• Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I prefer anti-TrumpismNOS4A2

    If I’m remembering right, you often use the phrase “anti-Trump hysteria,” which is no less of a logical fallacy, designed to invalidate any criticism of Trump in the weak minded Trump supporter, than using the term TDS is.
  • Coronavirus


    I wouldn't go around hugging people because I'm not sure whether or not I'm a carrier. It's not only about my safety.

    In the interest of a little comic relief...

    Fauci mentioned something about Brad Pitt playing him in a movie or something awhile ago.

  • The feeling you're being watched.
    This guy’s with ya.

  • Is it wrong to talk behind someone’s back?
    My friend recently was mocking someone behind their back. Of course we are told that this is wrong and some of our morales state that this is wrong. If the mocked person never finds out and it doesn’t affect the treatment that they receive is it actually an issue?TheDarkElf

    If done mindfully it may be positive in allowing the gossiper to vent some pent-up feelings. Generally, a bad idea though, as it promotes increased prejudice.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    In all honesty, if you don’t know the right amount to claim “money earned” or how long money lasts then you couldn’t have been taught in the right circle.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    You lied about being in the right circle, obviously.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Let me put it this way, those who are taught in the right circles have a pretty good idea of how long money lasts, whereas you appear to be clueless, yet you claimed to have been taught in the right circle.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    My own business has dried up so much that I’m living on my savings. I’m not sure how long that can last.NOS4A2
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    You lied by accusing me of lying, whether by malice or stupidity, but then you keep perpetuating it.NOS4A2

    Nothing is stopping you from explaining, for instance, how in three months you went from being financially independent to being near broke. It could be as simple as typing out a few letters, like “Vegas”.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    He's fairly dispassionate about it as if it's a job. He doesn't seem to mind being picked on.frank

    It could be that he simply enjoys the attention, in which case we might now be serving him up a feast.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    It's a made-up-meme, the purpose of which is to discredit criticism of Trump.Baden

    Or invalidate any criticism.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I don’t know what response you could possibly expect from me, given the see through attempt to manufacture something to mock about me in your posts.DingoJones

    I just thought a little transparent mockery would nicely complement the pearls you’re clutching.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)


    Ah, of course, where are my manners! :scream: Do be a gentleman and please forgive my inexcusable intrusion.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Rather its the kind of thing we hope people will hold themselves accountable for.DingoJones

    I'm quite upset about you pointing out my weak character. Do you by chance hold yourself accountable for that, kind sir?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    It’s an aspect of anti-trumpism. Anyone or anything that looks favorably on the president is subject to hostility and persecution and censorship. It’s a sort of fanaticism. They actually think I’m a Russian bot, not because I’ve spoken Russian or anything, but because it’s what they’ve been taught to believe.NOS4A2

    Just recently you've been caught in blatant lies. Why would anyone bother to lie on this forum unless they were either a fanatic or being paid?

    Anything you post can only be trusted if it's verifiable, at this point.
  • Coronavirus and employment


    I hope she was/is successful. She has a sweet disposition, in my experience.

    In Ojai at the time I did work for an ayurvedic healer, some kind of Lymph node masseuse, an art gallery, and I built a website for a guy that literally sold electrified water by the plastic jug. Pretty standard fare for Ojai, really. :lol:
  • Currently Reading
    Clay's Ark, Octavia Butler180 Proof

    This looks good. I read one of her series and liked it a lot.
  • Emotions Are Concepts
    it involves subconscious prediction
    — praxis

    To be honest, I find it hard to fathom how a mind could possibly work without these.
    javra

    One way might be like the computers we are now using, though of course they aren't minds and may never develop into being minds.

    To stray from the topic a bit, The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence developed by Jeff Hawkins (Numenta) applies the principles (hierarchical auto-associative memory and prediction algorithms) of real intelligence to AI. Imagine training machines instead of trying to program them.
  • Coronavirus and employment
    Yeah, sounds good.

    It was Dianne Steal, back when she was trying to market wine cozies. Not the most lucrative client I ever had, which is why it was so brief.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I wouldn't be surprised if one of Trump's cult members tried out his brilliant idea.
  • Coronavirus and employment
    I don't want to be a freelancer.Pfhorrest

    I'm in the same field as you are, and even breifly did some freelance work for one of the employers listed on your resume. I got a referal thing going in the Ojai valley some years ago. Anyway, just wanted to say that freelance isn't so bad.
  • A question about psychedelics.
    There'a a realy good book called How to Change Your Mind that is very thourough on the subject. Also, the author relates the story of several trips on different forms of psychedelics, which is interesting.

    I'd like to try a trip or two myself, without getting arrested.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    We actually aren't apes.
    — ZzzoneiroCosm

    The Hominidae (/hɒˈmɪnɪdiː/), whose members are known as great apes[note 1] or hominids (/ˈhɒmɪnɪdz/), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo, the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan; Gorilla, the eastern and western gorilla; Pan, the common chimpanzee and the bonobo; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.[1]
    Wiki.
    Banno

    We’re sapiens, a species infinity more lethal to itself and other species than, uh, any other species.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Trump's supporters are unreflective boors.
    — Banno

    I'd buy that. Trump doesn't show up well in an intellectual domain, so we easily trash him here on this forum.

    What we may overlook is the impotence of intellectuals through the ages. They're mere servants to the powerful apes who do the real creation and destruction that drives human life.

