NASA Working On Faster-Than-Light Warp Drive 2013

[DigitalBuddha]

Star trek type warp drive is a bit contradictory I think as it is intended for inter stellar space transit yet most stories have them exiting warp next to planets which would bugger the planet as the space it occupies is affected by the ships warp bubble. The theory is the ship moves space rather than moves through space so it doesn't actually move faster than light in relative terms. But the energy required to do it is astronomical, no pun intended.

Mistakes in Star Trek Science and Other...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLxFLOW9ew

[meekon5]

Thank you for your reply

Read the whole sentence! It's the "or" that makes a difference. 

I did do (Read the whole sentence) and no it doesn't make a difference.

I could have said "60% of the western world either believe Jesus is coming back, or have converted to Islam", and it means the same thing. It wasn't my intent to put more emphasis on one or the other;

Not what I meant.

just making the point that we seem to be moving backwards with this whole religion thing...  I blame it on the poor education system, but that's me...

Yes that's what I understood.

The Abrahamic religion (religion descended from Abraham) is both sides. To look for Jesus coming back is to believe in his resurrection which I was taking as basically christian, and converting to Islam, is the second of the abrahamic religions (Judaism being the third).

What you are saying is six out of every ten people is either christian (looking for the end of times, Jesus' return, the anti-christ risen) or turning to islam.

It was the whole statement I was disagreeing (imhdo) with.

This may be coloured by your particular environment.

It's not my experience.

In fact there is a point of view that though younger people are converting to Islam more are coverting away to christianity (Every year six million Muslims convert to Christianity).

You have said sixty percent of the western world is either (or) christian or Muslim, I am saying that is not true.

I am asking for you to give the source of your figure.

I quoted the recent change in numbers of reported christian in the UK as an example of how coverage of religion can be misrepresented.

I feel your point of view may be biased by the gross over coverage by the media of certain individuals who have converted to Islam and been involved in recent attempts at terrorism.

By the figures I can find the coverage of any religious persuasion in the western world is not much over about twenty five percent (that includes other religions like Hindu and Buddhism, as well as Judaism, Islam and christianity).

I think just because they are the loudest people shouting on the television/down the pub/ on the street corner, all it does is make you concentrate on them and miss the majority of other (mostly atheist, or agnostic) people going quietly about their business.

Again if you can give the source of your sixty percent I would be glad to discuss this further.

[Hominid]

Again if you can give the source of your sixty percent I would be glad to discuss this further.

It was an opinion piece in the newspaper about the last American election. It said something to the effect that "more people are becoming religious, and that 60% are either people who have converted to Islam, or believe Jesus is coming back". So, not the western world - my bad... my concept of the western world is continent-centric being North American.  But my point stands... If you look at an American map of the distribution of Republican vs Democrats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states), it's scary to know that you cannot get elected as a Republican if you're not a Christian. Claiming to be an atheist or agnostic is political suicide.

[wuliheron]

Again if you can give the source of your sixty percent I would be glad to discuss this further.

It was an opinion piece in the newspaper about the last American election. It said something to the effect that "more people are becoming religious, and that 60% are either people who have converted to Islam, or believe Jesus is coming back". So, not the western world - my bad... my concept of the western world is continent-centric being North American.  But my point stands... If you look at an American map of the distribution of Republican vs Democrats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states), it's scary to know that you cannot get elected as a Republican if you're not a Christian. Claiming to be an atheist or agnostic is political suicide.

Some 87% of republicans are now Lilly white, 60% describe themselves as evangelical and 60% are rural, with an average of 22 times the wealth of blacks and 15 times that of Hispanics. A lot of senior citizens in particular making a killing off the stock market. Their wealth has increased 80 times over the last 40 years, while the average American has been lucky if they can tread water fast enough to keep from going under. Note that the stock market has become one of the few investments available after the banks were allowed to commit outright fraud and run the housing market and world economy into the toilet.

The irony is that during the 1930s progressives went to these same southern states and warned people if they did not rotate their crops and do stupid simple things like plant cover crops it would lead to disaster. The progressives were willing to teach anyone who wanted to learn how to such things, but the conservatives laughed at them. Then the dust bowl hit and the progressives went in and cleaned up the mess. Last year with global warming the stupid rednecks had to kill half their cattle. The same ignorant rednecks in the same states that collect the lion's share of federal assistance including farming subsidies and insist on cutting any other type of federal spending. They've become so foam at the mouth their own children have been abandoning fundamentalist churches and the republican party which are both going down the toilet fast while grandma and grandpa watch Fox news and rant and rave about the wages of sinful illegal aliens, food stamps, homosexuality, and welfare. Obama was overwhelmingly elected by the growing urban populations which have only now begun to exceed those of the rednecks.

[meekon5]

Again if you can give the source of your sixty percent I would be glad to discuss this further.

It was an opinion piece in the newspaper about the last American election. It said something to the effect that "more people are becoming religious, and that 60% are either people who have converted to Islam, or believe Jesus is coming back". So, not the western world - my bad... my concept of the western world is continent-centric being North American.  But my point stands... If you look at an American map of the distribution of Republican vs Democrats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states), it's scary to know that you cannot get elected as a Republican if you're not a Christian. Claiming to be an atheist or agnostic is political suicide.

Much like Blair converting to Catholicism.

Actually I can see that more, but there is still an aspect of the media throwing pictures of young white boys with big beards being arrested or questioned after converting to Islam.

[wuliheron]

The growing majority of developed world countries are now secular with a majority of the population not claiming any religious affiliation. Religion has even been on the decline in the US for the last half century and what religions remain have diversified. Evidently once a government manages to promote a decent standard of living and provide a comprehensive safety net people drop religion like a wet cat and suddenly have more faith in their governments. In the US the poor have abandoned religion en mass as entitlements have expanded and the young have abandoned fundamentalist churches as their pulpits have become political stumps claiming taxes are a sin and we must keep the present taxes on the wealthy at lower than 1950s levels and cut entitlements to the bone.

According to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth which is the same number who believe Jesus will return in their lifetime. That's not a problem with education, but flat out denial on massive scale driven by economics.

[Masked Dude]

Not that I mind the push for secular rights and ideas for scientific advances (I wish we would)...

I hope some sort of Alcubierre or space-folding drive is possible. Sure, mathematically it's probably impossible or at best improbable. However, many things we knew for sure in the past were later proven to be false. For instance, how much phlogiston is in your chair? Right, none. But a long time ago, that was fact, not just a formula.

Whether we have space folders or jump gates, I hope we finally start looking elsewhere. Are we ready for that right now? Probably not. However, some times we need a huge kick in the ass before things can happen. If we keep waiting, we might be waiting forever. Yes, just as pioneers and explorers had bad luck, we need to start seriously looking into such things. Before that, however, we might want to consider responsible undersea or Antarctic domiciles.

Eventually we'll go out of our comfort zone and atmosphere for another planet. But the only way we can do that is if we stop using personal feelings and emotions to say what we can and can't do.

If there's a deity, and we are coming up with theories on how to do it... It's possible.
If there's not a deity, we're not going to fly up its ass up there in space. Therefore let's go.

The problem I see it, and that's just, like, my opinion, is that we're just too damn afraid to do certain things. Space folding engines, city farms, gene therapy, all that, we're just so damned afraid of something. We're still prey animals in our minds and we're still afraid of the big boom in the sky.

Let's grow up, do it right, and do what we do best: grow.

[Oompa Loompa Dude]

"Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus."

Just take it easy, man, lets go bowling, no need to develop interstellar warp drives now...I mean, they already gave dude a beeper, and I don't think they even have oat sodas in space, think about dudes, I mean, has that ever occurred to you?

True...you might find a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster...but I personally prefer a caucasian Gary....and even though I like your style, you got a whole futuristic thing goin, I gotta tell you....warning bells ringin dudes....
Sometimes you eat space but sometimes space...well, he eats you.

Oompa Loompa Doopity Dude...

Besides, I still jerk off manually.