(Part 3) Top products from r/explainlikeimfive

Animals are not the only ones which use tools, there has been documented tool use in many primates, bird species, invertebrates, and other mammals. Tools are not unique to humans. Just google tool use in animals, or watch videos of them using tools on youtube.

> Have an advantage over every other species ever?

Well, we still have a long way to go. We are not the longest lived species, or even the longest lived kind of species. For example, the bacteria have been around for billions of years, we hominins have only been around for ~7 million years. If you were to look at this from the perspective of an elephant or dolphin, there are plenty of things that they can do that we can't (like swim very well at all). So why have you determined that intelligence is the best and most superior trait to which we should compare all other species? That is a very human-centric point of view. From a dolphins perspective we look pretty dumb in the water.

What makes humans unique?

The short answer is not much, maybe aspects of three things: language, cognition and culture.

The long answer is this: Animal intelligence and intelligence in general is very very hard to define. Traditionally, we would test animals and define them based on what we thought humans could only do. One of our most defining characteristics was thought to be the use of tools - but that is so obviously not true, many animals from various orders use tools. And so we went down the list of things we thought were unique to humans and found that on some level or another animals could do the very same things we could - albeit under different contexts, usually pertaining specifically to the needs of the animal. I guess the easiest way to discuss this topic is to let you know about where animal behaviour science is.

Aspects of language: mainly in how complex we can make it, and our ability to change it so quickly. Animals also communicate in many different ways and we are still discovering new modes of communication. Some species display tendencies of recursiveness, syntax, regional dialects and other aspect of language that one might consider "human". This is a highly debated area.

(Human) language may require complex thought, but complex thought may not require language. It is hypothesized that "theory of mind must have preceded language use, based on evidence of use of the following characteristics: intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared plans and goals, intentional sharing of focus or topic, and pretending." - all of these precede language and we see many of them being expressed in animals, especially within the primate order. So first cognition then language. Why is this important? Because while animals may not be able to express themselves verbally in the same way we do, they may approximate us in many other aspects of cognition. This is important when we consider ethical treatment of animals. You wouldn't lock a 3 year old in a cage...yet that is exactly what we are doing with chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants. You wouldn't preform tests on a 5 year old yet we do that with macaques and rats. We are beginning to understand that these species feel, react and think much like we do - yet we still consider them to be "others" which are less worthy. This isn't a PETA statement, I am just trying to get you to think about why we treat other animals the way we do and if it is justified.

We also need to consider that many animals communicate using other senses - smell, touch, they even use magnetic fields to sense their world. Testing them on their ability to use speech or writing is biased. How should we test them? or even begin to compare them to humans? We also need to consider that our 'voice boxes' are developed in such a way that enables us to talk the way we do. You can't roar like a lion or make ultra low frequencies like a elephant - so why should we judge them on their ability to talk exactly like us? I am trying to get you to think from the perspective of another animal, not from the perspective of a human.

Language and communication take many forms. It has been postulated that gestures played an important role in pre-language hominins (including early humans), in that they used gestures rather than words to communicate. The snag is that there is no way for this to be archeologically preserved like written language or oral traditions and gestures don't require specific physical adaptions (i.e. you don't need a "voice box").

Aspects of cognition: We know that animals are capable of cognitive reasoning, problem solving, they teach and learn, they feel many if not all the emotions we feel especially mammals, they are capable of deception, lying, cheating etc. They have a concept of the "self" and "others". They are knowing, being and living like us to top it all off... they also have morals.

However, humans do stand apart in some key areas of cognition. Some researchers surmise that cooperative breeding enhances the performance of social cognitive domains and it also motivates the individual to share mental states with others. Cooperative breeding is a social system where mothers require help from others to raise their offspring - all human cultures exhibit this trait and this developed because we are bipedal and have trouble giving birth. Combined, cooperative breeding and the motivation to share mental states leads to shared intentionality, which is the ability and desire to work collaboratively with others towards a shared goal, as well as understanding that others are aware of your intentions. Cooperative breeding in primates to date is observed only in callatrichids and humans, both of which exhibit shared intentionality. What sets apart humans from other cooperative breeders with shared intentionality is our ancestral ape-level cognitive system. The unique combination of social cognitive skills, ape-level cognitive skills and shared intentionality led to the development of our species-specific traits, including language and enhanced cultural transmission. Our ape-level cognitive skills stem from freed grasping hands, our tool use and ability to solve complex problems.

In theory, extant apes have all the necessary cognitive preconditions (i.e. simple understanding of others mental states) approximating humans but they lack the motivational components of cooperative breeding, and thus lack shared intentionality. However, groups of chimpanzees hunting involve the delegation of tasks (i.e herders, ambushers) where all participants must assess the others hunting position and effectiveness in order to successfully carry out a shared goal. What is contested is whether they understand that together they are dedicated to the shared goal, a key component of shared intentionality.

Although there are two major camps on this it is thought that modern human intelligence and behaviour developed about 60,000 years ago in what is known as behavioural modernity. Before this date humans could not use language in the way we do it now, and effectively were more like chimpanzees in terms of intelligence. Humans evolved about 200,000 years ago. Others think that our intelligence developed slowly, over time not from one single mutation or behavioural event.

