Youtube comments of SsjC (@ssjcosty).

  1. Lots of good information here, thanks! I have 14 years of experience as an engineer, of which 5 as a senior, 1 as a software architect, and overall during these periods the last 2 years I've been a tech lead. My last 6 years have all been at a well known tech company too. That said, if I got a question like "Tell me about a time you strongly disagreed with your team" I probably wouldn't know what to say as I feel that in all my experience I have NEVER seriously disagreed with any of my teammates - in all the teams I've been I always had a surprisingly good rapport with my teammates and the things we did disagree on were small and inconsequential, hardly worth mentioning. However I have disagreed with engineering managers and even our head of engineering, and in some of those disagreements I was able to make a compelling case and get what I and the team wanted, whereas in other situation my opinions were acknowledged but the course of action set. I left the company recently and I've been interviewing. I found that I am very bad at interviewing, because I was often stumped by behavioural questions such as that one - where my immediate answer was "never disagreed", or I just couldn't tell them of a time I did X because I just couldn't remember specifics. To the point where somebody told me they thought I was a beginner. Cool, but if I'm such a beginner then how was it that I have all these achievements - managed to lead teams, run critical projects, deal with stakeholders and deliver things that were loved by our customers? Well it's because I wasn't prepared for these types of interview questions. Now I am prepared, I have identified a set of stories that I can tell these people, but now I feel like this is also disingenuous, because anyone can prepare and give good sounding stories during an interview, yet that doesn't mean they will actually be good at doing the job.
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  2. Dave Rubin in an interview a while back: "my brain is still in recovery mode from taking in so many high level important ideas"
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  3.  @riyuzakhi  What does this have to do with Hindu religion? This is about observable facts of the world, and that in 2021 when our scientific understanding is so much better we still have a disproportionate percentage of people who don't accept basic observable scientific facts like the shape of the Earth.
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  4.  @j.metzger1730  That's if the interviewer is paying attention. I've found that the best interviews have been those that felt like conversations rather than interrogations. I've had conversations about projects and systems I've worked on, and I also asked about some of the interviewer's projects and gave my thoughts on some of their issues. These discussions do go into details, but that's good because that can further clarify the extent of your expertise. At the other end, the worst interview I had was one that had the interviewer asking rapid fire questions about specific theoretical models, design patterns, and acronyms, scoring me on how many I got right and how many I got wrong, with no discussion around any of these topics. That interview stage could have been replaced by an online form.
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  5. It's because many people's attitudes are that if a public figure intellectual says anything that they disagree with, then it means that person is now an enemy. I disagree with Sam Harris's opinions on several things, but I agree with him on more. He brings valuable perspectives to a lot of conversations, and has interesting discussions with experts in many domains through his podcast.
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  6. Indeed. What do mayors and governors do? Why is it all the way up to the president to deal with these things?
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  7. ⁠ @martafiord Such a weird thing to say, that discrimination and misogyny are comfortable, especially on a thread about a woman struggling with this.
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  8.  @dontbanmebrodontbanme5403  Omniman's whole motivation for deceiving and trying to conquer Earth was his violent upbringing and his loyalty to the Viltrum empire. The violence of the Viltrumites was all he knew, but as he lives a life on Earth, he experiences genuine compassion, and love, which have a profound life changing impact on him. It leads to him changing his whole outlook on life, regretting his decisions, learning to appreciate and enjoy peace, and becoming a genuine protector who fights to change the ruthless ways of the Viltrumite empire. Homelander on the other hand, has shown no inkling of compassion, trustworthiness or loyalty. That makes him a lot more heinous than Omniman.
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  9. ⁠ @syedbaqir2687 I’m sorry but this is a disgraceful thing to say about someone who just passed away, someone whose work brought joy and inspiration to so many people. I’d recommend keeping that vitriol to yourself.
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  10. darknessxoverlord Well I imagine it must be flattering to see people put in some effort doing an impression of you. So you'd appreciate it anyway.
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  11. Eh. It's pretty good, but it's marred by what came before it. Batman V. Superman was such a bad movie, but I think the DCEU would have survived if ZS JL had been released in 2017 instead of the Joss Whedon version.
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  12. Of course, but a lot of the videos we've seen about police brutality against civilians (not during protests but in general), have mostly had people of other races as targets. Also, what has the fact that Floyd was most likely a bad man and had previously committed robbery have with the fact that some police officers decided to literally kill him while already immobilized?
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  13. I do wonder about something: would a Danish person be able to intentionally pronounce their consonants when talking to a Swede so that they can make themselves better understood?
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  14. Good advice. The problem with leaving to get a Principal role at a different company is that the interview process is often quite difficult as they usually expect you to have had those responsibilities before - they ask you to tell them about a time when you did influence multiple teams etc. But I guess you can get another Senior role in a company where they do have Principals, and then work your way up to the role - that can take a few more years though.
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  15.  @Ihavethetouch  I remember enjoying T3 when it came out, I watched it several times even. I was in high school, mind you.
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  16.  @SafffOneee  They don't "understand' any language at birth, they are just able to hear all phonemes (basically they can distinguish all the sounds that humans utter), something we are not able to do anymore as we grow up.
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  17.  @marloelefant7500 Agreed with you. I didn't go into programming because I was a great people person or public speaker. I find it very difficult and soul crushing to do all those things, to the point where I'm periodically asking myself whether I should just quit the industry altogether. The problem is I have a mortgage and other adult responsibilities.
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  18.  @ChronicIntel2  I don't see a conflict between that position on trans athletes and the things he's saying now.
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  19. That was also standard practice in Eastern European Communist countries until 1989.
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  20. I don't get it - if someone severely dislikes that people like you exist (i.e. gay people) and that marriage among people like you is legal, why does it matter whether those views are due to their religious belief or not? Like, the actions and the effects of his homophobia are the same, regardless of whether they come from his personal opinion or from his religious belief. Why does the religious belief count as an excuse?
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  21. Good.
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  22.  @BoBo-yn4xf  Yes.
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  23. UK, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and potentially quite a few others. Why?
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  24.  @bgill7475 Which is?
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  25.  @7Anakin7 Not only that, but they were genuinely dangerous people. Yamcha was a violent bandit, Tien was being groomed into becoming an assassin, Piccolo was a literal embodyment of evil, and Vegeta was a pirate who destroyed and enslaved civilisations. I'd say Krillin was less of a villain, as his villainy was just being jealous of Goku while training with Master Roshi and trying to cheat at some of the early training challenges.
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  26. I disagree. I too am British and proud. And I say our country is richer thanks to the diversity of cultures that have been and still are mixing here. As someone who has travelled quite a bit and lived in other countries for years at a time, and who has also interacted with a lot of people from expat communities, I think it’s valuable for an immigrant to learn from the local culture but to also not discard one’s own culture. Immigrants benefit from having significant exposure to more than one culture, so often times they notice issues and have insights that a local untravelled person is blind to. However, if you are an immigrant and find that the new local culture that you find yourself in is full of violent degenerates who want to harm immigrants such as yourself, then the safest bet is to feign respect to them, and find a way to move out as soon as you can. Peace!
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  27. It's because she is a "devout Catholic" who has publicly stated that that her "legal career is but a means to an end... and that end is building the Kingdom of God"
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  28. I never liked Russel Brand as a youtuber because of his new agey wishy washy spiritualism and way of talking in "spiritual" overtones and non-sequiturs, but I've been following him more closely in the last few years and it does seem lately that he is going the way of Dave Rubin. He's the open minded one, he has no opinion (yeah right) on anything, he delves deeper and deeper into alt-right conspiracy theorist territory and only "asks questions".
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  29. Daniel’s arguments simply boil to "but isn't it just incredible how everything exists as it does?", which is the textbook argument from ignorance. Then he talks about how if throwing paint on a wall spelled out "Hello..." then we would think that's designed – but the only reason we would say that is because we recognize the words spelled out as things that we know are usually produced intentionally by people (i.e. designed), but that's not comparable with the natural world at all, because we don't know that a tree, a platypus, a planet or a solar system are things that are intentionally produced or designed – that the whole point that needs to be demonstrated. In short, we recognize sthat something is designed not by its complexity but by comparing it with other things that we know to be designed, and contrasting it with the natural world. But if everything was designed then we wouldn't be able to make that distinction.
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  30. I always liked the fact that many characters in the show start out as villains but eventually turn good and even become heroes. While Goku is pure of heart, he isn't judgemental towards others, as he is rather willing to make peace with foes than take revenge against them for the harm they've committed. By offering kindness and acceptance to them, those people genuinely change for the better. I find this theme to be profoundly humanistic and quite surprising coming from a show where strong warriors punch each other. Krillin starts out jealous of Goku and a cheater but builds up a camaraderie with Goku through while training and going on adventures together. Yamcha starts out as a thief and a bandit who tries to rob Goku and his friends, but ends up associating with them and proves to be a dependable ally. Tien is a rival, groomed by his sensei into becoming an assassin, wants to kill Goku, but learns to let go of his anger and becomes a valued friend and a hero. Piccolo Junior, a literal embodyment of evil, destroys the tournament arena, vows to take over the world and almost kills Goku before being defetead himself, yet Goku spares him and even offers him a healing senzu bean – this along with other events leads Piccolo to eventually become a good person, a friend and a hero. Vegeta is another poignant example of this - a ruthless pirate who destroys and enslaves planets becomes a reluctant anti-hero and later a genuine hero. Also Majin Buu becomes a peaceful creature thanks to his friendship with Mr. Satan. It reminds me about Daryl Davis, the black man who befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan, and as their friendship blossomed, the Klansmen realized that their hate was misguided and gave up their memberships.
