If you want to criticize Gould, a man who came up with such influential ideas in evolutionary biology as punctuated equilibrium, you should probably not rely on the word of a racist psychologist.

This should be fun...please elaborate about the evidence for God. Pretend I am someone who has grown up in the jungle and has never heard about God or Christianity or any organized religion for that matter. I have no prior beliefs or superstitions. Why should I believe in God, and why should I believe in your specific version of him?

Wow, it really is fun running into a libertarian who doesn’t understand economics or finance.

So let’s start with economics since that appears to be where the most glaring ignorance is. You claim that government cannot change demand and it merely is what it is, as if it were some universal constant that was unaffected by other factors. This is simply not true. If I gave you $1,000,000 do you think your spending habits would be affected? What if I took away 70% of what you earn (assuming you have a job)? Do you think that this may change your weekly spending? Consumer demand is affected by a number of variables, and one of the most important is income. If there is a town where the government employs a number of people, or where there is a company that relies on government contracts and government funding is cut then the people who rely on it will have less money to spend. This shifts their demand curves downward meaning at every price they will purchase less of any normal good. Therefore, even the guy who owns a business in this town that has no affiliation with the government will be effected by cutting government funds because his customers will have less money to spend therefore decreasing their demand. Get it?

The fact that you think you are in any position to critique Keynsian counter-cyclical policies when you don’t understand the underlying fundamentals on which the theory is based…on which all of economics is based actually, is absurd. If I, for example, burst into the office of an astronomer and started arguing that the earth is flat because people in Australia don’t fall off, I would be laughed at. Trying to say something intelligent about economics without understanding demand is like trying to say something smart about astronomy without understanding gravity.

About your continuing insistence on discussing education: show me proof. Just because the U.S. department of education was founded in 1979 does not prove that it has anything to do with inequality. You have shown that it may be plausible that there is some connection, but plausible is not enough. Plenty of plausible explanations for phenomenon are simply wrong, and therefore we must actually look at the data and see what the cause is. Allow me to give you an example:

Plausible argument: Technology has led to an increase in inequality because it has made certain skills more profitable and others obsolete causing skilled workers who perform complex tasks to be more productive, semi-skilled workers who perform routine tasks to be replaceable and unskilled workers who perform manual tasks to be unaffected. This has led to an erosion of certain middle class jobs, such as bank tellers or typists who, because of technological shifts, are obsolete professionally. This has led to a polarization of earnings and therefore increased inequality.

If I were to stop here and provide no evidence then we would be stuck. You have your argument, I have mine, and neither one of us has evidence to support it, just arguments that may or may not be plausible. Admittedly my argument is neither partisan, nor based on ideological principles like yours is, but let’s assume that the arguments are equally valid. So what would either of us have to do to get out of this stalemate? One way would be if we found a study from a reputable source that supported one argument of the other. For example if I provided an article called Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market? from The Quarterly Journal of Economics I would have actually provided support for the plausible argument showing that it is more than plausible, but actually fits as a theory with the real world. Please provide evidentiary support for your claims or I will simply ignore/mock them.

Your actual claims about the department of education are mostly unfounded as well. In spite of the existence of a national organization, most decisions regarding schools are made at the national level. Once exception to this is the “No Child Left Behind Act” which does impose federally mandated testing and grants federal funding based on the results. I’m in favor of repealing the act, but once again that is not relevant. You claim that people are arrested for going to schools other than the ones in their district…do you think the federal government is responsible for this? No, it’s determined at a state level. Maine and Vermont both have Voucher based programs that allow parents to choose where to send their kids, and there are other similar programs in a number of other states. Some use tax credits, some use Charter school systems and there are a variety of other approaches. The important thing to note here is that it is not decided at the federal level, so you trying to blame the federal government for this problem is absurd and really just reveals your juvenile partisan attitude against the federal government. I bet you’d find a way to blame them if you wet the bed.

Another reason your department of education argument fails is that inequality began to increase in 1979 and the U.S. department of education was founded in 1979. This may not seem like a problem at first, until you consider the fact that children in schools don’t immediately enter the workforce. Most of the effects should have taken place later, when those people who would have actually been affected by the change made up a significant portion of the labor force. In the decade following the creation of the U.S. department of education, we should have seen only mild increases in inequality with the 1990’s and early 2000’s showing the greatest inequality increase. Is this what the data shows? Turns out no! Look back at the article I posted about wage inequality in the U.S. in my previous argument and you will see that the 80’s actually showed the greatest increase in inequality which would have been too soon for any changes to education made in 1979 to matter. Furthermore a large portion of the increase in inequality is among highly experienced workers who would have been to old to be affected by the changes as they would no longer be in schools. Once again, your argument fails. You can see this by looking at the Autor, Katz and Kearny article (a must read for anyone who is interested in U.S. wage inequality and doesn’t want to be mocked online by a stranger for not knowing what the hell they are talking about).

Just to sum up for you: your argument for the department of education being responsible for the increased inequality in the U.S. not only lacks evidence but isn’t even plausible for myriad reasons. You are now just embarrassing yourself.

Let’s move on to finance, since that seems to be another area that you do not understand. You argue that our current deficit/debt situation is an issue because people are going to stop lending to the Federal government because they believe we will not pay them back. Currently the U.S. has a AAA rating (as determined by independent ratings agencies), which means that according to investors, we are as safe as it gets – there is no rating higher than AAA. If you were right and people really were worried about us not being able to repay them, this rating would be lowered and we would begin to have serious problems because borrowing would become more expensive (interest rates would increase). As it stands, however, lending money to the U.S. government is still the safest possible investment an investor can make. The only people who think otherwise are people like you who do not understand the situation but instead listen to partisan rhetoric and media fear mongering.

We should look for ways for the government to save money, but the extreme cuts proposed by GJ are both unnecessary and potentially detrimental to economic recovery. Once our nation has managed to pull itself out of the current economic situation and unemployment is back to natural rates then we can start making budget cuts. What’s nice, however, is that as the economy improves spending automatically decreases because less people are eligible for entitlement programs such as unemployment benefits, and revenue increases because more people are working. Hence, one should not only not worry about a budget deficit during economic recessions, one should expect it to occur.

While I agree with a lot of what you said, you ignored my main point and about half of the fundamentals of accounting. Let's go back to the guy who has a little extra money and wants to start a small business. Since you brought up a banana stand let's say that's what he wants to open up. He will only open up the banana stand if it will be profitable to do so. Now you bring up a good point that a part of this calculation will involve how much opening up this banana stand will cost. If the government has excessive restrictions on small businesses then clearly this may outweigh any profit that he will earn. The same goes for any other costs associated with starting a business. For this example we will say that government posed restrictions (in the form of a license) has a cost of L and non governmental costs are C.

The part that I was discussing in my argument that you completely ignore in your discussion is his revenue. The amount he will earn selling his bananas is some function of consumer demand, or in other words R(d) where d stands for consumer demand. As demand increases so does the function R(d). Therefore his total profits can be expressed as: P = R(d) - (C+L). From this expression we know that our entrepreneurial friend will only invest when P is positive, which is whenever R(d) is greater than (C+L).

Let's now imagine two situations and determine if there really is money in the banana stand. We shall assume that there is some government building that employs a decent amount of the citizens of the town where the banana stand will be opened up. In the first scenario there are no major budgetary cutbacks to the organization housed in the government building. Because of this demand is relatively high and will be represented as d1. In the other scenario a politician like GJ steps in and makes budgetary cuts that either fore the organization to decrease wages or fire some people. For the sake of this example it doesn't matter if it's just the former, just the latter or a combination of both; the important thing to note is that the average income of the citizens decreases meaning less money to spend on bananas. In this scenario demand is d2 and we should note that d2 < d1. In the first scenario our friend who is owns the banana stand will make a larger profit than the man in the second scenario even though costs have remained constant in both.

Do you see why I have accused you of ignoring the main point of my argument now? I was discussing how demand affects people's incentives and yet you bring up cost. Certainly cost is important but even if the cost of starting a new business is almost zero people will still consider it a bad investment if no one is willing to buy bananas (even if those bananas are dipped in chocolate and covered in nuts). High demand makes all businesses more profitable, and during economic boom times we can do what Clinton did during the dot com boom and balance the budget. During recessions where demand is low, however, cutting spending only helps to reduce demand which in turn leads to less investment, higher unemployment and, ironically enough, less government revenue. The loss in revenue may be outweighed by the costs to the government, but the societal cost will likely be greater thanks to what macro-economists call the "multiplier effect" (which to express briefly, is the idea that when you take $1 out of the economy, you are in effect taking out more than $1 because dollars are spent over and over again).

In your argument you discuss how expensive it is to start a business from excessive regulations and taxes, and yet you fail to provide any evidence to support this proposition. The U.S. is extremely pro-business when compared to other nations of similar wealth. Many European nations have absurd labor laws that hinder growth. In Italy for example it is next to impossible to fire a person, and therefore businesses choose not to hire people, which in turn leads to high unemployment, especially for young people in Italy. Libertarian hyperbole aside, those kind of laws do not actually exist in the U.S. In fact, with current technology, small business costs have never been lower...unfortunately so is demand which, like I said earlier, is the real problem that plagues the economy during times of recession.

As far as balancing the budget: we are not nearing critical deficit levels and "raising the debt ceiling" is not some emergency catastrophic event: it has occurred 17 times since 1993...in other words almost once a year! I would really appreciate it if in the future you would base your claims on fact and not assertion. I cannot blame you for having the impression that raising the debt ceiling is a big deal, this is in large part the fault of the media, but I can blame you for not checking your facts before putting them into the argument. Furthermore, my original point still stands that while our deficit may be a problem it is not pertinent to the issue we are discussing which is economic recovery.

The phenomenon you cite. Starting in 1979 the inequality in this country has been rising steadily, as you said. The reason for this is mostly the creation of the Federal Department of Education by Jimmy Carter. Just think about it.

As much as I would like to believe that we can explain wage inequality just by thinking about it, in economics we actually have to have evidence to back up claims. If we want to discuss wage inequality in the U.S. I think the best place to start is by looking at Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality by Autor, Katz and Kearny. If you are unfamiliar with it, then I will summarize some of the main points. The high-school college premium has contributed to a significant portion of the increasing inequality since 1979, but cannot account for all of it. This "residual inequality" as they call it, is signficant not only because it cannot be accounted for by either education nor the demographic composition of the labor force but also because, like the college-highschool premium, it has been increasing. You're explanation fails to account for any of these facts, and frankly is a simplistic partisan explanation for a very complex phenomenon. I do not mean to say that the public schooling our nation is not a serious issue and that it doesn't need to be addressed; it is a serious issue and does need to be dealt with. I'm not even disagreeing with the ways in which GJ wants to go about fixing education; vouchers seem like a promising solution. The issue though is that the problem of inequality cannot be fully explained by education, and by talking about it here you are changing the subject away from what we are actually talking about: economic recovery.

I don't know why you brought up the drug war. I mentioned it nowhere in my argument (although I would list it under the social policies that make me want to like him).

Some of the policy you're talking about it seems like you're not on the right web site. When Gary was the governor of New Mexico, he reduced the size of state government by over a thousand jobs without firing anyone.

Even if you are right and his spending cuts not costing a significant amount of government jobs (which seems doubtful), it is almost certainly the case that he will be cutting money from government contracts which will force private businesses to lay off employees. The main point of this, of course, is that it will continue to depress consumer demand which in turn will lead to less investment slowing economic recovery.

Feel free to rant about libertarian ideology, but I will not respond. I prefer to stick to the facts. When you decide that you want to stop changing the subject and actually stick to discussing economic recovery then we can have a real discussion.

You also appear to fundamentally misunderstand what is meant by Keynsian economics (and economics in general). People don't argue that it is impossible to pay less and get more, they say that if you want to stimulate economic recovery in a recession you need to increase demand. One way in which this can be accomplished is through government spending: the quality of service you get out of this spending is actually irrelevant to the Keynsian argument (although clearly relevant for other reasons not having to do with this debate).

While I generally agree that spending needs to be cut, and I support doing this by ending the wars in we are currently involved in in the Middle East, I have to disagree about a couple of his positions regarding what will and what will not help the economy.

First off, contrary to popular opinion, our deficit is not the main cause of our economic troubles, nor will balancing the budget be a cure all for fixing the economy. Certainly I agree that we should almost certainly reduce the current deficit, but doing so as quickly and drastically as Gary Johnson plans to do, while well intentioned, will almost certainly cause more harm than good. Allow me to explain:

Small business owners have not been suffering from burdensome taxes or government regulations. They've suffered because unemployment is high, which means that demand is down, and when demand is down people are less likely to spend money on shit (by definition). Now we could argue about what initially caused the economic recession that led to the decrease in demand, you'd say it had something to do with excessive government regulations, and I would say it had to do in part with the fact that the Glass-Steagal Act (that was intended to separate commercial and investment banks)became more and more impotent proceding its passage up until its eventual repeal in 1999; or to put it more simply, a lack of government regulation. This argument would likely get us nowhere and what's the point of arguing about who is to blame for sinking the Titanic when we're still on the boat. My point is, we need to look at what will improve the current low demand situation and the best chance of doing this is to decrease unemployment (people without jobs buy less shit).

So what will decrease unemployment? Ironically enough, it's increasing demand! If people are more willing to buy shit then people will be able to sell more shit so they will need to higher more workers to make and sell the shit (and also services: for the sake of this argument assume shit is an amalgamation of goods and services). So we need to decrease unemployment to increase demand, and increase demand to decrease unemployment. Well this sucks. What can we do?

According to Gary Johnson it's cut spending by cutting wages of government employees and benefits to citizens, stop inflation and to cut corporate taxes (which he claims are the real job killer on his website). Now giving people lower wages is not easy. If you don't believe me, imagine you've been working a job for a while and someone tells you that even though you will be doing the same amount of work as you always have, you will have to accept less pay for that work. People usually don't respond well. In economics this concept is known as "sticky wages" and can create a bunch of issues when markets try and correct themselves. Now there are two ways employers can get around this problem: a) change human nature b) rather than lower wages by x% just fire x% of your workers and have the remaining workers just pick up the slack. Which do you think most choose? This also means that since they are firing workers they are obviously not hiring new ones which is not a good thing for unemployment. Here's an interesting fact though: let's say you need to reduce the cost of labor by 3%, and so you have the choice of either firing 3% of your workforce or cutting salaries by 3%. For the reasons given above you will choose the former option because the latter will be unacceptable to your workers, and impractical because of their contracts.

Now up until this point we have sort of implicitly assumed no inflation, and if humans are completely rational then really inflation shouldn't play a part. Cutting someone's salary by 3% with 0% inflation should be the same as giving them a 2% raise when inflation is 5%. However, study after study has shown that people don't think rationally like this. It is much more acceptable for employers to offer wage increases at 3 percentage points less than inflation, rather than cutting their pay by 3% with no inflation. Therefore if there exists a relatively low, steady (a.k.a. predictable level of inflation) then the employer actually has a choice now and can in fact decrease there real wages because their nominal wages haven't gone down. Given GJ's position on inflation, we would be stuck with sticky wages meaning that employers would have to result to firing employees and not hiring new ones keeping unemployment at levels that depress economic development and keep demand too low for businesses (small or otherwise) from thriving.

Hopefully you now see why major cuts on government spending would exacerbate the current problem as opposed to solve it. Furthermore, pushing inflation down to zero would also lead to increased unemployment further harming our current recovery.

The real way to solve the current economic situation is to deal with the inequality in the country that has been increasing since 1979. There are a number of factors that have contributed to it (many of which are still unknown by economists), but cutting corporate taxes as well as benefits for the less well off is almost certainly not the right approach since that will lead to the opposite effect, further eroding the purchasing power of America's middle class which is the main driver of our economy.

I actually really want to like GJ a lot, partly because of his stance on social issues, but more so because he is willing to stand up for unpopular positions when popular candidates like Romney and Obama seem too afraid to act contrary to popular opinion. As much as I would like to agree with him, however, I can't fail to see the huge blemish that is his economic approach which would cause more harm to the American economy than any good it would do.

It seems like you are falling into the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is true about nature does not imply that there is some special meaning. Furthermore reproduction is neither unique to living things, nor is it the case that reproduction is the only common feature of all living things.

If you say that the meaning of life is reproduction, at least provide an argument supporting your claim.

There is a difference between a cause and a necessary condition. The art school that rejected Hitler didn't cause the holocaust, but it was a necessary condition for the holocaust to have happened (probably). It seems like in your theory you argue that all necessary conditions should be considered causes. The line between these two concepts is not always clear, however and this is a much debated subject of philosophy (specifically action theory).

Now in the law this idea is important because it deals with responsibility and duty. According to Emmanuel Kant we have perfect duties and imperfect duties. A perfect duty is one that you must perform all the time, and can be blamed for not performing that duty. For example, let us say (as most people would) that we have a perfect duty to not kill innocent people. This would imply that it is wrong for us to ever kill innocent people. Even if 99% of the time you are not killing innocent people, you can still be held responsible for the remaining 1% of the time you are not performing your duty. Imperfect duties on the other hand, according to Kant, are duties in which we are praised if we do them, but cannot be blamed if we do not. The easiest to think of here is if you think that people have some duty to give to charity then you would almost certainly consider this duty an imperfect one. We praise those people who do give to charity but we do not expect people to give to charity 100% of the time. In fact if someone gives just half of what they have to charity we would say that this person is exceptionally charitable.

Your view also deals with positive and negative responsibility. To a strict consequentialist (such as an act utilitarian) there is morally no difference between acting and not acting. Allowing someone to drown if you can save them is just as bad as causing someone to drown (this example over simplifies the issue, but I'm sure you understand the general point). However, if someone has a libertarian view of ethics, they would argue that the only duties that we have involve positive actions and we can never be blamed for something we didn't do. The exceptions to this previous statement of course are if we have already made a promise to do something for someone as in the case of a contract.

Hopefully this gives you some idea of the general philosophical issues you may be interested in researching.

Recommended reading:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Article on Action

Wikipedia entry on Kant's ethical theory

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Article on Positive and Negative Liberty

Thanks, that was an interesting read. I did notice that a lot of the quotes they used were from the early 20th century, so it makes me wonder if maybe his views changed later in life.

Certainly surprising though that someone who seemed so committed to peace could hold views like that.

Do you have anything about the child molestation you mentioned?

If you don't mind me asking, could you site a source for the whole Ghandi thing? It's just that I've studied India before and never heard either of those accusations. Thanks.

No worries. I find evolution fascinating and am always happy to discuss it.

Well, yes. That is the point. The pain is enough to bring a perpetrator to a stop, yet not enough to kill or to cause permanent damage (rare exceptions).

Actually what's nice about tasers is that usually it isn't the pain that's causing the compliance, it's the fact that it causes neuromuscular interference. This means that even if the person could resist the pain (which it is very possible for a determined suspect to do) their muscles won't respond while they are under. The wider the spread of the two probes, the larger the area of muscles are effected.

So you don't care how a taser works, what its effects are or what useful purpose it may serve? These are all relevant points to the discussion about whether the taser should be allowed or not. I also didn't think I wrote too much, but I guess if you don't have the patience to read less than a page of writing you've got bigger problems than tasers.

The argument that I made stated that of all the non lethal tools that can be employed by police, the taser is the least cruel because it is the most effective while also causing the least permanent damage.

As far as the video: if you are being arrested don't resist. That is the surest way to get in trouble. If you think you are being wrongfully arrested plead your case later, and then file a complaint against the officers. Did he deserve to be arrested, certainly not at first, but they officers were just trying to escort him out of the building. It was when he started fighting that he got himself into trouble. What you have to keep in mind though, is that this guy went in their intending to make a scene. He asked questions without waiting for answers because he was looking for attention and not answers. The fact that he got national attention as the "don't tase me bro" guy was more than he could have ever dreamed for.

