ATAR Notes: Forum
General Discussion => General Discussion Boards => Rants and Debate => Topic started by: Cthulhu on March 04, 2010, 04:47:25 pm
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So you know what pisses me off?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
But more importantly conspiracy people in general. I was in a newsagent today and I always automatically walk over to the magazines and to the science section to see whats in newscientist or scientific american and I was appalled to see that among those magazines were things like Hard Evidence. There was a whole collection of magazines like this just casually placed among the science magazines. These aren't scientific magazines; unless you consider them pseudoscience and I wouldn't even put them in that category. Some of these magazines claim the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
These people just can't stand something happening. One of the greatest human achievements of all time was filmed in a studio somewhere? Absolutely ridiculous. NASA can't afford to pay the hundreds of people involved in setting something like that up to keep their mouth shut for the rest of their lives. Over 2000 people died in the 9/11 attacks but it was obviously the Government because a building wouldn't collapse like that unless is was a controlled demolition!!!!!!! Bullshit. Never mind the people on the plane in Philadelphia. They're not dead the plane landed and they were taken to a new location to live out the rest of their days while their family thinks they're dead.
Scientist prove them wrong time and time again and all they do is ignore the scientific evidence and say "Yeah well you have a closed mind!!!!". The great Phil Plait uses this image to demonstrate what happens when trying to reason with a conspiracy theorists:
(http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/189/lalalalabeavercantheary.jpg)
He is absolutely right. They don't fucking listen and instead decide to call us ignorant and blind.
Fuck off. You're the worst kind of people I've ever come across and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Also:
Antivaxers
and Holocaust Deniers.
I should get a blog
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Alright Cthulhu, I'll just believe everything that historians have told me.
The winners wrote the history books.
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Alright Cthulhu, I'll just believe everything that historians have told me.
The winners wrote the history books.
yep... read the article i posted about conspiracy vs philosophy
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Well, sometimes it is difficult to decide who to trust. Scientific journals might have a lot of prestige, but science isn't perfect, and it can have biases. That being said, I think it's is a good idea to remain agnostic unless you want to go through the rigmarole of listening to and scrutinizing both sides of the debate. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
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Christians?
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These people just can't stand something happening. One of the greatest human achievements of all time was filmed in a studio somewhere? Absolutely ridiculous.
yeh that pisses me off heaps
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It reminds me of Nineteen-Eighty Four. But some of the conpiracies are absolutely ridiculous!!!
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Christians?
+1.
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It shits me how a lot of people bring emotions into religion, which I guess is kind of hard not to do if you're a believer. People like my parents who were raised in Catholic houses, I cannot have a discussion about religion with without someone ending up shouting or storming out of the room. They lack the ability to see religion from a different perspective - outside of the Catholic sphere (or whatever religion), instead they're unable to think logically and reasonably about the topic at hand.
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Holocaust (and 9/11) deniers enrage me like no other.
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Well, sometimes it is difficult to decide who to trust. Scientific journals might have a lot of prestige, but science isn't perfect, and it can have biases. That being said, I think it's is a good idea to remain agnostic unless you want to go through the rigmarole of listening to and scrutinizing both sides of the debate. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
One of my lecturers (he's German) noted that science would never be perfect but that 'if you prove the textbooks right, then you've discovered nothing. If you prove the textbooks wrong, then you've discovered something'
The point is that there is a major mis-characterisation of what science is (perhaps brought about by how it's taught). It's never going to be the absolute truth, but it's probably our best crack at it.
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So you know what pisses me off?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
But more importantly conspiracy people in general. I was in a newsagent today and I always automatically walk over to the magazines and to the science section to see whats in newscientist or scientific american and I was appalled to see that among those magazines were things like Hard Evidence. There was a whole collection of magazines like this just casually placed among the science magazines. These aren't scientific magazines; unless you consider them pseudoscience and I wouldn't even put them in that category. Some of these magazines claim the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
These people just can't stand something happening. One of the greatest human achievements of all time was filmed in a studio somewhere? Absolutely ridiculous. NASA can't afford to pay the hundreds of people involved in setting something like that up to keep their mouth shut for the rest of their lives. Over 2000 people died in the 9/11 attacks but it was obviously the Government because a building wouldn't collapse like that unless is was a controlled demolition!!!!!!! Bullshit. Never mind the people on the plane in Philadelphia. They're not dead the plane landed and they were taken to a new location to live out the rest of their days while their family thinks they're dead.
Scientist prove them wrong time and time again and all they do is ignore the scientific evidence and say "Yeah well you have a closed mind!!!!". The great Phil Plait uses this image to demonstrate what happens when trying to reason with a conspiracy theorists:
(http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/189/lalalalabeavercantheary.jpg)
He is absolutely right. They don't fucking listen and instead decide to call us ignorant and blind.
