Alternate Reality

Yeah, this is yet another thread on crackpots, but this time with a twist. As you may infer from the title, this will be somewhat influenced by a very well known anime show otherwise known as Dragonball Z. Although, SFN Crackpots Z will have a lot less filler, and be much faster paced.

Now then, you will soon see where I’m going with this. Crackpots every now and again come unexpectedly and plague this site with their horrid conjectures and religious beliefs. It is not known where they all come from, but they are very tenacious creatures, and they all vary in their powers. For some of them, their powers are not to be underestimated, for it can take well over 5 members and an admin just to deal with one crackpot. We can only be relieved though that such beings are few and far between.

Crackpots come in all different shapes, colors, and intelligence. Their powers of deception also vary, from being a mere inconvienience to being capable of aggravating and dividing entire communities. Hell, some of them are even powerful enough to sway large groups of people outside the net (e.g. the creationist movement).

Luckily, we have a way of quantifying their powers. Just like Swansont’s crackpot bingo, I will shamelessly “borrow” the Baez Index to do this. And, they will be separated into separate “power levels”, as was used in the anime before the Android Saga. In DBZ, so-called power levels were used in order to determine the strength of various warriors and opponents. The same will be applied to crackpots here.

This is how it is going to work: Basically, the higher the “Baez Level”, the greater the threat and the more boneheaded the crackpot. I have found that the more sophisticated crackpots often have very high Baez Levels. Baez levels can also help us identify who is worth using to play a game of crackpot bingo; the higher the Baez level, the faster a game of crackpot bingo can be concluded. And now, here’s the hierarchy:

0-100: Usually, people in this range are basically idiots. Their obvious lack of intellectual thought is immediately apparent when they make their first post. They may be just mere religious fanatics, people who have no knowledge of physics, astrologers, snake oil sales men, preachers, uneducated people, blowhards, etc. They may make one or two posts, hijack a thread or two, or something along those lines. But, luckily, our mods and admins are more than a match for these guys, and before most of us are even aware of it, crackpots of this Baez level are blown to bits and banished directly into another dimension from which they will never return.

100-240: People in this range are actually a whole level above these sorts. Sometimes, their ideas and conjectures might actually be interesting, and they may even know some basic science and math. But, alas, their weakness is usually immediately apparent. Repeated logical fallacies and false analogies are common, they are not very sophisticated or eloquent with their speech. And many can become quite petulant at the first sign of skepticism. The instant someone calls them out, they will all of the sudden turn to appeals to conspiracy. While they may know math, they may not actually have learned anything beyond algebra or basic calculus. They will never cite their so-called references, and expect you to believe him/her. And they can get quite emotional very quickly. No experiments, no physical evidence, etc. However, these guys really aren’t that tough, and usually a single member can defeat a crackpot of this level quite easily, though this is where they become eligible for being used for crackpot bingo.

240-350: It is usually around this level when the powers of the crackpot can be quite difficult to deal with. Crackpots with this power level can usually overwhelm a single member, or even a mod, and as such requires lots of patience and lots of rigour. While ad hominem attacks and insults can easily fry anybody with a Baez level below 240, after this stage attacks of this kind become very ineffective. Some have even been observed to grow stronger when being hit with a flame attack, so they are not to be underestimated. Crackpots of this kind (and the same is true for higher power levels) may or may not know any of the basics of math or science, but even then their stubborn resistance can be quite difficult to deal with. Their rhetoric skills are usually superb. On the bright side, guys with this level are ideal for crackpot bingo.

350-500: Crackpots of this caliber can be quite difficult to deal with, and indeed their powers can easily overwhelm that of a single member, regardless of whether or not they are experts. They are usually masters of rhetoric, and quite skilled at evading valid points. They can be very stubborn, and indeed even a bit crazy. These guys usually have their heads up their asses, and typically feel like they are somehow suppressed or persecuted. They are also quite skilled at not only throwing ad hominems and personal attacks, but also good at deflecting flame attacks directed at him/herself too. Their powers of deception are quite vast, as people with this level are actually capable of fooling the less educated. They can divide entire communities and waste a bunch of our time in trying to debunk them. Crackpots of this Baez level are not to be underestimated.

>500: Of course, the higher the Baez level, the better their powers of deception and quackery are. While people over 350 can be quite painful to have to deal with, crackpots with power levels over 500 have making logical fallacies turned into an art. Their skills of rhetoric are legendary, and are capable of fooling large masses of people. Thankfully, most crackpots on SFN are usually between the ranges from 0-200.

Over 9000: Lets just hope we never have to deal with someone who’s Baez rating is over 9000; such a power is unimaginable.

And there you have it, all the powers of a crackpot can be quantified and organized into a hierarchy, so to speak. By knowing the power levels, you can anticipate what to expect, and whether or not you can just simply blow them into oblivion or have to slug it out. Measuring their power levels actually isn’t that difficult, as you only have to take note of the frequency of which they score points on the Baez index (just take caution to counting repeats, sometimes it is necessary to count them, but over doing it can lead to gross overestimations of their powers). And, with it, we will know what it will take to blast and banish them into another dimension for good.

Now for the last part, I will make a list of some well known historical crackpots and currently active ones, and estimate their Baez levels:

atomikpsycho (1): 10

sangsobeing: 17

alanejackson: 28

Chuckwest: 51

kaneda: 55

jeff Mitchel: 63

tsolkas :71

cflsyndrome: 86

Vishal (2): 104

Zhang Xu: 143

Zephir: 180

Extrasense: 227

Graviphoton: 312

Farsight (3): 443

Zarkov (4): 800 base level.

