Posts by konceptual99

22

22 fascinating maps that show how Americans speak English differently across the US

by blondie in

jw
friends

http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/22-fascinating-maps-that-show-how-americans-speak-english-differently-across-the-us/ss-bbwqtug?li=bbnb7kz&ocid=iehp .

everyone knows americans don't agree on pronunciations.. that's great, because regional accents and dialects are a major part of why american english is so interesting.. josh katz, a former ph.d. student of statistics at north carolina state university, published a group of awesome visualizations of professor bert vaux and scott golder's linguistic survey, which looked at differences in american dialects (via detsl on /r/linguistics).. his results were first published on the abstract, the nc state university research blog.

the complete set of katz's maps, updated with the results from more than 350,000 new survey responses, are compiled in the new book "speaking american," publishing october 25 from houghton mifflin harcourt.. katz gave business insider permission to publish some of the coolest maps from his collection..

konceptual99

Really interesting blondie - I love stuff like this.

39

Steve Hassan. Can some one verify if this is true.

by joe134cd in

https://culteducation.com/group/1289-general-information/8227-disclaimer-regarding-steve-hassan.html.

konceptual99

I am pretty ambivalent about Steve Hassan. He has the same certifications that the majority of his peers in counselling in the US would hold and if that sort of thing floats your boat then fine. I've never read his books so can't comment on them other than the breakdowns I have seen of the BITE model make sense to me.

I am not sure that his experience as an ex-moonie and subsequent training give him any more credibility or ability than someone with some kind of psychology doctorate to produce content with high academic value, however many people have found his books useful and informative. Could they have got that content elsewhere for less money, or even free? Sure but plenty of people pay over the odds for goods and services every day of the week just because they get something else that provokes a more emotional response from the transaction.

I think his higher charges come from the fact he has built the perception that he is a leading expert on cults. In a world of counsellors his USP is this perceived expertise with cults and cult behaviour. He is leveraging that to make money. I read it more as hubris and ego than a cynical "let's fleece the morons" attitude but fundamentally it comes down to the point that if you don't like his charges then don't pay them.

I'd love to meet the guy, chat to him and find out more about how he approaches his work. I just wouldn't pay $400p/h to do so.

19

What was the biggest hypocrisy you have seen while a witness?

by HereIgo in

i have far too many to name, however, i have noticed obscene music, cussing, lying and secretive gambling to name a few.

thoughts?.

konceptual99

Congregations are riddled with individual cases of hypocrisy but lets not forget the number of organisational examples of hypocrisy. The blood doctrine, free passes for historical sin for elders, Mexico/Malawi, criticism of Christendom for changing doctrine, claiming that anyone should be able to change their beliefs without consequence.... the list goes on and on and on.

8

The End is near!..for my great, great,great grandfather...

by TTWSYF in

so it occurred to me how crazy the wts is and has been.. if i am 25 years old and my parents had me when they were 25, my grandparents were 25 when they had my parents, and their parents were 25 and so on and we were witnesses, what would we think?.

my point?.

my great, great, great grandparents were around 25 years old when the judge was promoting the end of times in the 1870s.

konceptual99

Your mistake is thinking of a generation in the terms you describe. You need to get with the program and redefine your understanding to match a generation as 'splaned by Splane and the WTS.

Rookie.

29

Who is attending the 2016 Annual Meeting this Saturday?

by Londo111 in

jw
friends

i'm curious if we will have eyewitness reporters at the stanley theater like we do every year....

konceptual99

The word on dub street is that even fairly senior bethelites are out of the loop as far as news is concerned.

Some are reading this meaning "something big"(TM) is on the way. Others are saying it's to stop leaks to apostate sites. I can't wait for something in advance...

Well, actually I can.

11

Inevitable Life - Video

by cofty in

very interesting lecture and q&a session by professor eric smith of the santa fe institute.

in his discussion of the primacy of energy there is a lot of overlap with the ideas of nick lane of university college london.

if you still think abiogenesis had something to do with "primordial soup" you should invest half an hour to watch this.. ....

konceptual99

Good one Cofty. There has been discussion on the latest developments in research into abiogenesis in Neww Scientist recently that has been very interesting.