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  31. I'm not sure it is hard to find, but the problem is that there are many different moralities.
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  32. Yes, but on occasion explaining WHAT can also be useful. I find that sometimes some algorithms are just too complex and it just takes too much effort to try to understand what's happening.
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  33.  @НикитаКузмрн  "put some shit as feminism, woman more stronger than men" I think what happens is that they try to portray what some Hollywood execs think feminism is, which is why it turns out bad. Regarding politics, that's always been the case - action movies from the 80s and 90s, war movies, Westerns, etc. The issue, I think, is that we used to watch those movies when we were kids or teenagers, so we didn't care about the political stuff - we just took it as is and enjoyed the story. Or if the movie was old enough, we were already far removed from that political context. But now, as adults, we actually have political opinions ourselves so we notice when movies make political statements about current day issues.
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  34.  @SliceOfEvan  I and others in my family have had experiences that at the time seemed unexplainable (and some have called supernatural). The problem is that it's not enough for me to remember what I went through if those experiences cannot be corroborated by others and there is no tangible evidence either way. The need for empirical evidence doesn't magically disappear when it comes to my own experiences. So I cannot honestly jump to explanations such as aliens or paranormal phenomena, because the mere existence of such things would have to be first demonstrated before I could afford to use them as potential causes for events. As it is now, my answer for what happened in those situation is just "I don't know", and at best my assumptions are that they were just mistakes, tricks of the mind, dreams or hallucinations, cognitive biases or some other psychological phenomena, because those are things that we all know exist.
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  35. Sam has explained why he doesn't want to have a public debate on vaccines. The reason is that he does not have the medical credentials to do a good job on this, and he believes that it would take him a tremendous amount of effort to get up to speed with all the information needed. I find this to be a very good reason. Harris is scientifically minded enough to find out what is the medical consensus on the efficacy and safety of these vaccines, peer reviewed and all that, but to learn the exact details that go into it would take a herculean effort for someone who is not active in that area of expertise.
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  36. Well he's pausing it so that he can comment on specific things that they say during their whole conversation. If you want to see the whole bit uninterrupted then just watch it on FOX. They make a lot of unchallenged claims in the video, so it makes sense for someone who is criticizing them to go through their talk point by point.
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  37.  @MarioKonga  And it wasn't actually her all along... the show's villain was still Wanda!
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  38.  @Ihavethetouch  Oh I see. I didn't remember that, as I watched these movies a long time ago, but you've explained it well, thanks!
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  39.  @ZachariahMBaird  I think what they want is a real promise and assurance from the government that the police system will be reformed, along with practical action in that direction. Regarding the burning and looting, I was actually wondering why this kind of stuff hadn't started sooner, years ago even. Mind you, I am not American nor do I live in the U.S.A., I am just someone from Europe who's constantly amazed by the decisions taken by the U.S.A. leader(s).
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  40.  @medgang Don’t engage with these trolls. Their comments are just intended to poke at you and make you feel uncomfortable and inadequate, as they get satisfaction from this. But you aren’t obligated to justify yourself to them. Move on.
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  41.  @brianmoeller3539  Honestly, stories like yours are a breath of relief. In a lot of companies people are expected to move up the latter, and they often get promoted to the level of their incompetence. For example, a great engineer who's being pushed into management may just not be a good manager, and may be miserable because of it. I also hope to continue staying technical for as long as possible. Thanks for sharing.
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  42.  @mysticone1798  Sabine has published several videos on the JWST findings about those early galaxies. It’s all super exciting stuff, but the science on them isn’t yet settled. So she refers to more established science until we find out more. Also, it’s also not necessarily Big Bang that those findings are challenging, but the existing models about galaxy formation. And we expect that new resolution telescopes will help us further refine our models, just like it’s now the case thanks to JSWT.
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  43. I think this simplified view is quite problematic. Sometimes there are valid reasons to have negative feelings about a group, especially when it comes to politics and religion. Pointing out systemic issues and evils that some religions and sects promote, and harmful actions done by their adherents in the name of their religion, can be insulting to the followers of those religions and others who feel offended on their behalf. And you'll notice that the more fundamentalist some sects are, the more they get offended by the modern world, by the existence of LGBTQ people, by sex education, by the existence of apostates and non-believers, by people seen as blasphemers etc. I personally have negative feelings about conservatives and religious fundamentalists and Christian nationalists. Should I really fear saying things that they may find insulting?
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  44.  @VannywiththeFanny  The decision about who to vote this time around is obviously easy if you're a decent person. But we shouldn't have to be in this situation in the first place, where the only options are two potentially senile old men in their late 70s. I would say that anyone who's over 70yo has no business being a president. And similarly with other high stakes roles, like the VP, a senate house speaker, a supreme court judge etc. Why are those judges appointed for life anyway?
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  45.  @CitizenTechTalk  It's not really taught in schools, although some places do have civics and ethics classes in school. As for home, I would say most parents do teach their children their own morality, some better than others, but again - the values parents teach their children with can be quite different from family to family.
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  46. Interesting interview.
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  47. "The Church imploded in Ireland, today less than 20% of the Irish attend church or have any relationship with it." Good.
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  48.  @Frankie9553  „he also didnt make 200 billion. so what have you done? you're avoiding the question. list your vast accomplishments” He also didn't make 200bln yes, but what's your point?
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  49.  @Frankie9553  "if someone was smarter than elon then they probably have accomplished more no?" No, not really. It would have to be someone a) smarter than Elon, b) motivated to lead businesses, c) take the right opportunity at the right time, and d) starting from a well connected rich family. Actually, the right opportunities, connections and well placed decisions are likely more important rather than just being "smarter". Unless you're saying that rappers and pop singers are so much smarter than university professors and NASA engineers because they make so much more money than the latter. But anyway, none of that really matters when criticising someone's behaviour.
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  50. This could have gone both ways. I thought the first one became a bit too flashy and noisy towards the end. I enjoyed the movie overall, but severely disliked the fight with Kingpin at the end - I thought it was an epilepsy inducing attack to the senses.
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  51.  @hoi-polloi1863  Would you be able to explain why we need more children? And not "we" Finland, but "we" as in humans, in general. We're already over 8 billion people.
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  52.  @hoi-polloi1863  Sure. I do think that if the world becomes better educated and more well-off, we will see an overall reduction of population, but it will likely stabilise at a number of billions. Hans Rosling talked about this in his book Factfulness, and his Ted talks, but I don’t remember what the estimated numbers were. But the outlook was quite optimistic.
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  53. ⁠ @dogpoofairy2517 I don’t understand this attitude, saying “Trump has already won”. Nothing is won until we see the election results. Don’t make the same idiotic mistake that countless supporters have done in the past only to find out their candidate lost. Heck, I can still remember the idiots who claimed there’s no way Hillary would lose against Trump, and yet… Same with the idiots who claimed there’s no way Trump would lose against Biden, and yet…
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  54.  @bobrolander4344  "By denying free will, they open the door for anyone who wants to deny responsibiltiy." But that's not the point though. It is a very relevant and interesting question to ask - whether free will exists or not. Why would we want to refrain from investigating something and actually expressing our honest opinions on these topics because someone else can do bad things with this information? And how is this any different than the typical religious apologetic that by denying that God exists we open the door for anyone who wants to rape and murder? I seriously dislike this way of thinking - "don't investigate things because it might have bad consequences".
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  55.  @tonystank2680  I partly disagree, and here's why: 1. The mood in ZSJL is much more mature and doesn't have the schlocky attempts at humour from the Whedon version. 2. The villains are now more fleshed out, with Steppenwolf no longer being a shit looking CGI monster that keeps saying "mother" over and over. Instead he looks much better and has a purpose that makes more sense. We also see relationships between villains. 3. Cyborg gets so much character development, whereas in Whedon's version he's a forgettable character. 4. The Amazons are far more competent in ZSJL. 5. We got a better explanation of what the motherboxes do. 6. We got Flash's time travel scene. 7. We no longer had that sub-plot with the Russian family. The look of the whole thing seems much more polished, it has better colours etc.
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  56. In the Romanian story he goes on to live with three women, all sisters. But as it is usual with fairy tales, their themes appear in other cultures too.
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  57. Which is why a lot of the superheroes or villains who have really long lifespans or are immortal also have extreme regeneration and are forever young or age really slowly - e.g. The Highlander, Vandal Savage, Wolverine, Superman etc.
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  58. "Problem is, it's cannon that if a human punches superman, he would shatter every bond in his hand. He might never heal." Wouldn't it be just like punching a brick wall? You'd probably break a bone in your hand or sprain your wrist, but not much else.
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  59. Not an arcade game.
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  60. I know people who would say that still being a senior after 25 years of experience is a massive red flag. As opposed to something like a principal, or distinguished engineer, or CTO etc. I don't have that opinion though, as I've worked with senior engineers who were in their 50s, and they were happy in their career and just not interested in constantly advancing - their focus was on their life outside of work, and while at work they did their job well.
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  61. ⁠ @chatham43 That’s what “free education” means though: education funded by the state, with money obtained from a variety of taxes.
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  62. Interestingly, when he places the objects (rubik’s cube, ruler) I am fooled on the first rotation but not on the next ones.
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  63.  @Shani03314  What... do you mean you don't have an accent? Everyone has one.
