You're 100% correct, but no one can understand that

[sov68n]

I'd like to compound the question: what if, when the plane's engine turned on, the conveyor belt increased speed to match the speed of the plane?

It doesn't matter. The motion of the wheels does not affect the motion of the plane. The conveyor can go at any speed and the wheels will simply match that speed. Imagine the plane just sitting on the conveyor belt with its wheels spinning but the plane not actually moving. This is because the plane does not use its wheels for forward motion, as opposed to the way a car uses its wheels to push back on the ground, and is why a conveyor belt would impede a car's forward motion. The plane's forward motion is caused by its engines generating thrust that pushes on the air, and so the plane itself is what is moving forward, taking its wheels along with it, whereas a car's wheels move forward, taking the rest of the car with it.

 

[Zac_Dai]

I especially hate it when people argue a point they know nothing about based on a false premise. For instance - and this is with the same friend - he argued once that the phenomenon of a hypnotic state is 'not real', which is pretty retarded because both the hypnotic state as well as its influence on memory, suggestion and attention has been observed tons of times. He reasoned that people become hypnotised due to peer pressure, and that's why it wasn't real. Though I can kind of understand that line of reasoning, it doesn't really make any sense when you read it several times: you're essentially saying that due to the cause of the phenomenon, the phenomenon doesn't exist. Try arguing with that.

I dunno.

I read a book by Derren Brown a famous illusionist/mentalist here in UK called Tricks of the Mind. In it he covers Hypnosis since it forms part of his stage acts.

He doesn't believe there is a "special state" people go into when they get hypnotized.

He refers it more to a range of "suggestive techniques", same way magic tricks aren't real but are actually sleights of hand and other misdirection techniques.

Like your friend he indeed states for many people hypnosis simply won't work on them but there is a lot of social pressure, say during a stage show just to play along.

He cites the Milgram experiment [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment] as good example of how far people will go along with something.

Its an interesting subject, which is divided a long two camps, the "state" theorists like yourself and the "non-state" theorists like Derren Brown.

So in this case I wouldn't say your friend was arguing from a false premise.

 

[WolfThomas]

This, this, this. Even when you win an argument, you lose a lot of respect from said person. Arguing is never effective because even if you can definitively prove you're right, the other person will only resent you for it.

I know what you mean, I found evidence to support OP argument 1 a few hours after the initial incident and I was called petty, when I felt it was kind of important that my sister know the correct road laws for safety's sake.

But how do we know that one door is more likely to have a car than the other?

Okay there are three doors:

Goat, Goat, Car

(Picking the car is 1/3 chance, picking a goat is a 2/3 chance)

So lets say you pick a door (1-3 represent all the possible scenarios):

1.Goat, Goat, Car or
2.Goat, Goat, Car or
3.Goat, Goat, Car

Then the one goat is revealed:

1.Goat, Goat, Car or
2.Goat, Goat, Car or
3.Goat, Goat, Car or Goat, Goat, Car

Then you are asked if you want to change doors, in two out of the three possible scenarios the car is behind the other door.

 

[Plurralbles]

Someone was convinced that there is a song called "Half the man I used to be" by Nirvana. Its actually Creep by the Stone Temple Pilots (I own the album, trust me I know). He still believes that it was Nirvana.

I would have thought of course it's a different title but a different group, eh, it's a very similar style and I actually had that song on a disc that read, "nirvana" so somebody who should have been in the know(it was a disc made like, 12 years or so ago), should have known.

hell, I'm listening ot it right now. Bleh. Nirvana kicks ass all the same minus one song. haha.

 

[Jark212]

90% of the times I get into a debate with a family member of friend. They always say that I'm always BSing but they never can recall a single time where I was wrong. They claim I'm wrong too often to recall...

I take it as my victory...

 

[seamusotorain]

That [i/]Physalia Physalis[/i] is not a jellyfish.

Spoiler: If you wondering, it looks like this:

[img/]http://pamiejane.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/portuguese-man-o-war.jpg[/img]
There, the Portugese Man O' War.

