2012 Opinions

[hexwind]

Are you assuming that what the Bible says is TRUE?

 

[nick-metalhead]

Dakryn, you have the coolest display picture ever.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

Aside from being an leap year and an American election year, I don't anticipate anything of any particular significance happening in 2012, unless the celestial equatorial allignment thing is true. In that case, it will be exciting for Astronomers who will be observing it for the very first time, but I doubt that it will have any sort of relevance to life on Earth as a whole. After all, the planet is over 4.5 billion years old and it's hosted life for around 3.6 billion of those years. Within that time frame, it's already happened over 170 THOUSAND times in the Earth's life and over 135 thousand times since life began. Despite this frequency, the fossil record only shows evidence of a half dozen or so catastrophic extinctions.

also, when i saw the title of this thread i thought it was going to be a thread about the 2012 united states presidential election, i'm gonna vote for the democratic nominee, if anybody cares

Haha, so did I, which is why I haven't posted in it until now. I even considered opening the thread just to post that it was too early to be thinking about it since we don't even know who any of the candidates will be yet. I wouldn't even bet money on Obama rerunning, because there's no guarantee that he'll survive his first term. I certainly hope there are no successful assassination attempts against him, but with a 37% disapproval rating you can never be sure. Granted, this pales in comparison to Bush's disapproval rating, but Bush's critics weren't the half carrying guns.

^ haha what?!? thats whats wrong with america. you should vote for the person that best represents ALL people. regardless of political party. take the last election. what kind of experience does Obama have? it doesnt matter, hes democratic and black. revolutionary! change change change! and yet ive seen ZERO change. america, and the world for that matter doesnt need change anyway. we need to return to a state of normalcy. how is that supposed to happen when people in our country look at presidental canidates as celebrities. "obama is hot! im voting for him!" "yeah, mccains all old. ewww. gross" " im voting for a black president! anything my distant relatives did to black people is excused!" if people were voting based on political issues, and actually paid attention to the way obama never answered a single fucking question, and then called out people for being "racist" for more publicity. haha sounds like fucking kayne west. you people that strictly vote democratic regardless of the canidate just voted kayne west into office. besides, the only thing Obama harped about was the health care plan, and now everyone is bitching. that just PROOVES nobody paid attention to what he said! haha and i wasted an afternoon voting and got called for jury duty a couple months later. whats the point of an election? do you realize many countries dont get a choice? and youre basically throwing your vote away by casting it blindly?

to get back on topic, if obama runs again and wins, i dont care whose right or wrong about the end of the world. and if we do survive, im moving to another country. lol

People didn't object to McCain due to his physcial appearance, it was his a combination of many variables, but notably his terrible personality, voting record, indifference to the suffering of "main street," and public fear that his poor decision for a VP was an indication of future political incompetence. Also considering that he's the oldest presidential candidate to date and that he's already in poor health, most competent voters weren't willing to take the risk that Palin would inheret the Presidency following his death.

Another pressing issue was the recession and of course health care reform. Not everyone agreed on HOW to do it, but you have to give Obama credit for actually having a plan to criticize, whereas McCain was completely lost on the issue and didn't come up with anything until late in his campaign. As you may recall, he was even considering requesting that the debates be postponed so that he could have extra time to work on it.

There's also the issue of foreign policy. Regardless of your stance on which candidate had the better stance on the matter, we have a responsibility to repair our already poor reputation that was even further tarnished by the Bush administration. Considering that foreign polls indicated a preference for Obama as high as 22/1 (that's TWENTY two to one), it's by no means a speculation that Obama was clearly the better candidate from a GLOBAL perspective, even if not just an American one. Perhaps this logic sounds familiar to you.

thats whats wrong with america. you should vote for the person that best represents ALL people. regardless of political party.

Exactly!

how is that supposed to happen when people in our country look at presidental canidates as celebrities. "obama is hot! im voting for him!" "yeah, mccains all old. ewww. gross" " im voting for a black president! anything my distant relatives did to black people is excused!" if people were voting based on political issues, and actually paid attention to the way obama never answered a single fucking question, and then called out people for being "racist" for more publicity. haha sounds like fucking kayne west. you people that strictly vote democratic regardless of the canidate just voted kayne west into office.

Obama was more than twice as likely to be the preferred candidate of people with college degrees and there was a positive correlation between preference for Obama and status of the degree held. Perhaps you recall that the post election results indicated that almost 70% of college graduates voted for Obama. Not coincidentally, better educated voters are the ones most likely to have an accurate and unbiased perspective on political issues, not the other way around.

