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Science & Alternative Science / How much does knowledge of linguistics help with learning foreign languages?

« on: July 16, 2017, 05:10:23 PM »

So, I have two related questions for you. I think no previous knowledge of linguistics is necessary for the discussion.

1. Does the knowledge of regular sound changes help with learning a foreign language related to a language you already know?
For instance, let's say you know English very well. Does it help you with learning German to know the following and similar rules (they apply to the Germanic words and very early Latin borrowings):
English "t" corresponds to German "z", which is read "ts", in the beginning of a word (two-zwei, ten-zehn, tooth-Zahn, tongue-Zunge, twig-Zweig…) and after "r" (heart-Herz…), but corresponds to "s" otherwise (water-Wasser, it-es, that-das, what-was…) except after "s", when it corresponds to "t" (star-Stern, stone-Stein…)
English "th" corresponds to German "d" (three-drei, that-das, thick-dick, mouth-Mund, death-Tod…)
English "v" corresponds to German "b" (seven-sieben, give-geben, live-leben, have-haben…)
English "d" corresponds to German "t" (desk-Tisch, word-Wort, god-Gott, ride-reiten…), but English "nd" corresponds to German "nd" (wind-Wind, hundred-hundert…)
English "oo" corresponds to German "u" (book-Buch, foot-Fuss, too-zu…)
English "ou" corresponds to German "au" (house-Haus, out-aus, show-schauen…)
English "ea" usually corresponds to German "o" (ear-ohr, east-Osten, easter-Obster, bread-Brot, bean-Bohne, death-Tod…)
I believe this was enough for anyone to get the basic idea.

2. Does knowing an archaic language from some family help with learning modern languages from that family?
For example, I've heard that, if you know Old Church Slavonic, you can basically understand all Slavic languages. Is that true?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Who is to be blamed for the factory farms?

« on: August 30, 2016, 10:39:29 AM »

So, for those of you who have been living under a rock, most of the birds and mammals we eat today, like cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and so on, are raised in factories, in small cages or otherwise very tight to each other, and never see the grass. To prevent aggressive behavior under such conditions, they are painfully mutilated. That is, they usually aren't given expensive anesthetics. So, there is no way we can make their lives worse by not giving money to factory farms. Also, since grass doesn't grow in factories, they have to feed them with something else, which is usually grains and soy, which starving children could also eat. Of course, farmers are able to pay more for grains and soy than starving children are able to pay. So, the factory farms don't make food, they destroy it. In fact, factory farms are where most of the grain and soy goes today. Since that's not their natural food, they require a lot of water to digest them and therefore they produce a lot of, well, waste, which usually stays unregulated. They also produce quite a lot of methane, which is a very damaging green-house gas. The nutritional value of meat has also changed drastically. Meat used to be the main source of omega-3, which grazing animals get from grass. But now, even though we eat more meat than ever before, almost nobody has enough omega-3 in their blood. In case you didn't know, lack of omega-3 causes, among other things, heart-disease. Also, meat of grain-fed cows is more rich in cholesterol and saturated fat, which are the main cause of heart-disease. Similarly goes for the famous Vitamin B12. It's produced, mainly, by the bacteria in the stomach of the ruminants. Well, for animals to stay healthy on factory farms, they are preventively given antibiotics, which, you've guessed it, kill, among other things, those bacteria. So, again, even though we eat more meat than ever before, there is a pandemic of the vitamin B12 deficiency. It causes anaemia and neurological problems, including dementia. But the scariest thing is what follows, according to the scientific consensus. See, preventive use of antibiotics, as is done on most of the factory farms, leads to the antibiotic resistance. And said factory farms consume way more antibiotics than humans do. So, is that what you want? A world where surgeries are virtually impossible? A world where young people die of illnesses which would be perfectly curable only if factory farms didn't exist? Because that's what we could expect in a few decades, mainly because of the factory farms.
I am not just making stuff up. Here are a few sources:
http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts (more like a blog-post, but linking to a bunch of studies)
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/21/10-alarming-facts-about-factory-farms-that-will-break-your-heart/ (again, linking to a bunch of studies)
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2000/000802.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909
http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/antibiotic-resistance/en/
So, who is to be blamed for factory farming, which could, as you can see, be the biggest crime in history? I think that we should blame, more than anyone else, non-vegetarians for buying meat from factory farms and therefore supporting it. I don't think that them eating meat is so much of a problem, I think that the problem is that they are willfully ignorant of where the meat in the super-markets and grocery-stores, where they buy it, comes from. Animal agriculture would become better if its customers were rational, and they aren't. Congratulations, the exceptions! Don't say that animals are not sapient and therefore don't know what's happening to them, so that it doesn't matter. The question is not whether they can reason or think, but whether they can suffer. Also, the Moravec's paradox, when applied to the computers inside most of the animals, their brains, implies that the power of the animal's brain has more to do with how deft an animal is than with what it can think about. And, contrary to popular belief, it's a scientific consensus that all the birds and mammals, and many other animals, are conscious.
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf
Don't say that the sacred texts support factory farming, they don't. The situation today is completely different than it was when they were written. Some sacred texts say that eating meat is permitted for the same reason some sacred texts say that having slaves is permitted.
Don't say that eating meat is somehow necessary for human beings to be healthy. There are hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide. In fact, mortality rate among vegetarians appears to be even lower when compared to non-vegetarians.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
Besides, how do you imagine that the first humans, before the tools were invented, hunted? They could eat insects, but that's something completely different from what most of us do today.
Don't say that factory farming is necessary to eat meat. There is a lot of land suitable only for grazing. We don't have to feed the animals food we could otherwise eat.
I've been on a few other forums with this topic and I don't want to engage in identical or nearly-identical discussions. That's why I made a very long post.

BTW, FE-ers, I'd encourage you to see this:
https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=67051.0

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Debunking FET arguments

« on: June 23, 2016, 10:01:58 AM »

From what I see after a cursory glance, no. It looks like s/he is building quite the strawman, or using quotes from people that couldn't make a decent argument.

He said he used most of those arguments trying to convince people that the Earth is flat on The Philosophical Vegan Forum, and that they explained to him why they are wrong.

As for those ships reappearing when looked through telescope, FlatEarthDenial proposed a RE explanation for it.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: Debunking FET arguments

« on: June 22, 2016, 08:55:01 AM »

I mean, is what FlatEarthDenial says on the thread I linked to legit? If it is, I think it should reach many more people.

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Flat Earth Theory / Debunking FET arguments

« on: June 21, 2016, 06:04:23 PM »

So, what are your thoughts about this:
https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=67051.0