I get that, but if your speedometer is pegged to the maximum reading at 150mph, the thought might occur to you that you are going faster.

We have a few problems with just crunching the numbers in this case.

First of all - Not everyone who manages to 2.0 their way through a STEM degree will do well at it, or even like doing it for that matter.

Second - A STEM degree (even with a 2.0) carries the prestige of "this guy knows something". For all the require-a-degree-but-not-really jobs out there, having a "real" major rather than Wymins' Studies will go a loooong way toward getting you in the top half of the pile of applicants.

Finally, jobs that really do require a STEM background tend to favor younger people, both in terms of sharpness of mind and lack of experience to say "no" to regularly putting in 60+ hours a week, on salary. The core STEM workforce of the 90s and even the 00's has largely moved on to manage today's engineers - If they haven't gotten so sick of busting their ass that they dropped out and went on to a sleepy AP Entry Clerk position somewhere.

So yes, we very much do have both a surplus and a shortage. We have a surplus because not all STEM grads can or want to work in STEM; we have a shortage because we don't have enough people good enough or naive enough to put up with actually doing a STEM job.

Just keep in mind that outside of smoking them, the nicotine and THC/Cannibinoids are relatively modest in their effects.

You can deliver nicotine or THC/Cannibinoids as food, drink, heck- even chicken with dumplings or chocolates.

Just as with all drugs, some percentage will abuse them. It may be because of their genetic background (like native americans with alcohol), their upbringing, self medication for depression. But a large majority can use them without abuse.

I'm a bit fuzzy on this but I looked it up once and the percentage difference between tobacco and nicotine was 11% and 13%. I think cocaine was about 15% or 17% (but not sure).

I watched british documentary where they gave the reporter straight cannibinoids and she just had tons of fun, couldn't stop laughing, and had no ill effects.

If you recurse that one step back, you get to the people subverting mother nature and manipulating the genetics of peanuts to make them better for sale and harvest.

Why do we care?

Because today it's them, but tomorrow it might be us.
So we all help each other out. Altruism from self interest.

Note the difference: the latter is a belief system, the former isn't.

Only because you phrased it as such. In actuality, the atheist disbelieves in a deity given a lack of proof one way or the other - That still very much counts as a "belief", regardless of how positively or negatively you chose to word it.

Now, I have to agree with you that saying we can't know anything about the divine amounts to an assertion of faith. Merely saying we don't know and moving on from a moot question, however, does not.

I think, though, that we really have more subtlety here than two distinct groups. You already brought up "weak" atheism, we have the same for agnosticism (and theism, and gnosticism). Referencing that chart, any stance (in the absence of evidence, which describes our current reality) outside the center amounts to an irrational belief system. Personally, however, I consider it more of an error to posit that we can have information about something which may not even exist, than to say we cannot (as distinct from "do" and "do not"); but I will grant that as a slight deviation from pure rationality on my part.

Are you saying that if there's an energy source there we should wreck it because you like plastic bottles?

Who said anything about "wreck"ing the moon?

First of all, TFA's arguments have more to do with morality than aesthetics. I poked fun at that, not whether or not I consider the moon "pretty".

And second, "wrecking" involves a subjective analysis of value. With the arctic, we can take about aesthetics, but we more commonly mean the loss of biodiversity (ie, polar bears). The moon has no biome, and it would take mining on a truly incomprehensible scale to spoil something that big in any meaningful aesthetic sense.

Problem with that, is "I" have an allergy to NOT eating peanuts. And since I'm the most important person "I" know, "I" win.

+5 ironically insightful.

I do count as the most important person I know. My SO comes close, along with my parents, and then various other friends and family member.

But when you expect me to not eat a food I particularly like because you have a problem with it - You haven't just taken away my right to eat Allergen-X, but that of the entire world you normally encounter. Sorry, but just plain fucking no.

How many people's right to eat Reese's trumps your right to go out in public? 1? 10? 100? 7 billion? It really does come down to that, put bluntly. Don't like it? Visit me. One of us will survive the encounter, and I promise I'll never lay a finger on you.

too much access to energy would be bad for the human race.

Ah, so the classic "we should all live in the dark and grow our own food" argument. Beautiful. Give King Ludd my warmest regards.

Free hint, Tony - Yes, many of the energy booms of human history have come along with a variety of ills. But they have also come along with the single greatest periods of progress as well, both social and technological. The industrial revolution caused a good bit of pollution, but basically made human slavery a net loss, economically. And fusion, as a nice perk, pollutes less than fission (which we already do), which in turn pollutes less than dinofuels (which we also already do because the hippies would rather let birds - and us - die that build more fission plants).

So in summary - Go fuck yourself, Tony. Live in the dark if you want. I like computers, and air conditioning, and cars, and concrete, and aluminum cans, and cheap plastic bottles.

The house was built in 1955 and is extremely over-insulated. Something like 2' of cellulose in the attic and the walls are also filled with insulation. Someone apparently took care of that already.

It also has double-paned windows.
There's no need for awnings. The house was built before there was air conditioning so it has a deep shady porch and awnings. In fact, I put in a sun tube and some other features to bring light into the house.

3. is interesting but given a maximum savings of $400 per year, I don't think it would pay off.

Similar size houses that are not well insulated run $240 to $300 per month.

I think the biggest change I made was the LED lights. They are low energy PLUS don't pump nearly as much heat into the house.

I have one solar panel (as an experiment) but the cost/benefit isn't there yet (take a long time to pay off $400).

I've wondered about putting a shadecloth roof over my regular roof (6" up) to block all the parts not covered by trees from radiant heat. But very little of that heat gets through the attic insulation into the house.

Anyway- my point is that Germany compares more with the northern united states than the entire united states.

It's 357k km vs 9.83 million km2; its about the size of three Tennessee's.

A very large proportion of US population is in Texas which is very hot.

You do realize these people changed their course and advocated this vaccine? You do realize that millions of people who have faith have had all the recommended vaccines?

"Holy(tm) shit! Our beliefs are killing us! Quick, abandon them!". Jesus would weep, if he existed.


I don't appreciate your insinuation that all people of faith are idiots who don't understand science and refuse to be vaccinated. The hatred shown on these forums really boggles my mind.

Science means not accepting anything on faith. People who actually understand science will, at best, count as agnostic. "We don't know" makes for a scientifically-acceptable answer. "We don't know, but fear our thunder-god's version of Hades" does not.

If it makes you feel a bit better, I would also call atheists equally irrational. "We don't know" makes for a scientifically-acceptable answer. "We don't know, but will deny the possibility" does not.

/ At this point, you can probably guess I count as agnostic.

I don't know about that but a girl on a swing in a bikini beside the road lasted about 40 minutes and one accident before the business decided to pull her in my area back in the 90's.

I don't think you could do much about someone walking down the road without a business purpose tho.

Heck, all kinds of things could distract us- a noteworthy dog like a saint bernard or irish wolf hound could do it.

Google "child die peanut butter".

Yes, they do-- despite the use of epi-pens.

The first page is all dominated by the one girl but as you go back in the history other child fatalities start mixing in.

You figure sounded high so I thought I'd check the weather.
Temperatures in most of Germany average about 15 degrees lower than most of the U.S.

A major component of our electrical usage is air conditioning.

Other than A/C I run a fridge (which is probably double the size but still rated at about $75 per year) a few LED light fixtures, and one computer which is in sleep mode 16 hours a day.

But the A/C is huge. My bills run $40-$50 7 months a year, $75 1 month a year, and $130 4 months a year. The difference is entirely A/C.

FTFY. I'll be in my bunk.

Bullshit, I'm still here.