CelestialTeapot

Nicotine use supposedly causes "altered development of cerebral cortex and hippocampus in adolescents." That seems very unhealthy. [1]

Also, the liquid refills can contain an acutely toxic concentration of nicotine. Enough to kill a small child with as little as half a teaspoon ingested or absorbed through the skin. [2]

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=25794473

2. https://www.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/12/12/aap...

"There's lots of such stories in the Bible - the message of "shut up and believe what you're told" is clear. "

You've picked some of the best stories that illustrate if god existed, he'd be a moral thug and sociopath...

In the US, the fastest growing religion is None-of-the-above [1]. Now, that's not to say that people have given up magical thinking and have embraced reality. They still might believe false things. But at the very least, on some level they've realized that (organized) religion and its dogma is poisonous.

1) http://elm.washcoll.edu/index.php/2018/11/fastest-growing-re...

That's more like the typical engineering school format. I went to a Liberal Arts university, nearly half my classes were general humanities and sciences. The rest were in my major (also required an additional 18-21 credits for the ABET accredited degree option).

<quote>If somebody offered me five to eight times as much as I make today with a huge boost in status and other positive side effects, and all they ask is to quiet down those silly principles, I'm not so sure I'd say no. "You can still do good in 5 years when you've made enough money to be set for life", I'd probably tell myself. </quote>

The worst thing is, sticking to those principles just means someone else will take the job.

Coming out of university, I had one job offer (it was a bad down market at the time). My principles made me say no. I didn't want to work on guidance systems for military applications, thank you very much. That choice has cost me a great deal in earning potential. Even so, I would find it hard to blame someone for compromising their principles.

Did they not pay any attention during the humanities portion of their education? That's part of why it's there.

Disclaimers: I'm not an engineer, but my CS degree is ABET accredited. I also took a few more Archaeology, Cog Sci, and Philosophy classes than strictly necessary.

"When there have already been numerous well-documented instances of people making false accusations that absolutely RUIN THE LIVES of the defendants"

*Citation needed on that claim.

The reality is that "false" sexual assault/harassment claims are around 2% to 10%. And that number is likely higher than reality because some law enforcement agencies will call a claim "false" simply because they could not find enough corroborating evidence. [1]

If anything, there is a disincentive to report sexual harassment/assault, because the victim has HISTORICALLY been victimized again in the media. The vast majority of sexual assault crimes go unreported because of this and other reasons. [2, 3]

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/health/sexual-assault-false-r...

[2] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf

[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chron...

Bad news: the physical disc is supposedly just a download code, so you'll be pulling 50+GB regardless.

Day 1 patch or no, I don't like the practice of the physical media just being a Steam/Uplay/Bethesda installer with a download code for the game.

>GP's claim was that it is all recruiting is in the name of the diversity of the student body and future student demographics. That's trivially observably false.

>Colleges and universities are concentrating their recruitment offers on the most profitable students, which are the international and out of state students because for every non-state student they get to charge more money.

I work at a private university, our tuition is the same regardless where you come from. Nevertheless, we recruit heavily from domestic students and international students, each of which have special populations we incentivize to make a class more diverse, whether it be economically or ethnically.

You're welcome to believe what you want, and, certainly, in the divestment of the public interest in funding higher education, public schools are feeling the financial pinch and may be seeking out more students who pay the full rate, but private (not-for-profit) colleges and universities for the most part do not engage in such tactics.

I don't know your situation, but can empathize. In my state, you have to see a pain specialist and jump through the hoops on a regular basis. For me, opioids dulled the pain at night enough to sleep, but, they won't regularly prescribe it for my condition because, "it doesn't work."

I eventually found a doctor that prescribed low-dose naltrexone[1] (not a controlled substance) in 2mg/night doses and the pain has dropped from a nightly 8-9.9 to about a 6 or 7 except when there's a flare-up, and the next day I'm not in as much pain until later in the day. Still sucks, but I can eventually get to sleep. I have no idea how long it will work (I've found many pain meds eventually stop working for me) but for now, one day at a time...

1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3962576/

Sorry, no, I work in higher education and that's not how higher education works. We recruit international students because we want a more diverse class. Some of them even get merit scholarships from the college.

Right now, the drive is for Hispanic students from the southern and western states, because that demographic is where the growth in college students will be domestically.

And many states are enjoying the government that jerrymandering and voter suppression efforts provide.

This might be it. GE-EF is the ADHD with exercise group, GC-EF is the non-ADHD with exercise group.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7585/7b94628b425919efde51db...

You can step into the "fun" aspects of the game pretty quickly if you don't mind being cannon fodder for one of the larger corporations that will even pay for your ships.

