RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive425

Greetings and Salutations!
Hello there, my fellow Rationalwiki..uh...perusers? Is that right? I hope so. Anyway! I am..somewhat new to this whole thing, though my account has been around for a few months now. I just wanted to get in on the socialisation here and enjoy a friendly chat. Please don't bonk me, i'm innocent of whatever crime you may think I have committed (QAQ)--LeGrandePumbloom ᴬⁿ ᴱˡᵈʳⁱᵗᶜʰ ᴬᵇᵒᵐⁱⁿᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵗʰᵉ ²¹ˢᵗ ᴰⁱᵐᵉⁿˢⁱᵒⁿ 03:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)


 * hey there m8 nice to meet you hope you have good time here, hope to see you around some time, have a good one Your friendly neighborhood anarchist, Wheelson 15:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

This is the result of making an anime movie while smoking crack at the same time
https://youtu.be/uwyqIeGF6Rs

Evangelion 3.0+1.0:Thrice Upon a Time is the end result. It is nightmare fuel. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 23:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Smoking crack? Evangelion? I think you have missed something entirely. Evangelion is possibly one of the more philosophical animé series ever made. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:31, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am aware of the philosophy. I am saying that the visuals are like a drug trip. It is a very deep anime that is a representation of Depression. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 12:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I must have taken the wrong psychedelics when I was younger, as I never had a trip like that Cardinal Chang (talk) 18:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I thought the "philosophy" was just added in after the fact when they realized they didn't know what they actually wanted to do? Sort of like Chinatown, where Polanski had no clue how to end it so he basically said F it and that ended up making it a classic.  22:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

what the hell is going on in china?
someone tell me, i want to know, is there anything cool going on? i can't seem to find anything that is not about "the war" Your friendly neighborhood anarchist, Wheelson 16:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Winnie the Pooh continues genocidal policies against various Turkic people, particularly Uighurs and Kazakhs. I mean, it's not cool, but it's definitely going on. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:49, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There was also the recent incident of former president Hu Jintao being kicked out of the Party Congress. Given the CCP's secrecy, the reasons for what happened are anyone's guess. Plutocow (talk) 16:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Liz Truss's downfall. I am puzzled about much of the situation.
I was reading some RationalWiki material on Liz Truss and how she fell from power due to her economic policies. The markets didn't react well to her tax cuts. She cut taxes, but she did not make corresponding cuts in public expenditures. I know each economic situation is context-dependent and that modern economies are very complex. What I don't understand is why the markets didn't act similarly when Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump cut taxes without cuts in total government expenditures. The only educated guess that I can make is the UK didn't have the same upward economic growth potential as the USA did under Reagan and Trump (Post Brexit trade issues, Post Brexit labor shortages, productivity problems, etc.).

I hope Rishi Sunak is better than Truss and that doesn't seem too high a bar to clear. Diverging Ruby (talk) 00:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is what will happen when you sell out to the rich during a major economic crisis. Here is a source of information regarding this topic, it may be helpful to read. Wisconcom (talk) 01:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Wisconcom, about 99% of your web page dealt with politics. My question was economic in nature. Diverging Ruby (talk) 01:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * the mini budget september 2022 can be contextualised by the political, economic, cultural climate that led up to it and the events that followed because its more or less just happened. specific events at a specific time and place in a specific world. what you comparing this to? vague allusions to tax cuts in a different country during a period that spans decades. feel like thats not enough for valid comparisons or drawing any conclusions. AMassiveGay (talk) 05:18, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There was no single cause behind the market's lack of confidence, but one of Truss's big problems was the mismatch between fiscal and monetary policy. We were (and are) in a time of rising inflation. This means that the central bank was in the process of raising interest rates in an effort to reduce inflation (and by implication economic activity).  This is monetary policy controlled by the Bank of England and not by the government.
 * Meanwhile the Truss government's policy (fiscal policy) was to boost economic activity by cutting taxes and to pay for the shortfall by borrowing money.
 * So the UK was proposing that it would have it's foot simultaneously on the brake and the accelerator and that it would furthermore somehow square this circle by borrowing money. The explanations in respect of how this would actually work consisted largely of handwaving and wishful thinking. Not surprisingly the entities who would be responsible for lending this money were a little dubious about the approach and wanted the UK to pay a lot to cover their perceived risk.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Bob provided some helpful feedback that was helpful to me, but I will add my two cents. Economies are like rockets. They have thrust factors that lift them up and weight/drag factors that weigh them down. Tax cuts are not a panacea when it comes to thrusting an economy upwards. Merely throwing out big tax cuts and promising to help the public with energy costs like Truss did wasn't reassuring during these tough times in the UK. I have noticed that successful political campaigns on the right/left give comprehensive packages which they pitch to the voters such as the Republicans' "Contract with America"/"Commitment to America" and FDR's New Deal.


 * One of the definitions/explanations of inflation is that there is too much money chasing too few goods. Cutting taxes stimulates an economy which can raise production and therefore raise the amount of goods which can help inflation. And some or all of the tax cuts can sometimes be offset by the net amount of total taxes being brought in increasing because there is more economic activity and therefore more taxes coming in. But Bob is right that borrowing money isn't free for the government so ideally wasteful/inefficient government spending is eliminated or pared down. The UK is facing a lot of economic headwinds and core problems so there are a lot of weight/chains weighing down on the UK economy so I don't think that the markets or public thought that tax cuts by themselves were going to thrust the UK's economy upwards and that the UK government would be saddled with more debt made worse by tax cuts which failed to stimulate the economy sufficiently. If there is too much external wind and internal problems in an economy, the case that tax cuts can increase total tax receipts due to increasing economic adequately becomes less compelling. Part of it may be cultural too. Financial markets are international in scope, but there is a locale aspect too. If supply-side economics is less fashionable in a country, it is more difficult to offer supply-side economic solutions to the markets and to the public. Supply-side economic solutions could be a harder case to make during a period of supply chain problems and gas/energy supply problems too.


 * I was never a big Liz Truss fan, but I kind of felt sorry for her or any person taking the Prime Minister position at this time. Because the UK is facing so many problems, being a current UK Prime Minister is like being a general being thrown into a battle after the previous general was killed and the enemy is overrunning the lines. It reminds me of the movie We Were Soldiers where Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore cries "Broken Arrow" over the radio to central command because he desperately needs air support due to his lines being overrun by the Vietcong. Right now, the UK public is divided and not in a mood to give politicians a lot of "air support" and the markets are jittery. Vice regent (talk) 08:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Economics is political, while politics is economic... you cannot really divide the two.


 * Anyway, Ruby your theory is wrong. It's not that 'the markets' don't think the UK has the same potential as the USA, it's simply because of the issue of 'dollar seigniorage'. The USA would have run into the buffers long ago re: National Debt if there wasn't an almost unlimited demand for USD and Treasury Bonds (produced by deficit spending). The UK does not enjoy this unique advantage and thus, things came apart when Truss tried to pull the same wheeze as Reagan did in the early 80s.


 * The more long-term issue is that the markets simply didn't see how the hell it would work - not just Bob's point about causing more inflation in an already hugely stagflationary economy, but not even causing barely any growth either. It wouldn't have put any money into the hands of the ordinary Briton, nor helped investment or helped engineer a 'soft landing' for the massively bubbled property market which when it blows shall do to UK.Plc what that iceberg did to the Titanic. It would have basically made the top 5% of individuals and large companies significantly richer... in the vague hope it 'might trickle down' onto us poor oiks - something economics bods know never really works. The avoidance of getting any OBR forecasts etc to go with it simply was the icing on it.


 * They were also spooked by the political dimension. They knew if the growth didn't magically appear (which they didn't think would) they knew that huge spending cuts would have to happen, and they knew *that* would cause a massive domestic uproar - and 'collapsing public services' and 'severe political turmoil' is never good for either growth or stability. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

KarmaPolice you do make some good points, but you are missing part of the picture. I am not a currency trader, but I do know that there is a tremendous appetite for US dollars despite China/Russia and other countries attempting to weaken the dollar. On the other hand, another strong currency the Swiss Franc is holding up because it has a stronger and more competitive economy than the UK (And perhaps better monetary policies). But the German Deutsche Mark is presently losing value and its probably due to its current energy crisis and overreliance on cheap Russian energy. The UK needs to be more economically competitive and solve its energy problems ASAP. Vice regent (talk) 08:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Because I know more about stock investing than currency trading, I did a little digging and found this gem from Investopedia: "Factors that influence the exchange rate between currencies include currency reserve status, inflation, political stability, interest rates, speculation, trade deficits/surpluses, and public debt." The UK isn't doing well on any of these metrics. Vice regent (talk) 08:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks everyone. I better understand things now. I usually don't follow UK/European economics and politics very closely, but the war in Ukraine and the UK's loss of Prime Ministers and their queen raised my interest in Europe. Vice regent (talk) 10:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * As I explained above, the USD enjoys a unique position as the de facto world currency, which means there's an almost infinite external demand for it regardless of the economic fundimentals of USA.Corp itself. Now, it doesn't mean the USA can 'print' cash indefinitely in infinite amounts (sooner or later it would crash and crash hard, and inflation would be a worry too) but it does mean the finance bods in the Govt etc have more levers and a 'wider range of movement' than the British do. Truss forgot this simple piece of economic fact.


 * Well, glossing over the fact the DM has zero value as it's not existed since (I think) 2002, but it's clear you're not au fait with economics either because a 'strong' currency is not automatically a sign of health. National governments have the ability to 'strengthen' or 'weaken' their currencies somewhat to fill national goals. The British have had basically the same policy since perhaps 1950; an artificially 'strong' Sterling to encourage the use of London as a finance centre. Not only has this severely hollowed out her economy by making her exports uncompetitive and allow foreign firms to snap up British assets at a discount, but also leaves her very vunerable to external pressure as she is so dependent on foreign capital (qv: Black Wednesday). Thus, when Truss spooked the markets, it had a disproportinate effect.


 * One of the very few things Truss was correct on was that the UK has had a 'Lost Decade' in the '10s (while conveniently failing to mention two of the main culprits - Austerity and Brexit, which was done by her party) however her 'growth plan' was nothing more than trying do dump a bit more fuel into the engine to increase speed while ignoring the fact said engine is caked in rust and someone stole the money we'd put for new tyres. This, and the promises of 'slashing red tape' and hectoring us plebs to basically 'work harder' etc on made it 100% obvious that Truss was the hireling of the 'Tufton Street cranks' and thus had about the same effect as hearing Lionel Hutz is going to be your defence in a murder trial.


 * In some respects, the markets were not reacting to the economic aspects, but the political - and that was basically, 'Truss can go fuck herself'. So a huge amount of people 'bet against the UK', knowing she would crack soon enough. And she did. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In terms of currency valuation, I acknowledged your point about the USA's world reserve currency status and added some additional metrics through my Investopedia information. At no point did I say that a strong currency is automatically a sign of economic health. And there is no serious dispute that Switzerland and Germany have stronger and more competitive economies than the UK and that these countries are wealthier per capita. The UK economy has been the doldrums for about a decade and it has poor political leadership. And post Brexit, it has a lot of political division in its citizenry. I know that the British think tank the Centre for Economic and Business Research predicted eight years ago that the UK economy would overcome Germany's economy in about 20 years and their prediction was promoted on the BBC's Channel 4 news, but to quote the English singer Johnny Lyndon "England's dreaming". The UK may overcome Germany's economic strength someday and there is nothing wrong with optimism, but it is going to take a lot longer than a dozen years.


 * I probably made a mistake about the Deutsche Mark since Germany is a part of the EU and Switzerland is not. But as far as the Deutsche Mark, Wikipedia's article on the subject says: "The Deutsche Bundesbank has guaranteed that all German marks in cash form may be changed into euros indefinitely, and one may do so in person at any branch of the Bundesbank in Germany. Banknotes and coins can even be sent to the Bundesbank by mail. In 2012, it was estimated that as many as 13.2 billion marks were in circulation, with one poll from 2011 showing a narrow majority of Germans favouring the currency's restoration (although only a minority believed this would bring any economic benefit)." But I don't know how Deutsche Marks are valued by the German government when they convert it to Euros. I do know that the Euro has gone down since the early part of 2022. Vice regent (talk) 12:25, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In 2021, Switzerland had a government debt to GDP ratio of	41.4; Germany had a government debt to GDP ratio of 69.3; and the UK had a had a government debt to GDP ratio of 95.9. As a result, today Switzerland and Germany are in a much better position than the UK to help its citizenry weather the current and growing energy crisis in Europe. So while trimming government spending via austerity measures may not be popular, government indebtedness is generally a bad thing unless the money is invested in things that have a present-day value such as useful infrastructure. Vice regent (talk) 12:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, you did have a bit where you spoke about 'strong currencies' as being a generally good thing (and sign of economic health); I merely desired to point out that that is not automatically so. Strong or weak, the main thing which is desired is 'general stability' in values.


 * The thing you seem to be missing is that Austerity has clearly damaged the economic growth of the UK. For example, it's estimated that some 3% of GDP was lost in 2019 from worker ill-health, double the level in 2010. Now, a bit of it could be accounted for changing demographics but most of it is going to be clearly down to cuts in health and social spending. Similar can be said about productivity; not only is the UK dominated by low-wage, low-skill industries which generally have low 'productivity' (retail and hospitality) but it's almost seen nil improvement per-head since 2007. The fact that state investment - from roads to utilities, schooling to childcare - has been hugely slashed since then I'm sure has nothing to do with that.


 * What's more, Austerity has increased inefficiencies, not decreased them. Using cheap contractors so shit they're a false economy, keeping public worker pay so low that they have to end up paying up to 6x the price for agency staff to fill the holes, scrapping cheap 'prevention'/'maintenence' tasks thus forcing the users onto the expensive 'cure' track instead and so on. Cutting welfare supports is clearly part of this; cut a small amount of cash from a disabled person, watch them get sick and have to be hospitalised multiplied by the million. What's happened is that since 2010 the country has been eating it's own tail; burning out capital stock and tapping goodwill in a series of ever-desperate expediencies. But now they've run out of tail and almost all services are close to collapse. There is nothing left that can be 'cut' which won't cause serious political and social fallout (and the markets know this).


 * [For a person who claims to know little about the situation, you sure have a lot of opinions...] KarmaPolice (talk) 13:50, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

We live in an information age so it's not that difficult to quickly gather information and assess the merits of things plus I have some knowledge about business/economics. For example, in 2021 the [https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-the-united-kingdom/#:~:text=Healthcare%20spending%20in%20the%20United,11.9%20percent%20of%20the%20GDP. UK spent 11.9 percent of its GDP on healthcare] on the lackluster National Health Service (NHS) which is government paid healthcare full of quality/staffing problems and patient waiting times. In 2019, Switzerland had a privately funded world-class Swiss healthcare system in terms of quality and they spent 11.29 percent of their GDP on healthcare.

The Swiss and Germans work less hours than UK citizens per worker, but they are far more productive so Switzerland and Germany have higher standards of living. When I think of innovation, productivity, efficiency, the USA, Switzerland and Germany come top of mind. The UK does not. Big government countries weighed down by excessive regulation and bureaucracy do not excel when it comes to innovation, productivity and efficiency and the UK has too much government. Vice regent (talk) 14:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, because it's 'Big Government' causing this, not the simple fact that Austerity slashed investment spending, akin to a business in a death-spiral firing everyone, flogging off factories and slashing R&D so they can continue to pay execs and shareholders (fun fact; German businesses have more regulations than UK ones!). Odd, how a decade of 'shrinking the state' has reduced the UK's economic prospects... almost like that 'too much government!' line was a pile of shit?


 * I shall admit, Ken - this persona is one of the better ones. You actually had me wondering for a decent moment, there (and even occasionally sorta-answered my point, though perhaps by accident). But you simply couldn't not mount one of your hobbyhorses, could you? KarmaPolice (talk) 14:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)


 * …Wait, what? That's Ken? Luigifan18 (talk) 14:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The Germans are world famous for their love of rules and order. But they are also world famous for their efficiency and engineering. So I suspect that German rules/regulations are often common sense so they do not adversely affect efficiency. There seems to be quite a few British laws that are weird and make no sense. Vice regent (talk) 15:11, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Another key point is as a share of its economy, Germany's manufacturing sector is double the size of Britain's – 23% of national GDP, compared with 11%, according to the World Bank. Industry often necessitates more regulation due to air/water pollution and worker safety considerations. Workers are far more likely to get injured in a factory situation than in an office situation. Vice regent (talk) 15:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * so what we have learned from this is that the uk is doing poorly by any metric, but importantly it is doing poorly in areas given no more context than the uk is doing poorly in those areas compared to countries not doing poorly in these areas. this is the fault of big government because big government is bad and the uk needs to be more efficient and productive to improve its efficiency and productivity. no word on what this looks like, but the uk should try not making rubbish rules and regs and try instead to make good rules and regs because good rules and regs are not bad rules and regs. all the profundity of a puddle but the important thing is that everything bad is them and everything good is us. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Switzerland was ranked the most innovative country in the world in 2022 as far as the global innovation index and the USA was ranked 2nd (Unfortunately for UK citizens the UK did not win, place or show and came in at a distant fourth place). And in terms of their productivity rates the Swiss, Americans, and Germans are all more productive than the UK so all these countries have a better standard of living than the UK since this is a key metric of a country's prosperity (Working smarter gets more done than working harder in many cases). I am sure that the Brits will keep a stiff upper lip and press on, but I doubt they will ever catch up to Switzerland in my lifetime when it comes to their per capita standard of living. Vice regent (talk) 18:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Assuming this is Ken (again), I find it hilarious that he’s once again trotting out efficiency, but is now stumbling towards the actual meaning of the word, i.e. how much one hour of labour produces, while last time he thought it showed something about British labourers being lazy.


 * However, he still seems unable to get his head around the fact that one of the serious problems of the UK economy is due to basically a decade and a half of “austerity”, which is essentially class warfare from the top. Instead, he trots out the classic “Big Gub’ment can’t do anything right” canard along with his usual “national character” stereotyping (as if he’s reading from an early 20th century encyclopaedia); which is lazy and boring and really not worth a anyone spending more time on. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * KenBot has a series of 'tells', which I'm naturally not going to elaborate here. This current iteration has enough to cite my suspicions, but not enough to convict (which is why I didn't ban them... yet). Well, except the bit that KenBot generally has such a poor grasp of the subject-matter at hand that trying to 'discuss' anything is actually laughable and would only work on 'convincing' people stupider than they. I recommend you prepare a CV and send it to the following address - they're always looking for talent of your calibre...
 * The Institute of Economic Affairs
 * 55 Tufton Street
 * London
 * SW1P 3QL
 * KarmaPolice (talk) 21:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't forget next door, 57 Tufton Street, another festering hole of pratling sycophants, who know what they endorse is bad for the general public, but don't see why it should affect their business interests. Cardinal Chang (talk) 22:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for all the data gathering and analysis everyone. Now it's my turn to contribute. I found a 2019 list of countries ranked by global competitiveness and Singapore was ranked #1, the United States was ranked #2, Switzerland was ranked #5, Germany was ranked #7 and the UK was ranked #9.

But Singapore was ranked #7 for innovation in 2022 while the UK was ranked #4.

Wikipedia's 2017 list of labour productivity does show the Swiss, Americans and Germans having a significant advantage, but Singapore is only slightly higher than the UK. There was some discussion about how hard the workers work in countries. By hours worked per worker in countries Wikipedia shows the following rankings as far most to least hours worked in a year as far as the countries discussed above: Singapore (2,237.73 hours worked per worker per year); USA (1,757.23 hours worked per worker per year); UK (1,670.27 hours worked per worker per year); Switzerland (1,589.68 hours worked per worker per year) and Germany (1,353.89 hours worked per worker per year).

The UK has gone through a number of Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson lacked integrity and was brought down by a scandal. Liz Truss made a big error in her economic policy and she was accused of lacking empathy. And since she made a big mistake in her economic policy and lacked empathy, little empathy towards her was shown by the UK's leadership and general public.

The UK is in a tight spot right now as is much of the world. The road to improvement for the UK is: better political leadership, higher economic competitiveness, higher labour productivity and greater innovation/creativity. It can also choose the road of the Singapore and USA and work harder as a society. Diverging Ruby (talk) 02:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Careful now. Don't want you to get blinded by your flashes of the obvious, do we? KarmaPolice (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So the UK just needs: "better political leadership, higher economic competitiveness, higher labour productivity and greater innovation/creativity (and to) work harder as a society." I'm sure that they could be fixed in a week or so. I can't understand why nobody has done it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I suggest we propose them for the Athenaeum, a tenured post at an Oxbridge college and an OBE. Who needs the alleged 'genius' of Dominic Cummings when we can have the real deal being presented here? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Some British people try to increase their economic lot in life by promoting socialism. Others may try the Singaporean approach and study/work hard. Others may try the Swiss/German approach and become more innovative/efficient (productive). Personally, I think the American hybrid approach of combining the Singaporean/Swiss/German approaches. Also, consider these stats from the social democratic type country The Netherlands from Tilsburg University: "Although the Netherlands is one of the richest countries in Europe, there is poverty here, too. Research by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows that single-parent families, people with a non-Western background, welfare recipients, and single people under the age of 65 have a high risk of severe poverty. Poverty manifests itself in (very) limited financial resources, social exclusion, health problems, and limited access to education. In 2018, 584,000 of the nearly 7.4 million households had to live on low incomes. This was as many as in the previous year." (I call this the "invisible hand" of marriage). The most vulnerable of all these approaches to increasing one's lot in life is trying to promote socialism in a capitalist country because it is subject to elections and austerity measures. Diverging Ruby (talk) 08:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * With gems of insight like this, I cannot help but wonder why you're not the head of the IMF or perhaps a Finance Minister of your own country. I mean, the LSE has about 1,800 academics trying to answer these questions - and you nail it in a few lines! Wow.


