You should take sides on these matters. All out war is at stake.

I don’t know more than you do. I just think it was bad intel, therefor walking back is good. If there is evidence I am wrong I need to hear it, but until then...

The first intel about bounties was bad. The second intel walking it back was good. Sounds like spin to me.

Do you believe the intel about bounties was good?

I can read a paragraph of your piffle. But a paragraph full of links and appeals to ridicule is about all you’ve offered.

So, when it suits your bias, they are gold. When they don't, they are suspect. Got it.

I never said that. But spin all you like. I don’t expect anything else.

Ever notice how right-wingers don't read books and substitute that by just pimping bad quotes?

I’m surprised you didn’t link to Jacobin mag.

I can trust that they had to walk back their conspiracy theories. They have already got what they wanted: stopping troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Unfortunately in so doing they have edged us closer to war with Russia.

The “intel people” have been notorious failures. The Iraq war was premised on “intelligence” derived from methods of torture. When they start rattling their sabres it should be doubted on principle.

Well said.

I wager the attractive part is that they get to release themselves of their duty to their fellow man. Why else would they beg for some state apparatus to pick up their slack?

More fantasy.

Unfortunately it’s a dangerous game. Such hoax-worthy lies have brought the US and Russia that much closer to war. Skepticism of the story proved not only right, but prudent.

Here's another example. While I thank you for the comment, for full disclosure it's worth pointing out that you're also a good illustration of the type of person who I don't simply disagree with, but who is also dangerously ignorant and unwittingly helping humanity race to annihilation -- and that's not an exaggeration. Thus I have quite a hard time controlling my emotions, as you've demonstrated time and again that you're beyond rational discourse, and so leave no recourse but contempt and violence.

It is an exaggeration, if not an outright fantasy. We’ve never met.

I remember this story finding a home among the credulous (one can type "bounties" into the search bar for a good laugh).

U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops

"It was a huge election-time story that prompted cries of treason. But according to a newly disclosed assessment, Donald Trump might have been right to call it a “hoax.”"

That was a good read, Xtrix. Thank you.

I cashed in on Space Force hats. $400USD on eBay

I bought some Dogecoin back in 2018 on a whim, and essentially forgot about it. It's surging right now and I have over %1000 ROI.

Is humanity, as a species, capable of selecting competent, moral leadership with the will to move this world forward into an age of sustainable environmental stewardship and peaceful coexistence with each other......or are we totally screwed.

A moral leadership would have to do so with education, voluntary participation, and compromise if they should remain moral. An immoral leadership could do so through tyranny. I don’t think the species is capable of either. But don’t despair! We can rest on the knowledge that the species is awful at predicting the future, and hope for the best.

I appreciated your formulation.

What do people think about Nietzsche’s Death of God?

He was quite prophetic about the coming nihilism. It seems right that if an orthodoxy is proven absurd, it risks leaving those who rely on such a foundation to be without one for a time, or at least to search for another one in a frenzy, leading to mental and even actual conflict. The quick retreat leaves a vacuum. And for an ideology that often seeks to suppress competing world-views, like Christianity, such a retreat is particularly dangerous because it has already limited access to better ideas, leaving one without many substitutes.

Yet here you are evoking my name. What bothers you about my individualistic worldview, so much that you need to call me names?

See how the evil vampire who is actually a nerd living in his mother's basement reins in ontology to the needs of his individualistic worldview.

Maybe one day you’ll learn to face my ideas instead of the little effigy you’ve constructed in your fantasies. Until then consider my name as your trigger-warning.

What do you mean by individualism in this account?

I think a pluralist and nominalistic account of the world leads to individualism in the political sphere. The individual is the only valid classification worth considering, mainly because the existence of groups and other taxonomies can be seriously questioned.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to write this, Pfhorrest. Well done.

I suppose I would be a “right libertarian”, though I refuse any position on what I see as an inadequate spectrum. (I prefer “liberal” simply because I believe in liberty). So our differences are few, I think, though we both tend towards anarchism.

I too do not want any collapse into anarchy. With entire generations weened into government authority and dependency, such a collapse would be dreadful. But I do believe a shift from government paternalism into self-reliance through piecemeal reform is the way to go. I also believe a limited government is necessary for an extended time, so as to ween people off the notion state as a providing father, and to clean up the mess government has left behind as we head towards anarchism.

Anyways, I do have some other points of objection, but you probably already know them.

My ontology is pluralist, I suppose (but also a cop-out of sorts). There is a vast variety of individual things and substances. I think metaphysical pluralism can account for differences in time and space as well as differences in kind, which monism and other taxonomical accounts rarely offer. This also entails nominalism and individualism.

The belief that the law must conform to an "assumed standard" of some kind, and isn't the law if it does not, ignores the law; it doesn't explain it. It leads to a fundamental ignorance of the nature of the law and its operation.

What say you to that, if anything?

I say: There is no Law but the Law!

I agree. Laws mostly protect the interests of the state, the preservation of the established order, and the power of the ruling class rather than conform to any standard of “natural law” or morality.

Personally, I much rather the risk of freedom than the paternalism of statism. I do not believe a "social contract" exists in any case, and is little more than statist apologetics, so maybe our differences here lie in the general principles.

Either way, I disagree that any restrictions on freedom are the consequences of free citizens. Every restriction on freedom has been implemented by those in power who believe they know what's best for everyone else, and is therefor the consequence of their actions, not of the free man. Freedom can be bridled by choice and responsibility, and if we hand off these choices and responsibilities to some central authority we do so at our peril.

