RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive286

FINE PRINT
Everyone, meet my newest creation...

The change to Fine print!

Its so tiny its cute. --UglyRat (talk) 19:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 *  Wilder Bicycle 19:31, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Having fun mashing the tags? 19:58, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This entire section is           crap.            worthwhile. 01:54, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

RWW
The people in charge RWW might want to stop Elvis Is King from being an asshat over there. Wilder Bicycle 20:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hold on, I'm assessing the situation. Haven't been over there in a few months. 20:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought I banned him. I assume he made a sockpuppet just for my pathetic little wiki. GET A LIFE ELVIS. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 20:19, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, it's a sock called EIKlives. Wilder Bicycle 20:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * At least he has a consistent theme going, it'll be easier to spot him that way. 23:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Jim Carrey Wisdom?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTblbYqQQag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ZrkBCnfxw

I just came across this video and thought to myself.....what? Since when did people start regarding him as some kind of sage figure? Watching this was just like reading a very butchered version of Buddhism, only without any kind of explanation. Seems to me like anyone can appear wise just be sounding ethereal.Machina (talk) 23:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * He spoke at a commencement speech for Maharishi University. Some click hustler content creator chopped it up to try to make it sound deep. Leuders (talk) 23:33, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * does anyone actually listen to jim carrey? beyond the usual nutjobs who lap all that shit up, i thought he was universally considered a bit of a loon. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:58, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * He literally is a Buddhist, if that crucial bit of context is missing to anyone. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 00:08, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * But from the way people in the comments respond make it seems like he has been “beyond that pale”, whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean. Apparently all one has to do is rip no self to get 4 million views yet the Carl Sagan has nearly none. Seems like we know where people put their faith in. I wasn’t to convinced by the kitschy wordplay for Depression, like that means anything.Machina (talk) 10:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * its generally not a good idea to draw any meaningful conclusions from youtube comments, beyond that you shouldnt read the bottom half of the internet. and its no wonder that videos that purport to be life affirming, or claim to help you in some way gets more views than carl sagan. lots of people want meaning in their life and will look for it everywhere, sagan is a scientist and talks about science. your not going to seek him out if your not interested in that and hes not going turn up in searches unless you are interested in his subject matter. its really not the end of civilisation that not everyone is interested in science, despite what some people will insist. ive never watched carl sagan on youtube or anywhere else, and i dont have any inclination to start.AMassiveGay (talk) 13:41, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The Meaning of Life and the Rules for Life
Probably the second greatest story ever told, after the history of the Universe. Nerd (talk) 00:45, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES CLINCH PLAYOFF BERTH
Nothin' to do with the wiki, but as an expat living in Minny I'm so proud. 13:05, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm so glad that some bunch of people who work in your city threw a ball slightly more accurately than another bunch of people who work in a different city. Wilder Bicycle 15:41, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You do realize the userbase here is mostly nerds, right? 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 19:39, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm also a massive nerd but I also religiously follow the NBA. Though I probably should follow a sport less likely to give me a heart attack. 20:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Standardized testing
It's that time of year! The one where you end up stuck with inefficent, extremely boring and unnecessarily strict garbage where you fill in bubbles for three hours then sit there doing nothing for another two. And it's been proven it doesn't work yet we still do it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 16:11, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It certainly beats continental European tests. My testing for my bachelor and masters was a five minute (or even two minute) oral exam where the professor could ask you absolutely anything and could evaluate you without having to give any explanation or feedback. People say that multiple-choice exams in philosophy is a crime against humanity...I would have LOVED to have those tests (even just a few of them). Shabi  DOO  17:21, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * My “continental experience” was rather different. My social science BA and MA were both based around a written thesis with a subsequent oral defence. Combining two MA lines of study (public administration and history) and working in a two-man team, we:
 * wrote a 125 standard pages (1 standard page = 2400 characters, incl. spaces) long thesis, then
 * had two, separate oral defences (one per line of study for each of us, every exam lasting 45 minutes, incl. grading), each with an examiner (our supervisor in that line of study) and an independent, outside censor and subsequently
 * received a separate, written thesis statement from each examiner/censor team along with our grade.
 * It was an intense but excellent and rewarding experience. Though I should note that, typically, MA theses were and are usually graded without a subsequent oral defence and that, due to university cost cutting, thesis statements have since been either drastically scaled back in length and detail or dropped altogether, leaving only the much less explanatory and helpful grade. ScepticWombat (talk) 16:34, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, theses were also included in your overall graduation category. What I meant was...for every individual course, your entire grade was based on an oral exam. What made it all worse, was that it happened with most of your classmates (and friends) in the room waiting for their turn. So if you got a question of some obscure observation from a philosopher nobody cares about...and you didn't study the hell out of everything...you basically bombed in a humiliating two or three minutes of shame with your friends wincing their face in sympathy...and failed the course (and couldn't graduate). Even worse is when the professor helps you and gives you a chance to answer again...and yet still you cannot start quoting arguments from some minor philosopher who was only slightly connected to the actual subject matter the course was named after. Fortunately, I don't know a single person who wasn't burnt at some point. One student was unable to answer a question about some rarely read book by Witgenstein. He had no idea. So he said "Witgenstein questioned the veracity of all statements and of arguments in general...so what's the point in me answering the question. Even the "best" answer would be dubious". And no joke...he got a 20/20. The only one who got that mark that year in anything (That's like an A+++). Multiple choice exams would have been heaven. Shabi  DOO  23:13, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Standardized testing still beats homework. 03:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I, fortunately, went to a university where the trend was towards “fewer but larger” exams, e.g. combining several subjects into a large interdisciplinary exam or testing by including them in the mandatory semester projects (every semester we had to design and research a project, submit a report and then defend it orally). As for the occasional oral exam, I have never found them to be unreasonably unfair or arbitrary with the typical format being half an hour (incl. grading, i.e. effectively 20-25 minutes). Sure, sometimes you may “black out”, but if you then get back on track afterwards, it’s really no biggie. I remember one exam in public economics when I was asked about one aspect about the relations between public expenditures and labour supply and I was completely lost; after “fishing” for the answer for a couple of (looong) minutes, the examiner and censor ended by telling me that what they asked for was the which I simply could not remember. However, I had started out well and finished off well too, and so ended up with my usual “a bit above average” grade.


 * The only time I felt truly screwed was in the oral defence of my (group’s) BA thesis when the censor insisted that single case studies were not valid, period and that organisational studies not focusing on (direct) power were useless (clue: he specialised in comparative power analyses, while we had basically the opposite approach, looking as isomorphism and logic of appropriateness/consequences). Simultaneously, our examiner/supervisor, instead of challenging this rather odd approach (not to mention basically letting the censor run the exam), kept asking about a pet theory of his which we had neither read nor used. The latter was completely outside the curriculum and we had explicitly told our examiner/supervisor that we declined his suggestion to use this theory as we thought that Gilles Deleuze’s queer theory on transgender and the “acceleration of gender leading to dissolution of the concept” (I paraphrase from memory) a bad fit for a study of the organisational pressures on a volunteer, peer-to-peer organisation (for lonely youths) to conform to a standard hierarchical organisational setup. Oh well, we ended up with a grade of “average”. We considered lodging a complaint, as we had a case based on formalities: The exam regulations clearly stated that the theoretical apparatus we could be questioned in only encompassed the curriculum for that semester’s courses, in addition to what we had used in our thesis (an already wide potential scope). However, getting an “average” grade was still okay and we decided against it from a “pick your battles” perspectives. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:26, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Is Archivist broken?
Hasn't archived my talk page for ages. Does anyone know?

Also, where did RBP and FCP go? 22:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * See RationalWiki:Technical support —Kazitor, pending 22:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Coming out of the closet
I'm trans. I've been in denial and depressed for years. I'm crying right now. Ask me anything. 17:05, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * you like girl stuff? 18:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. I have dreams about being dressed up as a girl for years. I also played with girl toys when I was younger. When I live on my own, I want order women's clothing online and wear them a lot more. It helps with my depression. 21:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * good for you. I was unhappy for years until I became Sophie, since when I've, well, been happy. Not continually happy, that would be weird, but happy with my life in general. Wilder Bicycle 21:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah being trans can hurt, but I have been a male 100% of my life. The reason why trans people are getting bad rap is that they changed genders. I know the frustration of that because I met a few transgender people they said people be rude. Here's some advise ignore the people who saying bad things about you. Anyways how long have you been trans? Felicia777 (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I had dysphoria since I started puberty. I always hated body hair, and I would hit my genitals when I was younger. I thought it was just a phase, and I got a little better over time, but recently the dysphoria hit me. 23:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "Here's some advise[,] ignore the people who [are] saying bad things about you."
 * I've been doing that. Thanks for the advise! 23:17, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Advice. 23:21, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That's fine, I'm sure this community will accept you. I've had seen my fair share of people transitioning too. Not going to lie though, I might accidentally misgender you since my mental image of you is still a dude. Heck, I misgender trans people a lot, which is frustrating for me lol. You shouldn't be ashamed of being trans though. I do understand that there are ignorant swathes of people who'll never understand transgendered people, but there are supportive communities out there and I'm sure they'll like to hear your story, as long as you're open and honest. 23:26, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't think transphobia is that big here. I honestly had no idea what your sex or gender were until now. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 00:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "I'm sure this community will accept you."
 * I assumed so. This website is very liberal, so I had/have no qualms about any backlash.
 * "You shouldn't be ashamed of being trans though."
 * I'm not, although I get depressed thinking about how trans people are handled in the media.
 * "who'll never understand transgendered people"
 * The word "transgendered" is offensive to certain trans people, although I'm not offended. 00:48, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "I might accidentally misgender you since my mental image of you is still a dude."
 * That's tolerable, so long as you don't call me a man. Just make an effort (I do it to myself too). :)
 * "I honestly had no idea what your sex or gender were until now."
 * Yeah, I kept quiet about that on purpose. Originally, I silently identified as non-binary. 00:48, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * "I honestly had no idea what your sex or gender were until now."
 * Yeah, I kept quiet about that on purpose. Originally, I silently identified as non-binary. 00:48, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Good for you, be who you are. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 18:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Congrats. Every journey starts with one first step, I hope you now head towards a better future. May I ask, how did the family, friends, colleges at work and so on take it?--Klaksozavr (talk) 19:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Welp. The topic is misleading. I was coming out of the closet to RationalWiki, my family is alt-right, so that's not going to happen. My boss uses manosphere terminology like "cuck" so I'm not coming out to them either. 19:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * They sound like nice people... 20:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If you haven't already, you might want to check out the "It Gets Better Project", or seek some kind of support from people who have been in your situation. It can feel rather isolating being different than then norm and living in some parts of the world. Bongolian (talk) 04:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I get frustrated hearing about cis problems that are hardly problems. I'm definitely looking for trans communities in the near future. 01:44, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If you ever need to talk, I'm here for you.  02:31, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. 23:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think Slaneesh is going to come for us now. That damn fool. 18:15, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Who is Slaneesh? 00:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The god(dess) of excess. Pretty much known for being a sexual freak, sadist, rapist, etc and worst rival of my god Khorne. Maim!Kill!Burn! (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

All best wishes to you, CheeseburgerFace. I can't imagine what you're going through right now, especially with the family/work situation, and I hope that you find the support you deserve. --Yisfidri (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And yes, it's a lot of pressure. 16:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Why people don't like atheists
Apparently one of the reasons is that we're essentially living reminders of death, of the possibility that nothing happens after we die. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 02:30, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Can anyone verify that the actual study is rigorous? It’s paywalled for me. Christopher (talk) 11:12, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just looking at the report of the study. It may be good, and perhaps not even surprising, but a couple of thoughts occur to me. They say that the primed students were "more likely" to think of death - but they don't tell us how much more likely. Without knowing this it's hard to quantify.
 * Secondly, it would be interesting to carry out the same research and, rather than asking questions about atheists and Quakers ask about elephants and penguins. Comparing the results would help to identify whether the first numbers were relevant or not. (But as we don't know how significant the first numbers were ...)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:37, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have access to Sagepub (and thus the full study) through my school, but I'm too busy to read the whole thing right now. I'll read up on it later and see what it actually says. 13:54, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Examining the methodology, it seems that their sample is taken only from the College of Staten Island, which is not a good place to take a sample from if you want to examine nationwide or worldwide trends. And here's a quote from the study that may partially explain the results:

Then, although we argue here that atheists pose an existential threat to believers primarily because of their outright denial of the possibility of an afterlife, it is also possible that the MS-induced denigration of atheists observed in the present study is simply due to established MS effects based on ingroup–out-group distinctions [...] Nevertheless, Christian participants may have perceived Quakers to be a fellow Christian in-group and atheists to be an out-group, and this in turn could have been the psychological basis for negative reactions to atheists in response to MS rather than the theist/atheist distinction that we are claiming is responsible (at least in part) for the present findings.
 * 65% of participants were Christians — if there were less, the average negative perception of Quakers might have been higher. At any rate, I don't think this study can be seen as indicative of any larger trend associating atheists with death. 15:22, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I thought it wouldn’t be as clear cut as the article makes it out to be. Do the numerical results look like they’d be statistically significant even if they were using a representative sample of the population? Christopher (talk) 15:30, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Potentially, yes. It's been a while since I took statistics, though, so I could be wrong. 15:50, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Also paywalled but it makes sense from the perspective of one who has invested a lot of time, etc. into those beliefs, down to have been sheltered into them from the beginning, and finds people who disagree, criticize, and even mock them. That said, even if nonexistence cannot be felt it's still a scary thought.
 * The study would be also interesting to be repeated, but changing Quakers with other religious group less pacifist and/or more given to scare with Hell while preaching (don't know if Quakers work that way, as I know very little of them). Panzerfaust (talk) 13:58, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This link may work better for some. I find that not allowing Javascript moves past that paywall. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 17:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I just disagree with atheism, I don't hate atheism. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:46, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * We weren't talking about the religious in general, just anti-atheists. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 19:38, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

As much as I reject religion, I still remember my friends' parents telling me that even if I'm an atheist, God loves me. Made me feel so great inside. I'd like a world with more people like that and less "we want to persecute atheism". 22:12, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

RIP Art Bell
Art has died. Without people like him, places like RW may not exist. Out of respect to Art, he always maintained an air of genial skepticism that is sorely lacking in today's media landscape. Petey Plane (talk) 15:41, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

The Bible and infanticide
So, I've been going through the Bible and I kind of noticed that God (read the people who actually wrote the Bible) hates kids. It seems infanticide is the second or third most common form of divine punishment in the Bible. Thoughts? 02:10, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The Bible makes a horrible basis for any framework of morality? But then we already knew that. —Kazitor, pending 02:14, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * My first guess is it was a rationalization for high child mortality rates in the time before we had any understanding of medical science. "All these kids keep dying for reasons nobody can readily explain. Therefore, it must be god punishing them for doing something wrong." 174.200.8.18 (talk) 04:12, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It was mostly because of judgement. Gen_12:3  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. In those times (and even now) children were important as heirs of the family, so probably the most horrible thing of those times was to lose your children which could mean the end of your family line. 04:50, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The Bible just looooooooves to objectify children and treat them as an extension of their parents rather than individual human beings with their own agency. A common theme that I know of is that whenever some guy gets punished for some stupid action he did, not only does he get the punishment, but his children and relatives do and his generations down the line, even when they had absolutely nothing to do with it or because it happens such a long time ago. The punishment is entirely about him and how HE would feel about his family getting screwed over, nevermind how the rest of the members feel or what their opinions on his actions are or if they even have the capacity to support him in the first place. Sometimes, I just get the feeling that people who treat children like that completely forgot that they were children themselves at one point and forgot they also had an agency of their own. 04:56, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the Book of Revelation. God and his angels make no distinction between adults and children. Still wondering what will be sadder, if Creationists attempting to reconcile Genesis and science telling that is the way, and failing so epically or Christians who ignore so many parts of their book. 195.235.239.102 (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is without a doubt the biggest problem I had with the Bible, and why I ultimately discarded the book altogether (as the foundation for moral living). This isn't morality, its just plain sadism mixed with a pinch of megalomania. Darthmaul (talk) 18:38, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Psalm 137:9 Aka 'By the Rivers of Babylon' Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. or Blessed the Man who takes your babies and bashes their brains out upon the RockWodenoz (talk) 00:58, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Besides the BoR above -apologies for not logging in- or the Flood, the worst may be the 42 children murered by a pair of bears just because they made fun of a prophet. I'm not even sure if Greek mythology with its gods so vengeful against mortals who defy them will have similar episodes -at least they're not presented as all-loving-. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I rather worship the Mother Goddess, you know, the fat prehistoric one. Seriously, her religion needs a revival. There's also no evidence that sacrifice was done to appease her, or that war was ever done in her name. Darthmaul (talk) 20:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That verse again? People keep on posting that one everywhere I go, so let me explain. Psa 137:8-9  O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. And who is this "person"? The Medo-Persian empire, which rewarded the Babylonian empire the same thing that they had done to Jerusalem, total eradication as a kingdom. 02:10, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door: He took also out of the city an eunuch, which had the charge of the men of war; and seven men of them that were near the king’s person, which were found in the city; and the principal scribe of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city. So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. And the king of Babylon smote them, and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive out of his own land. This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty: In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty and two persons: In the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred. Jeremiah 52:24-30


 * AND the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves... And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Judges 8:1-26

