If you try to shoot yourself, are your odds of surviving 50%? Are your odds of dying for no reason at that moment 50%? If both are yes, why not shoot yourself because there's no increased risk of dying? — BlueBanana

The same reason anyone gambles. If you must play a game of roulette, and you have a choice between red and black on the roulette table, and your chances of hitting black are equal to your chances of hitting red, why choose one over the other?

It's a matter of preference perhaps..... lets say I simply "prefer" red over black becuase it give me a better feeling when I think of it.

There are two handguns here, a .380, and a 9x19mm, if the chances of me dying instantly are the same with either, why would I choose the more powerful 9x19mm? Maybe because it feels more comfortable in my hand, or maybe I'm under the impression that it is more likely to kill me. Would that make it more likely to kill me?

Is your argument that because the're are too many factors or the problem is too hard to calculate, we're to assume 50/50 odds? — BlueBanana

Yes, or no. I'm saying the factors are infinite, and that should work out the odds to 50/50, right?

Let say the odds of getting a winning poker hand are 1/5 becuase there are 5 players. You are only calculating the odds based on limited factors. But in reality the factors are not limited, you could be a mark, and recive a baited hand. Or everything at the table could be fair, and there are duplicate or even triplicate cards in the deck from the factory(cards are made in sheets so likely it would have to be purposefully done by a worker just to cuase possible mayhem). Someone cloud suffer a brain aneurysm and die.

Likely you will calculate odds based on the number of players alone yes? You wouldnt factor in the odds of soneone at the table spontaniously dying from an aneurysm. And I might do the same with confidence, but that dosen't make 1/5 the true odds, the odds of you winning are still 50/50, "you will either win, or you won't".

Tell me this, what are the odds of the first coin being tails and the second coin being tails, then?
1m ReplyShareFlag — BlueBanana

Already said, considering this hypothesis; the odds are 50/50.

Are they? Where does this assumption come from?

What are the odds of throwing a tails with a coin twice in the row? — BlueBanana

Ofcourse I would say 50/50.

There is a very difficult slight in the underground legerdemain called "flippant technique"(not to be confused with the card slight or flourish). It takes anywhere from 5-15 years to master, and its purely a technique of control, so there is no way to classify it as cheating. I don't know if there even is an official world record, but I've seen a 72 year old male prestidigitator flip my silver morgan to tails 54 times in a row landing it on a card table(heads is slightly harder to flip to.), but I've seen that achived at 33 times in a row by the same man. It suspected there is only a few thousand people on earth who have masterd flippant technique, it was created in the 1970's soppousedly, making it the longest kept underground move I know of in the legerdemain.

How would you calculate the odds with this man involved? To me it would still be 50/50.

No, if you throw a die the odds of getting 1 are at any given time and in any given place 1/6. — BlueBanana

This assumes that space and time are not manipulated.

How long the life is does matter in this case. How long the lifespan of omniverse is is irrelevant to any case. One of the most basic rules of probability is that the history of events does not change the odds of any outcome. — BlurBanana

The history of events is used to calculate the odds in some cases is it not?

OK, no argument with it being a possibility. It is the expressing of the odds of this possible situation as 50/50 that I didn't understand. If you are beginning to question doing so, then I approve. — noAxioms

Well if the odds are not 50/50, then what are they? You might say we would have to calculate the odds by examining all things that could effect the outcome of the situation; even things that manipulate time and space, and in this case the things that could effect the situation to go in any direction or arive at any outcome are infinite.

↪Jeremiah If you die the time frame is not infinite. That's why I added "assuming you live infinitely". — BlueBanana

It dosen't matter how long your life is, its matters how long things have been going, how long the omniverses life span is(infinite in this case).

It most certainly is, but where do you get the 50/50 from? The odds of that happening are 100%, not 50%. — BlueBanana

Well, I mean the odds of it happening at any given time, in any given place. Would be 50/50 right? In infinite space there is unlimited potential for something to reach out and intervene.

I don't belive anything is moral or immoral, there is only what you wan't vs. what others wan't.

I take the same stance as the Church of Euthanasia, suicide is more than likely the best thing you can do for the world and others in it. I haven't seen studies so Im just going from my own non-scientific observations; depressed people use significantly more resources, but dead people; use 0. I think you should be encouraged to make a move in one direction or the other, and that the world would be a much better place for it.

I agree, these are superior guidlines. I did not have a smartphone or use the web for much of anything but some reading until alittle over two years ago.

It's not exactly what I expected, freedom of speech is not respected or enforced; you cannot talk about certain subjects online. Life has much more freedom then the internet, considering that on the web laws are much easier to enforce, and creativity is less useful. There is potentially no privacy at all here, while in real life you can find and create the most exquisite forms of privacy.

