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Thread: Living in a material world

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott R. Brown View Post
    You just vaunted your own ignorance for the world to enjoy!
    So Heritage Foundation isn't a right wing policy spin tank? Funny because they profess about as much on their own web page there bub.

  2. #62
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    Heritage foundation on same sex marriage. Going against what every child psychology and pediatric health org in the country claim...

    http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...ining-marriage

    Heritage foundation on climate science, going against consensus of the climate science community..

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...acy/?mobile=nc

    Apparently even other conservative groups think Heritage is off the mark on immigration..

    [URL="http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/09/is-team-rubio-working-to-preemptively-undermine-a-heritage-foundation-report/"[/URL]

    Nope, they're right wing spin. They once had some cred, now they're just more noise interfering with signal. I don't have to criticize them, they do good enough showing their slant themselves. Anything they put out should be instantly met with skepticism.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Scott R. Brown View Post
    The sources are above the lists.

    No no. You know what I meant. When I said source each one, I meant each example. Not some conservative think tanks assurance that it's all good. Not to mention the obvious cherry picking.



    The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it would also set in motion a process to determine whether the same criteria should be adopted by every other federal science agency.
    I can't believe people actually believe this stuff. These people think they know everything. So dangerous. They have no idea how bad it will get and how fast. One generation of illiterate children is all it takes.

  4. #64
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    Back to the more important post...

    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencein...PkhuO.facebook

    1) This was done before, and it resulted is total stagnation of innovation, layoffs in R&D sectors, and just an in general malaise in scientific progress. Private interests benefit immeasurably from have free, open access to public funded, basic research that they won't do themselves because there is no guarantee of profit.

    2) They're hardly qualified to determine this. And frankly, the most beneficial advancements in technology came from people simply doing science for the sake of unpacking the world around us. When Bloch and Purcell developed nuclear magnetic resonance, they didn't care about one day providing an imaging system that would revolutionize health care, they were just interested in chemical structure.

    3) Duplication is fundamental in ensuring proper research is performed. Reproducability is integral in the scientific process and it is duplication that often finds the inaccuracies, accidental or even unethical. It is duplication that allows science to determine if a medicine truly is effective and safe. Without duplication in public work, you'd find the exact opposite. Corporate interests would snuff out dissenting data on basis of patent and protecting proprietary interests.

  5. #65
    #3 is the brutal.

    "So we just received mountains of data that shows oil spills to be beneficial to wildlife, including seafood. Here are all our numbers. You can't reproduce them. You're gonna just have to take our word for it. We swear, it's totally legit. Look... see that credible scientist there with the big smile? He'll swear it's true."

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    I can't believe people actually believe this stuff. These people think they know everything. So dangerous. They have no idea how bad it will get and how fast. One generation of illiterate children is all it takes.
    See, on one hand they suffer from major Dunning-Kruger. But on the other, on some level way way down in that little place they try to shut out with prayers and ideological mantra, they know they don't understand. And I think that genuinely scares them out of their magic underwear (or whatever choice garments they prefer http://citizenchris.typepad.com/citi...l?cid=88399458 ).

    They understand that they're ideologically going the way of the dodo. And I think they're convinced that the only way to stop the train to their own extinction is by trying to blow up the tracks and stop the progress of contradictory knowledge.

    We've seen it already. http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carol...2#.UYCGNbWTiSo
    Last edited by SoCo KungFu; 04-30-2013 at 08:10 PM.

  7. #67
    Can't hold back the tide. All they can do is lash out and cause undue pain and suffering. Either way, it's obvious that there is a massive downswing in their numbers. It could be reduced to a tiny minority over like two generations. Like in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. And considering how fast we're moving technologically, I can see it going down in flames before the end of the century.

  8. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by SoCo KungFu View Post
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/north-carolina-bans-latest-science-rising-sea-level/story?id=16913782#.UYCGNbWTiSo[/URL]
    "Ummm, there is water in my house that wasn't there before!"

    "Uh... no, sir. It's always been like that. You built your house below high tide. Say otherwise and we'll file suit! "


    Bans scientific evidence? This hyper partisan crap is getting ridiculous. Truth is, no federally elected officials represent you, and 2/3 of your state reps don't represent you. You may agree on a few things, but they don't worry about you in any meaningful way that you would expect from a civil servant like a fireman or paramedic. But hey, it's just the fate of your whole country at risk. I'm so glad it's not that bad here. Yet anyways...

