How do we know what is true?

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

To change the subject from health science...

How do we know what is true? Maybe we should be asking how we assess our priorities. This is an article (warning: it scared the crap out of me) by Noam Chomski. Did you know that in 1983 Russia got a warning of an incoming US nuke - it was in error or based on a test- and the only reason we're alive today is that a Russian officer intuitively ignored it? It was a momentary decision. No time for science. The article highlights other myths mistruths about the world's history. Noam Chomsky is not a conspiracy theorist.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5650658

I think what this highlights and the only reason I put this morbid piece here...is that we do not know what is true all the time...and I think to too narrowly be dependent on science and not 'spirit' to inspire positive change, nothing will change. Science is not going to solve the problems highlighted in that article. If anything, science caused them.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

To me...I think these issues are way more important than whether or not someone prefers naturopathy for their own health. Heck, chew on all the willow tree bark you want and be happy we still have trees!

We expect the governments in the west to regulate what we consume and I understand why...but this article above points out that we live under an illusion that public safety even matters to them. The article is mind boggling to me...shook me to the core. I think peace, not medical science or any other technology has to be the number one issue of our time. I think that is the truth. The two biggest threats to life on the planet might be corona mass ejections, and nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons is something we don't need new technology to abandon. It's within human capability to stop that threat in the near future - if everybody wants it, it is in our reach now - the will just has to be there. As for coronal mass ejections and asteroids etc. I think those things, should be looked at when we've done our part to make the planet safe from our threat to ourselves. Same with non-fatal chronic illness and how it is treated - it's not a top priority now. It's important but who gives a hoot if someone wants to, or a lot of people want to use untested/ proven herbal medicine - in the big picture?

 

[Delightful Life]

No one is putting people down for having ideas. Those ideas, when they are proven not to work, are being rightly eviscerated. Until they have been proven to work, they are held with a degree of skepticism. If people are making claims without proof, these claims are held with even more skepticism. This is how it should be.

Any stable society is a balancing act between letting people have their freedom (Liberalism) and making sure that freedom doesn't destroy that society (Conservatism)

One doesn't want just any idea spreading and being adopted by people -- there has to be mechanisms through which these ideas are tested for their potential adoption

Various natural things like our bodies & our minds & nature & universe does that in a sense

Cancer is an example of when it goes wrong

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

You see...I have this idea. It's called "Peace". I think it's the truth. I think we can't really have a better world without it. I think none of our achievements are worth anything if we are a threat to our own existence. I can't prove that peace is the truth, not even with scientific methodology, because we live in a myriad of lies and power games constantly impeding that from happening. It would take will all over the world to change that

 

[Mendalla]

You see...I have this idea. It's called "Peace". I think it's the truth. I think we can't really have a better world without it. I think none of our achievements are worth anything if we are a threat to our own existence. I can't prove that peace is the truth, not even with scientific methodology, because we live in a myriad of lies and power games constantly impeding that from happening. It would take will all over the world to change that

I think it has been proven. What are the most stable, economically and social societies? The ones that have internal peace. Western democracies, Japan, to some extent China (though they have a couple conflicts within their borders). Extend that to the world. If the whole world was as relatively peaceful as Western Europe or Canada and the US, the world would almost certainly be a more stable, balanced, functional place. Alas, too much of the world still looks more like Iraq or Syria.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I agree but that doesn't mean we need nukes. Single worst, most sinister invention (so far).

 

[chansen]

Religion is up there.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Religion is up there.

No...it's been used to manipulate people with lies and power games, though. True. But it's not the biggest threat - we make politics, policies, sci-fi, everything into a religion - we believe people in power care about us not power - that's a kind of illusory 'faith' too. (Noam Chomsky article shook me up - I was resisting posting about it because I don't even want to think about the truths in it...but I think we have to face those with honesty too not just tootle along inventing more stuff)

 

[Mendalla]

I agree but that doesn't mean we need nukes. Single worst, most sinister invention (so far).

Nukes have nothing to do with what I said, Kimmio. Of course we don't need nukes (assuming you mean nuclear weapons, because we definitely need nuclear power).

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

We don't need that either. We need to develop solar and wind, and cut back on how much power we consume.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Nukes have nothing to do with what I said, Kimmio. Of course we don't need nukes (assuming you mean nuclear weapons, because we definitely need nuclear power).

They have to do with what I said when I mentioned "Peace"

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

We don't need that either. We need to develop solar and wind, and other safer things, and cut back on how much power we consume.

 

[Seeler]

i guess death is not a certainty for you


whats your secret ?

Death is a probability for me. Everyone in the past has died. At my age, many of the people I know are dying. I think it is a distinct probability that I too will sometime face death (I sure hope so - at the rate my body is wearing out, I don't want to be around for another century or two - I'm thinking decades.) But until it happens, I don't think there is any certainty that it will.

 

[Mendalla]

We don't need that either. We need to develop solar and wind, and other safer things, and cut back on how much power we consume.

Cutting back, I agree with and conservation needs to be our first priority (and my wife and I practice it).

Solar and wind simply do not have the capacity to drive an industrial economy at this point without putting up acres of wind farms or solar panels.

Have you even considered how much arable land we are losing to wind/solar farms in Ontario alone? With no say from the public because the government has basically taken any semblance of democracy away from the process of expanding them? A nuclear plant gives much much power per hectare of land used than these two.