Eve's progression is entirely based on feed-the-meter, where you skill up by scheduling your skills to be learned over time. My knowledge is out of date, but it took me hundreds of hours of paid time to get into higher tiered ships to reach what I would consider the "fun" aspects of the game. YMMV.

Interesting, though I wonder if using multiple $1k lenses is as cost effective as buying one 16" telescope (<$3k) and a sensor/camera ($1k?) that would give ~3x more light gathering capacity than the array of 24 lenses.

It's because most people are not computer scientists/hobbyists/engineers. They are laypeople whose knowledge of the internet, and computers in general, is very limited.

Indeed, it sounds like one of the trendy corporate gyms you'd find in the Bay area and other corporate centers. I've been to gyms like that, where grunting while lifting (omg, you're using free weights?!?!) is grounds for a warning, and to other gyms where people bring their own bars and the occasional drop, while met with angry stares and sometimes invective from other gym members, is not cause for immediate termination of their membership.

270 pounds is nothing. I ruined my knees in high school through unsupervised access to the weight room during gym class. After some time, I could press the whole rack on the upper foot platform (old school lever type machine with two sets of foot platforms. That was the equivalent of 950 pounds.

All crop plants are cultivated. The hard way to do genetic modification is through selective breeding (plant A's pollen rubbed on plant B's pistil) until you get the plant with the traits you want. There are some limitations, like you can't generally breed plants of different species. GMO typically refers to the more direct route of genetic engineering, where you insert the genes that give the plant the desired traits from some other donor which may be of a completely different species, maybe even an engineered gene that doesn't appear in nature.

Yep, legalized theft. Civil forfeiture works to fleece the peasantry (and the criminals) equally. The DEA and police use this method to fund their organizations, because in most cases, they're allowed to keep most if not all of the money seized. That's an enormous conflict of interest that has caused many innocent people to get shafted by the government, as has been shown here (and elsewhere) in prior stories related to civil forfeiture.

TL;DR: Never travel with cash, gift cards, or cash cards.

The US has been in perpetual war ever since its founding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

The Democrats want to impose a "sin" tax on soda to try to nudge people from making themselves even more obese than they already are, in a futile attempt to bring down health care costs, without addressing the main problem, which neither side wants to confront (too much lobbyist money at stake).

I would welcome sane legislation on gun control that would work. I doubt that anyone in Congress would have the courage to do what Australia did.

It really doesn't seem worth engaging you any further, as you seem to be a fine exemplar of your closing statement in your argument.

> social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it.

The Republicans seem to waste a great deal of effort trying to fit the government into people's bedrooms, family life, and women's doctors offices for it to just be "a nice little diversion."

In any argument there is your side, their side, and the truth.

Yes, this is true. Emotion gives us such wonderful discourse on the internet, and in the legislature, laws like the "PATRIOT" act. Though one must wonder, exactly when is the best time to discuss solutions to the problem(s) at hand? It's hard to schedule rational time with the constant news cycle of tragedy after election run up to the next tragedy, ad nauseam. At some point, people need to decide if this is the type of society we want to live in for the rest of our lives.

> Can't we still be hunters/gatherers?

Sure! Now then, whose land will you be hunting/gathering on? You'll most likely have to pay for access to someone's land, and they probably won't barter access for chickens/goats.

His critique of capitalism seems pretty spot on, but I'm not so sure about his solutions to the problem.

Here's a (mercifully short) article on the subject by Chris Hedges: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/karl_marx_was_right_2015...

On the clickbait scale from "Bankers destroyed your 401k" to "Robots destroyed your 401k" to "Algorithms destroyed your 401k", the last choice is the least sexy of all.

>This mantra is being repeated over and over: algorithms and automation are taking away the jobs. I'm still skeptical.

My current work involves determining pain points in office "grunt work" and developing automation tools to reduce the need for temporary (and permanent) staff. Those people have been displaced from the workplace. No new jobs were created as a result of this automation. A great number of office workers will be displaced to due automation and the pace at which this will happen is going to leave a lot of people very unhappy and very unemployed.

Undoubtedly, I, or at least, people like me, will continue to have jobs. After all, someone must maintain the code, service the robots, et cetera. But that's a far cry from full employment of the workforce.

>And so I doubt we will run out of work to do. This would mean that somehow we ran out of problems to solve. On the contrary, we appear to be flooded with them: cancer, infectious diseases, global warming, clean energy, access to space...

How do you justify and fund higher education of all the out-of-work 40-, 50-, 60-year old truckers, office managers, office workers, and so on? Or will we just ignore them and wait for them to die?

Small point, consistent use of BCE/CE is preferable mixed usage or use of BC/AD. Thou shouldst not cross the streams... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

If you're not interested in the woo, you could always try the Secular Humanist Society or other similar rationalist local groups that don't preach religiosity.

https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/locations/