Karl

Time travel in the sense we usually mean it is impossible, but there are possibilities of recreating some events and places. We do so already, but more powerful computers might one day allow us to glimpse the past in a completely realistic way.

Y'know, free speech and all that ;-) let it evolve. I have had enough out it thanks to Brian and Joe. So, knock yourself out.

The problem is my dear Lerner it is you that has become the bigot, but are unable to see it. Your answer is to shut down any discussion because 'you' think it's dangerous, or subversive. You think it is your right to censor, but the point is that you are acting just like the bigots that you rail against. People must make their own minds up about these things, not be told they cannot even talk about them. Even if there is an anti-Semite posting stories then it is not up to you to censor them, but to use your voice to argue and expose their bigotry if that is indeed what it is. Sionnach was making a point and it's an important one, but it appears it has gone straight over your head because you don't subscribe to a right we have had in the West to speak as we think. Even if we dislike what someone's says we should defend the right of them to say it and then boycot, argue, laugh at the person until their voice becomes insignificant. We change behaviour and opinion not by bluntly declaring that no one should be allowed to hear, but by ensuring that no one listens. Sionnachs latest post was about Love. Should be censor it because it refuses the idea that Love is a product of the emotions ? Is Sionnach a romantic bigot to be censored ? What about the religious adherence to the Tao, should this be regarded as anti-Christian/anti-atheist and damaging/offending to those groups and be censored ? Once we start on censorship there isn't an end to it. The soviets took away books, re-wrote sections, re-edited films in order to censor anything which might engage the mind and begin dissidence. It's either free speech or it's not. There isn't a point of compromise. If you are on the side of censorship you are in fact a far greater danger to people's freedoms and happiness than the bigotry you believe you are preventing.

I'm saddened but not surprised by your reasoning. There isn't any such thing as 'hate speech' there is only speech. 'Hate speech' is impossible to quantify and because it is so flexible it can be applied anywhere and everywhere with penalty by the Government. It's important you realise precisely what this means because it's end point is tyranny. Free speech is something we have accepted as a right, as part and parcel of giving up violence, it is the only way we have of protecting ourselves and minorities from persecution. This petition is not about something new, it's about a birth right, the only freedom we have to hold the state and its Government to account. 'Hate speech' was a communist invention to shut down dissent, it is how tyrants and evil win. Do you really want a country in which you dare not speak out for fear of your, wife, child, friend reporting you to the authorities for re-education. By refusing to sign you are acting precisely in that way-you are becoming the framework for a new Stasi, a new wall and complicity in whatever evil might be coming down the line.

The entire point of handing over the right to physical defence and justice to the state is to declaw ourselves. Instead of beating each other's brains out, we hiss and roar. If we can't hiss and roar then people will return to physical force. Free speech is a right and not a privilege.

Very good and very true. The Greeks got it right. "in terms of human suffering—is the belief that love is a matter of “the heart,” not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind" Ayn Rand.

Coincidently I just watched that video prior to it being posted.

The other thing she seems unconcerned with is her complete dismissal of the 54% of UK voters who voted for freedom from the EU and the restoration of democracy. Her attack on Farage was outrageous, not because it attacked Farage, but it played right into the media assault on the Brexiteers as bigoted racists. This is the establishment showing its true colours, Hillary, like UK establishment politicians, hates the people and hates her country. The KKK was a democratic party hit squad. It has nothing to do with republicans. This is the democrats rewriting of their own sordid history and ever more sordid future. I don't like Trump, but at least neither he, nor his party appear to hate the people, nor their country. They have a history which was anti-slavery and free market. Really, who wants to vote for the democrats and particularly Hillary. Obama has destroyed what was left of the USA. His Obamacare plan has sunk like a corrupted pudding. Entire states are now without health care provision, the cost has ballooned, insurers are dropping like flies, the foreign policy has been a complete disaster leaving Europe and the Middle East in an enveloping chaos. Productivity has collapsed and the number who have exited from the Labour market swamps the so called 'improving employment numbers' of which many are massaged guesses and people working several low paid jobs instead of the one higher paying job. The over 55s have had to go back to work as their pensions and savings have been raped. It's a mess. I definitely wouldn't vote, but most certainly I wouldn't vote for Clinton the crook who hates everyone who isn't doing her bidding.

