https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-will-run-again-2024-if-he-loses-joe-biden-says-steve-bannon-1540118

Another tacit admission of failure, loss and defeat by the far-right, matched with a threat of vengeance the next time around: Trump will be back...

If justice is served, then no, no he won't.

Yeah, it seems like it has. It'll come and go, and return once more.

Silver-linings are understood to be accidental goods that come about from things that are otherwise bad. They are not something to be sought after in themselves. I think the reality is that any goods in life in general are silver-linings to the condition of being alive. They don't justify it, they only ameliorate it.

The very fact that any suffering can befall someone, that someone can even make bad decisions that lead to ruinous consequences, the fact that conditions are present whereby one can have natural or human decision-making causes for pain is all considered equally bad. — schopenhauer1

Agreed. This seems like a specific instance of the broader asymmetry and deprivationalist account (re: intra-worldly balance) of pleasure and pain. Is it better to be put in a situation where there is a right choice and a wrong choice, or to not be put in that situation to begin with? If there is no reason or need for someone to make choices, why give them this burden?

It seems clear that someone who makes a very bad choice would have been better off had they either made a different choice (an empirical truth), or never had to make that choice to begin with (a metaphysical truth).

You know what? Running against the worst candidate in the history of American politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose? My whole life—what am I going to do? I’m going to say, I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics! I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country, I don’t know.” — Donald Trump

He's in full panic mode.

An atheist made for an American audience whose contact with theology has only ever been through the insanity of American evangelism. — StreetlightX

:100:

Thanks for sharing, Midgley seems very interesting.

Surrounded by his MAGA goons, Trump still questions how he could lose to Biden. Each time sounded like a tacit admission of defeat. Link is forwarded to one of them (11:35).

• "Can you imagine if you lose to a guy like that?"
• "How the hell do you lose to a guy like this?"
• "Suburban women, can you please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood, okay!"
• "The wall is almost built, the wall it up to three-hundred ninety-two miles." (Mexico - Texas border is 1,954 miles) "It's almost built."
• "We are protecting the legacy of Christopher Columbus [...] [he] will always be a hero on my watch."
• "You damn well better vote for me, Pennsylvania!" (PA is a swing state)
• "That sucker [covid treatment] works, that's my opinion. What do I know? But to me, it works."
• "We have proudly received endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Troopers Coalition, the International Union of Police Associations, the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, the Fraternal Order of Police..."
• "Four years ago I said we were going to do things, now we've done them all, plus additional things, I mean a lot of additional things. I never talked about Space Force [...] that's, like, a major achievement for four years, that's like one thing out of so many other things, so it's one of those things, I never used to talk about that."
• "We took out 100% of ISIS."
• "We are the envy of everybody. There is no country that has what we have." (like 216K dead from covid)

Violence, propaganda, either way the ruling class has to manufacture consent from the great beast.

Causing conditions for which people will experience suffering, is a weighty matter, a moral one. At the least it is a core existential question that one must grapple with. — schopenhauer1

I don't know, procreation is a natural behavior of biological organisms. People fuck and wanna have a family, it's not too complicated. When (if) morality plays a part in the decision to have a child, it's usually just in terms of when, e.g. when is the right time to have a child.

Is it wrong for a pigeon to shit on my car? Is it wrong for a shark to prey upon another fish? These organisms are behaving in accordance to their nature.

Procreation is an act of blameless wrong-doing, i.e. foolishness. Is it wrong for a fool to act foolishly, if it is in their nature to do so? There is nothing in procreation to justify, it's just what people do. We might think it is stupid, or that it would be better if they refrained, but demanding people give a rational justification for something that is natural and instinctive is equally foolish.

Kamala :fire:

Thank god the cavalry finally arrived

If you don't want a revolution in which once lovely societies become desperate shit holes, then the best policy is a forward thinking commitment to sustainable (and significant) change. In other words, if you don't want a revolution, then get ahead of the growing stresses and deterioration. Fix the damn bridge now so it doesn't collapse, and start building its replacement. — Bitter Crank

Really good, thanks BC.

Until these political philosophers go existential, they are all fucked. — schopenhauer1

:up:

I think a certain degree of mythology has to be embedded in a political movement for it to be successful. Conservatism wishes to maintain or bring back a lost world where things were better (they weren't). Socialism, anarchism and other leftist trads want to bring about a new utopia where things are better (they won't be, or at least they won't be utopian).

Are there any political philosophies you like that include this existential aspect?

Communism bad, therefore Russia's communist revolution bad, therefore Tsarist Russia less bad? Russia was already shit. That's why they had a revolution. France also had a socialist revolution, for the same reason. — Kenosha Kid

Yeah that's what I was wondering too.

