Earthmichael is very sick right now

[JarlWolf]

An Objectivist faction... I'll have to think on this one, and it wouldn't be fair for just me to create it- I'd need to collaborate with others on the idea's and possibly yourself (If you are able) to properly form it as a full fledged faction.

I have a theory on how different sexes evolved: But please note I am no scientist and my scientific knowledge is not all encompassing, I just have a bit of knowledge.

My theory of evolution and how the different genders arose, I think the occurrence of different sexes in an organism was originally a freak mutation. I think that somewhere along the line there was bacteria that, under certain chemical conditions changed so rapidly from one another came to the point where the bacteria split into two distinct forms that could exchange genetic material. Why they exchange genetic material I am guessing is some sort of chemical condition that made the cells much more permeable for genetic material/DNA to be exchanged much easier, and from this sort of freak mutation arose the two genders, evolving into different plants and animals.

That's my theory on it, whether or not it has evidence supporting it I do not know: but it seems a logical explanation to me.

I am not necessarily attached to the common ancestry theory personally, but I don't know how else sexual life forms would evolve otherwise as I am not aware of other theories on it that seem adequate.

Edit: at the moment at least.

[Green1]

If you have read or heard of Ann Rynd who wrote Atlas Shrugged, you get the jist of objectivism. There are also other movements such as Satanism which comes close to the philosophy. However, those are just parody movements for folks who want to dress in black and pretend to be oppressed. Objectivism is much more mainstream, though it was more popular a few decades back.

In essence, it would be a very rational faction.Research and creativity would be revered.. but only theirs. It is almost like a fundamentalism without the penalties. They would have little tolerance for drones, though. If you are not a talent, why aren't you? In fact, why are you reproducing more dumb people to leech off those doing things?? It is a philosophy without empathy. Borderline sociopathic at the worst. Elitist intellectualism at the best.

I agree, Jarlwolf, I need to think on that, too.

[JarlWolf]

Yeah. I don't like objectivism as an ideal personally, I find many of its followers (present company of Earthmicheal excluded, he's shown he's actually rational and cordial, something many objectivists are ironically not.) are ignorant and often cynical, self proclaimed intellectuals who figure themselves the need to express their self righteous opinons and denounce others, all the while maintaining support for horrible systems like Laissez Faire Capitalism. And I don't just say Laissez Faire Capitalism is horrible because of my personal ideal being Communitarian Socialism/Communism, I say it because I have personally lived through a Laissez Faire system and it was the most nightmarish society I had ever lived in. Crime was so high people weren't safe on the streets, businessmen who were trying to legitimately grow their markets, the very focus of praise for Capitalists, were gunned down by thugs hired by their competitors and unbridled capitalism showed its true nature. People suffered in poverty and I barely survived, it was only because of community and my friends that I did. I lost good friends and had to literally fight to survive, sometimes having to fend off violent types during the nightmare of the 90's Laissez Faire system in my country, and no one in their right mind would support it: Those who do have not seen the whole effects of it and the ugly truth of that reckless system.

Mind I am aware of the incompetence of government programs as well, I lived the vast majority of my life in one of the biggest Socialist regimes on the planet; Earthmicheal, as far as I know has as well in his own country. But I'd rather incompetency and a government that at least HAS those services then a system that literally lacks any care or support for its citizens, that's just abominable.

My rant and personal opinions out of the way now...
An objectivist faction is a good idea though: It is an ideal embodied quite a bit in modern civilization, especially on the internet by many people. Though here is the issue:

Sigma already has an industrialized, Objectivist faction: Apollo industries.
Plus for this faction to really have importance for the one who'd enjoy it the most, I want to base it on Earthmicheal himself.

And for me to base it off of Earthmicheal, while I do know and respect the man well enough, I have not spoken in deep conversation with him and don't know him as well as I should. And in order to get his preferences I must research the matter (him) before making arrogant decisions without getting to know him proper. I also doubt he's just a straight on "Objectivist," he's a bit more sophisticated then that I presume. So for this faction to work, two things must happen beforehand.

