Honestly I still don't see the obsession people have with her, especially since she doesn't seem to have any political ambitions or policies of her own. Like is it purely because people miss Barack Obama that much? — Mr Bee

She comes across as a smart, nice, honest person. Since she was First Lady, she's intimately familiar with the job. She's been the in the public eye for a long time and not even a whiff of a scandal. If her politics is somewhat moderate, she would wipe the floor with Trump. And Barack would be back in the White House. It's a wonderful fantasy, but that's all it is. Although the betting odds have her at 7%...

The set would have to countable, wouldn't it? You could count the worlds. There's a one-to-one correspondence with each parallel world and the natural numbers. How could the multiverse be uncountably infinite?

Ike, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, Trump. Feel free to explain to me what these folks did that was authoritarian. — fishfry

What did Trump do that was authoritarian? Seriously? He tried to pressure the Republican Georgia secretary of state to "find" exactly the number of votes he needed to win. He tried to pressure his own VP to not certify the election (Pence had to call Dan Qualye, of all people, for moral guidance), and he spread and continues to spread lie after lie about the election he lost. You should listen to Bill Barr's testimony about the aftermath of the election. Total banana republic stuff. We dodged a serious bullet. Had Pence not certified, or had Raffensperger gone along with the attempt to steal the election (he says he felt threatened by Trump), it could have gotten a lot uglier than it was. And then there's the fake elector scheme, and of course Jan 6th.

You could argue that the elites foisted Biden on Democrats, but Republicans had no shortage of options when it came time to pick Trump, both in 2015 and 2023. That was a purely democratic exercise and the GOP voters got exactly what they wanted.

But isn't it theoretically possible for Bob to guess right?
ETA: Bob makes a guess as far as the machine is concerned, but in the second scenario, Bob is at the mercy of the universe, so would it be possible for the universe to send Bob to the same parallel Earth it sent Alice to?

People told pollsters that, yeah, but did anyone put pressure on elected dems or the DNC? Did the liberal talking heads demand a primary? Did the NYTimes editorial board say anything about it? The Democrats sleepwalked into this mess.

The voters made it very clear that they didn't want Joe to run again due to his age, and they ran him again. — Mr Bee

I don't agree with this. There was no appetite for replacing Biden. He sailed through the primaries and his one credible challenger got almost no votes.

But if there's the assertion that physical matter exists, and minds and consciousness emerge from it, there has to be an explanation for how that happens. The Ai's are approaching human-level. Science is going to have to say something about whether they're conscious or not, isn't it?

They hid the guy all during the 2020 campaign....You and all the other Dems who are shocked, shocked that Biden's suffering the age-related cognitive impairment that was apparent in 2019. — fishfry

There were three pivotal one-on-one debates Biden was in and he won all three. One against Bernie and two against Trump.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-debate-poll/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-sanders-debate-poll/
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/poll-final-presidential-debate-biden-trump-432052

I watched all three of those debates (and the numerous primary debates) and thought Biden did fine. If he was in bad shape, as you claim, he wouldn't have won any of them.

That's a good question. Perhaps a dream like this allows to experience a whole lot of things we normally wouldn't be able to in our "natural state" of oneness with the cosmic mind. A dream where reality seems materialistic and we seem to be a bunch of individuals in a materialistic world (and of course we decide to forget we made the decision to dream all this up) seems like an excellent way to separate from the godhead and try out some unique experiences. What's it like to be in a concentration camp? What's it like to be a concentration camp guard? A celebrity? A nobody? A king? A peasant? And so on.

I have no way of knowing if that's what's going on, but it doesn't seem incoherent or contradictory. Just unknowable. The materialistic explanations for consciousness, otoh, are completely bonkers, at least imo.

538 still has the race a toss-up. Betting odds on Trump are about 55%. They could probably run Biden Weekend-at-Bernies style and still have a 1-in-3 chance to win. It would actually be kind of fun to beat Trump with a braindead Biden.

Biden's rolling the dice. If he wins, even by a narrow margin, the GOP will suffer the worst trouncing a political party has ever had in American politics. How could anyone lose to this guy??? The GOP would immediately go into circular firing squad mode. If Biden loses, Democrats will hate him and his family and his inner circle with the intensity of a thousand white hot suns. There's no middle ground here. It's either glory or infamy.

Some of the founders wanted the presidency to be a committee job. I figure when I vote for president, I'm voting for a team, not just one person. So I have no problem voting for a vegetable over Trump. The executive would still function. It's not an ideal situation, but doable.

The business establishment wants Trump. They hate environmental regulations.

You will likely be fine even if this is more than is widely considered healthy by the literature. — Tom Storm

Yes, I figure I'm losing a couple years off my life expectancy. I'm not terribly worried about it. Ironically, it was a gaming addiction that nearly cost me my marriage.

Mind coming from matter is indeed miraculous, and also embarrassing to scientists recently.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-25-year-old-bet-about-consciousness-has-finally-been-settled/

I predict more scientists losing more bets to philosophers. Ditch the whole "matter" thing entirely. There is no matter. It's all mental stuff.

Why not talk about ideas and criticize those, instead of talking about oneself and invite a flurry of ad hominems? — Tarskian

OK, what is your idea about what is good in life? How does money, power, and status factor in?

What is this??? You're going to roll in with all this Chad swagger about nobility and sex and marriage and then fold when someone asks you about what is good in life? Come on. You have interesting things to say. I don't agree with any of them, but it's interesting.

I prefer to identify with the nobles than with the peasants. — Tarskian

All things considered, it's better to have money than not, but do you think being rich will make you happy? Or is a necessary condition for happiness?

