Vort

I don't care to wade into the, um, discussion, but do you see that the references cited by @mirkwood and @mordorbund contradict the bolded assertion above?

FTR: "ordnance".

NATO allies are supposed to pay 2% of their GDP annually to defense. As far as I can tell, only two of the major NATO allies of the US—France and the UK—actually meet this obligation. (As do Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, and Greece. For the record.) The rest of NATO, including Canada and all of western Europe besides France and the UK, do not. Obviously, the US pumps many billion dollars into this defense network. Perhaps the US, bending to public pressure, will simply close down its military presence in Europe and let the Europeans take care of themselves. That should free up a few ten billion or so every year for us to use back home. Of course, Europe will have to, you know, defend itself. That might cut into some of those perquisites they enjoy. The next time your European friends tell you how superior their social(ist) structures are to how Americans live, gently remind them to thank the US taxpayer.

The career-fields determination of smartness is reasonable if not reliable. You can't get a PhD in physics without being really smart in several important ways, so if someone earned a real PhD in physics, you can bet s/he's smart, or at least was at the time s/he earned the degree. The two problems with this are: (1) Being smart in one area, e.g. physics, doesn't make you smart in another area, e.g. spiritual perception and understanding. Of this we have constant evidence. (2) That having such-and-such a degree indicates that you're smart doesn't mean that not having such-and-such a degree means you're not smart. Bonus point: (3) PhDs are handed out like candy these days. Having a PhD in mechanical engineering or chemistry or even English literature is perhaps as meaningful and impressive as ever, but your next-door neighborhood PhD is as likely to have a PhD in gender studies or feminist ideology or sociology or essential oils or transgender phrenology or some other pseudoscientific nonsense. We are quickly reaching the stage, if we're not already there, where really smart people will forgo so-called "higher" education in favor of doing something honest and meaningful. (Not to mention profitable; doctors and lawyers aren't the only people these days who go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to get a post-graduate degree.)

When I first started at Microsoft, I was happy with all the free soda pop. It occurred to me some time later that providing the employees unlimited soda pop and frou-frou coffee probably cost Microsoft an average on the order of two or perhaps three dollars per day per employee—certainly no more than $1000 per year per employee, probably considerably less. The immediacy of the benefit of free drinks at work probably leverages a return of employee goodwill that would cost thousands of dollars per year per employee in salary increase to duplicate. In the end, maybe after I started getting fat, I decided I'd rather have the money and buy my own soda pop. But management didn't seem to hear my well-considered opinion.

I never really warmed to Carl Sagan. He always seemed to me less like a physicist and more like a physics populist—which I gather is false; he was a recognized and respected astrophysicist. I really liked Tyson when I first heard him. Over the years, my fondness for NDT has lessened considerably*, and I've started to see Sagan through a more charitable lens. *Though not totally; didn't Neil Degrasse Tyson recently declare that he would not use CE/BCE instead of AD/BC, because he thought it was deplorable that Pope Gregory and those who worked for him be denied credit for coming up with the best and most accurate calendar ever devised, simply because they were Christians? I can't help but return respect to someone who gives respect when it's due.

Ends = purposes. That is: To what ends is the law given? Those ends (purposes) are "the ends of the law".

Ask Spiderman.

That was more than merely funny. In a counterintuitive and perhaps stupid way, I found it touching. Darth Vader in white, regularly attending the temple. It's sort of like Satan reclaiming his ancient title of Lucifer; absurd, perhaps even offensive, but deep down it's a nice thought.

We could make ethane instead of methane. Better yet, we could make that into ethanol, which while not as energy dense as gasoline is not all that far off. But the ATF would never go for that.

If I worked there, I would be sure to take full advantage of Menstruation and Menopausal Leave, Gender Affirmation Leave, and First Nations People Leave.

I was expecting and hoping to hear @Ironhold's take on the matter.

Back off, Obadiah. Give Ralphie a break.

Everyone misunderstands this verse. The horse's name was A Horse With No Name.

Sure. I can plug my Android into any USB-C cable connected to a computer or outlet to charge it. Still, you're right, wireless chargers are ubiquitous. But you need to make physical contact or at least be very, very close to the charger for it to work. I remember a few years ago someone saying something about charging a phone while it's in your pocket using magnetic coupling. Not the stupidest idea ever, but certainly not workable unless you build the charger into your chair or something like that.

Wireless cell phone charging, huh?