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  64. Do notice that he never published these findings in any peer reviewed journal, because the reviewers would highlight all his mistakes and reject his submission. Instead he decided to make a public presentation out of it, hoping that he can just coast on his credentials in another field instead of actually going through the scientific process with this. This is exactly what all the "anti mainstream science" pseudoscience gurus do, like Graham Hancock, Nassim Haramein, or religious apologists such as Kent Hovind, Ken Ham etc. Obviously those guys have no scientifc credentials at all, but it's disappointing to see actual scientists go the same route when their motivated reasoning leads them to think they're right and that there's a big conspiracy among scientists in the field to hide the truth.
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  65. @Analyzing Male Slavery Eh, it doesn't help anyone if we call them selfish and stupid, they won't listen to us more if we dot that.
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  66.  @CitizenTechTalk  I think it helps to accept the fact that human societies are messy and will never be perfect. We are a product of the natural world, and life in nature can often be quite cruel and painful. I think the philosophy of stoicism can help with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9OCA6UFE-0
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  67.  @CitizenTechTalk  You're welcome. I recently read an article about the meaning of an idea in one of Voltaire's books - that "one must cultivate one's own garden". https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/cultivate-own-garden-voltaire/ "We should never tie our personal moods to the condition of a whole nation or people in general; or we would need to weep continuously." It doesn't mean we shouldn't get involved in improving our countries' well-being (Voltaire himself having been an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and a critic of the Catholic French monarchy) but that we should also try as much as possible to focus on our small projects that we can realistically tackle as they can give us a lot more satisfaction and keep us mentally healthy (e.g. tending to a garden, handling a small business etc.). A friend of mine commented on this, saying that voting is largely a social ritual; if you really want to make some positive change, start with your family, friends, neighbourhood - there is a lot you can do there, and it's rewarding. Try to change national policies and it's just a drag, with often little measurable outcomes.
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  68.  @CitizenTechTalk  Thanks for your insight!
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  69.  @roberttownrow3606 Because… the experts warned it would be more difficult for their businesses, not better. That’s why.
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  70.  @KillJD  That is a good reason though. Taste is something very subjective. And there was no need for the "grow up lol" bit at the end, it's unnecessarily mean spirited. Remember that there is a human being at the other side reading your message.
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  71. The problem is that Shapiro is willignly lying in order to promote his religion. I don't believe for a second that he is just making honest mistakes when relaying what these people are saying, because he does it again and again. You can see how he takes these small clips out of the context of a larger conversation in which the people he is quoting often expand on what they mean in ways that are quite different than the strawmans presented by Ben.
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  72. This reminds me of Robert Kiyosaki, who had some real estate businesses, but he really got rich when he started writing pop books about how to get rich (e.g. Rich Dad, Poor Dad), and signed contracts with MLM businesses who would promote his books. Amway people for example are constantly promoting and selling his books.
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  73.  @celticlofts  I'm sure they do have a lot of power. But I count any loss of theirs as a win for society.
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  74. Oh I’ve seen lots of them, regular folks and politicians alike, who will vehemently deny that Brexit caused any problems.
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  75. There are other options though. I tend to be polite and positive around people, and I largely ignore the (sub-)culture of polarized views of random people in real life or online, and I also ignore rigid views of what men & women should behave towards each other. I know some people who are constantly upset and annoyed about what they think you can and cannot do or say, but these are the same people who spend a lot of time on Twitter and other toxic places where every random person has an opinion and needs to shout it to everybody else. A good decision might be to delete Twitter and other similar apps from your phone and focus on your own life. Accept the fact that you don't need to have an opinion about everything, that you literally can't be informed about everything, be open to understanding how and why others around you think and feel, and make the decisions that you think will be most helpful to you in your own life. What I'm trying to say is: focus on your own self-improvement, on your hobbies (be it video games, playing an instrument, sports, etc.), and on your personal relationships (family, friends, lovers), and pay less attention to people on Twitter or in the media arguing each other.
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  76. @@Wungus_Bill I too have political opinions, some possibly more informed than others. I try to keep myself informed, and I vote. However, that doesn't mean I need to express my political opinions on Twitter and engage with hundreds of strangers who just want to rage and shame others. I've seen lots of people who just tag onto popular tweets (from celebrities, or politicians), and place a passive aggresive or straight up aggressive comment that triggers a toxic back and forth with strangers, something I must assume they enjoy. Well I do not enjoy it.
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  77. After D) British guy we have: E) Ninjas, F) North-Korean soldier guy (e.g. Olympus Has Fallen)
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  78. Back then, did you align with Gove's view that "the people of this country have had enough of experts"? When most of the experts (economists, political consultants, university professors, etc.) explained all the problems that Brexit would cause, did you think they were just lying?
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  79.  @jandrews6254 Sure, but they complain about immigration, don’t they? Immigration is immigration.
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  80. I think Trump is quite divise to be honest. He verbally berates the "liberals" and threatens them, he pits his supporters against the "enemies". So I don't think that the progressives/socialists etc. will find peace if Trump gets reelected, but instead I think the divisions will become even greater, maybe even lead to a civil war. I know I might sound like a doomsdayer, but the past few months have been quite surreal and tensions have escalated so much on both of these ends of the political spectrum. Jonathan Haidt makes a really good point about how currently the parties have become very "pure" and hence completely divided, where you have mainly socially conservative in one party vs socially liberal in another. The ideal would be to have these parties mixed, or maybe have multiple parties with similar political power so that there can be more of a mix of ideas and values.
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  81. I tend to be quite very vocal and quite confrontational with my managers when it comes to protecting my personal time. Start saying "no" more often, and it will become easier to do so.
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  82. ​ @colloquialsoliloquy6391  Peterson is often wrong and he makes esoteric connections that just aren't justified. For example, in his debate with Matt Dillahunty he wrongly claimed that one cannot stop smoking without a supernatural intervention. He also claimed several times in public talks (so not just interviews) that the depictions of entangled serpents in ancient art represent DNA strands, which is a wildly unjustified claim. His claims that one cannot be moral without a belief in God is just a regurgitation of what countless religious apologists have wrongly claimed before him. His opinion that Christianity should sit at the core of our moral values is just bad – I wouldn't even qualify it as wrong, just bad – not unlike Muslim apologists who claim Islam should dictate our moral values. His old fashioned traditionalist views on the strict gender roles men and women should abide - you can say these aren't exactly "wrong" since they are a subjective opinion, but they are completely at odds with goals of liberty, equality, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
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  83.  @billyhughes805  I agree. The moment the conversation becomes tense or confrontational, I would back off and probably apologise. It's obviously a difficult subject for the person I'm discussing with, it's a social boundary they're setting, and I have no interest in overstepping that boundary.
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  84.  @dontbanmebrodontbanme5403  Those things could happen, sure, but I disagree that they would necessarily happen. You can already do the first 3 of those things without any superpowers, and yet there are so many good people who don't act in the ways you've mentioned. Also, even if you consider different power dynamics, there are many bodybuilders or a martial arts experts, people who are physically more powerful than regular folks, who aren't they're not "squashing" people for disagreements. There are also very rich and influential people, who have the power to do a lot of harm, but who choose to do good things instead. What I think would really happen if we had people with superpowers, would be that we'd have a spectrum – from people who use their powers for good, to neutral, to downright villainous purposes. Unfortunately, the risks to society would greatly increase as well, as now you'd have individuals capable of causing mass harm and potentially destabilise entire nations by themselves.
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  85. That's... exactly what they explain in the video.
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  86. ⁠​⁠​⁠ @Myemnhk  I just want to address some of the things you said. Atheism and agnosticism are fully compatible, because they refer to different things. Theism and atheism refer to belief, whereas gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge. So you can be an agnostic atheist, an agnostic theist, a gnostic atheist or a gnostic theist. What you mention there about there being no proof that a god doesn’t exist is true, but that’s only a problem if you label yourself as a gnostic atheist. As an agnostic atheist though, I’m not making a claim that I know that gods don’t exist, but I’m saying that I haven’t found any of the claims of gods existing to be convincing.
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  87.  @Myemnhk  I understand, and you don't have to use the label "atheist" if you feel uncomfortable with it. It has some historical baggage and in religious circles they often refer to atheists as immoral people who love to sin. I've seen priests and religious apologists say that atheists actually know that God exists and are just lying about it, because they hate him, or that they want to be their own gods etc. There's also the "angry atheist" trope, and those people do exist, but again I feel it's exaggerated by religious people. My personal attitude is to use the "atheist" label with the meaning of "I don't hold a belief in the existence of a god or gods" and I'm happy to clarify if anyone asks. Although on occasion I have just simply said "I'm not religious" because I was not in the mood for hearing a sermon or being engaged in a religious debate, which I've noticed often happens when I use the "atheist" label.
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  88.  @ajhicks9869  That’s a good point about voice acting. Although I still don’t see it as such a big issue, I feel it gets overblown by the fandom. I know people appreciate Karl Urban not showing his face in Dredd, although we can still see his chin, but honestly I wouldn’t have minded a few scenes of him without helmet. Is this guy who plays Master Chief always taking off his helmet or is that just relegated to a few moments in the series? Hopefully it’s not as extreme as Stallone in his Judge Dredd movie.
