An Inconvenient Truth

[rhymeorreason]

I suppose I'll bite and offer my $0.02...

I'm a younger fellow, but I've picked up a few things along the road of life that make me laugh upon reflection:

1. There are 3 things that are inevitable: Death, Taxes, and Lost Data.
2. You can sell anything to almost anyone if it employs one or more of the following in it's advertisement:
Sparkle/Shiny/Bright
Tits (mostly for men)
Stretched truths (lies, for the leyman)
Tits
A picture of people having fun or enjoying their experience while using the product
And of course...Tits.
3. Brilliance is often taken for granted.
4. Stupidity and idiocy are often rewarded, or not punished.
5. The uninformed will most likely become misinformed.
6. The misinformed will most likely attempt to spread their newly found information to the uninformed.
7. Choice defines a person. When they make a choice, most will hold onto it until the universe shifts in their favor before admitting their
choice was incorrect.
8. Faith is amazing. It can give people hope in the bleakest of times. It can bring people together to create a reliable community of accepting comfort. Faith can give purpose, reason, and direction to those without them. RELIGION is evil. The solidification of beliefs that define who is wrong and who is right without empirical evidence is wrong. Encouraging ideas of hatred and rejection of people who do not follow the same path is wrong and despicable. Wishing harm upon someone you have never met for something they believe, do, or cannot control is the lowest point of human thought.
9. Individual humans are incredible beings. Most are intelligent, witty, personable, emotional, reasonable. Humans as a group are incredible beings. They cease being intelligent, seek conformity, and lose all semblance of acceptance and openness that would otherwise be present in a solo situation.

And finally:
10. THE UNIVERSE IS BEAUTIFUL! There are things about our universe that blow my mind on a daily basis. Complexity, simplicity, order, chaos, attraction, repulsion, creation, destruction... The universe is an amazing place. Take some time to take it in.

 

[rhymeorreason]

Oops. Hit reply, not quote, see below.

 

[rhymeorreason]

Scientists theorize that there is an infinitely small but non-zero chance that an atom can spontaneously wink out of existence, which, by extension, means that there is an infinitely small but non-zero chance that a molecule can spontaneously wink out of existence. Further this, and there's a chance that you could wake up tomorrow wondering what the EFF happened to your genetalia. Either that, or everything you know and love could just dissapear, litterally.

The large hadron collider is supposedly capable of creating black holes. The people running the machine think that they can control any black holes created this way.

Please read my post above, specifically item 5.

Thermodynamics and the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy would never allow an atom to disappear from space/time. You may be referring to atoms "quantum leaping" from point A to point C without ever passing through point B in between.

The LHC CANNOT (please read this at least fifteen times, out load, at the top of your lungs) CANNOT, CANNOT create black holes. A black hole is a special stellar body that has enough GRAVITATIONAL force to collapse in upon itself infinitely. In order to do this, the stellar body in question has to have more than 3x the mass of the SUN. Also, the enormous energies being applied in the LHC would cause any sort of mass concentration to nearly instantly blow itself apart. For the record, there is NO world ending danger from the LHC, and I will eat my own face if I am PROVEN to be wrong about this fact.

 

[PAGEToap44]

I am still not God.

 

[kateatsmouse]

Lazy people who know how to play the game will often do better in life then people who work their buts off who really want to make a difference. >.<

 

[Copter400]

Every heart has darkness within...

Ah, don't be ridiculous. I've dissected a heart before. Every heart has blood within. And fat. And muscle. And valves. And the 'heart strings'. And the white thing that serves no apparent purpose.

Nope, no darkness in there.

 

[fulano]

Communism is good; people who run communism are bad.

The original idea of communism was genius, it just didn't have the right people in charge.

Whoa..
I agree actually. It's just weird to find that someone actually says it now, particularly.

It's so weird because I've been reading Lenin lately(strangely there's a Lenin book in our physics library, go figure), and the guy wrote about ethical social norms and stuff, but also about democracy.

Those who came later are the guys that fucked it all up.

 

[Mukiwa]

Communism is good; people who run communism are bad.

