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KORAN BBQ BONANZA!
15 years ago
General
Some crazy preacher has suggested that September 11th should be declared International Burn A Koran Day.
It should come as no surprise that I am fully in support of this.
This preacher dood, who has a rockin' mustache, and whose ministry is named after a dove (The symbol of peace! Oh, the irony!), thinks it'd be a grand idea if we all showed them Muslims what for by burning up their holy books.
Pause for a second and reflect on this.
The people who are most likely to participate in this activity will be intolerant rednecks. How many Korans do you think they have just lying around? In order to burn them, they'll have to go get some. And where will they get them? Bookstores. With what? Money.
That's right, they're going to have to give money to the very people who they're trying so very hard to hate.
Intolerant rednecks are going to be giving money directly to Koran publishers - quite a few of which will be Muslim I'm guessing - in order to show how much they don't like Muslims.
Folks, irony doesn't get any more delicious.
But let's go back to the idea of burning a Koran on September 11th in protest of the terrorist attacks that happened nine years ago. I don't think that's a bad idea at all. Go ahead and toss a Koran or two on the barbie.
JUST SO LONG AS YOU CHUCK A BIBLE IN THERE TOO!!!
Get yourself a garbage can, fill it with holy books of ALL kinds, then light that shit on fire!! Throw a Tao in there! Throw a Talmud in there! A Torah! An I-ching! Definitely include a copy of Dianetics!
The problem is not Islam. The problem is every single type of unthinking devotion to a controlling, power-hungry dogma.
Heck, let's mark this special day by burning all sorts of books that encourage ignorance and blind belief in unproven bullshit! Let's burn some books on magical self-healing too! Or pop psychology! Organic foods! Mystic energy! Fad diets! Feng shui! Conspiracy theories! Get-rich-quick schemes! Alternative medicine! Celebrity autobiographies! Anti-science school textbooks! Anything written by cable news pundits! Maybe if we really put our hearts in it, we can incinerate every single copy of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret ever printed!!!
(Just for the hell of it, let's toss some Twilight novels, Harlequin romance and Dean Koontz crap in there too. ^__^)
Go out and steal these books by the bushel from bloated chain bookstores and make huge bonfires in church parking lots, torching thousands and thousands of books whose only purpose is to scam the foolish out of their money.
Then we invite all the city's homeless to stand around the warming glow and we give them free hotdogs and smores to roast over the crackling fire.
And the world becomes a better place. :)
(Or, for an even better way to celebrate healthy skepticism, go check out this podcast: Skeptoid! It's incredibly well-researched, touches on just about every topic imaginable, and takes no side but the one the evidence favors. Definitely worth a look for pretty much all human beings.)
It should come as no surprise that I am fully in support of this.
This preacher dood, who has a rockin' mustache, and whose ministry is named after a dove (The symbol of peace! Oh, the irony!), thinks it'd be a grand idea if we all showed them Muslims what for by burning up their holy books.
Pause for a second and reflect on this.
The people who are most likely to participate in this activity will be intolerant rednecks. How many Korans do you think they have just lying around? In order to burn them, they'll have to go get some. And where will they get them? Bookstores. With what? Money.
That's right, they're going to have to give money to the very people who they're trying so very hard to hate.
Intolerant rednecks are going to be giving money directly to Koran publishers - quite a few of which will be Muslim I'm guessing - in order to show how much they don't like Muslims.
Folks, irony doesn't get any more delicious.
But let's go back to the idea of burning a Koran on September 11th in protest of the terrorist attacks that happened nine years ago. I don't think that's a bad idea at all. Go ahead and toss a Koran or two on the barbie.
JUST SO LONG AS YOU CHUCK A BIBLE IN THERE TOO!!!
Get yourself a garbage can, fill it with holy books of ALL kinds, then light that shit on fire!! Throw a Tao in there! Throw a Talmud in there! A Torah! An I-ching! Definitely include a copy of Dianetics!
The problem is not Islam. The problem is every single type of unthinking devotion to a controlling, power-hungry dogma.
Heck, let's mark this special day by burning all sorts of books that encourage ignorance and blind belief in unproven bullshit! Let's burn some books on magical self-healing too! Or pop psychology! Organic foods! Mystic energy! Fad diets! Feng shui! Conspiracy theories! Get-rich-quick schemes! Alternative medicine! Celebrity autobiographies! Anti-science school textbooks! Anything written by cable news pundits! Maybe if we really put our hearts in it, we can incinerate every single copy of Rhonda Byrne's The Secret ever printed!!!
(Just for the hell of it, let's toss some Twilight novels, Harlequin romance and Dean Koontz crap in there too. ^__^)
Go out and steal these books by the bushel from bloated chain bookstores and make huge bonfires in church parking lots, torching thousands and thousands of books whose only purpose is to scam the foolish out of their money.
Then we invite all the city's homeless to stand around the warming glow and we give them free hotdogs and smores to roast over the crackling fire.
And the world becomes a better place. :)
(Or, for an even better way to celebrate healthy skepticism, go check out this podcast: Skeptoid! It's incredibly well-researched, touches on just about every topic imaginable, and takes no side but the one the evidence favors. Definitely worth a look for pretty much all human beings.)
