Higgs Boson Found?

Whereas, I believe Americans are already dumb




HEY ! We Americans have THIS !

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Come on ..can't any other country touch this.


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I blame the History Channel, and Discovery, and all those other crappy networks. Seriously. They're dumbing-down America.

Absolutely, and absolutely agree that it is a chicken/egg situation. It's certainly not new. I mean, it's a documentary, so it must be true, right? And reality TV...that means it's real, right? *sigh* Contrary to what certain Disney "educational" films from the 50s would have you believe, lemmings do not commit mass suicide (though they do sometimes drown when mass migration leads them to bodies of water too far for them to swim across).

Amusingly enough, the common usage of lemming as a metaphor for people to dumb to do anything but follow the crowd without question is still appropriate. It just applies to anyone who USES lemmings for a metaphor. Critical thinking is not a strength of american culture, and it sometimes frustrates me.
 
One could argue that, at the very least, Russia was developing the art of cinema in parallel with the US.
<sarcasm>
Let's just say America invented anything important and cinema is important
Loving America means ignoring the accomplishments of other countries !
So, let's begin
Fact: we invented everything except firecrackers the Chinese did that
Fact: We invented freedom and every country in the world that has freedom should thank America for it.
Fact: We have the best health care in the world
Fact: Our Flag is better than everyone elses
;)
</sarcasm>
 
We also consume the most per capita energy and produce the most per capita trash!
I'm so proud of our achievements!
 
Haha, one of my best friends and his family immigrated here from Ukraine right after the iron curtain fell. He was only 4 or something and doesn't remember much, but his dad is a hoot. Thanks to soviet education he's relearned many things. Example, apparently he was really surprised that Lenin didn't invent the lightbulb and had a good argument about it when someone here said otherwise.
 
You say "Chicken!"
And I say "Egg!"

Read your Darwin bud.... the chicken came first. :). It's true.

Americans may be dumb, but they're not any dumber than any other group. I know this is something everybody loves to say, especially here in Canada, which kind of drives me nuts. But I lived in the US for almost 10 years, and I lived in my own country for a total of almost 22 and have been in Canada for more than 3. People are dumb everywhere. And everywhere they like saying that Americans are dumb, and they act like they can prove it too.

I've met some smart people in my life, at work and at school. Most of them were Americans.
 
I've been surrounded by Americans all my life.

They are pretty dumb.

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/jaywalk-all-stars-11911/1367563/

How dumb people are, is based on circumstance. I'll tell you two little stories that shape my perspective.

1st piece.
One of my neighbors in Mountain View, CA, a nice gentleman in his 50s, Don, was an auto-mechanic. He never went to college, did not know much about the world, but he liked to talk to me about movies in the instances I was home on weekends. I once took my car to his shop. I got the feeling that everybody with a question came over to him. He was the absolute best mechanic in the shop. He obviously got paid very well. He had no idea about the world outside, music, movies, beer and football. A lot of people where I worked would have called him a dumb American. But he was a pretty good mechanic. (He used to say "bitchin" a lot, and I had to look it up.. lol)

2nd piece.
When I was I think about 11, I was having some argument with my dad about some political stuff regarding, "how can people believe such and such when it is obviously not true?" My dad said that the people were not educated and did not know if the world was round or flat (I'm talking about Bangladesh. very low literacy rate), and it was not surprising that they would believe things that were obviously untrue to me. Now I was a big time science guy and I used to be very serious about the solar system and the planets and such at the time. The idea that someone did not know if the world was round or flat, seemed unbelievable to me and I challenged my dad. "Of course they know the world is round. Everybody knows that." I said. "Well go ask someone on the street, go ask a Richshaw puller," he said.

So I went and I asked a Rickshaw Puller, "My book says that the world is round. What do you think?"
He said to me, as he sweated and pulled me to school that early morning, "Well....I heard once that the world is round..... but I don't believe it."


