RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive404

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, (new)(back)

Sidwell Friends School

Ahoy, matey! Beware, for there be a great sea of Concern Troll Bullshit ahead!

For those unaware, most of the "elite" politicians in Washington DC send their children to a religious school called Sidwell Friends (Quaker) School. Students there are required to attend chapel services. Because people like Obama's daughters go there, taxpayer funds are spent on security for the school. What is the atheist/antitheist position on this funding of Sidwell Friends School? 77.111.246.40 (talk) 19:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Why Obama, specifically? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:19, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

This sounds Ken-like to me...Andrew5 (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

This is a silly question. Protected individuals are supposed to receive protection no matter where they go. The church is not being protected when a secret service group goes into it with the President.Ariel31459 (talk) 19:28, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

'Collateral benefits'? Anna Livia (talk) 20:06, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Additionally the BoN is incorrect, Obama's daughters have both graduated from the school in question, per Wikipedia. I literally want to know hwy Obama was used as an example though, given that he is currently a private citizen. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:31, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I used Obama as an example because he was the most recent POTUS to send his kids there (and therefore donate Secret Service protection to a religious school), but I could have just as easily used Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon as an example (and I could almost swear Bush's kids went there, but the Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about that). Not to mention other important politicians' kids go there, probably with some help from the taxpayers (security wise), and I believe I read they participate in some kind of a voucher program. Also, do you really think Ken is intelligent enough to use a VPN (which I always use, as you can see in WHOIS on my IP)? Ken is rather stupid as I understand. 2001:67C:2628:647:9:0:0:67 (talk) 22:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no atheist position for anything. This looks like someone just fishing for a comment that they can hop all over. I am not a fan of public funds going towards religious education and in some European countries this is not permitted. You can do it at Sunday school or have classes after school, funded by their own money. I do not see why people of one religion or of no religion must fund any religious activities for others, just as a Democrat/Liberal shouldn't have to fund activities of the Republican/Conservative party. Having said that, I don't see why it would matter where secret service went if it were in the protection of elected officials. If the secret service were providing extra security for people at a religious school (or a political fundraiser) beyond the scope of protecting a religious figure or their family...that would be inappropriate. Again though, this is not the "atheist" position on it because there is no "atheist" position on anything. The views of those who lack faith in God, are extremely diverse and generalising about them would be absurd. It would be like asking for the view of "those who don't believe in Karma" or "those who don't believe in Ghosts" or "those who don't believe in Santa Claus". Zheesh. ShabiDOO 00:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Using Opera's VPN is not enough to make one a k-rad 31337 H4X0R (and Ken is indeed stupid enough of an asshole to pay for a VPN, from what I recall seeing). Nor is concern trolling. My personal "atheist position" is that whatever your purpose of this bullshit is, you certainly aren't asking the right questions. (The US doesn't need a Europe style "Eton sector", but we sure seem to be heading that direction if we aren't already there...) PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 01:37, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

December 29-January 2 tornado outbreak to close shortly

So far we saw 11 tornadoes from December 29-31. January 1 saw so far a possible tornado in Hopkinsville, KY, and more tornadoes, potentially some EF2+ could touch down.

However, the models currently predict only a 2% chance of tornadoes (within 25 miles/40 kilometers) for tomorrow (I couldn't get the URL archived), near cities like Talahassee, Mobile, Columbus, Savanah, Columbia and Charleston.

Severe weather will then die off, like it normally does in winter. Not sure when January, if January, will revive.

Also, the flooding in Malaysia is still ongoing, nearly 50 dead so far. Andrew5 (talk) 19:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

UPDATE:

There were two tornadoes so far, one in Bowling Green which got slammed with a tragic tornado 3 weeks ago that killed 17, an EF1 in Georgia yesterday caused six injuries, this could be a big outbreak. Andrew5 (talk) 20:51, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, as you seem so keen on the weather, have you tried Weatherpedia? They seem to be out of any leadership at the moment

(Meet the Admins: There are no Admins on this wiki yet. Contact us to be the first!

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You could possibly take charge over there, indulge your wikilawyering and talk about the US's weather to your heart's content and incidentally stop your activities on RW which would probably be a relief to many of us. Scream!! (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I actually didn't see that, all I saw was a bunch of NWS tweets. Speaking of, all Americans should review this. I do occasionally edit on the Hypothtical Hurricanes Wiki, however.

Did I also tell you that this will be the last severe outbreak for a while? Don't worry, weather posts will be dying down. Besides I have too much referencing of articles here to leave. Andrew5 (talk) 21:45, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

"weather posts will be dying down" Wow! No more daily updates on US weather phenomena? Whatever will we do for excitement?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 18:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, why don't you keep your weather related posts in the Salon down to say, 20% of usual? So like...if you would normally post 5 items, just post 1. And, consider being quite selective what you choose, as in, topics or examples that would engage and interest a multitude of users here, not just weather enthusiasts. Even the most interesting topic grows dull quickly if it is posted again and again. ShabiDOO 18:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Actually I suppose it could be worse. Suppose Andrew were a train spotter and we got daily updates on rare trains which might be on the rails.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 18:34, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I could probably reduce it to 1 in 4, but it depends on the news cycle. However, I have found something interesting -- see below. Andrew5 (talk) 19:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

After Skool Youtube channel

Dont know if this has already been dicussed but Does anyone follow this youtube channel? The channel offers plenty of plenty of perspectives from figures like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan that are illustrated and drawn as well as explain concepts like the Dunning-Krueger effect. From what I’ve been able to gather so far it seems to have a right wing libertarian leaning that ventures into conspiracy theory/survivalism territory from time to time but does offer a mixed bag of other perspectives as well.SensaurC-137 (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The channel has 2.15 million subscribers, so I'm neutral to the idea. Andrew5 (talk) 18:57, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

New Korea news

South Korean crosses DMZ in rare defection into North Korea. Andrew5 (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

That does not happen very often. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 21:01, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Andrew5 (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Need goat

Hi, I'm new here and greener than the grass the goat is grazing. It has taken me a while but I have figured out that the site has jokes, self-parody, and a serious side. I haven't figured out what it means for a page to "need goat". Does that mean it needs more humour, or does it mean something different or more subtle? I have searched for an explanation but not found one yet. Thanks. Munfr (talk) 02:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably the category page itself explains it: "The following articles are in need of more information, RWification, Snark and/or Goats." As for "RWification", you probably should check our help pages, like our Newcomers Guide to figure it out, but you'll get the hang of it the longer you stay here. --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 02:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for replying, but the category page just has a link to the Goat page. It does not explain what it means to "need goat" at all, and exemplifies why I'm needing to ask. Munfr (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

To "need goat" means that it is lacking in some way such that it does not adequately instantiate the aspirations of Rationalwiki. This is something you grok through experience, and different people disagree about what specifically it means in practice anyway. You probably about have it when you figure out why the phrase references goats. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 23:43, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

About the same as the French "je ne sais quoi." If the person using it knew, they wouldn't say "goat."UncleKrampus (talk) 00:37, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Perihilion approaches

Earth is about to get closest to sun. Andrew5 (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Trump has lately been advocating vaccination and now booster shots, even with his supporters' disapproval.

I personally wouldn't trust him to ever be president again especially with his attitude toward losing. However, should he be given credit for lately changing his ways on vaccination and advocating people to do the right thing? He is even advocating it after his supporters have been booing him. Who'd have thought he'd give up respect from his supporters in favor of standing for what is right?Checkouthenews (talk) 01:02, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

That's true, but most Republicans support the vaccine. Andrew5 (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Alex Jones has said Trump is either ignorant or evil. So, both men have told the truth for once. Remarkable.Ariel31459 (talk) 01:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Fun fact - Alex Jones was also subjected to domestic abuse by his wife. Andrew5 (talk) 23:22, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

what would we be giving him credit for? hes one the primary reasons are there anti vaxxers in the first place. we are meant to say well done now, after how many deaths thats hes responsible for? its not like hes saying he was wrong, or hes seen the error of his ways. hes not putting himself in danger or risking his job, losing any friends or family, all hes faced is some boos while he tells them they should take a vaccine that he's taking personal personal credit for creating. give up the respect of his supporters? he doesnt give a shit about his supporters or their respect. he just wanted their votes, fuck their respect, and not enough em did vote for him, so fuck them. now he can look 'brave' while 'he does the right thing' so slightly less rabid republicans might vote for him. wont make any noticeable difference to the pandemic, not now, not after all that he helped wrought. but good for him though. good for him. AMassiveGay (talk) 02:03, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Enter him on the 'stopped clock' page, someone. But please note that it only took about a damn year in a global pandemic to finally admit publically in front of his cult something we all knew and (ideally) had also gone through.

That's the nearest I'm going to go to giving any credit. Plus, I keep on hearing he's a deadbeat who welches on his debts. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Trump killed 188,000 Americans from his malice and ineptitude as of the end of January 2021 (COVID-19 pandemic#Trump body count). That doesn't count post-presidential deaths attributable to him. Whatever he says will never atone for that; it's not stopped clock. Bongolian (talk) 03:46, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment somewhat in-cheek. And I never said a word about 'atonement'. Nor am I giving him a medal for admitting a single elementary fact which does not pander to the folks in his safe-space rallies.

But ironically, he's in a bit of a bind here. He's love to take credit for the vaccines ('it was all my doing, Operation Warp Speed!') but doing so would massively hack off the MAGA-hats and other loons who he must keep sweet to make a decent play for the '24 GOP ticket. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Trump is quite capable of saying two contradictory things in the same paragraph - or even in the same semi-sentence. And his knowledge of biology is probably best summed up by his "let them inject bleach" comments.

But there is no doubt that warp-speed was a success and it's certainly good to hear him telling people to get vaccinated.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:10, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the majority of his fansies would notice if he stood up and took credit for something which they think is 'evil'. And what did he do for 'Warp Speed'? Pony up a load of cash and ask the medical regulators to ease up a bit on the safety regs so we could get it out quicker - the Johnson Govt here in the UK did similar. The USA had three strong cards to play here; a strong medical industry, a large amount of brainpower and unlimited funds. None of these were Trump's doing. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Meh, I have no problem giving Trump credit for Operation Warp Speed (yes, cash and regs was all it was, but what else could government do?) and his recent comments saying that the vaccines are good (although that's always been his position as I see it, he's been reluctant to say so until this year). As noted, most Republicans as a whole are fine with the vaccines, but Trump's Biggest Vocal Fans have always had a tendency for fringe kookiness where vaccines are (insert Dale Gribble style whackdoodle theory here) and are unspeakably evil Big Pharma or something. So he's slightly sticking his neck out. I don't think it's stopped clock per se because Trump did some serious harm with his 2020 populism bullshit on COVID-19. But it's a small bit of a nice about-face in an era where asshats like Tucker Carlson are doubling down on lies. If only Trump would do the same for his anti-democratic musings... PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:04, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, but issue is Trump needs all the Gribbles to get him on the GOP nomination for '24. Those saner, 'mainline Republicans' never really seemed to be enamoured by him or his antics. While I think he'll survive this, if Orange One tacks too far into sanity, he'll leave himself open to have the kook vote stolen by a contender even more nuts.