1. Research on Earthmicheal and discussion with him and others is needed to properly form the faction idea/ideals and all of the necessary parts of the faction.
2. Assembly of imagery and other things that fit Earthmicheals tastes and the theme of the faction. After all, this is a faction for him as a gift of goodwill and his health, so I'd rather make something he likes then risk something and then it turns out he is disappointed with it.

Once those two steps are done, I can proceed with the faction.

Edit: Removed some glitched/ repeat crap: my computer kept toying with me on this post.

[Kirov]

Their are many who reliably logged information whose accounts were then rejected.  Not like 1000 Elvis sightings, but 100 people who saw something unusual occur.  This should be treated as evidence that things we don't yet understand can occur.  It look thousands of observations of walking owls before it finally because accepted that such phenomenon are valid.

Look, I really respect people’s faith in such things and I don’t expect them to change their worldviews just because some Kirov guy calls BS. But it should also work the other way round, in that you can’t really expect me or scientists to believe/delve deeper into something because hundreds of people claim to have seen this, especially when, wouldn’t you know it, such a phenomenon defies any further study or research.

Of course we are allowed to dismiss hundreds of first-hand accounts. Just look at the Internet. Give me any name, I mean literally any thing you can think of – just take a dictionary, throw it at your ceiling fan, pick up 5 pieces and tell me what they say – and I’ll find you 1 thousand people who will swear they’ve seen it with their own eyes, and if you doubt them, they’ll shower you with several GBs’ worth of trashing about how you’re sheeple, live in the Matrix, “look but don’t see” etc.

But don’t take my word for it. Below is a link to “Real Super Powers” forum, which gathers people, you guessed it, who honestly-and-I’m-not-making-this-up believe they can read your mind or control the weather.

http://www.realsuperpowers.com/

Courtesy of somethingawful.com, which finds tonnes of such gems. If you have too much time at your clinic, you’ll probably enjoy this:

http://www.somethingawful.com/weekend-web/

So to sum up, sorry for being that obnoxious youtube “pics or it didn’t happen” brat, but I don’t think I’m left with any choice.

(disclaimer: I'm not trying to put your beliefs and some random Internet psychos in the same drawer. I'm just saying I don't see where we can draw the line for "reliable".)

[Kirov]

Educators were hand wringing in recent years that polls were showing that few and few students "believed in" evolution after their science classes.  That tells me that the students can perceive the gaps in the arguments, and are less willing to believe the science "on faith".  Do you personally have a theory for how organisms who are reproducing by asexual fission evolve to being reproducing bisexually, simultaneously evolving a compatible male and female?  If you have such a theory, this would be the first time my question was answered, instead of just being told, don't ask the question.

Yes, I agree with BU that those friends or educators apparently didn’t have too much knowledge about evolution but weren’t too eager to admit it. Fortunately, this says absolutely nothing about evolution itself.

When it comes to the evolution of sex, I’m afraid I don’t have “my own personal theory” and I strongly encourage you not to develop your own by yourself or hearsay. Science is not a collection of reasonably sounding ‘methinkses’ and the choice you have is usually either to examine results of some study or do your own research.

I’ve read some about it, but without bio-chem background it didn’t really stick to my head. What I can do is recommend a course at coursera.org which I attended, “Introduction to Genetics and Evolution”:

https://www.coursera.org/course/geneticsevolution

The course is great, the lecturer is fantastic and his recommended readings, “Introduction to Genetics” (a content-heavy volume, I barely skimmed it) and aptly-titled “Why Evolution Is True” (short and good read) should shed a lot of light on these issues. If not, you can just post your questions and doubts and I’m sure the staff of the Department of Biology at the Duke University will be happy to oblige you with answers.

If it’s still not enough, grab your microscope and some Petri dishes. There still exist species which are asexual but can also resort to sexual reproduction as we speak, oblivious to the fact that it is controversial. If they can do it both ways, surely one way could develop into the other. Likewise (with regard to the common ancestor), there is a half-animal, half-plant creature swimming merrily at your nearest pond. You may have even gulped the guy by accident.

