Gooooooore!!!1” getting a bit stale and yesterday even for you?
(When was the last time anyone – other than a Climate Contrarian – mentioned his name as evidence for anything wonder?)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*All the thousands even millions of years worth of it and an actual understanding of climatology the Climate Contrarians clearly lack.)
@thewarrior
Lol?
Reckon we’re LOLing *at* you not *with* you mate!
Or more likely rolling our eyes at you in contempt.
thewarrior @ 17 said
So you are willing to ignore today’s scientists who have studied the issues for decades and say action is needed now, but at the same time you give them so much credit that they will just poof out a magic solution 20 years from now? Open your ears … they are telling you right now what needs to be done.
Heaven help you if you get lost in the desert. You’d be happy as a clam up until you used the last drop of water from your canteen to wash your clothes before you realized it would have been better to conserve the water.
vaiyt:
Totally untrue. Many scientists are capable of casting a +2 spell of reveal idiot.
Evidence made entertaining and clear here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdALFnlwV_o&feature=plcp
from back in 1956 no less.
More evidence of what we know here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9SGw75pVas&feature=plcp
Plus here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnrpwctIh4&feature=plcp
Too. Specifically debunking the “Global cooling since 1998 “climate crock” – of shit.
(Oh & since that clip was made 2010 was the – equal with 2005 – hottest year ever on record according to NASA BTW.)
That’s not even noting the BEST study which converted Dr Muller from skeptic to accepter of the climatological consensus and the record 2012 arctic sea ice melt.
[citation needed]
Stone me. A denialist who is actually fuckwitted enough to use the “Al Gore is fat therefore global warming is stupid” argument. I thought that one had been invented by rational people to take the piss out of denialists.
Thewarrior engaged thebrain in a glorious battle and emerged the victor.
Not at all. Look at the comments section under any article discussing global warming and you will find at least one buffoon crowing this gem out in that arrogant, snotty tone where xe thinks that statement is enough to disprove decades of evidence. Even the more “rational” deniers seem to resort to this when their claims have been debunked enough times. A lot of them legitimately think it’s an argument.
I never said that Al Gore’s fatness was the reason he’s a laughingstock, that’s ur projection. He’s a laughingstock because he does stupid things, including going apeshit over global warming. and if u insist on standing by him, ur just the same.
thewarrior
Gore is a ‘laughinstock’ only at your church.
Except you haven’t shown AGW isn’t happening. That requires peer reviewed scientific literature. You know, the stuff you can’t read and understand because they use big words and mathematics?
Thewarrior, here is a little news for you; Al Gore was just a publicist for news about global warming. What he does and who he is has nothing to do with the evidence about global warming.
You are an idiot just for bringing him up, thinking that a sneer is enough to win the argument.
Recognizing, accepting, and publicising the overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming = going apeshit. What an interesting world you live in, thewarrior.
Look, fuckwit, Al Gore is a complete irrelevance. The consensus among relevant scientific experts is what counts, and that consensus is absolutely clear: anthropogenic global warming is a real and urgent problem. Your fantasies about magical solutions arriving in 20 years are just that – you have, of course, provided no evidence whatsoever for your stupid claims.
Have u heard of a guy called Ray Kurzweil? He’s a genius engineer who has correctly predicted various advances in technology in the past. and his model of exponential technological growth accounts for solutions to global warming. Even if there is permanent damage done, shortly afterward there will be technology available to reverse it, idiot. And even if he was off by a little bit, still, there’s enough room for error. I know u like to bolster ur libfuck creds by any means, but fact is global warming is all fear mongering.
For thewarrior, future technology is a faith that will be fulfilled.
If it is all fearmongering, why would you be so excited about being able to fix it in the future?
Fixed it for you loser. He isn’t that expert, and science doesn’t work by appeals to authority. Especially one whose sanity is in doubt.
Hey fuckwitted loserwarrior. This is a scientific library, where the peer reviewed scientific evidence to refute AGW is found. They are found all over the world at institutions of higher learning. You know, the places that won’t accept your sorry ass due to your terminal stupidity.
Ray Kurzweil’s ‘successful’ predictions are for the wrong reasons. He chalks it up to technology becoming easier to advance because technology is helping, therefore singularity. This ‘genius’ missed the obvious explanation; more people means more scientists means more advances. And birth rates are going down.
This is all besides the point. Posters above have already told you what needs to be done. You’re just resistant to it because you’re a dumbass.
Dude, Jurassic Park was a *MOVIE*. And people are going to die and suffer even if destroyed staple fish species are revived and reintroduced successfully on a wide scale, and farmland is totally repaired.
Dude, not believing in magic is not ‘fear mongering’. FFS, even if you were right in every way, that would STILL not be an argument against minimizing damage, because the fix is far more expensive than the prevention.
Nerd of Redhead, go fuck yourself, u fuckin ginger loser piece of shit.
I actually think that given enough time (long time) there will be enough technology available to revive all the past dead. Far in the future but given exponential curves virtually anything is possible.
Thank you, thewarrior. I just actually laughed out loud. At your stupidity.
Birth rates. Dropping. His ‘exponential curves’ are just wishful thinking until he can actually separate the previous growth from the previous population growth. Which’d be quite a trick.
Someone needs to inform thewarrior’s caretaker that thewarrior is spending too much time online.
I mean there’s a shit ton of other noise. I’m not positive he recognizes past advances on the same level as current ones. .5% Processing speed on a tablet seems to count, but I’m not sure a much greater gain in printing speed on movable type presses that succeeded guttenberg’s do. But that doesn’t really help Kurzweil or his followers.
Fixed that for you. You don’t think. No AGW denier thinks. Otherwise, they would follow the scientific evidence, not their delusions of false hope that they don’t have to change their behavior.
How the f*ck does dropping birth rates have any effect on tech growth? Most ppl don’t go into engineering or science, it’s not like there’s a huge warehouse where more ppl equals more inventions. It’s about computers.
This is odd. thewarrior is using all the bells and whistles of an AGW denialist — antiscience, Al Gore, liberal plot to take of the world, etc. — yet xe also professes belief that, in 20 years, science will solve everything. Including the global warming that xe denies is even happening.
The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.
In order for there to be cognitive dissonance there has to be cognition.
thewarrior:
So let me get this straight, you know global warming is stupid because Al Gore is its “poster-boy”, and you know Al Gore is stupid because he believes in global warming.
Yeah, that’s not a circular argument at all…
(emphasis mine)
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Annnnnnnd there it is.
Sorry. I stand corrected. You are, of course, correct and I apologize for my mistake.
Yeah, reading Kurzweil’s essay again, I see a vast misunderstanding of past societies, and a distinctive lack of supporting evidence. It’s like it’s all hocus pocus, yo.
Science is not a finite resource. Nearly quadrupling the population will considerably increase the number of scientists and engineers available, and that’s what happened from 1900 to 2010.
I’m familiar with the idiot’s hypothesis, yes. Those computers have to be designed, built, programmed, operated by, and maintained by, people. A greater supply of people who can do those things is going to be a big jumpstart.
Janine:
Do you have room on your mantle for another Internet? :)
What’s the matter abject loser? Don’t like your fuckwittery pointed out to the world in the same derisive tone you use? Here’s a hint that would help you stop that. Shut the fuck up. Every time you post you show abject stupidity, which we here will mock.
Oh, and I’m not a ginger, I’m an old, bald, fat man. The Redhead is my wife of 35+ years.
thewarrior:
Please stop. You’re killing me here.
::SNORT::
If you actually *were* thinking, you’d go do proper research like several people here have suggested. You’ve made an assertion that global warming is fear mongering, yet you haven’t supported it with any evidence. Your opinion is not evidence. When the overwhelming consensus among scientists the world over says that AGW is very real and is a threat to our planet, and those scientists have the evidence to back up their claim, your opinion doesn’t count for shit.
