What do you think are the most profound discoveries, tragedies, accomplishments, insights, or even possible things, of this decade? If it’s pretty much throughout a whole book, you can give us the title. Or perhaps you want to discuss instead of make a list. I have as follows (from most to least)
(1) The success of quantum computation.
(2) The prospects for terraforming Mars.
(3) The 9-11 conspiracy (oh fine . . . we’ll call it “theory”)
(4) The prospect of cloning a Mastedon (and in turn, the production of dinosaurs being plausible- given enough source for a genetic code)
(5) White woman or black man for president of U.S. (either one).
I agree with the progress made in quantum computing is number one, being that it apparently shows thats it is doable. I think, when all is said and done, we will learn that the universe is indistinguishable from a quantum computer–which ostensibly would allow us to read (only) any part of the program all the way back to the Big Bang. Programming the Universe (2006) by Seth Lloyd is an excellent book on the subject. (Don’t let the title make you jump to conclusions.)
Second is the discovery of the James (the brother of Jesus) ossuary, and the likely first burial place of Jesus. Over time, along with general scientific progress, I think this will undermine Christian supernaturalism by exposing what actually happened back then was purely natural. The Israel Antiquities Authority is fighting this tooth and nail because Israel doesn’t want to be caught in the middle, but they’re up against the wall and being forced make unfounded scientific conclusions, to blatant cover ups–literally, concerning the tomb. A good read on this is The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (2006), by James D. Tabor.
A follow on to this (if/when it’s successful), will be a closer examination of Islam, especially Mohammad, exposing what an evil man he really was. But it’s much more entrenched, so it will take much longer.
The 9-11 tragedy initiating the war against religious Jihadists. (If you mean the 9-11 theory is American complicity in the attack, it isn’t even a theory, but it sure would be nice to be able to hawk it to give evil America its comeuppance wouldn’t it. Even most of the Left doesn’t believe [except Maxine Waters et al.] If that’s not what you meant, then I take it back.)
Speaking of politics, the economic disaster brought on by presidential election this fall may well undo the ones above. America is already in the process of being brought to its knees by the environmentalists, with energy prices continuing to tighten and no end in sight; all three candidates are already puppets for the Sierra Club. This issue makes illegal immigration look like child’s play. When they’re done, we’ll be hiring coyotes to take us to Mexico, and Mexico with enforce its northern border like it does its southern border. Oo, and let’s not forget mandated atheism.
It isn’t about portraying America as evil. It’s about the failure by the military to stop four planes, even when we KNOW they knew about them well in advance. If you can explain that, without resorting to stereotyping and labels about ‘the Left’ and so on, then you can be so desultory towards such beliefs.
Until then, I suggest you keep your own counsel on issues you clearly don’t know much about.
For what purpose? Human technology and consciousness is still caveman rubbish or less compared to what’s really out there.
Mars is already populated, by non-human life.
Most terraforming is done underground, for many reasons it’s allot easier and safer to just build under the surface.
Humanity fucked with itself, again, wow…
I suppose that’s a start…
Does that really even matter?
I mean, there’s already black man presidents in other countries, what’s the big difference?
Profound and humanity don’t really fit together.
Maybe some holywood movies are 1% profound, but in real life, humanity is just a clusterfuck waste.
Tell me more. Hint: My weaknesses include crop circles and con-trails.
Website or something to reference this? And . . . if you or your sources mention anything about the face on Mars from the satellite picture I am going to shit my pants! . . . on second thought, that would be good motivation for you. I retract.
. . . NOW I see why Faust likes you.
Dan, I am in love with your bunny. I do not know why. It scares me.
It’s a given that more intelligent life and better technology already exists on some other planet which is not centered around militaristic self-destruction and narcotic luxury capitalistic products for apes to wipe their asses with then throw away.
Sorry but it’s too Russian.
The face on Mars thing doesn’t matter, but when a big unknown craft breaks your space probe, it’s time to wake up.
