RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive293

The first rule of terrorism is...
That it always backfires. In other words, public opinion will always be swayed towards the opposite of what your apparent motive was. 9/11 didn't make America repent and accept Islam, it made it Islamophobic. Similarly, if you're a Christian fundamentalist who hates atheists, don't kill Richard Dawkins. Attack Liberty University and kill Jerry Falwell Jr while pretending to be an atheist. Angry at the Republicans winning the 2016 elections? Shoot Bernie Sanders, not Steve Scalise.

How do terrorists not see this? How do they not realize that their actions always promote the opposite of their beliefs? --TeslaK20 (talk) 09:27, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Many terrorist attacks are shows of power, and the intended targets extend beyond the victim of the attack itself. 9/11 didn't bring about the fall of the US, but it showed other states and entities in the Middle East that the Taliban had that capability. Ultimately, the military responded it provoked played right into their propaganda demonizing the West. 173.71.123.144 (talk) 13:33, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, no. That's not what the research says, my friend.  Consider pathway #10 here.  It polarizes, with the majority usually having the backfire you describe, but a smallish(measured in single digit percentage) minority who find similar levels of ideological opposition to the target, they find solace in allies "willing to do what's needed".  This swells the cause of the relatively extreme terrorist group, compared to status quo, where they were ignored.  That their enemies and neutral parties hate them more is almost irrelevant, since their interests are usually already being ignored by potential allies.  Terrorists usually get exactly the reaction they want.  90% hating you, and 1% loving you is a huge boost to groups that previously held sway with 0.01% of the population.  And now for my own opinion: this is almost always made worse by the reactions to terrorism: the "no negotiating with terrorists" political doctrine and the disproportionate response military doctrine.  These things provoke many paths to radicalization, and more importantly, the polarization that fuels radicalization.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:48, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Remember that time the Black Hand caused WWI by killing Franz Ferdinand, eventually succeeding in its goal of Yugoslavia? Pepperidge Farm remembers.Teurastaja (talk) 23:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Terrorism's real goal in America is to distract Americans from real issues like food poisoning and terrible healthcare and climate change or in 9/11's case, to force more Americans into driving rather than flying and jacking up car accident death rates and also force Americans to go into a wasteful, economically destructive war. Serious answer: your question isn't that really well thought out. Terrorism is really old. It's never their intent to rally opinion. It's to, well incite fear, hatred, and distrust for whatever reason. In some cases, like bombing abortion clinics, it's to sow discord (I mean when has that ever really killed the pro-birth movement). It can sow fear and insecurity (Quebec shootings, fueled by violent bigotry). Ikanreed presents one case, getting attention, but I need to point out more domestic cases. 14:40, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * One goal of the Jihadists is to get the US involved in as many countries as possible, force the US to spend money needlessly on security, delegitimize the government in the eyes of the people, and basically cause the country to go bankrupt and the masses unwilling to rebuild it. This may sound far fetched as a goal, but this is basically how the USSR collapsed. CoryUsar (talk) 04:33, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

DO we make ourselves feel things?
I'm saying that in regards to emotions. Part of it is from what Buddhists call the wisdom of emptiness, in that nothing has any inherent essence to it. So when we experience emotions is it right to say that we make ourselves feel that way? If that is the case then can it also be said that we can make ourselves feel happy or sad, that we aren't passive recipients of emotions but active shapers?Machina (talk) 22:06, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This Buddhist idea sounds suspiciously similar to the Christian idea that "all humans are born sinful and wicked and must rely on divine grace to save them" which translated into layman's terms amounts to "you suck, drink our koolaid and you'll be awesome." 23:23, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * But the argument holds merit. I mean if something was inherently good then everyone would think so right? Same thing with any other qualities that we project onto the world around us. If two people react differently to something then it's not the object but themselves who create those feelings. I guess what I am getting at is that the feelings that we think are out there (love, connection, hate, sadness) are really just in our heads and arent inherent to anything else. It's not "you make me feel X' but you make yourself feel that way. That sort of takes the fun out of life.Machina (talk) 23:36, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Stoicism. You're describing stoicism.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:17, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

why sometimes victims indeed more than deserve their share of blame
This is not a defense of the "Just World Hypothesis". The world is of course not fair and people don't get what they "deserve" because nobody "deserves" anything. What someone "deserves" and does not "deserve" depends on moral judgements and moral judgements are, whether we realize it or not, always subjective.

What's more, there's no necessary link between what we consider "deserving" and what we choose to do. For example, there's many people I know who don't deserve kindness. Is it nevertheless a smart thing to treat them with kindness? Yes. Another example is this: Did Japan which attacked the US and committed a ridiculous load of crimes in Asia without ever seriously apologizing for them "deserve" to be rebuilt on our money? Of course not. Was it a smart thing to rebuild it? Yes, because it enabled US post-war hegemony.

And yet this is not logically incompatible with accepting the notion that victims are co-responsible for their misfortunes. This is because in many cases victims are not powerless to stop what's victimizing them. They're simply afraid to use the power necessary to stop it and this terror becomes a partner to their defeat. (victim literally means "defeated" in Latin).

Another reason that people fall prey to criminals are their false beliefs. A believer in alternative medicine who buys quack products is co-responsible for his humiliation. A believer in anti-vaccinationism is a partner to his preventable disease. An abused wife who believes her husband "loves" her despite all evidence to the contrary is co-responsible for her mistreatment.

During the holocaust, the victims to be crammed in a room and poisoned outnumbered their executioners who relied for the smoothness of the murder procedure more on deception and intimidation than on firepower and fences. If a single transport had the guts to disobey the instructions to surrender all belongings, undress, line up and instead tried to overrun and neutralize the staff, then the entire machinery of murder would have stopped. The successful uprising in Sobibor only happened because they sent a group of Red Army soldiers of Jewish descent there that were determined not to die like that. If they hadn't been unlucky, almost the entire staff would have been wiped out and escaping in a controlled manner would be possible.

There are users here who support the view that it's not worth to aggressively try to stop humanity's slide into the abyss when our finite world and our abuse of the environment start to kick global civilization in the teeth. The younger you are the greater your duty in convincing others that it's worth fighting back and that docility is more dangerous than defiance. But defiance has to be vigorous and violent to be successful. If your plan for defiance is "green technologies" then you are essentially proposing pleading for mercy or praying, which is indeed a form of fighting back, just an anemic one. Gewgtweg (talk) 19:06, 12 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You have no empathy nor historical understanding.
 * Various forms of non-violent opposition can work - Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, The Power of the Powerless, The Good Soldier Schweik/dumb insolence... etc, and for solutions to work they have to be long term they have to be sustainable. The war of all against all/permanent war achieves little more than violence begetting violence and feuds that last for centuries. The end of Communism in Eastern Europe started with a picnic - and the Soviet Union by a signature on a decree banning the Communist Party and three political leaders meeting in a forest.
 * Another component is education - and allowing multiple routes to communication at different levels. Anna Livia (talk) 19:31, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "Did Japan which attacked the US and committed a ridiculous load of crimes in Asia without ever seriously apologizing for them "deserve" to be rebuilt on our money? Of course not."
 * A lot of citizens in Japan have nothing to do with those crimes and want nothing to do with them. To "get back" at Japan and not rebuild them would hurt people and would backfire. Retribution, especially "us versus them" nationalistic tribalism is not a constructive way to build relations that would benefit both sides of people. We should work with Japan and correct their past wrongs in a cooperative manner.
 * "An abused wife who believes her husband "loves" her despite all evidence to the contrary is co-responsible for her mistreatment."
 * This is a horrible, morally bankrupt sentiment to have. You have absolutely no understanding of what happens in an abusive relationship. This is exactly what an abusive party would argue to its victim. What you fail to understand is the abused party is essentially brainwashed to believe several things: the abuse is "not" so bad, the abuser is not a monster because the abuser is a human who has troublesome mental health problems and buys the victims gifts and shows genuine love for the victim, and the victim constantly blames him/herself for transgressions that led to the abuse. This abusive behavior may seem obvious to you, but the victim was not raised in healthy circumstances to realize how truly bad the relationship is. The abuse cycle is a well-recognized cycle and this sort of "it's the victim's fault too", for not being magically able to see past his/her own experience and magically know how a "healthy" relationship looks like, exacerbates the victim's lack of self-worth and confidence, as the victim is already in an extremely vulnerable emotional state due to the abusive upbringing and extremely receptive to criticism and it's mighty appalling.
 * I've been through emotional abuse and I believed that my ability to not do much effort to achieve independence is my fault. I also downplayed the horrible things my dad said and done to me, blamed myself for being such a spoiled parasite (and I engaged in self-harm to communicate my pain and show myself how much I deserved getting these marks on me), and I was shocked when I told my story to the best ability when other people reacted in such a horrified way. Hearing this sort of "it's the victim's fault for remaining in an obviously bad relationship" is extremely dismaying for me to hear, but it's also not grounded in reality fortunately, and I now have perspective from people who were raised in healthier relationships, but people who lack perspective may internalize your remarks and will hurt them even more.
 * This is not a problem of victims, this is a problem of communicating people what is "normal" and what is not normal. A victim lacks resources and perspective to know what's wrong and what's right. Yes, in therapy, it's up to you to make the changes, but we need to acknowledge that those changes are incredibly difficult and even though victims may not be able to see how unhealthy their abusive relationship can be, blaming this sort of thing on the victim is short-sighted and neglects bad upbringing that influences this sort of thinking in the first place. 21:51, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This screed is utterly revolting and without value. What in the world does the author hope to accomplish by subjecting us to this? Cosmikdebris (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @LeftyGreenMario I didn't remotely suggest we should get back at Japan or anything. On the contrary, I said that it was a smart thing to rebuild it after the war. It's just that one could argue convincingly that they didn't deserve this. The Japanese have not apologized for their wartime conduct. Unlike the Germans, they never dealt seriously with the atrocities they committed against other Asians. That's undeniable and it's a criticism directed collectively at Japanese society, not individuals.
 * I think it's obvious from my phrasing that I am not dogmatic about this. There are times when victims are co-responsible for their suffering and times when they are not. Your situation was apparently in the latter category. When a parent is emotionally abusing their child that's entirely their fault.
 * @Cosmikdebris Was it so insufferably revolting that it didn't deserve a brief counter-argument? Gewgtweg (talk) 23:09, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gewtweg - #you are a verbal abuser# - no ifs no buts. Anna Livia (talk) 23:13, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe it sounds like a compelling case, but ideally, we should enact only the best solutions. That solution might make sense if you're a retributive type and your worldview doesn't take concern in citizens that are classified as helpers of the enemies. But I think on a worldview where cooperation has demonstrated to be successful, it's not a superior option nor is it morally palatable to me. Who are "the Japanese"? It's the responsibility of the government officials and those who have powers to do this. If the higher ups refuse to swallow their pride, I don't take it really as the collective fault of the Japanese people or "society" (I'm not sure the distinction is meaningful). Yes, maybe the sentiments are bad but people in general should make an effort to push toward uncomfortable truths and I don't fault Japanese citizens for expressing false nationalistic sentiments, I fault propaganda and an inadequate education.
 * And about abuse, I'm not sure where your reasoning applies because as I said, abuse affects someone's thinking to this point. It's really hard to fault a victim when an abuser has warped one's thinking to the point one does not recognize abuse as abuse. Even if the victim is in self-denial (I mean, I was but I don't blindingly love my dad and it was cathartic to hear someone call a spade a spade and say he's an asshole when my mom, who also suffered from him, kept saying "it's all our fault" in a similar way you're saying this, in this self-defeating manner and my brother, who also suffered from him, said things like "dad's going through a lot and is paying for our stuff so we shouldn't be mean to him like this"). My mom says what you're saying a lot and I used to believe her, but this sort of "this is the victim's fault too" sort of led to my own destructive behavior, and so I'm really offended and concerned that that kind of advice is applied to other forms of abuse. 23:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You said, "During the holocaust, the victims to be crammed in a room and poisoned outnumbered their executioners who relied for the smoothness of the murder procedure more on deception and intimidation than on firepower and fences. If a single transport had the guts to disobey the instructions to surrender all belongings, undress, line up and instead tried to overrun and neutralize the staff, then the entire machinery of murder would have stopped..." in a thread entitled "why sometimes victims indeed more than deserve their share of blame". The way I understand history, these people were driven from their homes, had all of their possessions confiscated, stuffed into cargo trains, and transported across the country like livestock without food or water. And you seem to imply that in some way they "more than deserve their share of blame" because they didn't fight back against soldiers armed with automatic weapons? This is what I find so vile about your screed. I fail to see how such atrocities and barbarism inflicted by one set of human beings by another implies any fault on the part of the victims. Cosmikdebris (talk) 23:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * All that can be said for this pathetic viewpoint is that Gewtweg is open about it rather than saying it behind a façade of 'reasonableness.'
 * Gewtweg - I could say what I really think of you #but you are not worth it#. Anna Livia (talk) 00:10, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @AnnaLivia I didn't insult anybody. Etiquette, please.
 * @LeftyGreenMario I believe we both agree that people need help to overcome abusive circumstances and the false beliefs that support them. After all, that's why specialist counselors and therapists exist. I don't rationalize any abusive behavior. Just said that a lot depends on how we respond to the people doing harm to us. I agree with you that in order for victims to be able to respond, they need to receive help. That's precisely the reason why I encourage many people in the environmentalist movement to stop being depressive or apathetic about degradation and resource shortages. It pains me to see how difficult it is to get the message across.
 * @Cosmikdebris Take the example of a bullied kid. Part of the blame for getting bullied lies with the kid doing the bullying. Part of the blame lies the kid being bullied and part of the blame lies with the other kids that don't interfere to stop the bullying. All of the three parties have the power to stop this. The kid doing the bullying has the power to stop doing it. The kid being bullied has the power to fight back and the kids watching the bullying have the power to interfere. All three have more than their share of blame and that includes the kid being bullied himself. Am I saying that the bullied kid doesn't deserve help? The answer is NO.
 * You are exaggerating the actual power of the perpetrators. Their most effective weapon were not their "automatic weapons" (which weren't really much present at the time). It was their use of psychology and camouflage like fake training stations, fake shower nozzles, hygiene posters, flowers and music to foster an impression of harmlessness. They told them they'd receive a shower and then work and eventually reunite with their families. Many people sensed what was going to happen, especially those from the East. Suchomel confirms that in his interview. If just the men chose to disobey then the whole machinery would be clogged because their far greater numbers could easily overwhelm the staff. But fear paralyzed them. And while they often sensed what was going on, they chose to cling to the hope that they are telling the truth. When a woman ran around in Auschwitz alerting people to the reality, people insulted her and called her crazy. Unfortunately the instinct of human self-preservation doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. So yes, the deficiencies of the human self-preservation instincts play a huge role.
 * So part of the blame lies with the perpetrators, part of the blame with the victims and part of the blame with the millions of people that did nothing.
 * Am I rationalizing the genocide? The answer is a resounding NO. Rationalizing means devising ways to claim that the victims "deserved" to die. All I am saying is that they could have protected themselves and their dignity far better than they did. From watching interviews with survivors, I think that what's troubling them the most, was not the homicidal hate of their killers because there's not much you can do to change that anyway. It is the question of why they allowed this to happen to them. Gewgtweg (talk) 00:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)arg
 * Of the disturbing things grwrgwrgwrgrwgr has said so far in his concern trolling rampage, I'd have to say the Jews not fighting back as their trains arrived to the death camps" the most grotesque and sociopathic. Gwetgtwegttgewtegtwe, in order to understand how people behave and why people behave the way that they do, you need to take a step back, look deeply at the circumstances and ask yourself what the majority of people would do in that situation...and of course many (if not most of these cases I imagine in your case) will be remotely similar to the kind of karate-awesome-ninja heroics you of course would have pulled off in that situation.. For starters, a large number of them were children, terrified children. Few commandos there. Also included were women, many of whom had little to no defence training let alone fighting experience in their lives, most of them housewives, all very very terrified. Amongst the men, I'm sure many had never picked up a weapon in their lives, nor even got into a fight, nor had any idea how to operate a gun nor, at that moment, many of them being elderly, most of them being starved, having to stand up on a train for at least 20 hours, starving, freezing cold, terrified, no idea where they were going and burnt into their memory was the image of hundreds of armed German soldiers forcing innocent fellow Jews to go where they were told and shot if they didn't. Their train ride was likely the third, fourth, fifth time they had been marched somewhere else into increasingly smaller, inhuman, dense human zoos. First out of their homes to a ghetto, likely then crammed into a smaller living space, then crammed on a train, processed at night time in a transition camp, possibly separated from their loved ones and friends having little to no emotional support, arriving at a camp in which there are rumours that bad things happen to Jews, or maybe you just work and survive until the end of the war. Each step of the way, every single fellow Jew who stepped out of line or even looked at a guard the wrong way, was instantly shot and a fellow Jew was forced to drag it's body away.
 * I'm sure you see yourself as a superman. Perhaps the ubermensch. On a train full of people who've been traumatised with the worst horrors imaginable, multiple times, weakened, starved, kept dazed and confused, flinching at the slightest noise, trying to stay alive, many too young or too old or zero fighting experience, void of any information on the number of people who are likely to shoot them if they so much as move out of line, no, in no situation in the history of the world (and I imagine the universe) would a train full of such people ever ever ever revolt. Unfortunately very few of them on the train were awesome-warriors like you, impervious to sustained psychological trauma, able to overcome extreme fear and extreme tactical disadvantage, extreme lack of information, jump right out of psychological conditioning by cruel armed and abusive oppressors, confusion, weakness, lack of sleep, starvation, terrified wife and children next to you, little knowledge or experience fight with people, and finally the knowledge that even if they escape the rest of the millions of German soldiers occupying the entire country will almost certainly find every one of them and execute them...their whole family included. If the train happened to break the near impossible odds of being full of human-God's like you...then yes...they may have revolted. In that circumstance, I would suppose that if the train were all full of ex-elite-soldiers and they did nothing...the tiniest little sliver of blame might fall on them, and even then I don't really think so...no I take that back...that's still a stupid statement to make. But you know that's not the case. And to put any responsibility of their endless oppressive, murderous, cruel suffering...shows a complete inability on your part to empathise with other who aren't ubermensches like you are. You cant seem to put yourself in the place of a wide variety of others not like you and you seem to have difficulty with basic statistics, a basic understanding of human psychology and a shocking ignorance of WWII history and the holocaust. You also win the big prize not just for the most revolting thing I've read on rationalwiki, but also the prize for "the intelligent person most capable of not saying stupid things yet goes ahead and say something cosmically moronic" award. See you on mount Olympus or Valhalla or at the super-hero-squad-headquarters.  Shabi  DOO  01:28, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You fail to understand a very basic thing about how this machinery of murder worked. The extermination camps depended for their function on psychology and intimidation. They did not depend on huge numbers of machine guns and a great number of well-armed and well-trained troops. Many guards were simply former Red Army buffoons from the Ukranian peasantry that had been captured in 1941 without a serious fight. Auschwitz-Birkenau depended on this smooth procedure even more than camps like Treblinka. This means that if at least half the people had simply refused to follow the instructions and run around like headless chickens, the machinery would break because there was not enough raw force to suppress such a tumult at any given time. That's how delicate the machine was. You don't need to have "battle experience", be a "superman", or a male in his prime to trample a few guards as part of a crowd and waste them. You just need the courage to disobey and decide that after all it's better to die resisting than at the end of multi-step process that you meekly co-operate with. From the simple firing squads all the way to the chambers, there was too little resistance in this genocide and there's no denying that.
 * Remember the Turkish coup? Hordes of people tried to stop the rolling tanks by literally getting in their way. The magnificent bravery of the Turkish people that night was what saved their current dictator. Those people were simple civilians. They were no soldiers or Navy Seals and yet they resisted because they, quite simply, had guts. Turkish bravery is actually a century-long stereotype that you can find in English literature. In fact they owe their post-world war 1 survival to those guts. The Jews on the other hand were not such a people at all. They were well-known for their docility and servility and the Nazis mocked them for it. It makes sense. They had always lived in subordinate positions for ages and were accustomed to humiliation. It's natural that docility became a part of their mentality. They weren't resisting because they believed that as long as they accepted humiliation at some point they'd stop humiliating them. The guy responsible for the Sobibor uprising commented that the Nazis believed that the Jews had no fight in them at all. He said that they grew way too comfortable around the camp inmates and that it was this mistake that almost wiped out the entire staff in Sobibor. After his escape, you know where he went? Back to the Soviet Union by evading the "millions of Germans soldiers" occupying the country. Other survivors stayed with the Polish resistance.
 * So don't exaggerate the German sway over occupied Poland. The head of the General Government commented on the lack of control that made partisan activity effective and bemoaned the paucity of police forces that Berlin sent.
 * If someone wanted to commit suicide wouldn't you tell them that there's always light at the end of the tunnel if they have courage? That no situation is unconquerable? When we talk about resisting death and humiliation by a predator state somehow courage doesn't matter because it's supposedly all-powerful.
 * Can you imagine someone in the trains saying "hey, we can't keep doing what they say, let's just resist" and someone replying "shut up! how can you be so ignorant of how human psychology and basic statistics work? We'll have no choice but to obey and take it". This is exactly what you are saying. And it's as ridiculous and pathetic as it sounds. Gewgtweg (talk) 03:59, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The turkish coup was not the same thing as the holocaust. Are you insane?
 * The revolt in the Ghetto is not the same as getting off a train after a 20 hour frozen starving trip with no idea whats waiting for you. That's preposterous.
 * The revolt in the Ghetto ended up with nearly everyone shot
 * Those who stopped cooperating in the camps would be shot. The few who are physically strong enough, know how to use an automatic weapon without disjointing their shoulder and who are nourished and able to fight the guards with automatic weapons, might take down a few soldiers but those few brave souls who think they are a hero like you will be mowed down quickly. In the very off chance that they manage to get hold of a few guns, the whole country is occupied by LOTS of germans. You'll all be mowed down or in the worst case the entire camp will be bombed. And absolutely no one will survive the war.
 * And no...I cannot imagine more than a few psychotic idiots who think they are, like you, superman. The moment they tried it, everyone would be shot and executed, some dying slowly of extremely painful wounds in the freezing snow. Is that the final result? Playing futile hero and suffering your last breath...without knowing precisely what actually awaits you?ç
 * You have some bizarre hero fantasies, likely born out of unrealistic computer games and bad action films. I highly doubt if you were even slightly under the horror of oppression and suffering and pain and more horror ... that you'd possibly act the hero. In the unlikely chance you do...you'll be shot and if you aren't hit in the brain or vital organ, you can enjoy your last minutes screaming out in pain. But at least you gave the guards an excuse to randomly shoot 20 other people.
 * You're beyond hope gqtrgrtqgrtqg. Why don't you find some other website to concern troll? Shabi  DOO  04:27, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This is depressing. What would you do if you was being taken to Auschwitz, or Dachau? How would you convince the others to revolt with you, a Mel Gibson Brave Heart speech? BobRoss (talk) 05:03, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

