3.5 Billion year old fossils confirmed

That you're the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, an illusory superiority that manifests in an attitude of arrogant ignorance and a refusal to learn from those that know more than you. Like Erjen you've invented this laughable fantasy about science in order to pretend your ignorance is as good as others' knowledge and mock anyone who chooses peer-reviewed PhDs over your ass-pulled ideas. 

   Aha!  I think I've found the solution to much of the world's troubles!  More mirrors, there appears to be a shortage of mirrors.


   I realize several of you have tried to say those things about me.  It's just that you're not as good at proving things as you think.  You're mindlessly repeating things and counting on your large membership as proof.

   I'm not as much your opponent as you imagine.  What you imagine is a straw man with indeed those qualities you claim I have.  I actually suppose your opinions on the age of the Earth and the age of the first life on Earth are the "best" guesses available.  What you don't seem to understand about that is the "best" doesn't necessarily mean any good.  Having pneumonia is "better" than having metastatic cancer, but it is really not a good thing to have pneumonia.  So I don't join your crowd.  You should join mine.

This is discussion is getting far too semantic for my tastes, and it should've been over once I quoted the Wiki on bullying and none of its indicators matched what was happening to Arlon; but let's have another go: 

What amounts to harassment is more than just persistently annoying someone; it's persistently annoying someone who is minding their own business and not involved with you. Harassment also typically has some kind of aggression or intimidation component attached to it. A brother going "I'm not touching you" to his sister may be annoying her, but it's not harassment. When you go into a public forum, you're inviting interaction by the very nature of the forum, and the possibility of a negative interaction is part of the risk you take. In a public forum you are, of your own free will, offering your personality and opinions and inviting others to express their personalities and opinions, often about you and yours. Unless a particular forum disallows commenting on other posters personally, no rule, law, or moral code is being broken by doing so. These forums are essentially caveat orator.

For bonus semantics, "proffered" means "to put before a person for acceptance." When you're speaking ideas, you're proffering them to be accepted/rejected by others. When you're just walking around with freckles and red hair, sitting in a corner reading/writing, you aren't proffering anything. 

I never actually saw that post where you quoted Wikipedia. For some reason I never got a notification. Fair enough regarding it not being bullying. I guess the label "bullying" can't be applied here.

"who is minding their own business and not involved with you."

So if I am having a conversation with somebody and all of a sudden he starts exhibiting behaviours that could be described as harassment am I not being harassed? After all I was "involved with him". If that's not what you had in mind that you need to be more specific with your words.

"typically has some kind of aggression or intimidation component attached to it. A brother going "I'm not touching you" to his sister may be annoying her, but it's not harassment."

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say x typically has y but then you go and say situation x doesnt have y therefore it isn't x. I presume you meant aggression is an essential property of harassment. I don't think that's really true. If you Google "harassment definition" nothing of that sort appears.
Example = www.google.com/amp/s/dictionary.cambridge.org/amp/english/harassment

Yeah when somebody is proferring they certainly aren't putting their ideas out there for mockery. They want civilised responses. I don't think if a kid told his class he was an atheist during a debate on religion and everybody burst out laughing and public mockery took place that would be justified because he was proferring.


Yeah even if we assume you are right that it's not harassment it still goes into the category of "Immoral and unhelpful interactions".

The whole issue is over what to categorize as harassment, so you can't just say "he starts exhibiting behaviors that could be described as harassment," you'd have to mention specifics. To me, the only thing that would be harassment in a situation like that would be if you tried to leave and he followed you and was aggressively berating you.

My point with the brother example was trying to draw a line between just general annoyance and genuine harassment. Yeah, aggression of some sort is usually a factor in harassment. Of course, it's difficult to draw precise lines between similar categories like these.

When someone is proffering ideas they're putting them out there for any reaction they get, including mockery. I'm sure most of them want civilized responses, but they don't always get or even necessarily deserve them. People have discussed these things with Arlon civilly before. Arlon doesn't learn. He doesn't change. He doesn't admit wrongness. When you try to civilly reason with people and they don't learn from their mistakes, and instead adopt that attitude of arrogant superiority while being ignorant, there's no reason to maintain civility.

Stating "I'm an atheist" isn't really proffering an idea. Different atheists (and theists) have different reasons for believing what they do, and some of those reasons/ideas are deserving of mockery and some aren't. If that same kid got up and said "I'm a flat-Earther," and was doing this after he'd been presented all the evidence for a spherical Earth, and starting spouting nonsense "evidence" that he thought supported a flat-Earth, I'd say let the mockery ensue, because there are no good reasons to believe in a flat-Earth. 

