BC

What research? The drug has been available since 1953. Toxoplasmosis (a brain infection) is not a communion disease, but not exactly rare, either. (Ca...

It's for this he became the most hated man in America. But then, as luck would have it, Donald Trump was elected and snatched the crown off Shkreli's ...

Many people held in solitary confinement for a long time (many years, sometimes) tend to deteriorate. But then, prisoners aren't in the hole as a volu...

It may be crazy, but it is also very common. In fact, most people talk to an ideal, imaginary friend. God. They find it helpful.

this is true. I hope the creep gets the maximum possible sentence.

It is, and there isn't any other vehicle. So stay on and ride it. You've gotten swept up in old word games, like, "How do I know I am real." OMG, I do...

The dead.

I don't know that we deliberately give responsibility to the few, but I do not believe that the rest of us lack a feeling for the well being of the wo...

I am a bit surprised that this thread didn't launch. Is it because... everything that could be said about adultery was most throughly said in previous...

What is the nature of your brother's illness, if I may intrude? My partner died of cancer some years back He made it 12 months after it appeared. The ...

I have not undertaken this kind of heroic task. If I was in your brothers condition I would want someone who didn't just decide what I was feeling, wh...

Sorry about your brother. I totally understand not getting into conflict here. Most of my nieces and nephews (and grand nieces and nephews) are more t...

Possibly. Certainly, there's no reason why a sentient species has to be 98.6º, vertical, symmetric, bipedal, 5 fingered, and two handed. For sentience...

There are, indeed, many forms and locations of censorship. The work place, foremost among them. Once in high school I wrote an enthusiastic essay abou...

Let me return to something that comes up in these discussions: It is possible that sentient beings don't make it to "super-advanced civilizations" or ...

I, for one, hope there is no reincarnation. Once has been more than enough. Well let me ask you: Are we on track to being a super-advanced civilizatio...

Because we have been managing our own affairs, solving many difficult problems. We've been a successful species for somewhere between 150,000 to 100,0...

Yes, it seems like this has to be true, and the truth of it covers a lot of our experience. However, we do not want to get "locked in" to our own subj...

"Give me an idea... I mean it literally" - great quote. A really difficult question will be whether to use 5 dots (seems excessive) or 3 (the current ...

When I use speech-to-text on my phone or tablet, I get very good results. However, my phone is not doing the processing. A big mainframe computer at G...

It's almost 2:00 a.m. Time for us old folks to hit the hay.

Of course I can see that. I am arguing against your view that if you don't live forever, then your life doesn't have any meaning. Or as you say, it wo...

Right. Love, sweetness, acceptance, and all that good stuff are not a reason to exist. They are a way to exist. Yes. I have often said the universe ha...

by some standards, (like JC's) a man who hates his brother is already a murderer, so by that measure, whether you wish to hurt someone for a short per...

I didn't say you did, but others have. Which is fine, more posts to them. No, it wasn't a dig at your post on desires continuing after death. Now that...

I also think living forever would be a drag - a great big monumental fucking drag. It would be hell itself. But... do you have so much access to your ...

Is your judgement as to whether it is better to do atrocious things or good things affected by whether you have 1 day or an infinity of days to do the...

Of course, "seeing it on this forum" is not much of a recommendation, really. Some people here go on at considerable length about the imposition on be...

I don't know the mind of all men but... I'm pretty sure that very few people would say What do you think led you to this impasse? (And it is an impass...

I'm fairly certain there are other worlds occupied by sentient beings. It just "seems likely" because of the very large number of stars that would hos...

Of course there is a difference -- it's a matter of severity. But the wager worker is no more free to stop working than the slave is, because in both ...

Or, it's an indication that there are many civilizations which don't last long enough (once they get past a certain point of development) to come visi...

I'd choose the Yellowstone caldera to go KAPOWY over nuclear war. The caldera is located in the northern Rocky Mountains just west of the Great Plains...

Ah yes, the Arch Druid. He's not quite my cup of tea, but some of my best friends read him religiously.

Sorry for the long response. It would take several volumes to explain all this fully.

You are bringing up a lot of interesting issues here. I haven't been in high school since 1964, but this is a basic pattern which is more or less comm...

Creditable estimates of those in forced labor (unofficially, slaves) ranges between 21 million and 48 million. What countries have the highest percent...

Zika wasn't around yet. Probably a result of maternal drug abuse. But he had a fine childhood. McGregor, on the other hand seems not to have had a dep...

Technological progress is not our most pressing problem. The biggest threat to our future is a failure to build a civilization which facilitates meani...

This scenario is the basis for quite a few science fiction novels -- some of them very good novels. But it's fiction, not science. It takes a tremendo...

This is very true. I'm something of a loner too. Plus, I don't have a great understanding of how to deal with other people in the most effective manne...

Naturally. Other people make up their statistics, why shouldn't you? >:)

I don't have a number, but it is likely a small minority who do this. It's a fraught practice that tends not to lead to success. Most people just don'...

Exactly. According to Oxfam (and they were using the same data sources that everybody else uses) a handful of people, a few dozen, have as much wealth...

In response to your comment to Rich: You think "the system" won't notice if you quietly reorganize the economy, quietly institute changes in the famil...

Right. Because... https://68.media.tumblr.com/99975a6d5c8b483be7d57fb533290f56/tumblr_ov87cqMp691s4quuao1_500.png

Indeed, there is not. And I am not advocating that anyone just accept the way things are and not do anything to disrupt the order of things. I disappr...

They have difficulty because they idealize their parent, and no live person is going to match that ideal.

Like I said, most of us are just too over-exposed to all this stuff, most of which is way beyond our capacity to control, affect, stop, change... Once...

Your genes are driving your novelty seeking behavior. Other people's genes drive familiarity seeking.