Well, that's why I changed it to "priorities", but I think we have vastly different worldviews too. I'm an idealist. I think this is all a dream. I'm guessing you're a materialist.

We have very different worldviews priorities!

At that point, you don't even know the person. In that case, how can you be in love already? — Tarskian

Most people date for awhile. My wife and I lived together for about six months before we got married.

So, what you can see at first glance, is that she is young, pretty, and eminently suitable to provide you with sexual-tension relief. — Tarskian

I actually met my wife trolling on AOL 25 years ago. It was awhile before we exchanged pics and agreed to meet.

Seriously, it is not about "love". It is always about the interests at stake. Only people who have nothing and own nothing can afford to randomly copulate like the animals. — Tarskian

Most people aren't rich or nobility so the only real concerns are, do I like this person enough to marry, are their hangups relationship-ending, and will they be a good parent?

That is why I would never "date" western again -- which is simply a pile of bullshit -- because in the end it is never about "love". — Tarskian

This is overly cynical. If you're not in love with the person, why bother marrying them? What's the point? I would never have married my wife if I had no feelings for her, and vice-versa. It's fun to experience life together, watch movies, go on vacations, etc.

Thailand sounds all right, but the Khmer Rouge wasn't all that long ago. Aren't you worried something like that might happen again and you might get caught up in it?

Isn't the proof always in the pudding? — Tarskian

People are breaking down the door to get into America.

What country do you live in?

This country is not going to elect a black woman, much less a politically incompetent black woman like Harris. Michelle Obama is the exception to that rule and probably the only person in the country who could rescue the Democrats, but that's not going to happen. Trump is up 3 points in the polling average. 538 has the race as even. Biden is not going to drop out under those conditions, nor should he. The Democrats still have a powerful message: white male vegetable>election stealing prolife felon.

In my opinion, the best places to live, are the ones where the government simply does not have the means to micromanage people's lives. — Tarskian

What are some places in the world that fit this bill?

You're certainly less productive. — Philosophim

This was particularly amusing considering two years ago I was nominated for teacher of the year at my site for the first time. Didn't win, but I'm at a point in my career where I'm doing the best teaching I've ever done. My evaluations and administrator feedback back this up. Either I'm doing horrible in life and everyone around me is gaslighting me, or your predictions are wildly off mark.

And yes, everyone I know is addicted to something: booze, food, painkillers, porn, weed, Facebook, smoking, sex, gambling, shopping, etc. Your views on addiction sound like something from the temperance movement and Reefer Madness.

I keep it at four drinks a day. My body seems to have handled that pretty well over the decades. Vital signs were good at last checkup. If I was really becoming as self-centered as you claim, I think it would have bled into my marriage or career, but those are going well too. A lot of people are addicted to something (maybe everyone), and most people have enough self-discipline to keep it from impacting their lives too negatively. My wife, for example, is a food addict, but is not morbidly obese.

I agree with all that except the alcoholic part. I've been an alcoholic for 30 years, but I'm not (I don't think) a slave to my emotions.

I agree we're in an oligarchy in practice, but that's what the voters want. Every two years, we have the option of throwing all the bums out in the House, but we never do. Even in "wave" years, the vast majority of House members are reelected. The tools are there to radically change the system, and if young people ever get politically active and turn out en masse... but that's a pipe dream.

It's 36th on the world democracy rating; a deficient democracy, though not yet a failed one. That might be next year. — Vera Mont

How could we be a failed democracy with free and fair elections every two years? Do you see that going away?

I don't think the thesis that society is experiencing decay in some important aspects can be easily written off by pointing to progress in other areas. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not really my point. My point is that, on balance, there isn't some past society or time period that is morally superior/less decayed than the societies in today's first world countries. Do you think there is? If so, when and where?

Modern society is decaying; and this decay is a direct result of moral anti-realism. It is hard to say why moral anti-realism has caught wind like wild fire, but I would hypothesize it is substantially influenced by Nietzschien thought. — Bob Ross

It seems you are saying that things have gotten worse/decayed since Nietzsche with the rise of moral anti-realism. But in the 120 years since Nietzsche, we have seen an expansion of civil rights that has been unprecedented. Which pre-1900 societies would you say are morally superior to society now?

Before all that there was Eazy E.

I notice one of your graphs concerns religious terrorism. Wouldn't you rather be a European now than during the Protestant Reformation?

I think Bob is pointing to moral decay, which might itself exist along other elements of positive growth. For example, in A Brave New World we see a picture of a society that would surely get extremely high marks on virtually every metric by which modern technocrats tend to evaluate policy "success." Crime is largely a non-issue, there is no poverty, self-reported well being is surely quite high, and technology has allowed for a great deal of comfort, even largely removing the symptoms of aging. But at the same time it seems fair to say that such a society, despite these positive attributes, has slipped into the direst form of moral and ethical decay.

And there are aspects in which the trajectory of society since Huxley's time has followed his dystopian vision, even as it generally still fails to deliver on at least the "pleasure" part of the equation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Civil rights have to rank high on the "moral decay" calculus. I'm definitely not going to agree that any society or time period where gay marriage is illegal, for example, is morally superior to what we have now. That would preclude any time period in the U.S. prior to 2015 from being considered morally superior to the present.

If society is decaying, it must have been better in the past. What time period do you think society was at its "moral peak"? The 1950's?

One simple solution would be to refuse to buy products from companies who use children in that way. — Leontiskos

That would probably end up being most of the stuff we buy.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/nov/24/child-labour-what-can-we-do-africa-modern-slavery

But this is a digression.