Now the more important point that you are trying to make, and I think it's a relevant one, is that police can abuse their power. This is a fact that is not limited to tasers and is, in my opinion, a serious issue that needs addressing. That is what the media is there for to call our attention to. Cops are humans, and some humans are dicks. I would not make the mistake, however, of associating a few bad apples with all police in general. In my experience I've found that law enforcement officials generally are just concerned about doing their job and keeping people safe. If they don't absolutely have to, a police officer is not going to use a taser. The amount of paperwork alone is a pretty good deterrent, not to mention that the tasers keep track of every time they are fired so there's no way to hide the fact that you used it.

Now let us move onto the insane paranoia.

Think about it — how many laws have you broken today? This week? This month?

None very serious. I also haven't been harassed by cops so I guess it isn't an issue.

Have you changed lanes without a turn signal? Exceeded the posted speed limit?

Almost certainly, but the good thing about traffic crimes is that a) they are severely underenforced and b) usually just amount to a small fine.

Hired a neighborhood kid to cut your grass and then paid him under the table?

You clearly don't understand how taxes work. The government doesn't care about small amounts, and paying a kid to mow your lawn is not illegal. If you can show me even one instance where someone has been prosecuted for paying someone to mow their grass then I will concede the point.

Engaged in commerce with someone who is in the country illegally?

Unless you knowingly hired someone who was an undocumented worker then you are completely safe, and even when people are caught hiring undocumented workers its almost always the workers that get in trouble, not the one who hired them. Once again, know the law before you make outrageous claims.

Bought lemonade from an unlicensed "dealer" in the form of an innocent child?

You don't need a license to sell lemonade. Stop being dumb because this is getting old. Lets pretend though for a second that you aren't being delusional and that instead of lemonade you said alcohol (a beverage you do need a license to sell) and that instead of innocent child you said bootlegger. This is a little bit more of a reasonable scenario.

Even in this scenario, however, it would only be the bootlegger that would get into trouble, not you for buying the alcohol.

It sounds like you are really wound up and angry at the world. Maybe there is a good reason for it, maybe their isn't. I don't know you personally so I can't say. What I do know is that it might help to take some deep breaths and relax. We don't live in a ridiculous police state, and people are not constantly being harassed by the police. The police have better things to do, like go after actual murderers and rapists.

In case you haven't noticed, we have gotten way off track, so one last word about tasers. You really loved to give hypotheticals, so how about I try one or two? Lets say a man who is high on some drug comes charging at a police officer with a bat. Now in this situation, an officer could legally use his firearm. The man poses an immediate threat. However, with the taser the police officer can attempt to subdue him in a non lethal way that will have virtually no side effects. Bullets, by the way, have some pretty serious health side effects.

One more hypothetical, two men are fighting with each other. An officer, who doesn't have backup wants to break it up but neither man is stopping. With a taser the officer can fire it so that one prong hits each man and because they are touching both will be electrocuted until they separate. Once again, no side effects and you get the desired result, which is compliance.

You appear to be oversimplifying (or to put it away, you dumbed down a little too much). While it is true that the majority of humans (and any other sexually reproducing species) are heterosexual it is also true that homosexuality is also prevalent in a minority of the population. Furthermore it is prevalent to the point where it cannot be dismissed simply as a mental disorder.

Furthermore if homosexuality is unnatural (as you claim it to be) then we would not expect to see it in nature. Cases of homosexuality in animals for example should be few and far between. Is this the case? I'll let you decide. Here is a list of mammals in which homosexuality has been observed.

African Buffalo

African Elephant

Agile Wallaby

Amazon River Dolphin(Boto)

American Bison

Antelope

Asian Elephant

Asiatic Lion

Asiatic Mouflon

Atlantic Spotted Dolphin

Australian Sea Lion

Barasingha

Barbary Sheep

Beluga

Bharal

Bighorn Sheep

Black Bear

Blackbuck

Black-footed Rock Wallaby

Black-tailed Deer

Bonnet Macaque

Bonobo

Bottlenose Dolphin

Bowhead Whale

Brazilian Guinea Pig

Bridled Dolphin

Brown Bear

Brown Capuchin

Brown Long-eared Bat

Brown Rat

Buffalo

Caribou

Cat (domestic)

Cattle (domestic)

Cheetah

Collared Peccary

Commerson's Dolphin

Common Brushtail Possum

Common Chimpanzee

Common Dolphin

Common Marmoset

Common Pipistrelle

Common Raccoon

Common Tree Shrew

Cotton-top Tamarin

Crab-eating Macaque

Crested Black Macaque

Cui

Dall's Sheep

Daubenton's Bat

Dog (domestic)

Doria's Tree Kangaroo

Dugong

Dwarf Cavy

Dwarf Mongoose

Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

Eastern Grey Kangaroo

Elk

Euro (a subspecies of wallaroo)

European Bison

Fallow Deer

False Killer Whale

Fat-tailed Dunnart

Fin Whale

Fox

Gazelle

Gelada Baboon

Giraffe

Goat (Domestic)

Golden Monkey

Gorilla

Grant's Gazelle

Grey-headed Flying Fox

Grey Seal

Grey squirrel

Grey Whale

Grey Wolf

Grizzly Bear

Guinea Pig (Domestic)

Hamadryas Baboon

Hamster (Domestic)

Hanuman Langur

Harbor Porpoise

Harbor Seal

Himalayan Tahr

Hoary Marmot

Horse (domestic)

Human

Indian Fruit Bat

Indian Muntjac

Indian Rhinoceros

Japanese Macaque

Javelina

Kangaroo Rat

Killer Whale

Koala

Kob

Larga Seal

Least Chipmunk

Lechwe

Lesser Bushbaby

Lion

Lion-tailed Macaque

Lion Tamarin

Little Brown Bat

Livingstone's Fruit Bat

Long-eared Hedgehog

Long-footed Tree Shrew

Macaque

Markhor

Marten

Matschie's Tree Kangaroo

Moco

Mohol Galago

Moor Macaque

Moose

Mountain Goat

Mountain Tree Shrew

Mountain Zebra

Mouse (domestic)

Moustached Tamarin

Mule Deer

Musk-ox

Natterer's Bat

New Zealand Sea Lion

Nilgiri Langur

Noctule

North American Porcupine

Northern Elephant Seal

Northern Fur Seal

Northern Quoll

Olympic Marmot

Orangutan

Orca

Pacific Striped Dolphin

Patas Monkey

Pere David's Deer

Pig (Domestic)

Pig-tailed Macaque

Plains Zebra

Polar Bear

Pretty-faced Wallaby

Proboscis Monkey

Pronghorn

Przewalski's Horse

Puku

Quokka

Rabbit

Raccoon Dog

Red Deer

Red Fox

Red Kangaroo

Red-necked Wallaby

Red Squirrel

Reeves's Muntjac

Reindeer

Rhesus Macaque

Right Whale

Rock Cavy

Rodrigues Fruit Bat

Roe Deer

Rufous Bettong

Rufous-naped Tamarin

Rufous Rat Kangaroo

Saddle-back Tamarin

Savanna Baboon

Sea Otter

Serotine Bat

Sheep (Domestic)

Siamang

Sika Deer

Slender Tree Shrew

Sooty Mangabey

Sperm Whale

Spinifex Hopping Mouse

Spinner Dolphin

Spotted Hyena

Spotted Seal

Squirrel Monkey

Striped Dolphin

Stuart's Marsupial Mouse

Stumptail Macaque

Swamp Deer

Swamp Wallaby

Takhi

Talapoin

Tammar Wallaby

Tasmanian Devil

Tasmanian Rat Kangaroo

Thinhorn Sheep

Thomson's Gazelle

Tiger

Tonkean Macaque

Tucuxi

Urial

Vampire Bat

Verreaux's Sifaka

Vervet

Vicuna

Walrus

Wapiti

Warthog

Waterbuck

Water Buffalo

Weeper Capuchin

Western Grey Kangaroo

West Indian Manatee

Whiptail Wallaby

White-faced Capuchin

White-fronted Capuchin

White-handed Gibbon

White-lipped Peccary

White-tailed Deer

Wild Cavy

Wild Goat

Wisent

Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby

Yellow-toothed Cavy

Now once again, this is just mammals. There are equally long lists for birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. In fact you can find homosexuality in virtually every sexually reproducing organism. Why is this the case? There are a lot of theories as to why homosexuality is so prevalent but I won't go into them here (unless you're actually curious). The point is that having some portion of the population as homosexual clearly is advantageous to the survival of that population.

Maybe it would be useful to think of homosexuality like left handedness. The majority of the population is right handed, however there is a minority that are not. They didn't choose to be, that's how they are.

I find it hard to imagine how one would choose to be a certain sexual orientation. There was never a moment in my life when I thought: I think I'd prefer to be attracted to women, and if you are a straight male (which I am assuming you are) then I would assume you never had to choose who you were attracted to. It happens on a biological level. If, however there was a moment when you felt yourself attracted to men and then chose not to pursue that attraction and instead "decided" to be attracted to females then...well that sounds like a personal issue, but I would understand why you're confused.

For people who are curious exactly what her views on the subject are, here are a number of relevant quotes from her on the subject of gay marriage and homosexuality in general.

The theory of punctuated equilibrium doesn't really contradict the general theory of evolution, it just explains some of the details in various circumstances. You are correct though that under certain environmental pressures evolution can proceed more rapidly, and when there is very little environmental pressure to evolve organisms may undergo almost no evolution.

I'm not sure, however, what point you are trying to make with this.

Not really. I learned it through school and just generally hearing stuff from friends or reading it on the internet.

By the time my parents would have felt I was ready for the sex talk there was nothing else to tell me about.

I meant to say "...in the same way mathematical proofs can be proven".

Before we begin: I actually have some personal experience with tasers so maybe I can provide a unique perspective on the matter. I went through a taser training course with a number of police officers and actually was tased as part of it.

You say in your argument that "guns are much more effective." I believe this statement misses the point of what tasers are designed for. In situations where a suspect poses an immediate threat to someone else a police officer is authorized to use deadly force and in these situations the officers are always going to use a gun. In this sense a taser is not a substitute for a gun, but instead a tool to be used in other situations.

What other situations? Well what if someone is being combative, but no to the point where deadly force would be authorized? In this case a taser is a way to force compliance. Even the threat of being tased can often get a suspect under control. Is the taser unique in the respect? No. In fact most agencies that use tasers now have only begun doing so in the last 10 years, and before that there were other, more crude methods for ensuring compliance. Pepper spray is one example, and as is a nightstick. These are non lethal tools that officers use if a suspect is not cooperating. I would like to argue that a taser is a much safer, less cruel alternative.

First lets talk about how a taser works. It shoots out 2 metal prongs approximately 25 feet (depending on the model) into the suspect. Their spread is usually about 8 degrees (once again, it depends on the model). They then deliver 50,000 volts of electricity for 5 seconds. The electricity is generated by the gun itself, and runs from one prong, through the suspects body, into the other prong. The larger the spread of the prongs the larger the effected area is. The way the taser actually works is through interrupting neuromuscular activity causing the muscles in the effected area to tense up and immobilizing the suspect.

Like I said this lasts for 5 seconds, and let me say from personal experience it was the most painful 5 seconds of my life (imagine the worst charlie horse of your life in every muscle of your body). Now how can the most painful 5 seconds of my life be less cruel than pepper spray and a nightstick? Because literally the instant the current stops there are no side effects. For me, my legs were a little sore as if I'd worked out the previous day, but otherwise nothing. I felt perfectly fine and the other people I saw get tased reported the exact same phenomenon. This is not the case if you are pepper sprayed in the face or hit with a police baton. The pepper spray can burn for over an hour after it is applied and a nightstick can cause permanent injury depending on where your hit (broken bones are worse than 5 seconds of pain). With a taser the only thing you have to worry about is the suspect injuring himself or herself when they fall. Additionally, pepper spray is not nearly as controlled as a taser and therefore the likelihood of another officer or an innocent bystander being effected is greatly increased.

Therefore the taser is an extremely effective and useful tool for police to protect both themselves and the public from dangerous or fleeing suspects.

I have to dispute you on a number of points.

First, that increasing the income tax on the top income bracket (or possibly making a new higher income bracket and raising the tax rate on that) would be unfair to the rich, and that a flat tax would be preferable.

First, the reason why generally people don't want to be taxed is because taxing someone hurts their standard of living. Therefore the more a tax hurts a persons standard of living the more "harmful" that tax is. Furthermore, there is a basic a minimum income on which a person can live. This can be calculated by adding up the minimum cost of necessities (food, rent, basic utilities etc.). This is known as the poverty line and it varies from country to country (and even region to region) as the cost of living varies. The poverty line in the New York City for example is much higher than in a rural village in India. If someone's income is at or below the poverty line, any tax can be seen as extremely harmful. Therefore a 25% tax on a person who makes $20,000 a year (an income right about at the U.S. poverty line) would make it extremely difficult for that person to maintain an adequate standard of living, while a 25% tax on someone who make $100,000 a year would be noticeable, but not significantly effect their standard of living. Therefore as income increases, a higher percentage of income can be taxed without causing a significant increase on standard of living. To put it another way. Increasing the taxes on the top 5% of Americans may mean they might need to take a slightly less luxurious vacation or buy a cheaper 2nd car. To someone near the poverty line however, it could mean choosing between rent, healthcare and food.

While we're on the topic of the poor paying the bills, lets talk about crime. Statistically people growing up in poor households are much more likely to commit crimes than their better off counter parts. The reason for this is simple: if you don't have much already, you don't have much to lose and if you can make more money through illegal activities than from legal ones then it is in your rational self interest to act illegally. This is not to say that all poor people are criminals, it is just saying that environmental factors make crime a more desirable decision than for them if they had more money. Therefore any increase in tax for low incomes would tip the scales towards crime for many people since illegally gained income isn't taxed. More crime means more stolen property and more money spent of security both private (home alarm systems) and public (police) in addition to all of the other ills that are associated with crime.

Thirdly, when talking about security we can easily see that it is the rich who benefit more from money spent on defense and police spending (a significant portion of our budget). Because the rich have more, they have more of a stake in maintaining order in society. If everything were to go to shit (pardon the expression) then those who have a lot to lose would lose the most. Therefore it only makes sense for them to pay a little extra for their added security.

Fourth, progressive income taxes in the U.S. can be seen as offsetting the various regressive taxes that exist. In the U.S. every state except for Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana and Oregon have general sales taxes and there are many other federal and state taxes on more specific items (cigarettes, soda etc.). All of these taxes can be said to be regressive because they put a heavier burden on the poor than the wealthy because low income households spend a higher percentage of their income on consumption goods while high income households can save and invest a higher percentage of your income. If you can barely afford necessities then obviously you're not going to save. Because of the existence of these regressive taxes we need some type of progressive tax even just to accomplish your goal to tax everyone evenly.

Okay, I have gone on for long eough on this part of my argument. I'll wrap up with a quote from Adam Smith, the father of economics from his famous work The Wealth of Nations:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion

Moving onto this paragraph of your argument: Why would I be inclined to expand my business... I believe your logic is flawed don't understand how marginal tax rates work. You say that someone may be penalized for expanding their business by progressive income taxes. I assume by penalized, you mean that someone making less money would actually have more money because they are in a lower tax bracket. If I have misinterpreted what you meant than the next paragraph will not apply to what you said, and we can continue the discussion after you correct me.

If I am right (as I suspect I am) then you are misinterpreting how tax brackets work. An income tax rate of 35% on incomes greater than $373,651 (as is the case in the U.S.) only is applied to the income made after your $373,651st dollar. Before that dollar, the income is calculated at the lower rate. Therefore someone who makes $373,651 actually is paying less than 35% of their income to taxes. Income taxes are designed exactly in a way to ensure that what you described doesn't happen. So for someone making $373,651 a year, this is how the actual income tax works out:

The first $8,375 is taxed at 10% which equals = $837.50 in taxes

The income from $8,376 - $34,000 is taxed at 15% which equals = $3843.75 in taxes.

The income from $34,001 - $82,400 is taxed at 25% which equals = $12,100 in taxes.

The income from $82,401 - $171,850 is taxed at 28% which equals = $25,046 in taxes.

The income from $171,851 - $373,651 is taxed at 33% which equals = $66,594 in taxes.

The final dollar is taxed at 35% which equals = $.35

This means that the total tax paid is $108421.60. This means that the effective tax rate on our hypothetical individual making $373,651 is about 29.02%.

I hope this explanation has cleared up any confusion you might have had.

The final point that I will make is that you appear to have confused corporate income tax with personal income tax. Many people make this mistake, but the two are separate. There are different tax brackets and corresponding tax rates for corporations than there are for individuals. The top tax bracket for both, however, is taxed at 35% so in that sense they are similar.

Well when speaking about evolution you have both the fact and the theory.

The theory (which as you said cannot be proven in the same way mathematical proofs can't be proven) is about how life changes over long periods of time.

Individual instances of observed evolution though, are facts. In this sense evolution is both fact and theory.

What about the fact that the U.S. was still economically devastated from the great depression, and their involvement in WWII helped to bring them into economic prosperity?

The pharmaceutical system is not an example of a market failure, but an example of the high cost of developing medicine. If the government took over the research and development of medicines the results would be the same, except we'd be paying for the cures in taxes and the medicine would be artificially priced low.

The way the system is set up is that the creators of these drugs have 7 years of exclusivity in which they can recoup their expenses before other pharmaceutical companies can begin selling generics.

Unless the cost of producing medicine is reduced then medicine will be expensive...your solution just shifts how we pay for it from at the counter to in our taxes.

Care to elaborate?

Sure. Often when rap music is portrayed in the media rappers are shown to be thugs and gangbangers whose music encourages violence and degrades women. These stereotypical rappers often blow there money on useless items like tricking out their cars and buy ridiculously lavish homes.

Sadly, in many cases, this stereotype isn't too far off the mark. This is what Lupe Fiasco's song is arguing against. It is criticizing both the rappers who make songs with negative, and misogynistic messages as well as those fans who listen to, and even demand that type of rap.

I'm astounded. Please do!

I usually hate it when people copy and paste but I hope you'll excuse me this time since I already went through an interpretation of "Dumb it Down" by Lupe Fiasco in my argument with EnigmaticMan:

"Now the first verse (the one you analyzed) is him talking to the fans of hip-hop/rap that he considers ignorant. In the first line he claims he is fearless because the whole song is essentially taking on the established paradigm of rap's subject matter which often is unintelligent and degrading to women (a common theme in Lupe's songs is criticizing those rappers which degrade women).

By saying that he is earless, peerless and eyeless he is saying that he can't hear or see the critics (which are represented in the chorus) and that because of this he is tearless...in other words these critics don't bother him. Obviously the peerless part is a double entendre which could mean that he either has no equal when it comes to rap, or that no other rappers are doing what he is doing by criticizing the ignorance of many hip-hop artists.

Another interpretation of this verse is that he is talking about blinded fans looking instead of listening ("which means my iris resides where my ears is"). The bullshit that exists in many rap songs is blinding, but Lupe says I'mma veer so I don't come near. The 'chicken or a deer" part is simply a metaphor about how he avoids the BS prevelant in mainstream rap like people avoid animals in the road (although if you can think of an alternative meaning I'd love to hear it...knowing Lupe there might be one).

