RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive355

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, (new)(back)

Did Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev kill his wife?

I've seen arguments from both sides on whether or not Jaggi Vasudev killed his wife. On one hand, his supporters say that his wife 'left this world' by her own will peacefully, and it was some spiritual transcendental experience (BS). They say that many people were there at the Isha Institute to witness what happened, they said he did not kill his wife, and that a police investigation revealed no wrong-doing after 8 months. Sadhguru himself also says that he did not kill his wife, and he asked why would he do so.

On the other hand, this "spiritual transcendence" stuff is blatantly false, so how did she die? Why would Jaggi kill his wife (if he did)? Why would a police investigation say no wrongdoing was done, even if you take away the spiritual "aspect"? ^{— Unsigned, by: Derpitron / talk / contribs}

He used a mystical euphemism to describe his wife's death, therefore he actually murdered her, even though there were witnesses, oh and the police have cleared him. But he's a spiritual guru so he must have done it. Is that what you're trying to say? Avida Dollars^{her again} 14:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say if we published that statement in an article with the amount of evidence you've provided here, it'd be open and shut libel. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:48, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

You might be amazed at how many people dislike to describe someone as having died, by the way. The number of euphemisms for kicking the bucket (Hey, there's one there!) are legion. To suggest that her going the way of the parrot must be the result of a criminal act by reason that the spouse of the late other-spouse not saying "She Died", but rather in more delicate terms, kinda suggests that almost every funeral director extant is a murderer, since most will say something to the effect of "She has passed on (to the next life)", or "She's with the Angels", or "She's in a better place" rather than "She Croaked". Kencolt (talk) 18:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Pic

--Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi (talk) 20:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Oops. --Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi (talk) 20:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Psst, just look at your contributions if you want to find out what filename you used. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

This is helpful. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

What is that thing that your headphones are connected too? Gunther8787 (talk) 14:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Mathematics/Formal Logic question

Would it be possible to find the number just before infinity? I know that I am not mathematics smart though. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a number before infinity. Numbers can go on for, well, a really long time, but infinity itself isn't a number. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

There isn’t “a” number that is “just before” infinity. There are infinitely many numbers, and all finite numbers are “equally” far from infinity. And for good measure, there are different kinds of infinities that are larger or smaller than each other. But to your question: something like the idea is used all the time in the concept of limits. There are often computationally-intractable numbers that are nonetheless of interest, so limits are used to analyze things that are arbitrarily close to the number of interest but which play nicely with math. This is typically used in the form “As this variable approaches this number (which may be finite or infinite), this sequence/function/whatever approaches this other number.” What context do you have in mind? 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Infinity isn't a number, it's a tool. If I were to ask "what are your Lottery numbers?" and subtract 1 from each like a Price is Right monster, I would be working with astronomical odds, but I wouldn't be using infinity,Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:00, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

A number is an abstraction used as a tool to express quantity, order, or identity. Counting numbers are conceptually the simplest and most concrete, since they can correspond to things like material objects you can see and interact with. Infinite numbers are more abstract, but they serve fundamentally similar purposes. The quantity of integers, for example, is one kind of infinity. The quantity of real numbers is a different infinity. Infinite and infinitesimal numbers are commonly used in calculus, which underlies much of modern engineering. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 05:46, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

There will be 'largest number for which there is a use (whether or not there is a precise definition for it). And aren't there different orders of infinity> Anna Livia (talk) 09:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Not a mathematician but but "use" is going to be relative and I'm pretty sure there are different orders of infinity ^{— Unsigned, by: Bob_M / talk / contribs}

There are various extremely large but finite numbers used in proofs. For a while, Graham's number was the largest used this way, but it has since been surpassed. And while there are (infinitely many) infinities of different sizes, there is a largest number, though its formulation can stretch definitions somewhat. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 18:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Pointing you to some starting places for learning more: infinity has a different cardinality than the set of natural numbers. (This is basic set theory.) Here's a video from Sixty Symbols about infinity. They have a lot of great videos about math concepts on YouTube. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 05:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Numbers stop at 24. Nobody has that many fingers and toes. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 10:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Nope, the record-holder has 34. Checkmate, atheists! --47.146.63.87 (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The transfinite numbers are based on the theory of sets. When comparing ordinary integers with sets one has to make conceptual adjustments.The "smallest" transfinite number is called א_o and it corresponds to the set of counting numbers, so {1,2,3,....} represents א_o. Think of a finite number n as if it were a set of counting numbers including 1 through n. So n is the same as {1,2,3,....n}. You can't get to א_o just by adding finite numbers because a finite number of additions to a finite sequence is still finite. א_o is the smallest transfinite number because any smaller infinite set would be mapable onto a subset of {1,2,3...}, equal to {a,b,c...}. If we rename those numbers {a₁, b₂,c₃,...}, it is clear the set can be maped onto {1,2,3,...}. This is what equality means for transfinite numbers.Ariel31459 (talk) 20:52, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

[redacted]

It's really cool that Kirby is not and has never been a binary kind of character. It's really cool that the best gear is fabulous, not masculine. Mama-bird Kissing your teammates is still how you share food, just like SNES Kirby Superstar Allies. Kirby is the hero we want and need, Kirby is fabulous, strong, not above kissing its friends when the going gets tough, and just so ambiguous and delightful, but now we've got Super Kirby Clash. The only thing worth doing anything for is earning Gem Apples, an in-game currency that can either be earned in game or purchased with real currency, and every attempt costs Vigor, a limited, time-based resource. So Gem Apples are earned under very specific parameters or not earned if you aren't completing the missions in the right way. You can win one for the team and absolutely waste your own time.

Super Kirby Clash is a good game, it's fun, learning the classes is a good time, and it's free, except you like it, so it's not free. Backpacking is kinda fun. Losing because you're not strong enough is not fun. The game is carefully written so you have to either level up, buy better gear, or play casually and give up on level/rank. Like, you don't have to buy into any of it and it's still a good game. You can buy into all of it and it's still a hard game. You can buy in, get all the most fabulous gear, and still be deadweight. It's just made so that you'll have a good time and want to spend some money on it.

It's a really strange take on the "pay to play" genre. I like it because it is nostalgic of the Castlevania: Harmony of Despair game, but since it's Kirby it's just boss battle, not map mastery. It's weird, you can brute force the game with money or learn the nuance, but you can't progress at speed with the nuance without buying in, it takes Gem Apples to be able to earn Gem Apples. How you like Gem apples? sorry, I say that s lot when I'm plying the game, Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't they hand out free Gem Apples every 12 hours or something like that? I gave up on that game because as usual for the Big N the netcode is shit and makes playing online nearly impossible on Wi-Fi, unless they patched it since then. But Good Guy Nintendo is pretty much the only video game company that's gone with non-cosmetic microtransactions and has stuck to being non-evil with them. EA and other garbage companies figured out pretty quick that lol we can just make it gambling and get kids to do it. No one in Western governments cares because they're composed mostly of old people who still see computers as witchcraft. (By contrast most Asian countries cracked down on microtransactions early on.) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Eh I don't really care for the free to play models with timers and stuff. Kirby Star Allies was such a bore, so I'm waiting for Kirby Air Ride (the City Trial part was battle royale before battle royale became a fad) or a fresh sequel to Amazing Mirror (Metroidvania take on Kirby). --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 05:26, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

They do hand out Gem Apples every 12 hours. How you like Gem Apples? Same as Smash Bros, some matches crash, if it ain't some close friends you're probably playing with a rando little kid or whatever, always best to put your best effort forward and then backpack the rest of the way.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

LeftyGreen, you ever play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night> I did it on the XBOX marketplace, it's not like I'm some kid who always played the right game. I used a walkthrough tog et me to the end of the game. I played Circle of the Moon on GBA without any help. but that's not an achievement. Anyway, not liking the game is fine, the problem is actually liking the game. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Guardian Heroes is another good 2-D action... Thingym, video game,Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I haven't played a single Metroidvania beyond Kirby Amazing Mirror sadly but I really liked what I saw in that one game. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I guess I've run away from my own point. When the idea is fun-bucks, like you can earn them in game and they translate to outside the game buy using real money to buy the fun bucks, but you have multiple levels of encouraging buying fun bucks, it's confusing. To the earlier point, you get more gem apples every 12 hours if you buy gem apples. I chose to spend about 15 bucks on the game so that I could keep up. Harmony of Despair cost 15 dollars, and it was access to the complete game. I can be OK spending 15 real bucks so that I get fun bucks in a game that I like playing. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this is intentional, to make you not think of it as "real money" so you'll spend more, and also to confuse you so you have a hard time conceptualizing how much you're spending. A lot of people literally can't or refuse to do simple algebra. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 05:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

So you're saying I will never get one of my favorite games back, because it was a clumsy attempt at charging DLC, and the gear acquirement mechanic was intended to make you play the game, not purchase more of the game. Fuck me, I bought Mario Odyssey and didn't like it that much, I just gave the cartridge to my friends to pass around and ply. I'm dying over here for a really good game. Wet clothes, give you 3 and keep 1 for me, Not how this was meant to be, the game has touched me, but it's not what I'm trying to play, I got all the classes figured out pretty well, now I just have to be patient as opposed to being good at the game. Garbage mechanic.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

BCG and covid

I am hearing of a correlation between the high rate of covid deaths in some countries and those countries not having the BCG jab - a vaccine against tb. whats deal with this? AMassiveGay (talk) 16:26, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Going with what I know about Immunology, the TB shot causes some sort of immune system reaction against the virus. If that is the case, a vaccine could be developed based on the TB shot. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes a simple check will remind people that correlation and causation are not the same thing. https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/bacille-calmette-gu%C3%A9rin-(bcg)-vaccination-and-covid-19. BCG jabs stopped in the UK around 2005, and in Ireland around 2015 due to global supply. But it's still commonly given in Syria. Now, the UK due to a seriously inept response by Bozo the Fuckwit and his cronies of Panjandrumia is set to unfortunately have the highest rates of infection and death in Europe (Really aren't taking back control on this front, alas.) by what ever measure you wish to apply. Mind you, Syria only has 38 confirmed cases. It's not the most likely thing to kill you in that cluster fuck of a hellhole. Cardinal Chang (talk) 15:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, TB is caused by a bacterium (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), not a virus, so it also seems unlikely for that reason. Bongolian (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Also comorbidity is a thing so TB + covid would increase deaths. Slapdash Hedonist (talk) 12:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

that wouldn't account for differences in the numbers of death from country to country, and considering that in uk, if we stopped with the bcg in 2005 then wouldn't we be seeing most deaths in the young? I didn't put much stock in the idea of a connection, just that i'd only just heard that people were making one and I don't have much sciencing to really assess its worth. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

and in western Europe/uk at least, tb is pretty rare - the reason why the bcg's fallen out favour somewhat. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:09, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Working on a zombie novel concept.............yet again

My main character is a Union Army soldier from the American Civil War and later a physician. My character gets bitten by a zombie (which the character calls a "Wendigo") and gets forced into a cave that collapses shortly after. My main antagonist was the main character's friend and research partner. I revel near the beginning that he is an intelligent zombie or "Wendigo" but that is only the tip of the iceberg (not reveling yet and I still have to work stuff out on that) and I already have an end game in store.

As for my main character, although not a racist he uses terminology that would be offensive by today's standards. Obviously being from that era even those who are not racist used racist terminology.

As for the theme- developing as a person and righting wrongs. Keep in mind that I still have a lot to figure out yet. I am trying to develop characters who have some sort of prejudice at the start but they grow over time.