Now what makes you think hidden government things are going to be all proven and publicized and gently spoon fed up the asses of disbelievers with utmost painstaking babysitting care, so that each person is carefully brought up into the belief after full proof from many public sources and mass public concent all line up?
There is no reference, no website, only tiny shreds of history, and I mean literal shreds of history…
Be careful where you place your affections.
I will list not the most pro-found but some dumb-found tragedies just because:
(1) : The mutations of “human” races which resulted in the essence of proto-cannibalism aswel as literal cannibalism, so that men acted as worms unto eachother, parasitic people destroying the self-sufficient, etc.
(2) : Sophism, through the cannibalism of the human mind, consuming the faith and trust of others as a raw resource in order to fuel temples, politics and churches with piles of human flesh.
(3) : The discovery of any sort of technology or invention which then quickly is wisked out of the hands of the original wise inventor, tossed into the arms of idiots, then used for meaningless unwise ends. This then makes the world wars possible aswel as pollution, nuclear whatever else. The whole bullshit.
(4) : Boys first discovering where/what a vagina is.
(5) : Teleological European psychology being immediately and widely accepted without even a question towards the assertion that the mental nature of life has some sort of intrinsic semi-absolute meanings aswel as having a moral value.
Technology is progressive, i’d honestly like to make a list of the most profound things this decade, but one of the biggest points we should make is, we don’t really know what the most profound discoveries this decade are. Many of the discoveries were just tipping a toe into a pond, the whole foot and leg/body is yet to be emerged, so we could hardly predict how profound these discoveries may effect our future scientific knowledge or technological progress.
Technology is progressive, even the tiniest inventions go on to increase the steam engine of technological progression.
Quantom computing may be one of them, certainly another is extending moore’s law in traditional computing throuhgout the decade (and olther exponential trends) that computer scientists have kept up. I guess perhaps that may be one of the most important/profound things, the keep up of technological progression.
its hard to say though.
Some breakthroughs in medical research this decade may go on to cure cancer, produce organs, increase life-span, a lot of this new scientific knowledge could potentially revolutionize the world, infact, well it will, we just don’t know by when. probably within 20-40 years, though. even if not, even if it took a 1000y ears, curing cancer/heart disease or whatever, is a profound step, and we can’t predict what research/technology will eventually come to bare on those problems.
To pick up on something at the start of the thread, I do think that 9/11 is one of the most important events of this decade and not for the political reasons:
9/11 is a myth
This is no conspiracy theory, but a simple, external examination of the American psyche. 9/11 plunged aspects of America into self analysis as its importance lies in the fact it challenged America’s self perception. It brought into sharp focus the question ‘what does it mean to be American?’; just look at the outpourings of American ‘art’ since then, you’ve taken the Modernist notion of realisation through examination through an entirely new dimension. I find this… interesting. The only event I know about that’s comparable, that sent the intellectuals of the country into shock (at this point, massive caveat required: these two events are not comparable in scale or reaction and I do not want to cheapen either through comparison so it remains very loose) is Auschwitz, which was the banner-question for trying to understand what it meant to be German in a post-1945 era…
If you hadn’t just made a knee jerk reaction to “Left”, you might have actually read what I said. I wasn’t disagreeing with any of that except that we knew the specifics of the attack before they happened. I was objecting to the “conspiracy” BS, not incompetence, bureaucratic red tape or managerial cya. While I’m keeping my own counsel, maybe you could open a dictionary.
I don’t see anything profound about no. 5, and the man is mixed-race: not black, damn it!!! + it’s brown: not black - very few people are actually black, but I’ve seen a few that are pretty dark or near close to black…
I have to agree with your whole premise, Dan - the Mastadon cloning would be the most amazing step forward, but the rest just isn’t that profound - my uncle on my mom’s side was president of St. Lucia for 5 years back in the late 70s to early 80s, and he’s brown-skinned: not black - I’m gonna get rid of that terminology before I die, watch me!
I did. And I couldn’t really give a damn whether it’d been ‘the Left’ or ‘the Right’ or ‘the Islamists’ or whatever else. No kneejerk at all.