I shouldn't be taking the bait of your bullshit. People usually don't want to die. Even if there is one person with one gun with ten bullets versus 50 unarmed people, chances are they will successfully hold them hostage if they so choose. Those that maintain their wits about them might realize that they can rush them, but most people aren't crazy about running towards a gunman. And depending on the precautions the Nazis took, they might have ensured they had enough firepower to ensure that half the people died while they were rounding them up, which would have really put doubts into the victims. And the Jews being docile? Then what about the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians that were killed in many similar ways thirty years earlier? Also a bunch of docile folk who do as they're told? Besides, didn't you 'leave' this site a few months ago because you weren't getting enough intellectual stimulation here, since not everybody jumped into every post you made? You're fakakta ideas don't raise you above the rest of us, they just make you insufferable.Teurastaja (talk) 05:33, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "The Turkish coup was not the same thing as the holocaust. Are you insane?" As if that's what I said. But according to you apparently, facing up to guards is just way scarier than facing up to tons of moving steel.
 * "The revolt in the Ghetto is not the same as getting off a train after a 20 hour frozen starving trip with no idea whats waiting for you. That's preposterous." I never mentioned the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I mentioned Sobibor. Sure those at the ghetto (who you just called insane for wanting to die honorably) ended up getting shot. But nobody should have allowed themselves to be marched like cattle into the ghettos in the first place. Your lack of familiarity with the sources shows when you assume all transports were filled with half-dead people physically unable for any resistance.
 * You rebuked me for supposedly not knowing my history when you don't even realize that handheld automatic weapons were not really used much back then. Few troops carried even sub-machine guns despite what you see in movies. Most soldiers were issued rifles and these weapons are not very effective when it comes to taking down moving targets quickly.
 * People have been resisting homicidal oppression for ages. They didn't need action games or supernatural abilities to be inspired. All they needed was courage which you for some reason assume only heroes are capable of. All you need is encouragement and a spike of andrenaline. Sobibor succeeded because a few courageous people inspired those who had submitted to their fate to change their thinking.
 * I cannot believe you're claiming non-resistance was rational because it was the only way anyone at all could survive the war or because death from a gun wound after resisting is somehow worse to dying from a gun wound after standing on the edge of a mass grave, choking on gasses in a chamber with hundreds of others, being worked to death or perishing from starvation and exposure. I cannot accept that. Yes resistance against someone with a knife who just wants your money is irrational and you are better off not playing the hero. Resistance against systematic homicidal oppression isn't just rational. It's the self-evident thing to do regardless of whether you succeed or not. I am not saying that resistance should be mindless. But if you develop an obsession with resistance, eventually you will find a way to hurt someone and it's better to die having hurt an enemy than having hurt none of them. Only sheeple could possibly disagree with that.
 * We're getting off topic. The point I wanted to make is that the whole operation operated less on strong muscle and more on the fear (and false hope) of the victims and that if that fear (and false hope) could be overcome there would be more survivors than there were. There were strong partisan groups willing to help those who helped themselves.
 * You have mentioned nothing about the other examples I mentioned where victims have a duty to help themselves. What about an anti-vaccinationist? If you excuse people not resisting a genocide because they are no military specialists maybe you'll excuse an anti-vaccinationist for not having an medical degree in college. Gewgtweg (talk) 07:25, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Teurastaja You are comparing armed robbers with enforcers of a genocide. If you think that genocide is not worth resisting, fine. In similar ways? That's only partly true. And there was an Assyrian and Armenian genocide. According to Mark Mazower there was not really a full-blown systematic genocide on Greeks just a violent expulsion and sporadic massacres following defeat in war. Thanks to Venizelos a full-scale genocide was averted (as well as a genocide of Turks in Greece). Fun fact: The Christians of the Ottoman Empire had been the true aggressors as they were working with foreign powers to partition the dying empire and get a share for themselves. Turkey was defending itself and the Turks probably would have faced the same fate if they had won. Everything seemed lost but Ataturk inspired them to fight back.
 * Were those peoples docile like the Jews? Probably not as much. But they were/are definitely less brave than the Turks. One of my favorite rascals, Lord Byron, described the Greeks as a people with all the bad traits of the Turks but lacking their courage. Makes sense. They are a byzantine relic and have been for a very long time deprived of freedom. Even after independence (which was achieved thanks to foreign troops) they have essentially never quite been an independent country. In 1940 they stupidly chose to obey the British than drive them out. That way they could have prevented a hopeless war with Germany over the Romanian fields. Instead they were slaughtered to buy the British time. They were the first country to have a CIA agent as its leader (Papadopoulos). They resigned to being a debt colony in 2010 when they could have forced a restructure and made only one weak attempt to get out of the prison in 2015 (essentially just one single person made the bold attempt, a guy called Varoufakis). Most seem to irrationally believe a Venezuelan Armageddon would come upon them if they dare not to be a Brussels colony like Kosovo. So indeed, that's all very docile. I don't know about the Assyrians but I am sure Armenians, as a merchant nation, were a lot like the Jews although nowhere as urbane. They carried many of the same stereotypes as the Jews. And they, like the Assyrians have been without freedom for centuries.
 * At any rate, unlike the Jews, which Nazi propaganda among other things falsely claimed had betrayed Germany in ww1, the Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians had indeed betrayed and undermined Turkey in ww1 and paid the price. The thought that they had the backing of foreigners drove their docility out... for a moment. If they had been good little ethnies as they had been for centuries maybe they would have kept their necks safe. Pech gehabt like the Fritz says.Gewgtweg (talk) 07:25, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gewgtweg - don't tell me to use etiquette when you are being controlling-abusing - and you #are# blaming the victims.
 * In your mind you are an ubermensch - in the garbage you spew is what RW and many other collaborative groups are working against.
 * Now. Go. Away. And. Stop. Polluting. The. Wikiverse. Anna Livia (talk) 09:39, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * grwereewergr,


 * You are hyper-symplifying the hollocaust so that it fits in with your warrior-fantasies. It was the culmination of hundreds of years of slow oppression which doesn't resemble in the slightest your naive dreams of warrior glory solving their problems. Every response you give disturbs me more and more your last one being just scary. You're an intelligent guy and clearly sociopathic...you'll make a great far right Republican House Representative. Maybe you should focus your intelligence and sociopathy there where some souls will ever take you seriously.  Shabi  DOO  18:20, 13 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Alright, I'll keep it brief to save you as much disturbance as possible. It wasn't the culmination of anything. It wasn't fated to be. It was just a very stupid decision made by a handful of extremely prejudiced people. If Röhm had taken control of the party, it wouldn't have happened.
 * When someone wants to kill you, you have a duty to warrior-fantasize. The inspiration and ideas such fantasies can give you are your only chance if not of survival then at least picking the time and place of your demise and simultaneously hurting someone. It not about glory. Just maintaining a minimal sense of dignity. And remember, the more you resist, the more your contemporaries or future generations will sympathize with you. It runs against the economy of the psyche to passionately support people that don't apparently support themselves as passionately. That's something that only heroes can find it in themselves to do.
 * If by last response, you mean the response to Teurastaja, then I recommend avoiding history books like the plague. The standard fate that vanquished troublemakers have to endure might freak you out a little.
 * As for your insults, I won't do them the honor of a coherent response. Gewgtweg (talk) 08:21, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gewgtgqwtgqwtgqgwt. That's nice. I didn't read anymore of your sociopathic bullshit. I just saw the last line there saying "I won't do them the honor of a coherent response" which is strange because of all the things you've said...being coherent is never the problem. Your sentences are all easy to understand...that is a gift...some of us aren't good at that. But you made a mistake here...because your actual reply was a coherent statement. "I won't honor that with a coherent response" actually is a coherent response. So yeah. You kind of botched that one up. Anyways, good luck with your coherent and sociopathic bullshit advocacy. Do drop in from time to time. Shabi  DOO  08:32, 14 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You are committing a logical fallacy. A coherent response to your insults is not the same as a statement that I won't bother with a response to them. A coherent response to insults is arguing why they don't hold water and I already did that once with another guy a few threads ago. Just suffice it to say that if you think only tiki-torch carrying maniacs or republicans can say anything negative about the conduct of nations (and by extension, the nations themselves) you are dead wrong. I've seen the most progressive people bad mouthing in very impolite terms nations that seem to follow a wrong trajectory. And obviously you've never read Marx in your life. He isn't famous for being the intellectual father of the GOP but wrote many nasty things about many nations. Gewgtweg (talk) 10:39, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Blah blah blah blah...sociopathic bullshit...blah blah blah blah blah blah. Its unbearable. Massive-gay pretty much swept your arguments (putting our attempts to shame). I've put you on my ignore list as I'm sure many others have.  Shabi  DOO  22:28, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

when hitler took power the rights of jews were systematically taken along with their jobs, their businesses and their money. they were then forced into ghettos. overcrowding - 7 - 8 people to a room, starvation diets of around 250 calories a day, a lack of sanitation and disease epidemics swept through the ghettos. the method of control by the nazis was brutality. the slightest fractions meant death for the offender and dozens of others. no goods or medicines went in and no jews were allowed to leave. then came deportation to the death camps. loaded onto trains, 150 to a carriage. journey times were typically 4 days. they were not allowed of in this time. sometimes they were days before they even left. on the carriage the whole time. no food, no water, quick lime on the floor. over crowding was on so great people suffocated. on arrival over a thousand would be dead. in one case, the entire train was dead on arrival. then after enduring the hell of that journey they stimbled off, split in two groups. the larger group, the vast majority, unaware they had moments to live, having been told ther were being resettled in the east, were marched into the gas chambers and murdered. the remaining suffered more starvation, more disease, more brutality until they too died or survived till liberation. this all well known. all well documented.

during this time the jews did resist. throughout nazi germany and occupied countries, jews were active in the resistance movements and as partisans. there were over a hundred uprisings in the ghettos - thousands died. it did not halt genocide. there were uprisings in the death camps, again hundreds of deaths. treblinka was out of action for a mere month. it not end the genocide. this is all well known. all well documented.

it is difficult to see, even with the gift of hindsight, what the jews could have done differently, how they could have averted the horror. a minority surrounded by populations where antisemitism was not limited to the nazis, who would help you? at what point would it be apparent that they were going to murder you? it would have been too late by the time of your realisation. the effects of starvation, physical and mental would hve taken their toll. diseases would have further weakened you. what of the children? at point would you realise, that yes they will kill your children too, would it be in time to do anything about it? they murder whole familes for slight infractions, maybe bide your time. death may be on the horizon, its not imminent. they didnt know they were about to be gassed as soon as they got off the train - if you even survived the journey. no time to plan anything, no fit state to do anything. some survivors didnt believe what was happening for weeks after arriving at auschwitz, after being told their whole family was murdered. what would have happened if any of the ghetto uprisings had 'succeeded'? what even qualifies as a success? they get to go home? flee into the countryside? there were 160000 people in the lodz ghetto, how many do you think could have evaded capture and live of the land for years? the odds were overwhwelming stacked against the jews. just what could they have done that would have made any real difference? any difference beyond the mode of death?

i can see none. no argument has been made in this thread shows me either. no argument has been that is has been made that shows what the jews should have done that is remotely connected the reality of what happened. and no argument supporting the myth of the jews as docile. their actions during the war - partisans, resistance members, uprisings says something completely different. there was no 'docility' on the part of the jews that cannot be explained by the starvation, disease, trauma, and the nazi deception and sheer brutality. what argument there is is so over simplified, plan wrong or simply irrelevant, its difficult see how they could be made someone who is even slightly aware of what went on. the conclusions are not supported by any shred of fact and show a delusional belief what could have been achieved. considering the verbose manner in which it is presented, it is stunning in how light on substance there is.

there has been so much written and said about the holocaust that it must takes a staggering degree of wilful ignorance or terminal stupidity to suggest that the victims of the holocaust, the jews and all the rest, should have and could have avoided it all, or to suggest, as the opening post suggests, in any way deserved or were in some way responsible for what happened. google it. read up on it and leave your delusional ubermensch fantasies behind.

AMassiveGay (talk) 21:49, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * the above is a summary. i was going to respond to every point made but there were just too many and so mind numbingly idiotic that its just wasnt worth effort. honestly, this summary is far more than was deserved. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:01, 14 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Great. Another moralist with reading comprehension problems.
 * Obviously, when a well-organized bureaucratic state with massive resources targets you for genocide, the chances are stacked against you. I never suggested that the Jews could have avoided massive material and human losses. Still, there could have been far more survivors than there were. A mistake many people made was not emigrating when they had the chance because they believed that it was just another temporary wave of antisemitism of the kind they had known before. Centuries of humiliation had conditioned the Jews to think like that although the genocidal hatred was clearly visible.
 * Another mistake many people made was not fleeing Poland as soon as the invasion happened.
 * Another mistake was allowing themselves to be marched into ghettos. This was decisive because those "human zoos" to use an expression by Shabidoo were the central pillars of the Nazi extermination program. Without those ghettos, the organization of the genocide would not have been possible.
 * The final mistake was allowing themselves to be deceived into taking a "shower" or allowing themselves to be paralyzed by fear because as Suchomel made abundantly clear in his interview, they actually sensed what was happening. If a few had disobeyed instead of following through as instructed, they could have given a very hard time to the meager security forces and the organization of the genocide would not function as smoothly as was necessary. That the trains could be handled around the clock was an absolute imperative for the murder operation to work. That's because the genocide was a state secret as the Nazis wanted to implicate as few executioners as possible.
 * And no, your argument that all people were too physically weak to resist is nonsense. There were crucial differences from transport to transport and individual to individual.
 * Your argument that die-hard anti-Semites were all over the place is also nonsense. Many survivors survived because the population helped them out. Going to the Soviet Union or better yet, joining strong partisan forces was possible and did happen. Those who, like you, underestimate how well-connected and resourceful those partisan forces were, and insist in the all-presence and omnipotence of the occupiers prove they know shit about the Nazi occupation of Poland.
 * Yes, the effort at Treblinka failed because of sloppiness. But your argument that failure was unavoidable is nonsense too. It's refuted by Sobibor which worked in the same way. The escape operation there however was executed brilliantly and if bad luck had not got in the way, a smooth escape would have been possible.
 * It is beyond any doubt that more people survived by helping themselves immigrating quickly or finding somewhere to hide than did by liberation. The latter only survived because the Nazis didn't have time to kill them all.
 * The holocaust was the most efficient genocide ever carried out. At no point of history were more people killed by an executioner that sacrificed so little in personnel and materials to the act. Most people assume this must be because the Nazis were marvelous killing-machines and commanded a super-efficient state with complete control of occupied territories. But this is actually very far from the truth. This genocide was so astonishingly successful not because the Nazis were flawless criminals but because the Jews were very adept in being victims. And yes, this was cultural. Even a superficial acquaintance with the history and life of the Jewry would suffice to see into this. But since you don't have the education required for this insight just explain to me why the Turkish mob charged into rolling tanks to protect their elected head whereas an American can barely fathom this happening, let alone doing it. Is that not cultural at all? Gewgtweg (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I am genuinely confused as to how you think that Jewish minorities could have possibly stopped atrocities committed against them by a militarized nation. I'm sure that you'll write a response telling me that a group of starved and tired civilians, many without any military training, could have prevented genocide simply by disobeying orders. It is a position so divorced from reality and common sense that I can only imagine it being rooted in delusional hero fantasies (which you claim people have a duty to have). In direct contradiction to your theseis, there were Jewish resistance cells (pardon the wikipedia, but I don't think your argument deserves any more thorough debunking). However, despite this and multiple uprisings within concentration camps, Jews were unable to stop the Holocaust. Your initial point was poorly thought out in the first place, but I find this example in particular truly appalling.
 * I think that, in combination with what everyone else has said, shatters the crucial point in your argument that Jewish victoms of the Holocaust could have plausibly resisted genocide. However, there is another point crucial to your argument that I think also requires closer examination; you have implied, both here and in the previous example and that of domestic abuse, that victoms are at fault for their own psychological manipulation. This seems especially bizarre to me. Why should people be held responsible for falling pray to manipulation and deception? We are all only human, and there are many instances where our brains fail to respond to stimuli in the most rational manner. It is both absurd and appalling to think that anyone should be blamed for failing to see the abuse and danger that they face, especially since almost all people will respond in that same manner when faced with the same set of stimuli. Samstr (talk) 02:17, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Bob tortures Sally. Is Sally responsible for the decisions and/or actions of Bob? Yes or no? 02:28, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Samstr" I am genuinely confused as to how you think that Jewish minorities could have possibly stopped atrocities committed against them by a militarized nation". What part about these three simple sentences did you not understand? "Obviously, when a well-organized bureaucratic state with massive resources targets you for genocide, the chances are stacked against you. I never suggested that the Jews could have avoided massive material and human losses. Still, there could have been far more survivors than there were."
 * Yes, there was resistance. There is resistance against the gun lobby too. Do the words "scale" and "effectiveness" tell you anything?
 * It's stupid to imagine that I suggest Jackie-Chan heroics as the solution. What I'm saying is that if determination to avoid death and humiliation had been more powerful than terror or the idiotic hope that they'll let them live if they become industrial slaves, then more people would have survived. Determination to live doesn't mean to go action-movie badass on them as you guys naively think. It means fleeing, rioting, planning escape, hiding or simply spitting on someone rather than undress and get into a line. All of those things did actually happen. Just not at the scale needed to give the executioners a much harder time. The reason for that was fear and false hope ergo lack of courage. Plain and simple.
 * There was a dude called Alberto Errera. Now that guy was badass. He was arrested as part of a partisan movement. Working as a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz he tried to convince his "colleagues" to escape. But they didn't want to follow and Alberto tried it alone. Ernst Klee says that he stunned two guards and was shot dead while trying to cross the Sola river. Numbers have power. If more people had joined him in his attempt he might have succeeded. But at least he preserved his dignity and those who refused didn't. Not all victims are cut from the same cloth.
 * "since almost all people will respond in that same manner when faced with the same set of stimuli." Nonsense. Even a grade school kid can refute that. Some kids get slapped and fight back. Other kids don't. It's the same stimulus.
 * It's amazing what you guys do. You are rationalizing getting slaughtered whenever and wherever the executioners decide because they were supposedly all-powerful and resistance totally pointless. You are not realizing it but essentially you're siding with the stronger party.
 * Ok, sometimes people can't find the courage to protect themselves or stop doing things that are harmful for them. So what's your point anyway? There's no referee in life that will stop the game and put things in order. By being born you assumed a body and you became its administrator. As its administrator, you always carry a greater or lesser share of responsibility for it.


 * @GrammarCommie Context please. When a criminal breaks into a home and rapes a woman it's the rapist's fault. But still, some women can and do resist effectively while others are paralyzed by fear.
 * When a criminal dies as a result of his criminal life or an addict dies as a result of his addict life, they are at fault (too) because they chose this life and didn't stop it in time. Gewgtweg (talk) 16:43, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Your arguments concerning rape and Holocaust victims ignores context and mitigating factors, thus you will be granted none. Further, the question is a boiled down version of your arguments, and thus requires a boiled down answer. Yes or no, yay or nay? 17:15, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "...ingores context and mitigating factors, thus you will be granted none". When you inject dirty street drugs from dirty needles into your body there's no mitigating circumstances. When you join a gang because you want to be tough and don't like living in "misery", there's no mitigating circumstances when you get whacked by another tough guy. At least make an effort to explain to me what mitigating factors you see so we have something concrete to talk about.
 * No your question is not a boiled-down version of my arguments at all. It's actually a very lazy attempt to argue your point by not arguing. Look at the title of this thread. It says victims are sometimes (co-)responsible. Obviously, a person that's unlucky enough to be killed by a maniac is hardly co-responsible. It can be argued though that at least in some cases many such crimes wouldn't be possible if the victims hadn't been as trusting and had refused to do things like get into someone's car etc. Gewgtweg (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Gewg, is it possible that you really are this thick? are you really so simple? each and every one of your points relies on jewish people knowing exactly was going to happen to them and exactly when it was going to happen to them. they did not. at any point. it assumes knowledge at times when the nazis themselves did not know their ultimate fate. its a running theme in everything i have read, the lies and deceptions of the nazis, they did not know when poland was invaded, they did not know when they were forced into ghettos, and they did not know they were walking into gas chambers. this can all be found within seconds of googling.


 * you assume resources and skills that simply did not exist to effect plans that are embarrassingly optimistic. jews did flee when they had a chance - it was not enough. they did resist - it was not enough. how could it have been? any resistance before the ghettos would have been crushed by the might of the german military. everything after was crushed by starvation, disease,and extreme brutality. try to understand what that does to people. you mention partisans as if they had the resources to do anything. do you know what partisans did? we know soviet partisan did not care. we know jewish partisans were too few to do more than they already did. we know allied forces did not help. you think large numbers could break out and successfully escape? the planning and resources needed for that with virtually no help? its simply delusional. at every stage. that you think minor setbacks would cause the whole nazi programme of extermination would collapse is just laughable.


