RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive381

Who is DMorris?
Apparently, he is a vandal on here much like Mikemikev, but whenever I look up "Morris" on the search bar I can't find any information on him. Can someone explain to me for how long he's been vandalizing the wiki? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * User:What a Wonderful World, also known as DMorris and a bunch of socknames, was banned about 2 years ago for doxing and harassments if I remember correctly. Can't find the relevant coop case right now (if there was one) and I wasn't personally involved so don't know the full details. 20:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Apparently DMorris is or was his handle on Conservapedia. 20:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He reported us to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services! Avida Dollarsher again 21:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Holy shit, is that how that joke started? That's hilarious. 21:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And it was funny without the context. Just got better, wow. 22:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh WOW was that where the florida department block reason comes from? That's amazing. I love it. Before it was just funny on a random basis, but the context makes it even better. 22:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that shit was funny as Hell to read. Also glad to know where that block reason came from. Now I can potentially sometimes use it in proper context. 00:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If he wasn't a nobody on Conservapedia (and IRL), he'd probably have a page devoted to him here. Bongolian (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Honestly, reading that I'm just surprised he didn't just say he was trained in gorilla warfare with over 300 confirmed kills and would shit fury all over everyone. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい ) 04:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * THAT's where the Florida Department block reason comes from? Wow. At first I thought it came from grawp's obsession with Pensacola High School. -- Goatspeed. 17:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He also was the person who emailed me to remind me that had moved to RationalWiki. JJP...MASTER![talk to] JJP... master? 17:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

My temporay retirement
I am officialy taking a break from this project. I have been stressed latley, so to save me from even more, I am retiring. This is not permanet, so until next time, bye bye.--Ms. OliviaUse Chatter here / Fossils my Zilla dug up|undefined 10:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Best of luck to you. CommanderOzEvolved (talk) (contribs) 13:06, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Best wishes to you. Bongolian (talk) 20:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Overton window
We should add a page on the overton window 73.43.192.207 (talk) 16:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What's that? -- Goatspeed. 16:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The Overton window is a concept within political science wherein we understand what ideas, rhetoric, and ideologies are perceived as acceptable at any one time in history. 16:45, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Moved here :P.
 * And yes, it's definitely something that's worthwhile as a mini-article. CoryUsar (talk) 16:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * GC gave a decent minisummary, so you can skip what I'll say if you don't need to know more.
 * On any topic, there's an acceptable range of ideas. I'm going to use a fairly non-controversial topic, "Abortion".  I will make up the examples here, because Abortion Rights vary wildly between countries or even within them.  The hypothetical "standard" belief, and hypothetical policy, is "abortions should be 'on demand' in the first trimester, and only for medically necessary reasons in the second and third trimester".  There are "reasonable" deviations from this, "abortions allowed on demand in the first 2 trimesters, and medically necessary in the third" and "abortions restricted to medically necessary or in the event of rape/incest, medically necessary only in third trimester". Then there are "radical" deviations, "abortion always legal in all cases" and "abortion illegal".  After this, there are the "unthinkable" deviations, "post-birth abortions" and "forced pregnancies".  The Overton Window covers what is allowed in public discourse without people thinking you are a complete loon.  Anyone who suggests we legalize euthanizing newborns would be shut down.  There are many variations on these, and views on abortion legality don't quite fit a straight line (e.g., good luck fitting "legalize abortion so we can abort mixed-race babies" on that line, which, holy fuck, was Nixon's actual view), but that's everything in PolySci.
 * However, there was a time when murdering newborns was the norm, and scarily, this was actually nearly universal in human history. At the same time, abortions being completely illegal was also a thing.  The Overton Window can and does shift.  What this means though, well, let's say you only want abortions in the case of incest and rape.  What you would do is advocate for a complete ban on abortion, and shift the Overton window until the public "compromises" and the "abortion only allowed for incest and rape" view is the mainstream view. CoryUsar (talk) 17:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As an addition to Cory's explanation, it should also be noted that the window's position can change, both due to general shifts in public opinion and due to the activities of political groups. 17:16, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And of course it's subjective. What's "considered acceptable" in that no people whose opinions you care about will shame you, denounce you, or dissociate from you for it is different from what's "considered acceptable" in that many people will feel it's pretty common and normal.  Trump highlighted the increasingly large portion of things that fall into B but not A.  But anyone whose seen how fundie subcultures treat the deconverted know that's not a new distinction, but it's more to the forefront of how the Overton window works.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:01, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've begun work on it, but I have to get back to my paying job.  I'll flesh it out later. CoryUsar (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Overton Window" reminds me of a song... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwQTY7HrOGw

DocYankemPrevent Truth Decay!19:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Question about non-binary genders
I am actually a bit confused about it. From what I read it seems to be variations on gender. I am not attempting to sound offensive, I just don't understand the subject very well. I am willing to learn unlike bigots with a stick up their ass. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 00:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a pretty decent entry level explanation. Complete with amusing analogies. 00:25, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I feel like we should have something on side-blotched lizards. You see, this is a clear, undeniable example of an animal with multiple genders, in this case, 5.  The lizards are named for the males which have different colors on their heads, which indicate different genders.  The Orange-blotched ones are your alpha-dudebro fuqbois who are hyper aggressive, take up a large territory, chase off other dudes and mate with all the females, the Blues are your beta-males who stay in a small territory with only one female, and the Yellows are your Sigma manipulative assholes who will take no territory but screw with any female when the male isn't looking.  It forms a rock-paper-scissors; the Oranges can beat up the Blues but can't watch every female so the Yellows will beat them, the Blues get chased off by the Oranges but are always there to chase off the Yellows, and the Yellows can mate when the Oranges aren't looking but can never get an opportunity when the Blues are around.  Plus, the females also have two genders; one will produce lots of smaller eggs which are more likely to be Yellow, and the other will produce larger but fewer eggs which are more likely to be Orange.  It turns out that this gender diversity is actually not rare at all in nature, the phrase "sneaky fucker" comes up a lot in regards to animals where a single male has a huge harem but smaller males mate with the females when the big one is busy in fights. CoryUsar (talk) 00:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Are those really five different sexes, or just two sexes, with something like various castes (castes in the sense of ant or bee castes)? If any male is able to reproduce with any female, then I feel it would be kind of debatable to call them "a clear, undeniable example of an animal with multiple genders." But maybe if there were, say, distinct differences in like, genital anatomy or something, between the different types of males or females, then it would be five true different sexes. Retiredpoopermalikged (talk) 03:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They wouldn't have multiple genders, because "gender" is a social construct. And given that last I checked Uta stansburiana lacks self awareness, well, the concept of gender wouldn't apply outside our external classification system. 03:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, the side blotched lizards definitely have "genders", and they are not like ant castes, genders are more than just some "social construct" in the natural world. Now, what we define as gender for humans are somewhat arbitrary, and yes, a social construct.  Do we say that Tomboys, for instance, are a separate gender, or do we just say Tomboys are just girls?  Either way, the girls who like "guy things" still exist. CoryUsar (talk) 04:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I phrased my previous response poorly. Allow me to try to clarify. They, (the lizards) don't have "genders" in the same way we do. This is a set of behaviors which we call "gender" which we recognize in the lizards. The lizards are of course quite unaware of all of this. 04:48, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

As usual Cory is wrong about all of this. Gender is a purely human phenomenon. It's a social construct. Gender is the psychological version of sex in some respects, whereas sex is biological, gender isn't. I have a good video on this: — Oxyaena  Harass  10:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That wasn't what I was saying at all. Godsdamnit!!! 14:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This is one reason why I dislike the word 'gender', it's vague and carries a lot of ideological baggage. It doesn't even work well in linguistics; Indo-European languages typically have two or three noun classes, two of which will be related to sex, but that's mostly just them, and you have languages like the Bantu languages with many noun classes that sortakinda work like IE genders.  Whatever is going on in those lizards' reproductive biology, 'gender' may not be the best way to describe it. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 14:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * How would you actually define gender in the animal world? Retiredpoopermalikged (talk) 20:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I rather think Cory is pulling your legs.DocYankemPrevent Truth Decay!23:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As "whatever biologists say it is". Again, "gender" is a map, not the territory. CoryUsar (talk) 14:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That sure sounds a lot like "just some 'social construct' in the natural world" to me. MalikGed (talk) 17:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

One of these days...
You people are going to kill me via high blood pressure. 14:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I apologize on my part for losing my shit to begin with. — Oxyaena Harass  14:33, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They're not worth going that far for. If this crap doesn't stop, I'll be pushing for interaction bans. 14:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Gee, I wonder how everyone is getting along on my favorite wiki-OH MY GAAAAD. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 14:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * - I'm sorry to hear about your stress. But remember (I may be wrong here) that stress typically results from perceived threats or danger, and that this is accentuated by our thinking and beliefs. Thus, I would suggest trying to view this with perspective, so as to avoid the cognitive distortion of "magnification" i.e. this is a debate on the internet. I hope this offers a plausible interpretation of your statement. I am in agreement with your points regarding the derogative labelling "crazies" and distorted interpretations of our fellow homo-sapiens.


 * - Again I will reiterate to you that its essential to get this in perspective: your worries about this argument devolving to 'HCM' are unwarranted, its a minor argument in a soon-to-be forgotten thread of a small corner of this website. Nevertheless, we ought to adopt a conciliatory attitude to our fellows humans, or more pertinently, our fellow rationalists. — Leucippus 14:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @Mirror
 * Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes I need to just sit back and let the flames burn themselves out instead of flailing around, bringing in fresh oxygen.
 * @GC
 * Deep breaths, or whatever method you've learned for calming yourself down. If it helps, for all our conflicts or whatnot, I'll have you know I do believe you are a positive contributor to this wiki. CoryUsar (talk) 15:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry 'bout that. If I ever meet you in person, I'll bake you some cookies.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * And y'all are also gonna kill me that way too. Pretty much half of the threads on our bar go as follows:
 * Someone does at least one of the following: Openly admits to being a liberal, centrist, rationalist, etc., uses a real or imagined ABLIST DUNNINGKRUGER ONOZ!!!1!, talks about buying or investing in something, lauds social media for deplatforming antifa after they damaged a historical coffeeshop in Seattle, dares to oh-so-odiously think that anarcho-communism is a good idea on paper but not in practice, etc.
 * Oxy sees red at one of the aforementioned things being mentioned, and goes off on a tangent about EVIL DUNNINGKRUEGER RATIONALIST ANTIREVOLUTION STATIST ABLEIST CLASSIST LIBRULS!!!1!
 * IBF or Cory responds to Oxy's shitpost with a shitpost, further derailing the discussion.
 * Oxy starts her usual name-calling and general throwing-around-of-beer-in-the-bar, angrily repeating her stance on whatever her obsession of the moment is and then refusing to back it up when questioned.
 * The mob circles the drama like vultures, each speaking out in defense of either Oxy or Cory/IBF. People's feelings on both sides are hurt, and both instigating parties start exclusively blaming the other for having "started it" while refusing to eat their humble pie and admit that they were guilty of the same failings as well, thus only dousing the fire with gasoline.
 * Flame war drags on for days or weeks, before finally being mummified by our robot overlord.
 * Both Oxy and Cory/IBF/Twodots/me/etc. apologize for being involved in the flame-war, and promise to stop.
 * But the next time Oxy goes off on a similar tangent, the same fucking thing happens all over again.
 * This shit has got to stop. -- Goatspeed. 23:05, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey everyone
Hi how r your life? Mine is not super good but hey. Things are fine I guess. What’s the situation for ur life? 23:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My parents don't have a job because of COVID 19 and I don't know how to make money since I can't have a Paypal account since I'm still a minor (17). MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My parents are retired, but at least they don't have Covid. I'm still working because things are mostly under control here. Also been going out (literally) with this girl I like for a while. Accidentally ended up having to introduce her and her dog to my parents, when we ran into them on one of our walks. Got a bit awkward, because my mom's demented and weird, but our budding relationship seems to have survived, probably because I'm weird too and she doesn't mind. 00:13, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm great - I am middle aged, middle class, wish I was middle weight. My sons are adults with good jobs, my parents are quite old but both still alive and in good health for their age.  I'm in New Zealand where we effectively have no covid - although my older son is in Berlin where they do but he's a bit autistic and a software engineer so staying in his apartment to code all day and night suits him fine!! My health is good - a few niggles - some of them age related.  My income is great, my superannuation fund has recovered from losing 25% in March 2020 and is above where it was then and my share portfolio is.... er.....   actually it's doing crap...   but I am hopeful in the longer term!  Thanks for asking :) Aloysius the Gaul 00:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * im in london which is something of a ghost town right now, im piss poor, have something of a drug habit thats been exacerbated by all the lockdowns. i have insomnia of the common or garden variety and just lately been suffering from GERD which is a real pisser and makes sleep even harder to come by, keeps waking me up to vomit to boot, and i cant take antacids because of my hiv medication. ive just this minute read the abstract of a paper which suggests this is common for those with hiv, which is actually something of a relief - there is likely to be something i can take to get that sorted. a call to the pharmacist in the morn will hopefully bring some joy.


 * other that, all is rosey. i continue to work on my front lever and planche, no where near as consistently as i should but better than nowt


 * no covid either, unless the flu i had just as it broke was in covid. likely i'll never know either way AMassiveGay (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for telling me about what’s going on with your lives. If it’s fine to talk about my life, I guess I will. I released a new album, nobody likes it except me but that’s fine bc I like it. My friends are all sort of not interested in me bc I’m sad and boring but that’s fine. I stopped doing amphetamines a while ago which kind of sucks bc everything’s boring now but whatever. I had to go back in social media to promote my album, which didn’t work and also fucking sucked bc I hate social media. I have just been mostly staying inside even tho the covid is mostly fine here, just bc I hate being outside or existing in a way where people look at me. I’ve been presenting fem more often however. It looks like my ex has finally decided to not be friends with me anymore which, idk, sucks and feels bad, but is also kind of a relief bc I knew it was gonna happen eventually. Basically I feel both good and also like absolute shit at the same time. And that’s fine I guess, it could be worse. 00:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (update: my ex actually isn’t stopped talking to me??? They just said something weird but also now they’ve bought my album so ig things are fine. Idfk anymore but Luckily I’m fine with whatever these days ig. Just don’t understand words ppl say) 01:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm no longer single, so, yay! CoryUsar (talk) 01:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice I’m very happy for u!! 01:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've been doing good I guess. I'm too shy to talk to people normally, and being stuck inside for quarantine has made me even more of a recluse.  Probably going to be alone for a long time.  I have no right to complain though because I somehow made it through college without getting any student debt and landed a stable job right after.  I just passed saving my first 100G, but it all feels so hollow.  I made the mistake of going for nothing but fiscal success early in life, and I wish I made some damn friends instead.  Asela, Oxy, or AMassiveGay (or anyone else who needs it), if you need some scratch to help yourself through a hard time, let me know and I might be able to help.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 02:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I’m sorry you’re feeling lonely, and I hope it gets better soon. Also thank you so much for your offer; however, 2 ppl have bought my music today so I now have an extra week’s worth of money. If anyone at all is interested, email me and I’ll b happy to show you the album if you wanna listen or whatnot. Just not gonna post it publicly for Doxxing Reasons And Such. But yea 02:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * the dole keeps me from the abject poverty i might face in other parts of the world. id probably smoke any surplus cash, so it best i decline the generous offer. AMassiveGay (talk) 02:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have found myself with very little going on. School kind of lonely. 104.225.183.70 (talk) 12:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Have your parents or other trusted adult create a PayPal account, get a savings account for minors at a bank, and link that bank account to the PayPal account. Bam, you have a PayPal account! (I did that as a minor). 71.208.x.x (talk) 18:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey all, sorry to hear some of you are hitting rough times. Happy to hear there are some positives though. I'm doing okay in lock-down. Reading a lot. Working from home. Missing the communities I was a part of. Doing a lot of body-weight stuff to keep fit. Used to do combat sports and would love to get that fitness back even if I don't have the time to compete again. Initially joined rationalwiki because I wanted to contribute something positive to the world, found myself lurking and occasionally just scrolling through other people's beef. Hoping to try and stop that soon and get to posting something more of quality. Don't know why I'm writing this really, just sharin' I guess - Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Trumps approval ratings throughout his terms in comparison to other Presidents.
So I was checking at the approval ratings of all the Presidents of United States since Truman from The Spokesman Review. Obviously Trumps 40% average is lowest of them all and he's the only one to never get to 50% or above (though I assume the top 49% is well within margin of error). What baffles me is how steady the ratings are from him. The Spokesman doesn't show Trumps approval all the way to the end, but FiveThirtyEigth indicates that he never got under 38% again by Biden inauguration. There's only 14 percentage point variation between the lowest 35% approval and highest 49%. Closest you get with other prezzes is Kennedy and Obama with 27% variation or possibly Ford, whose shifts in approval were at about 16-18% after his immediate slump from initial 71% approval (due to pardoning of Nixon I assume).