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  89. I'd say it's usually not a good idea to just believe random youtubers like Russell Brand who have no qualifications on the variety of topics they have such strong opinions on. For things that relate to politics and policies it's a good idea to get information from journalists, political analysts, and even domain experts, and be open to different points of view. For scientific topics its best to refer to the people who are actual experts in that field of science, and follow the peer reviewed scientific consensus rather than the fringe ideas. The best sources are mainstream scientific journals that publish peer reviewed scientific literature. However, these may not be accessible to everyone, as they tend to be written in dry academic language, but the next best things are the writings and outputs of people who are science communicators (or popularisers) - scientists themselves who make the effort to express scientific findings and topics to the general population. You'll often notice that a lot of conspiracy theorists, UFO-logists, ancient alien "theorists" etc. all tend to ignore what mainstream science has to say about those topics, and in many cases (e.g. Graham Hancock) they express disdain of and even anger at actual scientists for not accepting their esoteric ideas. When conspiracists do get scientists and experts to support their ideas, you'll notice they always go to the fringe ones rather than the mainstream. You'll also notice that many of the conspiracists also don't have relevant educational backgrounds in the fields they activate. I'll mention Graham Hancock again: he has no education in archaeology, anthropology, nor history, but he confidently publishes books and makes documentaries on speculative and pseudoscientific ideas on human origins and ancient civilisations. His work does not have scientific backing, and no peer review, but it does have critical reviews, deconstructions and debunkings from proeminent academics from those fields of study.
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  90.  @An_Arbitrary_Miscellany They talk about Facebook and Twitter, so this is definitely more recent than 2001.
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  91. He's obviously not doing it to change their mind, but to expose them to the people watching these interviews.
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  92.  @johnhorton5627  Thanks for taking the time to write this, I appreciate it. I guess he, like many, lives in a bubble. Regarding "cancel culture", I think what's happening is that a lot of people (progressive, liberal) who were at the receiving end of narrow-minded Christian attitudes hoped that we would be far better than them, that we wouldn't shun and shame people like the Christians do, but it turns out that the people who were supposed to be better than that are now basically doing the same - shunning and canceling. And I get it, it's frustrating, especially for someone who lives in that context in Academia where we should be able to explore the world without being afraid of public opinion. And another thing that differs is how a lot of this now happens with immense speed via social media. Before, if you were a public figure (e.g. a book author) and said something controversial, it might have been published in a newspaper on page 20, or as part of an interview published in a literary magazine, but the impact of your words wouldn't propagate to everyone like it happens today, and you wouldn't have thousands of people immediately commenting on what you said nor harass you online for it. Laurie Penny, the British feminist writer, once talked about how whenever she makes a TV appearance or says something on Twitter, she gets thousands of vitriolic private messages, including many death threats. That must suck and I can see how someone who has that happen to them or their friends would end up taking a stance on it and talk about it publicly.
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  93.  @giannism6875  Well that's rich. Accusing me of pretending to my own nationality. Goes to show how dishonest and entrenched in your narrow worldview you are.
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  94. While this is a very old video, and sadly Brooks is no longer alive, I do want to say I strongly disagree with his view here. Yes, the "four horsemen" are white privileged guys, but they are all experts in their fields (maybe Harris less so) and their criticism of religion is well grounded. I disagree that philosophical writings like the ones he mentioned do not offer solutions to the problems he stated, because some of those writings have established the groundwork for the modern scienctific method, as well as informed our legislations on civil rights and liberty. Those are the very tools we need to continue building upon if we are to solve any future problems, be they scientific, social or ethical. A lot of our progress, both in terms of scientific research as well as civil rights, has been opposed by religious institutions, and still is. If you look at the books written by the "New Atheists", you'll see that their point isn't that these people are "backwards and barbarous", but instead they explain why religion is so toxic in many regards, how its claims and assumptions are unjustified, and how it is science and skeptical thinking that will get you closer to truth and not religion. I come from a highly religious Eastern European country, and it is thanks to people like these who were not afraid to criticise religion, including some of their debates and books later on, that gave me the opportunity to think more clearly about my own religious beliefs and whether or not they were justified. Hint: they weren't. You'd like them to do what? Shut up and not point out the harm that religious thinking can cause? Shut up and not explain the flaws in religious thinking when it comes to explanations of the natural world? You're saying they should "focus on the policies", but they are not politicians nor public servants - they are instead scientists, journalists, philosophers, so their concerns will not be the same as yours - a political youtube commentator.
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  95. Very useful, thanks! I have been downleveled and downright rejected after a few interviews, but there the problem wasn't that I didn't have the skills or the experience, it was that I hadn't really prepared for the interviews (with practised answers etc.).
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  96.  @thenatureofnurture6336  Wait, so it is OK to murder someone because they did a home invasion earlier in their life? Phew, I was worried there for a second, because I was thinking that's not OK.
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  97.  @thejosh3855  If the UK has a rich history of immigration then I would think that makes it even more reasonable to ask someone about what their heritage is.
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  98. It is useful that you have access to games that you wouldn't otherwise buy, but the problem (for me at least) is that I don't have a lot of space on my PC to install too many of these games. Gears of War 4 for example takes 134 GB on my drive, and many other modern games require outstanding amounts of disk space. Of course, I can always upgrade my PC and (periodically) spend money in buying new components, but for someone like me the appeal of cloud-based gaming is obvious: I can keep using the same small factor PC for years and years and still be able to play the latest games on the market.
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  99. That poll is apparently highly questionable anyway. But I just want to say that when constructed well, to minimize statistical biases, polls can be highly reliable and accurate and can involve surprisingly low numbers of people (e.g. in the thousands or depending on the scope even hundreds). There are ways to calculate the accuracy (and the margin of error) with regards to the size of of the sampling population, and there are some thresholds after which the accuracy gained by adding more individuals to the sample becomes statistically insignificant. In any case, the polls published by Pew Research Center tend to be quite reliable, with robust methodologies behind them.
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  100. Nobody is “educating” anyone here. O’Brien is refuting this guy’s arguments and false claims, and that’s it.
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  101. Another problem with this is that it's focused too much at being a good communicator. You may have been a stellar senior engineer for many years, but if you have anxiety or you're bad at crafting narratives, or you're on the autism spectrum, then these kinds of interviews may be unsuitable for accurately assessing your skills.
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  102.  @DizzyBusy  It's not at all strange.
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  103.  @lunarwarrior16  I don't think that he is a "martyr", I think what happened is that the public reached a tipping point with yet another video of a police officer killing a civilian, and that triggered all the social unrest and calls for police accountability. If it hadn't been Floyd it would have been somebody else, and that other person's murder would have become the tipping point instead of Floyd. In my country the tipping point was the rape, murder and dismemberment of a young girl, while several police officers were waiting outside the murderer's front gate because they had received a 911 call from her but apparently they were waiting for a warrant to enter the guy's property, which took 6 hours, time in which she died. But this is only one in a long series of events of police incompetence. It would be dishonest to say "well why didn't this outrage happen after any one of those other events" or "why didn't the public get so upset when a little child died but they got upset now when this girl died?". I think that's a way to distract attention from issues, instead of adding to them. If you think there are many other people who have experienced worse fate at the hands of the police than Floyd, then go and join the protests against police brutality, you have things in common. Why does it matter that they were triggered by a different event than you when the idea is the same?
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  104.  @tiffanywyatt5137  ​I guess...? I mean, I judge groups for some of the reasons mentioned above. Some of the groups I'm thinking of are even classified as "hate groups" in the USA, while others are literally terrorist organisations, so I'm not sure why there would be a problem with having negative feelings about them. And in regards to political groups, I believe it is quite alright to have positive or negative feelings about them without being bigoted, is it not? My other point was that a lot of specific criticism of systemic problems in some religions (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church, Jehova's Witnesses, The Church of Latter Day Saints, Catholic Church) are considered offensive even if they are well grounded, and even when they aren't meant to discriminate actual followers of those religions. E.g. accusations of child abuse in the Catholic church offended a lot of Catholics who claimed these were just nefarious forces trying to attack and undermine their faith, or worse, they took it as a personal attack on themselves rather than a valid criticism of the Church institution. So I don't believe it's reasonable to give blanket recommendations that people should just refrain from expressing opinions if they can offend people's sensibilities and biases.
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  105.  @tiffanywyatt5137  Absolutely not. You should be biased against those who actually commit crimes, not against a whole group arbitrarily defined by some biological characteristic. According to the FBI 2019 Uniform Crime Report, African-Americans accounted for 55.9% of all homicide offenders in 2019, with whites 41.1%, and "Other" 3%. Be aware that this is only a percentage of the total who commit violent crimes, which overall are a tiny percent of the population. Consider that the violent crime rate in the USA is about 366.7 per 100k inhabitants, meaning about 0.36% of the population — according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting 2019. Now according to the USA Census Bureau, for 2022, Black Americans represented 13.6% of the total population of 333,287,557 people. I'll spare you the calculations, but considering the percentages mentioned above, it means that of all the black people in the USA, only 0.002% of them are violent criminals. Would you seriously discriminate against a group on the basis that 0.002% of them are criminals? It's unjustifiable to the extreme. Now contrast this with what I said in my previous comments. Specific religious organisations and political groups promote specific values that are harmful, discriminatory and even racist, and I am against them doing that. Sometimes, expressing negative opinions of their practices leads to followers of those organisations to claim they are offended. Should I care about their offense? I believe I shouldn't. I also believe the same people should be far more offended at the bad shit done by those organisations than by people uncovering said issues.
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  106.  @tiffanywyatt5137  How so?
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  107. It's good advice. Although it took me 5 years since I started to learn programming until I figured out what I wanted to do, and even then I wasn't sure. The thing is I started to learn programming in my first year of high-school, as I was at an IT intensive high-school. 4 years later I went to university, and one year later I got my first job in web development and I continued my professional career on that path. Of course, non of this was self-taught, but it was part of a highly structured educational system. Unfortunately, I never actually figured out what I really wanted to do with my skills, so I just continued improving on the web-development path.
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  108.  @amythompson6431  Communism was literally a progressive idea at the time, because it was a (relatively) new ideology that seeked to overthrow the traditional political status quo, in the name of progress. Of course, communism was authoritarian, not liberal, but that doesn't mean it wasn't progressive. It's just that what they did in the name of progress was really bad.