The original idea of communism was genius, it just didn't have the right people in charge.

Whoa..
I agree actually. It's just weird to find that someone actually says it now, particularly.

It's so weird because I've been reading Lenin lately(strangely there's a Lenin book in our physics library, go figure), and the guy wrote about ethical social norms and stuff, but also about democracy.

Those who came later are the guys that fucked it all up.

I agree as well, Communism in the form envisioned by Marx and Engels was actually a damn good idea.
However, the sad fact is that pure Communism is entirely impossible. I have sat through several political philosophy seminars where various professors have explained in depth just why we'll never actually see a true Communist society due to a wide variety of reasons, the largest of these being that most humans are inherently selfish. "To each his own" only works for so long, then jealousy and greed kick in.
Communism promises a social utopia that will always be just out of our reach.

 

[fulano]

Communism is good; people who run communism are bad.

The original idea of communism was genius, it just didn't have the right people in charge.

Whoa..
I agree actually. It's just weird to find that someone actually says it now, particularly.

It's so weird because I've been reading Lenin lately(strangely there's a Lenin book in our physics library, go figure), and the guy wrote about ethical social norms and stuff, but also about democracy.

Those who came later are the guys that fucked it all up.

I agree as well, Communism in the form envisioned by Marx and Engels was actually a damn good idea.
However, the sad fact is that pure Communism is entirely impossible. I have sat through several political philosophy seminars where various professors have explained in depth just why we'll never actually see a true Communist society due to a wide variety of reasons, the largest of these being that most humans are inherently selfish. "To each his own" only works for so long, then jealousy and greed kick in.
Communism promises a social utopia that will always be just out of our reach.

Your Political Philosophy seminars teach something very true according to the theory of thought they are using. Schools of thought whirl around what exactly? it's not methodological empiricism like the one science puts out, that's for sure.

So far pure communism as envisioned by Marx & Engels, and then carried by Lenin(among others) from there is just not feasible in our present state BUT what would the alternative be? Continuing progress under the very present homogeneous hardore capitalist free-market economy of today is just non sustainable in the long run for our species, or at least most of it. Something has to change, but what that change will be, well, who knows.

I always thought "humanity" was always to be taken as a work in progress. If we argue about what human nature is and isn't in terminal, fixed terms then we're as good as dead.

 

[Mukiwa]

This is true, it would be highly naive and arrogant to assume that the current Capitalist political system is the best that humanity can attain. There is undoubtably room for improvement here. However it's when we actually get down to deciding just what the ideal theory would be that we hit a brick wall.
Yes there are many schools of thought in the fields of philosophy and politics, and the one that I follow advocates the physical impossiblity of Communism ever being successful, based on historical evidence. I would like to clarify that the human psyche needs to undergo some radical changes in terms of priorities before true Communism stands a chance of being properly implemented.
Maybe this will happen one day, who knows. Till then I think Communism is unfeasible.
Your point on human nature is very good by the way.

 

[fulano]

Mukiwa, I have a little request based on this quote of yours:

Yes there are many schools of thought in the fields of philosophy and politics, and the one that I follow advocates the physical impossiblity of Communism ever being successful, based on historical evidence.

Care to point me towards that school/s of thought? a web link or bibliography would do just fine. I don't want to jump even more off topic than I already have, and no offense, but the whole "physical impossiblity," and "based on historical evidence" kinda rubs me the wrong way(since when is history purely objective). So I think some reading would be in order for me to start to kind of understand what you are telling me here.

Good, productive exchange, thanks.

 

[Mukiwa]

No offense taken man, I really should have included some hard evidence to form the basis of my slightly radical claims. I'm going to have to go through some of my notes, this was about 9 months or so ago and I was a tad hungover that day so I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. Right now I really need to go to bed I'm afraid.
Can PM you though if you like when I'm a bit more fresh and have some info.
And thank you too, has been a good off-topic discussion. Also if you like Lenin's work try reading Rousseau's Social Contract as well as the Communist Manifesto by Marx if you havn't already. Quite interesting stuff.