I want an open-world Skyrim-esque game where you play as HK-47.

I have not specified a standard of beauty. I was only using the strong vertical/horizontal because it's one simple example of how the human visual system works. We have neurons dedicated to exactly that process (and this painting has a lot of strong horizontal lines- they're just carefully broken up). Humans tend to…

I find that intensely satisfying, because- as I said- it's evidence that the world makes sense. Even if I can't personally make sense of it, I can see enough to know that sense exists.

I think there is a satisfactory scientific description, for practical purposes: it's a complex biological response to certain stimuli. Just by simply materializing it and saying, "Look, the details are vague, but we can take in the big picture" is such an amazingly powerful statement.

It started really strong, but by the end… eh?

I am using a very loose definition of "science", I admit, but it's in line with my initial definition- building models of the world, then testing those models. In the case of models built based on a sample size of one, the traditional rigor of science goes out the window. I cannot subject a single friend to scientific…

See, I'd argue that the Mike era episodes were more consistent, largely because they had more interesting movies to riff on. I mean, can anybody actually sit through a "Phantom Creeps" short? There's a lot that goes into making a great MST3K episode, and part of that is a movie that isn't incredibly boring. The…

Isn't it? When I try and predict how other human beings behave, am I not building a hypothesis? And when I engage them, using this hypothesis, am I not testing this hypothesis? When my hypothesis fails, do I not refine it?

I don't believe in "reasons". Why and how are the same thing- if you understand how something happens, then you also understand why- the world is its own explanation, it doesn't need more. Or, to put it a different way: things happen because they happen.

It's also the simplest form of beauty to discuss, and thus illustrate my point.

Why? Because our brains are good at it! We like doing things we're good at.

Oh, it absolutely can explain why something is beautiful. We know that humans find strong vertical and horizontal lines compelling, and we know that arises from line-finding processes in our visual cortex. We know that complementary colors are going to have different effects on how a human perceives something versus…

There's a vital error in reasoning, here: the idea that science is a gateway to truth. Science is a gateway to "true enough", and that's an important distinction. Science is a model-building endeavour.

Considering Communism, as implemented by… well, everyone… is pretty much exactly the opposite of what Marx envisioned as his ideal economic system, I suspect that killing Marx would have no serious impact on the shape of the USSR or much of the 20th Century.

It wasn't meant to be entirely temporary- while many of the buildings weren't built to last, the idea was that the facility as a whole would remain useful into the future. It was a tragic fire a few years after the exposition that torpedoed that idea.

Not at all. I'd argue that all of our psychology is rooted in biology. But evopsych remains junk science.

And this is unusual how? Giamatti is a living superhero. Hammier that a pig farm! Able to devour all of the scenery in a single bite! It's a gun-toting lunatic! No, it's a wine-snob! No, it's PAUL GIAMATTI!

I'm taking it seriously. It's an important cautionary tale, warning us both about man's inhumanity to man, and a chilling warning against tampering in god's domain.

I suppose it depends on how old your kids are. Once they hit 12, or so? Yeah, they're watching porn.

"You know how every 13 year old DM thinks his adventures would make a great movie? Well, somebody made that movie."