I have no children, and have never raised any, but I would like to say that in a world of over 147+million starving orphans; its impairitive that the majority of 1st world citiczens stop having children. Vesectomies should be government sponsored, advertised, free, and given at younger ages.

I also think it should be advertised that vegan deits use several times less land, water and resources than traditional western style diets. That the entire world could be fed if each world power reduced their livestock production by ~10-20% and realocated the resulting surplus in grain to people.

This is why cultural change is so important, their is nothing so special about anyones DNA thats going to create the worlds savior. If you have a child of your own and feed them a non-vegan diet, more kids are going to starve on the other side of the world.

Another problem with determining probabilities is that it dependends on what we involve in our calculations. We don't involve things like time travel, quantum entanglement, teleportation, nor do we involve what has happened over the past billion years.

That winning streak happens or it doesn't. 50/50, right? Or am I misunderstanding your stance that you stood by since you were 7? — noAxioms

I do not know when exactly I took this stance, but yes. I think of it this way; in the bigger picture, considering an infinite time span, infinite space, matter & energy; a being somewhere could win a in gambling every single time it plays(lets say several times a day) for 90 years of its 100 year life. Thats event is a possibility.

My brain cannot precive the total lack of concuouness, I cannot precive "nothing", I cannot predcive no exsistance.

If you do not exsist, you do not have the awareness to care about anything, suffering requires awareness.

This is why I see no need to belive that their is no afterlife other than achiving a certain feeling of certainty within this life. The sense of certainty that you will never again suffer after your death.

Assuming I don't know how to cull, retain full stock, riffle stack, table farro, and beat the cut.

Or that a one in 1million, 1billion, or 1trillion year winning streak dosen't happen to me.

If you lack motivation, I would focus on the mechanics of momentum. You have desire for sure, yes? You can perhaps use a perpetuation of momentum to succeed. Simply learn how to gain and perpetuate your momentum.

When you wake up before the start of the day, your momentum is 0.

Oooh so we are sharing dream stories now?

It'd been years since I stopped recalling or having dreams. However the most recurrent dream I've had in life involved me waking up to an ~10-13ft kangaroo standing directly next to the right side of my bed, and staring down at my face.

I usually felt nervous, and could sense that it had a very precarious temper, was focused on me with a bit of rage, and could break snap into hostility at any second.

Awlays this dream was incredibly vivid, I could feel this thing breathing, see the moisture in its nose, and the veins on its legs and stomach.

I some of the years I slept on a mattress on the floor, then it seemed that in the dream this kangaroo would lift its leg and stomp my on my head. Easily killing me, it never happened and after atleast 20 recurrences it stopped.

Yes ofcourse, good of you to mention.

Mm, so I've skimmed through the thread looking for the keywords "nightmare" and "bad dream"; not spotting them, I think I can provide this as a contribution to the question:

Why do we enjoy dreaming?

To answer that, we should ask: do we prefer having nightmares and or bad dreams over not dreaming? Do we prefer having any dreams over no dreams at all?

But of course, as this is thematic with your ongoing agenda to advocate some sort of sociopathic ideology/religion you've come upon. How much longer must we wait before your big reveal where you set out the bases of your brand of Satanism?

Not entirety sure what you mean to say. My intentions in life are to:

1. Help evolve modern human culture into something better then what we have now or have ever had in the past. A culture that will be capable of creating a civilization in which the quality of life for the majority is higher than its been for anyone at any point in history.

And

2. Get what I want for my own personal self out of life.

Were you really under the impression that I merely wan't to turn others onto sociopathic behaviour and or thinking? And create my own religion? How did you come apon that impression? If we are off subject, and you care to clarify your veiws, you can pm me.

Come on. Are all conscious decisions that we make done out of concern for oneself?

How couldnt they be? Unless we accidentally "tripped over a wire" like Hanover said. If you do something voluntarily, its becuase you had an interest in doing it, satisfying that interest is a self serveing motive.

If you found this to be true, would it bother you? If so, why?

Sure, but they're not what we would consider selfless. If I trip over a wire and save you from electrocution, I did something for you and nothing for me.

Right, so as you were saying, it would have to be by accident, because people don't do things they have no interest in doing, you have to have sufficent interest in order to be driven to voluntarily them in the first place.

@Alec
I think its clear that all actions are driven by self-interest.

But Hanover is suggesting something I did not consider.

Doing something for the benefit of others is the definition of selflessness, regardless of whether you happen to benefit yourself. Otherwise, you must define selflessness as those accidentally helpful acts.