 * and the most insidious assumption that through 'docility', through cowardice, through poor choices, they somehow 'allowed' this all to happen. this is just unvarnished antisemitism. it relies on a distorted view of history, a ignorance of key facts. it relies on ignoring the physical and mental horrors that went on, downplaying just how horrific it was. you accuse me of exaggerating the effects of starvation and disease, that i overstate horror of the conditions in ghettos and the trains. i did not state them enough. again, google it. in seconds you wil find pictures of hell everywhere. the trains were far worse than i described. i didnt mention the pitch darkness. i didnt mention how would you shit. where you would shit? the docility you mention. jewish partisans and resistance movements squash that idea. docility in the camps and ghettos - do you not think the humiliations, starvation, disease, the brutality did that? do you not think that this was the point? to dehumanise and crush the spirits of the jews to better control and finally murder them? everything from stripping of their rights to herding them like cattle into gas chambers was to this end. a deliberate policy. but you claim this was a choice. that they allowed it happen. you justify this claim with poor history and antisemetic canards 'adept at being victims'. they allowed themselves to be taken to ghettos, they allowed themselves to suffocated in trains they allowed themselves to walk knowingly into gas chambers. its a disgusting suggestion. look at how you phrased it 'allowing themselves to be paralysed with fear' - what the fuck is wrong with you?


 * all this is well known and well documented. it is a not difficult thing to acquaint yourself with the facts. throughout all this you have displayed a sneering arrogance that belies the incoherence and asinine nature of your argument. i have difficulty in gauging whether you are generally antisemetic or just monumentally stupid. i think a little of both. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:13, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Your modus operandi is this. You begin by putting stuff in my mouth. After that, since you can't read properly and contextualize what you are reading, you assume I assume things that I absolutely don't assume. Then you "refute" them and proceed to claim that you've shot down my arguments and that I'm thick, ignorant, horrible and blah blah blah.
 * Let's take this sentence "...each and every one of your points relies on jewish people knowing exactly was going to happen to them and exactly when it was going to happen to them." Nope. They didn't need to know exactly what was going to happen to them. But they did have all the information required to know how radically and murderously anti-Semitic the Nazis were. That's why some Jews were emigrating from Germany when they took power. That's why some Jews were fleeing Poland when they invaded.
 * I never denied that the murder operation ran on deception, numbskull. BUT it was entirely possible to see through it and information leaked out relatively quickly in the form of rumors. Suchomel, an actual perpetrator who was there tells of how people were waiting in line naked in the cold and how the ground was covered in shit from their fear. You think those people didn't know they were going to die? He tells of a girl that was getting her hair cut who asked "how long is it going to last"? Don't underestimate the intelligence of the victims like that. Suchomel makes it clear "Sie haben es geahnt, sie haben es geahnt". "They could sense it, they could sense it". Their courage can be put in doubt. Their intelligence can't. I am doubting the former thing whereas you are doubting the latter even if you don't realize it.
 * People in the East had been treated like garbage long before they were forced into the ghettos. There was no excuse about standing in line and going where they told you to go. Irrational hope got the better of them because there was no leader, no figure to inspire them to do otherwise.
 * You talked as if the "mighty German army" was genuinely made up of beings with superhuman abilities and that God himself did their intel work for them. The "mightly German army" was not adequately mechanized and dependent on horses, infantrymen were issued clumsy rifles and had other military priorities. It was a few elite armored formations and the professionalism of the old Prussian generals that really gave them victory. Poland is a big place with all sorts of holes to hide in. If you think that police or infantrymen would have been able to smoke out all Jews who refused to march into the ghettos and dispersed in the country then you are mistaken.
 * You are mocking the Polish partisans which did help the Jews and did receive help from the allies. They were not Afghanistani goat-herders living in mud huts that had to face an enemy armed with the modern hi-tech like contemporary America. Even with all advantages America enjoys over the insurgents, do you have any idea how hard it is to eradicate them?
 * The Nazis had serious trouble repressing the Polish resistance and partisans, not to mention the gigantic Soviet partisan army. Like Clausewitz wrote, "in war every little thing is difficult". The German soldiers and policemen were not robocops so get that out of your head. Occupying a country is a very complex undertaking and at no point were the German authorities able to effectively administer the conquered territories. Their war against two superpowers kept them from doing that. The disaster in 1944 Warsaw happened because the Polish resistance did something enormously stupid. You can't defeat an army without being an organized army.
 * Sobibor happened and it is documented. The heroic souls that organized this had to contend with the same fatalistic nonsense you regurgitate.
 * Yes it is entirely true that if the trains couldn't run on time, the Nazi program would collapse. Like I said, it was a delicate operation and a state secret (of course the information had leaked to the soldiers in the east and to some people from the population). Operation Reinhard did actually collapse, it just happened too late.
 * I am not really anti-Semitic. The Jews were a people with their peculiar negative traits. All nations have certain negative traits that define them. This fact of life is undeniable to people that are actually familiar with many nations which is not what Americans usually are. Nevertheless, I think the worse thing the Nazis ever did to Poland was wiping out its Jews which were its best people. The (Western) Jewry was indeed one of the best things contemporary Europe had. The Eastern criminals and peasants that the Nazis employed as collaborators in this genocide were one of the worst things contemporary Europe had.
 * "it relies on ignoring the physical and mental horrors that went on, downplaying just how horrific it was." I don't doubt those horrors for a moment. Like one Nazi perpetrator said commenting on the realism of the movie "Escape from Sobibor", "Reality was far worse. No movie can capture it." But I don't believe as some people do that Nazi brutality was worse than whatever the world had known previously. Humans have the capacity to overcome fear and false hope. In a world where Islamic radicals have the iron guts to do what they do for an evil cause, then anybody can be inspired to fight for a good cause, no matter how hopeless it seems. Unfortunately, not many Jews were like Alberto Errera. Cowardice has always been a vice of nations that have known humiliation after humiliation and subjugation after subjugation. But naive humanists the likes of you cannot wrap their minds around that. People all over the world are supposedly the same and react in the same ways. Gewgtweg (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * they should have known, they could have done more─ they should have done more. the entirety of your argument.


 * please explain how huge numbers of people can leave their homes and disappear for no inkling of what was to come. where would they go? who would help them? what would the invading russians have to say about it? where would they find food and shelter? how many people would able to live of the land or know how to? saying poland is a large place with lots of hidey holes is not an answer.


 * please explain how resistance movements and partisans, polish, jewish, soviet, already do what they could along with combating nazis, directly and indirectly, could find the resources to rescue, hide, and feed huge numbers of jews? simply saying they gave the nazis problems is not an answer, and please note suggesting the task is an impossible one is not 'mocking'.


 * please explain how minor delays or problems with the holocaust trains would have broken the extermination programme when trains would often take days before even leaving the gehttos, be delayed wait for military trains to pass, and train be lines constantly being bombed/damaged? or explain how any problems unloading or unloading couldnt be sorted by the addition of a couple machine guns? just saying it would is not an answer.


 * please explain how the effects of starvation, disease, constant terror, and extreme brutality does not make many of the actions you propose unlikely or even impossible on scale necessary to even dent the final death toll of over 6 million (the Sobibor rising you keep referring to, success is defined by about 50 people surviving. it proves nothing), or how any other peoples would have fared better. remarks on the human spirit or poor comparisons to unrelated an dissimilar events are not answers.


 * if you think you have been misrepresented then you clearly cannot even understand your own words and what they imply, you fucking imbecile. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Your criticism of my coulds and shoulds is shallow. We live in a very fluid world, a world of possibilities where many things could have been different. The fact that something happened the way it happened doesn't mean it was the only way it could happen. If we interpret what happens from the point of view of what happened then we become retrospective prophets. Why was the holocaust the most efficient genocide ever carried out? This question cannot be answered if all you really say is how terrified people were to do anything and how powerful the occupiers were.


 * The Polish Jewry could and many did go to the Soviet Union where they could be put to work or be drafted in the army. The French Jewry could and many did go to England. The German Jewry had to emigrate quickly and many did or there's was nothing that could be done. Most of the Jews who escaped the genocide did so because they got clever quickly and put as much distance between themselves and the perpetrators as possible. The second group with the highest survival rates were Jews who were sheltered by civilian populations or protected by their government (i.e. the Jews of Bulgaria). The third group with the highest survival rates were Jews attached to partisan units that controlled huge swathes of the countryside given that the Nazis never effectively controlled the rural areas anywhere in the occupied territories and least of all in the East. The last group were the ghosts that were liberated. That simple fact speaks against the notion that individuals were objectively unable to influence the outcome of their fate significantly.


 * Once again, you prove that you have no idea how humongous the Balkan, Polish and Soviet partisan movements were. They were not capable of providing luxury hotel service but they were more than capable of providing a basic shelter, some bread, water and a gun. But why do you think that the Polish resistance started to help the Jews in earnest only after the ghetto uprising? You can't complain for lack of help if people aren't convinced you are more of an asset than a liability. Of course, there were Jews willing to actively fight for their survival but if they hadn't been so few they could have built a massive resistance movement themselves and they'd not have to rely on others. The massive practical problem with this is that the Jews were just not a fighting-worthy bunch much as you think that a few instances of resistance here and there refutes that. No it doesn't.


 * Maybe you are getting informed of that for the first time but the holocaust was a state secret. It wasn't supposed to happen in the eyes of the whole world. They didn't want it to leak to the Allies, to the soldiers, to the populace at home or even the German military command for that matter which they feared was looking for excuses to do a coup. The reason an SS military wing was created was to protect the Nazi regime from its powerful German enemies. They knew that there would be trouble it if became known and in the back of their minds they also feared that if evidence cropped up in case of defeat or overthrow by the German bourgeoisie they'd have to answer for it. That's why they terrorized the perpetrators with threats if they spoke about this and went to great lengths to hide the evidence, even unearthing and burning corpses. If the Jews had been significantly more rebellious then the Nazis would be forced to hunt them down in a more crude and open manner. That would have huge repercussions. I know it seems a simple prejudice to you, but whole populations can be extremely difficult to repress and terrorize whereas other populations are quite easy to slap around. If Jews belonged in the former category the Nazis would have trouble on two fronts. It would be more taxing in terms of personnel and materials to put them down and they would be more politically vulnerable to criticism.


 * Jews from poorer areas in Eastern Europe were more likely to be helped out by civilians because poor communities are accustomed to relations of obligatory solidarity. Richer Jews were often despised and maintained little connections with the local people. But those richer Jews had the means to quickly emigrate. The incredible unwillingness of most middle-class Polish Jews to leave their wealth behind and run was their fault alone. Hitler could barely make a secret of his warmongering and his aspirations to conquer the east. You didn't have to wait till 1939 to find out and if you were a Jew you should be paying more attention than anyone. And besides, middle-class Polish Jews felt closer to the Germans than to the Poles. They were more than happy to live in a country without a Polish government or Poles and thought they'd get along fine with the occupiers because their non-socialist credentials would protect them. That's how stupid they were. Believe it.


 * The trains run around the clock. The factor that usually disrupted this process was not "waiting for other trains to pass" but the fact that the handling capacity of the extermination camps was getting clogged by the amount of processed cargo. Do you think that if that mass of people rioted a couple of machine guns would sort the problem? There were from time to time a few people that refused to follow instructions and had to be dragged around and beaten. But the disobedience was not enough to disrupt the process even if the possibility was there given the mass of numbers. Obviously that's a very bad way to try to survive but at this stage nothing more useful could be done.


 * I repeat, there were differences from transport to transport and individual to individual. There were indeed cases where the majority of a train was dead on arrival. But not all were half-dead ghosts when they came in the labor or death camps. Still however, if someone managed to arrive there, they probably hadn't been resisting very much in the first place.


 * Even if one person survives because of resistance where otherwise zero would have survived, then resistance was a massive success and made all the difference in the world. Everybody that died resisting cannot be blamed for resisting. Everybody that died without resisting can be blamed. It's human nature to honor fighters, not helpless victims. That's why women prefer to fuck the former over the latter. That's why society celebrates the former, not the latter. If we honor victims, we don't do it because of any serious compassion unless they are family or friends. We just do it because we're conditioned to respect taboos. Your entire argumentation is nothing but an attempt to defend that taboo.


 * And may I remind you, the thread was NOT about the holocaust. I haven't noticed you taking issue with anything else I said. The thread was supposed to explain why victims are not as helpless as we commonly assume since a lot depends on how we respond to people that want to do us harm. When we respond to terror with being terrorized, and to false hope with being deceived then we become partners to our victimization. You haven't explained your problem with that logic. Gewgtweg (talk) 22:56, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * People latched onto your example regarding the Holocaust because it was probably the most egregious and offensive point you made. Indeed I'm not sure that I would be able to think of any more potentially offensive examples.


 * All that being said, and to continue in this discussion against my better judgment, I think you are moving the goalposts. Initially, you claimed that there are examples where victims share blame for their abuse. I think it is uncontroversial that blame implies a statement of duty. If you can be blamed for something, there is something you should have done. Using the basic assumption that 'ought implies can' we can infer that your statement further implies that there is something that victims could have done to prevent victimization. Showing that resistance is impossible is sufficient to refute your original claim. According to the very elementary logic and assumptions used, showing that a victim could not have prevented or successfully resisted attack is sufficient to show that they cannot be blamed for being a victim. However, you seem to have shifted your argument somewhat, to one that focuses on whether or not individuals should resist victimization, regardless of efficacy. In the last paragraph, you state "Everybody that died without resisting can be blamed. It's human nature to honor fighters, not helpless victims." Here people are blamed not for being victims, but blamed for making no attempt to avoid that fate. I contend that this is a different point than the one you initially tried to argue.
 * Now on an unrelated note, I would like to amend what I said earlier. While the statement "almost all people will respond in that same manner when faced with the same set of stimuli" is an overgeneralization when applied to individuals. I would still contend that there is a fairly limited range of responses to stimuli, especially in life-threatening situations. However, while the statement may fail for individuals, I suspect that it does apply to a greater extent when considering groups.Samstr (talk) 00:27, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * for some reason my post was removed. no matter. it was answered with more of the same assumptions and wishful thinking with zero evidence. extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. none has provided. your other non holocaust claims didnt warrant anytime spent rebutting as they were so asinine. have you never heard of battered wives syndrome, for instance? i am done with this. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey. That was my bad per your comment disappearing but it seems to have been restored. Not sure how but I seemed to have butchered the saloon bar with old and new content. That being said...think dipshit sociopath has used up his bag of intellectual-fraud-methods and will start recycling the same ole tricks again. For what it's worth I was very impressed with your knowledge, brevity, patience and self-control Shabi DOO  22:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Samstr.
 * Obviously there's a correlation, no matter how thin it might be, between being victimized and failure to actively resist victimization so I think you're making an arbitrary distinction.
 * You are talking as if we live in a world where it's possible to know in advance when resistance will be successful or not. Resistance always carries greater or lesser risks depending on your situation. Obviously, a concentration/extermination camp is not the ideal point risk-wise to start with resistance efforts. Yet as long as that chance exists it should still be taken, it's rational that it should be taken. You claim that effective resistance was impossible. Again we must look at the situation. If by "effective resistance" you mean that it wasn't possible for the majority to survive the camps then you are right. At that point it was indeed too late for most people. But if you mean that 0 could have escaped because of resistance and 0 guards could have been slain and no amount of mass rioting could have disrupted an extermination process that relied on so little stopping power and personnel then you are very wrong.
 * "effective resistance" is situation-bound and defined by the value of what was achieved, not just the number of casualties. Soviet resistance in 1941 was totally pathetic as most of the soldiers in the platoons were literally unarmed and as incompetently led as possible. Was resistance effective? Absolutely. Because even though it didn't repel the enemy it bought crucial time that ultimately prevented a defeat that many at the time, including the Americans, thought was irreversible.
 * About the stimulus issue as applies to groups, I ask you to explain why Native Americans made such notoriously bad and rebellious slaves and why Africans made relatively good slaves. The answer is background. The natives made poor slaves because they were accustomed to living in a more easy-going and egalitarian social environment and often preferred death to lifelong servitude. Africans did not come from such societies but more complex kingdoms.
 * The orderly behavior of the Jews had to do with their background too. They were not a fighting-worthy people and this is the reason they failed to set up a decent resistance and partisan movement that could have saved countless lives and cost thousands of casualties to the Nazis. That's not an exaggeration. The Jews were not a tiny minority. They made more than 10% of the Polish population. Up until the early 20th century no person doubted that some groups have evolved to be more suitable to fighting than others. The fact that today even a distinction as ancient and elementary as that is suspect of racism has to do with developments in our culture after the decolonization era.
 * I think that when you succumb to the 300th lash of your master, you carry a huge responsibility for it. Unfortunately there is no divine authority that will intervene to enforce what is right. It is up to us to take whatever action is required and to decide whether we will reclaim our fate or cede it entirely to the discretion of others. Spartacus and many others like him, famous or unknown to history, were willing to pay the price and proved that any notion of justice without courage is simply a theological idea. They proved that any notion that resistance is futile helps only the perpetrators. Gewgtweg (talk) 22:59, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Please forgive this post for being very likely improperly formatted (due to phone), but how can a victim, UNLESS they consciously asked for it, be to blame? It seems irrational to think that one can think rationally during a situation of extreme duress. I think this falls under a very simple "hindsight is 20/20" statement. Could there have been ways out of it? Maybe. Could they have thought of that possibility while in such an extreme situation? Only if they're very lucky. And many (read: most) people don't look that far into the future. Maybe that's the question you should be asking--Why don't most people actively look at possible and/or probable future outcomes when history shows that it is beneficial to do so? I'm sure there's an answer to that one too, but it'll most likely be situational as well.TheTallMass (talk) 18:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think fighting back or resisting is necessarily a "rational" choice that has to be "rationally" thought out. It's just a decision and we don't just rely on "rationality" to make decisions. Even fighting back a school bully could potentially result in serious injury for you or worse so nobody says resistance is "rational". What is irrational is to think resistance is impossible and forget that it's just a choice, a decision to be made. All we can say for sure is that resistance makes us feel good about ourselves and lack of it doesn't. So resistance is simply a matter of courage or lack thereof, nothing else (unless you are defeated in war and must compromise to survive but you can't compromise with someone that enslaves you, humiliates you and exterminates you). Hindsight is often irrelevant. When a victim hangs out with criminals and some years later ends up dead, they are at some fault. When a government systematically oppresses you in the most unabashed and vulgar ways and you don't get up and leave as fast as you can you are at some fault. When you make the mistake of marrying a man that's obviously a total scumbag you are in some measure responsible for the trouble you'll be having. In many cases victims carry a share of blame. That's the argument. It's just that victims either aren't sharp enough to see the dangers, fear doing anything else and there isn't someone to inspire them to help themselves.
 * Take the state of humanity as a whole today. Humans consume promiscuously without really caring for the environment that sustains them and make their societies dependent on very finite materials. Since they aren't trying to stop doing this they will pay the price when in the end they become victims of their own stupidity. Are humans unable to see where this path is leading? Only a fool can doubt where this is going and soon he will be a sorry fool. Gewgtweg (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Why is it irrational in ALL situations? There are always extenuating circumstances, even if we don't always see them up front. Could be as simple as what we had for breakfast that morning to ingrained thought patterns revolving around the religion we practice.TheTallMass (talk) 01:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Death of Western Civilization
Death isn't the right word, more like change. Why do fundies make such a big deal out of this, every culture changes sooner or later. They point to biblical prophesy and continue to equate the death of WC with the end of the world. WC aided in putting to death other cultures and religions from every continent, why is that not an apocalypse? Mí má kȍhà hńg gǀȕì ō ǁȁhìn-ā ō hȁ ō gǀè gù ǀxūúnnu. (talk) 23:44, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Fundies try to take advantage of the paranoia in all of us with their various apocalyptic themes. Unfortunately many people appear to be highly paranoid, and they suck in all the fundie bullshit as truth. Cosmikdebris (talk) 23:57, 15 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I find it completely unethical to take advantage of children and people with clinical paranoia to push an agenda. Dear ole sperm donor managed to make me and my siblings fear Y2k. I was only 4 years old at the time and my second oldest brother was 6 years old at the time. My second oldest brother is mentally challenged as it is. That is one reason fundies piss me off is because they take advantage of the disabled and children. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:14, 16 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You must think on a Fundie perspective, where the only people who count are them and those who are real, true Christians™. Everyone else are either heretic heathens or insane non-believers (or just the first thing) who after the disasters caused by the Rapture (car and plane crashes, etc. Of course little, if anything, of that would happen in those heathen, heretic, countries and better not to touch the ethics of, say, snatching the crew of an airliner, just for the passengers to die an horrible death). will face the worst times of human history (or maybe those beamed up will just be brainwashed to worship the Lamb forever and ever, ever and everyone else will finally get rid of them).Panzerfaust (talk) 21:53, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

By time America falls, we will most likely be long dead. Living your life in fear would be dull and boring. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:37, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You guys are reading things into it that aren't there. Western Civilization began with the buttfuckers of Greece, who died out cause they were more interested in buttfucking than reproducing. Then came the Thousand Year Reich or Millennial Kingdom of Rome, which spent half that time feeding Christians to lions. Equating Christianity to Western Civilization is a false premise.
 * I'd guess Christians just aren't ready to pray to Mecca five times a day or come back re-incarnated as a cock roach or Napoleon or something. RobSmithi demand a recount 02:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's just say that Christianity owes a big deal to Greek ideas and can be said and a mix of Judaism of that, that most of the deaths of the early Christians were not due to Roman prosecution but infighting between their many sects, and that most Fundies see Christianity = Western civilization even if the latter drinks not only from that but also stil more from Greece, Rome, and still more. Try better Panzerfaust (talk) 07:31, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Obviously you mean gay people. Now, what does being gay have to do with this discussion? Seriously, what in holy he'll does being gay have to do with ANYTHING? 😩😩 --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:22, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Greece was a patchwork of many different states who mostly were warring with each other foro a longitud time. Pederasty was known among more elite citizens of SOME of the city states...most certainly not all. States with pederasty conquered others and lasted for generations while other states with pederasty did the same. Sparta...wrongly portrayed in the film 300 as a hetero-macho society practiced extreme homoeroticism within the army yet at he same time women had far more intfependence and rights than in other places. Its never that simple is it? Most adult men did not participate in LGTB sex and not all elite citizens did it either. In any case...those who did usually had wives and they had children then. In any case women in most ancient cultures were restricted to their homes so its really hard to imagine how public life and political administration would have been any different if they had male lovers or not. All this being said, do you really think thre decline of a civilization can be reduced to sexual preference? If you take a colose look at t he countries which have leaglised gay marriage you'll see a notable correlation between LGTB activity and strong economic, political and defense strength and spending as well as peaceful, high quality of life and high levels of personal freedoms.
 * You may think its funny to make a light hearted joke about gay bum boys signing the end of the Greeks. I don't find that in the slightest funny. It slanders gay people in general, is historically and factually wrong and you continue the stereotype of gay people as some force of evil and decay and have likely offended many LGTB users here and introduced demeaning LGTB tropes in a discussion that had nothing to do with it. Shabi  DOO  13:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

You missed the whole point of the joke -Sincerely TheDarkMaster2


 * Western civilization is in a sense already dead having essentially merged into the planetary era. Because of the unintended consequences of developments originating from the west itself the world has never been as culturally homogeneous as it is today. To the extent that western civilization existed and is not just a cold war idea of West+Democracy+Freedom+Christianity vs East+Totalitarianism+Oppression+Atheism it has always been more of a highly abstract, artistic, literary and academic concept than its self-appointed defenders are willing to admit. Today it's a slogan used mostly by the Far Right in their campaign against multiculturalism, globalism etc. If you think about it, it's kinda ridiculous how quasi-criminals who are not really known for their refined cultural appetite, are often prone to internecine activity and can barely imagine a world where the nation they happened to be born into isn't at the center of the universe pretend to be the defenders of an entire civilization.
 * Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the West hasn't been a tangible ecumene. At best, it was a cultural greenhouse. Rome's memory and legacy has been the main thing that allowed us to imagine we're a civilization akin to China or India. In reality we have been a far more provincial society. It was the splendor of modern science (and the one that founded modern science is basically Galileo) and the shared Roman religion (Christianity) that allowed us to conceal our provincial orientations. Gewgtweg (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Cool story, pseud. Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 19:51, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Kingdamian's post
The way that people ganged up on this guy and showered him with personal insults enrages me. For Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake! We are supposed to be rational, civilized people not a bunch of ultra-nationalist apes. It's human nature to insult people. But it is a breach of civility and etiquette to insult people when you are talking directly to them. When in a burst of anger we make the mistake to insult our fellow man we always, ALWAYS have to apologize later, especially if it is we that insulted the other first. I don't believe in moralism but I believe in civility.