  9. #69
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    Can't hold back the tide. All they can do is lash out and cause undue pain and suffering. Either way, it's obvious that there is a massive downswing in their numbers. It could be reduced to a tiny minority over like two generations. Like in Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. And considering how fast we're moving technologically, I can see it going down in flames before the end of the century.
    This is damaging though. The world is going to progress regardless. But progress has been exponential (although I do think there is an energetic cap to this). The more we stagnate, the more we have to struggle just to catch up. 10 years of dumbing down the populace requires those people 20 years in the other direction just to break even. We can't afford that. And when we do begin hitting the ceiling of progress, and all the crap we've been mismanaging starts coming back to haunt us, then we're left with a populace that is unable to understand how we got there, what we could do before and what the **** we can do then to try and meet those challenges.

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by Syn7 View Post
    but they don't worry about you in any meaningful way that you would expect from a civil servant like a fireman or paramedic.
    Hey, lets not forget what they think about firemen...

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...ing-by-a-third

  11. #71
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    For something less depressing...

    http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment...beer-foam.html

    Not earth shattering, but its the small things in life right?

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by SoCo KungFu View Post
    So Heritage Foundation isn't a right wing policy spin tank? Funny because they profess about as much on their own web page there bub.
    No that is not what I am saying:

    1) I gave two sources, but there are many more. All one needs to do is do a Google search to find plenty of various sources. I just chose two out of many.

    2) Your implication what that since you do not agree with the philosophy of the source, their information is wrong. This is a straw man argument. That is like me saying you don't know what you are talking about because you are from Southern California and everyone knows Southern Californians are all nuts!! You know that is incorrect thinking and I know it is incorrect thinking. So, just apply that to my argument.

    3) Just because a source is right wing does not make their information false. Your comments about Fox Noise make the same implication as your comment about the Heritage Foundation.

    4) When arguing a point, attack the facts not the source; demonstrate the facts as listed are incorrect.

    5) Otherwise I can say you are wrong because you are ugly and I am right because I am handsome!!!

    Which is, of course, TRUE!!!!!

  13. #73
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    I distrust and despise this Heritage Foundation re-engineering policies and their ALEC brethren but I have to acknowledge they have done an excellent job with the Southern Strategy and similar projects to create their legislative devisive policies.

    When their chief Strategist announced that they do not want all American to vote, that went against whatever the US Constitution stood for.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

    They realized that they could not control the country so they had to recycle something from the past so they realized they had to create issues using the US Constitution so they adopted this Southern Strategy. Divide and Conquer, which implies separating the Federal Powers from the States Powers (Rights) and create enough confusion to slip through using legislative process. Again they have done a great job with this.

    As an example, we can all agree that people who can afford to pay for health care should do so and their initial (Heritage Foundation) legislative tool was RomneyCare, a positive trend, which they were all for until they were against it, uintil they realized more people liked it then they became more against it when POTUS followed the initial MA Health Care Agenda.

    Same with Health Care for Women, where ALEC reframed the agenda to reference abortion claiming PRO CHOICE while passing laws exactly opposite of what they were proclaiming freedom, while getting rid of individual choice of the individual concerned.

  14. #74
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     Stimulus recipient A123 … failed. http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/...7uN/story.html

     Stimulus recipient Abound Solar … laid off 70 percent of its company.
     Stimulus recipient Abound Solar … failed.http://www.denverpost.com/breakingne...n-abound-solar
     Stimulus recipient Amonix … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Azure Dynamics … failed. http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...nnect-electric
     Stimulus recipient Bab**** and Brown … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Beacon Power … failed.http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57...st-bankruptcy/
     Stimulus recipient Brightsource … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Chemical Power … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Compact Power … furloughed workers.
     Stimulus recipient Eastern Energy … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient ECOtality … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Ener1 … failed.http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...rotection.html
     Stimulus recipient Energy Conversion Devices … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Evergreen Solar … fails. http://bostonherald.com/business/tec...ans_asset_sale
     Stimulus recipient First Solar … sold panels to itself.
     Stimulus recipient First Solar … slashed 2,000 jobs.
     Stimulus recipient First Solar … furloughed pay.
     Stimulus recipient Fisker Automotive … laid off lots of workers (its cars also get worse mileage than SUVs).
     Stimulus recipient Genesis Poly … failed (twice).http://www.biditup.com/auction/381/S...ng+Granulating
     Stimulus recipient Green Vehicles Inc. … failed.http://www.thecalifornian.com/articl...riment-crashes
     Stimulus recipient GreenVolts … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Johnson Controls … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient LSP Energy Systems … failed. not a Green Energy Company
     Stimulus recipient Mountain Plaza, Inc. … failed.
     Stimulus recipient National Renewable Energy Lab … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Navistar … failed. Not a Green Energy company http://www.navistar.com/navistar/ And definitely not failing
     Stimulus recipient Nevada Geothermal … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Nordic Windpower … failed.http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...wer-files.html
     Stimulus recipient NREL … laid off much of its workforce.
     Stimulus recipient Olsen’s Crop Service … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Range Fuels … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Raser Technologies … failed.http://shareholdersfoundation.com/ca...s-and-officers
     Stimulus recipient Satcon … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Schneider Electric … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Solar Trust for America … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Solyndra … failed.
     Stimulus recipient SpectraWatt … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Stirling Energy Systems … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Thompson River Power … failed.
     Stimulus recipient SunPower … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Tesla Motors … is failing.
     Stimulus recipient Thompson River Power … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Unisolar … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Vestas … faltering.
     Stimulus recipient Willard & Kelsey Solar Group … laid off 40 employees.
     Stimulus recipient Sappire Energy … failed.
     Stimulus recipient Cree … received $5.2 million and created 3.02 jobs.
     Stimulus recipient Seattle, Wash., was assured 2,000 jobs would be created. Actual result: 14 jobs.