Thoughts? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 17:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Best advice anyone ever gave in creative writing is the art of finishing something. Try writing a short story with that character in it (say 10-20 pages). Have a beginning, middle and end. Don't shove tons of shit in there. And while we are at it several other users here have given a good piece of advice...don't remember who it was here but: "show don't tell". That's of course spectacular advice. In the top 5 for sure. So is "finish something". I'm not saying you have to accomplish something small before the big or be a good short story writer before trying long ones. I'm saying: actually finishing something includes dozens of lessons and experiences all in one :) Feels good to actually finish something...even if its a shitty piece of crap first attempt. ShabiDOO 22:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I have this intuition that a physician that doesn't believe in righting wrongs wouldn't be a physician. How can you establish that a person who heals people for a living doesn't care about others, unless you end up with an over-the-top House-like character? Maybe you have an answer for that already, and I'm being too negative, but character arcs have to have a starting place. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Try skimming through some of the stories on the various fanfic sites (pay attention to the tags - some stories and categories are 'very weird' (being a slight understatement)) and join relevant groups on your preferred social network sites. Anna Livia (talk) 14:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Discord has several writers groups. With some you have to participate in criticism if you want to get any. Also they have writing marathons and all sorts of chat rooms full of antics and schenanigans designed to keep you from ever writing. Check it out a few of the writing groups. There must be one out there for you. Also...have you sketched the characters yet or written anything? ShabiDOO 03:55, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Do the ends justify the means?

I think the answer is more complicated than either a mere "yes" or "no." Hear me out. Let's say you're a person who is poor and desperate, you either have a job or you don't, but assuming your economy is soul-crushingly laissez-faire capitalistic as today's is, your wages are low and not nearly enough to provide for any meaningful living, you can barely afford your own rent, and you have kids, to make matters worse you're a single parent, maybe even disabled, and the social safety net is either weak or nonexistent, does that make it okay to steal? The answer ultimately comes down to whether you consider people or property to be more important, unfortunately for the working class the law takes the side that property is more important than people, because the law ultimately does not exist to protect you, it exists to protect capital, to protect the ruling class.

This is why even supposedly "good" cops will still enforce evictions, tear down homeless camps, and whatnot, and you are powerless to stop them because they're "the law" and you're not, you're not the person wearing the jackboot, you're on the receiving end of the jackboot. So, with all that in mind, does that make crime okay? Do the ends justify the means?

Consider your answers carefully, it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool, then speak and remove all doubt. (And for those who think this is ironic, I know, but do as I say, not as I do, I don't think it's hypocritical to impart advice while not always being able to follow that advice to the letter, we're only human.) — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

What exactly are you talking about? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:43, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disabuse of the notion that the police are "the law" (sic). The cops/pigs/razzers/spoilers-of-fun/peelers/Gardaí are not the law, they are the instrument of the law. Cardinal Chang (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

There are different definitions of the term "law." — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Not in regards to the police and the justice system, there isn't. And it was in this context you refer to the police as "the law", when they in fact are no such thing. You can debate and shift goalposts all you want. But do remember, it's the fact that the police are merely the instrument of the law which prevents them from issuing summary justice on the streets. Cardinal Chang (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

"(informal) A person or group that act(s) with authority to uphold such rules and order (for example, one or more police officers)." - [1] I`m not shifting or evading anything, you're being pedantic. — Oxyaena ^Harass 19:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

And you're missing the point. Cardinal Chang (talk) 19:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

First of all, police officers aren't "the law". They enforce the law, regardless if they agree with it or not, and if they overstep their boundaries, they can find themselves punished for it; it's a reason they wear body cameras nowadays. In fact, some of them may be more lenient on the enforcement depending on certain circumstances: for example, in a psychological test, a police test question asks, "If you caught your mother driving under the influence, what would you do?" which is a trick question designed to test the honesty of the subject (though that's highly flawed because some people would actually be more than happy to arrest their abusive mothers). Doesn't matter if individual police officers agree with enforcement or not, and even so, the job's ruled by a lot of hierarchies such as supervisors and superintendents and whatnot, so those on the top essentially serve as their boss for them, not necessarily different than any other job, especially jobs that are unethical to their workers that is ultimately the management's fault rather than the people on the bottom. Second, saying that the "law exists to protect the ruling class" is not necessarily true. This is a false dichotomy. Even if laws were primarily designed to protect the "ruling class", and there's a whole crapton of laws out there that we as a society decided was bad for an organized state, they still technically designed to protect you as well. Political advocacy of the consumer is how we got better regulations for our worker industry since the Gilded Age, social safety nets are laws designed to give us more protections and whatnot, despite any sort of ulterior motives.

The criminal justice system is a whole another set of a messed up problem as the result of a corrupted system separate from policing by the way. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 19:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. They’re the only thing that does. However, this calls for a broader analysis than most people give. “Means” are actions taken or resources expended (including opportunity costs) in order to achieve some goal. This goal could be anything, including adhering to a deontological system of ethics that prohibits stealing. “Ends” are not just the goal, but any other consequences of achieving the goal or getting there. A cost-benefit analysis of means vs. ends determines whether the means are justified or not.

As a simple example, consider buying a cup of coffee. The ends are drinking the coffee and its effects, having some garbage to dispose of, the time and other resource obligations related to those things, and having spent time and money in order to acquire the coffee (including the effects of supporting a particular coffee shop). Does that state of affairs justify the expenditure of time, money, and effort? It depends on your value system. Perhaps you have a lot of disposable income and a tight schedule, such that a stimulant that lets you reduce sleep would be very helpful. If you have a tight budget and insomnia, you would probably weigh priorities differently, and may well come to a different conclusion about whether buying the cup of coffee is worth it.

Regarding stealing, the situation is more complex, but a similar analysis applies. In your example, the family in the ancap dystopia is poor by modern standards but not starving or homeless. What is the goal under consideration? Perhaps feeding the family a fancy rotisserie chicken dinner in order to liven up a dreary existence. A reasonable goal, and the sort of thing that parents should consider when raising children. But what does it take to get there? Stealing the chicken. While this may not be difficult, it does carry risks. If the parent gets caught, a petty theft conviction would be much more damaging to the family than the chicken would be helpful. The parent might even lose the job and apartment, and then the family would be in real trouble. So, does the acquisition of a chicken dinner for the family justify the risk of significant negative consequences? This depends on things like risk preferences and how likely getting caught actually is. And, of course, on the weight accorded to moral prohibitions on stealing and broader social consequences. So this is naturally a decision that would differ according to different people and situations.

As to why society is set up to punish theft, or why moral prohibitions exist in the first place, that comes down to a similar analysis. Secure property rights are a prerequisite for a peaceful and prosperous society. If people were allowed to steal food without consequence, grocery stores would go out of business, to the detriment of all. If landlords were prohibited from evicting tenants for non-payment, rental housing would disappear. Many of the laws people find troublesome were nonetheless put there because doing without that law was judged at the time to be even more troublesome (though naturally situations can change). And yet, desperate people may find that their own cost-benefit analyses don’t weigh such considerations very heavily when, say, their children are starving. Which is one reason why social safety nets exist: they shift the optimal actions of desperate people from more costly (crime) to less costly (making use of social services).

@Cardinal_Chang and BabyLuigiOnFire: Calling police “the law” is an American English idiom, and likely a derivative of the more literary “long arm of the law”. In any case, its use is culturally well-established. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough I suppose. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 21:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

judge dredd is the LAW AMassiveGay (talk) 22:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

""The long arm of the law" the power or authority of the police force, as per your reference The Wordsworth Dictionary also citing the reference you supply, "He fell foul of the law" - a nautical term used of a ship which becomes entangled with another ship. And informal, the law as already cited by Oxaena. And again, doesn't change the fact the the police are not the law, they are an instrument of the law. "the law" is a synecdoche, or at a push a second-order simulacra. Cardinal Chang (talk) 23:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You're all (except for the BoN) missing my point, don't get lost in manners of pointless, Wittgensteinian semantics. Someone on another forum responded to me by stating that since "all property is theft, either seized from the indigenous or parceled out from the commons by fiat," if taking back what was stolen in the first place still counts as stealing? I`m all for wealth redistribution, and as this pandemic demonstrates (the fact that some workers are considered "essential", and that business owners are pining over the economy being "restarted," means that workers create wealth, if you have no workers, you have no wealth), does that mean that since the workers create the wealth, which is then stolen by their bosses, if taking some of that wealth back still counts as stealing? — Oxyaena ^Harass 14:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Did you steal Mrs. Operheimer's piping hot apple pie cooling on the window ledge? ShabiDOO 17:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I, uh, er, I.... uh.... SHIT THEY'RE ONTO US!!!! — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that's a reference to the whole Crash Course thing, but I'd throw a wrench into the mix, since means and end are so fucking incredibly broad. I read this one a hundred years ago and have a firm question that I think falls outside of the regular "ends vs means" conversation, which is why I think the ends v means is useful but so fucking old and broad and already answered that it is no longer useful. Can a person use euthanasia/suicide to self-terminate? And under what circumstances? Suicide, or at least assisted suicide, becomes the means to a death, literally the ends. Both are bad, both are loaded. But it's a bioethics question, probably, which isn't as easy to answer with old questions and old answers. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Not to say shit like the Nazi tests and the Tuskegeee experiments and shit aren't morally abhorrent, and bioethically just so fucking bad, but physician assisted suicide, Kevorkian, what are the rights to self-determination, what are the points of agency, what are the means to the end? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

“All property is theft, either seized from the indigenous or parceled out from the commons by fiat," This implies a homebrew definition. Where, after all, did “the indigenous” get their property, and where did the commons come from? Using a more conventional definition, property is something that is owned by someone or some group. What does it mean to own something? Fundamentally, it involves control over something, such as having it physically in your possession and being able to decide what to do with it, and this has been extended to the notion that this is a proper state of affairs for some reason or other. Someone in an unclaimed wilderness can pick up some materials in the environment, and with a bit of work produce a knife that he now “owns”. Move that person with the knife into a civilization, and he can sell the knife to someone else, who now “owns” it according to the customs associated with trade that have emerged everywhere because they’re useful. Ultimately, property comes from natural resources that have been subject to human activity of some kind.

“If taking back what was stolen in the first place still counts as stealing?” No. The concept of theft or stealing relates to the concept of rightful ownership above. Taking something from its rightful owner without permission is stealing, returning it to the rightful owner is not.

“Means that workers create wealth” Obviously. To be clear, wealth is property that is considered to have value. Nearly all the wealth of the modern world is in the form of the products of industry. Workers were involved at various points, but not all workers are equal in the regard. Workers involved in resource extraction, production, and product-related design are the ones that produce wealth. Service workers do not. Services are important, but they do not produce valuable property. Hiring a goods-producing worker makes you wealthier, while hiring a service worker makes you poorer.

“If you have no workers, you have no wealth” Incorrect. Wealth is functionally independent from the workers that produced it. Money in my pocket is there whether or not anyone is working for me. And functionally speaking, such stores of wealth are a prerequisite for businesses to get going in the first place. Modern economies are typically capital-intensive, meaning that the workers can’t do much work without expensive equipment that they are not responsible for supplying themselves. That equipment is an investment on the part of the business owner, made with the expectation that it will pay off over time with operating profits. If the economic situation looks unfavorable for such an endeavor, the investment won’t be made, and the potential business owner will just sit on or live off the wealth that would have gone into starting the business.

“Since the workers create the wealth, which is then stolen by their bosses, if taking some of that wealth back still counts as stealing” This comes back to the notion of rightful ownership. Employment is typically an agreement between an employee and an employer, in which the employee performs labor in exchange for compensation of some kind. The employer’s take from this situation is no more theft than the employee’s take is, which is to say not at all. Without some modifying agreement, an unauthorized transfer of wealth in either direction would be stealing.

“So fucking old and broad and already answered that it is no longer useful.” If an answer exists for an old, broad question, that’s the opposite of no longer being useful. Old, broad questions tend to come up a lot, after all.