Definitions derive not from word analysis, but from usage. — Hanover

Saving someone who wants to be saved becuase you wan't to save them constitutes "selflessness".

Saving someone who does 'not' want to be saved, because you want to save them constitutes "selfishness".

Selflessness does infact exist and take place all the time, given that it satisfies the interests of both you and the other person.

Thats what I take from this discussion. Before; I thuaght seflessness was defined as an act of doing something purely becuase it benefitted another(impossible). But it's really "doing somthing that benefits another on behalf of the fact that it satisfies your own interests.

Love to me is a lazy and pointless word, everyone has their own definitions of it. Anyone can use the word love, its the easiest thing in the world to say. Describing prescisly how you feel about someone in your own terms is a much greater indicator. I never borhered with the claim. I take the time to explain exactly how I feel.

On a personal level, its a disgusting word to me, and I feel nothing but anger and suspicion the moment someone says it to me.

I do not bother to define love, so I cannot say wether or not I love someone. I know I can become obsessed with someone, to me, that could be love.

I always ment to look for more research on this topic. I go for years at a time without dreaming, I don't know why. I feel it makes me very bitter, and drives me torward anti-social behavior. I feel that "dreaming deficiencies" could be the cuase of various issues in humans.

But what bothers me personally about my lack if dreaming is exactly the topic youre talking about; I enjoy dreaming, and build up hope for it to happen on some rare occasion of night, it almost always doesn't. I won't leave my response as a useless repeat of the question however, I intend to do a bit of research on this topic and provide my findings in the near future.

Ok, so this is your response to my PM to you a few days ago that you needed to start capitalizing the word "I." Just change your settings to auto-capitalize.

I'd also note that if you see a red line under a word you typed, that means you misspelled it. — Hanover

I'll have a look at the settings, I noticed that the spelling error indicators are not active only when on this forum. I never get any red underlining although I am always aware that I am probably misspelling and mistyping a decent amount of my passage.

They're not being arrogant, they're being conventional. They're judging you by the exterior signs you present. That's not an unreasonable thing to do.

You, on the other hand, are being a bit arrogant.

Mmm, oh dear, I wasn't meaning to call anybody arrogant myself, I simply mistook your meaning I guess. Nor did I want myself to be thought of as arrogant, am I?

I thought I was being curious, inquisitive, simply willing to question what others do not. I'd identify with being "stubborn" no problem, but the idea of being ridiculed as arrogant from anyone I see a use for irritates and enrages me quite intensely.

And to clarify @Hanover; I'm not venting or retaliating against your authority with this post. I thought it'd simply be the perfect time to create the discussion, since no one had enforced my grammar for so long, and the question had been reignited in my head.

You seem like an odd man Xander. That's not a criticism.

Here's the deal - you know that using lowercase for your name and "I" is going to raise eyebrows and piss some people off. It's going to draw attention to yourself for something, I assume, that is not the main thing you want people to know about you. So, pick your fights. Is this someplace you want to put your foot down? Or do you want to save your social capital for a fight that might matter more. It is not an ethical question.

e.e. cummings did it, but he was a poet. — T Clark

I suppose I didn't consider the possibility that the majority of human beings are not open to the questioning of such things. I assume that you're warning me that this is indeed the case. That most people who hold and support much more power than myself, are essentially arrogant. So in that case, I agree that my power is best spent elsewhere.

I applaud your ability to clear up such a conscious question with reasoning. I think I'll move on from this, and leave the question for future cultures.

There are people who do not capitalize thier name. If you want to be one just do it: it is not a big deal. If you like get it changed legally to all lowercase. — Jeremiah

Hmm, strange that I didn't inquire about that option the first time my name was changed.

You can do what you like in your diary, or blog, dude.

It's when you want me to read stuff or publish it or respond to it that you have to take account of me.
6m ReplyShareFlag — unenlightened

Ah, yes, so then lets say you are in an academic setting, and are required to write and submit an essay? Are these specific laws of literature ethical enough to be enforced by such authorities?

The automation of jobs debate is then a new angle here. There is no reason why we can't both automate life and then manage to spread the wealth of that through society in deliberate fashion. — apokrisis

And you are saying that this could not work with money? And that money would be pointless and obsolete? Or that we infact could if everyone was on the same page? I know that if I was super rich; I would invest ~80% of my monetary assets into "automating life" and raising the quality of life for everyone, given that a clearly sufficient percentage of the super rich vowed to do the very same. It shows the importance of upgrading our communication and culture, rather than just detaching all faith in the concept of money. With or without money; if we are not all(sufficent percentage of the world) on the same page, it will not work.