 * As your genius is so profound, I'm going to help the world by helping you get off writing here and say, finish that paper napkin you're supposed to be sending the UN where you solve global poverty in three paragraphs? KarmaPolice (talk) 10:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

The Swiss, Americans, Germans and the former British colony of Singapore all have a Protestant/Christian cultural legacy to some extent.

The article The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries published in Christianity Today notes:


 * "In his fifth year of graduate school, Woodberry created a statistical model that could test the connection between missionary work and the health of nations. He and a few research assistants spent two years coding data and refining their methods. They hoped to compute the lasting effect of missionaries, on average, worldwide...


 * One morning, in a windowless, dusty computer lab lit by fluorescent bulbs, Woodberry ran the first big test. After he finished prepping the statistical program on his computer, he clicked "Enter" and then leaned forward to read the results.


 * "I was shocked," says Woodberry. "It was like an atomic bomb. The impact of missions on global democracy was huge. I kept adding variables to the model—factors that people had been studying and writing about for the past 40 years—and they all got wiped out. It was amazing. I knew, then, I was on to something really important."


 * Woodberry already had historical proof that missionaries had educated women and the poor, promoted widespread printing, led nationalist movements that empowered ordinary citizens, and fueled other key elements of democracy. Now the statistics were backing it up: Missionaries weren't just part of the picture. They were central to it...


 * Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.


 * In short: Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple—if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary.""


 * the above link fails to mention the casement report or the congo reform association, inflating and misrepresenting the role of missionaries in ending the atrocities in the belgian congo. it also odd that the belgian congo is being used to show a link with missionary work and democracy today, because today the congo is not a place associated with democracy today. the article is pretty quiet on where these blossoming democracies are. the 'what they brought world' certainly does not add much in the way of evidence for the claimed link between missionary work and democracy, with works cited in china and congo for example cannot in any stretch of the imagination be used to support any statements of missionaries are required for the 'blossoming' of democracy. even where in the countries listed which are now democratic linking missionary work as a fundamental factor in democracy emerging over states the importance of missaonary work to the democracies of these places generally and of the specific works being highlighted. and of course it ignores the immense and fundamental role missionaries provided in colonialism and the subjugation of the people in lands being colonised and complicit if not directly involved the poverty of deficit of human rights and democracy that far too often blights former colonies.


 * if this piece of apologia is typical of the sources the above gets their info from, its small wonder their grasp of history and of politics and the world today is so deficient. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * some missionaries did actually work to improve the lives of their flock, but so did many others and not just protestants - notably roger casement for one, who was neither protestant nor a missionary and not even mentioned in the linked article in its discussion of the atrocities he was instrumental in ending. and it goes without saying the efforts of the native populations completely ignored in the spirit of the white mans burden the article represents - dont wanna be giving any credit to those heathen savages do we now. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * its also interesting that the protestant missionaries lauded by the article are all anglicans. so church of england - the official state religion of the uk. the same uk that is currently failing so spectacularly that op could not help but to gloat over (not very jesus-y now is it. 'your christ i like. your christians? not so much' gandhi - a non christian and not a missionary intrumental in ending british rule of his country) apparently the protestant work ethic is not so miraculous after all. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:49, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * As a Brit do not see any connection between the CofE and the economy - especially as there are Chapel, Scottish Presbyterians, the Bowler Hatters and many other persuasions - besides see this. Anna Livia (talk) 20:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * They're linked alright; the CoE's landholdings are larger than Rutland, it's pension fund is £3.7bn, it's investment fund is £10bn, it gets at least £150m a year of government funding, it has 4,600 schools (funded by us), I would vaguely guestimate (they're very coy about numbers) about 80,000 people directly work for it (about the same as Barclays) and owns 8/9 of the top 100 UK tourist attractions.
 * A slight aside, avoiding the pile of steaming dung the troll left... KarmaPolice (talk) 12:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't actually think he was a troll. Just some kid with a simplistic worldview.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Kendoll is not a kid and is a troll, but simplistic worldview is right. At any rate, we're seeing how much those Protestants really love democracy in America as the evangelicals fall head over heels for the Big Lie grift of Donald Trump. His silly little non-sequitur should be ignored. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 17:37, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Running an Ethical Business
I've been flirting with the idea of starting a game development company and going independent, but I'm worried about what is sustainable or not. I could do an LLC with multiple people having joint ownership, but if I'm providing the capital I would be pretty worried someone would just runaway with the funds and not actually work on the project. I only have enough capital for a lean team (or a bunch of college interns). Is it even ethical to go into business when I can't promise any kind of longevity? Is it just foolish to give joint ownership when it isn't equal risk? I feel guilty trying to use something like Fiver because people charge unsustainably low fees for their work in what looks like a race to the bottom. But that said, I hired someone salary I couldn't pay them a normal software developers wage (probably only around $20/hr sustainably). MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * So long as everyone knows it's a startup it's not unethical to start it. As for joint ownership, if you provide the capital, YOU should own the company.  If you want to share ownership, you can offer to pay people in shares in lieu of money, e.g., you "would" pay your partners $100k each, but you will pay them $50k and $50k worth of ownership.  15:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * As for games, what type are you designing? 15:25, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It is a game where you build machines out of blocks and parts and use them to go through pre-built levels. It has a fantasy theme, and you do stuff like fight treeants and groups of soldiers in your vehicle you build.  I don't think I'm supposed to advertise here so I don't want to link stuff.
 * Anyways I need lots of stuff done. I can do coding, modeling, and I can do basic music mixing and instrumentation (although I can't compose for sh**), but the project is too large for just me to do everything.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as ethical businesses under capitalism. 15:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That is part of my worry. But what is more unethical, just not making the game / making it myself and solely reaping the benefit, or paying people to do a job at substandard rates in as coercion free an environment as I can foster within a capitalist structure?  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Have you taken a look at  15:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * What Corrupt describes is known as 'sweat equity'; where effort is put into the enterprise for a share of the company. Or a share of the profits of 'the project'. I would personally consider using interns without even covering their costs as unethical. I would do a 'wild-ass-guess' plan/budget to see whether what you're attempting is at least theoretically possible (and sellable).


 * But whatever else you do, do it in the legally proper manner. This means setting up as a 'proper company', with business accounts, lawyer-done contracts, trademarking and all that jazz. So everyone knows where they stand. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah it sounds like hiring a lawyer is inevitable. I was looking through the "starting a worker coop" information, and it sounds like it is more legally complicated to setup than a traditional top-down business.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 16:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A worker cooperative is probably the most ethical option if that is your only goal. Workplace democracy, especially in a game development studio, is not a bad thing to go for. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:54, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You can always start out as a company, then convert later into say, a partnership. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:20, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There's also Valve's model, which is pretty much the most successful quasi-Anarchist business. Basically, the company hires software developers and lets them just simply do whatever project they want.  It works for them because 1) Steam is just printing money for no actual cost, 2) the type of work that they do is of the kind where engineers have to actually want to do it anyway in order to actually do it, 3) it doesn't matter what I say here because we all know Valve can't count this far.  18:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Given that ethics are contingent upon immediate circumstances, not vague economic theories, let's not delimit the field of ethics to non-capitalistic endeavors.Ariel31459 (talk) 19:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Half-Life 3 reference? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Talk to business law experts on this sort of thing if possible. RW is not a perfect substitute. That said, this might be helpful- https://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-characteristics-ethical-business-22401.html --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

How do I get over stuff like this?
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/26649185#26649185

Specifically by the user Tantrika talking about how there is no reason to feel anything with regards to situations as they are just random happenings (among other stuff on that page and the next few pages, like 1 or 2).

I don't really know how to get over stuff I read like this. My brain just has this habit of locking certain things in as facts and then ignoring all else that argues otherwise. It can't accept that maybe it might not be true, or they're lying or mistaken, I have a very rigid sense of information like that.

I know I've said this before a lot, I just don't know how to move on. I've tried to on my own, but it hasn't worked and I want to know how others do it. Aren't you afraid you'll be wrong? Or miss out on some secret knowledge? OR scared that you're living in delusion? Or that you're choosing comfort over truth? Or that you're being close minded? This stuff runs through my head a lot whenever I try to let it go and it effectively stops me from moving on.

So I want to know the difference between us. What lets everyone else let this go or even not regard it, whatever the word is, what lets folks not be affected the way that I am.Machina (talk) 21:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I may be new here, but I don't think these collapses are entirely fair. Vee (talk) 23:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * QED. Vee (talk) 00:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No it's Machina. They have been reprimanded for posting here every week about how nothing is real, and how much it bothers them they can't disprove solipsism. Tbh I would love a serious philosophical conversation about how to respond to epistemic skepticism, and I have defended Machina in the past -- but quickly it becomes apparent they are not actually interested in philosophical discussion and they kind of just want to waste everyone's time to tell them how much they are not real. If it's not solipsism, then it's hard determinism, and if it's not that then it's nihilism. I think it's been awhile since they last posted because they were temporary banned from posting... now they are back. It would be a lot more tolerable if at least in response to nihilism Machina had a more optimistic outlook. Nihilism is cool actually. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:35, 28 October 2022 (UTC).

This has nothing to do with any of that. I'm just wondering how other people can move past this, because I can't seem to.Machina (talk) 17:20, 29 October 2022 (UTC)


 * "Aren't you afraid you'll be wrong? Or miss out on some secret knowledge? OR scared that you're living in delusion? Or that you're choosing comfort over truth? Or that you're being close minded? " Almost everyone thinks all of those things. Did you know that's why most people don't read anything? They are like Donald Trump and just watch a lot of TV. Life is like a casino and we each have a number of chips. We spend most of our time figuring which game to play, not wondering which window to jump through. Your problem is you read. It's not for you. Stop doing it. Maybe take up a trade or fight forest fires. Ariel31459 (talk) 01:32, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

stopping going on shroomery.org will solve half your problems AMassiveGay (talk) 02:19, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But it's not just that it's pretty much new takes or information in general. I lock into it and despite other views or contrary evidence I can't let it go. Shroomery isn't the cause, it's but one in a long string of ideas that have had the same effect and when I share them others don't react like I do and I want to know how so I can do it too. I don't want to be hung up on this but I can't stop it, so I want to know the secret others seem to know.Machina (talk) 17:20, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know what to tell you besides that most people just simply don't worry about this. Serious philosophers do in an intellectual sense but they take it to have a prompt to engage in serious philosophy. You on the other hand seem to be struggling with intrusive thoughts. To "get over it" may require you to engage more seriously in metaphysics and epistemology and expand your analytical abilities (which is doubtful) or you simply may need therapy (which no one here has the professional judgement to say that is in fact the case). - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 17:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC).
 * Listening to any of the responses to your questions when you "seek advice" and learning to concede one single point once in your life would solve the other half of your problems. Asking people what they think and then dismissing everything everyone says is fucking obnoxious Machina. Shabi  DOO  22:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Aren't you afraid you'll be wrong? Or miss out on some secret knowledge? OR scared that you're living in delusion? Or that you're choosing comfort over truth? Or that you're being close minded? Generally, I'm not worried that I'm missing out on "secret knowledge" or living in a delusion. I have encountered arguments that have made me think I've been closed-minded, or been subject to confirmation bias, or otherwise been wrong about something. It still happens sometimes that when I read an argument for a position I disagree with, I am substantially more sympathetic to that position, at least for a time, especially when the argument raises a point I haven't previously considered. But, I've read a lot of good arguments, and devoted quite a bit of time to studying and considering arguments. The arguments on Shroomery that seem to concern you so much don't concern me, because I have enough experience and background to recognize them as bad arguments. Consider this excerpt from Tantrika: "You spend enough time in meditation, you will realize that you never genuinely feel feelings in the first place. It is all just cause and effect response, and a lot of the time the specificity of that response is ascribed to how societal expectations dictate [how] one should be effected (sic) by a particular cause. loss-->sadness gain-->joy (punctuation mine)". The first bit, "you spend enough time in meditation", is just framing the argument, giving rhetorical weight to what follows by appeal to a kind of mystical authority (i.e. meditative insight). You could remove this, and the argument would be essentially the same. The thesis is that "you never genuinely feel feelings in the first place". Now, "you never feel feelings" is almost trivially false, based on ordinary experience, so "genuinely" is doing a lot of work here. Unfortunately, what follows doesn't provide any explanation of what it takes for a feeling to be genuine, in the author's eyes. "It is all just cause and effect response" is ambiguous, but from what follows it seems that Tantrika means that feelings are always caused by something external to oneself. There's an implicit claim being made here that if a feeling has some cause external to oneself, then the feeling isn't genuine. But why should we believe that? Pretty much nobody seems to believe that causation is incompatible with emotions, and there's no obvious reason why emotions would be de-legitimized by causation, and Tantrika doesn't provide any non-obvious reason to think this (because they don't provide any reason at all). So the argument isn't persuasive. And from the rest of my life, and from the fact that this is a post on Shroomery, I have pretty good justification to think they're wrong. So I'm not concerned. I have no reason to think I'm wrong, nor that Tantrika has secret knowledge (or much in the way of non-secret knowledge, frankly), nor that I'm living in a delusion, nor that I'm choosing comfort over truth, nor that I'm being closed-minded.
 * The others here are correct. If you want to get better at recognizing faults in arguments, or at recognizing good justifications for holding a position, you'd do well to get off Shroomery. Consuming a lot of bad arguments is not going to do anything but help you construct bad arguments. I've no idea what term you're looking for as far as "locking certain things in as facts and then ignoring all else", but some terms that seem to be in the general vicinity are "dogmatism", "confirmation bias", "motivated reasoning", "stubbornness", and "obstinance". 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒  talk  00:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I think that the people who are saying Machina needs to 'get over' their obsession with solipsism are approaching the problem the wrong way. Machina does not need to study metaphysics and epistemology, none of which would help sort out solipsism. What Machina needs to do is muster up some courage. People with OCD can't 'get over it', either, they have to find the courage to live without doing their rituals. Machina needs to 'tell' the universe that Machina doesn't care what the big joke is, that Machina will live their life according to a non-deterministic reality, refusing to cower under the weight of reason itself. Machina needs to use reason as a tool that Machina controls, not a concept that takes control of Machina. FairDinkum (talk) 06:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * These are things we have already addressed multiple times FairDinkum. Machina so far has been incapable of listening to advice and refuses to believe that any form of professional assistance will make any difference. The efforts of most people here are just to contain Machinas toxic ideas so that it does not infect other people's minds here like a brain virus.

I've been to professional help but they couldn't offer advice on the "how" to not be bothered by this stuff. I asked them the same thing and they just said it didn't bother them and didn't know why they just said it didn't, which wasn't very helpful. So nothing in that thread from that user was any sort of life changing for others or feeling like nothing will every be the same again? You can just ignore it without feeling like you're choosing ignorance over truth? It's stuff like that which makes me wonder how folks do it. I understand that Shroomery isn't a good place for arguments and stuff but isn't it a logical fallacy to criticize something because of where it came from and not it's content? I mean it's comforting to know it's just me that's the problem, but I can't work out the solution.Machina (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * didn't we collapse this Jake Holmes ''yell at me 22:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Rommel copypasta
This subject hasn’t being getting enough attention On rationalwiki because our article on Rommel is too Rommel mythical. [edit] https://old.reddit.com/r/ShitWehraboosSay/comments/p1kstl/clean_rommel/h8e2ui5/ “ Gentlemen, I bring the Rommel Copypaste: Erwin Rommel is one of the most misrepresented figures in history.

Frequently used as the "good" German general, this narrative is a distortion of history that ignores among others, the treatment of Jews in North Africa as well as Rommel's role in Italy. Rommel was an ardent Nazi. But even before that he was known as an enemy of democracy and the republican order. In 1920 he was supportive of the Kapp Putsch, an attempt by extreme right-wing German Freikorps to overthrow the Republic and establish an extreme right-wing dictatorship in Germany. Commanding a security battalion of the Reichswehr in the town of Schwäbisch Gmund, he violated the oath he had sworn only recently to the Republic by ordering his troops to violently suppress a demonstration staged by workers in opposition to the attempted Kapp Putsch. While it didn't come so far that his troops fired live ammunition on the demonstration, they brutally beat and used a fire hose against a peaceful demonstration against an attempt to violently overthrow democratic order. [Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg (Hg.): Mythos Rommel. Katalog zur Sonderausstellung 18. Dezember 2008 bis 30. August 2009, Stuttgart 2009, p. 35.]

Later after the take over of power by the Nazis, he developed strong political sympathies and a close working relationship with Hitler, coming so far as to become Hitler's favorite general. It is unsurprising that Goebbels wrote in his diary in 1942 that Rommel "is not only politically close to National Socialism, he is a Nationalsocialist." [Elke Fröhlich (ed.): Die Tagebücher des Joseph Goebbels, München u. a. 1987-2001, II. 4, 01.10.1942, p. 38.] Already during his command in France we see several episodes of him committing what classified as a war crime under the Hague Conventions. At some point he ordered civilian houses to be burned in order to use the smoke to advance his troops over the river Maas. This is a case where it could be arguable that it is within the lines of the Hague Conventions since they only forbid the "wanton destruction of an enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war”. Whether this was necessitated by war is arguable but it nonetheless points in a problematic direction.

On a second occasion, he ordered his troops to pretend they were surrendering in order to be able to advance closely on French positions and then shoot the French soldiers who had prepared to take them into custody. This is a clear violation of the Hague Rules on what they refer to as "perfidy" and constitutes a war crime. [both of these episodes are relayed in rather glorifying terms in the German version of Irving's Rommel biography, p. 61ff.] Concerning his time in Libya, the research situation is difficult but it is clear that upon entering the town of Benghazi, Wehrmacht soldiers of the Afrika Korps took part in a pogrom against the Jews of Benghazi that left 67 people dead. Similarly, newer research has uncovered that the Wehrmacht sent advisors to the Italians for the deportation of Libyan Jews to Italy as well as for the construction of concentration camps in Libya, the most famous being Jado and Benghazi where over 600 Jews died due to poor conditions.

A question that still remains open is what role Rommel played in the execution of over 500 POWs of mostly Austrian and German origin from the British Jewish brigade. While it is true that Rommel did not relay the order from Berlin to execute German and Austrian members of the French Foreign Legion, who had been political opponents of Nazi Germany, when the Germans caught them, the issue of the Jewish POWs and his role in said executions remains shadowy. [Wolfgang Proske: „Ich bin nicht beteiligt am Attentat“: Erwin Rommel, in: Proske. (ed.): Täter Helfer Trittbrettfahrer. NS-Belastete von der Ostalb, Münster/Ulm 2010, S. 207ff.; Maurice M. Roumani,: The Jews of Libya. Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement. Brighton/Portland (UK) 2009, p. 34-35]. In Tunisia, the situation is more clear. Here Rommel collaborated closely with the Einsatzgruppe North Africa under Walter Rauff of gas van fame. Rommel worked closely with Rauff in using Jewish forced laborers to build fortifications for the German army and in constructing over 30 concentration camps in Tunisia where more than 2500 Jews perished during the German presence there. Furthermore on July 20, 1942 Rommel issued instructions to Rauff and his Einsatzgruppe that once the Germans had conquered Palestine, it would be the Einsatzgruppe's task to kill the Jews of Palestine. [Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers: "Beseitigung der jüdisch-nationalen Heimstätte in Palästina." Das Einsatzkommando bei der Panzerarmee Afrika 1942. In: Jürgen Matthäus und Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord. Der Holocaust als Geschichte und Gegenwart, Darmstadt 2006, p. 153–176] Also, he allowed a Judenrat to be established in Tunis and watched on when Wehrmacht soldiers plundered Jewish Ghettos in towns like Tunis and Susse. [Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers: Halbmond und Hakenkreuz. Das Dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina, Darmstadt 2007, p. 137f; published in English as "Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews of Palestine", New York 2009].

In 1943 he was responsible for preparing the German measures in Italy after Mussolini had been deposed following the Allied landing in Italy. There Rommel issued several orders on which the brutality with which the Italian soldiers captured by the Germans were treated. On September 23 after Mussolini had been deposed and Badoglio had negotiated an Italian armistice with the Allies, Rommel issued an order to his troops stating: Sentimentality concerning the Badoglio following gangs [Banden, Nazi German dictum for Partisans and other irregular resistance indicating criminality] in the uniforms of the former ally is misplaced. Whoever fights against the German soldier has lost any right to be treated well and shall experience toughness reserved for the rabble which betrays friends. Every member of the German troop has to adopt this stance. This order was the basis for several brutal acts in disarming the members of the Italian army captured by the Germans. Summary executions and hangings were common in order to make an example and force their fellow soldiers to give up their weapons willingly. This too was a clear war crime. Furthermore, the disarmed Italian soldiers were not be treated as POWs. They received a special status that was called "Military Interned" which indicated worse treatment. [The Orders can be found in the German Bundesarchiv, Militärarchiv Freiburg, RM 7/1333 und RH 27-24/26. They are partially printed in Jürgen Förster: Wehrmacht, Krieg und Holocaust. In: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.): Die Wehrmacht – Mythos und Realität, München 1999, p. 961.].

Now, as for Rommel's involvement in the July 20 plot: While one of Rommel's deputies, Hans Speidel, who had been involved in the July 20 plot, wrote after the war that Rommel was a member of the resistance, there is no evidence that this is accurate. While there is some indication that Rommel would have supported a separate peace with the Western allies in order to continue fighting the Soviet Union, it doesn't go much further than that. From Maurice Remy in his book Mythos Rommel to David Fraser in his biography of Rommel, there is strong consensus that Rommel was not involved in the plot and didn't know about it beforehand. One of the strongest indications of this is a letter to his wife that he wrote that he was shocked by the attempt on Hitler's life and that he thanked God that it didn't succeed.