And what else could have Washington done? - in the final months of Trump's reign, sorted out logistics etc so when the rollout happened, it would go without a hitch. The American one was a lot more haphazard than for example, the British one. Trump *could* have also have worked at wrapping up the 'great, powerful, American!' vaccines with the flag to make it an act of patriotism to take it 'to beat the China virus!' etc. While I cringed a bit at seeing the Johnson Govt do similar with the Ox/AZ vaccine, it did the job of getting right-wingers to support it. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Further evidence that this was not 'stopped clock': literally no one cares, not his opponents nor his hardcore supporters. In a non-scientific poll of Gab users 97% said tRump's booster did not make them more comfortable getting a vaccine. The owner of Gab, Andrew Torba said the vaccine was a "death jab" and that tRump's booster was "so cringe".[1] His "death jab" was too little, too late to have any meaning in the real world. Bongolian (talk) 02:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plants

https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2021/12/28/a-ukraine-invasion-will-go-nuclear-15-reactors-are-in-the-war-zone/?sh=32ca8f1b27aa

Okay, this Forbes article claims that if Russia invaded Ukraine directly and not use proxies i.e. separatist groups; they would attack nuclear power plants. The article also claims that Russia would actually destroy said nuclear power plants. Honestly, while not impossible, I would not consider it very likely. The main problem of radioactive contamination would not just affect Ukraine. With the direction of winds, radiation would spill into Russia. Any strategic benefit would be destroyed by environmental destruction.

Now a more realistic scenario would be (in the event of Russian invasion), would be them simply taking control of the nuclear plants and holding Ukraine hostage. It would be a far better plan and with far less risks. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 20:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

They already hold Ukraine hostage - how would holding hte power plants be any differnet? This year the winter heating in Ukraine is for a shorter peroid, less time every day, and costs more...... all due to Russia, and htey can STILL turn hte gas off...... Look wher the nuclear plants are in Ukraine - they would have to occupy the country - see https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/ukraine.aspx Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 00:36, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I am aware of the gas crisis. Knowing the way things are going i.e. pretty good odds of invasion (I obviously don't trust anything Putin says), occupying nuclear plants would be more realistic if Russia actually invaded. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes my point is that if they invade then they INVADE - the power plants and everything else gets occupied, but all that is incidental to the INVASION - it is that which will cause the next war in Europe - not that the occupied infrastructure is occupied!! Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 10:52, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The scenario unfolding apparently is the D.C. warmongers are arming and encouraging the Ukraine govt. to attempt to retake Crimea, so that when the Russians attempt to defend Crimea, it then will be exploited as a "Russian invasion" of Ukraine in Western media. Dutchbag (talk) 01:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Russia's already begun pulling their troops out. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:15, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

This whole dust-up shows how gullible Western media consumers are. Russia already "invaded" Ukraine 7 years ago, and Obama & Trump did nothing. Now the D.C. warmongers are trying to convince Ukrainians to start shooting at Russians in Crimea so the Russians will shoot back from disputed Ukrainian territory, but the Ukrainians just witnessed how Biden stood by the promises made to the Afghan National govt. Dutchbag (talk) 03:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Ukrainian government has opinions about the whole Russia thing. They released several public speeches and statements to that effect. Rather explicitly. As for the state of geoplotics well... The US's reputation hasn't really been that great for years, the last two presidents have just made a slightly dirty reputation worse. Last four if we really wanted to be honest with ourselves. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:52, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The idea Ukraine would try to re-take the Crimea on its own is ludicrous, even with Gen. Milley and the boys standing behind them trying to push them into it. They know the U.S. has priorities elsewhere, like Guam, the South China and Taiwan. It looks more like the Pentagon & the Brits trying to shore up the NATO alliance, which Germany isn't thrilled about. What? you think Germany is interested in war in the Donbass after Stalingrad? Dutchbag (talk) 09:31, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dutchbag It looks like you're trying to find any avenue of attacking the Biden administration. That's what it looks like. You single out the head of the joint chiefs of staff, a man attacked quite a bit by the right for... being very fucking practical. That's it. He's not some commie leftwinger. And you ignore the other four joint chiefs as if they didn't exist. You ignore our entire foreign affairs department, which includes our diplomatic corp, and make rather unfounded accusations. Did the media play up the possibly of war? Yes. Sensationalism sells papers. Did the US government? Not exactly. They responded to Russia, as Russia's government did to them. One of them had to back down to de-escalate the situation. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:05, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

No. The current news stories originated with DNI Avril Haines, of CIA torture coverup fame. Dutchbag (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dutchbag So which is it? Is the threat credible or not? I know you people only really think in terms of partisan contrarianism, but fucking hell you dipshits need to learn how international politics works. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand your reference to partisanship. The facts look like the US and NATO (less the German contingent) are trying to provoke a war with Russia. Analysis can discern motive. Dutchbag (talk) 22:15, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Dutchbag They literally aren't. Literally no one, including Russia, actually wants war. Russia began making expansionist moves, which by the way they've been doing since at least 2014, and NATO, being an opposing political bloc, made moves to counter them in response. Like this literally isn't that hard to understand. You don't need to blame Milley, or Biden, or even Putin or Trump. This literally what nation-states do. The fact that all your blame is laid at the feet of the people the GOP blames for everything internal or military related at the moment is very telling. Hence the me saying you're partisan. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

That's what I said, the invasion already took place in 2014. Since 2014, an internal civil conflict has been ongoing in Donbass, with Russia giving aid to Russian nationals living in Donbass. In 2021, NATO has placed forces on the ground in Ukraine, supplying aid, weapons, and training Ukrainian militia combatants. Russia has responded by shoring up its border.

The question is, Who provoked whom? Discredited Western media is, once again, spouting CIA talking points. Dutchbag (talk) 22:51, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Discredited my ass. Your alternatives are literal propaganda networks. As for who provoked whom, it doesn't matter. At all. Period. Russia was never going to piss off one of its largest customers, and NATO was never going to go to war with one of it's largest suppliers of oil and gas. Oh did I forget to mention that? Yeah, most of the EU (which makes up the bulk of NATO) buys oil and gas from Russia. Eastern Europe does too. As for the CIA... They don't want war. Seriously, spies are shit in warzones. The CIA, like every international spook outfit, wants to bring home intel so they can get nice large budget allotments. Which means advancing US interests abroad. And going to war with Russia is not in the US' interests. I'd say I don't know why you have a conspiracy boner, but that'd be a lie given your statements in other threads. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I can't disagree with any of that. The problem is, NATO is still there on the ground. As are CIA paramilitary groups. Dutchbag (talk) 08:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Let me clarify: Someone is making a miscalculation, and it's that same someone or somebodies talking to the press, raising alarm bells, which is why we're talking about it here.

And you are absolutely correct, nobody gives a fuck about Ukraine's border. Nobody gives a fuck about the U.S. border, either. Dutchbag (talk) 09:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

This is why I hate contrarian bullshiters. You point out how they're wrong and then they try to pivot to a different talking point. They conspiracy-monger and make wild assertions, and ignore anything that contradicts their narratives at any given time, because they don't actually believe in or support anything. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:15, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Uh, GC, only as far back as 2014? Did you forget about Ossetia/Georgia in 2008? And that's not getting into the debate as to whether the two Chechen wars were Russia struggling to hold onto their territory or conquering what was never theirs to begin with. CorruptUser 19:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I said "at least 2014". ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 06:35, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

You are technically correct but I'm concerned that you (and most of the world) seems to have already forgotten about Ossetia. I mean, in another 10 years will Crimea too be forgotten? CorruptUser 14:30, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Osettia was a much smaller conflict then Crimia. Take a look at the Wikipedia pageviews. The Russo-Georgian War was an 11 day conflict where around 350 military people and anywhere between 390 and 590 civilians dead, including this dude. Russo-Ukraine saw around 10,000 die in the military and around 3300 civilians die. It is also ongoing and about to enter it's 8th year. As such, it is reasonable to forget about Osettia but not Crimea. Andrew5 (talk) 19:43, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

So why is NATO involved? Is this another R2P? Responsibility to Protect like Libya? Why doesn't NATO just fuck off to Yemen or somewhere else. Shit, Ukraine doesn't even make List of ongoing armed conflicts § Major wars (10,000 or more combat-related deaths in current or past year), but Mexico sure the fuck is on the list. Dutchbag (talk) 16:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I get it, I get it. Ukrainians are white people, and Mexicans, Sudanese, Ethiopians, and Yemenis are people of color. That's why Western media and the CIA has its underwear in a knot. Dutchbag (talk) 16:20, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag You know that the US and its allies have more intel agencies than the CIA right? I get that you're really happy to suck Putin's cock if it means "winning" online arguments, but at least up the quality of your bullshit for fuck's sake. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:06, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

It's just a minor thing, but Mexico doesn't make the "major war list" you linked either. The major thing is that you: A. Don't get that the roles that the combatant parties themselves play in how conflicts are handled ("Why doesn't NATO engage in diplomacy with the Zetas??") B. Don't seem aware of current initiatives and efforts in those other conflicts and C. Are able to easily brush aside the above because you don't actually seem to understand the purpose of the organization, and get horribly confused about why NATO is more concerned with a Russian proxy war in, and even hypothetical invasion of, a country that borders four NATO countries seemingly over conflicts on different continents. NATO isn't the UN, Resolution 1973 happened, you can ask yourself why a similar thing hasn't happened in Ethiopia (hint: certain discussed parties have blocked UN action), and refresh yourself on the basis the Western world has legitimized force projection for the last few millenia (again, this would help explain why NATO scolds Russia in Europe instead of drone striking cartel bosses) Buck (talk) 16:16, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

GC, your one-upmanship is flailing. My reference to the CIA is an idiomatic appeal to the lowest common denominator, much the same way your "Putin is Hitler" is.

