Author Topic: Ask Me Anything  (Read 5319 times)

Radical_Dreamer

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #45 on: June 02, 2007, 04:52:07 pm »
Let's say I was planning a small gathering of friends and wanted snacks, but I didn't want to get the oh so typical types of chips and sodas and whatnot. I still want to get party-style snacks, but of a healthier sort, the kind available in your average supermarket, like a King Sooper's. (It's owned by Kroger, if that means anything to you.) What would I look for?

When I want to have something healthy as a snack at a party, I go with satsumi oranges, or something similar. They come in a cardboard crate, and are about the size of tangerines. You can easily puncture the rind with your thumbnail, and they aren't very liable to squirt juice everywhere when you do so. Also, Hawaiian sweet bread is a good, relatively healthy snack. You can get a big circular loaf and just tear hunks out of it. When you're done, the pie tin can become a frisbee.

I go the opposite route. For special parties, I like to get top of the line, genuine sodas and gourmet junk food. Radical_Dreamer can vouch for the pleasure in this. I want to get some Sioux City Sarsaparilla next time I have some kind of bash and see how that works out. My last cool new drink was a Frosty's blue cream soda.

Zeality speaks sooth. The general, even brand name soda is crap, particularly here in the states where corn syrup is used in place of sugar. Presently, Jones has started using pure cane sugar in their canned sodas, chosing quality over subsidy, and it is a vastly improved product because of it. Places like Whole Foods also stock varieties of cane sugar sweetened sodas, and I've recently enjoyed some good black cherry cream soda from said market.

On the chips front, I've taken to Tim's Cascade chips, after being unable to find original Ruffles in a quantity I could reasonably consume. That may not be available outside of Washington and Oregon, however. I'm not actually sure, off hand.

Kyronea

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #46 on: June 02, 2007, 10:18:51 pm »
A point you have on the "I were" bit. I can't believe I made such a basic mistake.

Anyway, thank all three of you for your advice. Methinks I'll probably combine all three suggestions into one picking and choosing what I like best...it's what I usually do for suggestions.

ZeaLitY

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #47 on: June 03, 2007, 03:22:17 am »
Eugenics has become a personal desire of mine. I want to be angry at the world for being the way it is; this situation precludes eugenics. In a universe in which thought, personality, and behavior can be determined by biology and environment, it is our duty to posterity to remove fate from the equation and grant humanity the freedom to think for itself without the whims and inhibitions of brain chemistry. But it is correct that the world is not ready for the program, nor ethically mature enough. Though it is a caustic and youthful topic, dysgenics seems logical and is one of the threats I perceive civilization as facing. Still, I think sociocultural values and traditions ingrain a lot more "stupid" in people than biology ever could.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2007, 03:27:13 am by ZeaLitY »

Kyronea

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #48 on: June 03, 2007, 03:34:43 am »
Eugenics has become a personal desire of mine. I want to be angry at the world for being the way it is; this situation precludes eugenics. In a universe in which thought, personality, and behavior can be determined by biology and environment, it is our duty to posterity to remove fate from the equation and grant humanity the freedom to think for itself without the whims and inhibitions of brain chemistry. But it is correct that the world is not ready for the program, nor ethically mature enough. Though it is a caustic and youthful topic, dysgenics seems logical and is one of the threats I perceive civilization as facing. Still, I think sociocultural values and traditions ingrain a lot more "stupid" in people than biology ever could.
I have to agree, presuming we are talking about screening genetic defects and the like, which I am wholly in favour of.

I just don't trust humanity to be able to do it reasonably however. We don't understand our own brain chemistry or our own DNA well enough in order to be able to manipulate it successfully, and we probably won't for at least another seventy years. Even then I wouldn't dare allow anyone--ANYONE--the ability for many years yet, till I am certain humanity is beyond petty idiocy such as racism and homophobia. The last thing I'd want is for people to start selectively breeding out certain ethnicities, or homosexuality.

One thing I would love, on the other hand, is to breed out psychopathy and sociopathy. Some day we may be able to cure these mental illnesses and I hope we are able to do so--the number of people who could live normal lives once cured is astounding--but until that time, I don't think we can trust anyone who is psychopathic or sociopathic. We'd have to lock them up, and as someone who wishes to rehabilitate all criminals and eliminate the causes of crime so prisons are unnecessary, that bothers me significantly.

Then again, as I said, I wouldn't trust anyone to try. We'd do a lot more harm than good right now.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2007, 03:37:47 am by Kyronea »

Burning Zeppelin

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #49 on: June 03, 2007, 04:27:01 am »
I wonder what the world would be like if we could all be the way we wanted...

