Recent content by Shamol

If you want me to be really succinct- Castro was a huge mixed bag, and we should remember him as such. On one hand, horrible repressive communist dictator, cracked down on dissenting voices, and until recently there was no such thing as a private industry in Cuba. On the other, 99% literacy...

I'm pretty sure if you ask me this question a few years from now I'd have a different answer lol. Right now two names come to mind- Charles Darwin and James Shapiro, and for the same reason. Charles Darwin needs no introduction, and James Shapiro is a Chicago University Microbiologist who's been...

As a microbiologist my first instinct is to say vaccines, but Pie's answer is very appropriate as well.

But there are other ways of helping the world without explicitly "governing" them, or assuming any sort of authoritative position. For example, if you can fly, have super strength and speed, then you can very easily save all the people that accidentally fall off their buildings. Doing so doesn't...

So you disagree with uncle Ben when he said "with great power come great responsibility"?

Do you mean a sympathetic morally ambiguous one? Or the "well, well, well" variety from the old Bond flicks?

I respect your position, Pie, but I'm still struggling to see how this issue wouldn't arise in the case of verbal discipline or taking away of privileges as well. Nobody in the thread seems to have a problem with disciplinary measures as such- as I pointed out in my last post, some form of a...

Like if you had world-saving capabilities, wouldn't you be morally obligated to contribute much more to making the world a better place? I know the uncle Ben quote has been cliched ad nauseum, but it's true in a very literal, straightforward way. That would mean you have to set apart time from...

The answer for me is obvious- Molecular Biology. By far the most complex and intricate things in the known universe are located within the cells of living systems. There's never a dull moment in this world (there's certainly quite a few in the lab, though)- newer and newer discoveries continue...

You're a very thoughtful individual, Cordeline. There's no set definition for 'life', but at a very basic level, a living thing is basically a system that has found a way to work against the universe's entropy. The environment within a cell, for example, is in (apparent) violation of the second...

I suck at sleep cycle maintenance, and my body's unpredictable circadian rhythm is of no help. I drank some coffee at around 7 PM and trusted my metabolism to take care of the caffeine by the time I hit the bed. Nope. In violation of good culture and prudence, the stupid molecules occupy my...

So a really neat way to clean woks is to pour some water on the hot surface (and maybe some vinegar), slosh it around a little and/or scrape with spatula to dislodge the sticky stuff, and then throw the liquid away. This makes the wok so much more manageable to clean- rinse once and you'll be...

I don't think we'll make much progress in this conversation without going into the nitty gritty of the policies and attendant ethics. I mean no one would object to things like family values and truth and 'squashing parasitism' as such. As words they are rather blank canvasses. It's only when you...

To add to the question Kanzler above is asking, is there a coherent definition of "western civilization" or "western values" that's in wide currency among alt-rightists? Perhaps that definition would help us understand the alleged nationalist/populist aspects of the movement better.

10/10 as standard as good signatures get.