Are you kidding? A church ever do something to selflessly help the community? <painfully sarcastic guffaw>
[Money + Power / Distance to nearest college] + how many times a day you say something blindly religious AND/OR pertaining to the republican AND/OR democratic parties and then, just for those whom may be confused, turn that number into a negative of itself = your ability to empathise with anybody of a lower social/financial status that yourself.
a) No job
b) No authority
c) 8 blocks from a major university
d) Agnostic, so chances of saying anything blindly religious quite slim indeed
e) Disdain for political parties, unlikely to say much about them either
... or, I would have given you a cookie, but I eated it ;_;
Like my point to she-who-will-not-be-named; if you've never suffered, and you have no idea what pain is, then how can you feel someone else's?
Fanatical devotion to the lack of a higher power is just as bad as fanatical devotion to a higher power.
Well, maybe not quite so bad. Atheists don't tie people to fence posts and beat them to death.
But i know what your saying, i said the same thing when i saw them burning harry potter books and Dixie chick CD's.
So why not a book-burning to protest ignorance?
According to the book, you get whatever thoughts you put out into the world. If it's positive, then great. But if something bad happens to you, well, it's your fault. "The most common criticism is of The Secret's assertion that victims are always to blame for whatever happens to them. Whether it's a rape victim, a tsunami victim, or a heart attack victim, The Secret teaches that they brought it upon themselves with their own negative thoughts. This idea is, of course, profoundly offensive in many ways."
Read more from where that came from here: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4096
I'll go back to watching Hairspray now. Gotta love John Travolta in drag.
Oh, and do you mind if I paraphrase this journal on my blog?
Or maybe I didn't read closely enough.
Anyway, the Law of Attraction is nothing new. I've got an old 50's audio book that is an MP3 version of an old record that covers the subject. Just targeting the current iteration doesn't help, especially when it's a rather easy target.
I decided to do something interesting. I decided to simply observe people for a while and see what happened to them. And I then compared it to their habitual thoughts, as estimated through observation of their actions and conversations with them. If you do this, you very quickly realize there is a correlation between thought and circumstance. Now, correlation does not mean causation. But not knowing which came first, I could see that once they both set in, they formed this looping pattern that kept reinforcing itself.
If you believe a certain cause is hopeless, then you don't try to get it done and/or you do it in a half-hearted manner. Either way, it's not enough effort to make anything happen. Thus you get more results that point to futility. Thus you become more hopeless at the situation and try even less... Repeat ad-infinitum.
Likewise, I saw the opposite in action. I've seen someone who thought being friendly helped him do his job. He interacted with others in ways that made other people happy. As a result, those people would then open up and share more information with the friendly person and were more likely to respond to requests for help. Thus the friendly person had more ways to get the information he needed to do his job. Thus he did a better job for being friendly. This reinforced his belief...
So far, the only thing I've seen for sure is that action is required. Sitting on your ass doesn't really do anything except stall. If there is anything to the Law of Attraction, it involves using your beliefs to get yourself out of bed and doing something you think you have a chance of accomplishing.
But it was an acceptable emotional appeal. Like you said, the idea behind the Law Of Attraction is that effect causes cause. A confident person succeeds in business because he acts confidently. A depressed person fails because he doesn't do anything. The Secret ignores the crucial step of "action is required" and says, 'Daydreaming is enough!' It's such obvious bullshit that Skeptoid didn't need to spend a lot of time debunking it, because anyone with critical thinking skills can do it themselves.
Skeptoid isn't really about debunking everything, but with showing people how to be skeptical on their own via critical thinking skills.
Alex, you're being overly skeptic here.
Let me start with a quick story. My current vehicle is a 94 Ford Escort. When I set out to buy a vehicle to replace my old, totalled one, I had no idea I'd be replacing my sporty MR-2 with a station wagon. And until now, no one in my family had owned a Ford. Once I bought the car however, both my parents and myself noticed that Ford Escorts were all over the place. We had never noticed how plentiful they were until now.
The reason this happens is that our brains work on association. For example, we associate roads with traffic death, so we instinctively look both ways before crossing. We don't come with this association built-in, but we learn it while at a young age and now the need to look both ways is automatic. We do it without thinking. This also works for noticing things. Until I bought a Ford Escort, we had no association in our mind for that specific type of car. It got filed under, "Yeah, it's a car" in our brains and we paid it no attention. But after the association got made, I immediately noticed all the Ford Escorts that were driving around town.
What the Law of Attraction does is create an association. This helps you notice things your brain would otherwise ignore. Thus it seems like all these opportunities just sprang into being all around you. They were really there, it's just your brain didn't have a strong enough association to get you to notice them.
I don't disagree with that at all. Obviously The Secret is relying on confirmation bias, but it's also telling people that prayer works. Oh, they call it 'putting out positive thoughts', but it's just badly disguised prayer. And prayers only tend to work if you put in some effort to make 'em work. You do the work; the prayer gets the credit.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20010417.html
<puts shades on>
...Kindling
YEEEEEEEAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!
