Out of curiosity I just checked if I could find it. I couldn’t, which isn’t surprising - a book isn’t a scientific publication, so sources are rarely of great interest.
But in general: It would take hours, maybe days of work to cross reference the sources of a whole book with what the author claims they prove. Obviously I won’t do that. How many papers from the bibliography have you read? If you own the book, at least you should have easy access to it’s sources.
I believe in helium balloons too. Does that mean I don’t believe in gravity?
Physics can explain helium balloons really well. There’s no mystery here. And they’re certainly not disproving gravity.
Einstein didn’t even get a nobel prize for special relativity because it was considered too radical at the time.
Einstein had no easily repeated experiments to show off. You’re claiming ghosts are measurable in a repeatable way - simple enough to be explained in a book for laypeople . At least after the third or fourth study with robust methodology the scientific community would be talking about nothing else. And I know that because I am surrounded by the kind of researchers you’re thinking of when you say “scientists”. They’re a bunch of nerds, they love that stuff. And they research ominous stuff all the time, a biology professor here spent 3 years studying healing crystals in drinking water. Disappointingly they found nothing.
And why do you assume this science has gone ‘unnoticed’? We’re talking about it, aren’t we?
Well to be fair we’re talking about a claim that such research exist, which is miles off from discussing actual research, which would be done by scientists in order to validate it’s operationalisation and discuss their findings.
The thing is: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A book simply isn’t that. It’s way too easily faked, isn’t subject to the scientific method, peer review, any form of control or critical oversight and at the end of the day profits not from the truth but from being sold. And you are here doing advertising for them, so it seems like they are succeeding at that.
I’m not trying to persuade you. I believe that would be hard to do at this point. What I’m trying to say here, referring to the thread and OP’s question: It’s not unreasonable to think that you, and everyone else being convinced by a very entertaining and captivating book outside of the actual scientific method, are unreasonable.
One book simply shouldn’t be this convincing.
Thanks for explaining. To be honest I’m still not sure why that convinced you. If you wrote a book with a few hundred, even a few thousand anecdotes about people levitating I would still believe in gravity.
The power of the book is that it just inundates you with credible stories (and credible science!) from credible people
That is the part I doubt the most. Because if that was true, if this so called credible science in your book wasn’t misinterpreted or simply faked, the scientists responsible would have gotten a nobel price and world wide recognition. But they didn’t. If ghosts (or near death experiences, for that matter) were measurable in a repeatable or otherwise credible way it would be done on a wide scale. Scientists basically live for the chance to be the one who challenges a paradigm - and this one would shake everything we know about the material world, every scientific discipline, religions even.
There’s simply no good reason for such “credible science” to go unnoticed. There is at least one very good reason for faking it: It makes money.
The details here might be a bit out of scope for a c/nostupidquestions thread but I’m basing my thoughts here on the book Surviving Death by Leslie Kane.
What was it that convinced you?
Sometimes men don’t fell comfortable expressing themselves with women around.
I agree, but I wonder if it’s inevitable. Safe spaces for men would obviously have to be non-judgmental, but by women and men alike. In order to have safe spaces for men in the first place we’d need some kind of rules of conduct anyway. Explicitly or implicitly. And if those rules are in place it shouldn’t make a difference if the people upholding them are men or women.
In real life I feel the justification for exclusively male spaces is often sexist in nature (e.g. “women cannot be non-judgemental” or "they wouldn’t/couldn’t be supportive of men) or based in toxic masculinity (by reinforcing that men have a role to play in front of women, which makes it impossible to truly open up before them).
Obviously we all have learned and integrated these gender roles so much that even if we disagree with them on a cognitive level, it’s still a fact that we are restricted by them. So as long as we don’t have equality, men will probably in parts be held back by the idea of being vulnerable in front of women, even though it shouldn’t have to be this way. With that in mind maybe male only spaces could be a clutch until men get better at talking with women. I’m just wondering if we aren’t yet at a point where we can think of something better, and make a step in the right direction already - with gender inclusive safe spaces, that clearly support the right and the opportunity for men and women alike to express their feelings.
men’s spaces are an easy way for men to vent about shit that is bothering them.
That’s what interests me. Why is that best achieved in exclusively male groups? What would actually be required to empower men to vent in gender inclusice spaces?
I mean what’s really needed: Spaces without women, or spaces without toxic masculinity?
As someone who relates a lot to the feeling OP is describing, I actually blocked that community. Feeling uncomfortable with the label “woman” and the baggage it comes with, a place that’s labeled “for women only!” is one of the few things I’ve encountered that made me sympathise with what actual gender dysphoria must feel like.
Or:
So let’s not jump to conclusion. There are many options and being a trans man is just one of them - and one we should never hastily impose on anyone.
