n8nrgim

If we don't inventivize alt energy then rich people won't vote with their wallets what direction alt energy should go. And that will really really hurt poor people down the road. 

You sound more knowledgeable about the science than me. But that's the idea, get knowledgeable people to help direct the path of sustainable manufacturing. If we don't direct anything, you admit yourself that the market can be irrational. 

What u r doing, is replacing one dysfunction, the government, with another, an irrational market. I'd like to think we can use expertise to guide a market that isn't always effective.

What do you suppose the future of energy is? Do u think it'd be best to get to it via the free market? What about all the problems I'm pointing out? You r right the government has its own problems, but u r not convincing me the free market purely is better

i always knew that trump secretly likes to club baby seals 

it sounds like u r describing market failures and market inefficiency and lack of rational actors. all things free market fundamentalists carry on about. wouldn't it be good if the government required all these new energy technologies to be recycled? they use a lot of unsustainable minerals, but my understanding is it'd be sustainable if the products were recycled. especially when it comes to electric car batteries. is the government not the solution to this? i would guess you'd make the argument... how is the government the problem here, unwise use of tax breaks and subsidies? 

unrelated topic... but i also like to ponder the mystery, of the question, did humans invent math, or discover it?

men and women were made for each other 

Shape shift. Nose to the wind. Shape shift. Feeling my head spin. Shape shift. Back to the meaning, back to the meaning of... life.

what is your view of NDEs, the afterlife, and whether there is evidence for the afterlife? 

there is something to be said about becoming thirty, just to quench the thirst. like postponing frequent orgasms, to heighten the effect of orgasm when they occur less frequently. or pissing or shitting when you are about to burst. 

i wouldn't say deprivation itself feels good, but the release does feel good. 

If God punishes sinners, they say God is bad. If God doesn't punish sinners, they say God is bad.

I see these impossible standards all over the place when it comes to religion. 

Where do u live? U r an underachiever financially so I'm curious if u live out in the country and how u afford it. Maybe the boondocks

That's really cool, the technology and how well it works. I would think it'd be weak on the finer points compared to an expert in a given field

A common standard among progressives is that everyone should get a free income of 1k per month. I think that's excessive. Instead, I think everyone with below average income should get 100 bucks in cash stipend and a hundred in food stamps. It's too much of a struggle to survive for lower income folks, and a small amount is helpful without being excessive. The philosophy behind it, is social contract, where the rich shouldn't be allowed to hoard excessive wealth while the poor languish. It's something like the top 1 percent own more than the bottom half of the country, and that's unacceptable. A simple wealth tax can help with this redistribution. Yes a work requirement can be fitting for the stipend.... welfare already has work requirements elsewhere so it's a functional established practice 

the airing of grievances. where everyone gets called out for their shit 

ALL HAIL KIM JUNG UN

i think you could make the case men are superior with classic reasoning. men are more dominant and women submissive. men are stronger. more are more competitive and aggressive. there are more men geniuses, even if there are more men retards. men earn more money, even if it's just cause women struggle with children in the job market. then at least for elite men, there's the one's who are the most attractive, can have their pick of the liter over attractive women, given cream of the crop men are so desired by women. men lead relationships, usually. men are the entertainers, even if they often are dancing like monkies to do so. men are the ones who keep the economy ticking with hard and advanced jobs. men lead medicine and law, two commonly thought of advanced fields. 

just some ideas that could fit that argument. women have some points in their favor, of course. 

on this site, you've gone from a cookie cutter conservative, to a cookie cutter liberal, and now your positions are more like radical conservatism. 

it's not fair or apples to apples to say canada or UK are worse because they are socialized. canada has few doctors than us so they have longer wait times. only canada is worse than the usa that i know of... so if canada is worse it doesn't rearlly prove anything. in the UK, the government owns the healthcare sector, which to us i think is an obvious flaw in providing care. those bad exampels dont represent the total remaining univeral care in every other develoepd country. also, on the point that cancer survival is better here... that's probably because we have better technology and more specialists and less wait times for that speicialized care. we already knew that speicalizesd care is better here... but that doesnt mean other countries can't make their specialzed care more like ours. i know it's hard for governments to tweak policy rationally... but it is certianly possible. and remember that the usa is generally one of the worst on wait times. and they can also spend more on medical equipment. in a way it's not a fair comparison, because the usa is one of the biggest innovators on technology, so of course it will be better. just remeber that china does just as good or better at innovation and they have government healthcare. our abiity to innovate though either way, reflects our economic system more than our healthcare system, too, so remember that. i think you are getting kinda lost in the things you aren't aware of, it seems. 