Many an evil thought crossed my mind, as the basket came into view.
But... the basket was empty. I wonder why.
I'm agnostic, and what it means to me personally is this:
I'm not denying the existence of a higher power, but I'm not choosing one specific credo.
I also tend to think that there's far more going on beyond this life than we can easily perceive, but that anyone who claims to know what it is for sure is full of shit. Strange ideas aren't the problem. Certainty is. And especially the willingness to trust in certainty over science.
God that sounded stuffy. Howzabout I counterbalance that with some sillier remarks.
"Gods are stupid. Throw galaxies at them."
(yes I am well aware of the irony in saying "God that sounded stuffy" right after saying I don't believe in one. Go away.)
Ooooo! I quite like that!
>"Gods are stupid. Throw galaxies at them."
ROTFL! I wanna blow you so much for that. ^__^
*presents penis for ye to commence the blowin'*
Yes. That's what I thought this said.
Fortunately, I always read the ending first, and THANK GOODNESS! A big round of S'mores ALWAYS goes great after pyromania!
<rimshot>
"Yeah, I've got the Zergs on the run!"
So much so that I recall reading Wikipedia's list of ethnic slurs, and "zerg" was listed as a term for Koreans.
...which doesn't really say that they wouldn't play Zerg vs. Zerg, of course. Maybe they'd be more likely to say "the other Zerg on the run"? Ummm... Got it! A nitpick I can use! The plural of "Zerg" is "Zerg" not "Zergs"! Bwahaha!
This was me attempting to make a Starcraft joke while knowing virtually zero about the game itself. ;)
>So much so that I recall reading Wikipedia's list of ethnic slurs, and "zerg" was listed as a term for Koreans.
WAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! I'm not even sure why I find that so funny!!
I liked the ox tounge but I'm pretty sure it was actually cow tounge.
There's a difference?
Also, at least it wasn't a wagon tongue. All this talk of oxen and tongues has gotten me thinking of Oregon Trail again...
Seems from Wikipedia that oxen are usually, but not absolutely necessarily, Bos taurus that are simply bigger and stronger than ones raised to be milked or eaten.
And yet... Fad diets? Anti-science textbooks? The Secret? Angst The Vampire Twilight? Why? Where? Where was quality control? Shouldn't those materials have gone to something useful?
My urge to Hulk Smash was great that day...
Hah, I still think it's funny the time I went into a book store and they had a compilation of Issac Azimov stories next to the Metal Gear novel. Of course, a friend of mine told me that they read a lot of books based on video games and they say they're typically fantasic and above-par for modern literature, so what ever. XD
A friend who'd read it gave me a synopsis of several. It was so utterly horrifying I kept insisting he had to be lying, but he wasn't. I don't think I need to subject myself to the actual writing if the plot synopses are bad enough to nearly give me aneurysms.
You know, I remember a while back, a year or two I think, some folks were talking about this. They wondered where the Twilight stuff came from, and how it usurped the vampire throne from... uh... what's her name? Who wrote the LeStat books. That was a decent vampire movie. Anyways she turned full-on fundie and now hates all she did involving vampires. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll happen to that Twilight lady too!
I've never read the Twilight books or seen the films, if that's not clear. I'm not really a fan of Harry Potter either.
I thought so too, but apparently the commercials use the only funny bits in the entire movie. It has gotten DISMAL reviews.
>You know, I remember a while back, a year or two I think, some folks were talking about this. They wondered where the Twilight stuff came from, and how it usurped the vampire throne from... uh... what's her name? Who wrote the LeStat books. That was a decent vampire movie. Anyways she turned full-on fundie and now hates all she did involving vampires. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll happen to that Twilight lady too!
Ann Rice. And shit, she used to write bondage erotica! What the hell happened to her!? Fuckin' weakling...
Actually, I think Stephanie Meyer is already a Mormon. How weird is that?
>I've never read the Twilight books or seen the films, if that's not clear. I'm not really a fan of Harry Potter either.
I read all the HP books and my hatred for Twilight is partly fueled by that. The Harry books deserved their sensational success. They were easy to read for all ages, handled an enormous cast of characters skillfully, wove brilliantly subversive morals into the background and were just generally accessible to nearly any reader. As an author myself, I can tell you, J.K. Rowling is an astonishingly skilled writer. Writing isn't just good ideas; good delivery is even more important and at least as difficult. So for someone writing such utter garbage to get equally famous, it kind of crushes my hope that maybe we were progressing as a species a little.
Oh yeah I forgot they used to talk about "Mormon Vampires!" when refering to Twilight but I didn't know why. Not all Mormons are particularly faithful, which is reasonable when your family's religion is so bloody insane. ^.^;;
It's like people who are raised KKK but aren't themselves racist, it's just their parents religion and they had no reason to 'leave' so they go to church barbecues and things.
And pretty much all of them are made by the same people. Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet The Spartans, etc...
>It's like people who are raised KKK but aren't themselves racist, it's just their parents religion and they had no reason to 'leave' so they go to church barbecues and things.