Kyronea

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #50 on: June 03, 2007, 04:38:11 am »
I wonder what the world would be like if we could all be the way we wanted...
I think the world would self-destruct out of the sheer amount of chaos that would result. Consider the number of people who would like to be rich and powerful, or all of the teenagers who write Mary Sue and Marty Stue fanfiction, or are even vageuly interested in having super powers or being vampires or owning a unicorn or what have you. Unleashing the sheer power of imagination as reality would be an extreme disaster that, as I said, would like destroy the world in some form.

Hadriel

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #51 on: June 03, 2007, 08:14:04 am »
How often do you swear in your daily speech?

Have you ever used anyone and thrown them away?  If so, what for?

Do you think sexuality is more of a blessing or a curse?

What do you think of Internet relationships?

William Dembski, one of the foremost spokespeople for the "theory" of intelligent design, holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and another Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Northwestern.  What does this say about him to you?  What does it say about those universities?  The educational system in general?

What is your opinion of the label "emo"?

What do you think of the possibility of Matt Damon as Captain Kirk in Star Trek XI?

How critical do you think sex is to one's healthy psychological development?

What is your opinion of democracy?

Have you ever met anyone involved in a non-academic career that you considered a potential intellectual equal?

What's my biggest flaw?

How much did you study in college?  In high school?

What ethnicity are you?  Were you raised in a multiracial environment?

To what extent do you believe that success is based on making other people happy?  Do you believe that true altruism exists?

How do you feel about affirmative action in college admissions?  What steps would you take to modify college admissions in the U.S. if you had magical powers to dictate your policies to everyone?

Are there any fields of study that are taken seriously in academia which you have no respect for?

Is a "normal life" necessarily a good thing?

Kyronea

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #52 on: June 03, 2007, 09:43:10 am »
What caused the odd glitch seen in the attached screenshot?

[attachment deleted by admin]

Romana

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #53 on: June 03, 2007, 09:48:39 am »
What caused the odd glitch seen in the attached screenshot?

Wow, my name, twice. No idea how that happened... I noticed the same thing happened with Exodus once. He appeared twice, too.

MsBlack

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #54 on: June 03, 2007, 01:13:42 pm »
What caused the odd glitch seen in the attached screenshot?

You doctoring the image? More likely is Pvt Fumv refreshed, causing the database to be updated mid-query. I'll take a look at the SMF source to see if I can see.

MsBlack

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #55 on: June 03, 2007, 01:46:51 pm »
Indeed, SMF uses a table called log_online to retrieve some of the last online data. If a user refreshed, it seems their data will again be added to this table and the timestamp will again be within the past 15 minutes, causing SMF to process the data again.

Lord J Esq

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #56 on: June 05, 2007, 03:58:28 am »
I wonder what the world would be like if we could all be the way we wanted...

That's a question in spirit if not in structure, so I'll give it a shot.

I think the phrase "the way we wanted" presumes that people actually know what they want. In my experiences I have found that many people who think they know who they want to be actually don't, and many more are so far away from getting their act together that they don't even bother with the charade of knowing. Thus, if we applied your scenario to the people of Earth as we are now, many folks would be forced into picking something for themselves that isn't meaningful. In other words, false choice: (It's like pollsters sometimes do: "Which do leftists hate more: Successful people, or a strong national defense?")

And if many people were forced into being who they want to be without knowing what that is, I agree with Kyronea that the world would become a more chaotic place--although I would disagree with the extent of chaos involved, because some kind of order inevitably develops in human populations.

But let's suppose that everybody can indeed conceive of an ideal personality for themselves. In that case, there is a subtler and, to me, more interesting question begged: Your scenario requires anyone who answers it to suppose a knowledge not only of what it is that people want to be, but how those desired personalities would mesh together in a larger society. On the contrary, that kind of information is not easily come by. Even I would feel like a fool trying to describe to you what the world would indeed be like if everyone could be who they wanted to be.

And so I join you in simply asking the question--because it is a good question--and not daring to presume an answer.


How often do you swear in your daily speech?

Have you ever used anyone and thrown them away?  If so, what for?

Do you think sexuality is more of a blessing or a curse?

What do you think of Internet relationships?

William Dembski, one of the foremost spokespeople for the "theory" of intelligent design, holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and another Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Northwestern.  What does this say about him to you?  What does it say about those universities?  The educational system in general?

What is your opinion of the label "emo"?

What do you think of the possibility of Matt Damon as Captain Kirk in Star Trek XI?

How critical do you think sex is to one's healthy psychological development?