The worshippers of the 'evil' god Marduk kill 73 insurgents, and exile 4,600 civilians The worshippers of the 'good' god Jehovah kill 12,000 people, men, women and children i.e. one hundred percent of the population. Wodenoz (talk) 00:06, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Elric of Melniboné
Has anyone ever read it? I just finished the first book by Michael Moorcock. RoninMacbeth (talk) 01:22, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 'Tis excellent: most Moorcock is. Personally I like the JC (Jerry Cornelius etc.) More. See also Hawkwind (band) Godot (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Wow. I was just talking to a friend about this, and added it to my amazon wishlist.  Did the Witcher game series basically steal whole-whole cloth from Moorecock books (not that there is really anything wrong with that; well made fanfic has a long tradition in fantasy/sci-fi)?  It looks like there are a lot of parallels. Petey Plane (talk) 01:30, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you think it takes too much from the witcher you clearly don't know how incredibly trippy the series gets.Vorarchivist (talk) 02:19, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I fondly remember Elrod of Melvinbone in the Cerebus comic. Elrod was Elric, but had Foghorn Leghorn's voice. Cosmikdebris (talk) 02:30, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's one of the many, many books I've planned to read. I know little more of that setting besides the presence of winged humanoids. Alas, Arthas from Warcraft was clearly inspired by it too. Panzerfaust (talk) 09:41, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Warcraft Warhammer; wasting time reading wikipedia pages about lore was another thing that interested me in the Elric books, since a lot of Warhammer lore seems to based on Moorcock books. I also meant to say that Gertalt of Rivia appears to be directly based on Elric.  Petey Plane (talk) 16:49, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Did Warhammer take so much of Moorcock's works too?. I knew of the usual Tolkienesque influences but not that fact -that said the telling "nothing new under the Sun" exists for some reason-. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:38, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * From the top of my head, they used the eight pointed star and arrow of law imagery, chaos is a force that fights itself as much as it does law, law and chaos are described as both necessary but 99% of the time chaos is evil and while summoning and bargaining isn't the only way to perform magic it is a decent sized part.Vorarchivist (talk) 00:02, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Vorarchivist covers it. I was just making the joke that Warcraft was/is an unashamed Warhammer knock-off (and Warhammer is just Tolkien taken to the extreme).  Again, fanfic has always been a part of the fantasy genre.  Petey Plane (talk) 00:18, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The way I see it, the only similarities between Elric and Geralt are that they're whiite-haired male fantasy protagonists who drink lots of potions and are called "The White Wolf." Maybe Geralt was inspired by Elric, but the two characters are pretty different. Yeah, if you look at fantasy works post-1970s, chances are they're going to take some inspiration from Tolkien, Moorcock, or a combination of both. RoninMacbeth (talk) 02:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've readen some of Geralt's books, and being used to D&D and its "humans and non-humans living in (relative) harmony minus the eeeevil races", it was a quite refreshing (and sadly realistic) thing to see the racism present there. As for the Warcraft/hammer thing, thanks for letting me now. One could also add for the former the too-many-to-count D&D influences (dragon types and even species), but never mind as I moved to more sophisticated stuff when that horrid thing that is WoW was released. Panzerfaust (talk) 07:33, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I read a lot of his stuff when I was a youngster. For me. the slam dunk best Elric novel is "Stormbringer". Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 18:09, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The basics of natural selection
On this planet are many collections of chemicals that are adept at replicating themselves. Natural selection is the idea that the collections that are best at replicating themselves will replicate themselves the most. Any glaring issues with this gross over simplification? —Kazitor, pending 12:19, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Dear, there is but a small issue. It is not important that chemicals are being replicated. What's more important is the information. Information can be stored in a variety of ways, DNAs, RNAs or proteins, but it is the information that should remain invariant under translation and duplication. Please see the excellent video I posted above. (It is, incidentally, a crossover between a physics channel (PBS Spacetime), paleontology (PBS Eons), and biology (It's okay to be smart).) Nerd (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Another issue is that something may be very good at replicating information, but if the environmental niche can't support said replication, fecundity would be a detriment, rather than an asset, to the information's long term propagation. Petey Plane (talk) 16:56, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Along those lines, it is not the chemical but components of the chemical (genes within the DNA, the "informational subunits" if you will) that are driving the replication, at least according to the gene-centered view of evolution. Bongolian (talk) 19:03, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 'Best' is subjective - is 'an organism' that is 99% adapted to one particular environment (which can disappear) or one which is 65% adapted to a wide range of environments 'better'? Anna Livia (talk) 10:09, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It’s no use if a zebra is better than an antelope at surviving in Arctic conditions. Only ability to reproduce in environments an organism appears in are relevant. Christopher (talk) 15:52, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually there is another problem with your oversimplification. Things that are "best at replicating themselves" could be paraphrased as "most accurate at replicating themselves". But perfect genetic replication would stop evolution in its tracks.  So arguably the "best" replicators wouldn't evolve. Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 18:04, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * There are many aspects to what could be called 'best adapted' - a certain amount of flexibility in habitat (including food sources); capacity to broadly replicate similar type entities [plants, animals, mushrooms etc) existing in sufficient numbers for genetic diversity but not so many that the particular environment is destroyed etc, and all the rest of it (which is readily understandable even by children of a certain age).
 * Is it more appropriate to use 'best adapted' or 'sufficiently well adapted to the environments in which the species exists' (so zebras and deer-likes can coexist and, pace whichever President, not be at war with each other). Anna Livia (talk) 18:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

World War III?
Hey guys, it's been a while. I have to ask one thing, and i didn't found a serious place that could clarify my doubts, so i want to ask you if there's some WW3 or at least another Cold War danger after the events on Siria, i want some serious answers please, i'm scared. DinoKiller65 (talk) 00:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)DinoKiller65
 * Russia would never go that far, at least not to the point of nuclear weapons. Darthmaul (talk) 02:21, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * there will be no WW3 and there will be no nukes flying. russia is not the soviet union. it is not the world power it once was. unless you are in the middle east or in country near russia, you have no worries. the most you will see is the usual misinformation and electoral meddling that they've been doing already, AMassiveGay (talk) 02:29, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Note that Betteridge's law of headlines applies here. —Kazitor, pending 03:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Full-scale nuclear war is unwinnable. It's highly unlikely that either side would initiate a war which would result in their destruction.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 06:06, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Most rulers know that there #is# a nuke/other weapon causing much damage with their name/office address/bunker etc on it - which, as Samuel Johnson said, is likely to concentrate their minds (or those of their aides - or even their computers with awareness) wonderfully. Anna Livia (talk) 18:13, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Russia's economy is far too dependent on NATO/Western Europe countries and the US to ever go to war with them. Petey Plane (talk) 00:01, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

So what happened to Userpedia?
I have heard on the Mario Boards I frequent, I heard of it being gone a fellow user there posted on this Thread and I was like What happened? Felicia777 (talk) 16:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No one was really active there, so it died. In the thread, though, someone did say there is problem on the servers trying to host it, so I don't think the site has been nuked, just unavailable. Also, the link is in Mindless Junk. You have to be logged in to view it. Not like anyone's missing much, as this doesn't concern literally everyone else here on RationalWiki (and me even though I'm at Marioboards). Buut, this is a really random subject. You should've just maybe put this in my talk page if you're desperate to try to get someone. 18:36, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks it clears it up that, Before I posted it I could of warned the people that guests couldn't view it because I didn't know, but I'm saying if any other member here wants to see the discussion, you will have to register there. Felicia777 (talk) 22:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

#ChangetheChannel
Fun fact, I only found out about this today. Thoughts? RoninMacbeth (talk) 05:00, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Context/background information? —Kazitor, pending 06:46, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming it refers to the Channel Awesome Implosion. Regards, Cosmikdebris (talk) 12:58, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * (EC) Starting late-March, multiple former Channel Awesome producers came forward with accusations of mismanagement and harassment among the Channel Awesome staff. This led to the creation of the aforementioned hashtag, and the composition of this Google Doc by many former producers, columnists, and an HR head. After two terrible, unapologetic responses to this, Channel Awesome has seen its content shrink from forty producers to now about two left (Cinema Snob and Guru Bundy-yes, this means CA's flagship series is gone). Because of a lack of moderators, people immediately started uploading porn to the forums, and now those are closed.
 * tl;dr Channel Awesome screwed the pooch and has been screwing the pooch for some time, and they're now in their death throes. RoninMacbeth (talk) 12:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, my twitter feed blew up several weeks back over tweets posted related to sexual misconduct and poor management from about two years ago. I think the Walkers (Rob and Doug) may have trouble finding support if they continue on their own.Cms13ca (talk) 21:06, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd heard stories in the past, mainly from former contributors (specifically Allison Pregler and Phelan Porteous, who both left on pretty bad terms), that Channel Awesome as a company was very poorly run, between a combination of a power-tripping CEO in Mike Michaud and a star producer in Doug Walker who was basically a pushover for him and asked "how high" whenever he said "jump". Apparently, Michaud owns the rights to the Nostalgia Critic character, meaning that Doug would have to give up the character and show he created and is most famous for if he wanted to leave or challenge Michaud, and given that all of his attempts to create new projects separate from the Critic have been failures, it would basically mean an early retirement for him.
 * FWIW, as somebody who was a fan of the Nostalgia Critic and many of Channel Awesome's producers when he was in high school and college, and am still a fan of some of them (Lindsay Ellis, Todd in the Shadows, Some Jerk with a Camera), the big problem with Channel Awesome, beyond even its utter mismanagement, is that they're basically a "Web 1.0" entertainment website trying to survive in a "Web 2.0" world. Even Newgrounds almost twenty years ago (they created their pioneering Flash Portal, allowing anybody to upload animation and games, in 1999) was more ahead-of-the-curve than Channel Awesome is today. Whereas competitors like Rooster Teeth, Screen Junkies, and Machinima embraced YouTube, streaming, and social media, Channel Awesome remained stuck in the 2000s trying to focus on building its own website and forums and getting away from YouTube, and not just in the production values of their shows. (Doug Walker's bad experiences with YouTube over monetization probably did them no favors in that regard. Also, apparently Michaud holds a personal distaste for social media, and thinks it will wind up being a passing fad.) The only reason they've lasted this long is because they were able to coast for nearly a decade on the cult fandom of the Nostalgia Critic and a handful of other longtime producers. Even if they had been run by decent people, they probably would've ultimately faded from the mainstream internet conversation, much like Newgrounds, Something Awful, YTMND, Albino Black Sheep, and eBaum's World did before them. KevinR1990 (talk) 08:12, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I also imagine that their practices are why everyone is leaving so quickly. For most producers, remaining on an embattled and dying site that has always treated them like crap isn't worth it. Had Michaud or the Walkers built up more personal loyalty over the years, I doubt this would be as fatal for CA. RoninMacbeth (talk) 12:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh well guess I'll eventually start work on The No Bullshit article
Eh The Kraut and Tea article wasn't very relevant however I've been thinking abit about trying to take another crack at writing a No Bullshit article ShiningSwordofThoughts (talk) 20:52, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

An ethics question. I asked my oldest brother and my mom's opinions then gave their views on it. I want to know your views
Lets say your are an astronomer and you confirm the data that shows within a few days, the Earth will be destroyed by a black hole. Would you inform the government even though nothing could be done? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2018 (UTC) That guy living with multiple personalities
 * if nothing can be done, what difference would it make in either case? get off your face and fuck your last days away while hoping it wont hurt. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. Petey Plane (talk) 15:45, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * How is it that you can detect a black hole moving toward earth, but other teams of astronomers/astrophysicists all over the world can't? Leuders (talk) 18:24, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not really the point of the argument. Petey Plane (talk) 15:45, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * But they can. It would be pretty easy to notice once it got closer. —Kazitor, pending 23:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Facilities and instrumentation capable of detecting a black hole in outer space aren't cheap. Unless you're Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne, you would not be working alone. Other astronomers, support staff and management would be reviewing all the data gathered by the observatory (even more if you were using the Hubble). So don't worry about notifying or not notifying the public. It'd be out of your hands. Leuders (talk) 23:58, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If Earth will be destroyed by it in only a few days, I'd say you could notice the blank section of the starmap and lensing around it. Naturally, others could too. —Kazitor, pending 00:22, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You guys are being pedantic. The cause of the end of the world is irrelevant to the ethical question at hand.  Petey Plane (talk) 01:19, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry. Chances of a single individual having exclusive knowledge of an impending extinction-level event are pretty much zero. A less fantasy-based but similar ethical challenge is one facing doctors who have the ability to withhold the truth from a patient diagnosed with a fatal disease. Leuders (talk) 02:22, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep it to yourself or humanity's last days will be total chaos. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 19:42, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I would tell NASA. Maybe Bruce Willis could rig atomic charges and destroy the black hole before it hits earth. Leuders (talk) 21:37, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Assuming no other astronomers detected it coming -highly unlikely-, keep it to yourself if you think mankind should be oblivious until the time the hole's tidal forces would announce its coming to everyone and there was very little time left to the end. Do not keep it if you want to see total disruption of society and Trump threatening the hole with one of his Tweets. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:40, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you were a non-astronomer, and had no clue what was about to happen...and had only two days left to live on Earth...would you want to be informed? Do you think most people would rather know? Shabi  DOO  22:17, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I feel tempted to point out that the common perception of black holes is very different from the reality but whatever, it's not that relevant nor important. —Kazitor, pending 22:27, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I say tell everyone you can, although obviously if it was a black hole capable of destroying the Earth everyone would know about it when gravity started getting messed up. Why the black hole has ended up in this obscure corner of the Milky Way I don’t know. Christopher (talk) 11:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * never ask a hypothetical question to a group of raging pedants AMassiveGay (talk) 11:34, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Would rather have to know when death will come rather than it being suddenly tbh. 18:53, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * i'm a sure a lot of people would but im not sure many would enjoy the firestorm of rape and murder that widespread knowledge would entail. AMassiveGay (talk) 19:02, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Knowing humanity the way I do I would have to go with not informing the world, due to the aforementioned mass panic. 19:11, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Obviously you wouldn't tell people as someone might get killed in the panic when they knew what was coming. As opposed to being killed by surprise in a couple of days anyway, which would obviously be better. Or not.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:54, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

What about notifying everybody somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes beforehand? Sure, there would be some chaos, but probably not as much, due to how limited the window of opportunity is.Teurastaja (talk) 23:08, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't know. On one hand, we want those last days to count. On the other hand, letting people know about those last days might end up being counterproductive as their anxiety cancels everything out. 22:15, 14 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hm. The question in this thread mirrors the exact plot of Season 1, Episode 5-6. Leuders (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Why can't I lucid dream at night
I can do it in the day, so why not at night? Darthmaul (talk) 18:04, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Because you touch yourself at night. But seriously, I have no idea. I used to lucid dream every night when I was like 5. You might want to ask a lucid dreaming support group, instead of here. 19:45, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I dream almost every night, but I can't lucid dream at night, only in the day. Darthmaul (talk) 21:25, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you referring to Real Life? Anna Livia (talk) 21:44, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I lucid dream only when extremely consistent things occur in my dreams. One of the best examples is buying new Baby Luigi merchandise. In my dreams, I almost always know it's going to "disappear when I wake up". 23:29, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
 * When I have a lucid dream the last thing I do is go shopping!Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:17, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been lucid dreaming for years and have had similar experiences. I think there are a few reasons for this. First, at night our initial REM cycles (the period in which we dream) start short and get longer throughout the night -- to an extent. Second, we only tend to remember the last dream we had before waking up. And third, it's easier to "wake up" in a dream if we're conditioned to feel awake at a certain time. Putting this all together I find it's easiest to lucid dream if I sleep in an hour or so past my normal wake up time on weekends, but naps can work too. MrEricSir (talk) 03:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

RationalWiki subreddit
Should we just delete it? It’s dead, the most upvoted post only has 14 net upvotes and there hasn’t been a post in 20 days. Christopher (talk) 11:37, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * True, but it has been useful to raise awareness and googlerank of RationalWiki articles on internet harassers and trolls. Check it out.--WetBlanket (talk) 14:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Its almost dead, only every 6 months or so gets spammed by Rome Viharo who complains about his RationalWiki article. A week ago, the troll Abd_ul-Rahman_Lomax was spamming it, but his posts were removed.Agent47 (talk) 14:22, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Guess there should be a vote on it, seems reasonable. 14:38, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I set up something along the lines of a vote. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 15:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes

 * 1) The saloon bar basically serves the same purpose as a subreddit. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 15:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) Delete, since virtually inactive.Agent47 (talk) 16:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That too. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 16:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) No point in having something if it's of little to no use. Anyone can find RW on google easily, it even pops up in the first page of Google most the time. 16:51, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) Cleanse with fire. 18:53, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 3) Delete, it has been a magnet for trolling and serves no purpose as this is the main website. Debunking spiritualism (talk) 21:52, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 4) -Unused.- 03:58, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * , there seems to be a consensus that the subreddit should be deleted.205.155.143.3 (talk) 00:39, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * There is hardly a "consensus", more to the point why the bloody fuck are you Pinging David Gerard? 00:46, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Goat