I do believe it's a bunch of parasites held together with hatred and the tears of small children.

I'm not a maths-sy person, but a friend taught me how to use algebra to prove that 1=2. I'll edit the post to include it later, but no-one would be believe me. Even when I wrote the proof down.


a=1 b=1

a=b

a[sup]2[/sup]=ab

a[sup]2[/sup]+ab=2ab

a[sup]2[/sup]+ab-2a[sup]2[/sup]=2ab-2a[sup]2[/sup]

ab-a[sup]2[/sup]=2ab-2a[sup]2[/sup]

1(ab-a[sup]2[/sup])=2(ab-a[sup]2[/sup])

1=2

 

[CrysisMcGee]

I've been on both sides of arguments like this. Learned my lesson. More recently though I've tried to explain the terms Casual and hardcore games, and gamers, and also the reasons why they are used.

People are convinced these terms shouldn't exist. There all just games and gamers. Well I get that that's how you feel. I'm telling you why people insist on using them.

It felt like explaining why the terms Gay and Straight are used to a bisexual, and they are convinced that they don't apply.

 

[Klepa]

Had a million of these in my rant, in that vent thread. One of them was about extra salary during holidays.. This is dealing in pure facts.

Fact 1, which both parties agreed on:
First two hours of sunday: 150% salary.
the last six hours: 200% salary.
Assuming you've worked for 40 hours during the week, ie. you're not only working on weekends.

Then she (a 33-year-old co-worker, mother of two) goes and claims that because it's whitsunday, we get... triple salary.
I explain that it doesn't work like that, we're already getting the maximum amount of extra salary, because every sunday is considered a holiday in the collective agreement. Doesn't matter if it's Easter, Christmas, or the Apocalypse, a holiday's a holiday.

Her:"I don't think it's like that, I think we get triple salary"
Me:"It's a collective agreement, you can read it from this book here."
Her:"You're wrong."
Me:"Where did you even come up with 300% salary?"
Her:"100% for sunday, 100% for special sunday."
Me:"Forget I asked."
Her:"Yay we get triple salary from today!"

 

[Daveman]

Please explain how. Unless the conveyor belt expells as much air as the plane would get underaround its wings if in motion I can't explain to myself how that can happend.

I just watched the mythbusters experiment and plane traveled some distance on the ground. I don't understand why they took it as a succesulf experiment.

The conveyor belt doesn't actually impede the forward motion of the plane. The conveyor belt could be going 100mph and the plane would remain stationary while its wheel spin at 100mph in freespin. As soon as the plane turns on its engines, the propulsion from the engines moves the plane forward, regardless of how fast the wheels are spinning. It will then accelerate to takeoff speed and lift off the conveyor belt.

it's like if you were on rollerskates on a treadmill, while holding onto the handles at the side, you can pull yourself forwards. that's how I explain it to people.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Evolution. It's a Theory the same way that Gravity is a theory. Not that this is a common misunderstanding or anything, but die-hard, literal creationalists bug me.

It depends. Evolution by natural selection is a proven fact, but people have trouble with it on a larger scale.

Creationist use this as a wedge tool to create discussion on the internet to further their goals, because natural selection doesn't have a model for a genome changing from one phyla to a different taxonomy they use it as a "but but but how does a flower become a dog" arguement.

But no model or theory whether creationist or not have the confirmed arguement for phyla changing.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Most of the time I will never assert that I am one hundred percent correct though, because I don't really believe in facts and 'truth.' I have never been presented with something I couldn't find a clever way to argue against, not needing to resort to a 'I'm rght and that's that' argument. Mostly I feel it needs to be pointed out that what was believed years ago is not necessarily fact, despite being supported by the majority of the evidence of the time. The same will happen to things we hold fundamental to our beliefs today.

