darwinian remiix

Quotes Roundup- Spring-Summer 2010

bonoboi — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:12:59 +0000

friends, these are my most recent biannual quotes i have read and enjoyed; please comment if you also enjoy.

Thomas Paine (via froggey):

Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.”

Goethe:

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Peter Walker:

The supreme arrogance of religious thinking: that a carbon-based bag of mostly water on a spec of iron-silicate dust around a boring dwarf star … would look up at the sky and declare, ‘It was all made so that I could exist!

H.G. Wells:

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race”

Bertrand Russell:

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Neil deGrasse Tyson:

The stars in the universe far outnumber all the words ever uttered by all the humans who have ever lived.

Aldous Huxley:

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.

Brennen McKenzie:

If you try to picture a pack of Chihuahuas bringing down and savaging an elk, the impact of thousands of years of artificial selection is obvious.

John Cage:

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.

Bob McCue (oh, how i heart mister mccue):

The most satisfying aspect of parenthood so far has been witnessing my children come into their own as adults. Becoming friends with these surprising human beings is as fresh as life gets. In this and so many other ways, life is sweet. I am a lucky guy who spends most of each day feeling grateful.

R. Feynman:

Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.

Gerald Massey

They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

Arthur C. Clarke (in his Third Law of Prediction):

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

John Erskine

Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.

Richard Dawkins:

Hydrogen is a tasteless, invisible gas – and if you give it enough time, it will turn into people.

Anon:

Every morning I wake up on the wrong side of Capitalism.

something to ponder on the fourth of july

bonoboi — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:26:28 +0000

Which of the following is more inclusive and better represents the ideals of maximum freedom as outlined in the US constitution? (h/t)

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under the gods, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under no God or gods, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.	I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Interjects that the person must adhere to a monotheistic belief system.	Interjects that the person must adhere to a polytheistic belief system.	Interjects that the person must not adhere to any theistic belief system.	Does not interject any presuppositions about religion. The person is free to believe whatever they want.

Happy Independence Day, y’all. As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

I invite you to read that quote 1nce more. Have fun today.

Global Warming Resources

bonoboi — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:10:00 +0000

the science is too complicated to understand, unless you are a climatologist, so we need to put our trust in where the scientific consensus is at right now. and the consensus is that ever since 1750^[1] there has been a constant yearly increase of man-made global warming. other questions about GW such as predicting the effects and future ruin of the earth is not known and one can have their own opinion about that part of the issue.

many articles here are authored by dr. steven novella, of the sgu. he is my favorite science educator and skeptic on the planet. he’s the closest thing to a “prophet” for me here on the earth. i recommend listening to his podcast weekly.

articles on climate change:

“And in the end we have to trust scientists that they were able to detect a global warming trend of 1.5 degrees C since 1880, on the backdrop of all the local and short term fluctuations. I do trust the consensus (NASA can send out a probe and hit Saturn, so they have earned some trust) and I have not heard any arguments that I find compelling to distrust it. But I also understand why many in the public find it difficult to trust.” (from article: NASA – Last Decade Warmest on Record)

Scientific Consensus, Climate Change, and Vaccines

videos:

http://cogitatute.blogspot.com/2010/05/climate-denial-crock-of-week.html

Dylan Ratigan vs. Glenn Beck good explanation of climate change

Bill Nye:Those who think Historic Snowstorm disproves Global

other great links showing the consensus amongst climatologists:

Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? (probably the best site with quick-access info)

Scientific Consensus on Global Warming | Union of Concerned Scientists

Is there a scientific consensus on global warming?

climategate:

The Climategate Fiasco

hope that helps!

1. IPCC. (2007) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis (summary for policy makers), IPCC.

SANDY, UTAH

Photo by R. Scott Lloyd

John Gee speaks to FAIR Conference audience on “the Larger Issue” pertaining to the authenticity of the Book of Abraham. Click for bio of FAIR Conference speakers

While critics of the Church often challenge the authenticity of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, they attach more importance to it than Church members do themselves, a Latter-day Saint Egyptologist said Aug. 6 at the annual conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR).