It's also stunning to me that Trump never got lower than that. With Covid19 crisis and the attempted insurrection, you'd think he'd have gone under 30%. Even saint Ronnie got down there to 35% at one point and both Bushes got down to 20s (along with Carter, Nixon and Truman). Has Maga become such a cult by now that for 35% of the country there's nothing that would shake their faith to the Orange Führer? Could some of you Americans maybe explain this to me? 10:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The GOP is just a cult now, and they hadn't descended to where they are now 30 years ago. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 11:14, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As another non-American I also can't understand this. But it's also around the same as the percentage who espouse some form of YEC. So I imagine it's the same demographic.  But input from citizens of the US would be interesting.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course I understand that because Trumps popularity never got high there's going to be less difference between the extremes. But Dubya got all the way to 25% and he was the YEC posterboy (and that was just 12 years ago). Yes, Iraq was a mess and all, but the YEC can't explain everything. And Trump has had plenty of messes too. 12:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The country has just polarized politically that much more in the last few decades. Just look at the election in 2008! McCain got less than 200 electoral votes and Obama had a much larger margin of victory. Trump actually came fairly close to winning(Electoral college-wise Biden won by about 70,000 votes in a few key states) during a worse set of disasters.-Flandres (talk) 12:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps beginning with Silvio Berlusconi, Trump was part of a wave of nationalist politicians that swept the world (that includes Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro, Narendra Modi, Rodrigo Duterte, and others). Basically the common denominator is appeal to the majority ethnicity (often with stark racism), appeal to traditional (often rural-oriented) values, masochism, and fear of Others. In America, a lot of this in my opinion was amplified by a steady diet of fear-mongering media (such as Fox News, which I have never seen the appeal of even minus the politics -- everyone is yelling at each other all the time), and a removal of humanity from religion as mainline Christianity declined, and was replaced by more heretical varieties such as Prosperity Gospel oriented evangelism. I have talked to hardcore right-wingers who actually fear mobs of liberals in San Francisco or would never go to a mainline college because they fear liberal indoctrination, whatever that is. So there's that. In America, at least, such is so hyper-partisan that Trump's lack of accomplishing anything didn't seem to matter to this crowd. Far more important to their worldview was some uppity Black man "disrespecting" the national anthem during some silly sports game. But on the other hand, in a world where India farmers are storming the Red Fort, I'm not sure it's completely an American only problem. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 13:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Do you know why that occurred? Oh, of course it's the Economist. That centrist rag. Classist bullshit. "the protestors' grievances are stubbornly diverse." fuck off you elitist shitbag. (not you personally, gargle, the writer of that op-ed) — Oxyaena Harass  11:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Call them what you want, but the Economist has an advantage over many American media sources in that they actually give foreign news more equal time. I can't even find shit about this event on Fox News, for instance (I did try to look), which actually is amazingly considering that this is something even fuckin' Newsmax covered (though the story is entirely borrowed from the Associated Press, though, natch). It's different because the protesting farmers in this case are largely airing economic grievances (and to be honest, an actual legitimately complicated economic question, compared to the "wah my President lost" meme shitshow of the Capitol, which in some cases involved rich real estate fucktards taking private jets to the event). But it's the same in that, from what I can tell, Modi's Hindu nationalist culture is being weaponized against these largely Sikh protesters, showing the power of tribalism (and honestly, whoever hoisted the on the fort showed that the protesters were no strangers to tribalism, either.) PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 15:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

As an aside, the Truman rollercoaster is a bit intriguing as well. It'd be interesting to know as an outsider two generations separated from his presidency as to what events the steep ups and downs related to. 14:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * He's definitely given even even Jackson, Polk, and Buchanan a run for their money for the "Worst president in history" record, a fact I wasn't quite prepared for until 2020 got going. I wonder a bit if that doesn't suit his ego almost as well as "Best president ever" would have.  I'll give it a few years before I am willing to settle the question, because we all know most consequences aren't immediate.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think he was the most incompetent (Hoover) or corrupt (Nixon, Buchanan) or racist/xenophobic (Jackson, Wilson) or brain deficient (Reagan). But he was all those things, so often and so flagrantly, I think he leads that worst category by quite a few lengths.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My primary objection to Buchanan that puts him in the running for worst president wasn't corruption, but being a fucking doughface. At a time when that's the last thing the country needed.  Turns out executing John Brown for the sake of "law and order" didn't actually appease the slave-owners and keep them from getting angrier and more violent.  Calling for complete suppression of abolitionist movements "for the sake of the union" in his inaugural address.  The perfect icon of letting the idea of compromise drive a series of decisions that actually make everything worse.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:49, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would also say that Reagan was hardly "brain deficient". And while Jackson was far more racist, he was only somewhat more racist than his peers (ethnic cleansing of the natives being a popular opinion of the day) whereas Trump is far, far more racist than is socially acceptable today.  Hoover wasn't incompetent, he was given a crisis that absolutely no major country knew how to handle, whereas Trump was handed an unusual crisis but not one without precedent and many countries handled it much, much better than the US has. CoryUsar (talk) 18:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. Trump has the worst qualities of every other president mentioned and none of their good ones. No one of the past presidents will be judged more corrupt than Trump. Ariel31459 (talk) 18:36, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The worst part it, you could see Trump as corrupt a mile away. We all knew he's going to be very corrupt but assholes vote for him? Why is the approval rating so constant? I hate having to live in a country where 1/3 of people are cult members. 23:40, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I also hate that we live in a country where another 1/3 of people think that because the first 1/3 nominated Trump, they could put up Hillary and the public would just have to stomach it or else, and then go into a hysterical rage when the public chose "else". Heck, I'm convinced the media chose Trump for us to make Hillary more palatable compared to the Republicans; basically, Trump got all that media attention at no cost, he basically got more media attention than the rest of the Republicans combined.  The plan as far as I saw it, was for Trump to taint whichever Republican got the nom, and Hillary's group could say "Don't vote Mike Huckabee, remember, he's a Republican, the party of Trump"
 * Yeah, yeah, the simpler explanation is that the media just saw that Trump stories got more viewers so that's why they kept him in the news, but it just doesn't feel right that the media simply allowed someone so vile on TV constantly knowing they were basically giving him a chance at the election without someone in charge saying having at least some semblance of a conscience, so it "must" have been planned. CoryUsar (talk) 23:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They also treat Trump supporters as fascinating as weird aliens from Mars. How many interviews did these snorters get? I did see some stories of immigrants having a rough time, especially the undocumented one. But the overwhelming thing media did was interview those already represented by power. It's true that Trump is a piece of shit and a visible walking train wreck, so it's fascinating to report on the latest antics but media could at least focus on Trump's victims and dangerous disregard for compassion, safety, and science. Even in the end, Trump supporters STILL think the media is "biased" and "hating" on Trump for... reporting stuff Trump has done? You could report a story of Trump punching a baby penguin and Trump supporters would complain that the story casts Trump in a negative light. 00:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Trump became popular in the first place in large part due to him being able to effectively portray himself as the vector of economic change. Hillary is establishment, the icon of the neoliberal status quo. Trump was able to brand himself an outsider. There's a reason populism is so dangerous (and useful). People have legitimate grievances that go unheard for many years at a time. Trump exploited these in a way nobody else could have done. — Oxyaena Harass  12:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Doesn't explain how his relative popularity remained though, even after his actions revealed his inner kleptocrat.
 * Still kind of wondering what made the difference between Trumps 35% and Dubyas 25% popularity bottom. Is the 10 percentage points the extra you get through overt racism? 13:07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, it's the amount you get from being incapable of shame. You accuse Bush of murder, and he'll deny, stutter, etc, and he comes across as someone hiding something even if he's innocent.  You accuse Trump of murdering someone, he'll brag about how he did it with his bare hands because he's so tough, and the public has no idea how to even process that. CoryUsar (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Trump might have pulled off upsets but he still lost the popular vote, twice, by millions. His approval ratings are overall the lowest across the presidency. He's very popular with Republicans and their voters but there's still a sizeable part of his base that's just single-issue or just want a crappy Supreme court. Trump did manage a pretty awful cult and is bolstered by a system manipulated by Republicans from gerrymandering, voter suppression, screwing over the postal service in a pandemic, and the electoral college. But outside of a cult he created, most people, Independents and Democratic voters and most foreign observers, see Donald Trump as the rich authoritarian conman he is. I wouldn't inflate his popularity as his success banks on starkly undemocratic institutions. 19:46, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Visual Editor
This is the first wiki I have ever used that does not have a visual editor. This makes every revision take way longer than it should. Should I bring that problem to the RMF noticeboard? MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If we ever get upgraded to version 1.35, it'll come with the built in VisualEditor. We're slow about tech stuff.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * tbh VisualEditor is awful and Wikimedia experiments show it doesn't increase users or editing. A very small amount of people prefer it, but it's slow, buggy, and just not that great. Would personally prefer it just be something in settings for people to turn on than something that can be accessed by anons. Neiltyson1fan (talk) 17:43, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You can edit the text directly which helps people not cause hiccups, especially if there's text that is similar, I did manage to edit the wrong paragraph of an article on multiple occasions on the wikitext editor. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fuck that. — Oxyaena Harass  18:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's needlessly harsh. It's an entirely optional tool even on wikis that have it.  You uncheck a box on your user profile, and you're back to good old markdown.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And no Lua modules! And no Flagged Revisions! AND NO REDWARN! JJP...MASTER![talk to] JJP... master? 19:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * VE is annoying, it fucks with page formatting for source editors since its one of those WYSIWG editors and I recall having severe issues with stuff involving templates. Not a fan and I'll be pushing for at least a community vote because I'm not the only one who thinks that. Scribunto is what provides lua module templates although I'll be frank and say that I'm not the biggest fan of them, but that's purely because they move what should be HTML/CSS/JS and parserfunctions into lua. I'd still recommend their install because they can do a lot of neat stuff and that is just my personal grumblings with the direction modern tech has gone. One quick look at FlaggedRevisions tells me it's a bulky extension we have around zero need for (seriously we're not Wikipedia, our content moderation is perfectly served well by giving our articles the brainstars). RedWarn seems like it's just nice to have. 09:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Walmart still sells My Pillows
Not sure why they would considering that not only did the My Pillow guy support that dude who murdered peaceful protesters but proposes martial law to Trump to stay in power. From a public relations standpoint it seems like a bad idea. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 21:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Because Trump people are also Wal-Mart people, and it's easier to do nothing and let it eventually go away, even if some people correctly recognize yet another shady business dealing on wal-mart's part. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 22:01, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Walmart is going to do whatever makes them money. Believe me, they aren't gonna throw away a chance to cash in big time if people buy the My Pillow (just watch sales are gonna skyrocket if they haven't already). It's easy for any company, especially huge ones like Walmart or Amazon, to put out all the left-wing Twitter posts they want, but when it comes down to money... Aaronmichael5 2;07, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Because Walmart is every Karen's favorite place to bully store managers for not letting her or her "little angel" walk in without a mask or purchase every last roll of toilet paper and every last box of Lysol wipes shop at. -- Goatspeed. 23:14, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There's nothing even remotely left wing about capitalist virtue signaling. — Oxyaena Harass  11:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Some RW-inspired dreams I've had
Two nights ago I dreamt that writing on a piece of paper made a little Canadian flag appear. Last night I dreamt I wrote on a wall and a dirty limerick appeared that started, "There was an old fella named Ken,/Who was an ardent pursuer of men." Spud (talk) 13:17, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I had many dreams these last few months, but one that was related to a Mediawiki wiki I run was I promoting someone to a high status like Bureaucrat or Sysop, I then couldn't remove them from that position and they started causing a lot of trouble on the wiki. I don't know why I had this dream because I never had the intention to give so much power to anyone in the first place, so this hypothetical scenario will never happen. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 17:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I might have also had dreams involving this site, but I don't remember much from my dreams these days unless they're very weird and/or scary. -- Goatspeed. 22:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Flat Earth moron pwned on a fundie radio show.
So I was listening to the fundie radio show called “Cross Talk” yesterday, which is put out by VCY America, and this guy called in trying push Flat Earth bullshit, and the fundie running the show basically told him he was full of shit, that space exploration is real, and told the listeners not to believe the bullshit. If you can find the exchange online somewhere, it was hilarious to listen to a right wing fundamentalist denounce that horse shit. 2607:FB90:92EB:E09F:8920:AB18:B995:F174 (talk) 17:08, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Just goes to show how 4th dimensionally stupid flat Earthers are, even the most bullshit bullshitters call them out on their, well, bullshit. Some of the most crankerish cranks that spread some of the most profound, brainmeltingly horrifying bullshit reject the flat Earth. It actually takes talent to be a flat Earthist. Aaronmichael5 19:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Aside, but I truly hate "Even X hack on your side disagrees with you" as an argument. They're a hack, their opinions aren't guaranteed to be right or wrong in any given way.  They're just stumbling around blindly.  It's turned against fairly good ideas all the time, and it reads as a particularly vacuous version of the appeal to authority fallacy.   If you don't care what that person thinks about things, why the fuck should anyone else?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:30, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem of evil and theodicy
Hey guys. I've been thinking about a few philosophical subjects recently and wanted to express some of my thoughts here. I hope to get some thoughtful contributions and insights from you guys. So I thought a lot about the problem of evil today. Firstly, i don't think anyone will challenge the idea that 'evil' exists, we live in a depressingly unjust and amoral world that is plagued by unfathomable amounts of pain. I doubt anyone disagrees with that, but many theists present bizarre ideas about the origin of this situation. I'm not an erudite anthropologist of religion or anything, but I'll discuss mainly the Abrahamic ideas here. So, many people reconcile the existence of an omniscient creator with the existence of evil by saying that evil is somehow not the deities fault, and that it was some primordial error (a human mistake or the working of malevolent forces) that corrupted the creation and brought evil into the world. The obvious flaw with this idea is that the very concept of omniscience makes it impossible to make a mistake or incorrectly foresee the trajectory of events, so the primordial error can only have occurred if with the omniscient being's consent. Evil is thus still something that can only exist if the omniscient being simply didn't care enough to avoid it. I'm sure apologists are prepared to spew arguments against this idea, but I can't see anyway in which someone can reasonably reconcile omniscience with such petty mistakes. An omniscient deity would have known that Eve was going to eat the fruit, or that Satan and some angels would rebel before he even created them. Like I said earlier, omniscience makes miscalculation impossible. So if the creator really is omniscient he would have proceeded with those ideas knowing it was going to miserably screw up.

So that's the origin of evil. Next I'd like to discuss the mere existence of evil in the everyday world. Once again, no one is going to deny that the world is plagued by unfathomable levels of unjust pain. My first impression would be that the only way to reconcile the existence of an omniscient-omnipotent being with this level of evil is if that being simply doesn't care about that evil. This is the basic Epicurean paradox. Apologists most commonly point to free will, which is bizarre since that means that God cares more about murderers/rapists free will to do what they do more than he cares about the suffering of their victims (which is fucked up). That also only accounts for moral evil, and not natural disasters or the horrifically brutal nature of the cycle of life (all animals must kill others to survive). The next big defence after that is divine judgement post-mortem, which says good people will be rewarded and bad people will be punished, which is a pretty decent defence. Although, the idea that any human can be held personally accountable for their actions presupposes the existence of free will, and then the issue there is that free will cannot coexist with he existence of an omniscient judge. If an omniscient creator decided to create some free beings to judge, he would know that many would be punished and also know exactly which ones would be punished before he even created them. So even if free beings really do evil and bring punishment upon themselves, the creator chose to bring the into existence and subject them punishment even though the creator knew before hand which people would be punished, and chose to bring them into existence anyway knowing he would end up punishing them.

Anyways, that's everything I can think of right now. If you've read this far, thanks a lot. I look forward to your opinions. Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 07:26, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sums up my thoughts exactly. I remember, in one of the last church services I ever attended, hearing the pastor attempt to explain away the problem of evil by asserting that God must allow evil to exist "in order for there to be balance". But I (just to clarify, this was after I had already deconverted) immediately thought to myself, "But if he's omnipotent, then why does he HAVE to maintain balance? Wouldn't he make up all the rules?" -- Goatspeed. 06:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you need to firm up your definition of "Evil". Is it some real  abstract force or is it just people doing bad things?  If it's the former then I would doubt its existence.  If it's simply people doing bad stuff then, yes, it exists. But that's hardly remarkable.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 08:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Evil doesn't exactly exist, but I'll agree some people seem to worship Mammon, which I think is also made up, but you haven't lost me. I mean, the old testament is a lot of fun. God actually does stuff and calls out other gods and nobody knows why the dude is doing it but He's swooping around causing mayhem and whatever order comes out of it was His plan.  If it was a human error, that evil was still created.  Be it a miscalculation, if the one God created everything, expecting everything rather than controlling everything, it's a strange human failure to wear mixed fabrics and cut our hair unsociably and chow on pork and crabs, or to abstain from all that, pray 5 times a day, eschew anything that isn't Abrahamic, but not accept that God ain't comin back for us.  No matter what the holiness says or what you believe, God can punish me for this in this life or the afterlife, I'll accept it, I'll honestly have to say it was my bad so send me to hell, I'm not mad at a God that doesn't exist.   God is not coming back for us, and invoking God's name as any justification for an action is fucking wildly incorrect.  Especially by Abrahamic rules, taking the Lord's name in vain.  You would think not using the name at all would be the safest route.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 09:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * A god (or a group of Gods) if they are responsible for the creation of all, and all the rules then are responsible for every single thing they create and everything generated from it (even if they sit back and let it play out). And so yeah, they are 100% responsible for evil (and everything else including unintended consequences). Theologians have written encyclopedia sized garbage essays trying to get God off the hook and their works have never stood up to scrutiny.
 * Humans, even in the environment we emerged in, are capable of acts of extreme cruelty. However evil, in the monumental sense of organised cruelty, didn't emerge until civilisation did. Enslavement or dehumanisation wasn't much of a thing in pre-civ time as small tribes of people will lots of space (and little incentive for conflict) were entirely focused on safety (from animals, nature and the occasional human) and nourishment. With the emergence of civilisation came a concentration of wealth, power and organisational structures which more often than not brought about a massive dose of evil wherever it showed up. That's things such as: injustice, pointless cruelty, pointless suffering, pointless poverty, pointless subjugation, pointless objectification, pointless dehumanisation. We still have the brains of primitive scavengers and yet have an immense arsenal of tools and technology which require much better brains to organise ourselves without mass cruelty resulting. The fact that we live in a society bow that is even moderately dedicated to sort-of eliminating the most excessive of evils is absolutely astounding. People don't realise how rare this is and fortunate we are. We are capable of incredible cruelty and arriving at a society where most people can avoid most of the worst of evil excess requires wealth, education, secularism, political stability, basic rights, a commitment to those values, dedication to reason and all of the incentives necessary to maintain that system and even with all this there is still a ridiculous amount of people suffering from evil (we barely understand how to help those capable of vicious cruelty). And that just gets us to a vaguely stable place where the privileged mostly enjoy these things but it can all easily disappear over night. Religious explanations of evil just distract us from understanding evil and utilising the right tools to help us limit it. Shabi  DOO  14:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But are you sure it's that simple? We can be quick to say that 'an omniscient being that decides to create a reality and the rules that govern that reality is responsible for everything that occurs within that reality', but that is very reductionist/rarionalistic thinking. I'm not necissarily disagreeing with you, but I'm sure some people will propose abstract ideas about why the creator allows evil, even if they are dumb ideas. Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 19:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Given that there is no convincing evidence for the existence of a creator I think you are putting the cart before the horse by taking about why "the creator" allows evil. You sort of need to demonstrate "the creator" first.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:43, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Dude I'm not exactly a theist. I think and discuss about this stuff because philosophy interests me. Plus I try to understand how other people think, even if their ideas are dumb. Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)


 * OK. Great.  But I think you are allowing your theoretical opponent too much at the start by by accepting the actual existence of god for the sake of the subsequent argument. That is to say it is more reasonable to ask "Does X exist?" than to ask "Why does X permit Y?".  I would suggest that neither X nor Y exist as tangible things. But I guess I'm not your target audience.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