You remind me of those birthers who believe that President Obama isn’t a US citizen. The ease of acquiring information these days (for many) should nip these ignoramuses in the bud. Clearly, that’s not the case with birthers. Nor is it the case with you.
thewarrior:
Kurzweil has shown some smarts, and I suppose he’s predicted some stuff. Do you want to base the destiny of our species and thousands of others on the predictions of one man, or the predictions of 97% of climate scientists? Most of us aren’t equipped to check the scientific results personally, we can only read about them, and we can’t all even fully understand the papers. If you want to go from this to an appeal to authority, a decisive majority in the most relevant field is probably the authority you should be appealing to.
As for reviving all the dead- huh? While it’s certainly possible that we might be able to significantly extend the window to revive someone after their “death” under current medical standards for death, reviving anyone on demand? Yeah, I don’t see that happening. Maybe, *maybe*, if they work out brain backups, we can put people in replacement bodies, but that’s very far off. Far off enough that it’s ridiculous as part of an AGW escape plan.
Tony:
I think we should make t-shirts with this on them.
thewarrior:
And with that, any attempt to engage you rationally would be pointless.
/meta-How can anyone be this dumb?
thewarrior:
Kurzweil’s smart enough and all, but his prediction about the singularity relies far too much on fantasy, and not enough on analytical insight. Also, there’s a hell of a lot of confirmation bias if you think the great percentage of Kurzweil’s predictions have come true. The Cult of Kurzweil fails to note that the reason tech has progressed so quickly is because it’s fucking lucrative, and draws a lot of folks who like to make money. Also, too, he completely ignores the problem of induction. His predictions are generally based on, “Well, things keep getting faster/smaller/better, therefore they will continue this trend forever.”
This is not a good bet. In fact, if you look at the computing world, the trends indicate that transistor density increases at a good clip, but software does not. Most of what we consider advances in software aren’t really that much of an advance. Strong AI still eludes us, and faster computers won’t help us figure out the fundamental nature of intelligence.
As far as the ad hominem about Al Gore: what the fuck? Are you in third grade? “Your best friend is a big fat dummy-head” stops being relevant about the time you start thinking rationally.
While your blind faith in technology and your hero worship are kinda cute in a your-naivete-is-so-adorable sort of way, they don’t provide a decent basis for a rational argument.
That’s something you might want to work on.
Tony:
Willful ignorance?
So thewarrior thinks that in some magical future the scientists will not only have All The Answers but also the political power to implement them. Heh. Is xe planning to abruptly start listening to scientists in 2032? How do you even mark that on your calendar?
I do have a couple of questions inspired by our new internet warrior, though, so it’s not a bad thing to keep the chewtoys around:
How do you measure technological progress meaningfully? I’m really at a loss for that one. Rate of new inventions? Quality of life metrics? Yikes.
Also, does anyone know of a correlation between social mobility and tech progress? If it’s no longer restricted to Victorian/Confucian/Roman etc. elites (meaning no offense to Darwin, Lovelace et al!), we could slow the population growth and still have a good pool of scientists. We could, to some small extent, offset declining population by strengthening support for scientific careers for those of us who don’t come from wealth. Too bad the trend seems to be going in the other direction in the U.S.
Even Jesus?
gworroll:
Though the idiot warriors’ idea of reviving the long dead is a colossally stupid notion, as an imaginary ‘what if’, it could be a fun idea.
In this imaginary tale, if the technology existed to bring back say, a dozen people-and they could be brought back at the prime of their life (yeah, I know…this is an imaginary world here though)–who should we bring back?
—
If there are any theists lurking in the crowd, NO, I don’t want Jesus Christ or Mohammed brought back.Hmmm, now that I think about it, I *do* want Jesus brought back. The answers he could provide. The fits the Catholic Church would have. Hell, I just want to see what he actually looked like. Of course, without a body there isn’t much to work with. Oh, and I wonder how Muslims would react to Mohammed (shoot, how would Christians react to him)?blogofmyself:
Yes!
Make it so Number One.
First it was the bike paths. Now house paint? How can we bear to live under the oppression of the UN?!
I’ll bet they were behind the CFL bulb legislation, too!!
chigau (棒や石) you just won a sniny new internet. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything or you’d owe me a new keyboard.
/meta/ I’d forgotten what it was like to have a troll of the AGW type around here. I’m a bit disturbed that I find it refreshing.
I don’t really think reviving a dozen past people would be more than a lark anyway. The effect of individuals is generally greatly overblown by popular history.
I mean, there’s folks I’d LOVE to ask questions, but…
Have u heard of a guy called Ray Kurzweil? – thelackwit
*chortle*
Yes, I’ve read that ludicrous piece of crap The Singularity Is Near. There is no model there in any scientific sense – just a lot of wishful thinking based on nothing more than the arbitrary selection of supposed landmarks in technological development to give an appearance of exponential acceleration across all fields. But such exponential or hyper-exponential trends continue until they run up against some limit, not forever. To take a simple example, the world now lacks the ability to transport people to the moon, which it had 40 years ago. In that case, the limit was economic and political. Similarly with supersonic passenger transport. In other cases there’s a physical limit: by far the biggest jump in the speed with which a message could be sent from London to New York happened in the 1860s, when the first transatlantic telegraph came into operation.
Kurzweil believes more and more of the economy will become computerized, and therefore will start to show the same kind of improvement as computer hardware; but computer hardware has improved so fast because an ever-increasing proportion of global R&D spending has gone into making it do so – you can’t give an ever-increasing proportion to every sector. It is blindingly obvious that even computer software does not show the same kind of performance improvement curve as computer hardware. Progress in AI has in fact been far slower than predicted by most of the the pioneers, such as Herbert Simon, who in 1965 wrote (The Shape of Automation for Men and Management, New York: Harper & Row):
Marvin Minsky, another AI pioneer, was a consultant on Kubrick’s 2001: A space Odyssey, and “Hal” was supposed to be a realistic AI of 2001. Here is Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen on this major flaw in Kurzweil’s fantasies.
Kurzweil is terrified of death – or perhaps his ego is so vast he just can’t bear the thought of a universe without Ray Kurzweil. So he has a great need to convince himself that technology will develop fast enough to save his arse by allowing him to upload his brain-state into hardware – and will then allow him to reanimate his father. Betting the future of the world on wishful thinking is really a very bad idea.
Hey don’t laugh at warrior….visionaries like him will be needed when the Reapers arrive. FemShep did die for our sins after all
alright dumbass, what I’m saying is that when you’ve got 7 billion ppl, only a small fraction of them are engineers or scientists or know shit-all about advancing human technology. and so no, i don’t think that a slightly declining birth rate is going to suddenly lead to a similar decline in technological process. thats asinine.
So, if we could revive all the dead people, and actually did so, where would they live? What food would they eat? What jobs wouuld they take? And wouldn’t the added expenditure of energy used for revivification, transportation, and climate control for all these reanimated corpsicles dump even more carbon into the atmosphere? Seems to me that not revivifying corpses would be a net carbon gain.
Or maybe they would be non-people, reanimated to work as slaves so that we could, once and for all, destroy all labour unions?
and yes, given exponential growth returns, I do think that someday we will be able to revive Jesus, whether he was just a guy, or the Son of God, tho, remains to be seen.
Ogvarbis, at that point, I would say interstellar travel/planetary colonies would be a reality. maybe even intergalactic. so I think there would be room.
Bwaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
I think we have not just a Singulatarian but a Tiplerite! That would explain the weird combination of pro-Christian bleating and Singulatarian blithering. What larks!
Also, I’m not saying that global warming isn’t real. It causes some damage, even tho u and ur poster boys like Al Gore and this professor blog guy would like to paint it as way worse than it is. And again, I don’t think its a concern, because again, given current progress, the technology is near.
I will say, when the advanced technology becomes available (time travel/revival) it’s very likely you atheist fucks will shut up real fast. i don’t know that for sure. But i called it.
So where is this corpse we are going to revivify? Where is the original flesh? The DNA? Are you going to use a bloodstain off of the One True Cross (and there are enough pieces of the One True Cross out there to build a cross fifty feet high, so how would you know you got the right bloodstain?)? Do you even listen to yourself? If you clone Jesus from a DNA sample from a mosquito preserved in amber, he would still be a product of both genetics (well, haploid genetics) and his upbringing, so what would be the point?