 * 1) It'd be better to lock it, delete all the posts, and sticky one post saying "Go here for discussion" that links to the Saloon Bar. 17:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) Could we not revive the RW subreddit? Or is that not a feasible option? 17:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 3) What Fuzzy said. Christopher (talk) 17:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 4) I do have an idea for a last ditch effort to save it. Maybe we could stick a link to it on the external links section of the left side of the screen and see if it revives it. If that doesn't work, let's do Fuzzy's plan. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 17:17, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 5) the only way to revive it would be people going there and using it. Are we likely to do that? The IRC channel died, the php forum died, There's next to nothing on twitter, and Discord or whatever it's called isn't doing a lot from what I can gather. The only similar thing that has lasted is the facebook one (toxic clusterfuck of yore notwithstanding). Wilder Bicycle 19:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 6) Since the vote is for deleting it 4-0 is it time to trash it? 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 19:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 7) Would it be worthwhile to archive it instead? 19:59, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Sub-goat
Surely all the above opinions belong under "No"? —Kazitor, pending 05:14, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * They were originally, someone moved them. Christopher (talk) 12:33, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Gravity on a flat Earth
The other day I had an idea for how gravity could work on a flat Earth: it's the same attraction between mass as always, but the Earth is also spinning around at some rate to counter the inwards pull. The effect of that spin would be greater towards the edges, where the inwards gravitational pull would also be greater. Not sure how well that would work though, but it seems reasonable to a degree. —Kazitor, pending 00:25, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * This means that if one were to travle to Antartica and drop an apple, it would be pulled in a verticle slant downwards in the direction of the North Pole. Imagine that, Newtons apple transversing ten-twenty inches of space in a slanted direction before landing. Darthmaul (talk) 02:32, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * My point is that centrifugal force could counter that. —Kazitor, pending 02:37, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * But for how long before the explosion? Darthmaul (talk) 02:42, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I've not done the maths in detail, but I can't see how it would work. You would be basically in a circular orbit round the centre of the earth (momentum/centrifugal force balancing gravitational attraction). Since you don't experience any pull to left or right, in your frame of reference gravity and centrifugal force must balance. However: Kepler's laws of planetary motion require orbits at different distances from the earth's centre to move at different angular velocities, but on a rigid disk all points have the same angular velocity. To put it another way, centrifugal force is inversely proportional to radius but gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the radius.
 * To get around this, you'd need to have the earth be in sections, or not flat, or some other force (friction is no good), or classical physics not work as it does. Even the last is unlikely to be acceptable to a flat earther. --Gospatric (talk) 09:27, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * But you're not in orbit, because you're on the ground. Stiction would provide the necessary force(s). It's like saying that things can't be at different depths or heights, or they'd fly off mountains and into cave walls. —Kazitor, pending 10:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The closest answer here to known physics is Gospatric, but this user also gets confused. Friction would not be relevant. The question was whether or not the gravitational force toward the center of mass of a flat earth could be balanced by rotation, and the short and misleading answer would be that it could. However, that only would work for one distance from the center of gravity, so the velocity of rotation would have to be different at different radii. And so the whole surface would need to be effectively fluid, not solid, and gravity would cause a fluid earth to become spherical. So the loudmouth Youtuber with his "GRAVITY, YOU IDIOT!" was not entirely wrong. But that is not a convincing argument, it is too complicated.
 * The fact is that if anyone cares, they can themselves verify the approximate shape (and size!) of the earth, it is not difficult, merely not commonly done. With the availability of telephones, it became easy to understand and do. The Flat Earth Conspiracy Theory gets more and more complicated with all those Space-X videos showing the curvature. It must be expensive to create the fake videos and either fool or pay off all the employees, but, after all, Musk has a lot of money.
 * Some people would rather believe outlandish theories than lift a finger to actually verify the truth. Others would rather tell them they are stupid than actually educate them. --Some random Smith (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have another theory. What if, the flat Earth, sort of slightly curved, just a little, over a long distance, and then kept on curving slightly over a really long distance until it bent round back to where we started...and would do so in whatever direction you went...and then that whole flat Earth turned around so that, you might even say it is spinning...all while going around the flat sun. Would gravity fit into that novel original theory of mine? Shabi  DOO  01:34, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Is this analogy accurate?
I've been comparing the anti-LGBT movement to little kids who claim people have cooties. Is this accurate? 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 04:45, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the difference is human rights violations, threats of violence, and having your life ruined. 04:52, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * How many people have kids saying people who have cooties killed? Christopher (talk) 17:50, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The one similarity would be Argumentum ad fastidium, which is only one aspect of homophobia ("It's disgusting") but is basically the totality of "cooties". Bongolian (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Cooties doesn't exist while non-heterosexual sexuality does. People don't come out of the closet to reveal they have cooties, while most LGTB spend years in agony debating whether it is worth endangering their safety and/or social relationships. Cooties is something that magically goes away and is forgotten about once middle school starts. LGTB sticks with you your whole life and there will always be people badgering you about it (at best) or even those who will threaten your life over it (and possibly follow through). You can accuse anyone of having cooties for any reason and all claims are as likely and meaningful as others...on the other hand when a guy accuse a male of being gay it means either a: I know you aren't gay but you are right now acting weak or emotional or effeminate and that is bad so I will compare you with those unfavourable sissy drama queen fags...or b) you are actually gay and calling you gay and that is bad. In other words...having cooties says little to nothing about your identity...while being LGTB says a whole lot about you and your role in society. Cooties can be transfered simply by touching someone...if an LGTB touches a heterosexual person on the arm...that won't give them gayness. Cooties is a way for children to joke about (almost always) boy/girl gender differences and being squimish about intimacy...while LGTB is about trying to be intimate in whatever way you like without being harassed, demeaned or hurt by others.
 * Cooties and LGTB are not comparable. Kids harassing and making fun of other people for having cooties...is not remotely comparable with LGTB hate. Shabi  DOO  01:47, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * it is a little bit like it. not exactly like, its an analogy. AMassiveGay (talk) 01:50, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, let's narrow it down to girls and cooties, as women face similar crap historically and around the world. 05:13, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * slightly closer, but still a bad analogy. Boys randomly accusing girls they like but don't want them to know they like them...or to girls they don't like and want to demean...is not at all the same as heterosexual people attacking the sexual identity of non-heterosexuals, often excluding them from equal rights, long term social ostracism and in most countries...long term systemic physical and sexual abuse, ostracism, demonising and frequently torture if not murder. Cooties is an intirely irrational phenomena that stupid mindless children inflict on another and grow out of. LGTB hate is well thought out, rationalised, based on observation, survives childhood into thinking adults who try to rationalise and justify their cruelty, spread that systemic hate to others, hunt down people who exhibit clear signs of "sexual deviancy". Cooties is something no one has and one can randomly be named as a cooties holder by a boy or girl per their personal like or dislike of the other person. LGTB hate is a systematic searching and identifying of people who clearly have those qualities and attacking them in sustained hate, often spreading that hate and inflicting harm on the larger community.
 * A much better analogy would be kids making fun of a new student because they have a funny accent. Its a quality the student objectively has, has no choice but to have it, and can lead to systemic long term abuse from a large group of people...instigated by the hate of a few to spread out and lead to life long discrimination against similar people (or extent to a larger group of people). The cooties thing is a completely different ball game. Shabi  DOO  12:54, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * of course it isnt exactly the same. its an analogy. Why are folk so fucking literal here? it works fine as analogy. i wouldnt base any legislation or acadmeic research on it but in casual conversation, as a way of explaining and ridiculing homophobia, its more than fine. as bongolian suggests, much homphobia has much it roots in an inate disgust much like kid and cooties, except writ large and actively encouraged. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:52, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If ideas about sex were regarded as morally mundane, then perhaps the human tendency toward social conformity would not generate such problems. Abrahamic cultures, it seems, have always tended to incline people to respond negatively towards visible sexuality. Homophobia, transphobia, even misogyny can be viewed as the same or similar psychological mechanisms responding to different classes of behavior. Prostitutes are also treated horribly, and especially in the US where prostitutes are 40 times more likely to suffer violence than prostitutes in Great Britain (where prostitution is legal). The cooties analogy works very well for prostitutes. Ariel31459 (talk) 15:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Abiggay, I wonder if you have suffered the kind of persecution that comes along with lifelong gay bashing from people who relentlessly want to destroy you. If you have...do you think its reasonable to place it next to the comparatively tame world of mean cooties games? It is not a good analogy unless the only thing you are trying to do is desensitise people from the gross factor, and still there are better analogies, but beyond that it is a terrible way to introduce sexual identity and I dont care for having my struggle compared with boys calling girls made up names about made up non-problems.&mdash; Unsigned, by: 82.158.77.178 / talk
 * On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. Christopher (talk) 12:41, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * at the BON: theres no polite way of saying this - go fuck yourself you sanctimonious prick. i have been spat at in the street, had rocks thrown at me and i bear physical and mental scars from much worse, and i am still in a cycle of self harm that has already irreparably damaged my health. I dont care for having MY struggle demeaned by some imbecile getting worked up because they dont understand what an analogy is or how they work. the analogy in question does not desensitise us from a 'gross factor', nor does it make any attempt to 'introduce sexual identities'. what it does is compare some aspects of homophobia to the cooties thing and in doing so ridicules it. a good thing. its not fucking complicated. you do OUR struggle no favours by your knee jerk reaction to your misunderstanding of a simple concept and instead make us a fucking embarrassment. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:28, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * While the cooties analogy is at first glance accurate (I myself have used it in the past) a more accurate analogy would be to that Homophobes have stunted social growth, i.e. that they never got over the fact that individuals different from themselves exist, and now continue their childish tantrum into their "adulthood". 14:16, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * the stunted growth isnt really an analogy and is kind of whats implied by the cootie analogy. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:28, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it's not an analogy at all. It's a conclusion from the premises. i.e. Homophobes are like children who cry about cooties and thus they have stunted social growth. I think at the core, this is really what homophobia is. 19:19, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Visiting again
I'm here visiting RationalWiki again. I don't know why I just didn't come here anymore after 2010 or became a consistent editor for the past 7 years, but instead I visit you in short bursts to preform maintenance and then leave.

I do have a story to tell, not too long ago I was hanging in a discord chat with bronies playing party games like Quiplash and Secret Hitler and RationalWiki came up. I mentioned that I was a moderator/admin/sysop of this site at some point, and the entire chat recoiled in sincere horror. How did RationalWiki get such a reputation? Most of these were liberals. 04:10, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's because of our article on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic? Bongolian (talk) 05:41, 24 April 2018 (UTC)\
 * People on the left and right alike have a tendency to not like us. Mostly the right. Frankly, I don't know why. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 06:53, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The question is not whether they were liberals but whether they were skeptics.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 10:16, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 'people on the left and right' thats like everyone AMassiveGay (talk) 10:38, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Except for those who are more bacon. —Kazitor, pending 10:43, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * TVtropes! There goes the rest of the day. Boredatwork (talk) 11:48, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you, by any chance, can quote directly what their "recoiling in sincere horror" is like, would be good to let us interpret those words rather than relying on your interpretation. 20:09, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Making sense of health news
—Kazitor, pending 08:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Living again in the post-Rapture world
The Epic Fail continues (warning: Fox News link). If you prefer another site, go here, at Patheos.

I'm going to add this to that list you know. Panzerfaust (talk) 13:28, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * So new reptiloid will bring about the Rapture? Anna Livia (talk) 11:54, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Mention on "The reality Check".
There is a very good Canadian skeptical podcast podcast called "The Reality check". http://www.trcpodcast.com/

In the last episode they quoted from our Godwin's Law article and gave us credit.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:06, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Big Problem
Why do so many of our pages look like their modeled off of pages from Conservapedia. The article Polygenesis is a good example. We need original content, and better, more academic sources. Darthmaul (talk) 00:30, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you know exactly why they look like that. —Kazitor, pending 02:18, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I know this site started off as a refutation to Conservapedia, but is that really a good reason to model pages after them? Darthmaul (talk) 02:35, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As long as the content is worth reading I don't see the fuss about. If the article could use improvement with better sources, then make them. 02:41, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there any way that TERFs could be considered left-wing at all?
Too many people seem to treat TERFs as some renegade element of the left who promote transphobia from an ostensibly progressive viewpoint, when the reality is virtually all of their political positions are identical to those of the religious right. Not only do they support fascistic, pro-cop, anti-sex campaigns against sex work and pornography, and seek to define all sex - which is often the only source of fun that poor women have in their lives - as "rape", they also support "tough on crime", pro-death penalty, racist, classist campaigns against "rapists" and "child molesters". Many posts from r/GenderCritical on the subject of "sex offenders" look like they were written by the Ku Klux Klan. I even saw a Black TERF argue that it was wrong for the "patriarchal" Black community to oppose the White man's justice system ruining Genarlow Wilson's life over a consensual blowjob. In what way are these scumbags "leftists"? Do they oppose imperialism, capitalism or Zionism? I never see them talk about that. When the revolution comes, Black, Latinx and poor men who committed a violent act of rape will be recognised as victims of white supremacist capitalism and given a hug, while consensual pedophilia will be legal and accepted as part of multicultural diversity. Meanwhile, "law and order" and "family values" vermin, including TERFs will be given the rough revolutionary justice of the proletariat. Howard McWashington (talk) 07:08, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Horseshoe theory is a strange thing. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 13:28, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * RoninMacbeth (talk) 18:13, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Some troll being a troll
What is this, stupid land? With all of the corny jokes, I can't believe my school doesn't block this shit.
 * That really is truly quite fascinating. Unfortunately I just used up my adverb quota. —Kazitor, pending 12:51, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Finally somebody gets mad at me. Too bad you wait until the bell is about to ring to do it. I'm sorry about being malicious, I'm just bored.
 * Such apologies are rare, so, that's a good thing. Perhaps instead of saying sorry, you might give up on "provocation" and "attention seeking" and instead, use that school computer to learn. Shabi  DOO  22:50, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Philosophical question regarding definition of species
So... I have a question regarding species. cells, taken from Henrietta Lacks, are an immortal line of cells, originally derived from a tumor. The tumor started as the result of horizontal gene transfer from the HPV virus, and have 76-80 chromosomes compared to a typical 46 in humans. Now, the thing about these cells is that they can survive and reproduce in conditions outside the human body, and are in fact notorious in laboratories for contamination of other cell lines. In effect, the HeLa cells effectively act like microscopic single-cell organisms. So the question becomes, are HeLa cells their own species? The cells carry on all aspects of life, including reproduction and even evolution, without any additional input from humans.

And if they are declared a new species, it's a species with a very unique (as far as we know) origin, not originating through evolution although the cells do evolve, so it'll only be minutes before "PROOF that evolution is wrong, Goddidit, Genital Warts are the work of god!".CoryUsar (talk) 22:25, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the philosophical questions, but since cancer cells arrive from mutation and then out-reproduce their rivals, they are the product of evolution by natural selection. ("The cells inside a tumour change and evolve just like animals in the wild.") --Gospatric (talk) 09:03, 26 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Gospatric has given a pretty reasonable explanation, hopefuly someone with a biology/medical background can explain this better than us. Second, to claim that evolution is discredited because we encounter one example (which we don't understand well) doesn't seem to fit the theory, is extreme to say the least. If we encountered a particle that we don't understand well that appears to travel faster than the speed of light...we wouldn't say "poof...the atomic theory and basic particle theory and general relativity is wrong...goddidit". You'd need a whole lot more investigation and more satisfying answers before that happens.
 * First of all, if HeLa is as unique as you speculate, it wouldn't be a different species, that's too low on the taxonomy scale, we'd be getting into the level of kingdom or domain. As for declaring it another species/family/phylum/kingdom/domain, that is difficult. A study of and the philosophy of taxonomy shows that dividing organic beings into Genus and Species can be an inexact science that must involve, even if only to a small extent, arbitrary and subjective decisions with disagreement among peers. There is even minor disagreement over differing opinions even higher up on the scale. Small differences can easily be found in family trees if you look into it enough... and the smallest branches may frequently change. Because of this, and our extremely limited understanding of the phenomena you are talking about, plus zero experience on our part in taxonomy and classifying organic beings...we cannot possibly answer the questions: "should we consider it a different species"? Have to wait for someone to come along an explain it to us. Shabi  DOO  22:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Obviously I'm not suggesting that this would disprove all of evolution, only that religious nuts would claim it does. CoryUsar (talk) 16:21, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Greg Johnson
Greg Johnson is an important alt-righter. I'm surprised there hasn't been any exposure of him previously on this site. After tomorrow I will be leaving, but I encourage others to expand the article.GJ (talk) 23:25, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Leaving. Please add to this article.GJ (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of Talk:racialism and Talk:race
Talk:Racial realism and Talk:race -- both are redirects to Talk:racialism, but contain old edits for the former pages. There's countless doxing and impersonation on those edits, and it would just save time to delete them, rather than me having to go through 300+ edits and individually remove stuff.Debunking spiritualism (talk) 20:52, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I understand your point, but it is definitely not recommended to whitewash these pages in the name of convenience or expediency. Regards, Cosmikdebris (talk) 20:57, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Could they be archived instead? Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 01:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, the archives still come up on Google. I'm just going to have to go through the edits and remove doxing and libel.Debunking spiritualism (talk) 01:29, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * For clarification I've received emails from people who want inappropriate stuff removed. I know this stuff is years old, but it still comes up on a Google search or can be viewed on the wiki still.Debunking spiritualism (talk) 01:45, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could enlighten us. It's very alarming to look at the deletion log and seeing dozens of article revisions hidden because you say they consist of doxing or libel. If this many edits have persisted on the wiki for years now, why weren't they immediately recognized as doxing and libel when they were created? It's not like we have no editorial oversight here. Some explanation about specifics would be very helpful here and do much to alleviate concern. And getting pissy with GrammarCommie on their talk page isn't a good sign. Regards, Cosmikdebris (talk) 02:28, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

What is the true definition of Communsim, and why or why not would it work in a developed nation?
I'd like to have a more objective conversation than the Discord can offer ShiningSwordofThoughts (talk) 20:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I can understand what you mean by that, I finally got sick of the ancoms dominating the Discord, and I here now they have some ancaps. It depends on if you're using the Marxist definition or the general definition, but I would say the former is the best definition and the latter is simply another name for Marxist socialism. It would not work because humans simply don't work that way. Most of us aren't motivated without some kind of reward. Humans are for the most part selfish creatures, so we want something out of it, right? And due to how these regimes work, it proves immensely easy for someone to take power and abuse the state's total control of the rewards to give it to themselves. So they tend to either collapse on human selfishness or their corrupt rulers. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 21:20, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * There isn't a One True Definition of communism, just like there isn't One True Definitionn of capitalism. What is a capitalist country, after all?  Asking different people what capitalism is, from radicals ranging from self-identified communists to anarcho-capitalists, to the everyday person's vulgar definition of capitalism, to how various academics and governments themselves define it, would give you a pile of hot garbage.  The amalgamate answer would claim that most modern countries are both fundamentally capitalist in nature but also oppressively anti-capitalist, that capitalism is having your own things and being able to buy what you want in a store, except when it's really about the production of goods/services and you personally having money and freedom doesn't matter in the slightest.   00:11, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Also,, human's aren't mostly selfish. This is a fiction assumed by many economists and professional bullshitters; the major thread of sociology and anthropology over the past 60 years is that human behavior is extremely context-dependent, and while not infinitely malleable (the blank slate idea is passe now), can still change significantly depending on circumstances.   00:11, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Marx's idea of communism found in his theory of economic history, and much truly utopian communism, seems to rely on a : Marx assumed that mechanisation would allow people to do little or no work and make it possible to fulfil everybody's needs. That's probably impossible for ecological/geographical reasons with a population of 10 billion humans. More modest-scale ideas of anarcho-communism, the "withering away of the state" post-revolution with an abolition of money and power, have never been tried at all, certainly not in the way it's imagined by most Marxist theorists (Pol Pot doesn't count, a few hippies in a squat don't count either). So there's not a true definition of communism, but there's several definitions that are very far from being tried and tested. There's only a very small number of cases of communists coming to power in developed countries (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc) and that wasn't hugely successful, but it was only one model. --Gospatric (talk) 08:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that "coming to power" is quite the correct term-- at least in the case of East Germany, the communist government was imposed from without (The USSR was kinda big on that) and as for Czechoslovakia, there was certainly a lot of Soviet influence (although there I'll admit to not recalling the details offhand). As for other developed countries, well... I'm just uncertain about that phrase. It seems to imply to me something that was that country's idea, and it usually wasn't...Kencolt (talk) 04:15, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Communism is replacing God with an elitist bureaucracy of technocrats as the final arbiter of morality. nobsAloha Snackbar 05:52, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Technocrats you say? 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 21:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well yah. They were much more organized, educated, and methodical than the peasant farmers and petit beougeois they sought to re-educate, or outright exterminate. nobsI survived a vast leftwing conspiracy 03:24, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

RationalWiki is gas lighting, lying, & covering up cross platform harassment
I think it is time we deleted the Rome Viharo article and admitted he was harassed: http://archive.is/gnfZc Debunking spiritualism (talk) 02:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Nice, throwing a rock into a hornet's nest like that. Please, take a walk, turn off your computer, get some fresh air. Cosmikdebris (talk) 02:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The DS account is probably hacked. Complete change in behaviour very quickly also trying to remove Rome Viharo's article, when they had edits on there earlier today supporting it and criticizing Viharo more.Callimachus (talk) 03:07, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * We will correct or remove anything erroneous in the article, but it's unlikely we're going to delete it wholesale. Bongolian (talk) 03:31, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't really see any issues with the article on him. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 15:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That's because there isn't any. DS is a concern troll.--Spoony (talk) 15:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * These edits were not me, Rome Viharo is a troll. He has never been "harassed". I suspect Lomax hacked my account yesterday, he is now boasting about my account on his cold fusion community blog, so I suspect it is him. Please ignore those edits. Anti psychic (talk) 21:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Debunking spiritualism hacked by Abd Lomax
I have not been very active on Rationalwiki recently but I noticed a bunch of strange edits on my account yesterday - moaning about doxing and supporting Rome Viharo and claiming to delete his article because of "harassment". None of these were done by me. I have never been "doxed" on this website, and nobody knows my real name. Abd ul-Rahman Lomax on his blog has been writing about my account "debunking spiritualism", he falsely accuses me of being someone else. I suspect the hacking was done by Lomax, only an hour after these edits has he written an article on his website about my account. He seems to be the only person in the world obsessed with my account. My password was not changed so I logged in earlier today and put a "leave template", and have closed that account and changed the pass. I had a very basic password which was probably easy to guess, my mistake. I will not be further editing this website due to some weird drama here, but if anyone else turns up claiming to be "debunking spiritualism", block them, it is not me. Regards. Anti psychic (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, I was certain that it wasn't you making those edits. Obligatory reminder to always use unique strong passwords. —Kazitor, pending 22:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

In regards to Love
Very much so, you know.

Everything around you is an illusion in fact. For example, if you are one light year away from the earth and you see the earth, you see events from one year ago. So what does that mean? Every event is so unreal that our perception of stuff mattering is almost comical.

One more thing is what love are we talking about here? Is it love towards the immortal stuff like music, science and art? or are we talking boy-girl love here?

First, let me come to the latter part

Human beings are fickle.

It is said in Bhagavad Gita

“canchalam hi manah Krishna pramathi balavad drdham tasyaham nigraham manye vayor iva su-duskaram”

(Translation - Oh Krishna, the mind is fickle, turbulent, obstinate and restless. To control it seems more difficult than controlling a full blown storm)

Arjun mentions a problem that we have all faced at some point in our lives. We just cannot control our mind. One minute, I’m thinking of focussing on work and the next minute, here I am on Quora answering random questions. How many days have you procrastinated stuff? As Arjun mentioned, its easier to control a storm than to control the human brain.

