Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t

[Absinthe]

I don't know... I don't know what just transpired.

It never happened. Move along.

 

[Qonfused]

Good deal.

 

[Gray Fox]

I'm sorry Stern, but equating humans and animals just reeks of "I didn't think this through enough and I'm only talking based on emotions"

Besides, I don't think there's anything I can say that would detract from this now thoroughly raped thread.

Oh, and Fox, how do we punish animals that kill and eat other animals?
Or are humans the only ones that lose rights in this deal.

Yes.
Tell me do those animals know how to survive without meat. do they kill for pleasure like us, or for survival?
Tell me are they able to understand the amount of suffering and pain they cause their victim as much as we do?
Tell me, why shouldn't we, who get so much more rights, so much more power, bear so much more responsibility,not lose more when we abuse those rights, that power, when we do not hold ourselves to our own moral standards.

Tell me what makes you so human when you can look at a sentient being, who feels pain, who feels joy, who has the potential for heroism, for lasting companionship, who's existence alone is a miracle not replicable by science, and only see meat? I would say you don't exhibit the human characteristics you hold so dear,the ones you, use as proof of our superiority.

 

[PvtRyan]

Just watched the second hand smoke episode (actually the episode also contains a part on baby bullshit, where they make the dads dress up in diapers, genius) and can't say I agree with it. I agree that the studies done that say it's dangerous are largely bullshit, but I don't care about the alleged dangers of passive smoking. They say even though you dislike smoking like they themselves do, freedom to smoke is more important.

But it isn't, smoking is a nuisance to others, freedom ends where your behavior full knowingly hurts others. Your freedom to smoke ends when you make others smell like shit without their consent and ruin their clothing, your freedom to smoke ends when your smoke irritates the nose and eyes of those around you. Your freedom to smoke ends when your smoke ruins someone's food. Not to mention conditions like asthma. My mother isn't even asthmatic but really can't go out where heavy smoking takes place (everywhere) and feel the consequences long after she is home again.

Smoking in a public place is like taking a blow horn into a restaurant and then get upset when you're asked to stop blowing your horn or leave the restaurant because "yur takin' mah freedoms!". Freedom applies when the other is able to avoid it, we have freedom of speech because you can just ignore it and go about your business, but we wouldn't allow some nut in a restaurant shout his prophecy about the second coming of Christ. He would get kicked the fuck out. I'm not gonna move from a restaurant because you need to satisfy your addiction. That's your problem that you willingly picked up, don't make it mine.

I'm glad smoking is banned from workplaces, a cafeteria that used to be blue from smoke is now a pleasant place to be and smokers go satisfy their cravings outside. And I'll be glad when smoking is banned from all public places.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Smoking to an extent was banned here as well, some few days ago. Rest easy.

--
Just watched about 8 eps of P&T:BS. Have to say I agree with everything.

 

[theotherguy]

I like their views on religion, war, and politicians. I do not like their views on environmentalism and gun control.

 

[Direwolf]

First your insulting the people here without providing a reason for it, which makes you look like an arrogant ****.

Second, the contribution of your argument is worthless to the topic since it could be applied to every discussion.
There are a lot of books written about all kinds of subjects, with all kinds of different conclusions, simply stating that doesn't add anything. Why not go state it in every political thread?

Plus you have to look at the issue why there are so many different opinions, so many different books. Is the subject really so complex, or is it just obfuscated by interest of the individuals involved, be it economic, honor bound, or labor bound.
Religion would be a good example of a simple issue obfuscated by the interest of people.

Third, we weren't ignoring social, economical and political. Many arguments are of a social and political nature.
As far as economics go, I already addressed the nutrition issue.

If you had a problem why I did not address all the economic issues you should have just brought it up, and discussed it. Not just assumed we are idiots that can't think of it.

For the record it was mainly because we were trying to focus on different issues of the subject the economics, we can't discuss everything at the same time.

edit: oh and I'm surprised you actually like Penn & Teller, seeing your post I would think the same that you said about this thread could be applied to them, hell even more so.

I'm not trying to be insulting or arrogant here, I'm trying to be helpful. I'm trying to ask politely for people to not be insulting or arrogant, because it obscures rational discussion. I'll apologize if you're seeing it that way, but I'm reading my post over an over again and I'm not sure what's so offensive.

And you're correct that what I said could be applied to pretty much any topic discussed here, but I'm not sure why that makes it worthless. It's just a response to some of the posts over the last nine pages, which have been less than helpful.

As for the volumes of existing thought on the subject, I just wanted to point out the fact that people with more brains and time than any of us will ever had have thought about and argued over this, and it's still not a solved problem, even in the abstract. Any philosophy 101 course will include how there are various schools of thought on how you even DEFINE suffering, and whether its relative depending on the organism or a universal constant. I'm not so rash as to think that I know better than everyone else exactly who is right and who is wrong, so looking at what others have said outside of this thread is probably a good idea.

