dinoleif

JP Moreland has written at length on this topic (see his book "The Soul" and many interviews/talks he's done).

In short, he distinguishes between the brain and the mind (consciousness, memories, etc). While the brain may be required for an embodied creature to use their mind, they are not the same thing.

I think we agree, but I think you misinterpreted what I said. "Mystical experiences" isn't the problem. It's that the things commonly described in "near death experiences" are overtly contradictory with Judeo-Christian teaching about the afterlife.

It's worth pointing out that the notion of "near death experiences" is not Biblical.

These are modern, Western fantasies superimposed on Christianity.

Say what you want about the tax bill on net, the elimination of the SALT deduction is very good for the country.

There is zero reason for the Feds to subsidize and distort incentivize to encourage states to increase their tax burdens. SALT has always been one of the most corrupt tax breaks (mortgage interest being another).

Oh. The answer here is actually straightforward.

It's because the tax bill needed to pass through reconciliation (which has special rules related to the deficit). Generating artificial savings on paper allowed the GOP to increase the size of the tax cut on paper.

From a technical perspective sure. From a statistical perspective, the point is a distraction.

Fathers can't be involved if they aren't around.

Single motherhood rate in 1950: 5%

Single motherhood rate in 2010: 41%

"not an option for most Americans"

OK.

This is plainly false.

Most households have multiple internet providers.

In what way are customers "held hostage"?

If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them.

If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different?

This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to another internet provider.

The appeal to paternalistic regulatory bodies to restrict the choices of other consumers (who may want to purchase cheaper, more restricted internet plans) is creepy.

"Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage.

It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst.

Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations? Whose lives have been made better? Compared to what?

Net neutrality advocates are utterly unable to give convincing answers to these questions.

Of course Google takes building effective teams seriously (and rightly so, it's People Ops org does good work), but that doesn't really have anything to do with the dynamic here.

I made a mistake. It turns out that there are actually 9 articles as part of that series, so I have to make a correction:

There is not a single piece of useful data in any of those 9 articles.

Ridiculous puff piece & PR job. There is not a single piece of data in that entire article.

The way this works is:

1/ Google crunches some data

2/ The company leadership looks at that data, twists it to leave out "inconvenient" facts, and tells whatever narratives they want to tell (internally and to the NYT)

3/ No data or any empirical results are ever released (even internally)

The point is that the questions I outlined become increasingly less scientific. There are genuine scientific questions, but there are lots of others that are kind-of scientific, and others that are not scientific at all.

Climate activists won't admit that.

This shuts down the possibility for a reasonable discussion because one party (the activists) is overwhelmingly guilty of acting and arguing in bad faith.

The problem, as your comment beautifully illustrates, is the scope of what is considered a "scientific" question. You left that ambiguous, and in that ambiguity lies the problem.

For example, the greenhouse effect is a piece of well-established science. Climate change is even less scientific. To what extent humans contribute to the problem is even less scientific. Analyzing the costs/benefits of climate change is an even less scientific question. And what sorts of policy prescriptions might be effective is the least scientific question of all.

Climate activists fail to acknowledge any of that nuance, instead lumping all of those things together and labeling anyone who has a nuanced opinion on one of those points as a "denier".

It's total intellectual corruption.

Among the conservatives/libertarians/etc in my life, who I broadly consider among the smartest people I know, there is a broad unwillingness to have a real discussion for fear of being shamed.

The climate debate has become more about moral posturing and smearing people who disagree as "deniers", which has made it impossible to convince anyone who's not already convinced.

It has also deprived climate activists of substantive critiques that could help them move past their own biases (which are substantial).