This is the fickle mind that we are dealing with. It is just impossible to create a “real” bond between one such human mind and another….especially when one has choices in choosing another mind - that is, your love towards your mother can be true because, one can have only one mother…thus in fact your love is towards maternity than towards the mind of the mother itself…no one would love their mother if the mother wasn’t kind and loving….would you love your mother if she had harassed you verbally and physically as a kid? No…because, you love the concept of maternity..which is care…and not the human being, that is the mother itself.

Now coming to lovers, a person has more than one choice for another human being as a “lover”. Now he/she categorizes a lot before choosing one ....and that narrows it down to around a million rather than a billion choices. Now can we trust our fickle mind to bond “really” with another such fickle mind? The answer is no, the bond is not real. It is an illusion.

This illusion is created because we want it to be created. As things stand, no “normal” human being will like to admit that deep inside they are lonely. How much ever you claim to love a person, all the person can do is stand by and watch during some of your sufferings. Sure you’ll claim that him/her “being there for you” is a great sign….but no, its not a great sign…its a sign of weakness…if your mind is strong enough, you won’t need anyone to “be there for you”

Popularisation of idiotic things like mocking the guy who eats alone or mocking a guy who is single and forty years old in our sex-minded society is what has led to the popularisation of the concept of love. People want to believe that they have found their true lover….so that they aren’t “forty, single and eating alone”...

To sum it up - Love towards abstract things is ironically real…mainly because abstract things are a perception of one’s own mind…and hence your mind is totally attached to it.

Love towards “real” things is ironically an illusion…mainly because both of your minds are fickle

The above got me thinking about love and wondering if you really love the person or rather the concept that you attach to them? Like if we say that someone is strong, kind and smart we just love those concepts but not really them,Machina (talk) 21:56, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Edginess overload. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 22:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * * teleports behind u*
 * nothing personnel about love, kiddo
 * * slices heart open* xd 23:11, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Or boy-boy, or girl-girl. Christopher (talk) 15:20, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I caught love once. I go over it.  Now I'm immune. Good for you for posting in Sanskrit, though. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 18:22, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I have not really heard a good counterpoint to the whole “loving only the traits and concepts but not the actual person”. Or how eastern philosophy goes further to say that someone isn’t the traits they display because they would be that all the time. That it’s only a fleeting mirage.Machina (talk) 05:37, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Have you ever heard this idea: if you take away the traits and the concepts, there is no actual person?Ariel31459 (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You forget that concepts like strength and love have a firm basis in physical reality. I suggest you quit reading eastern philosophy, or you wont ever come back. Darthmaul (talk) 22:56, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

That’s not really reassuring, I’m looking for some kind of refutation of the above points and I just cannot simply ignore them. That doesn’t solve the problemMachina (talk) 06:08, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay Machina, you want a refutation, fine. First off, a little child doesn't love the concept of maternity because she doesn't know such a concept. The real reason young children love their mothers is because without their mother they would starve and die. Their mother feeds them. Is food a concept now? Cuz if it is I'll be damned. No matter how illusionary you claim human bonds are, the fact is, human bonds have results, and therefore must be real. The result of a bond between a man and woman is all too often emotional security, children to pass on the human genome, physical security from danger (this isn't an illusion), and relatively safe sexual escapades. All these things are the result of a mental/physical bond, not an illusion. Women can form bonds with other women and their periods will align, as a result of their bond. And as for your saying that bonds are a sign of weakness, this is your macho talking. What should we do, live by ourselves, cut off from all human contact? Is this a sign of strength, or just ego? If a human being lets himself die so that his companion may live, is this the result of an illusion? Darthmaul (talk) 14:29, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * But do they not love the act instead of the person themselves? The act of someone caring for them regardless of what people think they might know?Machina (talk) 01:31, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Acts are not concepts, they are acts, and by extension one loves the person who does the act because they do the act. Darthmaul (talk) 02:22, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That would still fall in line with what he says about loving the act and not really the person who does the acts. When it comes to being strong or kind you love the act of that but not really the person doing it.Machina (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Machina I would like to ask, how has this information changed your life? Are you striving to love people regardless of their acts? What do you do with this eastern philosophy? Darthmaul (talk) 23:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

This information has sort of killed love for me, since I can't seem to prove it false.Machina (talk) 02:18, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just go to a host club or something, forget you ever heard of it. That's my piece of advice. Darthmaul (talk) 02:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I love the concept of humanist principles, because I use them frequently to help me filter events around me and in the world and how to structure my judgement and decisions. I love it because it is useful and because it gives me an ethical theory that, I hope, leads to less objectification of people and treating humans with dignity. There is no humanist person, there is no humanist act, it is fundamentally a concept...one that a person can love.
 * I do not love the concept of maternity. I loved my mother because she provided not only what I needed but even more than that and the idea of losing her was unbearable. Same with my father. When I felt secure and nurtured and nourished and spoilt...I didn't bathe in my love for "what it means for a mother to be a mother" or "why my father did what he did". I wasn't even remotely aware what was happening with my parents nor my relationship with them and why they did what they did. I loved them, not the concepts. And that love was not some mental concept that floats around from brain to brain and is eminated not just from the being or their traits but personhood. I loved her because she fulfilled my needs as a child and emotionally nurtured me and that love has never gone away. Its a psychological and chemical process, not some magical investigation of her essence or the essence of her maternity or the concept of it. It is all rooted in individual acts, not some abstract concept. It is all rooted in human psychology and cultural norms...not some poetry that comes from elusive watery Southern Asian philosophy. While conceptually it all seems enlightening, over time and critical analysis, held up to theories of mind, ontology, pedagology, psychology...disintegrate (most of it at least) It does have a few nice nuggets of useful facts...otherwise some beautiful sounding poetry. Be careful when you read non-critical-discourse. Treat it like you would treat an Agatha Christie novel...fiction, not knowledge. Shabi  DOO  03:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Exactly Shabi, we love our mothers because they provide us with emotional and physical nourishment. That's not an illusion. Krishna and Arjuna weren't real, so they are the illusion. Darthmaul (talk) 20:18, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I dont think you understand what I am getting at here. You don't exactly have a choice when you are a kid, so if that's love then it's kind of a messed up version of it. YOu are dependent on your parents for a long portion of your life so that makes love seem like a captive. In the sense, even if you don't recognize it as a concept or act you like that they provide and nurtured you. Again these are acts and not the person who does them, it is unlikely one would love their parents if they didn't do that. The same can be said for people who don't treat you well, people tend to leave them because they like to be treated well (loving the act and not the person). Humans change over time and we aren't the same across time. That is why people drift apart when they change too much, they like the idea of the other person that was in their head but not their current "self". Love is not personhood but based on traits and qualities we value, not the person. Also for what it's worth, Eastern Philosophy figured out that the self is an illusion long before "critical discourse" ever did, among other things. Not to put it over other methods, but something to keep in mind. I just don't think people are accurately grasping what is being said.Machina (talk) 06:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry to say this Machina, but I'm not sure you properly grasp whatever it is you want to express...or at the very least, haven't figured out how to explain it coherently.
 * Eastern Philosophy figured out a few things a long time ago, that doesn't make their corpus of philosophy (the other 95% of it) meaningful or much relevant to anything beyond poetry. Western philosophy also figured out "a lot of things" but to be honest, I don't dwell much on many of the concepts of the pre-socratics: "That which is there to be spoken of or thought of must be." which is pretty similar to some of the Hindu/Bhuddist texts to be honest. Pretty similar stuff...but divorced from either an available larger text or a text that isn't mostly poetry...I'm not going to base a theory or concept of love on it, let alone a philosophy of mind or some cosmological treatise.
 * From what I get from your reply, it seems more as though you wish that love were something more than a psychological, physical and chemical reaction. I think asking and answering "why" that is the case, is a much more interesting question. Shabi  DOO  14:40, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't acts and qualities make up the person, aren't they part of who we are. If person-A has qualities and has done acts that nobody ever has, and person-B loves person-A for that very reason, this is love of a unique personhood. Darthmaul (talk) 16:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

1. I have no experience in philosophy. 2. I have only read two pages of wabi sabi: the Japanese art of impermanence.

wabi sabi: the Japanese art of impermanence by Andrew Juniper does seem right up your alley. Page 22-27 talk about something to do with reality is not really real or something like that.

Interesting reading: Harry Harlow's Monkey Love experiments.

I think reviewing the scientific literature on how humans form attachments or human bonding may be useful to you.

Can you think of a method to tell the difference between loving the person themselves or loving the attached concept? If you can think of such a method, we can perhaps use that in a study. —ClickerClock (talk) 05:19, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That is actually not really what I am getting at here. Machina (talk) 18:57, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Should I listen to this?
https://www.actualized.org/

I have seen a few videos this guy made but they don't seem right to me. What do others here think?Machina (talk) 03:50, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Machina, have you an answer to my rebuttal? Darthmaul (talk) 04:01, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * "Quantum mechanics debunks materialism"? "Collective ego"? Promises of a better life and tapping into your inner self? Spelling "actualized" with a "z"? I'd go with "No." —Kazitor, pending 04:38, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The title gives most of it away. "Actualisation" - and especially "self-actualisation" - is one of those academic-sounding, vaguely positive words frequently used to push woo. 71.188.105.82 (talk) 06:30, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

YOu sure it's not some great wisdom that could change one's life? I know that on the forums he has a few people who say they listen to him and have had insights and good things happen by listening to him. I think they regard him as some kind of wiseman.Machina (talk) 01:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, it might give you some new outlook. But definitely don't expect anything magical to happen. —Kazitor, pending 12:53, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's not really what I am getting at. More like what the people on his website say that make him seem like some kind of genius.Machina (talk) 22:16, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * ? Christopher (talk) 06:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
 * People also say that about Alex jones. There's always some nuts who believe in really dumb stuff. Asaac Isimov (talk) 15:04, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * To add on to Isimov's example: Ayn Rand, Scientology, Krishna, Time Cube. —ClickerClock (talk) 04:57, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Look at his "Start Here" page:

This sounds like woo to me. Also "Being too cheap, not investing in books, courses, workshops, etc. Undervaluing self-education." is a red flag to me.—ClickerClock (talk) 04:57, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Certainly is a lot about "No, you can't criticise/evaluate this!" Also intrigued how God is in any way new age. —Kazitor, pending 06:02, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's just that I read things about how people get results from listening to his stuff and it makes me wonder. Also why is that a red flag?Machina (talk) 04:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're not going to listen to anything being said, why did you bother asking in the first place? —Kazitor, pending 05:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't say I was not going to listen, I just want to know the reasoning behind the comments. Seeing that post about asking you not to question him is news to me and a HUGE red flag now that I think of it.Machina (talk) 18:59, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

FSTDT
The site's been down for the past couple weeks and I don't know if it's permanent. Has the worst happened despite the new webmaster?--Spoony (talk) 10:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Cannot open database "stdt" requested by the login." Did someone accidentally delete an "f"? Oddly, I thought I'd been there fairly recently. I guess not. —Kazitor, pending 10:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I have been trying to find out too as I am a regular contributor. The forums are still active at http://forums.fstdt.com (although they too are down this evening) but no one seems to know anything nor have they been able to reach the site admin.  --CanisLupus (talk) 04:44, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Still down at 6th May, it’s a shame, I liked that site. Christopher (talk) 11:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's hope the site's up again soon and they had a backup. I've tempted to add there stuff. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

May the Force (Fourth) be with you
- 05:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Bit late. —Kazitor, pending 05:38, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * For those of us in the US (at least where I am in it), it's People Get Drunk in the Street Day. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 17:01, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Get drunk in...  The Fourth of July, that I can see.  The Fourth of May?  Are the movies somehow a call to intoxication that I simply do not understand? Kencolt (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I’ve been hearing about Cinqe de Mayo or something, maybe Bigs was talking about that? Christopher (talk) 18:54, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Cinco de Mayo. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 18:59, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah... I see. Not often a matter that comes up-- well, except in "Mexican" restaurants-- in my neck of the great and vast emptiness. Kencolt (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Wasn't Maggie first elected on May the Forth?
 * What would Mrs T and Mr Bigly T have made of each other? 21:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I rather prefer the Schwartz. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The A Coloring Laryngeal, H2
The laryngeal theory states that in Indo-European, the vowel /e/ was colored to /a/ by h2. Wikipedia assumes that this vowel was a Close-mid front unrounded vowel, see. I never questioned this before, but now I've noticed something odd. There is no language in the world where /e/ is lowered to /a/ by a pharyngeal or uvular sound. Arabic and Hebrew don't lend any examples, though Ferdinand De Saussure would've liked to think that.

Take Arabic for instance, which has a three vowel system of /a i u/, just like Proto Semitic. *a is retracted to [ɑ] in the environment of a neighboring /r/, /q/ or an emphatic consonant (one that is uvularized, though customarily transcribed as if pharyngealized): /sˤ/, /dˤ/, /tˤ/, /ðˤ/, /ɫ/ and in a few regional standard pronunciations also /x/ and /ɣ/; *a is advanced to [æ] in the environment of most consonants, including the pharyngeal ones. In northwestern Africa, the open front vowel /æ/ is raised to [ɛ] or [e]. Here we do not find a change of /e/ to /a/, the vowel /e/ didn't exist in Arabic or PS.

Its true that uvular sounds cause the retraction of neighboring vowels, but the development would be /e/ to /ɛ/, not /e/ to /a/. The question is, why does the laryngeal theory insist that this be the case. Is the *e just an algebraic symbol with no presumed phonetic value, why cant the sound law be described as /æ/ > /ɑ/?

The change of h3e to /o/ is equally strange. If h3 was a labialized version of h2, thus falling in the same class as the labiovelars, why didn't /kʷ/ colour /e/ to /o/ as well?

And according to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Saussure's actual proposal was that the original Indo-European mother language had just one vowel in stressed syllables, an /a/ which was raised to be pronounced as /e/, and which he symbolized as a1. Subsequently, in some linguistic environments, a1 shifted phonetically to /o/; this variant he symbolized as a2. [3 ] Why then is the symbols /e/ and /o/ used, when there are so many alternatives, which fit in better with Saussures actual theory (ä/a, æ/a).Darthmaul (talk) 19:14, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

My moral objection of conspiracy hypothesises theorists
My objection is primarily with the end of the world bullshit ideas theories. These assholes take advantage of children and people with mental disabilities. My sperm donor of a dad scared me and my siblings with Y2K, we were little kids at the time. I was only five years old at the time. That terrified me. Back to my moral objection. Conspiracy theorists are out to make money. Those with mental disabilities such as learning disabilities and psychiatric disorders are prone to manipulation. It is not their fault because of their disabilities. My older brother has a severe learning disability and gets scared about the apocalypse. Children can be manipulated with ease to believe anything. Knowing the conspiracy crowd is out to make money, I wonder how they can sleep at night. What they do is immoral (I rarely use the term "Morals" and its variants in any argument I make). --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:09, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Also, scaring people with apocalypse warnings might potentially cause damage to human lives via mass panic, looting, killing ect. Darthmaul (talk) 03:07, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The world actually ended last Wednesday. Like so much else, it was overhyped. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 17:13, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In my area of expertise the truly dangerous ones are the ones who ask for money. Because their system is so weird idiotic they trip up over their own compulsive lies, exposing themselves by correcting the mistakes I point out to them.  They are fully aware that there are those that believe their bs and seek to exploit that.Antigem (talk)

the issue i have with conspiracy theories is they hold no one to account. there are plenty of real documented examples governmental abuses and such like, but some folk seem to want to focus on imaginary crimes and lizard people while perpetrators of genuine corruption laugh get away with things. we dont help matters by spending so much time arguing with these loons as if they make any make valid points what so ever. they are a distraction that diverts the light of scrutiny from where it is neededAMassiveGay (talk) 15:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That's what a soy boy would say(poe). My concern is how unpleasant it is to think critically and come to an honest conclusion.  Nobody is busting into pizza shops with a rifle demanding to see the curvature of the earth, so flat earth feels harmless, it seems fun and silly.  But society at large gives conspiracy theorists the "flouride stare," which doesn't help either.  What I mean (and I'm trying not to straw-man) is when somebody is exposed to something like the anti-fluouridation argument that seems rigorous and fits their accepted parameters for reality and worldview, they might decide fluoride is making them stupid.  Nobody is just wandering around ready and willing to disprove them.  So they might hear somebody say "fluoride is making you dumb" and grew up with everyone around them going to a dentist and using fluoride toothpaste and think "well, I could definitely be smarter."  And then when they get on their anti-flouride kick and nobody really argues with them, even though they're wrong, it feels more viable.  When they get "that fluoride stare" they no longer recognize it as a person just being polite in the face of an insane conspiracy theory.  But they get that politeness because it takes time and effort to learn about water fluoridation, and who would have all those answers just ready to go?  Personally, I find stringing together reasons as to why I am so stupid and then not checking them against anything is much easier.  Soy has made me weak like a child and emotional like a woman and susceptible to progressive ideologies like a... oh, there it is, soy boy.  Thanks, PJW, you're right, I could have been Thor!
 * Unfortunately, the only way to avoid being seen as a full blown conspiracy theorist even with scientific, peer reviewed evidence at the ready seems to be JAQing off. People are very receptive to it, for better or worse.GoshDarn (talk) 06:59, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