I believe that most doubts about the theory of evolution (debunked in throngs in the latter book) come from the fact that our brains are not hard-wired to understand what “3.5 billion years” really means. It’s just a number, probably registered in our brains as “long time ago”, even before our grandpas were born. However, for a living creature, that 3.5 billion years is near infinity. Evolution can actually work quite fast, but is still too slow for us to experience a creation of an entirely new species in our lifetime. Yet, computer simulations indicate that if we reduced all life on Earth to single single-cell species, it would repopulate the planet to its current state within 200 million years, which is either a very short or a mind-bogglingly huge span of time, depending if you ask an astronomer or your regular Joe.

Imagine you gently tap your fingers on the wall of that treasury at Fort Knox. After 3.5 billion years, your tapping alone, erosion notwithstanding, would probably tear it down to pieces and turn those pieces into sand. But right now, what we all see is simply the tapping.

Yes, I am aware there is a growing, bipartisan distrust to sciences in the US. However, I’m afraid I can’t express any optimism about it. But well, what can you do. Sleep tight, America. You’ve done a great job, anyway. Here’s a great article I had the pleasure to translate:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antiscience-beliefs-jeopardize-us-democracy

I’m sorry I’ve written so much, intended to post even more. Normally I don’t get involved into such discussions online, but thought maybe I can entertain you a bit for your stay at the hospital.

[Buster's Uncle]

Kirov, you should post your science articles to our science news forums -if it won't get you in trouble-.  Please.

[Kirov]

Kirov, you should post your science articles to our science news forums -if it won't get you in trouble-.  Please.

I know there is a section for it, but it was a reference to what I wrote, so I'd have to link to our news forum and then to the article itself. Should I do that?

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, you can see that the usual format is there, but if all you can do is a link, I'd still like to see it.  You're one of us and we're proud of you - and science is science.

Or am I misunderstanding?

[Kirov]

So you wanted to add the link to archives apart from posting it here?

Nothing to be proud of, I posted the article as it may interest the Americans here. Makes you almost wish for a little conspiracy between politics and science...

[Buster's Uncle]

Archives?  I still don't think I'm following your meaning.

[Kirov]

  I wanted to ask if you want me not to insert links to such articles in my posts. And restrict such linking only to the news section. But I think this is not what you meant.

[Buster's Uncle]

I am always scrupulous about back-linking any article I copy/paste; otherwise, I would flatly be stealing someone's hard work and undermining their commercial purpose in posting the article.  Likewise, I would rather you gave your employer the SEO and possibility of traffic and with a backlink accompanying the quoted article, for ethical reasons.  However, links alone?  Who clicks on anyone else's links?  Link wherever for whatever reason, provided NSFW is properly labeled.

  indeed.

[t_ras]

This conversation is moving waaaaaaaay far from the topic. I think we should move it and live only the main topic for EM to report when he is filling better.

[Buster's Uncle]

It went OT on the first page.

I've thought about that very thing - my take is that it does no harm to let this thread wander all over the universe if EM likes, because we love him, and right here in the Mcave with his MPcronies is most convenient for him while he's laid up.

Of course, t, I will defer to your judgment in your forum if you feel strongly.

[Earthmichael]

I managed to endure an attack at home for the first time today.  It was a close thing, due to the nausea.   But I managed to take and keep down a couple of critical pills just as the nausea as starting to hit.  This enabled me to endure the attack without having to go to the hospital for IV medications.   It was still most uncomfortable, but I appreciated not having to go back to the hospital.
This gives me hope that if I am sensitive to the onset of nausea, I might be able to repeat my success.

Insurance still does not want to cover the capsule endoscopy, which is the nearly the only meaningful test left to be done.  So I asked my HR people to either force the insurance company to cover the test, or be prepared for a short term disability claim.  Hopefully, that will get some action.