People make me sad

[Deleted]

That's by mass.

If you go by volume, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_radius Then shit gets complicated.

Yea I guess so but it's the guy on the picture, if the quote is what he actually said presents it like the only logical conclusion while in fact it's the least logical way to look at water like that.

[Gheld]

Yea I guess so but it's the guy on the picture, if the quote is what he actually said presents it like the only logical conclusion while in fact it's the least logical way to look at water like that.

Now imagine if you want to talk about the quantum-mechanical properties. Hydrogen has a +1/2 spin, and Oxygen-16 (most abundant) has a spin of +0.

So if you want to talk about the ratio of spin you have to divide by zero. WHY DID THAT FUCKER HAVE TO GET TECHNICAL ABOUT WATER?! DOES HE NOT KNOW WHAT KIND OF SHIT THAT GETS YOU INTO

Water is the ultimate can of worms.

[Deleted]

Just curious if you checked out the Youtube channel I mentioned (this one), and if so, what you thought about it?

Was my first post, so couldn't give links then.

[Baconeggcheese]

Lul the shit people decide to nit pick in this thread, its pretty good.

Like watching a trainwreck of people who missed the point.

[Gritches]

At the root mechanical level it fascinates me how similar the state of the opposing left and right viewpoints are to that of warring religious factions. When you opposed your stepfather's viewpoint you were doing the functional equivalent of denouncing one of the tenets of his faith. I guess that's why they say not to discuss religion and politics; debating about either is pointless, for many it's a matter of faith, not fact.

[Frogguh]

At the root mechanical level it fascinates me how similar the state of the opposing left and right viewpoints are to that of warring religious factions. When you opposed your stepfather's viewpoint you were doing the functional equivalent of denouncing one of the tenets of his faith. I guess that's why they say not to discuss religion and politics; debating about either is pointless, for many it's a matter of faith, not fact.

I wouldn't even call it a matter of faith. It's a matter of how people look at the world and their personal values, which is hard to prove right or wrong. I personally find philosophical naturalism to be one of the most illogical mainstream ideas in existence, but an atheist may think the idea of God is illogical. A pro life person obviously places value on the life of the unborn, while a pro choice person may believe bodily autonomy is the only factor to consider. Libertarians value small efficient government, liberals seem to think more of society should be regulated by the state. In any of these cases, good luck proving that the other has the wrong values or doesn't think about things correctly.

[Apexis]

I happened to be in a waiting room the other day and somebody had turned on a certain TV channel (the one that rhymes with 'tox'), and I was pretty impressed by the level of sheer propaganda that was being dished out. Within half an hour I had learned that we invaded Iraq because of 9/11, the EPA is evil, the Bush administration actually won the Iraq war by 2005, Obama is secretly dismantling the US military, and that Obama caused Benghazi. I completely agree that the left is also guilty of pushing their own agenda, but to shrug it off by saying 'yeah but both sides do it' (in their respective 'main stream') is false equivalency.

A significant portion of our population is literally being programmed to believe in a reality which is demonstrably different from what can be proven by facts and rationality.

It was actually amazing to get this far into a thread and have a "Fox" moment. Sure I watch them, CNN, and MSNBC, not because I enjoy the programming, some stories are actually nice and are about people. I watch these to see channels because I like to watch people completely talk out of the left or right side of their butts each and every day. It is amazing that most people buy the song and dance that is being placed in front of their face as FACTS, when they are nothing but someones opinion wrap around a vague layer of facts. The fact that they can't get over themselves and call out people when they are plain going off the reservation is appalling, to say the least.

I am bright enough to be able to see when some is blatantly trying to blow smoke up my a**. Personally we had had more people die since 9/11 then that was originally kill on 9/11. We also have a lot of people that came back from these place broken, mained, and scared for the remainder of their days that go into the 10's of thousands. The current and the last president combined to put more debit on this country, then all the rest of them before them combined. Both absolutely suck as leaders, both did their part to help the world get to the point it is today. Both for many reasons should have never been president in the first place either should have been reelected in the second. I blame them and their legislatures for the mess the US is in today, we could even go back a few administration to ad some blame as well.