What is your opinion of democracy?

Have you ever met anyone involved in a non-academic career that you considered a potential intellectual equal?

What's my biggest flaw?

How much did you study in college?  In high school?

What ethnicity are you?  Were you raised in a multiracial environment?

To what extent do you believe that success is based on making other people happy?  Do you believe that true altruism exists?

How do you feel about affirmative action in college admissions?  What steps would you take to modify college admissions in the U.S. if you had magical powers to dictate your policies to everyone?

Are there any fields of study that are taken seriously in academia which you have no respect for?

Is a "normal life" necessarily a good thing?

These are (mostly) some good questions! You should have taken them to twenty. Then I could have accused you of playing 20 Questions. =)

1. How often do you swear in your daily speech?

I don't swear all that much. When I do, it is typically for one of three reasons: Emphasis, personal amusement, and "conforming" to a style of conversation. In that order. Emphasis not because I believe these words emphasize anything, but because I know that they attract people's attention. Personal amusement because to me it is humorous folly that humans attach such grave moral judgments to certain words, when words themselves are inherently meaningless. It is an extremely simplistic sort of morality that will lead people to vilify words and not the intended meanings of the people using them and the audience receiving them. And so I feel at liberty to use any word as the muse strikes me, even ones we consider obscene--at least when I am not constrained by formal settings or special audiences, where the meta of being vulgar is more important than the substance that might be expressed thereby.

I should also note that a good writer will seldom if ever have need to swear; there are always more effective ways of writing ideas. It is a stylistic choice only that a good writer swears.

Some obscenities I will refrain from speaking almost always, due to their incredible emotional baggage that is likely to distract entirely from any reasonable point--such as cunt and nigger. (And I should note to the audience that those words (and a few others) are not cool to write on this website unless you have very good cause to do so. Thankfully, it hasn't been a problem here.)

2. Have you ever used anyone and thrown them away?  If so, what for?

To be honest, I have rarely been in the position of influence required for one to do that. But to be equally honest, I do not have as many intrinsic compunctions about doing so. Respectable people, I wouldn't "use and toss." But the world abounds with fools, and while I would nowadays err more often on the side of kindness despite idiocy rather than "use and toss," there are plenty of occasions where I would choose the latter. Sometimes one can even do so without the other person knowing.

To my recollection, I have never abused subordinate workers in this way. I have done so to a couple of friends, however. For me, a good friendship requires mutual respect. (That's the "what for" you asked about.) When the other party isn't up to snuff as a person, I tend to lose patience--and some measure of decency. In the handful of times I can remember where this happened, I have typically dissolved the friendship or let it go inert before getting to the point where "use and toss" became emotionally harmful to the other person. But there's a lot of ground between "use and toss" of any kind, and "use and toss" that is emotionally harmful. I had a friend for almost two years whose abundance of wealth I used to score countless free meals and other perks before I felt that it was getting to a bad point.

Remember that the "use and toss" mentality is often undetected by either the user or the used, or even by both. That entails a lot.

3. Do you think sexuality is more of a blessing or a curse?

Good question. Biologically, it's obviously a good thing. But in every other sense, I think "curse" edges in for the win. When I think about the billions of women who have been mistreated, and the billions more of women and men alike who have handicapped their own behavior on grounds of sexuality, I think we have done great injustice to ourselves as a species.

Now, of course, sexuality is a wonderful thing in many ways--a source of deep companionship, endless art, and even personal meaning for a great many people. Yet many of these good elements are purchased at a high price of bad ones. The reason sexuality is such a good source of art, for example, is partly that it opens the human mind up to deep wonders, but also--perhaps even more so--partly that it causes people more suffering than almost anything but torture, slavery, and illness.

The reason I can judge the good versus the bad so easily is that I have already dealt with this question in the past in a slightly different fashion: Do I envision sex to exist in a more ideal human future? The answer is no.

In general, I find that created sources of meaning, rather than discovered ones, are more rewarding anyway. Sexuality is a physical condition of our existence; what a shame that people of ages past (and present!) have made so much misery out of it.

4. What do you think of Internet relationships?

They can be every bit as meaningful as in-the-flesh ones, and often help to broaden a person's horizons. That is, if you're talking about general friendship. If you're talking about something like romance, which obviously requires a physical component to reach its full potential, then I see it as a waste of time unless the virtual portion of the relationship is a space-holder for an eventual physical one.

5. William Dembski, one of the foremost spokespeople for the "theory" of intelligent design, holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and another Ph.D. in philosophy of science from Northwestern.  What does this say about him to you?  What does it say about those universities?  The educational system in general?

