He explained it to me this way: "Dialectical contextualism is [a] philosophical doctrine, at a meta-philosophical level, which has some applications in semiotics, psycho-pathological philosophy and paradox analysis. The present analysis of the Simulation Argument is a direct application of dialectical contextualism to…

Really? Amoral? Why on earth would you say that? Broaching difficult subjects with viable options are anything but amoral. In fact, I'd say sweeping subjects such as this under the carpet to avoid the distaste is amoral. Child sexual abuse is horrible and can lead to life long problems for the abused. Any treatment…

Well no, child porn is illegal because it requires an actual child to be abused and exploited to exist. And as for murder bots... Why not? What's constructively different between that and a video game where you shoot hundreds of people?

The reason child porn is illegal is actual children are harmed in making it. It's illogical to make having sex with a robot or drawings, stories, or fiction illegal. There was never a child involved in the process.

It's sad when you don't have to dress up to cosplay as a live-action idiot.

It would be less confusing if the authors said something like: 'Many species, like all lizards and salamanders...'

True, virginity is a concept, and it is vague. But it generally means "never had sex" (what constitute sex being debatable) But to associate that concept to the physical hymen is stupid, and ignores basic notion of anatomy.Virginity and hymen are independent things, and only uneducated morons think otherwise.

Yes, I know about the hymen destruction - but the hymen is not virginity. I learned that in high school biology. Anybody who think "broken hymen" equals "lost virginity" has no knowledge of human anatomy.

Subsurface liquid water is a different kettle of (ahem) fish. While subsurface bodies of water are pretty strongly indicated on Callisto, Enceladus, Europa, to a certain extent Ceres, and so forth, there's a lot of uncertainty about the possibility of life under such conditions. For instance, atmosphere. None of…

Oh gods yes! Finally an article that gets it. I remember reading about this and shrieking while pulling out my hair. THERE'S NO WAY THIS PLANET IS HABITABLE! But the media kept harping on about "The first confirmed Earth-like planet." Which it isn't. It isn't even close.

Mr. Dramatic up there. I wonder what set him off.. was it the pieces of wood? Or the deer skull?

Misread headline as "peeing", got really confused, then agreed, then realized I misread the headline.

He was born in Wales to English parents, lives in England, and considers himself English.

Nope, Davey Jones is 100% cg. The filmmakers were worried about the eyes until ILM showed them how much better it looked with cg eyes integrated into the character. They were also able to capture his performance on set rather than later at a moCap studio. I believe that helped a lot with how well he interacted with…

I think they added twice the normal sensors around the mouth as well to capture all his ticks and sneers perfectly, the movements were spot on spectacular.

He really looks real. That movie is 8 years old.

Maybe not uniform, but I would expect many genres to have them fairly spread out with a possible clusters near the end as stories are climaxing and points are being made.

I saw that sign and instantly thought of the Women Laughing Alone With Salad tumblr.

Their Israel/Palestine reporting is biased? Possibly. But compared to US news vendors, the BBC coverage is a shining beacon of fairness & virtue.

I love seeing Ubisoft thrive, remembering Rayman 2 as a kid. That game ran laps around Mario 64. I knew if they stayed in business, they would some day hit their stride.