Fact is the left and the right just love to blow smoke constantly to the point where the drown out the real issues and the real problems the face countries and the world at large. Sometime it very hard to see the forest through the trees, other times it make laugh so hard I feel like I am going to pass out. I believe less than half of what I see, same for what I read. I rare trust someone on face value until I actually look up what they are claiming to be their truth on both the matter and the subject.

[Lyese]

this is relevant and useful and I don't leave home without it:
-snip-

I need to print this out and carry it with me.

[Annoying]

Now imagine if you want to talk about the quantum-mechanical properties. Hydrogen has a +1/2 spin, and Oxygen-16 (most abundant) has a spin of +0.

So if you want to talk about the ratio of spin you have to divide by zero. WHY DID THAT FUCKER HAVE TO GET TECHNICAL ABOUT WATER?! DOES HE NOT KNOW WHAT KIND OF SHIT THAT GETS YOU INTO

Water is the ultimate can of worms.

And this is why it's perfectly reasonable to say that water is two-parts oxygen and one-part hydrogen. Because it is, on the level that most people are familiar with. Anyone can get pedantic about any topic that they really want to. The guy was making an allegory and using a common molecule and common atomic theory to show it.

[Gheld]

And this is why it's perfectly reasonable to say that water is two-parts oxygen and one-part hydrogen. Because it is, on the level that most people are familiar with. Anyone can get pedantic about any topic that they really want to. The guy was making an allegory and using a common molecule and common atomic theory to show it.

You got it backwards brah.

[Malta]

When you opposed your stepfather's viewpoint you were doing the functional equivalent of denouncing one of the tenets of his faith. I guess that's why they say not to discuss religion and politics; debating about either is pointless, for many it's a matter of faith, not fact.

They were discussing climate change. Faith shouldn't even enter into it. The facts either support his viewpoint or they don't.

[Sooba]

They were discussing climate change. Faith shouldn't even enter into it. The facts either support his viewpoint or they don't.

But that would require all the effort to keep an open mind, do secondary research of primary articles. Learn the jargon, read and understand them, and then form an educated opinion based upon the preponderance of evidence. Do you know much effort that takes?

Better just form an opinion based loosely on my favourite News Station, family upbringing, faith (or lack thereof). So much less work.

(Edit: Obvious satire)

[NymPhox85]

Am PhD Student in Climate Science, can confirm often the general views on climate change are often looked at as laughable. But I'm not saying that to be a dick, what I want to illustrate by saying that is a point that has been made on here, that essentially speaking to anyone who has been in the field longer or researched the topic more in depth, you're always going to feel/look foolish on the most basic level based on human nature. But that doesn't mean there can't be conversation and shouldn't be a conversation. On the contrary, this should spur on more conversation on the topic. It should spur on the desire to learn more about the topic, however, I personally feel based on my experiences that the issue of where conversation breaks down falls into one of two categories.

(1) Passion
People are passionate about the knowledge they have, or think they have. It's just human nature. Once passion, which in turn I lump in faith, gets involved, the conversation is lost, and it has just become a shouting match, with both sides twisting words to prove "Ha, I won." It's a tough thing to push past, and even on the scientific level, this happens often, be it at conferences, or with competing publications.

(2) Pride
The saddest breakdown however comes from when one party feels they just know more than the other, hence their argument must in fact be correct because they clearly know more. This happens quite often in the field of sciences, and is just heartbreaking. There's nothing quite as devastating like being refuted by a higher-level scientist as an aspiring PhD simply because "I've been here longer, so I clearly know more than you."

You can't fight passion, and you can't fight pride, sadly. No matter how hard you may try. Best I've found to do is to explain, as the chart on here really put well, that the discussion has failed, and that you will not be discussing the topic any longer. But never forget to look inward, because we often slip into the categories above as well. Always question everything.

[Powerogue]

Thankfully we have the internet. If you need more sources to help weed out the inherent bias, it's not that difficult to find them. Many people are simply too lazy to do that and would prefer to keep listening to the people that agree with them.

[Baconeggcheese]

At the root mechanical level it fascinates me how similar the state of the opposing left and right viewpoints are to that of warring religious factions. When you opposed your stepfather's viewpoint you were doing the functional equivalent of denouncing one of the tenets of his faith. I guess that's why they say not to discuss religion and politics; debating about either is pointless, for many it's a matter of faith, not fact.

That's my biggest problem with this specific conversation we've been repeatedly having. This is *not* a political debate, its a scientific one and even then the scientists aren't debating it because they're all in agreement.