The line about him not being "a listener or a seer" means that he can't see clearly (my windshield smear) because he is the artist and not the audience. He doesn't have the proper perspective to judge his own lyrics and therefore hands over the wheel to the audience though, but they don't avoid what he had to veer away from so "the whole grill is roadkill. Another interpretation of this verse is that he is thinking about giving up the wheel entirely by separating himself from the rap game entirely because it is a "minstrel" show. (If your not familiar with what this is, it was when white people dressed in blackface and acted like caricature of black people. What Lupe is saying is that those people raping the the songs are portraying blacks no better.)

In his next line he makes a reference to the matrix by saying he took both pills. What this likely means is that he is living in two worlds at the same time: the BS one created by ignorant hip-hop artists, and the "real" one which is where he believes the truth to lie. He is both a part of the hip-hop/rap world and removed from it at the same time.

"The writer of the quotes for the ghosts who supplier of the notes to the living" appears to be him saying that he is a ghostwriter for ghost writers.

In the final line of this verse he talks about how he is "Riveting as Rosie" which is a reference to the WWII Rosie the Riveter poster. This is a reference both to how good his raps are, and how he is looking to empower women with his rhymes...something not often seen in hip-hop/rap songs. This reference also relates to the rest of the line which goes Awaken at war, 'til I'm restin' in peace which likely means that he will be fighting until he dies to change the hip-hop/rap game for the better.

The first Chorus is relatively self explanatory. It represents the pressure put on rappers (and specifically on Lupe) to conform to the standard themes of hip-hop and "dumb down" his lyrics. The first Chorus is mostly concerned with the fact that many of his lyrics are heady, and that most of the uneducated people in the hood don't want to hear that kind of music."

So that is an interpretation of just the first verse and first chorus. Hopefully you can see that not all rap is as simplistic as you originally assumed.

You are nearly as bad as Qymosabi.

Some things aren't even funny to joke about.

Are you attempting to claim that black people have better auditory skills than I?

I'm not black but I understand it fine. What I'm saying is that people who regularly listen to rap have an easier time understanding rap. Would you disagree.

I am extremely uncomfortable telling you this. In fact, I feel a rash coming on already!

Don't be a fool, wrap your tool! STD's aren't fun ;)

Haha, alright calm down. I'll stick to the subject.............

Hahaha...I'm pretty sure most Chicanos have more important things to worry about than attacking gays who decide to get married.

Look at California. There are plenty of Mexicans and plenty of gay people there, yet I haven't seen any lynchings.

Yeah that's partly what happened with blacks in California with prop 8. So how about we hold off on this plan until we get a supreme court decision that guarantees gays the right to marry. Sound good?

This is the first one of your debates I have agreed with Joe. You've stumbled upon a great idea. I have one addition though:

Since illegals apparently hate Mexico (they'd do anything to leave after all), we should get more Mexicans in the U.S. Now all we have to do is find a large number of Mexicans who want to live in the U.S. Any ideas where we could find that Señor?

Faith is belief in that which there is no evidence for. How can your faith strengthen by arguing...wouldn't argument cause you to be more secure in your logical understanding of religion, making faith less necessary?

What do atheists struggle with?

No, you did not invent the media stereotype.

Of course not, but I had something very specific in mind when I said media stereotype.

Is there something more profound in rap than I am missing?

There is in the song I was referring to, and numerous other songs. I'd be happy to give some examples and explain why there is more.

Also there are plenty of good rappers who aren't black... you are aware of this right?

Yes, maybe he should. I'm sure it would be much more popular. It doesn't matter. Everything loses its authenticity when misheard.

Most people who listen to his music don't mishear what he said. It's not difficult to understand if you try and listen a little.

If you go into a song expecting to dislike it, then probably you won't hear the lyrics right.

Why do you need to know this?

I don't, just curious. If you're not comfortable telling me then no worries.

That joke was funny when I heard it the first time.

But if you want to steal jokes and base whole debates off them, I guess I can't stop you.

Ughhhh...I'm not getting into another argument about liberals with you. I give up, you are beyond reasoning with.

Congrats on finding the only people on earth who think Nickelback are better than the Beatles. I may have taken their position more seriously though if they spelled Nickelback right.

I've already argued with EnigmaticMan, I don't plan on doing it twice. If you have any original opinions present them. Otherwise don't waste my time.

Rap is becoming common to use as background noise in film...

Sorry if I don't consider you knowledgeable because you heard it in a couple movies.

Definition of "song"

Semantics...you know what I meant.

Is that not what rap is?

Here is throat-singing. I actually saw a pretty cool documentary about it. I'm still of the opinion that it sounds awful though.

But that makes a world of difference...

And I like the way that they are delivered...love it in fact. My only point was that since we obviously aren't going to agree on that, we should concentrate on something that is less reliant on subjective musical tastes.

Then why doesn't the radio play better songs?

Ask the people who own the radio stations. A lot of time popular opinion of songs is pretty bad. People don't always want to listen to music with intellectual meanings, but would rather hear someone talking about their gold studded teeth.

Ice T

He was pretty good back in the day. No one of my favorites though.

If you are interested in listening to a couple rap songs I consider good, I also posted Get By by Talib Kweli. Or don't if you don't want to.

I did. I liked it, somewhat; however, EnigmaticMan had a terrific response to your interpretation.

Once again, get an original opinion about the song, or my interpretation of it and we can talk.

The most meaningful lyrics, if badly written, are of little value.

Fortunately "Dumb it Down" is written amazingly well.

Well, then my interpretation of media stereotype is better.

Your interpretation of what I said is better than my own...okay, sure.

As am I.

Black rapper, and drumbeat...real deep analysis.

Honestly, that was very unintelligent. I could barely understand the lyrics, and furthermore, I did catch multiple swear words (which undoubtedly fits the media stereotype of rap).

If you want the lyrics, here they are.

The swearing you heard was satirical. Lupe wasn't the one swearing, but instead it was another rapper who was supposed to represent mainstream rap.

If you actually tried to understand the song next time then maybe I wouldn't have to sit you down like a child and explain it to you.

Well congratulations to Lupe! Unfortunately, I could not understand half of what he said, so in actuality, it was rather pointless.

Maybe he should make it into a sing-a-long with the words at the bottom and a bouncing ball. Would you understand it then? Probably not? Well, I don't know if I can help you there.

Out of curiosity what type of music do you like?

Short and distilled for your pleasure.

First:

You've convinced me, New York is a very well written song with meanings that are beyond superficial. I did about a poor a job interpreting that as you did with "Dumb it Down."

2nd:

The first fact does nothing to diminish how well written "Dumb it Down is"

3rd

Funny you should criticize "Dumb it Down" for being based on culture when "New York" does the same.

4th

If you are bigoted against blacks and black culture then I guess there is nothing I can say that will convince you that good music can be produced from these people.

5th

While the lyrics of many rappers are meaningless, I don't use this as an excuse to throw out the whole genre. Were this the case then there would likely be few genres I could listen to.

6th

Free-styling is when someone plays a beat and someone raps to it without anything written down beforehand. It's like improv, but with rap.

7th

I laughed when you said that "All Along the Watchtower" was your first choice. At least we have some common ground.

8th

I enjoy the music of other cultures, even if I don't fully understand them. I've listened to cuban hip-hop, Mexican rock, french techno and a million other things that I enjoy. If we isolate ourselves within our own culture then things can get boring. I try not to be so arrogant as to assume that my own culture is the best.

If I missed any important points that you wanted me to address just bring them up in your response to this.

Also, send me a link to your debate with maholinder if you don't mind. I'd be happy to see your scientific arguments against global warming.

I think you misinterpreted what I meant by media stereotype.

I was talking not about the style of music, but the content. In the media rap is often portrayed as womanizing, violent and unintelligent. I was giving examples of rappers whose lyrics do not fall into this category. Lupe's song actually is criticizing those rappers who make music that is misogynistic and unintelligent.

You seriously need to buy a dictionary/actually pay attention to my arguments. I didn't generalize anyone, except maybe people who think Nickelback is better than the Beatles. These people need a fork stabbed in their ear. There I said it, so sue me. I'm not sure how this counts as a generalization since I'm not actually sure there are any people who hold the opinion that the Beatles were less talented than Nickelback. There are certainly people who would rather listen to Nickelback, but this isn't what I was saying (try to keep up).

So you are saying that the only way in which one cannot like the lyrics is to not understand them? I read EnigmaticMan's dispute, and agreed with it for the most part. I just don't like rap, regardless of the meaning.

No, my point was that you Terminator, don't understand the lyrics. Not people in general, not people who like this or that music, but you. Go ahead an prove me wrong if you want.

I also don't care one way or another if you like to listen to the music. Like I said to enigmaticman, I don't like classical music but Beethoven was clearly a very good artist, and I am not going to take that away from him just because I don't like to listen to his songs.

I've heard rap before. There was even a tune or two which I thought of as "catchy". I daren't venture any further, though; the overall quality is heinous to say the least.

As I've had to explain a hundred times in this debate, I don't care about "catchy" tunes. For all that it matters to this argument they could have been throat-singing while scraping their nails on the chalkboard. I was arguing about the lyrics, not the way in which they are delivered.

As far as the majority of the genre in this respect, you may have a point if you are talking about the stuff on the radio. That's why I provided good examples of rap, and didn't just say rap in general.

Perhaps I did try, but simply not in writing on this site?

Or perhaps you didn't? Why do you phrase it as a question. You know whether you did or didn't and if you did and I was wrong then show me...or even easier, look at my interpretation (since I already agree with it) and argue either a) why you think I'm wrong about this interpretation or b) why I'm right, but the song still sucks. This is pretty straightforward...I've already done all the work, and if you continue along your current trend so has enigmaticman since you're just going to repeat whatever he said.

Define "good".

Well we're talking about lyrics, so meaningful would be a good word to use. And I mean that in multiple ways.

I thought it was quite a novel way to argue.

Argue? There was no argument, you just admitted to being a stubborn nutjob who believes in government conspiracies and refuses to listen to science. I can understand though if you're frustrated on being called out about your lack of knowledge on a subject. I would be too if I regarded my own intelligence as highly as you do yours. Must be a great shock when you go into reality and find you are mistaken.

Also, are you seriously dumb enough to think that capitalism and environmentalism are incompatible? Not on topic, so feel free to ignore this...just was wondering since I never really understood your logic here.

(A), (C), and (D)

Disagree. Tens of millions of people listen to hip-hop/rap on a regular basis, and therefore the messages portrayed in these songs are some of the most influential in all of music (hip-hop/rap has influences that spread into many other nations around the world). Lupe's concern about the messages portrayed in rap go deeper than merely dissing other rappers. Like I've said a couple times before, he seriously bothered by the objectification of women in rap songs and thinks it is a serious issue. On this point I would have to agree. Girls growing up, listening to music that refers to them as nothing more than something to fuck is a real problem, and by standing up and pointing this fact out to an audience that may not want to hear it, Lupe is being (as he says) fearless. Now obviously you don't listen to rap so the issue isn't as important to you, but Lupe is talking to people who grew up listening almost entirely to rap. These are people who freestyle with their friends on weekends (harder than it sounds by the way, only a couple of my friends are decent at it) and many of whom see being discovered as a rap artist as the only way to get out of their situation.

Materialism is another aspect of hip-hop that Lupe is arguing against, and once again I agree with his criticism. It's not news to anyone that most rap songs glorify lavish lifestyles, just turn on MTV cribs to see what I'm talking about. Gold chains, tricked out cars, even gold teeth...these are common subjects in rap songs. It doesn't take a genius to realize how unintelligent lyrics like these are.

None of this really makes a difference though since you don't believe your own criticisms. Your own opinion of hip-hop/rap was that it was unintelligent before we started this debate. Scroll up and look, if you disagree...the proof is there.

Lupe isn't allowed to criticize the fans of other artists, because that right is yours exclusively? Your logic is incomprehensible.

How should he have responded if he sees a problem? "Um could you guys please stop making songs that degrade women? I would really appreciate that, thanks." Something tells me that this probably wouldn't get his message across to his listeners.

Nor does your argument about the theme being important to you really undermine the song's message or lyrics. I care little about the issues of 19th century industrial workers in England, yet I can still recognize Hard Times by Charles Dickens as an extremely well written and important novel. You already know this since you don't live in New York (or maybe you have in the past, correct me if I'm wrong) and yet you recognize the lyrics of U2's song as being meaningful.

As far as the self promoting part (A), even Shakespere bragged about himself in his sonnets. Your arguments about envy and spite are unfounded as well since the entire tone of the song is humorous. Once again, should he be politely asking the other rappers who write songs like Move Bitch to kindly stop degrading women? Face it, the only reason you have issue with this is because you went into this debate with certain notions about rap, and regardless of what evidence is shown to you, you will see what you want.

Which brings us to (E).

I told you that doesn't matter. We are trying to move beyond subjectivity a little. Were you to argue something like: "I don't like most rap because it is simplistically written and I disagree with the themes presented by many mainstream rappers" then you would have a legitimate argument. Actually that sounds familiar...

Now, below I shall provide another set of lyrics which I consider to be good:

What, you realize that New York wasn't a good example? I have no issue with U2 as a band (saw them last year in concert actually), and Bono's work with charities is inspiring. What confused me though is that I gave you the oppurtunity to choose any song in any genre, and you chose the one you did. I'm not trying to argue that "Dumb it Down" is the pinnacle of lyricism, but it is extremely well written. Does this mean that there are better songs out there? Almost certainly. Hell, I can think of some pretty quickly. All along the watchtower by Bob Dylan was written in the spirit of the Beat movement of the 60's and the lyrics can be classified more as a poem then the lyrics to a song (although the song itself is good too). My point with this being that finding another good song in and of itself doesn't show that Lupe's song is poorly written, unless it is somehow leaps and bounds better. Or to put it another way: no one could argue that Ted Kaczynski wasn't a bad man because Osama Bin Laden is worse.

I did ask for an example of a song that does have good lyrics though, and if your point was valid then that song should not even be comparable lyrically to Lupe's song. It should be so much better that it makes Lupe's song look like it was written by a child, since you claim that the song (and all of rap) was terrible. I think I showed pretty conclusively that, at the very least Lupe's song is well written, and at best exceeds in quality the lyrics to "New York" by a large margin. You are unmoved however, so I will analyze the song of your choosing.

Why is his rap better simply because he proclaims it to be?

First, the whole thing is tongue-in-cheek. Second, he's not the only one since nearly every reviewer agrees. And even those who think his album The Cool was only good, and not great still point to "Dumb it Down" as a very intelligent and well written song. Even Jay-Z, one of the most respected rappers of all time, has called him a "genius rapper."

The guy is having fun with this rap, and if you actually paid attention you would see this. He's confident yes, but not to the point of "spite and anger" as you proclaim. Now, maybe your not used to music like this, so I can understand if you didn't immediately pick up on the tone, but the chorus alone should have clued you into that.

Again you presume too much (and To kill a mocking bird is better).

I said that you may not be used to the language. Maybe you are and I'm mistaken, and if so great. The song will be easier to understand. With your petty complaints about grammar though, I'd say it's a good bet you aren't too familiar with it.

Unrelated but I'll comment anyway: while To Kill a Mockingbird is a great novel, and certainly an American classic that deals well with race in the American south, Mark Twain's novel is historically more important because it is one of the first major literary critiques of the racism that existed in the south. Hemmingway said: "All modern American literature comes from" Huck Finn. I also enjoyed it because I am partial to satirical works, which is why Hard Times is my favorite 19th century British novel, and one of the reasons why I enjoy "Dumb it Down."

The windshield is minstrel, the whole grill is roadkill, so trill and so sincere.

when a bloke in a trench coat and the locs in the chair

You skipped a part. I don't know if this was intentional or accidental but here is the full lyric:

The windshield is minstrel, the whole grill is roadkill, so trill and so sincere. Yeah, I'm both them there

Took both pills, when a bloke in a trench coat and the locs in the chair had approached him here

The first line makes reference to the previous line when it uses the metaphor of the car (which I discussed in my previous post). I also talked about how he uses the idea of a minstrel show to compare how the shallow messages of current rappers compare to the shallow and racist portrayal of blacks in these shows. The next part, about roadkill in the grill could be referring to how other rappers are like roadkill in a car that he is driving or, since he gave over the wheel in the last verse it could be that the listeners/rappers are failing to avoid the BS (the deer and chickens) that plague much of rap. The last section of this line is likely referring to Lupe himself when he says he is trill (a slang term coming from the combination of the words "true" and "real" meaning that the rapper is well respected) and sincere.

The second line of the section you quoted is, as I stated previously, is an allusion to the Matrix. I don't know if you've seen the movie, but Neo, the main character (played by Keanu Reeves) is offered two pills (one red, one blue) by a man in a trench coat. The blue pill would transport Neo back to his normal life (which we find out is just an illusion created by computers). The red pill would take Neo out of the "fake" world and into the real one. Lupe, by saying that he is taking both pills, says that he will remain in the rap game, while staying real at the same time.

Now I'm not sure what you found wrong with either of these lines, but I'm here is my interpretation of each if that clears anything up.

Hence the absence of an analysis on your part? Don't worry, I won't run away because your argument is a page-or-two long.

The reason I didn't write a full analysis of the song, was because I thought it was a pointless exercise. I mean you tried to analyze "Dumb it Down", and for the most part it was a waste of time for both of us. You are the one who is convinced "New York" is a good song, so I assumed you would be the one to try and convince me. The way you want to go about doing this is backwards. But fine, you want an analysis then an analysis you shall get. Like you when you analyzed the Lupe song, song however, I will be hindered by the fact that I am not familiar with the song. I'll do my best though:

In New York freedom looks like

Too many choices

This is clearly a reference to how much there is to do in New York, as well as a statement about how freedom, one of America's most important values, is so clearly exemplified in the daily life of New York. He also gives a slight negative connotation to the idea that there are too many choices, which probably refers to the whole idea that in our modern life we are offered so many options that it can be overwhelming. Reminds me of the line (I forget who said it) 200 channels, and not one good thing on T.V.

In New York I found a friend

To drown out the other voices

Either this means that he met someone in New York who mattered to him, or, more likely, that New York was the friend he made which allowed him to settle his nerves. It was a place he really fit in.

Voices on the cell phone

Voices from home

Voices of the hard sell

Voices down the stairwell

In New York

These lines appear to be a representation of the singers anxieties which are soothed by his New friend (see what I did there?). He is constantly barraged by cell phone calls, his family, advertisements and...well I don't know what he's referencing with voices down the stairwell. Maybe there's a lot of buildings in New York, and thus lots of stairwells? If you have thoughts on this go right ahead and clue me in.

Just got a place in New York

This is part of the narrative that he is going to be referring to throughout the rest of the song. Obviously he just moved to New York.

In New York summers get hot

Well into the hundreds

You can't walk around the block

Without a change of clothin'

Summers being hot obviously can refer to the literal temperature being so hot that people sweat through their clothes. On a deeper level he may be referring to all the activity that goes on in New York, and how many people have to show multiple versions of themselves when they go from place to place.

Hot as a hairdryer in your face

Hot as a handbag and a can of mace

New York

I just got a place in New York

You analyzed part of this section, and there isn't all that much else there (so far as I can see, of course feel free to point out what I missed). The hairdryer in your face part is a pretty good comparison to a muggy day in new york.

In New York you can forget

Forget how to sit still

Tell yourself you will stay in

But it's down to Alphaville

Relatively straightforward lyric. With the hustle and bustle of New York it's impossible to not be constantly doing something. There is always something going on so you can't stay in. I don't get the Alphaville reference...a place in New York maybe?

