If these kids are concerned about the climate's future, shouldn't they be studying ways to better predict and manage the climate?

We have finely-honed ways to predict the climate. They converge to predict serious danger ahead. We also have a great deal of knowledge of ways to head off that danger -- primarily by reducing carbon emissions. Now, the students might want to do psychological studies about why we have the knowledge and the means but refuse to act. There's a lot to learn about why we're such stupid lemmings, victims of propaganda by the likes of Exxon and the rest of the vested interests, who believe that their descendants in private hilltop estates can hold off the catastrophy, or else believe nothing of the future at all, but see only the short term profits.

But what's wrong the filing suit? Anything to cut through the mass madness and inertia on this danger is good. There's been more TV coverage of Donald Trump than global warming over the last year in America. We are truly a decadent civizilation, and truly fucked if we don't wake up from this.

Aren't you assuming assumption exists there? Okay, assumption might be a subcategory of thought. So, reasonably, we can think thought exists. We're also thinking that "reasonably" means something. Well, reason is a category of thought too. So most of the "only reasonable assumption: that thought exists" is saying not much more than "We think we think." Okay. But notice what's not about thought or it's subcategories in that sentence: "We." So presumably we can reasonably assume - or more than assume - "we." After all, who is the "reasonable assumption" even of consequence for besides us?

Now that we've got "us" as a reasonable assumption - or even something more certain than that - there's the question of "Where are we?" Well, it might be a lot more reasonable to assume we're in a world that consists of more than thoughts about thoughts. A reality consisting solely of thoughts about thoughts would lead to an incredible degree of tail chasing. It's hard to think why it would ever seem either as substantial as the world - why not just be mixed up like our dreams usually are? - or as truly surprising to us - whether pleasantly or unpleasantly - as the world often is in our experience.

Also I'd venture assuming the world is real correlates with a longer life expectancy than assuming only thoughts are. Perhaps that's just a thought....

As Jon Stewart pointed out last night: Hitler believed an international banking conspiracy threatened to destroy Europe. Today there's an internal banking conspiracy threatening to destroy Europe ... and it's led by the Germans!

Heartland believes there's a conspiracy to falsify science threatening to destroy civilisation as we know it. Today Heartland's conspiracy to falsify science is threatening to destroy civilisation as we know it.

Oh the irony?!

What state do you live in where your state reps have "a couple layers of minions"? Just curious. I'm in Vermont. State reps and senators have no personal staff at all. So a software program that could sort original communnications from ditto'd ones would be quite helpful. My state senator's getting several hundred emails a day. All but a few are mass produced stuff she'd as soon pay relatively less attention to than the individual communications. But she's not good at sorting them herself. So she was hoping I could suggest a software solution for her.

Is it too much to expect Slashdot denizens to be knowledgeable and creative about software solutions to common problems? Since nobody seems to recognize this one as something that already has solutions out there, maybe someone could be inspired to write one to fill the gap? Yeah, it would be beautiful if I could. But I'm a Linux guy, and don't have the background to write extensions to the Windows or Mac mail readers. There has to be an opportunity there for someone, though. I'm sure lots of businesses would like to be able to sort their incoming email along these lines too, since they too get targetted by the same political websites that organize mass attacks on politicians' email inboxes.

Jesus H. I ask about software solutions that a state senator, who here in Vermont has no staff at all other than some shared staffers who help the senate function when in session, might implement. A software solution to sorting individual e-mails from canned ones. Yes, why shouldn't we have the efficiency of email here? And no, she does not have a legislative office. I'm in Vermont. It's a citizen legislature. And yes, I know her socially. But not so closely I can just drop in on her home. She told me personally about the flood of email, and asked if I knew of a way she could automatically sort out the mass emailings from the individual constituent letters. So I passed the query on to Slashdot.

This is obviously technologically achievable. There are for instance the sites for teachers that, if you feed in student papers, can spot plagerism. This is almost exactly the same problem: Identify the incoming emails that contain largely plagerized (or at least unoriginal) text, and put them in a queue separate from the ones that don't. I was hoping that someone would say, "Ah yes, there's a package out there that does it." Evidently not. And how does wanting to help her cut through the clutter of email to get to the real messages constitute a problem with my ego? (Look in the mirror, daemonenwind.)

In America you can buy a phone from TIng with only a month-to-month contract. But the phone basically will only work on TIng (which uses Sprint's and Clearwire's networks). So it's still a bit of a commitment and up front cost. The monthly cost though can end up far cheaper than being on the big carriers' contract plans, even factoring in the initial cost of the phone, since Ting charges for actual use each month. And the phones Ting offers are some of the better Android models, as compared to the prepaid stuff. Plus the prepaid phones don't seem to ever offer 4G. Most of the Ting phones have 4G (well, WiMAX), and tethering other devices is at no extra charge.

Thing is, the modern Republicans demand strict conformity to an arbitrary standard of political correctness. If you miss out in any dimension, you're a "Republican In Name Only" and they'd rather expel you from their gated paradise.

It goes along with their moral relativism, where Romney's health care plan designed by the Heritage Foundation becomes "unconstitutional" when promoted nationally by Obama - not because it's morphed into something other than Heritage and Romney designed, but because it was passed by Democrats, and so is guilty by association with them.

The GOP used to be a diverse group of free thinkers who highly valued liberty. It's become a conformist cult that worships only power, whose only allegiance to liberty is wanting the world to be free from any power or influence other than their own. Which is tragic. We'd be far better off with at least two viable parties competing to truly server the interests of the majority of citizens. We need better Republicans, badly. Or else we need them to go the way of the Whigs and a new, better party to arise.

Stuart Hameroff is an organizer of this conference, which I'm sure this research was timed for release just before. Stuart has long been an advocate of a theory he developed with Roger Penrose in which the microtubules are the brain's interface with the quantum.

I had a plain old cell phone for years on Sprint, and never liked the phoney "regulatory recapture" fees. Nor did I want to start paying $100 a month just to have a smartphone. Their network, in places I tend to be, is good though. So I dropped Sprint and went to Ting, where you pay for your phone up front (no subsidy), but then for voice/text/data pay by actual usage, with nothing extra for the WiMAX flavor of 4G, or for using the phone as a wi-fi hub to tether other devices. Since I'm not a huge mobile data user (plenty of free wi-fi around usually) I don't text, and don't love talking on the phone, it looks like for about what I was paying just for the old cell phone I now have the wi-fi hub feature, plus something the kid can play Angry Birds on.

Ting doesn't have iPhones - not that I'd want one. But it's phones are better than most low-cost providers'. And I have no idea if they'll be able to follow Sprint into LTE, or remain stuck in WiMAX. But the other low-cost providers are stuck in 3G, so WiMAX is a nice advantage for now.