For the 10 people a month that actually read this blog, I have migrated to facebook and created a profile there. I’m sad to say that googling of naughty pics of Kari Byron will no longer lead people to my thoughts on the universe.
My profile is here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100003244011715
Playing video games could make you a war criminal
In the weirdest application of possible cause and effect, I came across an article on The Red Cross applying International human Laws to video games like Call Of Duty and Medal of Honor. No really.
http://kotaku.com/5863817/war-crimes-in-video-games-draw-red-cross-scrutiny?autoplay
One of the world’s largest and most respected humanitarian groups in the world is investigating whether the Geneva and Hague conventions should be applied to the fictional recreation of war in video games.
If they agree those standards should be applied, the International Committee of the Red Cross says they may ask developers to adhere to the rules themselves or “encourage” governments to adopt laws to regulate the video game industry.
That’s right, camping in the corner with a n00b tube is in violation of international law! This is exactly why I think cause and effect arguments should be carefully considered. I highly doubt the 16 year old homophobes playing Modern Warfare 3 will go and ethnically cleanse Tamils in Sri Lanka. Yes, there is a possibility of cause and effect. It is possible that playing Grand Theft Auto could encourage people to commit criminal behaviour, but there is no proof that it does. We need isolated controlled studies to PROVE the cause and effect before we start acting on it. If not, we’re simply ignoring the actual cause and effect.
Do we need the government involved? Do we really have to pass laws on this to protect a bunch of 1′s and 0′s? How far are we willing to go to “protect our children”?
This is Velma. You may recognize her from Scooby Doo as the nerdy skeptic [As opposed to that ditz Daphne] who usually realized that the monster at the Church wasn’t the return of the Priest’s grandma telling him not to plant more trees, but the janitor in drag trying to make a quick buck. That’s good skepticism. She realized that it was more likely the owner of the water park bought a $5 mask, than a vortex to the spirit world mysteriously opened.
This is an example of good skepticism. She analyzed the evidence and picked the most likely solution. She didn’t make any assumptions that were literally out of this world. Questioning things is good. From the government, to what you see on message boards or blogs, to what Shaggy thinks about how ghost come back to fight off visitors.
But can skepticism be misplaced? As you gathered by the title, yes. 9/11 “truthers” are “skeptical” of the government. One of my favorite shows is Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! where they examine pseudoscience. What really hit me like a ton of bricks is that the assholes on the show [the guests, not Penn & Teller] are thinking they’re the skeptical ones! The New Age magnetic flux medicine advocator thought they were being skeptical of modern medicine. Creationists think they’re being skeptical of evolution. etc etc…
It seems these days that there is no shortage of self-proclaimed “skeptics”. What they don’t realize is that skepticism comes with a price. Skepticism is useless we’re willing to admit it when we’re wrong. That’s the difference between scientific skepticism which relies on science and what I liked to call “misplaced Skepticism”. This type of skepticism relies not on evidence, but rather on emotions, it feels good when we have all the answers [even if they're wrong!] we like outsmarting the reptilians by figuring out their plot of world domination [and those dumbasses that can't see the truth right in front of them!]. I understand that. I like being right and hate being wrong. But skepticism isn’t about feeling good, it’s about finding the truth. Actual skepticism relies on evidence, not anecdotes. We should question the government, medicine, religion etc… but we should apply scientific skepticism, not misplaced skepticism.
I can understand that science is hard. I took science at university and there are areas of science that I am weak on [especially biology and even evolution] I took physics, so I know that simply putting in “Quantum magnetic inverse polarity flux” in your claim doesn’t make it true, but it seems to fool New Age hippies.
Worse of all, I think these misplaced skeptics are doing more harm. They’re good people, wanting to find truth, and that’s good, but then they get taken advantage of by pushers of pseudoscience and tricksters take their money and their time, fill their heads with shit and do it in the name of “skepticism”.
So next time somebody introduces themselves a s a”skeptic”…be skeptical of that claim.
Even a year later
But then again, don’t they dress and act like that all year round?
Whenever one thinks of Law, one usually thinks about equality, fairness etc… That is we are all treated equally regardless of race or creed.