It's fascinating to think of the KKK as a religion but... The more I think about it, the fewer differences I can see.
The KKK is a twisted branch of the Christian faith, like the Mormons or the Josh's Witnesses. People have been KKK for generations, and they've already chased the blacks out of their communities, so there's nothing left but the classics. Going to church, having tea parties and barbecues, christmas dinners, that sort of thing. Lots of people are born into KKK families and they don't personally have any faith, the same as you might see for a lapsed catholic or any other major religion. It's become so much a part of the culture of certain regions that you're a part of it even without faith.
But so far I don't think it's likely. Sad face.
All I'm saying is that, through the passing of years, our species, our human race, has changed. Yeah, we're chaotic now, but we're also curious, and we aren't the unthinking hordes of old! As an Aquarian, and a Gnostic, I believe that we're gravitating toward a point where we place faith IN knowledge, and we learn to use logic SUBJECTIVELY. Applied reason and wisdom, working toward a common goal for humanity.
Of course, that's likely still a few centuries off, but I still believe it'll happen. It's just natural evolution that we'd learn, in due course, to survive together rather than divided, despite our differences, right? So I say that religion is as it is, as is atheism. I simply support that we THINK. There's no reason to rebel against this rebellion in such a manner as a book-burning, on either side. Leave the Quran, as well as all other holy books, as alone as you can. If you don't believe in them or agree with them, then don't buy them, don't read them!!
Being fanatical about others being fanatical is just silly, isn't it?
You're... taking me seriously?
My dear child, it will me far, far easier if you learn not to do this. ;)
(Agreed on quite a few of your points though!)
I was just offering a friendly counterpoint :3
*Steals your cereal*
*Dons sunglasses and mounts sky leopard*
I KILLED HIM AND HIS TWO FRIENDS FOR IT
...ABOUT HALF A DOZEN TIMES
WHY AM I YELLING
IT DOES NOT LIKE YOU!!!
That is absolutely the least-expected insult I have ever heard. I am in awe.
XD
"Go, little Bible! Fly! Be freeee!!"
<hurls it off an overpass>
I tried. I failed. I didn't feel bad about failing, even if it was $10,000.
I did write a few essays in high school that I am now ashamed of (thankfully I don't know if any copies still exist, or even remember more than one or two of the topics) because I was suffering from a very Republican viewpoint from my parents. Fortunately, Mom encouraged me to have my own opinion and think for myself... but that didn't stop her from disagreeing with me and saying how much I'm wrong. "Oh, but ultimately it is your choice... I just wish you'd make the RIGHT choice..." Right. I just wish Mom would make the logical jump from that to the fact that, if her beliefs are a) her son should be allowed to make his own choices, but b) only her way is correct, one of those must be wrong. If only Mom's way is correct, then it's pointless that I should choose any other way... but if I'm allowed to make my own choices, then they must be just as valid as hers.
I'm rambling. :P
This is why I'm all up ons when it comes to sci-fi settings where someone can have wireless Internet jacked into their skull (yes I'm aware that's a mixed metaphor since a "jack" is specifically FOR a WIRE) because I'd be able to research and verify what I'm saying in real time.
>Anything written by cable news pundits!
does Stephen Colbert count? I rather love his book D':
um, so?
sometimes comedy might be the best thing for news, because they arent influenced by what other pundits are (cause if they were, they wouldnt be funny), is because they tell it like it is. And thats what makes it funny and accurate.
also, who gives a shit? Besides you, apparently (my dad). Maybe Democrats actually have a sense of humor. Unlike you, who feels the need to RAGEEE about little insignificant thing like Weird al Yankovic. I mean, really?
Admittedly that doesn't prove the info is always accurate, but it seems far more likely than the local news, with their proven track record of running government press releases, unproven 'science' claims and 'news stories' that are literally just commercials for big corporations. "Coming up next! New changes to Burger King's breakfast menu!" (I am not making that up.)
Oh, organic foods are under rated. The only real problem with them is they don't have as high an output in the developed world, and really, it's only an 8% drop. (Source, A BBC science program called "The Naked Scientist" that I listen to at work to relieve boredom.
Conspiracy theories? Well, some did happen. Like the completely abortive attempt to start military coup against FDR. A group of political rivals contacted a Military Officer who promptly turned the lot in.
Alternative science? Well, they're welcome to run their experiments all they want. After all, if their science is junk, then they simply won't get results.
Cable news pundits. Ha! What about... uh... No, not him. Well there is always... uh... No, that's not good. How about... Uh...
Okay, you have me on that one.
Anyway, my counter point is that I don't like over skepticism. If you see someone running a con-operation, that doesn't mean that everyone is a con operation. I see this jumping to conclusions far to often in the skeptical community, often in the face of blatantly obvious evidence to the contrary.
Afterall, it's not like every single rags-to-riches story in the history of mankind has been made up right? SOMEONE'S get rich quick scheme worked...
More like, "Buy these ancient Chinese copper bracelets for $50.00 and wealth will come to you!"
>Oh, organic foods are under rated. The only real problem with them is they don't have as high an output in the developed world, and really, it's only an 8% drop. (Source, A BBC science program called "The Naked Scientist" that I listen to at work to relieve boredom.