Aspects of Culture Animals posses culture in much the same way we do. There are countless examples and I would be happy to provide them but this post is already long enough. Human culture is only different in one way - we build upon previous experience. Known as the ratchet effect we can take someone else's idea and change it slightly to build on it, the previous idea is never lost. Our knowledge is continuously building upon its self. Animals have a harder time accomplishing this, if a novel idea is presented it takes a long time for it to take hold.

Fire and Cooking

I think fire and learning to cook food definitely changed the way our brains work - only fire and cooking predate humans. Physical fire and cooking evidence dates back 400,000-700,000 years. Things like fire pits and charred remains. Morphological evidence dates back 1.2 million years with Homo erectus being the first hominin to show morphological changes due to a change in diet - the teeth change, the length of the intestine changes etc. If the hominin body underwent such drastic changes as a result of cooking food, then why not the brain as well? There is a chimpanzee named Kanzi, who learned without training how to build a fire and cook food. So it is not necessarily that our closest cousins can't do something we think is uniquely human - they lack the motivation to do so.

Summary

My favourite quote that revolves around this topic is this: "“Everybody is a genius. But, "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid." – Albert Einstein. We need to make sure we are testing animal's intelligence in their own right - not based off of our own preconceptions or misconceptions. Moreover, its not cars, or guns or any modern object that we have that makes us unique it is the underlying behaviours and traits (like enhanced cooperation and cumulative culture) which make us unique.

If you have any questions or specific examples you would like me to explain please let me know.

TL;DR The only things that make humans different from other animals is that we have complex language, cumulative culture and shared intentionality. This does not make us better, just different.

The ability to feel, to have emotions, are not limited to human beings. Other animals also have and express emotions, from reptiles, to birds, to mammals. However, one could argue that mammals do it best. Our hallmark is that mammals, humans included, are very social beings...with sociality comes the ability to feel complex emotions.

Affective neuroscience is a very interesting area of study which examines "the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood." It also examines how our own neural mechanisms are mirrored in animals (and especially mammals) because of shared ancestry. The study of motion is definitely a very active area of science that permeates many different fields - evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, human behaviour, animal communication, human communication, origin of communication, psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology...each look at different questions concerning emotions.

In ELI5 words this means that animals are certainly capable of feeling emotions because the neural mechanisms that produce emotions are conserved through evolution, and are similar to the neural mechanisms that produce emotions in ourselves. All mammals, being related through common ancestry, have even more similar and conserved mechanisms - humans are of course mammals too!

But a few things to note:

1. The way animals express a particular emotion may differ from the way humans express that emotion. For example, humans often smile to exhibit happiness. But for the rest of the primate order smiling is either a signal of submissiveness or fear. This does not mean that other primates are incapable of feeling happiness, but that they very likely express it in different ways from ourselves. We also have to be very mindful that other animals, even cognitively complex ones, may be physically constrained and incapable of complex facial expressions. For example, we know dolphins are capable of a lot of complex cognitive tasks, they are able to identify themselves in the mirror and they may even have names for one another...but they don't have the facial musculature to make the expressions that are, well, as expressive as ours. Their emotions may not even be obvious for this reason, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
   
   
2. Humans like to make emotions poetic, like love. But love is simply a kind of attachment emotion. Humans become attached to each other and objects, sometimes to the point of obsession. Animals also become attached to each other. Mothers and their infants, bonding pairs of adults...all forms of attachment exhibited in the animal kingdom. Again if you were interested in studying love, as a scientist you would actually study attachment. I recommend the book affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions. It can be rather technical, but it is very good read. In any case, if we want to objectively study emotion and their origins, we sort of need to take the "humanity" out of emotions and look at them in a more universal way.
   
   As to why emotions would be beneficial there are a number of good reasons. First, it allows social beings to create meaningful attachments to each other, strengthening group bonds. This may allow a group to be better able to accomplish a task, which may benefit some or all of the group members. For example, defending a food resource from a neighbouring group. Emotions might also help an individual remember a negative experience. For example, becoming frustrated when being treated unfairly. This might help an individual remember who is helpful, and who is not. Even if the animal cannot recall a specific memory, they may form impressions of individuals, in the same way human babies form impressions of those around them. Thus for a social being, emotions may help an individual form positive or negative associations with other individuals.
   
   Edit: For something a little more directed towards the layman, the moral lives of animals is a very good read, as is age of empathy.

Well, not every society was patrilineal, just most were. There have been numerous matrilineal societies, too, particularly in certain regions, and many others that have been, for lack of a better term, "mixed" (e.g., things not really passing down lines, but just to the community). Prior to either system, hunter-gatherer societies appear to have been largely egalitarian, probably thanks in part to their small size and loose concept of property ownership.

I've read a fair number of books that touch on the topics you're mentioning here, but I don't know that I've come across one that sufficiently explains why men were the main oppressors upon the dawn of agriculture. My best guess would be that it is easier for (most) men to control (most) women, simply due to size differences, and that ongoing control overtime creates entire systems of control (the same way it does with race). Add in the incentives of wealth and power that came with agriculture, and those who would want the power and have access to it would have had, perhaps in their minds, very good reason to literally lord over others. That's just a guess, though.