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  109. That's interesting. I wonder how that tax money is spent on in Germany. I lived in Denmark as a migrant for many years and was also taxed around 50%, but I felt that that money was well spent on providing quality social systems & welfare programs - e.g. fully state funded education system (i.e. no tuition fees required), universal healthcare system, prison systems, unemployment funds, worker re-skilling programs, investments for entrepreneurs, and more. I left Denmark for unrelated reasons, and now I'm in the UK, and while yes there's more opportunity to earn more here, I severely dislike the overall support for citizens that the British state offers. For example, I'd be happy to pay more in tax if that meant reducing education fees.
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  110.  @sierraecho884  Interesting, I didn't know Germany had such an ageing population. I can see how that's a problem. Yeah, a rapid influx of millions of refugees can stress out the welfare system. Ideally things should reach a new normal as they are integrated into the tax paying worforce, but obviously I don't know much about how Germany is handling that. Anyway, it sounds like a difficult situation. Thanks for explaining. And good luck!
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  111.  @sierraecho884  Good points. In that case, it sounds like the welfare system needs to be redesigned to cope with the change in circumstances, maybe have new checks and requirements put into it - e.g. a new time limit for unemployment funds, new strings attached to it (like requiring going through a training program, or work placement program). You also don't want to just remove the welfare system, because that could also plunge a big chunk of the population into poverty and a portion of those into crime. It sounds like a difficult problem.
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  112. Wait, what? Who said you should move there?
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  113. Our corporate barista (a dude) calls every woman either "love", "sweetie", or "honey" when serving their coffee, and he hasn't had any issues because of this. So these sort of experiences do vary. In life, some people do get upset about things that seem mundane, and they have the right to get upset, and they also have the right to say things that can offend. I think a lot of these conflictual situations get blown out of proportion by their overexposure on Twitter and/or in the media, when in reality most people in day to day life are reasonable. And a lot of these interpersonal issues are usually solved by simply talking to each other, it's only a few cases that become cases of harassment.
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  114. I think there's an issue of viewpoint here as well. When Joe says that Ben is a great guy he says that because in person Ben is friendly, funny etc. But this is because Joe greatly values these personal things, whereas someone else might say yeah Ben IS friendly and funny and smart, but he is a horrible guy because of the really vile things he spouts against so many people (gay, black, palestinians, criminals, etc.).
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  115. Unfortunately, I've met way too many people (somewhat well educated too) who just don't believe climate change is happening or that human actions have been in any way responsible for it. A guy at work even referred to it as "a liberal hoax". Before we can even get to discuss strategies about how to solve the issues of climate change, we should first at least agree that it's happening, and when the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree this is happening, I just don't know what to say anymore to those denying it.
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  116.  @Thedamped  Agreed. It's disheartening really, because once you realize that someone just doesn't accept the findings of science, you realize that they are lacking way more in education than you could possibly help with. For me, learning about the philosophy of science and the reasons behind the various scientific research methods was a process of many years in high-school, university and grad school. To suddenly meet someone who has not been educated and also is convinced that they don't need that knowledge in order to be totally confident in their opinions on science... that's a total show stopper for me.
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  117.  @Thedamped  You make great points about early education. My early school was in Romania, including my B.Sc., and then I did a M.Sc. at a university in Denmark. Unfortunately Romanian school focuses a lot on memorization, but I was lucky to have at least some teachers who pushed for learning by experimentation. But the grad studies I took in Denmark were at a whole other level - we had classes dedicated to "The Philosophy of Science" and "Research Methods", and a great focus in all our academic papers throughout the 2 years was on the methods. The methods had to be well chosen, well explained, and also you had to explain the limitations of your work as well as any potential biases that could creep in.
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  118.  @Thedamped  You're welcome, thanks for the conversation!
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  119. Oh, I don't like Gene Hackman's version of Luthor. At the time, Luthor in the comics was a genius scientist and inventor whereas in Donner's Superman movies he is just a property mogul mostly played as a comedic villain, or as comic book critic Peter Sanderson puts it: "a used car salesman wielding nuclear missiles". For me, the best on-screen versions of Lex Luthor are the ones from the DCAU and Smallville.
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  120.  @gowk0  There's also the term "cosmos", which some scientists use as everything that exists.
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  121. I would assume this question mostly comes out of genuine curiosity.
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  122. I'm currently in the same position as you were. I've been a Senior then Software Architect, and I am currently going for Lead roles, but I'm struggling to answer behavioural and management questions, and on occasion I even struggle on coding and system design tests, due to not enough interview prep.
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  123. Is it really the most important issue of our generation? If we ever make contact with an extraterrestrial civilisation then yeah, sure, that will indeed be one of the most significant moments in our history. But so far, there more pressing issues than UFO sightings and coverup conspiracies. Global climate change comes to mind.
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  124. But they already have individual states...
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  125.  @alexander6349 And that’s the point, their opinions may very well be considered impudent and illegal. Which is why they can’t voice them. You say fake news, but who decides what is fake? Is the Russian government the sole decider on what is true and all the journalists from other countries who are observing the situation in Ukraine lying?
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  126. Why does the caller keep talking over the host?!
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  127. That's exactly it. I think that the more transmissible and dangerous a disease is, the less rights you should have. We literally imprison people who harm others (e.g. murderers, thieves, rapists), and it's not really because they're bad people, but because of the harm they've committed and the danger they still pose to society. So on the same grounds we can justify limiting the rights of those whose infectious diseases pose severe health risks to others.
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  128. The way Justin Brierley says "What, they're ALL Christians? Yes, and many more!" while not mentioning that they are far outnumbered by the atheist ones convinces me that he is intentionally lying to his audience in order to promote Christianity. This isn't just an apologist making arguments for his religion, he is a person who has decided that deceit and manipulation are appropriate tactics for convincing people of his religion.
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  129.  @Frankie9553  "that even if you think he failed at one thing he succeeded in many more" I don't get what point you're trying to make. What does that have to do with anything?
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  130.  @Frankie9553  "he's at least smarter than you at business" Oh absolutely, I don't doubt that he's much better than any one of us here at business, but he wasn't smart about how he handled Twitter at all, which is the point of this conversation. Unless ruining twitter and blaming others was his intention all along of course - in that case I'd say he's succeeding.
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  131.  @Frankie9553  "please tell us what large company you run" I can speak for myself, but I'm not business savvy, nor have I even tried to run a company ever - not something I'm interested in. Not sure why you keep telling others that they haven't run large companies. Why does this matter to you? Do you think that only people who run large companies should have an opinion on Elon Musk's handling of Twitter?
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  132.  @Frankie9553  "if you wanna judge someone's business moves it's be good to have some knowlege on business yes" It definitely does help but it's not necessary. Otherwise nobody in society should be able to give their opinions on anyone else who has different credentials. We can all give our opinions on a song, or a book, or a movie, or on a piece of software, or on the practices of a business, or at the questionable conduct of a medical doctor, without needing to be musicians, book authors, movie directors, software engineers, business managers, or doctors ourselves. Besides, a lot of the things Musk is being criticised for aren't necessarily complex business models, but he's criticised a lot for his personal behaviour towards his product's user base and his customers, towards his employees, the controversial political opinions he expresses, the speculative misinformation he sometimes shares, and his behaviour in regards to valid criticism such as more bigotry being allowed on his platform.
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  133. I think there are different types of people. Some will be friends with someone regardless of that person's political opinions, whereas some cannot, and I don't blame either group. And I get it - if I care about how a specific group of people (e.g. LGBTQ) is being discriminated against, why would I be friends with someone who intentionally discriminates them and hates what they represent? On the other hand, I might value my friendship with this person more than I care about LGBTQ issues. My point is that it's not wrong either way, it's just a matter of personal values, priorities, and viewpoints.
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  134. Here's another relevant thing here: Joe Rogan knows Ben Shapiro personally, so he can fall back and on his positive interactions with Ben and appreciate his qualities. However, we as audiences who know Ben Shapiro only as a public figure, we have no personal connection with him whatsoever so we can only judge his character based on his public persona and the opinions he spouts. With that in mind, I think that it is reasonable for us to hate Ben and at the same time reasonable for someone like Joe to like him. Here is a somewhat similar situation from my personal life. I have a friend who in the past 6 years has become an extremely conservative and dogmatic Christian. He goes on religious pilgrimages, he has extremely derogatory views about women, Jews, gay, atheists and people of other religions and he is very vocal about these things. Now, I am still friends with this guy, even though he has pushed away a lot of his other friends. However, I would find it personally reasonable for someone who hasn't had a friendship relationship with him to find him absolutely despicable, because for all intents and purposes, he is. Same with Ben Shapiro.
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  135. It's so hypocritical of Rubin to say he doesn't talk to people who insult him or attack him, yet he himself makes those types of inflammatory tweets directly insulting various liberals. That said, I do agree that Sam Seder & the people at The Majority Report have constantly been mocking and insulting Dave Rubin on their show, so I do understand why he'd decline to discuss with Seder. Of course, that would mean a lot more if Dave Rubin wasn't the dishonest hypocritical hack that he is.
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  136. I’d give the Netflix Castlevania series a 7.5 out of 10. It was highly enjoyable overall, but it dragged a lot at times. Dracula’s plan of killing all mortals in the world didn’t really make sense, considering vampires need human blood as sustenance. Besides, they kept talking about the whole world, but then only focused on the region of Valahia / Wallachia.