You and all the other AGW denialists (the entire GOP, for instance) are completely and totally anti-science. So where will the researchers come from to do all of this wonderful research to dezombiefy Jesus and everyone else, and create the spaceships, space colonies and everything else? Especially if we have lost much of our arable land to rising sea levels forcing more and more people to live on less and less which means we spend money fighting wars to protect what we have (oil, for instance) rather than spending it on science?
Gee, what an abject loser if it thinks decomposed bodies, where the atoms have been recycled, can be resurrected into the original form. Not thinking at all.
thewarrior
You are a first-year engineering student, aren’t you?
No, we just don’t discuss fantansy and irrationality with fuckwitted idjits like you. It serves no purpose other than to make you think we take you seriously. We don’t. Well just laugh and mock you instead.
Ogvorbis:
I propose we construct a world that is comprised of land, with a single, sinuous river looping across this land. There, those that are resurrected (that is, everyone) will eat from lunchpails that appear in toadstool-like contrivances, powered by an electrical storm every day at lunch (and perhaps at tea-time, as well).
We shall live together harmoniously, and perhaps we may convince Samuel Clemens to recreate for us a Mississippi paddle boat. And should we die, well, we would simply resurrect some other place. It’d be like video games, only better.
Are we atheists going to shut up because technology is going to prove the existence of god?
…because when we had a population of 1.7b, every human being were “engineers or scientists or know shit-all about advancing human technology”, but now that we have 7b, it’s only a small fraction. Do you hear yourself speak?
I *know* you think these things are unrelated. I’m asking you to explain your reasoning. Also, thanks for reminding me of RnD funding, everyone else XD
Good luck sorting out all the failed messianic claimants in Judea from each other.
thewarrior
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
*snortle*
Dude, if I could time travel/space travel I’d be hunting for Gallifrey, not Jesus.
Fuckwit, it’s the overwhelming consensus among the relevant experts – climate scientists – that counts, not you, not me, not Al Gore, not PZ Myers. Can you get that simple fact through the concrete?
Fuck me, you haven’t even specified what technology you are claiming will be the solution, let alone gone any way toward showing it would be available in time.
Come on, don’t be shy. Tell us about Tipler’s “Omega Point cosmology” why don’t you? Or whatever other ridiculous religious nonsense you subscribe to. We’re enjoying this!
thewarrior:
You sure did, Ace.
So, if time travel is going to be invented, where are all the time-travellers? Seems we would’ve caught one by now.
Oh! Unless UFOs are the time-travel devices. That would not only explain the Mystery of the Missing Time Travelers, but also the Curious Case of the Unexplained Sightings of Light.
Should be “All human beings were ‘engineers…'”
Are we atheists going to shut up because technology is going to prove the existence of god?
well, yes. God created the atoms can can fit together to form the technology.
Fuck Jesus, Prester John would be a way more interesting search. All the other time travelling kooks LEGITIMATE HISTORIANS will be hunting for Jesus, Prester John lets me see more geography and more of the world. Also more time periods!
See, here’s the thing that just makes my head spin 360 degrees and vomit pea soup:
Idjits like “thewarrior” think technology will save them while dismissing science categorically as irrelevant. It’s like all those fuckwits who, when they find out I am a physicist, want me to do the math for their theory that proves Einstein was wrong: “I know it’s true,” they say. “I just can’t do the math.”
I’m guessing that ol’ warrior boy is about 10 years old and maybe got a picturebook about Kurzweil.
Hey, Warriorboy, why don’t you upload yourself now?
When he made the claim about entropy decreasing with temperature, I decided to look at the Sackur-Tetrode equation, which describes entropy for a monoatomic ideal gas. It turns out that entropy increases when internal energy (which is linearly proportional to temperature) increases, so in that case, the commenter was completely wrong about temperature and increasing entropy.
thewarrior:
No. No it doesn’t. The Abrahamic God does not exist, and therefore Jesus is most certainly not his son. You do realize that this is an atheist blog, right?
(Also, wouldn’t you need either a physical body or brain download to revive someone? Or do you plan to pull the information necessary for revival out of your ass like you do with all your other information?)
…Seriously? His name is right at the top of the page. Are you an idiot? (Oh wait, I think we’ve already show that yes, you are.)
Oh! Unless UFOs are the time-travel devices. That would not only explain the Mystery of the Missing Time Travelers, but also the Curious Case of the Unexplained Sightings of Light.
Hm, u know, I dont think it works like that, personally. I think we are the “real” time, and so of course we don’t see time travellers… it hasn’t been invented. But when it is, we will be able to revisit the “shadow” time. It’s all very complicated and I’ve done some math with it, but I’m not getting into that here.
And ofcourse it’s just a theory.
I’m so glad thewarrior was not part of the US Space programme way back when. I can just picture it:
“So,” asks the engineer, “we have the rockets to get the astronauts into space, we have a way to keep them fed, dispose of the waste, and even a way to keep them from exhaling themselves to death. But how do we get them back to earth without burning up in the atmosphere?”
thewarrior answers, “Oh, not to worry. By the time we get them up there, I’m sure someone will have figured out a safe way to bring them home.”
9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . We have liftoff
The engineer says, “Let’s hope so.”
thewarrior:
Wow. You have a lot of blind faith in many things, don’t you?
I mean, except for things that science has actually, y’know, substantiated.
Which god? YHWH? Brahmin? Cronus? Are we sure the universe didn’t actually form from water that Izanagi and Izanami sent a magpie down into?
Seriously now.
thewarrior:
You do realize that theory has a specific meaning in science, correct? Just to be clear, you further realize that meaning is not, “Something I pulled out of my ass because I don’t know what I’m talking about,” right?
I’d truly love to see some of the math, though. That should be very amusing.
Which god? YHWH? Brahmin? Cronus? Are we sure the universe didn’t actually form from water that Izanagi and Izanami sent a magpie down into?
Seriously now.
Well fuck if i know. I mean i personally am a Protestant, so I would say God/Yahweh/Allah.
Fixed that for you. You have a Major Problem. Your deity is imaginary, doesn’t exist, no evidence for it, so it can’t save your ass. Show otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence.
*facepalm*
And there it is.
(Also, I am now imagining atoms doing the cancan.)
u r dumb & ur brain is stoopid
I am very reluctant to believe, that thewarrior really means what he writes. I cannot bring myself to really, really believing that someone can be this stupid and still able to use computer. It is so depressing.
And they all exist only between delusional peoples ears. That is only in your delusional mind. Show otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence, not vague claims of the fuckwitted.
Chas, I’m so glad we have someone who speaks warriorboy’s first language. Ours obviously has too many syllables.
Charly:
I was just thinking the same thing. thewarrior must be having us on. There are just too many statements that are so wrong in very funny ways. The humor must be intentional.
If so, I doff my cap to you, thewarrior. Well-played.
nigel #93
That rang a bell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld
Hmm, I think this guy is fooling with us – the “just a theory” is too good to be true. If so – admirably done. Most amusing.
I am very reluctant to believe, that thewarrior really means what he writes. I cannot bring myself to really, really believing that someone can be this stupid and still able to use computer. It is so depressing.
Of course I mean what i write. Singularitarianism is a respected movement, I’m far from the only member. I also take it beyond that- if that’s what we can achieve at 2040-2050, imagine what we will have by 2500? We will be as gods.
Charly:
You know, I think you might be on to something.
How does one quantify absurdity in a mathematical equation? S/R*P^C = A (where S = stupidity, R = religion, P = politics, C = conservatism and A = stupidity)? I know I’m missing something in my equation. Dman.
But humanity is fallen and inherently sinful so progress is not possible.
That’s not really a compelling reason for me to take seriously your claim that there is a creator god, and its name is YHWH.
Damn. A=Absurdity, not stupidity.
Poe or no Poe. Who know?