“Literally the ends” The end of a process like a life is not the same thing as “the ends” in an instrumental sense. They can overlap, but for clarity it’s best to maintain the distinction.

“But it's a bioethics question, probably, which isn't as easy to answer with old questions and old answers.” Except that the issues you’re mentioning are among the oldest that people have grappled with, and the reasoning and answers are just as applicable today as they were millennia ago. Because the relevant factors are the same now as they were then. In more conventional bioethics, the Hippocratic Oath is 2400-some years old, for example. Ethical considerations relating to suicide long predate written history, and are part of the basic human condition that’s apparently been around for dozens of millennia at least.

“What are the rights to self-determination, what are the points of agency” This is an ethical question, but the answer lies in meta-ethics. That is, what is the purpose of ethics in the first place? Broadly speaking, the purpose of ethics is to produce optimal outcomes for everyone of interest over all time scales. Since optimality and people of interest vary by value system, there isn’t a single incontrovertible answer to be had even ignoring the technical difficulty involved in constructing and evaluating ethical systems. But humans aren’t blank slates, and there are broad strokes of agreement in the states that humans find desirable. For example, an ethical system should produce a society in which people are not subject to random violence, and where people can meet basic needs like food, water, and shelter without undue hardship. This provides a framework in which ethical systems can be evaluated for performance and tweaked. The better standard of living in first-world countries is largely due to having societies organized with certain ideas in mind. Things like the rule of law, individual rights, and particular economic practices work better than alternatives used elsewhere in the world. Nailing down finer points like exactly delineating issues of self-determination and agency doesn’t produce results as obvious as certain other issues, so it takes careful consideration to figure out what ideas should be put into practice. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 02:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Obviously there's not much of a choice between starving to death or working for shit wages. Yes, it's an "agreement" between an employer and a worker, but so is the "agreement" between a robber pointing a gun to you demanding your goods and you "agreeing" to give them your goods. It's the same dynamic, both are coercive, except in the case of employment the gun is the threat of poverty and the goods are the value of what you create. You have no other choice. As for your other points, those processes still all involved labor, labor itself does not exist in a vacuum. Someone had to mine the raw resources to build that equipment, and I don't mean the mine boss. Someone had to manufacture the equipment, and it wasn't the factory owner. Someone had to supply the equipment to whatever end point it's going to, and it wasn't the CEO. Someone had to use that equipment to build that product, and it wasn't management. Someone had to deliver that product to the service worker, and it wasn't the boss. Someone had to sell that service using that product, and it wasn't the corporate brass. You need someone to produce wealth, wealth is a social construct, that money in your pocket is worthless without the social value put on it, and it wouldn't even exist without the workers who made that money. — Oxyaena ^Harass 09:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Proudhon is also a little old, even if I've referenced him here before, so I get it. The Kevorkian question is first world meta-ethic, sure, the "people are not means" is old world. There is still slavery, and there is still hierarchy, and there is still anarchy, and there's still the old world. But get deep enough into the meta and it seems silly to pick up an old scythe.

So, also, capitalism as not the ethical counterpart to communism, the implementation of communism, and what the fuck is socialism? A capitalist forward society leans very hard into Prodhoun, in my opinion. Like, especially in the libertarian US, the idea is to lean as far into anarchism as possible without making the jump to the other side of the horseshoe. But that's a lot further down the ideological line, so the difference between a robber and an employer and an agreement and a "I guess we're doing what the guy with the gun says" is similar, but that ain't it. I'm only speaking for my situation in the US now. If you look at current situations, yeah, we've got an economic crisis, which is different from a financial crisis, where in 2008 we just agreed the banks were low on money, so let's loan the banks the money and say "be less predatory please." People aren't going broke because their finances have been mismanaged, people are going broke because the whole system is set to such utopian ideologies about free-market capitalism and personal-wealth-accumulation that nobody was willing to pump the brakes. There is merit to being able to make your own wealth through hard work and ingenuity. There is merit to not breaking the backs of other people once you've got the capital. There is definitely, in my opinion, something wrong with the idea that just by using capital, you can acquire more capital. I don't mind an active CEO, but if your job is to JUST yell when you don't like a thing on the sole purpose that it doesn't earn you money, (like a shareholder who doesn't take part, care about, or know about a business they hold shares in or a CEO that only cares about shareholders) just, like, reassess your priorities. But the banks do it, the stock market does it, and I live with it, so I at least shouldn't be totally isolated from it. But I have talked to people who are "stacking" in the past, usually at AA meetings. It's not about profit on the shit, it's about keeping what they have, it's about posting bail, it's a distrust of the whole system. Because the means, the capital, is being used to an ends that doesn't include the person providing the means, and that's the problem with late stage capitalism. But communism requires, first, an upending of current systems, and you have to trust in a lot of things. First, that the labor actually WANTS equal share and understands the ends. Secondly, that equal ends means unequal, inequal? means unequal labor. And third, trust that there is no ideologue so bent on controlling the world that a system of equality doesn't fall into justified tribalism or cult status. I think that's why we call it "late stage capitalism." Like, pure capitalism is sundowning, it's becoming a problem. We love it, and we've learned a lot from it, but that ain't it, chief.

There was somebody today all stoked on a remake of Red Dawn, and I was like "ugh" and they said "DID YOU HATE RED DAWN?" all excited, because I had recently pulled the communist manifesto out of my trunk, and I shouted "WOLVERINES!" Then I said "No, I'm not excited, the old movie kinda sucked, who's the new enemy the Chinese?" and they said "No, North Korea" and I said "Wait, that doesn't make sense. How can North Korea be the enemy in Red Dawn?" and they said "I know, North Korea can't attack the east coast of the United States." and I said "No, I mean, it's the DRPK. North Korea. It's the Democratic Republic of the People of Korea, that's not communism, how the fuck is it still RED Dawn? They aren't communists." Laughter, but I don't think they're going to take the point to heart. One guy told me China probably made sure it wasn't about them, and that kinda made sense. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 00:54, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

An announcement

I might have Covid. I don't know what to think, I just want the bowel problems (no points for guessing what they are) to stop. I don't think I'll die, but if I do it's no loss. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

It would be a loss, at least for this wiki. If you pass away, Morris will have been rid of a doughty foe, and have fewer votes against him.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 18:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Summa. I`m sorry for the spat we had over Biden. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I realize that despite that disagreement, we agree on more issues than we disagree on. We implemented the rangeblock and crushed Ataturk together.I voted for you for mod last time, and if you run again, I'll back you. Ace doesn't do anything anyway, and the infiltrator who stopped you is now banned. Good luck.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 18:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Most people who catch it still recover. Hope the best for you. Please be safe and recover. But imo so far it seems like just a disagreeable gut or bad food? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:50, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

My mom most likely has it, but I`m lactose intolerant, don't have probiotics anymore, and drank a quarter of a milk gallon, so yeah, aside from being a hypochondriac (in my mom's words) it's most likely that. I worry too much. Also, about Ace being mod and me not, I do far more than him in maintaining the wiki, nah, it's a thing of the past. — Oxyaena ^Harass 19:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Your odds of surviving are very high. COVID-19 has a low mortality rate. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Don’t die, Oxy.Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

And please don't say "it's no loss". You're valued here. I'd be devastated if we lost you. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 22:14, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Please be well, Oxy. Please don't die. RoninMacbeth (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

On the off chance Oxy does, how would we find out?𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 00:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd arrange for a friend or family member to tell y'all. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hang in there Oxy. @Summa I do not know. That would be a tough nut to crack. Don't think that it will come to that though. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Oxy, I wish you and your mother the best. Do try to seek medical help if it seems appropriate. You may have not always liked what I had to say, but I tried to always give you my respect. You have made valuable contributions to RW, and I appreciate them. Bongolian (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It turns out it was a false alarm, I panicked after my mom said my excessive diarrhea might've been covid, and as I have various issues (insomnia, IBS, crippling anxiety, body aches etc) I panicked. I`m a hypochondriac, I now feel stupid. I apologize for making you all worry. — Oxyaena ^Harass 13:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Also thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Oxyaena Don't apologize. You don't have to be sorry for making us worry about you, Oxy. Even if we have had our disagreements, we're here for you. Glad that you are OK, and please stay safe. RoninMacbeth (talk) 16:39, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hypochondria can actually be funny when written about by Moliere. Couldn't be a better time to read his play :) ShabiDOO 17:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I have two relatives with IBS. It's awful because it can last a long time. I recently took one of the relatives for her second colonoscopy (first one did not complete because of too much inflamation). Looks to be successful. I think diet change may have helped.[2] For anyone else wondering if they have COVID, here's the CDC list of early symptoms:[3]

• Fever
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Chills
• Repeated shaking with chills
• Muscle pain
• Headache
• Sore throat
• New loss of taste or smell

You're right though Oxy, diarrhea is sometimes a symptom.[4] Bongolian (talk) 18:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hypochondria is its own struggle (don't feel €stupid" about it, it can make your anxiety worse and it's normal to feel panicky about having some symptoms of the germ thing), but very relieved to know it's not the germ thing. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The strangest things I find on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--eoUg5y12U

Supposed to be the Adam and Eve story but done with Lego's! Prepare for your brain cells to rot! --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:09, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

neither adam nor eve are naked AMassiveGay (talk) 04:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I did stop motion animation with Legos as a kid. If I remember correctly, our camcorder was tight and had a dub button that my dad showed me how to use once and then I couldn't ever figure out how to use again, but I think I remember looking at it a lot and saying "That's an important button." But I might not remember that correctly. To the stop motion, if you look at the staging, like, in the third act, Cursed, those first two guys definitely roll in like a crime action movie inspired video game, it's crazy that the next guys roll in on four wheelers, threw me for a loop, and then everybody starts killing each other for no reason. I think the point was "Everybody is killing each other for no reason" but of course I can't be sure. I had a friend who was just, so fucking good at every instrument and also so homeschooled and so in love with Jesus that he put out an album at the age of... probably 20? It sounded just like DIY Sufjan Stevens, but the lyrics were a little weird. He did all of the instrumentation himself, and all of the mixing himself, and kick me in the teeth, He had a Quiverfull kind of upbringing, he once tried to lay hands on me to heal a big bruise I had, and I let him because he was just a sweet, wholesome, deluded boy. Asked me "how do you feel now?" after he did it and I said "..about the same" and he said "Well, it should start to work in about 20 minutes." Oh, yeah, God will get around to it, but he wasn't lying to me, he believed it. But I say, to this day, the music world lost one of the greats to religion. Maybe I should re-listen to that CD, I think I can find one somewhere, I always took it as sounding like weird bedroom conversation between him and his practically arranged wife. Maybe it was about her not understanding his desire to make music, maybe it's about him wanting to put it in her bejewel, maybe it's actually about her not wanting him to make this music and I was just a bad listener. The music was beautiful, the lyrics were uncomfortable and weird. This was 10 years ago, I think he's got like 8 kids now. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

its lego not legos, you goddamn heathen. did you just steal the s from maths and and put on lego? AMassiveGay (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, if that balances the equation, I couldn't have done it on purpose. Legos aren't multiple pieces of input, Lego is also all the pieces as a whole, ok, I've got that now, like deer and deer. Forgive me for being a dumbass little kid and thinking "I've got a Lego" so thinking "I've got two Legos," and not having a British Lego-master there to slap me across the hands and spit in my face. I assume that's how you learned it, I've never watched Downton Abbey, I've only ever heard about your culture second-hand. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 00:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I always spoke of lego (with Canadians and Brits) as uncountible. I'll play with my lego. There are two lego pieces on the floor. Do Americans say things like: "you have legos all over the place"? ShabiDOO 16:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Americans (me included) do say things like that such as "You have some smokes" instead of "Do you have cigarettes" or "That your car over there" instead of "Is that your car over there". --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Good gracious me well I simply don't believe you should be allowed to play with lego or tobacco products until you learn to speak of them correctly!!! ShabiDOO 23:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