If anyone wants to add more to this list, please let me know, and I will give them their estimated power levels.

Note 1: atomikpsycho really isn’t a real crackpot, but he’s convenient to use as the bottom of the barrel. This is to remind others the absolute low that one can get; if you think you met someone stupid, rest assured this guy is stupider.

Note 2: This is actually an estimate, as he hasn’t posted around long enough to give out his true colors. However, from what he has posted, he has all the markings of a typical idiot that happen to stumble around.

Note 3: bentheman and myself were the ones who determined his power level way back when, although we eventually lost count. Farsight has also has the capability of spreading his garbage around to multiple sites, and giving them a hard time. So, I suspect that Farsight might actually be hiding his “true power”, so to speak. A quick look at other sites indicates that he might have a maximum Baez index of 600.

Note 4: I don’t that much about Zarkov. His power level is based on whatever I could find on SFN. Regardless, he was obviously such a troublesome crackpot that he was given his own special title when he was banned so many years ago. He could very well be the Legendary Super Crackpot

I’m sure you know all of the paradoxes with regards to time travel, such as the grandfather paradox and the predestination paradox, and so on.

And for those of you familiar with the show Futurama, you would probably be aware of a little known episode called Roswell That Ends Well, in which Fry and friends accidentally get launched back to 1947 and crash land in the New Mexico desert (ever wonder what happened that day, well it wasn’t aliens that did it…)

In this show, it is revealed that Fry is his own grandfather. Now a little backstory to how this happened; They were sent back to 1947, and he learned that his supposed grandfather, who was named Enos, was living around at the time, and happened to be serving in the military. Of course, believing that he was his grandfather, Fry tried to protect him, and ended up killing Enos in a nuclear bomb testing facility. Of course, he was supposed to not exist afterwards, but finds that he does anyway even though he inadvertently killed his own grandfather. So, he figures that if he still exists, then Enos wasn’t his grandfather, and his grandmother also can’t he related to him.

But then, this is where it gets interesting. Turns out that he was only half right; because he figures that his would-be “grandmother” isn’t his grandmother (known as Mildred BTW), he ends up sleeping with her, and impregnating her at the same time (didn’t they have birth control by 1947?). Of course, his great great great great great……..great nephew, Professor Farnsworth (Fry was born in the 20th century, while Farnsworth is born in the 30th), assures him that genetically and biologically, Mildred is indeed his grandmother. Which means that, surprise, Philip J Fry is his own grandfather.

Now, actually thinking seriously about this (even though the show is a comedy in general), what exactly does it mean to be your own grandfather, both philosophically and scientifically. If you are your own grandfather, then you are also your father/mother’s father (or if applied to being your own great grandfather, then you would be your grandfather’s father, and so on…). Which then comes to a rather peculiar sort of the predestination paradox: how is it that your exact genetic code comes out of your “parents”? After all, your parents would also share half of your genetic code. What is the probability that, were you to mate with an ancestor of yours, that the same exact genetic code that makes up who you are, will come into existence at the exact day you were born?

Wouldn’t this violate the laws of thermodynamics, in which all things tend to disorder? Because, this would mean that your genetic code would then be stuck in a loop, and then you would have another paradox: Where did your genetic code originate from if you are your own grandfather?

Because, in light of all this (and feel free to pick my analysis apart if you will), you would then be an impossible object if you are your own grandfather, since your existence would violate the known laws of nature (information paradox, predestination paradox, etc.). Unless, of course, you want to invoke the multiple universe conjecture….

I will intentionally leave this a bit open, and see how YOU could resolve this paradox if you can. Here’s the challenge: Can you possibly be your own grandfather, and if so, how then do you resolve any time travel paradoxes that may arise (and no, you can’t invoke the multi-universe hypothesis, it’s already been suggested, beside which it is the lazy way out…)

Well, its official, just recently the average price of gas in the U.S. has gone up to $4.02 per gallon; we just past the $4.00 per gallon mark! link: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTlyAyhKGpX3NL4hsAAnAhpRuJswD910EPH00

It is soon expected to go beyond $5.00 per gallon, perhaps as early as this winter. It is very clear now, that the price of fossil fuels will probably only go up at this point, not down. Of course, I suppose it isn’t as bad as it is in, say, France, who has to pay $9.66 per gal. But then, it is also noted that in Europe there is heavy taxation on fossil fuels and gasoline, so the price in the U.S. (for which there is very little to no taxation) is probably closer to the true price of such commodities. Which means that we are all in pretty big trouble unless we cut our dependence on it ASAP. The price is only going up now, not down. I foresee a $200 per barrel of oil in the very near future.

Call me glum if you will, but I suspect Peak Oil Man is right, we are probably at the end of the line. Peak Oil really isn’t that far off now, and then you can say good bye to suburbia for good. But then this is stuff nobody wants to even hear, let alone address.

In other news, Carmanah Technologies Corporation of the UK will provide 1.1 million dollars to help invest in solar powered LED’s for London Transit…

~Deleted~

Hey everybody! This is my new blogspot. I know I had a previous blog a while ago, but for some reason I decided to delete that one and start over. Well, anyways, this blog is intended to be an alternate reality that you can escape to when the one we usually live in becomes boring, scary, or crazy. I will post on any topic related to science, social policy, and book reviews. Sometimes movie reviews if I think there is anything worth discussing (science related that is). It will be updated whenever I feel like it. Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoy this new blog.

Welcome to blogs.scienceforums.net. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!