I disagree. A common element of our cultural and scientific development has changed. Hundreds of years ago, superstition such as Spontaneous Generation and Flat Earth were widely held beliefs. These were the ideas that were proven false. Modern development, on the other hand, doesn't negate previous beliefs, but shows them to be incomplete. For instance, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity didn't show that Newton was wrong, but not completely accurate. Newton was still right, but he didn't understand the whole picture. Einstein isn't 100% correct either. But that doesn't mean what he says isn't true.

500 years ago everybody knew, and the facts of the day supported the argument that:
The Earth was flat
The suns and all the heavens rotated around the Earth

100 years ago everybody knew, and the facts of the day supported the argument that:
The Earth was a perfect sphere
The Earth and all the celestial bodies of our system rotated around the Sun

Now everybody knows, and the facts of the day support the argument that:
The Earth is not a perfect sphere, nor is it flat, it is perhaps slightly pear shaped (QI used for this shape, not my own research)
The Earth and the sun rotate around each other, as does the moon around the Earth. There is a fixed point around which all are rotating and on and on and on.

Every so often, something comes along which absolutely blows all previousy held concepts of right and wrong away. As I recall, the LHC was supposed to have much the same effect, breaking up a lot of scientific 'facts' and establishing new ones (perhaps I misunderstood the bold statement of "This will change everything we know about science" though). Had it worked, The whole of Newtonian physics, and with it Einsteinian physics, might have been disregarded entirely. Something may still come along to cause this to happen.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

One time, I did something really stupid. I'm not going to get too specific, but basically I downloaded this file I shouldn't have downloaded, and upon opening it my computer got stuck in an endless cycle of reboots. I ended up having to re-install Windows because of it, which isn't too big a deal for me since I'm dual-booting on an iMac.

I talk about it on a forum, and one guy just refuses to believe me. He said it was impossible and that I was just spreading Mac propaganda. Because you know, saying you re-installed the Windows partition on your Mac is such blatant advertising <_<

Regardless, I'm telling the complete and utter truth, even if no one here believes it either.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Evolution. It's a Theory the same way that Gravity is a theory. Not that this is a common misunderstanding or anything, but die-hard, literal creationalists bug me.

It depends. Evolution by natural selection is a proven fact, but people have trouble with it on a larger scale.

Creationist use this as a wedge tool to create discussion on the internet to further their goals, because natural selection doesn't have a model for a genome changing from one phyla to a different taxonomy they use it as a "but but but how does a flower become a dog" arguement.

But no model or theory whether creationist or not have the confirmed arguement for phyla changing.

*sigh* Not again...
Evolution does NOT imply that flowers turn into dogs or something like that. It implies that dogs and flowers had a common ancestor a LONG time ago.

 

[Kinguendo]

Evolution. It's a Theory the same way that Gravity is a theory.

We had a university lecturer who gave as a 50min presentation on how he proved/supported evolution by 11 completely independent points (can't exactly remember, there was the fossil record and how we breed domestic animals). I wished I'd gotten a copy of his slides. That said all the very religous people, not many like 3 or 4, walked out at the start.

Well thats a clear desire to be ignorant... acts such as these disgust me, not even listening to the other side and declaring they are wrong.

 

[President Moocow]

I almost got into a lot of trouble when I told her that her opinion would have mattered had she studied maths rather than arts.

Good fucking god! You say this kind of shit to your teachers?

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

I know a racist guy who is also a massive Guns N' Roses fan, he'd rather chop off his own ears before he'd admit that Slash is infact black.

 

[lenin_117]

I recently had one where I was discussing Brownian Motion with a work colleague.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion

She was convinced that the movement was bacteria, despite the particles you could see moving being several times smaller than the smallest known bacteria. Couldn't convince her without a slide show... which I did create. That showed her.

And going back to your bullet hitting a helmet thing. A lot of the opposite force of a bullet it released in sound and light from the muzzle flash, not all of it goes into the kick back. So your friend was indeed wrong.

The light and sound is energy released from the gunpowder, it is not the force of the bullet pushing back against the air in the muzzle as you suggest.