Buck, That makes perfect sense. NATO is fine with a criminal organization taking over and destroying a nation state that borders the US and supposedly is a US ally prior to the criminal organization castrating the government. And you are wrong, both the territory of Mexico and government of Mexico are on the WP list of Wars that killed 10,000 or more last year. Ukraine saw 113 deaths last year, whereas Mexico has had 64,000 since 2008 and Ukraine 13,000 in the same timeframe. But both Mexico (and Ethiopia) are people of color, so fuck em, huh? Dutchbag (talk) 04:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

And this comment: "Don't seem aware of current initiatives and efforts in those other conflicts"; yah that's a brilliant idea. Let's give Mexico $83 billion worth of Blackhawk helicopters and Hummers so the government can promptly abandon them to the Sinaloa cartel. Better yet, we can send Kamala down to discover the root causes. And you don't seem to understand that NATO is a military alliance built and funded by the United States. Dutchbag (talk) 05:00, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Do I have to put any more effort in replying to this beyond "Click your own link, and reread part C?" Buck (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

How convenient. Those racist scum at Wikipedia took Mexico off the list five hours after I posted the link above. See for yourself. Revision as of 23:19, 2 January 2022. Dutchbag (talk) 11:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

They moved it to the correct section (Wars) given that it no longer qualified for the Major Wars table. Settle down. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 11:19, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

So it was in there for a whole year before I called attention to it. Meanwhile, the 16,000 people of color killed in the conflict can just fuck off (compared to the 113 white privileged dead Ukrainians, some of which may actually be Russians). That's encouraging. Dutchbag (talk) 11:43, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

It was there for a year because it met the criteria to be there for a year; then when the new year ticked over it no longer did due to fewer casualties (<10,000 in 2021). I really don't understand what you think you've found here, other than someone diligently updating year-based wp tables at the start of January. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 11:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

As I read it, it says only 7,800 were killed in 2021, and that's why it was moved, which calls into question WP's credibility for acurate reporting. But that is subject for another place and time. Dutchbag (talk) 12:07, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

One final comment on the Osetian and Georgian conflicts: In August 2008 candidate Obama said this about the Osetia conflict:

• "The United States should call for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to condemn Russia's decision in coordination with our European allies....Senator Biden and I bla bla bla

yah, the Security Council where Russia can promptly veto it. Translation: "Neither I, nor any campaign advisors, have any understanding of international relations or how the world works, and we assume the American people are just as stupid." At least that's how Putin read those remarks. Dutchbag (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• The eighties are calling. They want their foreign policy back. Dutchbag (talk) 05:10, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

On a similar topic

On the topic of warmongering. With China and Taiwan, I swear that is currently the biggest dick measuring contest in the world right now; mostly on China's/PRC part. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 13:14, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

(edit: bump) If global conflict is an interest, I urge all that read this to follow the robust open source intelligence community on Twitter. AuroraIntel, Aleph, OsinTechnical, CalibreObscura are great places to start. Be prepared to filter out bias (Saudi and Israeli in particular), but it's a truly informative community. 138.207.198.74 (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

North korea again

Fires another missile at South Korea's direction. Andrew5 (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

North Korea loves to fire missiles to act tough even though just a few nations could wipe them off the face of the Earth. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Blizzard causes major traffic issues in DC area

3 dead in SUV crash in Maryland, Senator Kaine and others stuck in Virginia winter storm for 24 hours. Andrew5 (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Going further down the Wikipedia Rabbit hole

Out of boredom, I decided to read Mikemikev's article again and clicked on his LTA page on Wikipedia. I went back to the "active LTA" page and a lot of that stuff is hilarious. There's an LTA for someone that obsesses over Pinkalicious, another for using talkpages as discussions for the subject in hand, and the really out there "Supreme Ghengis Khan". If you got time to kill, check out the list. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 17:18, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

If you're bored...consider learning basic communication in another langue, how to play the guitar or send emails to people you've fallen out of touch with!ShabiDOO 17:40, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I was bored enough to check that "langue" is an actual English word: "a language viewed as an abstract system used by a speech community, in contrast to the actual linguistic behaviour of individuals." The more you know... LongStylus (talk) 17:55, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Learning a second language is a great idea. I want to learn Spanish and another foreign language as I plan on traveling abroad this year if the pandemic ends or substantially wanes. As far as my work, I decided to switch companies recently due to my company facing heavy competition in the English-speaking market, but low competition for Spanish speaker market. Learning Spanish in the U.S. is a great skill to have. It might also help keep you sharp. People who are multilingual have lower dementia rates. Pokelova (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

The Anglosphere is full of people who never learn another language. This is a HUGE loss. The benefits are enormous, beyond just being able to communicate, travel and enjoy more literature, cinema, media etc. Every time you add another language it adds to who you are, how you see people and greatly improves your communication skills in your own language. Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn. Spanish speakers are also generally very patient with beginners. There are tons of free resources and might be one of the most useful language to speak in the US. Set a simple goal like learning to count to 25, the 25 most basic words, 5 most basic expressions and get it all done within a week. If you can actually follow through, you're likely to move on to bigger challenges (and follow through). ShabiDOO 18:48, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Or join Duolingo. Duolingo will then spend the next year stalking you.

Si necesita buscar lo que dice esto, lo visitaré. —Duo

CorruptUser 19:03, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Suprisingly I am not on that list. I created an LTA page for someone, this one, and during my HT495 time tracked this LTA and this one. Andrew5 (talk) 19:51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Lolbert moment

This𝔖𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞 𝔄𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔬𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔞 (𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔰) (𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔞) 21:59, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

What crypto miners look like crashing AMDs website to be able to have the chance of scooping up the entire stock just for the purpose of generating shitty monkey JPEGs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjedLeVGcfE Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 15:28, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Fairly parasitic behavior, no? Can someone pull a Mathew Sobol and have them executed with drones? Artificius (talk) 16:50, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I remember the days when if people wanted to donate spare CPU cycles on a computer, you would do things like help scientists compute protein folding. Now, we are at the point where even a well known anti-virus/security software company of the past (Norton 360) wants to install a hard-to-remove crypto miner and use people's spare computer cycles for cryptomining (and skim 15% of the proceeds, of course). Ah, devolution... PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I remember when a webcomic would let you mine Ethereum on their behalf while browsing their forums in exchange for merch. Honestly, bitcoin/ether/etc wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the exponentially increasing difficulty of computing the blockchain. Like, if it only cost a watt-hour per transaction from now until infinity, I wouldn't give a rat's arse about crypto, but at the moment every single time you trade any amount of Bitcoin you use up more than an entire Megawatt-hour, which is literally more than half a ton of coal. Every single transaction. And it's only going to get worse! CorruptUser 20:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Youtube Hashtag

So, I noticed today that there is a new hashtag circulating on Twitter called #PickASideYoutube.

What happened this time? 2A02:1812:2C66:D000:F166:6F45:4548:4CAF (talk) 22:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Knowyourmeme has an article. Seems like just another online drama (with perhaps a whiff of moral panic that pedophilia discussions sometimes have) over the content policy of a megatech company well known for shitty moderation. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 23:43, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

First Smerdis and now April

Kinda sad that within two weeks lost two intelligent users that deviated a bit from more center-left ideas that are dominant on RW (although in April's case she just LANCB'd so she might come back in the future). I hope we can get more qualified, motivated users with different ideas in the future. GeeJayK (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Wait, why did April leave? CorruptUser 19:02, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

She does not appear to have given a reason. Bongolian (talk) 19:39, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

She just left an explanation on her home page (User:AprilIsTrying). Bongolian (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Any chance of a recap?

I've been with family since December 15th, and barely checked the wiki in that period. Coming back today, it looks like a lot has happened in that time period. Is there a chance someone could get me up to speed on what's happened, or is it still touchy (as wiki events can be)? armed_roomba (she/her)^{What am I doing wrong this time?} 19:04, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks like RationalWikiWiki is kaput for now. Catch up on drama by looking at RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive list and RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation/Archive List. New mainspace pages at: Special:NewPages. Bongolian (talk) 19:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

In RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive131, the community debated over the ban of User:Let Them Eat Cake. They were banned for pi months, one vote short of a pi years ban. At ATIM, USHA has requested their sanctions removed (RationalWiki_talk:All_things_in_moderation/Archive48#I_motion_the_following_.28requests_denied.29, I brought it to RW's attention they gossiped about me (RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation/Archive49). RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation/Archive50 was dominated by Ace and LGM tensions, as well as USHA and LGM tensions. Andrew5 (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, finally feel caught up. Wow, that sure was... a largely pointless thing blown out of proportion. armed_roomba (she/her)^{What am I doing wrong this time?} 19:36, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the Christmas wish

My mom is Eastern Orthodox, and grew up in Latvia. I don't often see representation for EO Christmas; it warms my heart to see it here. <3 Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 03:27, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I have a Childhood friend that's Greek Orthodox, and I usually can't talk to him around this time because he celebrates Christmas twice. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 14:37, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Derp de derp...

de derpity derp derp derpity derp! ShabiDOO 14:11, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Ableist much? ^{— Unsigned, by: 63.249.63.242 / talk}

@Shabidoo Rob Schneider? Is that you? Friedman (talk) 15:34, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no page libertarian moonbattery

When looking at Category libertarian moonbattery it says at the top to see more on a mainspace page of the same name, trouble is the mainspace article doesn't exist so it just takes a person to a blank page to create one. I tried to get rid off this however I don't know how as when I go to edit there's nothing that I can see to manipulate the banner.--WMS (talk) 21:16, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@WMS Okay, figured it out. The Template:Category template used there to hold the text explaining the category automatically generates that "See the main article..." text. Doesn't appear to be a way to remove it without removing the template. I've installed a parameter, "ALT" in the template which will allow you to change the broken link to another article. I've set it to Crank for the time being, but change it to what ever you wish by replacing "Crank" with the name of any article.--NavigatorBR (Talk) - 01:27, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I had a dream last night...

Where I ordered food from Buffalo wild wings and they got the order right. I just want medium hot wings with blue cheese and onion rings with southwest sauce but it has been over a year since they got it right. 😩 MirrorIrorriM (talk) 16:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I swear fast food joints never get orders right. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 18:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Midsomer Murders

I've been watching numerous episodes of the British TV murder mystery Midsomer Murders, which takes place in the fictional rural county of Midsomer. Angela Merkel incidentally is a fan of the series.

The basic structure of every episode is very predictable: there will be 1+ murders per episode, Chief Inspector Barnaby will discover the murderer, the murderer will implausibly and inevitably confess, there will be at least one British folk practice displayed, few children appear in the earlier episodes, few characters outside of the police and publicans seem to do any actual productive work (and even fewer rich people do any work). The uniformity of the episodes now appears to be a sure-fire way to put me to sleep before the episode ends. Nonetheless, I began thinking about what these episodes were actually saying.