    An intellectual is no more than a helpful dog whose whining means nothing.
    frank

    Cute, but the fact of Obama invalidates your poetry when analyzed intellectually.
  • Emotions Are Concepts
    I should have been clearer in trying to point out that in using just imagination to become angry or envious the corresponding bodily stimuli are produced in the body. I imaging that curiosity, for example, corresponds to a bodily state of higher arousal. Whether that means a slightly higher heart rate or whatever I don't know, but there is an altered interoception.
    — praxis

    No denying that. This is a good example of what I'd frame as top-down effects upon bodily states emerging from cognitive states.
    javra

    Not sure what you may be implying by mentioning bodily states emerging from cognitive states. Imagined envy is basically a simulation that can produce the same emotional response as an exteroceptive experience, going back to that example. The theory doesn't hold that an emotion like envy is gained via interoception alone. I don't recall the specifics, I learned about the theory a couple of years ago, but it involves subconscious prediction, an aspect that you may not be fully appreciating at this point.
  • Emotions Are Concepts
    In respect to imagination (here broadly understood to not literally regard only images), I'd say very little if any. One can become thirsty (an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be just as one can become curious (not an interoception) by imagining oneself to so be.javra

    I should have been clearer in trying to point out that in using just imagination to become angry or envious the corresponding bodily stimuli are produced in the body. I imaging that curiosity, for example, corresponds to a bodily state of higher arousal. Whether that means a slightly higher heart rate or whatever I don't know, but there is an altered interoception.

    I'm not denying the interlinked nature of mind and body, but am disagreeing with the physicalist-like notion - or predisposition of interpretation - that all cognition emerges from bodily states of beingjavra

    I don't believe that the theory of constructed emotion makes that claim or relies on such a notion.
  • Emotions Are Concepts


    Good point. I can't help thinking how inextricably interlinked the mind and body are, however.

    While some emotions are commonly understood to be correlated to interoceptive stimuli – e.g. disgust with some degree of bodily nausea – other emotions hold no such correspondence whatsoever. Envy I think is a fairly common emotion – and is one such example of an emotion that is not gained via interoception. Unlike anger or sorrow, there is no set of bodily stimuli obtained via interoception that corresponds to envy.javra

    I could produce the bodily stimuli associated with anger using just my imagination and no external stimuli. I could do the same with envy. What's the difference?
  • Coronavirus
    I don't think lockdowns are a good idea for the simple reason it is never a good idea to destroy one's own economy.NOS4A2

    Are you willing to acknowledge that a pandemic would badly hurt the American economy (given its preparedness) regardless of how it's handled? I understand that Germany, for instance, is doing much better economically because it's in a better position to handle it.

    The main reason for doing so was the fear that a surge would overwhelm the healthcare system, which largely hasn't happened, even in states with no stay-at-home restrictions like Wyoming, Iowa or South Dakota.NOS4A2

    Maybe it hasn't happened because of the measures taken???

    It's becoming more apparent that treating the entire country as if it were New York City or Italy was a huge mistake.NOS4A2

    The entire country, like Hawaii for instance, that has 10 million people traveling through it a year. Arizona has four times that many tourists. Would Americans stop traveling on their own accord? I don't know.
  • Coronavirus


    In a pandemic, it would probably be a good idea to lockdown a relatively small area that gets 10 million people traveling through it a year regardless of what's happening in NY. Also, it speaks to the interconnectedness of the world in terms of travel.
  • Coronavirus
    Hawaii has 12 deaths but is on strict lockdown because of the state of affairs in New York.NOS4A2

    Last year Hawaii had a bit over 10 million visitors, ya nincompoop.
  • Can I change my name to 'Professor Death' please
    Would you settle for Dr. Maim?
  • Coronavirus


    Your writing is aesthetically pleasing though, I should add.
  • Coronavirus
    The concept of alone is meaningless except to the godless.Hanover

    I was surprised yesterday (earthday) in the godfearing-right's reaction towards the Pope and his indictment of humanity's failure to care for the planet, and I already had a low opinion of the godfearing. They certainly are together in their hatred.

    A glaring example of religion taking a backseat to political "ideology," proving once again that it all amounts to tribalism.

    Hopefully, the Pope won't condemn the lockdown protestors or the godfearing right will completely disown him.
  • Coronavirus
    That doesn’t even make sense, so still your playbook.
  • Coronavirus
    You ghoulishly mock the death of my grandmother because you have can’t muster any other argument.NOS4A2

    Working from your playbook... You're mocking the death of my poor grand?! She died alone! :groan:
  • Emotions Are Concepts
    We are in a sense at the mercy of our predictions, but we can endeavor to change our predictions or deliberately condition ourselves in particular ways.
  • Coronavirus
    I just cross referenced the post where his gran just died and he's been retired for a few years. Something doesn't compute.Punshhh

    Yeah, my gran just died too. She was infected by one of those lockdown protesters. Filthy bastards!
  • Coronavirus
    I did, and the blank was filled with: he's lying.
    — praxis

    I’m flattered you spent the time.
    NOS4A2

    Oh it wasn’t me, and I stopped paying my research team when this whole corona thing started.
  • Coronavirus
    Just cross-reference a couple of my posts and fill in the blanks.NOS4A2

    I did, and the blank was filled with he's lying.