Knowledge is power!

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Funka Genocide

and the whole pretentious buzzwordy vibe I get mainly from the undergrad community, so I guess it'd be more like pseudo-academia. I don't know what you career bookworms are up to.

I'm pretty sure you don't fall into the "college kid" category as you're like almost as old as I am.

We drink whiskey and smoke cigars all day and do absolutely nothing as long as we are funded.
We were pretnetious little shits, now we just don't care.
Like I'm totally serious, academia is easy as shit. I've worked lots of regular jobs and they far far harder.

Originally Posted by Viridis

Yeah, I just googled it and found their Twitter page. It reads like nothing more than summaries.

Yes. There is a reason everyone slammed it.

[Sithdarth]

I'm not talking about Newton, I'm talking about our theory of gravity, how we understand (or don't) gravity to work.
If you're going to complain about me misinterpreting your posts about things you know, I going to complain about you misinterpreting my posts about things I know as I'm very much more a historian of science than a scientist and part of my thesis was on British science.
I was talking about our "theory" of gravity as a subset of relativity not Newton's though I probably didn't make that clear as gravity is really a subset of a larger theory.

I still have no idea what you are talking about. As far as gravity goes you've got three choices. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, which is nothing but math, Gravitational Field Theory, from which can be derived Newton's Law and which postulates the gravitational field, and Relativity. I guess you could be talking about Gravitational Field Theory but I've never heard of anyone shortening to anything other than Gravitational Field Theory. If that is what you mean then I wonder who exactly taught you Gravitational Field Theory under the title of gravity or gravitational. This is why there is no such thing as a theory of gravity or a theory with the same name as Newton's Law which describes gravity. The closest I can get to what you seem to be implying is Gravitational Field Theory and that wasn't around until about the same time as Electromagnetic field theory both of which where a virtual eye-blink before General Relativity.

I don't know maybe the naming conventions are different but the way I learned it was Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, Gravitational Field Theory, and General Relativity. Which clearly delineates all three as being different than the other two. Although Newton's Law can be derived from either and Gravitational Field Theory is essentially General Relativity without spacetime and relativity. Of course none of them even begin to answer the why of gravity. Gravitational Field Theory and General Relativity give you the how, math and numbers, and the what/where, fields/spacetime, but not the why.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

I still have no idea what you are talking about. As far as gravity goes you've got three choices. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, which is nothing but math, Gravitational Field Theory, from which can be derived Newton's Law and which postulates the gravitational field, and Relativity. I guess you could be talking about Gravitational Field Theory but I've never heard of anyone shortening to anything other than Gravitational Field Theory. If that is what you mean then I wonder who exactly taught you Gravitational Field Theory under the title of gravity or gravitational. This is why there is no such thing as a theory of gravity or a theory with the same name as Newton's Law which describes gravity. The closest I can get to what you seem to be implying is Gravitational Field Theory and that wasn't around until about the same time as Electromagnetic field theory both of which where a virtual eye-blink before General Relativity.

I don't know maybe the naming conventions are different but the way I learned it was Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, Gravitational Field Theory, and General Relativity. Which clearly delineates all three as being different than the other two. Although Newton's Law can be derived from either and Gravitational Field Theory is essentially General Relativity without spacetime and relativity. Of course none of them even begin to answer the why of gravity. Gravitational Field Theory and General Relativity give you the how, math and numbers, and the what/where, fields/spacetime, but not the why.

I'm referring to a "theory of gravity" as the general explanations that have been postulated from relativity and/or quantum mechanics.
Even if we don't know the fine details we still postulate that gravity is instrinsic property of matter and curving of space time and then you got all the other stuff like postulated gravitons and things. This is not really my field but it doesn't matter because even the fact that matter attracts other matter is a theory and not a law.
Most of the maths of say general relativity could be classed as laws but they are often interpreted in a framework of explaining gravity (through space time curving or whatever else they decide) which is a theory.