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  137. But why would that be the case? I come from a Eastern European country where everybody has ID cards and it's never really been an issue. In all my decades I've never been required to carry it with me all the time. The point of the ID card is to prove your identity and residence when you have a need for it - e.g. signing up for a new phone service, internet service, registering at a new bank etc. On the other hand, I've been in the UK for a few years now and everytime I need to sign up for a service, even for local libraries, I have to bring way too much evidence to prove my identity, like rent contract, utility bill from the last 3 months, things that are never on hand like an ID card would be.
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  138. Do notice that he never published these findings in any peer reviewed journal, because the reviewers would highlight all his mistakes and reject his submission. Instead he decided to make a public presentation out of it, hoping that he can just coast on his credentials in another field instead of actually going through the scientific process with this. This is exactly what all the "anti mainstream science" pseudoscience gurus do, like Graham Hancock, Nassim Haramein, or religious apologists such as Kent Hovind, Ken Ham etc. Obviously those guys have no scientifc credentials at all, but it's disappointing to see actual scientists go the same route when their motivated reasoning leads them to think they're right and that there's a big conspiracy among scientists in the field to hide the truth.
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  139. I think it's just that Dave Rubin is impressionable and he actually believes what his guests are telling him. So it's not so much that he doesn't challenge the conspiracy theorists, I think he trully accepts their ideas and is convinced by them. With that in mind, why would he challenge them?
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  140.  @emmalyon5391  "All cultures have a depiction of Jesus. There's a Chinese Jesus, Japanese Jesus, White Jesus, Black Jesus etc. " Yeah, and that's a bad thing.
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  141.  @TheBT  Indeed. There's always the possibility that a suspect is innocent, which is why it's the responsibility of the justice system to prove guilt, with evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt. Until that happens, the media should stay quiet and not broadcast a suspect's name to the public. The victim's name being made public is different, because the person's death is an established fact. They don't need to have a trial to figure out if the person really died or not.
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  142. The thing is that the scientific community is dying to find proofs of extraterrestrial life – they're investing a lot into things such as the Hubble telescope, the James Webb space telescope, SETI, Mars rovers, the Voyager program etc. – there's a thirst for knowledge about this vast universe and the mysteries it holds. The JWST itself is capable of far higher resolution images and also lots of sensors that allow us to better detect chemicals in exoplanets – some of those endeavours are also aimed at finding signs of life. When people have experiences and share them saying they're proof of aliens, the quality of that evidence (e.g. grainy videos and photos of lights in the sky and witness testimonies) and the lack of empirical evidence is what puts off scientists from taking these claims seriously. I am put off for the same reasons. I'm not saying that anyone is lying (some do, but I'm convinced most aren't), but there are often far more mundane explanations for those experiences than alien spaceships and extraterrestrial beings. The point is that nobody seems to be able to offer evidence that can withstand scientific scrutiny and rigor. And until they do, unfortunately witness testimonies can't be taken too seriously. Now it's also unfortunate that people who claim to have such experiences are being stigmatised, but I feel this is mostly from the media who are looking for conflict, rather than the scientific community or even regular folks that one meets in day to day life.
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  143. In regards to how someone can have an "awakening" at the age of 40 and do a 180 degree turn, that's totally believable and not really that impressive to be honest. Seth Andrews for example turned from a conservative evangelical radio host into an atheist advocating liberal values when he was in his 40s. And that's just one example, but there are others.
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  144. The U-shaped story example takes much longer time than the STAR-shaped one though... Some interviewers become very impatient when an answer to a question takes too long. What would you recommend here?
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  145. How did you get all that from JP's video? "Make sure... after watching these police recorded videos over the last couple “decades,” that you without a doubt believe, this is what happens to EVERYBODY who has a run in with the police." Nah, because that would be lying. "Also believe, that every one of those people in the video are completely 100% innocent loving kind caring compassionate individuals who would never lie, aren’t quick to anger, would never spit at a cop, cuss and argue, call them a pig, try to grab their gun, punch their partner [..]" I don't think that matters though. Or are you saying that the police are justified to kill unarmed people or kill people they've already immobilized because those people are bad? "And above all, above all... it’s Trumps fault! " It's not Trump's fault, because these sort of events have been going on for decades, as you also mentioned. I think the anger at Trump is due to his escalation of the situation and him blaming the protests instead of promising to solve the issues that plague the police system. Luckily, new legislation for reforming the police system has now been proposed by Congress.
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  146. lllULTIMATEMASTERlll There's also a video on YouTube titled "Why I stopped idolizing Sam Harris", where this guy T1J highlights a lot of issues with Harris's viewpoints and attitudes, while still somewhat sympathetic. Give it a watch.
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  147.  @samalmighty1313  He shot imaginary children though - magical constructs. As Dr. Strange also said, Wanda's children were never real.
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  148. @Nate But they do. I am white Eastern European and I'm always being asked this question, and it's obviously because of my accent. You must live in some bubble if you think white people don't get asked that.
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  149. ​ @billyhughes805  This is a very odd point of view.
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  150.  @billyhughes805  There are many reasons that can prompt someone to ask that question: accent, name, clothes, hair colour, skin colour etc. And besides, if someone is asking what your ancestry is then the answer is not always just "British". I don't see the problem here. Although it does depend on context, body language etc. If the person you ask simply says "I'm British" then it would probably be impolite to ask further questions.
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  151. Not sure if it's as poignant and necessary today, but his contribution, and that of other atheist public figures and writers has been tremendous. Consider that in many countries, and the USA especially (where Harris lives), religion plays a big role in defining social attitudes as well as influencing legislation. Atheist public figures have contributed to raising awareness about this situation, and we've generally seen a big decline in religiosity over the past 20 years, as well as more acceptance of non-religious people, no doubt in part due to people like Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and the efforts of organisations such as American Atheists, The Austin Community of Texas, the ACLU etc. The separation of religion and government is enshrined in the US constitution, yet it's been trampled by many public institutions including schools. Having more open debates on the topics of religion and atheism, the existence of God etc. has been a good way to provide some degree of introspection for the country. In the UK, we have non-religious organisations (e.g. Humanists UK, National Secular Society etc.) who promote secular values and a strong separation of religion and government. We've had many philosophers, historians, scientists and various writers promoting these values as part of these organisations, to a point where we've seen direct positive social impact.
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  152.  @richardlawson6787  Is it that weird though? I think it's understandable that the more someone diverges from your own beliefs, especially on key issues, the less likeable they become to you. If not that, then on what would you base liking or disliking someone?
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  153. But how did God come about? The Big Bang theory isn't a "freaking joke", it's a cosmological model supported by measurements of the rate of expansion of the universe and running the math backwards in time, which was done by Georges Lemaître - a Belgian Catholic priest, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. It was further investigated and developed by other scientists, and due to the preponderence of evidence it replaced the previously accepted cosmological model - the Steady-State Universe. Read more about it on Wikipedia, it's quite an interesting history - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
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  154. This habit of "misunderstanding good objections issued at his arguments" and "perfectly understanding bad objections" shows just how intentionally dishonest he is. It seems to me that professional religious apologists always end up revealing themselves as abject liars.
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  155.  @johnandrews4144  The analogy doesn't work because here the people who are kicking them are far better off and in no mortal danger, whereas the actual refugees on small boats are the desperate ones who have almost nothing to hang on to. These types of intellectual exercises, analogies and metaphors are all fine in the abstract, but the reality is that desperate people, some of them trafficked, are in need of immediate help and support, not a boot to the face.
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  156.  @trivonnereid8877  It is indeed a hypothesis.
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  157.  @Steve-sg3uz  Not sure what the point of your question is. They probably haven't tried gay sex because they don't find the prospect attractive, and they probably don't find people of the same gender attractive.
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  158. What are you talking about? This is all just educated speculation, nothing more. The fact that the Universe is expanding is true, and has been observed and the rate of expansion has been indeed calculated, but the possibilities of other Big Bangs and so on are indeed speculation.
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  159. You'd be surprised, but I've heard that kind of reasoning in the UK as well, also about Trump, from people who don't support Trump. It's weird. So I've heard these people say that Trump deserves to win because he's shown that he can delivers on his promises, but then they continue and say that he shouldn't win because it would be bad for citizens' civil rights. Make sense of that, please...
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  160.  @unk511  Yes, I did get a job. This was about 1.5 years ago. I went through an interview preparation course, and so I ended up writing a big document with answers to various standard questions - a mix of questions that were in the course, but also questions that I was getting during interviews. This prep was very valuable, because I was able to think about each of these situations and summarise it so that my answers didn't take more than 1 minute for any given question. I also spent some time learning or remembering various topics, especially on systems design. Yeah I do systems design for work, but I'm never in a position where I have to hash out a system diagram in a few minutes, so I went through some books on systems design for interviews. I still maintain that interviewing well is a very different skill than what you actually need during a tech job, however it seems to be a necessary evil. It's why when I interview people I always try to approach them in ways that I wish I'd be approached.
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  161. I really don't understand what the point is. So basically David Pakman agrees that there are IQ differences in ethnic groups, but then goes on to explain some of the socioeconomic factors which have contributed to this. OK... and? What's the point? Is Harris's view that these factors have not influenced people's IQs? If not, then what exactly is the disagreement? And also, why the fuck is IQ such a contentious topic?
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  162. You need to look at levels of religiosity though. https://www.pewforum.org/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/
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  163. I wish Youtube had an option to sort comments by how controversial they are.
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  164. I disagree. I actually find it absolutely ridiculous to say that people get the government they deserve. They get whatever government exists in the country that they’re born in. Without massive numbers of people fighting for something, it’s highly unlikely that any one person can change their country’s government, no matter how much they “deserve” it.
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  165. "Absence of belief in God" = Atheism!