So, in conclusion, while there is one instance in which he did not relay an order to kill German members of the French Foreign Legion, there is overwhelming evidence that Rommel was involved in and responsible for war crimes, while there is a lack of evidence for his participation in the resistance. The idea that Rommel was a "good German" is a myth and part of the larger overall Clean Wehrmacht myth that is intended to exonerate the members of the German armed forces of their atrocities and crimes.” -/u/nikos600781 This is the Rommel copypasta. We need to fix it. We cannot allow Nazi propaganda to infest our wiki. We cannot Wehrmacht apologia on rationalwiki. Jakester499 (talk) 21:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Paragraphs. For the love of god, paragraphs. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 04:11, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am also a fan a paragraphs.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 16:23, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * How about you rewrite the Rommel article? 18:26, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Focus on the data presented in the Rommel Copypasta and debunk the Rommel myth and use Rommel myth as jumping off point to debunk clean Wehrmacht myth. Rommel is the head figure of the “clean” Wehrmacht whose hands are so clean they look like this but covered in blood https://giphy.com/gifs/cartoon-spongebob-squarepants-37ypdIQk1a9eUJakester499 (talk) 00:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * i'm not reading all that but i'm happy for you or sorry that happened. G Man (talk) 18:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In fairness people have been complaining about the Erwin Rommel article on the talk page for a while.
 * Just skimming the "other Wiki" article, I'm not even sure how missional this guy is, other than: A) he had high ranks in Nazi Germany and played an important part of the African campaign... but history is not the focus here, so anything would have to fit the mission, and B) he has a mythos role in the  (eg attempts by the Germans to whitewash away war crimes committed by ordinary German soldiers), which I see as clearly missional. But I think it should be covered as its own topic IMHO. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 19:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer#Speer_MythJakester499 (talk) 18:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I fawkin hated it so much I had to fix it. 18:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Kyrie Irving
Deserves his own rationalwiki article at this point. Normally don’t like to to talk about athletes but he continues to be a Dunning-Krueger and has reached Kanye levels of stupidity narcissism with his lastest comments.SensaurC-137 (talk) 17:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hate to tell you this, but nobody's gonna make any articles unless you do it yourself. This has been true for every time someone comes in and asks for something like this. 20:36, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * First time I'm seeing an athlete going full tinfoil (yes, citing nutty Jones makes them a nutter aswell). Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 21:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @DuceMoosolini I know that and have already made a draft for it that I’ll probably work on later, I was just kind of venting a little bit.

Just really pisses me off.SensaurC-137 (talk) 21:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Athletes have gone apeshit before, see Lawrence Taylor and Curt Schilling for reference. This is just the first time in the social media era, so everyone who wants can have a front row seat to the self-defenestration. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 01:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Wasn't David Icke an athlete at some point? Vee (talk) 17:36, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * He played Football for Coventry City (4 years in his youth) and Hereford United (2 years in his senior career), until his Rheumatoid arthritis got worser and he was forced to retire at the age of 21 (some people think that this is one of the reasons he went full tinfoil, because he decided to visit the local spacecake New Age shop for a cure and some of the employees told him some nutty stuff. Which is probably why he believes in presidents being Shape-Shifters...). Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:26, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Kyrie is particularly dangerous. His sneakers are among the most popular because of their price point, and he plays in the biggest media market in the US. As such he's also on national TV all the time. His COVID-19 denialism was also very stupid. He's also poisoning the locker room, he likely the reason they sacked Steve Nash for the teams 1-6 start. I don't think he needs a whole article, he fits right in with Kanye West and Louis Farrakhan of Hotep black men.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, he's been remarkably unhelpful during COVID (the people squawking about how it was racist to point this out, yes people seriously did this, were also the ones who unironically gave him a bullhorn to shout about it at much higher volumes than most people, plus even though I'm a Packer fan I was happy to see them simultaneously lay into Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins). And the anti-Semitic ravings are coming in a city that's already seeing increased attacks on its Jewish population, even up the road in CT I have Jewish family and my cousin's bat mitzvah had a security guard. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 05:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Batman Rap
Regardless of your opinion of The Batman Who Laughs, this is some bomb-ass rap. I'm currently reading The Batman Who Laughs miniseries, and I'm not disappointed. Again, YMMV. I'm personally a fan of the evil Batman schtick DC has been going for. At least it's not evil Superman again, am I right? I do wish that DC would explore the other Dark Knights and their respective villainy. It seems like they're focusing too much on TBMWL and are kind of overutilizing him. The others have potential. Vee (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It all went downhill after Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Dave McKean's stunning artwork and truly mad, bad and a little deranged Grant Morrison's writing. Cardinal Chang (talk) 15:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Honestly I blame Miller and Morrison both for the whole "Bat-God" shit. Vee (talk) 07:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Any advice on applying to Graduate School in Philosophy?
I am looking to pursue my MA in philosophy so I am currently in the process of applying for MA programs in Philosophy. For context I have BA (no honors) in Psychology. A lot of upper-level philosophy courses on my transcript with A's or higher. I also have a few upper-level advanced courses in cognitive psychology/neuroscience again with A's or higher. Are there any programs people would recommend applying to that I would meet the admission requirements for? My overall GPA is around a B/B+; so not overly impressive but meets the minimum requirements for many programs. Any advice on what and what not to do when making applications is greatly appreciated. I am currently looking at Simon Fraser University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Alberta as possible places of application. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC).
 * Maybe email some of your old professors for advice? 00:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Try University of Leuven in Belgium. They have a pretty famous philosophy institute, charge about €4000 a year for non-EU citizens (a lot less for EU citizens), and offer a pretty rigorous training offering it in English and it isn't particularly expensive to live there, insanely beautiful and a ridiculously fun student/night life. There is also University of Groningen in the Netherlands, another prestigious philosophy institute with a program in English that isn't too expensive. Also Luxembourg has a MA in Philosophy. It is free, though it isn't cheap at all to live there. Shabi  DOO  00:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Fetterman
Fetterman undoubtedly did poorly with his debate with Oz, but I'm genuinely a bit concerned with the rhetoric around him. Fetterman is recovering from a stroke as most of you will probably know. He has issues with processing audio and language so he lagged behind a bit, but otherwise he's recovering quite well given the circumstances. However, I see a lot of people thrashing him, making fun of his disability or generally claiming he's unfit for office despite being mentally sound and it's kind of terrifying. Is this how we treat the disabled in the US? I'd rather take a man recovering from a stroke that at least wants to do some good than have a non-disabled ghoul who experiments on puppies and treats his disabled rivals like shit. Some doctor. I see the same thing with Biden, by the way. Biden stutters, and kind of stumbles over his words sometimes. This is not a telltale sign of dementia, he's fit for office and in good health, but he's treated like shit by his detractors because of it. I hate it. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * While I generally agree with you, and I'd certainly vote for him if I was a PA resident, I also get why people would be a bit disturbed at Fetterman's condition. His camp was clearly not being candid about his recovery, and an inability to be up front about something that basic would give me serious pause as to his fitness for office. But under the circumstances I'd take that over the flaming nutcase that is his opponent. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 18:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I actually don't think the animal testing hysterics against Oz are that great. Back during the time this happened (early 2000s) the only people who cared was PETA and the only page I can find even complaining about it reads as unhinged activist anger (as PETA tends to be). It also more targets Columbia University then Oz alone. Oz was clearly using animal testing to further heart research, you can go to Google Scholar and look up the papers pretty easy. So it's not quite a "OMG dead puppies!" thing, although animal testing is obviously controversial, playing this card seems to take a controversial issue with some compelling arguments both sides can make and make it an outrage point by removing any context. Oz has plenty negative enough, you can already use the carpetbagging, quackery, obvious appeal to celebrity campaign, and his echo chamber Republican talking points that should horrify most doctors (eg calls to fire Fauci, mocking Fetterman's stroke, etc.) No need to resort to smears, methinks. But American politics is (like it is in many other places) dirty as hell.
 * Now, one thing that is bemusing to me about this campaign that Oz is Muslim, which normally is an OMG! Republican muckracking talking point and an endless insult of the MAGA crowd. But this crowd certainly is silent about Oz since he's supposedly "on their team". Certainly the muckracking would be dialed to 11 if the parties were reversed. Such is about as bemusing as Marco Rubio down here (whose parents are Cuban immigrants) robo-checking off the standard anti-immigrant Republican talking points in his campaign TV ads (at least the English ones). Shows how fake some of this football-team cheerleading is these days... 72.184.99.135 (talk) 19:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the Senate, not Prom Court; you don't make someone Senator just because you feel sorry for them.
 * As for Biden's stutter, that's not the problem, and he's also someone who should never have gotten the Dem nomination. 20:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The Dems are just as good at selecting shit candidates as the GOP. 20:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Prime example of a shit candidate from The Dems. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 21:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * All due respect, kindly fuck off. I don't want Fetterman to win because I feel sorry for him, I want him to win because he's a good candidate. Fetterman's stroke is not a disqualifying factor for his electoral run, he is a competent and functional person that is recovering from a physically traumatic event. Him requiring closed captioning is not a bad thing. He is mentally sound, able to communicate himself clearly, and recovering quite well. Disqualifying him because of a perceived, nonexistent deficiency in his capacity is not only incredibly cruel, but ableist. I couldn't give less of a shit if he said "Hello, good night." as a greeting, or that he stumbled over his words. You see incompetence, I see courage. Him debating Oz at all given the circumstances is an act of immense bravery, it's not something I could do. I want someone like that in the Senate. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Is there any more misused term than "ableism"? Saying that Fetterman's brain damage is too severe for him to be senator ain't ableism, hun. 22:08, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * And your basis for this claim is? I want you to substantiate what you are saying with literally anything that isn't abject cruelty. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 22:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * His inability to string together a coherent sentence? It's not cruel to point out the obvious, but it would be cruel to say you are just as smart as Fetterman.  22:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Jesus this is fucking horrific lmao I'm not gonna dignify that with a rebuttal ---Ozzyboo (talk) 22:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * seriously man give it up with the ableism already--A p r i l Chat? 23:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * See: . The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 01:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is abelist, but technically so is any talk of Trump's incompetency. FairDinkum (talk) 06:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Personally... I think you're reading too much into this - they're Republicans, my respect for them now is so low I'd expect them to accuse Fetterman of being the Zodiac Killer if they thought it would stick. What's more, they rely on basically, 'the destruction of trust'; ie regarding doctors' opinions and so on - it means they can simply dismiss any expert opinion that they don't like.


 * Anyway, for once I'll admit Corrupt has a point here (though a small-ish one). Shall the candidate realistically make a full-enough recovery to perform his duties fully in the Senate? If not, are there work-around solutions which shall allow him to? Those are legitimate questions, as being a Senator is partly a speaking role - Q&As, speeches and so on. Is there a 'significant' risk this might happen again while in-post? Let us remember; often a politician 'off sick' equals an 'unrepresented constituency' in the body they're in. And there's been situations (not just the the USA) where people have ended up (re-)electing officials who were frankly, too decrepit and/or sick to actually do the job. That's what I (if I was a Penn voter) would care about; not 'courage' alone. Courage, like sheer effort can help but cannot overcome all problems by themselves. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, this is actually a good point, and would be valid in another circumstance. However, Fetterman is not nearly as disabled as some people would like you to believe. Fetterman's main issue is an auditory processing issue, which prevents him from understanding speech and language as well as someone without the disability. This is not aphasia, which is a loss of ability to understand speech or language as a whole, but only an auditory processing disorder. The way he circumvents this is with closed captioning, so he can accurately understand what is being said before responding to it. This is a simple accommodation for a disability, no different from braille or wheelchair ramps, a deaf member of the senate would require the same thing. Fetterman's issue on the debate stage was that his opponent was Dr. Oz, a television superstar that knows how to handle a crowd and run circles around him because Fetterman was at a disadvantage, operating with the same time constraints as Oz, despite his auditory disability. There are other members of the Senate that have had strokes, occasionally worse than Fetterman's, but their ability is almost never called into question. Fetterman is not mentally handicapped to the extent that he would be too "decrepit or sick" to do the job. CorruptUser and Republicans make it seem like he is genuinely mentally deficient. I bet my left hand that they'd call him "retarded" if it was acceptable anymore. You can look at the many, many, many Fox news or Washington Post stories on Fetterman's debate and see the abject cruelty and ableism apparent in their language and how they treat him. Fetterman is not an idiot, he is a mildly handicapped man that is working through an ischemic stroke while having to be constantly belittled and antagonized for working through his condition. I would take someone with a mild auditory disability over someone who says abortion should be controlled by "local politicians" any day of the week.
 * And let's play devil's advocate for a second. Let's assume Fetterman is genuinely so mentally deficient that he cannot string a sentence together, he cannot hold office because he is too unwell for the job. Would this be worse than having Oz in power? Not really. I would rather take a hypothetical idiot who can't do anything and always abstains from votes than a Republican quack like Oz. Oz is genuinely worse than nothing.
 * Even in the worst case for Fetterman, Oz is a worse choice, and we don't live in a world that is the worst case for Fetterman. There's a reason why the people questioning his mental capacity aren't doctors. This is an ableist smear campaign designed to discredit him for his disability, something that, by all accounts, is incredibly cruel and disgusting. This is why I get so mad at people like CU who regurgitate this horrific bullshit, because even without the implications for Fetterman, they have clearly never interacted with someone with a genuine mental deficiency or disability. People with mental deficiencies can be and often are very functional and productive members of society that occasionally need more help than the "average Joe", they're not some "other". They are people, who can do people shit like politics. I get genuinely angry at people like CU that belittle and imply that people with mental disabilities are somehow nonfunctional or stupid. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:02, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately... I would *have* to say 'Oz better than Fetterman' in your hypothetical, Ozzy. I cannot complain about the times where clearly 'unfit' politicians continue to hold posts (or get elected to them) then say a particular one was okay because in effect, he'd be ours. Having standards is a bitch at times...


 * As for Corrupt's point... well, they're right in saying you shouldn't select your elected representative on the basis 'you feel sorry for them'. And with Biden, I do think there was a legitimate question regarding the fact if nothing else, he was 77 years old (literally, the 'av lifespan for an American male') on election to a job which Carter said 'he couldn't have done at 80'. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * They're right in saying that if he said it in a vacuum. The issue is that the implication was that I think Fetterman is a good choice because I feel sorry for his disability, not that he's competent. This is just false, I think he's competent in spite of his disability, not because of it. He has a long political career, he is literally the Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania. So yes, in a vacuum, his statement is correct, but in this conversation, his statement is an implicit attack against Fetterman's competency and my judgement, implying that I only support him because I pity him. Notice how CU's only argument after I asked him to name a reason as to why Fetterman is incompetent for the job was that he "couldn't string a sentence together," something that is objectively false by all metrics, only used as a thinly-veiled ad hom. In his eyes, Fetterman is an idiot, incapable of serving his duty as a politician, and the only reason why I or anyone else would support him is because we feel sorry for him, like he's a hurt puppy in a kennel or something. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:40, 1 November 2022 (UTC)


 * What evidence do you have that he is, currently, still competent enough to be Senator? 17:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Why are you placing the burden of proof on me? I never made the initial claim that he was competent enough to be in the senate, you made the claim that he wasn't, and then didn't substantiate it beyond insulting him, and then I countered your claim. This is your argument, you are the person claiming he is not competent enough to be in the senate, so substantiate it, I'm not going to make your argument for you. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Because without knowing anything else, "unable to string together a sentence" is strong enough evidence that he's not capable of being senator. Combine that with his family/campaign outright lying about the severity of his condition only makes matter worse.  Your counter is, what, some vague and unsubstantiated assertion that he is actually there?  Prove it.
 * And this is gross because I fucking hated Oz for more than a decade now. Ugh.  Douche vs Turd all over again.  17:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * How did he lie, exactly? His doctor said he had "no work restrictions", Fetterman himself claimed that he was "fit for the senate", which is an opinion, not a statement of fact, and therefore literally cannot be a lie unless you personally disagree with that statement, your claims without substantiation are literally just libel. Also, he is able to string together a coherent sentence, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's not as if he stopped talking after the debate, you can look at the interviews and videos of him speaking and talking about his debate after the fact. He's handicapped, sure, but not incoherent, especially if his disability is properly accommodated. Having a disability in speech or language is not a disqualifying factor for the senate in my eyes, anyway. Would you be saying the same for someone who had a severe stutter? Or dyslexia? Or mild aphasia? Do you think someone having any impairment in speech or language is a disqualification for politics? You make it seem like he's genuinely mentally incompetent when he just has an auditory processing disorder. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:04, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * From a Google, in recent times, there have been two Senators who suffered strokes (or a equivalent issue) and made recoveries -- and . In both cases it took about a year. Mark Kirk in particular suffered the same sort of stroke Fetterman did (more severe, actually) at around the same age, and recovered "fine" (changed of course, but capable of being a Senator). Obviously "your mileage may vary" but frankly I'd be less worried about someone as young as Fetterman never recovering. Chances are good he'll recover enough to perform his Senate duties fine. At any rate I think voters tend to not place too much value on candidate health (or competence), usually, often the typical tribal bullshit (or other fine political things) overrules. (For a past example of a Senator being a Senator despite massive amount of health issues, see the last years of .) 72.184.99.135 (talk) 18:32, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget Woodrow Wilson, while we are at it. His wife basically ran the show for him. 18:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Incapacitated Wilson was a much less shitty president than active Wilson. 01:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Is that supposed to be Fetterman's selling point? That the incapacitated guy will do less damage?  I mean it's possible for that to be true, had Bush been less competent the Iraq war might've been avoided, but when you have the above exchange where people are willing to lie about the severity of Fetterman's disability and then insult others who point out the obvious, I can't take his supporters seriously.  13:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The only person lying about the severity of his disability here is you CU. Fetterman has an auditory processing disorder, that's the reason he's mildly deficient in speech and language. Deaf people experience the same, this is why a lot of deaf people cannot verbally communicate as well, it turns out that talking when you can't fully understand the words you or the person you're talking to is saying without closed captioning is kind of difficult. Would you say a deaf senator is incompetent too? Unless you can substantiate that he is more disabled than that (which he isn't, according to his doctor, and lying about that would be fraud), you are the only person being dishonest in this conversation. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 15:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * First and foremost, just as a human being I hope he makes a full recovery (when I was a baby my grandmother, who'd helped found a nursing school, had an angioplasty that caused a stroke, for the rest of her life she had severely limited mobility and such bad Broca's aphasia I only ever got to know her as a shell of herself). That said, a deaf candidate who was oblique about the extent of his condition for several months, and then tried to fake it through a debate while barely being able to answer basic questions, would seriously concern me. Same with a candidate who (and this point is coming from inside the house) had The Big A and demonstrated a severely compromised ability to follow normal human conversation. Some things don't come through the same in text as in ordinary conversation, and an inability to string together a coherent response in an everyday setting strikes me as a self-evidently major problem for a public official. Again, in this case I'd still vote for him if I lived in PA, and take my chances on his health, but only as a vote against the woo-peddling crazy man running against him. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 05:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * At this time, a senator who votes with the majority leader almost all of the time is superior to one who almost never votes with the majority leader when the majority leader is a democrat. This is an irrefutable proof that Fetterman is a better choice than Oz. Unless you approve the republican agenda I don't see how any other conclusion is sound. Ariel31459 (talk) 18:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * On the reasoning that from first glance Fetterman does currently appear to be 'fit for the Senate' (which I shall take to mean 'am literally able to do the job', which isn't that high a bar when you think of it) I would argue it's down to the accusers to either a) show 'they' are not fit and/or b) to show 'I' am are more capable. A reasonable counter to the Oz JAQ'ing off could have been, for example 'Dr Oz; shall you take time off peddling your snake oil crap to actually do the job of Senator?' KarmaPolice (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Today's political candidates are marketed like toothpaste. And in marketing "perception is reality". And fit to do the job is in the eye of beholder so its the undecided voters and the political independents who are going to decide how fit he is to do the job. Most Democrats and Republicans made up their mind before the debate. Fetterman has a lead of 1 percentage point in the latest poll. The peasant of peasants (talk) 15:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Ken actually having a valid point? Miracles do happen! Vee (talk) 23:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, more a flash of the obvious, which then blinds them. Don't worry, afterwards they'll pick themselves up and 'explain' that all the solid Republican voters are there because of 100% legitimate/resonable/true reasons, while all the Democratic ones are all lazy self-entitled folks looking for 'gives', 'brainwashed by the "woke agenda" / "lamestream media" folks' or simply 'politically ignorant' to see through all the propaganda which disguises the previous. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

When Fetterman had his stroke, he should've dropped out. I think Connor Lamb should've won the primary anyway. American daylight saving time ending November 6, Andrew5 (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

My attempt at an AMV
https://youtu.be/dVuQL-1cbNI

An Attack on Titan AMV with music from Evangelion. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 19:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Musk is the new CEO of Twitter...
This is bad. He could literally unban Trump's twitter and other Alt-Right/Conservative/Sexist/Cesspit accounts that have been banned... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 12:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * if he unbans or just allows all kinds of hate speech, or at least some of the stuff more controversially banned under this premise - stuff thats hes talked about allowing because some arse about 'free speech' then it wont be able to operate in europe without massive fines, and even if it does somehow skirt eu law and regs, will hopefully collapse through overwhelming toxicity. so by killing twitter musk could really be helping save the world.