And lastly, that post wasn't even particularly aimed at you Grey Fox. But I wasn't assuming anyone was an idiot. I was suggesting that effecting ethical and dietary change brings into play all of those factors, because food-related behavior is one of the cores of human society. It's social "inertia" is massive, and causing even the slightest change over a large segment of the population is a monumental task that can take decades. It requires alterations in the meat industry, alterations in religion, major changes in social behavior, and even changes in how we identify ourselves and our heritage. All meaning that the side of the fence that thinks meat is here to stay has a damn good point, whether its ethically justifiable or not.

 

[Qonfused]

I just watched the Environmental episode from this season. The beginning two minutes are hilarious.

It opens to Penn lighting a match and talking about how, since there's an energy crisis, that they now have to conserve energy. The match goes out. "Luckily, for you and me, the energy crisis is bullshit!" The lights go on to reveal them sitting in an old beater with tons of lamps, lights and neon signs sitting in the back on the car.

Then a few moments later he's like: "Nuclear power, oil, hybrid cars, lesbians and tits! Did Al Gore give you tits? No he did not!"

It's not an episode based on global warming, but more about the use of nuclear power.

 

[_Z_Ryuken]

Great episode, first one I saw. If only the US would embrace nuclear power.

 

[PvtRyan]

I just watched the Environmental episode from this season. The beginning two minutes are hilarious.

It opens to Penn lighting a match and talking about how, since there's an energy crisis, that they now have to conserve energy. The match goes out. "Luckily, for you and me, the energy crisis is bullshit!" The lights go on to reveal them sitting in an old beater with tons of lamps, lights and neon signs sitting in the back on the car.

Then a few moments later he's like: "Nuclear power, oil, hybrid cars, lesbians and tits! Did Al Gore give you tits? No he did not!"

It's not an episode based on global warming, but more about the use of nuclear power.

"Talking about licking, lets see how our lesbians are doing"

And yeah, the environmentalist movement is retarded. They've so scared everyone of nuclear power that here in Holland we're gonna built more coal plants instead of nuclear power plants. Oh well, no one cares about the thousands that die each year in China mining coal.

 

[The Brick]

"Talking about licking, lets see how our lesbians are doing"

And yeah, the environmentalist movement is retarded. They've so scared everyone of nuclear power that here in Holland we're gonna built more coal plants instead of nuclear power plants. Oh well, no one cares about the thousands that die each year in China mining coal.

Actually I suspect the biggest reason to be money and profits. Oil is an enormously profitable businesses.

 

[PvtRyan]

Actually I suspect the biggest reason to be money and profits. Oil is an enormously profitable businesses.

Energy is energy, it will be sold for the same price per kWh. There's really no support for nuclear energy here, plans to build a new reactor were quickly shot down and I think only one political party is somewhat receptive to the concept of nuclear energy (CDA, and only when other options don't work out). Instead they invest in garbage like offshore wind turbines, 36 of those 100m tall fuckers only generate about 30 MW of reliable energy, peanuts compared to the 1 GW of a coal plant or at least 500 MW from a nuclear power plant.

 

[Direwolf]

Actually I suspect the biggest reason to be money and profits. Oil is an enormously profitable businesses.

I think its probably a tag-team. Theres a basic unease (at least in the US) about nuclear power, especially in the Northeast, since we've seen a few accidents here. No one has ever died directly from one of them, but a little bit of careless monitoring, bad engineering, and premature implementation has created a good deal of ill will towards the nuclear power industry.

 

[The Monkey]

I really, really hate that show. It seems like its only purpose is to say "fuck" as many times as possible within 40 minutes. Even if you might agree with them on a subject, you lose all respect for them because they fail to miserably at making good and valid arguments, and just swear and joke around instead.

 

[Qonfused]

I really, really hate that show. It seems like its only purpose is to say "fuck" as many times as possible within 40 minutes. Even if you might agree with them on a subject, you lose all respect for them because they fail to miserably at making good and valid arguments, and just swear and joke around instead.

Uh yeah basically.

 

[PvtRyan]

I really, really hate that show. It seems like its only purpose is to say "fuck" as many times as possible within 40 minutes. Even if you might agree with them on a subject, you lose all respect for them because they fail to miserably at making good and valid arguments, and just swear and joke around instead.

And then there's this asshole.

The purpose of the show isn't to be a massive eye opener and provide a fair detailed comparison of two sides, of most things you already know it's bullshit, the show is there to then provide the facts for it, summarize the issue in crystal clear words and ridicule the dumbass side of the debate. I don't know about you, but I think a guy swearing, making jokes, ridiculing people and showing tits for no real reason is entertaining. Besides that, Penn is just sincere.

Also:

Since their act is not normally associated with a frequent use of profanity, Jillette explains their choice of using the term "bullshit" in the opening episode: if they referred to people as frauds or liars, they could be sued for slander, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of chicanery, but as "vulgar abuse" is not legally considered slanderous, referring to them as assholes or mother****ers ostensibly expresses an opinion rather than a statement of fact and is legally safer for them.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit!#Title

 

[Kamikazie]

I just started watching the whole series...gotta catch up.