the main way other countries have affordable care that covers everyone, is because they regulate costs. so your theory that it can't be done, is for practical purposes disproven. it's just an abstract theory, im sure there are some good points about the theory that sometimes works in some situations, but it's disproven by the way things are done. 

we'll have to agree to disagree on charity v social contract. i can't see how you think it's fair for the governmetn to deprive people of natural resources, even if the resources are privately held, and not compensate proportioanlly in response. yes a farmer would shoot trespassers, but the tresspassers up to a point have a natural right to shoot back. that's the key. you say we steal by taxation at gunpoint... you deprive people of resources at gun point. it's the government by force teling people they can't have God's creation. 

why do you keep arguing we should do laissez faire libetarianism if you can't show any examples? i already showed you that there are none that exist now. do you think every developed country is wrong and you are the sole beacon of truth? how arrogant can you be? maybe it worked good enough in our early pioneer days, but back then if you wanted land you could take it etc. we have massive populations and for practical purposes a free market isn't workable. it's an untested theory, at best, that you want to foist on everyone. 

i mean no offense to you personally, as you are very intelligent... but all these hoops you jump through to argue, is why i call libertarians clowns. 

like i said, it's a good point. but every other developed country delivers care to everyone at half our cost per capita. with better wait times there. so if we can stop those unnecessary deaths, and do it better than we do now, then we should. plus there's quality of life that merely preventing death doesn't addresss... routine care isn't fixed by the ER

around 50000 people died per year from no health insurance before obamacare. that number isn't as high any more. i admit fifty thousand aint a lot, but it's significant, plus there are other diseases that dont kill you right away that people have to live with with no care. ER care is only for emergencies and doesn't do routine care or mos thigns that people need. 

if i changed my basic premise that charity should be the provider, maybe you could call it adequate. plus i dont even know in today's depraved world if charity would do it, and unlike you, maybe, i dont think it's right to let people die in the streets. but i dont accept your premise that it's chartiies role. it's the idea that if God let apple trees grow, and the government deprives me of accessing that tree, or farmland, they have an obligation to proportionally serivce its population. your idea of taxation as theft is completly ridiculous and a sheltered view. i think the only reason the government got involved in healthcare, again in every develoepd country, is because people couldn't afford it, so that point that it would be affordable is wrong again. i dont know how often other government ration care... but it's not necessary to ration it, just regulate the cost... and the countries that do ration it, are the small minority. the usa rations based on ability to pay, plus with our worse wait times.  just because the libertarian elements of other countries are what makes them sucessful, including ours, doesn't mean libertarianism is ideal. it means limited government but with a decent social safety net is ideal. i pointed out that no libertarian countires are sucessful and you technically didn't show me any... you waffled and conflated points instead. 

there's a lot of ignorance here and in general so i thought id set the record straight, again. 

every developed country but the usa delivers universal healthcare to everyone, at half our cost per capita. the difference is enough to get our deficit under control. their wait times aren't generally worse there... there're generally better. the usa does have better specialized doctor wait times, due to how much money we got floating around in that sector. but again generally wait time are worse here, and the reason is because we have a doctor shortage. doctor supply determines wait times. we artificially limit the supply of doctors, unfortunately. it's hard for us to get our system like everyone else, given we have a status quo of hundreds of millios of people and many states. it's hard to change a status quo, whereas otehr countries developed organically. also, on the insurance point, insurance is mostly a pointless middle man... tho to be fair, most countries have insurance, it's just considered non profit. the main way they keep costs under control is by regulating medical prices. again i understand that's hard to regulate when we have a status quo, but it is posisble. we need more doctors, and we need to allow doctor owned hosptials to compete with other hospitals.... unforteunatly doctor owned hosptials isn't allowed much. 

there are also free market based healthcare where government role is minimized but is indeed present and strong, but the healthcare lobby would never allow that. 

these are just some highlights off the top of my head, to educate most ya'll's ignorant asses. 

it's fair to minimize government. a basic social safety net is fair and the most moral solution. that's what we have in the usa. government needs to definitely be kept in check, though, even our current government. 