 * hes still needs SEC permission for his own tweets AMassiveGay (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I unironically wish he unbanned those people, it would send Twitter the way of Parler, Gab and other such cesspools, please Goat, grant me just this one wish. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 13:08, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Let's hope he runs twitter they way he claims he wants to. The whole "free-speech absolutist" approach he spouts will obviously cause financial struggles for the platform. With luck, it'll close, and all the other narcissistic, toxic megaphone platforms that have an absurd outsize influence on our daily lives follow suit, becoming as relevant as Bebo and Myspace. Honestly, social media may have some good points, but let's be honest, it's clearly one of the worst inventions of the 21st century. Cardinal Chang (talk) 13:33, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * True. Nothing of value will be lost if "Social" media disappears (Twitter is filled with twats, Facebook is filled with Bigots, Instagram is filled show offs, Tik-tok is filled with weirdos (seriously, what's the fucking point of Tik-tok again?),...). Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 13:58, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * All hail Chairman Musk and his great capitalism with Muskist characteristics! /s LongStylus (talk) 16:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Heh, well perhaps we'll see what happens to Tesla's China biz if Musk's Freeze Peach Twitter actually clashes with Xi "I Make CEOs disappear" Jinping. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 16:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The main things Musk think of doing seem unrelated to his "free speech" talk. He apparently wants to make an "everything app", one platform to rule all the domains in which many platforms are nowadays popular for different things. Musk: "Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app." He apparently takes inspiration from China's WeChat. But circumstances in the West are different, and the way competition works will likely make it all fall flat. Which seems just as well. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 18:04, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I don't see the big deal. Twitter is a big platform but absolutely NOTHING prevents someone from creating yet another social media platform and everyone upset can move there.  If Elon Musk bans too many people or if users leave because people are allowed to tweet the word "groomer" again, Elon Musk will go down as having made the most expensive business mistake in history.  20:54, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, because Parler, Truth Social and Gab have done quite well, haven't they? Bear in mind Twitter is now in the hands of a vain, thin skinned narcissist. Who now has access, at the very least, to log-in details of anyone he dislikes for whatever reason. (Considering he dislikes people who criticise his "brilliant, original ideas", his shit list may very well be long. Let's see it all burn to the ground. Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

This is rather expected. Capitalism, given adequate time, will always turn into an opressive structure of corporate monopoly. While Capitalist plutocrats like Elon Musk carry an unthinkable amount of wealth and power, their workers are forced into horrific conditions and abuse, and suffer a large degree exploitation. The way to end this process of monopoly Capitalism and Imperialism is only by replacing Capitalism itself, and removing these modern robber-barons from power, and giving the means of production which they undemocratically held to their workers. Wisconcom (talk) 21:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree (generally) with Corrupt here. As Gay points out, Musk appears to be forgetting that 75% of Twitter is not the USA, and if he decides that 'moderation' is an expense he can do without (which I think is the *true* reason for his 'free speech' spiel) Twitter shall promptly find itself saddled with mass fines, court cases and perhaps even regional blocks. What's more, the majority of the 'future growth' promises to be outside the USA, particulary the EU - which has already done a warning shot of 'that bird shall fly by *our* rules'. It's possible to slice-up Twitter into regional groups (and obey each juristictions rules) but that shall basically nullify the savings made from ditching moderation.


 * And as Corrupt point out; if Musk turns Twitter into a swamp, people shall promptly leave - what it does is 'good', but y'know, isn't the only game in town and new games can arrive any day. Or - as I suspect shall be more likely - people shall remain but 'engagement' shall drop sharply; like the millions of people who are still 'on' FB but don't interact with anything much anymore. And the critical thing Musk (and owners of other social media) doesn't want to admit is that without us making basically 'free' content (or freeloading off professional content-makers, like say, the BBC etc) they have fuck all to make money from. If we stop playing the rigged game, the thing falls over.


 * But what I wonder about, is Musk's plan. As in, the lack of one. He now has a massive debt to service and Twitter is going to need to be sweated hard to pay for it. The pitch he made earlier in the year would have been laughed out of the room if it wasn't done by him, as it's so vague. This is so big a move it could actually destroy him if it blows up. And I don't think this 'everything app' will fly either - and if one did end up taking off in the West, chances are it would be from one of the larger, established tech players. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It shows that billionaires are easily duped by fellow billionaires, or at least people who are convincingly pretending to be billionaires. Bongolian (talk) 01:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Cardinal Chang
 * Parler and the others are fighting over a niche market, and the base product itself is far inferior in quality to Twitter to even be worth switching to. The engineers of Twitter who may be fired in the next few weeks are literally the ones who could build a new version of it.  So again, if Musk turns Twitter into a cesspool and there's a bunch of engineers with social media experience, then everyone will hop to Squeaker or Yapper or Pester or whatever is the latest social media platform.  03:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Social media is like a city or the internet in general. You can go to fancy restaurants, biker bars or whore houses. It's all your choice. If you sign up for Facebook and friend your quality friends who have other quality friends, you will be fine. This "controversy" is a tempest in a tea pot. Vice regent (talk) 09:46, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * @Corrupt User
 * Valid point. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 2 things planned by Musk for Twitter are extremely stupid. The first is paying for verification. It completely misses the point for why verification exists. The purpose is validity, not influence. It's about authenticating people and organizations messages to others, and not a reflection of superiority. If he follows through with this, people will abandon Twitter, and take their advertising dollars with them. The other dumb idea is subscription videos. It's meant to compete with OnlyFans, and the profit from it would likely counter balance the loss of advertisers and financial institutions opposed to adult content. It would also make if very easy from people to share child porn, because they don't have the right moderation tools. I recently got a Reddit account, it'll take care of my scrolling needs.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

And here's the first one that Musk unbans. We even have a page on these losers... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 00:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

For leftist people: WHY!!??
https://elpais.com/planeta-futuro/2022-10-31/rupa-marya-no-mejoraremos-la-salud-humana-sin-cuestionar-las-estructuras-del-capitalismo-colonial.html Yes, I like to make fun of biggoted kooks and hate capitalism as well, but this... This need it's own RW page Deadend (talk) 14:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Translation please? Vee (talk) 14:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Just Google the book she wrote with, "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice" (or right-click translate if you are on Chrome). The basic premise is that inflammatory illnesses are somehow connected to "colonialist architecture and capitalist architecture" and the solution is the "deep medicine of decolonization".
 * The problem here is that some of what she is bringing up is not really woo -- that industrialization (less colonialism) has changed diets and there might be a connection to this and some chronic diseases. Also, while there is a lot of bullshit in traditional medicine, it's not *completely* bullshit all the time. However, tying this to a racism / colonialism framework and propping up indigenous culture as The Solution To All Problems is woo IMHO: at least, if you can tell me what the "deep medicine of decolonization" supposedly is and how "reestablishing our relationships with the Earth and one another" is all of a sudden going to cure asthma (beyond the diet notes above), let me know. There's a sort of noble savage trope (without the negatives as much though) in certain health circles that tends to over-romanticize the past on health and food while attacking the convenient "capitalist" boogieman. You see this also in some diet fads like raw foodism, "caveman diets", etc. It's a little right in some aspects, but rather wrongheaded in most others. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Title says: "Rupa Marya: “We will not improve human health without questioning the structures of colonial capitalism” " Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 15:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Vee (talk) 15:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, this is a small community and nobody makes wiki pages on other peoples behalf. You have to do it yourself. 16:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * guardian review. i would question just what exactly the op finds so egregious about it. on the face of it, it seems reasonable enough. anyone paying attention during covid would remember questions surrounding higher rates of infection and death for some minority groups. the issues that brought up is well worth a deeper look. where is the woo? i dare say the authors have particular political views that no doubt colours their research. doesnt mean it isnt valid or can simply dismissed out of hand. i dunno where anyone is getting noble savages and romanticising the past - that sounds like someone interjecting their hobby horse. someone who has actually read the thing might need to throw some light on it or can point to a fair summary/assessment of research made and conclusions drawn before we start talking about articles and woo. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Shroomery.org
So, I looked up this link that Machina posted in his topic and I was wondering if this site is on mission? We have a New Age section and pages on Shrooms. The site is apparently about psychedelic mushrooms, strangely enough has a link on it's main page that link to self-help when you want to get rid of your drug addiction. Dunno aboput their "headlines" section, though... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 16:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ohoho, this looks promising. Jake Holmes ''yell at me 16:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I may or may not have once done shrooms and experienced wacky hallucinations mild heat flashes. Seriously if that's what you get from shrooms then shrooms are overrated. Vee (talk) 16:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * From my perspective, users of psychedelic drugs do seem to have a tendency to get involved in certain sorts of woo, but not always. (In that thread that Machina posted, there was one person going off on antinatalism crapola and many others telling said person to STFU.) Shroomery.org is just a small part of "recreational drug web", along with other heavy hitters (Bluelight, Erwoid, etc.). Yes, "harm reduction" is usually a big part of these boards. On the whole these boards probably aren't mission-oriented to me, but you could probably make a pretty good article on "psychedelic drug user woo" and the half baked philosophies that spurt out from there. (Though, we do have a few articles on some of the more notorious lot in that direction, like Terence McKenna). 72.184.99.135 (talk) 17:19, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Antinatalism is one of those philosophies that's not logically irrational but somehow manages to repulse and appall either way. It still serves a valuable purpose as a gadfly philosophy. Gets people to rethink long-held and unexamined assumptions about life. Vee (talk) 17:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have done shrooms many times and it's decriminalized where I live. The intensity of the hallucinations depends on dose, your body size, body fat percentage, individual variation in receptor density, etc. It's one of those experiences you can't really generalize from how one person experiences it. I always experience mild hallucinations with shrooms, with the most intense hallucinations being flowers popping out a television screen and growing on the walls for a split second while watching Yellow Submarine. LSD is a whole other ball game though. I have noticed with psychonaut communities there is a huge degree of overlap with like new wage woo, and vague spirituality. A lot of people can't seem to let go of the idea the that there hallucinatory experiences possess deeper meaning or insight into the functions of the universe. It doesn't help that some new age guru's highly recomend using psychedelics for those insights specifically. I have always liked the Hunter S. Thompson quote in Fear and Loathing. "Just because there is a light at the end of the tunnel does not mean there someone or some force holding it there... it's the underlying mystic fallacy of the acid culture to think you can get a piece of understanding for just $3 a hit" -- paraphrasing from the book, of course. There is also a degree of continental philosophers who cite psychedelic experiences as like evidence for dualism? Which I always thought was dumb. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC).
 * They claim to "spread accurate information about magic mushrooms", but there's so much on-topic and off-topic bullshit there, it's hard to see where to start. Bongolian (talk) 05:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Makes me wonder if what I may or may not have taken were actually shrooms... Vee (talk) 14:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

A new excuse to invade Ukraine so loony that it makes the weapons of mass destruction excuse to invade Iraq look sane in comparison
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/10/26/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

De-Satanize Ukraine is Putler's new excuse to wage a genocidal conflict. Do I laugh or vomit? --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 17:48, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Laughing hides the real danger behind the words. Vomiting incapacitates your ability to act against this dangerous logic. Russia is seeking to legitimize their invasion using the language of NeoCons, forgetting that no one trusts NeoCons anymore.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 17:59, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Shame they can't get their rationalisation for such invasion correct. Is this now the third steaming pile of bollox they've used to explain why they are there? (Special operation, followed by getting the Nazi's out of Ukraine, followed by fighting the woke brigade - surely that's someone having a laugh. and now this. Fighting an imaginary being. As reasons go, it's a biggie. Still bollox, but...)Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * To paraphrase Churchill; 'some woke, some brigade!'. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)


 * In another skeptic forum, someone commented on it by asking what's the next explanation after this, is it de-Reptilianization perhaps? Russian representatives have also called the Ukrainian situation one of sects/cults and explained Ukrainian resistance to Russian "liberators" in terms of a terrible hypersect/cult having formed. This humorously reminds me of a certain cult I've written about here, which also likes to tell the rest of the world that the rest of the world is the real cult.


 * Concerning Russia's war, said little cult goes a step further in claiming that Putin helps the world avert the threat of evil aliens downloading themselves into Ukrainians through a mysterious portal in Ukraine, though they also claim Putin does that and more (killing many psychopaths) to help the world without knowing about the alien threat. That cult has also taken Russia's redefining of Nazis a step further by also redefining Jews in order to present itself as the real special and persecuted people, unlike what is known as Jews in the mainstream which are said to in large part be psychopaths. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 11:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I am aware that some American far right loons believe that Putin is fighting the New World Order. How any US citizen could support Putin is absolutely amazing. Then again, the Nazi party had US sympathizers during WW2. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The American public's support for the war in Ukraine is waning. New poll signals Americans are growing tired of support for Ukraine without diplomacy as the war against Russia drags on. Caeciliusinhorti (talk) 08:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's mainly the Tucker Carlson listening wankers and similar far-right nonthinkers methinks, along with a handful of lefty loons. The vast majority still support it. (BTW IMHO a "poll" from the fuckin' do-nothingers at the is not something you can trust very much, oh brand new suspiciously sock-y account.) 72.184.99.135 (talk) 13:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * During times of adversity, one finds out who one's true friends are. After this winter and during the trough of potential global recession, Ukraine will find out who its true friends are and who its fair-weather friends are. The peasant of peasants (talk) 15:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Vee (talk) 22:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Someone using the name 'The peasant of peasants' doesn't exactly square with an open threaten to people under siege by a tyrannical fascist.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 21:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

In a more realistic fashion, the cost of the war is high both economically and lives lost. There is also the high risk of a major escalation that could kill more people. No I am not justifying Russia's invasion nor suggesting abandoning Ukraine. However, there is a chance that Ukraine could be defeated and their power grid won't last forever. Peace talks don't seem like an option but it might become necessary. Then there is the potential of the GOP taking control of the senate and funding might be cut off entirely. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 19:08, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the war seems set to go on into the next year at the least. Some think Russia will be defeated by around next summer. More equipment will be sent to Ukraine by EU countries and more will likely be sent from the US regardless of midterm election outcomes. The Ukrainian army will be able to go on even with much Ukrainian infrastructure half-broken, i.e. even if Russia ups that ante further. Things may or may not become stale and akin to WW I trench war around winter. Ukraine has very good long-term chances, but Russia also has good chances of doing a lot of further damage before its eventual defeat.


 * Russia has the ability to, and seems to go for, funneling lots and lots of cannon fodder to the front, even now forcing ill-equipped people to march to their deaths at gunpoint (killed if caught retreating). A main aim may be to cynically just try to slow down Ukraine by sending them lots and lots of targets, at (or so they think) very low cost to the Russian state. Russia may also try to capture a few places in the East and then present it in their media as the grand conquest of the annexed areas Russians have been waiting for. Anything to manage impressions and the mood of the Russian population, while dreaming feverishly that victory will almost magically come in the end. Or so it sounds from what I've been reading and watching, both ISW and various European commentators. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

brazil elections (2nd round)
unfortunately, it looks like lula is gonna win this one. ah, who am i kidding? we're screwed as a nation either way. our fate was already sealed 4 weeks ago. G Man (talk) 22:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Isn’t Lula supposed to be the better alternative? 22:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "better" is a very low bar at this point. for instance, google "gringos amazon rainforest" and tell me whose name you find. G Man (talk) 22:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * i'll do ya one better: here's an article. yes, i know it's over 10 years old, and yes, people's views change over time, but talk is cheap. until i see action, i will remain skeptical. G Man (talk) 22:47, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * who the bloody hell cares--A p r i l Chat? 02:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

update: lula wins
yay, i guess? G Man (talk) 23:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Damned if you do, damned if you don't. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The world narrowly dodged a huge bullet there, if Bolsonaro was reelected then the ecological damage to the Amazon would become irreversible. Of course, Lula has a lot that he needs to do to be able to fix these problems, and there's still the worry that Bolsonaro might not accept the results, but Lula winning is a very good thing. Plutocow (talk) 00:36, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. Bolsonaro winning would be a guarantee of the death of the rainforest.--A p r i l Chat? 02:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But it was a very uncomfortably close run thing. I find it quite worrying that a man who has said and done things like Bolsonaro, still managed to get around 49,1% in a runoff election. As was the case with Trump, I have to wonder if he would have won if not for COVID-19 and botching the response to it? ScepticWombat (talk) 03:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

"I don't want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree. We want to preserve, but they will have to pay the price for this preservation because we never destroyed our forest like they mowed theirs down a century ago." "No gringo should stick their nose in where it does not belong." if you believe lula is an environmentalist, you're a chump, and i have a bridge to sell you. G Man (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * What he's calling out here is the wealthy countries that got rich off of exploiting their resources but aren't considering how Brazil needs to develop in order to grow and most of Brazil's resources were historically exploited by wealthier countries. That out-of-context quote does not mean that Lula is anywhere near as bad as Bolsonaro. Obviously, he's not perfect but Bolsonaro destroyed the Amazon like no other president before him. Plutocow (talk) 04:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * you are misinformed. the quote is not out of context. he built a damn dam (pun intended) in the middle of the forest. people are still suffering because of it. also, deforestation has been steadily increasing since 2012, a full 7 years before bolsonaro took office. now i'm not denying that bolsonaro caused a dramatic increase in recent years. i'm just saying that lula and his party are not the environmentalists the world thinks they are, and i have shown you the receipts. i have yet to be proven wrong. G Man (talk) 04:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * also, note the double standard. it's only bad to defend your sovereignty if you're bolsonaro. again, i can't stand that man, but that was one of the few things i agreed with him on (though development should still be as sustainable as possible). same goes for lula. at least they see eye-to-eye on something, even if they don't realize it (or want to admit it). G Man (talk) 04:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No, it's obvious that Lula is much better than Bolsonaro in this regard, and the quote even says "we want to preserve". Never mind that you're talking about quotes from years ago and he has made preservation a campaign issue. And also, you know that Lula stopped being president in 2010, two years before the rise in deforestation that you cite? Plutocow (talk) 05:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * i believe i said "and his party". i also said "talk is cheap". reading is essential. doesn't surprise me that you don't really know what you're talking about. G Man (talk) 05:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * and anyone can say they care for the environment. even bolsonaro. doesn't mean they do. G Man (talk) 05:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Considering we're talking about someone who presided over the largest decreases to deforestation is Brazil's history, it is very relevant. You can talk about individual anecdotes, but the data clearly says that Lula has a much better environmental record than Bolsonaro and it's not even close. How much he'll be able to accomplish with a right-wing senate, or if Bolsonaro will accept the results, remains to be seen, but it's not a "two evils" situation. Plutocow (talk) 05:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * latina republic is so biased and/or uninformed that they won't mention the dams and other projects he greenlit, nor will they bring up that time when his environment minister resigned in protest of his pro-development policies. (ironically, she now supports him, if only because she views him as the "lesser of two evils". if anyone should be president, it's definitely her because she's a real environmentalist.) they won't even mention how his policies helped contribute to the steady increase in deforestation rates in the 2010s (because, ya know, policies outlive presidents).
 * well, to his credit, at least he has a plan for the next 4 years, something bolsonaro didn't even have. but again, that's a low bar, and talk is still cheap (especially for politicians who at least pretend to be aware of the looming threat of climate change). i won't hold my breath. G Man (talk) 05:54, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * also, bolsonaro himself stepped up enforcement of environmental laws. bolsonaro was only president for four years, yet the media paints him as an environmental supervillain (so much so that our own article on brazil made a misleading claim for some time before i edited it). the truth is, brazil has been exploring the rainforest for about 60 years now. the media leaves that part out because nuanced facts like that don't generate enough clicks. and even though the rate of deforestation decreased by a lot under lula (which is still a shortcoming by itself), that accomplishment was (at least in part) canceled out by some of his anti-environmental policies. that's almost like blowing your nose right after you wash your hands. G Man (talk) 06:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Not touching the green debate itself (don't know enough for starters) but the quote to me read like a bitch towards the 'Great Bourgeois Savior' from the advanced world. Having them hectoring and sneering at us (the 'gringo' working class) is bad enough. Having them do it to poorer nations who *need* that development so we can y'know, all have clean running water must be a lot worse. Esp if much of that 'help' is simply being told 'don't' or getting patently biased assistance from the 'voluntourism industry' which normally does little to nil actual good for us (though that's not the point; it's more to make them feel good).
 * My thought of the day. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Lula isn't perfect but statements like "the media paints (Bolsonaro) as an environmental supervillain" in order to put together a "both sides are bad" style argument read off like some kind of nihilistic fake news allusion. All the environmental NGOs I know of were all dead set against Bolsonaro and endorsed Lula, due to Bolsonaro heavily gutting environmental ministries, promoting agribusiness, and gaslighting criticism with disinformation (an example I remember was Bolsonaro in 2020 blaming fires set in the Amazon on indigenous people and other similar malarkey). So there probably was some good reason for this environmental alarm.
 * That said, politics on these sort of issues goes well beyond just one guy. The fundamental problem with the rainforest issue (and other similar sorts) anyways is that "success in a capitalism oriented world" involves "selling widgets", and a forest just sitting there isn't selling anything (immediately and directly, at least, "bioprospecting" is something that needs to be accounted for more). Ideally there should be some sort of "carbon" type economic structure that helps support these forests (and the people in it) for benefiting the world for just sitting there... but we're a long way from having that sort of conversation, sadly. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I mean, I think even beyond the environmental debate, Bolsonaro being out of office is probably the best thing to happen to the LGBT community in Brazil in a long time. Bolsonaro is explicitly a homophobe, openly such. He hates gay people. You can play whataboutism all you want and try to both sides this but there is no comparison between how Lula treats gay people and how Bolsonaro treats gay people. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

that's part of why i actually agree with lula and bolsonaro. the world is basically just bossing brazil around. the point i was also trying to make is that the media is so angry at bolsonaro when he made those comments that they forgot when lula made similar comments a decade prior. G Man (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC) nothing i said is fake news. i provided links to credible sources. calling news you don't like "fake news" doesn't make it so. i have yet to be proven wrong with any of my claims. that said, i agree with lula and bolsonaro in that there is a lot of hypocrisy coming from other countries telling us what to do. keep in mind a few things:
 * 1. those countries have cut down their own trees to industrialize (check out this map of us forests before industrialization).
 * 2. they're (probably) driving the demand for and/or profiting off of deforestation themselves (bonus: see also borneo, the congo, and even haiti).
 * 3. excessive and preachy environmental slactivism can sometimes lead to colonialism anyway.