Stove's analogy of the malfunctioning television falls apart when you consider that nobody wants a malfunctioning television that they can't fix. As I see it this is exactly what radical politics is about - completely doing away with whatever system is in place. It's not trying to fix it, it's trying to get rid of it.

And, ya know, if conservative reactionaries would stop trying to undermine things (re: Killing Hope), leftist politics might be given the fair chance it deserves.

Ive started to realize that the people who broadcast preductions that no climate scientist supports will continue to do so because they don't care about the truth. That's true on both sides of the issue. — frank

Definitely there are some people who say things contrary to science because they don't care about truth. But I think the vast majority are just idiots. Never underestimate a stupid person who thinks they're smart.

He spoke directly to the camera, notably, and I’ve seen reports that it was very positive with undecideds. I don’t think Trump is capable of that approach. — praxis

That's true. I did feel that Biden did a good job with speaking directly to the American people. Trump seemed to be almost entirely oblivious.

I think that’s understandable because by claiming that Trump won the debate suggests that you value his “stream roller” strategy or that your prefer a bully to a moderate. It was certainly a winning strategy for his base, but then he doesn’t need to win them. He already owns them. I think Biden probably did a better job at reaching the undecided, but who knows. — praxis

I felt it was more along the lines of: shut up and stop spreading doubt even if you feel that way; now is not the time to doubt the candidate or point out his flaws, because it's too late to fix anything.

The debate was supposed to be conducted based on agreed-upon rules. Trump blatantly violated and disregarded these rules, and Biden barely did anything about it. Instead he complained to the moderator and the crowd and said a few meek comebacks. Where the hell was his resolve? Where the hell was his strength? Watching the debate unfold was a chilling experience where I thought: holy shit Biden is weak.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical, but I came away from the debate feeling two things:

• Biden needs to win over Trump
• Biden might not be able to win over Trump

It was like waiting for the cavalry to arrive only to see a few ponies instead. Fuuuuuuuuck.

Maybe I should just shut up about this until the election is over so I don't inadvertently help Trump.

I thought one of Trump's goals was to smear Biden enough so that people on the fence, as well as people who reluctantly support Biden, would doubt Biden's capacity to be president. Over and over again Trump made hypothetical assertions about Biden's ineptitude - things are bad, but they would have been even worse with Biden.

But Trump also tried to make Americans feel like they didn't have a choice in the matter and that they are stuck with him whether they like it or not. I mean with the very first question of the debate (re: the Supreme Court nominee), Trump basically just said that even if the majority of Americans would prefer to wait until after the election, it's too bad for them, democracy can suck it. Later, he talked about election fraud and how mail in ballots are insecure. Then he urged his base to become his brown shirt poll watchers to intimidate voters.

This makes me think Trump isn't really trying to get more people to vote for him as much as he is just trying to stop people from voting in general. Make things as uncertain and chaotic as possible so enough people get paralyzed and don't vote.

By no means do I think Trump won the debate in terms of intellectual reasons. The guy is a moron. But it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, only who garners more support. That is who "wins". And at the time of my first watching of the debate, I felt that Trump had the upper hand.

For some reason I have encountered a lot of resistance by suggesting that the opponent may have won. People seem to take it to mean that I wanted the opponent to win. In fact I hope the next debate proves to be a smackdown for Trump. I wanna see him cry.

Putting down some thoughts of mine.

Trump successfully derailed the debate and made Biden appear weak. He repeatedly insulted Biden, insinuating that, whatever bad things have happened during his administration, under Biden it would have been even worse. He did the way of the bully - make himself look big by making others look small. His strategy was, the best defense is an offense. Just attack, attack, attack.

Unfortunately one of the problems with Biden was that he had a limited range of emotional expression. It was boring to look at him, his voice had no inflection. Trump was good at getting and keeping your attention. I watched Trump more than I watched Biden, even when Biden was talking, so I wasn't always really listening to what Biden was saying. Biden can say facts but as long as nobody is listening and is paying attention to Trump instead, it won't matter. Biden was almost just background noise at some points. He would laugh and look down when Trump went on the attack, just passively taking it. He hardly ever looked Trump, and it made it seem like he was scared of him.

On the other hand, Trump used the two minute segments to cram as many sound bytes in as possible, just strings of tangentially-related ideas that frequently spilled over into other unrelated topics. He would grip his podium and glare at Biden when he spoke, which made him seem physically dominant. Trump tried to make sure he was the last person to make a point, so that his point would be the one you remembered, not Biden's. That Biden for the most part did not interrupt Trump, and the fact that there was no fact-checking or mic muting meant that Trump had the spotlight. Trump can be entertaining to watch, what's he gonna do next, what's in his bag of tricks? He can also be funny, he made Wallace chuckle several times.