Fuck off. You're the worst kind of people I've ever come across and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Also:
Antivaxers
and Holocaust Deniers.
I should get a blog
I hate people who say the landing on the moon is a hoax.
As for them saying your not open to 'what's out there', they just have created some artificial world that lacks any logical reasoning and anyone smart enough should forget about them. Having said that, being confronted is another issue and I can't stand it when that happens.
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It shits me how a lot of people bring emotions into religion, which I guess is kind of hard not to do if you're a believer. People like my parents who were raised in Catholic houses, I cannot have a discussion about religion with without someone ending up shouting or storming out of the room. They lack the ability to see religion from a different perspective - outside of the Catholic sphere (or whatever religion), instead they're unable to think logically and reasonably about the topic at hand.
IMO I believe everyone has the right to believe in what they want to, BUT, having said that, I don't like people who force their religion on me (that includes those people at my uni handing out bibles - especially saying 'you will be saved').
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I don't think its a good idea to place 100% trust or fiercely defend the royal society or the doctor or medicine for example. If you do this you're really becoming what you fight against, someone who takes things on belief or just because they're on that side. I know some people who are so into science and skepticism and logic who have became like this.
I reckon a healthy dose of skepticism all round is what is needed.
That said more or less the sciencey evidence based side tends to be more correct more of the time.
[I remember year 8 science. We had to have a debate. The topic: If the moon landing happened. I was on the negative side... most one sided debate ever. They had materials brought back from the moon, testimony of all the people involved, how stupid it was. I had... a flag waving which i new was crappy evidence, the lead scientist going to Antarctica to gather asteroids similar to moon rocks, ect.
Now that i think about it the whole idea of the exercise probably wasn't about the moon landing more to show scientific debate and how things are accepted and such.]
My mate decided not to get vaccinations, i mean... great guy and all but such a retarded decision. He based it on some crappy dvd someone gave him... and the vaccine controversy came from England.. not bloody Australia. The idea that the government and medical establishment was just sitting there conspiring to poison us is so retarded it hurts me physically.
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I'm gonna go ahead and assume Cthulhus just trolling
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I'm gonna go ahead and assume Cthulhus just trolling
I can see why you can feel the way Cthulhu does, so I personally wouldn't. I understand the illogical nature of conspiracy debates, but IMO it's like arguing whether God exists or not. And I don't think any way is considered the "right" way in this case. In the same way, neither is conspiracy or not.
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The result of debating something thats debatable is more confusion than when you started.
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... um why would you hate someone for believing in something? get over yourself i bet half the things you thought were right are most likely wrong.
When did I ever use the word hate? I said it pisses me off.
and you're probably half the things I believe might be wrong. Maybe the holocaust never happened MAYBE it's the Jews playing a trick on us. Maybe the Jews built Aushwitz Concentration Camp. I'm so blind! I thought the holocaust happened and it didn't! How could the Jews just lie to us like that? And why shouldn't I say that I think a person that denies that thousands of people were killed or that the Government is trying to poison us with Vaccines is a terrible person?
and speaking of people that hate other people what they believe in. Maybe I'm just like them. brb going to picket some funerals of dead soldiers because they support the don't ask don't tell policy.
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my parents ....=.=
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Yeah my mum doesn't believe in the moon landing...
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... um why would you hate someone for believing in something? get over yourself i bet half the things you thought were right are most likely wrong.
Well, to be honest, sometimes, these things can kill. A good example is HIV Denialism (the idea that HIV is not the causative agent for AIDS). For a while, this was the official policy of South Africa. This is the result.
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Yeah my mum doesn't believe in the moon landing...
My parents don't believe in evolution. Especially that humans evolved from the ancestor of humans and apes.
I didn't learn about evolution until I was 16 and after that it just seemed to fit so nicely that I believed in it from then on.
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Holocaust (and 9/11) deniers enrage me like no other.
+1
Denying the deaths and horrific torture of so many innocent lives?
It's just disgusting to turn a blind eye and pretend it never happened.
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I think it's amazing how many people still believe in astrology, even though it has been disproven centuries ago.
As Carl Sagan would say,
"Have you ever noticed how easy it is to find a magazine on astrology? Virtually every newspaper in America has a daily column on astrology. Almost none of them have even a weekly column on astronomy."
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Don't forget homeopathy and people who would rather cover their kids in clay than give them a 50-60% chance of survival with chemotherapy.