G Man (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC) sorry, i forgot to reply to your post earlier. lula's narrow win worries you because you don't understand the dynamic of brazilian politics. even though lula was the most popular president in brazil's history at the time he left office, his reputation was tarnished by the various corruption scandals his party was involved in (which he himself admitted to). there was also the recession he helped cause. lula's is now known as luladrão (a portmanteau/pun consisting of lula + the portuguese word for thief, "ladrão") by many brazilians (even some of his own former supporters). if there's no other reason to dislike lula and his party, it's because they are extremely incompetent and they paved the way for someone like bolsonaro to rise to power in the first place (in the same way trump owed his victory to the democrats). also, there's that elephant in the room: both candidates are polarizing populists who occupy opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. G Man (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

yes, brazil can suffer the worst recession in its history thanks in no small part to lula's policies, but at least he's pro-lgbt or whatever (never mind that lgbt+ people are also affected by bad economies). G Man (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think civil rights for a group I am a part of are both important and a necessity for a developed society, so yes. Bigots should not hold office. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ok, my previous statement was in bad taste (hence my parenthetical edit). i still think people have unreasonably high hopes and expectations for lula. i'd be more than happy if he does a 180 and proves anything i said wrong (it is my country, after all). however, as i have repeatedly stated, i won't hold my breath. G Man (talk) 17:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * also, to the people who keep accusing me of whataboutism and both sidesing: maybe you should look in the mirror. G Man (talk) 18:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Lot of people here get defensive when you start criticizing their wholesome leftists who can do no wrong. 20:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I was criticizing "both-sideism" from a defeatism viewpoint more than sacred leftism cows. I'll be personally happy to discuss the good side of environmentalism that exists in the United States if you want to start whataboutism-ing along those lines with the shit that has happened here (and yeah, a lot has, but there's also been a lot of good.) 72.184.99.135 (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * it's not so much whataboutism at it is hypocrisy. it doesn't make sense to say you oppose deforestation while you live a lifestyle that demands forests be razed. it's not enough that you have people sitting on clear-cut forests; they're also contributing to the demand of deforestation in other countries and then telling them to take care of their land while sparing no effort of their own to reduce demand (see the examples i cited above). that makes no sense whatsoever. it's like a smoker who complains about air quality. G Man (talk) 07:55, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * and folks, i understand some of my previous statements were in poor taste, and i apologize for that. however, some of you guys have misunderstood my premise from the beginning: our fate as a country was sealed at the beginning of the month when it was narrowed down to lula and bolsonaro. yes, lula is better for the rainforest (which isn't really saying much given his track record) and civil rights. yes, lula is not as bad as bolsonaro. however, one must not forget that this guy was already president for 8 years and that his party ruled another 6 years thereafter. they oversaw an economic crisis, record crime, and other things that paved the way for a man like bolsonaro to take office in the first place. now you could make the case that the previous election was rigged all you want, but that's not the point i'm trying to make.
 * the point is, lula has a mixed track record at best. just because someone is popular doesn't mean they make a good leader. there was a fair deal of incompetence in his first two terms. the brazilian people had their opportunity to choose potentially better candidates in the first round, and they missed it. now that ship has sailed, so i guess we'll have to just work with what we have. you guys might only care for the rainforest and lgbt rights (and that's fine), but it's my other country (i am brazilian-american), and i wish i could see it take a better direction. at this point, i can only hope things will work out for the better, but in the end, we get the government we deserve. G Man (talk) 08:20, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * @duce all this reminds me of the gubernatorial elections in virginia last year. i correctly predicted that youngkin was gonna win because mcauliffe (the democrat) just wasn't really all that. the latter previously served as governor, and it was a disappointment, really. he had also made some political gaffes that might have cost him. regardless, i had a bunch of angry liberals come at me just because i picked on their fave guy. they even questioned my citizenship in the us, thinking i was some sort of foreign agent or bot or something (which is ironic because i'm from virginia myself, and i'm pretty sure most of the liberals on that forum weren't). in the end, i was right and their guy lost. virginia elected their first republican governor in 12 years. however, i couldn't take the toxic environment of that forum, so i left before the results were announced. i so wish i could rub it in. ;p
 * despite the similar circumstances, at least the brazilian election has a happier ending (for lefties, anyway). G Man (talk) 08:37, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

(EC) I think a key problem is that you don’t depict the objections that fairly. When reading through the comments, my own included, I have a hard time finding anyone defending Lula as a good candidate, whereas the worry over how bad Bolsonaro is is lead motive. Hence, the depiction of worries over Bolsonaro as being examples of knee jerk defence of leftist holy cows simply doesn’t match up with the actual contents of the comments.

Furthermore, the objections to G Man is the equation of Lula and Bolsonaro, which seems excessive to me. Even if we accept G Man’s proposition that ”both candidates are polarizing populists who occupy opposite sides of the ideological spectrum”, this doesn’t change the fact that Bolsonaro seems to exhibit a hell of a lot more and far more sinister danger signs than Lula. G Man seems very unwilling to recognise or even discuss this and instead keeps opting for a “Well, here’s why Lula is bad too” arguments.

Just because one candidate (Lula) is bad, doesn’t mean that another (Bolsonaro) isn’t significantly worse. Since G Man mentioned Trump, I must admit that I see some parallels to the bothsideism/whataboutism of the Hillary Clinton/Trump and Biden/Trump contests. Sure, I found both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to be bad candidates, but that doesn’t preclude me from seeing Trump as significantly worse. Conversely, pointing out that I find Bolsonaro/Trump to be the worst of the limited options available, doesn’t amount to a defence of their opponents.

Given the binary nature of these contests, it is completely understandable to highlight the “least bad option” and explain why you were concerned that the “obviously worst option” (Trump/Bolsonaro) came so close to winning this latest contest (or actually did win the last time around). This doesn’t mean that those highlighting such worries are oblivious to various dynamics of how these “worst options” did so well, but simply worries that such dynamics can trump (pun absolutely intended) the very bad character(istics) and policies that these “worst options” represent. G Man’s latest comment seems to match up with this key problem of “binarism”, which tend to affect all such presidential elections to one degree or another. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * i take it you didn't read any of my last three posts above. G Man (talk) 08:45, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If the worst thing about either Lula or Bolsonaro was the environment I would be cheering right now.
 * Under the Workers Party, between 2014 and 2016:
 * The GDP dropped 7%
 * Unemployment reached two digits
 * Inflation reached two digits
 * interest rates reached two digits
 * And they still want to double down the actions that resulted on this disaster. I would still have voted for Lula, but it's easy to understand why so many people voted for Bolsonaro even after his disastrous policies during the pandemic: they are afraid of getting poorer. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 21:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You neglect to mention that between 2003-2010 the unemployment rate dropped from 12.4 to 6.7 under Lula's presidency, that Lula also paid off Brazil's debt to the IMF in 2005, and that Brazil's middle class rose from 50% of the population to 73% under his presidency. He also weathered through the 2008 financial crisis, Bolsonaro tanked his country's economy during the recession in 2020. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * , Brazil grew less than every other emerging market during the same period. Regarding the middle class, sure, he changed how it was calculated (very democratic, huh?) Sure, he paid the IMF debt, but check what happened with the public debt: it more than doubled during his government . The mistakes that lead to the 2014-2016 hecatomb were a direct result of policies that started in 2008. He just postponed the crisis. As for the 2020 recession, Brazil suffered less than most of the other countries in the period. The years between 2003 and 2012 were a lost decade. The years between 2014 and 2016? I don't have words for them. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 21:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The seems to pinpoint the 2014 bust on these things:
 * A) The ; Brazil's economy is still very heavily dependent on commodity exports
 * B) A series of policies implemented by Dilma Rousseff now known as Nova matriz econômica, which essentially was some tax rebates and other state-oriented plans to try and pump up industrialization... policies that pretty much failed.
 * Ultimately at least this Wiki page doesn't seem to put too much blame on specific Lula policies, more those of his (hand-picked) successor. (Although I don't think there's any question about both being to blame when it comes to another angle, corruption). Furthermore, it's difficult from the Wiki page to determine exactly how much Rousseff's policies really affected things -- there seems some widespread disagreement in the Portuguese Wiki on just exactly how much of a factor it was, though it's hard to read as well how much these disagreements are driven by pure partisan politics. (Of course, the obvious caution applies because "it's a Wiki page" and we know what that means, but I'd like to see more specifics that tie to Lula if you know of them.)
 * I do actually think some of Lula's policies that aimed at reducing inequality (Bolsa Familia and minimum wage increases and whatnot) were probably quite worthwhile. Libertarians and supply-siders might howl and point to made-up curve crap quickly drawn on napkins or something, but when inequality is very bad (as it is in Brazil), it seems that successful programs that help reduce inequality are what really "lifts all boats" and helps stimulate domestic demand. 72.184.99.135 (talk) 22:42, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

to add to what gjk said, brazil also saw under the the workers' party, with homicides peaking in 2017. maybe it's not too unreasonable to assume that nearly half of the country did not want to vote for the man who let this happen in the first place. again, some of you need to read up more before commenting on something you know nothing about and judging people with different opinions from yours. G Man (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

tl;dr
if you don't feel like reading the lengthy conversation (read: debate) above, this short video accurately summarizes the development of the amazon rainforest in the last 20 years (as well as the topic of the conversation above). G Man (talk) 06:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

edit: the conversation above also discusses lula's other positions on the issues and why he's not my favorite person. G Man (talk) 21:02, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

on the bright side...
bolsonaro is taking this a lot better than i thought he would, even though it is still far from ideal. G Man (talk) 21:04, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You're seriously giving the fascist autocrat credit for not conceding the election when he lost? ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * at least he's not challenging the results like everyone thought he would. quit being such a negative nancy and cut him some slack. G Man (talk) 21:17, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Lmao you want me to cut some slack to the nutcase who said that the protests advocating for his presidency to be restored, something that is objectively anti-democracy, wasn't actually a big deal? Forgive me for my negativity on one of the worst presidents in modern Brazilian history not conceding the results of a democratic election like Lula did when he lost, apologies for offending your delicate sensibilities. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:26, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is Brazil. Anything short of a coup is good for them. 21:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Good thing I'm not a moral relativist. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * if you support lula, then you definitely are a moral relativist. what bolsonaro's supporters are doing now is little different from what some democrats did in 2016.
 * that said, duce is right. aside from brazil having a completely different political landscape from the us, if brazil doesn't have their own january 6 equivalent, i'd say that is a good thing in the very least. besides, it took trump 60+ days to admit he lost. the "trump of the tropics" is already doing better in this regard. G Man (talk) 23:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

And on the not so bright side
Bolsonaro's fanatics started blocking several federal highways on monday. The federal highway police (PRF) seems to be doing such a poor job that organized football (soccer) fan clubs were organizing to undo the roadblocks. There were also some military police officers in Sao Paulo that saluted the blockers (it is a well known fact that most police officers throughout the country, whether federal, state or municipal, are Bolsonaro supporters). Now, after the dear leader said it was bad but didn't straight up ask for them to stop with that, the fanatics went QAnon and saw "code words" to ask for the army for help or something. Oh, and there were a bunch doing the nazi salute in front of a military office. Mistermano (talk) 15:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure these dicks would've been sent to the camps if they were present in Nazi Germany. Vee (talk) 16:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * yes. now they're asking for military intervention. such fine people, aren't they? luckily, they're very unlikely to succeed, as even bolsonaro sees the writing on the wall. G Man (talk) 01:51, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * wait, why do you say that? G Man (talk) 14:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The fashy assholes doing the fucking Nazi salute are Brazilians. At best they'd be considered "honorary Aryans" and then disposed of after their utility is exhausted. I just find it ironic. Vee (talk) 14:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * you do realize that millions of brazilians are direct descendants of europeans,, right? the state where this happened, has a very sizeable population of germans. some of them might even be descendants of actual nazis who fled europe after ww2. it might be somewhat ironic, but it shouldn't be all that surprising given this unfortunate historical fact. we should've seen this coming all along.  G Man (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * here's an interesting op-ed from the la times on the matter. it's worth the read (if you can get past the paywall, that is). besides, the nazis have had "honorary aryans" (read: useful idiots) from other parts of the world too, such as the middle east. (see, for example this guy.) G Man (talk) 18:53, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Blue Checkmarks
So, Elon's plan for monetizing his $44B company is to charge $8/m for the blue checkmark.

The blue checkmark was implemented more than a decade ago to verify that the twitter account belongs to the person it alleges to belong to, so that, e.g., AllTheOtherShadies can't impersonate TheRealSlimShady. Since then, "blue checkmark" has become a bit of a slur amongst the new/alt-right. For that reason, charging to have the blue checkmark is obviously extremely popular amongst the alt/new-right, even "blue checkmarks" such as Matt Walsh seem to be in favor of it. As far as everyone else, nobody likes paying for things that used to be free, and people like Steven King rightly point out that the blue checkmarks such as himself provide the content for Twitter that makes it a valuable website. However, not having a blue checkmark after your name does not do anything to prevent you from creating content beyond letting people know you exist in meatspace too. So in reality, the blue checkmark does not mean a thing for people whose content is solely on Twitter such as parody accounts, only for those who wish to direct traffic away from twitter to their own websites.

So I'm not sure if this is the best move or not. Thoughts? 17:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, be sure to check out KFC's twitter page. Look at who KFC follows...  17:55, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's going to give benefits to people who can afford to pay for it. Less ads, more promotion in the algorithm, etc. Unfair and stacks the social hierarchy in favor of richer people. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There are ads on Twitter? 18:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. The blue check won't even remove them, just halve them. This is the kind of purchase incentive Elon thinks people will buy, lol. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Which, from what I've heard, this is obviously ironic considering the point was to give "Power to the people!" I wouldn't call this a plan, but a last ditch effort to make something,or even anything back. One last thing- I never recalled ads on Twitter, weird... Servasym (Talk / Contribs) 18:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've never seen an ad on Twitter. Or YouTube in years for that matter; I keep forgetting there are people that have yet to figure out how to turn off internet ads...  18:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Me neither, thanks adblockers! Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I understand that website need to be funded somehow, but internet advertisers are a bunch of fucking criminals.  When running a website, you have two options for ad companies.  You can get paid a lot of money for your ads to be a bunch of popups, spam, spyware, and effectively screw over your viewers, or you can get paid a little money to host the more benign banner ads... except that the second ad company that you contracted with will be bought up in 2 months by the first one and you will be screwing over your viewers but without getting paid.  So you go to another ad company, who gets bought up.  So you go to another, and another.  So I can't even whitelist trusted websites, every website has to wear the adblock condom whether or not it's their birthday or they are totally clean, baby, or how much they truly love me and would be with me forever.  Adblockers are the only protection we have, and if they can't get revenue, then that's just the fault of shady advertisers, not me.  18:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't let this bullshit distract from the fact that Elon Musk is horrifically abusing his employees at Twitter.  (Yes, 84 hour work weeks. Not an abusive boss.) ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Common tactic - make your workers quit, so I don't have to pay them off by downsizing them! Plus, he's always been the Horatio Alger dickwad anyway... but moving on.


 * The blue tick gives you extra features on your account, like a feed which lets you know whenever you're retweeted, mentioned etc. Plus, allows you now to edit your Tweets. What's more, a blue tick shows you are truly 'notable', the 'yeah I've got my own WP page and so on' level. I've done work for a couple of companies who desperately wanted that tick because it meant they could get better 'influencers' to partner with them.


 * Now, Musk's 'argument' is this. The vast majority of the BTs are either companies, organisations, celebs, 'public figures' or those who work within their milleu (for example, journalists). Thus, most of them are either making money off Twitter, using Twitter as their go-to for RT public announcements, using it to reach out to the Big Public and/or making connections with the 'people who matter'. Therefore, their BT 'subscription' could be seen as a simple 'business cost'.


 * There's logic in this argument; where say 15 years ago Steven King would have perhaps used a dedicated online forum for him to interact with his fans and 10 before that maintain a fan club held together with SAEs and printed magazines can now be done by his PA or a media manager through Twitter at much lower a cost. Is it really too much to ask to get a bit of a taste of this, for services rendered?


 * As Corrupt rightly says, it's difficult to get folks to pay for stuff they'd already got for free - so Musk needs to offer 'extras' to tempt, and said sweetners shall need to get bigger if - as I suspect - this $8/m is a teaser rate. However, quite a few of the stuff they'd like - for example, a crackdown on parody accounts, the ability to secretly edit/withdraw tweets and so on - would harm the value of the platform for the Big Public.


 * However, I think the biggest threat is the fact that Musk's 'free speech absolutist' vision is in fact ultimately incompatable with the much more staid, sanitised garden that the biggest Blue Ticks would desire. If he sees Twitter as 'the town square', truth is most of 'the money' on the platform would prefer it to be the square in a shopping mall... where security and a velvet rope divides between them and us plebs. Perhaps this is something which the subscription could offer; the Blue Tick means only other Blue Ticks can interact with you, and no peasant can add their own comment if they retweet you? KarmaPolice (talk) 19:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My suggestion would be to allow for and sell more than 1 verification. Aside from the Blue Checkmark meaning "you are who you claim to be", they could also have a Yellow Lightbulb for "verified scientist", an easel for "verified artist", and so forth.  They could even have NEGATIVE verifications, e.g., a flaming turd for a user that's notorious for harassing others, a pinocchio for someone that spreads lies, and so on.  19:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You know that shall basically make Twitter a kind of credential mill, right? Next thing you'll see the likes of Mike Adams buying the one labelled 'polymath of our age'. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If it's done dishonestly, it won't be worth anything. I personally am certified by a University and my professional organization, and those hold no value if they let too many incompetents through.  I don't know how Elon can monetize Twitter beyond charging people something, unless they get paid by major corps to put the thumb of the scale of certain stories, which is exactly what Twitter was accused of doing before the takeover.  19:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Even more importantly, Musk needs to 'increase monetisation' without actually increasing costs. Having to 'properly' verify such accounts like your suggestion will need humans to do it, and therefore Is Bad unless he can really charge a premium for it (which to be honest, I don't think he could). Thinking about it, I think the various levels of 'upselling' is the best bet; $10/m for the 'premium experience' (formally known as 'free', but that's now crippled and infested ), $20/m for a personal Blue Tick, $40/m for the 'Professional Edition' (the 'velvet rope' service outlined above), $200/m for a company Blue Tick...
 * But the 'how the hell is this going to work??' is the correct answer. Almost all the media was missing the major bit of the whole Twitter-Musk story; the fact it made no fucking sense from a business POV. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Musk forcing his employees to work 84 hour work weeks for fear of being fired or sacked, with no communication from higher ups, managers, or otherwise, is a sign that his business decision is failing before it even gets started. He is a petulant crybaby with the impulse control of a spoiled toddler. Elon Musk did not buy Twitter to make money, he bought Twitter to boost his ego because he will see no consequences for his poor spending. Every single statement he's made post-purchase is a pathetic attempt to convince the masses that this purchase was anything more than an impulse buy meant to inflate his sense of superiority. He creams his pants every time one of his fans verbally pleasures him on Twitter, him becoming the CEO is a no brainer. There is a reason why he's acting so authoritarian as a boss and CEO, he wants to assert himself over the platform and his workers because everything he has ever done is only meant to gain more fame, power, and ego. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 17:49, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not as hostile, but I do agree in respect Musk didn't want Twitter to make money. In fact, I'd argue he didn't want Twitter at all; what happened was he ended up talking shit to the point he'd got stuck into actually going through with it. And nor was it a corner he could get out with more shit-talk, lawyers and/or throwing some of his spare change at them. Now he's forced to 'make it work' somehow because otherwise everything shall fall over. I mean, he doesn't even really understand this market; at least with other things there was a decent 'engineering' aspect.


 * Though the way he's acting now is nothing new... KarmaPolice (talk) 20:59, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/05/elon-musk-doesnt-know-what-hes-doing-says-former-twitter-executive KarmaPolice (talk) 21:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If Twitter goes bankrupt, Musk will have to sell some of his Tesla stock to cover it. But he has so much stock that the price goes down, which means he will have to sell more stock, which drives it further down.  But given all the billionaires and multi-millionaires that own Tesla but have 9 figure debts of their own, they too will be forced to sell.  So if the next recession is caused by Musk buying Twitter, ugh, this whole universe is one giant practical joke isn't it?  22:16, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't quote me on this, but a disproportionate of Tesla shareholders are in fact, individual Musk fanbois/tools. And Tesla is hugely overvalued when you actually sit down and do a Buffett-style analysis of it. You can quote me on that one. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * At the moment, it's "only" 3x overvalued. It used to be 100x overvalued.  Basically, a company "should" be worth 20x their EPS, give or take depending on growth potential and stability, and Tesla is current at 60x.  It's a good company, but it shouldn't be valued more than, e.g., Toyota.  00:51, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If, as you say, ”a disproportionate of Tesla shareholders are in fact, individual Musk fanbois/tools”, then that might mitigate share value losses, if Musk has to shore up his financial Twitter debacle, depending on whether they have the ability to soak up most or all of Musk’s fire sale. It would be ironic if the financial fallout from Musk’s idiotic Twitter fits will be ring fenced by the same groupies who, due to their unshakable belief in Musk’s business acumen (not mention seeing him as an overall genius), allowed him to embark on in the first place by helping to inflate the value of his assets. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:37, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd argue yes and no. Yes, as it's not dependent on actual stats etc. No, because it relies on the marks on 'believing in' Musk - if he makes a pigs ear out of Twitter (like say he has with Neuralink) it shall be hugely more public and could destroy his 'brand' and thus, the marks to lose confidence and bail...