If you're really interested in these concepts, there are two books you might enjoy: (1) Sex at Dawn, which, while it isn't without faults, does regard monogamy/promiscuity and has an excellent bibliography that could provide you with a good reading list. (2) The Underground Girls of Kabul may not seem related to your question, and I suppose it doesn't directly deal with monogamy, but it certainly addresses questions of nature vs. nurture when it comes to gender and the roles men and women play in society throughout history and still to this day.

I recommend reading: The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders, Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter, and I Am a Strange Loop also by Douglas R. Hofstadter for some interesting reading on the subject (Warning: Gödel, Escher, Bach isn't for everyone- it's a bit strange, but I love it). I read a lot of books on science in general and, based on that, it seems like many believe consciousness and also free will is just an illusion. In fact, just a few days ago, physicist Brian Greene sorta-kinda said as much in his AMA - granted, he's talking specifically about free will and not consciousness per se, but I think the two must be very related.

I, too, believe in God and also have a very strong belief in and enthusiasm for science, so this is an especially fascinating question for me.

BTW: if you're interested in the way the brain works in general, I highly recommend How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

You may find this book called your inner fish: a journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body very interesting. It is a really fascinating and, quick read.

Tetrapods include amphibians, reptiles, birds, turtles and mammals. All tetrapods have a single common ancestor, that was as you describe "the first fish dude who jumped out of the water". Really, that is the best way I have heard it described and youre not wrong! We don't know which species is the first, but we do have several transitional fossils from water to land. These species are collectively known as tetrapodomorphs which basically means "kind of like a tetrapod - kind of like fish". This picture gives you a good idea of some of the different species alive around that time. Tiktaalik is one of my favourites, mostly because the name is fun to say. This species lived about ~375 million years ago, during the Denovian. Here is another example of the limbs of those transitional species from fin to limb!

Acanthostega (~365 million years ago) and Itchthyostega (~360 million years ago) are two species of tetrapods that lived after Tiktaalik, and they are better suited for life on land. They likely lived in swampy areas but were still tied to the water.

After the first tetrapods established themselves on land they evolved or radiated into many different groups. This is a good and simplified family tree of tetrapods. There are the amphibians, the turtles, the mammals and the reptiles. This is another family tree which depicts some extinct groups. Notice that the birds are placed firmly with the other dinosaurs and are now the only living representatives of that lineage. And that early mammal ancestors (therapsids) stem from a distant synapsid ancestor which evolved quite early on.

The reptiles are a bit of a funny group because they contain a lot of extinct species and this confuses people as to what actually is a reptile. Simply put reptiles include the living turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, and tuatara and many other extinct species including the dinosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles like the pterosuars and the extinct aquatic reptiles like ichthyosaurs. Another cool fact is that crocodiles and birds are more closely related to each other than they are to the other reptiles (turtles, snakes, lizards and tuatara).

Generally speaking, we should not anthropomorphize animals and their behaviours. However, its worth noting that animals do indeed feel emotions. But I don't agree when people state that animal minds don't work that way - they do. This is because the underlying mechanisms of emotion in humans and in other animals is essentially the same because they have evolved from common origins.

Affective neuroscience is a very interesting area of study which examines "the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood." It also examines how our own neural mechanisms are mirrored in animals (and especially mammals) because of shared ancestry. The study of emotion is definitely a very active area of science that permeates many different fields - evolutionary biology, animal behaviour, human behaviour, animal communication, human communication, origin of communication, psychology, psychiatry, neurobiology...each look at different questions concerning emotions, and their origins.

In ELI5 words this means that animals are certainly capable of feeling emotions because the neural mechanisms that produce emotions are conserved through evolution, and are similar to the neural mechanisms that produce emotions in ourselves. All mammals, being related through common ancestry, have even more similar and conserved mechanisms - humans are of course mammals too!

But a few things to note:

• The way animals express a particular emotion may differ from the way humans express that emotion. For example, humans often smile to exhibit happiness. But for the rest of the primate order smiling is either a signal of submissiveness or fear. This does not mean that other primates are incapable of feeling happiness, but that they very likely express it in different ways from ourselves. We also have to be very mindful that other animals, even cognitively complex ones, may be physically constrained and incapable of complex facial expressions. For example, we know dolphins are capable of a lot of complex cognitive tasks, they are able to identify themselves in the mirror and they may even have names for one another...but they don't have the facial musculature to make the expressions that are, well, as expressive as ours. Their emotions may not even be obvious for this reason, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
  
  
• Humans like to make emotions poetic, like love. But love is simply a kind of attachment emotion. Humans become attached to each other and objects, sometimes to the point of obsession. Animals also become attached to each other. Mothers and their infants, bonding pairs of adults, social groups...all of these are forms of attachment exhibited in the animal kingdom. Again if you were interested in studying love, as a scientist you would actually study attachment. I recommend the book affective neuroscience: the foundations of human and animal emotions (linked above). It can be rather technical, but it is very good read. In any case, if we want to objectively study emotion and their origins, we sort of need to take the "humanity" out of emotions and look at them in a more universal way.
  