The Irish have been comin' here for years

Feel like they own the place

They got the airport, city hall, asphalt, dance floor

They even got the police

Referring to the history of Irish immigrants in New York and their current political influence. Also a reference to Bono's own Irish heritage (presumably he is the one moving there? I don't know if this song is based on a real story or not)

Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics

Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew

Happily, not like me and you

That's where I lost you, New York

Singer is commenting on the fact that there is a lot of diversity in New York, and a wide variety of different perspectives on things like religion and politics. The singer is saying that he and his wife are not like these ideological extremists, however.

We also get another piece of information about the singers personal life, in that he lost his wife after they moved to New York.

In New York I lost it all

To you and your vices

Still I'm stayin' on to figure out

My mid life crisis

Here is the interesting part, story wise. It appears that while in New York something in their relationship went wrong and his wife left the city. The singer, on the other hand, is trying to deal with his mid-life crisis, by staying in the city, which he clearly loves.

I hit an iceberg in my life

You know I'm still afloat

You lose your balance, lose your wife

In the queue for the lifeboat

More juicy story lines. The comparison of his life to the sinking of the titanic is apparent and shows how dramatically and quickly his life has become a shipwreck. The singer is still surviving, but only barely and now without his wife.

You got to put the women and children first

But you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York

Now it's beginning to look like he gave up his wife and kids for the city itself. He allowed the city to get in the way of his family and now they have left him, yet still he refuses to leave New York.

In the stillness of the evening

When the sun has had it's day

I heard your voice whisperin'

Come away now

Perhaps a final request by his wife to leave the city before he loses his family? Either the ending is ambiguous (he leaves or he doesn't and we don't know which) or as previous lines suggested, he stays in the city and doesn't leave.

So that's what I got from the song. Assuming I didn't fuck it up royally (a big assumption for me to make) then I would argue that while "New York" may be a good and well written song, it still doesn't compare to "Dumb it Down" if we are judging both on lyrical content. I'm not going to say much more about it here though since you still need to tell me if I did the song justice (which is why this whole system of analyzing each others songs is backwards).

Seems like you completely missed the political commentary to me.

Well now I've missed it twice. How about we stop playing hide and go seek, and you just point out what I am clearly too thick to perceive.

I disagree.

While that's well and good, I provided an argument.

So at one point you believe most rap is lyrically deficient, and at others you believe it is superior to all other genres, exclusively because of its lyrics.

Ughhhhhh...I thought I was pretty clear about this but I'll spell it out.

I think that most mainstream rappers have songs with hollow meanings and not a lot of depth. What these rappers can do though is write clever rhymes that usually have two meanings. The underlying theme of these rhymes though are usually about misogyny, violence or other equally shallow ideas (gold chains for example).

Understand? These rappers are good with lyrics, but aren't really saying anything worth hearing. Lupe is both good at creating clever lyrics, and is talking about meaningful subjects. This is why he stands out.

And I find it amusing that you are unaware of your own lack of ability, and wish to point out the irony of that statement. You misinterpreted New York, and now you accuse me of misinterpreting Dumb it Down.

How did I misinterpret "New York"? I'm not disagreeing, and I very well could have (in fact probably did) but you offer no reasons on how I misinterpreted it. In short, show me where I fucked up. I'm assuming that if you had a good argument about how I fucked it up you would have presented it, for no other reason than to make me look bad. If this isn't the case however, and you do have a legitimate reason why I am inept at interpreting "New York" then go right ahead.

Do you actually wish for me to do that? It is not a brief undertaking to decipher a poem, even a part of it. It can take hours to type, not to mention the point that poems have many meanings, and that it is virtually impossible to be wrong if you back up your assertions. To run through all the interpretations (even my own) is something I am simply unwilling to do.

Oh god no, that's not what I meant at all. I might not be nice, but I'm not a sadist. My point was that you often can't understand a good piece of poetry merely by reading over it once. I definitely didn't want you to analyze "The Wasteland" though. That would have been terrible (unless you're into that thing). I also don't think that it's interpretation would serve any purpose whatsoever.

To be clear: no need to interpret anything.

This seems masochistic to me.

I enjoyed ever single play. It's also one of the reasons I didn't mind writing a critique of it, because it allowed me to think critically about the lyrics, and revel in Lupe's genius. I'm not asking you to be a fan though, just to get a little perspective on why I am.

Your illusions of intellectual superiority neither amuse nor intimidate me. In your contempt for me and my musical predilections, you reveal yourself to be of the same character of Lupe himself. While dragging oneself out of a ghetto is commendable, I wish that he would leave the idiosyncrasies behind; they are clearly infecting you.

Feeling a little insecure are we? I'm surprised you haven't brought up meaningless test scores yet.

I don't lay claim to any intellectual superiority. You aren't an idiot clearly, but you are arrogant and this is the only quality of yours I don't like, because it blinds you from the legitimacy of other's points of view. Don't mistake this as disdain or hatred though...you could be a great guy for all I know. I just know that on this site, you tend to act like someone whose opinion of himself is larger than the highest sky scrapers in New York.

I've addressed all this in my response to enigmaticman's post. Please go to my most recent one.

Just because you don't understand what the lyrics mean doesn't mean they aren't complex...it means you're either close minded, or thick (or both). Once again refer to my most recent response to enigmaticman if you want to know why I described these lyrics as complex. Unlike you, he at least tried to understand what the meaning of the lyrics was. Who knows? You may even learn something about good music.

There is no definitive way to value poetry...

That was my point. Thank you for reiterating it.

How do you know that?

Because I didn't get dropped as a child. Also I have ears.

That is a strange conclusion to make. There is an incredible amount of cultural difference between western democracies.

Eh, I guess it's relative, but my point was that we aren't arguing about peruvian hip-hop or Tuvan throat-singing so I think that we both understand the relevant cultures enough to meaningfully comment about them.

I shall enjoy this. First, I shall attempt to discern the meaning of the lyrics, in the context that you have provided:

Good, I'll enjoy it too. I love music so it should be fun.

Sorry I didn't go through the whole song and analyze it but last time I tried putting a lot of effort into a debate with you, you ended up just giving a trite response. Now that I know you plan on putting thought into this discussion (thank you for doing so by the way) I will be happy to discuss the song, which I think can be judged as better than the U2 song you provided on a level that is more than subjective.

First, the full lyrics:

[Verse 1:]

I'm fearless

Now hear this

I'm earless

And I'm peer-less

That means I'm eyeless

Which means I'm tearless

Which means my iris resides where my ears is

Which means I'm blinded

But I'mma find it I can feel it's nearness

But I'mma veer so I don't come near

Like a chicken or a deer

But I remember I'm not a listener or a seer so my windshield smear

Here, you steer, I really shouldn't be behind this, clearly cause my blindness

The windshield is minstrel, the whole grill is roadkill, so trill and so sincere. Yeah, I'm both them there

Took both pills, when a bloke in a trench coat and the locs in the chair had approached him here

And he clear as a ghost, so a biter of the throats in the mirror

The writer of the quotes for the ghosts who supplier of the notes to the living

Riveting is rosy, pockets full of posies, given to the mother of the deceased. Awaken at war, 'til I'm restin' in peace

[Chorus 1:]

You goin' over niggas' heads Lu (Dumb it down)

They tellin' me that they don't feel you (Dumb it down)

We ain't graduate from school nigga (Dumb it down)

Them big words ain't cool nigga (Dumb it down)

Yeah I heard Mean And Vicious nigga (Dumb it down)

Make a song for the bitches nigga (Dumb it down)

We don't care about the weather nigga (Dumb it down)

You'll sell more records if you (Dumb it down)

[Verse 2:]

And I'm mouthless

Which means I'm soundless

Now as far as the hearing, I've found it

It was as far as the distance from an earring to the ground is

But the doorknockers on the ear of a stewardess in a Lear

She fine and she flyin, I feel I'm flying by'em 'cause my mind's on cloud nine and in her mind at the same time

Pimp C the wings on the underground king

Who's also Klingon

To infinity and beyond

Something really stinks, but I Spinks like Leon

Or lying in the desert

I'm flying on Pegasus you're flying on the pheasant

Rider of the white powder, picker of the fire flowers, spit hot fire like Dylon on Chappelle's skit

Yeah, smell it on my unicorn, don't snort the white horse, but toot my own horn (sleep)

[Chorus 2:]

You've been shedding too much light Lu (Dumb it down)

You make'em wanna do right Lu (Dumb it down)

They're getting self-esteem Lu (Dumb it down)

These girls are trying to be queens Lu (Dumb it down)

They're trying to graduate from school Lu (Dumb it down)

They're starting to think that smart is cool Lu (Dumb it down)

They're trying to get up out the hood Lu (Dumb it down)

I'll tell you what you should do (Dumb it down)

[Verse 3:]

And I'm brainless

Which means I'm headless

Like Ichabod Crane is

Or foreplay-less sex is

Which makes me stainless

With no neck left to hang the chain with

Which makes me necklace-less

Like a necklace theft

And I ain't used my headrest yet

They said they need proof like a vestless chest 'bout the best, fair F-F-jet in the nest

Who exudes confidence and excess depth

Even Scuba Steve would find it hard to breathe

Around these leagues

My snorkle is a tuba, Lu the ruler around these seas

Westside Poseidon, Westside beside'em, chest high and rising

Almost touching the knees of stewardess and the pilot

Lucky they make you flowered

Personal floating devices, tricks falling out of my sleeves

David Blaine

Make it rain

You Make a boat

I make a plane

Then, I pull the plug and I make it drain

Until I feel like flowing and filling it up again..(Westside)

[Chorus 3:]

You putting me to sleep nigga (Dumb it down)

That's why you ain't popping in the streets nigga (Dumb it down)

You ain't winning no awards nigga (Dumb it down)

Robots and skateboards nigga? (Dumb it down)

GQ Man Of The Year G? (Dumb it down)

Shit ain't rocking over here B (Dumb it down)

Won't you talk about your cars nigga? (Dumb it down)

And what the fuck is goyard nigga (Dumb it down)

Make it rain for the chicks (Dumb it down)

Pour champagne on a bitch (Dumb it down)

What the fuck is wrong with you? (Dumb it down)

How can I get on a song with you? (Dumb it down)

[Gemini: talking]

Look B, here's my man, my two way, (hey) uh, what should I - ah here take this (hey) that right there, fuck what my boys talk about nigga, (hey) nigga you hot to me, I like you (Dumb it down)

[Lupe:]

Bishop G, they told me I should come down cousin, but I flatly refuse I ain't dumb down nothing

Now the first verse (the one you analyzed) is him talking to the fans of hip-hop/rap that he considers ignorant. In the first line he claims he is fearless because the whole song is essentially taking on the established paradigm of rap's subject matter which often is unintelligent and degrading to women (a common theme in Lupe's songs is criticizing those rappers which degrade women).

By saying that he is earless, peerless and eyeless he is saying that he can't hear or see the critics (which are represented in the chorus) and that because of this he is tearless...in other words these critics don't bother him. Obviously the peerless part is a double entendre which could mean that he either has no equal when it comes to rap, or that no other rappers are doing what he is doing by criticizing the ignorance of many hip-hop artists.

Another interpretation of this verse is that he is talking about blinded fans looking instead of listening ("which means my iris resides where my ears is"). The bullshit that exists in many rap songs is blinding, but Lupe says I'mma veer so I don't come near. The 'chicken or a deer" part is simply a metaphor about how he avoids the BS prevelant in mainstream rap like people avoid animals in the road (although if you can think of an alternative meaning I'd love to hear it...knowing Lupe there might be one).

The line about him not being "a listener or a seer" means that he can't see clearly (my windshield smear) because he is the artist and not the audience. He doesn't have the proper perspective to judge his own lyrics and therefore hands over the wheel to the audience though, but they don't avoid what he had to veer away from so "the whole grill is roadkill. Another interpretation of this verse is that he is thinking about giving up the wheel entirely by separating himself from the rap game entirely because it is a "minstrel" show. (If your not familiar with what this is, it was when white people dressed in blackface and acted like caricature of black people. What Lupe is saying is that those people raping the the songs are portraying blacks no better.)

In his next line he makes a reference to the matrix by saying he took both pills. What this likely means is that he is living in two worlds at the same time: the BS one created by ignorant hip-hop artists, and the "real" one which is where he believes the truth to lie. He is both a part of the hip-hop/rap world and removed from it at the same time.

"The writer of the quotes for the ghosts who supplier of the notes to the living" appears to be him saying that he is a ghostwriter for ghost writers.

In the final line of this verse he talks about how he is "Riveting as Rosie" which is a reference to the WWII Rosie the Riveter poster. This is a reference both to how good his raps are, and how he is looking to empower women with his rhymes...something not often seen in hip-hop/rap songs. This reference also relates to the rest of the line which goes Awaken at war, 'til I'm restin' in peace which likely means that he will be fighting until he dies to change the hip-hop/rap game for the better.

The first Chorus is relatively self explanatory. It represents the pressure put on rappers (and specifically on Lupe) to conform to the standard themes of hip-hop and "dumb down" his lyrics. The first Chorus is mostly concerned with the fact that many of his lyrics are heady, and that most of the uneducated people in the hood don't want to hear that kind of music.

I'm going to stop here for the sake of brevity, and because I think I've made my point.

The extract from "Dumb it Down" contains a host of immodesties

Most of which you misinterpreted (not through any fault of your own, I only gave you a portion of the song and I know how hard it is to search "Dumb it Down" Lyrics on google). He was really saying that he is trying to avoid the BS that rap portrays and how he refuses to dumb down his lyrics for the sake of an ignorant audience. Now you could argue that he is being immodest by claiming that his raps are more intelligent than other rappers, but I doubt he'd find a lot of opposition to that point, especially if we are only looking at mainstream rap.

some superficial contradictions

Are you saying that these phrases are only contradictory on the surface (superficially)? If so then I'd say that this isn't a problem since the song is meant to be read on a deeper level.

some rhyming

Is this a criticism?

and some colloquialisms

The language he is using is the language he grew up using in Chicago, and the language that his audience is familiar with. This may be the only part where cultural differences may create an issue in listening. I'm used to listening to this kind of music so it doesn't bother me, but you may have to force yourself to look past it if your going to look at lyrics like these.

If you are arguing that coloquilisms in a work of art is a negative, however, then I would ask you to read what many consider to be the single most important piece of American fiction: Huckleberry Fin.

as well as an ill conceived metaphor or two

There is quite a few more than one or two metaphors, and any that you interpreted to be ill conceived, likely come from a misunderstanding on your part and not a lack of talent on Lupe's, but if you insist that they are ill conceived then I would be happy to talk about any specific lines.

Like I said before, Lupe's lyrics are extremely complex and I get new meanings out of them on almost every listen. Therefore i likely missed something when going through the song, and possibly misinterpreted a thing or two.

Your U2 song on the other hand is relatively straightforward. While it uses one or two lines that are open to multiple interpretations and double meanings, "Dumb it Down" is filled with them. Now this can't be held against "New York" completely because double meanings of rhymes is a huge part of the genre and less so with U2's type of music. Even rap songs I consider to be inferior usually have a couple clever turns of phrase that have meanings deeper than what they first appear to be (one of the reasons I enjoy the genre).

Also, pointing out there's a lot of diversity in New York is pretty weak political commentary. I guess their next song is going to be about how many Christians they see when they go to Church. How edgy.

In short, while I'm sure that U2 wrote a very nice song about New York, it doesn't hold a candle to "Dumb it Down" lyrically. There is a simple reason for this: rap is almost all about the lyrics, and few do it better than Lupe. I find it funny though that you use your own lack of ability to understand the lyrics of "Dumb it Down" as a negative. I know when I read many famous works of poetry the meaning is not apparent immediately to me, but usually I don't just write the whole thing off as shitty. Otherwise I never would have come to like T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" (seriously, if you've never read it before, read through a part of it once and see if you can decipher the meaning).

I don't blame you though for not understanding it. I had a serious advantage in that this is a genre I listen to often, and this particular song I've listened to about a hundred times. What you should realize though, is that while "New York" may make one allusion in the whole song (the one about the titanic) there are more allusions than I can count on both hands (and probably at least one foot).

I can understand though if you want simpler songs. They require less thinking, and the meanings are not far below the surface. I wouldn't ask Lupe to do that though because I bet he'd respond with: "*I flatly refuse, I ain't dumb down nothing."

Shouldn't you be off trying to save a polar bear as opposed to "wasting the world's energy reserves" debating with somebody you obviously hold in contempt?

Actually Thursdays are my save the dolphins vegan cupcake sale. Polar bears are every other tuesday.

Good artists in your opinion. They do not count as evidence, as their artistic worth is debatable.

So lets debate it. I wouldn't have presented my thoughts if I wasn't willing to defend them (unlike some people on this site).

only appreciate lyrics if I consider them to be good. You seem to be under the illusion that negative opinions are not suitable responses, whereas positive opinions (your own) are.

No, but you provided no contradictory arguments as to why these lyrics weren't good. My assumption was that if you had some you would have given them...was I mistaken?

Then why is the basis of your argument a subjective opinion of the lyrics?

If the value of lyrics was completely subjective then there would be no way to judge the value of poetry, or even other works of art that rely on words such as novels. All criticism of these works (both positive and negative) could just be countered by saying: "that's just an opinion." And besides, if this were the case, then I would have equal ground on which to argue that a song is good that you do that a song is bad.

Obviously though we know that lyrics aren't wholly subjective. No one (who wasn't dropped as a child) would argue that Nickelback are better artists than The Beatles. Now there are songs that I don't necessarily like to listen to because I don't particularly enjoy the genre, but I will still admit it when a song is well written. I don't particularly like classical music for example, but there is no denying that Beethoven was a genius.

There are obviously cultural differences that can contribute to our appreciation of music, but since we both speak English and both live in western modern democracies (you are from the U.K. right?) then our cultural differences shouldn't be too great.

Nor does my opinion of you matter in a debate. We aren't arguing about each other we are arguing about music, so lets stick to the topic at hand, k? Good.

Now, Lupe Fiasco has better songs than "Dumb it Down" but I chose it because it's one of my personal favorites, and (more importantly) it deals with what you were arguing: the numerous influences that try and dumb down hip-hop/rap music. I would agree with the statement that most hip-hop/rap you hear on the radio is pretty mindless, and sometimes even comes close to the link you posted. Lupe's song is one in which he addresses this issue through the three variations of the chorus. This part in itself is good, but where Lupe really showcases his talents is in the verses. To save you the trouble of having to look it up here is the first verse:

I'm fearless

Now hear this

I'm earless

And I'm peer-less

That means I'm eyeless

Which means I'm tearless

Which means my iris resides where my ears is

Which means I'm blinded

But I'mma find it I can feel it's nearness

But I'mma veer so I don't come near

Like a chicken or a deer

But I remember I'm not a listener or a seer so my windshield smear

Here, you steer, I really shouldn't be behind this, clearly cause my blindness

The windshield is minstrel, the whole grill is roadkill, so trill and so sincere. Yeah, I'm both them there

Took both pills, when a bloke in a trench coat and the locs in the chair had approached him here

And he clear as a ghost, so a biter of the throats in the mirror

The writer of the quotes for the ghosts who supplier of the notes to the living

Riveting is rosy, pockets full of posies, given to the mother of the deceased. Awaken at war, 'til I'm restin' in peace

Like a good movie, the complexity of the rhymes are such that I needed to listen to the song a number of times to fully understand it.

Now, if you disagree that these aren't great lyrics then please actually give reasons this time, and maybe provide a song that you think does exemplify what you consider to be "good lyrics." But once again the option is there for you to just admit you down know what your talking about, and end the argument right now. I'm sure no one will hold it against you :)

Coulda fooled me.

