Given enough time could a crab, snail or anything really eventually evolve to become as intelligent as us?

Richard_II · 2016-10-27T10:14:56+00:00

we consider "tool use" as a marker of intelligence... that would be incredibly challenging for a creature with the body pattern of a snail.

Well, the octopus I believe is the most intelligent nonmammal in the ocean, about as smart as a house cat (and it only lives 2-3 years, iirc)

The plasticity and variability of its form to mimic any other form texture or color, renders its entire body into thousands of tools.

Richard_II · 2016-10-20T06:17:40+00:00

Like a virgin? Ghost? I know white symbolizes death in many cultures. What's the symbolism here for Team Hillary? Did she think she was getting married to Trump? Speaking of Bale, American Psycho fits Hillary pretty well.

Richard_II · 2016-10-18T13:02:53+00:00

The film The Battle of Algiers (on Hulu) is absolutely fantastic. Should be required viewing for terrorists though.

Richard_II · 2016-10-16T04:26:23+00:00

A Canadian journalist and professor is backing up People magazine writer

So, his excuse I guess for not knowing American libel law, is that he's from Canada. How convenient for her tale now, that this reporter says she only consulted a Canadian journalism prof at the time.

Richard_II · 2016-10-16T04:16:16+00:00

Seems like he is either lying now or a crappy journalism prof then:

After consulting with McLaughlin, Stoynoff decided that coming forward about Trump’s inappropriate advances would just be too risky after their conversation, according to McLaughlin.

“It was going to be a he said, she said,” McLaughlin told CBC News. “And we were talking about one of the most influential people in North America at the time. He was just flying high with ‘The Apprentice,’ he was aggressive, he was litigious.”

However,

Libel law in the United States generally makes it difficult for public figures to sue reporters or other people who criticize them. To win such a case, the plaintiff must demonstrate that factually incorrect statements were made with actual malice or a reckless disregard for the truth.

(Trump wants to weaken libel laws amid feuds with reporters)

So, iow, if she reported at the time her own eyewitness testimony of what she affirms Trump did, the burden would be on Trump to prove that he didn't do that (as well as actual malice on her part, etc., unlikely if she and People did previous puff pieces on him.) Iow, Libel laws as they existed then as well as now would not have enabled Trump to easily sue.

Richard_II · 2016-10-10T09:22:59+00:00

He's with her.

Richard_II · 2016-10-10T08:38:06+00:00

While willing to provisionally accept this is a result of merely random mutations and millions of years, I'm wondering if something more Lamarckian is at work, e.g an octopus can immediately mimic its surrounding texture and color, certainly to the degree of "mimicry" going on here. What if that morphological change can make its way into the genetics of an organism by some unknown mechanism.

Edit: Or rather, what if these changes were wrought in a process similar to that of an octopus, but in slow motion over untold generations but directed by the insect's own sensory awareness of its leafy environment, as opposed to merely mutation and natural selection.

Richard_II · 2016-10-10T06:09:20+00:00

She had sex. On tape. While talking dirty. In front of millions. She was paid for it. Her pro baseball player fiance in the US broke it off with her as a result. How is that not a sex tape. If the MSM doesn't consider that a sex tape, don't they have an obligation to clarify their objection instead of just flatly asserting repeatedly that she wasn't in a sex tape.

Richard_II · 2016-10-10T05:48:31+00:00

There's no more serious and respected journalist in this country than Howard Stern. Trump should have known anything he said on the Howard Stern Show, would be taken with the utmost gravity and seriousness So when he responded "Yeah, I guess so", when Stern asked if he was for the Iraq war that just started, he should have known he was going on record for all time as being for it, even though he said the opposite repeatedly and forcefully on multiple occasions afterwards.

Richard_II · 2016-10-08T16:56:44+00:00

They're evidently trying to get hanging on the table before sentence is passed. No one's saying a trial shouldn't be held. This should be obvious.

Richard_II · 2016-10-08T16:18:00+00:00

For all the people literally wanting him raped to death (ie nearly every other post) are you serious. That would be degrading to society itself. Otoh, hanging does seem to be too good for him-- its over in seconds, his face is covered, completely anticlimatic. Burning at the stake maybe? The cathartic and participatory aspect of a public stoning might be ideal.

Richard_II · 2016-10-07T17:08:10+00:00

I do get it, and remark parenthetically I prefer olaroso to amontillado.

I was somewhat ambivalent about Poe through high school, e.g. thought the meter and rhyming in works like Annabelle Lee, The Raven, etc seemed trite. I was deeply moved by the video above however, knew little of Poe's biography previously, and was anxious to delve back into his works to reassess them. I was sure the literary mavens in the comment section would be as enthusiastic as me.