If we could create a computer simulation of some world that contained agents that could actually suffer because they did terrible things to one another, and I single handed coded it and let it run in the background...would I not be responsible for the consequences of that simulation including all of the suffering that those agents experienced in the simulation (whether I intended for it or not?). Nobody forced me to create that simulation. I could do whatever I wanted. And yet as a result of my little simulation agents pointlessly suffer anyways. God, according to nearly every account from Abrahamic stooges claims that God's powers are far more incredible than say a mere human creating a simulation on a computer as he would have, on top of the ability to do just about anything in that simulation, this God has omniscience and pure good. So based on those qualities, I simply do not understand how a God could not be responsible for absolute everything. Nebucco, could you please explain in any sensible way, how an immense being who is behind the design and creation of everything...is somehow not responsible for any particular part of that creation? Shabi DOO  22:39, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, so reconciling the existence of an omniscient-omnipotent-omnibenevolent creator with the problem of evil is logically impossible. How do you think the almost 4 billion adherents to Abrahamic religion rationalize this problem? Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 23:06, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * A true skeptic shouldn't restrict themselves to questioning minority views, but anything and everything. — Oxyaena Harass  09:39, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There are a number of stupid arguments that people who believe in this nonsense make. Just off the top of my head:
 * God isn't responsible for it...sinful humans are (I know this makes no sense but...there are entire libraries of books on this shit)
 * God has a larger plan we cannot understand (One analogy to explain this is the sort of argument that children find the restrictions that parents put on them unfair but it is really for their own good. However I am curious how one person lives their whole life living in slavery and starving to death while the other lives in luxury and how those two different lives prepare them for the next one, nor how being enslaved or raped is somehow in our better interests in the future. This is especially ridiculous because our parents cannot just snap their fingers and change the rules...while their supposed God can so...again...whatever)
 * Evil is just the absence of God (this is a giant wad of horse turd because if that were the case, God still created a world where his absence results in evil and he chooses to be absent and thus...is entirely responsible for evil)
 * Ballance, as in a world with good must have evil (similar to the idea that a world with light must have dark, its a false dichotomy, because God could create whatever he wanted including a world without evil)
 * Free will. In order to have free will, evil must be a possible consequence. Again, if God existed he developed us with a certain human nature which constricts us in many ways, that nature could easily have not included the drive to do unspeakable things to one another, it's another stupid argument but....whatever)
 * So yeah, there are more, but its all bullshit and I think I've listed more things than anyone need read Shabi  DOO  12:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a step to far to conclude that the reality we observe is incompatible with an Abrahamic God, as typically conceived. For the faithful, it is not necessary to have a demonstration that yes, definitely God is good and we live in the best of all possible worlds; it is sufficient to demonstrate the mere possibility that this is the case.  For this to be the best possible world, it is necessary that any change to the amount of evil in the world would be a net detriment.  For the skeptic, for reasons outlined by Shabidoo, this seems highly improbable, but the fact that a lot of terrible evil goes on in the world is not sufficient to eliminate the possibility that this is the best world possible (usually, the best world possible with free will).  Once you add in the claim that our finitude/imperfection/sinful nature holds us back from fully appreciating the nature and perfection of God and his creation, it is easy enough for somebody who already has a great deal of belief in God to take this one last leap of faith. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 68.56.144.8 / talk
 * So, that's Aquinas, and it's respectable until you get to the part where it's a specific god. If each person can individually imagine a more perfect god, then they are all as valid as the god of the New Testament under Aquinas' take.  If the divine is outside of our understanding, why invoke the divine?  If the divine is as close to our understanding but just one step further, why trust our understanding?  It's a hard line of logic that leads to a million dead ends.  The question stands.  If God were more perfect than anything we could imagine as perfect, why would we ever think we have any grasp, whatsoever, on God?  That would be talking out of your ass.  I'd rather tell God to His face I didn't believe in Him and accept the consequences than pretend I knew His post-perfect nature while participating in something so universally trivial as human morality.  It's just nonsense to say simultaneously we can't quite imagine God but we also know what the fuck God wants.  Not exactly the problem of evil, but at least we don't need a "it's important because I can't imagine why it wouldn't be important" explanation, MY....  Goodness. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:05, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That is a powerful critique, from a skeptical/rational standpoint. From a logical perspective, there is no reason to invoke the divine if it is beyond our understanding.  Religious faith is, generally, irrational, and I think it would be almost impossible to dispute that.  And that is the basic issue: it doesn't really matter how irrational it is to have faith in God.  As long as the faith is minimally tenable (i.e. there is even an infinitesimal chance that it's right), the theist doesn't need to justify it any further: God is already excused.  You say it is nonsense to say that we can't imagine God, but that we also know what he wants.  I won't disagree, but for the 4 billion people asked about a bit above, this nonsense is also handwaved away by an appeal to faith: we can't imagine God, but we have faith that he wouldn't deceive us about his nature, so that we can take as given that it is revealed through his holy book(s).  With so much dependence on faith, though, it does become unclear whether the problem of evil is really being addressed at all.  The argument essentially amounts to "the evil in the world is the minimum it could be, because that would be what a good God would make, and we know that God is good because God told us so, which we believed because God is honest, which we know because God is good," etc.  Consequently, the theist argument is not persuasive if you do not already believe the dogma.  It does, however, offer at least one way 4 billion people could rationalize their beliefs. 68.56.144.8 (talk) 21:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Unless someone can give a convincing explanation otherwise, it is ridiculous to take seriously a God that has absolute control over everything, and is "all good" yet created the conditions that we humans find ourselves in. Theologians can say whatever stupid shit they want, their theories still don't make any sense. Their God could be all powerful, or all good...but not both. It reality their God is neither because its a figment of their bronze age imaginations. It is preposterous to create imperfect beings and then blame the imperfect things they do on them and not on yourself. The evil acts humans commit is a byproduct of evolution, compounded by our increasing departure from the original conditions we originally evolved in. Shabi DOO  22:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't even need to reference the existing world to demonstrate the incompatibility of omnipotence and omnibenevolence. The two concepts are logically incompatible by themselves. Essentially, an omnibenevolent being by definition wouldn't be able to do evil things, since it's omnibenevolent. However, an omnipotent being would be able to do evil things since it can do anything. Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 08:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are not inherently contradictory. We can imagine a being possessing both traits creating a world which even we would agree is perfectly good.  The apparent contradiction lies in such a being creating a world that appears to use to be less than perfectly good.  This still leaves some options open for the theist to escape the conclusion that God, if He exists, is not perfectly good.  First, it could be that our conception of omnipotence is flawed.  On closer examination, this seems to be necessarily true, as the typical conception of omnipotence is self-contradictory (e.g. can God create a rock too heavy for Him to lift?).  Going further, we can ask whether an omnipotent being is subject to logical rules (as opposed to the creator of those rules).  If God is subject to such rules, then we might find it conceivable that there are other rules He might be subject to, which prohibit the creation of a better world (omnibenevolence as creation of the best possible world, rather than a perfect world).  If God is not subject to logical rules, than evaluating Him on logical terms suddenly isn't so obviously fair (but I'm not clever enough to carry that line any further).  In either case, it seems possible that we could get away from the problem of evil without altering our ideas of omnibenevolence.  If we wanted to, though, we might challenge that the ordinary notion of omnibenevolence is also incomplete (cases like those pointed out by Shabidoo make this difficult to pursue).  For instance, perhaps we haven't properly understood good and evil: perhaps it is a mistake to think that creating any evil is bad, and it would in fact be good to create something a little evil, if it also carried with it a larger amount of good.  In this treatment, we are essentially treating of good and evil as quantifiable, with evil being a sort of negative good, and omnibenevolence as having the largest net amount of good, rather than having no evil (omnibenevolence as an optimization problem).  There are more lines that could be pursued, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.  The takeaway is that for the theist, the problem of evil is about saving the concept of God from self-contradiction, rather than convincing anybody that they should believe in him.  As Shabidoo points out, it is generally ridiculous to actually believe any of these arguments.  Ultimately, since one of the necessary conditions for the problem of evil is self-contradictory from the start, the whole thing is, to some extent, moot.  The whole thing will reduce to the problem of omnipotence. 68.56.144.8 (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think being omnipotence and omnibenevolnce are incompatible. It's simply insane to think that a being who is both of those qualities created our world as it is. Assuming we have reached the ability to create a simulation with agents that can suffer, a computer programmer who took a single philosophy ethics course could create a world far more praiseworthy than the "supposed" God did ours (and again, that programmer still would be far from omnipotent or benevolent but would still easy surpass what God did. I could take theists slightly more seriously if they would simply tone down the absolute nature or superlative nature of their claims about their God and admit that, if their God exists, he leaves us to suffer even though it could be avoided (for whatever stupid reason that God had). Interestingly, if our world was a simulation, then the creator(s) are evil people. Shabi  DOO  17:23, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I am hesitant to wholly endorse the computer simulation analogy. Computers can only deal approximately with things like irrational numbers, which to the best of current knowledge do have real significance in the operation of the world.  I can't argue against the analogy on that basis, though, since there's no obvious connection between things like irrational numbers and the amount of evil in the world, and if God has better computers than we do, it seems like he should be able to make worlds at least as good as we can.  Nevertheless, it raises some doubts about the soundness of the comparison.  What you really raised to my mind, though, was quantum mechanics, and the indeterministic properties it describes.  To me, it seems unreasonable to assert that a world with any degree of indeterminacy could be said with confidence to be the best world possible, since its present isn't wholly determined by its past, and could thus spontaneously get worse.  The theist would have to reply that none of it is really probabilistic at all: God knows every detail in advance.  One is then inclined to wonder how a creator could so perfectly simulate randomness and yet be incapable of making a better world than this one.  68.56.144.8 (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Devil's advocate time. How do you handle the modestly more complex free will argument that creating genuinely free immortal souls that choose to be good on their own by way of seeing evil happen and actively rejecting it is a greater good than any amount of enforced utopia could be, and inherently justifies some amount of temporary mortal suffering?  Certainly such an argument is intrinsically incompatible with heaven and hell as concepts, because eternal suffering is an equivalent "infinite evil" to whatever infinite good we're inventing and rewarding/punishing is incompatible with arguing true freedom is part of the golden mix.  But let's set aside those notions coming from Christianity, and pretend our hypothetical free-will proponent is a deist who imagines the universe as some kind of convoluted good-soul machine.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You don't need too endorse the analogy. It's one example of how we infaliable people could create a better world than so called infallible being. Shabi  DOO  20:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The free-will argument doesn't take away the fact that God is still responsible for everything he creates. Pitting two pitbulls against one another (one good natured the other not) is still awful, you cannot blame the pitbulls for the horror that results from it, even if they would have some ability to overcome some of the their impulses. You cannot create humans with overwhelming drive to do questionable things (especially some with mental problems or few inhibitions), a subjective culturally created morality and then go "hey I'm not responsible for the terrible things they do to one another...they should have overcome the human nature I gave them...and still be an omnibenevolent superbeing. Shabi  DOO  20:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you a good parent if you shield your child from every one of the dangers and difficulties the world has to offer so as to keep them safe, and give them everything they want to keep them happy? This argument envisions the evil you experience in "this world" as a trifle compared to benefit it affords as a crucible for forging good souls.  It leverages the unprovability and infinite nature of the immortal soul as a way to minimize the moral calculus of terrestrial evil, and free will and individual growth as a way to justify it allowing it.  Two distinct dimensions.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I addressed this problem earlier. The so called "God" is not comparable with parents. Parents have to do the best they can considering the conditions they are forced to live in. The so called "God" apparently created those very rules and could adjust them so that pointless suffering doesn't exist in the first place, salvation was never needed and an eternal lake of torture never existed. We could have free will, ups and downs, lessons learnt and a challenging path ahead...but without terrible suffering, people being truly horrible to one another and unspeakable suffering. Shabi  DOO  23:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But that's discounting "necessary evil." I know a guy in Catholic college, and I won't say much other than summer last year his retort to the economic inequality issue was "poverty is Biblical." Like, you can be as mad as you want about the arbitrary constantly changing God rules.  The faithful don't play that game.  The more you want punch the guy in the sky that doesn't exist, the more you swing at thin air and the less they care about the argument.  The point is, the idea of knowing or understanding God is a contradiction in and of itself.  Do not entertain the slightest ground from that line.  It is a waste of time.  Take an unknowable God out of the equation first, and it's still tough, but it's pointless to have the conversation about who is to blame, especially pointless when we don't believe there is a god to blame.  To ikanreed's point, there are people who believe so much in God that they think God would not let them, or at least their spiritual leaders, be wrong.  Consider Papal infallibility. Orthodox Catholics believe in the ability of the divine to empower God magic into anything, it's not a good idea to meet them on their terms. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Anyone who knows anything about OCD, how do you deal with it?
I'm just looking how to deal with constant compulsions, the feel that I "need" to obey the obsessive thoughts and do as they dictate otherwise it will always be there. Also, these stupid goddamn rituals where I keep on repeating to myself the same thing in a certain pattern take up a large portion of my day and others around me think I'm insane or something. I have been put on a waiting list for therapy (CBT I believe) but it's been a couple of months since I heard anything, I've lost count but about 3 to 5 months or somewhere there about. I do take anti-depressants but that's to deal with depression, if I'm honest I just want to know if anyone has had something similar and how they dealt with it. Thank you in advance.--WMS (talk) 23:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, there's a music video just for you... Rachel Bloom also has an interesting article regarding her OCD issues. CoryUsar (talk) 00:10, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I had my mom who had the compulsions and do the time-consuming rituals. I think my mom got psychiatric evaluation and had medical assistance for this, and she's not engaging in those behaviors any more. 00:11, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I suffer from OCD. It's hell. I try dealing with it by moving my mind and attention to other things, but I admit it doesn't always work. — Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  09:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the video it was quite a laugh and I think I need to get a psych evaluation. Mind and attention to other things, that I think I need to practise more as I get so hyper focused on the obsessive thoughts; thanks for the advise :).--WMS (talk) 16:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Shameless Self Promotion
So... some of my furbabies pets articles have been around a while, and I was wondering if they are bronze/silver-worthy. Lots of fun stuff, thanks to everyone who contributed.

Thoughts? Endorsements? CoryUsar (talk) 05:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Overton window is a fairly new article, deals with the discussion of topics so is somewhat missional, could use a few more cites, but I think is fleshed out enough. I think it's a Bronze.
 * Horizontal gene transfer is a quirky little thing in Evolution and more importantly demonstrates that GMO's do have a basis in nature. A bit light on the cites, but fairly solid, and relates to our first mission statement.  Also I suggest a Bronze.
 * Glyphosate is heavily involved in the GMO debate (yes... I love GMO's, got a problem with that?), making it very missional. Very well cited, important topic, currently a Bronze.  Thinking it should be a Silver.
 * Nootropics is another chemical woo article. Those fancy "super-smart" drugs?  Yeah, whenever your coworkers ask about those, refer them to this article.  Hits our pseudoscience mission.  Not an exhaustive list, but lots of cites.  I think it's a high Bronze, could be Silver if I ever flesh it out more.
 * Jeb Bush, Bush's baby bro. Not the worst person, but only because the bar is so low.  Article is very well cited, lots of info on the guy.  I'm thinking it should be upgraded to Silver.
 * Fair trade, on the surface a good idea, but scratch it just a bit... I think it's fleshed out, could be Bronze.
 * Overton window could use some more references and the clarification lists need to make it more clear that this is from a US perspective. Outside of that, Bronze worthy in my eyes. 10:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In glyphosate article, I had a bit some comments there. Were those addressed? 22:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Not sure? Maybe not? CoryUsar (talk) 22:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Gavin Newsom
If you search "Gavin Newsom" or "California Coronavirus" I see literally nothing but negative articles on this guy. Keep in mind that this includes LEFT-wing sites, it's not like all of his negative press is only from FOX News, OANN, or any of those gutter right-wing websites. I mean man, is this guy really that bad? Anyone here who lives in California, what's your opinion on this guy (I live in Texas so I guess I don't have much to say on him). Aaronmichael5 20:18, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I follow a lot of people who live in LA, the consensus seems to be Newsom and Garcetti acted early, but with not strict enough, failed to exhibit good behavior, then have squandered any goodwill they earned by being wishy-washy as the virus began spreading uncontrollably in LA County. They seem more interested in the pressure they are receiving from industries and unions than on actual science based re-openings. I live in Oregon, but my view is that Newsom is being squeezed on both ends; not using targeted enough restrictions with enforcement, while also being out of touch with the actual day to day struggles of people.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, who's a current politician where if you google them you find substantive positive coverage? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Kim Jong-un? — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  21:30, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have strong opinions on Newsom but I guess he did get a lot of criticisms for his COVID response but not something uniquely terrible. 21:58, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

What social network are the crazies at?
Out of curiosity, I've decided to search for alternatives to FB/Twitter and Minds came up as an option. Started to lurk there and notice that a lot of the people there are "refugees", permabanned from twitter, usually the typical overt racists, conspiracy theorists and assorted cuckoos. While Minds claims to favor unrestricted free speech and "fighting big tech", if all it gets in the next year or so are more of these types of users, it might end up as a poisoned well.

I was wondering what other places the crazies are going to. Mastodon and Diaspora's fediverse means you'd have to find the right pod/hub/instance/whatever to keep track of them, I'd wager they'd opt for the ones with highest number of users or the least moderation.
 * Bitchute and Gab are still up, for now. The alt-right tech however are excellent at eating itself, whether by internal shenanigans (as seen by the current self-pwning drama regarding the site previously known as thedonald.win) or blatant stupidity (as seen by the "5G vaccine tracking chips!" crowd self-pwning themselves using their by streaming incriminating evidence of them committing insurrection to Parler). So you never know if this will change. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 15:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Does Twitter ever kick out the far-left crazies or only far-right? I feel like Twitter still has a lot of far-left loons, but in fairness, they aren't the ones who took over the US capitol nor are they driving cars into protestors. CoryUsar (talk) 16:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, (and forgive me for a fuckin' New York Post link) several radical left accounts were yanked related to a bit of violent bullshit that happened on the left side in a couple of cities during Biden's inauguration day. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Having looney ideas and expressing them in stupid ways isn't the problem (well it is a problem but not enough to kick people off). If they are spreading dangerous disinformation, dolling out hate speech or other destructive behaviour then they ought to be. But social media only kicks people off their services if it affects their bottom line or not doing so might mean government regulations they don't like. Shabi  DOO  16:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I dunno about twitter dealing with far left accounts, I avoid twitter and most social sites because I really feel too old for how they work. I do imagine that far left loons aren't as numerous as the far right ones, or at least have a much smaller reach if compared to the other side of the horseshoe.


 * The guys complaining about being tracked while tweeting and livestreaming their crimes will never cease to amuse me. As for Gab, I thought it also kinda died, though more because of being set aside after people went over to Parler, which got the boot from AWS, Google and Apple. Mistermano (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To me, justifying or excusing vandalism and looting, or attempting to shut down anyone concerned about the destruction of property, can be a form of "destructive behavior". It's not quite advocating violence, but imagine if someone was saying that it was alright for the Klan to burn crosses on lawns or demanding that people stop complaining about the burning crosses; they aren't directly advocating for cross burnings but they are effectively saying that cross burnings are in the realm of acceptable behavior.  I don't know if that should be banned though, because the line between "protection from dangerous speech" and "infringement of free speech" isn't just blurry, they overlap, i.e., I believe it's impossible to truly be protected from dangerous speech without also violating critical rights.
 * What I would like to see, however, is when Person A excuses violence, Person B criticizes them for that, and then Person A overreacts to criticism and demands that person B be shut down somehow, THEN Person A can get banned. When you try to remove Freeze Peach for others, it shows you don't actually care about Freeze Peach and thus should no longer be protected by it.  E.g., PersonA; I don't see what's so terrible about a noose hanging from a tree, lots of white people were lynched too, PersonB; but you can't deny that lynchings left far more scars on the Black community and it's still terrifying Black people to this day, PersonA; HOW DARE YOU, SHUT THE HELL UP!, Moderator; PersonA is now banned. CoryUsar (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

As if the left and right are equal. Fuck you, you centrist piece of shit. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  18:07, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Again, and not sarcastically, I'll recommend that you read How To Win Friends And Influence People. The Blade of the Northern Lights (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい ) 18:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @Oxy, never said they were. However, if "centrists" and "liberals" are your enemy, the problem is You, and your ideas aren't worthy of discussion. CoryUsar (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you want crazies, there are plenty of places for that and for both ends of the political spectrum. You already mentioned two of them in your post, one of which was Mastodon, the other of which was Minds. If you want to try something that is not political, however, you can check the ice munching forum. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In America, it indeed is my perception that the far left crowd that breaks mainstream "terms of service" type policy (typically inciting / glorifying violence and hate for political groups) is far less numerous than the far right. At the very least, I'm not aware of an alt-left tech, where there's plenty of alt-right tech wannabes.
 * In my opinion, it is rather silly to frame this as a "free speech" issue. All major social media involve advertisers targetting users with their wares, paying the social media company for the privilege. You, as a user of Facebook/Twitter/etc., are the product, basically, subject to corporate whims. Free speech, as an issue, doesn't apply (it would, of course, if the government was telling social media what to do, but they largely aren't). You can get booted from most major social media for porn / nudity, gore, doxxing, copyrighted content, etc. -- not just hate and violence. There's no surprise: major corporations peddling their latest Wholesome Widget For The Entire Family probably don't want to slap their logo on, say, the random naughty bits and "shock" gore and racist memes you will find at /b/. Hell, the term "Donald Trump" actually was even toxic to advertisers. Since angry bullshit is "the best kind of clickbait" it will be interesting how major social media wrestles between what advertisers want and how people often typically act. In the mean time, there are plenty of other platforms available which have far looser content restrictions (such as the aforementioned 4chan). PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Legally speaking, "free speech" just means that the government can't punish you for saying something. However, "privatized" fascism is still fascism, and just because the government isn't the one shutting you down or doing so without due process does not mean that the principles of Free Speech are upheld.  If the public were to organize a boycott of a person who claimed god was a myth, and also organize a targeted boycott of anyone doing business with this person (landlords, banks, etc) until they simply couldn't operate in the modern world, this would all be legal but not necessarily something we should advocate. CoryUsar (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Personally, I find it rather ironic that a lot of these "free speech" alt-tech sites are run by libertarians, who happen to complain that social network monopolies won't allow them to racist. Pissed at the natural end result of the laissez-faire capitalism they advocate, how ironic. At any rate, if you don't like a social network ToS, don't use it. I don't use any major social network, personally. If you think that there's too many tech monopolies and they have too much power to dictate the flow of the web, this is a fair question in my opinion. I would not support government intervention to force a corporation to change its moderation policy. PanGalacticGargleBlaster(talk) 19:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Especially since doing so would violate the principle of free association, something conservatives love to whinge about (see the whole Masterpiece cakeshop thing). I see no reason why any corporation should feel (or be) compelled to tolerate extremists. IveBeenFrank (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Mandatory XKCD reference.Mistermano (talk) 20:08, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I loved that one's flavor text: “I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.” Artificius (talk) 05:58, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