I’m not so sure he’s Poe. I’m eviscerating a climate denialist on a Yahoo message board who is just as stupid. He even trotted out the “CO2 depleted atmosphere” trope. Idiots abound.
No it isn’t. It is mocked and laughed at.
Since gods are imaginary constructs, that means we would be imaginary too. You don’t think anything through, do you?
well I don’t give a f*ck if you take me seriously. When the technology becomes available, I think you’ll eat your words.
No, we will be long dead, including you, who can’t be resurrected due to decompostion. Poor pitiful delusional fool.
This much is obvious, given how quickly you retreat from every point that faces even the most remote contention.
Sure, but in the much more likely event that Kurzweil is just inventing an idea to make himself feel better (And make no mistake, I’d much prefer a world in which he’s right), there’ll still be no magic and you’ll dream it’s coming in just 50 years.
You seem a mite young; did you ever watch the Jetsons as a kid growing up?
Fuck. The word is fuck. Not f*ck. Or are you really so immature that you can’t do a ‘u’?
Bro Ogvorbis, He has to save all his ‘u’s to substitute for “you”.
I’m 30 years, old, dude.
That makes far more sense then anything xe has actually written.
And I just reread my last sentence. The sheep pun was not intentional. Honest.
Ogvorbis, glad to see I’m not the only one who that was annoying.
Besides, xe’s not even consistent about the censorship of “fuck”.
FIFY
That’s really, really, really sad.
Physical age does not always equate to maturity.
And not all of us here are ‘dude’s’.
I’m only skimming the thread, but I became inclined to agree as soon as Kurzweil came up. It seemed like too abrupt a shift in topic (and too guaranteed to derail) to be unintentional trolling.
Oh, do we have an Xtian singularity freak? I think we do.
thewarrior:
Other than Kurzweil’s failure to take into account the lack of progress in software towards strong AI, there is one further, very drastic, problem with the singularity.
You will be dead.
Even if you chop of your head at the time of death and put it in a deep freeze as close to absolutely zero as you can manage, the amount of time required to freeze your brain will cause non-homogenuous decay through the brain, with the core suffering the worst of it. This will leave you with a flash-frozen head that suffers from brain damage.
Now, even if they repair the damage, there is loss of information. This loss of information cannot be repaired. That basically goes against the laws of physics.
The resurrected you will not be the you you are now.
Now, if you don’t flash-freeze your head, you’re stuck recreating a model of you based on whatever information can be gleaned. This is how Kurzweil intends to “resurrect” his dad, by recording as many remembrances of his father as possible, in the hope that this simulation of his dad will be so close to his dad as to be indistinguishable.
Note how selfish this is: Kurzweil wishes for his dad’s simulated company, not the dad himself. The model simply cannot be his dad. The elder Kurzweil is dead, his memories gone, his personality blinked out at the time of death.
Once you are dead, the string of self-awareness that is you will simply disappear. Flash-freezing your head won’t save you. Creating a model of your memories won’t save you. At best, it will be something that may think it’s you. But you will be gone.
Me, I don’t want something that thinks it’s me. That’s just creepy.
That particular technology is already available: it’s called alphabet soup.
Either that or xe was just waiting for a chance to wedge it in. Sort of like Romney with single parents and guns.
*dies laughing*
Look, thewarrior, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression here. We’re not just making fun of you because we feel like it. We’re making fun of you because you are making claims that have no basis in reality. If you aren’t doing this in bad faith, if you aren’t making these arguments just to be annoying or absurd, then you must actually be interested in the subject. So if you are, I suggest that you read another book on the subject by someone who is critical of Kurzweil’s ideas. If you read it with an open mind, really listen to what they have to say, I think you’ll find that Kurzweil is short on evidence and heavy on speculation. If you actually care about the subject and about knowing the truth, you should be happy to read sources from other perspectives so that you can see all the arguments. If you won’t do that, then you are’t actually interested in the truth, and I have to conclude that you are just using these ideas as a way to feel good about the future without doing anything about global warming. If that’s the case, then fine, persist in your delusion.
This is a community of people who value truth and evidence and who have no sympathy for wishful thinking, so if you don’t want to be mocked I suggest you either show some interest in real evidence or take your nonsense elsewhere.
blogofmyself:
That’s okay. We’ll be able to resurrect you in a couple of decades.
Oh, then you’re just as ignorant as Kurzweil.
Some of this shit is forgivable. The unrelenting progress of the human race sounds lovely on paper and is normal, but technology is not a stage in Sonic the Hedgehog; it goes backwards as well as forward. But seriously, pretending that everyone thought technology will advance at the same rate as it did for one’s forbears? For fuck’s sake, most major technological development heralds the same thoughts of vast change on the horizon. Why do you think Socrates pissed on writing?*
Again, there’s a reason I referred you to the Jetsons. Kurzweil is just the oughties version of the same thing. “THIS TIME, Technology will go super super fast and everything will change entirely in my lifetime”.
Just like when we were so sure that here comes AI and robots, and Skynet, but we totally miss, you know, cell phones and the internet.
*Well, so said Plato.
ya, whatever guys. Bored with this Luddite atheist fundie space.
Given exponential growth, and even allowing for a PERFECT spherical volume of expansion with PERFECT habitability throughout that volume, population saturation within the center of the expanding volume will ALWAYS be reached faster than the edge of the colonization bubble can expand.
Interstellar travel and space colonization will NEVER actually be a solution for the problem of runaway population pressure.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, but when we do it, if we do it, it will not be for that reason alone.
For fuck’s sake, most major technological development heralds the same thoughts of vast change on the horizon. Why do you think Socrates pissed on writing?*
Wait, what do you mean by this?
Scientists today ALREADY HAVE the technology required to solve global warming. And they have already proposed it publically. The uber-complex process is called “lowering CO2 emissions”.
Thanks to fools like thewarrior, there is no political will to actually listen to what the scientists are saying, TODAY.
Lulz. ‘Luddite’ for not believing in unevidenced exponential tech growth, and ‘fundie’ for… not accepting his claims that there are gods. Scarper off with your tail between your legs, thewarrior.
Thewarrior: “Bored with this Luddite atheist fundie space.”
When danger reared it’s ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled…
Guess he decided facts, reality and truth were just too hard. Let’s see if he can stick the flounce.
thewarrior
If you type
<blockquote>paste quoted text here</blockquote>
this will result.
It will make your comments easier to read.
It will not help you make sense.
The future is amazing!
I give the flounce a 1/10. It didn’t even last a post.
Given exponential growth, and even allowing for a PERFECT spherical volume of expansion with PERFECT habitability throughout that volume, population saturation within the center of the expanding volume will ALWAYS be reached faster than the edge of the colonization bubble can expand.
wait, wut? How the f*ck do u know this? When the interstellar/intergalactic travel technology is invented, it will in all likelihood involve some sort of teleportation or something similar. Think the skip drive from Old Man’s War. The sphere of colonization will basically be infinite.
We aren’t Luddites, as we don’t wish to do away with technology. But you overetimate the progress that will be made, which makes you sound looney tunes. You should hear yourself.
me:
thewarrior:
Oh, damn, I didn’t actually want you to leave. I was having so much fun mocking you.
Until you show with technology that the SoL can be surpassed, not just believe it will be, which is equivalent to beliving in imaginary deities, it is nothing but whacky-baccy pipe dream, and you sound irrational.
u call irrationality what I call faith.
3o years old?
But the only thing that is actually infinite is God. Blasphemer!
I’m not a Luddite either, but I can sympathize
Don’t worry – it’s evident the technology to allow thewarrior to stop posting drivel hasn’t been invented yet.
nigel:
What about Nessie?
Pyramids of Egypt?
Stonehenge?
Easter Island?
The Illuminati?
Is every crank conspiracy and hoax connected?
Is this the theory of the connectivity of life that worshippers of woo spout?
Math. It is a useful tool. Helps distinguish the possible from the impossible. Learn to use it.
Doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t matter.
The RATE of exponential growth WITHIN the center of the colonization volume ALSO reaches towards infinity (it’s EXPONENTIAL GROWTH), and it reaches infinity FASTER than the rate of colonization expansion. So you will ALWAYS fill up the interior space FASTER than you will be able to expand the total space.