Such critics lose sight of “the larger issue,” said John Gee, an associate research professor of Egyptology at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU.

“The book of Abraham is true,” said Brother Gee, author of A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri, at the end of his presentation. “I think it can be defended. I think it should be defended. But it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of either apologetics or research or the scriptures.”

Brother Gee said that in many cases the argument about the Book of Abraham has become so complex that even some of the sharpest critics lose perspective and fail to be consistent in their contentions.

“We cannot afford to lose sight of the big picture,” he said.

He offered a few rules for “apologists,” a word that in this context means defenders:

First, it is not necessary to refute every statement by a critic. “The critic may be wrong about a point, but if it is not central to the argument, one can often let it slide.”

Second, not every argument or point is worth defending. “Even widely held opinions do not need to be defended if they are mistaken,” he said.

Third, truth is not well-served by a bad argument. “We apologists make no claims to perfection, either in ourselves or our arguments, so it is simply better to let go of bad arguments.”

Fourth, though God knows everything, “we do not and cannot,” he said.

“So if what is most important needs to be defended, what are some of the things that need to be defended?” he asked.

He suggested six: God exists; Jesus Christ is His Son; God talked and still talks with men through the power of the Holy Ghost; Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of the world; the Atonement is available to those who trust Jesus, turn from sin, make and keep sacred covenants, and follow the course throughout their lives; and the Book of Mormon is true, an authentic record of God’s interactions with actual ancient people.

“Now, we may be called upon to defend smaller points than these, but if these six things are not true, there is no point in the rest,” Brother Gee said.

“Now where is the Book of Abraham in this?” he asked. “It isn’t. The Book of Abraham is not central to the restored gospel of Christ.”

To illustrate, he said that of all the scriptural citations in general conference since 1942, the Book of Abraham has been cited less than 1 percent of the time. Most of those citations are the seven verses in Abraham 3:22-29, which tell of the pre-mortal existence.

“This is what we as Latter-day Saints care about,” he said. “It is what is important.”

The critics may regard that as vain superstition, he said, “but they seem to deem it not even worthy of attack. What they attack is simply not important to the Latter-day Saints.”

He said that is not to say Church members can or should forego the Book of Abraham, “but simply to give an idea of its relative importance. It is more important than some things and much less important than others.”

Brother Gee gave these summary points:

“First, the arguments about the Book of Abraham have become so complex that even the best and brightest of critics end up arguing unwittingly in favor of the LDS position. “The Document of Breathings made by Isis is not the Book of Abraham, and most Latter-day Saints have never claimed it was,” he said. “Can we agree on that issue and move on?

“Second, the critics do not deal with the issues arising from the Book of Abraham that Latter-day Saints care about. In that sense, their approach is legerdemain and bait-and-switch.

“Third, how the Book of Abraham was translated is unimportant. The Church does not stand or fall on the Book of Abraham.

“And fourth, regardless of how the Book of Abraham was translated, it is a remarkable document that tells us more about Abraham’s day than Joseph Smith could have known.”

He concluded: “These larger issues overshadow the often petty issues that we deal with as apologists, and it is high time we paid attention to the larger issue.”

where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going?

bonoboi — Sun, 09 May 2010 01:04:21 +0000

Correspondence between me and my auntie ____ (9 feb. 2009).

From my auntie:

Markii, I was thinking about you over the week end. I have 3 questions I’d like to ask you and am looking forward to hearing from you!

One. With your new knowledge I was wondering
. What do you believe you were doing or where were you before your sojourn on earth.

