Neil deGrasse Tyson: Dark Matters

[kpete]

As for me, I had a dozen different encounters to draw from. There was the time I was stopped late at night at an underpass on an empty road in New Jersey for having changed lanes without signaling. The officer told me to get out of my car and questioned me for ten minutes around back with the bright head lights of his squad car illuminating my face. Is this your car? Yes. Who is the woman in the passenger seat? My wife. Where are you coming from? My parents house. Where are you going? Home. What do you do for a living? I am an astrophysicist at Princeton University. What’s in your trunk? A spare tire, and a lot of other greasy junk. He went on to say that the “real reason” why he stopped me was because my car’s license plates were much newer and shinier than the 17-year old Ford that I was driving. The officer was just making sure that neither the car nor the plates were stolen.

In my other stories, I had been stopped by the police while transporting my home supply of physics textbooks into my newly assigned office in graduate school. They had stopped me at the entrance to the physics building where they asked accusatory questions about what I was doing. This one was complicated because a friend offered to drive me and my boxes to my office (I had not yet learned to drive). Her car was registered in her father’s name. It was 11:30 PM. Open-topped boxes of graduate math and physics textbooks filled the trunk. And we were transporting them into the building. I wonder how often that scenario shows up in police training tapes. In total, I was stopped two or three times by other security officers while entering physics buildings, but was never stopped entering the campus gym.

............

We were guilty not of DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), but of other violations none of us knew were on the books: DWB (Driving While Black), WWB (Walking While Black), and of course, JBB (Just Being Black).


More:
https://m.facebook.com/notes/neil-degrasse-tyson/dark-matters/10154327926476613

[tonyt53]

1. Sad commentary that reflects on all of us. I love this guy.

[longship]

2. NdGT is so damned cool.

There's yet another person who rolled 18 on charisma. He also rolled 18 on intelligence.

[former9thward]

27. Really?

He thinks that everyone is just a computer simulation. We don't really exist. Do you think that?

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227126-neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation

[longship]

28. Well, you have Randall, Gates, and Tyson speculating wildly.

What do you expect?

Haven't watched the video yet. Will do soon.

[longship]

29. He's moderating a fucking panel!

Last edited Fri Jul 15, 2016, 11:25 AM - Edit history (2)

So he stays out of the corners and lets these incredibly bright people speak their minds.

I have a huge respect for the panel. Randall, Gates, Tegmark, and that incredibly eloquent MIT physicist whose name is unspellable.

This was the Isaac Asimov debate. And as Neil clearly stated at the beginning, this would be not an adversarial discussion.

And nobody could credibly accuse Neil deGrasse Tyson of advocating a simulated universe in this discussion. Rather, he enabled a discussion on the topic by a group of rather intelligent people.

BIG DIFFERENCE!!!

I got through about half of the two hour video before my bandwidth crashed. That was enough to know that your objection is utter bollocks.

[former9thward]

33. He directly says "I think the likelihood may be very high"

See post #32.

[longship]

34. I'll stand by my posts.

It's a forum. He's going to enable conversation.

Relax!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

30. kpete and JG still exist 4 REAL!

Who wants to cease to exist? If you ever need any help from above (and I don't mean God) let me know. We've got your back... [LOL FBI]

Do you want go Trump-troll hunting, like old times?

[marmar]

3. K/R

[heaven05]

4. this man

is a hero of mine.........

[Pagan_Engineer]

5. The Future of the Human Race

At 68, I am pretty sure that the human race is doomed. We never seem to learn. It could be that I am too impatient for change but at my age I am in a bit of a hurry for some semblance of learning, compassion, and justice.

[NoMoreRepugs]

9. PE I (67) have to agree with you -

after all we should be at this point in time our most enlightened, most educated, most 'evolved' and yet we have an orange buffoon who has the support of a fair portion of the populace....

[calimary]

11. A reasonable expectation especially considering how willfully stubborn too many of us

remain - as far as DOING SOMETHING about Climate Change!!!! Willfully stubborn and proudly stupid! Their denial and stupidity is gonna kill us all. And MAN will they be shocked when Jesus doesn't come back and simply wave His magic wand and fix everything they broke and cleanse everything they poisoned.