Sounds like you live in a freer area than most. In others there are curfews, stay at home orders, rule by decree, state seizure of the economy, line-ups at the grocery store. Had we not had an internet to supplement our social lives, our employment, our entertainment, I wager we would not be so unresponsive to our reality. Totalitarianism crept into our lives through the decree of establishment politicians and public health bureaucrats, and not through the dictator we were once promised.

A few years ago people started buying Sinclear Lewis' It Can't Happen Here because the media was making much ado about dictators and fascism. It turns out their warning were misplaced, because no populist fascist dictators were required to toss us into totalitarianism. And it is totalitarianism. The control is total. We're ruled by decree; governments have seized economies; the people can no longer assemble; the police have set up checkpoints; officials have closed borders; dissent is suppressed; religious observances have been cancelled.

What is surprising is that most have accepted it, even applauding it.

Is all that worth the pain the child will have to go through in life? The way things are going - prevailing values which put money and power first - the present is a basket case and the future looks even bleaker and that's being optimistic.

I think so. One could raise his children in such a way as to deal with those pains, and at the same time combat the proliferation of such values.

What possible reason could there be for creating another person?

To make a family is the main reason I opted for children. The benefits include support, relationship, security, and a chance to shape a human life.

I am also bringing up the idea of exploitation in terms of people forced into labor. Why is this not an issue? In any other case where someone is forced into a situation when not necessary, this would be unjust. However, why does generalizing this concept to life itself rather than a particular circumstance get an exemption? What about the generalization makes it "too general"? There really doesn't seem to be a good answer for forcing in a particular instance unnecessary and the more general instance of bringing into life itself.

The main reason why “generalizing this concept to life itself” is untenable is because living is not forced labor. Living is not suffering. Living is not a “situation of negative circumstances”. I am not convinced there is any overlap between the concepts “life” and “forced labor”, let alone a 1-to-1 ratio, so I am unable to equate one with the other and move forward with your logic.

Forced labor and exploitation each require a beneficiary, someone who benefits from your forced labor and exploitation. Someone must be forcing you to labor or someone must be exploiting you. If not, then no forced labor or exploitation has occurred.

I suppose that in your scenario the exploiters are the parents, but then I see parents carrying and feeding children as if they were the most precious things in the universe, and am forced to laugh.

You mentioned he doesn’t like babies, and ran with it. But there is evidence contrary to your claim. I choose the evidence, you choose...what exactly?

There isn’t a strand of chewing gum connecting the premise to your conclusion, but that’s how the internal logic of anti-Trumpism usually works.

I think I know the difference sarcasm, hyperbole and sincerity.

I hate to say it but I knew it wouldn’t be long before a few sensationalized statements plucked from the vast sea of his rhetoric would occupy your opinion of the man. That’s how contextamy is supposed to work, after all.

Of course I could be wrong.

You sincerely believe he doesn’t like babies, yet there are countless pictures and videos of him kissing babies, picking them up, bringing them up on stage at his rallies, displaying behavior opposite and contrary to your sincere beliefs. So forgive me if I do not immediately agree with them.

I do have a bad habit of giving people the benefit of the doubt, and do so at my own peril. But so far I have not yet felt deceived by the man.

I'm sure you know this but you can have two things be true. Your parents labored for you, and now that you were born, you must work-to-survive. You choose to labor or you die from neglect and starvation. That is the situation.

Laboring to avoid neglect and starvation is one thing, forced labor and exploitation is quite another. Either my parents forced me to labor or they didn’t. They exploited me or they didn’t. In fact, they took care of me when I couldn’t do so for myself, and equipped me with the knowledge to survive.

I’m fairly certain you have not met the man, have zero personal observations, and like the rest of us derive your opinion from news stories and commentators.

He had some choice words for those who participated in the incursion, so I think it can be said he was not a fan of them.

In the Trumpian value system they would be classified as losers and suckers.

That you believe such a thing occurred is a testament to your own value system, one easily moved to conclusion by gossip and palace intrigue.

I disagree, entirely.

Hopefully no one is forcing you to associate with assholes. I would argue, though, that throughout history, the inquisitors were the assholes and those they cancelled were victims. Cancel culture is a lighter form of bullying than the abject cruelty of mob violence, sure, but it is eerily reminiscent. It’s much better to defend human rights for everyone, especially for views we dislike, than to pick and choose who gets them.

Anyways, I don’t want to derail Frank’s thread.

Cancel culture negates any chance of forgiveness and reform. The ostracized tend to gather at the fringes, where their views and resentment metastasize away from the withering light of free and open debate. It always escalates. Soon we get McCarthyism and the like, ostracism based on rumors, smear campaigns, until it expresses itself in injustice and tyranny. Rather than protect the “social contract”, it violates it, leaving everyone at risk.

I’m of the mind that we must bring these people closer, protect their right to express their opinions, and hopefully change their minds. I think this pertains also to the covid and vaccine sceptics.

I can understand discriminating between sick and healthy, but discriminating against people who do not conform, whether they are healthy or not, doesn’t sit right with me. The same goes for cancel culture, which is little more than the enforcement of thought crime through mob tactics.

There’s talk of “vaccine passports”, people getting fired for not taking it, and anti-vaccine people are routinely demonized.

I don’t think any anti-vaccine sentiment is right. I just believe people shouldn’t be forced to take it or be discriminated against if they do not.