Science!
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Hmm, a one star review from goodreads:
A different one star review right below that one on the first page (3.95 stars average, BTW) was obviously someone who never read the book and just
tolerateshates OSC.
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Suppose North America had been settled first, and we arrived on the Alaskan coast in 1650 to gaze west into the fog.
Wow.
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That story is kind of dumb.
Russians didn't discover Alaska because Russians didn't arrive in the area until long after America was already discovered.
Native Siberians didn't disco-- oh wait we have no idea because they have no writings passed-down. For all we know, they were going back and forth to Siberia every year and there's just no record of it. (The only reason we know the Norse landed on the Americas in the 11th century is that they kept records-- they didn't seem to think it was that noteworthy, though. "Landed on a beach, took some lumber, some crazy guys attacked us, we killed one or two, they left, we left." Yet one more reason Columbus was a hack, although it's hard to blame him for not knowing about Norse Sagas.)
I'm guessing the asker didn't know that Russians were the newcomers to the area, or that there's any difference between a Russian and a native Siberian.
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(The only reason we know the Norse landed on the Americas in the 10th century is that they kept records-- they didn't seem to think it was that noteworthy, though. Yet one more reason Columbus was a hack, although it's hard to blame him for not knowing about Norse Sagas.)
Sagas aren't evidence. There's actual archaeological evidence of settlement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Anse_aux_Meadows#Norse_settlement
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Yay pedantic dickweedery. My favorite. Die in a fire.
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There are other motivations, including increased scarcity. And for the record, I don't think religious panics over end of the world scenarios are good ways to attempt to change the world.
Agreed that increased scarcity helps as well, and that the religious panic, sky-is-falling factor isn't needed.
Also, cars are an expensive hassle, no?
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Except we're not weaning ourselves off. We're just taking high fuel prices in the bum like a man and burning more and more of the stuff like normal.
Personally I ride my motorcycle as much as possible, even in winter. Which reminds me of another greenie WTF: my 250cc motorcycle has more emissions control equipment than the 6.6L V8 in my pickup. (to be fair the motorcycle is also 10 years newer...but c'mon 2004 wasn't that long ago)
I don't think (in my foggy recollection of recent American history) we've seen this much attention to fuel economy since the OPEC crisis of the 70s, and it seems to be sticking around a lot more now, too. (Battery tech has improved to the point where EVs are now a reasonable option for commuting and such, and the major fuel burners have also learned that fuel economy is good for the bottom line; compare a 787 to a 707 for fuel burned per seat-mile for instance.)
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I have to like-like this. Your post is truly amazing.
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Oh cool, another Markdown failure.
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Google image search is your friend.
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Considering that running out of the stuff is an eventuality...isn't it good that we're actually motivated to wean ourselves off of it now, rather than guzzling it dry and then panic'ing when the barrel's empty?
It doesn't really work like that. As supplies start to run down, prices rise, and that makes extraction of more difficult sources economic. OTOH, the rising prices also encourage more people to be efficient in their usage; there are some confounding effects, but at a population level that's still valid. After all, what most people care about isn't how much a gallon of fuel costs, but rather how far they can travel for an inflation-adjusted dollar (though they'll probably grumble a lot about how stuff used to be so much cheaper, etc.)
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This discussion qualifies for the "dumbest thing I've read today" thread.
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Nice try. Inelastic demand, price shocks, etc.
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Once enthusiasm dies out, the reality sinks in. Space requires too much investment and has too little returns.
Especially when you consider that we still haven't managed to get anyone to Mars and don't have technology that could get someone there and back. Getting to the next solar system would take an enormous amount of time and money, and there would be no benefit for anyone alive on Earth at the time the mission started.
Which is why it's probably wiser in the near term to do another moon mission or return an asteroid to lunar orbit so that technologies can be perfected. Once we have enough science points, we can unlock the LV-N and go anywhere in the solar system and beyond.
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The Vinland Sagas were anti-dane propaganda. They weren't even contemporaneous with the settlements. There was no reason to believe that Lief Ericson found America until real evidence came in.
Learn 2 history.
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Nice try. Inelastic demand, price shocks, etc.
Yes, but there's evidence that overall people do adjust their behaviour. That's at a global scale though, and the rate at which people adapt in different countries does vary quite a bit. (The configuration of US infrastructure does lead to a higher baseline consumption level there than in most other countries for historical reasons.)
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blakeyrat said:
Native Siberians didn't discoBut they sure knew how to rock and roll
Wrong part of the Arctic. Try this.
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This strongly implies that, at the time Columbus set sail, the flat earth theory was commonplace. It wasn't, at least amongst mariners, and hadn't been for over a thousand years.
Isn't this all irrelevant? Columbus didn't discover America and wasn't even close to the first person to venture across the ocean and make it back to Europe....