Well, if it was a black op run by the US military and/or the CIA then ‘we’ must have known the specifics beforehand.
i.e. you label and stereotype, as I said. 9/11 didn’t happen because of incompetence. Has anyone been fired due to this incompetence?
While I’m tearing your pathetic defence to shreds, you might want to open a few books about 9/11. Including the 9/11 Commission Report (described by its co chairs as being ‘set up to fail’)…
For the record, Gaia, while I like Dan~ personally (we have chatted much), most of my praise for him is due to the fact that he is the best philosopher, and best writer on this site, and has been since he got here.
I’ll agree with Dan~ here that having a black man or a woman as president means just about nothing. Either one would probably be better than the one we have. That’s all that counts.
It’s also probable that there is some place in the universe where the population, of whatever species, has done a bit better with things, whatever those “things” there are. One can at least hope.
Dan~ wrote:
“(5) : Teleological European psychology being immediately and widely accepted without even a question towards the assertion that the mental nature of life has some sort of intrinsic semi-absolute meanings aswel as having a moral value.
[ moral value.”
Like most of what Dan~ writes, this is uncontroversial, but, for some reason, shocking to some. It is also one of the most profound statements I have seen on this site - which is a habit of Dan~'s. It didn’t happen in this decade, but it counts for more than a couple of planes being flown into a couple of tall buildings. I always thought the WTC was ugly, in a particularly fascist way.
The strength of our double standard is continually misunderstood, underestimated and ignored. Did Uncle Teddy suffer any repercussions from Chappaquiddick? Hell no, and they even kept re-electing the sonofabitch. And we can’t try the President because that would damage the sanctity of the office, when exactly the opposite is the case. They’ve been using that one since Nixon, at least.
There’s also the outright terror of being perceived as rocking the boat, or attempting to alter the momentum of the status quo. No matter how good for the country something might be or how bad, if it goes against the Big Mo, you don’t do it. How could we have otherwise ended up with three such inept candidates for President.
Conspiracy means that someone in the government initiated, planned or knowingly aided in the planning of the attack. There’s nothing in the 9/11 Commission Report, or anywhere else, but baseless accusations on wacko Internet sites, that suggests otherwise. If you got it, post it.
Did we have enough of the pieces to put together what was going to happen? Yes. Warnings came from lower level FBI agents specifying Muslims training for suicide attackswith in aircraft, but no mid-levels had the guts to pass it on because it sounded so unlikely, and then if it didn’t happen, they’d be what’s for lunch. By far the most absurd event was FBI lawyers denying access by their agents in Minnesota, after 70 requests, to Zacarias Moussaoui’s laptop.
Nope, conspiracy just means a group of people planning to do something immoral or illegal. The official version of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory.
You mean the 9/11 Commission Report which was delayed by over a year by a reluctant White House that constantly claimed to have irrefutable proof of who was responsible, but never produced that proof? You mean the 9/11 Commission Report which received about a quarter as much funding to investigate the biggest single crime in US history as was spent on investigating Clinton’s blowjob? You mean the 9/11 Commission Report which was run by a close colleague of Condy Rice? You mean the 9/11 Commission Report which answers almost NONE of the questions posed by the families steering committee? You mean the 9/11 Commission Report which outright lies in numerous key places?
Tell you what, I’ll just quote what I wrote in another thread a few days ago:
Now, all of this is based on solid research and mainstream sources. And there’s a hell of a lot more. The Mineta testimony in particular is worth looking into, since it wasn’t mentioned AT ALL by the 9/11 Commission Report in which you seem to have so much faith. Likewise the PNAC document isn’t mentioned once. I’ve not only read the 9/11 Commission Report, I’ve read a hell of a lot of the source material, and the book written by the Commission’s co-chairs. And there’s a wealth of information suggesting (if not actually proving) US military/government involvement in the planning and execution of the largest terrorist attack ever seen.
There’s also one hell of a lot of historical precedent of terrorist attacks being carried out by the state. I could list three dozen high profile examples off the top of my head if you like.