Yes, I think that for a leader to publicly call a country a shithole is wrong and that the US is in some respects quite a bad country too. BUT a racist is someone that believes that the worth of humans and nations depends directly on their DNA. A racist is NOT someone who believes that poverty, especially extreme poverty combined with overcrowding severely decreases the mental and spiritual quality of human beings. A racist is also NOT someone who believes that some nations are less dynamic than others because this should be obvious to anyone. When Karl Marx called Mexicans "an imbecilic race", "lazy" and unable to do anything useful with California he was in a sense right regardless of his provocative phrasing. If the US had not been colonized by the Wasps but by the Mexicans then it certainly wouldn't be a great power today. The Mexicans simply didn't have the economic and scientific dynamism required to make a "great country", imperfect as "great countries" might be.

Speaking of Mexico, the Spanish Empire possessed more resources than Britain. Why did its vitality fade like that? Venice was founded on a swamp while Naples had abundant resources. Why did Venice become a major economic power and Naples didn't come anywhere close?

We should seriously grapple with such questions and understand that the human factor does play a huge role in whether societies fail or succeed. "Human factor" doesn't mean DNA of course. It means concrete political relations and concrete mentalities. People that have not lived (not traveled, lived) in foreign countries have difficulties understanding how amazingly different people can be from place to place in their mentality as well as regarding the organization of their whole life and existence. Gewgtweg (talk) 03:22, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't believe Kingdamian1 is a genuine racist. I do believe he is a troll. He only brought up something that Trump said months ago because he couldn't think of anything else that might upset us. You are giving him and his comments much more validity than they deserve. Spud (talk) 04:14, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * A racist is NOT someone who believes that poverty, especially extreme poverty combined with overcrowding severely decreases the mental and spiritual quality of human beings. Oh, so people who have been raised in an extremely wealthy environment with a small overall population will have increased mental and spiritual quality? That's funny, explain Emperor Nero. BobRoss (talk) 04:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * And Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Spanish and Mexican Inquisitions concocted by the wealthy, the savagery of Christopher Colombus and Martin Luther, as well as Genghis Khan, the Samurai, and European nobles of the feudal age. BobRoss (talk) 04:56, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Or how about this shining example of sanity and nobility? RoninMacbeth (talk) 05:19, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I think it's safe to say that poverty has nothing to do with the decreasing of spiritual or mental quality. Gewgtweg, ú barisa tchi ǀhárú. BobRoss (talk) 06:22, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I could be wrong, but I think Gewgtweg is defining "quality" here as the properties that result in them collectively creating a 'great' country/culture/etc. Pretty much begging the question, if that's the case. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 09:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW the decline of the Spanish Empire has a number of causes, including primitive economic theorues -- they thought that they were rich because they were sitting on piles of gold and silver, which they used for a while to finance all sorts of wars, until they devalued gold and silver to the point that the wars became unsustainable. The decline in the quality of the Hapsburgs also became a problem; to keep everything in the family they routinely married their cousins, with the end result being one of my personal heroes, . Finally, they subscribed to an ultra-Catholic ideology that guaranteed that scientific progress was something that happened elsewhere, so the Brits were easily their masters at industry and technology. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 02:20, 11 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Spud If the guy's a troll then he should be kicked out of the wiki. Like a famous Georgian madman said, "no man, no problem".
 * @BobRoss, @RoninMacbeth Let's take a very wealthy country that is not overcrowded. Sweden is a good example. Compare that to an extremely poor country that is overcrowded like Liberia or Haiti. If that doesn't convince you nothing will. The fact that rich people can be criminals too is neither here nor there. Nobles often suffered from the effects of inbreeding. Roman Emperors were chronically lead-poisoned to boot. Another glaring example is the fact that most right-wing extremists come from the working classes in cities and from rural areas while most antifas come from the middle and upper classes. If you think that's chance, think again. Gewgtweg (talk) 15:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * So I guess we're just going to ignore that these "Shithole counties" are likely shitholes because of outside European influences, then? RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:13, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem with places like Haiti and most of Africa is not just the colonial legacy but their lack of massification. Those "countries" are not really nation-states. They are actually societies divided along very complex ethno-tribal lines or clans and the "government" they have is mostly little more than a mob. A similar situation existed in China, Russia and most of Asia. Needless to say if this situation had not ended (with force) those countries would have remained powerless forever. In Africa the stagnation of the Soviet Union put an abrupt end to the drive to do the same thing there. Because western finance doesn't go near those places, the only hope those places have to improve conditions is Chinese investment. I wouldn't personally call any country a shithole to feel better. Before modern sewage treatment methods, the industrializing western cities were the worst shitholes on earth and nobody lived in more squalor and filth than the western working classes. Up until the 50s people still stank for lack of habitual showering. There's never a smooth transition from a developing country to a developed country. There are however factors that compound the challenges the modern developing world faces. Gewgtweg (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * So all that makes a country great is their level of power. Needless to say if this situation had not ended (with force) those countries would have remained powerless forever. Is it the purpose of a country to become a world power? Is that all they should think about? Also, what about school shootings in middle class schools that I can't afford? BobRoss (talk) 16:16, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are many sorts of power - Vatican/Holy See, 'Tax Haven X', San Marino preferring to be 'too inconsequential to be invaded' etc: 'the world's top 100 economies' containing a significant number of multinationals; the USSR for all its military resources was wound up like a bankrupt country; and 'someone says something that catches people's imagination and the consequences are the world changes'. Anna Livia (talk) 17:28, 10 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @BobRoss The first and foremost concern of any country should be to remain independent. If you cannot do that then you'll always be a (very) bad country. But like I said the world's worst shitholes are not even countries. They're a loose set of clans and tribes. Also, small prosperous countries like Luxemburg, various pacific isles etc. don't count for actual countries either. They are resorts for the wealthy and tax havens.
 * The fact that a big percentage of US citizens passionately defend their right to be massacred in periodic shootings just so that arms manufacturers can make money by selling to the masses weapons designed for warfare is one of those things that are bad about the US. It should put every civilized person to shame. But it has nothing to do with the rich. School shootings don't happen only in rich schools and the Americans that defend the access to those weapons are overwhelmingly working class. Gewgtweg (talk) 18:17, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps 'being recognised as an entity with laws and other relevant aspects' by those living within the territory and outside is the most significant point - what about Tannu Tuva, the Knights of Rhodes, the Southern Rhodesia (Marriage, Matrimonial Causes and Adoptions)

Order 1972 ... Anna Livia (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gewgtweg says: "The first and foremost concern of any country should be to remain independent."
 * This is not correct. The first and foremost concern of any country should be to do what is best for its citizens. Continuing to be an independent country may or may not be in their best interests.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 11:39, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If you resign to being dependent you will not be in the position to decide what's good or bad for your citizens in the first place. Name a single country without control over its own destiny that's better off being a toy to someone else's whims. Gewgtweg (talk) 16:57, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * So .... Do disagree that the first and foremost concern of any country should be to do what is best for its citizens, and that anything else is really secondary to this end? (Hint "Yes, I agree" and "No, I do not agree" are good, concise options.) Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:05, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You are working from a false dichotomy. The point is that unless a country is independent then there's no way to do what's best for its citizens. So securing and safeguarding independence is the primary concern. The rest comes after that. Gewgtweg (talk) 16:06, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Gwrgrwrgwrgwrg is totally right
You know Mr. or Mrs. Gwrgrwgrgwrgwr I cannot believe the nerve of users here who have the gall to attack the good faith of RWRW and his insightful arguments on a variety of stimulating topics it just seems to me that the moral fabric of rationalwiki is going the way that family values are. It's almost as if us rational and mostly atheists take pleasure in imposing our arrogant sense of superiority to other people who come here to simply chat and shoot the breeze. I remember when I was young, when this whole internet was just fields of grass, that there was some civility and people respected their internet elders Shabi DOO  21:35, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There's only so much warmth people can spare when they disagree with you. But they can and should be civil. Compared to most places, RW sure does unusually well in the civility department notwithstanding occasional excesses. Gewgtweg (talk) 05:53, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not tolerate users that denigrate groups of poor people. 18:45, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "to attack the good faith of RWRW and his insightful arguments" Ummmm…. I think you're getting me confused. Kingdamian made the post. --RWRW (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

I missed the post. But if the point is to ask a question that can be honestly answered with an avalanche of insults, and then be hurt because you didn't like that answer, it's a waste of time. I was referred to a computer building reddit by a friend once when I wanted to build this very computer. The subreddit rules stated something along the lines of "Do not ask how to build a computer, do not ask for ground-up a build." Appreciated the reference, so very impressive that all these guys talk about specifics of hardware that will never matter to me, but they clearly understand the hardware on a level that I don't. And not in a scary way, if I had a legit question I would ask it. It's just not what I was looking for. Do I have the computer of my dreams? I don't know, I don't care, I'm also not pretending to have the greatest computer of all time just because I have a machine that runs. Did I go post in that reddit because I deserved answers or recognition? Did I not post because I was afraid of a legitimate response?

If I had to answer my own question, I'd tell myself "NO, fuck off, read a God damned book if you're that interested in it."

Of course, I can't respond to everybody like ikanreed does. I have empathy and remember a time when I was asking questions for answers I didn't already think I had.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 08:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * you might want to acquaint yourself with the question before you get all pissy with the replies AMassiveGay (talk) 11:43, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Flat earthers and creationists in a nutshell, very well put. I'm not good at summarizing my points, so thank you.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:30, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Expansion of the Universe and the Multiverse
Watching some science videos and it got me to thinking; what would happen once our universe is empty and while it expanded it collided with a younger universe? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I have heard this one idea of the Big Bang being caused by two universes colliding and destroying each other, so maybe that. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 00:21, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The question seems incoherent to me. If the two universes in your question mechanically interact, what makes them two universes and not two blobs of matter in one universe?  I cannot meaningfully understand your question.  How do they "collide" if they don't even occupy the same set of spacetime?  What's this question mean, in much more concrete terms?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 00:43, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

I will explain the best I can, as I am terrible with physics. I mean if our future universe collided with another universe on the same time plane. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * So our universe from say, one minute ago, somehow leapfrogs one minute ahead and the one minute ago universe suddenly fills the same time and space as our own universe and as a consequence our universe and the one minute ago universe that has jumped to our time...explodes? If so...does that create a big bang? Is that what you mean? Shabi  DOO  01:44, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Interesting question. A simpler question is what would happen if two galaxies collided. The answer has already been surmised: not much, because galaxies are mostly empty space.Ariel31459 (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Come back in a sufficient number of million years when the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way are interacting and we can discuss the matter further. Anna Livia (talk) 09:41, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Some people don't want to wait.Ariel31459 (talk) 14:49, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
 * For some clarification, not much at all happens on a human scale when galaxies collide, but quite a bit of disruption happens on a much larger timescale. There are plenty of images of actual galaxies colliding, thanks in particular to Hubble. Bongolian (talk) 03:32, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Bongolian, as I understand it there are several ways a galaxy collision with ours would effect us on a human scale. If we are particularly unlucky and find a cluster of stars have been flown in our direction or a cluster from say, closer to the centre of the other galaxy where star density is extreme, then we will be exposed to a lot of radiation, a lot of different kinds of radiation especially if they are all enormous stars or singularities. Another possible problem would be the possible doubling the number of meteorites, ghost planets, fly away moons and a number of other objects that would, on a very unlikely scale crash into Earth, but on an unlikely but not far fetched scale, disrupt our planets orbit creating climate disaster or the quick boiling or freezing of the planet. There are in fact numerous ways the Earth would find its orbit disrupted be it the gravity of that large cluster of stars mentioned earlier, large group of nearby singularities, or our star being slingshot at enormous speeds. We'd certainly have a lot of time for warning and preparation, thousands if not millions of years but in these cases, if we still cannot find a way to live on another planet or possibly another solar system...we'd be toast. I think Trump should call up for a Senate Committee for the preparation of possible galactic collision preparedness. It's never too early to hope for the best but prepare for the worst!!! Shabi  DOO  05:16, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * For universe collisions, the idea that you refer of the Big Bang having been the product of the collision of two previous ones probably refers to one present in string theory, where that would be the aftermath of two branes having an intimate moment. There're also people who interpret some signals in the cosmic microwave background as the product of the collision of our Universe when other bubble Universe (think on inflationary theory) during cosmic inflation, but that could just be pareidolia, and I think I've seen commented elsewhere that other bubble 'verse collided with us, the effect would be like a quantum vacuum collapse (see the article here about the Ultimate Fate of the Universe).
 * As for galactic collisions, the space between stars is pretty much empty -if the Sun was a bearing ball with a diameter of 1 centimeter, Alpha Centauri would be 300 kilometers away- so the risk of them even in the mess of the collision between our galaxy and Andromeda is pretty much nil. Closer approachs are another thing and the Oort cloud, that at that scale is at around 75-100 kilometers or a bit more, could become messed up sending comets to the inner Solar System (more risk of collisions with any planet). Really close approachs, enough to disturb or worse planetary orbits, would be unlikely to happen -Neptune would orbit at around 30 meters of the Sun at that scale- however and simulations show the most likely fate of the Sun is to be flung out to the outer reaches of the merger remnant, where stars are few and far between. Panzerfaust (talk) 12:06, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The risk isn't physical collision, it's gravity flinging us to an alternate, not-so-alive, orbit.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've already mentioned the probability of that happening would be quite low. Not sure the minimal distance that a rogue star would need to approach to mess with Earth that way, but even if it was around Jupiter's orbit that means said star would have to pass at 5 meters of the Sun in that scale model. Note also that you don't need an approach so close -one enough to alter the orbits of the outermost (and most massive planets) could cause gravitational interactions among themselves that would transform the Solar System into a mess (see caveats on the Nibiru article).
 * However those concerns may simply be academic. By the time the merger between Andromeda and the Milky Way takes place it's expected Earth will already be uninhabitable due to the increasing luminosity of the Sun even if the red giant phase was still billions of years ahead. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:37, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, yes, the helium-burning sun thing would absolutely come first, but also, a white dwarf star, or even a brown dwarf, passing within jupiter's orbit(that's only 5 AU) would be incredibly disruptive to our orbit. I was thinking more like Heliopause as an outer limit for any kind of problems.  I guess a .03% chance of that happening is still pretty small.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 01:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually the Sun's core helium burning phase would take place when there was no more Andromeda or Milky Way, just Milkdromeda. When the collision happened, it would still be a main-sequence star even if hotter and more luminous than now. Also, the most likely fate of the Sun is to end up in the outermost reaches of the newly formed galaxy where encounters would be few and far between or evn being kicked out of there, but other estimations suggest that it could before pass close to any of the supermassive black holes lurking in the center of both galaxies, so we'd have a lot of things to worry about.
 * That distance may be safe, assuming something that close had come before (Neptune's orbit with its circularity is said to put stringent upper limits to that kind of approaches). Panzerfaust (talk) 13:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Shabidoo "I think Trump should call up for a Senate Committee for the preparation of possible galactic collision preparedness. It's never too early to hope for the best but prepare for the worst!!!" This was said by a person that is not willing to do anything to prepare for the realities of resource shortages. Galactic collision preparedness is just more urgent I guess. Sigh. Gewgtweg (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gegwtegwtegwteg's comment summarily ignored. Shabi  DOO  20:47, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * How mature of you... Gewgtweg (talk) 00:03, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I wander off, I wander back again...
Greetings and hello to all those that remember me. And to all those that don't. Somebody get me a seriously large piña colada, it's been a deeply shitty year for dealing with TERFs in the UK, and with the deadline for the Consultation to changes to the Gender Recognition Act coming up (5 days and counting) TERFs have only accelerated their attack on the UK trans community. Hoping they'll shut up a bit after the close of the consultation because for a group that claims to be constantly silenced they're awfully noisy on all the mainstream media platforms. And yes, plenty of ice in that piña colada thanks. So, how's everyone been?-- 16:52, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I am becoming increasingly cynical regarding human beings and the future of life on Earth. Otherwise I am somewhat well. 17:18, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've had some fundies jump all over me on YouTube, one of whom thinks I'm Muslim. Mí má kȍhà hńg gǀȕì ō ǁȁhìn-ā ō hȁ ō gǀè gù ǀxūúnnu. (talk) 18:03, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * GC, I need a shirt and/or sticker that says that. I am growing ever more concerned about our failure to make any serious effort to combat global warming. Samstr (talk) 02:30, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are several custom T-shirt companies who can likely make such a shirt, even in less than bulk. Alternatively you could try to give them out to promote awareness of climate change, and its repercussions. 13:53, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I might actually do that. Samstr (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Recent stuff in NA and the UK does lend itself to maybe burning the whole creaking edifice of power down and maybe starting again.-- 18:48, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I just want the Republicans out of my life. 19:19, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, TERFs seem very active in the UK, so, sorry about that. It makes me happy to be Swedish, where even the far-right party is pretty pro-transgender rights. What IS it with the UK and TERFs anyway? Dendlai (talk) 01:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * US fundies really didn't like losing the fight for DOMA, SSM, and bathroom laws, so they've funded TERF groups in the UK in yet another attempt at a wedge-strategy. To the point that UK TERFs started campaigning against the repeal of the Irish 8th Amendment, and campaigning against a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.  Thankfully US Fundies aren't known for their patience, especially as they're working with groups that they secretly despise (women who aren't subservient to them — well, yet), and given TERF lack of actual progress (like the empty vessel, all they've done so far is make a lot of noise and really piss off the LGBTQ+ community over here), it wouldn't surprise me if UK TERF groups suddenly find themselves without any funding or backing.-- 13:35, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I can understand why US Fundies would be on board with the TE part, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how they support the RF part. I suppose it is "the enemy of my enemy" thinking more than anything. Samstr (talk) 01:05, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, most of the RFs aren't actually feminists, let alone radical. It's telling that this is a group of "feminists" that campaigned against allowing abortion, because the Yes campaign used trans-inclusive language, and are actually starting to campaign to repeal Equality Act protections in the UK, despite the fact that they know that the first thing to go would be sex discrimination protections, as well as maternity leave, pay, and discrimination protections. If I had to list them as anything, it would be modern-day blackshirts, which is why the fundies find it so easy to work with them.-- 22:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't know that, but I suppose that isn't really surprising. Do these groups actually identify themselves as TERFs or is that just a label given to transphobic groups? Samstr (talk) 23:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A bit of the first, but a lot more of the second. Mostly it get used to describe individuals and orgs that try to define themselves as just being "concerned" women (orgs that a are very similar to the women's orgs fundies set up).  These groups like to claim to have a veneer of feminism and try to sell it as being "real" feminism, but don't do any actual feminism-everything's focused on attacking trans people, especially trans women.— 09:38, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That use of concern trolling definitely makes sense. If it is even possible, I would say that the fact that these concerns are largely masks for a hostile agenda makes me respect these groups even less. Samstr (talk) 04:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Are time crystals real?
Kid lost in time Nerd (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * In other words, time crystals are a great way for traveling through time... if you happen to be one. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:29, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As a physicist, let me tell you that it is not a good idea to let us try acting. Otherwise, this is a pretty good video. Samstr (talk) 01:08, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you sure that's not a stereotype? They made me laugh left and right. Nerd (talk) 01:07, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is absolutely a stereotype. I've actually had a number of professors who were quite funny. For whatever reason I generally I just don't like "cutesy" things added to otherwise informative content. I don't mind humorous remarks or jokes thrown into content, but for some reason, I cannot explain it slightly annoys me when I see scripted skits. Samstr (talk) 01:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Comedy is like food. Some will like it, others not so much. Nerd (talk) 18:04, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

An Atheist's Take on the 12 Steps and a Higher Power
It's a lark to think about some higher power, some grand importance to being. How much easier it must be for somebody to believe they are loved.

I'm rounding out solo and group counseling for a second DUI, and wouldn't you believe it, the 12 steps are supposed to be key to the curriculum.

Problem starts around the 2nd step, recognizing a higher power isn't the curriculum's strong suit when it comes to atheism. It goes to God or some grand intention of the universe, something that has to be more correct that our current thinking. I've really spent some time trying to contextualize it, but that has been my effort, nobody has ever put anything forward that I can even come close to counting as non-magical. I had to settle on statistically more common. It's not as solid, but it's not likely that I'm some grand outlier, even if I feel like it.