"Better"
The air quotes are intentional, but I got to thinking this after someone mentioned "the illusion of a better life". Got me thinking what exactly "better" is and if it really does exist or if it is simply just something we arbitrarily declare and work towards? What does it mean to improve something and ourselves and how do we decide what state is better? Obviously we have a value system we act on, but what about "better"?Machina (talk) 22:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Better, that which provides physical, mental, emotional benefits that another thing doesn't or does but not as much. The benefits provided need not be truly beneficial, they may be harmful, but the receiver might nevertheless perceive what they are given as good. Also, the benifits may be beneficial for only one party, short lasting, and lead to problems. Take the atomic bomb for example. The simple mind says, The bigger the bomb, the better. What they mean is that a bigger bomb gains more results more quickly, fuffilling their goals. However, the country who invented the atomic bomb is no longer the sole country to have one and is now under threat as a result. Darthmaul (talk) 00:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * At the most basic level, "better" is the comparative of "good". So whatever is more "good". — another helpful post by Kazitor (talk) 04:33, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * But then what do we define as “good”? By that definition couldn’t anything be better then based on the person? It’s not like there is some objective measurement of what it is to be better. It seems more like some arbitrary goalpost that humans set up.Machina (talk) 13:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Humans are naturally, biologically, predisposed to set up their own objective measurements of what's good or better. Its impossible not to. So it'd be pointless to try and free oneself from seeing the world in terms of better or worse. Darthmaul (talk) 14:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You might as well be asking, "what do we define as hot?" You know it through experience, not dictionaries.Ariel31459 (talk) 15:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * What is "good" or "bad" is subjective to the individual. In essence it's what the chemical reaction in your brain is. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 20:56, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Upon the twentieth of the month, the end shall be nigh...
A friendly reminder that doomsday is once again upon us, if you haven't already stocked up on snacks now is a good time to do so. 22:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ugh, the world keeps ending. It's so annoying, I wish it would just ease up already. 23:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Found on the list (Pentecost day) -they could at least wait until NASA's InSight lander arrived to Mars next November-. It's ironic how those people keep ignoring there's a place reserved for them in the Lake of Fire. Panzerfaust (talk) 23:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The LoF is so totally booked up you will be lucky to even paddle in the warm wavelets for the next few billions of years, so you can enjoy limbo (why rely on one chap saying it doesn't exist - so many people get banished downstairs the authorities have had to extend the basements and antechambers, and those running other hells have lodged complaints with the relevant Planning Permission Extensions Committee). Anna Livia (talk) 08:53, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In that case, does anyone know a good insurance plan that covers the end of days? I think State Farm has one, but I'm not really sure... LCRex   (poses menacingly)  12:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Username Change
I would like my username changed to BobRoss, how would I do that? Darthmaul (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Go here. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 20:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Free speech rally, or far right rally?
Considering the hate speech laws in Britain, and how someone was found guilty for making a video where his girlfriends dog does the Hitler salute, I would say the rally is justified. &mdash; Unsigned, by: The Rationalist 01 / talk / contribs
 * I would say the hate speech laws are bullshit but the rally is definitely far-right. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 04:47, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It wasn't just a dog doing a Nazi salute, there was a lot of other Nazi and anti-semitic language. It's arguable whether it fulfilled the legal definition of hate speech, which is always a bit fuzzy being based on interpretation and prediction of what might incite hatred/violence, but it's hard to be too upset by the conviction unless you really like annoying Jews (hi, Ken Livingstone!). Especially when the guy's biggest supporter seems to be Tommy Robinson formerly of the English Defence League. --Gospatric (talk) 09:00, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * even if it were a case over reach or misapplication, one dodgy decision does not invalidate the law. i really dislike the knee jerk reactions to any attempts to regulate hate speech as if it means we live in some kind of police state. @rationalzombie - please dont link to tommy robinson's youtube. i really dont appreciate giving that prick views AMassiveGay (talk) 17:17, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I fully supported that "Nazi pug" self-confessed "shit-poster" imbecile going to jail. He pretty much sums up modern stupidity and degeneracy -- trolling and "shit-posting" online; how pathetic. Debunking spiritualism (talk) 20:57, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * he hasnt gone to jail, and it was never likely that he would be. he was fined. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:06, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * yea I know, but he was expected to be jailed. He said he was surprised by only getting a fine. IMO none of this has anything to do with freedom of speech, but the problem and stupidity of internet trolls. I think there should be laws that clamp down on internet trolling/"shitposting". Debunking spiritualism (talk) 22:29, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * i believe this is the main issue with the nazi pug guy. regulation on the internet is still being worked out - look at facebook and all the privacy stuff. new laws are introduced or proposed that we are still unsure if they are go far enough or too far. with freedom of speech stuff specifically, i can appreciate that we need to proceed with caution to get the balance right, but i am infuriated by folk screeching about freedom of speech while giving no indication of what that is exactly, no indications of what limits they think reasonable and giving little more argument than vague slippery slope type warnings. heaven forbid that we consider the implications of the things we say. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:56, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * England and most European countries do not have free speech laws like the United States has. It never has and is unlikely to have them any time soon. The USA has near "anything goes" protections of free speech (short of committing a crime in the process). This leads to events like the Westboro Baptist church members protest outside of the funerals of fallen soldiers saying "God killed your son because America lets f*** get married". There is little that can be done. They are very very unlikely to get away with it in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Continental Europe (not sure about Australia). They would face possible imprisonment for doing this and very few people would show any sympathy for the protesters but instead find it grossly offensive and criminal harassment. There are many more examples of what Americans tolerate by necessity...which almost every other Western Country would not. Hate speech goes somewhere in the Middle and its really difficult to work out how to draw a line...especially since European countries and Canada already allow a line to be drawn. The Nazi Dog salute wasn't even remotely done as satire or to make a statement about tolerance or racism or any other motivation that Ricky Gervais or South Park or other parodists use, pushing the limits of decency and shocking viewers...but in the name of parody/satire/lampooning/message. He made the video to laugh at training an animal to simulate a racist genocidal army who within people's lifetime suffered extermination or in the UK bombing and death...all to show how clever he is and to get more clicks on his youtube channel. I don't think he should be jailed, but I don't think this idiot deserves any sympathy. Shabi  DOO  01:12, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Legal proceedings over that video strike me as a florid overreaction. Freedom of speech has to be as close to absolute as possible.  Subject it to 'reasonable' restrictions and you subject it to the whims of every authoritarian and priggish agitation that gains any political traction. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 01:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * i hear that line alot and ive never seen it in borne reality. the uk is a hellish authoritarian nightmare guess. the is no place on earth where there are no limitations on free speech, the US included. its complete arse. AMassiveGay (talk) 07:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The UK is not authoritarian - but sometimes 'Justice has to be seen to be done'/to give a message to others - and there might have been more material available to the police/legal authorities than is reported in the press.
 * Would people here be happy for others to libel/defame/bring them into disrepute etc and allow such freedom of speech? Calling 'Fire' in the proverbial packed theatre? What happens when the outliers of several different viewpoints clash and cause disruption across the wider community? What about remarks 'from older periods' which were allowed at the time but which are considered offensive now?
 * Freedom of speech should be constrained by not being deliberately malicious - and what could be defined as 'common courtesy.' 109.145.101.222 (talk) 08:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Defamation law in the UK is already pretty dystopian, especially in the ways it intersects with your class and financial systems. It's easily manipulated for political purposes, as is routine in your former colony of Singapore.  Now one difference between law and etiquette is that law needs to have bright line boundaries that distinguish what is forbidden from what is allowed.  I have not read the decision on the Nazi dog case and am not familiar with the statutes involved, but I wonder if the lawbooks over there provided the needed clarity.  And casually assuming goodfaith on the part of the officials involved is always dangerous. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 02:45, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * i am curious to know how any of that relates to hate speech AMassiveGay (talk) 16:00, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My 2 cents: Class in America is not drawn so much by income, more so by what you say and who you offend. Sure, we have the most unrestricted free speech laws in the world, meaning you are free to make an ass of yourself or show the world how stupid you are anywhere, anytime. It keeps people honest, cause its really hard to hide who you really are when you open your mouth. When somebody says something offensive, most Americans don't react by saying, "That's offensive". They politely think to themselves, "What a lowlife sonofabitch", and "Thank God we have free speech so I can be warned to avoid the asshole". This is after all, what millions of Americans think of Donald Trump, proving class is not determined by economic wellbeing. nobsI survived a vast leftwing conspiracy 17:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * the paucity of decent broadcast news and over abundance of news networks spewing frothing shit and out right lies in the US kind of makes everything you claim there to be false, and the class thing is entirely beside the point when discussing hate speech. the 'offensive' thing is also a misnomer. if i walk down the street i have reasonable expectation to not be subjected to homophobic or racist abuse. this a hate crime and is a prosecutable offence. similarly, distributing racist and inflammatory leaflets is a prosecutable offence. i see no difference to public forums on the internet. i am sure there are sites that i should reasonably expect that shit to fly, but twiiter? no. youtube? no. the nazi pug guy was on youtube, a 'public' space, and from my reading was the basis of the judgement against him. i see no slide into authoritarianism by stepping on such shit. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:46, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So it's a crime to make a dog raise its paw. I can see it all already, millions of dog owners marching in the streets of Charlottesville, each urging their dog to do the Nazi salute on que with a doggie bisquit, threatening innocent onlookers. Worse yet, millions of dog owners in the privacy of their own homes recording their dogs engaged is such abhorrent behavior to upload to YouTube. This is after all, why we have taxes to support the NSA, FBI, and prisons - to route out such incorrigibles. nobsI survived a vast leftwing conspiracy 19:01, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * RobSmith. What a sight for sore eyes. How come a lot of statements that begin with "So" end up being really stupid? 22:44, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Rob, might I inquire as to what you've been smoking? Clearly you're using too much. 23:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * And you idiots thought I was crazy. I'm sane compared to that man mentioned.                                                     23:02, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * And then somebody drives over a dog that thinks Nazi paw salutes are bad. And suddenly they're the criminal for driving over a dog in defense of free speech.  Satire and genuine genocidal rhetoric are perfectly equivalent, because reasons, and I don't actually know what I'm talking about.  What a world. GoshDarn (talk) 07:18, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Will the discussion end up 'barking mad'? Anna Livia (talk) 09:41, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Some thoughts about freedom of expression in the digital age
This is basically a Cliff's Notes version of something I've written on my blog (which I'll link to if it's allowed). Basically: the idea of free expression (in the U.S. at least) was based on the assumption that there would be one voice per person. But the digital age has upended said assumption. Nowadays a group of people can use things like social media bots and sockpuppet accounts to amplify their message to a point where they can shout over everyone else.

I think we as a civilization should examine what the idea of free expression implies in the new age we find ourselves in. I'm not in the camp of thinking the idea of free expression should be discarded altogether, but I do think society has some soul-searching to do regarding it.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Towards-the Unknown (talk) 17:09, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I disagree. As a civilization, we should never examine anything, ever. Next question. 18:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * People and movements have found ways to make their influence look far greater than it is since time immemorial. The internet is just their newest way of doing it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 18:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. Civilizations never do anything together. Look at Fifty Shades of Gray. Everyone has read it except a guy in Chicago and me...just forget it.Ariel31459 (talk) 20:16, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Um... Okay, I've never read it, I'm not in Chicago, and I'm reasonably certain I'm not you. We may have some defining of civilization here.  Or for that matter reading-- I haven't heard anything good about said text? Kencolt (talk) 21:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * What Kencolt said. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 21:02, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * More evidence that civilizations don't act together.Ariel31459 (talk) 21:03, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Nowadays a group of people can use things like social media bots and sockpuppet accounts to amplify their message to a point where they can shout over everyone else. Do people think "X must be true" just because hundreds of social media accounts are saying it? I suppose some people do. That would suggest the problem is a lack of critical thinking, rather than an issue of modifying free expression. Leuders (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Pretty much that. If you have critical thinking skills, you can ignore many of the blatantly false statements created by sockpuppets and alts. But then again, we're quite hell-bent in dismantling our education, so that PLUS the scourge of these social media bots could influence our thought processes regardless. 23:29, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * For me, at least, the problem with the intersection between free speech and digital tech flows from the fact that the principal public forum of the age is corporate owned, mostly politically unaccountable, sponsored by advertising, and vulnerable to attacks from pressure groups targeting sponsors as a result. I really don't see the problem with social media bots; if all the Russians did to meddle in elections was to post crap to Facebook, they didn't do anything we weren't already doing to ourselves.  Now, there are many echo chambers on the internet, places with a party line that's enforced.  Fortunately there are enough different ones that dissenters to one can find another.  That doesn't seem to me to be the problem, at least not yet. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 01:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Is the United States Analogous to the Late Roman Republic?
With an increasing divide between rich and poor, lack of respect for the rule of law, increased transfer of power from the legislative branch to the executive, is the United States as a constitutional republic nearing its end? RoninMacbeth (talk) 18:02, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Where's when you need him? He knew all this stuff. Wilder Bicycle 10:24, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Rome was surrounded by hostile peoples not comparable with the situation today. I doubt Canada and Mexico mean to do the US much harm. By the first century BCE, as much as 40% of Italy's population were slaves, which may have severely affected civic continuity. I think of Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner. The Roman Republic did not have a police force. We have a demented old man now as president and a thoroughly corrupt majority party. But security forces under a president's control are relatively small. The F.B.I. has about 14,000 agents. But they are sworn to uphold the constitution. There are over 0ne million state and local law enforcement officers in the US.Ariel31459 (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I would call the current US situation more comparable to the late Western Empire. The forms of the old government continue to be observed, but real power is increasingly outside of Washington.  As such the value of the imperial or national identity becomes less and less valued and in fact turns into a burden.  Eventually some Odoacer sets himself up as king and no one really minds because everybody knew already that Odo was in charge anyways, so the status quo did not change. Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 19:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Income inequality is an interesting thing. It's a serious issue, it has increased, but the increase has been exaggerated quite a bit.  Much of the rise in measured inequality is the result of women in the workforce; the Gini is based on household income, and when women can get their own jobs instead of being forced to be baby factories the number of households increases and it pushes the Gini down.  Consider the town with 4 people, Alice Bob Charlie and Denise.  They all make 50k each, but Alice and Bob are married, while Charlie and Denise are both single.  So the town has one household making 100k, and two households making 50k, in spite of actually being 'equal'.  Now consider the rise of "power marriages", where due to later age of marriage people marry others of similar economic background instead of a bit more random.  Let's say Alice Bob et al make 20k, 40k 60k and 80k.  If Alice marries Denise, and Charlie marries Denise, both couples make 100k each, but if Alice marries Bob and Charlie Denise, one couple makes 140k and the other 60k.  One scenario appears more equal than the other, but arguably the inequality was always there.  Now add in the aging population, as people make more as the grow older, so even if the world was no less unfair it would still be getting more unequal. CoryUsar (talk) 05:22, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Of course it is. Imperium will fall again. Maim!Kill!Burn! (talk) 22:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I doubt it. As the above user said, it is more comparable to the late Western Empire than the late Roman Republic, although even that's a stretch. While statistically most civilizations are bound to collapse (very few make it past the "nuke" stage), the situation now is very different from then. For one, Rome didn't have to deal with the ever-looming threat of climate change, and Rome had been declining for centuries by the time Odoacer came in. Rome, while multicultural, was ultimately only regional in retrospect, while the issues afflicting the United States are global as well. International trade goes on, while the divide between rich and poor grows and international tensions flare, resources are becoming scarcer, etc.--Palaeonictis (talk) 16:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I have to take issue with Smerdis’ depiction of the late(!) Roman Republic as surrounded by enemies, as least as I define both terms. Yes, it did have enemies, but all states did (it was a truly anarchic system) and Rome had conquered its truly existential rivals, Carthage and the Hellenistic states of the Diadochoi, leaving Parthia as the sole serious rival. While Rome still waged wars, these were were wars of conquest, rather than survival, and driven in no little part by the dynamic of military glory and booty as a source of patronage and thus (civil) political power.


 * That said, I don’t think the parallel is that obvious, since there is little hunger among a large section of either the US populace or its elite(s) for the kind of poorly disguised military dictatorship that replaced the Roman Republic. This is probably mainly due to the US, for all its troubles and internal bickering, not having seen anything like the bloody civil wars that made the proposition of a strongman able to provide “bread and circuses” to the masses and safe careers to the elites, but both at the expense of introducing de facto military rule, such a tempting proposition.


 * Is the US more like the late Western Roman Empire, then? Probably not. The US is still, for all its relative decline, a large and prosperous economy (though with some systemic issues, including accelerating inequality), not to mention a military giant. The transfer of power between legislature and executive has moved back and forth, depending on which historical era and area of politics you choose to look at (consider what FDR tried to and sometimes did get away with in terms of centralising power in the executive branch, how his successors built on this until Congress felt it got burned by Vietnam and Watergate and reimposed Congressional scrutiny, though this has then subsequently waned somewhat).


 * In sum, I think that recent US history, such as the 1920s and ‘30s are probably better, if still flawed, parallels: The hunger for a strong, decisive leader has not trumped (excuse the pun) the desire for one which is elected. Both the broader populace and the various elites generally agree on this salient feature and prefer to continue to play the game (and game the system to their advantage) rather than to upend the board and throw the pieces to the wind. Whether Trump is able to do serious p, long-term damage to the US system of government and the perception of it is another matter, but I don’t think this is on a scale that is the prelude to some form of US “Principate”, let alone a “Dominate”. ScepticWombat (talk) 01:34, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * True, you make a point, as I said the issues afflicting the US are very different from the issues afflicting Rome. Despite what some idiots say, history does not repeat itself, certain events may seem similar, but the causes and conditions and consequences (the three C's, as I call them) are very different from each other due to different times, different people, and different conditions. Do I think our civilization is going to collapse? Definitely, we have long since went past the point of no return. Am I one of the fanatics preaching the end of the world is at stake? No, I`m not. My prediction is that it's going to take a while, but it will happen. It's bound to, as I said statistically most civilizations don't get past the nuke stage do to irreconcilable differences, which may also explain why we haven't received any signals from alien civilizations barring the one-time, and ultimately ambiguous, WOW Signal, is because they're all dead, if we ever encounter a space-faring civilization it is most likely going to be a peaceful encounter because in order to reach such a stage in their development they would've needed to learn to cooperate with each other.
 * Anyways, the collapse probably won't happen for a few centuries, at the least, due to the conditions with which we are facing, which are mostly environmental (if ultimately cause by our own hubris) in origin, such as declining resources and the ever-looming threat of climate change, not to mention our own population collapsing in on itself, which will still take a while. At most our planet is capable of supporting 10 billion people, and we're only at 7 billion people.
 * But anyways, back at the issue at hand. As I said, international trade is still going strong despite international tensions flaring up, not helped by our dumbass-in-chief. As you said, the majority of our population isn't starving and while our situation isn't the best, our country has been through worse and made it out okay, just look at the Civil War. So ultimately I agree with you, it's just that I`m not so sure future generations would. YMMV, of course.--Palaeonictis (talk) 17:18, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Help, new contributor trying to make an edit, getting reverted and called a "moron"
See this talk page. --RWikiCat (talk) 22:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This can and will be resolved in the talk pages by me. 22:25, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I read the linked talk page, and the OP is indeed either a "moron" or a troll. Lord Aeonian (talk) 23:58, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey, Your Aeonian Lordship, don’t be rough on the newcomers. At least not when they actually use the talk pages as intended. I disagree with RWikiCat‘s position on Last Thursdayism potentially leading to Holocaust denial and I’ve written so on the talk page. However, being a dick about it is hardly the way to greet a newcomer who actually takes the time to debate a point of view on the talk page in what currently appears to me to be in good (if misguided) faith (excuse the possibly punny turn of phrase). ScepticWombat (talk) 00:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * We need to assume good faith in people. Doesn't matter what it seems, we have to maintain that attitude. 01:03, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but not to a fault, LeftyGreenMario. Having once had the dubious pleasure of spending waaay to much time debating this guy here at RW, I’ve learned that there is a point when assuming good faith becomes, well, pointless. Note that I’m not saying that RWikiCat is like that (and I’m grateful for that not being the case), merely that assuming good faith is a starting point, not an ironclad dogma to be applied regardless of subsequent behaviour.
 * And for good measure, I’ll just reiterate that RWikiCat did exactly the right thing by taking the topic to the talk page and actively discussing it with other editors. ScepticWombat (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there's common sense involved, but wasting your time to a troll is less of a drawback than being rude and hostile to an actual honest user. 01:57, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay, then I misunderstood you, LeftyGreenMario. It would appear that we are pretty much in agreement. ScepticWombat (talk) 02:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As the originator of the "moron" comment (which I have since redacted and apologized for) I can and will state that RWikiCat, while inexperienced with certain concepts, has thus far displayed a willingness to listen, debate, and learn. This in turn raises my personal opinion of them beyond the normal stream of woo pushers and trolls to someone who honestly wishes to know more, rather than just spout off about their pet issue. 02:14, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I've returned
Originally I decided to take a 3-month sabbatical from RW. But, I've decided to cut that short and return after two months.S.H. DeLong (talk) 18:25, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You tried to escape the pits of hell but failed. THERE IS NO ESCAPE! 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 18:44, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no escape but death... --san  ( talk  &#124;  contributions )  01:22, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, then welcome back! Good to see you!  Here, have a drink and a muffin and tell us all about your-- wait.  Who are you, again? Kencolt (talk) 04:27, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