 

[Blackdoom]

Mine was the Monty Hall problem as well. After half an hour and several pieces of paper explaining why I was right they refused to accept it until they read it on Wikipedia in an attempt to prove me wrong only to discover I was right the entire time. I proceeded to do some sort of victory dance.

 

[lenin_117]

I often argue with my sister about stuff like this, but I've given up recently because when presented with the evidence she will just walk out of the room (And she's taking philoophy, a subject based around discussion. Hmm)

Most of the time I will never assert that I am one hundred percent correct though, because I don't really believe in facts and 'truth.' I have never been presented with something I couldn't find a clever way to argue against, not needing to resort to a 'I'm rght and that's that' argument. Mostly I feel it needs to be pointed out that what was believed years ago is not necessarily fact, despite being supported by the majority of the evidence of the time. The same will happen to things we hold fundamental to our beliefs today.

I disagree. A common element of our cultural and scientific development has changed. Hundreds of years ago, superstition such as Spontaneous Generation and Flat Earth were widely held beliefs. These were the ideas that were proven false.

Actually, at the time Flat Earth was a scientifically valid idea. There was no data to suggest otherwise.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Most of the time I will never assert that I am one hundred percent correct though, because I don't really believe in facts and 'truth.' I have never been presented with something I couldn't find a clever way to argue against, not needing to resort to a 'I'm rght and that's that' argument. Mostly I feel it needs to be pointed out that what was believed years ago is not necessarily fact, despite being supported by the majority of the evidence of the time. The same will happen to things we hold fundamental to our beliefs today.

I disagree. A common element of our cultural and scientific development has changed. Hundreds of years ago, superstition such as Spontaneous Generation and Flat Earth were widely held beliefs. These were the ideas that were proven false. Modern development, on the other hand, doesn't negate previous beliefs, but shows them to be incomplete. For instance, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity didn't show that Newton was wrong, but not completely accurate. Newton was still right, but he didn't understand the whole picture. Einstein isn't 100% correct either. But that doesn't mean what he says isn't true.

500 years ago everybody knew, and the facts of the day supported the argument that:
The Earth was flat
The suns and all the heavens rotated around the Earth

100 years ago everybody knew, and the facts of the day supported the argument that:
The Earth was a perfect sphere
The Earth and all the celestial bodies of our system rotated around the Sun

Now everybody knows, and the facts of the day support the argument that:
The Earth is not a perfect sphere, nor is it flat, it is perhaps slightly pear shaped (QI used for this shape, not my own research)
The Earth and the sun rotate around each other, as does the moon around the Earth. There is a fixed point around which all are rotating and on and on and on.

Every so often, something comes along which absolutely blows all previousy held concepts of right and wrong away. As I recall, the LHC was supposed to have much the same effect, breaking up a lot of scientific 'facts' and establishing new ones (perhaps I misunderstood the bold statement of "This will change everything we know about science" though). Had it worked, The whole of Newtonian physics, and with it Einsteinian physics, might have been disregarded entirely. Something may still come along to cause this to happen.

In point of fact, the ancient Greeks proved that it was round. But consider my point. People believed it was flat, then made the huge jump to sphere, and now is a slightly flattened sphere (rotation). People believed that the Earth stayed still at the centre of the universe, then there was the radical idea the it didn't (radical because of how entrenched the old idea was), then the point of orbiting shifted. In both cases, the radical revolution occured, then was altered slightly. And incidentally, the LHC was supposed to give us data on sub-atomic particles and just possibly singularities. This would hve given us data that would hopefully help us to unify Einsteinian Relativity with Quantum Mechanics into a Quantum Theory of Gravity, as Hawking put it. Again, this doesn't prove Einstein OR Newton Wrong, just incomplete. Newtonian gravity still works in weak gravitational areas (i.e. the Solar System); Relativity works in weak gravity as well as the large-scale structure of the universe; Quantum Gravity would extend that to the extremely small scale of sub-atomic particles taking the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle into account. In each case, the previous Theory is not wrong, but limited.