But I say that more in hope than expectation. Governments have become scelerotic and weak. No one dares any radical moves as the world economy feels too precariously balanced to truly question anything.

Right, I've heard Stuart Scott from UPSFI talk about our manic adherence to "neoclassical economics" in a press conference assesing the potential danger of The Arctic Mathane Emergancy Crisis. Is this essentially what you're refering to?(Our fear of any change requiring the discontinuation of "neoclassic economics")?

I'm reading on wikipedia to understand "gaussian curve" "power law" "fat tails" "heavy tails", ect. They are very hard for me to grasp, so far I can only say they seem to be mathematical terms, not just economic terms.

@apokrisis
I really need to learn more about this term "gaussian" when I say "Gaussian Curve"; I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I'm simply quoting Fresco.

You seem to have more solid knowladge of what I'm talking about than I do.

Could you reference me to information on these terms "gaussianity" and "powerlaw"? I had trouble finding any specific descriptions of the former in them in the past.

Electrostatic precipitators are widely used. The equipment is expensive and expensive to operate. Industry won't use them unless they are required to. — T Clark

It's clear that my next objective is to examine the cost and range of use of electrostatic precipitators, objectively; so that we can define "widely used", "expensive" and or "cost & energy efficient". As well as the production cost in comparison to the "asking price". Basically I'm now only concerned with whether or not they are practical in of themselves, without considering monetary economic factors.

If they are indeed practical purely on an environmental and resourceful level, my next question will be; why is this technology not government sponsored?

It really is a rather small issue compared to something like industrial scale animal agriculture regarding global warming and pollution. World Watch Institute Insists the animal agriculture is responsible for ~50+% of global GHG emissions. However I like to examine scenarios like this as; if nothing else, a form of personal social exercise.


http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08940630.1988.10466413

https://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf

How many billions are certain to die?
21m ReplyShareFlag — VagabondSpectre

I retract my earlier statements in which I bluntly suggested billions would die, I stand on the Idea of billions being displaced and billions suffering as a certainty, given the evidance I provided. Billions dying was more of a qestion, assumption, speculation, and or suspicion on my part.

I'll add that in certain scenarios, high assumptions can be healthy. Hence why I feel justified in embracing my nihilism torwards everything, all the way down to individual human life. If billions do die in famine, droughts, wars, and "wet bulb temperatures" then I woun't be emotionally effected in a negative way unless I have nowhere to go for sanctuary. Which is said to be in Canada, northern China, Russia, and New Zealand, as food could not be grown anywhere but in these regions in a world of 4 more degrees centigrade.

We couldn't make them sentient by accident could we? Don't you imagine we will establish extreme forms of control over any such experiments and specimens? We can contain them, design them with dead switches, "pull the plug", "shoot the damn things to bits if we get so much as a bad feeling".

Then let the ethics be for another discussion, I personally have little interest in them, but I imagine they would read: "Are we commiting fratricide?" "When we pull the plug, is this abuse?" "When we destroy these machines, are we killing our children?"

We can quibble about how much methane will rise from the thawed and warmed tundra and will erupt from methane hydrate deposits on the ocean floor, and exactly how long it will last in the atmosphere. But every additional warming brings us closer to our species thermal limit.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Despite its short atmospheric half life of 12 years, methane has a global warming potential of 86 over 20 years and 34 over 100 years (IPCC, 2013). The sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits has been hypothesized as a cause of past and possibly future climate changes. Events possibly linked in this way are the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
— Wikipedia
IPCC = International Panel on Climate Change
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/methane-hydrates-bigger-than-shale-gas-game-over-for-the-environment/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

Some qestions i have for anyone with environmental and weather sciences knowladge is:
— XanderTheGrey

Can the relase of methane cause widespread increase in forrest fires and how does it work?

By raising the average temperature of a climate area, the soils dry out (and with it, the trees eventually) and warmer winters allow insect vectors to survive. Greater insect infestation leads to more tree diseases, and more dead trees. Millions of acres of dead and/or dry trees are a forest fire hazard under any circumstances.

I don't know where you live, but Minnesota and surrounding states have had very poor quality air on some days from fires which are 1000 to 2000 miles away. In some cases the smoke was at ground level all day.

Can it cause an increase in hurricanes and or tornadoes and how does it work?

Oceans and land in a warmer climate have more thermal energy stored up in it, and thermal energy (along with other factors) drives cyclonic storms. So, yes.

Will it effect lightning? In what way, and how?

The more storms, the more lightning. Methane won't have a direct effect on lightning.

What temperature can a human being survive at individually?