Best I can figure and rationalize in the situation is that society at large is the higher power. Which I may disagree with, and I may have to disagree with, but I have to meet society at large on their terms if I want to disagree with it. Instead, I decided to drink all the time, even when I had to drive places.

The best the certified therapists at group could come up with was "If you don't believe in God, music can be your higher power. Nature can be your higher power." And then at the end of that lesson they made us each write down what we learned about the difference between spirituality and religion, without ever taking a breath to think about what the difference between spirituality and magical thinking might be. And I still don't have the answer to that. I wrote "spirituality as it was defined tonight doesn't require magical thinking, but a higher power has to be something that exists whether it includes you or not. It's tough to decide what is worth being included in, but picking something doesn't always mean it's healthy.  So I don't know what this means as far as it's been explained, but I guess I have to pick something I'd like to be included in that requires me to be sober.  Religion combines spirituality with magical thinking to believe in a positive or negative outcome for certain behaviors without any real reason.  I wouldn't want to make drinking my religion."

Counselors backed off of asking me anything directly for a few weeks after that night, so I'd guess they actually read what we write. I got moved around with my one on ones, also. I now have a one on one with a guy who likes me, but he doesn't do much besides ask me how my sobriety is going and then humble brag about all the important people he knows. I like to listen to him, he is a very good speaker. He's had some good affirmations for me about going back to school and changing my career.

The difference between spirituality and magical thinking doesn't make sense to me, and it's not because I haven't thought about it. Good music is great, but if you've been on the creating end of it like I've tried, you know it's just people working very hard at it. Nature can't be my higher power, because nature is what got me here in the first place in a sense. Those definitions between "nature" and "what humans do all the time" are not dissimilar enough for me to draw a line. I like walking through a forest and spotting the animals doing what they do, even if it's generally running away from the humans. But walking through a city and spotting the animals there doing what they do isn't really different, it's also generally running away from the humans.

So I've gotta look at it as if it's society at large that is the higher power. And I agree that I messed up, that I took some frustrations to an unhealthy personal place, and that we can't have people being drunk all the time, driving around drunk, not fufilling their responsibilities because they prefer being drunk to taking part in society. That makes for bad society.

So, they say "Your higher power doesn't have to be God. It can be music, or nature, or a child's laughter!" What fun. Whoop. De. Doo.

But what they don't get is, nah, that's not what they're talking about. They're only talking about God, because having fun and enjoying things doesn't exclude using. Their secular version of a higher power isn't for a secular benefit. It's so they can continue with their curriculum as-is without having to say they didn't accomodate secularism. Bless their hearts, but society at large put me here, and it requires me to change my behavior for what I have to accept as fair and rational reasons. The execution is just plain garbage, I'd rewrite it in a week.

Stupid. Next group is my final group, and I'll probably be asked to say something about my time there. I've really tried to learn and gain as much as I can, since I have to be there anyway. I'd like to finally speak up as an atheist, but I wouldn't want to take anything that helps somebody else there away from them, and there are lots of people there who really believe God wants them to be sober. I don't want to put anyone who is hanging onto sobriety by their fingernails at risk. I will miss it on a couple levels, be glad to have the time back on a couple others.

Part of being in society at large, I suppose. Reflection ain't easy, and it sure ain't fun. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:55, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * My big problem with 12 step programs is that they're functionally equivalent to placebo, and occupying cultural space that could be devoted to effective treatment. The religious ideology part is a distant second.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:44, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And that all alcoholics, compulsive gamblers etc. are completely "powerless" over the control of the substance/activity...and where abstinence is the only answer. That's impossible for all cases. It slightly reminds me of "admitting you're a feeble flake of dust and submitting yourself to God/Allah". My biggest problem though is how well 12 steps fare over other forms of treatment when any research/meta-research is done. 12 steps doesn't add up. And yet some atheists in the USA are court ordered to attend these (in-reality) religious or religious-like group where, for some, it's more a cult than therapy. Shabi  DOO  15:57, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * They're statistically equivalent, but I'd still say the "placebo" version is the grand realization that God is there whereas the statistical version where the placebo is as effective as nothing doesn't really mean the placebo is an incorrect prescription. I mean, I don't God.  I don't Ghost or Crystal or Positive Thinking, none of that actually pans out.  So why does sobriety pan out with the same numbers between AA and non-AA approaches?  I don't think it's because of the placebo, I don't think it's despite the placebo. I think it's because of the approaches, and nobody is putting time or money into secular approaches.  It suggests there's not really a fix, and the terms of my probation expect a divine intervention.  Waste. Of. Time.  Unless I take it upon myself, which I've done my best at. There are just some cold truths that need addressing, I don't need God for that.  I mean, that would be like saying Nazis needed Christianity to stop genociding.  Nazis HAD Christianity.  Godwin achieved, baby!  What do I win?  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Naturopathic Medicine- What are your thoughts?
I have my personal opinions but I want others thoughts. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Uh, did you actually read the naturopathy page? Everything and the kitchen sink has been thrown into naturopathy at one time or another. Which naturopathic medicine are you referring to? Imprecise doses of radiation for treatment of TB? Sitz-baths for whooping cough? Bongolian (talk) 03:03, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Everything about it is more duck slime and Poison Mushrooms than medicine and anyone who hawks it is hurting people and anyone who tries it is self-harm. Naturopathy should banned or at least subject to strict regulations. Homeopathy is a strong part of naturopathy's foundation. Anyone who identifies as an ND is Not a Doctor and is also hurting people regardless of the honesty and good-will of these "doctors". 03:10, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I too wish to interrogate this wiki's net opinion, on such ambiguous things as creationism, do people here mostly like creationism, I bet we do. And 9/11 truth, this is a pro truther place, for the most part, right?  Fundamentalist religious control of national governments?  These are hard questions.
 * No really. I don't know what you expect to see besides 1000 editors tell you it's a scam that robs people and, when done in lieu of real medicine, kills them.  Indistinguishable from homeopathy except that 1 out of 1,000,000 times tea brewed from tree bark really does have aspirin in it.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:17, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I love naturopathy and fully embrace its natural remedie's to ilnesse's. 21:37, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm about to move in with a guy who likes touring the naturopathy circuit. He's always trying to lose weight, but he's a chronic binger.  I've known him for almost a decade, I've seen him go Atkins, Paleo, and Keto in his diet.  When he asks me how I stay thin, I always just tell him "Well, I'm an omnivore, so I eat like a dog.  I eat anything, if it's not good for me I'll probably just throw it up on a carpet later."  He gets a real kick out of me saying that, and I'm usually interested and supportive in what he currently can and can't eat.  The way I grew up, I can go for 24 hours without food before it's a problem, he won't really go more than 4, I'd guess.  We're gonna be like the odd couple of consumption.


 * Recently, he's on a legal drug kick. He's trying to kick nicotine, he's over alcohol since he figured out it was making him tired all the time, so he's buying patches, buying Kratom, getting anything CBD he can and I fully expect him to start smoking pot.  I'm cool with all of it, I've lived with some real shitheads and pot was never the problem.  I mean it, not once among all the shitheads was marijuana a problem.  I don't like it much unless I'm feeling really comfortable, because I can't eat or sleep for a couple hours any time I get stoned.  This guy always has his bottom line on his mind, which is great because I've had to drop surprise savings to get my water turned back on before. But I am giving him the master bedroom because I made the joke that the bathroom that everybody uses can't be full of brain pill bottles and niacin.  He laughed and said "I seriously have so many of those, I don't think I can fit them in that bathroom."  He said it in a way that makes me think he isn't joking.


 * The floorplan is huge. 1415 square feet.  I'm fine with him having the master bedroom because I don't want to have to walk into a bathroom to get to my closet.  We're going to make a really good team, but holy hell will I have to abide his homeopathic tourism.  Bottles of Brain Force everywhere.  Not joking, I've seen the guy swallow nine herbal capsules every day at lunch for the past month.  And that's only because it says to swallow 9 with food and some other times.  How accurate can that be?  Other than making sure you have to buy a huge bottle of capsules every month, it's ballpark if anything.  On the plus side, there's plenty of room to run a line of tape down the middle of the apartment.  His homeopathy, it's not sane to the point I'm dreading living with it.  Everything else I can deal with.


 * Ra-Men episode 96 Aron Ra talks to a guy who explains how homeopathy causes trouble for healthcare.  I forget when, but there is an anecdote to an owl feather remedy being sold to cure owl-like tendencies, such as staying up late.  We share the world with people who understand that this is marketable and with people who believe owl feathers are a good insomnia cure.  Goop is another faith-in-humanity destroying subset.  I'd like to believe in a little bit of magic, it would make the world a more exciting place.  But when people take it this far, it just ruins all of it for everyone.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:43, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Rethinking the facts of the world
Lets see if I got it right.


 * The Earth is flat.
 * The moon is a projection.
 * Politicians are lizard people and or anti Christ.
 * Jews control the media.
 * Denver International Airport is the gate to Hell.
 * The new Presidential alert system is government spying and not a new version of the Emergency Alert System.
 * Obama has a weather machine.
 * Pagans eat babies.

I think I got this right. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:43, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The parts of it composed of graphene are totally flat
 * What you see is literally a mathematical projection of the moon onto your retina.
 * All politicians are descended from very reptile-like creatures only a couple hundred million years removed
 * I'm not even gonna ironically pretend this one has merit. No room in my life for nazis.
 * Once you land, and go through the doors, you're in Denver, QED
 * Your phone does indeed provide an ACK packet to the server, given that text messaging protocols are built on a TCP variant. (Also is it still conspiracy to say the federal government is spying on americans?)
 * He has this machine called an "umbrella" that prevents rain from falling on a specific section of land
 * With no qualification of species: many of them do eat veal and lamb. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:00, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * We# are the greys/reptilians etc - Our Supposed Rulers are the last surviving Real Humans.
 * The Dallas Book Repository is a spacetime portal.
 * How come there is only an Antichrist (and not Anti(other saviours of choice)?
 * The Moon is made of cheese. Anna Livia (talk) 23:12, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No Anna. It is birds who will become our rulers. Enormous feathery bulging eyed bird-lords. The lizard thing is just fake news.
 * The moon is made of ripe Cammembert...try to be specific!
 * The Dallas Book Repository is a interphasic portal (not spacetime) and I'm shocked you made such an obvious error
 * The anti-anti-christ is another kind of anti-christ including his brother the anti-anti-anti-christ. Don't you know anything about multi-polarity-supernatural-deities? Shabi  DOO  01:04, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * But what about this? I was also allowing for 'visitors from other planets with moons (and moon-moons)?
 * And the AntiDevil/AntiLucifer?
 * The nature of the DBR depends in part upon which part of the multiverse you happen to be (and what sort of entity you are). Anna Livia (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Anna...are you from this universe?
 * More importantly: does that mean that somewhere out there, there exists a Cheddar Cheese moon? Or perhaps even a Parmesan dwarf planet?
 * Shabi DOO  22:47, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I am - and why not? ('Playing around with ideas' can be entertaining or even productive.) Anna Livia (talk) 10:44, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I was so hoping you would be from sone other universe. I'm from Universe-276474-BB-iutu-57335XXD-€£©¢®££¢-4648-♣♠♥♥-634 known by those around my spacetime neighbourhood as Xorg-Xorg-Churros. I was so hopeful I'd meet a fellow outlander. Pity. Also...where is this cheddar-cheese moon? Are people there made of milk proteins? Shabi  DOO  20:15, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You guys have to be immature to find that stuff funny. Gewgtweg (talk) 01:59, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Gtewtwetwe, didn't you realise we are all five year old kindergarteners typing random stuff during nap time on our hidden smart phones? You're around our age too...no? Or perhaps you're older than Donad Trump? Shabi  DOO  14:32, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "There's no point being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." Spud (talk) 05:27, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

My favorite anti-flat earth rhetoric is "Ok, but if the earth didn't have a curve, why is the bottom of a coke can curved? Wouldn't it just be flat?" It's an exactly-stupid-enough argument for people who ask questions without looking for the answers to said questions. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 07:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You forgot to add "Trump bashers are child-eating demons". As for the flat Earth BS, I'm still waiting to know both what exists in the other side of the disk as well as how thick it is. Panzerfaust (talk) 13:12, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * All men are evil.
 * AIDS is a biological weapon.
 * The world governments are covering up creationism and it's evidence.
 * An ice age is coming despite evidence being inconclusive.
 * Nibiru is being covered up. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 14:24, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Well let's see how that equates with my worldview. :D
 * The Earth is a slightly imperfect sphere.
 * The moon is made of Green Cheese.
 * Politicians are mostly reptilians except for Trump who is the Anti-Christ.
 * A dozen rich fucks control all the worlds media.
 * The gate to Hell is actually hidden under the White House.
 * The new Presidential alert system is a planned replacement for Trump's twitter account.
 * God watches the weather forecast and deliberately screws with the weather so they are always wrong.
 * 10:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The world is flat - apart from the one bit you are standing on (corollary - you always have to walk upwards)/the slope you are trying to park on. Anna Livia (talk) 10:47, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Let me see if I got this right?
 * 1.The Last Woolly Mammoths survived on Wrangel Island
 * 2. You got triggered by a joke and called someone you disagree with a Nazi making everyone left of center look bad.
 * 3. The Earth is round with a slightly bulging equator
 * -Sincerely TheDarkMaster2

Evidence changing my opinions again
But about a stupid philosophy thing, not anything that actually matters. This study here overturns what I had read in the past, which had at that time overturned my initial intuition and assumptions.

Namely, what I intuited was that consequentialists were more likely to be actually pro-social and (more abstractly) "moral" in real world situations than deontologists. Because, to me, consequentialism reflected a less self-centric viewpoint on morality when exercised properly, not "what did I do" but "what do others actually experience". This made sense to me.

As I learned more about emprical research into moral philosophy, I found a lot of research (and secondary source summaries) establishing that, no, consequentialism reflected a lack of immediate empathy, and the analytical framing was a rationalization not an ideology, and in unambiguous situations, self-described consequentialists were actually less likely to make an intercession to help others.

Now I read this, and it's an attempt by researchers to use the "trapdoor problem" variation of the trolley problem to slice the "true believer" consequentialists from the people who wouldn't engage in it if it looked bad, socially. And they indeed find that people respect the fairness of the deontologists far more, even as the consequentialists were actually less fair and more selfish. All this has forced me to reconsider my recent personal model of trying to be more deontological in moral perspective.

It's worth noting that the article is literally about the concept of social signalling and virtue, and I'm gonna give anyone who wants to say 'virtue signalling' as pass for discussing it that way. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:51, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * All human moralities, without regard to the school of philosophy their advocate belongs to, "rather than being grounded in moral reasoning", are "to a large extent an exercise in moral rationalization." This is because live human moral judgments are made pre-consciously.  Moral reasoning exists to justify them to others, and has little to do with how they're arrived at.  As the paper admits, evolution is involved.  Human moralities are a set of wetware subroutines that judge scales like trustworthiness versus treachery, loyalty versus disloyalty, and conformity versus openness.  The human mind is inherently 'deontologist' rather than 'consequentialist' in that it's programmed with a series of shoulds and shouldn'ts.  The field strength of these various routines varies from individual to individual, and seems to be at least partially heritable.  And the purpose of all of these routines is to help the organism running them navigate the minefields of human societies, with the unstated but ultimate goal of 'winning' at natural and sexual selection.  Given this background, the consequentialist's calculation of relative advantage can't help but seem scheming and distant.  Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 22:12, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's literally nonsense. If you construct a moral framework that's sufficiently clear and explicit(and no, they shouldn't always be suffiicently clear and explicit) you can arrive at clear indications about appropriate actions to take in a given situation, and if they conflict with your choices in the moment, then you've failed your own moral test.  And you sure as fuck build the literal laws society is ruled by in a deontological or consequentialist or hybrid framing.  Don't drop your bullshit "you're only doing it for sex and reproduction" nonsense on me.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 22:17, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Excuse me while I roll my eyes. I think these are salient points, with or without direct ground level studies to suggest they are generally true.  Morality and ethics are a constant discussion.  Nobody creates societal law individually, even if we can individually uphold it. But I suppose there's always one person in the orgy that didn't show up for sex and nonsense, isn't there? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 09:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * On a similar note to what Smerdis said, in what few relevant classes I did take, I saw philosophers make arguments that seemed very circular to me. For example, my professor gave an example in class of happy slaves. Essentially, everyone in a society lacks any freedom, they are all born into a specific job and forced to spend every waking hour working. However, the people are given drugs and genetically engineered to make sure that they are constantly happy (essentially the plot behind Brave New World). My professor gave this as a counterargument against consequentialism. If consequentialism is true, then the Brave New World society is ethical. The Brave New World is not ethical so consequentialism is false. The problem is, how do we actually evaluate whether or not the Brave New World society is ethical without an already established moral framework? Again, I am by no means an expert, so if someone can answer this question I would appreciate it. Samstr (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This article may be relevant.Ariel31459 (talk) 16:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Every time I see people discuss virtue ethics vs deontology vs consequentialism, I'm quite frankly baffled how it's not obvious you need a healthy balance of all of these to have a properly functioning moral system. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 16:48, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, but if you have a hybrid system, one or the other is foundational and the other is derived. "All other things being equal, make choices that create the best result for the most people" could be a perfectly valid deontological rule, but it cannot overcome "you cannot, under any circumstances kill another human being".  Whereas if your consequentialist ideas are foundational, you might arrive at a heuristic "it almost never creates superior outcomes for all people to kill another human being", but trolley problem style thought experiments invalidate that as a rule.  Or more plausibly and worse, you start to justify wars because of the hypothetical lives they save.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:59, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Morality in practice is my chief concern, above theories about how it ought to operate. From my perspective, moral judgments are immediate and involuntary, something prior to the work of reasoning.  They resemble nothing so much as the operation of ethnic and similar prejudices.  You can no more help making moral judgments than you can avoid noticing a non-native speaker's accent.  In morality, as in that, first impressions are 90% of what counts.  For me, at least, morality is always a problem for this reason.  It is something that needs to be held in check, despite the fact that this is an unwinnable and never ending struggle.  The task of the moral or political philosopher is to resist the emergence of new grounds for moral judgment, because new moralities are the same sorts of thing as new prejudices; and to attempt to weaken the grip of the old ones.  Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 00:54, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Right but what's driving my desire to reconsider is empirical observation of what is generally considered moral behavior, and its relationship to internal models of morality. It's easy to say "oh it's all just theory" when you're smerdis of tlon and your overriding goal is to be "above it all" regardless of context, but I'm genuinely interested in what influences the connections between one's theory of morality and the morality of actions actually taken, with a mind toward not always trusting my intuition to be right.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 01:03, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A place for deontologicalism vs. consequentialism may exist in a theory of moral -actions-, but not of moral -judgments-, because the latter are immediate and pre-verbal. Which is to say that moral reasoning is not about 'what should I do?' but 'how do I get to do what I want to do?' On the other hand, it is occasionally possible, though not always, to get some people to reflect before they act, even if their reflections are biased towards what they already wanted. Trolley problems and similar thought experiments are interesting but it needs to be remembered that the stakes are low.  The most interesting thing about this study is that it seems to suggest first that while the stakes are low, they are not zero; second, that your moral explanation will be judged by its audience on how it tickles their emotional triggers rather than how the math works out.  All of this suggests that the chief job of any moral philosopher is to remind people that their moral instincts are automatic, unreliable processes serving an unchosen agenda.   This, I think, is prior to deontologicalism vs. consequentialism. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 02:00, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The conflict between consequentialism and deontology seems to be due to the the incompleteness and relativity of finite systems of ethics. Before the advent of electrical motors, no trolley problem could be contemplated. Most people would say it would be ethical to kill one person in order to save five people. But, suppose they were asked to take the place of the person supposed to be killed? Would they declare such an action to be just and agree that it would be proper to accept their own deaths as moral outcomes? . I think you are correct in your understanding. We cannot judge a system to be immoral without a system of meta-ethics (also likely to be incomplete).Ariel31459 (talk) 16:11, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you think Hume and Kant lived in a world with trolleys? What?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 03:32, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You'll have to be more specific.Ariel31459 (talk) 04:00, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, specifically you allege the origin of contemplating two different schools of ethical thought on an invention that came centuries after them. It was weird.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 05:45, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That would indeed be an error if that were what I had done. As that was not what I meant to propose, let's put that aside. A similar problem is that of the overloaded boat. The trolley problem is more applicable to the general public in that even a child can push a button or pull a switch. Hume might say that consequentialism depends upon probable knowledge in the sense that it is uncertain.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:08, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Carbon sequestration.
How feasible is carbon sequestration and do we have the technology for it?


