If there are such places, then go there, because you just described why you don't need an adblocker -- you already have ad-free sites for all your content, right?

The argument can be extended to anything. There are plenty of soup kitchens offering food for free, so it's your problem if you can't find a business model that works when you just take food without paying for it. Right?

I get the problem of annoying ads. First of all there's the malware ads and spoofing ads; those are awful. But even worse are those ads that play sound. The only time an ad should play sound is if it's inserted into or at the beginning / end of a video or audio stream. If somebody knows of an adblocker that just gets rid of any ad that plays sound (excluding those provisos) and leaves the rest, I'd take that, even if it just replaced the entire page with "Sorry! This site is awful and is committed to pissing you off. Go elsewhere.".

Is that actually one of the bases of most religions?

I know it shows up in at least some sects of Christianity, and in arguments about the "Problem of Evil". I've never heard it claimed that it was at the basis of most religions.

Note: I am a man of science and easily accept the validity of the theory of evolution.

They aren't random facts. Please actually read the linked article -- it's clear you aren't doing so, and it makes you look very bad and frankly undermines your points about science.

The article specifies that comprehension of the theory of evolution is uncorrelated to "belief" in the theory of evolution. In other words, just because somebody believes evolution, does not mean they understand what it is they believe in; just because they disbelieve evolution, does not mean they do not understand what it is they disbelieve. Scientific literacy can reasonably be defined as understanding of the principles of science, regardless of whether you accept its conclusions. Even if it seems ridiculous to you and me not to accept its conclusions.

Remember, there are people in the world who literally believe in the talking snake, even though every adult knows that snakes cannot talk.

(point is well taken at using a single, recently-produced study without independent corroboration to support a point, though).

Are you literally saying that there can't possibly be a problem unless all men are walking around planning how to keep the ladies down?

Feminism is not sexism.

If you can't get past the "Fem" in the word feminism, then you are exactly as bad as those strawmen who can't get past the "his" in history.

You realize being unreasonable is part of the *definition* of being a bigot, right?

Did Brendan Eich receive credible death threats? I guess he might have, but I didn't hear about it and wouldn't condone it.

Did anybody offer Anita Sarkeesian a job as the head of Firefox? No, not at all.

With Eich, the debate was over a sort of flash-boycott over him becoming CEO, not his continued breathing.

Are you saying that it's impossible to do something irreversibly?

The statement is a pithy comment about can-do attitudes. Taken strictly, it's a logical absurdity. Don't take it strictly.

Division tables??

I absolutely remember learning long division (I'm 30).

That's not really clear in any sense.

It comes down to the definition of "individual". The zygote is the first case where you are genetically complete at probably 99.99+% of the same genes you have as an adult. But are you your genes?

Can a zygote truly be referred to as an individual? If so, why can't an egg? Is your definition of "individual" a clump of cells that share the same gene sequences? If so, then are twins two individuals? Why or why not?

We have an intuitive notion of what these things mean and it works after a baby is born and it gets weirder the earlier you go.

In the formal logical sense, imply means prove. That comes from its formal logical definition: http://whatis.techtarget.com/d....

You are using "imply" in a more casual sense, which would be fine if you didn't also call him wrong. Now that you've broken out the weird pedantry, I have to tell you he's not wrong, he's actually perfectly accurate and you're being pedantic.

I'm genuinely curious where you went to school.

Quite frankly, no, a person of average intelligence could not have aced any undergraduate course I took. Not even the easy ones. In part because of the combination of the fact that schools filter for higher intelligence, and then they target a certain average grade out of every course. It doesn't really matter how hard the fundamental concepts are, the system is designed to move the proverbial cheese such that a 4.0 is unachievable to the average student.

Even with rampant grade inflation, if an average person can cap all courses, then the school is not grading on any metric even close to what I've ever experienced.

Sure you do. In real life, I interact with four sets of people:

1. My friends, who I get to choose, subject only to the limitation that they also have to choose me as a friend.
2. My coworkers, which I don't totally get to choose, but I can choose a profession that is inaccessible to people who aren't above average.
3. People I exchange goods and services with, like retail cashiers, repairmen, waitstaff, etc.. They can run the full gamut, but I honestly don't have to spend a lot of time with them. Unlike school, where you had to spend ~30ish hours a week with the same people whether they are jackasses or angels.

And with things like amazon.com and slef-checkout at grocery stores, even this level of interaction is being reduced to mostly skilled tradesmen or airport security.
4. My family, who I didn't choose (except for a hypothetical future spouse, or technically if I adopted a kid I guess).

Basically every other interaction is either an exception (eg. random police stop, construction workers redirecting me because they're busy fucking up the sidewalk I need to walk on for whatever reason) or by my own choice.

Besides which, the social skills to talk to smart people aren't completely independent of the social skills to talk to not-so-smart people, honestly. There are some differences, but smart people just aren't that special.

It's not usually that difficult to pretend you're a dumbass if smartness is truly a liability. In the absence of a reliable intelligence test, usable by idiots, it can only be a liability if it prevents you from being entertained by something that entertains dumber people

He didn't say equal, he said not better.

Consider: is i > 1? Is i 1.

The world is not composed strictly of totally ordered sets. There's absolutely no reason that, just because some people are stronger than others, smarter than others, nicer than others, etc., that anybody is better than anyone else.