    I only looked up ones that said "failed" and I don't feel like looking up the rest of them but while obviously the list is padded by a fair amount of partisan bullshit (a few weren't even green companies, at least one is very successful and others hadn't even received federal loans, or some combination of the above), the unjustifiably smug dismissal of his sources (douchiness notwithstanding) does appear to be confirmation bias.

    Examples that appeared to be bullshit were First Solar which by all appearances seems to be doing quite well and LSP which isn't actually a green energy company and from what I can gather was funded by Series C venture capital. http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspe...eze-in-effect/
    Navistar isn't even remotely a green energy company.
    Also you could make a reasonable arguement that companies that went bankrupt then went on to find funding after the fact aren't necessarily "failed".

    A better argument against Brownie's watered down Libertarian 4th grade "me me me me" "Government BAD" argument is to just mention the Billions in subsidies and tax breaks/dodging that the Big Oil companies receive and the successful auto bailout.

  15. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott R. Brown View Post
    No that is not what I am saying:

    1) I gave two sources, but there are many more. All one needs to do is do a Google search to find plenty of various sources. I just chose two out of many.

    2) Your implication what that since you do not agree with the philosophy of the source, their information is wrong. This is a straw man argument. That is like me saying you don't know what you are talking about because you are from Southern California and everyone knows Southern Californians are all nuts!! You know that is incorrect thinking and I know it is incorrect thinking. So, just apply that to my argument.

    3) Just because a source is right wing does not make their information false. Your comments about Fox Noise make the same implication as your comment about the Heritage Foundation.

    4) When arguing a point, attack the facts not the source; demonstrate the facts as listed are incorrect.

    5) Otherwise I can say you are wrong because you are ugly and I am right because I am handsome!!!

    Which is, of course, TRUE!!!!!
    1) Its not my job to make your argument for you. Pick better sources next time.

    2) If by disagreeing with their philosophy, you mean deliberately cherry picking data, using liberal use (as in free use) of editing content to take info out of context for the progression of their own agenda, catering to opinion pieces more than actual data, and being a major conservative special interest group that is not concerned with providing actual analysis but rather that to further their political agenda; then yes I do not agree with their philosophy. That's not a straw-man. I'm not building up a false argument to knock down. If you want an example of straw-man, go to the Heritage foundation website, its full of it. And I'm not from Southern California, that's SoCal. SoCo = South Carolina. Pick better sources next time.

    3) No, their information is false because its false. I even googled 3 examples in which their ideological slant presents arguments that are against the data. Its not my problem you used a supremely partisan source with no credibility. As for Fox, when a station is banned from broadcasting in a country because they take too much use of editorialization on their content, I don't have to make an argument. http://readersupportednews.org/opini...-out-of-canada
    Pick better sources next time.

    4) Demonstrate the facts are from a source that is not known to present false data and I'll consider it. Particularly when a quick scan of the list presents known falsities, Syn already pointed one out. You seem to not like this concept that you're judged by the credibility of the source of your info. Sorry, but that's reality. Pick better sources next time.

    5) Non sequitur. Oh, and pick better sources next time.

    A blog post and a special interest group aren't usually the best ways to present an argument. FYI

    And I'm right because I'm ugly. Numerous studies have shown a correlation with factual accuracy and poor physical appearance.
    Last edited by SoCo KungFu; 05-01-2013 at 11:47 AM.

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