The series' longtime producer, Brian True-May, has made the cast almost uniformly white; I can only remember two non-white characters so far, and I think they were minor, non-speaking roles. True-May got the axe himself for comments he made about why the series is so white (Midsomer Murders § Controversy). The whiteness and the ever-present folk traditions make the series look like an idealized England of yore. On the other hand, the ever-present murders make rural England look like a dangerous place indeed, much more so than cities. This runs counter to the erroneous trope that is common in mass media that cities are dangerous. Adding to the murder frequency, there are often several unpleasant characters who look like murder suspects, many of whom are not known murderers in the series. Was True-May actually expressing his self-loathing by casting all those white people as murderers and loathsome people? How does Midsomer avoid depopulation with few children and many murders? Bongolian (talk) 04:44, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh I think you may be reading a lot into it Bongo. Movies with mostly white actors are more a rule than an exception until very recently.. If you google "African Movies" you might find that many such movies are performed by Sub-Saharan Africans with nary a white skin in the lot. They too, can be quite violent.UncleKrampus (talk) 05:05, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Nah. It's whiter than white. I noticed it independently of the British critics. Bongolian (talk) 07:08, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah, according to a 2011 census, 86% of England and Wales has been white. I think UK's point is that in Africa, they would typically be Black actors. Reading dark motives into a lack of social activism is optional. Ariel31459 (talk) 18:20, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I would expect rural England to be whiter than the cities, but all white as portrayed in Midsomer? I don't think so. Also regarding the consequences of the casting, I know someone whose ancestors suffered under British colonial rule. The person likes murder mysteries, but gets extra pleasure from seeing white Brits killing each other with regularity. Bongolian (talk) 18:40, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I have no doubts that there are many villages in the UK with no 'black' villagers. Until 1960(ish) I'd never seen a black person and I lived in a fairly large city. I remember the first black bus conductor. Scream!! (talk) 18:47, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I am in Edinburgh at the moment and it is a WHIIIIITE city. Even though it can be international, it is fairly white international. I have been to Scottish towns/villages seeing nothing but white people. When I lived in Gloucestershire countryside in England decades ago, I never saw a single non-white resident anywhere but I did see one single African american tourist. Having said that, if you take British murder shows seriously (of which there are many) then it would be the most Homocidal set of islands there are. For example, if there really were that many murders in Shetland (a show named after the islands they are based on) it would be a fairly unsafe place to live. I recall someone adding up all of the murders in Oxford based on just one book series (let alone the other book series and programs/films) and Oxford would have been one of the most dangerous places to live on Earth in terms of the likelihood of you being murdered. Having said that, England has a shockingly high crime rate for Europe. ShabiDOO 20:30, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

That explains some things. I have a biased sample of personally knowing two families who live in rural UK, both mixed-race. Bongolian (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

midsomer has a murder rate slightly higher than oxford, something like 3.2 per 100000 which is over 250 times the rate for england as a whole. i note that cabot cove has a murder rate 9 per 100000. everything is bigger in the us. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I hate the show, but I've seen enough to know it. Midsummer appears to be pretty rural, and here in the UK our 'Shires' are still really white (I got struck by this when I was housesitting over Christmas in rural N. Essex) and back in the 90s (when the show started) it was even *more* homogeneous. Example, Suffolk is as of 2020 95% white and I'll bet a fiver some 75% of the 'non-whites' reside in Ipswich, the chief city. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

how rural is rural? not disputing the whiteness of england the further you get from metropolitan areas, but as someone who was born and raised in north essex (prity patel is currently the local mp), i can attest to the presence of black and asian people in n. essex from as far back as i can remember. for not having seen one non white resident/black person, for the 60s, i could maybe believe. for the 80s onwards, i'd be incredulous. today? i'd flat out call anyone telling me this a liar.

i'd imagine there is great difference to 'rural' when applied to essex and to when it is applied to, say, somewhere in the lake district. Midsomer appears to me closer to a rural essex in that regards, making its complete and total whiteness from the outset a fantasy.

it should also be noted and should always be noted, that essex is wasteland. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:48, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Didn't say there were zero non-whites in such an area, merely relatively few (you want near-zero, go to mid-Powys). I spent some of my youth over the way from you in Sawbridgeworth, Royston etc in the 90s and the number of non-whites was so low it was close to 'blink and you'll miss it' territory - and well, I know places like Maldon and Clacton. For my sins.

But this news isn't new. A Google search will show similar being said back in 2011.

Lastly, I assume you agree with this video? ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NrnRFVYS24 KarmaPolice (talk) 15:06, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Haven't read the responses, just answering the opening point, Brian True-May is no longer producing the show. And there have been actors of colour on the show for some time. But the show is well past is prime. The humour, strangeness and uniqueness of the show is gone, and has been since before John Nettles quit. Brokenwood Murders, in later series, is a better fit for strange town, strange murders strange cop. Cozy murder mystery series. You'd be better off giving Vera, Shetland and The Long Call a go, all based on books by Anne Cleeves and all stand by their own merits. But my favourite current show is Wisting. On on a personal note, here's hoping the Three Pines series coming from Amazon lives up to the Louise Penny books. The original TV movie was a bleedin disaster Cardinal Chang (talk) 13:05, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Science is intrinsically corrupt!!!111one

I recently had an argument with my father who suffers from Ulcerative colitis. For about 20 years he had been taking medication that helped, but about six months ago something suddenly happened and he got severe relapses and the tablets were not enough help. He decided to try some diet and chose the so-called SCD diet. He told me that after two years on the diet, he should be cured. The problem is that, according to pretty much every single scientific website, there is no cure for the disease, so I told him that. His response can be summarised in the following way:

You so blindly believe in science (irony here, he's a deeply religious fanatic Christian), behind all this billions of dollars, Rockefeller medicine, Jewish studies, falsified research, and you have NO PROOF THAT IT DoEsN't WoRk so it works, in the book it says that a woman healed her daughter with it, I do not need any research, if the Holy Spirit will give you one day to work in some laboratories you will find out on your own skin, do not trust when some professor says that it works because he's paid probably, he works only for his own profit not for the benefit of others.

His main claim was that scientific papers (especially on medicine) are intrinsically corrupt (i.e. literally the numbers in the papers are deliberately altered) because the scientists have been paid by Big Pharma.

I got really upset because his infallible point of view coming from his faith in Jesus affects me who is just 17 and can't take care of his own health because of my parents (i.e. I can't take the covid vaccine). I regard their fanaticism as a form of abuse really, because it affects me not only in terms of taking care of my own health.

Either way, what would you say to a person who would attack science by claiming that it is so corrupt because of some unprecedentedly rich Jews bad boys who want, for some reason, to control you and the entire planet? I tried to explain how absurd it is (400 years from the invention of the telescope to our landing on the moon thanks to science, the ineffable boon of today's medicine thanks to science, him (father) being able to read bullshit content on his phone thanks to science, etc.), but I was so angry that I don't think I managed to put it in a good way. Keep in mind that their pseudoscientific believes are, as I described, a form of abuse from my perspective. --Papaemeritus (talk) 18:27, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

If he's concerned about money potentially corrupting things, you could try pointing out that the authors of the SCD book will have made comfortably more money than medical researchers do. Like every fad diet and/or miracle cure, it's all about the money. If the authors were on to something and were really cared about people's health, they could be giving their book away for free after making enough to live on. If they don't care enough about people's health to make it available for free, how can they be trusted that they're being honest about their 'discovery'? You could bring up all the other supposed miracle cures, and challenge them to 'prove' that this one is different to the others somehow. But then: "You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into". So don't hesitate to reach straight for the emotional blackmail if you think that might work. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 18:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what your father thinks about science. Desperate people can and will believe what they want to believe, and what they hope to be true. What you want to beware of is whether he is harming himself. With proper supplements, most diets are not going to kill you. It is possible that the diet he has chosen will help him reduce his symptoms by placebo effect, if not actually. You should encourage him to hope for improvement because negativity won't help him. Helping your father with emotional support is a vague objective to give you, I know. But it is something we can do, knowing we tried our best.Ariel31459 (talk) 19:51, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

You may have already researched this, but in some states one doesn't need one's parents' consent for a vaccination (Mature minor doctrine § United States). Bongolian (talk) 20:42, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I think that my father's distrust of science was a gradual process and that his choice of an alt-med 'cure' of the disease was a result of this process. He's not desperate though, he was probably just like: "the medicine I was prescribed worked for 20 years, then it didn't, so it won't". This combined with the previously mentioned distrust probably paved him the way to the alt-med amazon book aisle. I would genuinely want to say that I don't give a single fuck about what happens to him, but he's still my father. I also can't ignore their (my mother's no better) harmful depiction of science because, as I mentioned earlier, it affects me and my siblings and reveals itself through indoctrination. But as @Queex wrote: "You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into". Hence, my main goal is not to convince my father that he's wrong about the diet, because that's pretty much impossible, but rather to minimise the damaging impact of their beliefs on me and my siblings. --Papaemeritus (talk) 21:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Btw, the diet has been shown to prevent flare-ups, but not to cure the disease. --Papaemeritus (talk) 21:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Is it true it's over already?

Peak oil happened in 2018 and now it seems we are on a terminal energy/raw material crysis which will only get much worse next months: basically this might be the beginning of the collapse of our civilization. Taking in acount climate crysis is worse than ICCP scientists can predict, we'll lose all means to adapt due to energy shortage and renewable energies are basically castles-in-the-skies, I don't know if we'll survive beyond 2030. J.H.Kunstler may had reason with his «Long emergency» scenario, as well as Olduvai theory. For more info, check «The crash oil» blog by Antonio Turiel (spanish CSIC scientist) and Pedro P. Prieto (peak oil expert).

(Btw, may you know a painless way to die?)

Nitrato de Chile (talk) 13:08, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

No. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Nope.

It seems like Turiel's theory relies on "peak diesel". I did not pursued the blog much (random blogspot spiels that seemed more doomsday than science at first glance don't interest me honestly), but my initial question would be to wonder why people don't realize that dinosaur fossils are not the only way to run an engine. For instance, it is well known that diesel engines run perfectly fine on vegetable oil with some modifications, and with some chemical reactions of various fats with alcohols you get biodiesel as a drop-in fuel (you may also be able to produce biodiesel with various algae as well). At present, it would be impractical to replace all diesel with biodiesel. However, other alternatives being researched, too. This includes dimethyl ether, hydrogen, and various alcohols. In addition, things like LNG trucks already exist (in regards to fuels that are still dinosaur based but are not diesel). So... it's not like heavy transport will disappear even if diesel fuel disappears overnight. (Which it won't.)

It is possible we are at "peak oil" and other fossil fuels, mainly because (due to climate change) major investment in fossil fuels is kind of seen as a dead end, and is therefore less popular at the Wall Street level these days. People would rather invest in technologies that don't poot out so much carbon. The new technologies (including the known renewables of today but for all we know including other surprises) will come with its own set of headaches and problems, of course, but certainly not yet another failed prediction of the end of the world. Humans adapt. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 14:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

"Peak oil" also relies on technology being relatively limited, yet we have tech the people of the 1950's never even dreamed of in spite of it being a plot point of a Twilight Zone episode (rich man goes back in time thinking he can swindle some people out of oil-rich swampland, only to find the owners already know about the oil but no one has the tech to dig to it for 30 more years). The overwhelming majority of the oil is still underground because it's either too difficult to reach for the price it'd sell for or it's still undiscovered. At some point, yes, we will run out of oil, but we won't see so much as a devastating squeeze as we will a steady increase in price as we keep drilling for the harder and harder to reach oil. As the price rises, oil-based transport will become more and more unaffordable. The real question is how to build a society not based on cheap oil. CorruptUser 14:46, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Guess what... we can't. Our current civilization has been build towards fossil fuels. And «renewable» energies are useless: If they were of some utility, we've already give up oil extraction. The collapse won't be slow and progressive, but fast and murderous. Basicallt most of spanish environmental groups (Ecologistas en Acción) agree with that conclusion. FOR THE SHAKE OF GASH, TAKE A LOOK AT THE INFO SET BY THAT BLOG. If you still disagree, find any evidence (or better, consensus) which says otherwise.