 * Anyway, much of the excessive valuation of Tesla is down to future expectations. However, the truth is that window is closing - fast. In short; Tesla did very well when electric cars were at the crappy 'G-Wiz' era. But we're not there anymore; all the big makers are in the process of making their ranges all-electric in the next 5-10 years. Tesla needs to get 'big enough' that she can survive as another 'boring carmaker' when she's lost that special edge.


 * One stat tells it all. In 2021 Tesla produced about 300k cars. BMW produced 2.5m, Audi produced 1.6m and even 'small' Volvo managed 700k. You think Tesla shall keep up when she has 12% of the output to fund the R&D to keep up with the others economies of scale? Or do you think her products are 'so great' she'll be able to get a 5-7x margin on her Model 3 than... an electric 3-Series, A4 or S60? With better build quality and performance? KarmaPolice (talk) 11:32, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, looks like some celebrities changed their profiles to Elon Musk, and he perma-banned them. I'm not crying over Kathy Griffin, but it's pretty clear that Musk was that gifted kid who never failed in life, but never learned to accept failure, and so freaks out at the mere suggestion of criticism.  17:49, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Unlearning Economics - value.
Thought it worth sharing. Goes into the problems inherent with defining/measuring value. Goes over the serious limitations/problems with the theory of marginal utility, and the labour theory of value. A long one but a good one. https://youtu.be/8Z2LCNAVfMw - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I like how he points out the political nature of value theories. "Smith created his TOV in defense of the rising industrial class, Quesnay created his TOV in defense of the old agrarian order." Vee (talk) 17:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a good comment on the video about the LTOV: "Reading about LtV it was always obvious to me that it was model specifically about class dynamics. It was a model seeking to explain how a class forced to sell its labor for subsistence and one which can seek rent on capital accumulated primitively. It never seeked to describe the inherent value in something, there are just too many variables to account for. Even a coat loses value in your eyes the more coats you own and the same goes for money. 60 bucks for a worker is a lot but for a billionaire it's nothing. I agree with the sentiment that people have tried to extrapolate too much out of the LtV." Vee (talk) 18:52, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That being said labor still plays a role in value. You wouldn't get a new smartphone without the labor time put into it. However, if society decides to stop buying smartphones, or "valuing" it, then smartphones are worthless. "I can't explain value, but I know it when I see it." Would you care to explain to me Carson's SLTOV? Vee (talk) 19:04, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I could ask my mutualist buddies about it or I may have to look into it myself. I haven't actually read Kevin Carson directly -- but from my understanding, he takes a lot from the economic theories of Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker. Again two figures I haven't read directly myself who I understand to be pretty difficult-to-understand thinkers. I'll come back to you if I do some literature browsing and come to an understanding of what Carson argues. For now, though I am not equipped to say.- Only Sort of Dumb (talk).


 * It seems interesting and I'll have a full watch. But first, here's some old thoughts I've had on how people value things in terms of money – and how senseless it is. I've found it grotesque, and not only striking, how highly entertainment ranks for people. For almost any job that can be done, even jobs that are dangerous and/or where hard work is done saving the lives of others, those jobs are valued significantly less in money than the job of an actor pretending to do it (and the actor usually gets higher social status too). As a species, I think humans tend to be fabulists who center their sense of meaning around drama to the point of barely being able to value anything else above basic needs and hoarding, except for "weird people" in the minority who are strongly driven towards other things. And among the things which most change possibilities for the future are discoveries and inventions, and yet, those who have the greatest impact of all on things by making those are usually far, far less rewarded than those who simply shuffle money around. I'd prefer to live in a society that values things more sensibly, but that seems very theoretical, and would be a new chapter in human history. The status quo seems like a strange and vile game which only by accident is able to lead forward on a very crooked path. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 07:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Who's Next, Musk?
Who's gonna be the second one to be unbanned from the controversial group after Britain First? Would Musk be insane enough to unban him or his site (I think the twitter from his other site is still up? Not sure) aswell? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 10:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Dunno, but he's leading a charge against parody accounts... KarmaPolice (talk) 12:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfectly fits with his Blue Checkmark BS. Iirc, there are (or were) parody accounts mocking Musk on Twitter (and Trump), so. [[User:Arcadium Trancefer|Arcadium

Trancefer]] (talk) 12:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * He'll eventually unban Mikemikev, mark my words. 15:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * BF was already rebanned. But Musk's generally unserious about the consequences of his actions. His minion at Twitter sent out email termination notices with a photo of him laughing attached. He wants chaos because he's bored: that's why he publicly supported a Republican Congress to "balance" a Democratic presidency. Bongolian (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Who could have predicted that free speech just meant "I can be racist"? Truly, what a shocking turn of events. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In other words, Musk is being a big fucking manchild. Nothing new there. Also, looking at the commentary section of that tweet, it seems Musk unbanned and remade the Lizardman aswell. So, I wasn't far off the mark with nutters... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 21:27, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

How soon will EM's policies meet Poe's Law head-on? Anna Livia (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This on my usual source of peculiar stories. Anna Livia (talk) 21:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

What's the difference between God and trolls?
Both need attention for sustenance. And both will demand you give all of your attention solely to them. Vee (talk) 01:31, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Trolls exist - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Same goes for dogs. And coincidentally, “dog” is “god” spelt backwards. LongStylus (talk) 09:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The difference being is that there tons of evidence for the saying "a dog is a man's best friend" to be true and that there's no evidence for "a god is a man's friend" to be true (unless you're a fundie or a creationist). There is tons of evidence for "a god is not a man's best friend" however. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is a trick question. The real answer is: one is singular and the other is plural.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 13:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

I do think there are philosophical grounds to believe in a deist god. The simulation hypothesis comes to mind. If we live in a simulation, then who is the simulator, and are they really any different from the Big G? Vee (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a older bar topic made by Machina who seems/seemed to believe we are living in a simulation... or something like that...Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It is a genuine topic of philosophical inquiry. Granted, so is solipsism. The point being these are thought experiments. I wouldn't personally be so worried about these existential topics. There's nothing you or I can do to change things of such nature, so why worry about it? Vee (talk) 21:33, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * What blasphemy! You think fundies and creationists believe that “a god is a man’s best friend”??? Fundies and creationists don’t friend-zone their god like that! LongStylus (talk) 22:58, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You're right! I completely forgot that they want to be noticed by God-Kun! :P Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 23:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say that the idea of God continues to make profound impressions on humans and their cultures, which some find annoying, while the idea of trolls is just annoying.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

one is a product of human evolution. not sure about the other. G Man (talk) 03:03, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A lot of people make a living of 'writing about, serving, or promoting god or gods' and there is no comparable phenomenon for trolls.
 * There is 'Don't feed the Troll' but no specific phrase 'Don't feed the God.' Anna Livia (talk) 10:32, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Now I think about it some more, there is an obvious difference between (internet) trolls and gods. The trolls undoubtedly exist.  There is scant to non-existent evidence for gods.  So I guess that puts the trolls ahead?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, we do have 2 examples over here that confirm that they are, indeed, ahead. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 12:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If any god would actually exist, considering the world we live in and the different religions in the world with 'revelations' from a god, with different contents that people forever argue over, I'd say such a god would be a troll, laughing over the arguments they spark with what they've created, done and (badly) communicated. God would be a troll and revelations are god-troll shitposts.ConverginglyRational (talk) 15:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not all religions are theistic, though. The Jains certainly don't believe in any deities, or at least a creator deity. Neither do certain Buddhist and historical Hindu sects. Vee (talk) 20:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Well 'god is a troll' wasn't really meant very seriously, the question didn't seem very serious to begin with, though by definition a deistic god couldn't be a troll, because they don't really do anything, and with the question being asked about a comparison between a god/gods (it even reads God specifically, so trying to balance that with a general-but-not-too-general statement about (some) 'god') it just seemed funny to me to imagine a deity (singular, plural, one who is many who are one, three who are one, omnipresent and all pervading or whatever your favourite flavour of deity from cosmic love to strawberry) that has at least just enough power to just troll people. Tell them, or through other means make them think all kinds of weird things, mainly conflicting things here and there, and watch the worldly (ok worldly may not be a good word here in any sense) theological thread explode for millennia. Just to have their behaviour fit into a broad meaning of some kind of troll, trolling, though I guess it seems more a kind of trickster-like behaviour, which is why I focussed on 'revelations' (granted also kept vague and broad, just to make the joke work), so it could match 'shitposts', like trolls who actually write things. For the hypothetical existence of a god, while very interesting anthropologically etc., I don't see how non-theistic religions and their culture are very relevant, besides in a "the question was about God, but related to that there's also this other thing that isn't that" way. (Just to be sure, I hope what I say doesn't seem rude or all too snarky, my writing in quick discussions isn't always 'optimal' let's say, or as clear as I'd like, but I just meant to make a bit of a joke and add something, maybe clarify what I said, I just hope the tone is fitting, that it doesn't read too harshly or bad in other ways, but perhaps I'm overthinking my own writing too much.)ConverginglyRational (talk) 23:09, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The OP wasn't serious, but the conversation did quickly turn serious, at least that's how I interpreted it. Vee (talk) 23:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the easiest 'serious' addition on that subject, without taking an all too deep dive, but to entertain some thoughts a bit, since a simulation hypothesis appears to assume (well hypothetically of course) the existence of some 'more baseline' reality (though all different imaginable philosophical possibilities for how that might work, and theoretical ways in which it may but also may not work is a whole further tangent, but I'm trying to be short and simple about it, so: computable laws of physics? could be run on computer (let's not go into it or the inevitable regressions of anything simile prima-causa) hotel? trivago, but on with it), in which there exist computing systems that run the simulation that is 'our reality' (philosophy of mind wise this is certainly interesting), that we are part of, it is imaginable that in that reality there are also online trolls who troll around on such computing systems, just like we have trolls in our reality. Make of that what you want, I suppose, philosophically and in relation to theism and deism. ConverginglyRational (talk) 01:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've already thought of that. However, I was asked, "why, given the resources and infrastructure needed to program and run an entire universe, would whoever was running the universe be interested in a power trip?" This however assumes the motivations of the simulator(s), which we don't know. Whoever is simulating this universe, if any, might be closer to a deistic interpretation of a god than a theistic one, but that still assumes the motivations of the simulator(s) in a sense. Those simulating a universe and dicking around with the simulation are probably closer to the theistic interpretation of a god, in any case. Vee (talk) 01:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * …Isn't deism just a subset of theism? Deism postulates that God exists and created the universe and set up the laws of physics, but has little to no interest in interfering after having set everything in motion. Theism is just the belief that God or gods exist, period. Luigifan18 (talk) 02:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My interpretation is that theism has the deity in question be an active participant in the affairs of its created universe. Deism does not have that assumption. Vee (talk) 02:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My understanding too. Deist gods just create the universe and then - well - do nothing. They are really a placeholder for "Something we don't know (yet)". They are irrelevant to anything in real life.
 * Theist gods, on the other hand, not only create the universe - but as a sideline - take a morbid and detailed interest in who individual humans have sex with. So, if you believe in a theist god that can have a very real impact.  (And yes, I know it's not that simple.)Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 09:22, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Right Wing Terrorism and psychological projection
It is common to hear right wing loons call every Arab terrorists because of some bad apples. However these same people happily carry out acts of terrorism thinking that it is American and patriotic. Most of their views line up near perfectly with Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban and Hamas. I guess that it is only terrorism when the people involved have black and brown skin? I am not denying that Islamic extremism exists as it does. White people can be terrorists like Arab and Islamic extremists. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 00:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Let it be known that Israel helped found Hamas to fuck with the secular PLO, and the Taliban are more Pashtun (not Arab) nationalists than they are Pan-Islamists. Vee (talk) 02:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Taliban is made up of a combination of spoiled rich kids seeking a purpose, middle-class incels angry at the world, and dirt-poor locals. It's only the locals who are Pashtun, the leaders and the technical guys are generally the foreigners.  As for Hamas, it was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood; Israel made contacts with the nascent organization at first in the hopes of finding an alternative to Fatah and did provide some initial funding to some of the nutters, but the growth of the org is hardly the result of Israeli support.  20:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In regards to Rational's original question; I think it's the stupid right-wing loons who say this; they are unaware and/or unwilling to accept the simple fact there's few actual 'absolutes' in the world. They cannot say any of 'their own' could do 'terrorist acts' because terrorism is something 'Bad People do' and well, their people can't be Bad People, can they? They're fighting for America. The power of nationalism has the ability to absolve evil, but they're so insular they're unable to wonder if it works on 'the other side' too. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * so basically, "rules for thee, but not for me." G Man (talk) 23:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's pretty much like that. Luigifan18 (talk) 01:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

In other languages
Twofold topic: I noticed that some pages have 'In other languages' on the left, much like on Wikipedia, however usually when a page has other language versions, those are just listed at the bottom and on multiple pages (I had a good example page but I forgot) there are more listed at the bottom than are included on the left. It seems silly to have this combination, it seems a bit messy and chaotic, wouldn't it be better to have all other language versions linked on the left as well? Just for a bit of consistency. I am not a wiki editing veteran though, so I'm not sure if technically perhaps things aren't in place here to do this easily. Any thoughts?

Secondly, would anyone be interested in having Dutch pages as well? It's quite a big small language. I was looking at what I could do, a lot of pages are well developed and new pages would require more time than I have for research and writing, but translating can be done easily bit by bit so that seemed like a good idea, though of course my language knowledge is limited and French pages for example seem to often already have a lot, but I could easily translate some articles into Dutch, which seems to me like a good addition to the list of languages, but I wondered what people here think, the Languages article says to propose it here also because apparently in the past someone just kind of went off with their own stuff in a language space, but my first and main activity would be translate, perhaps here and there with small additions from sources originally in that language (which would be easier to incorporate in an article in the same language, also because perhaps it might be odd to have too many references in a different language on, say, the English page, translated just by the editor, it makes it hard to check for others, but I guess that's always the case), just off the top of my head I'm thinking I could start with pages like Logic (there are quite a few good sources also in Dutch on Logica (also informal logic), formal theories of language, Montague grammars… though I understand this isn't wikipedia, although the editing atmosphere is much nicer here sometimes it seems, as far as I can see so far), Euthanasia and the Belgium and the Netherlands pages as simple examples. I also seem to remember some proposals on the To Do page referring to some Dutch politicians (some things could certainly be said about a few, although I also wouldn't want to get near legally troubling stuff so I might not be sure how to write articles on people well alone, but there's at least one Dutch politician or so with conspiracy views and cult-like following and quite conservative ideas, that seems on-topic and on-mission for RW, and like any country I suppose, countries with Dutch speakers (though I personally don't know much about Suriname) have their extreme political parties, people and cranks) and things like crankery, like psychoanalyst Mattias Desmet's stuff on covid, a highly voted still not finished article which would be easier to include (first) in Dutch as most sources would be in the language. I am aware HoaxWiki already exists, which might make adding some Dutch pages over here a bit redundant, though it's still a separate wiki and there could be some different things there and here, there are subjects on here that aren't on there (and vice versa, though RW remains the bigger wiki) plus for the Dutch part here the wikis could also just be complementary and refer to each other, HoaxWiki already refers to RW often anyway. In short HoaxWiki, fun as it is, isn't Rationalwiki and this is just about adding a language here. So would anyone else support that? Or strong no on adding Dutch language pages? Should I stick to the languages already here for now? Thanks for your thoughts. ConverginglyRational (talk) 01:05, 9 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The only "in other languages" pages that you'll see listed on the left are in Russian. That's because those pages are hosted on a different wiki that has an interwiki link to this one. Articles in all other languages are hosted right here on his wiki. You won't see them listed on the left because such a link is not possible. They are only linked in a sub-section of "See also".


 * We already have some articles in Dutch. You are welcome to create more. Spud (talk) 01:57, 9 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Alright then! That's good to know. I just looked on RationalWiki:Languages and it's not listed there, so I thought there weren't any yet. Thanks for the link, I'll look into creating some later/tomorrow then.ConverginglyRational (talk) 02:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Category:Babel is where you'll find all the languages other than English and Russian. Our three Dutch language pages are here: Category:Nederlands. Bongolian (talk) 03:42, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Recently a translation of Gamergate was made in Bulgarian. Vee (talk) 04:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Satan's latest plot against humanity has been revealed… and he's clearly running out of ideas.
I just found something completely ridiculous on Reddit. According to some wackjob named Rick Wiles, veganism is a Satanic plot to change human DNA so that they are no longer human and cannot be saved by Jesus Christ. I can't make this shit up. What the actual hell?! 🤣 Luigifan18 (talk) 01:24, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "'Luciferian' plot" LOL, perhaps this one could be converted to Pastafarianism, as certainly promoting pasta will make everyone Christian again, turning them Roman Catholic (though that may not be his preferred denomination) by first becoming Italian through the power of the holy pasta. Though perhaps that's just a Nintendian plot to turn everyone into videogame plumbers, although I'd expect there to be mushrooms in the pasta then. With this kind of logic, it's hard to know where things go. A bit like pipes in Mario. It's all connected! (well I'd hope not all pipes are connected, gotta regulate those hydraulics a bit) ConverginglyRational (talk) 01:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's just typical Rick Wiles bullshit. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 02:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * OH GOD, THERE'S MORE. My sides have gone missing. Luigifan18 (talk) 02:22, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the reddit post and I see someone quoting him saying that. But - well - not everything on the internet is actually true. Did he really say that?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * as a pastafarian, please no... we no like rapist church man and his dumbass ideas Your friendly neighborhood anarchist 13:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

are there any userboxes for pastafarianism if so please show me if not, how can i make one?
thanks in advance! Your friendly neighborhood anarchist 13:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * With the usual { curlies around it, it's User Pastafarian. See here for lists of userboxes by subject. ConverginglyRational (talk) 13:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * thx m8 Wheelsontheancom (talk) 13:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

how is everyone? there is a lot going on these days.
use this as a place to vent or just talk for a while, all i ask is you keep it civil, and have a good day :) Wheelsontheancom (talk) 14:06, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I feel like things are just more meaningless right now. Like I'm fairly content, but I feel like things are hopeless and doomed to get worse, but that I'll probably be pretty insulated from the negative spiral of the world.  I have little motivation, but also I have friends who keep me company so I don't feel lonely.  But I also have stopped self grooming for the past two months, which is probably a bad sign.  I make a lot of promises at work, genuinely believing I can accomplish what I say I can, and then fall short when I run out of desire to do it.  About 2019 and earlier I lived with a medical condition all my life that made hearing most sounds painful and could cause me to have panic attacks, so life was hell for a long time.  Now thanks to neuroscience I'm much better and can actually go outside without birds making me freak out.  So like, life is much better and I feel like I can't complain because I'm no longer in physical pain, but also the world is kinda shitty sometimes?  I wish I had longer than an hour to talk about my problems with my therapist every other week.  Elections just happened in the US but I have conflicting feelings about it.  Like I'm pro-union, pro-LGBT+, but lean pro-life and am anti-drug (don't approve of anything harder than caffeine except for medical purposes), and no party represents that.  I'm just voting to try and keep fascists out of power, but can't actually vote on issues with more finesse than "durr I vote team blue!".  I wish the democratic party would defeat the Republicans so the dems could split into more detailed sub parties that can actually have nuanced stances on issues instead of being forced into a coalition to keep out christofascists from power, but I digress.  I'm simultaneously tired, anxious, and weirdly content.  How are you?  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 14:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * well i"m doing all right myself, but things in the south are bad and here in sc that cunthead mic master got to stay in power so gas went up this morning

and my school is trying to stop the lgbtq+ club that is in the works from getting off the ground, but despite all that i'm happy as i can be, i am going to a therapist for my schizophrenia and ptsd and ye. but hey back on topic, keep your chin up matey things are bad sure, but it is the small things that keep you going! go outside, play video games, jerk your gurk, do whatever makes you happy! and hey if you need to talk in privet i have my discord on my userpage add me if you like. and hey have a good day friend! Wheelsontheancom (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2022 (UTC) (sry about any spelling i'm slow)
 * Sure, I sent a discord friend request. Username on it starts with "Zesty".  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 17:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * based Wheelsontheancom (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Fears of political violence caused by midterm results: thoughts?
All over, I've been seeing people, left and right, talking about widespread political violence as a result of the midterms. Would you say there is any credibility to these worries?