2. What is your purpose on earth?

3. Where do you believe or think the human race will go when we die?

Thanks love you so much. Auntie ____

My response…

thanks for the e-mail, ____. i’ll do my best to answer below…

One. With your new knowledge I was wondering
. What do you believe you were doing or where were you before your sojourn on earth.

that’s a great question! many people have tried to solve it, but i think it’s unsolvable. i do not know where i was before my sojourn to earth. i don’t know if i even “was”, or existed. it is possible that our consciousness we now enjoy only recently matured and came to be as our minds physically developed during childhood. i find this to sound more plausible than the idea that we are hundreds or thousands of years old human beings with that many years of learning and education behind us and yet here we only know that which we learn here. is our older and wiser self sitting dormant in our mind while the two-year old biological self now learns to eat food and drools applesauce out of his mouth/nose? and a middle-aged person who was mentally fine can have a car accident or disease in the brain and lose many motor and thinking skills, and many times even having a complete change in their personality and habits [click link to left, and 'save as', to hear mp3 on this] as a result? a car accident or mental disease affects the tissue and neurons in the brain which then change how a thousand year-old sentient behaves/acts? to me it seems more logical that there is a machine, but no “ghost in the machine”.

yes, i could be wrong, but there is no evidence (according to what i personally would accept as evidence- not subjective feelings but tangible evidences re-producible between other people and groups of people- feelings do not meet that level of criteria which would merit a belief, for me). so the answer, once again in my opinion is that no one can know, no one does know, and to assert some exclusive access to knowledge about something unanswerable like this could be somewhere between being dishonest or deluded.

a classic bumper sticker comes to mind: I don’t know and you don’t either.

[i'll stop right here and clear up that the things that i write are not to offend but simply to answer the questions you raised- they are loaded questions and these are my heart-felt honest replies. it might be fair to remember that the LDS response to these same questions would offend a non-believer, as well.]

2. What is your purpose on earth?

i think that everyone has a different purpose but we should all strive to be ethical people not only doing unto others as you would have them do to you, but to do unto others how they would have you do to them (since everyone is different). most people on earth (unless they are uneducated/misguided or have mental imbalances strive to “do what is right unto others”. it has been a common theme amongst all successful groups of people in the history of the human race (a community of people who do not uphold “thou shalt not kill/murder/lie/cheat” as commonly-held tenets amongst them would not last very long. it is not likely that the 10 commandments shocked the people as being highly innovative and new social rules for the group, when received from Moses.

below is a chart showing this main moral idea taught throughout history.

my purpose on earth (and this is not the same for the next person, just for me personally), is to care for my daughter, love my wife, provide support for them, provide food, entertainment and love for them. educate and be educated. be fair and honest. live my life fully and not prolong my day of enjoying the things this life has to offer in sports, museums, events, nature, music, hobbies, talents, etc. i may not know if there is “life after death”, but i do believe in life before death. and i’m certain of this life- i hope and strive that i won’t waste it. my purpose on earth is to show empathy for others and understanding. like i said, that is basically it for me, but if the guy next to me has a purpose in life to love college football and be fanatical about it, then if that makes him happy (and he doesn’t hurt others or impede others’ progress along the way) than that is fine for him. maybe the lady with 20 cats who isn’t hurting anyone and is even caring for some creatures in need is fulfilling her purpose in life. man is that he might have joy.

3. Where do you believe or think the human race will go when we die?

i would respond with the same reply that i gave in the first question.

hope that helps! talk to you soon!

love,

markii marchaeopteryx

[her reply to my response (she really is the bomb)]:

Thank you so much for sharing your heartfelt response Markii. As far as human beings go, you are in the upper eschelon. I was just curious. Now I know. Hope to see you soon. ____.

How to: Report on a “boring” science news story

bonoboi — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:34:20 +0000

watching the local tv nighttime news, there was a 90-second story on the spirit being stuck. they continued saying it’s been stuck for about a year. they said they’re going to let the solar panels charge until the weather warms up and then give it another go to free it.

this left my friend laughing at nasa’s news update: “wow, so the news is that spirit is stuck…and that it’s been stuck for a year? …umm ok, thanks for the update, nasa!”.

i told him that i thought mainstream media just doesn’t get science news items done right, and that there’s probably a clearer, more interesting story behind the announcement.

well today i checked phil plait’s blog feed and wow! my man knows how to take a science news item and make it easy for the layman to understand. and instead of leaving us confused (like the news report), he leaves us excited for more!