On the other hand, this is not only about Peak Oil, but about Peak Everything. Just listen to users such as Gewgtweg or Diacelium, at least to any RW leftie. Nitrato de Chile (talk) 16:35, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

LOL. So naive. If there is a short term incentive to hold onto fossil fuels, unwise governments will do so, as with the long term incentives of fossil fuel companies to lobby against it and encourage resistance to change. Note the extreme resistance and climate change denial in most (though not all) fossil fuel rich countries like the US or even regional differences like highly polluting fossil fuel rich Alberta in Canada kicking and screaming against change while other provinces move on (and are slowly reaping the rewards). Meanwhile most of Western Europe and a few clever US states are already successfully transitioning to a serious under-reliance on fossil fuels (some more successfully than others though many on a clear trajectory to net zero). Even some fossil fuel rich regions in Northern Europe are making serious efforts to transition. The idea that economic players generally do what is rational or what is in their long-term interests is a ridiculous myth. Key resource decisions are just as influenced by government policy/subsidies as by private companies. And government policies, in the US in particular, are heavily influenced by corporate interests, political games and sometimes by extreme ideologies (by the standards of other Western countries). Try to be less naive. ShabiDOO 17:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Please, just for the last time. Take a look at Turiel's arguments, watch the data of primary-energy consumption worldwide, how oil companies are going bankrupt because fracking is ruinous (even with government intervention), the energy/mining cost of renewables, how net-zero emissions is phisically impossible and, if still disagree, SHOW ME REAL SOURCES WHICH DEBUNKS THOSE POINTS. If not, you'll prove me I had reason.Nitrato de Chile (talk) 17:20, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I said trajectory towards net zero, not "achieving net zero". I am not treating your blog as a "source". Do not come here, present a cheap source and then demand better sources if people disagree. Don't mistake decarbonisation with ending all CO2 emissions. I am focussing on your naive argument that renewable energies are useless, a refuckingdiculous claim. I am not stupid enough to believe that even the most progressive European country will be some green utopia any time soon, but transition to renewables or even nuclear is not useless and is currently in progress, especially in Northern Europe and parts of Mediteranean Europe. The fact that some countries are more than 50% reliant on renewable energy shows your argument is faulty at best. Do your own homework and read sources that challenge your ideas. ShabiDOO 17:49, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Nuclear energy or it's equivalent and battery technology will likely supplant the need for internal combustion engines within the next few decades. Will the world change, a lot? Yes. Probably. But that's what being alive is about.Ariel31459 (talk) 18:09, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

There's articles here on peak oil (as well as a Wiki article). Turiel's just another peak oiler with a weird angle on diesel, other sources contradict his "peak diesel" argument honestly. There was a slight dip in 2015, of course, due to a certain German car company getting caught fiddling with emissions controls for their diesel engines, and it seems that Turiel latched onto this and didn't really dig into the cause. Peak oil has always been, er, a wee bit of controversial. From my perspective, the problem with the peak oil crowd is they have a 60 year history of spectacularly failing to predict apocalyptic doomsday. Most of the current forecasts I see, again, do predict a peak oil of some sort soon, but not due to supply issues. Instead, electrification of transport will drive oil demand down. The COVID-19 accelerated trend of working from home also adds to the decreasing demand of oil. From my perspective, climate change is the real zinger to worry about fossil fuel usage, honestly. Lots of probable troubles from that. But, let's put it this way: half of Europe was killed by a plague in the 14th century, yet European civilization still continued onward. Human civilization can survive a lot. (Let me know when a 10km asteroid is about to hit the Earth, though, I'll start worrying then...) At any rate, calling renewable energy as "useless" strikes me as a strange statement -- even in the US with certain backwater policies, we have states like Iowa that currently generate 57% of all power by wind alone. Funny that, eh? PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 18:10, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

50% electricity, but not PRIMARY ENERGY. Heavy machinery, trucks, tractors, mining, cargo ships, aircrafts... can´t be electrified. As primary energy, renewables are less than 5%, and heavily dependent on mining... I insist again, I did my "homework" those last years, and that Blog still presents better arguments, because almost no energy "decarbonzation" analysis take in account the impact of mining and manufacturing of non-renewable windmills and solar panels (still, recycling them requires a lot of energy). And yes, perhaps there´ve been failed predicitions without scientific basis, but this one is backed by The Club of Rome predictions and some members of IEA. BTW, may some RW leftie apport their viewpoint? There´re too many libertarian denialists... Nitrato de Chile (talk) 18:31, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Who told you that? There are already electric trucks in service in some places. Stop it.Ariel31459 (talk) 18:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__a8EcM2jI Nitrato de Chile (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Swedens entire energy consumption (including transportation) was over 50% renewable/nuclear generated for the last 5 years with several other countries likely to go above 50% in the coming decade. Challenge yourself and try to be less naive. [[2]] ShabiDOO 18:38, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The US is something like 20% renewable/nuclear. In terms of peak oil, the US could survive on the mountains of coal still available, but the world probably would not, because coal. What the US needs is not so much renewables but smarter use of our energy. There is no need for 2 hour commutes when WfH is an option. Cities need to make raising a middle-class family viable so that people can work near where they live, and that means getting rents under control or turning a 4BR apartment into a condo that the residents could afford to own. That does mean kicking out the Finance Douchebags from all of the real estate deals, of course. CorruptUser 19:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

FYI per the US Energy Information Administration, from 2015 to 2020 we went from 13% renewable / 20% nuclear to 20% renewable / 20% nuclear. Actually not a bad renewables gain considering our crappy politics, to be honest. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:56, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I´m glad at least Corps (talk) recognise it, but still... Most peaknicks say a back-to-the-land with medieval conditions is the only way possible (hoping GW will not extinct us). Cities are basically dead. However, I see you´re pro-nuclear. How do you feel if I say you that we´ve reached Peak Uranium as well? Moreover, after civilisation have collapsed by 2030, we won´t have energy enough to deal with nuclear waste nor runaway powerplants... Nitrato de Chile (talk) 21:06, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

After reading multiple sources which demonstrated how nuclear results in far less damage, death, problems and destruction than carbon based energy and even some renewable energy (even if there were a major nuclear incident a decade which there aren't)...in both the short term and the long term, I then watched lamentable decisions by Germany and Japan to end nuclear power. These are two generally admirable countries regarding many of their policies with often sensible governments. It goes to show how even the more reasonable governments feel compelled to go stupid because...people. ShabiDOO 20:59, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

There's no such thing as "peak uranium". First off, uranium can be "mined" from the oceans for $750/kilo, and there's an infinite amount of it as it constantly leaches from the shelf. Currently we mine uranium for about $50/kilo. Each kilo of Uranium turns into 140,000 KWh of electricity, assuming we can only use the U-235. In theory, breeder reactors can convert the remaining U-238 into U-233, enabling us to produce up to 24,000,000 KWh of electricity, though more realistically we are looking at "only" 16,000,000 KWh from a single kilo of Uranium. Whether the uranium costs $50 or $750 is meaningless, amounting to at most an extra half of a penny per KWh for a non-breeder reactor. Second, nuclear power is actually better run on Thorium. Within the reactor the elements go up the periodic table and become more dangerous, but by starting lower, much less of the more dangerous elements are produced. This is actually why we went with Uranium during the Cold War; you simply can't get enough weapons-grade material out of a Thorium reactor. And not only is Thorium much more abundant than Uranium, the reactor designs are typically breeders too. At current levels of consumption, we simply could never run out of fissile material by the time the sun died off anyway.

As for PanGal, jumping from 13% to 20% in 5 years is actually incredibly impressive. At that rate (assuming nuclear remains at 20%) we'd reach net-zero around 2060. Not ideal, but within many of our lifetimes.CorruptUser 21:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Now, to PanGalacticGargleBlaster: 1. What is growing is diesel DEMAND, not PRODUCTION, which is even worse news 2. Dieselgate is basically an excuse to try to lowen the demand of scarce diesel (basically to feed cargo ships). Turiel basically pointed it out. 3. Vaclav Smil is a racist asshole (he said COVID-19 levels in Sweden were due to immigrants), Bill Gates´ ass-licker who didn´t prove anything in that article. Those people he criticise actually were right: Production in USA peaked in the 70s, CONVENTIONAL OIL peaked in 2007, and fracking oil is very energy-intensive (at some point, you´ll waste more energy extracting oil than all the energy obtained). Ironically, he said USA is less energy efficient than 60 years ago... 4. STOP MISTAKING ELECTRICITY WITH PRIMARY ENERGY. Woldwide we extract 90% of PRIMARY energy by fossil fuels. 5. Windmills are basically bird-killers made with unrecyclable materials that end buried on the desert after only 20 years of usage Nitrato de Chile (talk) 21:24, 3 January 2022 (UTC) Now, to Conrcobe (argue): If that´s true, why there´s no ocean mining yet? (at least at large scale) Why are nuclear superpowers taking uranium from their military warheads to feed their dying nuclear reactors? https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/military-warheads-as-a-source-of-nuclear-fuel.aspx What to do with the humongous amounts of nuclear waste if your premise is true (I doubt it). Don´t forget about Peak Minerals as well... Nitrato de Chile (talk) 21:33, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Because regular mining only costs $50/kilo. As for all the waste, Breeder reactors consume most of the high level waste. Mid-level and low-level needs to be buried underground for a few centuries. I suggest old coal mines, but that's me... CorruptUser 21:32, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess nobody's worried. You have your answer. Ariel31459 (talk) 21:39, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

From what I can tell, there has been a bit of an issue with seriously stalled investment in oil/gas fields for the last ~10 years which has caused supply to tighten as old fields decline. Part of this was down to 'green issues' and Covid hiatuses, but the rest was good-ol economics; aka the '10s were a bust decade where the industry was lumbered with lots of uneconomic fracking fields which they'd got into in the rich years up to the '07 crash.

We have the issue that we need to plan for a 'transitional stage'. This means accepting *some* new oil fields etc need to be opened up, because we are unable to switch-over quickly enough to simply coast on the current investments. Case in point; gas boilers in UK homes. Unless the state pays for them all to be removed (fat chance right now), this means the UK will require significant gas supply at least into the 2050s. We can either accept this and plan/invest accordingly, or pretend it's not real and watch the country get buffetted by the icy winds of peak pricing like right now. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:36, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Sure, but remember renewable energies requiere minerals we can´t get due to peak minerals. The "transitional stage" is just a terminal stage. Look at what´s happening in Kazakhstan... I INSIST FOR THE LAST TIME: GET TO "Crash Oil Blogspot" OR "Crisis energética" website TO GET PROPER INFO Nitrato de Chile (talk) 19:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

There's this amazing thing in economics called 'the invisible hand'. It basically means that markets are self-regulating in the long run. Now, it often malfunctions but in this case it shouldn't - as fossil fuels, rare earths etc increase in price consumers will look for alternatives, more efficent use of said items, different supplies and so on. The 'oil shocks' of the 1970s encouraged much more efficency with vehicle engines, the balooning demand (and costs) for ivory in the 19th century spurred the chemical industry to come up with replacements such as celluloid. Even earlier, England had her own critical 'supply crisis' in the 16th Century when she ran out of wood - not just for heating and furniture, but also housing, shipbuilding and the smelting of steel weapons. This led her to institute a series of changes to help this key asset - from increasing native forestry to a wholesale conversion to using coal.