Personally, I wouldn't entirely discount it. We're currently at a point where governors of some of the largest states are actively trying to fuck over other similarly large states. I don't doubt that people will take to the streets no matter who wins in protest which can segue into street fighting and riots. Either way, I hope to God that whoever wins, the losers concede peacefully. SwampFox (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Meh, it's rather rare to see voters themselves be subject to violence. You're more likely to be mugged on the way to the polling station than anything happening when you get there.  18:25, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don’t think we need to be so cagey or noncommittal about the likely source of this potential violence. There have been few, if any, large or otherwise significant threats of or actual violence committed by those supporting Democrats in the wake of elections. Of course, that might always change, but I see no reason why we should not speak frankly here: The risk is overwhelmingly one of certain GOP supporters refusing to acknowledge losses and trying to reverse them by force and/or intimidation. We have already seen this played out in 2020 and the fires have been stoked even more prior to these midterms. ScepticWombat (talk) 18:31, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * IIRC, only 1 person was actually killed on 1/6, and that was one of the protesters at the hands of the police. Another died of a drug overdose.  The others who died were from strokes or other natural causes in the following weeks, or committed suicide in the months after.
 * That isn't to say it wasn't a fucked up situation all around; it was so bad because of the whole symbolism of a riot in the goddamned capitol building along with the President taking his sweet time to tell them to get their asses out of there. 19:56, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My main worry is not a civil war but rather widespread sectarian violence down political or racial lines, assassinations of officials, domestic terrorism and rioting. A full on civil war is unlikely but political violence could reasonably happen. The issue with sectarian violence is that it falls solely under being a law enforcement matter and most law enforcement agencies are woefully unprepared for the possibility of hundreds of people picking up weapons and attempting to attack or intimidate others. SwampFox (talk) 19:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Unlikely to be racial this time. Revolutions happen via the youth, and the youth is mixed-race.  20:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Once again, I'm more worried about right-wing corruption of the very law enforcement bodies than them being 'unprepared', and/or right-wing politicians deliberatly hamstringing the response. But let's be honest here; it's the hats bearing 'MAGA' which are the threat, not the ones which say stuff like 'BLM'. No false equivilence here - there may be two sides, but one is massively larger than the other.


 * Plus, It was not a riot. Riots are at least semi-spontaneous and generally unguided in nature. I generally see them almost as a collective 'Id' - doing what it feels like right at that moment and then burning out. This was a failed putsch, a really half-arsed one with even less chance of success than the one seen in Munich a century before. But an attempt all the same - let is not dismiss their motives (a coup attempt) simply because they were small in number, stupid in leadership and absent of plan.


 * In situations like this, I consider rationalisation to be the enemy. It's so easy to after the effect to scrub away layer after layer of the events of that day, to end up with a point 'oh it was just a few idiots' and 'it didn't do much in the end anyway'. In fact, there's lots of people (esp Republicans) who are actively doing revisionist history by the inch - to slowly slip the story further and further away from the reality of that situation.


 * Nothing to really do with the topic, but I took linguistic offense at the definition above. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:19, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it's foolish to dismiss the possibility of political violence as a result of social unrest. It most definitely can happen here. Vee (talk) 20:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, of course it could happen here. It could happen anywhere.  But the idea that it's higher risk than it has ever been is rather silly, but nowhere as silly as the idea that somehow the Left is somehow less likely to lead a revolt than the Right.  In terms of historical revolutions, most revolutions start from the Left; even the far-Right extremist revolutions such as Iran started as Left before being quickly hijacked by the far-Right.  The very existence of the terms "Left" and "Right" comes from one such a revolution, in which a group of angry anti-Monarchists managed to take over France, before turning on themselves and allowing a frustrated public to rally around a mass-murdering self-aggrandizing dictator that promised to return stability and pride to the country.  21:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's true, but looking at the statistics on the ground in the US the group that has been most likely to cause political violence has been consistently the far right. That's where people are arguing from. Vee (talk) 21:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Already looking bad for the Dems at exit polls. 21:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The silver lining is that they can take this as an opportunity to do some self reflection as to why they are unpopular, clean their house of the more blatantly corrupt individuals and focus on the issues that actually matter to the working and middle classes, and come back stronger than bef- ah who am I kidding, the Dems will be the same shitshow that they were in the wake of 2016. 21:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Corrupt; find me Democratic politicians who are openly saying 'I won't accept the result if I don't win'. Plus; how does it feel to be doing the MAGA's doing by peddling the whole 'but nowhere as silly as the idea that somehow the Left is somehow less likely to lead a revolt than the Right' shite in the hopes some smucks buy your ballcrap? KarmaPolice (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Here you go.
 * As for the MAGA job, it's mostly annoying because their checks keep bouncing. 21:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I asked for Democract candidates who refused to accept their own results, similar to The Orange One's own 2020 escapades which led to the little event you're revising down until it's become a gathering of a few dozen little old ladies? I found six Republican ones already, and I was barely looking. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If any widespread violence did break out, there's a very very high chance of some involvement from at least the national guard. Most police departments are unwilling or unprepared to deal with any widespread rioting or political violence and federal agencies are spread far too thin. Add in that a larger-than-insignificant portion of sheriffs and police chiefs are subscribers to the Posse Comitatus movement of Constitutional Sheriffs and you would have a very tricky situation to deal with. SwampFox (talk) 21:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The sky is blue, CU engaging in false equivalences, what else is new? Leftists aren't typically interested in destroying democracy and subverting election results. I wonder which party is? Antifa isn't storming the capitol, you're delusional if you think the level of political violence from the left and right in America is equivalent. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd like everyone to remember, Democrats still have a 41% chance of flipping the Senate, a 16% chance of flipping the House and are forecast to flip a net of one governership (flip MD and MA, but lose NV.) Andrew5 (talk) 22:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not anymore. The race shifted in the last couple of weeks. Dems are gonna lose bad. 22:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Senate is up in the air, Republicans will certainly gain a majority in the house. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 22:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Gotta love the logic in this. 'Dems ain't doing enough for us on Main Street from Washington! I know, lets' vote in Republicans to ensure nothing at all can happen for two years!' Times like this, the American electorate reminds me of the thick-arse populations in city sim games who'd burn down public services etc then riot 'because there isn't any public services'. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Imagine being so delusionally stupid that you think the reason why the Dems don't do anything is because the Dems are the party of corruption and advocating for the upper class instead of the fact that the only reason Dems don't do anything is because they CAN'T, Republicans stifle them in the senate. Republicans are the party of corruption and advocating for the upper class, they're not fixing our problems. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 22:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)


 * (EC) Ozzy, I have some important life advice for you. And anyone else that society considers a "freak", which might surprise you to know includes myself.  I'm ethnically Jewish, though at this point somewhere between Reconstructionism, Apatheism, and Ethical Nihilism.  But guess why that doesn't matter?  Because whether the people banging down my door have white hoods or all black, a Jew is a Jew.
 * When the revolution comes, for us it doesn't really matter whether it's Left or Right, because they will always target us freaks. If you're LGBT, you are absolutely right to fear a Far-Right takeover, but look at what happened when a Far-Left takeover occurred in Russia.  For a brief moment, the LGBT community got a bit of a reprieve, but guess what happened?  In spite of their radical commitment to egalitarianism, being decades ahead on things like "racial equality" and "women's rights" (i.e., the reason why so many Lefties in Hollywood became Commies), the Commies threw the LGBT crowd under the bus in order to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the public.  Soon after, another ostensibly-Socialist movement appealed the masses, and while on the surface it wasn't that friendly to the LGBT crowd, very quietly it was brokering deals with them and telling them to wait just a few years.  But very quickly this was a source of embarrassment, and they were thrown under the bus, and eventually any pretenses of being a haven for Gay people (or being anything resembling Socialism for that matter) disappeared.  Far Right or Far Left, a revolution will fuck over the LGBT crowd.  You and I are unlikely to survive a revolution unscathed, even being part of it won't save us.  So we need to be very, very certain that a revolution does not happen.  22:20, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you point out where I said I support or advocate for a leftist revolution because I think they'll support LGBT rights or are you completely bullshitting and putting words in my mouth? A leftist revolution is not happening. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 22:23, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No, just pointing out that none of us should ever be happy to support any type of revolution. In case you think I'm in favor of some sort of Rightwing revolution, or if you are (or you think I think you are) in support of some Leftwing revolution.  22:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If anyone wants some good news, here in CT we're sailing towards re-electing our eminently competent governor and Democratic senator (I wouldn't call myself a fan of Blumenthal, but he's done well enough to earn 6 more years). Any political violence sure isn't coming from here, other disreputable sorts have that perfectly well covered. Also, just going to drop this gem as an aside. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 22:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've heard NY governor race could be competitive, but with 538 giving Hochul a 97% chance at victory, it's so unlikely it'd be significantly significant if it occured. Andrew5 (talk) 22:51, 8 November 2022 (UTC)


 * 538 puts a Republican senate at 51 to 41 whereas the betting market has it at 70%.  Not sure who to believe But we will find out soon enough. CorSock (talk) 23:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

my thought is that all this talk of political violence sounds like fearmongering to me, but we'll see... G Man (talk) 23:56, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * As I expected, the moronic, drooling Dems have tossed this election cycle into the garbage. Say hello to our new GOP majorities in the House and Senate! 01:08, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I wanted voters and the Dems to prove me wrong by the way. They just DIDN’T. 01:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Judging by the early returns, it's going to be a close fight for the Senate at least. Plutocow (talk) 01:36, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-      Luigifan18 (talk) 02:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't be surprised if control of the Senate comes down to another runoff in Georgia. The House is probably a lost cause, but Democrats are doing a little better than expected. Plutocow (talk) 03:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * i kinda saw this coming. as i stated in my post about brazil's elections, us democrats (i.e. the democratic party, not the voters) has been a disappointment for a while now. they're partly responsible for the rise of trump in the first place. they seem to be stuck in the past. they keep recycling the same old outdated platforms thinking they're gonna win votes. meanwhile, republicans are losing their minds even more by the day and nobody seems to care -- not even the democrats. i keep my hopes up too, but i new tonight was gonna be a disaster. this article from a few days ago explains what went wrong. we can only hope 2024 will be better at this point. G Man (talk) 04:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * i especially hope walker won't win, though we may not find out until january. if he wins, he'll be an embarrassment to my state for the next 6 years. we already have enough of those. G Man (talk) 04:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The betting markets right now are reasonably confident that Fetterman and Kelly will win, somewhat confident that Johnson will win, and close to 50-50 on Georgia and Nevada. Democrats have won a few upset house races so far, so it's far from a red wave, but I think we can agree on one thing: fuck Florida. Plutocow (talk) 04:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the idea of there being a "revolution" or "civil war" anytime soon is kind of a joke. The idea you can even predict terrorist attacks or significant political violence ahead of time is also a bit suspect. I would argue there should always be a low-key anticipation for far-right terrorist attacks at any point in time in the coming years because in the last two decades about half of all terrorist attacks were committed by far right nationalists for various reasons in the United States. We do have a precedent of misinformation campaigns being used to attempt to undermine American "democracy" in the last couple of years due to the 2020 storming of the capital on January 6th. I do not think it is out of the question that something like that can be inspired again -- but I feel that is probably the most concentrated and organized these actions are going to get by large groups of people. Lone wolves for outright terrorist attacks are always under the radar waiting for a moment to strike for whatever contrived reason and it's hard to say that this will be a "triggering point" or cause for any sort of action at all. White Supremacists are already planning attacks as of current cross borders waiting for a time and place; though the majority of them probably will never follow through on it. This is just one of those things you can't really 100% prevent or predict. That and you can argue that all politics is a form of violence in some form or another. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:35, 9 November 2022 (UTC).
 * Turns out DuceMoosolini was doomsdaying. Always thought he was but now, yeah, this is not great showing by Republicans if this lack of momentum keeps up. 06:53, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I went from cloud of doom to huffing hopium in about half an hour and now I'm dizzy. 08:05, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * For those who cannot be arsed to read Corrupt's pearls of knowledge today, I'll sum it up for you all: 'Don't desire change because there have been times where change was bad'. Hail, the idology of the pessimistic conservative; who has no faith in development or human nature, so ends up supporting the status quo - however bad it gets - and was the sort who often ends up supporting fascism after being told 'them Reds!' are trying to overthrow everything. All as long as our booted marchers have the veneer of legality and stability. All it shall cost you is your total, silent obedience.


 * Plus, that's also really crap logic; it's like saying 'there have been times ideas have been wrong; therefore your idea is wrong' or 'I got food poisoning from food, therefore I'd better not eat again'. Also, the current status quo was change once; I assume the 1963 Corrupt would have been the 'white moderate' MLK bitched about; the ones so devoted to 'order' they were pathologically scared of rocking the boat, however slightly and regardless of the reason?


 * (I was willing to give you some leeway until you shat yourself doing 'argumentum ad stalinum'.) KarmaPolice (talk) 09:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * There's a world of difference between civil disobedience, voting, etc and violent revolution. The violent revolutions?  Never end well for the LGBT folks.  Ever.  13:35, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Bad faith reframing of this issue. No one was arguing for a violent leftist revolution. The only claim being made was that there is no equivalence between left-wing and right-wing political violence in the US. Leftists do not engage in political violence to the systematic level that Republicans do. Again, leftists are not typically interested in subverting democracy and killing elected officials in the US in the modern day. We are not stupid. Your attempt to reframe this issue and say that you're "just saying that violent revolution is bad" is a bad faith attempt to subvert the actual arguments we're making, that being that the overwhelming, astronomical majority of political violence in the US is done by Republicans instead of Democrats. Democrats do engage in civil disobedience, quite often actually. Hell, sometimes they even riot. You know what they don't do? Stand next to polling booths with guns, attempt to take the house speaker hostage, storm the capitol, kidnap state governors, shoot their neighbors with shotguns for suspecting them of supporting the other party. The most leftist political violence in the modern day for the US has done is property damage from riots, leftists don't do targeted political violence like Republicans do against state officials or government institutions. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:57, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Given the leads, I think the house will come down to 223-212 Democrat, which would be a 1-seat gain. This is judging by the leads each person has. This massively overestimated Republican support because democrats only had a 16% chance for house control to begin with. The senate, it looks like, will come down to Georgia. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 19:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, cool, another one of my threads turned into a self-sustaining shitshow. SwampFox (talk) 02:13, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Don't post politics on midterm day, then. Andrew5 (talk) 02:40, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Comparing the reasonableness of different theisms
For years I've thought that the usual debates for and against a big man in the sky are very stupid. Intellectually, much better is possible if some kind of theism is to be considered. But it seems only a small minority of theists want to look more carefully into this. At the same time, I am undoubtedly using some axioms in looking at metaphysics which some may question, and which may be worth looking at more carefully than I've so far been doing.

I fundamentally relate the existence of structure to the presence of limitation. If two things exist and are separate, then they are delimited and both limited in some sense, relative to the whole. They are both part of a structure which is in some sense greater than such smaller parts, however abstract the nature of that structure.

Consider the idea of some "God"-being existing alongside a creation which is separate from that "God". If the two are separate, then they are both limited in some sense, and it is thus logically impossible for the "God" to be omnipotent. A larger and "more powerful" structure defines the relation between the two. Thus an all-powerful "God" cannot exist separately from the creation. Pantheism is however free from this problem, as is panentheism. Outside those two and similar, it would also seem problematic to claim that a creation was created by a "God" lacking the power to transcend that creation and its structure and limitations.

It becomes even more problematic (and in my personal opinion dumb) when some "God" is viewed as having a human-like personality. That's because a human personality has a great many features (both in terms of what it is and what it isn't) and is tied to a very complicated structure of sorts. A very very very large number of propositions all need to be true in order for a human personality to exist. It so happens that the human brain exists, satisfying that requirement. But how about assuming that something of the same complexity exists in some other way, on the basis of something other than organic life? The existence of a "God"-personality similar to a human personality would likewise require a very very very large number of propositions to be true. And those propositions are in addition to ones we know to be true, concerning something categorically different from organic life, and cannot be assumed to be true on the basis of what we know about organic human beings. The claim that a human-ish "God" exists is extremely more complicated and far-fetched than the claim that any kind of "God" exists. Deists are also among those who can avoid this problem.

The most popular ideas about "God" seem to make for the combination of those two problems. There's some religious beliefs that don't have those problems, though, and plenty of weird esoteric philosophies which few believe in which are more sensible in this area, while at the same time usually encumbered with what seems like lots of other outstanding problems. In part those problems have to do with a related general theme, in part they don't. The theme that humans are very complicated (and limited, and specific), and ascribing anthropomorphic qualities to anything usually amounts to assuming that something of a very great complexity and low likelihood is true.

Thoughts? --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * As someone who is pretty much atheistic, if there is a God, it would likely be incomprehensible to humans and would likely have no interest in humanity. My view. If a God cared about man then there would be proof. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 20:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Pandeism is also pretty interesting. The idea that God created the universe, and then killed emself to give the universe "life" basically. What's the one thing no being, not even an omnipotent deity, has experienced? Non-experience. God killed emself cause e was bored (and er body is the universe). One of the few interesting ideas Scott Adam has ever had. Vee (talk) 20:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm really not sure why one would posit gods in the first instance. What logical problem do they solve? The only thing I've ever seen are god of the gaps type arguments, and they are not convincing.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Religion and spirituality have utility. They bring comfort to those who need it. Give some people purpose. To me the question shouldn't be "is god real," but "what effect does god (or belief in a god) have on people, positive and/or negative?" I don't shame people for believing in something more than themselves, it gives comfort in a cold and uncaring universe. Vee (talk) 21:05, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that it's more important to believe things that are true than things that are nice. The question then becomes "What effect does believing in unprovable things have?" I would suggest the effect is negative.  I understand your milage differs.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

As someone who considers most ideas of 'God' and gods to be pretty silly, dumb, empty or incoherent ideas, I'll try to play advocate of the devil a little bit and go slightly against some things you said, although not entirely all of them because you definitely make reasonable points that I agree with anyway and I can't argue for things that I think are simply entirely nonsense and inconsistent either, so I'll have to give some points, mainly like on anthropomorphism, from the start. It's true that starting points and metaphysics are very important here though, sadly I don't have a very good background (yet) in that area, what you say about structure is reminiscent of structuralist (though that has somewhat different meanings in different areas) and perhaps poststructuralist thought (like your mention of a structure 'more than its components' and limitation reminded me of ideas in Derrida's work (though for anyone responding further, I'm not actually very familiar with it beyond this basic and introductory bit), with what little I know on that, on that 'something' always escapes the system, like 'khora' can be interpreted from the Timaeus, but I'm moving way out of my depth here with associations for possible approaches and views on metaphysics). I'm not sure yet what my thoughts are precisely on such things, so it's difficult to comment, they may also be the kind of thing philosophers will forever argue over.

More interestingly then is the treatment you give on 'God' itself, although we have to go back to your first assumption for a moment, the one on structure and limitation: I suppose we can make this concrete by saying that, for example, even a God would have to obey laws of logic, so 'omnipotence' seems problematic. To give an example: God cannot create and not be the creator of their creation. They cannot make tautologies false. However in a way, and I have to stress that theology is not my expertise, but this is a slightly immature objection, although it certainly works well enough for those who want to insist on untenable seeming positions, I think perhaps some thought in Eastern Orthodoxy concerning the modality, necessity and its relation to God could be counted among this (I am ever so slightly aware through conversations with people who work in related fields that there are approaches in Easter Orthodox theology that reject the S4 axiom of systems of modal logic, because 'only God can be cause of necessity', something along those lines), but once again I'm no expert on that matter so I find it hard to argue with nuance on this, although for a more nuanced treatment of omnipotence, I have been told by a philosopher who should know their stuff that the SEP article is really good, though I am embarrassed to admit I have only skimmed a piece of it so far so I won't delve into that topic. It goes a bit more into working out the concept, what it can be understood to be and what not, from a glance it looked like it tried to avoid naive approaches that quickly run into incoherence and come to a clear concept. That being said then, I think perhaps such objections could be levelled against the kinds of theism you mentioned may be immune to the problems you raise. A God could be all-powerful in a relative sense (though yes that seems contradictory and I would personally think that's an issue for those insisting on some of these properties of God in seemingly unreasonable ways), with regards to the creation though, even 'standing outside of it', and may be able to exist 'separately' from the creation, but further (logical) structure may be imposed (I think logic always creates objections to this kind of stuff, but as I said I'm not well read up enough on these subjects and their relation to actually go in depth with more sophisticated back and forth arguments at this time) such that the 'God' cannot escape also being 'the creator of what they created', but they can do anything with said creation though. I'm not sure philosophically how much sense it makes to call the 'extra structure' that emerges 'more powerful', this seems like it asks for elucidation of the specific concept of 'power' and, as mentioned earlier, the related 'omnipotence'. Though I said I'd be arguing in favour of theism today, obviously that doesn't come easily to me, most of the concepts and arguments for just seem so full of rhetorical swindle usually.

But perhaps with that I haven't entirely approached that in the way you actually meant it. For now I'm moving on to your second point though, because that mainly prompted me to write this (I hope I haven't forgotten my own point yet). It seems that most basically, 'God' is usually conceived of as some sort of subject. You mentioned complexity though, and Trans Zombie Queen mentioned that such a God might well be 'incomprehensible', I think those are good points to raise. A problem that comes up here is that God is conceived as some kind of 'mind', some kind of subject, and meanwhile we struggle with various philosophical and scientific approaches to and theories of consciousness, let alone the problems with it concerning how 'different' minds can exist, the degree to which other kinds of life and matter may have some kind of 'mind', in some ways similar to humans at times, in some animals perhaps a bit, and so allowing some anthropomorphism, but of course there would also be differences. I would definitely agree that seeing such a God as 'personal' in an all too human and anthropomorphised sense is probably problematic sooner or later, but one could argue that discussions that seem to exhibit such thought only really try to capture what such a mind could be, starting from our human experiences of what it means to have/be a mind and try to extrapolate from that, see what a 'divine mind' is then, mutatis mutandis, with perhaps much of the anthropomorphic language simply being metaphorical and remnants.