You're telling me your parents never stepped on A Lego and shouted "if you don't pick these Legos up I'm going to throw them in the trash!" I'm doubling down, Lego is singular, Legos describes the mess that any kid as on their floor. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 07:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

my parents are English so, no they have never demanded I pick up these legos. they did demand on occasion that I pick up this fucking shit before giving me a clip round the ear. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:09, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I put my toys away, if I didn't my parents would confiscate the toy for a few months. Result was...my toys were stored away when I was done with them. My Scottish grandmother on the other hand might have just thrown the toy out. Loving sweet grandmother bought lots of nice things for us but if we disrespected her place with lego pieces lying around my God we would never have seen them again. ShabiDOO 18:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I got the same treatment, put them in the toybox or we'll throw them out. Also had some of my favorite toys sold out of that toybox in a couple garage sales, but my parents were somewhat careful about what I played with and what I could let go of. I got a Gameboy Color and pokemon and a microscope for Christmas in 99, I wasn't wanting. And what I didn't play with, and some of them were hand-me-downs from the family at large, so it wasn't ever really trash either, it was more "if you like it you'd better learn to take care of it." I had a dog and a hamster for most of that. About 10 years ago my brother asked if I still had some of our SNES and N64 games, because he had picked up the boxes and could have sold them on ebay. These games mostly were both of ours, some more his some more mine, Christmas gifts and birthdays. By this point I had basically taken them places and left them there. I was like "uhhhhh, no. I kinda… loaned them out. And I can't get them back." which was true, I just kinda let my friends with SNES and 64s who had never played before play them and whatever, I've done the same with books and records my whole life. And he was like "well, OK. People are still buying the boxes, anyway." Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:55, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada

Just when you though this year couldn't get more dogshit, some fucking piece of shit commits a mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 00:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I can't wait until the pro Second Amendment people would go and say "see? SEE? gun control doesn't work!" But yeah, mass shooting is fucking shit. What was the shooting motivated by? БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 02:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes because any statement that is criticism of gun control must inherently be incorrect. No offense but that is a biased and irrational thing to say. Honestly more people who are pro gun control have said that pro gun rights people are saying this, than actual pro gun rights people have said it.108.208.14.123 (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Gun control has been fabulously effective in Canada. In most provinces you can have hunting weapons under pretty strict controls most U.S. states would never ever fathom, the could include: renewable background and psych checks, proof of proficiency, knowledge of safe storage (including random inspections) etc. This cuts down heavily on stupidity and accidents. Most Canadians don't mind hunting weapons under these stricts conditions. Handguns are generally banned because you honestly don't need guns in cities and having guns makes things less safe. It's a no brainer. Very successful. Most provinces ban automatic weapons. You don't need them. Cuts down heavily on stupidity and accidents. Quite successful. On top of that Canada has relatively generous social-welfare services and programs that helps maintain a relatively lower level of crime, homelessness etc than their southern cousins. Gun control isn't just banning weapons (some are) but putting highly logical restrictions on those which are legal and also multiple other policies which help cut down on potential murderous violence in the first place. It's a multi-pronged approach and the only approach that could possible work. And yeah, no policy could fully prevent such a rare-horrific rampage but its rarity and the overwhelming rarity of gun violence in general and even rarer gun related accidents or stupidity shows it works. Trudeau will make tougher controls and they will be widely supported...as they should be. ShabiDOO 23:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Provinces don't control firearms, the federal government does, so automatic weapons are banned nationally for civilians, with the only exception being for collections such as museums. Handguns aren't banned, they're restricted, meaning that in addition to a general Possession and Acquisition Licence (needed to own and buy all firearms and to buy ammunition), you need a registration certificate for every restricted weapon you own, and for handguns you need to specify what it's for. There are only three acceptable reasons: target/competition shooting (and you have to provide proof of membership at a range or shooting club), for a collection, or for personal protection associated with one's job (such as working on an armoured car crew). In rare circumstances, other personal protection may be considered. I know a geologist who was permitted to carry a handgun in the field for protection against wildlife because the nature of his work made it impractical to carry a rifle or shotgun. Also, if you're buying a restricted or prohibited eapon for a collection, you've automatically granted law enforcement the right to, at any reasonable time, inspect your collection and verify everything is documented. ^{— Unsigned, by: 104.200.132.185 / talk / contribs}

Provinces can opt out and administer regulations themselves including stricter regulations and in some provinces even municipalities can. Their administration of gun control varies considerably by province which opt out most especially when it comes to hunting weapons. Ontario requires taking a course/test either online or in person whereas it is significantly easier in the prier provinces. Some provinces/territories don't require any licensing for Aboriginal Canadians. In any case, it is all irrelevant. The controls are far stricter that what you'll find in the US or Mexico and will become even stricter. ShabiDOO 14:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@BabyLuigiOnFire Not going to lie, I'm going to want to smash them over the head with a book that just contained 'Worse mass shooting in 30 years' 'Worse mass shooting in country's history: 16 dead' for 200 or so pages. We call that Tuesday, in this hellhole. They haven't said much about a motive when I looked around 00:30 UTC, but I did hear the evidence points against sudden/unplanned act, since apparently this fuck had a uniform resembling the RCMP and a vehicle dressed up like their police cruisers (And, he was not a police officer). OH GOOD, I just looked to double check the police cruiser thing- It's now 16 dead. Worst shooting in Canadian history, fucking awesome.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 03:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Only 16? That's still so awful! I'm so used to having shootings in this star-spangled piece of crap land. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

'only 16' is probably not the best response one could have. AMassiveGay (talk) 04:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The United States has a well-earned reputation for its problem with this, but that doesn't detract from any other country's own issues. While I wish I could do more, since I'm from the town right next to Newtown (yes, literally bordering Newtown, and my sisters worked at a summer camp with one of the kids killed in Sandy Hook) and remember all the good will sent to us from places around the world in 2012, allow me to send some to Canada. It doesn't bring anyone back, but in the moment it sure helps to know someone cares. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 07:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The difference between 'the US' and 'the rest of the world' - apart from the occasional 'family feud/boundary dispute and suchlike (which, in some cultures, may last a #very# long time)' gun controls work sufficiently for 'nutter with gun shoots a number of people' is a headline because of its rarity. Anna Livia (talk) 10:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

"Only 16" is not my best word choice or response but it's my first one, I have to be real honest. I struggle to feel like it's an extraordinary event. I don't want to pretend otherwise. I really shouldn't feel this way. Anyway, I want this discussion to be more about Canada. Could anything have been prevented or? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

if it makes you feel better, this march was the since 2002 that the us didn't have a school shooting, and all it took was a global plague.

as for the Canadian guy - probably too early to say. the police car and uniform would suggest at least some planning but I guess unless he was already on the radar of the local authorities with mental health or some kind of terrorist watch list - probably not a great deal that could have been done. even someone embittered at the world for whatever reason isn't really going to garner much attention unless threats of vengeance for perceived wrongs are accompanied by a violent and explosive temper. speculation is way above my pay grade, but any kind of gun control that doesn't have a total prohibition on gun access or ownership will inevitable have someone go off on one like this. even the uk, with our tight gun laws had our last mass shooting in 2010, killing 13 with one of the only firearms still allowed - a double barrelled shotgun. while people still have access to some kind of firearm, it can only limit frequency not eradicate entirely. fortunately, its a big leap from disgruntled to murderous. rare, and even rarer from disgruntled to mass murderer, but sadly not rare enough AMassiveGay (talk) 19:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Saying "only 16!?" in response to deaths from a mass shooting is the most American response you can have, LGM. >_> БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 21:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

its a testament to how fucked up things are in America that diminishing what is a tragedy in any country is defended with 'this is murica'. its 16 too many and it would be 16 too many if it were in the us. it was a poor choice of words. leave it at that AMassiveGay (talk) 22:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how relevant it is to this particular tragedy, but this popped up on my recommended youtube vids. undoubtly more relavant to the more incel/right wing terrorist/school shooters, and the parallels with taxi driver are pretty much well known at this point, especially since that joker flick came out, but for some reason I've only just twigged as to how prescient taxi driver is.

completely unrelated but that period of Hollywood really was a golden age, now long since dead, never to reach that zenith again. marvel and Disney really has murdered cinema. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Canada has pretty strict gun controls and they will, by popular support become even stricter. It's the response of the countries citizens that make it so different. Canadians refuse to allow such a rare shocking event to become normalized. No excuses. ShabiDOO 02:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The American media pretty much treats shootings as normal. Because of how society treats shootings as normal, my mind sees it as common place and I am not proud of it. Makes me feel disgusted. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

No matter what systems are in place there will always be some people who think that 'killing as many people as possible in X manner' is the answer to their ailments/the way to draw attention to and/or promote their viewpoints ('propaganda of the deed') and if guns are eliminated from the system other methods will be found. The most that can be done is to minimise the activity. Anna Livia (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: the death toll has risen to 22, and this may have started with a domestic dispute. What's more, arson was also involved, and some of the victims did die in the fires. Checking Wikipedia, the culprit was something of a sleazeball whose behavior got him into multiple property disputes, and was also apparently a big-time law enforcement buff (but not an actual cop; he was a denturist) who made a hobby of refurbishing old police cruisers and collecting police memorabilia, which may be why he had easy access to a uniform and a cop car (and possibly his guns). In other words, he sounds like a whacker who went over the edge. KevinR1990 (talk) 18:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Glenn Morton

I propose making a page for Glenn Morton, the excreationist anticreationist geologist and merging the Morton's Demon page as a section in it. Is that fine? Teerthaloke101 (talk) 02:34, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Go ahead. That would be appreciated.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 02:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Old Glenn ended up reverting to the faith, @Teerthaloke101. — Oxyaena ^Harass 13:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I saw that he wrote in Talk.Origins. Reverting to faith as in accepting YEC? Teerthaloke101 (talk) 02:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

No, reverting to faith as in thinking indoctrinating children into the faith is better than teaching them the truth of deep time and evolutionary theory. — Oxyaena ^Harass 13:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

It is clear, that he remained a Christian. But he wrote good criticism of YEC at morton-yec-archive.blogspot.com. I think that he is alive, right? Teerthaloke101 (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2020 (UTC) You must see the heroic intellectual gymnastics that G.R. Morton is doing to make a literal Adam and Eve, and flood consistent with evolution and ancient Earth. Adam and Eve have been moved to 5.3 million years ago! themigrantmind.blogspot.com Teerthaloke101 (talk) 14:01, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

fuck you PG tips

ok, bought some tea a couple of weeks, but only one brand left on the shelf, pg tips. that will do will do I thinks. not good tea it seems. tastes a little bit weak, a bit too milky. I thougt maybe the milk - I haven't been able to find any skimmed sos I'm lumbered with semi. just had a look at the box, to see if its some milder version. decaf. DECAF. mother fucker. no wonder it was the only box left on the shelf. AMassiveGay (talk) 06:03, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

its okay everyone, crisis over - ive got some proper tea now, and some nice biscuits too. fucking decaf. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:30, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

That's a real first-wold problem!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

it just goes to show that even when things are at their darkest there is light at the end of the tunnel. none of my biccies broke off in my cuppa either. maybe there is a god after all. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:45, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

What mind of monster makes DECAF tea???? RoundeTheeHorne (talk) 11:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Get some Yorkshire tea. Amazon stock them, for some strange reason. Actually, I'm assuming you're in the UK. But check tea on amazon, it may surprise you. With social distancing and what not, unfortunately Bezos' company have become a life line for some. Or, if you can, look to see if Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Co-Op etc do deliveries. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:57, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