 * theres several proposed methods and some existing ones. All feasible, but expensive. 23:29, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There are 3-parts to the problem of sequestration: energy consumption (which can generate more atmospheric carbon), collection technology, and disposal. The last part sort of drives the first two: if one can find something extremely durable but useful, the first two problems might solve themselves. Probably the best solution would be generation of carbon nanotubes and carbon fullerenes, which could in-part and in-principle be used for solar energy generating panels. Carbon nanotubes could in-principle also be used to build space elevators. Bongolian (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It may be expensive but in all likelihood we'll have to use it and pretty much everything else, since as usual we will not act until it's too late -and even if Donald Duck was not present the goals of that UN report look quite unfeasible-. Panzerfaust (talk) 09:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

The deficit and debt hysteria BS and the interests behind it
https://www.thenation.com/article/defense-deficits/
 * Deficits aren't good per se, there's a big faction of new left thought that wants to abandon taxation and move to "Modern Monetary Theory" of printing money and inflating instead of taxing and printing money to facilitate market needs separately. Those people miss some pretty big problems like currency collapse from even small mismanagement and corruption.  But honestly, taxes anywhere close to maintaining wealth homeostasis would not only destroy the deficit, it'd fix a lot of social issues on the backside.  That's a huge discussion.
 * Monetary policy itself aside, it's no coincidence that republicans are ramping up "let's fix the deficit" talk before an election they're likely to lose. Crippling the democrats with fixing problems they cause is their primary electoral strategy.  I can't think of an election they've won recently where their central conceit wasn't "Look at this thing we purposefully destroyed, why won't the democrats fix it"  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:45, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * What they do with the monetary policy works, so I say just let them get on with it. 11:15, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Works for who exactly? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Anyone that uses money and doesn't need to use a thing called "credit". AKA the establishment. Possibly these are mainly republicans... 15:54, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Galbraith explained very well why "fixing the deficit" is a very dumb idea. And let's be reminded that the only reason the US economy survived the end of Bretton Woods is that it racked up enormous deficits thanks to the petrodollar. This undermined the Soviet Union more effectively than anything else could.
 * The US is a true sovereign. Sovereigns aren't like good little Japs or Germans that work for others and are patted in the back for it. Sovereigns extract what they want from others. Gewgtweg (talk) 16:02, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I read each of these sentences, tried to figure out how they related to the previous one and just grew increasingly baffled at the unstated logic underneath and convolutions contained in it. The goldbug weirdness jumping straight to magic debt blasting the evil soviets to pure unabashed fascism, it's like... for it to make sense in your head before you typed it requires an almost alien worldview.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:50, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The article seems somewhat outdated (2010).Ariel31459 (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Googtwig: "Sovereigns aren't like good little Japs"
 * You. Stop. 18:28, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Bullshit is timeless Ariel, they're dusting off an old propoganda item now, its rebuttal isn't untimely. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:32, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You are aware that James Galbraith is one of the most progressive economists in the US, right? Gewgtweg (talk) 19:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Context clues, gewg. I wasn't calling the article propaganda.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:44, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Modern Monetary Policy isn't all that it's cracked up to be, see the Bad Economics subreddit after Planet Money aired an episode covering it. https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/9ki608/shame_on_you_planet_money_mmt_episode/ Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Really, when you get down to it, it's worse than "not all that it's cracked up to be". It's really really easy to cause a currency collapse.  You essentially box your maximum sustainable government budget as equal GDP growth rate and any more leads to not just inflation, but hyperinflation.  I feel like the whole thing was ginned up by some left-leaning person who didn't want to have the "taxes?!" argument a millionth time.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Exactly. Cardinal Chang (talk) 17:06, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

reporting clickbait crank videos
this user enquires the viability and feasibility of rationalwiki userbase going on youtube and reporting clickbait crank binaural beat new age laetril kombucha meditation crystal healing videos en masseFAMAS (Talk) (Contribs) [] [] 10:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Man, imagine if you cut the "this user" shit after the first 30 times people said it was super annoying and pointless. Then someone might actually take time to help you isntead of just reply to tell you to knock it off again.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:42, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I have no idea what FAMAS is taking about.Other than it seems to be like paranoid crap. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 15:19, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * FAMAS wants us to help raid New Age YouTube channels and spam reports until the channels get shut down. I've said it once, I've said twice, and apparently I'll say it thrice: DO NOT MAKE RAID REQUESTS ON THIS WIKI. DO NOT ATTEMPT RAIDS IN THE NAME OF RATIONALWIKI. IF YOU DO SO YOU WILL BE BLOCKED BY ME. REPEAT OFFENDERS WILL BE COOPED. Everyone got that? Good, now stop. Thank you. 15:36, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Free speech is free speech, even if FAMAS does not like it. I agree with GrammarCommie. It is just wrong. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Who cares? 19:50, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, if it's youtube and you have a problem with the video, the real response is to make a response video where you listen to the arguments and point out the realities. It's only effective in that funnels attention.  A report raid is a dumb tactic, what do you learn out of a thousand thumbs down if you're still scoring those 100?  You learn you're being suppressed by somebody, WAHHHH!


 * On a side note, I don't mind the "this user" voice, you go ahead and use it if it makes you feel comfortable, you official not robot. Thumbs up on that, I get it.  But organizing to report videos that don't align with the site's stated ideology?  Boooooooring. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:58, 20 October 2018 (UTC)


 * This user is not insane. 10:41, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This bunch of numbers (and some dots) is not a user, but merely a humble hobbyist. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 17:09, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This user forgot all about this user. 15:11, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Speaking in third person is LeftyGreenMario's job, not mine. 19:34, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Speaking in third person... Is it a Jaqen H'ghar reference? because this user warns you that followers of the Many-Faced God aren't to be mocked. --RWRW (talk) 09:16, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Bullshit arguing with horseshit
If you haven't seen it yet, here's Alex Jones literally arguing with a steaming pile of horsehit today outside a Trump rally in Texas. Bongolian (talk) 01:47, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * So this is what he does to stay relevant. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 13:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Either this is a publicity stunt, or he is legitimately insane. 15:35, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Alex Jones was crazy before he was famous. He literally used to harass people waiting in line at the DMV about government conspiracies before he made it big with infowars.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:06, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a step above his Sandy Hook conspiracies, at least. 18:33, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Cutting down on abortion: Not the right wing nuts way
While I don't like the idea of abortion, it should be legal. It is simply fact.

Now, instead of using scare tactics give the unbiased facts so a woman or couple can make an informed choice. I wouldn't know but it would make sense that it would be a heart aching and stressful thing.

Scare tactics simply don't work. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 16:08, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of abortion. People who really don't want to be parents are terrible choices for parents.   ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:21, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Just thinking practically. I just disagree with the idea. I respect your opinion.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:07, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * it would seem to me scare tactics do seem to work. its one of the reasons abortion is a still an issue in your part of the world. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:10, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Encourage more contraception?
 * People may well feel there is a subjective difference between issues such as 'severe medical problems involved' and 'a context of violence' etc on the one hand and 'everything else' on the other. Anna Livia (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I would agree that encouraging the use of contraception through improved sex education is ultimately the best thing to prevent abortion. Ironically, the same religious fundamentalists who hate abortion are often the same people who don't want anything besides abstinence-only education. Samstr (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Just use STDs as scare tactic to encourage safe sex. Problem solved. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * yeh i know for a fact that dont work. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should stigmatize people who have them even further. 00:22, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I am in favor of legal abortion and comprehensive sexual education. Giving the unbiased facts is the best thing to do. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:38, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * What we really need is to recognize that fifteen year old young women are of childbearing age and may indeed have children. The cultural mindset that claims they're too young is historically very weird and very local. We need instead to make it possible for them to continue to participate in education and employment if we agree that they ought to; make high schools and colleges make room for childbirth and parenthood.  The notion that they shouldn't think about breeding until their late twenties or thirties is again historically very weird and very local. Like the other wars that culture wages against biology, you should bet on biology.  We need institutions that support them, rather than treating a woman who's pregnant at fifteen as the victim of a tragedy that's going to spoil her future.  For literal fuck's sake why?  Give them a bit more slack to live the lives they have already, and abortion rates will decline.  Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 03:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If only that attitude didn't come on the heels of reams of evidence about it actually destroying those womens' lives, far far far far more often than not. It might have something to do with modern society not at all being like your imagined Rousseauian past dreamland.    ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * its no secret on how cut down on unplanned pregnancies and abortions. comprehensive sex education and access to adequate contraception. its unfortunate that loudest voices against abortion seem to have a problem with effective measures to prevent the need for abortion. AMassiveGay (talk) 16:15, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that those loudest voices against abortion do not really care about preventing the need for abortion. They just want to punish women for having sex. This would explain why they are against abortion (had sex? Have this consequence for life) and why they are against sex education. No sex is their ultimate goal. STDs are a bonus punishment for having sex. 189.38.141.176 (talk) 20:21, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I was told this earlier when me, my oldest brother and mom were on a very similar subject. My mom told me that when was growing up in the 1970's that her neighbors told their kid that you can get pregnant from a toilet seat. Seriously. Considering it was way back when, I would not be shocked. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The BoN above seems quite right and I'd include to ignore that women are who know better what's to have a life growing inside them for the good and the bad, so they must have more room for choice. As for forbidding abortion the only situation in which it would be tolerable to the extent some want is the existence of state-funded, not the charity BS that would be insufficient, programs to care for those unwanted newborns, especially those unable to care for themselves in adulthood, but there'd be still cases in which it would be inevitable (danger for the mother), and others as rape, etc. where if practiced the sooner the better (my limit is when the foetus can feel pain and is self-aware). Panzerfaust (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Chapo Trap House
What’s anyone’s thoughts on Chap Trap House?
 * What is it and why should I care? 17:11, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's an edgy far-ish left humor podcast. Their only consistent gimmick is what they call the "reading series" where they read aloud editorials from major publications and breaking down(humorously and crudely) the unquestioned and insane leaps of logic that go into some of the essays that represent the core of supposedly intellectual political discussion in the US.  They're notable because they're definitely the most popular left-leaning podcast, and they've recently published a NYT best seller.  Don't know if that notability translates into you needing to care.
 * In terms of editorial goals, not just theme, they want to knock over the positionless centrism of the Democratic party in favor of social democratic positions, believing that this will both bolster the success of a failing party, and help move the country in a less terminal direction.
 * As to my personal thoughts, as requested by spacehillbilly, I find the particular kinds of humor they engage in more fun and well done than most. It's not deep and provacative, but it seems to hit points of straightforward honesty and depressing reality that resonates with me.  If I didn't have to drive 2 hours each day, and needed fewer podcasts to make it through a week, Chapo Trap House is one I'd probably still choose to listen to. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 17:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I see. Given that I watch only a few podcasts, and those infrequently, I was unaware of who this group is or what they stand for. It would have been nice to have an introduction for those of currently out of the loop so to speak, rather than simply stating something with little to no context. 17:59, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Is this worth writing about?
https://birdsarentreal.com/ -- RationalOrdeal (talk) 12:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)


 * " Recent surveys have revealed that 99.5% of the general public still believe in "Birds." I know, I was shocked too. That said, it is our DUTY as Bird Truthers to remove the blinders from their eyes and welcome them into the light of the truth. Together, we can shift society's perception of what flies above us. "
 * For fucks sake, what world do they live in where they think 0.5% of people think birds are not real? 13:21, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This has to be a joke. 😦😦😦 --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 16:10, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * yes it is. an obvious one. does anyone really think its not? AMassiveGay (talk) 17:13, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, in the past few months I've learned of platypus denial and Australia denial. If only there were a couple more steps in between I might have believed they were serious.
 * I would not have believed flat-earthers were for real unless I had already gotten used to the moon landing conspiracy crowd. MunX (talk) 13:10, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's worth more than most other stuff here in the saloonbar, Plus Birds are coolTheDarkMaster2 (talk) 23:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2

Some helpful advice for comic cons and cosplay

 * 1) . pick a costume that does not include a mask encasing in your entire head. Holy shit does it get hot.
 * 2) . if you ignore the above advice, remember, and i cannot stress this enough, to include eye holes.
 * 3) . if you like attention or the odd stranger asking for photo, do not got go as spiderman or the joker. ten a penny.

that is all. AMassiveGay (talk) 16:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * (Hope you don't mind me reformatting your post).
 * Or use a entubed refridgerant circulation system like they do for desert tank drivers.
 * Put a VR headset on underneath and feed it with cameras.
 * Make working web shooters.
 * In general, spend a fortune and use technology, and these problems aren't problems. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:12, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * unless you can make those things with cardboard and gaffer tape, or fit them unobtrusively under what is effectively a ski mask, then its beyond my means. the cardboard webshooters made for my nephew were more than adequate. AMassiveGay (talk) 16:21, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * reformating is fine thanks. its what i intended and couldnt be arsed to fix. 16:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If you guys are stalking me, don't fess up. I need some deep conspiracy in my life. I will be attending my first anime con next weekend.  I have a low level Aizawa from My Hero costume coming in.  I'm not putting it in the competition or anything because I didn't spend effort on it, I bought the parts I need and should be able to get the kinks sorted out by the 3rd in order to be convincing.  I already grew my hair out for a year, the wand chooses the wizard, no?  I'm not great in social situations, my friends who love anime are much better at it than me.  They will protect me.  They are already encouraging me beyond something I can back down from.  If I have to dip out, as long as I showed, dipping should be forgivable.
 * I'm having a bad week, and it's not going to change. I'm going to have a bad week next week.  But I'm still going to this convention after next week.  I have apprehension about cosplay posing, but I'm going to do it anyway.  If I get called out for phoning my cosplay in, no problem, it's not wrong.  Maybe by next year I'll be that old person who weirds half the people out by having a sick homebuilt cosplay.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:23, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're doing Aizawa, there's one prop you'll need to make it work. One you can't get away without.
 * BRING A SLEEPING BAG. Kencolt (talk) 14:09, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Believe me, that was the plan. My sleeping bag is grey and blue.  The only yellow bag I could find was $400.  It's the only bag I would ever need for high latitude/high altitude trips.  But... That's an expense.  Gol Sarnitt (talk)
 * If it helps, the manga hasn't got, IIRC, any color for the bag... it's all B&W. So a light colored bag should be fine. Or just mention you do have more than one bag, after all...Kencolt (talk) 15:09, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

NPC meme
Should there be an article? 82.132.224.40 (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * My guess is most of them realize how fucking retarded they look, and will find a new meme insult soon. Probably best to shove an entry in alt-right glossary  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:21, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I hadn't heard of this particular meme, but after looking it up I have to say that I find it incredibly disturbing. It's one thing to use a generic insult against a person like "SJW" or "soy boy", but quite another to use terminology that dehumanizes people and implies a lack of personal agency. Samstr (talk) 00:36, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I have to say I hadn't heard of this meme either, but I looked it up and found it quite amusing. Given how SJW's waste no time in calling anyone who opposes them bigots/homophobes/racists/islamophobes /sexists/Nazis and so on, being called an NPC is pretty mild. --RWRW (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I find it quite amusing your unironic use of "SJW" that usually tells me more about you than it does to the random people you decide to affix a meaningless perojative label to. People who use such meaningless generalizations to denigrate whatever the hell they are thinking about loses credibility and it just looks, frankly, pathetic on their part. By the way, there are opposers of "SJW" folk that do the same thing, like complaining about white genocide or anti white racism or that media hates men or when identity politics isn't about them. 14:29, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, okay, you maybe are too stupid to realize how retarded it makes you look. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:42, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Its ok. I'm sure the SJW's can retreat to their safe spaces if the meanie conservatives say something they don't agree with. --RWRW (talk) 14:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "Its ok. I'm sure the SJW's can retreat to their safe spaces if the meanie conservatives say something they don't agree with." Right, because right wingers have never over-reacted over anything ever. Sure. Who wants to buy the Golden Gate bridge? I know a Nigerian prince named Smith who can sell it to you pretty cheap. 15:02, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, that was sure a series of words in an order you said. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 16:14, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Exactly. '— Saj ∞' 21:37, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Because pointing out reality to you guys makes you scared

Must be nice for you to claim Right wingers are insane then go on an insane rambling about said right wingers using a meme. That the left themselves used NPC=Russian Bot, they are the same thing just instead of left wingers using it to dehumanize/ignore criticism by the right. The NPC meme is an attempt by the right to dehumanize/ ignore criticism. It's literally the same thing how can you know that? By the way before you dismiss my criticism by saying I'm "alt-right" Or a russian bot, I'm a centrist never voted for the two main parties except for Al Gore -SincerelyTheDarkMaster2
 * Gonna level with you: no, it's extra-crispy retarded. I could point out the flaws in your reasoning here, but the main point that actually needs to be driven home to you is that you have no idea how stupid you look.  Thanks.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:34, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not "literally" the same thing. There are literal Russian bots wandering around sewing discord. It doesn't make it acceptable to call anyone that disagrees a bot, but falling back on "same thing both sides" relies on not being able to make a distinction. One side is tons more suspectible to overreacting and false information, and that's right wings. I do like how you anticipate us calling you alt right or a bot, it's cute, and no one here that I know actually do that. I am not sure why you have to mention not voting for either party. That is not something to be proud of. 02:40, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, we can call you an idiot instead. That's a label that is always trendy no matter the time period you're in. No need for fancy buzzwords when the good old "moron" will do. 02:55, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You know the "gate" suffix "scandals"? A fairly decent number of them are/were the GOP losing their shit over non-issues. So when someone like accuses the entire U.S. left-wing of having thin skin all I need to do is bring up just one or two of those "scandals". Shall I?  13:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Really smart comeback- Anonymous intellectual

Brexit

 * it isn't just the US lefties who are thin skinned, you should see some of them here in the UK. Over the weekend 700,000 of them took to the streets of London to whinge about a referendum they lost over 2 years ago. I never claimed that right-wingers aren't cry-babies (Heaven knows they can be) its just lefties tend to be worse. --RWRW (talk) 14:37, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "those silly lefties so angry about the way my dumbass politics is going to ruin everyone's lives" ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * yet again RWRW fails to understand the idea of democratic protest. strange how you mention an anti brexit march, but chose to ignore the far right 'democratic football lads alliance'. for you what makes one worse than other i wonder? what can you expect from an imbecile who still thinks brexit is a good idea, despite everything to the contrary AMassiveGay (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Was that whole Brexit referendum even fair to begin with? 18:03, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. It was plainly worded popular vote direct democracy without obstruction of voting rights.  It included a massive failure to educate the voters on the relevant details, but "fair" is a... er... fair term to use.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:49, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand that it was their democratic right to protest, I just think its stupid that less that 1 million people think they can overturn a decision made by 17 million people. I didn't mention the 'democratic football lads alliance' partly because I hadn't heard and partly because they didn't send 700,000 people to the streets to protest something that happened 2 years ago. The referendum was completely fair. There are same crazy liberals who think everyone's favourite election hackers were responsible, but like the US it hasn't a shred of evidence and is widely accepted as nonsense. --RWRW (talk) 10:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * you are so full of shit. that you dont care about that or the lies told directly by leave campaigns further illustrates why i am completely lacking in respect for you. if ou had any moral backbone at all you woukd be disgusted b all of this regardless of your inclinations. it seems perfectly reasonable to me to protest these things when we still might have time to rectify them. but yeh keep talking about thin skinned snowflakes like the egregious prick you are. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:19, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If Russia had attempted to derail our democratic process then I would of course condemn it. But I just don't see any evidence. I have never met anyone who decided to vote because a Twitter account told them to. On the other hand Obama and the other 27 EU countries told us how to vote. How is that not foreign intervention? --RWRW (talk) 22:04, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * if you cant tell the difference between the drip drip drip of misinformation from anonymous sources and the heads of state openly and clearly saying what will happen after brexit then you are clearly a bigger imbecile than i give you credit for AMassiveGay (talk) 22:58, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey this is a thing Brooks Brothers Riot. Remember Roger Stone?  The father of ratfucking?  Yeah, it's the SJWs that are the evil empire, hellbent on misinformation, though. Right wingers are totally justified in attacking anyone because right wingers are the opposite of an NPC.  Anyone who disagrees with the right wing?  Programmed by liars, no reason to feel bad for stabbing or exploding them.  The right wing?  Full of legitimate free thinkers, holy shit I'm literally cracking up at my own jokes right now, booooo.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:20, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys for proving my point, let's see here.. Someone saying "Gatters" are nonsense and subhuman, calling people idiots, and calling them literal Russian bots-TheDarkMaster2

To be clear, your point is that you're an abject moron, right? ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:12, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No to be Clear, the point is that the left cannot go ahead and say that people are pro-trump are Russian bots, then turn around and claim that they're beind dehmanized by the NPC meme, firstly unlike the Russian Bot claim, it is just a meme that most people don't take seriously unlike the bot claim. You say that no one does that but people have genuinely called Tj Kirk, Styhexinhammer666, and Sargon Russian Bots. How is is this so hard to understand ika? Sincerly -user_TheDarkMaster2
 * That stupid thing I don't do(but has a basis in some kind of misunderstood reality) sure does justify the completely retarded thing you do. Yep you're not a moron.  You've proved it this time.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 15:26, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I've never called anyone an NPC, just like I've never called someone a Russian bot, "There's nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot." Scott Adams- Sincerelyuser_TheDarkMaster2
 * Quoting Scott Adams is not a smart move if you want to appear smart. 21:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh would you prefer Mark Twain?
 * At least the sheen of legitimacy you're lending yourself will look less stupid, but doesn't exactly make up for the moronic equivalences you're making. 00:51, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think where he's lost is, you can't strawman the opposing position into a legitimate argument. I mean, if the NPC meme made sense, so would the fluoride stare meme, so would the cultural appropriation meme.  Strawman gets thrown around very quickly and incorrectly these days.  I think it's time we all [| did an inventory] because I don't know about you guys, but this is the page that brought me here in the first place. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:50, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * FURTHERMORE (what a great word) strawmanning can be very activating to idiots and children (redundant). But strawmanning is how the Nazis worked. Must be the money-havin, money-grabbin jew, right?  Most problems are more complex than that, which is why genocide and racial segregation and aryan expansion doesn't solve anything and never has, you maniacs. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:08, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Criticism is only valid when it's leftwing calling people russian bots user_TheDarkMaster2


 * Holy shit, look at him go! Like a little Matryoshka doll of not even trying. "OK, so let's just gently peel back the strawman layer, WAIT WHAT there's a tinier more adorable strawman argument underneath!?!" I'm not on your side, don't respond to me like you're part of the conversation yet, read a wiki article or a book or something, you ding-dang illiterate...  Just do better, OK? Gol Sarnitt
 * sorry, not constructive. You're being called a bot because your statements are memes, they lack substance, evidence, rational consideration.  Nobody is calling you a bot because "that's just what left wingers do," your points are genuinely not part of this discussion, you are just claiming to be a victim, probably because you perceive conversation about the real world as an attack.  Sorry for bumping everybody post this reply, I needed to address this specifically to the user and acted in the interest of continuity.  I wouldn't edit another user's content ever, feel free to revert if I'm not up to code.  Anyway, @TheDarkMaster2 look below for some inspiration on how to be a human with opinions, as opposed to a meme-spouting victim of nobody taking your gotcha-points seriously.  (talk) 05:13, 28 October 2018 (UTC)