In a press conference yesterday, NASA and JPL scientists announced that the Mars rover Spirit is stuck. The little-spaceprobe-that-could has been trapped in the sand near a crater called Troy for almost a year now, and for that time has been doing little or no science; instead, engineers have been trying to figure out how to get the rover unstuck. After all that time, NASA has decided to throw in the towel. Martian winter is coming for Spirit, and they are now focusing on getting it positioned so that it can survive the coming drop in temperature.

Three notes:

1) This doesn’t mean Spirit is dead! If they are able to get it set up to survive the winter (mainly by tilting it toward the Sun so the solar panels can collect energy) then once its revived it will still be able to do plenty of science from where it is. After all, it’s a laboratory sitting on another world. I imagine there’s lots of stuff the scientists can do with it.

2) Emily Lakdawalla, as usual, has the details of all this on The Planetary Society blog, including some evidence-based speculation that it’s NASA calling the shots here and not JPL, which controls the rover.

3) We have to remember something rather important: when the two rovers (Opportunity is the other, which is still running fine on the other side of the planet) landed on Mars, they had a planned operational lifetime of 90 days.

That was in January 2004.

In other words, Spirit has been on Mars for over 2200 days, and even counting when it first got stuck, it still ran well for more than 20 times it’s nominal lifespan. Cars these days have a standard warranty for 7 years; how’d you like yours to run for 140 years?

So for me, while this news is not great, it has to be put in context: Spirit is one of the most successful NASA missions of all time. And its sister, Opportunity, is still running like a champ. I hope I’ll be doing as well when I’m 1400 years old.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Quotes Roundup- Fall 09

bonoboi — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:37:03 +0000

Dwight D. Eisenhower:

In preparing for battle, I have found that planning is essential, but plans are useless.

Kail Nielson:

A man who says, “If God is dead, nothing matters,” is a spoilt child who has never looked at his fellow men with compassion.

Robert Green Ingersoll:

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.

Dan Christiansen, BYU Student:

As a child, it seemed so simple;
Every step was clearly marked.
Priesthood, mission, sweetheart, temple;
Bright with hope I soon embarked.
But now I have become a man,
And doubt the promise of the plan.

For the path is growing steeper,
And a slip could mean my death.
Plunging upward, ever deeper,
I can barely catch my breath.
Oh, where within this untamed wild
Is the star that led me as a child?

As I crest the shadowed mountain,
I embrace the endless sky;
The expanse of heaven’s fountain
Now unfolds before my eye.
A thousand stars shine on the land,
The chart drafted by my own hand.

Sam Harris said that the timing of when young Earth creationists claim God created the Universe:

… is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. [Link goes to The Onion]

Robert Ingersoll:

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

quotes roundup- SUMMER 09

bonoboi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:44:49 +0000

every season i put out the best batch o’ comments that i’ve found in the last few months. this edition may be my best yet!

Kirk Wilson

To say that the earth is only 6,000 years old is the mathematical equivalent of saying its radius is only 28 feet.

PZ Myers on an evolution-inspired school t-shirt:

Evolution is not a religion, no more than sky-is-blueism or gravityism or medicine or mathematics or their shop class. Would they shut down an auto repair class if an Amish family decried their heathen English ways? Pollitt is a pandering moron.

John Remy (from this personal, well-written post on his LDS ex-communication ritual):

Hopefully we’ll see each other as complex humans, worthy of compassion. [there's a lot of wisdom in these words!]

George Hrab:

Is sex with your clone gay or just extroverted masturbation?

Bean Life Science Museum:

It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky. Take a moment to look up today, otherwise you’re no better off than the pigs.

Frank Moore Colby

Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.

Steven Novella:

Medicine that works is simply “medicine” – everything else needs marketing.

Oscar Wilde

only the shallow are deep enough to truly know themselves

Various anonymous quotes, via:

I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

“Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this.’ It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

Laurence J. Peter:

Speak when you are angry–and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.