  
• Comparing species requires a unbiased approach. One method would be to measure and examine their physiology - specifically their nervous system and their hormonal systems. Emotions are basically produced by these two things...so by studying these two systems in ourselves and in other species we gain a better understanding of the origins and complexities of emotions that humans and other animals exhibit. The more complex these two systems are the more likely the species can interpret or feel every increasing complex emotions. This is why we generally assume that mammals feel more complex emotions than reptiles, and reptiles more than amphibians (like your frog), and frogs more than invertebrates - but the line isn't hard. For example, crocodiles are surprisingly social, we know that other social species like some mammals and birds exhibit some of the most complex emotions recorded. Not to mention that crocodiles have a very well developed nervous and hormone systems. Octopi have very well developed nervous systems and we know that they are able to solve complex problems and respond negatively to harmful noxious stimuli. So where does this put them on the scale? Probably somewhere above tarantula but below dolphins and primates. Other invertebrates, like insects and spiders have comparatively underdeveloped nervous and hormonal systems. For example, while they have nociceptors that feel pain they might not have the required brain complexity to interpret that pain on a psychological or emotional level. However, this wikipedia article on pain interpretation in invertebrates points out: pain interpretation is very much complex even for their "simple" systems and that many invertebrate species (e.g octopi) do meet the required recommendations for being able to interpret psychological pain. I just want to emphasize that it is really hard to place animals in distinct little boxes, and its becoming increasingly difficult to support the statement that we are somehow different from them in this regard. Even complex emotions and cognitive functions like frustration, sense of self, sense of fairness, empathy, lying, and cheating have been demonstrated in the animal kingdom.
  
  Again, I just want to reiterate that we should not project human emotions unto animals but that does not mean animals are not capable of feeling the same emotions as humans. We need evidence that animals feel a particular emotion, and we have gathered much evidence for many different species for many different emotions - from behavioural observational experiments to studying the biochemistry and physiology of these animals - we are beginning to understand more clearly the complexity of their lives from their perspectives.
  
  For something a little more directed towards the layman, the Moral Lives of Animals is a very good read, as is Age of Empathy.

If you want to learn more, I would absolutely say take courses on it. My friends who are engineers have mentioned a lot of companies look very favorably on engineers who have business/finance knowledge, especially if you want to move into management.

If you wanted a book to read, I'd recommend Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Graham was an investment professional in the early 1900s who managed to make money through the Great Depression in the stock market. In his later years, he taught a finance class at Columbia and according to legend only one student ever got an A in that class, and that student was Warren Buffet. Look for an updated edition, as the book was written in the late 1960s, so some of the examples are pretty dated. This is the version I have. It looks like there is a newer revised edition too.

If you like podcasts (I am a huge podcast junkie), the podcasts from The Motley Fool are good and not very technical. Vanguard also puts out good podcasts, but those are a bit more technical. Planet Money from NPR is a good one that covers topics in economics in a way that is both interesting and engaging.

If you're a student, you can get a great deal on a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, which now includes a digital subscription iirc. I had it all through college, and it was a great resource. Seriously, it's $50 for the year. It's worth it.

As stated Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The region played a factor. Focusing on Europe, Europe had easy access of travel due to the Mediterranean sea. In broader view they had the silk road. There is a book called Why Nations Fail. A very interesting read. Out of dozens of examples the book shares, I will point out two that help shape Europe; the first being the story of Hercules and second the Black Death. The story of Hercule enabled a change in thought over the centuries as greek men went to the Olympics trying two win fame and glory for themseleves. The individual. The Black death on the other hand destroyed the working class and enabled a change in the current western system.

Everyone's talking about ways to keep the voltage on the volatile memory, but when I was a kid I had one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Mega-Memory-Card/dp/B00002R108


You would just plug in your game, backup the save, change the battery, and restore the save. Worked great.

If you want to have a better shave and also save a lot of money, buy a safety razor. You can get the handle for around thirty dollars, for example this one, and the razors are dirt cheap, for example, this pack of 100 blades costs $11.

So there you go, a safety razor and 100 blades for $50. That is a whole lot of shaves right there, and if you ever need more blades, you can get 100 more for $11. It is also way easier to shave with a safety razor, because it is so heavy.

I think Japan was very protectionist in what products it would let in. Was and still is.

Korea did the same thing post Korean War to become the industrial power it is today. Went from poorer than Bottswana to what it is now.

Really great book discusses how great powers become great -- easy, wonderful read:

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

Mega memory plus, saves progress of old gameboy games. Great for those pesky game with no save function.

Note: Make sure it has a working battery :)

http://www.amazon.com/Mega-Memory-Card/dp/B00002R108

ITT: A lot of people who would enjoy, and benefit from reading, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

Granted, it's definitely not intended for 5-year-olds. Although he comes close with the dialogues sometimes!

Yeah I like f.lux. Another good practice is to use blue blocking glasses at night. You can get them cheap, like these for less than $10 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000USRG90/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1426706073 I've noticed a good difference using them.

This has been a big subject of academic debate. But the most popular theory among economists (but not necessarily other social sciences) is that it had a lot to do with the kinds of governments that colonists set up; which in turn had a lot to do with native geography and, in particular, disease environments. I did some of my postgrad on this.

In short - if your initial settlers survived, you set up a colony your people could go live in, and you set up government and institutions based on yours back home. They weren't democracies as we know them know, but they had property rights and rule of law.

If your initial settlers didn't, you extracted what you could from the people and the land and stayed as remote from them as you could. The government and institutions you set up were then effectively corrupt and exploitative to begin with.

The theory goes that institutions like that don't change quickly (revolutions can change them, but not always for the better), so countries that started at a disadvantage with the colonisation ended up at a disadvantage.