i get your general sentiment. if we put government in charge of pencils, prices would sky rocket and there'd be shortages etc. but if we do nothing on healthcare, people die, or get neglected. plus it isn't private charities responsibility to provide that.... it's rooted in our social contract that a person in a country such as ours should be able to afford healthcare. lastly, and most importantly.... every other developed country but ours delivers healthcare to everyone at half the cost of us with better wait times in general. that means universal healthcare is doable and can be effective. no developed country is a free market in healthcare, the very idea is ridiculous for civilized society. you can't provide any examples, just like there generally aren't successful libertarian countries. 

yeah but it's kinda pointless to debate a libertarian as set in his ways as you. defense and healthcare are morally and existentially necessary, but a libertarian such as yourself won't acnowledge that. and again, our welfare state is meager, especially compared to other countries... but again a libertarian such as yourself is too far gone to even entertain that idea. the programs just need to be run better, and the savings put towards the deficit, and whatever social benefits we should pursue. 

people shouldn't have to work forty hours a week just to survive. that point drives the why there is so much suffereing point. on the point that we mishandle money, that's only tied to how the working classes money goes to the well off, and not to help the labor that earns it... it's a misappropriation of funds, at least from a broader perspective. i understand it's not my place to say how money should be spent by people, but from a bigger perspective, it's why things are so shitty and broadly mismanaged compared to other countries. 

i would think if this is just a hallucination, it would have to be caused by natural selection. i dont know how else to explain it. you at first seemed to be suggesting it was driven by natural selection but now are waffling on that point. if it is just suggestive thinking as the cause, how can that happen so elaborately with those themes? just asserting that it's possible isn't explaining it. plus you and all skeptics always choose to ignore the out of body experiences and other evidences, just conventiently ignore it. plus, on your 'suggestion' point.. these same themes, tunnels life reviews etc, happen at the same rate regardless of culture or age even young childen and to people who have never heard of these things before. this has been measured with science. so that is also a blow to your argument. i think all ya'll just have darkened minds and hearts, mostly on the logic and reason 'mind' part. aliens visitations dont have the same qualitative and quantifitative measures to them as NDEs but i see your point.  only vaguely or loosely can tunnels and light beings and life reviews be tied to dying brain... they sitll seem more real than this life and they have no question about, and they still cause elaborate afterlife strories, which 'tunnel vision' or other theories barely explain. 

id need a source that astronauts have NDEs. pepole often say drugs dreams and other hallucinations cause NDEs, when it's nothing like those. plus there's the idea that maybe the astronaughts were dead or thereabouts. i know that thereabouts thing is wishy washy, but i do think we can visit the afterlife more than just at death. it is getting more tenuous, though, i agree with your point. 

so NDEs help survival which help reproduction? i mean it's a little plausible. i dont understand how evolution would create such elaborate afterlife stories, with all those common themes like tunnels and light beings life reviews etc, that are more real than this life and they have no doubt about and no longer fear death. that's mighty specific and elbaorate. not only that philosophical point, but no one has refuted out of body experiences, vision to the blind, or some of the other evidences that can't be called anything but evidence. i'm not sure id say your argument is grasping at straws, but it does appear to be grasping. 

i dont know why you'd say knowledge is not helpful in a perfect world. maybe you phrased that wrong. the bible does tell the story of adam and eve, where their sin was eating of the tree of knowledge. and, when you get down to defining sin.... it's doing intentionally what you know is wrong, which requires knowledge. a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. so maybe you aren't so far off. 

That was beautiful. It also drives my point that we can find Beauty in the worst things. This life is about contrast, not perfection

1. we are slaves to society. i know ive debated this before, and it's plausible to not think that way, but it's what drives our country, and thereby the world. almost everyone has to work forty hours a week just to survive, and then take whatever the economy gives them back in return, which often ain't much. the money mostly goes to the rich and powerful, landlords, corporations, professional class. i understand that this is what drives the economy, and yes the usa drives the world... but it's a grueling way to survive. i guess no one said life was easy. 

2. we spend twice as much as other countries on healthcare if you count the private sector, and ten times as much on defense as the next biggest militaries combined. if these were run better, we could at least not deficit spend, or choose other priorities like other countries. we have much less social nets than other countries, our welfare is actually pretty meager. we do spend less on taxes in general than others, but not if you count private sector healthcare, and these bloated things are what our default priorities are. 

