Depository for off topic / political posts (NO brexit related posts please)

I’ll print that out and frame it Silvaire.

The brutal part is about government controlling opinions and information. Actually, the bastards are supposed to work for us, so what ever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people?

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Figures. Where was that, in Germany or in the US? Was that why he emigrated?

German in the US. I believe it was for a girl. (woman, whatever)

@Mooney_Driver & @Silvaire
The choir never sounded so good.

Is there are a reason why so many pilots on this forum seem to hold a libertarian anti-state world view? It seems counter-intuitive for people so heavily reliant on state-sponsored infrastructure.

Also the number of you denigrating science is worrisome.

Scepticism comes with advancing age

However the medical professional does have some very specific issues, with the biggest being institutionalization. Another one is that drug prescriptions are largely driven by public policy e.g. the ludicrous calls for statins to be added to drinking water – see (among a huge raft of google hits) here and this is somewhat more hilarious!

So scepticism should not surprise anyone who sticks their head out of their institution window!

The more educated public just don’t believe what they are told anymore…

Few educated people denigrate science. The problem is that there has been way too much “research” funded by the beneficiaries and as time moves on an increasing % of that is being chucked out. Coming back to statins, that was once a $20BN/year business, with massive interests driving everything. I was talking to an interventional cardiologist recently and he admitted that there is little evidence reducing cholesterol (below some broad bounds) does anything and reducing inflammation is probably a bigger benefit (which can be achieved with a veg diet and without side effects…). Any educated person who can read research, for a few minutes’ digging around, will find this and more, so no wonder questions are being asked.

I am personally more sceptical about people for whom the whole world and every institution is one big conspiracy.

Today almost 25% of all grown up Americans believe that the lunar landings were fake and a high percentage believes that 9/11 was an “inside job”.

Science, of all forms (not beliefs, religions or opinions), is our only chance to make this world a better place – and it has.

@Mooney_Driver
While there were many examples of non-studied scientists developing revolutionary theories and “things”, i find it a banal fact that you have to study the matter you want to study. Do you think it is possible to develop a new airliner wing or engine without having studied in university? I do not think so. And while there’s always exceptions, to everything, that’s what they are: exceptions. But i am sure: If you present a car battery to Tesla that makes their cars go twice as far – nobody will ask you for a degree or diploma and you will be rich.

Peter wrote:

Few educated people denigrate science.

Unfortunately that is wrong. Walk through Munich (London, Rome, Paris …) and see how pharmacies advertise Homeopathy. Nowhere is it worse than in GERMANY though (and we are so proud of our science culture..). 300 feet from where I sit now is a huge old pharmacy. There’s BIG golden letters on the window: “HOMEOPATHY”. And all the people who work in there have studied pharmacy, one of the most difficult studies at German Universities. Yet they are willing to ignore everything they have been taught to make their pharmacy more successful. Rents are high in Munich … ,

You walk in there and tell them you have a headache and they ask you: “Would you rather have a conventional drug or something homeopathic”? In cases like that I used to to answer: “Sorry, is this a church, did i go through the wrong door”? … (or: “was it pharmacy that you studied, or theology?”) and of course many times the result was a discussion that ended with the pharmacist telling me “It is ok because it works”. That’s like an Aerodynamicist at Airbus telling you “ah, I have no idea how flying carpets work, but it’s okay because they fly so nicely”.

You show them the container with “Eurocent C200” and they shrug it off. Disgusting.

Science without integrity or morals is of no value. Mass killings by the Nazis in WWII were developed “scientifically”, after all.

They will always be around and always have been.

AF wrote:

Here is something worth taking a look at, if you’re open to new ideas….

You need to be very open indeed. Open way past the point of being gullible. On that website they very carefully explain not just that they’ve discovered a new phenomenon but that all of modern physics is wrong! Not only quantum theory but also both theories of relativity, the Standard Model etc.

The so-called “validation reports” have been carried out by people from minor institutions or independent consultants. The validations were obviously not independent and the reports have been redacted to omit all detail.

The web site has all the signs of an investment scam. (I doubt that they really believe all of physics is wrong. Crackpot websites are typically not that well designed.)

Alexis wrote:

Positronium C200 (Positronium is a short lived atom that was found by an american scientist …)

You can’t make this up.