WheelsRCool

The thing is, if such creatures exist, then there would probably be a lot of fossil evidence pointing towards another tool-using, tool-creating creature. Also they'd probably have to be below the bottom of the ocean as otherwise, we'd probably find them. And if they are anything like us psychologically, they'd need a huge capitalist, market-based society with trade and finance and all that in order to create anything advanced.

My thoughts on aliens are: 1) If visiting us, how did they discover us? Statistically, the universe is so damned large, that it should be impossible for them to have found us unless they are very close by to begin with. You are talking at least two trillion galaxies in the visible universe, that each contain hundreds of billions to trillions of stars. And then there's the trillions upon trillions of planets as a result. Now, according to scientists, given what they known about the universe, the calculated size of the non-observable universe is about 10^(10^30) times the size of the observable universe. The observable universe being two trillion galaxies, that means 2,000.000.000.000 x 10^(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) galaxies. And with approximately a trillion stars per galaxy, that means 1,000,000,000,000 x 2,000,000,000,000 x 10^(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) stars. 2) If they are close-by, how is that? We don't know of any Earth-like planets nearby, and it seems very statistically unlikely we'd have two similar planets with two advanced civilizations in the same vicinity 3) Why do they always need some high-speed big spacecraft or probe to do whatever it is they are doing? We are less than one-hundred years into really advanced electronics, computers, and artificial intelligence and are already on the verge of creating robotic insects and so forth that could be used to spy on enemies, but the aliens can't create something inconspicuous like that?

I missed this thread

So is Bitcoin a bubble? It seems everyone and their grandmother is investing in it now. I see it here on L/P, hear about it in work, and see it on the news.

All this super hardcore investigating and they still haven't found anything of real substance, but now they think there is a "dark Russian secret" that Trump has? One thing about real conspiracies is that generally they are incredibly difficult to hide. If Trump really was helped by the Russians, I think it would have come out by now.

Not sure if that is a compliment or an insult. I will say that one reason I like to debate is that it can be a real learning experience. When you engage in debate, other people will point out holes in your thoughts, make you think about things in ways you hadn't thought of. And you can do the same for them as well. However, I do believe that I am super-opinionated, above and beyond what others are, you only need read the architecture thread to see that

I am just opinionated by nature.

Wrote a huge post on this, but decided to just erase and state I disagree with that The Left always claim that, but IMO it's been wrong for many years now. The GOP has its rich man's country club Blue Blood portion as well, but over the past few decades, has undergone some large changes in which a much more working-class, blue-collar base of it has formed that do not like the country-club portion, and that favor capitalism, hard work, American patriotism, gun rights, border security, and not creating an excessively large regulatory, tax, and welfare state.

Why do you always think I get my views from Hannity or Judge Pirro? Please stop assuming I simply watch right-wing TV and then regurgitate talking points. My political views are my own, derived from many sources. And yes I am the canary in the coal mine, sometimes the canary has to go into the mine to explain to the mine dwellers how in the dark they are

Yup

If you are scratching your head, you don't understand the opposing views much, because it should be very easy to see why people would be suspicious of it, even if you believe they are ultimately wrong.

Well now here's a funny: Click this article and tell me the major factual error made here by the media: LINK

It has worked fine for decades prior to the Net Neutrality implemented in 2015. So why implement it when it could cause who-knows-what kind of side effects?

Because the bandwidth costs money for the ISPs, and thus treating everyone equally may require treating everyone unequally in some other form. As for Chinese Internet, that is authoritarian government control over the Internet. The Internet to me is like as your personal statement says

Nope. I do not agree with conservatives and Republicans on certain things as well. But Democrats are like parrots when it comes to their claims that Republican tax policies and policies overall are only "For the rich" and "Screw the middle class and poor," and so forth. That they are saying the same about Trump on his healthcare or tax plans thus I do not pay much attention to.

I am not 100% for or against Net Neutrality, just highly skeptical. I find it rather oxymoronic the idea that we need heavy-handed government regulation to ensure creativity and innovation in this case, as historically the opposite is true, and also historically many (not all) times that the government has tried to regulate something to enforce fairness or equality, it created the very opposite. Repealing it, if history is any indication, will ensure that the Internet remains free and open. The claim that so-called Net Neutrality is what is needed to keep it free and open [may be true, but it also just might lead to various unintended consequences as the economics of forcing the ISPs to treat all traffic equally causes it to become more closed and controlled.