As it stands today, most people who complete their requirements for graduation can earn a degree of their choosing, regardless of their personal beliefs. I read an article in either the NY Times or the Washington Post last year about creationists who were earning degrees in evolutionary biology so that they could speak with the authority of a degree on their favorite subject. The universities in question treated them fairly.

To what extent should personal opinions influence the kind of degree a person can earn? Currently, it seems to be "zero." So long as you do what you're asked, you get the degree. And for the most part I think that is the way it should be. Let science look out for itself. We don't need to help it along by weeding out unscrupulous agents of ignorance from its midst. Sociologically, that sentiment might have considerable and severe ramifications, however, and so I do endorse the idea of having some kind of a scrutiny applied to the college degree process. But what form that scrutiny might take and how it would be enforced effectively and justly, are a mystery to me. I will have to think about it.

6. What is your opinion of the label "emo"?

Let me put it this way: I know "emo" when I see it. To me, that makes it a legitimate label--because it means the phenomenon described by the label is real.

7. What do you think of the possibility of Matt Damon as Captain Kirk in Star Trek XI?

Actually I don't care. Berman and Bragga managed to wring out almost all of my emotional investment in Star Trek over the course of many years--from about 1994 through 2005, when Enterprise bit it. (Or was that 2004?) Nowadays, I only care about TOS, TNG, and films I - VI. (And maybe VII and the first few seasons of DS9.) What happens with the newer Star Trek is irrelevant to me. I have moved on to other creative sources.

8. How critical do you think sex is to one's healthy psychological development?

Like food, very important. But, again like food, it's all about the "how" and the "in what ways" rather than the more simplistic "yes or no." For most sexually mature humans our bodies demand sex, and our Abrahamic condemnation of sexuality in modern society is the source of a great deal of tension, suffering, crime, cultural cheapness, and psychological disorder.

I can't believe you can commit murder on television and still get a child rating, while a female nipple is off-limits to most broadcasters completely. I can't believe that a woman not wearing one of two undergarments constitutes a greater disturbance of peace and sensibility for most people than, say, the cheapness, inhumanity, abusiveness, and violence that abounds so readily in our entertainment media.

If we were more open about sex, the world would be a better place.

9. What is your opinion of democracy?

So long as it is the legal style of governance in America, I support it as an American--and I work on its behalf. But personally I don't like or respect democracy much at all. Democracy is, to me, best described by a more modern synonym: popularity contest. A democratic decision has no inherent truth or value to it. In lieu of government by the people, I am a supporter of meritocracy. My preferred national political framework is the meritocratic empire, a theoretical type of nation that to my knowledge has never existed, and not the democratic republic we practice here in the United States.

10. Have you ever met anyone involved in a non-academic career that you considered a potential intellectual equal?

Yes. Silly question.

11. What's my biggest flaw?

You're a self-defeating, cynical, depressed person who pretends to know more than he actually does, in a way that prevents him from achieving knowledge and meaning at a fuller clip which would otherwise be within his grasp. Was that too harsh? The good news is that none of that is permanent. Nearly all of us have work to do in meeting Burning Zeppelin's world where everyone is the person they want to be.

12. How much did you study in college?  In high school?

Excepting math, which is a weakness of mine, I rarely studied. I rarely took notes. They don't tend to serve my style of learning. Another way to put it is that I have learned over the years how to take good notes, enabling me to take far fewer notes than a "line-by-line" note-taker would. However, this is not to say that I did not invest a great deal of time in my studies. I did...but not through study in the classical sense of taking notes, poring over them, and sticking my nose in the selected reading and coming out two hours later with ink stains.

People should do what helps them to learn the most. I can see why note-taking is popular in schools and universities, but it isn't for everybody.

13. What ethnicity are you?  Were you raised in a multiracial environment?

I am white. Very white, actually, owing to my complexion and aversion to suntans. I'm pink, too. Pink and white.

Well, that's not exactly ethnicity, is it? I am third-generation eastern European on my dad's side, and American for many generations on my mom's side--with a token 64th Cherokee Indian--ultimately going back to England. I have blue eyes and brown hair. I am pretty darn hairy, in fact.

I was not raised in a multiracial environment. Most of the people I knew where Caucasian like me. However, I was exposed to multiracialism a fair bit in school, on television, and in the (prolific) reading I did. What I was not exposed to, generally, was the modern state of racial and ethnic strife here and abroad. But neither was I exposed to bias and prejudice at home. My childhood was beautifully free of that--which I didn't realize until I grew up. It was a great help to me.

14. To what extent do you believe that success is based on making other people happy?  Do you believe that true altruism exists?

