Of course Rhesus monkeys can do math, how could we have Rhesus positive and Rhesus negative blood types if they couldn't?

Our surveillance society is a huge risk to our well being in regards to our physical, economic, and social liberty. It's pretty damn important.

It may have some large advantages in theory, but the setup seems quite impractical. A well placed bomb can cause lots of destruction in a short while, giving them little to no time to flee before they are in the way of harm. Also, with asphyxiation, you are going to need to get a near perfect seal on a large building, which is very difficult to do without getting noticed, and it would provide some other cues. One of which would be the heat of a building full of people with limited air circulation. I also suspect that there would be a number of people who succumb earlier than others, giving them a decent warning about a plan that can be foiled by opening a window.

Even if we are completely sustainable, the sun won't last forever, and before that point, it would engulf us.

Murderers often have goals other than just causing the most death possible. Also, guns generally require less knowledge to use effectively than bombs and are more readily available in a working form. Most people who use firearms for murder have low counts.

whereas deaths from suicide by firearm alone account for a staggering amount of deaths (not all of which can be attributed to wanting to die unless firearm ownership somehow causes the desire to die to increase).

They don't increase the desire, but they do increase the success rate. Women attempt suicide more often, but men successfully commit suicide more often because women tend to use methods that won't result in scarring, like taking pills, while men use methods that are effective.

Bombs are probably the most efficient way to kill lots of people, and they can be improvised from various things that we need to have to function as a society.

I'm not saying the law isn't on the side of those recording the police, just that it's a great deal more work in those states, and thus, a little bit easier for police to harass you about it.

I believe the argument being presented is that the will and interests of the oligarchs dominates the will and interests of the general public, not that certain people have more political sway than other randomly selected people.

This idiocy again. Being a democracy and a republic are not mutually exclusive. Being a direct deomcracy is, but that is not what is generally meant when someone simply says 'democracy.'

I agree, and again, the issue with recording cops is a far bigger one outside of one-party states. The ACLU and such will give you things to say if police try to stop you from recording them. If you are in a single-party state, it's basically just reciting that this is a single party state, so you don't need their consent. If you are an all-party state, you have to state that it's a public place, first amendment, etc.

The probably is Pennsylvania is an all-party state, where most states only require the consent of one party to record.

Probably around 15 billion credits.

It wouldn't seem to be the case. A study has suggested that the placebo effect works even if patients know they are getting fake medicine. Possibly because many patients know about the placebo effect,. and thus believe that believing has a positive effect.

It actually would be very dependent upon the instrument in general. A number of high-end instruments couldn't even be played by a novice. For example, reed instruments like clarinets and saxophones have different grades of reeds based on how firm they are. Someone inexperienced has to play a softer reed because the muscles used in playing aren't developed enough. There are also elements like scalloped frets on a guitar, which allow for playing with an incredibly light touch, but said touch must be so delicate that a novice is only going to get awful sounds out of them.

So, to treat this question fairly, you have to treat ease of playing as a separate issue from tonal quality. Also, even if you treat being intimate with the instrument as a necessity, you could still reasonably do a double blind test, assuming that the musician doesn't attempt to subvert the process. Give them two very nice violins, and don't tell them which on is the strad. If the physical appearance is too telling, then we might have to have a musician who is literally blind.

Absolute nonsense. Patents were supposed to 'promote the progress' of 'the useful arts.' Trade secrets had nothing to do with that because nobody who could practice something secretly indefinitely would bother getting a patent, which is costly and expires. If the goal was to reduce the usage of trade secrets, the first step would be to weaken trade secret law, but nobody ever brings that to the table because patents very little to do with trade secrets for proponents or opponents.