Actually, I've heard it's a lot higher. On P&T's bullshit they said that if the whole world switched exclusively to organic farming, two billion people would starve. It's utterly retarded; people are so afraid of chemicals, yet it's those chemicals that keep them safe from diseases.
Don't even get me started on genetically modified crops...
>Conspiracy theories? Well, some did happen. Like the completely abortive attempt to start military coup against FDR. A group of political rivals contacted a Military Officer who promptly turned the lot in.
Obviously not all. I believe in some myself. But there's a biiiiig plausibility scale when it comes to these. For instance 'Bush may have known about the 911 attacks beforehand and allowed them to happen so his administration could spin it' versus 'Bush orchestrated the attacks using robot planes and all the passengers of Flight 93 were secretly unloaded in Colorado'.
>Alternative science? Well, they're welcome to run their experiments all they want. After all, if their science is junk, then they simply won't get results.
I said alternitive medicine. Difference. It's one thing if you wanna suggest a new theory. Another thing entirely if you wanna sell sugar pills to cancer patients.
>Cable news pundits. Ha! What about... uh... No, not him. Well there is always... uh... No, that's not good. How about... Uh...
In the interests of full disclosure, right now I'm reading Keith Olbermann's The Worst Person In The World. And it's fucking funny as hell. :)
>Anyway, my counter point is that I don't like over skepticism. If you see someone running a con-operation, that doesn't mean that everyone is a con operation. I see this jumping to conclusions far to often in the skeptical community, often in the face of blatantly obvious evidence to the contrary.
Absolutely. Root through my journals and I did a Montroversy a long time ago about skeptics who think their job is to debunk absolutely everything.
My position is basically, if you wanna believe in something weird, that's fine. But I'm going to pounce on you if you A) try to force others to believe in it or B) try to sell it to people when there's no evidence that it's real.
A friend of mine asked me to buy him this utterly ridiculous alternative healing book for Christmas. It was about tapping various places on your body to cure illness. Literally; just tapping. I felt dirty buying it. I'm never going to spend money on something like that ever again.
>Afterall, it's not like every single rags-to-riches story in the history of mankind has been made up right? SOMEONE'S get rich quick scheme worked...
Like the fucking Pet Rock guy...
I'm assuming people have at least a LITTLE critical thinking skill. Work with me here! ;3
> Actually, I've heard it's a lot higher. On P&T's bullshit they said that if the whole world switched exclusively to organic farming, two billion people would starve. It's utterly retarded; people are so afraid of chemicals, yet it's those chemicals that keep them safe from diseases.
Penn and Teller have an agenda to push. They have a tendancy to pick the easiest target they can find for their bad guys and the most reasonable one they can for their good guys, which makes them guilty of presenting anecdotal evidence and/or misrepresentation. Keep in mind that I LIKE a lot of their shows. I just have to be honest and call them out. Rhetorical tricks are no substitute for an in-depth analysis.
The show I heard my statistic from is apolitical, dedicated to science, and gives good interviews with scientists. Therefore I trust my source more.
> Don't even get me started on genetically modified crops...
Yeah, the scare talk is overdone for these. These are no more dangerous than pesticides. Properly used, there is no problem with it. Obviously, improper use is bad for you.
Although, keep in mind the people bringing you your genetically modified crops come from the same stock as the ones who build off-shore oil rigs. Sure, you can make that technology safe. But safety adds a token cost...
>Conspiracy theories? Well, some did happen. Like the completely abortive attempt to start military coup against FDR. A group of political rivals contacted a Military Officer who promptly turned the lot in.
Obviously not all. I believe in some myself. But there's a biiiiig plausibility scale when it comes to these. For instance 'Bush may have known about the 911 attacks beforehand and allowed them to happen so his administration could spin it' versus 'Bush orchestrated the attacks using robot planes and all the passengers of Flight 93 were secretly unloaded in Colorado'.
You make a really good point. The biggest problem with conspiracies is they are so overdone. They're bigger hams than William Shatner! Besides, NATURAL SELECTION can immediately explain the effects of large-scale conspiracies. It's not that bankers are part of some satanic cult bent on turning the world into their own fiefdom. It's just that the assholes who want to do that are the ones that get promoted in our current banking climate... so of course our banks are money-thirsty giants.
The real danger is that these conspiracists are only dealing with the symptoms: the current crop of bankers. If you don't get rid of the circumstances that moved those people into positions of power, you're justing going to get a second wave as soon as the first is dealt with.
> I said alternitive medicine. Difference. It's one thing if you wanna suggest a new theory. Another thing entirely if you wanna sell sugar pills to cancer patients.
Agreed.
> In the interests of full disclosure, right now I'm reading Keith Olbermann's The Worst Person In The World. And it's fucking funny as hell. :)
Rachel Maddow is another one I like.
> Absolutely. Root through my journals and I did a Montroversy a long time ago about skeptics who think their job is to debunk absolutely everything.
> My position is basically, if you wanna believe in something weird, that's fine. But I'm going to pounce on you if you A) try to force others to believe in it or B) try to sell it to people when there's no evidence that it's real.