So who is dumber, the high school educated automechanic, or the poor never-went-to-school Rickshaw puller. At least Don knew the world was round. And most of my countrymen are uneducated and a lot of them probably believe that the world is flat. Yet the educated people of my country will call Americans dumb, and never think about our own backyard.

So my point is that people everywhere are uneducated, undereducated, sometimes dumb. It is not something specific to Americans. The level of dumbness can exist in many countries in ways beyond your imagination.

So I'm sympathetic to Americans, when other people call them dumb. The kind of stuff people have the ability to believe in and then act upon it, in different parts of the world, will make you go "I can't even make a movie about this,... cause no one in their right mind will believe it."

It's fantastic that you've lived amongst Americans all your life, and you find them to be dumb. I'd advise you to take a trip,... to any fucking where. You'll know what I'm talking about. You'll come back and you'll appreciate all the dumb people that live around you.

:)

There were insects and fish before chickens.
Egg. ;)

No, no,... we're talking about the egg of the chicken, not the egg of a fish here. did the chicken come first, or did the 'egg that hatches a chicken' come first? The answer is 'the chicken."

It's true ;)

Edit: I'll give you another story. I was reading this thing where someone from China wrote something to the effect "Americans are so dumb that google is setting up software houses and blah, blah in China." He went on to say some other things about how dumb Americans were. I was reading that thing and thinking, 'google is setting sh*t up there cause it's cheap. Not because Americans are dumb. If the Chinese are so smart, why didn't they come up with google? Why did it have to be at Stanford?'

I didn't argue with that internet post, because it is a futile pastime, even here in Canada.
Everybody here thinks they're better than Americans.

I am not an American, and I find many things wrong with American politics, which I follow closely. But I have tremendous affection for America. Everything I have and a lot of what I am was shaped by my time in America and the kindness of the people there to me. My brother, his wife, and his children are also Americans. I don't think they're dumb. It's a blanket statement that makes no sense. If I said, 'all Indonesians are dumb,' or something nonsensical like that, people would wring my neck for it, and rightly so. But if I say 'all Americans are dumb' it is no longer considered an insensitive statement. I'll be applauded, and a lot of my filmmaker buddies here will probably buy me a beer.

I'm just saying that 'Americans are dumb,' is a very stupid, blanket, black and white, and a complete kind of statement, that is actually quite nonsensical and meaningless.
 
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I'd advise you to take a trip,... to any fucking where. You'll know what I'm talking about. You'll come back and you'll appreciate all the dumb people that live around you.

No, no,... we're talking about the egg of the chicken, not the egg of a fish here. did the chicken come first, or did the 'egg that hatches a chicken' come first? The answer is 'the chicken."
I've traveled the States quite well, both as a child and adult. I could argue that the cultural differences between the deep south, to Florida, to the yanks up north, to the Mainers and Minnesotans, to the "mañana mentality" out west which closely resembled the Jamaican attitude of "whatever" I met while in the Navy, to that of the Californian coaster that I've lived in the equivalent of taking a trip to plenty of any-fucking-wheres.

Ask any of our UK brethren if the cultural differences between the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh vary more than somewhat.

A pet peeve of mine is when "Africans" are referenced as one large homogeneous group due to relative pigmentation.
Dear, God above. I don't think the Tree of Knowledge affected all of mankind. :bang:



It's a trick riddle, albeit a poor one.
The question goes "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?", not "Which came first? The chicken or the chicken egg?"

Egg. ;)
 
It's a trick riddle, albeit a poor one.
The question goes "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?", not "Which came first? The chicken or the chicken egg?"

Egg. ;)


copied from wikipedia

"This implies that the egg existed long before the chicken, but that the chicken egg did not exist until an arbitrary threshold was crossed that differentiates a modern chicken from its ancestors. Since this arbitrary distinction cannot be made until after the egg has hatched, one would have to first find the original chicken, then from this find the first egg it laid."