"What mind of monster makes DECAF tea????" Pregnant women and/or people with caffeine sensitives. Edit, just seen the "makes" the answer would be Unilever. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:58, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I hope you spend your 30 pieces of silver you for got for your apologia of those inhuman monsters on something nice.

as for brands, i generally go for sainsbury's red brand. its strong and only costs a pound. its back in stock, so that's what i got. except for probably strength, there not a whole lot of difference between brands for black tea. green tea requires a more discerning taste as its best without milk and can get bitter if brewed too long. for the slim pickings of green tea in the supermarket, i recommend loose leaf under the clipper brand if you favour a strong brew without bitterness. wont break the bank either AMassiveGay (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

From the way it sounds, that tea would be absolutely disgusting. Never had PG Tips tea but then again, I do not even know if they sell it here in the US. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Walmart seemingly sell them https://www.walmart.com/ip/PG-Tips-Pyramid-Tea-Bags-40BG-Pack-of-6/21091112. Although, I prefer Yorkshire tea, or Lyon Gold blend. When in countries that seem to favour green teas, jaysus, I try to find English/Irish Breakfast Tea. On a side note, there's a grotty little cafe in Jyväskylä that sold decent black tea. Cardinal Chang (talk) 16:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

pg tips are fine if you avoid the decaff shite, though I do have the taste of a prole. they used to be sold by cockney chimps AMassiveGay (talk) 16:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if it would stack up with your better choices, but I always fancied Red RoseAriel31459 (talk) 18:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

that brand that was once owned by the company that brought us pg tips. hence the chimps AMassiveGay (talk) 23:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm lost, you put milk in tea? Like, sugar is bad enough, five or so bags of tea are supposed to be steeped for a day to get one good pitcher of Sun Tea (I once had a guy say "it's cloudy, will it still work??" Ok, it's cold brew. Milk in coffee is better than half and half and sugar in coffee, but coffee on it's own is the best if you stop fucking around with it. The best coffee I ever had was made by a roommate with a French press and a grinder. Grind up the coffee, put it in the French press, come back to it later and push the grounds down a bit, repeat. The next morning, best coffee. but the tea is too milky and it's not the milk? That's too many steps. Just steep the tea for the whole morning, mix the tasty stick water with hot water at tea time, boom, British sun tea, and I promise you can even do it when it's cloudy.

Also, putting decaf anywhere near to caffeine is fucking irresponsible so I agree there. It's like mixing Dayquil and Nyquil into a jar. The labels don't matter, nobody can read labels when they're trying to get some caffeine in. They need to be on separate ends of the building, not labeled differently. What if you had drank the decaf, fallen down and hit your head? Oh, it's your fault? NO, decaf is dangerous. It should probably be in a locked glass box, you should have to ask someone at the store for it specifically. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Oil

It's now done to $1.28 a barrel: [5] — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Oops, it's now to $0.00 a barrel: [6] — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

A good time for governments to top off their strategic reserves. That reminds me to fill my tank.Ariel31459 (talk) 18:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

New tweet commenting on this, it's a good one. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Oil down in the negatives. [7] — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Great time to use something that is killing our environment.— Jeh2ow ^{Damn son!} 19:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this is the "get it all out of the ground and sell it before sustainable energy reaches too high a percentage" gambit that I feel like I really should have seen coming. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

This is only the May West Texas Intermediate futures contract, which crashed because now there's way too much oil in storage as demand has plummeted, so longs were dumping the contract as the settlement month approaches. Future months are still in the $30 range. Other contracts like Brent are still around there as well since there's a lot more storage available. WTI is mostly transported by pipeline while other grades are transported a lot in tankers. You can just park tankers somewhere if no one wants the oil right now. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Just curious, what do you guys think about the effects this pandemic will have on the climate long term? I'm referring to the "2019 will be the peak year before global emissions finally go down due to crashing oil demand," that sort of thing.Flandres (talk) 00:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

i dunno lol, the rational thing for societies to do would be to seize the opportunity and institute massive public investment to get off fossil fuels. But obviously the vested fossil interests, including petrostates, will fight that tooth-and-nail. More likely we'll see huge fossil fuel bailouts. I think some Repubs have already been talking that up. (Why do you libs hate jobs?!) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

If we can pool our money...

...we can probably buy ourselves a nice Sudanese oil field. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

How about a nice private army to go with it?𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 23:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

We could also afford fancy booze and some weed with the money left over. Win-win. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 00:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

What should we do with the profits?𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 18:09, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Private helicopters, indoor swimming pool and mansions. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 18:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the point is there is no profits. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:27, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, we’d have to sit on it until commodity prices come back. But we could still plant a flag. Just think, the RW Brain flying over African soil. A new kind of empire! Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:01, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Nothing warms my heart like colonialism and fossil fuels. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I just love the idea of being a warlord and forcibly vaccinating the masses, among other forms of depopulation. Perhaps our profits will let us expand our borders even further!𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 19:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

We could fuel political discontent in nearby countries, let governments nearly collapse and put our people in charge so people would have a false sense of being independent. Countries with money and power do it all the time, all about control. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@Rationalzombie94 I think you missed one. G Man (talk) 01:26, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Why

is Biden refusing to release the sealed files that contain the harassment report Tara Reade filed back in 93? — Oxyaena ^Harass 19:52, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

probably because even if completely exonerated and the claim is obviously spurious, the accusation alone is enough to tarnish and every detail no matter how false and absurd will be repeated a million times over on twitter as if it were gospel truth as we have seen countless times already from the most blatantly guilty through to purest choirboy. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:15, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

probably AMassiveGay (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Directly measuring the death rate of COVID misinformation

Without intending to, Fox News created a natural experiment, with two back-to-back opinion show hosts giving two different stories about the risks of COVID-19 during January-March this year. The demographics of watchers to both shows is extremely similar in demographics: very white, slightly male, quite conservative, and generally middle aged to senior. But watching relatively more Hannity, who downplayed risks, and relatively less Tucker Carlson, who more accurately warned of the risks, controlling for what demographic differences did exist, seems to imply an 8% increase in relative COVID morbidity. Just from which particular right wing talk show people happen to watch. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:45, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I hope Fox gets sued for this. They deserve it. G Man (talk) 05:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Alien neurobiology

"Xenopsychology"

This article goes over the evolution of intelligence well, organisms with ganglionic nervous systems are by necessity self-limiting, any intelligent extraterrestrials we meet will likely possess a centralized nervous system complete with notochord than they are likely to contain a ganglionic nervous system. Invertebrates, even the smartest of invertebrates such as cephalopods, have nervous systems that restrict the growth and size of their bodies, whereas the centralized nervous system of chordates enables us to reach far greater sizes and shapes. Furthermore, ganglii only offer a set of restricted, preprogrammed behaviors, whereas centralized nervous systems offer far more than that, your average fish is far smarter than the average insect, for instance. — Oxyaena ^Harass 22:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I will admit, I have only just started it, but any graph with a line that just goes straight up at a 45 degree angle is suspect. Why even make the graph if it's that detached? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

That's not 45 degrees. The fact that a linear regression produced a straight line is super suspicious though. I'm always looking for those curved linear regressions that prove real science is happening. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The article was written way back in the 70s, it's a given to be out-dated by now. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:54, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Hahaha, let me get my protractor out, or would you rather just tell me the straight line's degree since we seem to agree on everything else and this would apparently clear up a point? I still think it's a fun thing, and if you're trying to write sci-fi it would definitely be useful. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as an alien I'm pretty sure that intelligent life on Earth is impossible. We all know that we aliens evolved from primitive gnarluts and these could not have existed on a early earth. Later, our particular cosmic-ray background produced our unique lughongt - something which would have been impossible so far from tlughongthe galactic center. Finally this exceptionally smooth ungorr-rveenti development graph shows how our unllonf-minten (not to mention our llumt!) would only be possible on our low-oxygen high-gravity world.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Surely this far out into intergalactic space there would be 'big bang' remnants of squtrillop that would compensate for the absent galactic gredpyters and thus permit the production of (far from unique*) lughongt from anything resembling a proto-gnarlut? Scream!! (talk) 12:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

* see Hewlicbyt's contribution to the annals of LEWX in GY 214563*

I confess that I'm extrapolating from an example of one but I feel quite confident in doing so. You have clearly failed to see the validity of my argument as I had assumed that you would include the lñkñukk which would compensate for the points you made. I accept that I made no mention of the lñkñukk in my initial post but I had assumed that anyone with the slightest interest in the subject would be aware of the issue. Seems I was wrong. So sad.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Ha! lñkñukk he says (I presume that you mean lñqñukk). They are totally irrelevant having become extinct in the great nuredliz event over 4000 moglants ago. I'm almost minded to challenge you to a holxit at grebund. Scream!! (talk) 15:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

"Holxit" you say! And this from a man who couldn't find his girrzunk with all three iuuççnt! At the bozeunk of your choosing young man!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

What the fytrek do you mean: calling me a 'man'! I'll have you know that I'm a humfrewpol of the highest zoog. Man indeed! Fortunately I am rather magnanimous and, if you gredke me offlewhec or so Then I'll pardon you. Scream!! (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I have no intention gredking any offlewhec and I am surprised that you would make such an obscene proposal in a public forum where any impressionable young humfrewpols might be absorbing information through their tender garflugs. There are other places on the interworgools dedicated to that kind of filth and you might be better off taking up problems you might have in getting your offlewhec gredked in those!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

(whispers of kal-if-fee intensify) 00:29, 23 April 2020 (UTC) Gol Sarnitt (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@ Jutrpak Sarnitt; I would suggest that you humdpqg yourself from what is rapidly, thanks to the surgetlance of ßir "Bob M" (if that is indeed his correct krixiont), becoming a somewhat glofgrish and smortling discussion which can only culminate in diwrcΛsming up the førtlend. Anyhow, I tire of this increasingly slivivious lonkertation and am about to retire to my hoardfurter. Regards Scream!! (talk) 10:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Humdpgq myself? Am I spelling that right? Can I get someone from the Netherlands to check that, I really don't see enough Fs there to make sense of it. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Educational standards are certainly suffering in this pandemic

I know that the Michigan state government is just going to put students in the next grade when the pandemic subsides. Kids will be at an academic disadvantage as the distance education plan was poorly put together and many kids (that I know of) are not understanding the work. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

If they are getting some relief from being drilled for standardized tests, it may be the best thing that has happened for them for a good long time. Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 15:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I am especially worried about the kids who need the extra resource of 1) having a place to go during the day, 2) having a place that feeds them every day. My mom teaches resource in public school (oh, you mean SPED, yes, I mean SPED, yes I mean special education) and I asked her how her kids were doing, and she would only tell me about one girl, who shows up to math right on time every morning, every morning she's always right there and she has her coffee with her. And she's always right there, right on time, and she always has her coffee. And my mom just adores her. I can extrapolate a few things, knowing how my mom works. That's about all my mom will tell me about her students, because she's a good teacher. I could tell you about the other teachers according to my mom, but I won't because that's not my place, and those lazy newbies aren't doing anything noteworthy anyway. 02:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

UK's COVID-19 Vaccine

Looks like we could have up to a million doses of a new vaccine for COVID-19 as soon as September. Granted, it might take a while to manufacture enough doses for the rest of the world outside of the UK, but the news is looking good: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oxford-university-coronavirus-vaccine-to-begin-human-trials-on-thursday-as-uk-throws-everything-at-vital-breakthrough-2020-04-21 Aaronmichael5 5:22 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't it need to go through tests and trials first? September might be a tad too optimistic. Plus, wouldn't have thought Marketwatch was a reliable source of scientific news. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/april/covid-19-vaccine-trials.html To be honest, unless some regulatory mechanism is for some reason bypassed, it'll be 12 months at least before a vaccine is rolled out. Cardinal Chang (talk) 07:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Reuters has an article on it as well. I view the timeline as extremely optimistic. I guess they are ramping up manufacturing of the vaccine before it's efficiency is proven; it's a big gamble. At any rate it's "six weeks from September" in the Reuters article at best. Soundwave106 (talk) 13:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like they intend producing it even before it has passed trials. It's certainy not the usual order of things, but given all the disruption we are experiencing and all the funding which is been thrown at the problem it might be a good way to go.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

You can always dump it if it doesn't work, but if it does it would be a good thing(tm) to have a million doses available the day after that was decided!Aloysius the Gaul 23:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we need an article on 5G

I'm sure must of you guys are familiar with the conspiratorial fears around 5G. This has become far more apparent due to Coronavirus. Do this site have a page refuting the pseudoscience surrounding 5G? If not, should we work on making one? Nebuchadnezzar7658 (talk) 06:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Nebuchadnezzar7658 We have a draft: Draft:5G--Delibirda the Annoying Grammar Nazi (talk) 07:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I've had a - very quick - look at some of the 5G madness but it's a bit difficult to get a handle on the exact claims being made. What I find is along the lines of "It's 5G which we all know is dangerous, the word 'radiation' is involved, it's going to kill us!". Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is in there somewhere too.