Homer, 9th century BC:

There is nothing more admirable than two people who see eye-to-eye keeping house as man and wife, confounding their enemies, and delighting thier friends.

PZ Myers, on “the five best arguments for creationism“:

This makes no sense at all. These are supposed to be the five best arguments for creation instead of evolution, and the author has trotted out the stale old excuses that evolution has no evidence and that the earth is young…and now he demurs, and suggests that maybe the book of Genesis is just some sloppy poetry, don’t take it literally, don’t take it too seriously? That’s an argument against creationism.

good ones from my friend Weston’s FB:

“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson”It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” – Carl Sagan

“I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.” – Winston Churchill

“Right and wrong are judgments, not realities”

“For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare

“No one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of the truth” – Gandhi

“The basis of our life is freedom, the purpose of our life is joy” – Abraham/Hicks

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.” – Nietzsche

“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” – Albert Einstein

Multi-Level Marketing

bonoboi — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:47:13 +0000

today i was doing some research on Multi-Level-Marketing companies (e.g. MonaVie, Noni, Isagenix, NutraSkin, etc.). living in utah county, (the most MLM-dense county in the USA) we’ve all been presented with MLM pitches- and we may have even signed up for some. last year i met an older couple who had made tons of money in Vegas through a MLM they had done in the past. The secret, they told me, was that the company marketed them as their golden couple and stuck dozens and dozens of people below them in their “down line” so everyone could see an exemplar of success. they were very up front when they told me that they could not recreate those same earnings when they tried to do it on their own, after the successful MLM went bankrupt (as most do). they even knew all the tricks of the trade and had experience- but it went nowhere when their only potential down line suddenly shrunk to the small number of friends and family they personally knew.

Note: please use caution when sharing anything with someone who is involved in a MLM. they very much act like “true believers” in the sense that they have faith in the potential of their MLM, are motivated more by feelings/personal testimony rather than hard evidence, and may take criticism very personally. so proceed w/ caution when sharing with others- or don’t share at all.

from a wikipedia article (emphasis mine):

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a decision, In re Amway Corp., in 1979 in which it indicated that multi-level marketing was not illegal per se in the United States. However, Amway was found guilty of price fixing (by requiring “independent” distributors to sell at the low price) and making exaggerated income claims.^[16]

The FTC advises that multi-level marketing organizations with greater incentives for recruitment than product sales are to be viewed skeptically. The FTC also warns that the practice of getting commissions from recruiting new members is outlawed in most states as “pyramiding”.^[10] In April 2006, it proposed a Business Opportunity Rule intended to require all sellers of business opportunities—including MLMs—to provide enough information to enable prospective buyers to make an informed decision about their probability of earning money.

Another criticism of MLMs is that “MLM organizations have been described by some as cults (Butterfield, 1985), pyramid schemes (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997), or organizations rife with misleading, deceptive, and unethical behavior (Carter, 1999), such as the questionable use of evangelical discourse to promote the business (Hopfl & Maddrell, 1996), and the exploitation of personal relationships for financial gain (Fitzpatrick & Reynolds, 1997).” ^[18]

MLM’s are also criticized for being unable to fulfill their promises for the majority of participants due to basic conflicts with Western culture.^[19] There are even claims that the success rate for breaking even or even making money are far worse than other types of businesses:^[20]^[21]^[22] “The vast majority of MLM’s are recruiting MLM’s, in which participants must recruit aggressively to profit. Based on available data from the companies themselves, the loss rate for recruiting MLM’s is approximately 99.9%; i.e., 99.9% of participants lose money after subtracting all expenses, including purchases from the company.”^[20] In part, this is because encouraging recruits to further “recruit people to compete with [them]“^[23] leads to “market saturation.”^[24]