I think one issue though is that you mention the human brain as material condition for the human mind and while I personally agree with that condition for humans, you yourself pointed out that one could assume this complexity exists in some other way, I think this is in part where the 'incomprehensibility' comes into play and where the 'transcendence' of such a being matters, although that goes towards a kind of view of the mind like duality or otherwise panpsychism that I'm currently not the biggest fan of. It would all remain the question how such things would even work, for the time being it basically seems 'seems hard to say, we don't really know (yet), but we can assume or consider (hypothetically) the existence of such a thing', which seems like a huge cop-out and I don't like how it keeps key concepts vague, unclear, left all up in the air, but I'm starting to argue against theism again which wasn't what I set out to do here. It's certainly true that a God with additional structure is more specific, and so less probable as a considered possibility, than 'just any kind of God', but only because the latter includes the former, but given that we actually don't even know how the structure would work, and since 'just any god' is even more empty and undefined, less made clear, I'm not sure how all those considerations help. The problem is also that 'God' has specific connotations, and that (any) 'god', in a very broad sense, anything divine and related, as from all cultures ever, is very vague, very broad, and often just has loads of different problematic concepts, though perhaps not all of them are always necessarily problematic, but there's still a large variety, as you kind of also mentioned, so I'm not sure how to treat that here. The 'God' with certain 'usual' connotations though seems Deistic in some kind of sense, or variation or combination, of creator, prima causa, ultimate telos, but that brings in teleological perspectives (which I think are problematic) and their relation to Aristotle's 'ultimate good', eudaimonia, brings in ethics (definitely a problem), which as you said, it all complicates the situation and quickly makes everything complex and possibly problematic. But that doesn't necessarily mean that some of these concepts can't be cleared out and made into something coherent (my actual position is that it can't very reasonably though, so I'm really stretching the advocate of the Devil (ironic) stuff here).

There is the question of 'mental states' and the like of God, God as a personal subject would require an account of intentionality of God and so on. God-mind would also have to somehow stand in relation to the world, as some sort of oddly-self reflective being the world, or as containing and transcending it (while also immanent in it?) or as being (somewhat?) separate, but in relation to it though, tied to it (I'm gonna be honest, these are all just words with some connotation, borrowing some meaning from the common sense use to express some vague intuitions, but just largely left to fill in, I don't actually think in the end theistic approaches to this ever make good sense except by ultimately 'working them away' and eliminating the whole thing altogether). I think these are basically just the options you mentioned, but I don't immediately see how these variations do better or worse than one another with regards to what you said, mainly because you seem to focus on some idea of 'omnipotence', but without making it very clear what that is and isn't in your approach and I'm not sure the way you combine it with 'structures and limits' is unproblematic to begin with. Perhaps to add to that: I think some approaches focus more less restricted properties, at least to begin with, at the start, picking out omniscience first from the basic set of commonly considered god properties, though I think they cheat with messy and ambiguous premises and the fact that logically and metaphysically extravagantly you can easily do a lot with that, but then there's not even any reason you're talking about a 'god', e.g. possible worlds-wise and such, the schemes always pretty much fall apart, I don't ever think they're plausible any way. But now I've reverted to giving vague and general oppositions to theism, rather than playing advocate of the devil to argue with what you said.

I hope I said something interesting and haven't been spouting too much nonsense. Not all of my sentences are probably properly constructed as some thoughts ran on, I hope that wasn't too much of a hindrance.

Perhaps this would have warranted a Debate page. ConverginglyRational (talk) 21:57, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

To say a tiny something (I probably wrote way too much) on what Vee said: I'd imagine the effect of belief in a god depend strongly on what kind of god it is someone is going to believe in. Just clinging to a false belief for comfort may have nasty side-effects. But I'm more of a supporter of the position that illusions are never really useful (which would mean otherwise they're not really illusions, like reading a nice book of fiction I wouldn't count as 'illusion'), though I know not everyone think about it that way and I probably have some reading and thinking to do to see whether I shouldn't shift at least a bit on that position, I actually just recently found some things on that subject that I haven't read yet, so we'll see. ConverginglyRational (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

This is interesting
Louren Boebert's race is too close to call. I hope she loses. Andrew5 (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Garth Ennis
I've been reading Preacher. Is his writing always so edgy (as in replete with gore and bigotry and other splendid things?) Vee (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. His apocalyptic/weirdo zombie series Crossed is horrifingly bad. RagingHippie (talk) 21:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The chicken scene from Preacher is just Ennis in a nutshell TBH. Vee (talk) 21:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I need help proposing an article for demotion
I'm new here and don't have everything down to pat. Could I have some help proposing an AfD for the Drake equation article? Vee (talk) 04:14, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The ribbon isn't up because of the Nominations, but I did make a while back for just this sort of thing...  05:14, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I wasn't aware of that. Vee (talk) 05:23, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah. The hope was that by encouraging more people to get involved in demoting, the people that have particular obsessions would have some feedback as to what needs to be done and we'd get the articles a bit more fleshed out.  And hopefully, more variety in the cover story articles.  13:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The demotion page was a great idea. The only reason it doesn't have more activity is because most people here prefer chatting on the Bar than actually editing pages. 16:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, that and the drama over I-P and later She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named caused half of the members to leave. 16:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Who? Hillary? 18:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * A ghostly cry of LOCK HER UP echoes in the distance Vee (talk) 19:17, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Inactivity notice
I know I have posted this on my userpage, but starting from December 1st until December 4th, I will not be making any edits. On the 1st, I will be attending a concert and then my annual trip to  from the 2nd to the 4th. Hopefully y'all can prevent this website from blowing into smithereens while I'm away then. 15:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Kevin Conroy passed yesterday
See here. Jesus Christ. I'll buy myself a nice wine in honor of the best Batman voice actor of all time. Rest in peace. Vee (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I rather think he was the best Batman period. Perhaps that because I feel that animation does comic book characters far better than live action usually can, at least as far as DC goes, but to my mind he was Batman. Kencolt (talk) 18:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Same here. Damn, things won't be the same without him. The only way this can be worse is if we hear Mark Hamill has passed. Vee (talk) 18:14, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ...fuck. Do you realize that this means the Joker has outlived Batman? Kencolt (talk) 18:22, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh no. Joker won. Vee (talk) 18:43, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * My my... I grew up with BTAS and this is really sad news to hear- may he rest in peace. Servasym (Talk / Contribs) 21:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

So...
I finally got off my arse and wrote my first article; the 1997 UK General election. I'd like to put at the top the 'New Labour New Danger' pic/poster from WP but not sure if it would be okay to do so. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

so people keep telling me im autistic
the latest person is my niece who says its obvious and i cant make eye contact. then i am hearing stories from my flatmate about mutual acquaintances thinking ii am rude and he having to explain no its just me being me. keep hearing this from people all the time, not least from someone who works with autistic kids. recent events playing out and putting me into something of a depression and i wonder. and i wonder what difference it makes either way. life can be difficultAMassiveGay (talk) 21:53, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It makes a difference because people are far more comfortable if they know that the reason you are odd is "autism" rather than "possible psycho". 22:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * (autistic here) the difference, for me at least, is that post-diagnosis i felt more comfortable with myself and with my new understanding was/am able to improve my behavior and social life. Jake Holmes ''yell at me 01:12, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * "People" do not have the ability to diagnose others like that, and it's very likely they are framing such judgements on the basis of stereotypes. Regardless if you are or not...it's kind of rude for people to just state that to you. If you seriously think you may be, look into getting tested for it. Nothing wrong with being autistic. Still doesn't justify people talking to you like that. Keep in mind too that people like to use "autistic" for ableist reasons with less than neurodivergent-friendly connotations. Sometimes it's hard to tell when people are actually mistreating you, but framing it as if they are offering you helpful commentary. Keep that mind.- Only Sort of Dumb (talk).
 * As someone who is not autistic, but has two autistic siblings which shaped me in my formative years, I get that a lot too. I say these conformist weirdos can go fuck themselves.  Just because I'm neurotypical doesn't mean I have to have your lame-ass normie opinions, nor that I cant have a bizarre obsession with Medieval swords and Armor.  MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:17, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Calling people Autistic out of the blue is usually an insult and often prejudice in nature. --Trans Zombie Queen (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * thats really not the case here AMassiveGay (talk) 22:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * autistic people are telling me this. amongst othersAMassiveGay (talk) 22:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't put too much stock in others' opinions, even if it's multiple people. Autistics are the quickest to diagnose others.


 * You could do a bunch of online autism tests, but I wouldn't put too much stock in them either. If you're annoyed at how poorly the questions are worded, that's a sign you're autistic. Another sign would be if you answered yes to the "less obvious" questions, like the ones about sensory hyper or hyposensitivity; you already know the obvious stuff applies to an extent, that's why you're taking the test.


 * An official NHS assessment consists of a test much like one you'd find online, and then being asked to narrate a picture book about flying frogs. But that would be years in the future, if you manage to get one at all.


 * Finding out you're autistic as an adult usually doesn't have a massive impact. You know your own personality already, whether or not you've attached a label to it. But the impact it does have is usually positive. Christopher (talk) 00:55, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * yeh kinda really of that opinion. just that when say'everyone is telling me', they are not really telling specifically. i hear much of it second hand and i heard a lot that i had previously been unaware when discussingb this with my flatmate. combine with a really night out that had left me feeling pretty sorry for myself, it just kinda has doubting myself or my general assessment of things. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:40, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Syringe-shaped skyscraper = ZOMG CONSPIRACY!
I found another great post on Reddit, showcasing somebody noticing a similarity between a certain skyscraper and a syringe with apparently ominous implications, and I'm not sure whether or not I should upload the image here as an example of a false equivalence, equivocation, or similar fallacy. Penny for your thoughts? Luigifan18 (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Correction: after looking at the pages, I have to state that the comparison between a skyscraper and a syringe is neither a false equivalence nor an equivocation. I know it's some sort of logical fallacy with an article on this wiki, I just don't know which one off the top of my head. Luigifan18 (talk) 18:09, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Portent of doom. Now give me a penny. Vee (talk) 18:11, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Comparing the strongest high-rise building in North America, intentionally built for the safety of the occupants, to a vaccine? Irony. SwampFox (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Can the Cheese Grater and the Gherkin be brought into the discussion? Anna Livia (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Dissociative States
The usual source of obscure information came up with this. More or less serious than the 'return the Orkneys and Shetland Islands to Norway' movement? Anna Livia (talk) 00:09, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It might be serious, but the chances it goes anywhere are pretty minuscule. Despite the size of those counties, almost no one actually lives there; Harney County has a population of a little over 6,000 in an area the size of mainland Denmark. Western Maryland is the best east coast equivalent, they put together something similar last year and it went nowhere. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 14:30, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The Oregon legislature would have to approve the change, which is very unlikely to happen. West Virginia only got away with it by a technicality, as because Virginia was considered to be in open rebellion the West Virginia legislature was considered to be the legitimate legislature of Virginia by the federal government. Plutocow (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

An important message to keep in mind during the US elections
A vote for red kills morality dead!

The Republican Party cannot be trusted with power. They cannot be trusted with America. They cannot be trusted with religion. They cannot be trusted with anything. On January 6th last year, the Republicans showed this nation exactly who they are. The Southern Strategy has corroded any sense of morality and integrity they may have once had. They are no longer fit to participate in politics. They are no longer fit to be anything but worm food. Spread the word on Twitter, on Facebook, on Reddit, and everywhere that the Republicans must never be allowed to win an election ever again. Every Republican victory is a victory for fascism, and pushes humanity towards stagnation, hate, and doom.

#AbolishTheRepublicanParty  Luigifan18 (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Vee (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, read this Federalist article to see what horrors the GOP wants to unleash on the USA. Whether they admit it or not, Republicans aim to impose their "moral" and religious values on the American people by force. 23:28, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's been fun, y'all, after these midterms I'll be well on my way to the transgender death camps because I "couldn't define woman" ---Ozzyboo (talk) 23:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If you're not conservative, but you're still an authoritarian rightist, what are you? Honestly, just cop to the fact that y'all are fascists. It's the post-Trump era, fascism is unfortunately no longer outside of the Overton window. No need to pussyfoot around. Vee (talk) 23:45, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * these days, republicans only care about two things: power and "owning the libs". keep that in mind at the ballot box. G Man (talk) 06:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That's how fascism works. It's not so much an ideology as it is a framework for the preservation of power by the dominant minority. Fascism is the loser's "ideology". Prey on alienated people, tell them the other is responsible for all their problems, and see how many votes you're gonna get. Demagoguery is a tried and true political tactic, and fascism is demagoguery mastered. Vee (talk) 07:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's more complex than that. A decent amount of their 'wider base' is folks who don't have a lot utterly terrified of losing even that - I call it 'lifeboat politics'. That like a lifeboat, all resources are judged to be finite and thus, to 'give' more to one person means 'taking away' from another already getting it. Like You. Immigrants are a classic example; it's all about what they are going to 'get' from the country, not what they can 'give' to the country. And as it's a completely zero-sum game, the idea that both 'sides' could reach a mutually beneficial relationship is not even discussed.


 * It's this group which Trotsky termed 'human dust'; the (mainly) lower middle-class who threw their lot in with fascism because they were scared of the spectre of proletarianisation - such as the formally small business-owner forced into 'feeding the beast that killed me' while having the 'indignity' of having to wear a name-tag with only your first name on it.


 * But there's one other important aspect which needs to be noted in the modern iteration; that of the elderly. The numbers in the USA have gone from 8% to 17% since 1950, while the UK's has gone from 10.5% to 20%. This is important because there is now a large electoral cohort who generally speaking, have no direct 'skin in the game' regarding the country. They generally speaking don't work, own their own homes and are pretty well insulated from shocks such as price increases, inflation, interest rates and so on - you know their pensions etc will be the last thing facing the 'austerity' axe. This means they (as a bloc) can 'afford' to be utterly irresponsible in who they vote for - for most of the time, they'll be protected and some openly admit that they'll be dead by the time the negatives of their choices come obvious (qv: A 'Hard' Brexit). KarmaPolice (talk) 11:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Young people don't vote in the midterms in the US, or any elections more local than that as well. It is a serious problem. There's youth canvassing for those things, (The young folks canvassing for Karen Bass in my city of LA are a good example) but young people have to be much, much more politically engaged than they currently are, especially by the left. The right does a very good job of radicalizing confused, ignorant young folks in high school or early college that want answers to things they're just learning about. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 15:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Polling shows that it is inflation/economy that voters care most about in the U.S. 2022 midterm elections. And the RealClearPolitics.com website, which aggregates the polls, indicates that the Republicans are favored to take back the House and Senate. A large part of this is because the Democrats control all three branches of the federal government and currently there is high inflation in America. CRau080 (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey, you were right! Vee (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Say, Ken: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/real-clear-politics/ Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * We don't have a Rule of Majority, but a Rule of a Conglomerate of Minorities. Exactly how much of the electorate is, for example, in favor of increased tariffs on Sugar, which double the price of sugar and effectively subsidize high fructose corn syrup?  American sugarcane and corn growers, and absolutely no one else.  That's what, .5% of the population?  Yet we have that tariff, and HFCS, and obesity, because that .5% agrees to work with the 1% of people who want the "light truck" emissions exemption, and the people who want this that or the other extremely unpopular thing.  The elderly are just one big fat member of the potential conglomerate who will screw over everyone else for their piece of the pie.  16:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * KP was talking about VOTING, not lobbying. The elderly as a class don't lobby but they do vote more than other classes of people. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 16:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * AARP is literally the old people's lobbying group. Old people being all "screw you Jack, I got mine" is the most 'murrican action they could take.  17:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I was primarily talking about voters, not groups or even politicians. And at least in the USA, I assume any lobby group allegedly representing people is in fact somewhere between 'controlled by the corp interests who feed off them' and 'complete astroturf' unless explicitly proven otherwise. And even when lobby groups are genuinely controlled by the alleged representatives, they are prone to capture by only one strand of opinion - for example, MADD (similar can be seen with the American arm of ASH regarding vaping - adopting a pretty harsh 'nicotine is bad, mm'kay' stance where the UK arm has remained much more true to the original 'smoking is bad because of COPD and cancer' line' which allows them to cautiously welcome vapes as a method of considerable damage reduction).
 * Anyway, the thing, KenBot is that while the American economy isn't doing too well right now, anyone with a modicum of knowledge on the topic knows it's mainly due to events beyond any American politician's control - they didn't cause Covid, nor the zero-C policies in China causing supply bottlenecks or the war in Ukraine. Could the Democrats do more to help? Yes. Are they actually able to? Nope. You want to know why? Because the Republican opposition shall not allow them to because that would be 'socialism' / 'interfering with fwreeedom' / 'more gives' etc. What's more, when in comparison to the other advanced nations, America is doing better than basically, all of them. Even worse is the fact that we are in a very strange situation right now - a stagflationary economy - which the 'normal' economic levers are basically ineffective (qv: current UK policies). Even if the Republicans held all the positions of power it's highly unlikely they'd be able to much better than the incumbents.
 * Which leads me back to the other half of the coin - the irresponsibility of much of the right-wing political class in the Anglosphere. The GOP is currently trying to make hay on the above issues, while the majority are lying through the teeth about how they could actually fucking do better (the only ones who are lying are the ones too dumb to realise this). They pander to the key groups to get victory, promise unicorns to whoever needs it, then gaslight them on why they generally didn't get them. Complaining that the senior citizens (as a bloc) have become irresponsible as voters, but we cannot ignore the fact that basically, this cohort has been conditioned to expect to always get what they want since about 1980. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:51, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

There's a draft in progress on this very issue, in case any of y'all wanna go ahead and contribute to it. Vee (talk) 14:42, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * KP makes a really good point. The major issues in the US for voters federally are inflation, crime, and abortion. The idea for moderate voters is, "Well, we have the Dems in control of all 3 government bodies, why are these not getting better?", the Republicans push hard that INFLATION and BIDEN and UKRAINE (or whatever the fuck) are as a result of the incompetence of the existing government, so you should vote for them. Interestingly, they don't say what they'll actually do to fix inflation or crime. Now, if you're not an idiot, you'd realize that Republicans will not make inflation better. They will not reduce crime. They will not represent the majority opinion on abortion in this country. Republicans will make all of these issues worse, and then run with it because by the time everyone realizes that a Republican house is a bad thing, the midterms will be another 2 years away, more than enough time to run the country into the dirt. Inflation in the US is NOT the reason for higher prices, it's corporate price gouging, something Biden has been trying to fight AGAINST for the past few months, and something Republicans have protected. Also, the reason why the dems "don't do anything" is because the senate is literally a 50/50 split. As anyone with a mild idea of how the US legislative branch works would know you need a 2/3rds majority to pass legislation through the senate. Every SINGLE bill to try and fix the issues in this country has been blocked in the senate by Republicans, the Democrats cannot do anything until they get a 2/3rds majority. A Republican house flip is genuinely a nightmare scenario for me. With all the posturing about transgender issues, gay people, women, Ukraine, and so on, I shudder to imagine what horrors face the country in the coming year. ---Ozzyboo (talk) 18:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not a statist, but this country honest to god needs a new Constitutional Convention. Vee (talk) 18:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * it absolutely does. we are long overdue for another one. G Man (talk) 18:32, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The party that nominated fucking Oz and Walker and Mastriano does not give a single fuck about inflation. 20:10, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Arguably, the fastest way to end inflation would be mass immigration. More people relative to the dollar, doing work for cheaper, etc.  I'm actually surprised there wasn't much inflation during the first 3 years of Trump for that reason.  20:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Not so much, as all the stats I've seen have shown that the majority of lower-paid folks are still not getting pay raises (so the labour shortage isn't causing much effect on inflation). In fact, a decent % are getting real term pay cuts. The #1 cause of the American inflation is the 'gouging' by the energy companies - and I use the sinister quote marks here because their main crime is - like in the UK - to take advantage of the fact both our domestic prices are pegged to the world market prices and generally speaking, none of our domestic producers have any 'handcuff' conctracts forcing them to sell domestically first.


 * A more invisible driver of inflation is what I shall call 'anticipatory purchases'. Basically put, some people have cottoned on to the old trick that if you've got cash being eaten away in value, you'd be wise to convert it into solid goods, and well if you're going to do that, you might as well as buy the stuff you'd need anyway, right? Was thinking of buying a new mattress in the next year? Why not get it now, as this time next year it'll be the best part of $50-$100 more?  Nothing you can really do about this one (in a free market, at least) and this could in fact get quite serious if 'high inflation' in particular sections becomes normalised (the only ones I'm aware of which have consistantly risen since 2019 is whey protein and creatine) and we enter a 'shortage economy' mode on it.


 * Truth be told, the only 'conventional' (so 'allowed' by the American political Overton) method of getting rid of inflation is by removing cash from the economy 'till demand falls enough. This is known as 'a recession'. But only the British Govt are currently that masochistic and utterly uncaring about people's SoL to go full-bore into such a policy.


 * On the political scene, I'm not an expert or even an American - but I think the first 'reform' required is the ending of the Senate fillibuster. The idea that (right now) 10 Republican Senators who only represent 3.9m people (some 1.17% of the USA total) can basically cause gridlock as and when they fucking well like it is inherently undemocratic. This doesn't even count as 'tyranny of the minority' - this is the tyranny of a tiny segment of the minority. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Like I said… we need to get a big movement going to make sure that everyone knows that a vote for Republicans is a vote for doom, destruction, despair, and death, and nobody should ever vote for a Republican again. Being a Republican needs to be made into a political death sentence. Luigifan18 (talk) 04:07, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

if nothing else, republicans really need to stop nominating election deniers. G Man (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The GOP is now the party of fascism, so good luck with that. Truth is merely a suggestion to fascists, and not a strong one at that. Vee (talk) 00:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Morality isn't high on fascists' list of priorities, either. Luigifan18 (talk) 01:10, 13 November 2022 (UTC)