I do not endorse Ben Garrison's political views, however I felt his cartoon more or less summarized how I felt the debate went:



By the last quarter of the debate though I was pretty fed up with Trump's antics. Trump seemed to be exhausted. This was when Biden seized the opportunity and finally asserted himself. Fucking finally man, goddamn.

If we define "winning the debate" as "garnering more support than the other candidate does", then after my first watching of the debate, I thought Trump "won". I'm relieved to see I was wrong - according to this, it seems that Trump's approval rating went marginally down, while Biden's went marginally up.

I look forward to the upcoming debates, which appear will be handled differently. Hopefully reason will be able to be heard.

Moderator should have been a woman

Trump is steamrolling Biden and Biden isn't putting up a fight. It's bad.

Trump's braggadocio is in full swing

Hungover?

I'll prolly make a post on the book once I finish it.

I loved Dune.

In the Presence of Schopenhauer, Michel Houellebecq, recently published in English.

Albinism. Or maybe just skin pigmentation in general, which means so much to so many for such dumb reasons.

I wouldn't want to be immortal, but I would like to be able to decide when my life will end. It would be nice to not have to stave off death, nor endure a pointless and drawn-out decline, and instead live exactly as long as I wish. At the end of the day though it doesn't matter how long your life is, what you did in it or even that you existed at all, except for maybe the legacy you leave behind for everyone else (whose lives are equally meaningless).

Really interesting diagram.

Damn WTF this sucks, how did I not hear about this. Cool dude, really made me think.

For the obese, diabetic, supersized-junkburger and dietcoke consuming crowds waddling through Walmart it is a very big danger. They already should take some responsibility for their health, Corona just amplifies that. — Derukugi

In other words, fat people deserve to die.

k.

Seems nonsensical that a Shaivist would convert a Sunni with a cosmological argument, for example. Cosmological (and other popular apologist) arguments largely cater to existing religious believers as confirmation (bias) anyway, as indicated by the gap from typical apologist arguments to the common elaborate religions. — jorndoe

I think these arguments serve two purposes:

1. reinforcing the beliefs of the already initiated, and
2. planting the idea of belief in those who are not

From the perspective of the faithful, these are positive. In a crisis of faith, having that rational justification can be reassuring. And while these arguments may not convert by themselves, they may at least lend credibility to the faith, which can later blossom into a conversion.

From the perspective of the skeptical, they are negative. These arguments are ad hoc justifications for positions that are otherwise indefensible, akin to someone desperately clutching to whatever makeshift device that keeps them afloat. And they are dangerous too; otherwise level-headed people get hoodwinked into believing nonsense by a pretense of reason.

I have read many arguments for and against the existence of god. Each one of them seemed to me laborious, and driven by ulterior/subconscious motives. I have yet to read one that did not seem to be an expression of the person articulating it. I do not think that the question of god is something that can be answered definitely, one way or another, though I find myself leaning towards the skeptical end.

boredom

troll

Thought this panel was interesting.

:up:

Yes, but WITH Corona, not FROM Corona. It is a different statement. — Derukugi

Not at all. Vulnerable people die from a combination of COVID-19 and other illnesses.

What you seem to be implying is that COVID-19 is an epiphenomenon of sorts, that it happens to accompany these deaths but does not actively play a role in them. This is unsubstantiated. COVID-19 does in fact play a causal role in these deaths.

And it more reflects the general health of a population than anything about the virus. (Which I suspect will be the general global outcome anyway, once this thing has run its course.) — Derukugi

In other words, "sucks to suck!" :roll:

Corona has killed about 9000 people in the US, a practically irrelevant figure.

(Yes, the figure always quoted in the media is 150,000, but those are with co-morbidities. Corona alone only 6% of that, aka about 9000 people). — Derukugi

This doesn't change the fact that 150K people with pre-existing conditions are dead.

"Well, if they weren't diabetic, maybe they wouldn't have died. COVID-19 didn't kill them!"

"Well, if the forest wasn't so dry, it wouldn't have caught fire. The lightning strike didn't start it!"

"Well, if she had been wearing her seat belt, she would still be alive. The drunk driver didn't kill her!"

COVID-19 is still a pandemic, even if it doesn't kill healthy people. The combination of certain pre-existing conditions and COVID-19 has proven to be lethal, and those vulnerable to this are pleading to everyone else: please don't kill me.

Damn, that sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing.

I'm jealous, the early internet seemed like a pretty cool place. The pioneering days, before the digital suburbia popped up.