They aren't crazy
Most of these people are ordinary shmucks who've being sucking down a steady media diet of ever more radical right wing ideas because that's how the social media companies keep "engagement" high. And as a result of drinking far-right conspiracy koolaide nonstop for over 8-12 years, their critical thinking skills have turned to mush. To call them "crazy" is to essentialize the problem to them, rather than acknowledging the causes of their behavior, i.e. the sites themselves. As always, no one is immune to propaganda. 19:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Uhh, most people don't have critical thinking skills to begin with. CoryUsar (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That may be true for most consumers, but the producers of the insanity are either crazy for believing the stuff they spill, or big assholes for profiting off ignorance. Mistermano (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would not say that their critical thinking skills were turned to mush when they never had any to realize that the conspiracy theories they were buying into are nonsense. However, it is hard to blame them when the US government lies repeatedly, trust is earned and because the government lost that trust they tried to get information from non-mainstream sources like infowars. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There you all go again. "Normal" people are too dumb. "Normal" people can't think critically. Conspiracy theorists are crazy and different. Unspoken: "it can't happen to me". Do any of you actually know how "engagement" algorithms work? In terms of psychology and neuroscience. Do you understand what those things are designed to do to a human brain? Or why conspiracy theories flourish on social media sites? Hmmm, anyone? 20:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you are projecting something onto what I said. I said people don't have critical thinking skills to begin with, not that they can't learn said skills.  You have to admit that the general public doesn't have those skills, the very existence of a number of the kookier religions and cults is proof of that.  As for it not being able to happen to me, hah, I damn well know it could very well happen to me, I know that had I been born in NK there's a very good chance I'd believe half of what NK had been teaching me all along. CoryUsar (talk) 21:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Some people relies on religion to explain events on earth whenever Science cannot yet explain them. Some more people may have experienced something they don't understand (As they call Paranormal) and then cannot rely on Science to explain what happened. In fact, Science still cannot explain how the human brain works. This is why there exists Atheists converted into Theists, although they are rarer than vice-versa. So your assertion, while not incorrect, is not completely accurate. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You're still wrong. The average person does indeed have critical thinking skills. They just don't have formal training in critical thinking, which means they tend to semi-selectively hit or miss. Seriously, we wouldn't be able to survive without at least some level of critical thinking and information evaluation. Secondly, your comments about North Korea indicate that you still don't understand. When someone goes on Facebook or whatever, they're exposed to content. Videos, posts, Tweets, whatever the site calls them. The more that they engage with that content, the more the recommendations system will refer similar content. This creates a loop which is designed to keep that person coming back day after day, which means they're more likely to engage with onsite advertisements, which means the site is going to generate more revenue for investors and shareholders. Guess what happens if you decide to click some conspiracy content just on a lark? Oh, did you guess "those same programs cause that kind of content to be recommended over and over"? Correct. Again, this can happen to you. This can happen to anyone, because it's literally designed to do that. Prefer established outlets? Social media will keep any emerging competitors from deflowering your ears with criticism of the NYT for rolling out the red carpet for Tom Cotton's "send in the Troops" op-ed. Prefer leftwing anti-capitalism? Fret not, you shall never see a single headline critical of your (potentially newfound) worldview. And on, and on, and on. It doesn't matter the subject, or how reasonable it nominally is. Social media is designed to get you hooked for as long as possible and then get you to come back for more. Hell, most commercial media is to a lesser extent. You might as well blame addicts for getting addicted instead of the people that gave them the fucking drugs, or the society that ostracized them for being addicts 21:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @Mario Not referring to things like mainstream Christianity.  I mean things like, well, the religions that will sue us if we name them CoryUsar (talk) 21:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Cory means Scientology. 21:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What, no? Absolutely not!  That's a perfectly legitimate religion!  Please don't sue me!
 * But anyway, GC, I think I see our disconnect, but I'm going to have to disagree again. The human mind evolved with a series of kludges, with "good enough" mental pathways, and is not inherently a rational device.  If we really were naturally rational beings, we probably wouldn't need Philosophical studies on Ethics and Epistemology as they'd all be as second nature to us as knowing when we are hungry. CoryUsar (talk) 22:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I never argued that the average shmuck was "rational". That would require... a formal understanding of critical thinking skills, something I argued that they lacked... 22:08, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * So... are we arguing over minutia that in the grand scheme of things, don't actually matter? Basically, an internet argument?  I think we are, in which case, umm, please accept whichever of the following insults most offends you.
 * Your mother has had a socially unacceptable quantity of sexual relationships with numerous men of low-ranking stature
 * Your sexual orientation is one that is considered inappropriate, your sexual organs are the wrong size, and your sexual stamina is quite lacking
 * You enjoy a socially unacceptable form of entertainment for your age-category
 * Your mental capacity is low enough to have a medical term named for it
 * I do believe that I would be able to best you in a match of fisticuffs
 * OK Boomer.
 * If we are not having an argument, please accept whichever apology most appeals to you
 * I shall leave this website forthwith, and never return!
 * I have never said such a thing.
 * Your mother has had a socially unacceptable quantity of sexual relationships with numerous men of low-ranking stature CoryUsar (talk) 22:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Not really. You made implications ("they're crazy" "they don't have the ability to make decisions") which were inaccurate. I pointed that out, because correcting the errors of others is part of engaging in rational discussion. That's really all there is to it. 22:25, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I do agree that humans have spent more time on hunter gatherer in their time as a species and their parent species before them, so their brains are more wired that way then they are critical thinking. It did take time before the process formalized, but formalized is a key word here. The process itself has existed and you have engaged in some of that scientific method without realizing it. This is most apparent with troubleshooting. People who find that their flashlights don't work do a lot of tests before realizing the batteries are missing and then they turn on the light after the batteries to test again. I do think it's dangerous to have the perceived immunity to bias mindset. We should be avoiding sources we know are untrustworthy but most of us aren't careful when sources do state facts that we agree with. We need to exercise a lot of caution with statements we just already agree to. Try to reevaluate why you think it's true. Like, the wealth-income gap, we kinda take for granted it's huge, growing bigger, and it's a problem. How do we know it's huge? Are those statistics complete? Or maybe they measure something that isn't quite applicable? And so on. I've seen some thinking reliant on confirmation bias on the leftist side particularly regarding police and landlord attitudes where Twitter videos that confirm prejudices are not scrutinized as they should be and are taken at face value even if there's a real possibility that those videos are technically on another date, another location, guns are misidentified, information isn't complete, and so on. I've had this unsettling experience where somehow the "leftist" sides are the ones being crazy and not scrutinizing and somehow they're not making any good points any more. I don't know if you ever had this, but any time this happens I view as a learning experience and to really think, man, these people think of us as we think of them. Even talking in these terms "we" and "people" as if we're split in half, us vs them, it doesn't make me easy.  22:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * About critical thinking. We underestimate the amount of work a real job of critical thinking entails. I can read a thread like this one, or an article here, or listen to a podcast about postmodernism, semantics, or gender theory. What happens is I will apprehend each of those topics slightly differently from anyone else. I might just come out and ask what people think about topic X. It will give me perspective. But I have to decide what to think about X on my own. It is too much pressure for many people to do this constantly. How do I prove this claim? In the past people have depended upon opinion-makers such as senior family members, priests, ministers or rabbis. Religions, conspiracy theories, cultural dogmas, prejudices, are all proxies for critical thinking. It's not that people cannot think critically. Many people who comment here are very good at it. The situation is that most people can't or wont do it all the time; and some of the alternatives can be terrible. Ariel31459 (talk) 01:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

An aside on property and housing that has fuck all to do with psychology and the detrimential effects of social media
What do you mean by "leftist loonies?" Eviction defense squads, Black Lives Matter activists, antifa defense networks? Stop being so vague. This could legitimately result in a social media crackdown on activist groups. We should all find reason to fear that. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  09:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * People who celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher. People who call for the rich to be eaten or hanged. People who engage in violence and property destruction in the real word. God, you sound exactly like a fascist with those terms! "Defense" squads, and "activists" try to paint a pretty picture over the thuggery that goes on in the streets. IveBeenFrank (talk) 10:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thatcher was a tyrant who fucked over millions of poor people and the third world. The rich are oppressors and exploiters. Oh, and spraypainting on a window is somehow "violent" now. Grow the fuck up. What, how are we gonna defend ourselves when badges show up and force us out of our own homes when we can't afford to pay the parasite landlord? — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  12:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ...And now you sound like a literal Maoist. Planning to update the Little Red Book for the 21st century? I'm sure you'd do excellently. IveBeenFrank (talk) 12:24, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You didn't answer my question. Tell that to my face when I'm kicked out on the street cuz I don't make enough to afford a home, you fucking bootlicker. Fuck your inane both sides bullshit. Historically speaking it's always the center who bend the knee to fascists. People like you are the reason people like me will wind up dead in a ditch. Fuck you. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  12:26, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And it's the left that sustain fascists. If Hitler could not make visions of vicious, violent communists real, he would have never risen to power. Luckily, the tenets of communism saved him - by encouraging violent revolution! Now, he could effectively portray all leftists as violent and power-hungry, and place himself as a patriotic alternative. But I will answer your question: Homelessness is regrettable and tragic, and far too few measures are in place to prevent such pain and suffering. But there are squatters, layabouts, gangsters, and crooks, all of whom refuse to pay what is owed - and they're supposed to get off scot-free? Honestly, your rhetoric is highly reminiscent of the FEMA-death-camps black-helicopters conspiracy-mongers: powerful forces seek to oppress and kill you, and the only hope for survival is if you kill them first. Don't question this narrative, or you're bootliking shills! Our fight is righteous and true, and we can never be dissuaded from it! In our fight, whether we live or die, we will be covered in glory! IveBeenFrank (talk) 12:35, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

You're so fucking privileged you think squatting is bad. Fuck your both sides bullshit. Again, people like you are the reason people like me will wind up dead. At least we recognize problems exist, and don't cower behind make believe like strawmanning libs. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  12:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Last time I checked, squatters are in immediate health danger (disease, unstable or degrading buildings, mold, rats, etc.), and the people who own the house have their property occupied indefinitely. So, squatting isn't good. Also, nice to know I'm privileged - I didn't know my rural county where there's only one Walmart was just like Beverly Hills. I have to say, you're the master of bad takes. I'm absolutely serious. IveBeenFrank (talk) 12:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * OH THE POOR PROPERTY OWNERS WHO LEAVE THEIR FUCKING SHIT UNOCCUPPIED FOR YEARS AND DECADES ON END! OH WOE IS THEM! Where the fuck are the squatters gonna go? Back on the fucking streets? In a jail cell?! FUCK YOU. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  13:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Why are they squatting? Because they don't want to (or can't) do anything else. They have wasted their lives and do not contribute to society. Perhaps they can be trained and one day contribute to society. But there's no justification for stealing other people's property "just because." IveBeenFrank (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thatcher was a stupid person with very stupid ill conceived ideas and didn't relent even in the face of the total failure of her ideas. An uncountable amount of suffering has followed her policies to this day. But she wasn't a monster of the sort that justifies dancing when they die (well after they retired from office). It's super douchey to dance on the grave of people who did stupid shit but weren't evil. That's just dehumanising people, you know, something we're trying to limit. Having said that, celebrating the death of someone doesn't make you an extremist nor do I think it is comparable with inciting hate or discrimination nor spreading anti-vax conspiracies or election conspiracies. Shabi  DOO  13:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oxy please stop with the multiple insults. Shabi  DOO  13:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Fuck you, Frank, you classist piece of shit. Many squatters work two or three jobs! Oh, and the POOR PROPERTY OWNERS, WHO LEAVE THEIR FUCKING SHIT UNOCCUPPIED AND UNUSED FOR DECADES AT A TIME!!!! OH, HOW THEY'RE SO FUCKING RICH THEY PROBABLY HAVE MULTIPLE FUCKING PROPERTIES AND AREN'T IN DANGER OF BEING HOMELESS!!! WHAT ABOUT THEM!!!!! — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  13:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * So I'm classist for saying stealing is wrong? I guess literally every religion and moral code in existence is classist. IveBeenFrank (talk) 13:24, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * People squat because they have nowhere else to go. You're telling me that property matters more than people, right? So that abandoned house that hasn't been used for years is more important than the life of my friend? I'll make sure to tell him that as well. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  13:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

While I completely disagree with Oxy's abusive language, and we all wish she'd knock it the fuck off with it...she is right in the sense that the U.S. doesn't take care of homeless people and in many states just leaves them to rot in the street. In most European countries having a roof over your head is a right. Different countries have varying levels of success but the basics are providing safe shelters, generous social programs to help people back on their feet, dealing with mental health problems and providing social housing. Some countries literally house every single homeless person. Doing so helps solve many serious social problems, not just the hunger and to an extent the poverty, but neighbourhood decay, violence and other many social problems that come along with it. Frank, if a filthy rich country like America has laws and policies in place and a dirth of social programs that simply let people with hard times (or even those who cannot provide for themselves without assistance) to pointlessly suffer, then I find that a million times more immoral than people stealing bread so they can eat because the state and the people don't give the slightest shit about them. Of course stealing is generally wrong. But sociopathic apathy and society scale neglect is far worse. Shabi DOO  13:57, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree with you absolutely. I strongly support programs that prevent homelessness, and lift people out of poverty. Let's discuss and promote those programs, rather than Oxy's inane argument that the problem should be solved by indefinitely appropriating people's property. IveBeenFrank (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (EC) I actually agree with this to a strong extent. One of the few good things Bush did was push a "housing first" policy for drug addicts and the like.  It turns out solving that problem enables many of them to solve their other problems.  It's a shame the social housing projects of the 60's were such disasters; I believe their flaws were numerous, but "existing" wasn't the main problem. CoryUsar (talk) 14:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Appropriation of real estate is obviously not the solution. But having limited renter rights, little to no speculation tax and enabling abusive landlords is a recipe for failure as well. In fact some states do well and even go a little too far with renters rights (making it hard to evict terrible renters) but some states have little protections in place (let alone reasonable social housing or homeless shelters). Shabi  DOO  16:31, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What you mean by "speculation" and "speculation tax"? CoryUsar (talk) 17:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In the broadest sense, speculation in the property market means buying a property just to sell it at a higher price (with little value added). While that is not a big deal in theory it is problematic when it is being done agressively (or on mass scale) and/or if they leave their properties vacant (a previously uninhabited home is worth more, or it can be difficult getting rid of renters once it is time to sell, or there can be greater costs or risks in renting it out etc). Some cities suffer astronomical prices because of speculation and vacant homes, especially the city of Vancouver which has shitty mediocre small places going for a million dollars. Speculation drives up the rents for several reasons including having vacant properties which could be rented otherwise. It was estimated 10% of properties in Madrid were vacant which added at least 150€ a month on average of rent per property. Speculation tax is tax on properties that are sold shortly after buying. Vacancy tax is a tax on properties that are unreasonably vacant (not rented out or being used). Both are essential for limiting the pointless inflation of property values because of speculation or lazy landlords.  Shabi  DOO  17:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Are we talking homes or apartments? Because there's a difference.  I actually would not mind a massive "second home" tax, or a "Cadillac tax" on high-rent properties.  Maybe make the "Cadillac tax" a federal tax instead of state or city tax as an extra FU to rich assholes, make it, say, 30% of any rent above $1500/m (adjusted for 1 br vs 2 or 3 br, etc).  Want to build a 100-unit luxury condo in NYC and charge $4000/m?  Well, prepare to pay the fed close to a million per year on top of the state and local property taxes, and the city will keep bleeding money until the prices come down and a 200-unit regular apartment complex is built instead.  As for homes specifically, the US needs to stop throwing money at homes.  There's something sinister about a person being able to take out a mortgage and rent out a property and the rent being enough to cover not only the maintenance costs but the mortgage too. CoryUsar (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * in london successive governments spanning decades have failed to meet targets for affordable housing and housing developers have continually shirked and been allowed to shirk their responsibilities to provide affordable housing when given planning permission for luxury flats, to say nothing of the countless properties that remain empty throughout the city. homelessness is only a problem because of failing in the political will remedy it. nothing more nothing less. its that same failure of political will that keeps rent obscenely high. AMassiveGay (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Speculation and vacancy is a serious problem that has terrible repercussions in urban areas but governments do little about (likely because many of them have little incentive to do so and/or are property owners themselves and/or have interests in the property and development industries). A fairly good test of how progressive and liberal a local government actually is, is how effectively they implement laws to combat the worst of predatory property practices, landlord scumery, high vacancy rates, high rent increases etc. Shabi  DOO  22:46, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And oddly, at this point I wouldn't mind some sort of universal rent control, or public housing done right.
 * The current system in NYC is the most fuqtarded system imaginable. Long story short, it might actually increase the landlords' revenue.  Basically, you have 1000 apartments with 1200 families seeking to rent, information is cheap market is fluid, no landlord has oligopoly power, and all that jazz.  The 1000th family can only afford $1000/m, the price of the apartments are $1000/m, landlords get $12m/yr.  But the city decides that $1000 is too much, the lowest 200 are forced out, so 400 units are set aside as low income at only $500/m.  Hooray!  Except, now the top 800 people are chasing 600 apartments, and the 600th person can afford $2000/m, so the landlords now make $1.2m/m on the 600 units and $200k/m on the low income units, and are getting $16.8m/yr instead of $12m/yr.  Of course, the families between 600 and 800 are forced out (instead of the bottom 200), because fuck you for being working class, that's why.  In the meantime, the landlords bitch about how the low income people are paying $500/m for a $2000/m apartment, ignoring that if every landlord kicked out their low income tenants then the price would be back down to $1000/m.CoryUsar (talk) 22:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As for public housing, the projects were a bold idea, but so poorly executed. There's two sides to every story of course, and for all the lack of government investment, my family and their friends were all personal witnesses to them.  At first, everything was ok.  The buildings were ugly, which was a problem in itself, but people of all walks of life made a home for themselves.  But, there was no way to get rid of the problematic tenants, people were having sex in the stairwells, there was drugs and booze, they weren't safe.  If you had any income at all, you left for the suburbs.
 * So, lessons learned?
 * If a tenant is a problem, evict them. It doesn't matter what the sob story is, people need to feel safe in their homes and no sane person wants to raise a family next to a brothel or drug den.
 * Actually build quality and put some effort into aesthetics. Beauty is actually a human need alongside food and water, and the architects who designed the projects as bland concrete slabs didn't go home to their own personal bland concrete slab for a reason.
 * Don't let things go to rot. A skyscraper is a complicated piece of machinery, not just some shack.  Pipes need to be inspected and elevators need to be maintained before there's a break.
 * Oh, and don't pay for tenants' heat/electric. Apartments don't need to be kept at 80 degrees in the middle of winter, it's bad for the environment.  Instead of paying $200/m, reduce the rent by the $200 and the tenant will pay $120/m instead. CoryUsar (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2021 (UTC)