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it would have probably been a few hundred more years before we (European perspective) knew what the other side of the world looked like
I think Leif Ericson and a bunch of other vikings among others might disagree?
Although they likely only saw the frozen wasteland of Canada, so I guess that barely counts.
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Nevermind, I see others eventually pointed out the Norse.
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Isn't this all irrelevant? Columbus didn't discover America and wasn't even close to the first person to venture across the ocean and make it back to Europe....
No. The original assertion was:
@redwizard said:"Experts" once claimed we shouldn't sail too far from land, or we'd fall off the edge of the sea. Then Christopher Columbus persisted and discovered America.
- Experts did not say the world was flat, they said Columbus couldn't do math
- Even if they had said it was flat, and he'd been the very first European to set foot on American soil, Columbus wouldn't have proved them wrong anyway. All he'd have proved was that there was something else out there.
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Columbus didn't discover America and wasn't even close to the first person to venture across the ocean and make it back to Europe....
The important bit is that the discovery stuck after he did it.
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The important bit is that the discovery stuck after he did it.
We've been suffering ever since we used it as a dumping ground for our religious fanatics, though.
Meanwhile, http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/index.php
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We've been suffering ever since we used it as a dumping ground for our religious fanatics, though.
You were suffering before you started doing that, too.
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Meanwhile, http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/index.php
Wow, joke or not, some things never die...
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Was going to put this in the good ideas thread, but this thread seems better suited. Plus...necro-toaster!
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That was cool
I do love magnet hi-jinks though
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Did someone say !!SCIENCE!!?
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I was one of those clicks.
I wouldn't wish clicking it on anyone, not even @codinghorror
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Oh god, why did I click?
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I facepalmed when the video started. I want my link click back.
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I wouldn't wish clicking it on anyone, not even @codinghorror
I facepalmed when the video started. I want my link click back.
Oh god, why did I click?
Leaving this here for those who come after us...
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@mott555 said:
I facepalmed when the video started. I want my link click back.
Oh god, why did I click?
Leaving this here for those who come after us...
Since no one else bothered...* It's a Dwarf Fortress video! *
Filed under: another day, another broken quote
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Since no one else bothered...
- It's a Dwarf Fortress video! *
Is that really surprising? What did you think it was?
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I don't know, the first time I saw the link I didn't bother clicking it.
But after all the reactions, I just had to.
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I experienced the same with 2 girls 1 cup. I've since learned to control my curiosity.
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I experienced the same with 2 girls 1 cup. I've since learned to control my curiosity.
Have you seen 2 dwarves 1 fortress?
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Have you seen 2 dwarves 1 fortress?
I'll just leave this here:
May, or may not be SFW. Depends on your work policy on animals.
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You start with 7, so that would be 2 dwarves, 5+ corpses, 1 fortress.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2IWxqvsSY8
Overdrift.
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Wait. Stop. This is getting unscientific.
Filed under: Sigh, look what the hr does. No I think I like it. I'll keep it.... "Stop that. Stop that"
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This is a pretty good article explaining the asshattery of asshats like Neil deGrasse Tyson:
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Mostly a bullshit article. This guy has a very superficial understanding of scientific process. Basically, his thinking process:
- Oh, noes! Science has some evidence against my beliefs A, B, C
- I am not a crazy person willing to reject science and the things it provides me
- But my beliefs... but science.... aggh, curse you cognitive dissonance!
- I know! Let's find some criteria by which I can split science into "good science" and "bad science". Wherein "good science" is all the theories that give me toys I like and "bad science" is all the things that go against my beliefs.
- A-ha! Just the criteria I need: Only perfectly repeatable experiments are "good science". I'll ignore the notion of meta-studies which can extract meaning out of messy individual studies. I either don't know about them, or will ignore them for the sake of my bullshit argument
- To spice it up, I'll launch ad-hominem attacks against my ideological opponents. Even though it has nothing to do with my article, it's a good way to additionally muddy up the waters.
- Problem solved! Time to write my article
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Time for this diatribe again…
Science isn't your friend, and it isn't your enemy. It's just a philosophical system that happens to work really well because it encourages people to occasionally change their mind if evidence justifies it. People who find this uncomfortable tend to have unjustified fundamental beliefs that they're a little bit unsure about, so they take to blaming others for this kernel of doubt. Those who claim to “follow science” (a dumb phrase) are really just keen on letting reality guide them wherever that leads, and that is never consistently in a direction that either Left or Right like.
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I'll ignore the notion of meta-studies
One must be very careful about meta-studies and meta-analysis.
You make one misstep and you are into "apples and oranges" territory—see the EPA second-hand smoking meta-studies which are flawed in every single way.Some of the snake oil salesmen ( I won't dignify them by calling them researchers ) have been quoted at conferences saying ( paraphrased) “Sure it's bad science, but if it gets smokers to quit, it's all good”. Hypocracy at it's best.
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This post is deleted!