 

[derek]

Finally some interesting points!

 

[Dak]

ha and the bible also mentioned that the bringer of the NWO had to be jewish like jesus....no one in the equation is jewish.

And it says that where?

Obama was more than twice as likely to be the preferred candidate of people with college degrees and there was a positive correlation between preference for Obama and status of the degree held. Perhaps you recall that the post election results indicated that almost 70% of college graduates voted for Obama. Not coincidentally, better educated voters are the ones most likely to have an accurate and unbiased perspective on political issues, not the other way around.

I disagree. "Education" is a extremely ambiguous term and does not gaurantee intelligence in any/all situations. Education is, in general, specific. If I have a college degree in history, does this mean I automatically unterstand science more than someone who has not attended college at all? No.

Similarly, having a college degree has nothing to do with having an actual knowledge and understanding of the candidates, the "issues", or being able to recognize bullshit when it's in front of your face.

 

[derek]

I think you'll find that it probably does.

 

[10293847]

Anyone who believes this shit is a moron.

 

[Liisa]

About 2012, Professional athletes are glory seeking.. :/ I have a friend who's aspiring to win a running event. He'll be 21 in 2012. But white boy's never win any runs. And his favourite quotation is 'save the cheerleader, save the world'. So, he's failed.
Meanwhile, there's that film 2012. Maybe the weather will contract rabies like that and all will be ended.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

I disagree. "Education" is a extremely ambiguous term and does not gaurantee intelligence in any/all situations. Education is, in general, specific. If I have a college degree in history, does this mean I automatically unterstand science more than someone who has not attended college at all? No.

Similarly, having a college degree has nothing to do with having an actual knowledge and understanding of the candidates, the "issues", or being able to recognize bullshit when it's in front of your face.

While education doesn't guarantee intelligence, it correlates very strongly with it and I would even go so far as to state that in this case there is also a causal relationship, because secondary education (as opposed to high school) actually trains you to indepently evaluate multiple angles on an issue and reach your own conclusion based on critical thought, rather than simply memorize and recite facts, which is more of the focus in high school. Additionally, there are General Education requirements in place for the very purpose of exposing students to unrelated studies and ensuring that they have a passable knowledge of each subject.

This very training, while not responsible for biological intelligence, will still correlate with higher IQ scores because the type of thinking and problem solving skills expected from and perpetuated by a secondary education environment are precisely the types of cognitive skills that are being measured on an IQ test.

 

[Dak]

because secondary education (as opposed to high school) actually trains you to indepently evaluate multiple angles on an issue and reach your own conclusion based on critical thought, rather than simply memorize and recite facts, which is more of the focus in high school.

The problem is that due to whatever agenda may be present, very often key "angles" are left out of easily available information. Most people will not dig deeper than a headline or soundbite for the current event information they receive, and the internet has only reinforced this.

This makes it quite easy to control what information people have to process by placing the desired "angle" in the most easy to read place, accompanied with maybe a short video clip or equivalent "flashing light" level attractor.

When this is practiced by every, or at leas the majority of "accepted" media outlets, critical thinking is bypassed, or if used, can only come to the same conclusion based off the limited angles available.

You cannot make a correct, informed decision when you don't have all of the information.

 

[derek]

Many folks are aware of this also, and usually they can get a varied view of any one story, if they make the effort.

 

[hexwind]

The problem is that due to whatever agenda may be present, very often key "angles" are left out of easily available information. Most people will not dig deeper than a headline or soundbite for the current event information they receive, and the internet has only reinforced this.

This makes it quite easy to control what information people have to process by placing the desired "angle" in the most easy to read place, accompanied with maybe a short video clip or equivalent "flashing light" level attractor.

When this is practiced by every, or at leas the majority of "accepted" media outlets, critical thinking is bypassed, or if used, can only come to the same conclusion based off the limited angles available.

You cannot make a correct, informed decision when you don't have all of the information.

So true. I remember watching EuroNews back in 2006 when Israeli were striking Lebanon, the camera was showing just ambulances and people saving victims, i turned the next channel, Al-Jazeera, and they were filming the same scene, but in a lower height level, they were showing the brutality of the Israeli army and how people were suffering, others crying and so on.
Another example is, the news about Ardi, the creature that is older than Lucy by 1 million year or something, in Al Jazeera and CNN (I think, not sure tho) they said that scientists now reject the idea of human evolved from apes, and other sources say the contrary... which part are you going to believe? Everyone hears what they want to hear and don't need any critical and elaborated thoughts to make a judgment.
What does this lead to? Cultural wars !! and it's more than what these words mean, believe me guys, i'm living in the fucking middle of this !! I have four sights, two of each two main cultures, bad and good sights of each and you have no idea how fucked up things seem in my standing point....