Similar claims regarding profits have been stated by The Times (“The Government investigation claims to have revealed that just 10 per cent of Amway’s agents in Britain make any profit, with less than one in ten selling a single item of the group’s products.”^[25]), high level “Emerald” Amway member Scheibeler (“UK Justice Norris found in 2008 that out of an IBO [Independent Business Owners] population of 33,000, ‘only about 90 made sufficient incomes to cover the costs of actively building their business.’ That’s a 99.7 percent loss rate for investors.” ^[26](case referred to is BERR vs Amway (Case No: 2651, 2652 and 2653 of 2007) which does list this as one of the points of objectionability: “c) because of the requirement that an IBO pay a joining and renewal fee and the likelihood that an IBO would purchase BSM there was a certainty that the Amway business would cause a loss to a large number of people (to the extent that out of an IBO population which exceeded 33,000 only building their business).”) and Newsweek (where it is stated based on MonaVie’s own 2007 income disclosure statement “fewer than 1 percent qualified for commissions and of those, only 10 percent made more than $100 a week.)” ^[27]

Here is a short article from the Federal Trade Commission that i also recommend reading: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/invest/inv12.shtm
and here is a longer article from a canadian lawyer and former mormon (“formon”) bishop: http://mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.multi-level%20marketing%20and%20mormonism.pdf
my own experience in an MLM.

hope this might help in some way!

quotes roundup- winter 08- spring 09

bonoboi — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:43:11 +0000

a little late in posting this, but here goes!:

stephen hawking, der spiegel (17 october 1988):

we are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. but we can understand the universe. that makes us something very special.

Saki:

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

Gerry Spence:

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

fred doyle:

Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

Tri-fecta of doubt….

Carl Sagan:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Marcello Truzzi:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Pierre-Simon Marquis de Laplace

The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.

Paul Bert :

Modern societies march towards morality in proportion as they leave religion behind.

Louis Pasteur

When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.

Charles Richet

I never said it was possible. I only said it was true.

Jean Rostand

I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.

Jean Rostand

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one’s party three times a day.

Publilius Syrus:

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Dale McGowen (author of Raising Children Beyond Belief):

Much of the protest over “nonbeliever” is that it defines us in terms of religious believers. I care about this no more than the fact that “nonsmoker” defines me in terms of smokers and “non-idiot” defines me in terms of idiots. You don’t find many non sequiturs up in arms about being defined in terms of the hated sequitur, nor are the nondescript or noncommital often irate about comparisons to the descript and commital.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. seemed not to find their advocacy of nonviolence diminished by the lexical negation of violence. Nor does Nonviolent Peaceforce, the nonpartisan, nonprofit NGO (that’s “non-governmental organization”) for which I work. For each and all of these terms, the prefix is a non-issue.

So why do we continue to waste our pique on such terms as “nonbeliever” and “nonreligious”? I find them both useful and economical. Pile on your polysyllables and modifiers as you wish. I have things to do.

Jean Rostand

Kill a man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conquerer. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

Jean Rostand

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.

Jean Rostand

The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.

Jean Rostand

When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won’t one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Consider any individual at any period of his life, and you will always find him preoccupied with fresh plans to increase his comfort.

He was as great as a man can be without morality.
Alexis de Tocqueville

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Slayer (lyrics):

Holy man open up your eyes
To the ways of the world you’ve been so blind
As the walls of religion come crashing down
How’s the ignorance taste the second time around

Tell me how it feels knowing chaos will never end
Tell me what it’s like when the celebration begins

Welcome to the horror of the revelation
Tell me what you think of your savior now
I reject all the Biblical views of the truth
Dismiss it as the folklore of the times
I won’t be force fed prophecies
From a book of untruths for the weakest mind
Join the new faith for the celebration
Cult of new faith fuels the devastation

[Read the complete lyrics]

New Hominid 12 Million Years Old Found In Spain, With ‘Modern’ Facial Features

bonoboi — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:12:50 +0000

Nicknamed Lluc. Scientific name: Anoiapithecus brevirostris. link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090602083729.htm artist’s reconstruction:

“The extraordinary resemblance does not indicate that Anoiapithecus has any relationship with Homo, the researchers note. However, the similarity might be a case of evolutionary convergence, where two species evolving separately share common features.”