There is the "wet bulb temperature" -- the lowest temperature that can be achieved by evaporation. So, if it is 100% relative humidity, and the temperature is 95º F, a person will not be able to cool down below 95º. As the temperature rises above 95º F, the individual's temperature will rise with it. If the temperature rises to 106º or 108º, with saturated humidity, the person will begin to over heat and will die at some not very distant point (oh... 15 to 60 minutes, depending).

Why aren't more people dying, if this is so? Two reasons: Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Just about everybody else stays in the shade. That's one. The other reason is that it isn't very often 100% humidity and 110º F. People can survive 135º F if the humidity is low -- because they can evaporate away heat.

Most places aren't going to experience these kinds of lethal "wet bulb temperature" levels. But the river valleys of southeast Asia will, and not in the far distant future. About 1.5 billion people live in these river valleys, and a lot of their food grows there. If people can't work the fields, they will die of heat stroke first, and if no agriculture, then starvation.

Other areas will have survival problems too. The SW U.S. won't experience web bulb temperatures like Bangladesh will, but even at 0% relative humidity and temperatures of 125 all day, everything is dead before too long. (Hot air and desiccation can kill things as well as saturated humidity and somewhat temperatures).
1h ReplyShareFlag — Bitter Crank

I appluad you sir, I appluad you with sublime sincerity. I only dreamed of such a thorough and thoughtful answer. This all gets saved, and used for further study :D

Excuse me sir, I think you have been directed to the incorrect forum. This here is The Philosophy Forum. I'm sure the forum you're looking for is concerned with the dark arts.
1d ReplyShareFlagAccept

Listen I dont know much at all but There is something about LaVey Satanism that confuses a great deal of onlookers. It was designed to do this as a filter to separate the assumptions from the inquisitive.

1. Satanism is atheistic, LeVay satanists do not belive in the devil, the devil to them, is a fictional charater they use as their archetype.

2. Just as with the devil, satanists do not believe in magic(this part is my personal suspicion I will admit[the above however, is fact]), "black magic" is the term they choose to refer to self-hypnotic processes they have developed to help them achive their goals. A pschycological practice to sharpen and focus their minds and emotions. That would be something that can be measured and tested with science, no?

I disagree, simply on the premise that this is not about the existence of magic. I think this is a perfectly appropriate place to discuss the subject, but then perhaps im lacking an accurate enough understanding of what philosophy entails; it has become a very widely used term in modern times. But if any of you think that Satanists are superstitions enough to believe in satan, god, good or evil, then you are being trolled like you can't possibly imagine >:O

We won't live to see the devastating effects of climate change, combined with the runaway effect that could be entailed by methane release. In most likelihood, we will learn to adapt to the new state of affairs provided by climate change, at the cost of hundreds of billions if not trillions to adapt our cities and current infrastructure and agriculture.

This looks an awful lot like an opinion that provides no evidance to back up its claim....

I find the press conference and vagabondspectre much more convincing.

But i understand and relate to the urge to shout from the rooftops. >:O

ah so you've seen sources showing that the range of free atmospheric methane can range from 12-100+ years? Or atleast that it has been known to last as little as 12- years?

So... again it all depends on the rate at which this methane is released, along with the rate at which unexamined regions release their unkown amounts of methane.

So if this ~50+ gigatons of methane in the East Siberian Arctic Self is released within say 10-20 years(which is stated as a possibility by Natalia Shakhova's team [10-80 years]) then it would kill and displace billions. But with the information you speak of makes it much less alarming given that it happens to be released gradually in smaller increments over say a 40-80 year period.

You know what, I think I'm just going to make sure I have land and sanctuary in various parts of Canada, northern China, Russian, and New Zealand.

ah, no it seems I wasn't wrong at all, over a 20 year period methane is 86-150+ times more warming than CO2(carbon dioxide), and over a 100 year period; it is 28 times more warming than CO2.(so I was correct: it lasts over 100 years) This was stated by Stuart Scott within the first 15-20min of the press conference video I provided above in my intial post.

I verified it here using wikipedia as my source. I tried a simple screenshot but phone is having storage problems, however the lifespan of methane is verified within the very first praragraph of the article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

I'll add that I never once claimed methane lasted longer than CO2 or other GHGs, I am quite aware that CO2 can last thousands of years. However the effect of methane given its superior warming rate; is far more concerning.

ah, about the lifespan of methane, well this could be a big game changer...

I didnt verify that information, thank you for your input. Depending on the rate of release, and the unkown amounts of methane leaks in other regions, this could probably mean the difference between billions of people killed and displaced by this event and merely millions.

I intend to update my post and correct myself in a reasonable timespan, feel free to interject if you find the desire. I'd feel nothing but gratitude if you did so.