RationalWiki is to blame for Elon Musk x Grimes
This Horrifying AI Thought Experiment Got Elon Musk a Date:

I am equal parts proud and horrified. 18:22, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Fuck. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 18:28, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Although it's always sad when a talented artist ties themselves to the evil world of commerce, at least it's not Jeff Bezos. And maybe this will lead to Grimes performing in outer space. Plus, everybody knows that omnipotent, super-intelligent AIs love Canadian synth-pop. --Gospatric (talk) 09:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Rococo's Basilisk is Roko's Basilisk's creative (or possibly evil) twin, and is waging war on the art critics/the modern art market. Anna Livia (talk) 11:20, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * An argument could probably be made that Musk is more evil than Bezos, but it's kind of moot. One doesn't get that rich without doing nasty shit. Bongolian (talk) 19:36, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Would you say the same about J K Rowling? CoryUsar (talk) 23:33, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably not, but just to nitpick, she's no longer a billionaire because — she's a nice person. Bongolian (talk) 02:01, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's hope these people also drop from millionaire status too. 02:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * While it's sadly true that a lot of billionaires have gotten there without providing anywhere near equivalent value in return, simply because they are mega-rich does not mean that they didn't provide anything in return. Paul McCartney is worth $1.2B, and in exchange the Beatles provided entertainment for millions of people and inspired thousands of artists to try and create.  As I mentioned, J. K. Rowling, who wrote a book series.  Andy Warhol was worth a quarter of a billion, and he got that from rich people who apparently had a fetish for humiliation (srsly).  Government shouldn't excessively penalize people for producing, but rather, ensure that the only way to become mega-rich is to produce.  And yes, that would mean there would be far fewer mega-rich people, but it wouldn't mean they wouldn't exist. CoryUsar (talk) 01:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Any experts here?
A while ago I asked a really technical question, to sum it up quickly: In Indo-European the vowel /e/ is supposed to have been colored to /a/ by h2. However, there are no examples from non european languages where a laryngeal, aka uvular/pharyngeal, colours an /e/ to /a/. Arabic can't be used as an example because it didn't have an /e/ sound, nor did Proto Semitic. Anyway pharyngeals raise vowels (/ɛ/ > /e/), which is the opposite of lowering. Why is it assumed that /e/ changed to /a/, why not /æ/ to /a/, or /ɛ/ to /æ/? BobRoss (talk) 06:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that we have any linguistics experts here. Have you tried Wikipedia or some linguistics wiki? 13:37, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I`m self-educated on the topic of linguistics, so while I`m not sure I can be of much help, I hope my two cents does help at least a little bit. The reason why examples from languages that aren't Indo-European don't matter in this subject is precisely because they aren't Indo-European, it'd be like saying one can understand the phonology of Navajo by only studying Basque. Of course, many Indo-European languages and language families underwent their own phonological shifts, Grimm's law and the Germanic languages come to mind, your best bet to unraveling this conundrum is to study extremely old Indo-European languages, such as Hittite, Latin, Sanskrit, or Mycenaean Greek. There are other languages valuable to the reconstruction of PIE, but not to the extent the above four are, such as Gothic, Old Irish, Avestan, or any of the Tocharian languages, which although members of the Indo-European family are radically different from any other Indo-European language, having diverged extremely early from the tree that led to every other Indo-European language.--Palaeonictis (talk) 17:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * You do have a point Paleonictis, but isn't typology somewhat important for reconstruction. We can't reconstruct a language which has a vowel system of /y u o ɔ/ because there is/was/will never be such a system. No vowel system is going to exclusively consist of rounded vowels, probably because no person is going to want to maintain lip rounding for every syllable that s/he vocalizes. Neither can we postulate a language with no plosives. I've done some research, and found that reconstructed a close mid front unrounded /e/ for PIE is untenable, since Latin, Armenian, Albanian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, Polish, Upper and Lower Sorbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, Latgalian, Welsh, Irish, Betron, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, and Proto Germanic all have an open mid front /ɛ/. Given that a trend towards raising vowels is seen in the daughter languages, Latin /os/ > /us/, Ancient Greek /eː/ > /iː/, /oː/ > /uː/,  /ɛː ɔː/ > /eː oː/, /aː/ >  /ɛː/ ( Attic–Ionic vowel shift), e > i (in the athematic reduplicated presents), it wouldn't be too suprising if traditional *e was a much more low vowel. BobRoss (talk) 18:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well yes, typology does play a role in reconstructing languages, but it's always seemed to me that the actual daughter languages of the language you're trying to reconstruct are far more important to the reconstruction of said language than the typological aspect, which is why if you want to have a go at reconstructing, say, Proto-Afro-Asiatic you're gonna have a pretty hard fucking time considering that PAA was spoken sometime during the tail-end of the last Ice Age, sometime between 18,000 to 12,000 years ago, the few languages that are valuable to the reconstruction of Proto-Afro-Asiatic are either long-extinct or are proto-languages themselves, such as Proto-Semitic or Ancient Egyptian.--Palaeonictis (talk) 19:07, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that the label of 'laryngeal' for reconstructed elements like h2 is something of a traditional label of convenience. They are coefficients invoked to explain the fact of ablaut; how they were realized in speech is always going to be conjectural.  It might have been a uvular fricative like /ʁ/; my understanding is that /ʁ/ > /ɐ/ is usual in German in the syllable coda, and similar processes exist in British English where /ɹ/ becomes schwa, and intrusive /ɹ/ arises between vowels in hiatus.  Note also that in Sanskrit short 'a' itself is realized as schwa.  Smerdis of Tlön, LOAD "*", 8, 1. 20:38, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * /ʁ/ > /ɐ/ and /ɹ/ > schwa aren't the same thing as vowel ccoloring, more like vocalization of a vocalic consonant. What's interesting is that the Sanskrit schwa didn't come about by laryngeal coloring, but by the unconditional merger of the traditionally transcribed *e and *o. I guess the name for this type of change is centralization. Anyway, thanks for your comment Smerdis of Tlön. BobRoss (talk) 21:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Philosophical question
Is being nice worth it? I've always tried to be nice to people, even total strangers, but other than making one "feel good" for being that way, is there any real benefit to it? In this universe where every person is one out of millions, does it really make a difference if I make someone smile vs. make someone cry? Aristotle Fan (talk) 22:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It does. Society is built on humans working together and helping each other for mutual benefit rather than kicking each other aside for short sighted selfish ends. 23:07, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So you're saying, when I show others that they are appreciated, like being kind towards little old ladies instead of acting like they are just slow and a drain on society, and being kind towards the neighborhood kids/teens instead of acting like they are just punks, like I feel unfortunately a lot of people treat those demographics, I actually benefit society? Aristotle Fan (talk) 23:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does. If you were to treat everyone like garbage, what incentive would they have to be kind to you in turn? A society can only exist as long as the people within it are willing to cooperate and treat each other with decency and some level of respect. 23:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, individualism. 23:59, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I see your individualism and raise you a Libertopia 00:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * My brother says that I'm silly for being nice, like holding the door for elderly people in wheelchairs, or waving at the kids who walk by my house in the morning when I'm going to work. I told him I do it to add light to their day, and he said it is pointless because no one appreciates anything. I disagree with him; people I hold the door for usually thank me for doing it, particularly the elderly or kids, and the kids I wave at every morning, who are like in middle or high school (you know, the age range of supposed entitlement and disrespect), respect me and know me by name. I think you're right, because people are not as nice to him because he is not a nice person. Aristotle Fan (talk) 01:14, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * See the Golden Rule. Bongolian (talk) 01:59, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Increasing the sum of human happiness (which includes making the world a better place by however small the gesture) is a Good Thing and 'what you do comes back to you' (directly or indirectly) etc. Anna Livia (talk) 10:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So in contrast, I suppose people who are nasty to others (like my brother, who calls women and girls the word "cunt" over minor stuff like traffic infractions or jaywalking) decrease human happiness and are a bad thing, yes? So I should slap my brother the next time he does that (which I've wanted to do anyway)... Aristotle Fan (talk) 21:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is also how they'll respond. Several months ago I attempted to help a disabled (blind) woman to seat in the bus, who turned out to be batshit insane as in biting and scratching me in the arm -it was summer, no clothes- and did stop only when others complained loudly to her I was only helping her. I still have the marks of that, and since them I think twice before attempting to do the same. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say it's a dog-eat-dog world, but we're all better off if the dogs stop eating each other. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 13:27, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Part of being nice is refraining from malicious assumptions about people. A driver that's speeding? In a hurry. Or distracted. Someone driving mad and shouting at you? Had a bad day. Fast food person put pickles in your sandwich? Simple mistake. That old lady? Has a lot of problems on her own which probably lead to that mental state. Person who throws Spiny Shell and screws over your 200cc run in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Had no other choice. Though that one can burn in hell. Being nice not only makes you feel good, it can also prevent you from unnecessarily escalating a situation, helps you keep a cool head, and benefits both parties. You don't want to let that one driver ruin your day, do you? Additionally, seeing other acts of kindness also makes people feel happy too. 14:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I love Mario Kart, I used to play the heck out of the Wii version! Aristotle Fan (talk) 21:41, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * They say Mario Kart is the real driver behind aggressive and even violent behavior, to the detriment of controllers everywhere. 02:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This question is mired in some bigger questions: how do you measure worth? What does it take to cross a threshold of "nice"?  Is nice a state of being or merely a categorization of actions?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 02:31, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

This wiki is getting more trans everyday
And I'm loving it! I'm glad to see a bunch of trans stuff in the recent edits! :D 22:23, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
 * —ClickerClock (talk) 01:41, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The Colonel, reporting for duty. Our hostile takeover has begun! --Taylor Swift lover (talk) 02:48, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Comrades!!! This is a glorious day!!! For today we, the Educated Proletariat, overthrow the Ignorant Bourgeois swine and institute a glorious Egalitarian society!!! For Goat, and victory!!!!!!!!! 02:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've never been prouder to be trans in my life! :') --Taylor Swift lover (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * *Peeks in*. Well, there DOES seem to be a statistically unlikely high number of us here at RW. Wonder why? (Yes, I know, the secret Transgenda). Dendlai (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not certain what you are all so happy about, but I am glad that you are happy (adjusts fez). Keep up the good work!Ariel31459 (talk) 13:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The fact that you exist is oppressing me. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 13:30, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. Sorry. That is an aspect of my power to cloud human minds.Ariel31459 (talk) 13:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Great isn't it. RW has had prominent trans users since day one :) Wilder Bicycle 15:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think trans people are icky, so clearly the best course of action is to strip them of their human rights. That way they can stop using IrrationalWiki to plot their evil conspiracy to do a thing. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 15:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I hope you realize the Shadow knows about this?Ariel31459 (talk) 16:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
 * C'mon, Bigs. You need to try a bra and panties on at least once. They're comfy as fuck. 02:56, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Bras are evil and want to stab you. Wilder Bicycle 08:50, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As a woman speaking, I say bras are all right I guess (I wear usually sports bras because conventional bras are big, irritating to wear with their stupid hooks on the back, and they increase my cleavage and I don't like being busty). That being said, I'd be willing to trade my periods for your lack of yours, . 22:39, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * When I put on my hook-on bras, I wear it backwards to attach the hook, and then I turn it around to face forwards. It's easier than struggling to hook it on from behind. I never had a problem wearing hook-on bras. My breasts were previously sore because I wore them too tight though. In case anyone is curious, I've always had breasts since puberty. I wouldn't be surprised if my estrogen levels are higher than most biological men. As for periods, I'm willing to trade. ;) 23:09, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's still more annoying than sports bras, which I just slip on like it's underwear. I do also just leave the bra hooked but sometimes, the hook scratches my back and that's also annoying. I also don't like breasts all that much, but I don't want them removed nor do I want them any bigger. I wish they're only a tinge smaller, maybe. I'm tiny, so my breasts are tiny. Not sure if yours are bigger. :P But yeah, I bet a lot of trans women want periods, even though cis women don't like them at all.  00:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It may sound utterly crazy, but I would give just about anything to be able to have them. --Taylor Swift lover (talk) 05:54, 5 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Lot's of trans women do! I hope scientists develop a way to give trans women periods in the future.
 * I never had a problem with my bra hooks scratching my back. The hooks face away from me so they never hit my back. Also my breasts are very tiny too, however, they're big enough to bounce. :3 However, when they grow bigger when I start HRT, I'm going to dress soooooo slutty. 15:40, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That would be absolutely phenomenonal, and I would be so for that. Of course, I've been on HRT for about four months and I will say that in my experience, breast growth is very gradual. I'm sure it's going to happen someday, but yeah tiny breasts are well, you know. I'm sure that you'll find it to be such a wonderful, tumultuous, but totally worth it journey. Personally, I'm more of one for the "innocent" little flower look heeheehee --Taylor Swift lover (talk) 03:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * RationalWiki. Where a discussion on a perceived increase in the percentage of the following and contributing population being transgender, or having possible transgender tendencies, can and does naturally mutate into a discussion on the desirability of larger or smaller cup sizes and their relationships towards hook orientation.  I'll be honest, I'm an outsider in this area-- CIS male, happily (Although I will admit to wondering what being female would have been like), but somehow... it all seems still missional.  Have to say, not sure about anywhere else that wasn't entirely focused on trans issues.
 * Um... that, and well, it's damn fascinating to read. I doubt I'd ever learn as much about bras from a birth female.  Always willing to learn, me... Kencolt (talk) 00:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I figured out how to put on a bra all by myself. You should try wearing girl clothes, too. Maybe you'll discover something about yourself. ;) 00:43, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, I've been there, to an extent. Did theater in college, you know.  Was as best as I recall a pain in the back (The damn pinafore wasn't that tight in the ass to be unfoncomforatble there). Kencolt (talk) 14:43, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The Swedes have done successful uterus transplants and the women had babies, so I imagine it could be possible for trans women who've had SRS. I'm not sure that it's ever been tried on a trans woman, though. Also, it'll be extremely expensive to get SRS and a uterus transplant, so it's sadly not feasible for most. 16:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I’ve just started to realise I’m trans (female), anyone have any ideas for what I should change my name to? Christopher (talk) 16:38, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe just "Chris". 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 17:06, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I’ve considered that, but it is primarily a male name. What I’ll change my actual name to is something that I want to decide for myself. I was just wandering what I should change my username to more than anything. Christopher (talk) 18:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Christina? If you want to keep it close to your deadname, that is. Baby name websites can help you choose your actual name, and you could base your username off of that, too. 18:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Or Tina, as it's from Christina.CoryUsar (talk)
 * Christine? 02:06, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Or even "Kristi" and other derivatives. —Kazitor, pending 03:09, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm trans,, is trans? Is there anyone else that is trans here? Also, I suggest the name "Tina" as well. 14:22, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Me. Also, BabyLuigiOnFire is nonbinary. 16:39, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "Luigi" though. I also find it weird that my persona character is mustached plumber man but irl I'm a cis female. 14:26, 14 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I’m not sure that I am trans, I was depressed and I think I mistook regular self hatred for gender dysphoria in a desperate attempt to find a way to stop my depression. Christopher (talk) 10:45, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, if you're unsure, go buy panties and a bra and see how it makes you feel after wearing them for a couple days. I personally find panties to be much comfier. They also make me less dysphoric. 14:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've never really experienced gender dysphoria myself and I don't know what's really "guy" clothing. Girls wear T-shirt and jeans, right? I do wear men's shirts sometimes, because they're loose. They have be, like, XXS though. 14:26, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep girls do wear T-shirts and jeans! Contrary to the popular belief, gender dysphoria is weird. It can come in waves, strengthen or weaken. It can cause dissociation, depression, anxiety, self-hate etc. If gender affirmation is helping relieve your depression, therefore it would be logical to infer that gender dysphoria is contributing to your depression. Hell according to the DSM-5 (problematic but hey):
 * That's all you need to be transgender! Here is a link to Gender Dysphoria section of DSM-5 uploaded onto archive.org if you wanna check it out. —ClickerClock (talk) 07:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That's all you need to be transgender! Here is a link to Gender Dysphoria section of DSM-5 uploaded onto archive.org if you wanna check it out. —ClickerClock (talk) 07:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Weird articles popping up?
Recently, a couple of weird articles were being created. I have no idea what they were about since they were so incomprehensible, but they all contained stuff about male models. Don't know who's behind this since the article creators aren't registered. Should we look further into this? LCRex  (poses menacingly)  19:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * those would be the spambot(s) spamming us with gay porn ads. Patrol and delete the articles and block the IPs for 3.6 days. 19:31, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Why male models? 00:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As a change from the 'decorative female pictures being used to advertise dating sites' or the AI's current interests. Anna Livia (talk) 09:03, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * From the looks of it, it's some kind of random text generator bot. The keyword pool is all machine translation. Leuders (talk) 11:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In that case, we should set up a countermeasure before this becomes a real problem. LCRex   (poses menacingly)  12:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * How are these spammers passing through the CAPTCHA? Just wondering... 22:27, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I can't see that a clever person, who insists on informing us as to the desirability of this or that organ, is going to be that deterred by a checkbox... Kencolt (talk) 23:34, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think all of them are. If you check the timestamps on the various logs you'll note several usernames are created similar to known spam accounts, yet they fail to either edit or become blocked. I suspect that these are the spambot accounts that fail the CAPTCHA test, and thus fail to breach the first line of defense. 23:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The CAPTCHA isn't just a checkbox. It's sometimes a bunch of signs, roads, and cars. So I just wonder how some get through. Maybe sometimes the CAPTCHA is just a checkbox? I suppose the CAPTCHA is doing its job, but is it doing a good enough job? 01:08, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There are some bots that are advanced enough to be able to read the CAPTCHA, and if a human's completed it on the same browser, it's just a checkbox. 16:37, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not "just a checkbox", there are still all the JavaScript checks but it sometimes determines that you don't need to do anything else if it thinks you're not a bot. —Kazitor, pending 22:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. I suppose it's just completely convinced that I'm not a bot and that's why it appears to just be a checkbox to me. 23:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

(reset) Should 'names with scrabble-selection of consonants or numbers' be crunched automatically as likely spams/bots and/or redirected to Rat10nalw1k1.org (along with the other nuisances) where they can amuse each other? Anna Livia (talk) 17:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how we'd be able to measure whether something is a random string of consonants short of installing a complicated module to do so, but detecting for random numbers might be a good idea. 01:42, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You've seen spammer accounts, right? None of them have random strings of numbers; just one or two at the end which is a sadly common pattern. —Kazitor, pending 05:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I know ours don't usually do that, but it could be a safeguard for at least a few spammers/trolls. 21:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Najib Razak
"... is the current Prime Minister of Malaysia."

- RationalWiki article

Yes, I still am. Najib Razak (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * All right. It's fixed. Something that you could have easily done yourself instead of coming here and pretending to be the former prime Minister of Malaysia. Spud (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There are other things to fix. Like constituency boundaries. Najib Razak (talk) 15:44, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Then fix them. —Kazitor, pending 04:32, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I can't fix the constituency boundaries anymore. I am no longer in power. Similarly, there is no power also when the people are counting the votes.
 * "Current PM Najib Razak made clear in a speech in August 2015 that he believed Malaysia should not support LGBT rights."

