shirgall

A contract is only evidence of an agreement, and it is wise to develop a contract when an agreement must be remembered or understood later. The process of developing a contract also lets you consider what should happen if conditions change or if either party needs to back out of the agreement. Buying gum at the corner store? You don't need a contract. Hiring someone to do six months worth of work remodeling your house? You might want a contract. Hiring someone to do five years worth of work starting, growing, and maintaining a profitable enterprise? Please get things down on paper.

In that case, I would discuss who I was voting against... not who I was voting for. In the old days I used to say I voted for gridlock.

It's more likely that the moons, rings, and planet--if not parts of the planet--looked better individually in different pictures.

That popular space photos are stitched together from plates is well-known, especially poster-sized ones, or panoramas. The sensors on spacecraft are built for ruggedness first and other considerations come afterward. Also, transmission channels from spacecraft are notoriously slow.

I prefer Beyondpod on Android for this. I listen to most things at 1.2X. Audible's player supports it too, and I listen to books at 1.25X.

There are a number of mp3 players on Windows, Linux, and Android that allow changing the playing speed of mp3s and remembering where you left off.

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi, illustrated by Alejandro Giraldo http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1615192255 How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter and Andrew Schiff. http://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/1118770277 Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Explainer-Complicated-Stuff-Simple/dp/0544668251

Voting with one's dollar isn't just moral, it's a duty!

I would have been far more interested in seeing Stef have a conversation with Christopher Hitchens or George Carlin. These days I am very pleased to see Stef talk with Bill Whittle and Peter Schiff. If there's someone on my wishlist, it would be Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) or Joss Whedon (and his fetish with Absurdism).

The first question would be, "Have you listened to the show?"

"Hates gun owners" was one I was used for a decade. Living in Portland, Oregon for that time I was rather lonely. There's something in the water.

Watch the movie Meet Me in St. Louis (made in 1944 about events around the St. Louis Fair in 1904) and contemplate that a poor family was living in that glorious house...

I usually look for postings where someone is asking a question, or making a wild assertion, and use it as a teachable moment. To date, I have witnessed no argument for the existence of gods has met standards for logical rigor. Most of the time I spend is refining definitions and explaining logical operations. I admit I haven't seen a promising new approach to the argument in a very very long time, and I know Jesuits. Once I determine that the basic rule of argument is missing, that both side are willing to accept the conclusion of the argument, I stop playing. The most wonderful thing I see in Stef's call-in shows is the actual changing of someone's mind, or outlook, or self-knowledge. It is so very satisfying. And I really do expect that if Stef encounters an argument or evidence he does not expect that he can change too.

Advisors give you a lot of "shoulds". Stef gives fewer "shoulds" and a great deal more reason and evidence than most advisors.

Oog almost catch fish today, it dis big. Oog gladly pay Grogsday for fishburger today.

The backfire effect is in response to testimony not first-hand empirical evidence. Our "bullshit detectors" for want of another term have evolved in response to more and more complicated bullshit being tried upon us. What we learned in our childhood from successful parents and close friends is defended by this process.

A bunch of string theorists got the bright idea of trying to change the scientific method in order to garner more trust for their idea. Speculative science shouldn't have to meet the same levels of testability and falsifiability! Other scientists pushed back: http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-defend-the-integrity-of-physics-1.16535 Comedy ensued. My favorite coverage of the event is this Philosopher's notes on the meeting: https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/why-trust-a-theory-part-i/ https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/why-trust-a-theory-part-ii/ https://platofootnote.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/why-trust-a-theory-part-iii/ Some tidbits: The full three postings is a lot of reading, but I find it to be interesting stuff.

If are forced to have the existence of God as axiomatic you are admitting there is no proof that he can exist. I'm glad we agree, but I discard the axiom as unnecessary--if not confounding--for logical or moral systems.

I didn't make any claims other than "I have no belief in any deities." I'll even add "I've never had a belief in any deities" if you like. It is up to those who claim that any particular god exists to prove that that particular god exists. In fact, it's up to those who claim that gods in general exist to prove that gods in general exist. When someone comes up to me with a claim, they get to make an argument for it. I don't have to make an argument against it. Convince me with reason and evidence of your positive claim. I don't have to make a negative claim. The default position is that claims are false until they are backed up with accepted truths or accepted logical operations. But we aren't there. You are claiming that it is axiomatic that God exists. You've created some new logical system with that as an axiom. You're telling me that I'm foolish because, "Assuming that God exists, prove that he doesn't." No thanks. Since we can't come to terms on the logical systems and definitions, there's no point in talking to you about it.

Atheists don't believe in a position. They START in a position of disbelief. Do you believe in Zoroaster? You probably never considered it. That's what it's like to be an atheist. They believe in one less god than you do, out of the thousands of possibilities. Atheists don't have to justify their lack of belief in Zugzug the lightning bear either. Some atheists actively campaign against ideas being pushed upon them. You can try to dress it up as religion if you want, but that doesn't make it so. You could even posit that they are trying to return you to the state of grace you were born into, the state of not believing in anything you couldn't touch. I am not making an extraordinary claim at all. I'm not making *any* claim about gods. I don't hold it as axiomatic that god exists. I don't have to justify a claim that I am not making.

Frankly I want it to be more cloudy, because it is directly correlated to premature deaths of a particularly gruesome type in my state: http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=497

No, we all don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster, we just didn't identify it until someone brought it up. It didn't believe in Jesus before I heard about him. I don't believe in him now. It took no extra effort to maintain that state of being. Atheists don't pressure others about their beliefs unless those beliefs are pushed upon them. I spend zero effort arguing with people about the existence of Zeus. Theists are the ones with the extraneous positive belief in deities that they need to support. I don't need to support not supporting them. Skepticism pre-exists all belief systems that posit the extra-natural and the non-empirical. Atheism is the label we put on skepticism of deities.

High stress jobs can do that to anyone, unfortunately, whether it is good stress, bad stress, or just the stress of being good or evil.

Atheism exists before any belief systems because it is a *lack* of belief. It is only because there are belief systems that there is a term for not believing in any of them.

San Bernardino. Obama proceeded to be tired and gaffetastic at the Paris Climate Talks earlier this month, and I think the event was the proximate cause.