- #36
Char. Limit
Gold Member
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IcedEcliptic said:He's describing an attitude that really is very typical, not reality, the perception. I've seen this myself all too often in NC for one.
He said "anyone", not "some".
IcedEcliptic said:He's describing an attitude that really is very typical, not reality, the perception. I've seen this myself all too often in NC for one.
I'm not disputing the existence or prevalence of certain attitudes. But the strong prevalence of certain attitudes among certain demographics should hardly be just cause to throw the book at one specific person belonging to that demographic but of as yet undetermined attitude.IcedEcliptic said:He's describing an attitude that really is very typical, not reality, the perception. I've seen this myself all too often in NC for one.
cronxeh said:People did not like Bush because they labeled him as a stupid redneck. Now people don't like Obama not for what he does for the regular people, but for who he is, a black guy with a muslim middle name. It is racism, even though they can't pinpoint just what exactly they hate about him.
Gokul43201 said:I'm not disputing the existence or prevalence of certain attitudes. But the strong prevalence of certain attitudes among certain demographics should hardly be just cause to throw the book at one specific person belonging to that demographic but of as yet undetermined attitude.
Char. Limit said:Not to derail that thread, but I found it interesting that 66% of men thought most men would use a male birth control pill, if it existed, while only 35% of women believe the same way. Oh ye of little faith (in men), perhaps?
zomgwtf said:I think what's weird about this is that it's being used as a motivational/interesting factor in the question. Something to 'make you want to complete the whole problem to get the answer'.
The difference with the trebuchets is that studying medieval people killing each other IS interesting and it's a past event. Anyways that's mostly done in physics, not in geometry. In calculus I think we one time had a question about a cannon ball but that was it. It was completely non-violent.
In physics we had trebuchet like questions or arrow questions all the time but they never involved killing people. :rofl: However if they did I could see it being more along the lines of historical than anything.
In this case we're talking about the 'potential future' (however unlikely it is). Not only just 'the potential future' but that of the President of USA... who gets by far the most amount of death threats than any other president (AFAIK). He's a highly public figure and people will be quick to draw the seriousness of a 'plot' to kill him... vastly different than 'Johnny has a gun high should Johnny aim to hit Bob in his head if ...'. Compare that to 'Johnny has a gun, at what angle should Johnny shoot to hit the Pope in the head if ... ' Even if the teacher used real students names in his class (mine used to do this all the time) it would be seen as comical... there's no 'realness' factor to it because these students most likely wouldn'tw ant to assassinate one another.
I think that this teacher should be more than just suspended, I'm not sure what though. I mean I don't think he should be arrested I highly doubt he intends or had intended to make a threat to the president. Maybe he should lose his position though? Even that sounds too harsh.
cronxeh said:If you re-read the other post I said anyone who dislikes and wants to kill him is motivated by racism. Its modern day lynching.
CRGreathouse said:How do you come to that conclusion? Many US presidents have been assassinated, none apparently for racist reasons.
I count 17 assassination attempts on 15 US presidents. Assuming that it's roughly as difficult to assassinate one president as another, that's roughly 1-in-3 odds of having an assassination attempt on you. So if Obama was to be subject to an assassination attempt, it's not clear that it would be on account of racism.
In particular, assuming for a moment that Presidential assassination attempts are Poisson-distributed, lambda is approximately 0.077 attempts per year in office. In the time since assuming the Presidency, we might therefore expect that (*without* racist factors) he would have been subject to at least one assassination attempt with 10% probability.
IcedEcliptic said:Or... this could be a case of women making a dispassionate assessment, and men displaying their DECLARED preference, rather than the more accurate revealed preference. It is very easy to say you would take a pill that does not exist, and therefore has no risk, than it is to ask a woman for whom a range of choices exist.
Proton Soup said:oh, it exists, but you've got as much chance of popularizing a testicle-shrinking solution in men as you would a breast-shrinking solution in women. not. gonna. happen.
IcedEcliptic said:Of course, you've only had white male presidents until now, so not a great sample.
CRGreathouse said:Actually, that was rather the point. If the thesis is that an assassination (attempt) on Obama would be racist*, take the level of assassination (attempts) against white male presidents as a baseline and compare.