- Article about Malaysia


 * "Malaysia: Current boss Najib Razak is the son of Malaysia's second and nephew of the third."

- Article about nepotism president, but I was Prime Minister.


 * If the Americans on this web site want to keep their articles about countries which are very far away (not just Malaysia), do they care enough to make them be updated? Or should they delete these articles, and focus only on writing other articles they know more about, and make them be updated, ... while I relax after getting my sentence? Najib Razak (talk) 15:55, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't come here and act like a victim of imperialism. Firstly, many of the editors aren't American - there's a wide range of nationality. And secondly, many of the American articles are a lot more than 4 days out of date. --Gospatric (talk) 17:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you know all this information just edit the article yourself instead of spamming the saloon bar. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 17:52, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Fixed and fixed. And don't you dare call me American or accuse me of not caring about Asia! Spud (talk) 06:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for the effort. Also, you need not even pretend to be offended, because I really have committed offenses! Najib Razak (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Glottalic Theory
How do proponents of the glottalic theory explain *dwóh₁, two, > Armenian erku, in other words, /dw/ > /rk/? Under the traditional theory one could explain this as /d/ > /r/ and /w/ > /g/ > /k/. But under the Glottalic Theory, its not like one can posit /w/ > /kʼ/ > /k/. BobRoss (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be possible for /w/ > /kʷʼ/ > /k/ to happen, or am I misunderstanding the theory? 22:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well it does seem somewhat plausible, the semivowel w isn't exactly changing to an ejective stop. But I'd love to know what Fredrick Kortlandt would have to say on this matter. BobRoss (talk) 00:08, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Stage I could've been /tʼw/ > /tʼkʷ/ > /tkʷʼ/. This theory has advantages, one being that there's no need to say /tʼ/ shifted into a rhotic. It can't really account for the shift of the feature [glottalic egressive airstream] ~ [glottalization], but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Your theorized change of /w/ > /kʷʼ/ can be explained as re-analyzation of the rare phoneme /w/, if indeed /w/ was an allaphone of /u/ and not the other way around, as is generally assumed. BobRoss (talk) 00:31, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds like you're saying my hypothesis could be true, so yay? I have near zero knowledge about the phonological evolution of PIE, but /w/ seems like it would make more sense as an allophone of /u/, which is sometimes the case in Japanese. However, I don't know about the precedent for that in Indo-European languages. 01:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The glottalic theory always made sense to me, but the Armenian situation seemed unexplained, till now. What you said wraps it up very neatly, thanks Spriggina. BobRoss (talk) 04:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Why is 'glo'al stop' never self-referential? Anna Livia (talk) 11:07, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Adding glo'al as a variant on Wiktionary should do the trick. BobRoss (talk) 17:15, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Argument against tools
I'm pretty sure that this has a quite obvious answer but still couldn't find good material for that: is there a specific logical fallacy characterizing when one proposes to forbid a particular tool because somebody did something bad with that tool? Example: "let's forbid stones', cause somebody killed with stones" - "let's forbid pens, 'cause somebody wrote blasphemous words with pens", "let's forbid mobile phones, 'cause you can see porn with mobiles", and so on. This is in general wrong abductive reasoning (deduction from consequences to premises), but I'm not sure if this specific case has been somewhat categorized in the past. AgelinBee (talk) 15:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Because there are public safety consequences, it's much more nuanced than could be dismissed by one all-encompassing logical fallacy, ex: machine guns, switchblades, dynamite, rocket launchers, etc. Millennium Scallion (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Some instances may be cases of overgeneralization, although other cases may fall under other fallacies e.g. association fallacy (where there's no real association), appeal to emotion/poisoning the well ("won't somebody think of the children?"/"He wants to kill our children!"), or the precautionary principle (we need to ban this unless you can prove it won't hurt anybody), and some may not be fallacious at all. --Gospatric (talk) 08:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Gregory Lauder-Frost
Gregory Lauder-Frost has been complaining about his RW article, you might want to monitor the talk-page. He's been using IPs and doxing users by linking to Rightpedia entries. 108.62.21.154 (talk) 19:01, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I was contacted on my talk page by 86.150.97.41 about Lauder-Frost even though I had not made any substantive edits to the page. Lauder-Frost can defend himself on the talk page if he wants to. Bongolian (talk) 19:27, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yawn, another day, another butthurt woo pusher. All that BoN has done is add the usual "This offends me!!" posts, with an additional "Think of his family!!" appeal to emotion thrown in. 19:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was not impressed either. Bongolian (talk) 03:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Add a "Pissed at us" category? 20:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Given the rather unimpressive nature of the posts in question (in addition to us being unable to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these are from Frost) I doubt they're worth adding to the Pissed at us category. 21:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

David Irving finally stops being a denier
Faith in humanity restored. Sailor Haumea (talk) 19:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what to make of this
http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/resources/mountemptiness.html

This makes me rethink a few things about science and the way that I understand the world. But I don't know for sure. Is everything really just relative?Machina (talk) 03:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In essence, everything about our existence is just based on what you as an individual perceive. People have such different views on the world they were thrust into that it's highly unlikely there is one objective way to see it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 04:11, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Everything is certainly relative. However, over time you can hopefully discover a method of analysing our perceptions/experience which hopefully can be consolidated into much less "relative" sets of data, you can make claims about what is around you, cutting down on the "relative" aspect, inherent in both the universe and human experience. I am rather optimistic that we will someday discovery a method of inquiry that will extremely minimize the "relative" aspect of human inquiry. In the mean time, the best method we've come across and refined and still use, is the rational-critical method of research in the humanities/social-sciences and the scientific method (far less relative than rational/critical) for the empirical sciences.

A notable difference between most religious dogma and those who engage in the rational/critical methods and scientific methods is that most of us are aware that no matter how precise and careful we are, there is still something, no matter how little, relative about our research, analysis and conclusions. The Abrahamic religions are not. The usually make absolute claims. Put little effort into improving their methods of inquiry. Use a dictatorial method of enforcing judgement and "knowledge".
 * In other words. Yes, everything is relative. And you should question science and rational/critical thought, in that they are is still relative...but recognise they are by far the least relative methods of inquiry. And hopefully assist in challenging them in a way that makes them less relative. The fact that science is still, to a small extent, relative, doesn't mean that religious tracts and spiritual mumbo-jumbo should be taken just as seriously as science. One works tirelessly to present information as objectively as we know how...religious texts are endless sentences of word-farts with a few useful paragraphs...most of it not. Even when they try to mascarade as objective (Aquinas's Summa Teologica) it is really just very badly attempted rational/critical thought. Shabi DOO  13:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I was wondering if people took a look at the page. I know that things are not "entities in their own nature" but I can't help but feel that it's both in this case and that the author is misinterpreting what science is or does. His points seem iffy and there is the dubious invoking of Einstein's relativity. So far science has worked out rather well so I am more inclined to trust it. But I don't know how to respond to things like this.Machina (talk) 21:33, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

RW plagiarized for book on the Alt-Right Internet
RW (and WP) have been sourced without citation for a new book on the Alt-Right's online response to so-called "SJWs" that has been getting some press. Looks like what was copied came mainly from various Manosphere pages. https://www.thedailybeast.com/kill-all-citations-sloppy-sourcing-plagues-kill-all-normies-book-on-sjws-and-the-alt-right?ref=home https://archive.fo/pKQsN So,always remember, check your grammar and syntax; you never know when you might become a nationally published author. Petey Plane (talk) 14:39, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Technically everything we post here is published worldwide. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 16:51, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I was always skeptical of Nagle's core argument, which basically amounts to repeating the right-wing myth that the rise of the alt-right was purely a backlash against left-wing "social justice" excesses. "If you didn't rock the boat and demand your silly civil rights, then we wouldn't have these Nazis running around!" Having grown up in a lot of these online spaces, I can say that the seeds of the alt-right were planted long before anybody knew what the acronym "SJW" meant. The alt-right was merely a mobilization of toxic attitudes that already existed; the harassment campaign against Anita Sarkeesian first started in 2012, Elevatorgate (the incident that birthed the "anti-feminist atheist YouTuber" stereotype) was in 2011 and was caused by Rebecca Watson's comments on sexism that she was already observing then, the pick-up artist movement was birthed in 2005 by Neil Strauss' book The Game, 4chan has always been known for playing footsie with "ironic" racism and sexism, and anybody who's played online multiplayer for any length of time since the Xbox 360 was released knows that racial and sexual slurs are virtually inescapable. Gamergate may have turned all this into a movement, but the seeds for it, or something like it, were there for years. In fact, you could just as easily argue the inverse of Nagle's argument: that the modern social justice movement itself was a backlash against the rampant, unchecked bigotry and troll culture of online spaces. (That'd be a foreword for an interesting argument in and of itself, whether or not the social justice movement, despite being seen as a creature of the left by both its supporters and foes, has more in common with right-wing backlashes historically, particularly the rise of modern social conservatism as a response to the decadence of the '70s.) I do like that somebody tried to write a pop-lit academic book on the roots of the alt-right, I just wish that Nagle didn't get so much wrong. The fact that a big chunk of her research apparently consisted of the old standby of many a college student on a tight deadline, skimming articles from Wikipedia and this very website and then rewriting them just enough to not set off alarm bells (didn't rewrite them enough, it seems), is disappointing, but unsurprising.
 * On a lighter note, I'm glad that this site is getting some recognition, even if it's for an unfortunate reason (albeit not our fault). Clearly, we're treated as a credible source by academic writers, if Nagle is lifting passages from our articles. KevinR1990 (talk) 17:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The point is not that "everything we post here is published worldwide",, but that it was copied without attribution. Since the information in question (WP, RW) is published under Creative Commons license, it may not be illegal to copy it, but it is unethical to copy it without attribution. Doing so reflects poorly on both Angela Nagle, and the aptly named publisher, Zero Books. Bongolian (talk) 18:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I wasn't being serious, this was my attempt at "comedy". 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 20:29, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK! Bongolian (talk) 03:06, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Abd Lomax socking again
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax is socking on the open proxy IP 54.37.73.134, and has now involved himself in the Gregory Lauder-Frost drama which he will not doubt write 10,000 words about on his blog. He is trying to blame the hacking of the account debunking_spiritualism onto someone else. It is obvious this is him. He has an obsession with the Debunking_Spiritualism account and has 20 articles dedicated to it on his nutty website. My suggestion is to block ABD's latest IPs. 37.235.53.47 (talk) 22:37, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm finding this wiki to be a mental-asylum. So now it turns out 54.37 was also an impersonator. I'll be leaving this place after today. Will send Frost an email about all this mess.Hexagon (talk) 23:39, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

some mindless old piss
Jews are a negative influence on humanity. Change my mind.
 * 18:33, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I am going to burn in a lake of fire
Well, according to a YouTube user. Yesterday I came across a video claiming the end is near though it was a montage of news clips. Anyways I replied to a comment of a guy preaching Bible saying the world was not ending. Got into an argument though I continued to reply for the fun of it. I pointed out flaws in his arguments but he ignored them. But I shall burn in a lake of fire, any of you heathens want to have a cook out in hell? I will bring burgers and chips. ;) I'm on a highway to hell --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I would but I'll likely be in the sixth circle, trapped in a flaming tomb.  14:41, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Don't forget to brink water. An infinite supply of it to be exact. Who cares if that isn't physically possible? 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 16:20, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * We could just steal ice from Satan's frozen lake in the center of hell and melt it down for water... 16:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Heaven is hotter than Hell, anyways. Also, they missed the boat. Bongolian (talk) 19:17, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * We should just reroute a river into the Kola Borehole. —Kazitor, pending 22:29, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

uh do you live near an active volcano? that's the only plausible way you'll get burnt by a lake of fire. even though magma technically isn't fire. 21:06, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As 'most people' are being sent to Hell by some God-botherer or other (but not by botherers of all Gods - the Vikings probably don't mind a few people not going to Valhalla, so there are fewer people at the feasting) for reasons seen as fairly trivial by the persons so assigned (and 'if we are so flawed #and# made in God's image then there is summat weird with God) probably none of us will get more than a quick dunking in [St. Elmo's fire this] or 'the Victorian glass and electricity "medical" devices' I have seen in the past. Anna Livia (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The nearest one to me is Yellowstone and that is like 1300 miles away. I live in Michigan (not for pussies) and that is pretty damn far. If Hell exists then I shall see plenty of fundies there (I am open minded). I have religious beliefs and believe that there are many possibilities. Basically, we learn about the divine through scientific study. Weird sounding, I know. Because of this someone like me goes to hell. I wonder what choice properties there are on the lake of fire? Maybe I can get a nice condo. But User:Anna Livia is right about the lake being magma and not fire. When lava is underground then it is magma. Did fundies fall asleep during the geology section in 6th grade science? I am a hellbound heathen! I am bisexual so other men can come by --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Fire is just hot gas. Under enough pressure, gasses liquefy. So a lake of fire is quite possible. Although personally, I've always maintained that Hell is just Venus. I mean, how could it not be? —Kazitor, pending 02:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Because we've photographed the surface and there aren't any tortured souls, but maybe that's just Satan hiding it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 04:50, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Isn't Hell meant to be cavernous? Therefore the tortured souls are obviously underground. —Kazitor, pending 10:09, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * if you do not believe in either heaven or hell, what difference does it make? AMassiveGay (talk) 15:53, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You'll not be alone. I received the same treatment months ago from a female preacher after telling her I was not interested on her stuff (granted, with trolling about already having a religion but still not the best way to look for friends). Anyway given what's on the Bible there'll be a lot of people down there including too-many-to-count, if not all, Fundies plus probably all those idiots waiting to be beamed-up (and given the way Heaven is described in the BoR, it seems it is another kind of Hell. Not to mention no third way at all) and/or for New Jerusalem coming down from the skies and seemingly not giving a fuck about those who are left behind.
 * As for physics, the Salvation War describes the Phlegeton river as extremely hot water with petrochemicals on it -granted, things are physics there-. There're also Fundies who still take as real the famous "Well to Hell" hoax.
 * (PS: are you fine there?. Even if May 21th will still not arrive to the US for several hours remember some stated the world would end this Sunday). Panzerfaust (talk) 22:12, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a joke to the effect that someone dies, goes to heaven, and is being given the guided tour by an angel - this is where the Xs tend to congregate, the Ys meet over there etc, and then they come to a wall, and the angel indicates they should not speak. After they have gone some distance past the wall the person asks the meaning of the wall 'It is the Z - they believe only they get to heaven.'
 * The afterlife is rather more complex than we can ever imagine - but the fundies are condemned to singing the praises of (a completely different) God forever.
 * Satan has modernised - it is now a lift down to Hell (see the ending of the series Ashes to Ashes). Anna Livia (talk) 22:28, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you think on it Heaven is much worse. Eternity is a very long time, so long that even if you live it as if you were always on the present as some pastors I know of describe it and even if you're basically brainwashed to worship God forever you will screw up things sooner or later, and unless laws are different there you'll end up going to Hell -you can see where this is going, with Heaven pretty much ending up empty, remember God is said not to never change and not to mention other issues discussed in the Pascal's wager article and others that appear if you think just a bit-. Either Heaven of Hell, you're pretty much screwed.
 * Remember why Luther said reason is the worst enemy of faith. Panzerfaust (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Whenever someone brings up how terrible the Christian heavon would be it always reminds me of this article. 23:10, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That article spots it on and the "98% of Heaven's inhabitants being unborn people and toddlers" is quite scary if you think on how they'd be educated up there, and it does not include how other ways for it to be Hell is that there's no sea -if you're someone who loves the sea and the like you're fucked- and that new Heaven I very seriously doubt that would be as the one that we've now (no Milky Way, no planets, etc. Astronomers fucked up too). Oh, well, that's what happens when you take at face value texts written 2,000 years ago and nobody bothers to update them -meanwhile other cultures had far more entertaining afterlives and nonexistence as scary as is even if you cannot feel it is not so bad at least in comparison- Panzerfaust (talk) 23:34, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
 * When you think about it, nonexistence isn't actually as bad as most people seem to think it is. In fact it would be like falling asleep, minus dreams. 00:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I remember to have post elsewhere a link to a naturalistic site that explained how it would feel that from someone's perspective. Basically one does not get to experiment nonexistence, just life (as in here)
 * Panzerfaust (talk) 07:28, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The heaven of the joke #would# cater for astronomers who enjoy messing around in boats and everyone else. (And don't some ####s claim that all unbaptised infants go to hell?)
 * Or - people can choose to be reincarnated 'elsewhere in the universe' (and/or work their way to Nirvana or be sent to the Outer Darkness if they are too persistently bad). Anna Livia (talk) 12:21, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The never-stop reincarnation elsewhere in the Universe, or maybe even the multiverse is the afterlife. Always experimenting new places, etc. even if you had to left forever behind what you were before (memories, etc).
 * Other more thing of that link: New Jerusalem is painfully described from a 2000 years-old perspective. Very beautiful, but from our XXI century perspective very boring, so much that it pretty much looks like something from 1984 is the least thing to worry about.
 * Finally, am I right to suppose someone goofed up again predicting the end of the world?. Panzerfaust (talk) 20:23, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The angels and devils went on a union strike, they're demanding better hours and wages. 20:59, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There are many paths through the pattern of infinity (and perhaps many Diaspars). Anna Livia (talk) 22:22, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Disappointed old white men
These past few years, I've been noticing a constellation of behaviors in old white men who lash out irrationally at people or institutions (and not just violently), possibly because they haven't achieved their expected goals in life. It could be a corollary of white privilege. Bongolian (talk) 03:19, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As depicted in the 1992 film Falling Down, and many other sources. --Gospatric (talk) 10:57, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * How many are MGTOWs who have been rejected once too often? Anna Livia (talk) 12:14, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * People want something to blame for all their woes. Often they take this out on completely unrelated people or groups. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 12:50, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Sarah Palin is back on SNL
I thought y'all might like this. 18:45, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

History of RW
Hello folx, I'm bored and thinking of things to write about. Do any of you think the community would be interested in a blog/essay/post about the founding of Conservapedia and RationalWiki, or would I just be screaming into the void?

