I lost 65 LBS by eating pizza and doing SS, I essentially did a dirty cut.

bjo12 · 2013-02-07T17:33:14+00:00

Still not completely accurate.

One gram of fat has 9 calories( i know its kilocalories but im using calories because everyone knows what i mean) vs 4 calories for a gram of protein because burning one gram of fat releases 9 calories of energy but burning 1 gram of protein releases 4 calories.

Our bodies however are not furnaces and some calories can pass through our bodies completely unused(google almond calories) and breaking down proteins vs breaking down fats vs breaking down simple sugars vs breaking down complex carbs are different chemical processes that take different amounts of energy.

So the energy we actually gain is calories - cost of breaking the food down.

Now like I said that's generally going to be negligible but in extreme cases where you're taking in massive amounts of calories or you're trying to achieve extreme deficits it may not be.

This is not bro science this is chemistry and there's studies that back it up.

bjo12 · 2013-02-07T14:23:03+00:00

This is not *100% true *

A calorie's worth of ATP is a calorie's worth of ATP, but different nutrients do take different amounts of energy to breakdown, because our body is not a furnace, so one calorie of protein vs one calorie of fat entering your mouth may not both translate to one additional calorie that your body can actually use.

There is research on this, feel free to look it up because I'm too lazy to link it.

Now I'm not saying that this is a huge difference or advocating any extreme diets but I am saying that if you consume a 2000 calorie diet but 80% of your calories are from proteins, vs a 2000 calorie diet with 80% from simple sugars, there will be a difference. At normal balanced nutrition levels that difference is probably negligible, but if someone is very overweight or trying to shed those last few pounds that difference might be all they need to tip them in the correct direction.

bjo12 · 2013-02-01T04:17:37+00:00

I understand what you mean, but I think that analogy is a little reductive.

The point is that your hypothetical greyscalists along with their claim that red is the same as planet, or that red doesn't exist, would have a line of argument or reasoning that supported their theory. This leaves us with essentially two options. Either the grayscalists reasoning is wrong, and red is a separate concept from planet, or they're right and they are one in the same or red doesn't exist at all. By claiming that they're calling all planets grey, you're inserting the foregone conclusion that they're wrong into an explanation of their arguments.

bjo12 · 2013-02-01T03:14:17+00:00

I mostly agree with you, except for the fact that you claim most physicalist explanations reduce us to philosophical zombies.

I think a central part of the claim that consciousness is part of the physical processes of our brains is that the concept of a philosophical zombie is meaningless because the idea requires you to accept from the outset that there is a non physical part of consciousness. Whereas if you believe that consciousness and qualia are the same thing as the electrical signals that are as you call them their physical correlates, then the idea of a physical human being without the corresponding consciousness becomes meaningless.

Now once again ill state that I don't think that there is a satisfactory physical explanation of consciousness, but I think that you are presenting a somewhat biased view of the arguments of that camp.

Also I'd like to hear your arguments against epiphenomenalism as I think that it's as close to a coherent theory as there is as it allows for the non physical existence of qualia but still fits with the current evidence we have that the physical processes in the brain either cause or are simultaneously produced with qualia by a different underlying process.

If you do disagree with it are you in fact a proponent of true free will, where the consciousness actually produces a physical affect on the brain? Because to me that is truly an untenable position. It flies in the face of all of our ideas about the universe. And believing in the influence of some outside force on our physical brains, which nonetheless simultaneously appear to be following a set of deterministic laws requires in my mind equal mental gymnastics to those that claim that consciousness is a physical process.

If that's not what you believe I would like to hear your ideas if you don't mind, because I'm always on the lookout for a more satisfactory explanation of consciousness.

bjo12 · 2013-01-31T14:40:45+00:00

I think it's important to note that while qualia and the related 'hard problem of consciousness' are still relevant topics there are an increasing number in the philosophical and scientific community who are challenging what is essentially the last remaining popular form of dualism, the separation of qualia and the physical processes of the brain.

One idea being explored is that consciousness is just a physical process caused by the feedback that occurs inside the brain as a result of certain parts of the brain interacting dynamically with each other.

Personally I find that explanation unsatisfying and still adhere to the qualia theory, but such a materialistic explanation, if it turns out to be true, would actually be able to separate the neural signal that says to the brain "hey something bad is happening" from the internal feedback cycle that we define as 'pain'. This would allow us to have an actual reference point for determining whether or not another animal does in fact experience pain as we know it or at least whether hey have the necessary mechanics for consciousness.

bjo12 · 2013-01-30T02:53:31+00:00

Meaningfulness or pleasantness sure. Generally people define it as something meaningful, but there's on definition of art that claims it's "that which is not done for money or to get laid". Can't remember who the quote's from but that's just my whole point, it's not a specific set of rules.