 

[Dak]

Many folks are aware of this also, and usually they can get a varied view of any one story, if they make the effort.

I 100% disagree. Most people (in the developed world) don't care what is going on outside of their rat race existance and weekend fun.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

The problem is that due to whatever agenda may be present, very often key "angles" are left out of easily available information. Most people will not dig deeper than a headline or soundbite for the current event information they receive, and the internet has only reinforced this.

This makes it quite easy to control what information people have to process by placing the desired "angle" in the most easy to read place, accompanied with maybe a short video clip or equivalent "flashing light" level attractor.

When this is practiced by every, or at leas the majority of "accepted" media outlets, critical thinking is bypassed, or if used, can only come to the same conclusion based off the limited angles available.

You cannot make a correct, informed decision when you don't have all of the information.

I completely agree. However, my original point still stands, as better educated people are certainly more aware of this and are therefore less susceptible to persuasion by such propoganda.

So true. I remember watching EuroNews back in 2006 when Israeli were striking Lebanon, the camera was showing just ambulances and people saving victims, i turned the next channel, Al-Jazeera, and they were filming the same scene, but in a lower height level, they were showing the brutality of the Israeli army and how people were suffering, others crying and so on.
Another example is, the news about Ardi, the creature that is older than Lucy by 1 million year or something, in Al Jazeera and CNN (I think, not sure tho) they said that scientists now reject the idea of human evolved from apes, and other sources say the contrary... which part are you going to believe? Everyone hears what they want to hear and don't need any critical and elaborated thoughts to make a judgment.
What does this lead to? Cultural wars !! and it's more than what these words mean, believe me guys, i'm living in the fucking middle of this !! I have four sights, two of each two main cultures, bad and good sights of each and you have no idea how fucked up things seem in my standing point....

Biased coverage of a political issue to be expected, even if you're inclined to agree with the angle being covered.

With regard to the Ardi find, it's clearly just a propoganda argument that humans didn't evolve from more primitive apes. Ardi disproved ONLY the idea of a missing link between the genus Homo (humans) and Pan (chimpanzees), not the evolution of modern man from other apes. That would be an absurd argument regardless of your personal bias on the issue, considering that Ardipithecus itself is a great ape.

I 100% disagree. Most people (in the developed world) don't care what is going on outside of their rat race existance and weekend fun.

I definitely agree that most people don't care, but once again, most people don't have a formal education as that is a rather modern phenomenon. Very few senior citizens have Bachelor's or Master's degrees, because those degrees weren't required for most available jobs half a century ago. Even now that advanced degrees do offer a competitive advantage, what portion of the population is actually earning them? For starters, barely 75% of American high schoolers graduate and 40% of first year college students will drop out before ever earning their Bachelor's degree. If I remember correctly, only 2% of Americans get their Master's degree, so I don't think it would be unfair to exclude them from generalizations about most people.

 

[derek]

I 100% disagree. Most people (in the developed world) don't care what is going on outside of their rat race existance and weekend fun.

Many people.

 

[Dak]

Many people.

"Many" is pretty ambiguous. At least "most" means [over 50%] at a bare minimum.

I definitely agree that most people don't care, but once again, most people don't have a formal education as that is a rather modern phenomenon. Very few senior citizens have Bachelor's or Master's degrees, because those degrees weren't required for most available jobs half a century ago. Even now that advanced degrees do offer a competitive advantage, what portion of the population is actually earning them? For starters, barely 75% of American high schoolers graduate and 40% of first year college students will drop out before ever earning their Bachelor's degree. If I remember correctly, only 2% of Americans get their Master's degree, so I don't think it would be unfair to exclude them from generalizations about most people

I still disagree. As an example: my Dad has his Masters (just got it), and if anything, he seems less prone to independent thinking than before. The tendency that I have seen in those with advanced education is to repeat the ideas they were taught, instead of taking the tools they were given and seek to advance their personal intelligence.
Obviously this isn't the case with all persons with advanced education, but it does seem to be the tendency.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

I still disagree. As an example: my Dad has his Masters (just got it), and if anything, he seems less prone to independent thinking than before. The tendency that I have seen in those with advanced education is to repeat the ideas they were taught, instead of taking the tools they were given and seek to advance their personal intelligence.
Obviously this isn't the case with all persons with advanced education, but it does seem to be the tendency.