The most common example is the British Empire in ie Canada or NZ versus sub Saharan Africa.

If you're interested in further reading this was the original seminal research even if it does get a bit technical in parts (https://economics.mit.edu/files/4123). There's also a related book by he same principal author which is more recent (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227)

You can brew coffee like this just fine, in fact you can buy it this way.
http://www.amazon.com/Maxwell-House-Singles-Original-19-Count/dp/B001M05070

However, coffee tends to be picky about it's extraction temperature and the amount of time the grinds spend exposed to water is pretty sensitive. Unlike Tea which tends to just get stronger as the steeping time increases, over extraction with coffee turns your delicious cup of joe into a bitter tincture of sadness.

Here's some reference on making good coffee
https://blackbearcoffee.com/resources/87

There's a second school of thought regarding the body's reaction to parasites and its relationship to allergies. IANAB, but it's my understanding that the absence of parasites is a relatively modern phenomenon, and that only in the past hundred years or so, and only in the first world, do people live without a parasite burden. The thinking is that we co-evolved with our parasites; they evolved to thrive inside you, and you evolved assuming they were there. This is an example of what's called a red queen race.

The implication is that to exist in your body, with its various immune reactions and defense systems, certain parasites had to evolve a means to circumvent their destruction. It is possible, then, that such parasites, notably hookworms, are able to temper your immune system in some way. Your immune system, charged with keeping you alive, has evolved under the conditions of having this foreign body reliably present. With modern medicine and hygiene, the counterbalance that parasites would have historically provided have been removed, and therefore our immune systems are "out of tune."

Sources:

• There was an episode of RadioLab about this recently.
  
• If you have the time and interest, try The Red Queen.
  
• This is part of the hygiene hypothesis.
  
  Disclaimer: The hookworm thing is up in the air, and I am in no way
  endorsing it.
  
  
• An update on the guy in the RadioLab episode. Apparently the FDA wasn't too thrilled.

If you're interested in further reading, The Red Queen attempts to answer this very question from a number of viewpoints. It's a fascinating read.

This idea of sex in private is actually discussed in The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature.

Animals that have multiple sexual partners in with monogamous social structure will have sex in private so they won't get caught doing so by a jealous wife or husband. Humans and certain monogamous species fall under this category.
I'd recommend reading this book as it is very interesting. It also discusses the origin of genders.

> "Ghost in the Wires" by Kevin Mitnick

Yes, fantastic book. I actually contracted Kevin (and his firm) to pen test my payment device, as much for the knowledge as for the celebrity tickles it sent up my spine.

Also I would recommend Kingpin

Motel of the Mysteries is a book that deals with that idea in a humorous way. It takes place in a distant future when archaeologists find a perfectly preserved hotel from now-ish, and we get to see what they make of all of the "artifacts" they discover.

As far as the figures, I am not sure how they know. But, you may have part of the answer there in your question. There's not necessarily much of a divide between "fertility" and "sex," maybe the figures don't have to be one or the other?

Here's a simple hand-wavy version of the proof.

First let's assume that it is possible to write a program that decides the halting problem. That means it's a program that takes another program as input, and tells you if that program will halt or not. This is what we're going to prove doesn't exist, so to prove it we'll assume it DOES exist and then show that results in a contradiction.

Now take that halting program, which we've assumed to exist, and modify it so that if the answer is "no" then it returns "no", but if the answer is "yes" then it runs forever.

Now take that second program, and feed it to the first program - in other words, you're asking it if that second program halts or not.

If it says "yes, it halts", then that's a contradiction, because it just said that it halts - and yet we just passed it the code to itself but modified so that if it halts, it runs forever.

But if it says "no it doesn't halt", then that means it just said that the halting program itself doesn't halt, which means it doesn't work.

So either way it's a contradiction, and therefore there doesn't exist a program which decides whether any other program will halt or not.

This is not a complete or correct proof, I left out important details. But that's the idea behind it.

If you want more, the book Godel, Escher, Bach is a fascinating take on a very related problem. It takes one of the most surprising mathematical theorems of the last 100 years and explains it by way of language, storytelling, analogy, and metaphor. It doesn't quite explain the halting problem proof but it comes so close that once you've read the book, the halting problem will seem easy. :)

Also, Wikipedia's proof is pretty good and concise, and doesn't involve any higher math.

If you want, try to read through that proof and ask any questions about things that are unclear.

Oh, man, this is a long debate that could end badly and come down to shouting.

I believe that its because humans have evolved to not be monogamous. WHAT?! Not only that, but women want to have multiple partners in one night. DOUBLE WHAT?!?

Let's look at some evidence:

1. Sexual arousal - Ladies have a lower labido, right? Dudes want it all the time. All the time. And they have to stay ready for when a willing female pops up. "But how do they find that willing female? They don't advertise!" False.
   
   
2. Women are LOUD during sex - Guys will grunt with effort, but generally you don't hear the male through your apartment wall. Ladies on the other hand, make a noise that is pretty recognizable from far far off. They are calling for more partners. What guy hears that and doesn't immediately know what it is? Hell, their natural instinct is to find the source.
   
