Generally, people are still a little unfinished at 19 years of age. It usually takes about another decade basting in the wonderfullness which is adulthood before we start shedding our most insane beliefs, leaving them like so much annoying stray hair upon the fabric of adult life.
I don’t know how you feel about after work fraternizing, Fenris, but if you want to shred his beliefs, take him out for a beer sometime and have at it.
He sounds like he’d be fun to have around, you could have interesting conversations about something as simple as last summer’s weather. Everyone knows that the government harnessed the clouds to keep the north east wet and rainy so that there would be less encepholitis(excuse my spelling) even though mosquitoes, the bugs carrying the disease, thrive in the wet. I’m sorry to confess I enjoyed antagonizing the conspiricy theorists on the weather boards…even less sensical was the theory that the north east was keep cool and rainy to somehow help people in CA avoid power outtages, something about cloud coverage. Just ask your kook what he thinks the weather will be like this summer, and see if he spouts one of the two.
Actually, the nautical mile’s based on a minute of arc of a Great Circle. From http://www.dictionary.com, we find:
Since the Earth is not a perfect sphere, neither the degree of latitude nor the degree of longitude is constant; however, the actual length today of a nautical mile is 1,852 meters, no matter where you are on the ocean, etc.
Wha… these things AREN’T real? I say they ARE real damnit, and you can’t prove otherwise! Your just close minded. Your part of the conspiracy too. I bet your microwaving me right now. ::feels faint::
Oh, I’ll show you when I get finished exposing the cold fusion cover up. I’ll show you all.
Chocolate Covered Christ on a Stick!! You have just hired I AM WIN!!. Don’t be put off by his zaniness. Be proud that he is working for you and not those damn telemarketers that wouldn’t hire him!
Heh, i love people.
Could I please quote this? It sums up perfectly what happens to a human in their twenties.
Quote away, featherlou
Just watch him.
I have an acquaintance (who I’ve always thought was a little bit of a kook, but for the sake of breivity I will call my friend) who had a roommate who seemed perfectly nice during the “share the apartment” interview. She moved in and began sounding a little like your employee. When my friend moved out six months later (telling the landlord - not telling her roommate) the girl had moved to full blown paranoia with my friend as a “target.”
Sounds like you already have a number of strong “personalities” to deal with, I wouldn’t want Mr. Conspriacy to decide they were being mind controled by evil government agents and it was his duty to remove them from service.
And, regarding debating his beliefs, you can always come here, one of us will probably consent to take his role.
(P.S. Schedule a sushi lunch sometime in the near future - I wonder if he actually eats it or was just trying to get a rise)
I think I know this guy’s grandmother.
Back in the dim, dark days when I was younger, I was a deputy sheriff. We had a grannylady who phoned us regularly whenever the moon was full to complain about the aliens who landed their craft on her roof and came down to pull up the weeds in her garden. They also shined some kind of ray on her house that caused the mortar to crack between the bricks.
She called one night when it was very busy and the dispatcher, in exasperation, told her to go wrap tinfoil around the house to reflect the ray back at them. About two days later, the deputy that had that area happened to drive past her house. Guess what? Reynold’s wrap all over the place.
It must have worked, though, because she never called back.
He thinks sushi is outrageous?? If he ate rotten fish(a “delicacy” from Cholla province in Korea), then I’d be impressed.
Why not hire me? I’m a rationalist who is easy to get along with, and I really need a job.
Aliens that pull weeds? Send them to my house,would ya’? My back is killing me from gardening. Do they mow lawns, too?
Zette
This site is a great place to catch up on all the latest conspiracy news. Of course it isn’t as good as it was back in the day.
…on the off chance that Fenris gets back to the thread…
Have you considered simply discussing the difference between a theory and a dogma? We are assuming from what you wrote here that the lad is sentient.
The major difference is that a theory is ‘falsifyable’. That is, there is a set of conditions or results that can, should they occur, prove the theory to be false. A dogma, on the other hand, has no falsifying conditions or results. All negative evidence is either ignored or co-opted.
For instance:
Gravity. Theory thereof… Objects attract, etc. etc.
Nutty Theory: I don’t believe that gravity exists.
Experiment: Jump off a building.
Result: Road Hamburger due to deceleration trauma.
Experiment: Do this a million times.
Result: Please, my stomach. Large cleanup for someone. Also, large religious issues due to resurection.
However: Should you not fall, or fall at a rate not consistent with the acceleration due to gravity where ever you happen to be, or fall with a large horizontal delta V, or whatever, then we need to rethink the theory of gravity. The theory, or part of it, has been falsified.
On the other hand, a dogma says that there is something else happening. Gravity doesn’t really work, it’s a government conspiracy. Government agents with laser beams causing a field of dampened inertia or some such caused the body to fall to the ground. They simply explain away or refuse to consider all contrary evidence.
He probably won’t get it soon, but, If he is sentient, at some point he may actually start thinking. Worked on my 13 year old and several of his friends, should work on a 19 year old.
P.S. if anyone can come up with a better or funnier example, love to hear it.
P.P.S. By the way, exactly what does this young gentleman think has to be done to the gasoline in the 200mpg carburetor to get to 200mpg? I don’t think you can do much more then burn all of it unless he goes “New-QUE-lar”.
Hey, wait: the earth isn’t a perfect sphere! Just look at the potholes in my neighborhood. SO: if you flew around the world at a nominal height, on average, maybe you would go a shorter distance than with all the added ups and downs of the walking contestant in this race. You’d need a helluva good tape measure… Where are my geometry students?? Isn’t a smooth curve a shorter distance than a “wiggly” curve? O Pythagoras, where art thou? Somebody present this to the Great and Powerful Ceese!! (Hmm, might have to tunnel thru a coupla mountains… hmmm…) 
Oh, the math: 2 pi R = circumference, and if you increase an equation value you increase the result (no negative number discussions, please). Bigger radius = bigger circle = longer distance. QED, BFD, WTF?
You mean “New-QUE-lar” Power isn’t a brand name for Mota fuel?
Ah, that’s no big deal. I’ve got aliens sheetrocking my house even as I type. They do a damn good job, but the mariachi music they insist on playing on their portable radio is starting to get on my nerves.
Ola! You too can speak good Mexican: S-O-C-K-S! (NOW, let’s get PC here - all you wonderful Latino folk, I know you aren’t all from Mexico. And you might not speak Spanish, neither, but my Portugese friends never taught me anything my pea brain could retain (the strain is plain). 
)
But aliens fixed my teeth! And Hillary Clinton was in the next chair while they were doing it! I think the CIA was running the nitrous oxide tank, and the Rosicrucians’ tenets were embossed on the wall - WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN??? :rolleyes:
I think Fenris has just employed our best new candidate for membership into the SDMB!
Try looking him straight in the eye and saying “no, no kid, you got it all wrong, if you want to keep the moonbeams from penetrating your skull you have to turn the foil in your cap SHINY SIDE out!”
Just for the heck of of it, why not fire his ass and tell him the “New-QUE-lar” interests made you do it? Life is too short to have to ride herd on kooks.
I’ve got you beat. I’m marrying an alien next month. And a pretty cute one, at that.