* Relevant: http://www.theonion.com/video/man-attempts-to-assassinate-obama-but-not-because,17220/
Evo said:Are people crazier now than in the past, or are they just less afraid of showing it?
IcedEcliptic said:I believe the comparison was number of threats, but either way, I don't consider that to be a useful metric. The racism is clear if you are willing to talk to the... wrong... people, and listen. That said, it is the hysterical media that seems to fuel so much of this, along with the economy, and wars. Racism is there, and a factor, but deliberate misinformation and manipulation of gullible twits is probably a much greater factor.
IcedEcliptic said:"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated." (George Bernard Shaw)
True here. As for racism, as cronxeh says you can rarely point to one case unless it's a tea-bagger with Obama as a witch-doctor. This does not change the fact that given what Bush "accomplished" vs. Obama's fairly tame 2 years, the hatred and hysteria around Obama is out of proportion. I do not believe that it is possible for a reasonable person to conclude that racism does not play a role in this.
Obama could be doing better, but compare him to W., and you'd think the hatred and fear would be greater for the one who has gotten us into two wars ans could barely speak, instead of someone who's healthcare policies you disagree with. How can anyone watching Fox News, and psychotics such as Glenn Beck and Limbaugh NOT conclude that racism is part of the fuel for their fire?
For the OP, no physics problem outside of sniper training in a military should involve calculating a ballistic trajectory to kill a person.
WhoWee said:Why don't you try supporting a few of your comments? You are taking a lot of liberty with your posts.
OmCheeto said:Alabama Math Lesson:
If in a 100 cubic foot chamber, 3 canisters of Zyklon B will kill 7 Jews, how many canisters of Zyklon B will be required to kill 13 Jews?
Alabama Physics Lesson:
If the modulus of elasticity of a Rwandan child's skull is 3, and that of a Rwandan adult is 17, how much easier is it to crush the skull of the child with a machete vs that of the adult?
Alabama Economics Lesson:
If 14 Albanian's have an average worth of $50 each, and you kill them all, how will this affect the local economy?
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Turning humans into math problems involving death strikes me as a bit dehumanizing.
Dehumanizing people is a bad thing.
arrogance, dogma, or ignorance? what was the teacher guilty of?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mIfatdNqBA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mIfatdNqBA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Breaking news: PhysicsForums member banned after a forum outcry for using the murder of a high school teacher in a discussion.IcedEcliptic said:How about testing his trajectory work with live rounds, with him as the target? Inject a little reality into these violent fantasies that seem so common in cowards.
Hurkyl said:Breaking news: PhysicsForums member banned after a forum outcry for using the murder of a high school teacher in a discussion.Disclaimer: above news is purely fictional
IcedEcliptic said:What is a lounge for if not for lounging? Like Char.Limit, I can only base these statements on media coverage and personal experiences, and don't pretend otherwise. Take CNN's recent so-called racism study with children, it LOOKS damning, but offhand I can think of a number of holes in their methodology. Yet, it looks terrible, so people will believe the worst. Really, it struck me as a terribly constructed study, with no valid results.
For Beck at least, anyone who conflates socialism, with nazism (which was socialist in name only) is showing the kind of casual disregard for those millions of Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Gypsies, ans Homosexuals who were exterminated outside of combat during WWII. Perhaps I am more used to identifying racism as I have seen it in the many international varieties. There is such a thing as inciting others to draw a natural conclusion, and there is collusion. If you were in the midst of an anti-war protest and saw someone with a picture of a US military officer dressed as a Nazi, or covered in blood or the like, would you not say something? If not, and you continue to associate yourself with that movement, don't you take some responsibility for your silence? Obama-as-Witch Doctor, and you have a similar issue.
Yeshayahu Liebowitz said:Religious nationalism is to religion what National Socialism is to socialism
Proton Soup said:hey, how about this one? :rofl:
Posts such as yours, zomg's, and Ivan's had led me to believe that facts such as this don't matter...IcedEcliptic said:I have no interest in seeing this person killed, it is simple hyperbole.
Hurkyl said:Posts such as yours, zomg's, and Ivan's had led me to believe that facts such as this don't matter...
Hurkyl said:Posts such as yours, zomg's, and Ivan's had led me to believe that facts such as this don't matter...
zomgwtf said:what are you talking about Hurkyl? This seems to me like an unsubstantiated attempt at ad hominem nothing more.