Awww...are you still sore that I pointed out your ignorance on climate change? Poor baby.

Why? Hitler was Austrian.

I know, and what you posted wasn't really rap.

You see, the problem is that I don't care for your opinions on the subject.

No, the problem is that you refuse to listen to any opinions that may differ from your own. I give you four examples of very good artists as opposed to some random guy in his basement, and the most you can do is claim it's just some guy talking over a drumbeat. If you actually understood rap, and its African origins then you would understand that the genre was initially used as a means of telling stories. It's current incarnation (the one we now think of when we hear rap) is a blend of this style and the blues/jazz that came about in the American south over the past 100 years or so. But lets say you don't like the style...that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to appreciate the lyrics, which, if you remember was my main point about rap and my main reason for listening to the genre. If you could move past your prejudices, you would realize how lyrically talented the artists I posted really are...instead, you chose to take the low road.

The enjoyment of music is a subjective experience, to be sure, so there is no way to argue someone into liking a genre, artist or particular song. What I can do though is point out that the less subjective part of this music, the words themselves (the most important part of a rap song) are as good as any (and better than the majority of) artists in the history of modern music.

Debatable

You see the difference between you and me is that if our positions were reversed I would at least give whatever genre you wanted to present to me a chance before writing off the whole thing. You on the other hand choose (once again) to be a closed minded snob, who wishes only to bask in his own closed off world hearing his own opinions repeated to him, protected from reality lest it disturb his fragile worldview. Grow up.

But I would argue that we would both come toward the center if we understood each others music. My point was that you aren't in a position to comment on rap because you know nothing about the genre other than maybe its portrayal as a mindless and womanizing genre in the media.

There are rappers out there who are extremely talented...unfortunately these are not the ones that are often played on the radio so people like you (and others in this debate) assume that they don't exist.

Oh come on, I know your smarter than that.

We cannot mistake the worst iteration for the entirety of that thing. He didn't even post the video of a real rapper, just some kid in his basement.

Please read my response to him to get some examples of what I was talking about.

You know you're right. This one rap video that some guy made in his basement is representative of not only the whole genre but also the good quality rappers to which I was referring. Thank you for creating such a well thought out response, and not just repeating the media stereotype of hip-hop-rap music as a completely mindless and womanizing genre. /sarcasm

One might as well use Hitler as an example of why all Germans are evil. If you wanted to be fair about this you could have at least asked what artists I was talking about, but since I'm not a dick I'll at least give you the benefit of the doubt by actually giving some examples:

Get By - by Talib Kweli

I Used to Love HER - Common

Soundtrack to my Life - Kid CuDi

and to prove that not all rappers fall into the media stereotype you hear on the radio (and because Lupe is such a great artist):

I disagree. It is the policy of wikipedia to present only the facts, and not opinions, and therefore articles like the ones you mentioned actually portray their subjects fairly: discussing both the subject and possible criticisms to him/her/it. The moderators of wikipedia tend to do an excellent job of keeping bias out of the articles, and if you actually read some of them you would realize this.

(As a side note there is an entire article dedicated to criticism of marxism, so do some research before you judge).

If I'm not mistaken prayerfails is an atheist, and I think we can both agree that he is certainly not a liberal.

You criticize rap music, but I'm guessing that you know little about the genre. In my own opinion, the good rappers of the past couple years are some of the best lyricists in all of music. Music has gotten a lot better since 200 years ago, not worse.

You have clearly created puppet accounts to upvote yourself...please delete them.

You've avoided science but not arguments about science. I could go over a list of the things science and the scientific method has led to, but this wouldn't be enough for you since some guy claims to be abducted by aliens every wednesday. You reject evolution, and refuse to listen to reason when it comes to climate change, yet you still argue about them.

If you want to avoid it, then leave the issues to people who actually study them!

Yet in spite of the fact that you've never studied it, you always seem willing to give your thoughts on the matter, and certainly play the part of a science expert as best you can. Funny how that works, dontcha think?

The words are open to interpretation. I agree with John Scott's interpretation

The debate between the difference of agnosticism vs. atheism is literally the stupidest debate on the internet. Literally the only difference is how people view the two. Religious people want to feel less threatened by agnostics but still want to hate atheists so they create this big divide, as if there is some huge fundamental difference between the two beliefs. It is completely retarded, and a tedious exercise in semantics.

What is happening is people are taking these labels way too seriously. All atheists believe this with this exact wording, while agnostics all believe this with this exact wording. NO! The only difference is that some people like the associations one term has over another. Some people who consider themselves agnostics want to feel superior to their atheist counterparts, and some people who consider themselves atheists want to make their break from religion more dramatic: they are saying the same thing though...that they don't believe in a god. Otherwise they'd be deists.

Sorry for the rant, but this kind of thing pisses me off.

Who is "they" in that final "they are"?

The children...sorry about the ambiguity.

What about the parents' personal choice to teach their children what they will?

Which is why I don't actually support the idea. To a certain extent there is the right to be a "bad parent." Did you watch the video I linked to?

Knowing Dawkins, I'd say that this is the underlying motive.

Or at least a nice little side effect. His assumption is that religion won't survive if it is put on equal footing with other belief systems. Much like you suggested, he assumes that the only reason we believe certain things is because we grow up with them.

How does it become abusive?

Once again, did you watch the video? I tried to explain the whole: forcing your kids into your own category by showing disappointment when they choose differently, but theowarner is much more articulate on the subject than I ever could be.

No, I attempted to ignore that position...

In my own opinion? Children who witness these acts become more desensitized to them. Children growing up in violent areas witness violence that doesn't happen directly to them a lot. My own father growing up in queens saw a man who was hung from a street sign.

I think though it's safe to say that there is no actual conclusion we can make on this matter without evidence.

How many admit to being atheist?

Seriously?

For the most part, morality is instilled in people during childhood. In America, by a religious society and often by religious parents. I've never disputed that atheists have morals. Their morality (moral code, if you will) differs from my own; thus, their morality is, in my mind, immoral. That does not make it so.

I wouldn't necessarily describe most parts of our society as religious (although there are some aspects, and even whole parts of the nation which are), but there is some influence.

In general though, people will try to do good, and religion just defines what good means. My issue is when people use religion as an excuse not to think, but instead willingly embrace what was considered morality 2,000 years ago and has no place in our modern society (see discrimination against homosexuals).

So, if that petition were made law, what would happen to those who break the law?

Let me repeat that I think this is kind of a ridiculous petition that is well meaning but unrealistic.

To answer your question though, I think parenting classes would be appropriate.

They're your family.

And my friends.

I watch videos on youtube made by Christians. I laugh at them. I find their justifications to be horrendously simplistic and illogical.

I wouldn't generalize that with all Christians, but fundamentalists and apologists, yes, I would have to agree.

So you are arguing that people are inherently good? I argue that they are neither good nor bad, inherently. It forms over time.

No, I'd say that a person can be spoiled so that he/she is not good anymore, but I think that the vast majority of people are, at heart, trying to do good. That's why even the most evil acts, usually have some kind of twisted moral logic to them (at least in the mind of the people committing them).

Oh come on, I bet you care a little bit. If you were walking somewhere and you saw some trash on the street relatively close to a trash can, you wouldn't even consider putting it inside?

I would disagree with this premise. Viruses, and microbes are some of the most successful organisms ever to have existed (although I guess viruses aren't technically alive so scratch that). Survival of the fittest doesn't necessarily select for intelligence but merely the ability to pass on ones genes to the next generation. Intelligence isn't required for this to happen at all, and in fact, most families of life don't have anything that we'd consider to even resemble intelligence. Plants, which make up a large part of our ecosystem, don't have nervous systems and can't think. In addition, most animal species rely on other means of survival, not intelligence.

Even with hominids, intelligence is costly. Our brain requires 20% of our total energy, and when you have to hunt for every calorie your body needs, this can be very difficult to maintain.

But considering the number of species that have existed on the earth, and the time-span (about 500 million years of multi-celled organisms I think) the fact that there has only arisen one species of high intelligence shows that it is not at all inevitable..

I love George Carlin as a comedian. I think he is hilarious and often insightful about modern culture. If you begin taking comedians too seriously though, you're libel to get laughed at.

Carlin's "argument" is that the planet itself cannot be harmed by humans. I would agree if we are going with the literal definition of planet. The piece of rock orbiting around the sun will be just fine regardless of what we do. This is true. If this is what you meant when you said that they don't care primarily about the planet then I would have to agree.

My assumption though, was that you were talking not about the condition of the rock on which we reside, but the environment (in other words the living things on the earth). Now Carlin talked about how humans aren't really responsible for the extinctions of other species, and though the points he made were funny and entertaining, they were far from accurate. Surprisingly enough, comedians don't get peer reviewed...imagine that?

So yes, if we look at the cosmological picture, nothing really matters. Humans will eventually die out and the entire universe will eventually decay until there is nothing but darkness. But here on earth, we do care, even if in the grandest sense nothing matters.

As far as the selfish part, I'm surprised you would make this argument. The entire idea of capitalism, and why it works is because people are looking out for their self-interest. You and I both know that this actually is a very good thing, because it allows for effective and efficient use of resources. The reason people are proponents of capitalism isn't because they are greedy (like far left socialists would have you believe) but because everyone benefits from it. The added bonus is that personal liberty is also maximized under a capitalist system.

Environmentalism is similar in that it looks to maintain our own self interests: making sure we don't have a shitty dystopian future where we have to wear oxygen tanks to breathe (exaggeration of course), but it also involves the moral obligation that many environmentalists believe we have toward the other species on this earth (we dramatically changed their environments and many are now dying off). In other words, just like how capitalism has an objective function (it works) and a subjective function (freedom), so too does environmentalism have objective (protects our environment) and subjective (maintaining the biodiversity of our planet).

Now the main reason I disagree with your premise that most environmentalists are selfish is that it doesn't really make sense when you look at time scales. Let's say everyone decided to just say: "fuck it, who gives a shit. Let's just ignore the environment and live our lives without worrying about any damage we may do to the planet (euphemism for living organisms, not actual ball of rock)." While we may see some negative effects in our lifetime, the majority of these negative issues would be felt by future generations. I always kinda liked this quote:

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."

Now I understand that some people don't like being told what to do, so I try not to preach, but I do attempt to help the environment in my own actions and support politicians who try and enact "green" policies. But maybe that's just because I'm selfish ;)

I believe that we were in agreement regarding the dangers of the politicization of science, were we not?

Some may be intentional, others may not.

I agree that often the media, politicians or other special interest groups take scientific studies out of context or try to twist the facts to suit their own interests. Science itself though is as close as you can get to objective.

ake, for instance, the conclusion that many have reached that homosexuals are "born that way", whereas other studies suggest differently.

To what science are you referring? I haven't studied the subject extensively, but I do know that homosexuality is found in most mammal species, in addition to many fish, reptile and bird species. This seems to indicate that homosexuality comes about by birth, and not environment.

There was an experiment back in the '60s or '70s which "proved" that life can form from nonlife. The experiment turned out to be - what's-the-word - Bunk - that's it.

In science when people make claims about experiments they publish a paper about their results. Then other scientists attempt to repeat these experiments to get the same results. If they cannot repeat the experiment with the same results, then the conclusions are rejected. The Fleischmann-Pons experiment in which two scientists claimed to have discovered cold fusion is a great example of this. Other scientists read what these two did, and attempted to replicate it. When they couldn't the scientists results were invalidated.

In addition, other scientists can look at the methodology of the experiments in order to determine whether or not the conclusions reached are actually validated by the experiment.

As you can see, science has a built in system for detecting "bunk". Something may be accepted as true that isn't for a short time in science, but very quickly other scientists will catch the error and correct it.

The system isn't perfect, but it has gotten advanced the human race to the point where two people like you and I are thousands of miles away and communicating instantaneously.

Also out of curiosity, would you mind telling me which experiment you were talking about?

There was an Indian palaeontologist who blatantly lied about the dates of his fossils - by many millions of years, I might add.

Like I said, if someone makes a claim in science it can be verified, or scientists can attempt to falsify it.

Once again, could you cite your source: it's starting to sound like you're quoting a creationist website.

Once you have read so many such incidences of this, one becomes quite skeptical of the whole 'scientific process'.

So out of hundreds of thousands of scientists, a handful make mistakes and these mistakes are caught by the scientific community and you doubt the process? Allow me to repeat: these mistakes were caught by the scientific community!

Then there are times in which two scientists can reach different conclusions from the evidence

Yes, when evidence is incomplete then there may be multiple theories that explain the evidence, however usually all we have to do is wait a couple years and more evidence will show one to be right.

as is perhaps most notable by a rejection of Global Warming by a portion of the scientific community.

Wrong. I can't really respond to this one other than just saying that you are wrong. I can only think of one legitimate climate scientist who is skeptical about anthropogenic global warming. There is an overwhelming majority of climate scientist, and if you want me to actually go over the science with you I will, but it would save us both some time if you just looked at my last debate, specifically in my response to enigmaticman's argument (which was a response to my response to you).

This is a subject I have studied (a lot) so I would be more than happy to talk about the science with you.

Of course, next comes science's total rejection of the paranormal. Many millions of claims, sightings, reports, interactions - you name it - and yet they continue to insist that no such activity has ever happened. Pyrokinesis, psychokinesis, spontaneous human combustion, ghosts, poltergeists, alien abductions, etc.

Uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. Seriously?

Okay, let's go through these one at a time.

First let me say that anyone can make a "claim". Right now I can call the police and claim I just saw bigfoot, but that doesn't mean anything. Add to this the unreliability of the ability of humans to witness things as they actually happen, and you do get people from time to time who claim to see weird shit.

Pyrokenisis, Psychokenisis

If there are people who have this power, then why haven't any of these powers been confirmed by doctors or scientists? I mean there's no reason why these people's conditions couldn't be analyzed. The reason that there are no actual reports of people who have this power is because they have all been hoaxes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

spontaneous human combustion

Huh? A handful of cases where we can't explain why someone caught on fire (usually because there wasn't a very thorough investigation) and you think this shows that science is unreliable. Listen, I can tell you like the paranormal, but just because you want to believe something is true, doesn't mean it is.

What makes more sense: that there have been a couple of rare cases in which someone caught fire for a weird reason that someone could solve, or that there is some type of...well actually I don't even know what your suggesting the alternative is. What are you suggesting?

ghosts, poltergeists

Now we are getting ridiculous (although we may have crossed that line as soon as you started this list). I'll let Pen & Teller deal with this one.

My only comment is that I find it funny that these "witnesses" see something strange and jump to the conclusion that it's ghosts.

alien abductions, etc.

Were I a smart person I would end the debate now. Unfortunately I am not, so I'm actually going to try and talk to you rationally about an issue that deals with human irrationality.

Scientists are currently looking for aliens. They aren't doing this by listening to crazy accounts of people who claim to abducted, or trying to unearth government conspiracies. They do it using a very scientific approach.

They've tried to explain somethings - when public opinion of them becomes too strong for them to ignore it - but never suitably.

Never suitably for who? The people who make the claims? The people who are eager to believe the claims? Of course they don't, because the people who believe these ridiculous stories aren't going to listen to rational explanations. No explanation would ever be good enough. Humans aren't 100% rational creatures, and often we confuse belief with knowledge, and if someone believes they saw something enough, then no amount of rational explanation is going to convince them otherwise. This is why we have people who claim to talk to god, or moses, or Xenu or magical leprechauns. We look for patterns and we see them.

Let me give you an example from one of my favorite youtubers AronRa:

...if I go into my front yard and I see a large sauropod walking down the middle of my street, I will of course be quite convinced of what I see. I may be even more satisfied when I follow the thing and find that I can touch it, maybe even ride it if I want to. When I gather sense enough to run back for my camcorder, I may not be able to find the beast again, because I don't know which way it went. But that doesn’t matter because I saw it, I heard it, felt it, smelt it and I remember all that clearly with a sober and rational mind. But somehow I'm the only one who ever noticed it, and of course no one believes me. Some other guy says he saw a dinosaur too, but his description was completely different, such that we can’t both be talking about the same thing. So it doesn't matter how convinced I am that it really happened. It might not have. When days go by and there are still no tracks, no excrement, no destruction, no sign of the beast at all, no other witnesses who’s testimony lends credence to mine, and no explanation for how a 20-meter long dinosaur could just disappear in the suburbs of a major metropolis, much less how it could have appeared there in the first place, -then it becomes much easier to explain how there could be only two witnesses who can’t agree on what they think they saw, than it is to explain all the impossibilities against that dinosaur ever really being there. Positive claims require positive evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that’s what I’d need –since what I propose isn’t just extraordinary; its impossible. But since there's not one fact I can show that anyone can measure or otherwise confirm, then my perspective is still subjective -and thus uncertain. Eventually, even I, the eyewitness, would have to admit that, although I did see it, I still don’t know if it was ever really there –regardless whether I still believe that it was.

Witness testimony is not empirical evidence and therefore cannot be used to prove something. If you can show me empirical evidence of any of these phenomenon then we can actually discuss them. Otherwise it's just crazy people making ridiculous claims.

Nick Pope, Britain's ex-UFO expert, said that 95% of UFO sightings can be explained away. It's the 5% that completely defy any possible rational conclusion that convinced him that they were real.

Someone who claims to be a UFO expert believes in UFOs and therefore UFOs must exist? What are you going to argue next: a politician didn't fulfill a campaign promise and therefore he is actually working for the devil? Oh wait you actually did try and argue that once.

These arguments are getting tiresome, and I am not going to constantly address the rantings of crazy cooks who claim to be brought aboard a mothership by hominid aliens (a concept which doesn't make any sense btw. I'd be happy to talk about why this is almost impossible).

Seriously though: I'd be happy to talk about climate change or the other areas of science (I believe you mentioned evolution indirectly). I will not continue to humor you by taking seriously what can only be described as nonsense.

Of course. I'm curious as to why someone would think they don't. Perhaps there are individuals that might be supporting environmentalism for less than noble reason (although I cannot think of what these reasons might be) however, I would say that most environmentalists, by definition, care about the planet.

800 days and you didn't even know that!

I know, right? Coulda sworn it was impossible, but I guess you learn something new everyday.

An historically incorrect position. Indeed, Christopher Langan - said to have the highest IQ of any living man - is a theist.

Generalizing? Yes. Simplistic? Yes. Historically incorrect? I wouldn't go that far.

Incorrect.

Kids will believe that which will make them considered superior; if society dictates that atheists are superior, then they shall become atheists. If society dictates that atheists are inferior, then they shan't be atheistic. It is impossible to be completely neutral in the matter: if they are raised being taught about religion, they shall be religious; if they are raised as atheists, they shall be atheists. If the matter is wholly ignored, they would quite possibly be agnostic. In the end, the issue will come up some day.

1st: You once again misunderstand the terms atheist and agnostic. I am an agnostic atheist. This means that I am both not religious, and I believe it is impossible to know whether god exists (but find it extremely likely that he does not).

2nd: Kids may believe a lot of things (Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy) but teaching them about a religion, and even claiming oneself as religious is very different than raising a kid and saying: you are this religion. Hell, a parent could even go so far to say to their child: I am a Christian, and I think Christianity is the best choice, but you have to make your own decision as to what you think is best for you. Then the parent could teach about christianity as long as they wanted, so long as it didn't seem like the kid never had a choice. What children fear more than any imaginary underground fire is the disapproval of their parents. If you are emotionally manipulating your child. Here is a very good video that explains my viewpoint, by a you-tuber whose views on subjects like religion I respect highly (seriously, I don't often expect people to look at every link I post, but this one would go a long way towards helping you understand the whole indoctrination thing from my point of view).