The point was people were talking about whether gravity was a theory or a law and the problem is the word "gravity" can be both. There is the law of "gravitation" which is a law but when we talk about gravity we generally talk about the attraction of objects together which is a theory. My "theory of gravity" is the idea of gravity as something that brings objects together, you can squabble about the details all you want- it doesn't matter.

But if you want, I'll pick one. "Theory of gravity" is now the fact that a property of matter is the ability to instrinsically attract other objects according to the laws of gravitation, which was a theory that was held for considerably periods of time. There we go. But it still has no relevance at all to what I'm talking about. The very concept of "gravity" is a theoretical construct. All the law of gravitations (and later equations) describe is how two objects move towards each other. If you have anything beyond that you are looking at a theory, a concept of gravity.

[Viridis]

I'd like to chime in that I'm in college and buzzwords burn me like some kind of unholy fire.

[Viridis]

Yeah, I just googled it and found their Twitter page. It reads like nothing more than summaries.

[Archbio]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

I still have no idea what you are talking about.

It probably has to do with how much of an authority on science/academia he is.

Or with how much of a pretentious, cigar smoking shit he... huh... was. I get confused on some points.

[Ryanderman]

I know this is dragging the thread back a few posts, but I'm bothered by how you all were basically going, "Haha, stupid Conservative Christians who think they're being like Jesus when really if he were here he'd hate them as much as we do!"

I think in the jokes, you were making a couple serious miss-assumptions about Jesus and about Conservatives.

I don't know whether Jesus was a Conservative or a Liberal or a Libertarian or a Socialist. He really didn't say much about the government except obey the law and pay your taxes.

And Conservatives aren't all, "The poor and the sick suck! Let 'em rot!" They're actually all, "It's not the government's place to take care of the poor and the sick, because that would give the government too much power! The poor and the sick should be taken care of through private enterprise and charity!"

You can then argue about whether private enterprise and charity are capable of fully filling the need, but that's another argument.

And actually Conservatives in general, and Conservative Christians specifically, are among the largest givers to charity by percentage of income (on top of tithes to churches), as well as among the most generous in volunteering with charities.

Ya know, like Jesus.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

And Conservatives aren't all, "The poor and the sick suck! Let 'em rot!" They're actually all, "It's not the government's place to take care of the poor and the sick, because that would give the government too much power! The poor and the sick should be taken care of through private enterprise and charity!"


You can then argue about whether private enterprise and charity are capable of fully filling the need, but that's another argument.

Nope it's not. The viability is directly involved in the argument and to ignore it is an act of willful ignorance. They may not be directly saying "Let's kill the poor" they might as well be.

And actually Conservatives in general, and Conservative Christians specifically, are among the largest givers to charity by percentage of income (on top of tithes to churches), as well as among the most generous in volunteering with charities.

Ya know, like Jesus.

Considering the average conservative has far more disposable wealth and free time than the average liberal and pays a much lower proportion of taxes (which goes towards helping the less fortunate) it at least evens out.

Also I'm pretty sure Jesus would vote for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party because he would like a joke as much as the next man.

[Funka Genocide]

I really want to know how people with larger proportions of wealth dodge a higher tax rate because like, I've got a larger proportion of wealth than I did 2 years ago and taxes are bending me over backwards.

I mean yeah, sure I'm a liberal but can I get some GOP tax cuts up in this B?

[Archbio]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

And Conservatives aren't all, "The poor and the sick suck! Let 'em rot!" They're actually all, "It's not the government's place to take care of the poor and the sick, because that would give the government too much power! The poor and the sick should be taken care of through private enterprise and charity!"

I guess the term bleeding-heart coined itself.

Like SMB says, the end result actually does matter a little bit more than what one very particular, presentable facet of the nebula of "Conservative" rethoric offers up as a rationale for why the poor, in reality, will rot.

Oh yeah, Dog forbid that the government have the power to help people. Everybody knows that just the right amount of power for the government to have is the power to kill and imprison!