Ayn Rand made a good point here as long as you exclude the context of what she considered good and evil.

For context, Ayn Rand’s “good” includes unfettered capitalism, personal wealth, individualism, and oligarchy. Her “evil” includes industrial regulations, charity, social responsibility, and democracy. That certainly puts a different flavor on her statement, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what the first building has to do with the original image. But the one in Dubai is much more conparable. But they are not the same. The Dubai building certainly needs strong framing to keep that overhand from falling. But it is also held at one end and the middle giving it strength and stability. And the forces at the attachment points are both vertical (upward or downward at the end depending on weight distribution on the lever and downward in the middle). That makes a huge difference as they don’t have to work against lateral forces. The middle attachment holds all the weight and the end attachment counters all of the torque on the lever. The center of mass is also within the footprint of the building(s) bases

The actual length of the overhang for the real building, while impressive, does not compare to the length in the original image. It does not have anything holding the weight in the middle of the lever, meaning that the end attachment has to hold the weight up alone, AND counter the torque. Furthermore, the point at which the hang in the altered image is attached to the main trunk is also at wide angle meaning it will put a lot of lateral forces on the trunk that are not counter balances by the opposite branch which is shorter and less angled. The center of mass of the hanging branch would be well outside the base of the building and so it would want to rotate at the connection point and pull away from the joint. That’s if the steel frame itself doesn’t just bend under its own weight putting torque on the lever.

I really don’t think that there are any materials under Earth gravity capable of creating a rigid structure with this design at this scale. The forces would be tremendous on a single junction point and along the length of the frame of the hanging arm. Something would give.

Yeah I didn’t think there was any way. Even with like a steel frame and everything else made of Styrofoam and paper mache, I’m pretty sure that thing would still snap off under its own weight.

Surely that second building is AI generated or something right? Surely physics would not allow such a monstrosity, nor would any city approve it… right?

I go with “efficiency”

It gets better. “God’s Plan” and free will are incompatible, yes. But also, Christians love to pray for stuff. “Make mama get better”, “Let the Cowboys win”, “Get me the job I want”, etc. And they LOVE to say that “prayer works”. But at no point do they consider the implications of that notion, that praying for things changes the outcomes of the world.

A) Anything, prayer or otherwise, that can change the trajectory of events is, like free will, wholly incompatible with the notion that the universe is following in lockstep with “God’s Plan”.

B) If absolutely anything would be part of God’s Plan, according the Christian faith, it would be the birth and death of every human. This is directly incompatible with prayer saving someone’s life.

C) Changing the outcome of any choice a person is going to make (such as hiring decisions), is also wholly incompatible with free will.

D) The very notion of prayer causing change places human agency over God’s will. Yes, presumably, God could choose whether for not to grant a prayer. However, if he changes his prescribed outcomes based on your prayer, then that means either that he decided your idea was better (which seems odd for an all-knowing being) or decided to capitulate to you for some reason. Either way, you hold sway over your almighty god’s will for the universe. This thought is SUUUPER narcissistic to believe in.

E) Other people’s prayer holds sway over you. If your prayer can cause God to change the minds of others, then their prayers can likewise cause God to change your mind in turn. Neither of you then has free will. Moreover, it is not just God, ultimately, that can negate your free will, but any other Christian that prays for it. That’s troubling, to say the least.

F) Bad things, things unjustified by karmic justice, things unrelated to human free will, happen all the time. Things like natural disasters, disease, animal attacks, genetic accidents, etc. Those things happen to good people, Godly people, innocents, infants, the unborn. People pray for these things not to happen. “God, Protect them”, “Bless them with your Grace”, “Watch over them”. Yet they still happen. If prayers works, unless God decides to not answer them, then God must have decided to ignore those prayers. Prayer working is, itself, incompatible with the idea that there is a holy plan that must be followed, so that is not a justification for choosing to ignore those prayers and allow such things to happen. That means God could have stopped it and did not. God is directly responsible for these evils. There is no way around that.

On that happy note, enjoy your Sunday service guys!