"We are doing this to ourselves" struck me as particularly relevant. I've wondered about this on the various forums I've participated in over the years. At one time it seemed clear to me these were private spaces like someone's front room, or a restaurant, but this isn't the case when the aim is to attract anyone and everyone to, what is ostensibly a public meeting in which everyone is invited to have a voice. On every forum visited-despite there being a central theme-there is inevitably an 'off topic/general' area. I posted this same thread on a motorcycle forum, which, several weeks ago had discussed Brexit. What surprised me was that despite a very heated debate on that subject, the post on freedom of speech received harsh criticism from several who had actively supported Brexit. There is a sense of something that perturbed me, I can't quite put it into words, but it seems to me there is an intolerance for free speech, a terrible fear of it. Specifically mentioned were the usual politics/religion-which, I believe is the result of the old phrase 'never discuss politics, or religion' and yet these are the things that are most important to discuss. I was very pleased with the moderators on this forum who re-opened the thread on a touchy subject by Sionnach. This is something I have never witnessed and it came as a great and unexpected surprise. I don't believe in 'anything goes' most certainly not the kind of speech that tries to, or advocates violence directly-even in fun, neither should people stoop to insults, or bullying which gets allowed too frequently on forums when a clique of old timers has developed. Cliques destroy forums, leaving the old timers congatulating themselves on everything they agree with. This shrinkage is common in clubs that I have been a member of, causing them to disband. The life blood of clubs, societies and forums is widely different different opinions who are able to voice those opinions without being shouted down, bullied into leaving, or having draconian rules that shut their voices out. We often talk of 'tolerance' but it always looks like the complete opposite to me. We should not need to 'tolerate' free speech, we should realise it is the only way to prevent minority suppression. People must be allowed to voice genuine heart felt concerns no matter how offensive. I nearly fell into that trap in Sionnach's thread just because it appeared anti-Semitic, but later discovered that it was written by a Isreali Jew in a very popular Jewish publication. This was a Jew questioning the closing down of free speech about Jewish atrocities through contrition over the holocaust. Yet here was I getting out the red marker before I had even listened to the video and, worse still being ignorant about the source of the headline used in the thread. It's just so easy to fall into this trap, just like in a club, it's just easier not to put up with those who have diametrically different opinions rather than cultivate tolerance for the right to speak and also the right to argue aggressively back. It isn't so much tolerance as realising that free speech is the only thing that seperates us from violence. Indeed I would argue that forum moderation that prevents free speech -as opposed to rabble rousing/bullying-is actually a form of violence.

I so want a go on that ride. Presumably that's in a perfect vacuum. Which makes me wonder about the black hole, as presumably it's full of gas of some type which must slow the fall of anything solid ?

Oh dear the good Doctor must have been shouting at you and your rice brain turned the mouldy mush. Have you tried activating your orgone accumulator, or making a frog face at passing motorists. It can help. Better still, post me goods to the value of £20K and I will do a quantum prayer session with ringing bells and a snake charmer. Guaranteed, really, money back guarantee if it doesn't cure you.

All I heard was " uggy leghhth np l blp sche"

Haha its a bag of worms, but kind of fun. The author of the piece was also contested. Sounds awfully like the AGW model theory again. Anyway it's out of my range, but I still like the thought of Mars being scarified by a massive electric arc even if it didn't happen it's definitely groovy.

That's cleared that one up then. ;-)

So an electron is axiomatic in a physical sense ?

I know what it is I just don't think it applies to you. If it did I doubt you would be here, mind you I'm here too, but then I went through a whole array of irrational madness and you are a physicist which means you have less reasons to be here. It's all relative, but here from the NPA website: “Natural Philosophy” is the name by which “physics” was known in the time of Isaac Newton, and well into the 19th century. We return to it mainly in order to emphasize that the more profound and circumspect approach to nature during those years is needed once again. We seek renewed respect for philosophy, especially for logic; and also for the everyday application of reason and of respect for evidence known as common sense — which should be considered a foundation for, rather than a contrast to, genuine science." Respect for logic, application of reason, evidence and common sense. Does that apply to the Tao ? Any evidence ? ;-)

We do that with forces like gravity, but how does that determine the precise nature of the particles ? I can see if you smash a known quantity X into an unknown quantity Y at such and such velocity, then the resultant collision will produce some result which will be different to the known particle and that infers a new particle ? Is that how it works ?

That's a classic. Probably just someone in the army who didn't rate Hillary, or Obama but wasn't going to risk putting Obama in the slides. I bet it got a lot of laughs.

Stop with the philosopher (I would say fuck off but that would be a tad uncouth :-) ). It shows the difference between a physicist and a technician. So an apple would actually stretch ? That's beyond my comprehension, I can see that certain parts would be moving at different accelerations, but I can only imagine that the apple would get torn apart and go hurtling down the gravity well in ever more torn up parts, or is that what you are implying ? That it wouldn't be in effect a rubber stretchy apple, but a longer and longer string of - I suppose stuff- how far does it go ? If it approaches light speed does it spit out particles ?

Energetic resonances, but still things-Peikoffs quantum puffs :-) so where are those things ? In the particles, or are they the particles? I'm still very much at the electron, neutron, proton stage of things. Some understanding of the charge of a particle, but mainly electrons due to the nature of electronics. The proton/neutron were just part of the core. I know there are other particles but I don't understand their interaction, I think I said before 'wake me up when you develop a visor that sheds rainwater perfectly'

Good, that makes sense and so does the stretching in a black hole-i presume this is hypothetical stretching ? I also realised that pressure must also be directly related to gravity too. We talk of the crushing depth of water, but it's just the water accelerating that creates the pressure on objects below the surface. In physics we were taught the max pressure point on a dam is at 2/3, I've never understood why that is.

LOL yes I got that from Joe's explanation. Then going in the same direction is just what we observe on the surface when we fire off a rocket. As it gains height from the surface gravity is reducing but that must be pretty marginal.

I only have an 8" Dob so the major ring spaces can be seen, but it's difficult. Do gas giants eventually solidify ? Yes, accelerating less quickly got you. Of course it's not losing velocity, just not increasing it quite as fast as at the beginning. Like debt and defecit, the debt is increasing even if the defecit is relatively small, but it doesn't decrease.

I'm only going on the definition. It's a physical thing right ? It interacts and has a specific nature ? It is existent as a concrete thing composed of some thing ? The video was pretty, but I didn't get anything from it.

I wouldn't know if it was mumbo jumbo, I simply wouldn't understand it if it was a mass of equations, anymore than I know what a Chinese guy is telling me. Unfortunately equations don't come with arm movements and facial expressions.