Why do uneducated people have opinions?

About things they know nothing about?

I've been arguing with this one guy about time dilation in physics. He claims time does not dilate and it's just an effect on the instruments of measurement.

I wrote out the Schrödinger equation and he couldn't even make heads or tails of it. To wit: he has no idea what he's talking about. But he keeps running his mouth.

Would just walk away but he's in for the holidays with my extended family. I'm going to end up ripping his head off before the week is over, I can feel it coming.

Opinions are like assholes--everyone has them, and most of the time, they're full of crap.

That's annoying, especially when people waffle on.

To solve this problem, knock his lights out.

We need people the rest of us can laugh at.

Its coming, believe me.

Make sure you tape his mouth too :P

Can I do the car battery to the nipples thing? Please?

Go for it. Nothing can stop you now lol

Is he a creationist? Specifically an intelligent designer?

This is super common with creationists who try to use science to disprove science.

Physics i cant speak on but biology i can, and whenever i get into arguments with these people it astounds me how much they manage to get wrong.

Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. Thankfully he's got other arrangements than staying at my place, but I'm going to be seeing him plenty tomorrow and Friday.

He knows I'm into science so he always singles me out with these stupid views of his. He's an agitator as much as he is ignorant.

If he doesn't quit just remind him he's not catholic and killing himself to get to his wonderfully scientifically incorrect heaven is not a sin and should be his ultimate goal.

Yah that's how it goes.

There's some ex-crackheads a few blocks down that i hire to do my yard, it used to be super cheap when they smoked crack but now its 20 bucks more. But whatever, they're clean and good for them. However as part of their sobriety they've REALLY gotten into the ID/DI and every time they come to do my yard, they want to challenge me. And the conversation usually goes like "Well, how do you explain this?", usually on the topic of evolution and i give them a factual answer. But then they shotgun shit at me, they cant stay on topic, cant accept answers and cannot accept that they know nothing on the subject. Of course, this is something ive dealt with for a decade on the internet, but its rare to have people do this in person and as often as they do.

These guys will also bring up the same fake evidence every time i speak with them. Like the raptor fossil that was faked in China. Apparently to them this demonstrates all fossils are fake and that dinosaurs didnt exist. When i have to explain to them that anything of value can and will be counterfeited and that the same people telling them the millions of fossils they've dug up are real, are the one's who also have to explain to them why the faked one is not, thats when t hey move on. And its usually to like "Well what about the golden chariot that was dug up?" "You mean the thing you guys saw a youtube video about? The thing done by some 14 year old who is reading articles from the discovery institute? The same discovery institute who never actually has these things but claims they do?".

Oh, one trick i found with creationists who decide to make you a project. Simply tell them you're Jewish. Then they are insulted but comfortable that you believe in similar nonsense. So they leave you alone.

I've been around that circle a few times. Whatever answer is given, they go off an a tangent that has no relevance to the specifics being discussed. Their circular logic is maddening,

Yah, thats typical.

Its never difficult debating these peoples ideas, but its difficult debating them becasue they're convinced in things that are wrong and they don't understand they (nor the person they got the information from) are remotely qualified to speak on the topics they do.

But, you and I are bound for hell because we dare question lunacy. Bring the peanuts, I've got the booze.

You ever watch Thunderfoot or know who he is? He's a chemist who does youtube videos, often on either chemistry or religion. You should check out his old series called "Why people laugh at creationists". He does a fairly good job of dismantling many of their arguments.

Thanks dude....was trying to eat. It's spot on....but still. ;p

Never heard of em, but I'll check him out. Thanks.

Most of the series is between 7-12 minutes or so. So its not too bad. But they are full of laughs and exposing religious frauds.

I have yet to meet another person in belgium who is a creationist.

I guess our education system is the reason for that, it's mandatory till 18 and even the poorest people can study to be whatever, a surgeon, and engineer. Heck, if you're below a certain income the scolarship you get will be more than you actually need to pay for that education.

Defenitely one of the perks of socialism.

That doesn't mean we're all good at everything though, like physics. It's funny the op mentions time dilation since there's a dutch guy that wrote a book over einstein and time dilation recently, he called it travel agency einstein and according to him when we travel at near light speed, let's say the center of the galaxy, which is 24 000 lightyears away. it would only take us 40 years because of time dilation, but on earth 24 thousand years would have been passed, and this is something einstein proved, at least that's what he's saying.