It's like "moon landing hoax" and other conspiracy stuff. There doesn't seem to be a very clear line to refute. (Or I'm missing it) Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a perfectly valid syllogism

1. 5G towers exist

2. The bad guys are evil

3. COVID-19.

See? Easy stuff. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 13:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, obvious now you put it like that.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:50, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Or another bad syllogism (Post hoc, ergo propter hoc):

P1: 5G is from China.

P2: COVID is from China.

C: 5G caused COVID.

This pseudologic is behind the rash of 5G tower fires.[8] Bongolian (talk) 18:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ikanreed, Bongolian, Bob M, and Nebuchadnezzar7658 Okay, so I did some reading to fill out the origins of the conspiracy and what its, and I think I have some answers. The origin seems to be a Belgian newspaper that ran a half-assed article in late January, where someone was shooting from the hip' with the observation 'Wuhan, the largest cluster of cases, has a bunch of 5G mobile phone towers around it. Maybe it's related?" This piece of shit was instantly picked up by local anti-5G people, who took it to social media and YouTube, where it smoldered, until algorithms gave it some fuel to grow. Then a bunch of fucking idiot celebs made comments about it, and that was like jet fuel.

As for what the conspiracy is, it's a complicated mess. There appear to be about a half-dozen, at times contradictory, 'COVID-19/5G' theories in circulation. This has basically screwed any hope of dispelling the nonsense. And that's on top of existing conspiracy theories like it's a plot by the New World Order/Illuminati, the signals give us cancer, etc. Disproving some of them may prove theoretically impossible, like the claim COVID is a distraction to enable the roll out of 5G. Telecommunication work will go on, regardless of how big of a news story and elephant in the room COVID-19 is, and with it the ability to push that theory remains, for example.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 01:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I filled out the 'Actual Concerns' section, so that's good to go.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 21:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Jesus, that's a complicated mess, I just stumbled out of doing the write up of what the fuck happened at resulted in us having cell towers set on fire and death threats against telecom workers.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 23:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Spud is back online

I got the secondhand laptop on Sunday. Then I couldn't access the internet on it. So I played a lot of spider solitaire and watched two of my four DVDs. An engineer came round this afternoon and sorted it out. I'm back, baby. And I'm ready to serve the community the best I can once more. Spud (talk) 11:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yay! Welcome back! Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Good to see you dude! --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I awnted to just post the first 24 seconds of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1D9wWxd2w this, because the rest of it is irrelevant, but I couldn't find a clip. Anyway, I think Spud knows what he's looking at.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Glad that's resolved! Happy editing. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 06:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

> Spud is back, SPUD IS BACK Gol Sarnitt (talk) 06:52, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Ghost Politics

is a racist, ableist, classist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic "broadcaster" that we should really have an article on. There's a wiki on him that could be of use. I'd do it myself, but, well, you know, I have errands to run and blah blah blah. I`m enlisting @EK to do it in my stead like the good work horse she is. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

ok cracker. EK (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

You know what I'd like

An actual apology from my dad. Not one that's half assed, riddled with excuses. "I`m only human, Oxy." Whenever I try rekindling my relationship with him, he always does or says something incredibly shitty that throws us back to right where we started. He's calling his own ten year old daughter a "liar." I hope all of you have a better father than I did. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Put some fairly vicious racism on that stack of shitcakes and you'd have had my own father. Had to set the line a few years back when he called my wife 'a spoiled brat' at our Christmas get-together and I stepped up, fully ready to kick his (albeit pushing 70) ass. I loved him, and still do, but he was -such- a shit to the people who cared for him; the stronger the love, the worse he behaved, because he knew he could get away with it. Semipenultimate (talk) 20:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Hoo boy, LeftyGreenMario and I have an extensive history with OUR father. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 20:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

My dad would publicly embarrass me and my siblings in the store by loudly calling us "barbarians", he would call 9-1-1 saying he was having a heart attack each week and the doctors telling him there was nothing wrong, he would take pop from me and my siblings without asking and try to force his views on everyone else. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Y'all we are most of the way to a profile. Any bad dads also die-hard fans of John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, the Dirty Harry and/or the Death Wish film series 100% unironically? Semipenultimate (talk) 23:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Let's leave Bogie out of this. However much of a cunt your father was, watch Casablanca again. You'll thank me. Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 00:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It absolutely sucks to talk to your parents when they are pretty dismissive, because they knew you before you are who you are now and developed a bias about which version of you they preferred. When I was in track, my parents showed up to my meets. My dad was a state wrestling champ, and always wanted me on athletic teams, I've played a season of soccer, football, basketball, wrestling, and then basketball again. I quit track midway in my sophomore year because I was just like "I really don't want to do this anymore." I joined the speech team halfway through the season my senior year. And I succeeded, I have a plaque that commemorates me being the team leader on duo improv and number 8 on the speech team depth chart, which was notable because there were around 50 people on the depth chart and it took me half of one season to get to number 8. As a newspaper student, I gave up the Editor in Chief job to Katie, who actually deserved the job. There is also state competition for high school newspaper. I placed 2nd in entertainment writing (reviewing short films, one about a ceiling fan and a flower, one about a badger, and one that I can't remember but any time I see something about the movie 9 I'm like, I swear I wrote a review about this...) and 3rd in opinion writing (One of the topics was using these newfangled phones to cheat on tests, and I went all in on a joke about how cheating shouldn't be that easy, it should require ingenuity) in state newspaper, my senior award in a class of just over 500 students was "most likely to be president." My parents don't remember any of that, but they remember I was varsity triple jump my freshman year. But that was tangible to them. My speech team achievements were not noteworthy, my newspaper achievements were not noteworthy, my senior award was not noteworthy. I mean, I didn't grow up to win any of those things as an adult, but it's not like I would have been a fucking track star either. And when I bring it up, they're like "Well, of course that's important. I don't think you told us, though." So, there are these really bright spot in my history where I worked to define myself. And the worst thing in the world is to have a parent try include themselves cluelessly, so maybe I wasn't good at explaining what I was actually working towards for their benefit. And it hurts that, even at the time, they just didn't care about it, and after the fact, at least my mom is like "that's not important, what are you mad at me about?" My dad is like "Oh, ok. My mistake" and I'm like "Yeah, good enough." Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:29, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Not intended to be incredibly invalidating to your point. Sorry, it reads that way. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:44, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Does anybody on RationalWiki have a good dad at all? Every person I met here has had a terrible dad. --Racia zombio94 (talk) 15:58, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

My father is a spectacular guy. I'd say that I somehow ended up lucky in the parents lottery but I personally know very few people who have even mediocre parents. My brother on the other hand is a toxic malicious fuck-up who I cut all ties with 15 years ago. Some family and friends wish I wouldn't but I still don't regret it for a second and if at all reasonably possible I highly recommend it. It's harder to cut ties with parents though I know...for many reasons :( ShabiDOO 16:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

My mother is a really good person, I`m proud to have her as my mom. There are very few people out there as generous and good natured as she is, even after all the shit she's been through. Thanks, mom. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:07, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

An awesome song

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

"Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benatar. Man I love classic rock. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Where's the fucking love, classic rock enthusiasts? Pat Benetar is like a purely badass Kate Bush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFKqjDzO2IM I'm not a big fan of either, but I don't really like Black Sabbath either, you classic rock maniacs. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Con artistry at its finest

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/2020/04/22/is-ozone-therapy-a-covid-19-treatment-dallas-feds-consider-it-fraudulent/

Who cares about medical ethics when you can exploit people's fears about the pandemic and profit from it? --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

If the pandemic spread similarly in my country India, your country would be no match in crank 'treatments'. Teerthaloke101 (talk) 10:33, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Medical quackery is big business that makes mountains of cash, so does religious quackery. Not sure which one makes more money? As for religious quackery, that was how Kenneth Copeland can afford a mansion and private jets. Got a few evil ideas. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I've done my whole "this sounds like this sounds like this hey look at this" kinda thinking, and hey, consider this after the 17 seconds of weeb action. A race in which the first contestant to devour the awful bug is the winner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3oO9rbKRKY The fear of pandemic turns into the love of money and then the subsequent loss for everyone. In context, it's a die-on-your-ass funny scene. I have no apologies.Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

The Midnight Gospel

A little weird considering the show was made by the guy who did adventure time. I watched like two episodes but the subject matter was pretty dense and I didn’t really like that it felt like I was watching a podcast. Was wondering if anyone else has seen it so far and what they think of it. Machina (talk) 02:08, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Longtime fan of Adventure Time, will check it out. (A URL would help.) Smerdis of Tlön, wekʷōm teḱsos. 16:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Well it's on Netflix. Some of the stuff was too dense for my understanding.Machina (talk) 22:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC) -its Mr. Benn crossed with Creature Comforts AMassiveGay (talk) 23:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Also a huge fan of Adventure Time, but I only watched it after enough people told me it was cool. I should probably watch this one before I lose my hipster status on cool animation. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

its very much not adventure time. the visuals are, and probably the visual narrative, adventure timey, but the dialogue is actually completely detached to the visuals, and does not follow the visual narrative at all. its actual real life interiews, taken from someguys podcast I believe, with there words put in the mouths of crazy cartoons, like creature comforts did with Claymation animals. ymmv depending on the interview. te couple ive seen are engaging enough. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I mean, that's really not a problem for me. I don't go into many things thinking "Oh, this is going to be exactly like the things I like and that's why I want to see it." I like to give things room to breathe in my brain at least for a few seconds before I start to hammer down on them with abstract comparisons. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

might not be a problem for you, but others would be disappointed if that what they where looking for and judge it hashly for not being adventure time. it really is only the visuals where the comparison is fair to make. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:18, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I didn’t really care for that style but I guess some don’t mind it, also the episodes felt like a chore to watch. The post cast style talking slapped on a cartoon was very disengaging but I figured why not give it a chance. Couldn’t really take much more after the simulation episode.Machina (talk) 18:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm giving it a shot. I got to the end of the third episode, but I was falling asleep during it, so I'll probably start at the beginning of 3 again tonight. The third episode is an interview with a guy who literally believes in Alastair Crowley magic, so I had to look it up, and he was put on death row for the murder of 3 boy scouts, only to be later released on dubious DNA claims. Like, the show is about pure woo so far, but it's also not afraid to let the woo go on, and also a REALLY interesting portal for the animation. Like, I had friends who loved Superjail, and I could look at Superjail and think "Ok, this looks alright for what it is" and put up with the garbage campy contrivances of the story, I didn't think it was that good, but the artist was definitely doodling a world. My guess is The Midnight Gospel is drawn first, with a guest or topic in mind, then probably the animation is watched and joked about and had fun with a few times, then the conversation is had on top of the animation, with a few important beats pointed out, then the animation is reworked to fit the conversation. I dunno, I'm currently more interested in how they make it happen than the animation or topics themselves, it's really cool what's being done here. Of course, I'm only 2 and 3/4ths in, and it probably helped that I watched Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time this weekend too. I'm primed to see the art as something it is and not as something it isn't trying to be. I liked MMFR, even if the war drums were headed by a guy suspended by bungees playing double guitar with a flamethrower on it, that was a little too much and I kind of had to compartmentalize it as so wildly unimportant an aesthetic to the rest of the film, except you keep hearing the war music encroach on the horizon, so it IS important to have the war music machine with a guitar, just... A guy suspended from bungees playing a double guitar/flamethrower? Ok, fine. It didn't ruin the movie but it definitely distracted me. The Midnight Gospel animation kind of feels like a more contained version of that war music machine. It's always there, it's ridiculous and nonsensical, different from the war music machine in that it's not IMPORTANT to explain or describe what you're looking at, and occasionally it pops into the conversation as a reward for paying attention. I have heard people say it's really hard to listen and watch at the same time, but I've been listening to the radio while playing video games since I was 3. Splitting my attention that way is first nature, I'm very comfortable with what I've seen from the show. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