Part of Kurzweil’s claims are that he has presented a revolutionary new model for technological growth. Not that it’s a model (models have concrete predictions, for one), but he claims that in previous eras, it was thought that each iterative generation would be like the one before it. IT’s under the section on ‘paradigm shifts’. He uses this ignorant assertion to fuel his narrative where he’s making a bold new truth.
This is entirely wrong. Quite a few new and major advancements have this same sort of spiel made about them. Socrates pissing on writing is an example of the naysayer version; “Writing will corrupt the youth and fill them with laziness, and there will be no new ideas…”, etc etc is the negative version of this trope, but on the flip side, “Now that we have televisions, the newest, most accurate news can be beamed into everyone’s homes! Educators can reach audiences previously unheard of!” is a positive version.
Even if it were new to technology (and it isn’t), it’s hardly new to humans. Like I said, I’d like it if he’s right and all, but he doesn’t really have a lot of evidence on his side. Much like I’m still waiting for my jetpack (I’m not, but), you’ll still be waiting on your robot body when you die. Sucks, but what are ya gonna do?
Faith is only one variety of irrationality, but it is probably the most destructive.
Even if you break the light speed limit, once your rate of outward expansion exceeds the rate of expansion of spacetime, you WILL, inevitably, run out of useable space and useable resources. And this will be true even if the universe is infinite (which it probably isn’t).
Rutee- Oh, well ya, but writing DID change the world. so did television. Kurzweil’s growth model probably will too.
thewarrior is just exhibiting a simple, childish desire to escape responsibility.
“No, I don’t need to
clean my roomdo anything about global warming becausemommy and daddysuper-genius scientists will figure it out and do everything for me.”i mean, I would say they were right, wouldn’t u?
Yes, they did, and I didn’t say technology wouldn’t continue to change the world. Rather the opposite; I said that the technology would change things in ways that weren’t predicted.
Kurzweil’s model will change nothing; it is, itself, a prediction. The predictions were *WRONG*. And they will, in all likelihood, continue to *BE* wrong, positive or negative. That’s why we have the internet, but not jetpacks or moon colonies. I don’t know what, precisely, the future holds, but I can pretty reliably say that Kurzweil’s predictions don’t hold water. There’s a number of reasons they’re irrational.
For fuck’s sake, you haven’t even given a reason to ignore the population growth and increased investment in technology!
Incidentally, instantaneous teleportation means instantaneous information transfer, and instantaneous information transfer wrecks causality. And without causality, information processing is impossible.
Thus, instantaneous teleportation = Kurzweil’s singularity utterly impossible on unbreakable first principles, no matter how advanced the technology envisioned.
Kurzeil’s singularity actually possible and allowed by the laws of physics = instantaneous teleportion MUST be impossible.
And if teleportation is NOT instantaneous, then, once again, the rate of exponential growth within the center of any conceivable expanding volume of colonization will always fill up the available space BEFORE and FASTER than the expanding front of colonization can open up more space and resources to exploit. Which means that there will always be a limit to exponential growth, and such growth must always come to a halt, eventually.
thewarrior:
Which god?
Odin, Idunn, Thor, Baldur, Loki, Hephaestus, Dionysus, Demeter, Hera, Zeus, Athena, Achilles, Set, Horus, Isis, Nanook, Sila, Pinga, Moyocoyan, Ometeotl, Tezcatlipoca, or Tlaloc? If you’re not referring to any of those gods, which of the several thousand other gods invented by humanity are you talking about and how do you know the one you’ve picked out of your ass exists?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*Gasp*
Uo HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO
*Gasp, pant*
Oh god, you have got to be kidding. The capability is certainly there, but that potential isn’t realized, at all. Not that TV is unique in this enterprise, but… XD
I mean, do you actually look at TV at all? XD
So, warriorboy, couldn’t stick the flounce?
So tell me:
How do you plan to get around the fact that to go faster than light, you have to have an imaginary restmass?
What do you plan to eat the last 10 years before the “zingularity” after agriculture fails due to climate change and overpopulation?
Alright, I have to go punch in at my place of employment. goodbye.
thewarrior:
You’re trying to engage with the adults, but failing miserably.
Thewarrior: “Alright, I have to go punch in at my place of employment. goodbye.”
Say “Hi,” to the folks at TacoHell”
Poe. Has to be. warriorboy owes me a new keyboard for that one.
Oh, flounce #2. Wonder if this one will stick?
Say hi to all the other Sandwich Artists.
Can we like, not demean folks at minimum wage jobs?
No, srsly, can we not do this?
I have to second Rutee on the “lets not demean shitty paying jobs.”
Fuck knows it’s hard enough to find a job most places, without adding shaming on top of it.
The people of Angkor were faced with an environmental challenge limiting continued growth, namely the availability of drinkable water. Their scientists and engineers solved this problem with a network of canals and reservoirs. For centuries their population grew and their environmental challenge grew with it. For centuries, their scientists and engineers continually came up with ever more elaborate solutions to deal with the problem. For centuries their system of irrigation grew ever more complicated and sophisticated.
For centuries, on and on, their scientists and engineers continued to solve their ever increasing, ever mounting environmental problems. For centuries, each looming problem was solved with new technology and new innovation.
Until suddenly, one day, it wasn’t.
And that is why Ankor Wat today is a tourist attraction buried in the depths of uninhabitable jungle.
thewarrior brings up some interesting questions — the most important being, “Why do people think unknown technology based on unimaginable and unpredictable science which may or may not be physically possible is going to save us?”
Seriously. Just the epistemological failure completely eviscerates any kind of argument they might put forward. “The discovery of faery-dust in the next 100 years will completely revolutionize flying!”
Ok, now I’m sure of it. The climate-change denial, singularity bullshit, godbothering, and time travel stuff I could all believe, but I just can’t believe that someone actually thinks TV is educational. I’m calling this one a Poe.
But hey, at least xe figured out how to use blockquotes.
Second.
See, even that’s not enough. Singularitarians have to do this kind of compartmentalization all the time. Steps forward have to be good, right?
What direction is “forward”?
Whatever’s convenient, IME.
I still want to know why slightly faster processing speed is such a huge deal, but an improvement to rigging that lets you manage sails with a few less sailors, allowing more cargo, isn’t.
Maybe gawd makes the computer with extra special atoms?
Rutee:
At the rate we’re using oil, streamlined rigging is going to be a huge fucking deal by the time the singularity hits.
Um because everyone and their dog uses computers, but most of us wouldn’t know how to sail if our lives depended on it?
Sure, but Kurzweil is making claims about how much faster tech is going now compared to the nebulous past. As near as I can tell, Part of how he is doing this by promoting the most minimal current-day achievement as massive, and by downplaying every iterative step in previous developments; like improved rigging in sailing ships (which is the kind of thing that’d be a big fucking deal in the age of sail).
Ah, fuck. Rutee Katreya, I was attempting snark. It appears I failed. Sorry ’bout that.
As it happens though, thanks for the extra clarification, as that means Kurzweil is nutter than I had understood.
thewarrior
@110:
Why would you want to be a Protestant (or profess *any* faith at all)?
If you don’t know about these other gods, what evidence exists that your god is real and the thousands of others aren’t?
Oh, and as someone who tries to play at the big boys’ table, would you learn how to capitalize and blockquote? It would make it so much easier for the sharks. Plus, it might make us think you’re actually capable of learning something new.
@120:
Methinks your imaginary god won’t be very happy at the thought of humans being “as gods”. Unless you’re talking about the Moronic Mormon God.
In any case, you won’t be a god until you too have a temper tantrum over the beings you’ve created (who are doing what you’ve created them to do) being sinful and forcing you to wipe them out in a genocidal, worldwide flood that kills nearly every living creature on the planet (including a lot of fetuses, which puts the lie to god being against abortion).
@133:
Contrary to the beliefs found in many religions, proper punctuation doesn’t kill.