Now I did learn about einstein clocks and time dilation but I never did give it much tought. I also thought when something was 24 thousand lightyears away, it would take you 24 thousand years to get there when you travel at the speed of light, a bit longer with the near speed of light, and the time passed on earth would simply be longer.

I did wonder about those instruments too you know, but If I remember correctly, einstein has proven this mathematically as well. Either way, I'm educated enough to know that I don't know enough about the subject to have an argument about it with someone that knows more about the subject than me, but if I was younger that could have been different. Maybe I would have stuck with my reasoning just not to lose face. Maybe that's the case with brokenrabbit's family member... I don't know.

I do think it's quite intriguing you can travel so far in space in your lifetime (if that book is right), there would still the the problem of accelerating and decelerating though. Not to mention space debree, and the fact that everyone would be aged a lot more than you when you come back but heck by the time we're able to pull that off, we'll probably found a way to live a lot longer anyway.

lol

That's pretty much how time dilation works. The closer you get to C, the less time you experience. At C, you experience no time at all.

In fact, at C, the whole universe appears two dimensional with the point of origin and the destination occupying the same space, no matter how far apart they are. A photon that was created in the Big Bang that is still traveling through the universe has observed not a single instance since the Big Bang.

Quantum physics is crazy weird, but that's why it's so cool. Now, if you want to get into some mind-boggling shit, we can talk about superposition. ;-)

Do you ever create a thread where you're not pissed off at someone?

Now don't get me wrong, I think you're a nice guy but maybe time for you to evaluate your confrontational nature and maybe get your blood pressure measured.

Oh and, STOP TALKING TO STUPID PEOPLE! :P

I expired all those topics in my first decade here. This is the decade of my discontent, so suffer.

:-p

Fair enough XD I still think you might have to move though. Those people around you are killing your sanity.

I'm too stubborn. They'll have to move. :-)

Honestly, people do piss me off. I don't have anger issues, though. I don't get into screaming matches and I only hit if hit first. But I'm the type of person that will put someone down in such a sneaky backdoor way that I'll often get the person I'm putting down to agree. I am pretty good with verbal manipulation. :-D

What state do you live in?

Im in central Florida here, so.......... ya..... i get it.

East fucking Tennessee. Find Knoxville, then go WNW until you hit Oak Ridge. Right there.

Nice.

Ive been to Knoxville, had a good time. Lotta rednecks (hillbillies i guess) and religious folk though. About the same as Florida.

Well in a sense it is an effect on the instruments of measurement. Depends on what he means...

Well I do understand schrodingers cat, I also understand superposition. They make more sense than the time dilation to me, however, my point with that book (travel agency einstein) was that the distances to other stars suddenly are so short when it comes to time for the traveller.

I had numerous discussions about star travel, even on this very site, and no one ever talked about time dilation, everyone I talked too seemded to agree that 10 lightyears was going to be a travel time of 10 years when you travel a lightspeed, of course you can't travel at the speed of light, so we said something near to lightspeed and with accelerating and decelerating it would take even longer, so going back and forward could easily be something like 30-40 years to a star that's 10 lightyears away, and that's not even that far compared to most stars.

Even seeing numerous documentaries , no one ever said that travel time would be so much shorter if you travel at such speeds. To me this was something I never heard of, and I've been interested in this stuff since I was in my early twenties, I am now almost 40.

But now after hearing the presentation of that book , a star that's 10 lightyears away, would be like travel time of what? half a year? and half a year to come back. That puts interstellar travel in a whole different perspective, and this is something we already knew of since einstein? Apparently most people who made space documentaries didn't really know what they were talking about. No one ever mentioned this shit, and i think it's fairly important enough to mention it. Interstellar travel doesn't seem so impossible anymore, actually it looks quite doable, the only problem is that whatever you leave behind, will age a lot faster than you, but that's a whole different ballgame than travelling 10 years to the nearest star system, when you can do it in a couple of months.

As you mentioned acceleration and deceleration will take some time. You will have to decelerate exactly as long as you accelerated, so you'll have to carry half your fuel for the deceleration. Accelerating/decelerating would take months, and the faster you go the more thrust you're going to have to produce to get even faster. Eventually you'll be giving a lot of extra thrust for little return in speed.

It's an engineering nightmare, which is why scientists are now looking at ways to power the spacecraft from a remote position, like an array of Earth-based lasers for the recently announced Starshot program.