Apparently not according to SCOTUS Judge Anthony Scalia
http://blog.au.org/2011/09/28/impaired-judgment-justice-scalia-just-doesn%E2%80%99t-know-when-to-stop-talking/
“Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent upon diversity in all other aspects of life, seems bent on eliminating diversity of moral judgment – particularly moral judgment based on religious views,” Scalia opined.
Really? If it’s all about equality, why is the pledge of allegance include god? Why is “In gods we trust” on US money?
Here’s another one:
WHY IS A SCOTUS [the highest legal authority in the US] JUDGE IGNORING THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE?
Every once in a while I come across something that really really strikes a nerve. That makes me question who I want to support and what I want to see and how I want to get there.
One such issue is how we approach morality. It’s like a race, each side of the religious debate claiming morality for their own. But the thing is…they’re both wrong and they’re both wrong in the exact same way. I think it’s amazing how two groups dramatically opposed to each other could be so similar.
I’m sure we atheist have heard it before, if we don’t believe in god, then where do we get our morals from? How can we be moral people and have empathy without the loving belief of jebus krist? This just gets turned around in the atheist movement, how can christians have empathy if they love god more than humans?
I don’t like either of these arguments because they’re trying to copyright morality. That morality is only for theists or atheists. This is dead wrong. This is worse than dead wrong, it’s dangerously wrong.
Here’s an ad for a Christian charity helping poor children in India. Yet I’m suppose to believe that the people doing this lack true empathy, that they only care about themselves and their own salvation. That they don’t care about humanity or non-christians.
And here’s the logo of the secular Doctors Without Borders, and I’m suppose to believe that they lack empathy and compassion and only care for themselves because they don’t believe in god.
This so called “debate” is stupid, offensive, and insulting. People don’t do good or bad because their atheist or theist. They do good and bad because they’re human. Every single animal displays empathy, charity and compassion. Every single animal displays aggression, hate, and prejudice. I refuse to believe humans are any different than animals.
No group has a copyright on morality, but they’re doing their best to copyright stupidity.
I’m glad the government is out to protect us from greedy entrepreneurs who would take our money and give little in return. I came across one such example, and it was a bunch of kids racketeering a chain of lemonade stands. Why? Because they didn’t have a permit. No, I’m serious here’s the video. Really? So they let people charge $50 for parking and they made money hand over fist, but some kids selling lemonade is illegal because they didn’t pay $300? In legal terms, that’s extortion. It reminds me of 30′s era mafia demanding “protection money”., not to mention they were fined $500 a little north of your average suburban kid’s allowance. When I was little, I was eating snow, is the health inspector going to test the snow? Is the SWAT team going to raid your neighbor’s six year old because he lent his friend a bike for 25 cents?
What ever happened to letting kids be kids? Why are we stopping karate and gym classes because the parents are afraid the kids would get hurt? Can’t we let kids be kids? Why is it that anything related to kids becomes a hair trigger and that we can’t question it less we’re not concerned about “protecting the children?”
A Lebanese girl waving a flag during the 2005 Cedar Revolution
There has been a lot of things going on in the Middle East as of late. It is no stranger to conflict and war, and also no stranger to uprising and protests. From the 1987 Palestinian first intifada against Israel that led to the formation of Hamas, to the second one in 2002, to the Lebanese kicking out Syrian forces in 2005 during the Cedar Revolution. More recently the victory in Egypt and now the uprising in Syria against the secular and oppressive Ba’ath party [which also took over Iraq] and the one in Tunisia.
I think this sends a clear message. Arabs want freedom. Muslims want freedom. Christians want freedom. Despite the failed uprising in Iran, the people are starting to speak out, and oppressive governments take heed. This won’t just happen in secular states like Lebanon or Syria, but will hopefully spread to the oppressive religious states like Saudi Arabia [who are actually considering giving women the right to drive. How generous of them!] and Iran.
Soon this will spread. The more people who speak out against oppression, and war the better. The governments will try to silence them, but they are fighting an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.
I came across an article from BBC nature about how if creation “science” techniques are applied to life……They prove evolution is true.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wondermonkey/2011/07/faith-versus-science-does-crea.shtml
Biologist Phil Senter of the Fayette State University in North Carolina, US, has published the second of two papers that uses creation science techniques to examine the fossil record.