It is not a tax cut primarily for the 1%. The Left claimed the same things about the George W. Bush tax cuts and it was a blatant lie. Now they are saying the same thing about the Trump tax plan. This tax plan increases the Child Tax Credit, doubles the standard deduction, and reduces the lower tax rates. It very much helps the middle-class. And by reducing the corporate tax rate, it will help with job creation, and hence further help the middle-class and poor. The reason the tax cut is unpopular supposedly is due to much of the lying the media has been doing about it. And what do you mean about broken promises? Trump has done many of the things he promised. Some of the other things, such as healthcare reform and the border wall, are being held up by Congress, but the other things (strong economy, Muslim country ban, withdraw from Paris Accord, decertify Iran nuclear deal, declare Jerusalem capital of Israel and move embassy there), he has done. And healthcare already was severely damaged by Obamacare. It needs to be scrapped and replaced. I think that once people see the benefits of the tax cuts by 2018, provided Congress actually passes them, that they will be fine with them. Some question though whether the GOP actually want to maintain a majority right now.

How does repealing Net Neutrality create the problem when Net Neutrality wasn't even enforced until 2015 and the Internet was for the most part fine before then? And it is misleading IMO the impression many have that this is a battle between grassroots Net Neutrality supporters versus evil greedy Big Business. It is rather a case of Big Business versus Big Business, in this case, the likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc...versus Comcast, Spectrum, and so forth. One could try to claim that the Trump Administration is doing the bidding of the telecoms like Comcast and Spectrum, but one could also have claimed that the Obama Administration was doing the bidding of Amazon, Google, and so forth. I think one thing also is that when people think of companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc...they generally have nice things to say. Those companies make people's lives easier. Whereas people generally do not have nice things to say about their ISP/cable provider. So the idea of siding on an issue with the likes of Comcast as opposed to say Google for a lot of people is like siding with Darth Vader over Luke Skywalker.

Hadn't seen that quote. But in it, he also expressed some rather extreme religious views and racism (like shootings these days are punishment from God for past sins, 9/11 punishment from God, called Native Americans and Asians "reds and yellows," etc...). Provided that's all not taken out of context, no way should he have been Senator IMO. Also very anti-gay.

Personally, I'll believe all the hoopla about repealing Net Neutrality if/when the bad stuff actually starts to happen. It was a solution to an as-yet non-existent problem, i.e. that the ISPs would start controlling information and access. The problem is that historically, whenever the government tries to step in to ensure "fairness" with something, they oftentimes end up screwing it up completely and making it very unfair. And with something as complex as the Internet especially, I think we should wait and see first if the feared abuse by the ISPs will really happen. And that it has been so pushed for by the political Left makes me suspicious as well, as they tend to favor such concepts of using government to enforce "fairness." We have seen multiple instances of where this is wrong, for example: 1) Large-scale welfare programs to try and make the economic outcome more equal, with the result being greater inequality as poverty increases as a result of people abusing and riding the system 2) The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" for talk radio, which would mandate by law that political talk programs give equal air time to both the Left-wing and Right-wing views, the problem being that talk radio mostly is Right-wing, and thus giving equal time to Left and Right would destroy the medium and end Right-wing talk radio (which is the real reason many want such a law, as right-wing talk radio is a thorn to the Left) 3) So-called "campaign finance reform," which was blatantly anti-free speech. Supposedly meant to protect the public from special interest political spending, in practice, creates a monopoly on political speech during political campaigns for the politicians and the very rich. When the Supreme Court struck it down, the Left was apoplectic, with the New York Times claiming that, "The Supreme Court may have just permanently handed the presidency over to the Republican party." Of course then Obama got handily re-elected, and yes Trump won the next election, but he was against a terrible candidate in the form of Hillary and the Democrats had converted themselves a good deal into a party of Wall Street, globalism, and disdain for much of the white working class that historically voted Democrat. Now they are claiming the sky is falling with regards to ending so-called Net Neutrality.

IMO, it is wrong for them to say he is a teen-lover, as he has been accused, not proven yet, and people should have a presumption of innocent until proven guilty. That said though, IMO it is good Moore lost, because having a man who has been accused of being a pedophile in the seat would be a big liability for the GOP as well.

So how did you get those two Bugattis to the gas station? As in, who had the pleasure of driving the one you were not driving?

Congrats!

So as not to hijack the thread, I am starting a thread in "Wheels World" that posts my specific, long, detailed response to this post. For any who wish to read it, here is the link: LINK

So I learned something new today. Some of you may already be aware of this, but I thought I would share it for those who maybe aren't. I always assumed that galaxies such as our nearest neighbor, Andromeda, were too far away to be seen in the sense that they were so far away, that they appear as just tiny bits of light and you need a telescope to see. But as it turns out, Andromeda isn't difficult to see with the naked eye because it is far enough away to be small, but rather so far away that it is very dim. If however Andromeda was bright enough to be visible to the naked eye, this is the actual size it would be in the night sky: