It's not a black hole.

It just imitates one of the traits of a black hole.

It's like calling an orange a mini-sun because it's the same color.

As a person who has gone through Major Depression, I agree with the article.

I think we really misunderstand depression. I experienced nearly 10 years of it (5 years in the middle being the most intense).

For the first half, I treated it as a meaningless chemical imbalance. I ignored it, I distracted it, it got worse, I medicated it. I nearly died.

For the second half, I treated it as a meaningful signal that my life had legitimate issues that needed solving. I spent a couple years in intense introspection, and deconstruction.

I addressed many, many issues. I no longer have depression. In spite of a childhood of extreme abuse, neglect, and dysfunction, I now am a fully-function adult with healthy relationships. I am not medicated, and I haven't had a single session of therapy.

Granted it was a rough few years... but at least I got to the bottom of my issues.

Not every trait has to be useful. It could simply be that the growth process that results in fingerprints (the shrinking skin layers of the fetus) is the simplest, most efficient growth process.

In other words, fingerprints could be a useless bi-product.

the threat of spies and terrorists and violent illegal immigrants is so minimal, that training children to "fight" or "uncover" it on any level is patently dishonest.

The only 2 explanations: (1) the organization is formed to cater to the delusions of the children's parents or (2) the organization is formed to shunt children into a life of collusion with the military industrial complex.

Hear, hear for training kids in constructive life skills, even survivalist ones. Boo on teaching children paramilitary combat techniques....

Bah, von Skippy, any IQ over 150 is in the triple 9.

"The attitude of kids not being “owned” is exactly why so many kids are out of control."

There are plenty of good parents, with good kids, who don't feel the need to resort to taking the position of treating their children like property. And no shortage of child abuse on every level as the default pattern of societies that treat children as "owned".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of obnoxious children. But I'm not willing to go back the things were and thing that's an improvement...

I've had good experiences with taxi drivers.

One Christmas eve, I took a taxi to the train station for a long winter trip. Moments before boarding I realized I couldn't find my cell phone. I was about to make a panicked call to a friend on a payphone, and I turned and saw the cab driver holding my phone. He had found it in the backseat and drove all the way back to the station to return it.

yes, scientists have been profiting off the rest of society for so long, and have given so little in return...

science is a process of constantly finding links and making predictions (hypotheses) which are proved right or wrong.

Very different from random people "guessing" at causes (vaccines, tv, martians).

Fail, because a self-powered treadmill needs to be slanted the opposite direction...

Chandrielle,

Everything Neatorama linked to was SFW. You can't expect others to warn you of the potential for NSFW findings in your own independent research.

Also, if you actually just read the 4chan homepage, you would have seen that it has an Adult section.

"Thee" is not the plural form of "thou".

"Thee" is singular, and is used when it is the object of the sentence. As in "I love thee".

The plural of "thou" is "ye"

Olbiver Gaiole

I'd be less suspicious if the winner was homely....

Nutjob.

(btw, by I used the term metallurgy too broadly. I was referring to specifically to iron and the iron age, as I thought you had been)

The world is full of the gamut of expressions. As such, it becomes a Rorschach test of sorts. Where I see disparaging remarks, but you see a conspiracy. The difference is I don't care about race, and you do.

Notice that you see my post as one-sided. When I actually chided both the original post, and yours, rather equally. Your perception is biased.

The crimes of one population(in this case colonial Europe of the 16-19th centuries)have nothing to do with the contributions of another (European contributions to African society). You're smart, but throwing a bunch of irrelevant points up to validate your own preconceived ideas.

And you've created a false dichotomy. The choice is not between shallow PC historical fluff, and semi historical racist rants.

I'm not going to read this thread anymore, so if you decide to have the last word, address everyone else. I won't be reading.

Cheers!

The post was fluffy and inaccurate.

However, where did the Carthaginians learn matallurgy? From the Hittites and/or other Mesopotamian civilizations. Where is the oldest known ironwork? Egypt. Africa.

It's not a competition. Posts about the art or technology of a region don't have to eschew historicity to bestow a patronizing compliment on the progress of the indigenous people, and we can respond and correct the issues, without having to leap to the historical defense of dead whitish colored people.