In episode 5, there's a conversation about what is accepting a life and how it isn't nihilism, and I still call it nihilism, but I'm not careful with labels that don't hurt me. Anyway, there's a spot in the animation where the body of the voice escapes a prison where he's constantly killed and reset to his starting point, trying to escape by either being ripped apart in the prison or falling to his death, but in this later iteration, he falls off a cliff, catches a vine with a strawberry on it, and eats the strawberry. Machina, I think you posed the Tiger and Strawberry question from {https://anandbhatt.skyrock.com/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html this perspective], and I think it might be OK, but I still think it is woo-woo cuckoo to take any story and base your life on it. Nihilism. I don't remember your question or how I answered your question, because drunk recall isn't a thing, but I'm sure I've grown at least a little as a person since, I'm not trying to traffic in pure answers, that's too hippie-dippy for me, but it was really cool to see something and be like "oh, that's a reference to a Buddhist story! Guys, check out the Tiger and the Strawberry, that's a Buddhist thing!" Thanks, Machina. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:38, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman interviewed on opening up the city

If you haven't seen this interview yet, it's a lulu of greed and stupidity.[9] Bongolian (talk) 20:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Meh - it's just typical of elected public officials everywhere who believe in their own adequacy in this matter. As opposed to those who take strong advice from public health experts and defer to them.... sadyly for the USA the former seems more common than the later over there. Aloysius the Gaul 23:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

When COVID first hit, there was a story circulating that you could get paid 7,500 USD to take part in a trial based in the UK. Man, I wanted to be in that trial. I have the vacation for it. By BMI standards I'm not overweight by about 10 pounds, I just didn't exactly believe the story. I got my standard stimulus check and hoo-doggy I'm gonna do something stupid with it, but turn an entire city into a petri dish? That's low by my personal standards. I went to Las Vegas once, I wasn't happy about it. It's a city in a desert that thrives on tourists spending ALL OF THEIR money, I'm not confused about that, that's the appeal. That you'd have to be cuckoo bonkers and willing to destroy lives to make money to be the mayor of Las Vegas in the first place, it's not the mayor. Las Vegas is spectacle, glam, intentionally dirty and dangerous. In the middle of a desert. If the mayor wasn't gambling peoples' lives in favor of the only revenue for the state, what kind of mayor of Las Vegas would she be?Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

to be honest any one stuck in vegas would probably death. it looks a lot like blackpool with donkey rides on the beach. (I expect one or two mre casinos too) AMassiveGay (talk) 12:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much. I'm in So Cal, Vegas is a four-hour drive from my front door. (Had to Google Blackpool, some resort town in Jolly Old England apparently.) Thing is the surrounding region is lovely for natural stuff. Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Colorado River, Sierras. But of course 95% of tourists who aren't going to conventions or other events only go there to throw money away in the casinos and maybe see some shows. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

lol it's nowhere near "dirty and dangerous" anymore. It's a theme park owned by the casino companies surrounded by miles and miles of suburban sprawl. The mob hasn't run Vegas in a long time. Not sure if you're 'murican but not picking on you; even lots of fellow 'muricans still have this vague notion of Vegas as "dangerous" which of course is subtly promoted by the tourism authorities. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The thing that most people don't get properly is the City of Las Vegas is only a part of the Las Vegas Valley, what most people today think of as "Vegas". The Strip and lots of other shit are outside of the city. The Clark County government is basically the actual "local government" for a lot of people living there. So she doesn't even represent most people living there. She's basically a puppet for the casino companies. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

When I was in Las Vegas it was very clean and attractive, and totally boring to me. I won 150 bucks in video poker, saw Cirque du Soleil, saw Penn & Teller, drank a big giant Sam Adams and ate a lobster roll in some mall, and did the Sky Jump. There was a casino/hotel bar I walked past at some point that had the whitest hype guy I've ever seen since Skateland going "Okaaayyyy, who's ready to do some shots! Free shots, let's go! If you're doing shots put your hands in the air!" while that awful Lil Jon Shots song was blasting; I'm not trying say it IS dirty and dangerous but yeah, that's how my post reads. I was trying to say it's marketed that way. I didn't run into anything dirty or dangerous. There was a whole ad campaign that said hat happens here stays here, so visit Las Vegas. Not to discount my mayor's shortcomings, I just don't think many Mayors are as concerned with the people of their cities as the money going into their cities. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

For the sake of Argument

Please just humor me and this is extremely hypothetical. Would being able to see the future be proof of Solipsism (the hard version)? Personally I don't think it would since it's just being able to know what happens next, not that you are shaping it. At best it would show that our universe is deterministic.Machina (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Good enough answers, but the premise is ridiculous. Be careful with psychedelics, the experiences should be recognized as contained to how your brain works on psychedelics. Deja Vu, for example, is impossible to study because you can't just hold somebody around until their brain does the Deja Vu thing. Seeing the future, I don't think is best described as "seeing" but predicting the future happens pretty easily. It doesn't require solipsism or determinism. With quarantine, I am working with the same people all day every day, I've had a couple work dreams. Let me digress and say work dreams are the absolute worst dreams, people should get paid for them, but anyway, I've had a couple work dreams that have played out basically true. A worry that I or a coworker had was expressed in the dream and then it happened in a similar way IRL. This was not me "seeing the future" this was me already thinking about the problem and the people involved, with, you know, moments where I'm suddenly in my grandma's house or lost inside my own car or whatever.

Seeing the future is a hard discussion to have, since it's so nonsensical. I will humor you if you define what you mean by "seeing" the future, as opposed to "predicting" the future. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

What I mean is say you have a dream with some pretty precise details that you don't have control over. Then later on in your life you encounter the same situation down to the last detail and you remember having a dream about it. This is to guard against self fulfilling prophecy since the details in question can't possibly have been fabricated yourself. That's what I mean by see the future. Would such an instance be evidence of solipsism?Machina (talk) 01:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

But it isn't working against the brain's ability to fill in gaps. Pretty casually, this is described via Pareidolia, our brains are wired so well into a predictive state that we have to explain why our predictions are wrong. Thus the Scientific Method. I don't doubt the precise details one to one, being uncanny, but memory has also been shown to be malleable. So. Start a dream journal. You can do that even under the weight of solipsism. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:22, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not asking about the validity of seeing into the future I'm just asking if such a thing would prove solipsism to be true for the sake of argument. Read.Machina (talk) 00:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

And I guess what I'm saying is that, from my perspective the idea of seeing the future being solipsistic is not even wrong. You've already separated determinism and solipsism in a "future-sight" possibility. It's really difficult to reassure you that you're correct in doing that. Within your own experience, you are self-contained. Using the tools you've got, let's say you've somehow got some psychic ability to tell the future, some vision you had at 8 is EXACTLY THE SAME as some experience you've had at 18, and you remember the vision explicitly and nothing you've seen or thought about or dreamt has altered the memory of that vision (which is preposterous), does this COMPLETELY accurate future-vision mean that reality ends at your ability to perceive it? That's a non-sequitur, especially when you remove the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy. What I'm trying to say is, a dream, or this future-sight, or prediction, IS FABRICATED by your brain. You wouldn't have had the impression or the vision or the prediction in the first place if you weren't using your brain. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 01:52, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

No. Even if you had a dream about the future that came true with such extreme detail it made you question everything...that still wouldn't demonstrate solipsism. Why would it? Why on Earth would that be the default conclusion let alone...give you any more reason to suspect solipsism. I don't see any profound connection. What about countless other equally fantastical explanations? And what is the "hard version" of solipsism...I've never heard of that before. Could you give a definition of the "hard version" or the source where you read about it? I'm very curious to read it. ShabiDOO 02:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I thought along the same lines as well. Seeing the future, if it was real, would just prove determinism and that you can see the future. It doesn't follow that you can see the future because everything is a mental projection.Machina (talk) 05:15, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't mope around about it, I did that for a long time and I'm kind of working with what I've got anymore. Do that dream journal, I'm not fucking with you, you have the power to remember and log things that your brain just does when it's left alone. Try it, it's awful homework but you obviously know how to put a pen to paper, I have more spelling mistakes here than you do. I want to live up to correcting that, but obviously I don't have the time and people don't care as much about it as I do. It's important to carve out your own spot in which you can understand the world, and that's solipsism. Toddlers throw full on tantrums over it. Determinisim is not the answer to why you think Solipsism works. Scrying not real. If you start scrying, I'll start crying. You're not the first person I've cared about, and youre not the first person I've worried about, and I've cared and worried about people who can't tell the difference between metaphor and anecdote Stay in touch, space cadet. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

How 'illogical' is the argument 'I wear glasses - therefore solipsism is invalid (as I would not have to wear glasses)'? Anna Livia (talk) 10:30, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd say on a scale of logical soundness between 0 and 100 that would warrant about a 0.0000000000000000000000001 I'd encourage anyone making an earnest attempt to....try again. ShabiDOO 18:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Gol, the entire point of this post is from a hypothetical aspect and you keep missing the point. I am asking does X prove Y from a hypothetical aspect. Like does seeing the future prove solipsism since it counts as "shaping reality"?Machina (talk) 01:50, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Having predicted the future doesn't prove any deterministic theory either. Why would it? Again there is no reason determinism should be the go-to answer and there are numerous other possible explanations that don't require a clock-work universe in the slightest. ShabiDOO 02:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you explain that? I mean wouldn't seeing the future essentially prove a clockwork universe? Would it prove solipsism too in that you are "fabricating" the future?Machina (talk) 04:05, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

A clock-work universe is just one possible explanation. It could be a glitch in a simulation that has been altered. It could be some prophetic vision given by God. It could come from an evil genius manipulating your mind in a way you don't understand. Or some kind of universe where the will of certain people can interfere with events (thinking of a certain future leads to a specific future). Predicting the future is most certainly not proof of clockwork. ShabiDOO 16:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I fully apologize that I'm missing the question of does X prove Y hypothetically in the context of "predicting the future; does it prove solipsism and/or determinism" and trying to limit things to the brain. Seems like a 'does hypotetetical future-sight EXPLAIN (rather than IMPLY) solipsism and/or/thus determinism' kind of question which is way more complicated than hypothetically 'does X prove Y.' If Y is both solipsism and determinism, I read you wrong. I wouldn't have assumed that was the question in the first place, my shortcomings on your perspective are absolutely laid bare right here. So, my answer is... Fine, OK, whatever YES, hypothetically, unproven future-sight would prove a lot of things that we absolutely do not have proof of, so what does that answer even mean? Is that an OK answer? OK to who, me? You? God? Do you have a follow-up now that I've said yes without parameters, or is it more important that this isn't a question limited by the brain? You need to narrow your own parameters if "sometimes your brain does" is not an acceptable parameter. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 02:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I have concluded that it does not, mostly because by the tenets of Solipsism you can't really prove Solipsism since any data you would have for it would be uncertain.Machina (talk) 23:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

User:NightSkepticState/Volcel

Man, I'm getting tired of debating incels and volcels and MRAs online. They never do listen. NightSkepticState (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Incels have a ideology that is a pathetic joke. MRA's too, they are sad jokes. --Rationalzombie94 (talk) 14:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

You could learn a language in the time you spend trying to make these lamentable people see reason. ShabiDOO 02:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

And here I thought Trump couldn't get any dumber...