Isn't there some sort of engine that needs very little fuel to accelerate, like something with shooting just a couple of atoms or moleculus out at a time. I think it's called an ion thruster. If you have bunch of those combined with more classic engines shouldn't that be doable. I think at this point it's more a problem of money than engineering.

Ion thrusters are slow to accelerate. You could give it a boost with conventional engines. But as with conventional engines, the faster you go the less your return. Since ion thrusters are slow accelerators anyway, you're going to spend a lot of time hoping that speedometer jumps up just a little bit, more so than with conventional engines.

Ion thrusters I believe top out around 300,000 KPH, which isn't fast enough to really notice time dilation outside of simple measurement.

Why do you even waste your time arguing with him? Why don't you just straight out tell him he doesn't know enough about the subject to be worth your time? The worst thing that happens is that he will believe he won, but you can't win in an argument against him anyway.

@br0kenrabbit: how can they top out at 300000 kph?

Hate to bring physics back up but, yeah. Ion drives still need fuel (xenon I think) and you still have the problem of exponentially increasing fuel intake as you gain speed for less and less return. And of course the more fuel you need the bigger your ship has to be so the more fuel you need to move that extra mass.

hehe, like you said an engineering nightmare

oh well, we're probably not ready on a social and biological level to reach for the stars anyway. Coming back from the stars after 2 years only to realize everyone has aged 50 years is going to be a recipe for insanity Your children would be older than you.

It could even be much worse, you might find the planet of the apes...

Empty it once or twice a day?

This thread brings back bad memories of a "modern physics" class I took in undergrad.

It's one thing to discuss it and read about it, but I lost a lot of interest when I had to solve exam problems related to it. Made me thankful I'm in engineering and not physics research :p

@br0kenrabbit: Better questions is why do the educated think there part of the 1%

You could be a genious... if your goals dont satisfy the ppl that regulate world they will turn even facts into seemin theories etc.

The 1% is greedy which the only reason why the uneducated exist in the numbers they do. Just dont let it phase you.

Theres always others else where that are on your level atleast.

I went to the same public schools most other people did. In fact, I attended rural schools where many of the textbooks were older than I.

No one is keeping anyones intellect down. The reason I excelled in an environment where others failed is because instead of climbing the social ladder and worrying about being cool, I was nose-deep in books because I was interested in learning.

Most of the people I went to school with never got anywhere, but that's on them. They had the same tools and resources I did, and chose not to take advantage of them. Their fault, no one else's.

@br0kenrabbit: if you were rasied to get hit and be deprived. Or if everyone around since you were an infant were i the wrong lane you might of grew up different. Look at the middle east. Its all about whats observed during a youth unique circumstances

Never ever think ppl have the same resources as you. That aspect gets very complicated. Ppls bodies and minds have different chemical make ups that the 1percent doesn't properly cater to. There secretly trying to keep the minds that chemically incline with there school systems and national goals

Leaving the non typical to struggle or easly take route that cheaply atleast makes them half successful at things.

Theres a thin line btw working hard to be educated

And saying **** the more serious things in that perticular persons life and kissing ass to become educated

Its perfectly fine to have an opinion about anything - even stupid ones about things you know little about.

Just dont cling on to them for dear life as if your credibility hangs from them and be ready to abandon them when presented with information that proves you wrong.

Never waste good info on someone who will try to throw it in the trash. That has become my personal motto as of 2017

Nation's Uncles Enter Last Stage Of Prep For Thursday's Thanksgiving Debates

https://www.theonion.com/nations-uncles-enter-last-stage-of-prep-for-thursdays-t-1819574224?utm_content=Main&utm_campaign=SF&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing

I'm just going to leave this here...

-Byshop

Ahahaha, shit.

If you know that he doesn't know and you continue to argue with him, and you know he will not be convinced to accept your point of view and argument--you may not be much better off than him. Have some patience.

What's the saying?

If only closed minds came with closed mouths.

Here is my opinion: I feel that people that don't know anything have a sort of inferiority complex, so they need to express themselves in some way that gives them attention. Because they don't know what they are talking about, they take a "shotgun" approach and just constantly spew nonsense in the hopes that they will be right often enough to be taken seriously.

"The earth is flat! Unicorns exist! Two plus two is four! The government is controlled by lizard people!" and so on. When we tell them to be quiet, they'll go "Hey I was right on the math, wasn't I?"

and we need opinions like we need an asshole on our elbows.