Agreed on both points. What I do when I find a weird theory is look for the results. And I use the word "results" purposefully, because evidence is very difficult to verify on a controversial subject. Unless you can find some kind of number trail that isn't entirely related, there are often too many people trying to push a viewpoint, and I don't want to trust any of them.
Results can be directly observed however. It's not as good as running your own study, but I have a full time job and can't devote that much effort. Now, results don't necessary mean the psuedo-science explanation is correct, just that there is something happening that deserves attention. It could just as easily be some other well documented effect that is getting triggered here. Either way, it might be worth trying trials yourself at that point.
I've seen this in effect actually. I have this old book on the law of attraction that also gives some simple but useful advice: Success is choosing what you want to do in life and then doing it. You get this by deciding what field you want a career in and working hard to get into it.
Really, it's hard to argue with that. It doesn't require the law of attraction to make it work, but it is hard to argue with it.
> A friend of mine asked me to buy him this utterly ridiculous alternative healing book for Christmas. It was about tapping various places on your body to cure illness. Literally; just tapping. I felt dirty buying it. I'm never going to spend money on something like that ever again.
Tapping? *blank look* *shifts eyes* Uh... right... I'll look into results. Sometime. When I get around it it.
>>Afterall, it's not like every single rags-to-riches story in the history of mankind has been made up right? SOMEONE'S get rich quick scheme worked...
>Like the fucking Pet Rock guy...
Or Penn and Teller.... ;3
...why on earth would you do that? ;)
>The show I heard my statistic from is apolitical, dedicated to science, and gives good interviews with scientists. Therefore I trust my source more.
Allright. Still, if the scientific community honored Norman Borlaug for saving a billion lives with his research into modified crops, it stands to reason that those billion people would have starved under traditional farming. And since the Earth's population is growing, it also seems plausible to assume that that number would go up if we kept on using organic-only farming.
>Although, keep in mind the people bringing you your genetically modified crops come from the same stock as the ones who build off-shore oil rigs. Sure, you can make that technology safe. But safety adds a token cost...
True. I trust science, but not human beings in pursuit of profit. (I'll also admit that Skeptoid has a sadly naive 'science can do no wrong' feel to it occasionally. He seems to forget that scientists can be pigheaded and resistant to new ideas just like anyone else.)
>You make a really good point. The biggest problem with conspiracies is they are so overdone. They're bigger hams than William Shatner! Besides, NATURAL SELECTION can immediately explain the effects of large-scale conspiracies. It's not that bankers are part of some satanic cult bent on turning the world into their own fiefdom. It's just that the assholes who want to do that are the ones that get promoted in our current banking climate... so of course our banks are money-thirsty giants.
EXACTLY! Like I've told my friend; a lot of times, there's no need for a conspiracy. People in power are openly ruling the world and screwing us over. In any system, the people most likely to make it to the top are the sociopaths who claw their way up over the backs of their colleagues.
>The real danger is that these conspiracists are only dealing with the symptoms: the current crop of bankers. If you don't get rid of the circumstances that moved those people into positions of power, you're justing going to get a second wave as soon as the first is dealt with.
The other real danger is turning 'conspiracy' into a word that automatically means 'goofy bullshit'. If a lobbyist bribes some congressmen to vote a certain way, that is absolutely conspiracy. All the word means is two or more people plotting to commit an illegal act. You could have a conspiracy between two winos to go rob a party store.
Much as I loved The X Files when it was on, I'm beginning to realize that it probably fucked up how a lot of people think...
>>In the interests of full disclosure, right now I'm reading Keith Olbermann's The Worst Person In The World. And it's fucking funny as hell. :)
>Rachel Maddow is another one I like.
I haven't seen much of her, but what I have seen, I like.
>Now, results don't necessary mean the psuedo-science explanation is correct, just that there is something happening that deserves attention.
I want to hug you for that sentence. Seriously, I've been trying to articulate that concept for years now. If people are reporting a weird phenomenon, it's as foolish and useless to claim you know exactly what's going on, as it is to claim that absolutely nothing is going on!
I got furious with South Park when they did an episode spoofing 911 Truth and one character said that a quarter of all Americans doubt the official story, and another character said that just meant a quarter of Americans are crazy. How appalling! Even if it's not a full 1/4th, if the numbers are anywhere that high, then it is absolutely worth looking into why that big of a population's percentage would have so little trust in their own government that they could believe they'd murdered thousands of their own citizens!!
>Success is choosing what you want to do in life and then doing it. You get this by deciding what field you want a career in and working hard to get into it.
>Really, it's hard to argue with that. It doesn't require the law of attraction to make it work, but it is hard to argue with it.
<nods> The dickhead who wrote the book doesn't deserve credit for your success; you do for doing all the damn work. This is why I see red whenever the news shows someone thanking God for something that they worked their own ass off for. "Thank yourselves, ya morons!!"
>Tapping? *blank look* *shifts eyes* Uh... right... I'll look into results. Sometime. When I get around it it.