Apparently, he can. He has to be the biggest moronic president in American history, right? Gunther8787 (talk) 14:53, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

What's written on the board is true though. I've heard a lot of people online shitting on "injecting yourself with disinfectants" as something trump said, and if he said so, it's one of the dumbest things ever said, but what is written on that board is 100% correct. Disinfecting surfaces with rubbing alcohol works. Sunlight is inhibitory. A virus laden droplet floating in direct sunlight for an hour becomes harmless, but one indoors can last days. COVID 19 is not magic. It's just deadly. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I meant his speech. (And he just can't stop calling news outlets that have criticited him as "fake news"). Gunther8787 (talk) 15:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh good a primary source where I can see the word he act- oh god it's worse than I thought. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I hope he now vehemently denies that he ever recommended injecting people with disinfectant. I hope he throws a big hissy fit when a journalist mentions that to him and calls saying he ever said that "fake news". Because that's the closest you'll ever get to a retraction from him and it might just save some lives. Spud (talk) 15:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

To be completely fair, Mr. Trump did not, technically suggest disinfectant injections as a cure. He suggested looking into disinfectant injections, as in researching them. Now, it seems to me this is rather the same as saying, "I never said he should shoot himself. I said he should study the positive effects of shooting himself", but hey, they are technically different statements. Kencolt (talk) 16:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Don't forget the "UV light or a very bright light" bollox. Why has no-one called him an idiot to his face on live TV? Cardinal Chang (talk) 16:11, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Someone did later try to get him to clarify about the injection remarks. Bill Bryan tried to redirect to the actual subject he was talking about (namely, technologies to help kill the virus). Trump unhelpfully added some incoherent mishmash in response. My takeaway impression is Trump's mind was as usual wandering in la-la land. Soundwave106 (talk) 17:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

In India there are those who think that drinking cow urine is a good idea. Trump's statements are really stupider than saying "We should investigate drinking cow urine" - because at least cow urine isn't immediately fatal.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:17, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

And is he now trying to walk it back with "I was being sarcastic"? Will even his base buy that?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:36, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

His base would buy it if he murdered a three-year old girl and said he thought she was threatening him.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 19:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, any time we quibble about semantics, Trump's choice of words, we should always keep in mind that his supporters will twist whatever he says into their own terms and he can both take credit and excuse whatever consequence happens afterward. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 20:08, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

This whole period is going to be defined by people looking back and asking "How dumb were the people alive back then?" ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 20:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Have you tried rebooting? — Oxyaena ^Harass 21:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Someone get over here and help with the two person restart procedure. You push the 'start' button, I'll tap the relay with a screwdriver handle.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 21:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"I was being sarcastic." Well that's the closest you'll ever get to a retraction from him.

Here are two predictions I have for what Donald Trump will say when all of this is finally over. He will say that nobody can ever criticize him ever again because he personally saved the world from the coronavirus and the person criticizing him wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for Saviour Trump. He will also say that there never was a COVID-19 pandemic, that the whole thing was a hoax that the establishment cooked up just to make him look bad and that he never fell for it. He'll probably make both claims in the same breath and fail to see that one statement contradicts the other. Spud (talk) 02:02, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

If he loses the election, there's a reasonable chance that he will claim that the votes of all his supporters that he killed by-his-clusterfuck/the-coronavirus should be counted to tip the balance in his favor.[10] Bongolian (talk) 04:48, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

And furthermore if he wins, it will certainly involve his incompetence with the coronavirus disproportionately killing people of color or the economically worse off(cant afford health insurance) who vote Democrat, meaning he has been rewarded the highest office for his prejudiced, neronian misrule.Flandres (talk) 05:16, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I must ask which president was the most politically humiliating? Trump's remarks about the virus that could get people killed or Herbert Hoover's move to have police use violence against the Bonus Army? Both are political suicide. --Racia zombio94 (talk) 22:59, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Definitely Trump, as not only his incompetence but active agency in killing his own people has treated us to the sight of state governments being forced to do federal work and make new pacts among themselves for relief, and I cannot stress enough that a a nation which sees its central government lose power to local organizations and entities is not "in a crisis" but "actually dying." What happens when future disasters like this hit? They WILL happen, and even if Biden wins some of the Damage four years of Trump did will probably never be fully recovered from.Flandres (talk) 23:08, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

It is if your baseline is a modern centralized state, but until the 20th century the U.S. national government was basically the military, diplomatic corps, customs, and the ramshackle national capital. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just giving a historical counterpoint. It's an open question as to whether the country could move back towards that today and still stay a "country"! Really this is what underlies a lot of national political problems: retrofitting a powerful centralized state onto what was designed to be a loose federation of states. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I was more referring to the fact that the government had these powers recently and is losing them now. It is one thing to gradually become more centralized as times change, or even having a president who willingly devolves powers as some sort of reform program, but this is the ad hoc result of local forces taking the initiative when the center simply will not do so. It creates mistrust and regionalism, and those are the worrying precedents that suggest decline.Flandres (talk) 04:32, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

You're expecting the election to happen normally and him to leave office if he comes in second? I'm thinking he'll just say it's "postponed" because "the virus" and also because there will probably be unrest due to 30% unemployment. You libs want to endanger people by having them all gather together in polling places when there's a disease going around and so many are going hungry? Why do you libs have no regard at all for human life, just like with the millions murdered by abortion? The Democratic leadership will wring their hands and say it's "deeply concerning" but they'll agree to compromise by not making a fuss if the next budget includes a nonrefundable tax credit for food savings accounts. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:13, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Remember, Trump is the one bashing vote by mail, and the Dems are the ones supporting it. The GOP are the ones demanding that people go to polling places to vote (like in Wisconsin). Blackmun pointed out how abortion cannot be considered murder by any sane person, and the GOP actually murdered over a dozen in Flint, not to mention in the War on Terror. There was little unrest in the 1932 elections despite comparable unemployment. It's just a power grab on Trump's part.𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 13:10, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

What is DT's opinion on 'fluoridation destroying precious bodily fluids'? (Develop to taste) Anna Livia (talk) 15:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

What's in your trunk/boot?

I smoke cigarettes when I drive. I didn't do this until the age of 25. Last Thursday, it started snowing and, as luck would have it, my window stopped going up. And as luck would have it, we got the full 4 inches of snow, there's a stupid kind of magic about the world. I tried pulling the window up by force for about a minute before I said out loud to myself "life is tough sometimes" and gave up. Soooo, I went back to my car the next morning, and there was some snow in it, again, "life is tough sometimes," I didn't say that because I wanted to be mad. Shoveled out the worst of it and went to work. The stuff on the top of the car really looked cool.

Anyway, What I figured it was the window motor that went bad. I bought a new motor with in-store pickup last Friday (a week ago today) thinking I'll just go grab it, swap it out, no big deal. Got no confirmation all Friday about my motor being ready for me to pick it up and I was like "this should be easy." No email that my part was picked or ready for me to get it.

Got an email Saturday at 7:55 am that my order was picked. No big deal, I've been to an auto parts store before, I decided to go around 4 when I had the time, and here is where things get weird. Which, if you've ever been in an auto parts store, things are already weird.

First off, I was asked to stand outside to maintain a 10 person limit inside, which I said "No, that's totally fine" and the lady holding the door got pissed at the people inside and kept screaming "I need a head count~" and I said, "There's no one in line behind me, I am ok waiting until three people leave." because that's her job. I, eventually got in, and there's no lines set up, just like, movie theater queue tape in front of closed registers and plexiglass in front of the registers, and some customers are walking right up past the registers to try and talk about I don't know what, motor oil and shit. Meanwhile I'm just standing in this sea of customers who want to social distance and want to get their shit. 25 minutes I spent in line, two times I just waved somebody who was in line before I got inside up to the counter, but the cashiers were moving so slow. Took me about 25 minutes to get to the counter, Tooke me about 15 seconds to give proof of my order, the guy took 5 minutes to grab my order.

So, whatever, I'm back out the door, wished the door lady good luck, Had the motor. I drove to my work where I had access to tools. Pulled the interior, pulled the motor, the part that I bought online that said would fit my vehicle did not fit. I was like "What the FUCK" for a second, and then I noticed that it wasn't the motor that was bad, it was the regulator. The regulator works like glass door blinds, but instead of having thread or whatever, the spool is wound with probably steel twine. The twine was skipping the spool and coming unwound, so I just kinda tugged on it until I could pull my window up and cinched the whole thing up and re-assembled the door.

So I bought a new regulator that fit the new motor and had it shipped one day, because being flexible is paramount. It took me about 50 minutes to try and change the motor out, it took me about an hour and 15 minutes to change the whole thing. I'm really proud of myself for being able to change out an entire power window mechanism on my own, hence the bigass story behind it. So, let's talk about the things in my trunk finally.

I've moved a few things from car to car, and my current car has no hydraulicleft to keep the trunk door from closing. I went to help a friend change a tire, and while I was digging around in my well, the trunk door closed on me like a fucking python. BUT I DIGRESS, this is about what's IN my trunk, not stories ABOUT what's in my trunk. I have a set of jumper cables, a Bible, that plaque I suddenly remember, the Yamaha beginner's guide to guitar, the Communist Manifesto, a jacket (that belonged to my late grandpa), and some antifreeze. Also, obviously, a spare tire, a jack and a tire iron. Also a snow scraper/brush and a windshield cover now, but what I've passed from one trunk to the next is kinda cool, like, before I forget myself. Gol Sarnitt (talk) 03:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

;;(True) A case of Guinness (Yes, this is in California). Whenever anyone puts an order of groceries or whatnot in, I tell them they can have one. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 04:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Good read, I have been watching British panel shows and not Tiger King.Llet me slap some button and ask are people really going out of their way to stockpile Guinness? Is it just Guinness? That's a weird beer to stockpile. But America doesn't have many beers you can just about chew, and California is supposed to be pretty worldly... ,Gol Sarnitt (talk) 04:46, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

(True) Why not, why would you take the opportunity to make something up with zero stakes? Gol Sarnitt (talk) 05:36, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps they're hoarding Guinness because of the ever-lingering dubious claims that it's healthy.[11] Draft Guinness in Ireland is sublime (particularly with oysters), but it doesn't travel so well that it keeps it sublimeness. Bongolian (talk) 07:51, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

>started snowing *laughs in Californian* Of course, we do have snow here. We keep it in the mountains where it belongs. Also obviously cigarettes are horrible and will condemn you to a lifetime of emptying your wallet in exchange for the joy of slowly dying in terrible fashion. Kick the addiction by any means possible. You will probably need drug-assisted therapy which is obviously not some "moral failing". Vaping is fine if it lets you quit the cancer sticks. Just buy the nic from non-shady places. (Also try not to become a douchebag like some "vapers" do for whatever reason.) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:29, 26 April 2020 (UTC)