As I believe I stated, the interpretation is open to opinion.

Maybe to a certain degree but I couldn't argue against the NRA by interpreting the 2nd amendment as me having the right to place the arms of a bear on my wall. I have already multiple times explained what the petition means to those who have signed it, and this is really the only interpretation that matters.

No. I did not state that they were indoctrinated; rather, I alluded that they were more open-minded - once they come to adulthood, their opinions become rock-solid.

That's why it's best to show them all viewpoints as a child and not try and instill a rock solid sense of what religion they are. It's called personal choice, and I thought that this was an idea you supported.

What gives them the right to enact laws discouraging it?

Nothing. This may be the underlying motive, but I think the prima facie reason for this petition is to prevent what they view as abuse. Once again, refer to the video for my thoughts on this.

Why tell them?

I only let one know, and its not like I just went up and told them. We were talking about religion and she started asking me questions, and I didn't feel like lying. The majority of my friends and family have no idea that I'm an atheist (in fact, until recently, I even went to church almost every Sunday). I don't think it's right I should have to hide this fact about me, but unfortunately, in our society, I do for the most part.

I believe it was you with whom I had discussed the nature of inducing fear in children...

Based on your logic, those children who grow up in the most violent areas should be the least likely to commit violence as adults. Guess what? The truth is that this is the exact opposite. So much for teaching kids about sexual abuse by sexually abusing someone in morning assembly.

Perhaps this would add to my previous statement in italics. If you know somebody who gets burned by touching an active stovetop, perhaps they'd be more cautious in future?

This was an example of a fear in which the consequences were real. To teach kids about other things they shouldn't do, you need to make the reasons against doing these things make sense. If you can't think of a rational reason why someone shouldn't act in a certain way, then resorting to "you will burn in hell" is kinda intellectually lazy, right?

They are my relations. I know them quite well. I see them as they interact with other relations.

You're right, I can't speak to your own experiences, only my own.

Once again: the meaning of the petition is open to interpretation.

And once again, I interpret the U.S. constitution as a treasure map.

I've never known an atheistic family's children to have good morals. I've accused one of them of having Münchhausen's Syndrome; another is perhaps the most deceitful and disrespectful person I've ever met. The list goes on.

The worst part is, the latter's parents encourage that kind of behavior.

We can go on and on about anecdotal evidence, however, it is my own opinion (and prison population statistics that people are either moral or immoral, and their religious views have little or no affect. If you're not killing people then I don't care if it's Jesus, Muhammad, Budah or an invisible 12 foot trout that is your reason. I personally just use reason to determine my own morality, but to each his or her own.

That was a petition, not the wording of the actual law. However, it stands to reason that, if parents disobey the law, legal action would be taken.

And it stands to reason that you continue to make outrageous jumps in logic.

Okay, I amend my statement to: "Talking about religion in a positive light..."

Once again: learn what indoctrination means. Seriously, if you haven't watched the video yet, this would be a good time since it addresses your argument.

I hate theists. I prefer to interact with agnostics, but I'll settle for an atheist. Christians are too...Christian. Don't like 'em.

What's with the hate? I love a number of people, and the majority of these people are Christian. That's because the majority of people I know are Christian, and I don't really care one way or another about people's religious preferences.

For instance, there's this one atheist who insists that there is a gigantic anti-woman plot all over the world created with the intention of making women more enslaved then ever. She believes that all males are in on the plot, and that I - when I try to reason with her - am either blind or in on it to. Her husband is even in on it.

Once again, crazy people are crazy regardless of religion. Their are radical feminists that are religious, and those that are atheists.

See the difference between my conspiracy theories and hers? Her rebuttal to each of my arguments is: "they're lying!", whereas I do listen to reason. There are many theories - some of the most popular - which I do not agree with. I have never, and most likely never will, believe that everybody is in on it. I don't think that you are in on it. I've grown to like you throughout our discourses.

Sure, her theory is a little more crazy than most, but once again the majority of conspiracy theories are crazy to a certain extent.

I have never feared the result of a conspiracy theory. Most never come to see the light of day (that doesn't mean they weren't real, though). If it occurs, it is never on quite as grandiose a level as the theorists believed.

Haha: I promise, if I ever do find out about an atheist conspiracy you'll be the first to know.

Thus, religious people aren't all that evil and conniving.

Agreed. Religious people are people, and most people are good. There are evil Christians, just like there are evil atheists and Muslims and all other sorts of belief systems. People are just people, and labels don't change that.

Benefits of Private Research

I completely agree...where it not for private research we probably wouldn't have even a tenth of the technologies we enjoy today. Even with the nasa technologies, it was private companies that put these products to good use. Trust me, I agree. What we also need though, is research for the sake of research. I cited the numerous technologies discovered by NASA and the advancements in medicine discovered from fruit fly research. These are the advantages of having government spending go to scientific endeavors. Don't think though that I am saying that the government is the only entity that can make important discoveries, but we need both.

Is the public sector only capable of inspiring people...

You seem to make my point for me. Most kids are inspired to become athletes, or copy their favorite musicians. Out of these kids how many are actually going to reach this level? Not a lot. What's going to be the alternative career of the rest? Well I don't know what jobs overlap with football and basketball skills, but hopefully they were paying attention is school as well.

My point is that as far as science goes, one of the most inspiring professions for young people is an astronaut, and this is because these astronauts are going "where no man has gone before." Name a private sector science career that has action figures that kids will actually want to play with, and I'll concede that you're right.

I'm not saying all these kids will end up at NASA (in fact most won't), but it will get them an early start at being interested in learning about science, and there are a lot of jobs that require background in science...and almost all of these jobs are good ones (a lot better than the not quite professional football players will likely get).

People choose to have a child, did they not? Again, who forced them to have sex? Take some responsibility. Maybe they should wait until they can afford it or save the taxpayers some money by using a condom; thus it would raise the average IQ of human gene pool.

So punish the parents by punishing the children who have done nothing wrong. I like the logic there. Also, if someone is having a kid when they can't afford healthcare, chances are they aren't thinking enough ahead to weigh the costs of having a child.

Why European health care is cheaper? Ration Care 1 2

The heritage foundation? Nice source.

Rationing care would explain why it's cheaper but it wouldn't explain why its better. It wouldn't explain why the U.S. has such a low life expectancy and high infant mortality rate when compared to countries with "socialized medicine". Shouldn't we be getting better services for our extra bucks? You would also expect our system to be more efficient since it is controlled by market forces, but you'd be wrong again.

The only reason people mention "rationing" in other nations is because their systems are more transparent, whereas ours aren't controlled by the government and therefore the statistics are much more difficult to find (the health industry doesn't want to advertise how many people it denies healthcare too). When we look at how many people in the U.S. are uninsured, it becomes obvious we too ration healthcare...just in a different way.

If you can give me some rubric on which to measure healthcare of different nations that doesn't put the U.S. behind nations with single payer healthcare then I am all ears. Until then though, I'd like you to explain why a country with a per capita GDP one fifth that of the U.S. has a higher life expectancy.

Since you think paying taxes is so great, why don't you pay more. The government never denies over zealous citizens from paying more taxes.

I contribute more by donating to charities and volunteering, which will hopefully help others to contribute more to society so that less money is needed as a safety net.

Yeah, I am waiting on your side. I am waiting for the dependents of the government to grow up.

I'm not waiting, I'm trying to help them get on their feet. Listen, I'm open to any ideas that may help reduce the level of poverty we have in this country. That is why I support public education because it gives people a chance to contribute more to society by getting a better paying job then would otherwise be possible. Not everyone is born into families that can afford to send them to private schools and pay for college, so not everyone has had the same opportunities as you and I. I'm not delusional, and I understand life will never be completely fair, but we can at least give these people a fighting chance. Maybe you think welfare isn't the answer, and you could probably make some pretty good arguments why, but we need to do something. Micro-loans have worked pretty well in developing countries, so maybe they would work well here at home. If we took a portion of the money we use for welfare and instead loaned it to low income people looking to start a business or something, then that would be a much cheaper option of helping these people.

Back to the economy, however, I'm waiting for some U.S. politicians to grow up. You can't claim to be an economic conservative and then not balance the budget. At least Obama is doing what he said he was going to do (whether you agree with him or not). From what I've seen of the tea partiers they want lower taxes (which we have) but haven't suggested any workable solutions as to how to balance the deficit.

The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

And the Taxing and Spending clause.

Tyson is ivory-tower...

One of my science teachers actually gave me a pretty good example about why research, for the sake of research, is important. When Einstein first came out with his theory of relativity to describe gravity as spacial curvature, rather than just a force acting over a distance, everyone thought it was groundbreaking, but they thought it was just a cool idea and not something that could ever have any effect on our real world. The fact that it took a lunar eclipse just to confirm the theory meant that probably none of this would matter to us. Fast forward to the age of GPS satellites and we now know why this discovery was so important. Turns out you need to understand Einstein's theory of gravity to figure out where someone is on earth accurately. I could give other examples about quantum physics, but I think you understand what I'm getting at. By exploring areas at the edge of our knowledge we learn more about our universe, and in doing so we often stumble across useful information. It may not seem so at the time, but it may in 20 or 50 years. The is why it bugs me when politicians try and claim that us spending money on science is a waste, when they don't understand the importance of said research.

Nasa goes a step further though, because, as Neil deGrasse Tyson put it, they inspire younger generations to pursue scientific career paths. In country where the public school systems are doing not as well as they should be, don't you think it would be nice for kids to have a role model that encourages education and the pursuit of knowledge? Hell, that's one of the reasons I wanted to study astronomy as a little kid.

Plus, if you are so about helping the poor...

Well according to you we can help the poor by spending less money on them, so what do you suggest we do with that money instead? What programs do you suggest that could help the poor? And anyway, like you said, the amount we spend on non-discretionary spending (like the entitlement benefits you hate so much) dwarfs our spending of NASA, so I'm not sure who it would really help to stop going into space.

Programs

Like I said before, lets take these programs one at a time so they can be addressed individually.

Social Security should be cut in half.

Something definitely needs to be done about social security, because it's about to become a huge drain on our budget. In addition to just straight cuts in spending, we need to raise the age of eligibility. Currently you begin receiving benefits at age 62. This would have been affordable when the program was created because in 1935 the average life expectancy was 63.9 meaning that on average Americans would receive about 2 years of benefits. The average life expectancy is now at about 80, which means on average Americans probably get 18 years of benefits. This number is only increasing. So if we were to gradually raise the number then we would save a lot of money.

Medicaid eliminate

I don't know the numbers but the cost of E.R. visits by individuals who are too poor to afford medical treatment until they're dying, in addition to the cost of the increased spread of infectious diseases is enough for me to oppose the scraping of Medicaid. We don't live in a bubble, and a healthy society is a better one to live in.

Medicare should be cut in half

Maybe, but good luck getting that passed into law. Senior citizens vote en masse.

Welfare eliminate.

We already have a pretty good system of welfare in which people need to be searching for a job...can it be improved? Certainly. But scrapping the whole program would have numerous social negatives. Face it, we need some type of safety net. How it is structured, and how big it is can be debated, but not scrapping.

Child Health care eliminated.

Wait, what? Okay, I understand the reasoning behind the others. You don't want to rob peter to pay paul, and giving benefits to the unemployed helps encourage unemployment...I get it. I really do. When you talk about cutting healthcare for children though? Now I know you're just being a selfish prick. A child doesn't get to choose what family it was born into, and therefore requiring a child to pay its own medical bills when its parents can't is...inhumane to say the least. What are you going to cut next, foster care? I heard those little brats are annoying anyways, always crying about their dead parents. Come on, have a heart.

Health Care Bill

I understand the 1st part. I don't understand the current medicaid law to know who would be helped by this 1 trillion dollars. In general though, I'm pretty sure that more health care is a good thing, right?

I should also point out that nearly every European healthcare system is better and cheaper than ours is. In other words, government spending on healthcare doesn't always mean less efficiency. Now I know this flies in the face of your libertarian ideology, but sometimes we have to face reality. This is why I don't try and align myself with any ideology: I try and just support what works.

Health care is not a right. It is a product.

Yeah, but then again people usually don't choose their illnesses. I understand that elective surgery should come out of pocket, or that people who risk their health should pay more, but otherwise its just kind of luck of the draw. To me it makes sense that everyone pays into a pool and those who need healthcare get it. Normal supply and demand rules just leave us with people who have to choose between food and rent, or life. Not typically a desirable place to be. I like market forces, but this is an area where maybe a public option would be better for everybody (once again, see Europe).

Not only is the government steal for taxation and threaten jail time, but they just have to pass laws that it is legal for them to force everyone into commerce, and if you don't, you go to jail.

Rawr Rawr Rawr...I disagree with a new bill, and therefore am going to call taxes I don't like stealing and complain about jail time for tax evasion. Exaggeration at the expense of practicality! RAWR!

If people only paid the taxes they felt like, then we'd have very few taxes being paid. Can we please have a grownup discussion about the issues? Okay, good.

If you lived in a bubble, then yes you could pollute your own air as much as you want. In the real world, however, everyone breathes the same air. We all have to breath your pollution, and your pollution affects the environment of everyone in the world. If you want to bottle your pollution, or like I said before, live in a bubble, then go ahead. When you want to join the rest of us on earth, however, you are going to have to pay to pollute.

Well if they are over there, shouldn't they have some comfort.

Certainly...but it shouldn't cost as much to send people to space as it takes to keep people comfortable.

Either way, both should be cut. If it means only preserving the research and development of NASA and cutting everything else, then fine, or cutting the defense budget by 20% or more, then good.

Military cuts, yes. NASA cuts I'm against. Neil deGrasse Tyson does a pretty good job explaining why we need to keep it.

Oh, so the government can get its hands on more of our money. Then we can start building homes for the poor and call it public housing. Oh wait, they already exists, and it is a extreme failure. Why because they live in the housing for free without any incentive to maintain or improve it. Wait, how about an antipoverty programs? Wait, those only increase dependency.

Some social programs work some don't. There is a valid debate we can have about what social programs should and shouldn't be paid for, and I'm perfectly willing to have it. Generalizing is going to get us nowhere though.

Well sure, there is some infrastructure, but we don't share the same viewpoint.

Exactly my previous point. Some government spending is good, and some isn't. This is why we need to talk about each point individually and not just claim all is bad.

Reform Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs and not where there is more spending like the new health care bill.

I would agree that these programs need to be reformed to some extent, but I'm curious what specifically about the health care bill you don't like.

Seriously, do you think this president or the next has any ambitions to pay off the debt. This president only raises the debt limit just until he needs to raise it again.

Yes, I really do. Clinton began paying off our debt...but then Bush the "economic conservative" came in and cut taxes and increased spending. Talk about a policy removed from reality. Right now Obama has a reason for increasing the deficit: we're in a really bad recession. I've said this to you before, and I will tell you again: if the economy recovers and we are still running a budget deficit, then I will stop agreeing with stop supporting Obama on economic issues. Neither I nor you can predict the future though, so lets go ahead and wait until the economy recovers before we claim to know what is going to happen.

Idiot Mentality

Wow, that view characterizes perfectly what I and every other Obama supporter thought when he got elected. Give me a break. Pick a candidate and I'll find a supporter of theirs saying some dumb shit.

An agnostic is someone that claims it is impossible to know whether god exists, which is the opposite of a gnostic who is someone who believes that it is possible to know that god exists (and that he does exist).

Most atheists are agnostic, and some religious people are agnostic, but to claim that agnostic is somehow a neutral position would be false, especially if you mistakenly assume that being agnostic is somehow in-between religious and agnostic.

The whole idea that taking the middle path is the neutral one is a fallacy as well.

All I see in this paragraph is deficit this and that. Do you know how to cut deficits? Well, cut government budgets.

I agree, cutting the budget is another good way to fix the deficit. Maybe we should cut military spending, like the 20 billion spent on air conditioning tents in Iraq and Afghanistan. To give you some perspective on how much this is, the annual budget for NASA is 18.9 billion. Our total defense spending is between 880 billion and 1.03 trillion dollars which is roughly the size of the budget deficit. Now obviously we can't cut out our entire military spending, but by significantly reducing our military spending by ending our unnecessary wars as well as ending the Bush tax cuts then we will go a long way towards balancing the budget.

How is more government revenue good?

Because it means that we can spend more without increasing the deficit, or alternatively begin to pay off our national debt. It also means we can improve infrastructure which, in turn, helps promote economic growth. Now the obvious flip-side to this that there is no free lunch. The money for government revenue has to come from somewhere so therefore we need to see if the societal benefits of taxing outweigh the cost. It also means that we should structure our taxes in a way that is least harmful to society...in other words, taxing those who have the most more than those who have the least.

Jobs are created by supply and demand with the help of rich people. When was the last time poor people created a job.

While I'm sure that maid, butler and driver industries may take a hit when rich individuals get a tax increase, however, other than this I'd argue that businesses create jobs. Some businesses are started by rich individuals and some are started by middle class people, but you're right that poor people rarely start their own business. What poor people do do though is spend money. They spend more of their income (as a percentage) than either the middle or upper class. This means that many of the jobs created by the middle and upper class wouldn't be able to exist if it weren't for the spending power of poor people.

We, you mean the government, and money for the freebies.

Well I do mean the government, but I mean money to begin paying off the debt, and to continue paying for necessary infrastructure that helps keep this nation running. But if you want to interpret my comments in some way that fits your ideological view of government being inherently bad, then I'm not about to stop you.

I am an atheist and have been for a couple years now. I've also seen people try to generalize all atheists as believing one thing, when in reality the term atheist applies to such a diverse group that you couldn't possibly meaningfully define them as a whole except for the fact that they tend to reject the idea of a personal god. I can't really speak to the ideas of others so I'm just going to speak for myself.

In general I guess I would consider myself a positivist: I will accept an interpretation of reality as true so long as it explains the evidence. That interpretation which best explains the evidence is the one I tend to "believe". I try though to separate those things which I believe from what I know. I often here people saying that they "know" things which they obviously only believe. Beliefs can be irrational, so I do my best to believe where the evidence leads...I'm only human though, so pure objectivism is almost impossible, but I try.

When it comes to morality, I often here the claim that atheists must be amoral because they have no higher authority defining their morality. I take issue with this because I truly believe that humans are naturally good. Some might argue is an irrational belief which lots of evidence contradicts, but I would contest that point. In general though I think most people live by the fairly simple moral rule of: be good. The only difference is how people define what constitutes good. The best way (in my own opinion) to determine whether something is moral or not, is to determine if that action helps or hurt society.

It's not difficult to educate someone...convincing them to care? Not easy at all.

I can't speak to your experience, and I'm sorry if they didn't respect your views, but I've never seen atheists stopping people on my way to class and trying to recruit them. To be fair though, I don't actually know all that many atheists personally, nearly everyone around me is Christian, which further goes to my point that it would be almost impossible to be intolerant...if I was, I'd have no friends :(

I did not think we could edit these after someone responded, but okay.

Thus, he is belittling their hypothetical conversion.

No, he is being arrogant about his position and implying that people who are religious are stupid. These are legitimate criticisms against Richard Dawkins, and ones that I would mostly agree with. Your story about little kids being convinced to lie is irrelevant to this conversation. If we had a conversation about how easy it is to manipulate children, then I think your story may have some relevance.

Most proselytization occurs amongst the young. By making it illegal to inform the young of religion, the percentage of theists would decline dramatically.

Look at the language of this petition. It says it is against indoctrination, not against talking about religion. I personally think this type of idea is unrealistic, but I also find it humorous that you understand most people are only religious because they were indoctrinated yet still defend the practice.

