It seemed impossible skewed as far as putting a positive spin on a culture that is 100 times more repressive to women than the one that is constantly vilified here.

How dare you suggest I really did such a thing?

Sorry, but no, this is just bad science. Really Bad Science. The subliminal words could affect word choices in both ways. In some cases (oh, perhaps... one out of five?) the subliminal word could actually cause you to more quickly choose an option that doesn't describe yourself. Why couldn't the 'me' actually be…

True, I just think it shows how myopic the source of the list is. Someone who lives simply and yet could turn lead to gold could generate enormous wealth on a whim and yet not be included on the list. It's a symptom of an intellectual rot that our culture suffers from.

It's a useful ad for those who oppose president Obama. The youth vote isn't really in contention. Why would you waste money trying to get Kanye West fans to vote for Mitt Romney?

I tend to agree, especially in terms of the ability to generate wealth on demand. Investments are kind of limited in that regard, whereas people with the means of the Lannisters could simply generate it through conquest or industry.

What about potential wealth? Rumpelstiltskin would in terms of potential wealth be infinitely wealthy, as long as one can produce straw. Given straw is a renewable resource, and imps are generally considered to be immortal beings, the potential wealth involved would be limitless. Granted, the more straw he spun…

Exactly. Writing was developed around trade and government. Metaphor breaks down across cultures whose wine might be different colors. It's far more believable that we simply created objective names for colors for the sake of specificity and lack of confusion according to the most common things that required such…

I believe the same. The Chinese character set is built on the concept of composite ideas. I don't think it would be quite fair to take the large number of composite words in, say, German, and say that they have no actual words for those ideas simply because they use multiple words to define them.

I understand your perspective, but words are defined. Atheism is an assertion, not a level of doubt. Doubt accepts a possibility of there being a god or gods, and doubt is Agnosticism. I don't believe a spectrum actually applies when the definition of a label is a solid assertion.

Hrm, I'd like to know how they trace the order in prehistoric times. I'd have to imagine a culture would be limited by the colors that are available to them. The most important colors to cultures would vary since their need to recognize them would vary when they were at their most primitive... but the key to…

Well, I certainly respect your position and share it. Atheism, though, by definition is the stance that there is no god or gods. I think a great many people call themselves atheists and in reality only oppose religion, as I often hear the argument that atheism is really the lack of any position on a god or gods. …

The simplest explanations always rely upon the assumption that the data is sufficient to calculate a probability. They rely on the most commonly accepted model of the universe. Using that argument is kind of facetious in terms of religion since religion WAS the simplest explanation for most of humanity's existence.…

Making the leap to declare the non-existence of something is an extraordinary claim. You could possibly collect the data to prove the existence of god if such data became available. To prove the NON-existence of god would require omniscience. That, I believe, is a far more fanciful endeavor. Commitment to a…

I think that's essential. While it's very difficult to dispute the existence of an entity, claims about an entity can certainly be addressed scientifically. That's one reason why I think people like Dawkins get so angry with believers who don't adhere to the totality of their religious texts. Hitchens was like that…

Absolutely. Those who do will honestly admit that they don't know. Those who decide to assume based upon that lack of evidence assert a belief, not knowledge. So long as it's portrayed as a belief, I'm cool with it.

Good lord. I have seen the future of moviemaking friends, I've been sent a vision! I see a future where there are maybe 50 different franchises, the movie industry works their way through the list, and then starting all over, revamps them, repeating the process every five to ten years.

I distrust many of them because, as with the equally untrustworthy religious, they pose a belief as objective fact, and that is dishonest. Worse, many atheists pose their belief as somehow scientific, as though one can know the non-existence of something without the benefit of omniscience.

wwhaaaa, whaaaaaaa...

Someday I hope we evolve past being monkeys who would starve to death while poking the orgasm button. Anthropomorphism is an insult, and a disservice to our creations. Hopefully future artificial intelligence will be able to make choices about companionship without bias regarding sexual organs and the noteworthiness…