Enough of your trolling. — ssu

If I was getting responses this stupid (especially see above), I would just give up.

Though it may be different with people from the Finnish outback where imagination apparently serves as substitute for knowledge .... :grin: — Apollodorus

Friendly banter is one thing but considering your general adversarial tone towards ssu, this seems more like part of a pattern of ad-homs. So, stop it, please.

It's a probabilities game but all I see is a repeat of Crimea and Putin winning again while the west flails around trying not to look helpless.

Russia can now say it upheld its commitment not to invade Ukraine when it invades and occupies the "independent" territories it just invented. Neat. And no, NATO won't do anything and no-one will even be talking about it in six months.

So desperate to virtue signal.. — emancipate

It's not virtue signalling to object to some of the comments in this thread. Whether any of them break the rules is another issue and something we're looking into.

Isn't the right wing's fave slogan "No taxation without representation"? But when attempts are made to give minority demographics' representation, they fight it tooth and nail, mostly with strawmen and red herrings. Just to make it clear, this is not about giving a judge a job because of their demographic (the judge gets the appointment proximately because they are considered qualified) and it's not about a different application of the law because of a demographic (minority judges may be of any ideological persuasion). It's about achieving more equal representation of a demographic. It's that simple. If you object to the appointment, that is what you are objecting to. Nothing else. Own it.

There's no disadvantage to hiring a black woman to the supreme court, so why shouldn't Biden do that seeing as it will help to more accurately reflect the country's demographics and (very slightly) reduce the absolute stranglehood one minority (white men) have on power in the judicial, legislative and executive branches. No downside, some upside. But even that minor dent in white male supremacy will be resisted by perfidious right wingers crying about "discrimination". The argument seems to be that though this demographic has cheated its way to the top for hundreds of years, it should get to keep absolute power because any incursion into that power is... cheating. But, of course, they can't say that directly, so will try to obfuscate by declaring it prejudice to even recognize any of the demographics that were cheated. And, bingo, the crime and any possible redress disappears. Absolutely specious positioning that deserves zero respect.

They probably deserve each other, but it's just a business decision. (Moved this to the lounge by the way as it's more of a casual conversational type OP than anything of substance).

I didn't find anything particularly harsh there. Let's not derail things any further. Either of you can send a PM if you're not happy.

Stay on topic, please.

Seems like what's being argued actually relates to a specific and limited set of cognitive skills rather than intelligence in general or intelligence as it's generally understood. And there's not even a clearly articulated alternative theory of what intelligence should be. It could be an interesting subject but it deserves a much more nuanced approach. E.g. Recent evolutionary studies pose questions for how we measure intelligence, or X cognitive skills are on the decline in modern humans (+this is bad because...)

Just had a look too in the change log, nothing there from you for the past week at least.

Edit: It's fairly harmless really, I guess. Like I said, I hope you're OK.

Yeah, and I'm Frank Sinatra. This is amusing but please stop taking the piss, @Shawn.

Yeah, there's great storytellers who aren't very good writers and vice versa. When I read plot summaries of his stuff I'm blown away.

I probably have an unhealthy obsession with his work. — Noble Dust

What's his best one, you think? I might try again.

I agree with @Noble Dust, didn't love it. Preferred Stalker (I wasn't expecting the book to be so different).

but after trying some others I just got fed up with the bad writing — jamalrob

Yes, I remember just giving up on one of his books for this reason. Haven't read one since.

Any insight into why the US might care if Russia formed a military alliance with Mexico and put its missiles there? Same reason.

Mostly about NATO encroachment/threat. Stalin wanted (and got) the whole of Eastern Europe as a buffer zone after WWII. If all Putin gets is Ukraine, it ain't much. And he's not even wanting to take it over, just ensure it's out of NATO clutches.

As long as the US and the Saudi Royal mafia remain best buds, I guess.

Print money>>buy oil>>magic energy tree! But how to make sure the plebs don't get their fair share? = American politics in a nutshell.

obviously. Republican congressmen can't condemn him because he'll retaliate. — frank

Or Tucker Carlson will. Poor Ted...