 

[Tyguy]

I really, really hate that show. It seems like its only purpose is to say "fuck" as many times as possible within 40 minutes. Even if you might agree with them on a subject, you lose all respect for them because they fail to miserably at making good and valid arguments, and just swear and joke around instead.

they consistently make good arguments, and its supposed to be funny...ergo the jokes...i dont lose respect for them

 

[theotherguy]

Energy is energy, it will be sold for the same price per kWh. There's really no support for nuclear energy here, plans to build a new reactor were quickly shot down and I think only one political party is somewhat receptive to the concept of nuclear energy (CDA, and only when other options don't work out). Instead they invest in garbage like offshore wind turbines, 36 of those 100m tall fuckers only generate about 30 MW of reliable energy, peanuts compared to the 1 GW of a coal plant or at least 500 MW from a nuclear power plant.

Nuclear power is great, but it has a few problems:

Nuclear waste- all that radioactive water has to go somewhere, and generally it goes into barrels to be stored at some expensive underground site. Sometimes they simply dump it.

Possible meltdown- Chernobyl, Long Island, you get the picture. The more nuclear power plants there are the greater our chances of meltdown.

Nuclear proliferation-Nuclear power plants require nuclear fuel. Nuclear fuel can be used to make nuclear weapons. If there are more nuclear power plants in unsecured areas, the chances of a terrorist getting nuclear fuel with which to make a nuclear bomb rise.

If we can minimize these problems nuclear power would be an excellent alternative to oil and coal because it produces no greenhouse gases. The reason wind turbines and solar panels are an excellent choice is because the energy you get from them is essentially free, and requires no fuel. They also expend no byproduct other than electricity. These benefits alone are enough to build them everywhere.

 

[The Monkey]

And then there's this asshole.

The purpose of the show isn't to be a massive eye opener and provide a fair detailed comparison of two sides, of most things you already know it's bullshit, the show is there to then provide the facts for it, summarize the issue in crystal clear words and ridicule the dumbass side of the debate. I don't know about you, but I think a guy swearing, making jokes, ridiculing people and showing tits for no real reason is entertaining. Besides that, Penn is just sincere.

Meh, I have more fun when I go to the bathroom.

 

[PvtRyan]

Nuclear power is great, but it has a few problems:

Nuclear waste- all that radioactive water has to go somewhere, and generally it goes into barrels to be stored at some expensive underground site. Sometimes they simply dump it.

Possible meltdown- Chernobyl, Long Island, you get the picture. The more nuclear power plants there are the greater our chances of meltdown.

Nuclear proliferation-Nuclear power plants require nuclear fuel. Nuclear fuel can be used to make nuclear weapons. If there are more nuclear power plants in unsecured areas, the chances of a terrorist getting nuclear fuel with which to make a nuclear bomb rise.

If we can minimize these problems nuclear power would be an excellent alternative to oil and coal because it produces no greenhouse gases. The reason wind turbines and solar panels are an excellent choice is because the energy you get from them is essentially free, and requires no fuel. They also expend no byproduct other than electricity. These benefits alone are enough to build them everywhere.

Radioactive water? You can't make water radioactive. Radioactivity is isotopes of elements like uranium decaying into other isotopes and by doing so they release alpha, beta or gamma particles. Or do you mean particles of a radioactive substance being dissolved in the cooling water? Either way, doesn't happen. There is radioactive waste of course, but like you said it can be dealt with. You hear the activists talking about stuff that takes "millions of years before it isn't radioactive any more" which is true, but what they completely miss is that they have such a long half-life BECAUSE they decay very slowly and thus only release minimal radiation. The dangerous radioactive waste (immediate danger, like Uranium-235) is always also the fastest with decaying.

Meltdown? As in Chernobyl? Impossible. And not in a "the Titanic can't sink" kind of impossible, just physically not possible because they work in a very different way and the Chernobyl design was a design that would never have been made in the West. Not to mention that the accident happened with all safety systems consciously SHUT OFF while they were performing a dangerous experiment. So shitty reactor design, no active safety systems and a dangerous experiment. I'll take the risk of the next generation of nuclear reactors over the certainty of death caused by continuing to linger with fossil fuels. Any idea how many people die each year because of air pollution by fossil fuels and how many die mining coal in Russia and China?

Terrorists making nukes out of the fuels? If I'm correct on this, they can't do shit with the reactor rods because it's very impure uranium while nuclear bombs using uranium require almost pure uranium-235. A product of nuclear power is among others plutonium which can also be used to build a bomb, but a plutonium bomb is highly complex and impossible to build for a bunch of goatfuckers. We've got already existing nuclear weapons to worry about, not terrorists building new ones, there's shitloads of "lost nukes" from the Russians which is a lot bigger of a threat.

Watch this physics lecture on nukes, it's school but fun to watch:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...337&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

 

[Direwolf]

If we're taking into consideration the building of new reactors, there are some really interesting designs that people have come up with over the years. Some would never melt down no matter what was done, and others could run on already "spent" nuclear fuel. In the future, the idea of pairing these smaller nuclear plants with hydrogen production machinery could be the easiest way to create fuel.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I really, really hate that show. It seems like its only purpose is to say "fuck" as many times as possible within 40 minutes. Even if you might agree with them on a subject, you lose all respect for them because they fail to miserably at making good and valid arguments, and just swear and joke around instead.

Meh. Go watch the swearing episode.