 * What's with your shitty ableism towards people suffering from addiction? — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  11:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * the problem with the projects as i understand it (is this just an LA thing or is it nationwide?) is they were all clumped together - creating ghettos of poverty. they should have been spread out amongst the city (or cities if not just LA) they were placed. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if that's true in NY? If you have "that building" in NYC with 200 families that the police won't respond to until 3 hours after they are called and pizza places no longer deliver to, I don't think having 10 of "those buildings" throughout a neighborhood or all 10 clumped together will make much of a difference in terms of the total effect on the city.  That is, if "that building" "causes" 10 muggings a day, I don't think there's any multiplier effect where having 10 buildings spread throughout the city causes 100 muggings but putting them together causes 300. CoryUsar (talk) 13:48, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Unless you are talking about income inequality? Then there's something there as the businesses and thus jobs are entirely wiped out from a specific area, but there actually is a strong counter.  Let's assume each building causes a drop in property values of its neighbors and chases out some of the local businesses.  If spread throughout the city, the total property value and thus tax revenue is lower, more business are lost, and the city can afford fewer services, but if concentrated, there's one area where no business dares operate but for the most part the city gets more in tax revenue and more services.
 * As I've said before, the problem wasn't the working-poor, you could fill the building with line cooks and garbagemen and so forth without a problem at all, but once it starts with the drug dens and brothels, the building could be a Waldorf Astoria and in 3 months it will have the same problems as the projects. CoryUsar (talk) 14:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Cory, most western European countries have extensive social housing projects. A few have a very large number of houses which began as social housing (and was then bought by the owners at a good price). Some countries did/do mixed social housing (a combination of obliging new projects to provide a few cheap apartments, mixed housing (providing some social housing and selling more expensive units). While others have (or still do) created ghettos which have led to serious social problems. It could have easily been avoided. London and Paris are two examples of cities with slums that were the direct result of bad social housing policies. Of course, it was a net positive that social housing was provided at all, but it could have been done so much better (and resulted in fewer problems if it were done so). Scandinavian countries, some regions of Spain and some provinces of Canada now have policies which require new social housing projects to be of a mixed nature. This is wise. For the New York case, placing new social housing units in already terrible neighbourhoods is a super stupid idea, as would be concentrating several units in one area, it may not make things considerably worse but it is certainly in nobody's interests to do so when there are better alternatives. Shabi DOO  14:33, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They also have more generous welfare, which I think is the real reason those neighborhoods did better. Poor people got more welfare, they wanted to spend it, the shops opened up where the money was, the locals got jobs as store clerks or loading/unloading trucks so they had even more money to spend.  Compare to the US, where you get housing assistance which goes straight to the landlord who spends it on the other side of town or LIHEAP which goes straight to the utilities company who spends it in a different state. CoryUsar (talk) 14:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Squatting
Back to squatting. I personally have zero problem with people squatting in a house that has been abandoned for a year or more (assuming it doesn't become a drug den or used for nefarious purposes). If a landlord doesn't even check on their place once a year (or has someone do it for them) they should rent it out or sell it to someone who will. In fact in some countries if you squat in a place for long enough it legally becomes yours, which is a reasonable policy in my opinion (helps reduce vacancy and speculation) though if you get caught squatting within the first year you can be evicted and fined (which is also perversely reasonable). In any case, I had friends in London squatting in a flat for two years. Nobody came to check on the place in two whole years. Of course no water or electricity for two years either but anyways, still saved a shit ton of money on rent and they threw the best parties ever in London. Point is, for a long abandoned place, squatting isn't a big deal in the slightest, if people are fine with living in a bohemian place (or the shelters are dangerous or insufficient social housing is available). Shabi DOO  18:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * And in the case where the property isn't abandoned, but empty because the ownership is stuck in the courts? That was the case with a home next to me.  The owners didn't pay the mortgage, so the bank was in the process of siezing it.  Took 3 years, empty the whole time, but eventually the bank sold it to someone else who tore it apart, added a third floor, redid the plumbing and paint, etc, so it stopped being an eyesore.  What if someone took it over in the meantime?  That doesn't seem... right.  I get it if the owner basically ignored the property and let it go to rot, in which case sure, whatever, squatting is probably better than simply letting the property go to waste entirely. CoryUsar (talk) 20:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree if you are caught squatting (before the time period of acquisition is over) you should be evicted and forced to pay for any damages. But it should be the owners responsibility (regardless of the circumstances) to check in on your property once a year (it is an entirely sensible thing to do anyways). And if they are able to rent it out or sell it they should or have to pay vacancy or speculation taxes on it. And if they cannot be bothered to check in on it during several years (assuming it isn't in limbo like in the situation you gave) I would prefer it be in the hands of people who can live in it rather than be empty (i.e. the squatters get it). Shabi  DOO  23:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There probably need to be some more rules involved. Warning, possible Gish Gallop ahead
 * For instance, let's say someone goes to prison for 2 years, but manages to get the taxes and other affairs in order. If they are released, and find someone squatting, what then?
 * What about a vacation home or ski lodge? Perhaps you didn't go skiing one year because of a broken leg or something like that, and you come back to find a squatter.  Sure, it's harder to feel bad for a second home, but it still belongs to the owner.
 * Is there a limit to the value of the property? If someone finds an abandoned mansion, should they be able to claim a multi-million dollar property?
 * Speaking of intentionally leaving property unused, Mark Zuckerberg bought his neighbors' buildings just so he wouldn't have neighbors. Dick move and all, but he's exactly the person who knows the important of privacy.  If someone sneaks into one of those mansions, can they take possession?
 * Is there a limit to the number of times you may squat? Could you become a professional squatter, searching for buildings, taking possession, selling them for huge amounts, then going to the next building?
 * What about the possessions within the empty homes? If the building contains documents and such, I wouldn't want a squatter going through those.  ID theft and all (but in fairness, shouldn't leave those unattended).  There's also the issue of theft.  At what point is it not squatting, but burglary?
 * If the property hasn't been abandoned, how long should the process be to get rid of a squatter? I don't want to leave my building for 4 months, come back to find a squatter, and then find I can't kick them out immediately.
 * And, like, 100 more off the top of my head. CoryUsar (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My personal stance would be something along the lines of "as long as you are paying your taxes and utilities, it's still yours. If you don't pay your taxes and are ignoring all the notices (within reason, can't be something minimal like still owing $1.75), tough shit, the government no longer protects your building from squatters.  Oh, what's that, the government only functions when people are paying tax?  No shit.  At the same time, the squatter must file with the city for rights and all, begin paying those taxes.  You will be warned, the government will make a good faith effort to contact you, and if you do not make a good faith effort to pay immediately, the squatter's possession process will proceed" CoryUsar (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This seems like a difference between US and UK. I lived in a duplex that was a notorious party house with very low rent.  Rent was $1100 a month on each side, so 5 renters on each wasn't bad.  Somebody had to live in the attic (me, I had two bat fights when I lived there, not the weapon, just the animal loose in my room because there was no central air so I had to keep the window open), somebody had to live in the sunroom (two good friends that I kinda feel bad I didn't swap with), yeah, nothing was code, if we weren't up on rent nobody came to beat us up. A buddy of mine got his car stolen from that house on his birthday.  He was so spooked when it happened, that sucks.  His nice Honda kinda stuck out.  That's not a justification, it was really, really shitty.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:25, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Like, I have so many ridiculous stories from that place, and yes, we paid the rent and we paid the uitilites, got the water shut off one time because the guy we were giving our money to for the utilities was using it to pay his rent instead while he was secretly unemployed. He sold cigarettes out of a fanny pack during parties.  He was never NOT trying.  I was never shocked by the place because I didn't grow up much different.  I actually liked the people around me, that was the difference.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:41, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess what I'm saying is, slum-lording is real. We made it work, but there's no way that property was worth maintaining.  And the landlord did not maintain it.  He just wanted us to get him the money when we could.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Left and right of reason categories
Is there an objective way of saying someone on the left/right is "of reason"? Or we only add these categories to people we like? Unlike their counterparts I'm not sure if these categories are actually useful for anything other than proselytism. GeeJayK (talk) 07:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I see what you're talking about... that cat is often misused by undeterrable, bad-faith POV pushers... -- Goatspeed. 07:10, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, I didn't know this user. By I'm not sure about many of the names on the lists (John Locke was on the left of reason category for years, for instance, even if he was born 100 before the French Revolutio). Spotting a crank is easier, but saying someone is reasonable is a lot harder, especially considering how someone can be reasonable in a certain field and still be a crank on other subjects. Some of the names also sound iffy to me. For instance, Lewis Hamilton. Ok, a nice guy, but is he known for his political ideas? GeeJayK (talk) 07:18, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I find those categories to be problematic because of vagueness, but not so problematic that I'm going to start a fuss about them. Bongolian (talk) 07:46, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey, not trying to start a fuss over it. Just checking other opinions, and how can we improve these categories. GeeJayK (talk) 07:51, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Seems to my uneducated eye that it's smug hangover from the 'not having overt political opinions' = 'rational' crowd. Strikes me as quite naïve and a little bit cringey. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Would gladly vote for the deletion of these categories-Hastur! (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I thought it started with the "right of reason" which was created over 2 years before "left of reason" was and obvious counter-examples existing plus a demand for balance eventually led to the creation of "left of reason". Sure, I think that glosses over that right wing nutters have been mainstream representatives of the right for ages in the US, and not being an insane fundie asshole was a rarity, and being a moonbat far-left crazy got people excluded from positions in the media.  But even if I think that, the categories do have some basis in something you can differentiate and describe.
 * That dovetails a little too closely with Good People We Like and Bad People Who Are Very Bad, leading to arguments, but there's a logic to the categories existing and coming about the way they did.
 * Also I'm an biased person who thinks far-left crazies who engage in poor critical thinking are often less unreasonable than center-right nominal rationalists. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a reasonable position. Sadly too few of the skeptic bros here are wise enough to realize that. — <font color="Purple">Oxyaena <font color="Red">Harass  18:51, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I would honestly support deleting them if a AFD vote was opened...but I don't really care enough to open it myself.-Flandres (talk) 20:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes. I can't say I can define the two terms to everyone's satisfaction. We don't offer definitions, although there is a list of examples. Does anyone else think RW could use a glossary? I imagine that there are a lot of terms used here that are not well-defined because they are used incoherently. DocYankemPrevent Truth Decay!20:14, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Conlang for a novel
How would I do a Conlang that is an amalgamation of Dutch, Macedonian and Palestinian Arabic? Working on a story and I want to add a Conlang. I have a fictional city in Michigan where a large group of Palestinians, Macedonians and Dutch people live. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 00:35, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you know how pidgins and creoles work, try that as a start. Russonorsk is one of the former, Tok Pisin and Bonin English are examples of the latter. The Blade of the Northern Lights (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい ) 01:51, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe the place to start is with the history of this place. In what order did these three peoples arrive to this area, or did they all arrive at the same time?


 * The first scenario seems more likely to favor whomever settled the area first as a sort of base language for the pidgin and then creole that will arise here, but I could imagine this having originally been a Dutch American town from the early 1800s to early 1900s and the Macedonians and Palestinians arriving around roughly the same in the mid-to-late twentieth century (there wouldn’t likely have been that many Macedonian refugees from the Yugoslav breakup, so I’m picturing a bunch of families disillusioned with Communism coming in around the same time a long, slow wave of Palestinian refugees came in). I’m picturing a lot of tension between the Orthodox and Islamic camps and folks grabbing loanwords from the still charmingly Dutch slice of the low countries’ diaspora, in some ways becoming more alike in their appreciation for the local flavor.


 * The second scenario seems a bit more apocalyptic, and answers any questions one might have about why these languages hybridized into their own tongue instead of using English as so many migrant communities in the US have ended up doing. Are all three climate refugees? Because I could see the Netherlands being flooded van de dijkdoorbraak around the same time the Middle Eastern policy of keeping the Palestinians locked in to put the screws to Israel became untenable and Macedon’s internal water supply dried up, and them then seeking sea-level fresh water sources and farm land abroad. Having arrived in the area around the same time among *many* other people surging into the United States, they naturally overwhelmed our historic tendency to anglicize migrant communities. Here, I’d ask who was more organized, and who was coordinating defense of this community against the increasingly hostile local population. I could see the Palestinians falling into this role rather naturally, so the orders were initially being given in Arabic and Dutch they were learning originally (again, before the dijkdoorbraak because I love that word), and the Macedonians formerly being seasonal workers in the Netherlands (before the dijkdoorbraak) so this is basically an Arabic or Dutch-based creole? Artificius (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry to edit-bomb or whatever the word is, but if I'm in any way right about your plot a Dutch-based creole seems more and more likely: both the Macedonians and the Palestinians initially fleeing north and then crossing the Atlantic en masse on Dutch ships before passing into the Great Lakes would heavily favor a generally Dutch origin for their emerging language, and more points for the Arab folk if they coordinated the assault on and control of the Great Lakes waterway which allowed the new community to continues inland. Artificius (talk) 04:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If you have another vision, give them a hero. Flesh him or her out and make them larger than life, and never visit them personally. But the reason those people are together is because they speak the same language, they love each other. Artificius (talk) 12:21, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My story is a near future zombie apocalypse. Climate change is the main driver behind the large number of refugees. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 13:42, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Natural creole languages based on Dutch exist or existed, in Surinam and arguably Afrikaans cpunts as well. I would study on them and relexify them based on your other language influences. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 16:13, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Folding@home...
...is an amazing project. Try it. JJP...MASTER![talk to] JJP... master? 19:28, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

RW spotify playlist
I’m making a playlist for u to add whatever songs you like. Idk just thought it’d be fun. here u go 23:08, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Dan Terminus - Angelus MirrorIrorriM (talk) 23:34, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ADDED. P good song thanks 23:37, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult. Twodots   Annoy me   Look, ma!  23:42, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Round and Round by Ratt--Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:44, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * DONE and also DONE. Good taste. Also u can add things urself if you got spotify account I’m p sure. If u don’t have one just continue 2 ask and I will add 23:46, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Science is Real" by They Might Be Giants 2600:1002:B023:77DA:0:56:FB42:4C01 (talk) 00:58, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh my Goat that was one of my favorite songs growing up... -- Goatspeed. 01:20, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oh, and I've got one: Country Roads (the destruction theme):




 * -- Goatspeed. 01:24, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * TMBG song added. Unfortunately that video isn’t showing up so I can’t figure out whomst the artist is! 04:02, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "The Free Electric Band" by Albert Hammond. Spud (talk) 05:14, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * DONE good song 12:39, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Stuck in the middle with you" by Stealers Wheel is a pretty good song ig. UraniumSpoon (talk) 14:52, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * What a tremendous idea, awesome. Aside - My brother and I had a TMBG battle growing up, each of us wanted another one of their albums, we made actual trades just to borrow TMBG CDs between each other.  I bought him Here Comes Science for his birthday back in 2009, we were both full blown adults, and it kinda opened up our relationship. Either way, Kodama by Kikagaku Moyo is a really good gentle kinda driving energy track that fits anywhere. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (if anyone knows the markup for that thing where u make the comments go to the start instead of being ridiculously indented pls do that for me) but yeah nice songs ADDED You’ll have good taste 12:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't do that, but next to Sympathy, with these stiffs, I would put that garbage George Thorogood track. But can I request like, not that track?  I have an oldies station I can tune into on my radio.  But it would be in line, and a good transition. Always tryna get hatred out of my heart, but listening to the same songs every day for 30 years.  Don't y'all know them yet?


 * removed my own video post, trust. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 08:13, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Very cool additions, somebody has good taste in music. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Channel 43 by deadmau5. Not because it's new and on my mind, it is because I genuinely think it is really good and it is new and on my mind. 104.225.183.70 (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * well... does anyone like the song? 104.225.183.70 (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

For something relatively more tame, and still strangely offbeat, Jackie Blue by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. And since I'm a huge Rush fan, and like to recommend their lesser known songs, I'd suggest Double Agent; I can descend into Meow Wolf level worlds listening to that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい ) 05:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ADDED, ADDED, and furthermore, ADDED. Hell yea keep the song recs comin 01:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Backside of the TV - Lotus Juice Remix. Youtube link. 19:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

How about Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones? ;) - Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Good suggestions, ADDED 21:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I added a bit of alt/indie pop/rock to augment the current agglomeration of genres! FYI those were thoughts & prayers by grandson, Take Me To Church by Hozier and High by Sir Sly. Honourable mention: Dear God by Confetti is hilarious but unfortunately just a little too religious, and doesn't seem available on Spotify anymore anyway. Keen to listen through the playlist this evening! Kauri0.o (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Work This Time by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. I tried really hard for an akron/family transition, but up against that Sir Sly track, this was it. Drops the energy, but opens the door to anything.  KGLW kinda always does that, I'm a little disappointed in myself. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Added!! 22:33, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Since more and more 1/6-related articles are popping up and rapidly growing each day
I've just created a new category for it and used my ninja powers for the first time ever, demoting myself to a bot and then going on a HotCat spree, and then promoting myself back to a human being. In case I missed any pages, I'd like some help in adding relevant pages to this category. Once the 1/6 related drafts are completed, be sure to add this category to those as well. -- Goatspeed. 06:57, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Dang
Holy shit I just started a new medical weed script, and like. It is this just so much better than both not being stoned, and also being stoned on any other weed, and also being high on most other drugs. Jesus Christ I can’t remember the last time I felt so calm and also capable of enjoying things. I have laughed quite loudly multiple times even tho I, u know, live alone and usually prefer to make as few sounds as possible. Why tf has this not been legalised here sooner, and also why tf is it so inaccessible. This shit is basically class. 11:31, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I live in Kansas, where we have a state representative who thinks that black people are too genetically and morally inferior to deal the effects with using pot. 21:49, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Choice quotes from the United States Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1930s (see here):
 * “…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
 * “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
 * “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
 * “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”
 * “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

God bless America. 21:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oof that’s gross. I’m not even in America!!!! In my country and my state smthn like 60-80% of ppl want legal weed!!! But no. The government b all like “uhhh it’s bad”. And ALSO I can’t even look into the dang ketamine therapy which, to my knowledge, has so many good evidence that it would finally make me not be in agonising pain all the time BUT what can u do!!! I guess probably “activism” or smthn but in my case? I guess all u can do is illegal drugs. 22:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm just so sick of Kansas' shit. I like the state, but the people keep voting for backwards-ass politicians. 22:03, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's bad shit Duce, but that guy J. Stephen Alford, was basically driven from office because of it, in 2018. I wonder if that sort of shame is still possible among Republicans.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, now we need to oust the guy who circulated revenge porn, threatened to shoot a high school student, and made a probable death threat against the governor. (this one's a

Democrat, too).  22:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * sorry for hijacking your thread into "fuck Kansas". 22:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * All good!!! I do not have the “energy” for “fuck Australia” rn so I’m down w it 22:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Archiving talk page
How can I archive my talk page? Kevlarstar and his dog (Woof!) 16:40, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I set up the archive system for you. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 16:50, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