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  166. I don't mind him taking off his helmet, and I understand that he wants some recognition for his role, especially as a lead character. And why wouldn't he? Like, I understand being upset if the story is dramatically changed from the source material, but not this. It seems like a very minor thing to be upset about.
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  167. But you are doing exactly what Haidt is warning us of - thinking in simplisting terms of evil vs. good. When the real problem is that it's about different cultural views on things. The differences in culture do erode trust, which is a problem.The humanist proposition is NOT that we are all basically good, you are just drawing a big fat caricature of what you think is humanism at this point. In a few very short words, Humanism is an understanding that we humans are the ones who have the responsibility to find ways to work together and treat each other well. But humans are not good or evil, they're just humans, who can and do a lot of positive but also harmful things, can be wise and ignorant, can be peaceful and warring.
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  168. Whike Krauss himself is indeed quite insufferable (in my opinion), it's not good to generalize scientists based on him. That said, most of what Krauss talks about here is just educated speculation, nothing more. The fact that the Universe is expanding is true, and has been observed and the rate of expansion has been indeed calculated, but the possibilities of other Big Bangs or cyclic universes and so on are indeed speculation, and this is exactly how Krauss presents it: as speculation. The study of astrophysics has produced quite a lot of practical value for us, and it's not different than any other scientific pursuit of knowledge, be it geology, biology, neuroscience, electro-mechanics etc. Moreover, science doesn't make proclamations of truth, but instead it builds models (which can be revised) to explain phenomena that we observe in the world. Science is a a collection of methods for systematically investigating the world and building models of knowledge that help us understand the world to the best of our capacity, all the while reducing bias and unfounded models as much as possible. An important thing to remember is that scientific models are always tentative, and they can always be revised when better knowledge and new observations come along. As for the Big Bang - it's not fantasy. It is a cosmological model supported by measurements of the rate of expansion of the universe and running the math backwards in time, which was done by Georges Lemaître - a Belgian Catholic priest, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. It was further investigated and developed by other scientists, and due to the preponderence of evidence it replaced the previously accepted cosmological model - the Steady-State Universe. Read more about it on Wikipedia, it's quite an interesting history - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang When you say that "Truth is a living experience of peace, joy, and liberation" - I would agree with you that this is important, but this talks about what we value whereas science is a tool that we can use to learn about how the world works. > _"Scientists will NEVER understand eternal consciousness until they abandon science. Science is great for technology etc. but when people combine science with truth.. no no no no no. Big no no. It will only take you away from truth." _ Science isn't only great for technology, but it is the best tool that we have for investigating how our world works and how things came about. However, science cannot tell us what our values should be, it cannot tell us how to treat each other and how to live our lives, it can't tell us how we should dress, what words to sing, who to love, who to marry, who to befriend etc. These things come from us, they are usually formed within a larger context - family, philosophy, religion, literature etc. You don't need to abandon science in favour of these things, because they are not enemies. We can use science to learn more about how the world works, and in doing so we can solve various problems (e.g. famine, floods, diseases, etc.), science has proven itself time and time again.
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  169. You would need a population more well-educated in civics. I for example, while highly educated in a STEM field, would not want to always have to inform myself about all these political debates, policies, potential consequences and so on, so I do not think I and others like me should be able to directly vote on such political issues. That's why we have people who specialize in these things, so that we can appoint them to make good decisions for us.
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  170. I mean, yeah. The news are very sensationalistic, and you don't necessarily have to trust the "leaders at the podium", but you do have to abide by the legal decisions they make. That doesn't mean you shouldn't complain. But if you break the law you will suffer the legal consequences, I fail to see how that is controversial.
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  171. It does matter, because it makes it so much harder to justify the Church's influence in parliament and schools in this country. One third of all state schools are religious, collective worship is imposed by law in schools across England and Wales, parliamentary sessions begin with prayers, and 26 Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords. And the census results just talk about Christianity in general being in the minority, but the share that's specifically Church of England is only 12% of the UK, thus making their privileged position in our parliament and state schools indefensible.
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  172. A lot of these are examples of retards who get outraged on social platform (and the media is stoking the fire), and you're right to call them out. These are people who react based on raw feelings and treat "feminism" as a sort of "women on top" rather than caring about gender equality. The only thing that I think you overlooked (or misunderstood) is the meaning of "boys will be boys" in popular culture - it's a stereotypical phrase that's been used as an excuse by parents & teachers for boys doing bad things (damage of property, getting into fights, harassment, cat calling, and so on), whereas girls were heavily scolded or punished if caught doing the same things. This doesn't really justify banning or removing that T-shirt though, and the rest of your comments throughout the video seem quite spot on.
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  173.  @AussieZeKieL  I lived in a Scandinavian country for over 5 years, and I paid taxes there. The taxes weren't a problem – why would they be when they offer so many social services (public education, healthcare, postal system, police force, unemployment funds etc.)? That said, I also left that country and I believe that where I live now is better, not because of taxes but because of cultural and linguistic reasons.
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  174.  @deborahneale7048  It’s true, the caller does sound sheltered, like he’s never lived in a multicultural place before, so he just bases his opinions on stereotypes, hearsay and what he reads in tabloids. That said, we do need to be aware that bringing people and families of different cultures into sheltered communities like these can spark tensions, potentially hatred and violence. Pretending to not understand that sheltered people have prejudices like these is also bad.
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  175. What I can foresee is that there would be backlash against electoral reform, in the form of programmes like Fox News calling it an "attack to our democracy" etc.
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  176.  @spaghettimonstersjudgingyo504  Exactly. The most bewildering moment for me was when Tucker Carlson had a segment against "the tyranny of the metric system".
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  177.  @tonystank2680  Eh, I'm happy we got it in the end. I've watched worse TV shows which totalled many more hours than ZSJL.
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  178. I disagree. Equality is a desired outcome, and social programs are necessary to support citizens' well-being. People in Denmark for example, a country with high taxes and impressive social welfare programs, are consistently ranked among the happiest in the world according to multiple international indexes.
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  179. That's... just how he talks. Weird thing to criticize.
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  180. Could you elaborate on that? I'm not from Denmark but I've lived in Denmark for over 5 years, and a few other countries before and after that, and I must say that so far I believe the Danish Nordic model is the best I've seen so far when it comes to citizens' well-being.
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  181. He's not an idiot. I come from an Eastern European country, and we suffered greatly under an authoritarian communist regime, only to have a violent revolution which led to a political disarray and a really wild transition period full of corruption and destruction, but managed to progress beyond that to a point where we are a functional democracy. All these politics had real consequences for real people. But it is very very useful to be able to look at political spectrums like Haidt does and try to consider multiple points of view. Without this, you only end up with a polarized divided society and you're bound to repeat many of the mistakes of the past. We can only succeed by working together, not by perpetually fighting between ourselves, and we cannot succeed that if we are unwilling to understand each other.
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  182.  @johnhorton5627  I don't see how it is a waste of time. Not everybody has to be concerned with everything - look up the fallacy of relative privation. If I want to learn about economic growth, wages, incarceration rates etc. I will simply go to other more relevant sources.
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  183. Hmm, science never speaks in absolutes. In fact, scientific models are always tentative, and they can always be revised when better knowledge and new observations come along. This is a fundamental principle in the philosophy of science, so I don't know where you're getting the "absolute" thing.
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  184. ​@Jake Gurney Yes, it is a horrifying thing for people who want a strong separation between religion and government.
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  185. Yep. In the comics, the superheroes who can fly or have super speed usually have other powers to help them out with that task - Superman is impervious to most physical damage, doesn't need air to breathe etc., The Flash has increased physical resilience and super healing, and the writers invented another physical force - the speed force - to account for various other things (like quick acceleration, deceleration, no air friction, etc.).
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  186. Where are you getting this information? If you look at statistics across Europe they paint a very clear picture that much higher percentages of people are non-religious compared to the U.S.A. https://www.pewforum.org/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/
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  187.  @giannism6875  When did I say that the developed European countries are the only ones? I talked about stats across Europe, and in that Pew article you can see that very few European countries match the religious intensity recorded in the U.S. and even then only for some categories but not for others. This isn't a binary thing between atheist vs. religious, this is about measuring levels of religiosity. Aside for the coloured maps you can also check the data tables linked on the right side of the article. You can see in that article that several of the countries you mentioned have a lower percentage of people who say that religion is very important in their lives compared to the U.S. Specifically, Bulgaria has 19%, Romania 50%, while Turkey has a higher level at 68%, compared to the U.S.A. which has 53%. North Macedonia unfortunately hasn't been tracked by the report, as they didn't seem to have data for them. But if you look at the overall levels, U.S.A.is far more religious when compared to ALL of Europe. Maybe it would have been better if we could have a breakdown on a state by state basis in the U.S. so we could how the distribution of religiosity differs in the U.S.A. versus Europe. That would indeed be interesting to check.