This last conversation where I had some baseline knowledge of the issue was very enlightening as he showed many times over the course of the conversation that he literally has no idea what the side he's disagreeing with is saying. He's done literally 0 homework on the subject and just chooses to disagree with it based on what hes seen on the media, and then continues to pull random things out of his ass that I'm supposed to disprove otherwise he's right.

In the past it seemed like he was above such things and actually attempted to know what he was talking about or disagreeing with, but as time has gone on my conversations have gone down this road and that is why I has a sad.

[zoomgpally]

I'm still trying to get beyond the irony of someone talking about how they try to educate themselves and then posts a Sam Harris quote. You can find atheists who aren't complete dumbasses if you really must quote one...though I don't think you can find an anti theist who isn't a dumbass. I have yet to encounter one anyway.

So not believing there is some all powerful creature that hasn't been proven to exist makes you a dumbass?

[Powerogue]

-Don't understand facts and beliefs are opinions

You can prove a fact with evidence, and you can't have contradictory facts. It's not the same with opinions.

[Venant]

One cannot argue on behalf of knowledge since 'knowledge' is not defined clearly. If something you read in a uni book is knowledge, why isn't something you read in a newspaper knowledge? Will you believe someone over someone else just because he/she has earned a PhD in Harvard? If so, then your thought process is not that different from a guy who believes in UFO reports he got from ABC news: you just have different masters controlling your brain. Even if you analyze everything you see or hear, you have to believe at some point, otherwise you will keep thinking over the same thing for years before accepting it. Simple question: is the next summer going to be hotter or colder than this one? No one knows it, but you can believe "global warming experts" and say that, certainly, the next summer is going to be hotter. Or you can believe "global warming deniers" and say that it is going to be about the same. Or, there are some "global cooling" experts, too. Or, finally, you can do your own research and quickly realize that you cannot possibly fathom the whole field and cannot give any predictions at all without immersing yourself into this science for many-many years - so, what judgment about the next summer are you going to take? If you are like me, you will just say, "I don't know what the next summer is going to be like". But then, if you are completely honest, you have to say this about everything. Does Earth rotate around Sun or around Jupiter? I seriously doubt you looked at all the evidence proving the first case, so you probably just took them for granted and said, "If every NASA expert believes it, then I might as well believe it". People who take their opinions from newspaper have exactly the same thought process, they just give credibility to other "experts" than you.

What I personally do is this. At my scientific field I am quite good and can make some judgments, although I always make it clear that I might be wrong and that my judgments should and must be criticized. At other fields I am no expert at all, so I always will say something like, "In my opinion...", while clearly understanding that my opinion isn't worth much here. You may claim that you argue on behalf of knowledge, but in fact you probably lack enough knowledge in like 99.9% of topics you argue on to really make any reliable statements.

You might as well argue that I cannot prove that we are all not plugged into an elaborate computer simulation, and therefore we cannot know anything. Or perhaps I can't even know that anyone else actually exists, this entire world might actually be my own mad hallucination created by a malicious god who is always standing behind me.

You are right that anyone who you manage to wrestle into this philosophical hole will never be able to argue his way out with the language of reason, because you will always claim that doubt exists and therefore you *have* to be a skeptic of *everything*. On the opposite side of the spectrum, anyone who argues for faith releasing you from doubt is equally foolish, because faith is not based upon knowing anything, and therefore anyone can have blind faith in anything, even extreme skepticism.

To the best of any individual's knowledge, that individual exists in the world, and must therefore be able to decide what he believes and what he does not believe. Information found in university books is held to a higher level of academic scrutiny than what is published in the newspaper. Those who have extensive work in a peer reviewed academic field are almost always better experts in that field than a person randomly sampled from the general population.

[Frogguh]

So not believing there is some all powerful creature that hasn't been proven to exist makes you a dumbass?

Atheist =\= anti theist. I have no problem with an atheist, though I certainly don't find atheism logical. It's the anti theists who blame religion for everything, lump all religion together, make up their own definitions for what religious people actually believe, think that juvenile mockery and hyperbole are actually reason and logic, etc that are so contemptible.

[Nirawen]

think that juvenile mockery and hyperbole are actually reason and logic

Thought you were describing a theologian for a second there .