@156:
You do know this is a blog largely populated by adults, no? It really is ok to pull the “U” out of your ass (y’know where everything else you’ve said comes from).
@160:
Are you familiar with the definition of faith as you’re using the term?
Let me assist:
The type of faith you’re referring to fits the second definition. Please note 2 b(1)- firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Your belief in god has absolutely no proof, yet you still believe. Despite the inherent contradictions of your religion and its holy text. Despite the fact that humanity invented every other god throughout history. Ever heard the phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”?
Also, tangentially related to the above, do note that I *cited* the definition of ‘faith’, complete with a link. That’s what you do when you present information to people (if you’re trying to present your argument honestly). You have yet to present any information with proper citation (let alone information that has stood up to peer review as Nerd of Redhead mentions HERE).
It’s cool, I shoulda noticed.
I’m also not positive that Kurzweil is doing that; it’s hard to know for sure when you can’t actually look at all his data, because he doesn’t substantiate it! But that’s what his writing smacks of.
I thinks it’s insulting to people to demean them for working minimum wage jobs. Can we not do that?
That’s as far as I’ve gotten. And now I need a drink.
@52: The only exponential phenomenon that can go on forever is exponential decay. Exponential growth obviously hits limits in a finite universe. Which will grow faster? Environmental degradation or our ability to cope with it and manage it? No one can know this with good confidence.
If you weren’t 30 and hadn’t had time to be responsible for it yourself, I’d suggest that you sue whoever was responsible for teaching you physics.
Really? Over 200 and warriorwhatevs never dropped the ‘u’ shtick? You all have way more patience than I do.
If thewarrior works a regular shift, we probably can’t expect hir back for about 10 hours.
What shall we talk about meanwhile?
Audley,
Ohhhh I am SOOOOOO much less patient than you! ;-)
I’m just, erm, you know, that thing, erm, busy. I lurked, I read thewarrior’s schtick, I thought he was a fuckwit. Quod erat doofustrandum.
Oh but I will be back. And then, THEN, there will be a wailing and gnashing of teeth and a wearing of sackcloth and ashes.
And mild to moderate piss taking.
Louis
Advanced aerobatic Surpriez Buttsecks and the ineffable lightness of being as it pertains to the human condition, man’s inhumanity to man, the existence of Silicon Heaven and the inside leg measurement of a lady named Cyril who has a penchant for fabulous boys?
Louis
chigau:
We could discuss how unfortunate it was that averagetruth didn’t even show up for hir own special thread, and how instead it was co-opted by another dipshit.
Louis:
(I’ve been missing my widdle Louis. How ya been?)
Louis
Good for a start.
Not bad thanks Tony, beyond sanely busy, and your fine fantastic self?
Louis
Tony
averagetruth may not even be aware of this thread.
That is sad.
Nick Gotts @ 85
I was wondering if he was referring to the Physics of Immortality myself. I followed your wiki link to refresh my memory as it’s been at least 14 years since I read it and sure enough there it is:
yep, I thought for sure I heard the sound of fapping coming from thewarrior’s general direction. =)
Is AT even aware of anything beyond RW propergander and his right hand???
My money, for what its worth, is on the left (sinister) hand.
Amphiox:
Would that be the same Left hand that’s also responsible for the Gay Agenda being pushed in the US?
You are correct. Sorry.
I dunno. I personally know three people who think that Faux Newz is single handedly telling the Truth to America and preventing a Nazicommie takeover.
So here’s a question that has been puzzling my puzzler
How do you be a Christian AND look forward to a singularity? Don’t true Christians have no need for such a one and true singularity ratchet heads would have no need for a savior?
Hell if you were a true Christian wouldn’t it make more sense to see any singularity as The End Days, false prophet mimicing heaven, mark on the head or hand and all that?
Also has non of the metal heads ever heard of the law of diminishing returns?
26 whole comments before the
BUT ALLLLLLLLLL GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE argument.
The deniers are slacking.
Speaking as a WalMart slave, yeah, please don’t do that.
From their input to this conversation, I’d guess that thewarrior has spent several orders of magnitude more time contemplating the best technique for genital-scratching than contemplating their “faith(s)”.
[OT]
How do you not?
(They call it , and it has nothing to do with Skynet)
@JM
Why are you OTing a question that is ON topic?
Ing, because the topic is foolishness related to One World Government and anthropogenic climate change denialism.
*reads the thread so far*
…wow, that’s really sad. Kurzweil is right, technology is actually magic, and the existence of a deity can just be assumed.
I’m guessing thewarrior has read a lot of Heinlein but not a lot of actual science.
Sigh… Kurzweil, his Singularity, and digitized personalities. It makes for some good scifi and fodder for philosophical discussuion, but nothing more.
Another vote for not picking on someone’s job/income. thewarrior has his obvious faults, but what he does or a living and how much he makes should not an issue.
EDIT: “…what he does for a living…” “…should not be an issue.”
Tired. Need sleep. Me no make Intertubes talk-talk when should make with sleepy.
Well, Kurzweil never mentioned magic mushrooms, so clearly his theory isn’t complete. Did he ever collaborate with Terence McKenna? Did one of them rip the whole singularity idea off from the other one or what?
thelackwit #84
thelackwit #172
If by “educators,” you mean “the producers of Stargate SG-1.” Seems you have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Just to be clear: sarcophagi don’t resurrect the dead, the Roswell Grays aren’t going to give Earth intergalactic hyperdrives¹ (let’s not even try to get into whether the Greys exist or not; the strain of that would probably melt what remains of your brain into decaying bio-sludge), and there are no magical Ancient stasis devices in Antarctica that’ll allow us to flawlessly preserve people at the point of the death. Writers are not physicists, and Ray Kurzweil has all the credibility of a magic 8-ball. No, not even that. He has the credibility of a moldy cabbage sitting atop a magic 8-ball. A magic 8-ball that only ever says “Yes.”
Not only must I condemn you for sheer nincompoopdom, but for lack of imagination as well. Hell, you don’t even appear to be getting your from good science fiction, let alone anything with even the most passing resemblance to reality. Then again, what in the name of Cthulhu’s dread tentacles should I expect from somebody using the word “warrior” unironically to describe themselves?
Hopefully that rant was at least marginally coherent.
——
¹Just because this point was so colossally stupid, I have to address it. Firstly, galaxies are big. Really, really big. You don’t have even the faintest idea how big they are. And the distances between galaxies?
Let’s put it this way. The Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years across. That means light that left the sun when the Neanderthals still roamed the Earth is only now reaching the opposite edge of the galaxy. There is enough space between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies to fit approximately TWENTY-FIVE MILKY WAY GALAXIES.
And with a small number of exceptions, galaxies are getting further and further apart, because the universe is expanding. And the rate of that expansion is increasing. That means there exists a point in time at which any two given galaxies will become causally disconnected, because not only do you need to reach impossible speeds to get there in any reasonable amount of time (as you do with ‘mere’ interstellar travel), you also need to constantly accelerate to compensate for the increasing speed at which the other galaxy is RUNNING THE HELL AWAY FROM YOU. I’m not even going to try to do the math for that one, because I suck at it. So at that point, you would need physically-impossible faster-than-light-travel to reach that galaxy AT ALL, EVER. Simply put, intergalactic travel is the singly most impossible idea ever advanced in the history of science fiction.² Open your goddamn eyes. The universe is a metric fuckton more interesting than you give it credit for.
—
²It was hyperbole, people! Just hyperbole, I swear! Please don’t kill me!
The Swordfish:
Could be worse.
Imagine thewarriorfortruth…
Tony, why? WHY!? Just imagining that slaughtered a good number of my brain cells.
@Tony
Don’t give the guy any ideas.
ok, wow. FYI, I am NOT lower class. If i had a family I probably would be, but I live on my own, so I’m comfortably middle class. also, I’m a white male, so suck on that, motherfuckers.
Lemme guess. A sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic, ergo they could magically make AGW go “Poof!” ?
The fuck? When did anyone suggest comment on your presumed race or gender? Are you just hallucinating now?