Read the section under 'science'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg

nice try buddy
 
nice try buddy
Better than a nice try.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg#Science
"A simple view is that at whatever point the threshold was crossed and the first chicken was hatched, it had to hatch from an egg. The type of bird that laid that egg, by definition, was on the other side of the threshold and therefore not technically a chicken -- it may be viewed as a proto-chicken or ancestral chicken of some sort, from which a genetic variation or mutation occurred that thus resulted in the egg being laid containing the embryo of the first chicken. In this light, de facto, the argument is settled and the egg had to have come first."

  1. Jungle fowl proto-chicken hen
  2. She has ovaries
  3. The ovaries contain... EGGS
  4. She is inseminated by a male jungle fowl proto-chicken cock
  5. The jungle fowl proto-chicken hen EGG is fertilized
  6. The embryo is a distinctive mutation of what will later be recognized as a genuine "Chicken", distinct from a "Jungle Fowl."
  7. The genuine "Chicken" hen has ovaries containing EGGS
  8. The EGGS are the same
  9. The ANIMALS are not
  10. The Chicken came out of an... EGG
  11. Not every offspring of the mother was a "chicken" mutation
  12. Not every offspring of the flock of jungle fowl were "chicken" mutations
  13. Yet they all came out of... EGGS

That Wikipedia article sub-section has no citation from a credible authoritative author, it is therefore (considerably) less than definitive.

Shortly, we'll be visiting RvW and at what point is an embryo no longer a egg+sperm, legal person-hood, and human vs. animal rights. :lol:

Egg. :yes:
 
Better than a nice try.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg#Science
"A simple view is that at whatever point the threshold was crossed and the first chicken was hatched, it had to hatch from an egg. The type of bird that laid that egg, by definition, was on the other side of the threshold and therefore not technically a chicken -- it may be viewed as a proto-chicken or ancestral chicken of some sort, from which a genetic variation or mutation occurred that thus resulted in the egg being laid containing the embryo of the first chicken. In this light, de facto, the argument is settled and the egg had to have come first."

  1. Jungle fowl proto-chicken hen
  2. She has ovaries
  3. The ovaries contain... EGGS
  4. She is inseminated by a male jungle fowl proto-chicken cock
  5. The jungle fowl proto-chicken hen EGG is fertilized
  6. The embryo is a distinctive mutation of what will later be recognized as a genuine "Chicken", distinct from a "Jungle Fowl."
  7. The genuine "Chicken" hen has ovaries containing EGGS
  8. The EGGS are the same
  9. The ANIMALS are not
  10. The Chicken came out of an... EGG
  11. Not every offspring of the mother was a "chicken" mutation
  12. Not every offspring of the flock of jungle fowl were "chicken" mutations
  13. Yet they all came out of... EGGS

That Wikipedia article sub-section has no citation from a credible authoritative author, it is therefore (considerably) less than definitive.

Shortly, we'll be visiting RvW and at what point is an embryo no longer a egg+sperm, legal person-hood, and human vs. animal rights. :lol:

Egg. :yes:

While that wikipedia sub-section might not have a citation, it is an accepted understanding (and common response to religious folk about chicken and egg) by evolutionary biologists, some of whose responses I've read in the past and not in wikipedia. It was just an easy link so I provided it.

So, while your point by point theory may be interesting. I'm going to stick with evolutionary biologists and continue to say 'chicken.'
:yes:
 
A Charlie Interview with Lisa Randall on her book 'Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World'

She's excellant. I recommend watching the whole thing because it's all good. But if you don't care to or if you don't have the time, then I think they start talking about the Higgs boson and the Large Hadron Collider at about 4:35. And it comes up a bit here or there elsewhere too. Like starting out at about 9:00 is some more fascinating talk about what to expect from the LHC.

This is from 09/16/2011. Depending on how the latest news and results turn out, it would be great for him to have her back on the show to comment on the developments. But here she does a nice job of explaining the basics of what's going on and what to expect or hope for.
 
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