The discovery that Europa is spewing water into space is getting scientists excited as well as this represents an opportunity to capture material from beneath the ice crust without the risks associated with landing on the moon then having to try and somehow get beneath the surface. There is alot of speculation that if anywhere in the solar system could support some kind of micro bacterial life then it would be Europa.

59

Counting time

by Emma in

i may not have put this in the correct spot, but i do think it's scandalous the way time gets counted now.

i've seen a cart at the edge of our farmer's market, never anyone close enough to talk.

yesterday was a drizzly day and there were two carts set up, covered in plastic, "witnessing" on their own.

konceptual99

It's all about the numbers. The WTS has to have the preaching work showing an increase. The one side benefit is that in principle we should see the conversion rate ratios looking even worse over the next few years.

Ultimately however so few Witnesses really examine the figures it doesn't matter - just so long as people feel busy and working with a sense of urgency for a purpose then they are hooked.

33

How Dangerous are Blood Transfusions really?

by TheWonderofYou in

this is a report about the successful implementation of the patientbloodmanagent in germany and prof. zacharowski as well as the business trip of his life with shocking facts about transfusions in his bag.. http://screenart.tv/portfolio/gefaehrliche-bluttransfusionen.

this year 2016 president obama and vice biden awarded german physicians prof. kai zacharowski with humanitarian award for patient safety.

the patient safety movement foundation set the goal to massively reduce the number of preventable deaths of hospital patients worldwide by 2020.

konceptual99

Most if not all surgical procedures involve risks to a patient, however the transfusion of one person's venous blood into another individual, presents various risks which the National Health Service in the U.K. acknowledge and address via their website for health professionals, SERIOUS HAZARDS of TRANSFUSION. (S.H.O.T.)
http://www.shotuk.org/

Very interesting site with a very interesting report.

http://www.shotuk.org/wp-content/uploads/SHOT-2015-Annual-Report-Web-Edition-Final-bookmarked.pdf

Basically there were 26 deaths that had at best a possible cause of death related to a blood transfusion. That is across the UK in a year with 2.5 million instances of blood being issued.

The report is very detailed and shows that many of these issues and reported errors were due to human error not a biological issue with the blood or procedure.

Of course this is a very simplistic cherry pick of some figures but no worse than the highly selective and biased reporting the WT does. They leverage the ignorance of people to induce fear whilst watering down their own doctrine with illogical positions on how blood should be treated.

The blood doctrine and it's disingenuous, hypocritical application by the WTS disgusts me. They pressurise people into compliance with a potentially life threatening doctrine yet do not have the moral integrity to even be consistent in how they approach the subject.

The blood of many innocents is on the hands of each the GB members who have consistently pushed this hypocrisy forward and it saddens me that so few will ever awake to this realisation.

23

Why Marrying An Outsider Is NOT A Disfellowshipping "Offense"

by Divergent in

jw
friends

so yeah, i was thinking about this.

marrying an unbeliever is considered to be wrong, but at the same time, it is not a disfellowshipping "offense".

well, the reason is simple: there is more to gain than to lose by not disfellowshipping.

konceptual99

You can get disfellowshipped for marrying an unbeliever. And it is automatic if the unbeliever is a disfellowshipped witness. I think the branch manual said that if a person would willfully remarry their disfellowshipped former mate, that would be grounds for their disfellowshipping. Someone can "fact check" that but I believe it is one of the only instances where it is automatic disfellowshipping and not automatic disassociation.

Not sure on what exactly there is in print on this matter but I would still suggest that technically it's not the marriage you are getting DF'ed for it's unrepentant and wilful association with a disfellowshipped person.

It's one of those silly WT procedural technicalities that they get themselves wrapped up in because they cannot stop writing pseudo legal interpretations of scripture.