Keep in mind that this is a meme community, not a diagnostic tool. People muddle up all sorts of topics with ADHD that feel relatable but aren’t diagnostic criteria. Perfectionism for example isn’t specific for ADHD or neurodiversity at all, and that’s true for many things that get shared as memes here.
I have a cat just like yours with the same problem and can attest that it really does help. My fluffy guy really was no fan of the process, but he enjoyed summer much more afterwards. There really was an immediate change in his attitude, less apathic, more playful, cuddlier, and just happier overall. Will certainly do it again this year.
The mindset of “it’s gotta be one or the other” is a false choice presented by the fossil fuel industry and conservative politicians.
What fossil lobby or conservative politician is currently saying “okay guys you can have renewables, but then we will have to cut back on nuclear”? That’s the opposite of what conservatives are saying.
You are repeating a talking point that’s being spread around to distract from the fact that it is financially rewarding for the fossil lobby to postpone the transition away from them to sustainable energy sources as far as possible, which is exactly what will happen if we drain resources from renewables towards nuclear. And acting like our resources aren’t in some way limited is nothing but wishful thinking.
While you wait for the next nuclear power plant, the fossil fuel lobby is raking in record profits for decades to come.
Invest the money into renewables instead. And every bit of money you think you can get from “just raising the taxes a little” or “printing it” - invest that too. Everything else is a waste of time and resources.
We can do both.
If you have a set amount of money and resources to invest renewables are almost exclusively the better choice. Investing in nuclear instead means it will take even longer for us to wean off fossiles. That’s why it’s so useful for the oil lobby to support nuclear.
Germany wanted to replace nuclear with renewables. This “replace with coal” bs is straight up misinformation.
Who is going to pull the trigger? Point to the opposition leader willing and able to try and dismantle a party with this many active supporters.
Read the article. It’s already happening.
Which are used to target unpopular fringe groups not regional majorities.
You don’t seem to know a lot about the German constitution. The opposite is true. Unppular fringe groups are not banned because they are not actually a danger to democracy, as long as government positions are not in reach for them. That’s exactly how the german federal constitutional court has argued in the past. Successful bans ever only targeted actually successful parties.
The core mechanism of democracy is to abolish political organizations wholesale?
The core mechanism of democracy is to protect itself, and first and foremost that means protecting itself from facism. A political organisation that’s threatening democracy should obviously not be allowed, so it will be banned.
They won’t, in no small part because the AfD has enough seats to block the attempt.
They cannot block a decision of the federal constitutional court, don’t be ridiculous. Germany has measures in place exactly for this scenario, and they are about to be enforced. They cannot be vetoed away, it’s a legal matter.
Can you ban a party that’s got a plurality of seats in the Parliament? Or will they be the ones banning you?
Of course. And it’s nonsensical to claim we cannot ban them, while worrying they could ban us. We can and we should, based on what you yourself wrote:
If you pass a law but never enforce it, the law does nothing.
We have laws against undemocratic parties, so we should enforce them.
I mean, by all means, feel free to give it a shot. But it seems like you’re asking an elected government to do a thing it isn’t designed to do.
But it is designed to do exactly that. That’s like a core mechanism of our democracy.
The only way to argue we shouldn’t ban the AFD is if you claim that they somehow should be exempt from our mechanisms against fascism. They were enforced before, they will be enforced again. And the AFD fits the bill in every way.
That rather speaks for banning the AfD though. We have a law for banning fascist parties, so we should enforce it, or it truly would mean nothing.
Some of us are convinced this measure does nothing
Nothing? How can it do nothing? You could argue that it doesn’t do enough or not the right things, but if nothing else banning the party would obviously keep them out of the government at least for the next few years.
Killing the head of a terrorist organization won’t help if you don’t fix the underlying issues.
And yet we don’t allow terrorist organizations to campaign for office, officially and supported by tax money, in our societies.
I’m trying to show you that your case isn’t convincing.
If your book could logically prove something, or at least argue convincingly (logically!) in favor of it, maybe it would in fact be interesting. Then you could repeat the arguments here (and elsewhere, and scientists would be doing just that) and we’d actually have some kind of discussion with something to gain for both of us. Anecdotes are, scientifically speaking, basically worthless. At best they’re used to create hypotheses, never to test them or to prove something. And even a great sum of them simply aren’t science.
And I’m sorry to say but this very much reminds me of conspiracy theories, e.g. flat earth theory, were science is really clear about something while a few laypeople on youtube think to themselves “I bet all those researchers just didn’t think of this, which to me on the other hand is completely obvious”.
Your claim is absolutely extraordinary. You would have to present an absolutely powerful, convincing logical argument in order to even begin to support it. “Someone claimed it happened to them” simply isn’t that, no matter how well it’s written.