What are the chances of Trump winning in 2024?
With Trump's acquittal by the Senate looking almost certain, what do you folks think the likelihood is of Trump winning the presidency again in 2024? Of course, the biggest threat to America isn't that Trump will win 2024, but that a more competent fascist will, but his base is as fired up and angry as ever, and Biden won by the narrowest of margins (45,000 more votes in AZ, GA, and WI would have given Trump a second term). At least to me, it's easy to see that lower Democratic turnout (likely due to progressive disappointment with Biden) in 2024 could easily give Trump the White House. What do you folks think? TheEndlessVoid (talk) 14:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You are of course assuming he gets the Nom. If he doesn't, and runs as third party, it's guaranteeing a Biden victory. CoryUsar (talk) 14:33, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't be so hasty about your statements. Hitler ran a third party and still became the dictator that we all know and hate. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 17:24, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's assuming Biden gets the Dem nomination. Both of you are putting carts before horses. 14:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I got the impression (from somewhere) that Biden doesn't intend to run in 2024 and just wanted to get Trump out of office and clean up after him in a single term. I'd imagine Harris would be most likely Democratic candidate. 14:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I for one don't think Biden will run in 2024 (God help us all if he doesn't realize 82 is too fucking old to be running a global superpower). My guess is that Harris will likely run for/win the Dem nomination (probably after a substantial challenge from a more progressive candidate). As for the idea that Trump will run third party, I just don't see him doing that given that GOP leadership have made it clear they aren't abandoning him any time soon. Of course, there's always the possibility that he won't run, or he'll be in prison or the grave in four years.TheEndlessVoid (talk) 14:52, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * According to the messages from the Biden camp he will run again. But that might be because saying "Only one term" would make him start off like a lame duck. Obviously, at the moment, the most obvious successor would be the existing VP.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Remember, people have real short attention spans. Trump's political power depends entirely on his ability to maintain a presence in the national spotlight. If these few weeks are anything to go by, he'll fade away just like Bush did. Of course, he'll still have power, but the more active, attention-getting Republicans will be the candidates everyone talks about. Trump's made enough of an influence that any successors will have to at least pay lip service, but it's not inconceivable that they will bring about a radical shift in Republican policy not unlike the flip from neoconservatism to Tea Party to Trumpism. Of course, this advantageous (in my opinion at least) scenario depends on Trump not getting prime-time attention - this isn't a certainty just yet. IveBeenFrank (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Regardless of who the democratic nominee is in 2024, they're almost guaranteed to win if Trump runs as a third party and splits the vote (unless a similar thing happens within the Democratic party). I'm not sure how much it will matter that the GOP leadership haven't abandoned Trump; he was apparently pretty furious with them that they didn't do more to support his bid to remain president despite the election.  Ultimately, I think it will depend on the advice of whoever is closest to Trump when (if) he decides to run again.  I think if Trump were to run again he would get a huge amount of primetime attention, rendering moot any lull in the meantime.  He also gets enough attention and has enough resources that I can see him forging his own show/website/something else and staying in the spotlight as long as he can; I think he rather likes getting a lot of attention.  In any case, I think he will be an impactful figure in 2024, whether or not he runs (unless he dies before then, and even then he's made quite an impact on the GOP already).  68.56.144.8 (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Trumps social media presence also got extremely neutered. Remember that a lot of his 2016 campaign came from him tweeting shit out on his personal Twitter. He's lost all of his social media outlets. 15:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * It's too early to speculate about who will run, let alone who will win. 15:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This tbh. Frankly, 4 years is a long time. A lot of things can happen. 16:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are much worse virus candidates than Covid, and more ways for the world to mess up.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm trying my best to reserve judgement on Biden and not hate him out the gate other than for the inexecusable things he did in the past. But my gut feeling based on no serious analysis is that he will fail to substantially improve the lives of americans, catch the blame for the continuing escalation of day-to-day problems, even worse inequality, hit a giant market crash, "need to deal with the debt", and get beaten by someone with trump's pseudo-populism and far more structural competence.  Certainly media people will expect the pandemic to go away faster than it's gonna and blame Biden for every act he does to control it as too far, but also "How is it not fixed yet, why didn't (half measure x) fix it?".  I don't have a best case scenario in my head.  I literally cannot imagine anything going especially well in the next few years.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * First - what will the US be like in 2024; then who else will be in the running.
 * What chance ComputerAvatarDonaldTrump? Anna Livia (talk) 17:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Concur with GC, Biden/Harris have been in office for seven days. Too early to make any sort of prediction, especially considering there are off cycle elections in Virginia this year, and mid-term elections in 2022. With Trump, the only thing we should expect is chaos. If he tries to put his thumb on the scale for mid-term elections, that will be the first test of his political power not on a ballot or in office. GOP candidates were trounced in '18 when he tried to make the election all about him, lost the general election by 7 million votes, and fumbled two run-off elections in Georgia. The political power he wields come more from people questioning themselves following '16, which while surprising, wasn't nearly as stunning as people make out. Since then his record is spotty. -RipCityLiberal (talk) 18:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, why are we assuming that Biden is going to be too old in 2024, but not Trump? Trump is 4 years younger, yes, but his entire diet consists of deep-fried salt and his idea of "exercise" is "golf".  There's a chance that Trump won't be capable of running in 2024. CoryUsar (talk) 18:17, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There is no chance of Trump winning in 2024. He is, by his own criterion, a loser. He was the first president since Hoover to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose the presidency in his first term. As the reality of "more than 500,000 dead Americans" sinks into the mulish skulls of many white Americans, impressions of Trump's presidency will continue to deteriorate. As long as the Biden administration is seen to work to provide relief for poorer people, including whites, Republicans will be shit out of luck.Ariel31459 (talk) 19:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * While I don't see Trump running again in 2024, don't for even a second think that the Republicans won't have a chance at taking back the White House in 4 years. That line of thinking is what cost the Democrats in 2016 and it will happen again in 2024 if they let it. As Endless Void pointed out, Trump's fanbase is probably more fired up now than they were at any point during the last four years. Who exactly will win the White House for the Republicans is anyone's guess, but the chances of it happening are certainly there. Also keep in mind that while some states like Texas and Georgia are slowly becoming more Democrat, others like Florida and Ohio are not, they are actually becoming more Republican. Aaronmichael5 22:38, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I am glad as anyone that Trump is gone, people need to stop this absurdly optimistic triumphalist routine. The senate is 50/50 with the filibuster still in play. Given their house results last year during what should have been a complete rout the republicans have a pretty good chance of retaking that part of congress in 2022. Trump lost by less than 100,000 votes in a key few states. Writing off the GOP at this point is pure stupidity. SOME users obviously completely failed to learn the lesson of 2008-2010.-Flandres (talk) 22:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The 2024 election will be Prince Harry v. Melania Trump v. Bigfoot. Anna Livia (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * i am alittle bit sad hes gone as there is nothing to distract from the inevitable break up of the uk. still got covid to blame for failures from brexit as they happen. it might still take a while to run out of things to blame things on. its the spirit of the blitz and/or the little boats of dunkirk that will allow england and probably wales at best to keep calm and blame it all on someone else. we cant vote brexit out like you could with ex prez fuckface. would we better if implications of the economy shrinking from poor trade deals or just trade deals that could never be better than what we gave up were more obviously the result of leaving the eu, or are hiding behind covid and just saying everything is shit anyway as we watch economies recover while ours doesnt, an our health service, schools, welfare, fucking everything is run into ground by private companies because that was the fucking point of brexit. it wasnt fucking sovereignty thats for fucking sure.


 * at least trump was entertaining, especially as he was your problem. nothing to distract from brexit and trade deals and and hard borders and delays in kent. the destruction of the uk is inevitable and so fucking tedious going about it. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Re: Pointless poll
I love Babylon 5. One of the greatest shows of all time. How are you going to say that it's about a ragged bunch of misfits, though?-Hastur! (talk) 00:55, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I know, it's only sort of that and doesn't quite fit. The crew of the station doesn't quite belong, often working against each other, constantly shifting alliances, all the politics and intrigue.  It isn't like Star Trek, where Starfleet has some semblance of discipline and everyone is the most elite the Federation has to offer. CoryUsar (talk) 01:08, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I loath almost all things sci-fi. AceSimple Maze 01:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Must....control....nerd-rage...
 * Ok, what are the scifi things you don't loath? CoryUsar (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Presumably something noxious like the Star Wars prequel trilogy lol-Hastur! (talk) 01:42, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Star Wars I can live with. High concept like the movie Coherence I like, enjoy the works of John Wyndham - but pop-Sci Fi can get fucked, drowned with a bag of kittens chucked from a bridge by some Victorian era psycho. AceSimple Maze 01:50, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * So... do you like any of the following?
 * District 9
 * Alien
 * 2001 A Space Odyssey
 * Blade Runner
 * Total Recall
 * Moon
 * Planet of the Apes (original, remake, but NOT the Tim Burton bullshit)
 * Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
 * Note that these are all SciFi movies where there's a reason for them to have the SciFi, to explore the limits of humanity or to get us to question reality by present our own world in a different light. Star Wars?  Yeah it's entertaining, but you could replace the ships with wizards and you could keep the story intact. CoryUsar (talk) 02:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * — u ever read Dune? 05:08, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that it's "Battlestar Galactica", not "Gallactica". Glad to see my favorite show here anyway. GeeJayK (talk) 05:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Cory. GeeJayK (talk) 05:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Cowboy Bebop, but no Outlaw Star? What a useless poll! Revolverman (talk) 18:57, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Added Outlaw Star for you, be sure to vote for it :P CoryUsar (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

COVID has made me extremely paranoid
I have been having bad allergies and I keep thinking worse case scenario. I know that I am being extremely paranoid. Mental illness is fun. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:35, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I’ve had 3 colds and the flu since the pandemic started (which says something about the masks, lol) and been tested twice and nothing. I’m curious if I was asymptomatic and immune now. Sievert 81 (talk) 04:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there somewhere near where you can get a test? Otherwise just be very aware of how the symptoms of COVID compare to what you are experiencing. I have allergies too. 02:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I've been there. Every single time water goes down the wrong tube, my lungs burn and I have to cough it back up, my brain starts panicking about said burning sensation and assumes that it MUST be either 'rona or my second worst fear (especially since my dad recently lost a cousin to a rather aggressive one of unknown cause): a lung tumor caused by either radon or secondhand smoke (despite the fact that there are no uranium deposits anywhere near where I live and I never go outside on city streets at all anymore) and ONOZ ONOZ ONOZ I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE   but then again part of me hopes that's the case because of this goatdamn pandemic    - until the skepticism/critical thinking pathway in my brain gets triggered and swiftly shoots down those phobias. -- Goatspeed.  07:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have stayed inside so much over the past 12-ish months, that I have not even had a single cold. I normally get sick real bad any time I get a cold, even if it causes tiny effects in others, so I suppose that’s at least partially good in a way. I’m probably gonna take disease avoidance way more seriously than I used to after this, not only out of residual paranoia but also, I just don’t need colds anymore I have decided. 11:23, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * CR, go to a doctor. Sounds like it might be water brash. In any case it's definitely not normal D: Kauri0.o (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC) Edit: misread, probably not water brash. Still not normal.

I'm drunk!
Just wanted to let you know. For the first time in about 3 weeks, I'm truly, really, wholly and entirely drunk. That's all. 01:57, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ............... Aaronmichael5 04:06, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We're all tough here. Don't let em get you down. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 07:16, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Trying barleywine for the first time. Can't say that I'm drunk yet though lol-Hastur! (talk)  07:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Mondo edit, what does barlywine taste like for you? I tried it one time and I didn't like it.  And I like IPAs, but they get me hammered.  I like wine, I like ales and pilsners and stouts I really like O'Douls take on ale.   Like, the only thing they can do is keep the flavor, it's their only job, they do it.  There's no alcohol off the top, no perfume, but it's good beer. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 08:07, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Barleywine is just a category of very strong ales; there are no doubt different varieties, and as usual British ones will be better than US ones. I dislike US IPAs, they tend to taste like sour turpentine to me.  Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 15:43, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The barleywine was... fine. Potable.  I'll drink an IPA if I'm in the mood.  But I don't usually feel like drinking anything too hoppy.  The fruitier IPAs are good-Hastur! (talk)  15:46, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As a category, I like IPA, but there are a vast number of varieties. Some are fantastic and some are, in my opinion, undrinkable.  There are a surprising number of them now being made locally in Spain.  I've seen them as low as 4 percent alcohol and up to 12.
 * Not had a barley wine for ages, but I used to quite like it in the UK.
 * The strongest "beer" I ever tried was an Imperial Stout at 21 percent. It was pretty undrinkable though.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I went to two beer tasting festivals with my dad and brother. They are more responsible than me.  My dad likes IPAs, my brother likes Stouts.  I like everything, so I got wasted at both.  My brother took me to another beer festival, and he dragged me to a one man panel discussion from the guys from Boulevard brewing.  And the guy said something that really stuck with me.  The main point is it's stupid to just snob a beer, because  what Budweiser and Busch do is actually an exercise in consistency.  You never have to ask what a Bud is going to taste like, you never get a bad bottle or can, so if your neighbor offers you a Bud or a Busch or a Coors, they aren't offering you a bad beer. They are, just, offering you a beer. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)m
 * Being said, an IPA that reminds me of grapefruit is always a thumbs up. I've really wanted to try Old Rasputin, I've heard it's so dark you can chew it.  I don't like sweet or bready beers very much. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:49, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The real question is, were you prepared for the next morning with some cheap sunglasses? I can control myself just fine, especially with beer, and between my proximity to New York and my home state having plenty of local breweries (if you ever want a success story of deregulation, how about the deregulation that launched breweries and distilleries in the United States?) I have plenty to keep me busy. Unlike those above, I do enjoy a harsh IPA as much as a good old gin and tonic; bitterness suits me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい ) 06:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Used to b a big “weißbier, nitro stout and pils” type person. Now oestrogen (or being increasingly socialised as a woman) has made my tastes go all weird and 90% of what I drink now is wine. I never even used to like red wine that much but now I think it’s p great. Never enjoyed any form of pale ale tho and I never will. Tastes like bug spray. Gin and tonic is good tho. Probs bc I’ve drank tonic water since I was a small child and also I’ve never poisoned myself from drinking too much gin. 12:36, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Also u can make gin and tonics as strong as u like and they taste more or less the same (within reason). Ez way to get drunk fast with relatively little liquid but also less burning and cringing. 12:41, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I find that all wine tends to taste the same for me. At room temperature I probably couldn't blindly tell the difference between most whites and reds. America has found ways to make wine worse; most California reds seem astringent and hard to drink. I do enjoy ice cold Chablis or Sauternes, but nobody makes that any more and it seems to have all been replaced by Chardonnay. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 16:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * wine is alcoholic fuit juice if fruit juice tasted like arse. i dont drink anymore. tend to get a bit leary and im too pretty to be starting shit. AMassiveGay (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In place of that, I drink sake; you either need really cheap or really nice sake, anything in between tastes pretty much identical. I take that over wine pretty much any day. The Blade of the Northern Lights (<font face="MS Mincho" color="black">話して下さい ) 17:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Certain "yeast byproducts" I'm particularly sensitive to. There's a "green apple" byproduct of yeast ( and similar chemicals) that I find particularly repugnant in wines and beer. Certain red wines (hard to know which ones) is a "migraine trigger" (along with rapid altitude changes), unlike the green-apple there is no rhyme or reason I can figure out the whys. I tend to lean towards Belgian quads/tripels, dark lagers, and barrel aged dark beers (quads, Scotch ale, stouts, etc.). I also enjoy IPAs, but they have to be super-fresh, and not the muddy mess of NEIPA. For wine, I tend to stick to the barrel-aged California style chards because of the certainty you won't get some green-apple bomb or migraine-trigger (which is a shame because I like reds a lot). I actually homebrew and my home kegerator tap selection largely reflects my preference. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * See this is weird to me, I tend to get hangovers from beer and whiskey a 'lot' easier than red wine (can't stand the white stuff, although like most alcoholics that's not a hard no). Artificius (talk) 21:40, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hangovers are in part caused by the impurities in liquor and beer, or the tannins in the case of red wine. You are resistant to the tannins (probably), but not the other impurities in the liquors, that's all.  Just avoid the bottom shelf liquors if you must have liquor. Cor   (chat)  21:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * i suspect, im stress im not dr or anything, i suspect hangovers might primarily be the result of a shit tonne of alcohol. there might be other factors to consider, but the tannins in my tea never resulted in the same amount of vomit. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I am a two time offender of the bad thing, drunk driving. I have a personal breathalyzer right by my bed, because I've had an ankle bracelet and a state mandated breathalyzer right by my bed, and when I got done with house arrest I got the old Blow n Go in the car which was about 70 bucks a month, and I can tell you, if you wake up the next morning and think sunglasses are a solution, you're too drunk to drive to work. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:31, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Man, didn't even remember I made this post. Looking at the timestamp it seems to have taken me just about 3 hours with a bottle of scotch and some pilsner to get thoroughly plastered. Anyway, I do enjoy IPA's and red ales quite a bit, but pilsner is really my go to beer when I wish to drink like there's no tomorrow. 06:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

U ever just
Wanna go to sleep but also r too tired to deal with “thoughts” so u stay up mindlessly scrolling on the dang phone 12:12, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello, it sounds like you're dealing with clinical anxiety or depression. If you didn't know that, consider therapy.  Even so, using your phone at night is going to make your ability to fall asleep so much worse.  And trust me that lack of sleep and chronic fatigue is not going to make the things you're anguishing about feel better.  Find a place out of your reach to keep your phone at night.
 * I know that all sounds like useless boilerplate advice that doesn't appreciate how bad you're feeling when you get caught up in those thoughts and how they're tearing you up inside, but really it helps. Getting used to staying up late at night prolongs your suffering and makes your coping strategies into crutches.   If you're really really hard up, talk to someone, write in a journal even, don't use passive entertainment.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sound advice. Also, I hear that if you can't sleep, you should get out of bed and do something you find useful, like washing the dishes, sort the laundry, or read a book. Don't stay in bed. UncleKrampus (talk) 20:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Also stop the screen time before bedtime. Bright lights can keep you awake. Bongolian (talk) 21:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * O yeah I know all this and have finally decided that I gotta go back to therapy again instead of just yoloing it the whole time. But also these weren’t even bc I was having extra bad thoughts, I was just overwhelmed by having to think lmao, I’d had too busy a day and was not up for any introspection or whatever at all. But also also. Yea the problem is I need my phone to listen to music when I sleep But, I suppose I could probably find some way to do that w/o it being right next to me. 00:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

YouTube video I am working on
Going to be an EAS scenario based on the Incel crowd. Perfect for Valentine's Day. They get depicted as domestic bioterrorists. Well the FBI has listed Incels as a domestic terrorist threat.

Name of the scenario- Your Secret Admirer. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Once you're done, don't forget to put a link up there so I can watch it. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 11:00, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Fascism Competing Against Socialism
I have had this thought of late that has two basic parts:


 * 1) Since 2008 the GOP has been sounding the alarm of radical Socialism coming to America, through various actions from the Obama administration. From the jump it has been a scare tactic, not based in reality, as any socialist would tell you the Obama administration was at best a centrist administration, more traditionally a center-right administration. But much like the Streisand Effect, there became a rising interest in actual socialism (or at least Social Democratic principles) that have become mainstream in the Democratic Party. This in turn..
 * 2) In response to this rise, far-right figures have leaned into increasingly fascist ideas, specifically using the rise of Mussolini and Hitler to counter the USSR. This of course has increasingly led to violent language, and actual violence, which has in-turn inspired and increasingly violent Anti-Fascist movement to counter.

Frequently I find myself thinking of a Politico Magazine article I read in 2019. It details the murder of five communists that seems to have been the first partnership between the KKK and Neo-Nazis. In short, although the KKK had similar feelings about white supremacy, they refused to partner with Neo-Nazis because Nationalism. But when Black people began organizing with communists (more Maoists honestly) in North Carolina, the dual threat of an organized Black population created common cause with the KKK and Nazi's to create a partnership that is still active today.