You should just research the Mediterranean diet and focus on produce too. I like to put the focus, on vitamin a and vitamin c and fiber and antioxidants and something green. If u get all those categories every day, everything else falls into place.

It is only human to fear death. According to nde literature, there is probably an afterlife and its probably a great experience. But, there's sufficient reason to believe it can be not what we want to experience, so this life and how we live matters.

I use to want to die in my sleep as my method when my time comes, but now I've realized I'm afraid of going to sleep and never being conscious of anything again... so now my preference is to die of a heart attack in a quick and not too painful way. Then my consciousness can float out of my body and up to heaven

take everything in moderation. even moderation in moderation. 

this presidential election will be biden v trump. pick your favorite, list him. then list five reasons to vote against your favorite choice and five reasons to vote for the other guy. 

i normally dont waste time responding to stupid points, and most of your points were stupid. 

i'll vote for biden. but an objective person should be able to list five reasons to vote against anyone. i think you'd struggle with that assignment, because it's pretty obvious that you lack objectivity. if you want to show you're capable, list five reasons to vote against biden, and five reasons to vote for trump. 

if you hypothetically chose to vote against biden... what would be your five reasons to vote against him? 

biden...

1. doesn't follow the law on immigration and doesn't do enough to stop illegals

2. supports roe v wade and doesn't talk about how to reduce the number of abortions 

3. doesn't focus on reducing over regulation in the government like trump does

4. cares too much about LGBTQ and woke non sense, special interests 

5. doesnt do enough and does less than trump, on doing things to reduce the high cost of consumer's spending

6. doesn't care enough about balancing the budget, and won't compromise enough to reduce overall spending 

what say you? 

those five reasons it's stupid to vote for trump, are still true in this election season.

id also add that he wants to attack our meager welfare system. 

terminal lucidity 

yes i believe there can be false visions etc. even the bible says satan could masquerade as a being of light. but i dont see enough 'bad' from NDEs to throw the whole thing out. we should be cautious, i'll give you that.

near death experiences philosophically offer something unique... elaborate afterlife stories, that offer common themes like tunnels life reviews light beings meeting deceaseed loved ones etc, and that are more real to the person than this life that they have no doubt is real and they no longer fear death. and they offer objective evidence that indicates an afterlife... no just a random goings on in the brain, we're talking about good probability of an afterlife. drugs, dreams, and hallucinations dont cause that in other parts of existence. all naturalistic attempts to explain NDEs fall flat with closer look.  NDEs teach about loving people and God, just like christianity does. that's how we know these two schools of thought are compatiable with each other, even when other religions and skeptics on NDEs fail to offer anything worth following. buddism is just a philosphy and not a 'truth', islam talks about chopping off heads and hands and getting a bunch of virgins, obviously man made. hindu is just random. the joy and hope of the gospel of Jesus is amplified with NDEs. when it comes to theology and NDEs, it takes a careful analysis to determine if religion in the negative sense is giving us a false bag of goods, and if NDEs offer something better. jesus did say the spirit of truth will continue to reveal itself to people. i know the other side of the coin is that we shouldn't add or distort the gospel, but again it requires a careful analysis and prayer to determine the truth. 

there ain't much about NDEs that seem to originate from satan. the author i just posted about, looks like a solid christian. at worst, some of these teachings might challenge fundamentalist thinking, but there's usually higher ways of understanding out there, or there's just sheer doctrines and religions of man that have fundamentalists have gotten wrong. both you and tradesecret worry too much about religion, instead of truth and spirituality.

hawkings was most likely ignorant of this topic. einstein surely was... this field of research is still in its infancy and has only started taking off in the last couple decades. there's lots of themes and science and philopsphy still being developed. folks like dawkins have a superficial very primitive understanding of this topic. folks such as you, while smart, cant read this thread and claim ignorance... your fault is that you lack critical thinking. that's always the way it goes with complex topics, it's always an issue of ignorance, or stupidity. 

he also has a great looking book about how christianity might mesh with NDEs.

he also has a foundational book about critical thinking... that most all ya'll skeptics here need to read and implement. 

it's great to find a researcher who is versed in critical thinking, and science, able to expound on these cutting edge research topics. 

i thought dr. long's book 'evidence of the afterlife' was the best book on evidence of the afterlife... it looks like another book might be better. i have it ordered and will start reading it soon.