So why have no mid ranking FBI agents been sacked? And we’re not just talking about low ranking officers and agents - look up the story of John O Neill.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Look up the protection offered to known Islamic terrorists like Anas Al Liby, and radical preachers and ‘Al Qaeda’ fundraisers like Abu Hamza, Abu Qutada and Omar Bakri. Look up the history of protection of Bin Laden from investigators by the CIA and FBI. One is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Bin Laden has been protected a LOT more than three times, so it can only means his protection is part of official policy.
You might say ‘but that all changed after 9/11’. I assure you it didn’t. “The U.S. combat commander in Afghanistan said Thursday that apprehending Osama bin Laden isn’t one of the missions of Operation Enduring Storm.” - USA Today, 23 November 2001
And of course, we set up Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda (a term invented by Western intelligence agencies) in the 1980s. Well, it started in 1979 but it was primarily a 1980s project by the CIA and Pakistani ISI. That’d be the same Pakistani ISI who wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta in the weeks immediately preceding the attacks. What did the 9/11 Commission say about funding? That it was all wired in small amounts to avoid detection, and that they found no evidence of any government or government agency providing any of the the funding for the attacks. I guess they didn’t have time to read the numerous Wall Street Journal articles on the subject of the ISI wire transfer.
Now, a question for you - do you consider USA Today and the Wall Street Journal and the US secretary for transportation to be ‘wacko internet sites’? How about the NY Times who reported ‘partially evaporated steel beams’ in the debris pile at the WTC? Perhaps you’d like to explain to me, using the 9/11 Commission Report, how a fire and gravity driven building collapse manages to result in partial evaporation of steel. Perhaps you’d like to explain how a gravity driven collapse causes human bodies not only to fragment and explode, but also to embed bone fragments in buildings hundreds of feet away, as CBS and others reported. Do you consider CBS to be a ‘whacko internet site’?
Perhaps you’d like to explain why NORAD ran drills of precisely the sort of attacks that happened on 9/11 in the years beforehand, yet after the attacks both Bush and Rice denied that anyone in their or the prior administration had envisaged such a thing being possible? Particularly when we throw the Bojinka plot into the mix, which involved flying a plane into CIA headquarters.
Now, I could continue but I imagine you’ve got enough on your plate just trying to deal with what I’ve said so far. But don’t insult my intelligence by telling me there’s nothing in the 9/11 Commission Report that suggests an inside job. Firstly, there is some information in the report that does suggest that. Secondly, there’s a lot of information they left out or only partially investigated that does suggest that. Let alone the (literally) thousands of other sources. Now, I’m guessing you’ve never actually looked into any of this, so your flip attempt to stereotype and label is forgivable, however misguided and ill informed it might be. But now you have no excuses, because I’ve laid this on a plate for you.
Yeah, I can see how you would say that about someone who makes vauge references to HIV or “AIDS” being a man-made disease. It really highlights your already poor abiltiy to use rationality as a yardstick in judgement calls.
Yeah… just like HIV being man-made, sustaining ghosts, that having ‘sex’ with a relative is the same as with someone whose a ‘fool’ by nature’s standards (which is blatantly foolish to suggest)
unctronversial.
Iguess birds of a feather flock together. You’re both ‘special’ philosphers.
people have adaptations to avoid incest, theres evidence for this, cross-cultural studies, fmri, etc, based on predicted criteria. Do we have adaptations against sleeping with big-breasted low intelligent women? no. We may prefer intelligent people for long-time mates, that thats not remotely the same thing as being equivilent to incest.
sex between an intelligent person and a low intelligence person can produce a genius, two fools could, sleeping with slow people doesn’t result in as many offspring being killed of (or failing to pass on their genes) or we’d have adaptations against it. period.
Plenty of the stuff Dan- says is grossly wrong and obviously so. Plenty of the stuff faust says. GO figure.
Chew you sweet little cute-machine!
+ it’s brown: not black - very few people are actually black, but I’ve seen a few that are pretty dark or near close to black…
now that’s funny! keep it up! 