I have hated James Bond movies for the last couple of decades; truthfully, I started losing my taste for them no later than the 1990s. I had no expectations for the Bourne movies, and I watched the first one only because my wife took me to see it. But I was hooked after one viewing. I watched the rest (the Matt Damon ones; I didn't see the non-Bourne Bourne movie starring Hawkeye until a year or so ago, because I didn't care) and really loved them. But why? Why hate Bond and love Bourne? Well, why I hated Bond is easy, though writing a full essay explaining it would take much more time than I care to invest. Bond is hokey. He's also a repulsive character, shmoozing his way into the ladies' (if I can call them that) bedrooms and pretending to be savvy as he fornicates and murders his way to a happy ending, pun fully intended. The only Bond I could really tolerate was Timothy Dalton, and he only made like three films. (Plus no one else liked him, which is probably why he only made three films.) But Bourne is hardly better. He is not a serial fornicator and alley-cat-style scumbag. No, he's a professional murderer. And not just of the assigned targets, but of any other innocent that might stand in his way. If James Bond is a gross scumbag, Jason Bourne is a horrific, unpredictable, terribly dangerous psychopath. This is not a guy I would expect ever to be rooting for. (And they both have the initials JB, which probably means something.) Well, but Jason Bourne is less comic-booky than James Bond, so that must be it. Yes, Bourne is more subtle, more layered, more believable, less primary-colored and cape-wearing than James Bond. But that doesn't really hold up under examination. Tony Stark is very literally comic book, and he incorporates pretty much all of the scumbaggery of James Bond, yet my favorite superhero movie of all time (admittedly, a genre that in general I don't like) is Iron Man. So it's not the comic-bookishness, at least not that alone. The Tony Stark comparison is useful. First of all, I like Matt Damon, and it turns out I rather like Robert Downey, Jr. On the other hand, I never cared for Roger Moore, and really not much more than lukewarm about the beloved Sean Connery. And Remington Steele never really did it for me, either; the good-looking, smooth suave thing plays better to women than it does to men, I think. Daniel Craig is fine, but I don't really have much reaction to him. So the actor portrayal is probably one big reason why. But it's more than that. Somehow, I got so tired of the Bond look, with outrageous stunts and impossible toys. It's not that I was unwilling to suspend my disbelief, but to some extent that has to be earned. Bond just wanted me to believe he could click a pen and it would turn into an airplane. Bourne was not like that at all. The word that comes to mind is "gritty", but I think a better word might be "realistic". Not realistic in the sense that it would actually happen, but in the sense that the screen portrayal of whatever super-duper thing he was doing hit the right buttons in my brain so that my reaction was, "Yeah, I can buy that." A super chase scene in a Mini? Okay, sure. Defeating three armed guards in close-quarter hand-to-hand combat? The way it looked, yep, they were simply out of their league. Bond never, ever did that to me. But you know who did? Tony Stark. I don't know why, but absurd as it was, I was willing to buy into the idea that some supergenius being held captive in the middle of Afghanistan, with no access to any tech higher than a welding torch, could repurpose military hardware into an armed flying suit of armor capable of defeating over a dozen armed bad guys. That element of gut-level realism cannot be overestimated, I think. Bourne had it. To a large extent, Stark had it. Bond never really had it. Here is a video I just watched, where someone who understands what she's talking about explains it in terms I could grasp. She's talking specifically about the feel of the physics, but I think it's only a small step to generalize this to the physics plus other elements that give a gritty and realistic feel.

