Thread:Proxima Centauri/@comment-4721065-20121111104159/@comment-4721065-20121114210536

Simply calling religion a "form of mental illness" is not scientific, as then its prevalence would go against the theory of evolution. It is now believed by scientists that it is far more natural for children, and for human beings in general, to attribute coplex occurings to centient agents rather then consider them random, hence the belief in God. It would actually be worse if it were the other way around, as people would then attribute burglaries to items randomly escaping, for example, or the cash frauds as random dissapearance of money instead of suspecting some other person.

Regarding the video, those buildings are the Mansudae area of Pyongyang and they're very real, as observed by hundreds of tourists. Now, they probably don't redirect so much electricity to it on most occasions, but I thought it would be a good way to bust the myth that they have no leftover electrivity whatsoever.

Finally, the census data in the link averages out to 69.15 years, which is actually BETTER than the 68.5 figure I cited previously. The reality might be worse, but you could say that of nearly every other government figure, so in absence of other data it's only logical to accept theirs.