In addition there is a huge difference between trying to ban something, and trying to enact policies that discourage it. For example banning alcohol is different from making commercials that advocate responsible use.

I've a number of relations who are not religious - or are of a different religion. Their parents had little problem with it, as far as I can tell.

People do tend to be polite, and most likely you weren't there when they first "came out" to their parents about their religious differences. Once again though, I can only speak about my experience... not fun having a parent tell you it makes them feel like they've failed as a parent just because you don't accept their religion. But hey, maybe I was just unlucky.

Theists are belittled in modern society.

And atheists are demonized. Cry about it.

Dawkins, amongst others.

Once again: read the language. You are completely misinterpreting what this petition is meant to do.

I've always felt that fear was good for children.

Remind me not to hire you as a babysitter. I think rational fear is good. Fear against putting their hand on a stove or sticking a fork in a light socket is well and good. When it comes to morality though, teaching empathy rather than fear would be my approach.

For instance, young children - especially toddlers - are very impressionable. Tell them that something horrific and evil will result from them disobeying, and they are far more likely to obey.

Sure, if all you want in children is obedience, but honestly I don't want to get into an argument about child rearing. It's almost completely unrelated to the subject.

I've also found from experience that a mild form of hypnosis works fairly well in that regard, as well.

Once again, don't ever babysit my kids. You may get them to shut up for the short term, but I wouldn't want to see the long term effects.

I suppose that depends on how you interpret the petition

Oh come on. Do you seriously not see the extraordinary jumps that have to be made for anything that the site says to be true? Where does it say that children will be taken away from religious parents? Nowhere! Where does it say that talking about religion is a form of indoctrination? Nowhere! Maybe you should actually try and see what the creators/supporters of this petition intended it to mean. Or just live in some fantasy world where all atheists are awful, immoral, intolerant people who want to kill theists and are secretly trying to take their kids away from them through petitions. Be afraid be very afraid...or be rational and calm the hell down.

You do understand that the idea of waiting until someone is an adult for them to decide their religion is not some new idea, right? Many Christian sects wait to either baptize or confirm until a person is an adult, because they figure the person can't really understand their religion until they are old enough to think rationally so they shouldn't make a decision about what they are. Sound familiar?

though Dawkins is most likely quite close to such an outrageous view

Not at all actually. He was asked what he would do if his kids wanted to be religious, and he said that he wouldn't try and stop them but he hoped they would be smarter than that.

Maybe you could legitimately argue that he doesn't respect religion as much as he should, but saying that he wants to ban it entirely is a complete misrepresentation of his views.

In fact, as far as being tolerant, how many religious parents would be okay with their children converting to either a different religion or becoming irreligious? A lot less than atheist parents who would oppose their children becoming religious (let me tell from experience, religious parents don't take it well when you tell them your an atheist).

New Atheists, as they are by some known, wish to limit the freedoms of those who are religious. They wish to ban the religious from speaking about their religion - to others or even to their own families!

Who wants this? You are nuts.

I know there are atheists who claim that parents are abusing their children by scaring them with hell, and those who oppose certain types of indoctrination, but none that oppose people speaking about their religion.

Doubt it. At least those atheists in America have to tolerate Christians everywhere they go. If they were really intolerant they would have to leave the country and go to some island somewhere...but hey, whatever you have to tell yourself to reassure your worldview.

The Bush tax cuts are across the board starting from low income at 20k a year and up.

The tax cuts have conferred the most benefits, by far, on the highest-income households — those least in need of additional resources — at a time when income already is exceptionally concentrated at the top of the income spectrum.

I just think that the timing of this would be bad if they let them expire.

Over the 10-year period from 2005 through 2014, the direct costs of the enacted and proposed tax cuts would total $2.8 trillion. The cost would equal 2.1 percent of the economy in 2014.*

Source

I understand that tax cuts help stimulate the economy, but they do so at a cost: government revenue. This means that, while Bush's tax cuts may have helped the economy some, it also massively increased our deficit, and the fact that all of these cuts were aimed to mostly help the rich makes it even worse, because the rich didn't need cuts. They were already at an extremely low level of income tax in spite of the fact that wealth distribution is at an all time imbalance. In other words: the wealthiest Americans have comparitively more money then ever before, and are paying some of the lowest taxes in history when we need the money more than ever (we have a record deficit, as you may have seen from the debate description). Does any of this seem right?

Who is econdataus and how is s/he a credible source?

I was kinda going under the assumption that the Kennedy tax cuts and their effects were fairly well known but if you'd like I'd be happy to provide more sources. I could have also used certain Regan tax cuts as an example (namely those for the top 5% of Americans). If you don't trust these sources, however, I would be open to looking at sources that contradict my point.

My only point was that when Reagan and Kennedy cut taxes they were cutting taxes that were very high, and therefore their cuts went a long way towards stimulating growth, and increasing government revenue. When Kennedy cut taxes of the highest bracket from 90% to 70% he was clearly on the right (downward sloping side) of the Laffer curve. This is why cutting taxes actually lead to more revenue. Bush, on the other hand, cut taxes on the wealthy when they were already clearly on the left (upward sloping) side of the Laffer curve, and then went on to claim that the taxes would pay for themselves! This is what I'm arguing against.

Honestly, I don't feel like arguing about Obama's policies, I just wanted to contradict jtopolnak's claim about the Bush tax cuts. There are people like you who claim that the stimulus bills were a waste of money, and others who claim that the recession would have been much worse without them....I really don't feel like getting into that right now.

Should you believe a show that is created to bust myths over a show that peddles psudoscience? That's up to you. I have never seen "In Search of...?" so I don't know their methodology when investigating these phenomenon. It is possible they went about the process in a very scientific matter with large sample sizes and control groups etc...

I do know that myth busters at least tries to be scientific in their approach to these kind of issues. I guess the main problem the the experiment they did would be sample size, but other than that it seemed to be pretty solid.

I'm curious why you would consider "In search of...?" more reliable. What is your reasoning?

If you view something as being stupid, it is not worth investigation?

Well I wouldn't spend time on it, but people can waste their time however they want. My issue is when taxpayer money gets spent on dumb ideas. Once again I would refer you to the baloney detection kit I have linked you twice.

Mythbusters did an episode on the subject, and their results were that the plants "listening" to death metal grew the best. The whole idea is stupid though, and likely the experiments you sited were unscientific.

What?

Look at the Kennedy tax cuts. He cut taxes and as a result, personal income and government revenue increased.

Bush was a fool because if taxes are cut, then government expenses need to be cut. Thus, evading a deficit, yet Bush didn't.

He was also a fool, because we were in an economic expansion during a large part of his presidency and unlike Clinton, he ran a deficit instead of a budget.

Bush's deficit was not as severe as Obama Note: Both tax cuts and wars are included in the analysis.

You're comparing apples to oranges...or in this case, tax cuts during a time of economic growth to tax cuts during a time of economic recession. When the economy recovers the deficit will decrease, and hopefully we will eventually get a surplus. If this doesn't happen, and Obama continues to run a deficit (like Bush did) I promise you that I will be right with you on saying that Obama is mismanaging government spending...you have my word.

So what I'm hearing is that 1) you think there is a global conspiracy that governments are pushing in order to get us off fossil fuels (check how much politicians get from fossil fuel companies btw) and 2) you're not actually willing to hear the science, but just continue to live in your fantasy world where every single scientist is involved in a plot to hide the facts and try and scare the whole world for unknown reasons.

You seriously sound like a crazy person...what would be the point of weaning us off finite resources if they didn't hurt the environment? Like you said, market forces would adjust the price as they got more scarce, so renewables would eventually come about anyway.

The video you posted is, almost entirely, bullshit. Anyone who has even taken an intro college class about earth's climate would recognize the inaccuracies presented almost immediately. I'll address a few right now:

They claim that CO2 has almost no effect on the climate, and hasn't driven climate in the past. 1st we know that greenhouse gasses such as CO2 keep the earth warmer, and we've known this for over 100 years. In general this fact is a good thing: without the greenhouse effect from CO2, then our earth would be uninhabitably cold (for human at least). In addition, although in the past CO2 has never triggered a global warming event (Milankovitch cycles tend to be the cause), it has acted as a positive feedback effect that amplifies any initial warming.

In other words we understand the effects of greenhouse gasses on the atmosphere very well.

Now, we can argue all day about crazy conspiracies or your irrational hatred of all things green and get nowhere, but that doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun so how about we talk about the actual science. Now if you are the kind of person whose beliefs are dogmatic and unwavering who willingly believes in government conspiracies and cannot be swayed otherwise by evidence then this is where you should stop reading now...you'd be much happier going under the assumption that you've won this argument and the facts that I am about to present would likely only disturb your tin-foil encased head. If on the other hand you consider yourself a rational, open-minded person who bases their views on evidence and reasoned logic then I haven't wasted my time posting the next part of this argument. Enjoy.

We'll start where all stories start: the beginning.

Joseph Fourier was probably the first to actually try and investigate the factors that determine earth's average temperature. People understood that the sun warmed the earth, however, if the sun constantly warmed the earth, then people wondered why the earth didn't eventually heat up to the temperature of the sun. The reason is of course that, in addition to gaining heat from the sun, the earth loses heat though invisible radiation. Fourier was the first to solve this riddle, however, when he did his calculations he realized that the average temperature on earth should be well below freezing, so something else obviously had to be influencing the temperature. He suggested that it could be the atmosphere, but not enough was understood about radiation at the time for him to understand the greenhouse effect. Because of Svante Arrhenius's misunderstanding of Fourier's research, however, many people have claimed that Fourier was the first to come up with the idea of the greenhouse effect: this is not correct.

John Tyndall was an English physicist and one of the first scientists to study how different gasses absorb radiation differently. His experiment involved putting gas in a tube, putting a heat source on one side of the tube, and having a Galvanonmeter on the other to measure how much heat passed through. He then calculated what percentage of heat passed through by comparing this result to the heat passed through when no heat was absorbed, and when there was no air in the tube. In this way he was able to calculate how much heat each gas absorbed. His experiment also helped to reveal which wavelengths of radiation each of these absorb. Tyndall's work became the basis for atmospheric science. In addition he was the first to speculate about what changes in the amount of CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere could do to temperatures. He speculated that without the heat absorbed from what we now know as greenhouse gasses, our world would be far too cold to live in.

Svante Arrhenius was the next prominent physicist whose work has contributed to our current knowledge of the earth's climate. Although Tyndall had speculated about the effects of greenhouse gasses, Arrhenius was the first to calculate the exact amount of warming that CO2 contributed to the atmosphere in his paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature on the Ground. In this paper he sites work from other scientists who had attempted to measure the amount of radiation absorbed by CO2 in our atmosphere, such as Tydall (who I mentioned) and Avid Hogbom, a Swedish scientist who had calculated the amount of heat absorbed by our atmosphere coming from the moon at different angles in our sky. Arrenhius used this data to calculate the amount of warming attributable to CO2 that our atmosphere experiences. His calculations led him to two conclusions: 1st) that CO2 (most likely emitted from volcanoes) was responsible for previous global climactic changes, and 2nd) that the added CO2 generated by industrialization would likely lead to a significant warming of the earth over the next thousand years.

On the first point, there was much debate in the scientific community. While Arrhenius was a proponent for CO2 being the chief cause of global climate change, other scientists favored the idea that long term changes in the earth's orbit (which, if you clicked the first link you'd recognize as Milankovitch factors) precipitated these global climate events. Arrhenius argued (correctly it turns out) that these changes in earth's orbit weren't significant enough to cause the dramatic changes observed in the geological record. Scientists that argue in favor of Milancovitch factors, on the other hand, argued (also correctly) that the timing of previous global climate events corresponded to the alignment of changes in earth's orbit. At this point your probably asking youself how they could both be right (if you're reading this at all, that is). The answer is that while Milancovich factors precipitate a climate change event, other factors such as increased CO2 in the atmosphere amplify the somewhat minimal warming effect to what we observe as major global climate changes.

On the second point (that CO2 produced by industrialization would warm the earth) Arrhenius concluded that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to an increase in temperature of about 5-6 degree Celsius when one adds the added effect of warming that melting ice (which tends to reflect the suns rays very well) would have on the earth. A few years later in another scientific paper he readjusted this value down to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius (for reference the IPCC currently has the value between 2 and 4.5). Arrhenius did not think that this process would occur rapidly, however, and expected it to take a couple thousand years, in part because of the slow rate at which CO2 was being emitted by humans at the time, and the fact that the ocean could absorb most of this CO2 if it took a long time to build up. Ironically enough, Arrenhius and a number of other scientists believed that warming of the earth would be a good thing, and that increased CO2 would help feed crops (if you want I can explain to you why this isn't the case in my next argument, but for now I'm going to stick to explaining how we know that anthropogenic climate change is occurring). Walter Nerst, another Swedish scientist, even suggested the intentional setting fire to useless coal seams to expedite the warming of the earth. Later in his career, when more CO2 emissions were occurring, Arrenhius speculated that it may only take hundreds, as opposed to thousands of years for the global climate to change significantly. He didn't anticipate how much more CO2 we'd be putting into the atmosphere, and how quickly we would change its composition.

The main issue that concerned these scientists was not our current climate and how it might change, but the reasons for the ice ages. How we may affect our own climate was an afterthought, because there were many reasons why, at the time, it seemed impossible for us to change the climate on a global scale. There were too many factors that scientists believed would prevent this from happening. Among these factors was the belief that water vapor absorbs the same wavelengths of light as CO2, and therefore any additional CO2 in the atmosphere would have minimal impact because there would already be water vapor absorbing this long-wave radiation.

It actually wasn't until the Cold War that scientists discovered that this wasn't the case. Atmospheric science became very important to the military, because they believed that anything happening in the atmosphere or oceans could be a threat to national security. Thus, scientists tested the absorption line of light from our atmosphere at sea level, and they discovered something that no one expected. It turned out that CO2 and water vapor absorbed much more specific bands of long-wave radiation than was originally thought. In the original measurements that involved much more primitive instruments, the absorption lines appeared to be smeared together and thus it was assumed that any radiation that CO2 could absorb, would already be absorbed by water vapor. With these new experiments it was revealed that CO2 could actually make a difference in the amount of radiation absorbed by the atmosphere, especially CO2 in upper layers of the atmosphere. This complicated the science of calculating the effect of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere because it meant that each layer of atmosphere had to be addressed individually. When scientists began to stop treating the atmosphere as a single slab, the greenhouse effect became more clear. Allow me to explain:

At higher levels of the atmosphere the air is thinner and thus absorbs less heat. If we add more gas that can absorb heat to those levels, then much of this heat gets trapped. This means that the lower layers of the atmosphere continue to warm until the amount of heat radiated by the earth once again equals the amount absorbed by the sun. In other words, adding enough greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere would cause the energy equilibrium between the radiation from the sun, and the radiation emitted by the earth to shift, and the new balance would require the earth's atmosphere to be at a higher temperature because the amount of black body radiation emitted by something depends solely on that objects heat. More heat being absorbed, means more heat will eventually need to be radiated out by black body radiation as opposed to mere reflection. This necessitates that the earth warm. The only question is, by how much?

Gilbert Plass was the next scientist to try and answer this question. He was a Canadian physicist who calculated that a doubling of the CO2 in our atmosphere would lead to a temperature increase of about 3-4 degrees. He also predicted that at the current level of CO2 emissions, we would have an increase in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by the year 2000, and that at this time the temperature would have increased by 1 degree C since 1900. Plass's research meant that anthropogenic climate change began to be taken seriously again, however, there were still a number of factors that were not addressed in his research, namely, how this temperature increase would be affected by increased water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere.

The next step was actually measuring the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was done by Charles Keeling who spent a number of years taking carful and precise measurements of the CO2 present in the atmosphere. In addition to observing seasonal oscillations of CO2, he also observed a trend of increasing CO2 that was consistent with what scientists up until this point had expected. Although it wasn't really ever doubted that human activities were the chief cause of this increase, more recent observations about the isotopes of CO2 present in our atmosphere have proven that it is indeed manmade CO2 that is being added to the air.

This obviously wasn't the end to climate science, but at this point we had established the basic foundations of our current theory on how greenhouse gasses affect our atmosphere. Since this arugment is already very long, I will skip ahead to more recent years.

Nasa scientists have used satellites in order to make precise measurements about how much energy is being sent from the sun to earth, and how much the earth is radiating back into space. These measurements confirm that there is indeed an imbalance, and that the earth's atmosphere is absorbing more radiation than it is emitting into space: hence the hotter temperatures. There have also been numerous measurements of downward long wave radiation that have shown increases which are consistent with warming from greenhouse gasses.

Finally, I will mention that the warmer temperatures have had negative impacts on wildlife which contradicts your claim that this may just be a natural phenomenon.

Now you will notice that unlike you I didn't talk about ideologies or politics...just science. If you believe I am mistaken on any of my points, I would be happy to discuss them with you, but don't bring in unrelated topics. I don't care what your opinion on the prious is, nor do I care what you think about "green" people. I only care about the facts...fact which clearly point to warming caused by humans.

Yeah, it was talking about whether plants could talk, and as soon as I realized this I decided that slowly shoving a spoon in my eye would be a better use of my time.

Tax cuts work, but only if someone is already being taxed too much. In economics the Laffer curve is the graphical representation of this phenomenon. In the past tax cuts have generated more revenue because tax rates were very high. Bush's tax cuts, which disproportionately helped the rich, caused government revenue to decrease significantly and our deficit to go up.

Plus you shouldn't be cutting taxes during times of economic expansion anyway, especially if these tax cuts increase the deficit.

Is that picture in your profile of you? I can only assume so based on your argument.

You seem to not like scientists, but yet you argue against them on a computer...do you see the irony?

Seriously bro, go get some fresh air and maybe talk to some real people for a change. You're getting way out of touch with reality and starting to sound a little crazy.

People often say that communism works well in theory, but not in reality. This always confuses me, because if something doesn't actually work then clearly there is something wrong with your theory and not reality. Any theory that doesn't take the idea of incentives into account clearly is lacking, and to think that anything other than free trade will lead to a productive economy is delusional thinking to say the least.

Through specialization and trade, our society has advanced far beyond what anyone could have hoped for. We have technology that would appear as magic to even those living just 100 years ago, and bounty greater than any King or emperor ever could have demanded from his subjects.

I understand that most people advocating communism are well intentioned, but they are also uneducated because if they had even a basic understanding of economics they would understand how much the adoption of a communist based economic system would degrade the quality of life of nearly everyone in society.

Good luck!

Try not to get killed.

When alternate energy reaches absolute efficiency

Never going to happen...the laws of physics keep solar power from ever exceeding anything beyond 28% efficiency based on current technology, but as I've said about 100 times, cost efficiency is the only thing that matters since wind and sun are free.

, it would make more sense since it would provide an positive externality because it would improve the health of humans and the environment until then it doesn't.

No according to economists who have studied the issue. The future impact that climate change will have on economic output would be more costly then any actions we could take today to stop it.

Why so hostile? Are you trying to make me feel guilty concern for the environment? Not working. I am more concerned about efficiency and effectiveness?

I'm concerned about the quality of life people enjoy. This means making sure that we don't leave future humans with a world worse than the one we were born into...which is what will happen if we don't act soon.

Government intervention in economic activity is always repulsive unless it can provide a positive externality such as public education or police protection.

How about a not fucked up earth? Is that a good enough externality?

Correct! I frankly don't give a damn about humanity because it doesn't give a damn about me. I am just returning the favor. Matter of fact the same goes for the environment.