We humans are inventive as hell, and sometimes we need a crisis to get us to get off our arses and to do the work to solve the issue. The idea that in the face of shortages we'll just curl up in the corner and cry is patently stupid. Though it would have been a lot easier to fight two world wars if the Germans had done that instead of exploring the world of ersatz...

We may be in post-peak oil and whatever, but that's bound to happen because of the 'low hanging fruit' issue. But we have a lot more tech to overcome these problems. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:08, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

With all the doom and gloom going around, here is a little humor

I propose a new movie to promote RationalWiki: Night of the Undead Goats. Goats who died come back from the dead and consume the flesh of racists and pseudoscience promoters. It will make us rich or probably not. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

And all the goats will be named after the users who were banned on the Night of the Blunt Knives. It'll be a perfect in-joke! Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 04:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems that Thor's two goats Tanngnióstr and Tanngrisnir were killed and resurrected. So perhaps a new "Church of Tanngnióstr Resurrected?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Killed, eaten, and then resurrected. Thor used this stunt on many a trip for quick eats and supplies. There's also something about not breaking the bones to go for the goat bone marrow, which caused a kind of a scuffle when a kid ignored those instructions (Because Loki, who is in the myths something of a dick) and thusly making one goat lame the next morning upon being regoated. Kencolt (talk) 01:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

People start the Church of Tanngniostr Resurrected to reanimate dead goats! --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about making icons for navbars

I'm thinking of drafting up a navbar/sidebar/portal/thingabob for Category:Education. Process seems simple enough, or at least the documentation for Template:Navsidebar looks pretty good, and I have ideas on what to put for barcolor, title, and stuff like that. But I'm wondering: how do people make those .svg icons for them? Is there a program I use? DietMondrian (talk) 07:10, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

A few tools support .svg natively, easiest one to set up is the open source Inkscape. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 11:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

You could also just make it as a .jpg or other file type and convert to .svg, there are free web converters. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 14:53, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't recommend this approach. Tracing has got a lot better over time but it's not going to be close to working with vectors from the start. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 16:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Does the observer in quantum mechanics mean conscious observer?

I asked someone who did it for a living and they told me, in shorthand, that no it's not a conscious observer but anything measuring the system but they couldn't explain it more than that without teaching me the subject. But does an observer in Quantum physics mean a conscious one or anything taking a measurement.

Also what does superposition mean? I've googled it but I don't really understand the replies. Wikipedia says it's adding two systems to get another valid system but i have no idea what that means.Machina (talk) 23:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Does an observer in quantum physics mean a conscious one? No.

What does superposition mean? If you really want to understand this, you do have to go into the details of the theory. But maybe you can get the idea from an example. If I have a particle confined to a finite, one-dimensional box, then its energy will be discretized (or quantized). If I measure the energy of the particle, I will obtain one of these discrete values. Each of these energy values is associated with a stationary state wavefunction. After the measurement, the particle will be in the stationary state corresponding to the measured energy value. Before the measurement, however, it is possible that the particle's state is described by a linear combination of stationary state wavefunctions, rather than any particular one. So if the stationary state wavefunctions are y1, y2, y3, etc., the particle's state before the measurement might be something like a1y1 + a2y2 + a3y3 + ..., where a1, a2, a3, etc. are coefficients. This is a superposition. When I measure the particle, the wavefunction "collapses" to just one of the stationary state wavefunctions. So it could be y1, or it could be y2, or y3, etc. But it could not be a1y1 + a2y2, or any other linear combination. This is one of the weird things in QM. The coefficients a1, a2, a3, etc. are indicative of the probabilities of each stationary state being measured. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 00:29, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

So it's a probability of where a particle might be within a certain set of locations. Sounds to me like someone spinning a wheel and having it land on a given area, I think. Also can you expand on the observer part? I keep trying to tell people that it doesn't mean conscious observer but they keep saying something about the Copenhagen interpretation.Machina (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Superposition is not about locations, in particular. In my example, energies are discretized, but you could find the particle at almost any location within the box. I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the spinning wheel. The Copenhagen interpretation is one of the most popular interpretations of QM. It does not specify a conscious observer; anybody claiming it does is misinformed. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 04:33, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm really trying to grasp this and so far I'm floundering. So superposition isn't about location? I used the spinning wheel because you said the particle could be within a given area so that made me think of a roulette stopping on a given area, that's my thought about probability. But I guess that might not be right. As for the observer there is some guy who is insisting on the observer having to do with consciousness even though I said it doesn't, I know enough about QM to say that much at least: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/640079 Machina (talk) 22:24, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

"Sounds to me like someone spinning a wheel and having it land on a given area, I think." No, it's weirder, at least to human intuitions developed from how macroscopic aggregates tend to behave. A quantum superposition isn't "either or, we don't know", it's really, physically, "both". For example, a single photon can travel through both slits in a double-slit experiment and interfere with itself, even though its interaction with the detector is a descrete localized event. Even if you suppose that the underlying theories are wrong, it's easy to check yourself that it doesn't operate like things "should". 192․168․1․42 (talk) 04:51, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

As an offshoot of this discussion—quantum Darwinism seems like an interesting interpretation of QM. Unlike the mentalism in Heisenberg’s interpretation, quantum Darwinism (at least to my limited knowledge of it) seems to offer a properly naturalistic interpretation of the decoherence of superposed states, one which provides an explanation for the phenomena of classical physics, and also affords systematic connections with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The decoherence from the class of quantum superpositions to a particular observed or measured state—such as the states investigated by classical physics and the states that we regularly observe and expect on a daily basis—, involves the mechanics of natural selection, no dependency on conscious minds and mental process is required. Leucippus^{Salva veritate} 22:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I just wish I understood it better so that I could argue against those who misuse it. Like the guy in my link. He keeps insisting that consciousness causes the collapse because how else would you know about it if you don't see it. I say because we measured it and that observation just means anything interacting with a system and not consciousness. We just view the result of the collapse but we didn't cause it.Machina (talk) 23:56, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I think maybe I understand a bit more what you meant by the wheel. Superposition is often described in terms of a particle being "in two (or more) states at once". This is somewhat inaccurate. If the particle is in a state described by a linear combination of two stationary states, then it is not so much in both states at once as it is in a third state mathematically described as a linear combination of the stationary states. But you can never actually observe the particle in such a state. When measured, the particle "collapses" into a stationary state. It is difficult to describe what is going on without going into the mathematics.

Here's an important point: every (legitimate) interpretation of quantum mechanics makes the same empirical predictions. They are all explanatory frameworks superimposed on the same underlying theory, and it is this underlying theory that makes substantive predictions about things you can actually measure in the real world -- substantive predictions about experimental results. And the underlying theory does this very well.

Now, your interlocutor really seems to be making an epistemological claim. QM is not just a theory of individual particles; in principle, it can be extended to macroscopic objects. Rather than consider a system consisting of just a single particle, or a small number of particles, being measured by an experimental apparatus, we could instead consider a system consisting of both the particle being measured and the measuring device. This combined system can, in principle, be described by a wavefunction, and exhibit the same superposition phenomenon. So, your interlocutor concludes, the wavefunction doesn't "collapse" until you come along and read the measurement, because as far as you were concerned, the measuring device was also really part of the quantum system in a superposition. Fundamentally, this is an argument for solipsism. The claim seems not to be that a consciousness is needed, but that your consciousness, in particular, is needed (and that this is true, separately, for every person).

Of course, QM also allows that you could be added to the system, so that you would also become a part of this superposition. And this is really why the measurement problem is a problem. Empirically, we do not experience ourselves as existing in a superposition, but instead as inhabiting a well-defined macroscopic world -- when we look at the readout from our measuring tool, we see a number. A particular, well-defined number. And this is something of an open problem in physics. QM describes systems (of any size) as evolving smoothly and continuously over time when not disturbed from outside. And it allows you to, in principle, expand the system under consideration to include more and more things, up to a macroscopic scale (careful, though: QM does not account for relativity; quantum field theory does this partially, but the two approaches have not been fully reconciled). On the other hand, it describes measurement as discontinuously forcing a system into a (partly) well-defined state. There is an obvious tension here, and nobody has yet come up with an especially satisfying explanation. Your interlocutor doesn't seem to give us a principled reason to accept the "collapse" as occurring when you observe the readout on the measuring tool. They apparently want us to include the measuring device in the system, since we can, but not to include ourselves in the system, even though we can. Why not? Obviously, something happens somewhere that gets us a well-defined number, but your interlocutor doesn't really offer an explanation as to what happens, how it happens, or why it happens. I can't either, but there is nothing about consciousness in particular that should lead us to single it out as special as opposed to other physical systems. As a final note, in practice, you could never hope to actually include the measuring device, or anything comparably macroscopic, in a system and actually work with in within the QM framework. Even with the most powerful computers, you would die long, long before you managed to learn anything. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 02:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I admit, I am a language nerd (A video about the Klingon conlang)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BRInEvS0e4

Although I have zero intention of speaking Klingon. The idea of taking a limited language from a TV show and turning it into a full language is interesting. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Reminds me of when Dwight taught Erin Dothraki in The Office. FOTH AGGENDA! —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 04:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, Bird Magic (Chozo) is more fun to write.170.158.82.103 (talk) 17:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if anybody will try to construct the fictional Future Speak language from South Park? Bet it would be very difficult due to it being an amalgamation of all world languages. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Try speaking Speedtalk, where every "word" is actually a sentence. LongStylus (talk) 02:43, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Crazy Lady

I work at a Whataburger in the Dallas area and I was recently working B-lane (basically our drive-thru overflow). I hand this old lady a large water and I swear, she looks at me like she's about to devour me and says "I ASKED FOR A DAMN MEDIUM!" ............................ Imagine what people halfway around the world in Africa, who probably value clean water more than gold, would think of this. Aaronmichael5 23:06, 10 January 2022 (UTC).

I'll throw out a possibility here - if she had to *pay* for the drink, she might have not be able to afford the extra bit. I've had times that I've been so hard up that I actually literally couldn't afford the £1.09 loaf of bread over the £0.89 one I came in for. Or they might just be miserly. Other option; when you've had ~40 years of being told 'the customer is always right' you end up with many customers with massive entitlement issues. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

ive worked in customer service before, they're especially terrible with the free stuff and think they're entitled to it despite like you needing a coupon for it or that they think we keep a magical warehouse with all their free items underneath our cash registers. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 04:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, if service people make a mistake, please don't give them a hard time, ever. Pretty sure I got diet instead of regular soda, drank it like a man plumber fine lady. I don't know the entire context however, this lady might've been just mildly annoyed or is talking above the loud restaurant. --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 04:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

True. However, I still reserve my right to bitch if it's clear the 'mistake' was down to your personal laziness / incompetence / stupidity. Though admittedly, that's rare.