Anyway, glad to see this place is still thriving and has moved beyond just monitoring Andy's propaganda forum. Y'all are the best.  Hoji ni hao 22:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Conservapedia:Timeline History 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 22:47, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sure I have some old chatlogs and photos lying around, I'll see if there's anything that wasn't previously published on those pages.
 * Also I don't know you but damn am I glad to make your acquaintance. Reading your Userpage made me so happy.  Hoji ni hao 23:14, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GOAT!!! 23:19, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No reason why those pages can't be expanded. Anyone know what's up with the image TOC in the RW one, though? —Kazitor, pending 23:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes or No on a timeline of RW

--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * But we have one already. —Kazitor, pending 00:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed, we don't need yet another history. Correct or add to the existing one. If you're bored, we have a page for it: Bored; it might help cure this chronic condition. Bongolian (talk) 00:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you arn't sure where to start you could mention how I've noticed a new species of spam on the verdant plains of RationalWiki. Or how I've probably earned the Golden Bannhammer by now (hint, it involved banning lots of spammers and trolls). 00:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Seriously, the Hammer1.JPG I got during my demotion is getting a tad worn. Am I not allowed a replacement? 03:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I can only offer you some tasty goat pilaf GoatPilaf.jpg but it's probably a bit moldy by now.
 * Thanks for pointing me in the right direction everyone, I'll see if I can find any OG cabalist drama to contribute to those pages. This is part of a larger effort on my part to write an early history of CP/RW from my perspective, because I certainly am Bored at my desk job and want to re-discover my writing voice. Things are weird now though, in a good way - this place has grown to do bigger and better things than troll Andy, Ames is on TV now, Human and Trent are around less... it's weird. But good. I like you all.  Hoji ni hao 04:17, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Thoughts on graduate science education at creationists colleges. I point this out in an essay I made
My concern of science/STEM education in creationist schools is the fact of minimal outside research. I mean is that no evolutionary biology education and geological education is given, minus "origins" courses at these places. Those give a biased stance against evolution and the age of the Earth. As for mathematics and engineering, there is no real problem. Not much can be said. To get the full argument, check out my essay and give feedback. Essay:Graduate level STEM education in fundamentalist Christian colleges. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:12, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Biological evolution influencing social evolution
I thought of this last week. Do any of you think that infectious diseases, exposure to radiation or volcanic gases cause evolution in the human brain? Might seem odd but I think it makes sense. Maybe people who survived the Spanish Flu had small chemical changes in their brain that they pass on to future children. Or people who survived volcanic eruptions had chemical changes in their brain that those people pass down. Not unlike someone passing immunity to infectious disease down to kids. I want other view points on this as I am not trained in evolutionary biology or psychology. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 16:05, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty broad question, infections certainly are a part of our evolutionary history, since a pretty large chunk of our DNA is just that, inactivated viral sequences, and we even have at least one endogenous* virus which is involved in the whole placenta-embryo thing. Natural disasters tend to affect a small area, on a continental scale, so their effect on human genetics ought to be quite small; radiations and radioactive gases do increase the base rate of mutations, but that does not translate necessarily in particular traits in the population other than cancer and that bad stuff. Similarly, great plagues have had an effect on population genetics, whether through selection of resistence or dumb chance, and the post-catastrophe conditions may have been different enough to select for different traits in the survivors.


 * But the step between alleles and psychology is a big one, and still poorly understood. Generally speaking, while it is possible that mutations that gave, say, an edge against the Black Plague might also have lead to behavioral changes, it would also pretty much be a leap of faith. Remember that as of now nobody can point at a particular combination of genes and say: "See, these control your anger response, so modifications here and there..." All we have for anything remotely complex are hundreds of candidates that have a singularly small effect, but interact a lot.


 * Not knowing exactly how it works makes it hard to study how it evolves, plus there's the change in the environment to consider: genetics is only half of the equation, the other half is the interaction with the habitat. It is very difficult right now to determine how much of a given psychological response is due to genetics and how much is society. To track these things through centuries and revolutions would be pretty hard.
 * *meaning that we code for it, we make it, but it's a virus.


 * hth, have a nice day :) &mdash; Unsigned, by: 93.34.124.244 / talk
 * —ClickerClock (talk) 09:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I’m back!
I was a bit depressed but I’m a lot better now. Christopher (talk) 14:09, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Welcome back. 14:13, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm still slogging through the last bit of senior year, but it's good to see you're here, . RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:52, 25 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Welcome back to the bag of nuts aka Rationwiki family! Help! I escaped from the secret lab below Pensacola Christian College! They injected me with a parasite in order to make me an Independent Baptist zombie minister! --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:29, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Welcome back, Christopher! Bongolian (talk) 19:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Good to hear —Kazitor, pending 22:39, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * So, we've had two recent escape attempts. We really need to increase security. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 04:49, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Great news! Glad you're back! (was wondering where you were).Ariel31459 (talk) 13:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The Irish people has repealed the abortion clause of their Constitution...
... as you know. Rather than punishing the Catholic Church for things as the Magdalene laundries, the countless abuse scandals, etc. surrounding them, I see this as a lesson to all those hypocrites be Catholics or not who claim to defend life but do not give a fuck about the already born, be either in undeveloped countries or developed ones, and want even less or not (State-funded) help for them. Panzerfaust (talk) 21:41, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I have a Psychology/Biophysics/Physiology question
To start. I am a HUGE fan of Emergency Alert System scenario videos on YouTube. I have heard that certain sound frequencies can trigger fear. Now the question- Is is possible for certain sounds to cause someone to feel fear? I ask because one EAS video actually scares me (But enjoyable). Horror movies and other EAS videos do not scare me, hell I watch scenes from gory horror movies on YouTube. Here is the link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1pxxOs7yz4. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * SCREAM! Bongolian (talk) 02:14, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm concerned, the only slightly scary thing about that video is that the sound is a tiny bit like the one that my computer has made when it's crashed and done the blue screen of death. Spud (talk) 04:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm a sockpuppet!
Apparently Rightpedia thinks Oliver D. Smith runs my account. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 07:30, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Dammit, not me. Why do these people never accuse me of anything, I'm feeling very left out. —Kazitor, pending 08:03, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That's really stupid. —ClickerClock (talk) 09:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Christopher is also on the list, though I'm honestly surprised that I'm not. 12:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't want to open Rightpedia because I'd like to keep my brain cells; am I on there? 19:09, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Same as above. Am I on there? RoninMacbeth (talk) 19:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No. No. Anyone else want me to check if they're on the list? Or can I please close this tab and purge Rightpedia from my browser history now?  19:21, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I am not taking a chance by going to that sea of digital vomit. I wonder if I am on that list but my limit is conspiracy sites and creationism. They took my thumbs --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:45, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Nope, you aren't on the list. 00:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * This may sound weird but I was hoping but it is good to know I am not. Emergency Alert --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:51, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, I'm honestly surprised that our biggest stalkers "fanclubs" haven't taken to hating on me yet. Maybe I'm being too obvious? 00:57, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey, I'm on there! Cruise Control ( Manual! ) 06:38, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Resurrection in Progress
For one time, I am officially bringing back the Dumpster, mostly because I feel this article won't get fixed any other way due to controversy.

Allow me to introduce you to Realist left. The article reads like half the original authors liked the subject, half didn't, and then they just agreed to awkwardly cram both versions together. I don't know what the fucking point of this article is, and I feel like any fixes I could make at the moment would just cause a wheel war, hence why I'm reaching out to the community. Please help fix this article, or we can just take it behind the barn. That'd work too. RoninMacbeth (talk) 06:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've tried keeping order there but it's near impossible when the page itself is near incomprehensible. 16:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Is "realist left" anything more than a handful of people? I actually never heard of it until I saw our own page in the recent edit stream. Our own crappy page ranks as #2 in a Google search, which is not a good sign in this case. Bongolian (talk) 17:34, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I too had never heard of them until discovering our article, though to be fair at the time I also hadn't heard of the Alt-right either. 20:58, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, here's my critique. There are people in the left and centre who think their movement is too focused on race/sexism/LGBT rights/difference, etc, but this covers many strains of thought and may be too vague to group them all together: it runs from old-fashioned socialism to centrist Blairites and once-socialist neo-cons (and there are those like George Galloway who is hostile to women's and LGBT rights though opposes Islamophobia, and hence could be called "partly realist"). The claim that the realist left are all right-wingers/reactionaries/racists isn't justified by sources: one blog, https://realistleft.wordpress.com/, is referenced, but that's one obscure blog. Just because "realist left" has a word in common with "race realist" isn't reason to damn everybody.
 * The article covers a too-wide range of people, and RationalWiki is not a wiki of moderate left-wing perspectives. This includes the likes of Stephen Kinnock who's just a mildly left-of-centre mainstream-left politician who's only a realist in the Neil Kinnock/Tony Blair sense (compromise for the centre ground) and not an alternative to anything except socialism; the liberal Rorty; and Bernie Sanders is only weird in American terms not European. It seems that an editor who thinks "too much identity politics is damaging the left" has attempted to throw together a bunch of quotes to establish that lots of people agree with them, but don't post your manifesto on RW. Specific critiques of identity politics, intersectionality, SJWs, anti-racism, etc, belong on pages about those topics.
 * Meanwhile the use of the word "alt-left" isn't relevant to most of these "realist" leftist thinkers; only a small minority of people mentioned in the article are regularly called "alt-left" either by themselves, other left-wingers, or their enemies. The use of "alt-left" as a term of abuse might merit analysis even though I don't think it's a genuine movement. But it doesn't belong in an article on the "realist" left. --Gospatric (talk) 10:05, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Spanish version
Hello, everyone.

I love this wiki and I would certainly like to contribute. I'm a professional Spanish translator and I would like to initiate the translation of the wiki into Spanish. I was trying to find what has been done already, but it seems it's not much if I have to go by the articles on this page Category:Español. There's only 6 articles and to be honest... they don't really seem to fit in this wiki (a goat? Spain?) mostly computer translated and there's also some vandalism like a link called "Cabrón" redirecting to some guy's page and other links going nowhere. How would I go about starting this project? I don't want to translate in a vacuum, I'd like to start an es.rationalwiki.org if possible, so there's a main page at least. I'd like to start by translating the Logic portal pages. Also, do you guys communicate only on here or do you have other place (slack, telegram, etc.) to discuss stuff and have more real-time conversations? Thanks in advance for your help. Sacádico (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * By all means, please do. RoninMacbeth (talk) 16:50, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do. And thanks for the tips as well, I'll check pages you mentioned. As I said, is there any other channel of communication that you use? Sacádico (talk) 17:19, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There's a Discord, but last I heard it was overrun with trolls. I'm not sure if anyone still uses it. RoninMacbeth (talk) 17:23, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Umm, ok. Maybe someone else has more info. BTW, how should I go about creating an es.rationalwiki.org? Or should this be done later on?Sacádico (talk) 17:30, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the mechanism for that, but generally we only do that after there is a critical mass of articles in a language, which is now only true for Russian. If there are any other people lurking around here who are fluent in Spanish and could help, it would certainly help with the burden for you. Bongolian (talk) 17:42, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * knows Spanish if I recall correctly. A Spanish RW would definitely be good, helping to expand our viewership more into Latin America. 22:00, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sí. Hablo español. And I'd be happy to help in any way that I can. I don't know anything about science and I don't know much abut logic. I might be able to translate some pages related to folklore or literature. The Santa Claus and Oscar Wilde pages come to mind.
 * As for a separate es.rationalwiki.org domain name, that ain't gonna happen. That is, not unless you yourself are prepared to pay for all the costs that hosting a different domain and allowing it to link via interwikis to this one and the Russian one would involve.
 * And I have to pull you up on some mistakes you made in talking about the cabra page. So there are two dead links in the references. Considering the page was created ten years ago, that's really not surprising. That's not a deliberate attempt to mislead people. That's just the ephemeral nature of the internet on display. There's no vandalism on that page. Andrew Schlafly is not just "some guy" (y es un cabrón de verdad). In fact, not understanding the historical significance of either the goat or Andrew Schlafly to this site suggests to me that you might need to spend a bit more time developing more of a feel for RationalWiki before you embark on your translation project. Spud (talk) 03:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I realized later, sorry. I should definitely spend some more time exploring. However, to be honest, the Logic project is what I usually refer to on RW, which seems to include less inside jokes than other sections. But I might also be wrong there. Also, there are definitely some parts of the goat page that are machine translated. Weird what you mention about paying for the domain, I thought everything fell on the RationalWiki.org domain... Sacádico (talk) 04:51, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds like someone needs to visit the Re-Educational Gulags RationalWiki timeline and Conservapedia articles. 03:28, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize one had to pay to register a subdomain. Wikipedia's hosting costs must be exorbitant then, considering the number of subdomains it has. And yeah, it probably is best to read up on some of the history . Maybe start with just the Andy Schlafly, TK, and Conservapedia pages. 03:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tips. I have been taking a look at the pages you mentioned. I feel they deal with relatively local interests, though. What I mean is that it's probably not one of the major concerns for a Spanish speaker, and it's probably more interesting for US-based people or at least people in the anglosphere. I believe in Europe there is really not so much talk or debate about creationism or this kind of bigotry as in the US. Also, as the Conservapedia article mentions, it seems it's there more for historical than current reasons. I certainly prefer to focus more on other areas. But as I said, thanks for pointing them out for me! Sacádico (talk) 05:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think she was suggesting that you translate them, just that you read them for your own edification and get a better understanding of how RatWWki came into being. I'd agree that the best articles to translate into any other language would be the ones that are the least culturally specific.
 * I don't doubt that some of the cabra page was machine translated. But that's just laziness, not malice.
 * And as a member of the Bard of Trustees, I can confidently say that setting up an es.rationalwiki.org subdomain would be a right pain in the arse and wouldn't get any support from other Board members. And I wouldn't suggest it anyway, at least not until we had a few hundred articles in Spanish. Spud (talk) 05:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah, I got it. Thanks for the clarification. And it's ok about the subdomain, I thought it'd be easier, but in any case, it makes sense to have enough articles first. Sacádico (talk) 06:44, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * heh heh... "Bard of Trustees." That someone who composes poems about... eh, I dunno. Someone more witty finish this for me. —Kazitor, pending 10:13, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, considering that I come from Stratford-upon-Avon, that's not a wholly inappropriate typo. Spud (talk) 12:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Go for it! Give people a dose of reason. Like User:Bongolian, I don't know how it works. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:44, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

"Science" Textbooks for fundie Christian schools
Now I have zero problem if someone has religion (I have religious beliefs) but looking at creation science books is awful. I know many of you already know and I have known for a while but are these books serious? I know that stuff like this is already on the wiki but I swear for every actual bit of science there is 1000 chunks of pseudoscience (I am not a genius at mathematics, sue me). I believe in intelligent design but accept evolution (including human evolution). At least have other (not quote mined statements) viewpoints. These creationist textbooks should count as a UN violation. Aliens did it --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:09, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * What I'm about to say may offend your religious beliefs, if so feel free to ignore it. The whole point of Creationism is to preach to the choir and convert the heathens. It's only natural for Biblical literalists to take offense at science (though you would think most of them would also take offense a good chunk of modern life as a result) and view it as a competing ideology and as a result try to usurp it. Given that they're using a patchwork compilation of various primitive documents as the basis for their worldview, it is (again) only natural that the result be complete idiocy and insanity. 01:26, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The only way they can keep this going is to dismiss their countless fallacies and massive amount of pseudoscience by claiming that this is real science and the scientific community is out to get them. They've been taught this is the only possible answer and everything else is insane, despite any evidence to the contrary, which is why it's very difficult and often impossible to convince a creationist. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 01:43, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I gave up on expecting them to learn anything ages ago. In fact part of how I ended up on RationalWiki in the first place (way back before I registered my account) was looking for humorous debunking of creationism and Chemtrails (worst conspiracy theory ever, akin to going nuts because smoke is coming out of your car's exhaust pipe). 01:48, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

No offense taken. I am actually Pagan and not Christian. I am aware intelligent design is not recognized but I am cool with it. I tend to distance myself from the fundies. I could go into detail but I am not in the mood to do so. Anyways, those textbooks are hilariously bad. My philosophy is to let people make up their own minds over nutcase indoctrination. Though many of those books are produced in America and I am American, still should count as some sort of UN violation. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:57, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I doubt that they're violating any UN laws that I'm aware of, although they are violating the (U.S.) establishment clause. 02:28, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Considering 'there is more to heaven and earth than in a purely scientific philosophy' (what is the basis of beauty, humour etc etc?), and 'even with several billion years of evolution and "logical consequences design" (four limbs with five digits creatures were for other reasons more successful or merely "lucky" (access to resources etc) than six limbs with six digits, leading to base 10 rather than base 12 arithmetic etc) life does seem peculiarly complex' is compatible with accepting a scientific attitude. Anna Livia (talk) 08:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sure those books would be quite a read to check the anti-stupidity circuits as well as to have some laughs being used to creationist BS. When all you have as basis are just Bronze Age/Roman Empire (at best) texts, you're doomed to fail especially if you're so clueless in science that you have to use as source AiG and similar bullshit creators, or simply PIDOOMAing things. As for that clause, I guess those idiots would claim that they're being prosecuted as usual.
 * And as you comment above, if those are against science I guess they'd stop using all those stuff that exists thanks to it and that they use to spread their crap (I think you can contact with angels to use them as Internet substitutes if you pray hard enough). Panzerfaust (talk) 13:41, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Science 4 Christian Schools
Now that one is totally classic! I know these books cannot count as a UN violation (I said that as a joke) If Christian schools use religion oriented science books, fine but use secular books at the same time. Apologia Educational Ministries is far better than Science 4 Christian Schools. I am Thor! --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:17, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * They can't, they need sufficient bias or nobody will buy it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 18:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Independent thought is a sin I guess. You are right. The fundie private schools do not want students to make up their own minds. Let people decide for themselves. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 19:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Being "born"
from a scientific perspective matter cannot be crated or destroyed and if that is true then can we say anything is born? Or is it merely a transmuting and rearranging of matter? Do I even have parents or was I truly ever born? Machina (talk) 01:36, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You most definitely have parents, most likely they're the two people you spent a large portion of your childhood with. Not at all sure what exactly you're trying to say here. —Kazitor, pending 02:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Snowflakes are the rearrangement of water molecules into a sufficiently large ice crystal. Snowflakes are known for their uniqueness like each individual human. To create a wooden spoon, you carve out a preexisting wooden block. Are you creating a spoon or are you actually just removing matter? The question seems to be irrelevant and futile. Is it really imperative? —ClickerClock (talk) 09:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Inmaterial (as in being the product of the brain, not in the sense of a soul) stuff as consciousness can be said to be born, whatever the way the brain is turned on during gestation. Panzerfaust (talk) 11:47, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

What I am getting at is that could we really say anything new is "born" when it's just matter being "transmuted" (for lack of a better term I know) into something else. The buddhist terms of oneness and impermanence ring here.Machina (talk) 16:34, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I've often thought it's arrogant to say I "made a bed" when all I really did was rearrange a few sheets and blankets. But at the end of the day it's all semantics. MrEricSir (talk) 05:12, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Popular book on the alt-right, "Kill all Normies", plagiarized multiple pages from RationalWiki
Thought you might want to know about this. From the article: Interesting. 17:38, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You're not the first one here to notice. Somebody else brought it up here a week ago. KevinR1990 (talk) 17:45, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

At least make some sort of citation (Not us but rather the ripoff artist). That guy is a douche. This is the Emergency Alert System serving the Rationalwiki area. During this emergency all pages will broadcast this message --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 18:59, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Why is it that Nazis never make books with titles like "My first mass murder" or "happy bunny murders everyone that looks different"? I mean they should really work some positivity into their calls to murder everyone in a childish spat of ignorance, fear, and Freudian self loathing. 19:17, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Usually two Nazis share half a brain between them. Maybe Nazis will master reading the book "Go Dog Go" by P.D Eastman. Give them a decade and they may be able to master 4th grade literature. Kent Hovind managed to reach the 4th grade level. But Nazis are idiots. Anyone want waffles --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * For clarity I must point out that Angela Nagle (the author of this book) is not a Nazi or associated in anyway with the right wing, she is a left wing journalist. 'Legion what do you want from me  17:35, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * somehow that seems... worse actually. In addition, the title is still thoroughly depressing. 17:40, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

From the way it sounded I figured it was related to Nazism. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 18:33, 30 May 2018 (UTC)