In the first, published in 2010, he used a technique called classic multidimensional scaling (CMDS) to evaluate the appearance of coelurosaurian dinosaurs over geological time.
That long, detailed paper was published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, and you can read the abstract.
CMDS is derived from a branch of creation science called baraminology, which classifies organisms according to a creationist framework. Animals fall into types, or baramins, which were created independently, but have diversified since.
Artist’s impression of Archaeopteryx (image: John Sibbick / NHMPL)
So cats, for example, are a single baramin or type of animal, that was created once by God, and have since diversified into those we see today (including lions, tigers, house cats etc).
Baraminologists trawl the fossil record for evidence that this is true. They identify “morphological gaps” in the record (for example, whether fossils of cats exist, but not cat-like animals) and use those to argue that such animal types (cats) are unique and created separately, from say dogs.
CMDS mathematically maps the occurrence of these morphological gaps, and baraminologists have used it to point out there are significant morphological gaps between modern and extinct whales, between arthropods and the worm-like annelids and arthropods and molluscs. And that, they say, is evidence that each group was created independently, and could not have evolved into the other.
Dr Senter has no real issue with the methodology – as he points out in the 2010 paper, mathematics has no creed.
But he argues that if CMDS shows that dinosaurs do show transitional forms, and are in fact genetically related to each other, then creationists are in a bit of a bind.
Either they must accept that to be true, and therefore contradict their own position that these groups appeared without evolution. Or they must throw out the assertion, but also reject their own methodology, which they have used to validate their creationist claims.
Dr Senter’s 2010 study did, of course, show that coelurosaurian dinosaurs are related, in particular that tyrannosaurs (to which T. rex belongs) form a continuous group with other dinosaurs belonging to a group called the Compsognathidae.
It also showed that one of the most famous animal fossils of all, Archaeopteryx, which has the appearance of a transitional form between birds and reptiles, is also morphologically closely related to other dinosaurs.
Really? How much longer are people going to try to push the garbage of creation “science” into the classrooms? When is over half of Americans going to wake up and realize that they believe in self refuting psuedoscience?
I think the world needs a huge wake up call in terms of science and reason. Here’s a hint: If you prove the theory you oppose with techniques that you set out to prove your “theory” odds are you are wrong, and not admitting that is the ultimate show of delusion and narcissism.
There are many things that cause storms on the internet, but the ones that cause the biggest are religion, sexuality, and abortion. I find that any topic that deals with a moral issue tends to get heated. These values get nasty when challenged by somebody else, but what happens when two of your own values collide? Personal freedom vs, them agreeing with you etc…. What if those values allow immoral behaviour for the greater good?
Two of those values for me is legislating morality and abortion. I don’t think the government should legislate morality. After all, WHOSE morality are we legislating? We shouldn’t pass laws, to say, stop companies from endorsing immoral behavior, like requiring Apple to remove bigoted Christian apps just because a bunch of people signed a petition. As soon as we allow “That’s immoral” to be the deciding factor in laws, then we open a huge can of worms. Many people find gay marriage, religion etc… to be immoral. With that said, Abortion is legal. I personally find it morally repulsive. Birth control is a good alternative to uterus vacuum. I think women who’ve had abortions that weren’t medically necessary as having committed an immoral act. They should have made better decisions. I stand firm in this belief and won’t back down.
If I don’t want to legislate morality, then “I think it’s immoral” isn’t a good enough reason to make non-medically necessary abortion illegal. So which is for the greater good? Am I willing to compromise one value for the other? The answer is I prefer the value of not legislating morality. That is, I am willing to allow immoral things to remain legal, to hold on to that value, because I feel it would be better in the long run then not allowing abortion because it’s immoral. Just because I think it’s immoral doesn’t mean I’ll do anything to stop it.
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.”
– Christopher Dawson
Oh, and another thing for the “pro-choicers” out there. Just because I think it should be legal, doesn’t mean I’ll shut up about it being immoral. Call me immoral, anti-choice, anti-woman all you want, I WILL speak out against abortion I will not back down because of some Liberal douche thinks that I’m anti-woman.
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