 * You are routinely called a bot because a casual reader can't tell if you are one or not. Modern right-wing populist talking points are identical to those used by social media trolls, whether humans or bots.  Russian sponsored social media propaganda warfare is a real thing.  It's designed by professional psychologists to destabilise, discredit, and ultimately end democracy.  If democracy is significantly weakened in the USA and western Europe, it seems to me just a matter of time before it ends globally.  Forever.  The current theory and practice of oppression and so called 'public relations' are extremely sophisticated.  Once the formal institutions of democracy are destroyed, we'll never lift the boot of elite dominance off our necks.  The lefty talking points which you feel are repetitive and generic are appeals to unite and empower the working classes.  We want peace, unity and lives worth living.  You want to dis-empower the various sectors of the general population that you've been propagandised against.  That's immoral enough, but you are too stupid to realise that this will also lessen your power to resist the elite classes.  Even if the Brexit vote had been representative of informed democracy, it's just a strategic milestone towards isolating and weakening the UK and ending it's democracy.  In an indirect way, you people voted to abolish voting.  I find that fairly ironic considering your rhetoric about the undemocratic EU.  Incidentally, Scott Adams is just a garden variety crank.  His gibberish is not compelling. MunX (talk) 12:19, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I was opposed to Brexit because I saw no tangible benefit for Britain being out of the EU. Instead, Britain should be trying to fight the stupidity of the EU by being in, not out.
 * The EU is undemocratic to the core unless by "democracy" you simply mean the large degree of independence and separation between state institutions, the economy and the ruling political party which is basically only observed in parts of Europe and the US but almost nowhere else. But this doesn't have anything to do with the EU because it existed before it. The EU doesn't have a parliament that can legislate so it's not a democracy. It is rather a technocracy run mostly by French and German bureaucrats and politicos but all the important decisions come directly from Berlin and Frankfurt these days because Germany as the surplus country holds the "power-to-exit-first" card. Its parliament is nothing but a job creation scheme that legitimizes the true and opaque power structures behind it.
 * The EU sucks and to blame Russia for its massive unpopularity in all parts of Europe is the dumbest thing US liberals can do. The real reason it sucks is two-fold. It's attributable to the faulty design of the Eurozone and the idiotic decision to spread the Euro (the DM with a different name) beyond a few suitable countries and, more importantly, Germany's inane political establishment (and to a lesser degree France's) which has terribly mismanaged it and once again proved itself unable to run a viable hegemony. Gewgtweg (talk) 15:34, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Here is the moment Gewgtweg I finally lose the last tiny microscopic drop of respect for you cause not only are you full of shit but on some topics you're ignorant as shit. The EU is one of the most democratic organizations in human history. It's made up of 3 institutions which can all block any new legislation effectively killing it. All three of those institutions are either directly elected by the population or appointed by one of the countries directly elected presidents/prime-ministers. In two of the three instituions, every single one of the 27 countries effectively has a veto meaning even if tiny Malta has a problem with something, the President of Malta can instruct his/her representative on the council to stop it. Can you think of ANY OTHER POLITICAL INSTITUION IN THE WORLD THAT OFFERS EVERY SINGLE MEMBER A VETO FOR ALL NEW LEGISLATION????? CAN YOU NAME ONE?!?!?!?! Imagine if in the UK house of commons that a single MP from a small county such as the Isle of Wight could kill any new legislation anytime if it went against its interests. No. because no country could handle that kind of consensus driven system requiring unanymity. It sounds next to impossible...except of course is somehow inexplicably worked with the EU defying belief. I mean...it's one thing when you reach stupid conclusions and distort historical facts to fit your bias like with the hollocaust. It's another to shit stupidity out of your ass based on something you know nothing about except anti-EU garbage from the likes of Farage and Borris. Pick up a bloody book about the EU and read it. Zheesh. The EU has brought stability, extremely beneficial trade, political rights and protections that will be gone and up for the Conservatives chopping block once exited, enviromental protections, extremely beneficial trading negotiation power, regional stability in Europe, free movement for education, financial labor, owning property and vacation spots in other countries, retiring to the mediteranean, medical doctor shopping in other countries, a hefty quantity of investment in the UK infrastructure that the UK government would never ever finance on their own, an enormous number of nurses, teachers, doctors, office temps from the EU that is desparately needed and who are now leaving by the thousands, a seamless trade system highly integrated at the deepest level, an endless list of social, political, industrial, enviromental, research and innovation programs that bring cutting edge finance and jobs to every country. But then of course...there are all those damn Polish workers taking the menial jobs no one wants. We cannot be having any of that. Plus I'm also convinced that despite the EU being as robustly democratic as humanly possible...I still think it's not democratic because I don't like it and I don't think it offers the UK anything...pfff...offers the UK nothing other than jobs, trade, protections, minimum living standards, investment, financial boosts, education standards, trade powers, global power and intervention, a block to compete with China and the US etc. But those damn Polish and Bulgarian immigrants. Uffff. I'm not sure they are worth the bother...I mean...zheesh...imagine once they are alll third generation and fully integrated in UK culture...then I'm sure all hell will break loose and the UK will have to break off from the continent and float away to China and find another avenue of prosperity. Finally...the popularity of the EU ranges from the majority to near absolute in most EU countries. I've never ever heard a German, Spaniard, Belgian, Maltese, Estonian, Croatian complain about the EU. And then of course there are the 5 candidate countries wanting to join it. Sure there is some resentment in a few countries but they are still utterly the minority. So theres another thing you got wrong...or should I say pulled out of your ignorant ass. Shabi  DOO  01:57, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * These about sum up Nationalism and immigration fears in my book. 02:05, 28 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Shabidoo Before you started this rant did you even bother to notice that I mentioned explicitly that I was against Brexit and that I don't imply there aren't any benefits to being in the EU? I'm not even in favor of dissolving it. I just made the observation that the EU is not democratic and that in many important ways that are too long to list, it sucks ass. It doesn't matter what actual advantages it has or what idealized concept you have of it in your head. It is a loose confederacy run by technocrats in Brussels although Berlin is basically the only capital that matters and has the final say in everything. It matters shit what rights exist on paper. What matters is what happens in practice. What kind of veto stopped the Irish people from being forced under threats to bail out private Franco-German banks? What kind of veto stops Spain or Portugal from gifting its youngest and brightest to Germany and becoming a desert? What kind of veto stops millions of Germans from having to work low-paying mini-jobs to survive and seeing their quality of life and prospects continually plummet? The EU is as unpopular to its citizens as it's ever been and that's just as true about the core as the periphery because EU policies are causing shitstorms everywhere. EU policies are in fact the very reason racists suddenly came out of the woodwork before the refugee crisis started and are celebrating one triumph after another. Your outrageous statement that you've never heard any citizen of the EU criticize it is akin to a mental patient declaring that he's not crazy because he's never heard anyone call him crazy in the asylum. You are not paying attention dude. Like most US liberals, you live in a happy world of your own.
 * I know far more about the EU than you do because I live in the Eurozone and I've traveled a lot around the place. I know many of its nations and ethnies like the back of my hand and I can tell you that this left-wing Anglo-Saxon vision of Europe as some sort of place that's free of most ills that plague America and where racists are to blame for everything that's wrong, deserves to be laughed at. The only reason there are still masses of people besides blinded idiots who vote for establishment parties in Europe is precisely because they fear racists more. Gewgtweg (talk) 04:01, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Your take on Brexit is irrelevant to my post. I'm responding to your "non-democratic" bullshit and pointing out that is it highly democratic and on the side the real reason people in the UK blabber this bullshit about the EU (and yes there is a meaningful correlation between anti-immigration and thinking the EU is undemocratic...don't deny it). I'm only born in Germany, have a father from the UK where I lived, was educated just outside Brussels and lived there for several more years afterwards, studied the EU institutions, did editing and consulting work for an EU media firm, followed EU politics for years. Clearly I'm beat by a guy who can cherry pick a few difficult problems and point that as a failing of democracy despite those having nothing to do with vetos because he "travelled". From your descriptions you don't seem to know nearly anything about the complex details of EU mechinisations, especially brandishing it with the title of undemocratic which is so preposterous it wouldn't make sense coming from anyone other than GTWETGWRG. The EU has no legislative body? SERIOUSLY? You aren't that stupid GWEGWEG. But sometimes you say the stupidest shit. The EU parliament is directly elected and is as effective in legislation of policies as the commission and the councils. Or did you think it was some puppet parliament filled with undemocratic boogeymen who couldn't do anything. Where does your bullshit come from? Where are the unelected people making undemocratic decisions? Give me examples. BE SPECIFIC! Who flaunt legal and democratic rules? Which institution does this? Which specific person has done this? What laws did they flaunt? How did they impose anything that wasn't democratically agreed to? Who voted or made decisions who was not democratically elected or democratically appointed? Examples please. BE SPECIFIC! Point out exactly who, how and what was done. I doubt you know much anything about the institutions, how they work, how they work together and then the practical technocratic mechanisation. And your ignorance is so obvious from the very fact that you are pointing out problems that have nothing to do with creating legislation which is where the veto comes from. Zheeeeeesh. Or did you not know the difference between the creation of legislation and then the technocratic machinations that come afterwards...all based on clear guidelines worked out in detail and agreed by everyone before in unanimity. Yes, countries have to deal with the terms they agreed to and sometimes deal with unwanted side effects as would happen in any political forum in the universe, but even then, in most cases, despite having agreed to the terms and conditions, member countries still frequently adapt the rules to make sure some countries don't deal with disproportionate fall out. But of course, you already knew that right? I'm sure you're well versed in the history and current workings of an organization that manages two dozen countries in dozens of institutions with 500,000,000 people. As for your extremely stupid examples per the veto, they make no sense and they illustrate your ignorance. The Ireland case has nothing to do with vetos but the realisation of accords agreed to in advance in great detail, following a long and details process (as had been agreed to before) resulting in terms that were more favourable than they had to be and FAR FAR FAR more favourable to European countries that were NOT in the EU. Every country in the WORLD screwed up with their banking system. It is NOT a particular EU problem and those who really screwed up were very lucky they were in the EU. As for Spain, people choosing to move to other countries in the EU is something that happens every day throughout the union. And their individual choices are, you know, their own choice. No EU boogeyman undemocratically tells them to leave. I live now in Spain buster. I know intimately the reasons behind the high unemployment rate and it has nothing to do with the EU and absolutely everything to do with Spanish politics. Without the EU Spain would have gone utterly bust and wouldn't remotely have the standard of living they have now. The EU is not unpopular amongst its citizens, that's unique to the UK and to a much smaller extent in Hungary. Show me any survey that shows a dislike of the EU by at least 40% of the population other than the UK of say, at least five member countries. Do it. Back up your claim about EU unpopularity. It's bullshit but prove me wrong...and post it here. And please, give me those highly detailed examples of undemocratic EU leaders doing specific undemocratic things with a who, what, when, where and why. Also..do you believe your own bullshit?  Shabi  DOO  04:49, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not like there is a bunch of unelected douchbags that say you can't enforce your own border.Even though your a sovereign nation. It's not like the EU constantly mentions the Holocaust even though almost no one alive today even experienced.Doug Stanhope is unfunny Piss off.-User_TheDarkMaster
 * I've blocked you for an hour for invoking the Holocaust, just no. In addition, though I may disagree with him politically, Doug Stanhope is one of the best dark humor comedians I've seen. (That means I think he's funny.) 13:04, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Good to know you believe in censorship when I cite something in reality dude.TheDarkMaster2 (talk) 15:15, 28 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2
 * I started writing up a reply making fun of you for this one, pointing out that you don't know what 'cite' means and that calling what Commie did 'censorship' is a self serving and oversensitive stretch. Aren't those the characteristics you most despise in your dreaded, largely fictitious "SJWs"?
 * I realise though that giving you a hard time won't help you out of your rut. You seem like a young person.  It's not too late for you to save yourself from the cult you're being sucked into.  Your way of speaking about EU borders and the Holocaust indicates that you don't really know much about either.  You are just repeating propaganda points you heard somewhere.  Regarding the borders, why not read up on the reasoning and details of actual EU policies.  Hell, ask Shabidoo about it in good faith.  They can direct you to books or sites where you can actually learn about it.  As for the Holocaust and WWII, they are the defining tragedies of European history.  There are good reasons to remember them well and invoke them where appropriate.  There is real danger in our failure to learn from them.  The world is full of cynical forces and sophisticated manipulations.  If you begin your reasoning with the principle that common people are your brothers and sisters, deserving of compassion and cooperation, you will be better equipped to resist appeals to separation by identity.  MunX (talk) 17:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)


 * @Shabidoo You did "editing and consulting work for an EU media firm"? That explains a lot from a psychological point of view. I mean I could understand a janitor in a huge company defending the sanctity and transparency of its practices. Unfortunately, you are wrong about everything. And Spain wouldn't even have gone bankrupt (It is bankrupt, it's not like it escaped bankruptcy, it simply postponed the moment it'll have to default by suffering a protracted capital flight) if it hadn't stupidly joined the monetary zone so its oligarchy could protect its assets from depreciation by adopting a hard currency. I promise to answer to everything point by point but I don't have the energy right now. We'll surely revisit the matter. Gewgtweg (talk) 17:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * All the things you could have addressed you talked about an old job I had? Its so pathetic that it makes me sick intellectually. No...no you won't get around to the details of your claims because you cannot. This is called ducking and dodging the issues. A very weasely way to worn out of a discussion you screwed up. Pick up a book about the EU and read it. Shabi DOO  18:48, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed the reply deserves more than that but I just don't feel like engaging in another long-winded debate today. Please copy and paste it in my talk page and I'll get back to you. I never retreat. Gewgtweg (talk) 20:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * He talks about weaseling out yet he weasels out of answering your question, seems kinda pathetic. Also I believe people are my brothers and sisters if they're kind to me and treat others kind. If they're violent thugs they don't get my sympathy. Kinda like how "Russian Bots" Don't get your sympathy, why don't you see their point of view? Is it cause they're right of center?TheDarkMaster2 (talk) 22:59, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do tend to notice with a lot of people this incredible coincidence, very active people who post multiple comments on a site suddenly couldn't be bothered to continue a conversation...they're just not in the mood....or too tired...or some other delightful excuse...incredibly usually always when they cannot possibly defend a ridiculous claim. Well how about in a few weeks once you've had a chance to scower the internet or online academic forums (just ask I'll let you use my password for JSTOR). Eventually I'm sure you'll find some trivial non-democratic moment in the history of the EU and pass that off as difinitive proof that the EU is a substantially undemocratic organization. Just like the sky is green because that's how it looks at the north pole in the winter time. But no...not on your talkpage. Right here. I doubt you'll get back to us before this conversation is archived. So start a new disccussion.  Shabi  DOO  20:47, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * What question did I weasel out of TheDarkMaster? I clearly stated I worked in an independent media firm that covers the EU (which by the way is frequently critical of some proposed EU politics) . I suppose that somehow makes me ignorant of the EU or utterly loaded with hard-ons for the institution...mixed with my studies...clearly makes me completely unqualified to say anything about it. Gwerwerg has travelled around Europe and taked to some people...so how could I compete with that. If only I were a janitor working in a company screwed over by the sinister policies of the wretched EU dictators could I really understand it. As for Russianbots or the right-wing...WTF does that have to do with this discussion? Shabi  DOO


 * Much as it may surprise you, I'm just another dude with ups and downs and cumbersome personal issues. Like you, like all of us, I can't be expected to be always able or willing to devote hours to debating stuff online. After all, I write much less than you do here. If it makes you feel better to claim I'm unable to give a reply, then I fear you're giving the matter a tad more seriousness than is due. This is just an exchange between two people who feel differently and who will continue to feel differently. It isn't a sort of ego contest where one's feelings have to be traumatized by being utterly defeated and another's feelings have to be boosted by decisive victory. At least I believe civilized fora shouldn't be modeled on that.
 * The janitor comment was a reference to the fact of life that people who do the most marginal and insignificant work for an organization or entity can nevertheless be very fanatic supporters of that organization or entity. In your case, one can observe a fanatic supporter of the EU and fanaticism is always followed by convenient illusions. Hate, or better yet, a very cold shoulder, bestows on the other hand greater insight.
 * I don't believe that if the EU was dissolved we'd end up with something better but I very much fear that the EU is heading in that direction because of its policies. That being said, I don't welcome your insinuations that I side, represent or aid the nationalist backlash to it. You must realize that many people, lots of people, in Europe and the EU don't want it to be around anymore and where they do want it, they are less enthusiastic about it than you are. Also, besides the nationalists, there are many leftist forces which equally mistrust it. Euroscepticism is not a marginal sentiment in Europe so you can't really expect me to give you polls to prove you that. Didn't you see what happened in Italy? Didn't you see who Macron was fighting against? Haven't you noticed what happened to Merkel's popularity, how the SPD has been whittled down and how a party full of crypto-Nazis is rising in Germany?
 * The EU was not founded nor was meant to be democracy. It was founded as a central-European industrial cartel. It was meant to be more like OPEC, not an experiment in democracy. Its intellectual forefathers, men like Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, had a platonic contempt for democracy and favored an "aristocracy of the spirit" i.e. a technocracy. Europe may be dominated by two countries with robust rechtstaat institutions but a confederation can never be institutionally democratic. A federation however can be democratic by virtue of having developed institutions that confederations have not. The problem is that when you cede your monetary sovereignty to someone else you can't uphold democracy because you no longer hold the tools necessary to govern. How can you be accountable to your people if you aren't sovereign?
 * You want specific examples of undemocratic conduct in the EU? That deserves a whole book but here's a few. During the crisis, elected leaders in Italy and Greece were replaced by unelected people when the powerful in Brussels saw fit. In 2011 Berlusconi was ousted by a parliamentary maneuver and replaced by Mario Monti. In Greece George Papandreou was replaced by Lucas Papademos. In 2015 the left-wing government of Greece reneged on the outcome of a popular referendum (which at that point was staged by an intimidated government in the expectation of a yes as an excuse to capitulate) due to threats from the EU, including an illegal closure of its banks. Mario Draghi is a major player in the corridors of power and makes decisions that influence the lives of millions but nobody has voted for him. The German chancellor, finance ministry and central bank have people making decisions that directly affect millions in other countries without the citizens of those countries having chosen for that or even knowing it's happening. All you have to say to that is: "rules"? Fine, then Europe should abolish elections and simply replace them with a few good people who enforce "rules", no matter the human costs of incompetent policy making.
 * The nationalist surge is nothing more than a symptom of democratic institutions weak and eroding, not sturdy and evergreen. Yet according to you the EU is as strong a democracy as humanly possible. If that were true, the only appeal in democracy would simply be the wealth of people that champion it in name. But as Tocqueville said, those who love freedom only for its material benefits will not be free for very long. Post-war Europe has been a place that lives for nothing beyond money. Behind this gigantic economic powerhouse lies in fact nothing but a political clown. Those who are too blind to see how rotten the edifice is shall soon discover it when it collapses. Gewgtweg (talk) 01:55, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Suffering of wild animals
. Never thought this had been an issue, besides the obvious cases of helping those victims of disasters either natural or man-caused, abandoned ones, or those injured.

Is not excessive the proposals of some of those of removing predators of a given area except maybe those introduced (ie, those freed by PETA without caring for the consequences), given the mess that could be left behind in the ecosystem and that as nasty as nature can be (and is) it's the way to be?.Panzerfaust (talk) 12:10, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Just FYI, I'm no ecologist. But I am a drunk.  Therefore I run my mouth.  Eco systems are complicated and delicate.  Once we fuck them up, we can never effectively stabilise them.  Predators generally keep the numbers of more than one prey species in check.  If we reduce their numbers, a different prey species may spike, maybe leading to overconsumption of some lower part of the food chain etc etc.  On moral grounds it may be meaningful to try to recover populations that have been depleted.  Unfortunately, we simply can't do the one thing that is truly helpful; not damage ecosystems in the first place.  With climate change and the eventual inevitability of mass war and nuclear exchange, this is now universal.  Basically, Earthly biodiversity is fucked and there's not much we can do to arrest the problem in the long term. MunX (talk)
 * Speaking of being a drunk, I think I may have gone off on a tangent. Suffering is bad.  Depleting predator populations probably won't reduce it overall though.  It will just mean spikes in prey populations that will be mitigated by hunger and disease.  I think I'd rather have my head bitten off than starve to death.  Maybe I'll just shut up and wait for someone who took biology beyond high school to chime in. MunX (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Most animals die alone in the wilderness. We could see up a Meals on Wheels program for them. RobSmithi demand a recount 17:38, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * is it not basic stuff folk have been doing for hundreds of years? controlling deer populations, culling trees/plants so they dont take other and smother all the other plants. we have encroached upon and damaged so many ecosystems that such things are necessary from time to time less the biodiverisity is destroyed. sure plenty of species die out without anyone knowing all the time, but when we do, and the knock on effects can be devastating, to do nothing takes a certain callousness and shortsightedness. much calamities in the world do not directly effect most people, climate change the prime example, then suddenly it does and its why didnt we do more? AMassiveGay (talk) 21:00, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * People do crisis management because many people feel the disaster isn't tangible until it actually happens. Do we have a page on this? 01:22, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Is this all part of the "let's just call PETA the dumbest thing that's ever existed trend?" Or is this more about trapping and poisoning?  PETA is a punching bag right now, which I have mixed feelings about, I've been anti-message pro-organization when it comes to PETA for a long time.  They are doing their best, but there's a reason it's not an organization full of actual wildlife conservationists and wildlife handlers.  They message outside of their means.  All animal suffering at human hands should be expected to meet some standard, because humans are the animal that creates standards.  Even if it's accidental, we need to stop and look at it and limit our species' use of land and life to be more efficient and respectful.  But as I told myself when I thought I was dying in the ER throwing up blood, and had to get a rectal exam to see if I had blood in my stool, "Welp.  I guess few creatures in this world have a dignified end.  Do what you have to do."   Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:59, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm kind of impressed Wikipedia has a page on this. Not a bad one either. And "All animal suffering at human hands should be expected to meet some standard, because humans are the animal that creates standards" is a very good take when it comes to pêople using this as reductio ad absurdum when it comes to animal rights. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Animal-rightsers are rather like the anti-abortion cult; bullies who can't be compromised with, only appeased, and any concession granted them will only subject you to a fresh round of new demands. So it's important to establish at the outset that animals cannot have 'rights', because animals don't take part in the kind of community where the concept makes any sense.  They have what we choose to give them.  Now, domestication is a deal with Darwin; there ain't any more wild cattle, and billions of chickens are now living because we find them useful; without us they'd have gone the way of the ruffed grouse.  Darwin rewards reproductive success without caring whether the lives lived by any individual organism is free or natural.  Every chicken that ends up at the Colonel got there by the smart choices made by its ancestors, hitching a ride with humans and filling the factory farms with copies of its genes.  From a chicken-eye view of the world, that's 'winning'. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 00:16, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Eh, whatever. Apex predators are cuter.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 01:29, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I strongly support to help wounded animals as well as those victims of disasters and to fight against the extinction of species in danger. Especially when humans are to be blamed as in so many dogs and cats that are abandoned.
 * Messing with the ecosystem not at all. It's more than likely that things would go pear-shaped and if that meant to end with predator-prey relationships, well. Looks like we'd transform the world in a big zoo (and what about invertebrates, where things are often really nasty?). Panzerfaust (talk) 22:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Kero the Wolf
Speaking of animal suffering, Kero the Wolf. Spoiler alert: A prominent furry got exposed for being zoo, necro, and pedo, thus perpetuating the stereotype that furries are degenerates. Mister Metokur outlines the situation decently, but it isn't for the faint of heart for sure. 01:22, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I Gues a broken clock is right twice a day..TheDarkMaster2 (talk) 23:16, 28 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2