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Don't forget homeopathy
http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
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You people have a very juvenile grasp of the scientific method, we dismiss the claims of the religious, 9/11 'truthers', etc , because such claims are unfalsifiable. There is no conceivable piece of evidence that is capable of exploding their hypothesis, it is impossible to prove them wrong. I mean of course we can, say, present a moon rock to a NASA conspricist, but they will just adjust their claim or outright deny the validity of the rock.
What's important is that the opinions of these people do not matter, claims that cannot be falsified are to be discarded into what Popper called the 'meta-physic' category.
Likewise religious folk are immediately disqualified from the discussion, these types are not interested in validity, when discussing questions about the universe/morality/etc they are to be marginalized (preferably into a sound-proof room), they are not to be 'debated' (as if their was a debate to be had) and their 'opinion' is not to be 'respected'.
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Edit:
Meh I'm not going to waste my time.
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... um why would you hate someone for believing in something? get over yourself i bet half the things you thought were right are most likely wrong.
When did I ever use the word hate? I said it pisses me off.
and you're probably half the things I believe might be wrong. Maybe the holocaust never happened MAYBE it's the Jews playing a trick on us. Maybe the Jews built Aushwitz Concentration Camp. I'm so blind! I thought the holocaust happened and it didn't! How could the Jews just lie to us like that? And why shouldn't I say that I think a person that denies that thousands of people were killed or that the Government is trying to poison us with Vaccines is a terrible person?
and speaking of people that hate other people what they believe in. Maybe I'm just like them. brb going to picket some funerals of dead soldiers because they support the don't ask don't tell policy.
what are you on about? .. hahahahahahaah gee that made my day
You said "half the things you believe are right are probably wrong", so he brought up some of the things he believes in and uses a satirical tone to emphasise the inaccuracy of your comment...
... yeah I can't be bothered either.
Basically: he is mocking you
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Im glad I was born into a buddhist family. No such thing as creation theories or Jew-bashing.
The religion for the lazy man and woman
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The religion for the lazy man and woman
That explains this :P
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The religion for the lazy man and woman
That explains this :P
LOL
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That's why mathematics owns, our proofs are squeaky clean. Euclid's theorem on infinitude of primes is still around, but not Aristotle's physics. 8-)
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i don't feel all that mocked =( .. ON THE UPSIDE free bbq tomorow at monash :D BBSC or someshit whatever the commerce club is called
BCSS... it used to be ECSS... but they changed the "economics" to "business" and merged with the Caulfield club equivalent.
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That's why mathematics owns, our proofs are squeaky clean. Euclid's theorem on infinitude of primes is still around, but not Aristotle's physics. 8-)
That's only because Aristotle's views on physics were just as wrong as Pythagoras's belief that irrational numbers didn't exist. :P
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Don't forget homeopathy and people who would rather cover their kids in clay than give them a 50-60% chance of survival with chemotherapy.
Homeopathy actually works for some illnesses so don't be so quick to judge it. Although it has no scientific basis, if it works, then I'm all for it.
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i don't feel all that mocked =( .. ON THE UPSIDE free bbq tomorow at monash :D BBSC or someshit whatever the commerce club is called
BCSS... it used to be ECSS... but they changed the "economics" to "business" and merged with the Caulfield club equivalent.
oh that explains that! btw fyrefly, if you want to join to a club at monash, sports club that is, where do i go? i can't find the soccer ovals or anything like that!
The best place to join a sports club would be to either take a jaunt online, or heads over to Monash Sport and ask about clubs at the reception desk (have a look on your campus map - building 1, map co-ordinate D4). There are ovals behind Monash Sport, and tennis courts adjacent to it (just past the swimming pool).
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That's why mathematics owns, our proofs are squeaky clean. Euclid's theorem on infinitude of primes is still around, but not Aristotle's physics. 8-)
That's only because Aristotle's views on physics were just as wrong as Pythagoras's belief that irrational numbers didn't exist. :P
But they don't :P
Yeah I should've specified discrete mathematics, number thoery/combinatorics. Not the fuzzy anlaysis that has new definitions and axioms added everyday.
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That's why mathematics owns, our proofs are squeaky clean. Euclid's theorem on infinitude of primes is still around, but not Aristotle's physics. 8-)
That's only because Aristotle's views on physics were just as wrong as Pythagoras's belief that irrational numbers didn't exist. :P
But they don't :P
Yeah I should've specified discrete mathematics, number thoery/combinatorics. Not the fuzzy anlaysis that has new definitions and axioms added everyday.
:P which when compared with physics...
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What is it with mathematicians and being high and mighty? I thought physicists were meant to be the arrogant ones :P
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What is it with mathematicians and being high and mighty? I thought physicists were meant to be the arrogant ones :P
Some of us have to stay classy.