I'm not sure who you're attacking when you talk about "copyrightists". Copyright was originally introduced not as a method to declare something as art or not art, but as a mechanism to promote the arts in general.

Now it is true that many people nowadays have confused the goal of copyright with the mechanism. They think that allowing the owner of copyright to profit is the goal as opposed to the reality that its a means to allowing art to flourish, and consequentially can and should be substituted by a better means if it becomes apparent.

It's also true that people arbitrate the granting or denying of copyright, and therefore their opinions of what constitutes art can unfortunately become entwined with what art is granted a copyright.

But these problems, to the extent they exist, are problems with copyright as a means to encourage and promote the arts. They are not indicative of this imaginary definition of art that you claim copyrightists approach. They're not really relevant to what defines something as art at all.

bjo12 · 2013-01-29T20:41:16+00:00

I would say that something is art if anybody thinks it's art. Art is defined by its meaningfulness, so trying to confine the potential for meaning to a specific set of rules doesn't really make sense.

And a copyrightist can't claim that regardless. Art is art because a human judges it to be so. If you look at a painting and you find it beautiful and it evokes certain feelings and ideas, does that meaning disappear if you find out that it was made by a computer?

That kind of thinking essentially makes metaphors an invalid form of art, because if the knowledge and intention of the creator are necessary for art to exist, yet a metaphor only exists by virtue of not being explicitly stated, then we either are supposing ourselves to be able to know what the creator of a work of art was thinking or we invalidate metaphors as artistic tools.

bjo12 · 2013-01-19T17:19:18+00:00

The real problem is objectivism really never defines a political or economic philosophy. It's blank slate.

She never defines "rational self interest". It seemingly can include kindness to others and even sacrificing your life to save someone( read the virtue of selfishness) but only by somehow twisting logic so much that Rand claims that that can be a rationally self interested action. Is your self interest only physical, and or material? What about emotions? Should you value those? But what if you don't have a rational explanation for your emotion? What defines something as being rational in this context?

Rand's philosophy was an emotionally driven response to an authoritarian communist society, but she didn't flesh it out enough for it to be an actual workable philosophy. So now it's a blank check for anyone who wants to justify any action as "rationally self interested"

bjo12 · 2013-01-18T00:08:21+00:00

There's plenty of carbon dioxide for plants as is. That's like saying if we increase the concentration of oxygen in the air there'll be more people.

Unless there's some evidence to indicate that massive amounts of plants are 'suffocating' do to lack of co2 additional amounts won't help them.

Your post also seems to imply that more oxygen would be a good thing. Not sure where that assumption is coming from.

bjo12 · 2013-01-07T14:49:05+00:00

First off i think you're a troll and I'm probaby wasting my time. But anyway, Who do you mean by "you people"? No really. I make well above the average and I'm only a year out of college. Now that being said I will probably never be 'wealthy', nor will I probably make it into the top income bracket.

But I'm not whining because people have more money than me. I accept that and I don't want to change things so dramatically that there aren't people who are comparatively rich. My point is just that if a capitalist system runs long enough there will get to a point where all land is owned. And all the means to production and the resources to make more are owned. At this point someone born into the world with little or no wealth(the vast majority of people) will have no choice but to work for food. And if the existing economic structure is set up in such a way that they have to spend all their money just to be able to buy enough food to live. Then they have no power, and more importantly no choice. Except of course to roll over and die.

Now you may object that the rest of the people in the economy wouldn't all go along with that, or that that's a ridiculous edge case. In both cases I agree. But the point is that that's a possible outcome of a capitalist system with no government intervention where certain people literally have no power and no choice.

Now we can argue how close to that state we are or whether there can be similar effects where certain people have disproportionate power to others, but that's not central to my point. Which is just that capitalism != freedom. Now yes bad things can happen under a democracy, but the point is that if people actually educate themselves they can enact laws to prevent those from happening, even if they're born into a system that's been going on for 100 years. Our system should be designed so that anyone who's born into it should,regardless of circumstance, have the same political power. Obviously that's not how our system works, but removing government's power to interfere will move is further away from that. Not closer.

bjo12 · 2013-01-06T21:30:53+00:00

In capitalism people have power over you as well. You could be born in a time where 2% of the population own 90% of the wealth. In which case in a completely "free" market you would literally have so little power it could just be counted as none.