The violent rhetoric from the far-right, to this day, still uses the threat of global socialism as a motivating factor. Would roundly repudiating this, and the GOP forced to use correct the language bring the temperature down? Or are we currently in a spiral of increasing violence that won't be resolved without open conflict?-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * From what I know of Italian and German history, it definitely seems like fascism’s raison detre (one however tf you spell it I haven’t learnt french in 10 years), is inherently opposition to “the left”, however that is defined. Every fascist movement to my knowledge has been inherently defined by an alliance of the radical right and traditional conservatives to oppose any leftist/worker type movement. We’re definitely seeing that in the US, and as far as I can tell, the only solutions are either open conflict in which the fascists are crushed, or alternatively, instituting massive policies that change everyone’s lives for the better (eg M4A), which have a tendency to become extremely popular once instituted and thereby neuter fascist movements. Idk tho I’m not a, uh, history studier. 21:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a bit more complex than that. Fascists want to return to a prelapsarian golden age, or at least emulate one. Hence the heavy emphasis "restoring" the country to a supposed past glory. The core of most leftist thought on the other hand tends to lean heavily towards abandoning the current status quo in favor of new theoretical systems rather than trying to reclaim the past. Both of these are differentiated with the center and the center right which tend towards trying to make do with the present. It isn't surprising then that most fascist movements come into conflict with leftism (though we also shouldn't forget their alliances with other political factions tend to be rather loose), whereas a more right-wing outlook might be more sympathetic due to it wanting to preserve established traditions and sociopolitical dynamics. 22:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah ur right of course. I’m not super good at understanding “words” or “tone, but I get the vibe that we more or less agree except that ur putting more detail into it than my “extremely oversimplified shit”? Idk lmao, please let me know if I have misunderstood. And also ur deffo less of a “Dumb Ass” than me so I respect ur perspective and appreciate your insight 22:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

The use of hysterical anti-communist rhetoric is nothing new, nor is uniquely North American. Neither is the use of fascist paramilitaries to attack the left. Almost every country in Latin America is dotted with mass-graves that were filled indiscriminately with almost anyone who so much as thought about a living wage - with much of the rhetoric justifying these atrocities being based in anti-communist sentiment.

Not sure what your thought is here. That fascists and communists are generally mortal enemies? That conservatives cynically brand liberals and social democrats as communists in order to justify various forms of over-reaction? Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that pseudo-history is the exclusive domain of the Far-Right though, nor is futurism the exclusive domain of the Far-Left. CoryUsar (talk) 22:21, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I’d argue that, ofc nobody has a monopoly on “dumb traditionalist/pseudo historical shit” or “tryna fundamentally change society for a new future”; however, I do think that the history shit is much more of a defining feature of the fash while future shit is more of a defining feature of the left. I’d also argue that many fascist and leftist ideologies work on the interplay/synthesis of these things, but that overall when you boil it down, that’s kinda the cores of the different things. Idk tho. As said, I’m not some kind of “Smart And Knowledge Person”. 22:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To, the point I'm trying to flesh out, is that the GOP since Goldwater has flirted with extreme right wing beliefs, i.e. John Birch Society, and has frequently target Democrats and Democratic policies as "Socialist", the extreme left. Perpetuating that lie, has given rise to this fascist rise in America, and there seems to be no brakes right now. But it is their own lie that has given rise to this. Shouldn't there be a massive intellectual movement from the center-right to call this shit out?-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ya'll are right that the far-right tends to adhere to pseudo-history more than the far-left, but believing in pseudo-history is not a prerequisite of being a far-right lunatic. CoryUsar (talk) 22:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I’d argue that, even if it’s not a prerequisite on the individual level, the ideologies themselves cannot realistically be sustained without at least a current of pseudohistory. If you believe that your “people” are inherently better than the outgroup and deserve to control or destroy them, that’s not really something justifiable without a shitload of pseudohistory and pseudosci nonsense. You might not personally believe that, say, white ppl/Americans/whoever the fuck are “gods chosen ppl”, but without that kind of belief existing, there would be no justification for that movement to exist, I guess is what I’m saying. 22:37, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@RipCityLiberal, conservatives have flirted with extreme right wing beliefs since forever. There have always been establishment conservatives with abhorrent views and many conservatives are probably acutely aware that much of the far-right is just free-votes. I mean the whole point of the dog-whistle is that it allows conservative politicians to court more far-right voters while still pretending to be a 'sensible moderate'. This grift is well established and it works for both the far-right and for more vanilla conservatives.

@CoryUsar Agreed. I'd say fascisms general support for fixed hierarchies (and also capitalism) does a much better job of explaining the animosity than any appeal to future aesthetics vs golden era aesthetics.

Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 22:34, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that BOTH the “golden era” shit AND the fixed hierarchy shit are necessary for fascism, and for each other — this hierarchy is good bc when we had it the world was better; the world was better bc these fixed hierarchies existed. Again, this is just my Dumb Ass Talk but that’s what I would say that I RECKON  22:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (also for clarity the caps aren’t me yelling or being mad, I just emphasise things weirdly. I think you’re right and I’m not tryna b mad here) 22:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how golden era would be necessary. Often co-morbid maybe... but it seems entirely possible to construct a fascist world-view that argues it is constructing something new. Again... see earlier references to the role of the Futurists in Italian fascism. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that fascism is inherently a combo of futurism and golden age shit. The futurists ofc played a HUGE role in Italian fascism, especially in the aestheticisation (spelt that wrong) of violence, weaponry, etc. However, even for Italian fascism, it as absolutely necessary to have all these ideas about the Roman Empire etc etc etc. I think that without the golden age stuff, the ideology is “just” ultranationalism and not fascism. That’s what I’d reckon anyway. 22:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not being rude, (and I mean this genuinely) but I don't think even you know what you are referring to as fascism now. Seriously 'fascism - golden age thinking = ultranationalism'?. Come on... there is a lot more to fascist politics than just ultra-nationalism + golden age thinking. The defining trait that makes fascists want to kill communists is their, percieved, faulty insurrection against a, perceived, natural order; not their failure to recognise how totally awesome Rome or Ancient Britain was. We can debate the extent to which national myths and bad history play in the fascist psyche (probably varies person by person and movement by movement) but it's always going to fail to properly identify what actually puts fascists and communists at each-others throats. And that is that their plans for the future, their relationship with capitalism and their ideas of social order are by their very nature at odds. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 23:08, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that theres 2 problems here. Problem 1, the obvious one, is that I’m fairly ignorant and terrible at communicating. But that’s just life. The second problem here, I think, is that fascism is so fluid and messy and complex that any simplified definition is going to be wrong. But I think that, you’re right that it’s not necessarily national myths that make them hate commies; however to my knowledge I’ve ALWAYS seen one of the defining traits of fascism as being a combo of that “national rebirth” shit PLUS the ultranationalism/hierarchy/etc. I’m not denying that the main issue with the fash vs commie thing is their relationships to heirarchy, nationality, capitalism, etc. But I think more broadly, the majority of fascist movements require that national mythical shit to be “true fascism”. But again, I do not think I’m communicating this clearly, and I do not think I’m likely to be correct, so I may just have a nap rn. 23:22, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think of fascism as fluid. Fascists identify a group that they say is entitled to power, being denied by another group, usually by some shadowy Jewish cabal. They articulate that if they don't take power, they will be killed by the other group. Usually they include some sort of shared history to support their narrative, but primarily it's - We are the majority, the Jews are controlling everything, and we must kill everyone to secure power.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would argue fascism is somewhat fluid simply by being a hyper-nationalist ideology. As such, it will always modify itself to suit the nation it manifests in. They follow the same broad broad contours, yes. But beyond the Palingenetic framework at lot can be different because different cultures have a specific idea of what constitutes "purity" and such.-Flandres (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * My working thesis is that fascism is a pseudo-ideology. 23:57, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll bite. What's the demarcation between an ideology and a pseudo-ideology? CoryUsar (talk) 23:58, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * An ideology has concrete goals, policy proposals, and at least degree of coherency. Fascism has none of these things beyond a very superficial level. Hence, it is a ideology in name only, a fake ideology, a pseudo-ideology if you will. 13:20, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@RipCityLiberal @Flandres, I'd say you are right about the fluidity of fascist mythology but I don't think it's all that useful to define fascists by what they specifically believe. The more robust way to identify them is to look at the role their movement plays in the broader political ecology. Whatever they believe, fascists are essentially a force of reaction that asserts the natural supremacy of gender, race and class in their politics (even if their rhetoric seems ambivalent to one or more of those topics). In my experience allowing fascists to define themselves by what they believe is one of the things that makes crypto-fascism and the alt-right so effective against liberals. People spend so much time scratching their heads going "wait these guys are identitarians. Let's not be too hasty and brand them as fascists!" because they don't ask the material questions about what where this movement fits in the broader landscapes and historical moment. I don't think fascism can be articulated definitively by reference to what its members think... rather asking 'what does it do' seems more pertinent. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 09:44, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't see the definition problem pertaining to fascists. The right-wing of the GOP has been slowly gaining in power, incorporating more right-wing members that support Christian Fascism. The dangerous thing, is that this response is of their own creation. The GOP believed it could co-opt the support of Birchers, the militia movement, and white supremacists with dog whistles because they share one common goal, a smaller and weaker federal government, among these being the threat of Socialism. Though generally the most extreme socialism supported by mainstream Democrats were market based, that dehumanizing language is the reason for fascism rise. The only off-ramp I can see before we get to The Turner Diaries level violence, is a concerted effort from the Center-Right to call out this use of language, and purge members from their supporters.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @RipCityLiberal, again your treating far-right membership in broader conservative movements as though it is something new. It's not. Conservative movements in the U.S. have nearly always courted the far-right. Waiting for centre-right conservatives to take a moral stance against fascism is like waiting for Jack Daniels to fund AA programs and start advocating for a tee-total lifestyle. It is simply not in their interest.


 * Principled conservatives are a very small minority. They exist but often have little influence. I would go so far as to say there is not a single fascist movement that has been prevented by conservative politicians taking a moral stand.


 * Fascism is often a product of faltering faith in democratic institutions and their ability to deliver to the masses. It can also be (to paraphrase Aimé Césaire) what happens when imperialism and colonialism comes home. Primarily it takes public discontent with the status quo and diverts that aggression away from the seats of power and towards the powerless - which is why conservatives are so ambivalent to stopping it, it turns out fascism is an excellent remedy to socialism. The man on the street won't be storming the bastille so long as he's busying himself screaming abuse in the face of a homeless asylum seeker.


 * 'Full Marxist Hat On'


 * If you want to defeat fascism you have to tackle the discontent that it feeds off of. Demonstrate that there is an alternative to race-war. Demonstrate that the fascist dream is a lie sustained by nothing but propaganda. And you have to disrupt fascist attempts to spread propaganda and organise. Whether that is through debunking(counter-propaganda), finding ways to fuck with their income by outing fascists to employers, or ensuring that every rally they hold ends with them outnumbered, humiliated and upset. Or even just working in favour of policies that alleviate the economic and social concerns that feed these movements or supporting anti-racism initiatives.


 * There are things you can do to push back against fascism but waiting for conservatives to make a moral stand is going to leave you disappointed at best. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As my name should indicate, I agree with that sentiment. If people reward you with power, promising to improve their lives, it is incumbent upon you to use that power. The mixing of conservatives and fascism I understand is also not a new thing, but I find that telling people that are right-wing, are in fact fascists, seems to dilute the power of your argument. But dressing down people who squeal "SOCIALISM" at every policy the Democrats propose would seem a better way to state clearly that not everything the Democrats do is socialism. However that would also people to be responsible with their language, which seems a lost art nowadays.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Dilutes the power of what argument? Are you trying to imply that fascism has risen because of red-scare tactics? That support for the far-right would wane if the democrats sufficiently distanced themselves rhetorically from socialism?


 * I have serious doubts about any solution that involves trying to convince fascist sympathisers that you are not like the people they are angry at. 'No silly! We're not socialists... we hate socialists as much as you do! Stop being ridiculous' Such a strategy could quickly and easily morph into one where liberals throw socialists (and other political/social minorities) under the bus to keep fascists placated - a strategy that rarely works in the long term.


 * How does that old poem go again? Something about 'first they came for the socialists...'Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 12:12, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * alt right nazi facist far right from a purely conversational perspective, where playing fast and loose with definitions is usually sufficient to convey groups and thoughts to far to the right for comfort that actual specific differences doesnt change the fundemental fact that they are arseholes on the right beyond the point where anything good can be achieved by civil discourse. i might reserve 'nazi' for far right pricks with explicitly racist agendas and will probably use 'far right' merely to avoid getting bogged down defining terms more precisely than any purpose i might have requires. i reserve 'facist' when i want say far right cunts and leave things at that.


 * the left though, is a far broader church ranging from left of centre to maoist insanity where anything more specific than 'the left' will result in the most tedious conversations where the exact type of anarchist you is described and why the anarchist you talking too is of a kind of miniscule difference to ones own makes them a splitter worse than hitler.


 * it makes even less point to my mind as while i can see far right groups have an easier route to power or at least influence on the political world of lots of places. steps required or some form of facistic shitbags are few and dont require massive and radical shifts in politics or society at large. just scapegoating, scaremongering, misinformation, and a social media account. a bit of pandering to those such people, avoid talking about final solutions and restrict the overt racism to targets already unpopular with potential supporters, and we get dreadfully racist policies like the uk's hostile environment destroying lives as now race baiting is a legitimate electoral tactic as more mainstream parties court the racist vote and deflect blame for policies finshing of the post war consensus for good.


 * te left though, beyond social programs and easily explained things like universal healthcare, the further left you go, or more radically left i guess, are in the realms of fantasy. the likes of communism, of any variety, what ever shade of anarchism you going with, are so far from the status quo, requiring the changes in the society and the political system so major, likely involving significant hardships even if not in form of a violent revolution its all fantasy and make believe to even care what kind of anarchist you might be, its not in the realms of possibility to matter. communism is a non starter requiring some kind of post scarcity society not possible to even consider as a goal worth seeking, considering the upheavals required for an impossible dream. some degree of socialism, with clear goals and how to get sure. you cant expect anyone to get behind a vague fantasy and put up with hardship, compromising on the achievable goals in favour of a science fiction utopia. its the same with anarchism. critiqueing its many issues of some form or other might have in a hypothetical world where its a reality, or pondering on how it might deal with things in a society so far removed from where we currently reside, that i have no clue as to what existence would be like at all day to day to even know if its desirable, even as a fantasy utopia. and again, no clear route to even know where to begin. pointing to existing anarchist societies indicate a state of crisis or crushing poverty is required for pooling of resources to be worthwhile and not mean a drastic collapse in most peoples lives. and existing models exist within the here and now interacting and depending on an not anrchistic world, with limits on scale making successful anarchist society likely a local concern within existing societies.


 * when looking at antifa vs far right groups like proud boys. the far right benefit far more violence and disruption at demos than antifa or similar leftist groups because reactions to such activities lean towards more authoritarian actions that favor the right, and have a generally more divisive effect and intimidate opposition or grow their ranks, espec if they pin it on a leftist bogey man. antifa, with reference to riots at g8 conferences and the like does not achieve anything from it. its not going to spark a revolution or cause any kind collapse in capitalism or society in general to make people think ancharism or communism is the way forward. its just headache for authorities that just plays into the rights hands. it would be terrifying if they could destabilise society like that and not something anyone should hope for no matter how much the developed world might suck. with no plan or route forward or anything beyond capitalism bad boo to capitalism, why would any kind of utopian anarchist/communist society arise and not something more staliny or maoist? or just mad max style feudalism? or the same as before but lots of people have gone bankrupt, with the same systems in place just that more shitty? ive no idea. people seem to think things will just happen and be really great and not all kinds of awful involving hunger and cannibalism.

tl/dr while facism used to be super anti communist/socialist, that part of it is redundant these days. they may as well be anti dalek for all the threat communism or socialism has and there is a significant far right. its more a cover for the more racist varieties while chipping away at the what remains of a welfare state. far right groups are real tangible threat. communism? i'll worry about its more than just badge for internet posturing or beinmg advocated by guerillas with ak 47s and violent revolution AMassiveGay (talk) 21:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I like what the Commie said: fascism is not an ideology. Neither is socialism. They are categories wherein we find historical examples similar in some ways to Nazism and Communism respectively. The words themselves are like stick figures: lacking sufficient detail to resemble a living person. Historical determinism is, itself, a dubious categoryUncleKrampus (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * @AMassiveGay Would raise some points vis a vis disruption at far-right protests.


 * The function of a march or demonstration is partly to raise awareness of a cause but it's more about organisations flexing their muscles and rallying supporters. An ideal demonstration ends with supporters feeling confident that their message was well received and that they are viewed positively by the wider public. Generally demonstrations are very bad ways of convincing new people (since people are always a bit suspicious of demonstrators) but good ways of building cohesion and confidence in a movement.


 * Conversely, if that person's experience is being scared, humiliated and suddenly very aware of how un-popular they are. It becomes difficult to convince that person to attend another event, let alone have faith in its leaders or in the idea that they represent a popular struggle. Their views may not change but their willingness to act on them will often be curtailed.


 * There are some caveats, the hardcore will generally be un-phased by violence and plenty of them will use disruption at their events to fuel their persecution complex but as a general rule the more of a drubbing the organisation has taken, the less likely they are to organise in the near future. In my personal experience, once a far-right group has had its demo go wrong they tend to hunker down and spend the next few months calling each-other paedophiles on message-boards. Disruption of fascist events can have crippling effects on fascist orgs. Bogging their decision making down in paranoia, miring their internal politics in bitterness and generally making their organisations very un-pleasant and un-appealing places for new recruits.


 * Also... Anders Brevik?... Fascism today is still very much obsessed with the far-left and anti-communism. And even though socialism is a political irrelevance in most places in the west. Most surveys show that it still has support amongst a decent chunk of the population. Get ready, it&#39;s... (talk) 13:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I... almost agree with you, Fascism isn't based on sound, coherent logic or philosophy, and doesn't even have a "it works while broken" justification. I'll point out, however, that there is a policy goal that makes sense in the framework of "we need to be prepared to fight any of our greedy neighbors", and that's "Autarky", the economic policy of being completely unreliant upon international trade for every critical good even if it'd be more efficient to rely upon imported steel  I just think my last hangup is whether many other ideologies would be considered "pseudo-Ideologies".  For instance, would "Monarchism" and "Islamist Supremacy" be a pseudo-ideology?  Cor   (chat)  17:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Discovery
Hello,

I just found RationalWiki today, and I really like the site. I'd like to contribute and help out the project, but I don't really know where to help. I've been editing Wikipedia for a while now as well, for the record.

Thanks, 98.118.1.130 (talk) 20:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I put the "welcome" thingy on your user page, before realizing you were a BoN (bunch of numbers). Heh.  So I'll post it below, it contains our new user guide.  Consider making a username, or making the BoN into a username.


