Re: Obama's Faith in the Golden Rule

On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:12:02 -0500, Damaeus wrote:

Reading from news:talk.origins,
john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (John S. Wilkins) posted:

Mark Isaak <eciton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:47:53 -0500, Damaeus wrote:

A fact for you to keep in mind: "Gnostic" does not mean what you
think it means. Not even close.

He clearly doesn't know.

But the problem here is that nobody even gives their version. They just
say you're wrong, go study, then come back. That's not how you spread
knowledge. That's how you're selfish with it.

Sweet baby Cthulhu, you have a nice library complete with climate
control, adequate lighting, comfy chairs, and a group of professional
librarians who will fetch you the books you need. And it's all FREE!

What more do you want?

I /am/ very open.

The hell you are. You're not open to reading, you're not open to
learning.

But
so far, I've written reams of information to get some kind of
penetrating conversation started, and people only tell me why
immortality won't work, even though no experiments for it have even been
attempted, then they tell me to go study and I'll see why it won't work.

Evidently you haven't even bothered typing in "cell immortality" into
wikipedia. It's really common. It's called cancer. See the entry for
HeLa.

I already know why it won't work.

Wrong again!

It never has been done.

Wrong again!

That's
plenty of reason for me. I was looking for people like you, who already
know biology, to think about how it might be possible, based on what you
know, and then I was hoping you would tell me THAT, instead of repeating
to me, someone so obviously passionate about immortality, to go study,
it's impossible, don't waste our time.

For a very reasonable fee, I'll be happy to transcribe any biology
textbook you like into an easily-digestible series of usenet posts.
Excuse me if I don't volunteer to do this for free.


So I'll just ask flat out. If you wanted to find dormant seeds of
immortality in the human body, waiting to sprout, where would you look?

Telomerase mutations, and I hope you never have to see it up close and
personal.

I was thinking about the DNA, particularly junk DNA, since, unless
things have changed recently, was somewhat of a mystery. If I had
access to a lab, I'd be working in that area, specifically.

This is quite a shame, really. I learn fast when people are
cooperative, but I don't like interacting with a textbook that is not
responding to my input.


Let me give you an example of how this works. I had a question about
fitness based on something I read in a textbook. I posted my question
here with a short quotation from the book. Within hours, I had a dozen
references to papers that would not only answer my question, but explain
the roots of the issue, how people have attacked the problem over the
past fifty years, and the criticisms of those solutions. I printed them
out, took them home, and have been busy reading them. If I have any
further questions, I can repeat the process.

Because I've bothered to do a bit of reading, I get taken seriously (at
least to a point). This isn't limited to t.o. For example:

"How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

See the sections:

"Grovelling is not a substitute for doing your homework"

and

"RTFM and STFW: How To Tell You've Seriously Screwed Up"

Quoting from the latter:

"There is an ancient and hallowed tradition: if you get a reply that
reads “RTFM”, the person who sent it thinks you should have Read The
Fucking Manual. He or she is almost certainly right. Go read it.
.....
Often, the person telling you to do a search has the manual or the web
page with the information you need open, and is looking at it as he or
she types. These replies mean that he thinks (a) the information you need
is easy to find, and (b) you will learn more if you seek out the
information than if you have it spoon-fed to you.
.....
You shouldn't be offended by this; by hacker standards, your respondent
is showing you a rough kind of respect simply by not ignoring you. You
should instead be thankful for this grandmotherly kindness."

Now, please, RTFM.



Damaeus

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