Could the universe be much older than what the current models indicate?
Scientists can only see the observable universe and not the rest of the universe. It got me thinking that the universe is older than 13 billion years. Research starts with questions so that is my question. Not saying it is aliens but it was aliens --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 13:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If we found out the Universe is older than we currently know it wouldn't surprise me. As far as I know most of the current models are somewhat blocked past a certain point by the properties of the Big Bang, which like a black hole seems to neutralize time and space as we know it. 13:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The bounds of the observable universe is (partially) how we know the age. The stuff we see at 13ish billion light years away are all protogalaxies and primordial matter and cosmic background radiation(because see, those things are all 13ish billion years old as we see them).  Those observations leave little flexibility on the age of the universe.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * In a few hundred billion years, the background radiation will be too faint to detect. Anyone living in the 'milkdromeda' galaxy would be unable to discover the existence of other galaxies, and believe 'milkdromeda' to be the entire universe.  There is no reason to believe that the big bang was the first event that ever happened in all of existence.  We don't know what happened before the big bang, and we may never be able to know, but any claims about what happened prior to this are going to be completely unfounded. CoryUsar (talk) 14:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That sure is a take there. "The fairly explanatory evidence we have now will disappear some day so it's sensible to disregard its implications" ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:33, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Uh, what? I'm not saying we should ignore the big bang.  It's more likely than not there's a ton of things that we simply will never be able to learn, and "what happened before the big bang" is likely to be one of them.  I'm saying that while we don't know what happened before the big bang, we shouldn't assume there wasn't a "before", and at the same, we also shouldn't assume there was a before and especially we shouldn't assume some god of the gaps scenario. CoryUsar (talk) 20:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean, it's certainly possible. Compared to how big the universe is, we've observed close to none of it. So I wouldn't be surprised, although I would be pretty excited. 18:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Seriously? I mean, maybe I'm just being an asshole, but I don't actually understand, outside of somewhat defunct closed-universe loop theories, what space in the evidence anyone in this thread images there is for an "older universe".  How do you think it's possible besides just a broad-based science has been wrong before type thing?  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of "science has been wrong before". It's that science doesn't know nor does it claim to know what's beyond our observable universe, if anything at all.  And if you are going to claim that beyond what we can observe lies the realms of Zeus or whatever, science would like you to have some evidence to justify that claim. CoryUsar (talk) 20:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Not saying I was denying anything. Just tossing a idea up for discussion. I am not  arguing for or against the existence of Godly beings. I am not even arguing my personal beliefs. This is strictly a science discussion. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * But "what's beyond the observable universe" isn't the new question. Which is why I'm pointlessly confused and angry.  It's about the age of the universe which has some goddamn compelling evidence.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 21:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * As for the evidence of the Big Bang going away in the distant future, you may want to read the papers I've used as references for this article. They're interesting if you're into Astronomy and especially the thought of cosmology becoming a religion, as the only way to know how everything began was data that had managed to survive so long into the future.
 * For the actual size of the Universe, while it's unknown there's evidence as the curvature of the CMB and that we've so far not found mirrored images of galaxies produced by light that had circumnavegated the Universe (nor simila stuff in the CMB) there's more than meet our instruments beyond the observable Universe, and maybe a whole lot more. Data from the "Planck" satellite suggest a lower radius for the Universe depending of its curvature that is 5-6 times the one (almost 47 billion light-years) of the observable one, and if cosmic inflation is right the actual size would dwarf that assuming it was not infinite. Age seems to be very well constrained instead and all markers used converge more or less in those 13.9 billion years. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * To paraphrase Arthur C Clarke- the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine. And the first species sentient enough to make 'scientific analyses of the universe, its beginning and its end' (when the universe was much younger) will be quite different to ours, and that of the last species so capable as the great crunch/fade to black/other fate looms. Anna Livia (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Cosmology isn't exactly my strong suit, but I'll try to offer my thoughts here. Current models of the age of the universe obtain estimates of age by extrapolating expansion patterns backward. This follows from the observation that galaxies further away from us appear to be moving away faster. Assuming that the Earth isn't special, cosmologists concluded that space itself is expanding, and by fitting our equations to observations we can calculate a time in the past when the universe would have to converge to a singularity (the origin of the universe). Of course, there are error bars placed on the calculated results, but 13.7 Billion years is our best current estimate for the age of the universe. These calculations do not require knowledge of objects outside of the observable universe, so I don't think that is relevant to this discussion. It is possible that a better theory will come along that produces a different age, but that theory will have to explain everything that the Big Bang Theory already predicts so accurately, such as the CMB. Samstr (talk) 00:47, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Everyone, as far as I can tell RationalZombie was merely asking if, as far as we know, the universe could be older than we currently estimate it is. Basically he wants to know how viable that idea is. That's it, full stop. 00:51, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a viable idea, but short of science breaking fundamental theories of physics there is no way of finding out for sure. 08:50, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The far past is another country and time went differently then - and more detail on the question is probably needed - 'rounding up slightly' or 'significantly different.
 * Where is a reincarnationist-from-the-beginning when you need one? Anna Livia (talk) 16:40, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Without new physics, the universe is unlikely to be significantly older than current predictions. The age is given as 13.799\pm .021 billion years. These measurements have been performed both by looking at fluctuations in the CMB and the rate of expansion as determined by distances calculated from standard candles. I would say it is highly unlikely that we see estimates on the age change by as much as 100 million years anytime soon. Samstr (talk) 23:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Chick Tracks- Scarier than any Halloween monster
I remember getting those as a kid when I went Trick or Treating. They taught me a valuable lesson: Anyone who does not follow an ultra specific form of Christianity goes to hell. Seriously though, Chick Tracks were so fucking annoying . --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:17, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind that Hell will now be so full of 'unbaptised babies and infants', 'good and decent people who did not sign up to The One True Christian Faith' etc that we will all be having a good time and the devils will be rather annoyed as they signed up to "do things to really nasty people." Heaven will be populated by really bad people who #did# say the magic words, an assortment of holier-than-thou-God saints, The One True Faith Theme Park - and some Vikings who have been sent to 'this hellish milk and water so-called-heaven.' Anna Livia (talk) 23:04, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Every description of heaven I've heard makes it sound like a totalitarian dictatorship, and it's run by a deity that thinks it's reasonable to punish people for not committing enough war crimes. (1 Samuel 15:1 — 1 Samuel 15:28) 01:12, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * One should always inform Bible believers that Heaven is hotter than Hell. Bongolian (talk) 07:03, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * For unbaptised babies, it is not like they can get baptism on their own. Not fair towards the babies. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 12:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * See here and below for issues. I always think on that when I hear Fundies almost having orgasms when they wish to be beamed up as Jesus comes and everything is screwed, and talk about "eternal life" (and God being outside space and time, but that's another topic). Not to mention how things break down when one considers what's currently known of the Universe (size, age, etc) and issues as this world existing for, say, a couple thousand years going by the YEC view, and what comes next will last forever.
 * As for Jack Chick, it's odd that having Fundies popping up never've seen a tract on physical fashion and just on the Net beginning with "Dark Dungeons". I remember the very first time that had a character dying in a RPG to have even been quite scared (age has something to say), but hey. Panzerfaust (talk) 14:27, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * An exchange in a 19th century journal I came across on the 'unbaptised babies crawling round hell' denounced the idea as monstrous (or similar).
 * The fundies are confined to Fundy One True Christian Heaven Theme Park where all they do is sing the praises of their God - and can only look with longing at the rest of heaven where people are actually enjoying themselves (the Valhalla-Olympus friendly fights followed by feasting are particularly popular - and the astrophysicists etc have some bits of the multiverse to practice their theories on). Anna Livia (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Can I just complain?
The wedding industrial complex is real. And real bad. Got married last year, and finally trying to turn our overpriced photos into an album. $320 for an album COVER. Just the cover for the book. A square foot of distressed leather. There's time and effort of a professional to build the album itself, and I can pretend that the fortune that costs makes a kind of sense, but seriously, the whole industry is the worst. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * it wouldnt be an issue for you if you were a MGTOW AMassiveGay (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Big Wedding's power is real. 17:16, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't want to be a spoilsport and all, but is it really necessary to go through the ceremony process. Can one just simply obtain legal documents and hold a similar smaller-scale ceremony like a birthday or Christmas celebration, maybe more elaborate? 17:49, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That's absolutely insane. And the funny thing is, a good chunk of these ceremonies just end up in divorce years down the road so...I'm not for all that glitz and glamor. I really think the only industry worse is the death industry, tbh. 18:08, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * and on that hyperbolic and oblivious to much worse industries note, a belated congrats on your wedding ikanreed AMassiveGay (talk) 18:44, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, divorce rates have been falling for years due to Millenials, when adjusted for life expectancies and all. CoryUsar (talk) 05:00, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, my wife is a wonderful person. And I'm there too.  ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:46, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it's not at all necessary(my wife and I spent about $80 on the day we legally got married, that included a coffee for our officiant and witnesses), but you know, depending on circumstances, your families want to be included and sentimentality for things like a photo album has its place too. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 19:46, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Families? Sentimentality?  Sounds like a complex to me.  Just kiddin, congrats for real, and definitely it's a scam niche demand market.  But all intentionally marketable art is a scam.  You remember Creed?  Not explicitly Christian rock, but definitely Christian rock.  It sounded pretty spot on, though, and people paid.
 * Nobody wants bad photos of their wedding or a mediocre cake or anything like that, that's THE nightmare. So you go to somebody who markets themselves specifically on that terror because for a lot of people, getting married is the only showbiz gig they ever get in their lives, AND the only one they actually want/don't want to have, AND in front of the only audience they could ever truly care about.  That's the what the scammer knows, you're performing your only show ever in front of the most important audience of your life, and you can't mess it up or you'll die.  So, hey, you want the pros to make sure the moment is captured in the best light, just in case some amateur hack tries to mess it up (i.e. flower girl needs a hug from Aunt Rita but Aunt Rita drops the camera because she gotta hug the flower girl, BS, THAT WAS A GOLDEN MEMORY).  Then when you nail it, you want somebody on the outside to show you how much you nailed it and toss those photos of your drunk cousin doing the worm at the reception out before it even gets to you.  So you can assume no guilt, no vanity, just a professional look at the correct moments of the most important day of your life that you can't afford to have normal memories of.
 * It's almost necessary to have it curated. The fear and stress of being the lead in any show is immense.  It's normal to want professionals to handle as much as they can.  Nobody hired you to get married, there's no shame in paying just, way too much, for something that you might need to be pissed at somebody over.  There is no shame in it.  It's a frustration, sure, but there's a reason everybody buys into it.  You'll have plenty of chances to go broke together for seemingly no reason at all.  I say go all in for this scam, because I'm a sentimental hack, but I'm with ya.  High art is just a way to make rich people feel more cultured.  Supply/demand chain got to that niche too. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:34, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, professional-grade SLR cameras and lenses cost a lot of money. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:18, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
 * They do, but a lot of people have them. You'd be surprised how many people go in on the photography dream.  Aspiring professionals turned hobbyists turned what-am-I-kidding-with-all-this-gear...ists.  The free market will beat you down if you're not a psychopath about it.  Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:02, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I know, even if few people will be able to pay the eye-watering prices of -say- those large aperture telephotos, not to mention the big guns used by nature and sport photographers. I guess also it's the difference between an amateur -like me, I'm on the photography hobby too even if with low-cost gear- who learns by him/herself, uses his PC, Gimp, or pirated Photoshop and the pro who has formation, photographic study, a licensed copy of Photoshop plus other programs, etc. But, yeah, I imagine what you're talking about and that without factoring other costs (restaurants, what cost the wedding if it's a religious one, etc). Panzerfaust (talk) 07:20, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not the camera equipment you have (beyond 'this is the right bit of equipment to do X') but the photographs you take with it and the skills you acquire and use. And 'the places selling collectables' are full of undated photographs of unknown people/locations.
 * Do you want all the 'glitz and nonsenses' of a marriage in one lump (the marriage) or a quieter ceremony and the g&n in smaller doses throughout the marriage? (The latter can lead to more follow on discusions - which some people make much of.)Anna Livia (talk) 11:03, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
 * But that's taste and availability, which is tied in with supply and demand somehow, I'm sure of it. I've never had to marry a person, so I'm a little privileged with my position.  My sister-in-law was a portrait photographer for a long time, but the stress of being asked to take photos for every single family event got to her.  It is still frustrating to see family say "Oh, [name exempted to protect the innocent] can just take pictures!"  It stresses her out, she cares about her work, the family just wants pictures.  I got contracted as DJ for a cousin one time because I play in bands.  It took maybe 2 hours of work to learn how to use an iPod and then get a wedding playlist together.  But if I had taken it as a paid gig, my God would I have been stressed.  Much easier than pictures, like not even close.  Most people barely hear music when it's playing, pictures are permanent.  I guess the point I'm trying to make is, I agree that there is an art to wedding photography.  There is always a person behind the camera, and the less you can recognize them, the easier it is to look at a photo they took.  It's probably worth paying for, unless you have a shithead cousin that can't mess it up.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:50, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I am not against 'glitz and nonsenses' - but know when to compromise. Anna Livia (talk) 18:46, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Clearly I've offended an artist, and I'm not trying to belittle the artistry or claim I have any special eye for photography. I am absolutely for artistry.  My different experience playing music on stage has me a little jaded on the idea that people want to hear what the artist wants to say.  I'd say commercial art runs closer to the idea that people don't really listen to new ideas, they mostly say what they want to hear.  And lots and lots of people who don't appreciate nuanced art get married and need photos.  So is there artistry in modern radio pop singles that copy each other so quickly that you can hear the same song performed by two different performers on two different radio stations by dialing back and forth between them?  Yes, there is. Do artists care that it is worse than a parody?  Yes, RHCP got sued by Tom Petty and lost.  Can Harry Styles and Taylor Swift both be considered artists while singing the same song with different words?  Yeah, I mean, it would be worse if they were excluded from art by the hubris of "real artists," but it is by the artist's kind hand they are forgiven.  Because these are has-beens that generally need to perform before all else, because that's where the money is, and contractually, they don't see half of it. So if it's for the money, there is no compromise.  It is for the paying consumer. If it's for the artistry, there is no compromise.  It is for the message.  Everything in between is also where I like to land.  What's the point of performing songs that you hate?  What's the point of taking wedding photos that need explanations? I dunno, if you like taking photos and you're working your craft, do it up. The audience is part of it.  Shouldn't be all of it, shouldn't be none of it, but compromise is a tough sell in art. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:27, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Boy, I am glad my parents made me go to stupid weddings when I was young. I hated them all. I realized that it was all a money-making scheme without really adding value to society. Full disclosure: I'm an introvert so my views could be biased. Anyway, that's just my opinion. Some people love big weddings, and that's their choice. Nerd (talk) 16:04, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Bible
Rationalwiki should rewrite the article to be more respectful to the Bible. It contains the morals and guide for Life as well as the message of salvation and man's original sin and punishment. It deserves better than that. Rewrite please. 99.203.17.105 (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It contains ancient fables and fragments of an obsolete moral and legal system. Request denied. 22:49, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know about you, but I'd rather not offer my virgin daughters for people to rape, I'd rather not have people pimping their wives to Egyptian pharaohs and lying about the whole thing, and I don't think our Wiki is going to rewrite that it is also okay to kill kids because an imaginary voice in your head wanted you to. 22:49, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The Bible does not condone rape or lying. It tells but does not condine. Like a hustory book. 99.203.17.105 (talk) 22:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * You are correct, the Bible does not condone rape. It promotes rape. As for the Bible being a history book... We have no evidence that the events described in over three quarters of the book actually happened, so no, it's not a history book, it's a fairy-tale, a fable, a fiction. Request denied. 23:03, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No. Sex outside of marriage is sinful. And like a hustory book does not promote war, so the Bible does not promote rape either. 99.203.17.105 (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The flood did happen, albeit much smaller than it was described in the book. There were "Slaves" who built the pyramids, albeit they were very fortunate slaves, but slaves regardless. So to be 100% technical there are historical elements in itTheDarkMaster2 (talk) 23:16, 28 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2
 * Are our history books promoting "the morals and guide for Life as well as the message of salvation"? The "heroes" in the Bible do exactly this: raping and murdering. 23:26, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * A flood could have happened in a flood prone area, but the flood? That is a complete fiction. BoN/IP/unregistered user, Sex outside of marriage happens when people want to fuck without actually getting into a relationship. Don't like it? Don't do it. Don't like other people doing it? Tough shit. In addition, the Bible does indeed promote rape, and slavery, and genocide, and infanticide (seriously, the god of the Bible has a hardon for dead kids.) Request Denied 23:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * That interaction between Abraham and Hagar isn't exactly sex inside marriage. The ladies who intoxicated Lot, their dad (who is considered blessed by God), and then had sex with him, and I also do not think they're married either. 23:53, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Convenient how you dodge the slavery thing, but I guess as long as you do that it's okayTheDarkMaster2 (talk) 00:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2
 * Learn to read. 00:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * God created Adam and Eve with the potential to commit sin, the opportunity to do so and the motive (the snake told them) and then complained when they did. He must also already have created the world outside the Garden of Eden to which he banished them - and it was already habitable/farmable. And there is no indication that Adam and Eve were married - nor were God and the Virgin Mary. Anna Livia (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * "A flood has never happened" This is youTheDarkMaster2 (talk) 13:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)TheDarkMaster2
 * "@TheDarkMaster2 A flood could have happened in a flood prone area, but the flood? That is a complete fiction. BoN/IP/unregistered user, Sex outside of marriage happens when people want to fuck without actually getting into a relationship. Don't like it? Don't do it. Don't like other people doing it? Tough shit. In addition, the Bible does indeed promote rape, and slavery, and genocide, and infanticide (seriously, the god of the Bible has a hardon for dead kids.) Request Denied ☭Comrade GC☭Ministry of Praise 23:38, 28 October 2018 " You are full of shit, you dumbass little wanker. Try reading the words in the order they accure on the page rather than re-writing them to fit your narrative. You have twice made accusations tward me that are easily proven false if you READ MY MOTHERFUCKING POST!!! Dishonest prick... 13:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The BoN has come to one of the worst places of Internet to proselytize. I'll just say that I expected much more from a supposedly omni*** deity that a mess composed of ripped-off Jewish texts dating from the Bronze Age, several accounts of the life of the same character and too short for his supposed importance, texts that in some cases are forgeries and in others were written by different authors, and finally a mix of anti-Roman Empire propaganda and a very bad drug trip. I'll pray Mielikki, Goddess of the Forest, for him. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:33, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

While the Bible has actual morals, though it depends on who you talk to,the should not be rewritten. The article is fine as is. You rewrite and others will delete the changes.

As for it being a history book, no, just no. Events in the Bible most likely are explanations for things people could not describe. Take the great flood, probably an explanation for a regional flooding event. Take the Plague of Frogs in the 10 plagues story, a water spout picking up frogs and dropping them. Taking the Bible literally would be a big stretch to explain. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:49, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * According to your Bible, God's kind of a prick. So no, I don't think we'll rewrite our articles on Christian mythology to be more "respectful." 01:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The Bible is contradictory on what it says. Plenty of times God is a total dick. Unless "God" is two separate deities that compete with each other, then God would not make much sense. I am against rewriting the Bible article. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 02:10, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Unlike most other editors here, I am a Christian of some sort, and acknowledge the Bible as God's revelation. But God revealed himself to flawed mortals, who needed to be broken in gently to the full concept revealed in His Son. (see Hebrews ch. 1)  So the people who wrote Joshua and Judges did not have the full deal, and it shows.  That said, the Bible has some of the best journalism to come out of antiquity -- you can see eyewitness accounts in the careers of Saul, David, and Solomon -- and one of the few semi-historical documents from the period that did not come from a ruling elite. In other words, it gets better towards the end. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱs. 03:26, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The first chapter is a bit dodgy IMO. 08:47, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Like basically everyone else here, I vote no on rewriting it. 𝔊𝔬𝔞𝔱-𝔈𝔪𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔬𝔯 𝔅𝔦𝔤𝔰 (𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪/𝔞𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰) 14:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
 * @Smerdis of Tlön. The problem is with those who still insist that everything described there is historical, up to the flood and before it, even if both science and archeology disagrees and want their BS imposed in others. Not to mention those that hammer the End Times are nigh and will be beamed up, while everything else gets screwed (or maybe not). Listening all that jazz in live fashion, not as something canned and imported from Fundieland, feels different.Panzerfaust (talk) 14:07, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

True facts about the bible
(feel free to add your own) ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 14:41, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a book.
 * It's very frequently broken into chapters
 * Some people think it's way more important than other books
 * Stoners report the paper used in bible making is really good for rolling joints.


 * You can find whatever you want in it - truth, truth misremembered and disconnected facts stuck together, truth retold and reworked so often it has become 'send three and fourpence we're going to a dance', poetry, mythology, love songs, hymns, eschatology, propaganda, etc etc, all written over many centuries.
 * It is actually a parody.
 * If you jump between letters enough, you can find secret messages, which only make sense after the event they are supposedly referring to - and until someone else reinterprets them. Anna Livia (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
 * When spooky books come flying off the shelves and hit people in poltergeist movies, every one of them is a bible. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 18:10, 31 October 2018 (UTC)


 * People can't agree on which version is "the right one" leading to several hundred versions of the same book.
 * Translating it from Latin was really hard. 16:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)