Not tapdancing though. If that were true, then Gregory Hines would be like a demigod.
>Or Penn and Teller.... ;3
Actually, I imagine they probably had to work a lot of sleazy little clubs with their magic act over several years to get anywhere close to being rich...
Why not traditionally farm modified crops? We've done that ever since we started growing crops and breeding animals. Most of the fruits and vegetables that we eat today were completely inedible in their original form. A good example is bananas. They were full of seeds and starch. The kind we eat today are seedless and full of sugars. Genetics just gives us another tool in changing what we grow to be better.
You're mixing two ideas here. When I am referring to organic farming, I am referring to using farming techniques that don't require a huge side infrastructure to feed you pesticide and other products. In developing nations, that huge side industry doesn't exist, which is why the program I mentioned claimed that yields would go UP in the developing world for using organic farming techniques. If you use pesticide once, you better not run out, or you don't have a crop.
On a side note, the show I was listening to is European. I should probably check the standards for organic food there. They may be different than what we have in America.
That right there is exactly why genetically modified crops are better. You plant those, and the crops themselves will do the job the pesticides would've. Plus they can be tailored especially to thrive in a specific reigion. All the benefits of chemicals without needing to pour on chemicals. The only opposition I can see to this is tired old fear of science.
That 8% drop is really huge, too. Small tiny percents can add up to a lot simply because there's so many humans. Like, I heard that if the US entirely switched to fluorescent lightbulbs and no longer used indescents, we'd only save 0.003% or some low shit like that per year in energy consumption, but that's still 28,000 barrels or so of oil per year. It's only small by comparison of everything else, but the number itself is still huge. That eight percent is likely based on how much food is physically available and, I'm just assuming here, doesn't take into account that the food prices would rise due to lower supply and a higher demand. Poorer people wouldn't be able to afford it, so it'd be more than eight percent. If that 8% actually does take into account of the poor people in developed industrialized nations, however, it still would mean food prices would go up and some people may suffer from malnutrition and sickness from it without any real need or rationalization to do so. If human suffering is avoidable in any way, it's worth doing, no matter what.
For developing nations, they don't really have a choice. They have to use organic farming methods because they don't have the resources to have big things like the FDA, USDA and EPA and such to make sure our food is safe, they don't have the money to extract, manufacture, synthesize and purchase chemicals for pesticides on food or genetically change the food to resist harsher weather, grow bigger for more food surpluses, etc. It's not like they WANT to do organic farming, they just have to. If given the choice, there'd be no reason for them to choose for organic farming methods. There's no reason to respect organic farming in any way other than a necessity for developing nations, it's not something for the United States to seriously invest in.
The whole 8% thing::: I know I kind of made it sound like I was talking about 8% of the poopulation and not the food output, which was what you were talking about. I didn't mean to, I just have a horrible time explaining myself clearly. So, to clarify just in case: Even with an eight percent loss of food output, food prices would still go up and more people would be hurt by that. We would also probably increase what crops we currently use to make up for it, taking up more land, destroying more wildlife and that land needlessly being used to make the same amount of food, but more inefficiently, for no reason whatsoever. There's no point was what I was trying to explain.
In America, less than 3% of our population is required to work agriculture in order to feed our entire nation. It would take a 25% drop in yield to boost that number by one percentage point. In context of our nation, it the drop in yield is meaningless. In context of the corporation that is farming, it makes a big difference in their bottom line, thus they use the cheapest method available.
By the way, the FDA and EPA are agencies that verify food and pesticides won't kill you or the environment. They have nothing to do with the actual production of pesticides. The USDA covers these areas, but doesn't actually DO anything beyond providing information. USDA stands for United States Department of Agriculture by the way. Most developing nations with a functioning government will have their own department of agriculture, even if it doesn't have the resources that ours does. What they lack is the heavy industry required to mass produce pesticides.
So, is there any point to it? It seems that organic farming has a marginal setback in efficiency while providing no benefit in exchange.
For a country, the primary advantage is a hedge against risk. First, most pesticides will target all bugs, not just the pests. This means that the bugs that eat the pests will also die out. This hooks you on using pesticide. After that, it's just like using an anti-biotic. You can use anti-biotic to stop an outbreak. But the more often it is used, the more chances you have to develop a resistant strain. We are currently having a problem with some diseases making a comeback because they developed a resistance to the anti-biotic we used to get rid of them in round one. It's the same thing with pesticides. Pesticides will kill off most of the bugs attacking the crops. The ones that didn't get killed are the ones that reproduce. In a few years, the bug population is back to its original size, but now they are all engaging in the behavior that let the originals avoid the die off.
This is why many developing nations saw massive increases in yield at first, but soon found their productivity dropping off. In order to get the newer, better bugs, they needed to use better pesticides, or more applications of the current pesticide. Either way, once their need for pesticide outstripped their ability to pay for it, they're crops failed for many years in a row.
Another thing to keep in mind is that normal agriculture is a far worse polluter than organic agriculture. If the drinking water of a third-world nation got contaminated with run-off from the manure pit, you're liable to have an epidemic on your hands.