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  188.  @giannism6875  You became super defensive and angry when nobody is threatening you nor your livelihood. Stop making wild assumptions and stop throwing accusations and personal attacks when you don't even know me and you seem incapable of having a reasoned conversation. "you Anglo ancestry-ed Americans" "we are an amazing people strong in our orthodox faith [..] don’t ever call America more religious then all of Europe again. You know nothing of my homeland." I am not American, I am Romanian, from Romania. I grew up in a small village and then a small provincial town, and I have a somewhat large extended family in various villages spanning 3 counties, and my parents still share their time between their town apartment and their countryside village house. And I come from an Orthodox Christian family (like most people there). In my adulthood, I have also lived in Denmark and the United Kingdom, and visited much of Europe in the meantime, but I have never visited the U.S.A. So most of your boneheaded assumptions about me were wrong, but you are so quick to judge, so quick to jump to accusations and attacks and incapable of having a civil conversation. Throughout your comment, you again conflate religious affiliation with levels of religiosity, proven by your insistence to mention Turkey's religious affiliation yet again. Discerning attitudes at population levels requires statistical data (which is why I posted the PEW article), not personal anecdotes about your family or my family or any of our communities or upbringings. But you seem unable to understand that, and you get defensive when actual scientific findings contradict your personal opinions and observations (which is exactly the point). The PEW report looks at levels of religious commitment, not affiliation. While the article I previously linked was only a summary of the actual report, I will now link to the full 97-page PDF report, go over it and maybe learn something: https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2018/06/ReligiousCommitment-FULL-WEB.pdf I will not reply to any more comments from you, because of your angry attitude and your personal attacks. Have a nice life.
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  189. A Ghost Without a Past They do have a lot to do with Jesus. Just because you aren’t familiar with that expression of Christianity it doesn't mean you get to dismiss it as not really Christian. The Eastern Orthodox faith, along with Catholicism, has an almost 2000 years continuity, along with art such as paintings, architecture and music. You are probably thinking of the Protestant versions of Christianity which do not have icons and saints and relics.
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  190. What are you talking about? This is all just educated speculation, nothing more. The fact that the Universe is expanding is true, and has been observed and the rate of expansion has been indeed calculated, but the possibilities of other Big Bangs or cyclic universes and so on are indeed speculation, and this is exactly how Krauss presents it: as speculation. The study of astrophysics has produced quite a lot of practical value for us, and it's not different than any other scientific pursuit of knowledge, be it geology, biology, neuroscience, electro-mechanics etc. You will notice that most scientists preponderently use terms like "we think", "it might", "we may" etc. because in science nothing is absolute, because scientific findings, explanations and models are always tentative. Scientific theories are the highest degree of knowledge in science, and even they are simply the current best explanations we have for the topic they describe, but they can always be improved, updated, or even overturned by new discoveries and observations. I know Krauss is a sex offender, but that has nothing to do with what he talks here about the Universe.
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  191. Thanks for posting this, it was an interesting read. I had a somewhat similar journey but I ended up in a very different place than you. I grew up as an Eastern Orthodox Christian in a very religious country. I was brought up religious, I used to go to church quite often and for a period of a few years I even hoped that some day I would become a priest. However, at the same time I was also very interested in stories, especially fairy tales and mythology. My grandma (a former secondary-school literature teacher) used to read me fairy tales in the evenings all throughout my kindergarten period. This made me want to read more fairy tales by myself, and my parents bought me a few fairytale books. Then when I was 8, I signed up to the local public library, and I would constantly borrow collections of fairytales, and at some point I stumbled upon a series of volumes of the Ancient Greek myths of gods and demigods, which I loved. Later on, when I read the New Testament in an abridged edition for children and teens (with pictures), I felt very guilty for a long time because I thought that Hercules was much more interesting than Jesus, and I didn't want that to be the case. Anyway, I used to read a lot of religious books and stories, but at the same time I also enjoyed more esoteric stuff, like Stephen King novels, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, as well as quite a lot of science fiction (Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, etc.). I had quite a few conservative values derived from Christianity, and they were often at odds with the other stuff that I was reading, and I remember I used to wonder about how courageous some of these writers must be since they wrote stories and said things that were borderline blasphemous. Another thing that I think contributed to my now very liberal outlook were TV shows like Star Trek TNG and Stargate, where they explored a lot of fantasy scenarios and had very "enlightened" and liberal values well represented and justified on screen. With time, I kept distancing myself from the claims and conservative values of Orthodox Christianity. I used to read various testimonies from monks who supposedly met demons, and they never sounded too convincing, although they were quite scary, and I always found their claims sketchy when it came to Michael Jackson, Madonna and other bands and singers being satanists, or that barcodes represent the number of the beast (666). I also used to read encyclopedia entries about other religions, like Mormonism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam, and found it interesting that we didn't believe their claims nor worshiped their gods but we believed our religion's claims when they seemed to be the same types of stories and themes (supernatural beings, miracles, parables, teachings, redemption etc). Anyway, I eventually stumbled upon the "Root of all Evil" documentary by Richard Dawkins, and I listened in while some of my coworkers were debating about God (one atheist, one Christian) but never chimed in myself. I still believed in God, but I found more and more things troubling (like that documentary). Eventually I ended up watching various debates which included Dawkins, C. Hitchens and Sam Harris, and I was constantly amazed by how their points seemed far more reasonable than those of their religious opponents. That's when I realized I couldn't believe in God anymore, and I went on this investigative quest to learn more. I was in university at that time, and I had just started a Master's degree programme at a top university where I got an introduction in the philosophy of science and I learned a lot about scientific research methods. On my quest to redefine myself, I realized that I was in charge of my own life, and my values were no longer tied to the religious doctrines of my youth, and I could look toward the future. I ended up quite liberal, but I don't like positioning myself within a left/right paradigm as I feel it is an artificial and forced concept. I believe we should all express ourselves in ways that are meaningful to us, and try to not let traditions or religious norms hold us back. Of course, we should be mindful to not harm other people while doing this, and allow them the space and freedom to do the same. In my various readings (which even included fascist writer Giovanni Papini), the most appealing outlooks I found to be the one promoted by the Professor of Philosophy A. C. Grayling - enlightenment values about science, civil rights, equality under the law, tolerance of different lifestyles, freedom of expression, freedom to travel, an interest in social cooperation and helping each other out. I also found the existentialist outlook (Beauvoir, Sartre, Camus) mostly compatible with my own views. I lived in a Scandinavian country for several years, and found that the way their society functions very refreshing - while they do pay high taxes, they get a lot out of those taxes: state funded education at all levels, including University, state funded healthcare system, a focus on family life and a good work-life balance, and practical education levels which meant that they encouraged vocational training (e.g. carpentry, plumbing etc.) without assigning any stigma to it. Overall, this gave me a very positive view of what people can achieve when they care about the wellbeing of their communities, and of course the wellbeing of the individuals that comprise those communities. I saw how unburdened people were, that they could change their minds (several times) about the upper education and the type of job they wanted, and also how easy it was to start a business, as the risks in such decisions wouldn't threaten to ruin you because you always had the social safety net to rely on. Coming back to the so-called IDW, I really despise the views put forth by Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson (and I consider Steven Crowder an uncultured hack). I think it's because their views call us back to the same types of traditional and rigid norms that I left behind a while back, very much opposed my current outlook and aspirations. I still find Sam Harris interesting from time to time, and I found Steven Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature" really interesting and impactful, proof that we as a society can indeed overcome our violent and animalistic impulses. Dave Rubin doesn't seem to have any real values, and is mostly a reactionary against the so-called "regressive left", and I dislike his constant pandering to the conservative values of his guests; I just don't like the guy. TYT also seem a bit... iffy. I sometimes enjoy The Minority Report - they have some really interesting points, but they can also be a bit childish at times. I still listen to a show called The Atheist Experience, although it's not as good as it used to be a few years ago, since a bunch of their co-hosts have left the show in the last 2-3 years.
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  192. Well not quite. Science is only limited by what we can investigate. Science is a a collection of methods for systematically investigating the world and building models of knowledge that help us understand the world to the best of our capacity, all the while reducing bias and unfounded models as much as possible. That is the best we can do, and we are limited by what we can observe, meaning that our scientific models will also be limited. As Carl Sagan once said: "Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It's just the best we have."
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  193.  @RenatoRosabb  Agreed. And indeed I've previously heard this idea that the language you speak determines the way you think, and it can also determine what you are able to conceptualize. In fact it's highlighted even in this video by the discussion about how the meaning of the word "universe" has changed - I've also heard universe as "the local presentation of space-time" and cosmos as "everything that exists". The fundamental principles of the philosophy of science are very important and it is quite obvious to understand why they are important (e.g. falsification, testing hypotheses, etc.), but I wouldn't call the philosophy of science dogmatic. The problem is that Krauss is quite ignorant of philosophy in general. I think that when scientists say that they are "seeking the truth", they mean that they ar seeking to make discoveries about the natural world and create models that map well to reality. And that's basically the definition they use for "truth": that which is in accordance with fact or reality I also think that some scientists are simply not good communicators when talking to laypeople. In science, there are words that are used differently than the way laypeople use them, "theory" being a good example. What Krauss is doing here is just expressing some educated speculations, but nothing more, and that's the way he presents it. I have other issues with Kraus (aside from him being a sex offender of course), mainly about his (ignorant) stance on philosophy.
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  194. I think that if the medieval view of homosexuality suddenly became law, JP wouldn’t be too bothered.
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  195. As an Eastern European, when I learned English I also learned to speak with an English accent – in my case it was British Received Pronunciation. Obviously I still have a slight Eastern European accent but this is disappearing more and more as I live in the UK and speak the language daily. If I can physically do it, I don't understand why I would want to speak in a thick EE accent instead of a proper English accent. The accent is also part of the language, not just the written words.
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  196. I mean, the London marchers are also peaceful protesters.
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  197. At the end of the day, the USA is also broken down in individual states, which in turn are also broken down into small administrative areas.
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  198.  @syedbaqir2687 That's quite a disgusting thing to say. I'm sure in real life you are probably a better human than the bits of hatred and vitriol you're currently spewing in Youtube comment sections would indicate. So with that said, I'd just recommend you sit this one out, go reflect on your life and choices, and stop posting troll comments online.
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  199. But... Mother Teresa was indeed a monster. Why would that be your benchmark?
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