[63splitwindow]

20. concerning climate change...

You are giving the vast majority of the deniers FAR too much credit. They are people with a financial interest in the fossil fuel industry, whether said interest is huge or miniscule. From the CEO at BP to the least paid employee at any business in any way involved, directly or indirectly, in fossil fuel products.

[Delphinus]

22. Hey,

great second post. Welcome to DU - and you are not the only one impatient for compassion and justice. Please continue to share.

[StevieM]

25. Welcome to DU!! (eom)

[Calista241]

6. NdGT is an excellent writer. Thank you for posting.

[LakeArenal]

7. Neil is the closest person we look to as a pastor

He speaks for me on all thing creation-wise. Love love love.

[pablo_marmol]

10. ^ This. NT

[handmade34]

8. ...

"Dark Matters"

[ismnotwasm]

12. K&R

[napkinz]

13. K&R

[raven mad]

14. I still think the practice of "shunning" might work for this kind of cop. n/t

[Calculating]

15. Truly sad

Seems a lot of cops are out to harass people for nothing other than existing while black.

[Silver_Witch]

16. I am deeply ashamed of this country!

Deeply.

When any man or woman is stopped simply because of the color ofthier skin we should alone ashamed!

[Solly Mack]

17. K&R

[forkol]

18. While I'm sure there a few....

good police officers in NJ, I for one left NJ because of the constant pull overs I got while I lived there.

Pulled over 7 TIMES in NJ in the four-year period I lived there, never once a ticket.

The incident(s) Neil describes are eerily like mine, right down to the same questions. They would pull you over for BS reasons, really just a fishing expedition.

I get tired of folks who think that it's only 'criminal' types that are the ones who suffer. Or folks that always say 'well, if they just co-operate or be more respectful to law enforcement". I have a MS degree in Computer Science and like Neil, lived/worked in suburban NJ. It doesn't matter one bit. As Malcolm X said, what do you call a black man with a Ph.D? A nigger!

I get tired of those on the right who talk about college education being important to success, and then when folks get it, they still get treated badly, or in the case of the President, they call him stupid and dumb, even though he graduated from the same school they themselves or their kids graduated from!

I read some of the responses to this thread about people at their age giving up on things getting better. You guys are a bit older than me, I just had my 50th birthday recently, and I too am already at that point. The incidents this past week, I have just pretty much given up, and don't even want to discuss them with anybody, friends, workmates, etc. I'm 'tired of being sick and tired'. The truly sad thing is, that's not my personality at all, to just give up!

[Delphinus]

23. I am sorry

you have experienced this in your life.

I am grateful you are here to share your wisdom and to share your pain. There are many a day I think this experiment of human-kind has failed and we deserve extinction.

[lindysalsagal]

19. Those cops couldn't get past page one of any of those physics books....

It was obviously theft: They were putting books into a campus lecture hall.

The stupid: It hurts.

[63splitwindow]

21. Classy man making HEAVY science accessible to the masses. nt

[pansypoo53219]

24. lostening to a story on NPR, white people are not happy w/ losing their privileges, oops, equality.

[former9thward]

26. Why does he care?

He thinks the universe is just a computer simulation.

Why anyone pays attention to him is beyond me.

Neil deGrasse Tyson says it’s ‘very likely’ the universe is a simulation.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227126-neil-degrasse-tyson-says-its-very-likely-the-universe-is-a-simulation

[longship]

31. Twice you spew this rubbish in this thread.

Nobody can view that video and conclude that he had any opinion such as you claim.

He was the moderator. And I cannot think that any of the panelists agree with the proposition either. My favorite was the woman MIT physicist whose name I cannot recall. Although I am a big fan of James Gates, Tegmark, and Randall, I am going to be following that woman closely. As soon as I get her name. She rolled 18 on both charisma and intelligence. I have become a huge fan.

And your posts here are absolute tosh.

[former9thward]

32. Sorry facts bother you so much.

A direct quote from him and from Scientific American.

Moderator Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum’s Hayden Planetarium, put the odds at 50-50 that our entire existence is a program on someone else’s hard drive. “I think the likelihood may be very high,” he said.



Spin your hero's words away. Good luck.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/

[longship]

35. Here!