We also need to bear in mind that they might have 'reasonable grounds' [or at least 'less unreasonable'] for bitching over an apparently trivial affair. Allergies / dietary restrictions might mean they can't have X-Lite but while X-Regular is fine. A 'large' cup may be too large / heavy for a frail person / child to hold right but they can with a 'medium'. Or the item might be for a person with severe autism and it's a really big thing for them for it to be exactly the same every time. Even a simple fact that a 'large' might be too big to fit my car's cup-holder and to be honest, the arthritis means I can't grip drinks well for long anymore... KarmaPolice (talk) 07:26, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

USHA discovers for the first time that there's a discrepancy between headline and content. Wow!

Defending OSHA's Vaccine Mandate, Sonia Sotomayor Says 'I'm Not Sure I Understand the Distinction' Between State and Federal Powers And there had been those of us under the assumption that the year of 2022 would be an improvement. Ushit the dipshit ^{(I shit, Ushit...)} 03:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I love how when you read the Reason article this is exposed as a massive quote mine. USHA is really putting in.. even less effort in being a partisan hack. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

i sure love news site editors БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 04:07, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Antisemitism in Harry Potter?

Can someone please explain to me why the fuck the goblins in Harry Potter are considered antisemitic caricatures, but not goblins in other franchises? I got into an argument with somebody over it and when I asked them to explain, they had the fucking nerve to refuse to elaborate!! N. Harmonik (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Because Goblins in other literature aren't working as greedy bankers? CorruptUser 19:51, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@N. Harmonik The accusation is that goblins in Harry Potter are short, long nosed, treacherous, money grubbing, disloyal, financiers. This in turn lines up with multiple antisemitic stereotypes. As for Goblins depicted elsewhere, I would need more specific examples in order to address them or even just make points of comparison. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser As far as we know. There could be some obscure tome somewhere wherein such is the case, but as I said above we would need more specific examples to even begin making such judgements. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:55, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser By that logic, aren't Ferengi from "Star Trek" antisemitic caricatures? And why isn't portraying goblins as murderers and conquerors like in "The Lord of the Rings", "The Princess and the Goblin", "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Warhammer" racist? N. Harmonik (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@N. Harmonik The depictions of the Ferengi from Star Trek have indeed been accused of antisemitism. As for racism, that is a different accusation than antisemitism. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie Okay, okay. [And why isn't portraying goblins as murderers and conquerors like in "The Lord of the Rings", "The Princess and the Goblin", "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Warhammer" antisemitic?] N. Harmonik (talk) 20:24, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@N. Harmonik Because those aren't antisemtic tropes? I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. You can enjoy works of literature that have bigoted elements and/or tropes. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:54, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

As far as the presentation of Goblins in Harry Potter movies, that would have been up to Chris Columbus. I don't think associating goblins with treasure is a new idea. There are Treasure Goblins, Gold and Goblins game, and a bunch of others. Dwarfs were greedy in Fellowship of the Rings and it destroyed part of their civilization. All this is an untoward attempt to make something out of very little.UncleKrampus (talk) 20:09, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Without having ever heard of any claims of anti-semitism, I noticed a "Jewish sterotype" vibe while watching scenes in the bank, though this may not have been consciously done it is not an uncommon occurance in Western art going back centuries. It was quite consciously done in Wagners operas. Ferengi depart from the stereotype as they are crass, badly dressed, don't wear glasses or quietly count coins at desks, lack hooked noses and are more slapstick dufuses. Again, it may not have been consciously done but if I were creating a non-blatantly offensive work (such as Harry Potter) then I would have been more mindful and avoided at least a few of these sterotypical qualities. ShabiDOO 20:20, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Can this please be elaborated on in the Harry Potter and Antisemitism articles? N. Harmonik (talk) 20:24, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes. You can do it if you want to. Remember the movies started 20 years ago, and no one was careful about such considerations at that time.UncleKrampus (talk) 20:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

But I don't know what qualify as reliable sources, citations, references, etc. N. Harmonik (talk) 20:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

This kind of thing is, unfortunately, classed as gossip. Because that's what it is. "The goblin noses were too long," is in no sense a highbrow observation. Ariel31459 (talk) 20:35, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

The Ferengi were also portrayed by Jewish actors. They were supposed to be "vicious greed-monsters", not "Space-Jews". A villain can be small and greedy without being a Jewish stereotype, in much the same way you could have a big dumb lazy species that isn't automatically a stereotype of Black people. CorruptUser 20:49, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@UncleKrampus The tropes in question are in the books as well, hence my reference to said books first and foremost. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing unreasonable in pointing out striking parallels between one work of art and centuries of anti-semitic stereotypical characters. There is also nothing wrong with suggesting that people be a little more thoughtful in avoiding similarities with something which was, for too long in Europe, a culturally pernicious, harmful and even dangerous past time. There is a cultural myopia (even among progressives) to how vicious anti-semitism was in the past (and not just in the early 20th century) and how still brazen and every day problematic it still is in the West. Stuarts comments are not outlandish. Watch the interview. ShabiDOO 21:03, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, Tolkein Dwarves? Almost explicitly Jewish. CorruptUser 21:06, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser From what I've read and heard that's a complicated subject. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:03, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Not complex at all. Tolkein read The Bilbo Bible and decided that he'd copy the stories of a warrior-people, make up a language that follows the Semitic rules for words and grammar, then based the backstory and appearance of his dwarves on that of the Diaspora, and there you go. At the time, Jews were well known to be craftsmen, thus Dwarven craftsmanship, and had their own language they spoke to themselves (Yiddish) while living amongst non-Dwarves. The Dwarves even state that the reason for their obsession with gold is not so much Greed as much as it is they keep getting everything stolen from them. It's honestly one of the more fair depictions of Jews, especially given the time it was written. CorruptUser 00:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I mean that's a bit reductive, given Tolkien drew from a vast array of sources for inspiration. However, his depictions of Dwarves and the the usage of Jewish peoples as inspiration is a bit complicated. From what I know he was kinda-sorta passively antisemitic, (hardly surprising given his time period) though he did try to give his creation more life than simple stereotypes. Hence, it's complicated. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Point of order; when Trek first introduced the Ferengi (in TNG, if I recall) Data described them (effectively) as the worst attributes of 'Yankee capitalists' of the 19th Century. So we're looking at the robber barons, carpet-baggers, colonial exploiters and outright crooks. And as we see more of them, it could be Trek's writers are mainly drawing water from the well of this golden era of brutal, unapologetic capitalism (not Jews, at least not directly).

With the Potter issue, issue was also taken from the fact the goblins ran an 'underground bank'. This from one direction could be seen as a comment about the old trope of the 'Jewish moneylender'. However, I say this bit is BS, that it was simply a device to have such a large place *in the middle of London* (okay, it could have been done by a Portkey or some other magic, but to be honest I think Rowling was trying to avoid putting too much magic in at any one point).

But on the general point; now it's pointed out I see it. However, the linkage is not that strong and am willing to grant in this case the benefit of doubt should be granted. The real question which needs to be answered - I think - is how much weight we should grant people's offence. Are we now not going to be allowed to show any 'grasping businessman' trope because somebody will say it's anti-Semetic.

Wait... miserly, rich, long-fingered, big-nosed... Mr Burns is an anti-Semetic character! KarmaPolice (talk) 13:37, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice From where I sit, that is to say unconvinced one way or the other, it seems to me that it is the defenders that take the most offense. So I wish to ask of you thus; is there necessarily anything wrong with enjoying these books even if the claims of antisemitic caricatures are correct? That is after all, the much more important question. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:11, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

The main reason we are talking about this conversation now is because of a recent podcast Jon Stewart did ribbing on how much the goblins resemble Jewish caricatures. He has clarified that he doesn't think Rowling is anti-Semitic at all and the general commentary seems to be that most people do not feel that the trope was evoked intentionally. So no big worries.

Just looking at historical pre-Stewart articles, the impression I get is that if anything made people a little itchy, it was the depiction of the goblins within the films, which started to become a wee bit too Shylockish for a few people's comfort in a few 2011 articles. So it's been noted before. But honestly it wasn't noted too heavily. I actually am not enough versed with the Harry Potter universe (!) to comment too much further, but I'll also add that from Wiki sources like this it seems like the goblins are described as a race suppressed and discriminated against by wizards and witches. So my first impression is that it's not something to worry about too much given that it's clearly not a "JEWS ARE RUNNING THE WORLD" type of nonsense. Keep in mind that Harry Potter was written in 1997, and people were less sensitive to the idea of possible unintentionally offensive stereotypes then (as the 1990s Simpsons, and the Apu issue that really only became prominent in the 2010s, demonstrates). PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 14:38, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Ha.

I'm going to go with as the fact if we can 'forgive' Roald Dahl for actual *real* anti-Semitism, we can sure as hell grant benefit of the doubt here. Has Rowling ever shown any (other) anti-Semetic things? Not to my knowledge. Was she guilty of anti-Semitism two, three, four steps removed (as in, inspired by things which ultimately *were* clear anti-Semitic caricatures). Perhaps?

One thing we need to ask is where the burden of proof lies. If innocent until proven, I'm inclined to say 'insufficient evidence'. If guilty until proven, I'd go with 'kinda too many coincidental things here'. Yet I'm loathe to go with the latter, because it leaves everyone always open to accusations, however demented and stupid they may be.