Have you even considered that wind's health effects are starting to become medically accepted (though still controversial)? Our government has spent millions forcing them down people's throats (by taking away the right of municipalities to refuse them) and may face millions more in lawsuits if the medical issues related to wind farms are ever proven. Nuclear has problems but at least we know what they are (radioactive waste; meltdowns; production of weapon-able materials) and how to deal with them (safe storage facilities; use reactors like CANDU that are unlikely to meltdown and produce minimal weapon-able materials).

Conservation is absolutely necessary and should be our first line of attack. However, no generation system is without its costs and problems, including wind and solar, and the priority right now is to get rid of fossil fuels, esp. coal. Natural gas generates far less greenhouse gas than coal, but still generates some. Nuclear, like wind and solar, generates 0. Yes, renewable systems need to be put in place but until it can be done with public buy-in and all the risks are known (as they are for nuclear), we should be proceeding more cautiously than we are.

 

[Pontifex Geronimo 13]

Prediction: In 15 years coal will be our cleanest source of energy in Canada. Nuclear is idiotic. The pollution does not go away.
Do you remember Bayer - the headache people. They are working on a capture system that will capture carbon dioxide from the stack of a coal fired power generator and then use it as an ingredient of insulation or foam. This is close to reality. Coal will power electric cars and whole cities and the greenhouse gasses will be used for insulation, reducing heating demand. This is why Obama appears to be hitting coal industry hard, but they will be able to reduce emissions. Coal mining stocks are taking a pounding. They are being portrayed as evil and going the way of the dinosaur, meanwhile somebody is getting a bunch of cheap stock.

 

[chansen]

Conservation is absolutely necessary and should be our first line of attack. However, no generation system is without its costs and problems, including wind and solar, and the priority right now is to get rid of fossil fuels, esp. coal. Natural gas generates far less greenhouse gas than coal, but still generates some. Nuclear, like wind and solar, generates 0. Yes, renewable systems need to be put in place but until it can be done with public buy-in and all the risks are known (as they are for nuclear), we should be proceeding more cautiously than we are.

Again, quoted because it needs to be read. There is no magic solution. Solar creates power when it is sunny. Windmills need wind. Look outside right now - look windy to you? Are there clouds in the sky? Is it, say, night time at least once per day where you live? All are enemies of these forms of power generation.

So, store the energy, right? Where? Batteries? Nickel mining is extremely harmful to the environment.

I mean, there just isn't a magic solution. Not yet. I agree with wind and solar and geothermal and all sorts of power generation techniques, but they all have their drawbacks.

 

[chansen]

They have to do with what I said when I mentioned "Peace"

You have a very simplistic view of "peace". Peace can be achieved when everyone is happy with what they have, including land, jobs, opportunities, food, etc. I don't see that happening any time soon. Someone is always unsatisfied, or greedy. Religion gives them justification and it gives them an army of like-minded followers.

The first order of business is to eliminate poverty and get every child in the world an education. As long as there are reasons for weapons to exist, people will build weapons. You can not wish them away. The way you undermine warlords in Afghanistan and the USA is to make it so that people don't join militias or the army to get away from poverty, and because it's their only hope. You give them good educations and opportunities. You teach them about other parts of the world, and other people. You put a human face on humanity. You teach about other cultures and respect for them, because they are not unlike us. You teach kids not to hate others because they are different.

Wishing weapons away does nothing. I make the same mistake by wishing away religion. Give young people the tools, and they won't need weapons or gods.

 

[airclean33]

Prediction: In 15 years coal will be our cleanest source of energy in Canada. Nuclear is idiotic. The pollution does not go away.
Do you remember Bayer - the headache people. They are working on a capture system that will capture carbon dioxide from the stack of a coal fired power generator and then use it as an ingredient of insulation or foam. This is close to reality. Coal will power electric cars and whole cities and the greenhouse gasses will be used for insulation, reducing heating demand. This is why Obama appears to be hitting coal industry hard, but they will be able to reduce emissions. Coal mining stocks are taking a pounding. They are being portrayed as evil and going the way of the dinosaur, meanwhile somebody is getting a bunch of cheap stock.

--I was just wondering have you heard what there going to do with the clunkers.Or what ever you want to call that part of the coal that don"t burn.airclean33

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

You have a very simplistic view of "peace". Peace can be achieved when everyone is happy with what they have, including land, jobs, opportunities, food, etc. I don't see that happening any time soon. Someone is always unsatisfied, or greedy. Religion gives them justification and it gives them an army of like-minded followers.

The first order of business is to eliminate poverty and get every child in the world an education. As long as there are reasons for weapons to exist, people will build weapons. You can not wish them away. The way you undermine warlords in Afghanistan and the USA is to make it so that people don't join militias or the army to get away from poverty, and because it's their only hope. You give them good educations and opportunities. You teach them about other parts of the world, and other people. You put a human face on humanity. You teach about other cultures and respect for them, because they are not unlike us. You teach kids not to hate others because they are different.

Wishing weapons away does nothing. I make the same mistake by wishing away religion. Give young people the tools, and they won't need weapons or gods.

I know it requires more than deweaponization. I am not a simpleton. But if we're not doing what we do under threat (which we always are in the big picture - not each of us, but countries geo-politically) then it's not peace. If nukes are pointing at somebody somewhere and economic decisions, laws are made, jobs are created that keep up this status quo...it's not real peace it's manufactured, fabricated, propogandized, militarily enforced peace. Militarily enforced peace? Yup. I think you have a simplistic view chansen. I would love to be wrong about this.

You get mad at God in the Bible for being a jerk but the MIC is a sinister force in real time....we almost all died in 1983 from a weapon humans invented! That's not peace.

 

[Pontifex Geronimo 13]

Don't know. Is coal that has lost it's coaliness like salt the has lost it's saltiness?