So basically what your saying is you can't actually argue that the earth won't be hurt, just that you don't care enough to do anything about it. While I can't convince you to care, I can ask if you have children/plan to ever have children, because although your life may not be directly be affected by the consequences of global warming the lives of your children will most likely be, and certainly their children will be. But hey, what kids ever done for you? I say fuck 'em (metaphorically speaking of course. I'm not trying to have Chris Hanson show up at my house).

As much as it seems that you are passionate about alternative energy, fossil fuel will continue until government subsidies are ended.

Unless we subsidize alternatives more.

For your case, the only way alternative energy will arrive is through government subsidies, but we are addicted to cheap energy, and even with large government subsidies of alternative energy, fossil fuel energy is still cheaper.

Not really actually. Like I said, solar is going to be at grid parity with fossil fuels in sunny states in the next 10 years, and wind will probably be there around that time as well. In addition, currently wind power isn't very much more expensive than electricity from coal, so the subsidies wouldn't even have to be that big to make a difference...all you would have to do is cut subsidies from coal and give a small part of that to wind. Problem solved.

I'm also not saying this needs to happen overnight, but the sooner we start building more alternative energy sources the easier the transition will be. We're not even trying to do anything original here: look at Germany, they're already a great example of a country that is implementing wind power into their existing power system.

Once again, with or without subsidies, renewables will eventually be cheaper, so starting now will only help us in the long run, even if you refuse to give a shit about the environment.

Well if we assume that most French people are like other French people, that most Germans are like other Germans and most Englishmen are like other Englishmen, then I'd say the European wars of religion show that merely differences in religion can cause conflicts, since that was the only significant difference between these groups.

I could also point to Nigerians killing other Nigerians as a more current example, but I think you understand my point.

Obviously I'm not saying that this is where religion always leads, or even that religion isn't fairly benign in most cases. What I am saying, though, is that religion does tend to attract extremists, and the idea that you are committing acts that would seem abhorrent under normal circumstances, but are okay if done for god is a scary notion.

What they extrapolate from the fact is irrelevant, but I admit I was lazy. I just didn't want to post Wikipedia as a source.

Well just from looking at the wikipedia article it seems like the little ice age you are talking about was shorter then you originally made it out to be, but that doesn't really matter much.

What would you have us do?

Produce less CO2 emissions, or find ways to offset them. Renewable energies such as wind, solar and geothermal would be a good start.

Verification?

With pleasure.

But if I must, then allow me to say that historically, scientific consensus was usually opposed to the truth, as in evolution, glaciation and continental drift.

This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I hear from people who disagree with scientists (whether it's climate deniers or creationists), and I'll tell you why. There once was a time when we thought the earth was flat, right? Now we think the earth is round, correct? According to your logic, shouldn't we assume that the scientists are probably wrong about the earth being round? The fact is, scientific consensus was incorrect over a hundred years ago because there wasn't enough information available in any of the fields you mentioned. Fast forward to today and we have made major advances in virtually every aspect of scientific knowledge. What's ironic about your argument is that you implicitly assume this fact, but count climate science as the one area in which we don't know enough. If this is what you are arguing, then I would like to ask on what foundation do you base this conclusion? In case you haven't realized there are thousands of atmospheric scientists all over the world that have been doing research in numerous areas all over the world so that we have now reached a stage where we can accurately say what is going on with world climate. If you really need more evidence I would be happy to go over the evidence for climate change, but know that my next post is going to be a very long one, as there is a (pardon my language) shit-ton of evidence.

My overall point was that those who understand the evidence best have concluded that humans are responsible for the earth's warming and it seems foolish to disagree without good reason for doing so.

In the end, I don't care.

You're right, who gives a shit about what happens to earth? We got tons of other pla....wait, I forget...did we colonize mars yet? No? Maybe we should wait a couple hundred years before we fuck over earth then.

Have your carbon taxes and your Kyoto agreements - they will bring you no joy.

Haha, what? Nice argument, and thanks for your permission. I don't expect to get joy from them, although it does make me proud of humanity when people get together to cooperatively solve serious issues. I just hope that people who are ignorant of the science don't keep us from acting in the ways we need to in order to curb greenhouse emissions.

Wait seriously? I thought you were going to give evidence or explanations about why each of my points was not a good argument, yet instead you just try and claim each source is bias? You know that just because someone is liberal doesn't mean that they can't have a point, right?

foxnewsboycott.com is hardly a reliable source since it is clearly anti Fox News.

Did you not see the screenshot? Did you even look what they had to say? Did they use liberal math to add the numbers of the poll? No, so your accusation is baseless.

The Daily Show is liberal bias and pro Obama without question.

First, you've obviously never seen the daily show, and second, do you deny that Glenn Beck was clearly wrong about what he said? If you want I'll find each piece of footage of where people showed the clip to show that Glenn Beck was lying when he said fox was the only ones who showed the video...but do my arguments not count since I'm liberal?

Another Jon Stewart video. Liberal bias

Wow, really? The Daily Show actually called the white house to ask about the nuclear summit logo...and they found out that it was based on the atom? Where does liberal bias come into play! That's just responsible journalism!

Mediamatters.org...

None of that matters! What matters is that Fox cropped a clip to make Biden look bad! Do you doubt the validity of this statement, or does it just not count because they're liberal?

If you are going to define as biased any group that criticizes fox then obviously you're going to think the sites are biased because they all criticize fox. This isn't an argument it's begging the question.

Regardless none of this matters because it's the arguments made, not who makes them that is important. Had Hitler figured out quantum mechanics it would still be just as useful, regardless of the fact that he killed Jews and was a terrible person.

You clearly see the world through heavily tinted partisan glasses and everything must fall into the liberal (bad) category or the good category. Can a liberal never make a valid point? Do you have any actual evidence that the claims are false? No? Just that the sites are liberal?

Bias only matters when it causes you to distort the facts...you know, kinda like Fox does.

I was hoping to have a real debate with you about the actual issues...clearly that was too much to ask.

This is most likely an insult, though I shan't take it as such.

What I meant was that you have a very active imagination, since you seem to be seeing more then is actually there.

Yes, and new diseases keep appearing.

And what's your point? New diseases would keep appearing regardless of whether we are technologically advanced or not. Because we have modern medicine, however, we actually have a chance to fight and cure these diseases.

And how are links to blogs any better (something which you have done, by the way)?

Where have I based one of my arguments based solely on information in a blog? Seriously, show me. You have numerous times cited things you remember people told you, unreliable blogs, and sites that are obviously ridiculous.

And how many people today can afford to eat?

I already showed you that we are healthier then we were in the past by showing you the dramatic increase in life expectancy, but now you want to talk about how there's not enough food because people are starving. People have always been starving, but now as a whole we have a much lower percentage of people starving thanks to increased agricultural technology and globalization. Even now, the numbers are still improving everywhere except for those nations which don't have the technological advantages of the west (like in Africa).

Let me as though, what are you doing to help solve the problem? I've already seen that you are against welfare, so obviously you don't want to do that to help, but what would you suggest? We are much wealthier now (in real per capita terms) than we have ever been thanks to technology, so we are all in a better position to help those in need then we would be without technology, but from what I've seen you don't want to help.

I'm not saying our world is perfect, but it's a lot better than it was, and is constantly improving. If we got rid of technology, we wouldn't have millions facing starvation, it would be billions.

You, and most likely nearly all of your friends, are teenagers. Wait a few decades, then you'll feel it. . .

Well, fortunately I will be able to wait probably at least another 6 decades...I could not wait this long in your hypothetical world without technology. Like I've said before, I'd be happy to live with gas if it means I almost double my lifespan.

Everything is unreliable.

First of all, no. Secondly, even if this were the case then we would both be equally unequal to argue anything. Thirdly, you can't look at things like this in such a black and white way. Maybe you think nothing is completely reliable, but certainly there are degrees of reliability. For example, when Kim Jong Il claims to shoot 38 under par his first time golfing, then that's the time to be more than a little bit skeptical. Obviously a peer reviewed scientific study would be a much more reliable source...in fact I'm having difficulty thinking of a more reliable source. The point is that you can't just say: nothing is reliable, because you know that it isn't true even if you don't want to admit it.

There's quite a bit of proof - both of American involvement in 9/11

No, there's just a bunch of crazy people who like to stir up conspiracies. Look at the site again. The quotes they give of prominent people who think there's a conspiracy are taken out of context. Most of the time it's just senators saying that the Bush administration is trying to hide the fact that it was incompetent, not that they were trying to covering up the fact that they had actually planned the attacks. What conspiracy theories like this appeal to is our innate desire to find patterns. The human mind is designed to see patterns, and make conclusions off of them even when sometimes there isn't anything there.

Let's get a reality check real quick: you think that the Bush administration staged an entire plot to attack our own buildings, framed Osama Bin Laden and an afghan terrorist group, and this group willingly agreed to accept responsibility, and the whole point of this was to start a war in a nation that caused the Russians to essentially lose the cold war because it's nearly impossible to fight against people that hide in caves, and among civilians? I could go on about any number of other things that make this story even less plausible, but I'm going to stop before I catch myself arguing with a crazy person. Speaking of...

If you don't mind my asking, just what was it called? While I still find [most] reports of that kind of stuff to be ludicrous, it'd still be an interesting watch.

It was a joke! I was mostly joking about the 9/11 thing because I didn't think anyone in their right mind would take these claims seriously, but come on terminator, use your head!

Believe? No. Use as a source? Yes.

That just makes you a hypocrite who isn't actually after the truth but merely wants to try to "win" an argument. That is extremely intellectually dishonest.

I do not need to believe something to argue it

Well this explains why your out of touch with reality at least...also why you seem to have such a high opinion of yourself.

First off, what made you think I got any of this from an uncle of mine? Frankly, I can't say we've ever spoken on this subject.

Once again, I was being facetious. I didn't actually mean that your uncle told you anything, but my point was that you use unreliable sources. Try and keep up.

Of course not, you're a liberal. The world will fall apart under your nose, and you won't even think anything is wrong - other than that there seem to be fewer and fewer of us damn non-liberals around.

Lol, what?

You don't seem to think anything is wrong with John Holdren.

Mostly because there isn't. Go to his book and read the passages that these right wing bloggers are referring to. He don't advocate anything of the sort that they claim he does. The phrases they use are taken completely out of context.

Once again: use reliable sources.

Nor do you seem to mind the fact that Obama's pastor (and former religious adviser) hates white people and, according to Wright's mentor, they ought be destroyed along with any pro-white Gods.

Nor do you seem to mind Obama's countless lies.

Nor do you mind that Obama praises Satan.

Tell me, what do you think of the decision regarding the New Black Panthers?

Liberals ought to be ashamed of themselves for who they voted into office.

That's it, I'm done arguing with you. If you are willing to take any of these articles seriously then clearly I am wasting my time arguing with a crazy person who doesn't have the ability to distinguish reality from bullshit. You claim to be a skeptic yet I find your skepticism clearly lacking when it comes to these articles... even a 5 year old could tell these are bullshit, not to mention the fact that your conspiracy theories contradict each other (how can he be an ardent supporter of the doctrine of his church and worship satan?). When you decide to go outside and begin to actually use that brain that I'm starting to doubt is in your head then maybe I'll continue with these arguments. Until then don't waste my time with bullshit.

Inefficient Wind Energy Production

In short what you are arguing is that the wind doesn't blow all the time so we can't use wind energy effectively. I previously posted some videos about this subject on my first argument of this thread, but from the past couple arguments I can tell you didn't really watch them. I don't blame you, since I'm sure you have better things to do than watch 10 minute videos about wind energy, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you to know something about wind energy before entering the debate, and then continuing to think you know about wind energy when you've been shown to be wrong on almost every point you've made.

I will once again reveal your misconceptions, despite your lack of effort.

Obviously it is true that the wind doesn't blow all the time, however, engineers are smart people, and have found ways to circumvent this problem.

1) Setting up a connected wind turbine grid that spans over a large area means that we can have wind that is always blowing somewhere. In fact, we have very detailed maps of surface winds so we know exactly where the best places to put wind turbines are and how much output to expect from each.

In your fist argument you said that wind isn't scalable, but as I have just argued, it actually works better at larger scales because the intermittence problems begin to disappear.

2) Storing surplus electricity. We can use numerous methods in order to store electricity when we are producing a surplus. If you want more information check out the videos I posted, but just real quickly, electricity can be stored by pumping water to a high up place during times of surplus, and letting that water run turbines when more power is needed. A similar system can be used with pumping compressed air into chambers. These systems are already successfully in place in countries that use wind energy.

Generates only 30% of maximum output

whereas conventional power is 50%.

It only works at 10 mph and maximum of 33 mph.

Each of these doesn't mean anything, since we already know how much power is produced by a wind turbine each year. They are meaningless statistics. Like solar, efficiency only matters when it comes to cost, not about how much of the energy from wind is converted into electrical energy. This is because the wind and the sun (unlike coal and plutonium), are free. Obviously the efficiency of the technology is indirectly related to the cost, but if we already know the cost then calculating the efficiency is meaningless (how are you not getting this?). We can solve the 10 - 33 mph thing by simply spreading them out over a large area like I said.

When the wind stops blowing

Like I said before, over large areas the wind is always blowing, plus we can store energy. Even if this weren't the case though, installing more wind turbines still means we are using less coal, and this means that we are polluting our atmosphere less than if we rely completely on coal.

As a side note, the paragraph you quoted from is talking about the power grid in the U.K. not the U.S. In the U.S. we also get something like 20% of our power from nuclear so this could also be the backup when the wind stops blowing.

On of the positives about wind power is that when the wind stops blowing it does so gradually, so it is easy to predict.

In addition, if we begin to install wind power now, we can replace the coal plants with solar when different areas of our country reach grid parity over the next 10 years. This will happen first in places like Florida and california where there is a lot of sunlight, but within 20 years should be nearly everywhere in the U.S. This way we have the two systems in place to back each other up, and we don't have to use virtually any coal at all.

A wind turbine only lasts around 20-25 years.

That's a pretty long time, and the advantage to this is that in 20-25 years time we can replace current wind turbines with cheaper, more efficient wind turbines that will probably last even longer.

Everyone wants the cheapest energy possible regardless the source.

No, you and those who don't care what happens to our planet want the cheapest energy regardless of source. What you are saying at this point is that you know there is a problem but you are unwilling to do anything about it. What we need to do is subsidize wind energy and other renewables more, since (as you showed) we aren't spending almost any money on them.

Also, I know that I and many others who understand the dangers associated with climate change would willingly pay a little extra to reduce our carbon footprint (I already showed you that Al Gore was paying extra to power his home in part by renewables).

Once again though, the cost of coal goes far beyond the cost to produce it, because there is serious damage to the environment and people's health even if we completely ignore climate change (which, though you might like to, is a terrible idea).

Crab fishers and lumber workers have the two most dangerous jobs. It is just as dangerous as coal mining. They know the risks.

You are under the assumption that coal mining is the only dangerous job in the world, and by making alternative energy, all dangerous jobs will be eliminated.

Coal mining is not even in the Top 15

Actually in 2006 they had the second highest fatality rate, but hey why let facts stand in the way of your argument?

Also, when did I say switching to renewables would get rid of all dangerous jobs? Do you criticize people who try to stop cancer because there are other deadly diseases that curing cancer won't fix? You are once again changing the subject. Let's also not forget that when I first brought this up it was a minor point about how the coal industry hurts both the environment and people's health. You have stopped arguing about the environment (my main point) and now have gone on to concentrate on how coal miners can choose whatever job they want. Wouldn't it be great though if there were more options that didn't necessitate the risk of having a cave collapse on you? Wouldn't it be great if we had less dangerous jobs? Of course it would, and that would be a side effect of switching to renewables.

Cut it off. Most of the money goes to corrupt dictators and the will of the people have no freedom either political or economic.

Well this is a separate issue, but I do think that we can work on fixing corruption with foreign aid. We already have the FCPA which forces all companies that do business in the U.S. to be compliant with our anti-bribery standards. We could do the same with both aid, and trade. There are already international efforts to stem corruption...but now I've digressed.

Like I said earlier, we should concentrate on the main problem which is developed countries. Let's ignore the developing ones for now since they aren't contributing much to the problem.

Did you happen to notice that every like you post about wind tends to view it in a positive light? Just a thought.

Finally I'd like to add how many of my arguments have fallen by the wayside in this debate. Numerous points you brought up and I addressed, but yet you didn't seem to have a response in your next argument. Maybe it was for the sake of time (some of my arguments have gotten rather long), but I doubt that you chose to ignore the environmental impact of coal in favor of miner safety simply because you thought that it would be a better use of your time. You also ignore the fact that we will reach grid parity in the next 10 years when it comes to solar, or the fact that technology is constantly improving in other areas.

I don't understand why you are resistant to renewable energy...is it because it sounds like too liberal of a concept to you? Is it because it may require some government intervention and your libertarian values make this idea repulsive? Do you not care about the effects of global warming? You're not a dumb person, so I'm not sure why you keep making such weak arguments against renewables. You clearly didn't know much about them before this argument started, so what caused you to automatically hold this position? Would you be more receptive if I told you that coal gets way more money in subsidies than wind?

Seriously man check your sources. You posted a young earth creationist site as one of the evidences for the little ice age, and your first source talks about how human activity is affecting the climate.

The fact is, we understand what CO2 does to the temperature of earth. Normally we like the fact that CO2 increases the earth's temperature: the planet would be uninhabitally cold without it. We can even calculate what the earth's temp would be without it. We also know that the recent increase in CO2 is almost solely the cause of humans and this increase is very significant (313 ppm in 1960 and 389 in 2010). Therefore we can actually determine the cause of this change in climate.

We must also take into account that the temperature change is actually accelerating, not leveling out (as we would expect if we were returning to normal). These recent temperature increases emphasize this point.

Finally, I would be remiss to not point out that climate scientists are smart people. They would realize if the climate changes were natural. Instead, nearly every prominent scientist in the field has concluded that the evidence points to anthropogenic climate change.

Sure...

These aren't claims, these are facts, and I can give you sources from independent fact checking sites that correct any news source that gives misinformation. The fact that they point out fox more than others has nothing to do with the fact that fox is conservative but the fact that fox is full of shit most of the time.

Let me ask you this: are you even willing to discuss the evidence, or are you just going to write it off as liberal bias, even when I give you hard evidence? If it's the latter then I don't see any reason to actually argue with you about this since you have admitted that you won't change your views regardless of the evidence, however if it's the former then you are a rational person who can have his mind changed if presented with convincing enough evidence.

Now I am pretty confident in my own position, however, were you to show me convincing evidence to the contrary I would have no choice but to change my view. Why? Because I don't believe things for which there is no evidence. So if you think your right try and convince me, I just ask that you give me an equal chance to convince you. It is likely that neither of us will change our minds on the issue, but at least we can both gain a little perspective as to why the other one thinks the way he does.

Yeah...I guess I keep making the mistake of arguing against you seriously. You'd think I'd learn after 2 years.

You are looking at this at way too small a scale Joe.

More people means that you can produce more. Maybe in the short term a large influx of people could lead to some extra unemployment, but eventually the economy will return to it's long run equilibrium and natural unemployment.

What proof? You provided zero proof, except for proof of your misunderstanding of economics.

The government of the U.S. is funded by taxes. These taxes come from the American people. The reason the U.S. is the richest nation is because it has 300,000,000 people and one of the most productive economies in the world. None of this has to do with "blood money".

You being too stupid to argue with doesn't mean you've won.

I like person 1 more since he saw a problem and tried to do something about it....but hey I guess it's alright that we've done irreparable damage to the environment, so long as we have clean mouths.