 * Cor  (chat)  20:25, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Anyway, feel free to add to any page in a subject that interests you, preferably with decent citations. E.g., if it's about an event, a news article from CNN or BBC is fine, an article from RT less so.  We do have our "to do list" if you want to get a sense of what a lot of people really want to see but we never got around to because of a combination of laziness and alcoholism .  Note that we have a "snarky point of view", so we don't mind sarcastic humor and our articles don't need to be too formal.  Cor   (chat)  20:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If you plan on contributing more than once or twice, it would be a good idea to make an account. Christopher (talk) 20:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Welcome to the club! Welcome to the club! Welcome Squidward! Welcome Squidward! 🥳🥳 --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Welcome, BoN! Feel free to sign up for an account if you wish to contribute more than just once! -- Goatspeed. 23:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * And - you do not have to have one username across the wikiverse (there are some weird and obscure wikis to be found). Anna Livia (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Autopsy on Trump's campaign
There's a report on Trump's campaign by his pollsters show how he lost the election. More especifically he suffered erosion amongst white voters (particularly white men) and across all age groups. Suburbanites also bolted to Biden's campaign. Also voter prioritized battling the pandemic over re-opening the economy. Tuxer (talk) 20:47, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Who could have predicted that ignoring the pandemic killing thousands of Americans, and wrecking the economy wasn't a winning strategy.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Newsom Oof
https://ktla.com/news/california/newsom-approval-plummeting-driven-largely-by-dissatisfaction-over-covid-19-response-poll/ Well Oof, one third of California's registered voters want him out now. Doesn't sound very good to me.

Here's what I'm wondering, if this guy really does get removed, you guys think he'll be replaced by a Republican or another democrat? My bets are it's gonna be another democrat, but honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if California ended up with a Republican governor when this is all said and done. Now who exactly that would be I don't know, but Kevin Faulconer, former mayor of San Diego, would be most likely on the Republican side. And then it's anyone's guess if his successor is another democrat. Aaronmicahel5 22:19, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Last time that happened they got Das Governator, so my money is on Liam Neeson, though I'd prefer Tom Hanks or Dolly Parton. 22:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Excerpt I care about is too long for WIGO
This piece is fairly typical of our era

There's more in the article that gives context to that, but it pretty much summarizes our political world. ikanreed ;🐐Bleat at me 16:31, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Now THAT is false equivalence. IveBeenFrank (talk) 16:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it was intended as a joke, but nottheless does, in fact, accurately describe the beliefs of those elected to congress. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:43, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's a false equivalence. I think it's an indictment of the GOP. If the far left of the Democratic party is AOC, who at best is a Social Democrat, and the far right of the GOP is MTG, a proto-fascist, then what does that say about the values of the parties?-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:53, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Centrism not exactly at it's worst, it's a "Both sides" opinion piece... At least it's framed as opinion...  We're in trouble, aren't we?  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Jonathan Chait is a center left columnist, noted for having a distaste for "sloganeering leftism" (won't use the snarl world here) and a more hawkish foreign policy then most on the left. So he's not going to fully embrace AOC. My take on the article though is that it's not a "both sides" piece. He seems to be saying that on the Democrat side, there is policy differences over issues like health care and police funding between the center left and the progressives. Certainly there can be heated debate, but at least both sides are grounded in reality. On the other side, however, the extreme end is batshit insanity that is not even wrong. The "center" of the Republican party may not quite be QAnon, but it certainly seems that the "center" of Republicans now has drifted into an anti-intellectual authoritarianism centered around devoted worship of a useless idiot, a party with hardly any policy to speak of (cutting taxes, tweet about "uppity" NFL players, refuse to concede elections even if you've lost, and ???). So my take is more like RipCityLiberal. Both sides are divided these days, but only one side really represents sanity at the moment. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The Thing (2011 movie)
https://youtu.be/tnQZJz1maEA

In the 2011 prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing it shows the scene where the Split Face creature is formed (hence the posted link).

Now the character Adam Finch is shown to be assimilated by the Thing. Now when the scene takes place another character had a gun.

Adam is already mortally wounded. Why not take the gun, put a bullet in his head and prevent the slow and painful death by assimilation? --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Trick question; if I'm in a horror movie I put the bullet in my own head, because I'll be damned if I'm gonna let myself get assimilated via some alien's weird wing-wang. Semipenultimate (talk) 17:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * i also suspect that shooting your mates or even strangers 'for their own good' is not a really a decision people could make easily even when unimaginable suffering is apparent and you'd suspect you'd want them to kill you in the same situation. i would guess assuming you are not a psychopath who'd kill someone for 'their own good' after just a paper cut, you'd um and an ah and consider maybe trying this or that or that, or maybe they'll enjoy life as or a horrific abomination, they not desperately pleading for you to shoot them dead, they just screaming horribly, they might be ok, is it really the right thing to do? what you miss and just take his jaw off? you not going near that thing and your hands a little shakey. and thats if they'd only fatally disembowelled themselves in a freak shaving accident and lingering painfully and hopelessly on. you'd have all that 'omg ive never killed anyone before' angst of such a dreadful choice, but its that dreadful choice combined with the whole horrific murder beast from space thing to deal with, your pal is dying horrifically in front of you is doomed, and outside the door is white death of the antartic and there nowhere to go you going to die omg i dont want die. idont want to die like that. idonahhh ahhhh ahhha ahhah ahhhha until you run aimlessly into the ice and freeze, shot yourself in the head or your still screaming hysterically when its your turn for the unspeakably horrific drawnout and painful deaths that we should thank jesus christ its all as made up as he is. you might be a little stressed to make such a difficult choice. you might need some spreadsheets to present the pros and cons of the situation. deaths very final you dont want to be too hasty and you've got a lot of hysterical screaming to get through. id go run out in the slow. minutes it would take down there. you could build a snow man while you wait. take your mind of things AMassiveGay (talk) 21:56, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I watched that clip, and the first thing that came to mind was "Yep I've seen Alien." Afterwards it's like, "Nope, don't know the physics rules here."  Really strange that The Thing appears to be more powerful in the prequel.  I disagree with Semipenultimate in that, in the event of my impending horrific death where I've been trapped by the alien power, I'm probably gonna kick and scream before I'm overpowered, but if I get grabbed, I'm not struggling so that my friends will stop to help me, more that the team would keep going.  Have you seen "The Mist?" The worst case scenario is a temper tantrum, which, I know this is mixing some kind of assimilated loss of self vibes with just horror in the face of death, but few creatures in this world get a painless, calm end, and I don't need that so necessarily for you or myself as much as I need you to have a shot if I get grabbed.  I'm fighting to my death, and telling my team to not fucking hesitate in torching my body, I would be furious with the home team if they didn't torch me in a Split Face assimilation when The Thing is right there eating me. But as AMassive puts it, that's my decision for myself, I don't know what I'd do if the last will wasn't clearly and emphatically agreed upon.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:03, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Alright, given the ending of the film version of "The Mist", I can see why you would not perceive suicide as being a viable option for a horror movie protagonist/victim! What if the scenario change from gun to grenade, ala Aliens? Take a few of the scaly bastards with you? Semipenultimate (talk) 16:55, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You got me there, that plan is definitely outside my wheelhouse.  I think it still falls inside of "not having a temper tantrum," which I'm kinda prone to calling all adult behavior that is driven by feelings right now.  I'm not a robot, I'm not Data at the end of Star Trek Nemesis, but I do recognize that Data did the thing a robot was supposed to do and I cheer it on in its own right.  Can I honestly say, I'd just grenade myself and hope they all die/survive too?  Depends on my role in the group.  Definitely wouldn't do a Fist of the North Star Shiba "fuck around and find out" thing unless I was very confident it would make a differnce.  Even in this scene, I am not very confident it made a difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lslhBgzntMg

Getting stuck behind in the scenario, without a dude bleeding from every limb of his body but instead a semi-cohesive unit where I've agreed to scout or vanguard an enclosed space, because they're always trapped in the labyrinth with the minotaur, yeah, if you catch me, fuck around and find out minotaur. Otherwise, everybody's gotta go go go go go. I'm not necessarily going back for you, don't even think about coming back for me. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * if for some reason we all find ourselves fleeing for our lives together from otherworldy beasts and im injured, just know when i say 'go on without me, i'll only slow you down' - you better not go on without me you fuckers. carry me if you have to. all that stoic go on without nonsense is just something you say because its expected and i wont actually mean it. im gona have something in my will leaving money to pay for assassins so anyone who went on without me will be hunted down and killed along with their families. just so you all know. if you tell me to go on without you, i'll be half way down the road before you've even finished what you were saying. not that i would be listening in the first place, do you think i'll stop to help you up if you tripped? fuck no, you snooze you lose, or in this you snooze you painfully ripped apart. chances are it i wouldve tripped you up in the first place. more time for me to escape if its stopped to eat you. i'll grab the last piece of cake on my way out too AMassiveGay (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

New Nickname, Sig
So... I'm fiddling around with my sig. I'm thinking, "CorBlimey". Is is better than CoryUsar? Worse? Don't really give a crap because you hate me? Also, I'm trying to figure out how to change my Sig's colors. What's the trick for that? CorBlimey (talk) 05:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Check out Help:Wikisig but I urge you to keep it to a minimum for the sake of readability. Rainbow sigs are this side of annoying. 09:37, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * But how do you make it blink? Large, bold, blinking rainbow text would be my go-to for annoying.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 12:11, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Blinking is thankfully not possible without modifying our global css or javascript due to the way it must be set up, and I am not about to make that a thing for anyone. 12:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

CorBlimey?COR BLIMEY? are you cockney? no? this is clearly cultural appropriation. you are literally worse than dick van dyke. never forgetAMassiveGay (talk) 12:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The usage is seen as 'vulgar'/rather downmarket. Does 'coruscating' appeal - the rainbow is implicit. Anna Livia (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * CorInth. CorruGated.  CorRection.  CorTez.  CorVee.  Hmm.  Yeah, CorVee sounds good for now... CorBlimey (talk) 16:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, this or CorVette. But I don't want my nick to be too far away from my username.  CorVee does kinda go with Cor"u", plus the whole idea of my being here as a Free Man doing forced labor as part of the Corvee system. CorVee (talk) 16:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, this isn't too hideous. CorVee   (chat)  18:50, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, tempted to use "CorOna", but that's probably too much. CorVee   (chat)  18:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Looks pretty good. Kinda reminds me of Twodots' new sig. In addition, maybe you should make it randomly select one of the following: CorInth, CorruGated, CorRection, CorTez, and CorVee. -- Goatspeed. 18:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , we miss you buddy. But yeah, I'll work on the random.  Thinking I want to keep the "Cor" so it should be "Cor"&(rand).  CorVee   (chat)  18:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Alright, it's set to a select from a set I created. Oh dear lord, I could set my sig to be nothing BUT random words and colors.  That would just be, ugh.  The random names might be a bit too much already. Cor   (chat)  19:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It is perhaps a bad idea, since the term is as a euphemism/corruption of "God blind me!", whose first documented appearance was in the 19th century. Bongolian (talk) 21:01, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * "CorBlimey" isn't in the list. Too long, all the second halves are all 3/4 letters.  Cor   (chat)  21:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, decided to add a few, make the second half blend with the first. Cor   (chat)  21:58, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ooo interesting, refreshing the page actually causes my Sig to change the name, because the Sig includes the "choose" thing in the name rather than hardcoding it... Cor  (chat)  22:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Alright, I took the hint, and figured out how to keep the sig from going crazy. 20:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I swear there was another user called CoryUser, who's no longer active? Or is that an old account of yours CorruptUser? Leucippus 12:50, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No, not me. There's an old user named "Corry", is that who you are thinking of?  15:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, my sigs now all change to the same thing instead of each being their own. E.g., instead of one being "Corner" and another "Corncob", both will be "Correkt".  Eh, small price to pay so the edit page doesn't look hideous.  15:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's who it is. I was a little confused at first, when I came across that name on some article (that I forget the name of now). I thought the guy must have some relation to you....but you've cleared that up now...or so I thought! It seems that you have chosen to make a sock-puppet algorithm for your name. Let me just say this: I won't be shedding any tears when I see the name "Coronary" get banned for offending our long term alcoholic companions lol. → Leucippus 19:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Was thinking "Corona" as one of them, but, too soon. I do have two socks though, "StickySock" but I lost the password and don't have a way to reset it, and "SockPup" which I created for testing things.  May fool around with them further for testing a new edit filter.  19:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Is Classical Liberal an editor on Rationalwiki
I genuinely want to know because it would explain things2600:1702:2A00:B3F0:6958:2FCB:BBBC:5ECC (talk) 01:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * If they are, it's under a different name. Don't recognize the user.  Cor   (chat)  01:51, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That really depends on what you mean by "classical liberal". 20:26, 2 February 2021 (UTC)


 * That IP is a block evasion of that edit-warrer BoN at the Styxenhammer article. I blocked it yesterday for pi days. -- Goatspeed. See my experiments My experiments Prototype lab  See what I'm planning  See my latest prototypes  See what I've been messing around with  Steal my ideas 20:30, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wait, Does TDM2 mean this guy? 22:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes I do mean that specific person, he claims to be a moderator here.2600:1702:2A00:B3F0:5A1:CC8:F9B7:8657 (talk) 12:53, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not me. See what the other five moderators say. Spud (talk) 13:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Also does he say that? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Goddamn
I leave for a while and completely forget about that thing which makes your username appear on shit and I'm assuming everyone is out to get me. Evilatheistheathen (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Use the four tilde characters. ~ 17:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't think anything of it. That happened to me a short time ago. I was away for a few weeks and then I comeback, and someone "said" "Aaronmichael5 is such a disappointment". Of course it was that tool that people use to make your username come up in place of the template. was absolutely fooled by it at first. Aaronmichael5 22:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Trump and Ancient Greek demagogues
Come to think of it, Trump, and by extension the parts of the GOP that he subverted, are a lot like a group of Greek demagogues. Always ranting about "the establishment", getting political opponents convicted by the mob (fortunately the US hasn't got to that), promising a lot, not delivering and then blaming someone else, having a loud mouth and foul tongue, and being rabble-rousers in general. And yes, Greek demagogues who kept getting re-elected tended to overthrow democracy and become tyrants. Meow Purr 18:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Pretty damn good analogy. So true. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * When Trump got elected, I though he'd quit within a year when he realized there were checks and balances in place designed to prevent him from becoming a dictator. I now think the reason he didn't quit is because he never realized that. Spud (talk) 09:59, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that really - four years and the possibility of a coup appeared. Eight years and an actual coup? Some might call it unlikely, but pretty much everything about Trump is unlikely. Meow Purr 13:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I shudder to imagine what would've happened if Trump were to succeed in stealing reelection. It wouldn't be long before he'd start building "camps" for all the BLM protesters, liberals, immigrants, and all the minorities who "voted illegally", abolish term limits, allow Big Oil to finish off Alaska's ecosystem, have the people building his wall finish off Arizona's ecosystem, and turn the imprisonment of "illegal immigrants" into a full-scale genocide (which the UN isn't doing a very good job at preventing- or indeed, even recognizing its warning signs in a country that half its members are utterly dependent on for steel and cars.) I'll bet he'd love to do shit like that. -- Goatspeed. See my experiments My experiments Prototype lab  See what I'm planning  See my latest prototypes  See what I've been messing around with  Steal my ideas 19:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, what the shit is with that sig? Is that a warning to me about my sig?
 * Anyway, I don't think Trump would round up Liberals and people who voted against him, but he did just that to illegal immigrants, so it's not beyond the impossible. Actually, he was kinda doing something with the military during some of the protests, so, well, if another CHAZ were to happen he could very well send in the army and have mass detention of "rebels".  As for Alaska, that's not what we should be worrying about.  His trade war with China was actually the best way to help the environment; going 100% carbon neutral is a sick joke if not only are the heavy industries outsourced to China, but then the goods/materials are all shipped back to us in superfreighters which basically burn asphalt.  No, seriously, these ships are beyond awful for the environment, they are worse than all the cars in the world combined.  And that's actually what really terrifies me about the Alberta Tar Sands and the keystone pipeline.  The tar sands are, well, full of tar.  The disgusting gunk that's left over when the gasoline and kerosene and other useful components are extracted.  This gunk isn't pumped back underground, oh no, it's burnt.  In those giant mega-ships.  If the pipeline was completed, we'd produce so, so much more of that sludge, which would only push the price of sludge-fuel down, which means those freighters will be operating at full speed and using more of the stuff.  Cor   (chat)  20:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The deal is, we've got a head of state either way. I don't like Biden, and I don't like business as usual, and if I don't like business as usual I had better own up to my Biden vote.  The Trump administration was NOT GOOD.  It was regressive in its approach to social equality, it was oligarchic in its administration, and it was unapologetic in its rhetoric.  I do not think the Dems will make good moves.  I think the Democratic party makes dodgy lateral moves which move things further towards what the GOP wants, conservatism and austerity, that is what the two parties have always been good at providing an opening for absolutely wack ideology.  Without a real and hard push on the Dems to do real meaningful shit, it's gonna be an all day buffet for the wackos.  Already got my night interruped by a guy sending me this shit.  I AGREE, let's not be happy about this, what the fuck does he want from me?  To recant my Biden vote, which is stupid, impossible, and not how politics works.  Let's not be happy or complacent about this. But the important first step is to agree both sides are bad, and Marjorie Taylor Greene is not the epitome of the conservative side.
 * Next, is to point out that they need to protect MTG's ideas the same as they think AOC's ideas are protected, if they think they are similarly politically motivated, or they are doing a false equivalence. Peace is not an option, they've been fed garbage, go peace in their online spaces.  They can't shoot you over the internet, or Facebook or text message.  When hit with a "peaceful protest hasn't been an option with everything that's been going on for the last year" take, repeat after me "Weird take, but, ok."  They can't hurt you over the internet, and they might hurt somebody else if you don't take them seriously.  They don't like the people they claim to like.  Mnuchin, Wheeler, Devoss, they don't like those guys. It's the tiniest fucking leap ever to realize, "If I don't like those guys, I don't like Trump either."  But you can't drag them across that gap, they have to make it, and they can.  And you have to know, Biden's America isn't that much different either.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there a better acronym than "MTG"? I keep thinking "Magic the Gathering".  17:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not the first time I've heard that joke to dismiss the issue. So I dunno, is there?  She'd make a pretty good red planeswalker, with her guns and her penchant for violence. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

"The pandemic will disappear after the election"
I know that before the election people claimed COVID would be declared over as part of a supposed Democratic ploy.

Over a week into Biden's presidency and COVID is still here. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Infection gates have fallen noticeably in the US recently. the Daily Mail has already reported on it, so you’ll get a lot of people claiming they were right about this. Christopher (talk) 23:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The vaccine was announced the week after the election, that's all the proof conspiracy theorists needed. 23:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Conspiracy theorists love to move the goal posts. --Zombie Broadcasting Dude (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You literally can NOT win a debate with a conspiracy theorist, EVER. No matter how much you debunk them they will always twist and turn around it. This is also why you hear conspiracy theorists cackle and howl that nobody can beat them in a debate. Most people don't waste their time debating conspiracy theorists and the few that do are always "defeated" by moving the goalposts.Aaronmichael5 04:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC).
 * Deaths in November/December/January were among the highest during the pandemic so miss me with that bullshit.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I've seen videos of Qultists coping hard, some even insisting that "The inauguration was a deepfake!!!1 TRUMP STILL HAS A CHANCE TO STEAL BACK THE PRESIDENCY IN EXCEEDINGLY VAGUE AND UNVERIFIABLE WAYS" Like so:


 * -- Goatspeed. 18:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Seattle's Space Needle New Years show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoMiVS52pew Oh my God... if I had a dollar for every "Wake up" in the brain melting comments section of this video. The religious fundies are freaking the fuck OUT over this for literally no reason. Aaronmichael5 04:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I regretted clicking on this link and reading the commments. Kevlarstar and his dog (Woof!) 13:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Someone in the comments did remember the Mind's Eye 1990s computer animation series, at least, so all hope is not lost. As far as the freakout crowd goes, I am amused at the thought of the supposedly all-powerful New World Order not even being able to stream stereo sound for their supposed End Times subliminal programming. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 15:00, 4 February 2021 (UTC)