I’m really not sure what to make of the Like, do you think we’re all racists? Or are you a racist? Do you think we’re going to take you SO VERY MUCH MORE SERIOUSLY for knowing you’re male? Like, what the shit does that have to do with anything?
(Folks, this is what too much Kurzweil exposure does to the brain.)
Because middle class white dudes are SO RARE amongst singulitarians.
@Swordfish: Educated guess time, he’s ‘not apologizing’ for being a white middle class dude.
His honesty is refreshing.
Is this a square on MRA bingo?
wtf is an MRA?
@Rutee: oh gawd no. OH GAWD.
And also, hey, you don’t want me to rub your noses in what I’ve got, maybe you shouldn’t brag about your upper class status and PhDs and shit. Fuckin jackases.
If u don’t believe me, take it up with famous author John Scalzi:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/
Suck on that.
*falls over laughing*
I never would have imagined it possible to cram that much stupid into such a small sentence. I’m pretty sure it’s going to collapse into a black hole at any moment.
The idea that we’re upset because you’re ostensibly better off than us by being middle-class… even though we’re supposedly upper-class, or something? Priceless! The implication that being white and male makes you better than everyone who isn’t? Adorable! Getting upset that people more qualified than you to
walk uprightbreathecomment on science are disagreeing with you and citing their experience? Glorious! Someone’s gotta stand up to the experts, after all!And finally, the triumphal coup de grâce: “Suck on that.” Folks, we finally have a solution to global warming! Just launch this clown into orbit and let his bloated, voluminous ego blot out the sun for a few years!
Yes, the “famous author”* Scalzi’s right on the mark. Are you… proud of your freakin’ unearned and undeserved privilege? I just… I don’t even.
I mean, you’re really just a terrible person. Truly.
But hey! You finally figured out how to spell “you,” if only for a moment! Maybe one day, if you work real hard, you just might be able to construct a coherent sentence that doesn’t immediately reveal the unfathomable depths of your stupidity.
——
*Note for the terminally dense: being famous doesn’t make you right. You know who else was famous?
…
HITLER.
You have hero worship for a twit that you can’t support. Trust me, nobody gives two flying fucks what degree you have, in the face of that. Engineers. *Eyeroll*
Dude, Scalzi is saying white dudes have it easier because society treats them better than they deserve, not because of any other trait you imagine.
ya, duh, that’s what I’m saying.
Right. I think he’s given up on the “dazzle them with brilliance” part, and switched straight over to “baffle them with bullshit.”
thewarrior:
Despite the sheer stupidity of almost everything you’ve said in this thread, when comments were made speculating about your line of work in a demeaning manner, they were criticized (AFAICT, one of the commenters apologized) by several people.
As for being a white male, I’m not sure what you’re hinting at there. I have my suspicions, and I really hope I’m wrong.
thewarrior:
It would really help if you’d learn to blockquote so we would know who you’re responding to. Or at least include the person’s name and the number of their comment.
Oh, and I don’t recall anyone bragging about their upper class status or PhD’s. Classism is generally frowned upon here, and I’m not familiar with any of the regulars at Pharyngula expressing any opinion that they’re better than anyone else by virtue of being in a higher social strata or having achieved a higher level of education.
[meta]
thewarrior, if it ain’t bullshitting about being a white male, acknowledges it has it easier, ceteris paribus.
(Alas, quite clearly, this is a case of non ceteris paribus given its demonstrated discursive, factual and noetic acumen)
DLC:
…and bring back the dead.
“Here he comes to save the day! Zombie Jesus on the way! Where there is a wrong to right, Zombie Jesus will not fiiiight. Part the sea and walk the land, you can count on Zombie Jebus and friends!”
(oh wow, I’m tired; I just blasphemed Mighty Mouse)
****
The Swordfish:
Oh, *that’s* the singularity he’s talking about??
Shoot, I thought he was doing the reverse. I was baffled by his bullshit back at his comment @17.
Tony: Hee. I almost used the word “singularity”, but I was afraid of having to explain the real-word meaning to the Dense One. :P
The way I read it, he was trying to dazzle us at that point. The last few posts seem to be geared purely towards inducing bafflement, though.
Derp. *real-world. That’s what I get for commenting at one in the morning.
FIFY
Tony,
Well I’m better than all of you. And I have a PhD. So there. This is because I am British and you are all a bunch of filthy Colonials and Welshmen. Unforgivable crimes all.
Know your place, worms!
Louis
P.S. In the interest of full disclosure and preventing Hurt FeeFees (IMPORTANT!!!!), I’m not actually serious. Apart from the bit about having a PhD and being better than everyone. That’s true. Obviously. Goes without saying really. Naturally. My mummy told me.
This is fun.
Me thinks thewarrior is worshipping the Eschaton
— — — — — — — —
-BTW I liked Philp José Farmer’s “To Your Scattered Bodies Go” but I do not use it as a political ideology statement. However it would definitely be better than “Atlas Shrugged”.
Let us pass this suggestion to the libertarians.
.
(And time travel would make the world line branch to avoid paradox, but we would still be stuck with global warming)
— — — — — —
Tony:
“Imagine thewarriorfortruth…”
Warheit macht frei?
.
Which reminds me, we could follow in the footsteps of the Ahnenerbe and make expeditions to the Arctic to find the entrance to the *hollow Earth…maybe we could dump the CO2 there :-)
(“Miss Smilla’s Sense of Snow” was partially based on historical truth
*-That theory had followers among the same people who thought Aryans had built an ancient civilization in the northern Europe.)
[meta]
birgerjohansson,
More like Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point”, given it claims to be Christian.
The Swordfish spake:
“Then again, what in the name of Cthulhu’s dread tentacles should I expect from somebody using the word ‘warrior’ unironically to describe themselves?”
Well, you should expect that he’d be shootin’ down the walls of heartache (bang, bang).
Wow. Thewarrior made averagetruth look…average.
QFAT
(OT)
myeck waters,
congratulations to bagging the Messerschmitt-numbered comment. We Ehvil unbelievers are, of course, evil, but it adds sinister kudos to make comment 666 or in this case the comment with the same number as a Nazi jet fighter :-)
— — — —
John Morales,
I first read that as “it ain’t bullshitting about being a white whale”. I should probably get some sleep.
“(bang, bang)”
Thar she blows!!!
This thread is funnier than “Mock The Movie” transcripts!
— — —- —- —- —-
BTW I first came across digitized personalities in a novel by Clifford D. Simak. The novel was the rather mediocre “The Werewolf Principle” but it had an interesting subplot where you could communicate with your dead relatives by telephone.
So Simak beat Gibson et al.
I’ve been thinking about asking governments to paint roads white to reflect more heat. And maybe we’ll need some teflon ice floes at the rate we’re going.
Judithsanders @7, my city has told all homeowners that they must stop sending rainwater from their roofs into the storm sewers and either install a rain-barrel or divert runoff onto a lawn or garden.
myeck waters:
That.
Was.
Bad.
I love it!
Shooting at the walls of heartache
Bang, bang!
I am thewarrior
Well I am thewarrior
And heart to heart you’ll win
If you survive thewarrior, thewarrior
Sorry. I cannot make myself link to the song.
What is it with these American crazies and the UN? The United Nations is going to take over your government, the United Nations is going to take away your guns, the United Nations is going to tell you what colour to paint your house. I must say that last one is new for me.
The UN who can’t stop some shit head dictator in the middle east from killing his own people is going to tell you what colour to paint your house? The UN can’t even protect its own people on humanitarian missions and you think they’re going to take the US by force. What are you smoking? I suggest you toss away that Bible particularly the book of Revelations where this one world government nonsense comes from and take a look at the world as it really is and not through the lens of some long dead writer on an acid trip.
@269: Thank John Birch for that. Every “The UN is a world government and also evil” conspiracy theory can have its roots traced back to the JBS in some way.
What all they have in common, is that they show a profound ignorance of how the UN works, what they’re supposed to do, and what they actually have the power to do.