Citing personal experience with an anomaly does not disprove the rule, as statistics only indicate averages and do not guarantee 100% consistency throughout all cases. The argument that you're attempting is "the exception disproves the rule," which is a classic example of logical fallacy.

 

[monoxide_child]

^ haha what?!? thats whats wrong with america. you should vote for the person that best represents ALL people. regardless of political party. take the last election. what kind of experience does Obama have? it doesnt matter, hes democratic and black. revolutionary! change change change! and yet ive seen ZERO change. america, and the world for that matter doesnt need change anyway. we need to return to a state of normalcy. how is that supposed to happen when people in our country look at presidental canidates as celebrities. "obama is hot! im voting for him!" "yeah, mccains all old. ewww. gross" " im voting for a black president! anything my distant relatives did to black people is excused!" if people were voting based on political issues, and actually paid attention to the way obama never answered a single fucking question, and then called out people for being "racist" for more publicity. haha sounds like fucking kayne west. you people that strictly vote democratic regardless of the canidate just voted kayne west into office. besides, the only thing Obama harped about was the health care plan, and now everyone is bitching. that just PROOVES nobody paid attention to what he said! haha and i wasted an afternoon voting and got called for jury duty a couple months later. whats the point of an election? do you realize many countries dont get a choice? and youre basically throwing your vote away by casting it blindly?

to get back on topic, if obama runs again and wins, i dont care whose right or wrong about the end of the world. and if we do survive, im moving to another country. lol

Obama's prolly gonna be at least slightly better than McCain would have been
the problem in chosing America's president is that when election day comes, there's only 2 names on the ballot, so you're not really able to chose good over bad, you're really just chosing "the lesser of 2 evils"
i'll agree with you that Obama's gonna be a crappy president, but when i voted for him, i thought he was at least gonna be slightly less crappy than McCain
also, one of my friends did the math, McCain is actually old enough to be Obama's father, Chuck Norris, Matt Damon and several celebrities whose names i can't remember, all voted for Obama because they were afraid that McCain would die in office and i think we all think Sara Palin would have been really bad at being president, if i could have named anyone i wanted to be president, it would have been Hillary Clinton, Hillary being the person who was actually running the country when her husband Bill was president, the gap of time when Bush senior's national deficit was turned into a surplus, the rest of the world liked America and everything here was running smoothly

 

[Dak]

Citing personal experience with an anomaly does not disprove the rule, as statistics only indicate averages and do not guarantee 100% consistency throughout all cases. The argument that you're attempting is "the exception disproves the rule," which is a classic example of logical fallacy.

Show me these statistics, while keeping in mind that statistics can be manipulated to prove almost anything. I am not arguing that the "exception disproves the rule", but rather that the exception is independent thinking due to advanced education.

the rest of the world liked America and everything here was running smoothly

Define "liking us" and "running smoothly".

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

the problem in chosing America's president is that when election day comes, there's only 2 names on the ballot, so you're not really able to chose good over bad, you're really just chosing "the lesser of 2 evils"

There were definitely more than two choices when I voted.

Show me these statistics,

First of all, I don't know why you're demanding statistics from me that you could easily look up for yourself. We both have access to the same internet, but I'm willing to bet that your connection isn't 18kbps. Just open Google Scholar and type "education, IQ, politics" or soemthing similar and I'm sure you'll find more than enough

While my connection doesn't have the capacity to download multiple PDF files in an acceptable time frame, I did attend the Northeastern Evolutionary Psychology Society Conference this summer and the keynote speaker addressed the issue of IQ in a modern environment and he was extremely thorough.

while keeping in mind that statistics can be manipulated to prove almost anything.

So rather than accept responsbility for having commited a fallacious argument, you'd prefer to go all in on the proposition that the entire Scientific Method is inherently flawed...

Independent study
Objective criticism
Peer review
Retestability

But I guess none of these ring any bells for you at all, do they? :Smug:

I am not arguing that the "exception disproves the rule", but rather that the exception is independent thinking due to advanced education.

You mean to tell me that all scientists and psychologists throughout history have been recording their data backwards? Golly gee, maybe somebody should tell them! Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can't just cry "sampling error" any time you disagree with a conclusion.