Most of the problems if industrial farming could be fixed in my opinion. They just need stiffer regulation. The primary problem with it in the third world is they just don't have the infrastructure to support it. If they did, I'd be all for it.
I consider myself a "crazy left-wing wacko", or "slightly left of center" as the rest of the world calls us.
I vaguely remember some farmer getting sued for copyright violation when seeds from a genetically modified crop blew into his field from a neighbor and started growing there without the authorization of the company who created the specific strain. I have no idea whether that was real or just a hypothetical situation, nor who ended up winning if it was real... I'm pretty sure it was either in the U.S. or Canada, though.
> A friend of mine asked me to buy him this utterly ridiculous alternative healing book for Christmas. It was about tapping various places on your body to cure illness. Literally; just tapping. I felt dirty buying it. I'm never going to spend money on something like that ever again.
I'm honestly surprised you DID buy something like that.
> Like the fucking Pet Rock guy...
And the way I remember it, L. Ron Hubbard created a religion just so he'd have a market for his sci-fi books...
That sounds far more like someone making a slippery slope argument against GM crops. There is some concern about companies copyrighting their seeds, but on the whole, that's a far less pressing concern than billions of people starving.
>I'm honestly surprised you DID buy something like that.
It was the only thing he asked for! My loyalty to my compadre won out over my intellectual disgust...
>And the way I remember it, L. Ron Hubbard created a religion just so he'd have a market for his sci-fi books...
I thought it was so he could make enough money to live out the rest of his days on a boat full of little boys. ;)
True... it could also have been one of many urban legends about frivolous lawsuits! ...It could also be true--that's the draw of the truly insidious urban legends, they're believable enough you can't be sure until you do the research yourself. And I just woke up so I'm too groggy to do the research myself--at least, that's my excuse. :P
> I thought it was so he could make enough money to live out the rest of his days on a boat full of little boys. ;)
...did he?
>...did he?
He did spend the last part of his life on a boat in international waters because he was wanted for fraud in, like, four different countries. The little boys are mere legend though, so who knows?
No, that is an argument against absurd copyright laws, protecting intellectual property over people dying.
However, I do care that I can use their own argument to make them look like fools to everyone else while directing the fruits of their efforts towards a cause I do like. Debate Ju-jitsu for the win!
But I like my I-ching... I keep it right next to my Ouija board and crystal ball.
But, yeah, I just like that kind of stuff. The occult and mysticism in its various forms utterly fascinates me.
Oh cool. I know where I left it, right next to my Ka-Ching.
<rimshot>
Nice, amigo.
"The Book-Burning Was Called Off Because Nobody Had Any."
(And also that if Barack Obama is a Muslim, he's a pretty sucky one, what with the pork eating and alcohol drinking he does on camera.)
Or they might skim it and realize, "Hey, aside from the bit with the flying camel, this is pretty much a complete ripoff of the Bible..."
>(And also that if Barack Obama is a Muslim, he's a pretty sucky one, what with the pork eating and alcohol drinking he does on camera.)
Excellent point! Of course, tea-partyers would just claim it was camoflauge. "He ain't foolin' no one! Them's chicken strips and ginger ale!!"
There's a reason for that!
Fun fact: around 54% of people on the planet worship YHWH. About 0.4% of people on the planet are Jewish. That just boggles the mind.
http://i33.tinypic.com/104gfth.gif
There are 13 million Jews. Around 5 million in the US, around 5 million in Isreal, and around 3 million in the rest of the world.
Really puts the Holocaust into perspective, doesn't it.
(A lot of Jews live in California and (especially) New York, meaning TV and movies give a rather skewed vision on how many Jews there are in the world.)
But I suppose it makes sense with the Jews. From what I've heard, Christianity and Islam are all about "Recruit! Recruit! Recruit! We need more numbers!!" and Judaism's more like an exclusive club. They're choosy about members.
Hell, I find any religion laughable that claims to follow the Bible and has more than 144,000 members. At least Jehovah's Witnesses are honest about that, they say Heaven closed its gates in 1935. (reference: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/rev/7.html#4 footnote)
Apparently.
...complete with Zerg infestation:
"Rev 9:3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power."
"Rev 9:7,8 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
/ And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions."
Oh, how id love my car to run on Holy books. You have no idea.
Also, I'd burn the Koran every day. Why only September 11th? =( I can't wait for that one day of the year every day to get my book burning fix.
Why not traditionally farm modified crops? We've done that ever since we started growing crops and breeding animals. Most of the fruits and vegetables that we eat today were completely inedible in their original form. A good example is bananas. They were full of seeds and starch. The kind we eat today are seedless and full of sugars. Genetics just gives us another tool in changing what we grow to be better.
You're mixing two ideas here. When I am referring to organic farming, I am referring to using farming techniques that don't require a huge side infrastructure to feed you pesticide and other products. In developing nations, that huge side industry doesn't exist, which is why the program I mentioned claimed that yields would go UP in the developing world for using organic farming techniques. If you use pesticide once, you better not run out, or you don't have a crop.
On a side note, the show I was listening to is European. I should probably check the standards for organic food there. They may be different than what we have in America.