I fear for and pity those who need their information to be curated. — NOS4A2

It’s frightening and piteous that POTUS can only be trusted to speak and act in ways that are self-serving.

The one time trump mentions regulation people immediately turn libertarian. — NOS4A2

No, we just pile it onto the mountain of hypocrisies and stand in wonder of how so many can stand by someone who stands for nothing (besides power, wealth, and perhaps above all, attention).

Cooper admitted to altering some of the requests, saying it was a joke.

Oh, wow, that proves Mail-In ballots are 'nothing less than substantially fraudulent'?

From politifact.com

A review of Newsom’s executive order shows only registered voters would receive vote-by-mail ballots, not "anyone living in the state," as Trump claimed.

"Each county elections officials shall transmit vote-by-mail ballots for the November 3, 2020 General Election to all voters who are, as of the last day on which vote-by-mail ballots may be transmitted to voters in connection with that election, registered to vote in that election. As set forth in this paragraph, every Californian who is eligible to vote in the November 3, 2020 General Election shall receive a vote-by-mail ballot."

The Secretary of State’s website outlines criteria for registering to vote in California.

You must be:

A United States citizen and a resident of California,

18 years old or older on Election Day,

Not currently in state or federal prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony

Not currently found mentally incompetent to vote by a court

Living in Southern Cal., I've voted by mail several times, even though the polling place is a block away.

Totally gay, putting a factcheck on something debatable as that. — Syamsu

What is debatable?

Yeah, I don’t see why conservatives don’t just change platforms. If a few woke, PC billionaires are going to try to become the gatekeepers of information, it’s time to just walk away. — NOS4A2

Yeah, fact-check labels are unacceptable, because, uh, they contain facts.

I don’t see how adding fact-check labels to blatant lies on Twitter is totally silencing conservatives. Even if conservatives can only communicate in lies, adding the fact-check label to particular lies isn’t disallowing them from being voiced.

There’s no point in having a discussion with you — Possibility

You only just figured that out? :lol:

I suggest that you quit the forum because you don’t enjoy or get anything out of participation and not because of one disagreement or, what is it you Brits say? bloody row.

A warning sign can be the use of words like “living wage.” Is that for real?

In any case, Chibber seems to be advocating the formation of working class “tribes” to organize (unionize, i.g.) and exert their collective power to essentially better compete for resources. This seems to be inline with your vision of human nature.

I have always thought one of the reasons socialism (particularly in the communist form) fails is because it denies the true, competitive, acquisitive nature of humans. — prothero

Funny, because around 90% of human history was cooperative hunter-gatherer societies, so I wonder what nature we are actually denying.

Systems which substitute ideals for actualities are destined to fail (a problem with progressive liberalism as well). If there is no true reward for industry, innovation and hard work other than the "betterment of society" the result is predictable. — prothero

The true reward for industry, innovation, and hard work is becoming clearer by the day. :death:

...money can be seen as a way to store wants, in such a view the will to profit is no different to any other desire. — Chester

Money facilitates trade, fundamentally, and says nothing of wants. Beyond the basics, our culture largly trains our wants. We don't have to want what we're trained to want.

I guess that Lilly (co-creator of the Matrix series) is a sassy socialist. :razz:

Now your team will try their hardest with their tiny minds and useless bodies. — ztaziz

Not completely useless. We know they can type, for instance.

As an example a friend of mine had to do a business degree to progress where he worked...he was taught a load of leftist bullshit that he'd already discounted with his own work experience... — Chester

If you’re going to work with leftists you have to learn all 76 genders and not discount them.

Socialism kills individual endeavour. — Chester

You’re talking about the profit motive? Why would it be a bad thing to not have that?

I'm just pointing out that socialists , for all their demands for fairness in society ,have no problem sponging off of those who earn less than them . — Chester

So you don’t believe that teachers are worth paying much, if anything, or at least not worth a pension? Is or was your work worth having the ability to comfortably retire?

Teaching is basically a closed shop unionised protection racket...teachers are virtually unsackable, that's why there are so many shit ones. — Chester

They’re not virtually unfireable. Also, I don’t think that you understand or appropriate the position that public school teachers are in and the kind of protections they may need.

In the UK the left dominate areas of government employment , for instance teaching. I read once that teachers used to be the biggest single group within labour party membership. People on the left (like most teachers) have no issue with people like me (in the private sector) paying large amounts of tax to ensure that they (teachers) have a much better pension plan than I could ever afford. — Chester

Teachers in the county that I live in are reasonably well compensated, have good benefits, and have a pension plan. They are also unionized.

So to look at it the other way around, you have no problem with not organizing and getting more for your work.

Maybe the relative lack of working class resistance over the last fifty years has a lot to do with Americans simply being more economically comfortable than the preceding decades.

Enlightening lectures. :up:

I thought you said that you weren't Russian.

You cant have looked very hard. — DingoJones

That we need to look hard for bad journalism doesn’t do much to support your argument.

A person that is prescribed anti-anxiety medication to help with anxiety is equivalent to a person who uses amphetamine or ecstacy to enjoy his/her life more or to distract themselves from emotion pain. — ttjordy

I’ve been prescribed anti-anxiety medication in the past and have also had ecstasy. The latter may have played a part in the former, now that I think about it. Anyway, it’s interesting that you see an equivalency. Given that you know an anti-anxiety prescription implies a rather sever degree of stress/suffering, it seems to suggest that you use recreational drugs at least primarily to temporarily escape emotional pain.