Inherently, I see no requirement at all that success be predicated upon making others happy. However, for many of us as individuals, our personality and convictions make it a requirement...to varying degrees in varying people. For me, I think it is more important to show people honesty and basic kindness. Let them find happiness on their own. To the extent my actions take away from the happiness of others, I accept it without distress if (and only if) the actions are in accordance with my principles, and I am confident in those principles.

"True altruism" does exist. There is a beautiful piece of truth, which I encountered a while back on the road of life, which revealed that everything one does, one does for oneself--so that even actions for others are inherently selfish. However, there was another truth I encountered, somewhat further along the road of life, which revealed that "altruism" is a social, not a personal phenomenon. If one genuinely expresses an action intended on behalf of another person (or people), then, from the society's bird's eye point of view, altruism has occurred. As with most things, this "true" kind of altruism is not as clean-cut as the eight-grade morality book tells us. It is, for instance, not necessarily well-received, or even noticed, by the recipients. And it may do more harm than good. But it is real.

15. How do you feel about affirmative action in college admissions?  What steps would you take to modify college admissions in the U.S. if you had magical powers to dictate your policies to everyone?

If I had magical powers, I'd tackle education at the lowest levels first. That's where our work has to begin. But, to answer your question, I support racial and gender quotas in most cases, as a mea culpa which admits that our society has not yet solved these problems--and in some cases has stalled completely. One good piece of news is that gender quotas are no longer required in many undergraduate departments around the country--although they are still needed in a few (such as my own aerospace engineering), and are still much more widely needed at the postgraduate level.

Look at it this way: One Bill Cosby goes far further than one generic white guy when it comes to tackling the many issues facing the African American community. But to get more Cosbys in a hostile climate, you need to give all the potential Cosbys out there the best opportunity you can. If you're serious about tackling those issues in the African American community. And I am.

Ditto the female "community," and all the other "communities" out there, rightly or wrongly demarcated as such.

16. Are there any fields of study that are taken seriously in academia which you have no respect for?

Back in the day, I had a very hard time respecting CHID--"Comparative History of Ideas"--at the University of Washington. I still do, to a lesser extent, and I also think the Information School is on thin academic ground. To generalize it, I am wary of departments that exhibit either of the following qualities: A) A supposed basis on hard science where little or none exists; B) A basis on "meta."

I should note that neither of those qualities is something I inherently oppose; rather, studies based upon either of those qualities seem to attract a disproportionate number of people whose interest does not lie in education, truth, progress, and all that other good stuff upon which a college is based.

17. Is a "normal life" necessarily a good thing?

Define "normal."

Daniel Krispin

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #57 on: June 05, 2007, 04:30:59 am »
What are some of your favorite words to use in writing? (I understand this is limited greatly by context, but when context allows, which words do you feel a great joy to use either because of their form or sound or any other quality?)

Burning Zeppelin

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #58 on: June 05, 2007, 06:08:21 am »
Quote
I can't believe you can commit murder on television and still get a child rating, while a female nipple is off-limits to most broadcasters completely.
Really? I have noticed it is generally the opposite (though not to those extremes).

Why is it that most artsty, "intellectual" (in a Lord J esq way) and sporty people usually not good at maths? I've seen people have multiple intelligences, but when it came to being good at maths, they were either only extrodanarily good at maths, or good at other fields in varying degrees. Or should I get out more?

Daniel Krispin

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Re: Ask Me Anything
« Reply #59 on: June 05, 2007, 08:51:41 am »
Quote
I can't believe you can commit murder on television and still get a child rating, while a female nipple is off-limits to most broadcasters completely.
Really? I have noticed it is generally the opposite (though not to those extremes).

Why is it that most artsty, "intellectual" (in a Lord J esq way) and sporty people usually not good at maths? I've seen people have multiple intelligences, but when it came to being good at maths, they were either only extrodanarily good at maths, or good at other fields in varying degrees. Or should I get out more?

Actually, I think Lord J's 'not good at math' is actually a 'better at math than 99% of people' sort of thing. He said it was the only thing he had to study much for. Now, considering he's trained in what, Aerospace Engineering, I think it's safe to say he's not too shabby at it. Likewise, I'd say the selfsame thing: math is kind of tough for me, and I don't think I'd be able to do above third year type. That said, I'm good enough at it to have gotten through Mechanical Engineering, so I'm not really bad at it. Oh, and I'm also the 'artsy' type: a writer, and becoming a Classicist now. So, meh, there are people like me and Lord J that are adept at both. Don't let his 'worst at math' throw you off.