   
3. MMF threesomes, orgy and gangbang porn - This is way too popular. There are a lot of people making it so that means there is a lot of people watching it. Notice their isn't a ton of grandma porn out there? There would be if people watched it, but it's not a big sub genre. But two guys going to town on a lady? All over. And men are by far the bigger consumers of porn than women, so to say that dudes are only interested in MFF threesomes doesn't hold much weight.
   
   
4. Jealousy - With all this interest in gangbangs and MMF threesomes, you would think there would be a lot more fist fights and shots fired calls for Holiday Inns, but they aren't. Jealousy is a feeling that we actually encourage in our society. Do we encourage anger over neighbors encroaching on our lawns? "Nah, man. Work that shit out in the courts. No need to be uncivil." How about sharing of toys for kids? "You let him play with it now, Tommy. He's a guest." But some random guy is talking to your woman at the bar? "I'll go with you, let's fuck him up."
   
   
5. Survival of the fittest - So if guys aren't fighting at the gangbang and threesomes, how does evolution create competition to find the fittest person for passing on the genes? The competition to fertilize the egg is happening in the lady in question. A man's last shot of sperm has is actually semi poisonous to other sperm, almost like throwing out thumbtacks to pop tires for the next guys that comes (cums) along. And actually, the first shot of sperm from a man are tougher than the second, being able to defend themselves from said thumbtacks.
   
   
6. Penis shape - Why the hell is the penis shaped like that????? According to the going theory on this, it's shaped like that to scrape out other sperm left by the previous guy. Same with all that thrusting.
   
   
7. I could go on an on. Instead, check out Radiolabs episode on sperm (http://www.radiolab.org/2008/dec/01/) and also Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha (http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Dawn-Stray-Modern-Relationships/dp/0061707813)

Here's a really great book about it. Set in the throws of the French Revolution. It's a story of how the meter was formulated using triangulation by two scientists appointed by the King.

Book recommendation:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661

Graham is the grandfather of value investing and influenced individuals like Warren Buffet.

Seconding the recommendation for Salt - fascinating read. You'd never imagine half the stuff in that book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QY8QXM/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0050HO9MI/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A can of Barbasol from time to time and your good for 1 + years in blades

You might enjoy reading the satire: Motel of the Mysteries

http://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/0395284252

Because it was designed that way. Before the French revolution, units were a mess and could differ from town to town. Each town often had examples of their local foot, yard and gallon fixed to the town hall. At the height of the French Revolution, scientists who had suddenly been elevated to high positions decided, with revolutionary fervour, that a new regime needed a new, logical system of units. Thus they conceived of the meter - to be defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator at the Paris meridian - and derived all other units from that.

If you're interested, try this book, which has a good history of what happened back then: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-All-Things-Seven-Year-Transformed/dp/0743216768/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469607564&sr=8-1&keywords=the+measure+of+all+things

Read this book: The Intelligent Investor

If you're looking for a way to make quick money and become millionaire quick then that book isn't for you.

Apparantly this thing lets you do so. Haven't tried it myself (and yes, I did catch the Seinfeld reference).

Sometimes, it is.
http://www.amazon.com/Maxwell-House-Singles-Original-19-Count/dp/B001M05070

There are several companies that make Coffee Bags like these.

The intro to this book is all about how this guy had bought a lovely chunk of salt as a decorative piece, took it home, and kept finding pools of salt water that had leeched from it. He tried everything to keep it dry, but every time there was some humidity in the room, or it rained outside, or he just wasn't paying attention—bam, more salt water. He thought it was so intriguing he began researching the history of salt.
http://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/0142001619

Agreed. Also, reading suggestion for the OP:

https://www.amazon.com/Kingpin-Hacker-Billion-Dollar-Cybercrime-Underground/dp/0307588696

I recently bought 2 year's worth of blades for $11. Check out r/wicked_edge

From http://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/0142001619

“salt is so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history.”

and https://www.seasalt.com/salt-101/history-of-salt/ which talks about the historical values of salt, for example the salt-routes.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

Closing the glottis to prevent water from entering the lungs while breathing with gills in amphibious development. Gill breathing can be blocked by carbon dioxide, just like holding your breath to convert air to CO2 usually dissipates the hiccup gill response.

south korea didn't fall victim to the free market bullshit that america forced on developing countries to exploit them. they understand that you need big govt for big projects, and the internet is a big project. here in america we are content to let ISPs have total control because we actually started to believe the shit we sold to developing countries.
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986 <written by a south korean about this issue

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001M05070

Oh, and in response to your last point, take a look at David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries.

Read The Measure of All Things, it will yield a little more insight into the origin of the meter and the thinking that led to it.

There are coffee bags. Folgers makes them.

It's available. Folgers, for instance, sells them in the US.

Blue light inhibits melatonin production. Even with f.lux, you are getting too much blue light onto your retinas. If you must sit at a computer screen before bedtime, these will allow your body to produce melatonin.

OP is asking about filters that absorb blue light.

e.g.:

https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-Blocking-Computer-SCT-Orange-S1933X/dp/B000USRG90

http://www.amazon.com/Folgers-Classic-Singles-19-Count-Servings/dp/B001FA1KJO

My Irish ancestors had to read signs that said "No Irish Need Apply". In the 19th century the Irish wer not considered to be "white":

http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415963095

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

Trythis book.

"I don't want to pay more for my shit so some dude in West Virginia can keep a job that's gonna bust his knees out and give him cancer at 55. I don't want a massive invisible tax on the middle class."

So you just consign chinese workers to even worse? Also, if there were more jobs and people had more money, they could AFFORD to pay more.

Here is proof, go back to the 1970s, plenty of families who worked blue collar jobs that supported families on one paycheck. The income gap was smaller than it is today, by far. Now we get cheap junk, but it is junk, and our wages are stagnant. In contrast, my father paid $1000 for a stereo in the 1980s... and could AFFORD it, as a blue collar factory worker.

>We're racing to the bottom because our labor isn't fucking worth anything anymore

You are missing the whole point, its free trade that made labor worth less.

If you are interested in such topics, you ought to read Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

It isn't Iran's weapons that threatens Israel; it is the idea that the US and Iran will get along, in which case, who needs Israel? This book is all about this: http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

See, remember when Nixon decided to "go to China", the US kicked Taiwan to the curb (Until then the US recognized the Natinalist govt in Taiwan as officially representing China, not the govt of the Communist mainland)

Israel does not want to become Taiwan, in a post-cold War era where Israel's value as an ally is becoming highly questionable.

And neither Iran nor Israel are "surrounded by people who want them destroyed"
This is old and worn-out Zionist hasbara intended to actually justify Israeli aggression and ethnic cleansing, and has been thoroughly debunked by Israeli historians themselves ie Ilan Pappe's book on the 1948 War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIWvcBzbqVc

In the case of Iran, they have good relations with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and now even Iraq. The Saudis and their pet sheikhs of the Persian Gulf may also hate the idea of the return of Iran as the "Policeman of the Persian Gulf" like the petulant children they are (after all they benefitted from Iran providing security for the Persian Gulf) however the reality is that Iran is the natural hegemon of the region -- the longest coastline, the most strategic depth, 80 million well-educated population etc etc -- whether the Saudis like it or not. It will be the dominant force simply by existing, and it has existed for 2500 years. This is just geography and reality.

Because Israel feels threatened by the potential for US and Iran to get along, which is why they've been pushing (through their agents and lobbyists in the US) for the US to get in yet another war in the Mideast for their benefit. This has been going on for a long time now.

http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/war-and-peace/2008/06/iran-spam

There's a whole network of pro-Israeli pressure groups active in the US who are dedicated to promoting hatred of the Muslims/Iranians
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Clarion_Fund

There's an award-winning book on this subject of Israel acting as spoiler in US-Iran relations:

http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

As the author states:
>"[I]t wasn’t Iran that turned the Israeli-Iranian cold war warm – it was Israel . . . The Israeli reversal on Iran was partially motivated by the fear that its strategic importance would diminish significantly in the post-cold war middle east if the then [Iranian] president (1989-97) Hashemi Rafsanjani’s outreach to the Bush Sr administration was successful." https://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-irandemocracy/israel_2974.jsp

And so,

> Israeli politicians began painting the regime in Tehran as fanatical and irrational. Clearly, they maintained, finding an accommodation with such “mad mullahs” was a non-starter. Instead, they called on the US to classify Iran, along with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, as a rogue state that needed to be “contained.” http://williambowles.info/iran/iran_israel_strategy.html

Paul Pillar explains why Israel sees Iran as a competitor http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-real-subject-netanyahus-congressional-spectacle-it-isnt-12337

Israel wants the US to go to war against Iran for it, or at least to make sure the two don't get along, because then Israel would not be as important if they do get along.

Here is an award-winning book explaining precisely that: http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117

So, pro-Israeli lobbyists have been active for quite a while in the US to push their agenda to start a US-Iran war, :

http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/war-and-peace/2008/06/iran-spam

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-prodding-us-to-attack-iran/

just as they pushed for the US invasion of Iraq

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-to-us-dont-delay-iraq-attack/

Remember, when the US decided to recognize Communist China, the non-Communist Taiwanese -- who until then were considered the legal govt of China by some -- were kicked to the curb. Many American foreign policy experts believe that in dealing with Iran, the US should "go to China" as President Nixon did by recognising and accepting Iran as a reality http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/if-nixon-can-go-to-china-20130303

But Israel doesn't want to be a third wheel. Iran has 80 million potential consumers of US goods and services as well as a growing well-educated middle class -- while Israel keeps getting the US into trouble and drags her down like ball and chain into a quagmire of war and ethnic cleansing. If the US and Iran get along, who needs Israel?

The Saudis are similarly concerned. They don't want to return to the days of the Shah when Iran was the "policeman of the Persian Gulf"

Also, the "Iran threat" is very useful for Israeli politicians who want to pretend to be the great defenders of Israel though in private they don't feel all that threatened. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/livni-behind-closed-doors-iranian-nuclear-arms-pose-little-threat-to-israel-1.231859

Nuclear weapons "capability" is a bullshit scaremongering term, which they're using because they don't have any actual evidence of any actual weapons so they frame it as "capabilities".

In fact 40 nations already have a nuclear weapons capability, and this is simply because civilian and military nuclear technology is the same not because 1 out of 4 nations on the planet plan on making nukes. Beware of this "capability" weasel language. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8V0ezWHGCYAJ:www.seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2002041473_nukes21.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

People just assume that Iran must want the bomb but that's just an assumption

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/ten-reasons-iran-doesnt-want-the-bomb-7802

And note who these authors are who say that Iran's nuclear program is not in breach of international law http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/iran-nuclear-power-un-threat-peace

But the US wants to keep the "Iranian nuclear threat" alive, since it is a convenient pretext to try to topple their government, just as "WMDs in Iraq" was just as a lie and a pretext to invade Iraq.

http://www.reddit.com/r/iranpolitics/comments/2xih2d/iran_offer_to_cut_centrifuges_by_a_third_led_to/cp0ed8x

Read more about Iran's nuclear program here http://www.amazon.com/Manufactured-Crisis-Untold-Story-Nuclear/dp/1935982338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425173705

Yeah I'm pretty sure they weren't considered black but they were considered non-white.

Amazon's summary of How the Irish Became White:

>The Irish came to America in the eighteenth century, fleeing a homeland under foreign occupation and a caste system that regarded them as the lowest form of humanity. In the new country – a land of opportunity – they found a very different form of social hierarchy, one that was based on the color of a person’s skin. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book – the first published work of one of America’s leading and most controversial historians – tells the story of how the oppressed became the oppressors; how the new Irish immigrants achieved acceptance among an initially hostile population only by proving that they could be more brutal in their oppression of African Americans than the nativists. This is the story of How the Irish Became White.

Someone likely got a hold of your card data. This can happen in several ways. Thieves put "skimmers" on ATMs for just this purpose, or it could be from a waitress that has a hand-held skimmer, who swipes each card she handles when the customer is out of sight. If your card has the sideways wifi-looking symbol on the back, it broadcasts its information wirelessly as well. This information can be zapped out of the air with relative ease. Certain phones that have NFC chips and/or the appropriate technology (nothing special), can download an app that sniffs CC info of cards that are within 6 inches or so of it (better technology can go further; while the theoretical limit for this technology on cards was supposed to be like 36 inches at Best, I saw a DefCON presentation where they were able to read card info from like a quarter mile with homemade equipment). All of this aside, it is Also extremely likely that your CC info was purchased online, from someone who hacked into a (usually) small mom/pops type place that is incorrectly handling CC info (it is technically illegal for them to store/maintain this info, at least unencrypted I know it is.... but it still happens a lot... usually when people use some "small business starter pro!!" software they don't know how to use).

Lastly, I'd like to point out that if I had to guess, the owner of that store is in on this ring of thieves. That, or the thief made a copy of your card and went there, a place where they don't really pay attention. The thief would want to make a clone of your card and do a test purchase before selling it, or before trying it at a large establishment (or simply taking the time to make his fake look Real, which costs him like 30$ of materials etc if he wants one that can pass inspection) (mind you the Tools/Machines costs 100s and 1000s of dollars... just once he's already got those, I'm averaging between 20-30$ of materials (metallic paint, hologram, other ink, etc, etc)).

Source: Read and recommend this book for you to read. Kingpin

How the Irish became white

> In the first half of the 19th century, some three million Irish emigrated to America, trading a ruling elite of Anglo-Irish Anglicans for one of WASPs. The Irish immigrants were (self-evidently) not Anglo-Saxon; most were not Protestant; and, as far as many of the nativists were concerned, they weren't white, either. Just how, in the years surrounding the Civil War, the Irish evolved from an oppressed, unwelcome social class to become part of a white racial class is the focus of Harvard lecturer Ignatiev's well-researched, intriguing although haphazardly structured book. By mid-century, Irish voting solidarity gave them political power, a power augmented by the brute force of groups descended from the Molly Maguires. With help, the Irish pushed blacks out of the lower-class jobs and neighborhoods they had originally shared. And though many Irish had been oppressed by the Penal Laws, they opposed abolition?even when Daniel O'Connell, "the Liberator," threatened that Irish-Americans who countenanced slavery would be recognized "as Irishmen no longer." The book's structure lacks cohesion: chapters zigzag chronologically and geographically, and Ignatiev's writing is thick with redundancies and overlong digressions. But for the careful reader, he offers much to think about and an important perspective on the American history of race and class.

A good explanation. I would like to point out, however, that your evolutionary arguments are currently in dispute. You are assuming that pair bonding and monogamy are behaviors that have been present for much of our evolutionary history. This is called Flintstoning: projecting our current modes of behavior onto the past and then seeking explanations that fit them in.

An alternative explanation, discussed well and at length in the book Sex at Dawn, involves the concept of sperm competition. The basic argument is that for most of our anthropologically modern history (the part of our history during which we could be said to be 'human') male and female humans both mated with a number of different partners from the same band and that direct mate competition evolved to be on the level of the sperm, rather than the organism. Sex was used mainly as a means of reenforcing social ties and uniting the group. The argument is certainly quite in depth (it took a book to make) but they cite a number of features of our sexuality that point this way:
-Men are largely silent during sex, while women tend to be vocal
-Humans are universally turned on by the sound and sight of others copulating
-Men require a refractory period (discussed above), while women are multi-orgasmic
The hypothesis put forth in the book is that we are designed to mate with an assortment of partners and let the sperm duke it out to be (and in some ways let the vagina decide who is) the 'best' mate. This avoids physical conflict between males (such as the way undulates rut) which could injure or kill them resulting in a loss of food gathering ability and protection for the band.

TL;DR a man gets tired and disinterested after sex to let another man have a turn.