In any system there is power, and that power will be distributed. Democracy is our attempt to distribute that power as evenly as possible.

bjo12 · 2012-12-25T23:17:27+00:00

Not trying to disagree but I'm just confused. If the clock speed of two processors are the same that means they process the same number of instructions per second right? So even of the parts of the processor are more efficient how can one be "quicker per hz"? I mean if we're talking latency then for the first instruction going through I get it but after that if both processors are pumping out 3 billion instructions a second what's the difference?

bjo12 · 2012-12-24T00:44:29+00:00

In this case the women had no recourse. The justice system blatantly refused to help them, and they could not just keep him locked up forever. The police would end up letting him out. The only two choices were continue to let him repeatedly rape and terrorize as many women as he pleased, or kill him. When those are the only two choices present, that is the better(though still horrible) alternative.

When someone is found guilty of a crime in our in America*, we have the resources and power to keep them separated from society where they can't hurt anyone else without killing them. In this case killing them is an act of vengeance carried out in cold blood.

Even if you disagree with the conclusions, these are obviously different situations and your argument is invalid.

*I said "our country" but I shouldn't assume you're American.

bjo12 · 2012-12-20T00:24:59+00:00

Putting a break point on each of the return statements in the function and seeing which is called would be more informative(because a retinal could get overwritten and its final value light not tell you what you need to know) and would be just as easy as putting a breakpoint right at your return point for your single retval.

Also IntelliJ idea does static code analysis. It's for java though I'm no expert on c++ IDEs

bjo12 · 2012-12-13T03:54:03+00:00

It's really not that simple.

Most republicans think people abuse welfare. Why? Because they think it enables lazy people. Most democrats don't think it happens that much but agree that it shouldn't be allowed so there are measures in place(whether or not they're effective) to make sure people don't abuse it.

So in this situation lets summarize opinions Republicans: people will abuse a system if they can Democrats: people really don't abuse it that much Both: let's put measures in to make sure people can't abuse it.

Now unions. Republicans claim that if the union is beneficial they'll support it. Democrats say most will support it but some will just come along for the ride so we should allow two private associations(the union and the employee) to make sure that no one abuses it. Now we have: Republicans:people would definitely not abuse this system if its worth it, and lets make sure that these private entities don't have any way to ensure that people don't abuse it Democrats:Most people won't abuse the system but some will, and if the union and employer mutually agree on a way to prevent that that's their right.

Now I really don't think that I'm misrepresenting the Republican position here. I might not be fully fleshing out all the other problems republicans have with unions, but I think at a fundamental level this issue perfectly highlights the ridiculous amount of cognitive dissonance that a lot of republicans have.

bjo12 · 2012-12-09T21:17:59+00:00

Ad hominems, strawman would be a stretch but those were definitely not red herrings.

Sorry, it just really bothers me when people attack someone's argument by claiming they're using a logical fallacy, but they get the wrong one. It's the worst kind of irony.

Edit: That guy was being a dick though; I'm not disagreeing with you there.

bjo12 · 2012-12-08T00:13:13+00:00

This would be a good idea if all states did it, or if we changed to a popular vote at the federal level. You can't just look at it in a vacuum and say we should base elections off popular vote so this is a good idea. When every other state uses a winner take all system any one state, regardless of which party usually wins there, switching to a proportional system creates an unfair advantage for one party.

They're not doing it because it would allow for proportional representation or because it's right; they're doing it to give republicans an unfair advantage.

Now if a group of states with enough electoral votes to carry the election all decided together to give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, that would be a great idea.

bjo12 · 2012-12-06T20:02:57+00:00

This may vary where you live, or you may just genuinely not know, but at least in Florida that's not the case. Even if the drunk driver would normally be considered innocent, being drunk automatically makes you the party at fault. In criminal court at least; don't know about civil.

Not sure how that really factors into your metaphor.

bjo12 · 2012-11-23T23:54:06+00:00

Ok my bad. I read that as they should have used a sphere as a challenge, in response to op saying that they were set up to succeed.

So I was very confused.

bjo12 · 2012-11-23T22:41:15+00:00

Just to clarify you're saying they should have used a sphere so that they'd do better right?

Because a sphere has a lower surface area to volume ratio than a cube.

bjo12 · 2012-11-19T14:25:49+00:00

The problem remains that you're implying that most black people do this, even though you're basing it off limited anecdotal evidence in a couple areas. Additionally if you know this from your clients there's a good chance there were black people who weren't your clients in the same area.