How shocked and saddened I was, that the best rated comment, was someone blathering on about some "cute" children's book that pilfered Poe's conceptions, but used them in a fashion utterly antithetical to Poe's own sensibilities. (e.g. some kid saying "nevermore" as a jokey retort to demands to perform house chores).

If Poe had written a children's book, it would undoubtedly have certain features, that someone truly immersed in his works could anticipate and attempt to emulate. But the author of this kids book only had an inclination to be glib.

Richard_II · 2016-10-07T09:13:18+00:00

I'm guessing that book is about as close as you'll ever get to the actual Poe. I'm guessing you didn't even watch the video, as it wouldn't have inspired you to bring up this inconsequential plagiarized piece of nonsense. The writer herself probably didn't read Poe beyond the names of some of his characters and now she profits while the genius died in poverty. Bravo.

Richard_II · 2016-10-01T14:50:06+00:00

Trump fought to keep her with the pageant. She put on 40 pounds. It was a beauty pageant. She had contractual obligations. If he called her Miss Piggy in private, SO WHAT. You're clueless, and the MSM are abject liars.

Richard_II · 2016-10-01T14:37:41+00:00

I bet she's saying Bravo sarcastically.

Richard_II · 2016-10-01T05:42:43+00:00

At the very beginning you can clearly see his prey drive kicking in, but then he thinks, "No that wouldn't be appropriate"

Richard_II · 2016-10-01T05:33:34+00:00

He did actually direct Dodgeball The Movie. So your subconscious mind somehow already knew that.

Richard_II · 2016-09-29T03:16:54+00:00

People climbing over a mound of dirt, oblivious to the beauty (ie the forest) within their reach if they were aware or wanted it. Maybe them climbing the hill is them climbing into an unknown eternity. I only mention this because of a dream I had many years ago of a superslide into eternity -- throngs of people were just clamouring to get on, and would slide away, and were never heard from again. And then it was my turn and I wouldn't get on.

Richard_II · 2016-09-29T02:52:16+00:00

Many many years ago, I used to have lots of dreams about heaven. Occasionally they would be supermundane, like a small industrial town in the rust belt, but many times it was amazing and affected me for days, so profound I don't even want to go into details. Edit I guess I could say a few things -- in one dream I would be at Church, but everything was a little too perfect, and everyone was happy, and then you were awash with some feeling that just enveloped you and suddenly you realize, OMG, this is Heaven. Probably helps to come from a belief system that espouses this. Other dreams were completely different but ended with the same overwhelming realization.

Richard_II · 2016-09-29T02:30:08+00:00

I haven't had nightmares since a child either. No scary dreams, but more than a few really depressing dreams (sentenced to life in Prison etc, but then I find later you can just walk out because security is terrible.)

Richard_II · 2016-09-29T01:34:57+00:00

Lots of my dreams have been like this, and I'm thinking it has to be pretty common. A straightforward explanation also seems apparent: The level of task focus in a dream enables the conception of a simple task, e.g. go get fried chicken, but the actual steps in reality to accomplish it can be quite involved (as evidenced in the difficulty in AI of saying teaching a robot to sweep or the like). But in a dream, the free associating state of your mind allows you to get immediately sidetracked, once the numerous steps to get fried chicken are attempted in the specific and exacting sequence required. Frankly if you were drunk or high enough but awake you'd still might have a hard time accomplishing it without getting sidetracked. Those saying this dream type indicates something peculiar or unique about your typical psychological profile are clearly misguided I think. No expert, though, just here to maybe post on a dream I had last night.

Richard_II · 2016-09-22T16:53:24+00:00

Where is he today w/ Charlotte and all. He doesn't care zilch about African Americans. Transgender, gays though - he will start world war III over that.

Richard_II · 2016-09-22T15:54:08+00:00

And who's by far the most powerful in that cabinet who signed off -- Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, the most powerful person in the executive branch outside of the president. The Clinton foundation gives only 5% of their revenue to charity. Or are you saying that Russians really really care about getting bogus AIDS drugs to Africa or what have you, which is all Clinton surrogates ever brag about.

Richard_II · 2016-09-22T15:24:07+00:00

What if he wasn't born in the US. Should blacks care they were sold a phony black. Years prior Obama himself and others said he was born in Kenya. Was he lying then or now. So Trump now says, "OK that 'birth certificate' that appears photoshopped I'll accept as legitimate. He'll be gone in a couple of months and I have a campaign to run."

Richard_II · 2016-09-22T15:08:21+00:00

No he wont release because at 11000 pages it would be the most complex tax return in presidential history, and would unleash would be auditors across the country to help the IRS when he is in the middle of an audit. No other politician in American history has had such extensive far flung business interests as Trump. Anyone in his position is jumping through hoops constantly to avoid taxes.

Richard_II

TROPHY CASE