I have just submitted this emailed letter to the editor :
*****
Dear editors (& hopefully readership)
In his Thursday ‘Advertiser’ column (Page 24, “Pause for warming effect” inset box 2012 October 18th) Andrew Bolt claimed that new data show a lack of warming over the past 16 years. Mr Bolt is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts – empirical observed evidence collected by NASA NOAA and the CSIRO among others flatly contradicts this false claim. For example, search the NASA website and anyone can find reference to the fact that 2010 was the hottest year on record tying with 2005 and last year was globally the hottest recorded La Nina cycle year. This year as many know but Mr Bolt apparently missed saw the lowest Arctic sea ice extent on record, another key indicator of the reality of our current artificially induced planetary overheating. Bolt’s piece was factually inaccurate and highly misleading and 98% of qualified climatologists, individuals who have spent decades studying and working on understanding the facts and processes and nature of Earth’s climate are agreed that Global Overheating is real and a serious concern. I strongly believe it is overdue that we listened to those climatologists who actually know what they’re talking about on this topic not ideologically blinkered polemicists and request The Advertiser please considers this in future and ideally both issues a correction and runs a counter-piece by a reputable climatologist preferably in Mr Bolt’s place.
Best regards :
(My details – ed.)
*****
In response to Andrew Bolt’s extraordinarily wrong claim in a recent column and thought folks here may like to know / respond similarly / provide feedback?
gdr55:
Well, see, that one happened once, already. The United States of America, when formed, was a coalition of independent nation-states, somewhat similar to the United Nations—the names are identical in meaning, even. Then, four-score years later, when some of the nation-states wanted out, so they could govern themselves, they got the ever-lovin’ shit stomped out of them by the rest of the bunch.
Not all folks see it that way, but there is a strong correlation between the state’s-rights guys who identify with the losing side in what they may call “the War Between the States”, and the anti-UN nuts.
Markita Lynda #266
Where do you live?
Can I rent a room in your basement?
I’m quite clean and I know how to make bread.
[meta + OT]
StevoR @271, are you aware that should your letter be published, you will have established a direct link to your identity?
(Braver than I if you are, you are)
Can we be fairly confident that, when they begin to decide who will be resurrected In The Singularity!, they are likely to start with people who know how to spell the word “you”?
I’d like to think they’d end with these people, too.
To put it another way, would thewarrior want his Singularity-self (Jazz Hands) to be programmed by someone with typing skills as poor as his own? I bet that such a version would consistently stumble over simple words in a public forum where they were attempting to appear well-informed…
…waaaait a second!
@John Morales :
Yep. I know.
And I am not afraid.
Doubt they’ll publish it but you never know.
@242. thewarrior asked : “wtf is an MRA?”
Not been here long have you?
MRA = Male Rape Apologist / Men’s Rights Activist a.k.a. Male Supwemacyst.
StevoR, well then.
I might have changed phrasing were I to be as activist as you, but I still think it’s a pretty darn good letter.
Lay off the paint chip snacks dude.
@Janine: Hallucinating Liar
^ This. Quoted for truth.
@ thewarrior – what significance and role in understanding and developing the scientific comprehension of Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (as I call “global warming”) do you think Al Gore has?
What do you think Al’s Gore’s actually done?
BTW. Did you actually look sat the links I provided for you in #35?
Where do you get your information on HIRGO from exactly and why do you think as you seemingly do about it?
Come on, you’re a Poe aren’t you, surely?
@278. John Morales : Thanks.
@86.thewarrior :
Yet earlier up thread you said :
Few comments later and you gave us the ALLLLLLL Gooooooorreee! nonsense which really only HIRGO deniers really do.
See, there you go again with the “Allll1 Gawwwwr!” shit.
Also which “professor blog guy” are you referring to – a lot of professors blog.
Tim Lambert? Dr Phil Plait a.k.a. the Bad Astronomer? Pz Myers?
Sure do hope but really doubt you are right.
What if you aren’t?
@4. Dunc – 17 October 2012 at 8:00 am :
Wonder if the person you’re talking about there (Averagetruth is it?) is citing Andrew Bolt or something is this the latest Climate Contrarian meme de jour or something?
@24.thewarrior – 17 October 2012 at 10:12 am
Can they? How – and how have you tested this?
Suggetson – make a coupelof predictions now, wait some years a nd see before believing this.
You know how cheap nuclear fusion power generators and Lunar colonies have supposed been twenty years away for the last, well sixty years or so if not more?
I love reading old SF – written by folks like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C.Clarke and Olaf Stapledon and so on. The future they were predicting for now, ain’t the world we live in.
And they all lived happily ever after in the magical fairy land behind the rainbow?
Typo fix :
Suggestion – make a couple of predictions now, wait some years and see before believing this.
Or look back at predictions from the days of yore.
the technology is near.
nope, the “technology” to shift entire ecosystems back to the way they were before we warmed the planet will not exist in anyone’s lifetime.
the technology to stop the droughts in the US will not happen before it stops becoming the world’s bread basket, and millions starve as a result.
stop fooling yourself, global warming is fucking serious shit.
Chigau @273. I’m in a large city in Canada. Unfortunately, my basement is full. But perhaps you can come visit.
Not wanting to paint my flat tar roof white in case it made the next coat of tar not stick, I covered parts of it with white sheets held down by bricks. The rooms under the sheets were noticeably cooler.
[OT]
Ichthyic:
Markita Lynda #285
I live in Edmonton, in an older house, in an older neighbourhood.
I didn’t even know people had their downspouts connected to the sewage system until they built the duplex next door.
I seems like a stupid idea to me.
(we do have a spectacularly successful curb-side recycling program)
(I don’t think we’ve recycled jesus. Yet.)
I live in coastal New Jersey. There are two sewer systems in my town: the sanitary sewer, which goes to a treatment plant, and the storm sewer, which flows straight into the bay. Since we’re close to open water, there doesn’t seem to be any problem with overflow in the storm sewer, though they do have to remind people now and then that dumping old motor oil and antifreeze down there is a Bad Thing.
Tony wrote
Blogofmyself, I think you’ve identified the next Horde motto.
I’d wear that on a T-shirt.
In Latin: “Est tua opinio non evidentia” or maybe “Vestra opinio non evidentia est.”
“Sententiis vestris non sunt evidentia”?
I’m in Toronto. The problem is usually that in a heavy storm the runoff overflows into the storm sewers. We have separate storm and sewage systems, and in older parts of town for the last decade at least projects have been going on to separate them and provide more and larger underground tanks for storm runoff. The whole landscape slopes toward the lake so what is high ground by the local land surface is many feet downhill of suburbs further north. The downspout disconnection project is part of the effort to ensure that storm sewers don’t fill up too quickly.
It’s little enough compared to the area of streets and parking lots, but every little bit helps, I guess.
Correction to 292: Storm water goes into the storm sewers. In a heavy downpour, they can fill up quickly and their overflow goes into the *sanitary* sewers, which are still lower than the streets, and can cause nasty sewage-tainted flooding in basements. It can also lead to untreated sewage being washed out via the storm sewers.
At least some of our storm sewers go to settling ponds or large underground storage tanks along the lakeshore rather than straight out into the lake.
Andrew Bolt and some of the deniers are claiming there’s been 16 years of “Global cooling.”
Well, see what NASA thinks here :
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2010-warmest-year.html#
Especially the graph here :
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/509796main_GISS_annual_temperature_anomalies_running.pdf
Anyone who reckons there’s been a decade plus of cooling or even flat global temperatures needs to have their eyesight tested.
And Bolt & co incl. ” averagetruth” & “thewarrior” here sure aren’t rocket scientists in either sense of those words.
PS. Has brave sir thewarrior run away? Boldly run away, away? (With apologies to Monty Python.)
Did “averagetruth” put in a very “average*” non-show on his own dedicated thread here? Where’d they go?
+++++++++++++++
* “Average” in the Aussie colloquial sense of a well below average performance.
Aha! Looks like Potholer54 has the goods here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbn1rCZz1ow&feature=plcp
on what & where this whole “16 year cooling” rubbish about and from. Great debunking.