Strange, then, that basically every human culture (that I know of) that has lasted any significant time has included a belief in divine moral codes and the worship of some kind of god or gods. Do you have any evidence of long-lasting societies that have existed without a god? Which god proclaimed this? Or are you stating this as a self-evident truth? Because it is not. I think I do not agree with this. Every element of your "moral values" list is tolerated by pretty much every human society ever, including all those that survived for any length of time. This one is clearly false. All societies, almost without exception, have allowed human killings (I assume you weren't including the killing of animals or plants) as a lawful activity under certain conditions. I doubt you will even attempt to defend this one; it's too easily disproven. According to feminist ideology, women have been forcibly raped literally from the dawn of time. Some go even further and state that every pregnancy ever conceived has been done through an act of rape. Even ignoring this extreme idea, no society ever at any time has protected women from rape. Yet all those societies have existed, and many have endured. As a feminist, you must acknowledge that your "don't rape" moral absolute absolutely is not an absolute, and that the practice has endured literally forever. This cannot be a moral absolute, because it is unenforceable. Can you provide me an example of an enduring society where lying, a moral absolute, was successfully disallowed? Nazi Germany, perhaps, where no part of the population ever lied about hiding Jews in their basements, and no Nazi soldiers ever dishonestly accepted a transparently false profession of innocence about the crime of hiding Jews? According to many of the entire spectrum of political stripes and camps, government taxation of various types is exactly this. Yet government taxation has been a feature of, I would guess, all governed societies to some degree. However that may be, given that many lay claim to property that is not theirs and, through their power or connections or wiles, manage to make that claim legally upheld, this appears to be another invalid assertion. My observation is that atheists, who have existed throughout recorded history, often like to proclaim the non-essential nature of religion and the uselessness of religious beliefs and practices. Yet these people who have always been with us can offer no examples throughout all history of an enduring society that lacks these things that they berate. Such a claim reminds me greatly of the man-hating feminists who insist that men are literally useless and that the world would be a far better place if all men were put to death (assuming that human, meaning female, cloning were perfected). I mean, good luck with that.

This is a selling point?

I like your analysis and I find a lot of truth in it. I also find tremendous dishonesty and open politicking in the so-called green movement, so am predisposed to question the assertions that come from that direction. That said: We are burning hydrocarbons at the rate of roughly a cubic mile per year. That's one cubic MILE. Per YEAR. Assuming each molecule of gas occupies 1000 times the space of each underlying molecule of same-structure liquid, and assuming that the oil is basically octane and that each octane molecule produces eight CO2 molecules, we can roughly estimate that each year, we are putting EIGHT THOUSAND CUBIC MILES OF CO2 into the atmosphere. And we have been doing so for, like, eighty years now. The earth's ecosystems are obviously heavily buffered by various physical and chemical processes, such as ice formation/melting and microorganism blooms. I have no doubt that most of the CO2 increase has been handled by such buffers. But we should realize that our present deposits of oil and coal were laid down maybe 300 million years ago. In other words, the carbon dioxide being released by burning oil is restoring the atmosphere to a condition last seen long, long before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. The earth literally had a chemically different atmosphere at that time. Immense, gigantic amounts of carbon were sequestered from the atmosphere, resulting in an atmospheric composition that developed into what we breathe today. It is not at all clear that restoring a substantial portion of that ancient carbon sequestering will be buffered by today's processes. As much as I despise the ecowienies that condescendingly lecture everyone on how evil they all are for daring to drive cars (yes, Greta, I mean you), there is an underlying point that they are not missing by too far and that must be considered by any rational person: What is the potential detrimental effect of restoring very large amounts of carbon that has been sequestered for hundreds of millions of years? It's not a stupid point, even if the hysteria caused in the last two generations is. I see few to no negative side effects from replacing so-called fossil fuels with presumably less problematic substitutes, such as nuclear power, solar, and yes, even wind. I see some potential problems, ranging from trivial to catastrophic, in continuing on our present course. So while I always stand in opposition to the ecoworshippers and shamers of modern conveniences, I think we should actively pursue a non-oil-based economy.

I was going to argue that it's up to God, not us, from a theological point of view. But upon further reflection, I realized that even in a non-Godless situation, it's still very much up to us. So I agree with you. My only addition is that there is an objectively right determination and an objectively wrong determination (or a set of right determinations and a set of wrong determinations). It's important to choose the right. Without the guidance of God (obviously speaking from a theistic viewpoint), we often are not capable of finding that objectively correct choice, because we assume there is no objective morality, only the rules that we make up for ourselves.

I agree with what you wrote, but I suspect my interpretation of what you wrote is somewhat different from what you meant in writing it. For example, if I find an aspect of my sexuality that I think is wrong and detrimental, I work to change it rather than just to accept myself as I am. So there is a line to be drawn, and I suspect we draw that line at different places.

Joking aside, @old has a good point. Those who truly consider themselves perfect have no motivation to change anything about themselves, and no reason ever to suppose they they are wrong or at fault in anything.

I grew up thinking that "spaz" was short for "spastic", which meant moving in a jerky, uncoordinated fashion (i.e. prone to muscular spasms, I guess). It was generalized to mean someone who seemed uncoordinated, or just someone who was uncool. I considered it a term used almost exclusively by jerks toward people they deemed uncool.