There's a lot to unpack re the riot; how much of a threat it was, who or what exactly was it a threat to, how it's been used by various elements in both parties for political means, to what extent such use stratifies existing undesirable power structures, to what extent it's justified investigating publically and for how long etc etc. There's a huge number of forces at play and they're not all going in the same direction so much that they can be summed up in a simple idea like, the riot didn't matter and the dems are stupid.

This:

Attack? They were basically waved in by cops while staying obediently between the velvet ropes while dressed up as fucking moose. — StreetlightX

is a mischaracterization.

The video @Michael posted (along with thousands of others) is proof that it's a mischaracterization, and a fairly egregious one. Simple fact.

And I just got to add as someone who probably respects your general point of view more than 99% of posters around here that at least half of your political postings consist of you calling people stupid while making the most stupidly generalized, clearly self-serving, and obviously biased statements yourself. That's the straight up honest truth.

No, what's pathetic is you completely mischaracterizing it to make a political point. You need to dial back the bullshit a bit.

They were basically waved in by cops while staying obediently between the velvet ropes. — StreetlightX

As if this is the whole story; go watch some videos of what actually happened. You totally discredit yourself sometimes. It's maddening that on pretty much every other topic besides politics you're one of the smartest people here.

So, the more physical attacks we have on government buildings, the further away from anarchy we get? And vice versa?

It's not quite Mad Max yet, dude.

Imagine getting this panty-twisted over a carnival gone rowdy. — StreetlightX

Most of the carnivals I've been to haven't involved heavy weaponry and people getting shot. That's a bit beyond "rowdy" isn't it? You can be as cynical as you like and still admit the obvious.

Does feel like it sometimes. :death: :sweat:

No, it was a genuine question seeking clarification. You didn't need to assume evil intent. — baker

I don't think strawmanning is evil. It happens all the time. That's part of the point. As are misunderstandings (I took your question to be rhetorical). Quod et demonstratum, I hope.

You're free too to not listen to a mod on anything other than moderation, to accuse them of things they didn't say etc and they'll just have to put on their big boy pants and handle it. It's only when the behaviour of the mod or the poster becomes intimidatory or deliberate trolling that there's an issue with that kind of stuff. It's not that might makes right or might makes wrong, it's that might should be irrelevant in anything except a moderation context. So, mods get to argue as if they were posters too. Otherwise, we'd hardly be able to get anyone to be a mod.

Now, you're strawmanning me. The way I deal with it is to challenge you to quote me where I said that rather than whine about it.

And to point out >>

If you feel a mod is deliberately trying to intimidate you on the basis of being a mod, that's something you can report. — Baden

Ok, if you can't handle other posters criticizing you not listening to you, misunderstanding you, and/or strawmanning you, you're in the wrong place.

If you feel a mod is deliberately trying to intimidate you on the basis of being a mod, that's something you can report. But so far, it just sounds like a regular day on TPF.

Promotion of your works here is generally considered advertising and not allowed. Posters can discuss the ideas in their works, of course. But directing other posters to their website etc. isn't necessary to do that and not desirable from our point of view. We may sometimes make small exceptions and I think we've done enough in your case by allowing another poster to leave a link to your website in a post.

Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

That sounds like having an argument, not being moderated. Being moderated is where we edit or delete your posts. If you're saying you can't handle being criticized then why are you here?

our own version of God — Isaac

Um, yeah, if you worship chocolate, I guess.

Oh, and I can only ask that entrants into the competition, as a matter of basic courtesy, offer a genuine piece of work that they stand behind, and not something intended to trick the reader into sympathising with some abhorrent idea. Though again, the story is not subtle enough to do that, being more like slapstick silliness. So, no real harm done, I think.

:lol:

The protagonist comes across as an idiotically comic figure and as much an object of ridicule as some of the PC stuff satirised.

As for the rest, I don't know how to make it simpler for you, but let me try again: You are not allowed to be a racist, sexist (etc.) here just because a "great" philosopher once was. Maybe you need to learn to think for yourself and not outsource your moral choices to people you think are "great". Good luck with that.