1. Out of the Blue

Comment #140738 by Nuspirit on March 8, 2008 at 1:12 pm

I don't really agree with the various statements about having to wait x amount of years before we could simulate a brain in real time.

Given the highly parallel nature of the problem, you can always achieve more computing power by throwing more processors at it. There are of course practical considerations with interconnecting all those processors, but in theory we could already have 1000 times "faster" computer than the currently fastest one if we just built one with 1000 times more processors and figured out an architecture to interconnect them all.

It wouldn't work for every type of computation, but in this case it could since the problem is rather straightforwardly about a huge amount of parallel computation.

2. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #138054 by Nuspirit on March 3, 2008 at 8:28 pm

One angle I've been approaching this lately from is the separation of reasons into sufficient and necessary ones.

Take religion. Religion isn't a sufficient reason to do bad things, at least generally (it seems to be for some people though). But can it be a necessary reason? It does seem obvious that it was a necessary reason in case of the Inquisition or any holy war really.

Now take atheism. Again, atheism obviously isn't a sufficient reason to commit atrocities either. But can it still be a necessary reason?. Now, even IF we entertained the notion that atheism had at least SOMETHING to do with why Stalin or Mao brutally persecuted their people, to construe it as the necessary reason, the reason that finally enabled them to do these things, is a far longer stretch of imagination and I think not something that many people would actually defend very far when pointed this out.

3. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134182 by Nuspirit on February 27, 2008 at 11:13 am

As do I but I can't get it to work with realmedia streams (as opposed to files).

Edit: Actually nevermind, just got it working with MPC.

4. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134172 by Nuspirit on February 27, 2008 at 11:01 am

An mp3 version would be fine. You pretty much have to hate your computer (and by extension yourself since you still have to use your computer afterwards) to install RealPlayer on it.

5. Whale Evolution

Comment #131042 by Nuspirit on February 21, 2008 at 7:20 pm

The video is great but I have to say it's somewhat overshadowed by the creationist version's fantastic degree of lunacy.

The guy presents something that would be flattered red by calling it a straw man argument, then proceeds to "disprove" evolution by pointing that it is not compatible with Genesis and lastly decides that if not because of anything else, science must be wrong because complex theories are harder to grasp than the concept of things being simply magicked into existence.

The mind reels.