I tend to think of him fondly as a rascally pet troll.

Apparently, you have mixed-up some of Plato's theory with Aristotle's theory of Forms. — Gnomon

No, I've leapfrogged Plato, Aristotle, and Enformation, to realize the true nature of reality. I hereby introduce the new paradigm, coining it: Unifilm.



Unifilm unites all of reality and dissolves all dualities. Physical and metaphysical forms are one and the same, and all are unchanging and eternal. In your ignorance, you might ask why things appear to change. They don't! Consciousness creates the illusion of change by percieving the unchanging forms in sequence, like the illusion of motion created in viewing a film strip.

Cinema [reality :wink: ] is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out. — Martin Scorsese

Of course, this means that everything is predetermined and there's no free will. Still, kinda cool though, right?!

Uni: combining form.

Film: a thin flexible strip of plastic or other material coated with light-sensitive emulsion for exposure in a camera, used to produce photographs or motion pictures.

Martin Scorsese: Italian-American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor, whose career spans more than 50 years.

I would guess that the most fundamental cause is stress, with perhaps a genetic predisposition that stress tiggers.

I don't really give much thought to such questions. — Gnomon

Then let's think it through together, shall we? :smile: :chin:

You've made what I think are two significant postulations, which are:

• Forms are timeless and unchanging
• Forms can only be proven to exist in the metaphysical realm

If forms are unchanging then there can't be 'ideal' forms, because all forms would necessarily be unchanging. For instance, if a 'metaphysical circle' is an 'ideal' form then what is a metaphysical circle with a slight difference of some kind? It cannot be that the ideal form changed to become unideal. They would simply be two different unchanging forms and therefore neither of them could be considered an ideal form. This would extend to all forms, of course, which is nonsensical because if forms are unchanging and eternal there would really be just one eternal unchanging form. An unchanging thing cannot exist in a realm where things change, to put it simply.

Besides what Benkei points out, I did a search for journalists reporting that “Trump told people to drink or inject bleach” and all I could find were headlines about him suggesting that injecting disinfectants might work as a treatment.

Another failure to support your claims with evidence.

That and what proceeded it, like the following.

I meant that TDS has people relegating Trump to the person no longer worthy of respect or fairness, that they view Trump as evil and therefore a guilt free punching bag. What does it matter if you arent fair or respectful to pure evil? ... — DingoJones

It’s unclear if you’re saying that only deranged people can view Trump as evil or that demonization is an expression of derangement. In any case, your meaning is not clear, to me at least. And then in addition to this the bullying thing somehow fits.

Wouldn’t an example help to show how this all works? I honestly don’t get it.

Dont see how an example would be any more clear. — DingoJones

You don't see how evidence would support your views or argument, seriously?

I think you want an example so you can argue about the example instead of what im actually talking about. You want to argue about Trumps character. — DingoJones

You're not arguing about Trump's character. You're arguing about the character of others in relation to TDS in some way that is unclear to me. If you have no interest in making it clearer to me that's your choice.

Is it impossible for you to point out examples so I can get a clear picture of what you’re talking about?

I cant help but see you seem to be taking the “weak character” comment personally. Is that what you actually want to discuss? Whether or not I think you have weak character? — DingoJones

One of the three discussions I started on this forum was about TDS. I think it's simply a method to invalidate any criticism of Trump, in the minds of his supporters. I don't recall it ever being applied to an individual. I suppose that's because if it were applied to an instance of it then an actual criticism would need to be taken into consideration.

I wasn't aiming that at anyone in particular — DingoJones

Were you aiming at a fictitious person then?

Well no one could sensibly say Trump doesn't throw out childish insults, but I was specifically talking about something else and don’t see the relevance of your comment.
You don’t need to bring up the things Trump says and does anytime someone mentions some other bad act. We get it, eeeeeveryone gets it. — DingoJones

I think you've misunderstood. I gave an example of bullying without legitimate criticism or your definition of TDS, if I follow your reasoning. You've offered no examples whatsoever. Maybe you're afraid that if you gave a real example of someone bulling Trump without a legitimate criticism the cool kids won't like you?

The Forms are timeless and unchanging, but our perceptions of them differ for each perceiver. — Gnomon

So you believe that, for instance, people differ in their perception of a geometric circle, or rather in their concept of a circle? Also, do you believe that perfect circle's exit in "real world space-time" or do ideal forms only exist in the "realm of ideas"?

If you could try to clarify these points I may be able to compare our understandings.

They have a particular taste for abusing an easy target, like a bully who picks on the unpopular kid so he can satisfy his weak character while still maintaining social favour with the other kids. — DingoJones

Just one of countless...

Truly weird Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain. — DJT

Weird. Not much weirder than watching caged animals though, I suppose.

. . . . followed immediately by "I favor Realism" — Gnomon

You equate realism with materialism?

While waiting for tech support, I followed your link to the elaborately elucidated B/A principle. In one part it says,"Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does." Can you explain what you mean by that?

In any case, DJT's hyperbole is effective on his supporters, but not anyone with the ability to reason.

When asked about Cotton's early warnings [about coronavirus], McConnell said: "It came up while we were tied down on the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment." — praxis

I’m not sure. — NOS4A2

It is hard to keep up with all the alternative truths.

Didn't Mitch say that they can't do impeachment and deal with corona at the same time?

Impeach Obama!