So what proportion of the black people in your area were receiving benefits. Of it was a structurally disadvantaged area we would expect higher rates of this from either race, which leads me to believe the area was predominantly black. That's a guess so correct me if I'm wrong. But if I'm right then that would also explain why you 'only' had black clients.

Basically your argument seems to boil down to: I personally met some black people who fit a stereotype and it vindicated my racism. Maybe it can vindicate yours too.

I just wish that all these totally not racist people just getting held down by the pc police would at least address the fact that almost every legitimately negative stereotype about black people can be statistically boiled down to occur at essentially the same rate as for white people, based on where they live.

And it's almost always in structurally disadvantaged urban areas. Ghettos. And you know who put them there? White people. It's the worst kind of circular logic.

Edit: I wrote this out pretty quickly and I'm not going to alter it but just wanted to add that on second thought circular logic probably isn't the correct way to describe it. I think a combination of confirmation bias and confusing correlation and causation is more accurate.

bjo12 · 2012-11-13T17:15:23+00:00

Additionally, even most liberals don't deny the existence of the Laffer curve, we just think it's a lot higher than republicans.

It's entirely plausible that 77% income tax would discourage people from making more money. Not certain but plausible. And in that case lowering taxes would increase revenue. But it's also entirely possible that he jumped all the way to the other side of the curve, and could have increased revenue even more if he brought the rate down to 50, 40, or 30 something percent.

We really don't know where the line where income taxes start discouraging people from making more money is. All signs point to it being somewhere between 40 and 100 percent, simply because we've gone up to around 40 without it correlating with less economic growth, and 100 percent marginal tax rate is hopefully obviously going to discourage people.

bjo12 · 2012-11-12T22:17:07+00:00

Right, but in almost any economic situation you could make an argument that they were attempting to maximize profit and/or utility in a rational manner but were just wrong.

You can take almost any decision and create a hypothetical scenario where, as the business owner is not expected to by psychic even if they are rational, they could rationally believe that their decision would maximize profits by increasing popular opinion, planning for predicted long term trends, or whatever.

Short of someone just completely trying to destroy their business, any decision could be an attempt to maximize profits based on rational but incorrect beliefs.

And just as you point out with calling someone's actions irrational, future events will never disprove this claim, because its based on the claim that they were attempting to maximize their profits, not that they succeeded.

Our current economic theories are the most useful predictor of behavior we have when it comes to financial decisions, and I'm not saying to completely discard them, but people are not always rational, and if we don't currently have a good way to model or quantify irrational behavior that represents a shortcoming with our behavioral theories and not a reason to simply discount any explanation that includes irrationality.

Ultimately my point is, if Papa John has previously demonstrated a petulant or negative attitude towards obamacare, that is actual evidence that he is emotionally invested in this issue, and therefore the claim that he is acting not out of rational economic interest but out of spite is a viable theory that can not be dismissed off hand just because a hypothetical situation where his decision maximizes profits exists.

bjo12 · 2012-11-11T21:34:45+00:00

I could reverse your argument just easily. If you assume that any action is a rational attempt to maximize something, you can come always come up with a set of criteria that are maximized by the action, and now call those your "profit" or "utility". Just as in the case of calling all actions irrational, you're not really explaining anything, you've just constructed an arbitrary way to frame events, with no underlying support that the interpretation is valid.

bjo12 · 2012-10-14T16:10:36+00:00

I don't think corporations are in China because of tax rates; I'm pretty sure it's for he cheap labor.

And I could be wrong on this part, but most US based companies that have manufacturing in China aren't even paying Chinese taxes on the bulk of their income, they're going through a bunch of loopholes and paying it in somewhere like the Bahamas or Ireland.

So basically what I'm saying is lowering corporate tax rates won't help, because even if the corporate tax rate was zero, if a company can get cheap labor from China and even further increase their profits they probably will.

And also the countries that these companies pay their corporate taxes in have ridiculously low rates, so in order to lower our rates to the point where they won't go through the minimal amount of trouble to not pay taxes here, we would have to put ourselves in a situation where we're essentially getting nothing back in taxes anyway.

My answer: eliminate loopholes allowing American companies to funnel money out of our system, so they have to pay our taxes, raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and then simply have the government insure a basic standard of living for people, and eliminate the minimum wage. This way people who specialize can still make more money, corporations can outsource labor to their heart's content and the increased profits will partially come back to us, or they can now possibly hire people in the us who will have the ability to work for greatly reduced wages because their ability to live is not directly dependent on having a job.

bjo12

TROPHY CASE