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What is it with mathematicians and being high and mighty? I thought physicists were meant to be the arrogant ones :P
You obviously haven't seen this:
(http://talklikeaphysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/image-178.jpg)
There is also a joke where physicists think they are god and god thinks he s a mathematician.
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Hmm well it's not like we're solving the mysteries of the universe or anything...
Oh wait.
jk
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Hmm well it's not like we're solving the mysteries of the universe or anything...
Oh wait.
jk
Lol!
How is uni?
How is thermal physics and quantum physics? I'm loving them so far.
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What is it with mathematicians and being high and mighty? I thought physicists were meant to be the arrogant ones :P
You obviously haven't seen this:
(http://talklikeaphysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/image-178.jpg)
There is also a joke where physicists think they are god and god thinks he s a mathematician.
Heh, I have a framed copy of that (signed by Randall Munroe) hanging above my honours desk :)
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Did you order it from the site humph? HAVE YOU MET RANDALL? If you have you should feel the jealously coming from Melbourne pretty soon.
Speaking of stuff: Did anyone else get their free copy of The Origins of Species By Charles Darwin with a special introduction by Ray Comfort?. Creationists handing out books on evolution oh the irony
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Did you order it from the site humph? HAVE YOU MET RANDALL? If you have you should feel the jealously coming from Melbourne pretty soon.
Speaking of stuff: Did anyone else get their free copy of The Origins of Species By Charles Darwin with a special introduction by Ray Comfort?. Creationists handing out books on evolution oh the irony
Oh damn I would have loved a copy!
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Did you order it from the site humph? HAVE YOU MET RANDALL? If you have you should feel the jealously coming from Melbourne pretty soon.
Speaking of stuff: Did anyone else get their free copy of The Origins of Species By Charles Darwin with a special introduction by Ray Comfort?. Creationists handing out books on evolution oh the irony
hahaha yeah I got it, there was a bookmark in it by a christian group.
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Yeah! I thought it was just a Monash bookmark I didn't even realise until I opened the book.
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I played 'dodge the Christian clubs' at the Club carnival again this year... their favourite trick is a quick "survey" where they corner you, ask you about your beliefs and then try to get your contact details.
I guess I'm a fail Christian... *sigh*
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Did you order it from the site humph? HAVE YOU MET RANDALL? If you have you should feel the jealously coming from Melbourne pretty soon.
Nah, it was a birthday present last year from my friends; they ordered it off the website.
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Global warming is a left wing conspiracy to stage a passive revolution against the big oil companies. Hahaha, oh wait. I actually believe that.
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What is it with mathematicians and being high and mighty? I thought physicists were meant to be the arrogant ones :P
You obviously haven't seen this:
(http://talklikeaphysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/image-178.jpg)
There is also a joke where physicists think they are god and god thinks he s a mathematician.
wouldn't philosophy be ahead of the mathematicians? =P
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http://www.youtube.com/user/qualiasoup?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/9/5wV_REEdvxo a friend sent me this video a while ago. thought it might belong here, and could provide a basis for any future religious arguments :)
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http://www.youtube.com/user/qualiasoup?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/9/5wV_REEdvxo a friend sent me this video a while ago. thought it might belong here, and could provide a basis for any future religious arguments :)
interesting video
thats why you shouldn't force someone to adopt your religion
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http://www.youtube.com/user/qualiasoup?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/9/5wV_REEdvxo a friend sent me this video a while ago. thought it might belong here, and could provide a basis for any future religious arguments :)
Brilliant video
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I played 'dodge the Christian clubs' at the Club carnival again this year... their favourite trick is a quick "survey" where they corner you, ask you about your beliefs and then try to get your contact details.
I guess I'm a fail Christian... *sigh*
Lol!
At the start of this semester me and my mates were enjoying lunch outside the union house when this person came over and handed us a 'student well-being survey'. Anyway the survey sounded ok and I started it:
1) The question asked about when you started uni
2) the question asked how your finding uni and life
Then...
3) This question asked whether you see yourself as spiritual
4) Do you believe in god?
5) Would you like to be closer to god? Something I felt like saying to the person lol.
At the end they wanted your address, phone number, student email, etc and that's when I let my imagination go wild! I hope I didn't enter a real address... :S
Ok so I guess I'm becoming more accepting to the fact that people have different views and actually have friends that are religious but don't have that self righteous pushy attitude towards others.
So I want to finish this post by saying that I don't go around trying to convert people to string theorists, but I would like to bring up string theory the next time I get confronted by these religious freaks.
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"Hi, I'm an Atheist. Would you like a pamphlet?"
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"Hi, I'm an Atheist. Would you like a pamphlet?"
http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank