Chubby Nickel Audio Vlog

So there have been about 200 companies that have boycotted advertising on Glenn Beck’s show including Apple. I can understand this, Glenn Beck incites hatred by using poor logic and tricking people into using common sense for things that require knowledge and understanding. Some companies may not like to associate their brand to him, and they have every right to spend their money how ever they choose to spend it.

What I don’t understand are the conservatives crying about it. Is not capitalism something that is a core conservative and Republican belief? Is not freedom something they are supposed be fighting for? A company choosing where, how and when their advertisement will be shown based on how much they’re willing to spend is just capitalism in action. So either support capitalism and shut the fuck up about how unfair it is… or revise your stance on capitalism.

I’m fucking sick of this shit. Have some integrity and either be for or against something, but this bullshit of only being for something when benefits you and against it when it doesn’t is just stupid. Just like the free speech “issue” they keep bringing up, they claim they have the right so anything they want under free speech but when someone happens to use the same kind of baseless speculation and questioning against Glenn Beck, he gets all upset and attempts to sue them. Which way do you want it? Free speech only for the people you agree with is not free speech. You either support free speech (including the people who you don’t agree with), or you support controlled speech… of course you could not care either way or not be informed enough to have an opinion but this is for the people that complain.

Anyway, if you want to support boycotting of Glenn Beck advertisements or if you want to support Glenn Beck, here are a few sites to check out:

Stop Glenn Beck
Defend Glenn Beck

Whenever the U.S. government saw something that people can’t live without get out of hand, people in the government stepped in on behalf of the people. Water, electricity and phones are all good examples… of course gas is a bad example. Our society cannot survive without the water that pumps into your houses and gets flushed away or the electricity that keeps your water heater, fridge, air conditioning and heat on… well some people can survive but the amount of people that this country supports could not be supplied with potable water without the government regulated system. Since people cannot live without water, it would be profitable to keep raising prices and without someone to speak out for the people, we all (well all us not wealthy people), would be suffering for people to just make a profit.

What does this have to do with health care? Well we have all been living much longer than we would have without our medical advances, many people that contribute to society would be dead by 30, and hardly any of them surviving to 60. With this increased age, we are all experiencing the side effects of living longer by showing many health problems that just wouldn’t there if you were dead by now. The short answer is that we need health care to live, just as we need potable water and electricity. Should we not as a people be demanding that like other basic needs, the need to live should have advocates and regulations to ensure that all of us can have it?
Social programs do not a socialist empire make. Just because a nation has social programs, it doesn’t mean that the country is socialist. Just like when a country has capitalistic programs it doesn’t make the country capitalistic. The problem is that we are all a part of this society, this society that makes us all interdependent on each other in so many complex ways. So let’s try to think of it in basic terms: we do not all hunt for food for ourselves, we do not all farm for ourselves, we do not all fetch water for ourselves and we do not all build our own houses. That means we are all dependent on other people to play their part in our society, that also means that other people are dependent on you. If you want to reap the rewards of our society, then you should be expected to reward others as well.  The everyone can help themselves attitude is not what built our society to this point, it only hurts society… and by proxy, you. Unless you’re very rich.

The truth is that we all need to help each other so that other people can help us. When a factory worker gets injured, we lose that piece of society until they come back to work. If that factory worker can’t afford to get better in order to get back to work, then we lose that piece of society permanently. We lose that person’s ability to spend money, the products that person was working on… pretty much everything that person was contributing to society. Let’s say the cost to get that person back is a $50,000 surgery… sounds like a lot, but this person was making $40,000 a year. Now the factory worker wouldn’t be able to pay the medical bill straight up, but his contributions to society are about the same as his wages, so he will pay society back in less than two years… if he/she can work. So I see a one time surgery of $50,000 a bargain in the long term.

What is the greatest difference between knowing something and thinking something? What is the difference between opinion and reality? What is the difference between a proposition and a theory? What is sufficient evidence? Often when we as humans use these terms, we have a very different meaning in mind than the scientific community. Our ideas of these terms are even very different than you’d find in legal documents. But the problem is not that people’s definitions and conceptualization of these terms are so different than that of professionals, the problem is of scope.

Knowing Vs. Thinking

On a personal level knowing something and thinking something are the same: you think what you know and you know what you think. The problem is that we are not isolated to ourselves because we as humans have discovered that by communicating with, learning from and teaching others, we can rapidly become more technologically advanced and protect ourselves. When another person relies on your knowledge or you’re relying on the knowledge of someone else, knowing something and having an opinion starts to become more different the more people that are involved: if you’re talking to just one person, you may not need to have verified your opinion at all, but when you’re speaking to a large group of people then it becomes very important to have verified your opinion. The context is equally important to the amount of people you’re talking to. If it’s well understood that you’re just expressing your opinion, then it isn’t very important to verify it, however if you’re taken as an authority on what you’re talking about, then it’s very important that you verify your opinion.

So when can you say that you “know” something? You should only say that you know something after you can demonstrate predictions, show the facts that back up your opinion and have shown that someone other than yourself can verify it for themselves. Also after both you and others have attempted to discover an alternate explanation for the predictions.

Propositions Vs. Theory

The difference between propositions and scientific theories is the same as the difference between the common use of the word theory and and scientific theories. The common use of the word theory is used as a possible concept of how something works… a proposition if you will. While a scientific theory uses gathered facts and is used to explain why those facts happened, the theory is heavily tested against other possible explanations as well as predicting the cause of the facts as well as how the things will happen. A proposition is like an untested theory, while a scientific theory is an accurate representation of reality.

The reason why we bother with scientific theories is so that we can fix things, make things better and avoid bad things. So the next time you hear someone say, “it’s only a theory” let them know how wrong they are… unless they’re referring to the Layman’s definition of theory.

Sufficient Evidence

Some people say that the idea of sufficient evidence is a constantly moving goal post that can never be attained. So what’s the point? The point is that not only do you need to have evidence for your ideas, you also have to be able to connect that evidence to a theory. Like the theory of gravity. No one can provide absolute proof that everything falls to the Earth, I mean have you tested everything on the planet? I didn’t think so. Have you witnessed the beginning of gravity? I didn’t think so. So what gives you confidence in this scientific theory? Evidence. Not just hearsay.

You can test out the theory of gravity yourself: measure some spot a specific distance from the ground… say 15 feet from a roof, and release a somewhat dense object that will encounter little resistance from other forces… like a rock. Then release the rock and time how long it takes to reach the ground. Anyone who has a mild understanding of gravity will be able to tell you how much time it will take for the rock to hit the ground, because the theory provides predictions. Some one with a better understanding of gravity will be able to tell you how fast the rock will be going when it hits as well as it’s acceleration. Without even having to watch your specific experiment. This is known as verifiable and demonstrable evidence. If you want to challenge the theory, you must first show where the theory is wrong and be able to demonstrate your evidence. So to challenge the theory you need to have a good understanding of the theory.

Bring It All Together

The purpose of all this is not to sound smart, isolate the uneducated masses or to trick people into believing things that are false. The purpose is to provide everyone a better understanding of reality. The purpose is to prevent people from just saying things that sound like they make sense. Everyone that is interested can research and test out any scientific theory. If you can’t understand a concept, do not worry, there are authorities that you can question. I have yet to meet a person that is not enthusiastic to find people genuinely interested in increasing their understanding of the field they are researching.

TLDR: The purpose of evidence is to ensure that we all have the most accurate understanding of reality that is currently possible.