BTW, ^ There's a civilized response to Arlon. Let's see how well it does. My guess is that he'll just basically repeat himself while more-or-less ignoring everything I said. IE, I'm predicting a classic Arlon-sequitor.

With the imbecilic nieces and nephews of the faculty and/or elites whose grandfather's second cousin went there.

Ok then why did you say this

"typically has some kind of aggression or intimidation component attached to it. A brother going "I'm not touching you" to his sister may be annoying her, but it's not harassment."

You imply that it's not harassment because there is not aggression. But now you are saying aggression isnt necessary so what is the difference between the case above and other cases you would consider harassment that lack agression?

"Like I said, I just don't think there's anything inherently wrong with mocking willful stupidity,"

So you keep saying but you haven't provided any sort of justification for incivility. You just keep repeating what you are doing i.e mocking someone who "deserves it"

Retributivism is just ridiculous.

" I don't see that there are "two wrongs," I just see one wrong."

"Wrong" can be seen as synonymous with "causing harm" and harm can be defined as emotional or physical pain. Assuming Arlon doesnt like being mocked all you are doing by mocking is causing emotional pain (anger probably) and encouraging a toxc environment in which mockery is better than rationality and civility. "Two wrongs" decrease Utility.

   My imagination, creativity and powers of speculation are just as wondrous as yours, however much that says. The only difference is I don't call that science. You're free to believe in relativity, it's just not what I call "science" because you're dodging. I know how it's possible to fit millions of circuits into a small space. The explanations are quite adequate. I can see my large quantities of data stored on very small USB drives. That's proof, even if I didn't understand how it's done. The "proofs" of relativity are not even nearly that good. That's all.


   While that is true, things did slow down when the space program was cut back. I mean it was about that time, not that the space program was responsible. I think the GPS system is the most valuable development in recent years. It is obvious. Therefore it is science. It does not "prove" relativity though since it would be more accurate and dependable if relativity did not happen.

   Just a bit off topic here, I'm still using Windows XP. I went through my collection of old software to check again (I check things again a lot) what will run on XP. I have a lot of old software that won't work on XP. One old program I did finally get to work is Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, the version made for Windows 95. I like the version written for Windows 3.1 better but it will not run on XP. The issue is that Windows 3.1 was 16 bit architecture. To get Carmen (Win95) to work on XP it is necessary to install it before you install anything else that has a later version of Quick Time than Carmen was designed for. As long as that is done first programs with later versions of Quick Time can then be added without disabling Carmen. Installing a later version of Quick Time first causes the Carmen installation to fail.

   Here's my point on that though, I discovered a curious thing about Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego (also written for 32 bit). When The Learning Company took over the Carmen franchise and revised Where in the World, they did not revise Where in Time, they just copied it exactly and changed the name to Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time. A trusting person might expect that to be a new adventure because of the new name and because Where in the World is a new adventure with The Learning Company. Some things are done so well they cannot be improved upon even with newer technology. It's like DeMille's Ten Commandments, there won't be a better remake.

   The technology has peaked. Processor speed is not really improving, that's why they keep using "more" (dual, quad) of them. They can't advertise their machines are faster otherwise. Frankly the improvement in speed is not there for most applications.

   A child's computer game might not seem terribly important, but it is a metaphor for other more important things. There is too much faith in science and it is running amok. There is a need on the newer computers for offline materials. A person needs a good offline dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, and road map (and believe it or not a searchable offline Bible). I have a great 3D atlas that works fine on Windows XP. It has a nice globe that you can spin and zoom great. Such great programs are not available on later operating systems because people depend entirely on the materials available online like Wikipedia and Google Maps. It is a terrible waste of bandwidth. The overwhelming majority of information has not changed in a hundred years. People need to work offline and then maybe make a quick check online to see whether anything important changed. I think it is especially important for young students to have a dictionary and an encyclopedia they can browse at leisure. Even in my old age I like to browse reference works. Going online for "security" updates is not really as wise as too many people think. The security threats are online, typically not on disc.


   There is a very good reason not to put any faith at all in science. When you put faith in it, then it isn't science anymore. Have all the faith you want in it, please just don't call it science.


   I found it true what is said of the Midwest, they are more friendly and hospitable there than most other places. I moved away years ago though and my relatives who still live there say that people are getting more suspicious of strangers every year. I have been thinking of moving back there anyway for the lower cost of living. I could save about 25 percent on rent alone. Does Midwest City still have the "Burger Train"? It was a hamburger place that sent your hamburgers, fries and sodas out to your car on electric conveyors. You placed your order by intercom from your car.