But I think the clinching argument for innocence is the rest of the 'world'. Rowling shows a place where folks are fighting basically, magical Nazis (though this might be part of her Britishness showing through; we still use them as the generic go-to villians, never having updated to nasty Commies). It repeatedly tells stories to kids that you should stand up for what's right, even when the net result is pain, loss and difficulties. That bigotry is stupid (Dobby, Frienze, Kreacher etc). She produced lines which are unconsciously quotable; I learned this when I first used 'judge a person by how they treat their lessers' and realised it's provenance. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:01, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice I repeat again my last; is there necessarily anything wrong with enjoying these books even if the claims of antisemitic caricatures are correct? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

In the very worst light, the caricatures are a very minor part of the films, even less so in the books, are only one vaguely part of the stories in the whole series and are hugely outweighed by the 'positive' messages it contains. I've enjoyed creative work which is a lot more 'tainted' than this, and sure as hell will do so again. And if we purged all creative produce which had such taint, we'd have very little left. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:30, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals. —Ray Bradbury -Fahrenheit 451

CorruptUser 15:34, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice At no point did I call for purging such works. If you believe otherwise cite the edit wherein you think I called for such action. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:52, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser The same goes for you. Cite the edit wherein I supposedly called for these books to be purged. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:54, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

If we were 'no longer able to enjoy' the work(s), that's a measure towards a stealth-purge; because it's not that far along to 'disapproval for enjoying' at which point the item(s) themselves start to vanish from public view to the point where it becomes 'utterly unacceptable' for wider segments to the population. It's the way things work, not having a go at you or anything. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice You are massively jumping the gun and catastrophizing. My only inquiry was to the nature of to works (insofar as there is one) and our relations to them (insofar as we have any relation to them). The fact that you're reading book burning into that indicates some serious bad faith assumptions on your part. And I again request that you cite an edit wherein I supposedly called for the purging of works, and add to that a request that if no citation can be provided that you formally retract your accusation and apologize. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

KarmaPolice your responses are highly reactionary. It is sort of like defensive white people who, when they read articles about minorities suffering from racism go "hey wait a minute, I am not racist, not all of us are racist, I'm sick of this always being pointed out!". Pointing out potentially harmful stereotypes in a work of art, is not tantamount to condemning people for enjoying a work of literature/cinema/art or calling for it to be banned. Zheesh. Can we not point out issues that can be harmful to the marginalised without pointless defensive overreactions, at the very least on a saloon on a website with generally progressive people? Even Israel has performed works by Wagner who was a blatant anti-semite. One can be aware of issues of soft or hard biggotry, the issues the marginalised face both indirectly and implicitly embedded in art and yet still enjoy it and discuss it. I adore Roald Dahl's work and I am not calling for his works to be removed from libraries. But I don't know many, myself included, who haven't called out his racists comments and questionable content in some of his books or short stories for what it was. It was racist. Roald Dahl's book, Rowling's works, heck even Wagner's works are not anywhere near the level of Protocols of the Elders of Zion and shouldn't be treated as such. Yet We can still discuss the potential harm (the key word is "potential") and hopefully make other writers, artists, directors etc more mindful of this in the future. ShabiDOO 16:33, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

GC, not everything is about you. I was actually agreeing with Karma's statement "if we purged all creative produce which had such taint, we'd have very little left". CorruptUser 16:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser Which was levied against myself... Which would therefore indicate that you agree with the accusation... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I added a little stuff to J.K. Rowling and Antisemitism. My specialty is writing stories, not articles though, so can some folks please expand those sections? N. Harmonik (talk) 16:44, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@N. Harmonik Both entries are extremely vague, and the latter was unneeded thus I removed it. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:35, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I think there's been a misunderstanding here; it's been taken to mean that I think said 'gradual purging' is either a) avoidable and/or b) bad. As societies develop and change, things which were once acceptable slowly become unacceptable and then finally vanish from public view. This is good; I am *pleased* I reside in a country where (for example) the Minstrel Show and Bernard Manning are no longer on TV.

I seriously doubt this view is 'highly reactionary' - Corrupt got where I was coming from exactly. My comments were aimed at nobody in particular. Though the fact I've been jumped by two on this issue I find interesting... KarmaPolice (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice You replied to my inquiry by vaguely gesturing a the boogyman of censorship. An inquiry that you have thus far avoided, I might add. Your reply, therefore, can very easily be construed as an accusation and polemics, specifically against myself. This is not a "no harm no fail" scenario, but a severe breach of good faith assumptions. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:11, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, what I wrote *could* be taken to say that. And perhaps another half-dozen things, now I think of it. Does not my previous contributions to the conversation show that the meaning you read into it was pretty unlikely to be the one intended? That's why I said 'I find this interesting' above - you've given me zero good faith, instead simply coming in all booted and demanding apologies etc. If you'd thought I meant that, why not ask for clarification first - let me dig my own hole and all that.

I can't apologise on the account any apology given will be a 'I'm sorry you took it that way' which is basically a non-apology. And that I stand on my point above - that as our 'cultural Overton window' shifts, the now-unacceptable will be informally, silently purged from media (normally, for the better). Could have I used another term than 'purge'? Sure I could. But to be honest, the act of avoidance would be more long-winded affair and I hate waffle.

Anyway, back onto the actual topic; Stewart has clarified, seems he was along the lines I was (roughtly) going - that the similarities were coincidental. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:54, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

^^^ I think we need to be able to understand that whether it's intentional or not we subconsciously have certain ideas and images of certain types of characters. A good comparison to make here is Mother Gothel from the movie Tangled. She's not meant to be a Semitic caricature, but the fact that evil witch characters have been long portrayed as Semitic caricatures (hook nose, dark hair, etc) means that we associate this look with the archetype whether or not we recognize it. I think the same thing happened with the Gringotts goblins; for as bad as she can be about other things, JK's not entirely at fault here. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 15:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice In response to "I repeat again my last; is there necessarily anything wrong with enjoying these books even if the claims of antisemitic caricatures are correct?" you replied with "In the very worst light, the caricatures are a very minor part of the films, even less so in the books, are only one vaguely part of the stories in the whole series and are hugely outweighed by the 'positive' messages it contains. I've enjoyed creative work which is a lot more 'tainted' than this, and sure as hell will do so again. And if we purged all creative produce which had such taint, we'd have very little left." Note how you bring up purging works, wherein I did not do so. Note how you've also failed to answer my question. Note the fact that you keep acting as if there's no harm no fail here. The direct implication of your response is that by no longer enjoying these works we condemn them to be purged. Maybe apologize if you blundered in phrasing? Or is your pride more important than intellectual honesty? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:22, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

GC, you are focusing too much on minor technicalities to see the big picture. What's the point that KP is making? That Harry Potter has more "good" than "bad" thus it is a net "good", and that we either have to put up with the "bad" or we would have nothing to enjoy.

Everyone has flaws. On a more personal level, does interacting with you come out to be a net "good" for us, or should we not interact with you at all because you have some "bad"? CorruptUser 17:55, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

One potentially useful thing to ponder is that Rowling likely copied a lot of Goblin traits from Tolkien's dwarves (similar characterization as gold-liking loners who are willing to collaborate with the "good guys" of the setting because it benefits them), and Tolkiens dwarves are explicitly Jewish coded (as said by Tolkien himself, although the stereotype does not appear to be in direct bad faith). -- Techpriest (talk) 20:00, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser You're arguing against a point I have explicitly denounced. I explicitly said that I was not arguing in favor of purging works with bigoted themes. The fact that you're still pressing that point only highlights the problem I have with you two. Do you not understand how it's disingenuous to argue "we should not ban/burn books" in response to "is it wrong to enjoy books that have bigotry in them?" You're arguing against a course of action that has not only not been proposed, but you are explicitly bringing up. Again, this is extremely bad faith. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:14, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

GC, what the hell do you want me to say, here? What, you want a certified document saying I accept you didn't say you were advocating mass book-burnings or something? You've got it.

User:GrammarCommie has not - to the best of the knowledge of User:KarmaPolice - advocated or expressed support for widespread physical destruction of media which may or may not be deemed to be acceptable in the current times due to stereotypes, tropes, caractures and/or viewpoints contained within.

Happy now?

Though I'm not sure why the hell that had to even be done. I used a rhetorical 'we' on the purging part, not 'you' or 'User:GC'. You asked the question:

"is there necessarily anything wrong with enjoying these books even if the claims of antisemitic caricatures are correct?"

to which my answer was, basically:

'not really, because the 'positive' messages here outweigh the 'negative' ones, meaning on balance it's a net positive'.

The point both I and Corrupt (I believe) were trying to make *after* is that when it comes down to it, there's not much media which would pass current mores and norms scot-free. That's part of the line 'hasn't aged well' - when it shows stuff which was 'funny' in 1994 but cringy in 2022. Hmm... like say, Ace Ventura (though some will argue that was never funny). I suspect there's not much media predating 1990 which is 'iffy' in some direction (perhaps many). And that the sanest way to deal with these 'tainted legacies' is to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis - which I did with Potter - so we don't throw out 'net positive' works. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:35, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice No of course not. I just want you to say, in no uncertain terms, that it wasn't your intent to imply that I wanted to ban/burn/whatever books. Just a simple mia culpa. That's it. Why is that so hard to get? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:53, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

My frustration, and thus my persistence, comes from that point. The discussion was on the content of a series of books and how we feel about that, i.e. our relation to them. I'm not trying to drag this out or create drama, I just don't feel that shifting that to "well if we can't enjoy them then the next logical step is book burning", intentional or otherwise, is productive. Much less the implication that I, someone who openly advocates for archiving all works, and the reading of explicitly bigoted and genocidal works such as Mein Kampf in an academic setting, would want to burn or ban books. Do you see where I'm coming from here? My dogged persistence is solely to clear the air, as it were. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:59, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Ace Ventura was always cringy, but often funny at the same time. GC likes to get the last word KP ( like so many of us). If you really want to end an argument with him, let him have it.Ariel31459 (talk) 18:54, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 I don't want the last word though. I want(ed) a productive discussion. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:00, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I know. You always do.Ariel31459 (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

John Leibowitz (a jew), accusing J K Rollins of antisemitism over goblins in Harry Potter, lol. 1.145.140.126 (talk) 00:57, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Gnomes

is the correct mythological creature to use as a metaphor for bankers AMassiveGay (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Redistricting update

Alabama sued over potential racial gerrymander. Andrew5 (talk) 23:14, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I hope that the lawsuit goes well and begins breaking down efforts of "redistricting" as a means to subvert Democracy. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Explain the difference between democracy and capital "D" Democracy. Methinks you are speaking about two different things. Dutchbag (talk) 23:37, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Ruh roh, sounds like someone's about to JAQ off. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 01:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

They are also suing Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia, suprisingly not Illinois. Andrew5 (talk) 01:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(EC) Quora: In politics, what does it mean when someone says “small d democratic” and how is that different from “big D Democratic”? Dutchbag (talk) 01:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Right now, a simple twist of fate could end Democrats’ Control of the Senate. It’s not the just the midterms that should have Democrats worried. 26 senators are 70 years old or more. Robert Kennedy was 42 when he was assassinated. Paul Wellstone was 58 when he died in a plane crash. The GOP holds a lot of state governor offices and they are often the ones who pick the replacement senator if a senator dies or retires. And a GOP governor could pick someone in his own party. Granger34 (talk) 01:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

What does that have to do with "Democracy"? How do constitutional provisions for Senatorial succession "subvert Democracy"? Dutchbag (talk) 02:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Most taxes in the USA are paid by the wealthy due to a progressive tax system.

That post by Granger was very off topic. Andrew5 (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The Greeks were influential as far as the history and roots of Western democracy.

Aristotle said about the poor: "They should not have a share in the highest offices because their injustice and imprudence would make this unsafe. States are unstable, however, that are filled with those who have no share of political power and are poor. Therefore, it is left for them to share in the deliberative and judicial functions of government [namely, the assembly and the courts]. For when they have all come together, their perception [of political issues] is sufficient, and when they are mixed with the “better” citizens, they benefit city-states."

A big problem for the Democrats right now is summarized by David Brooks of The New York Times. "The crisis of democracy is right in front of us. We have a massive populist mob that thinks the country is now controlled by a coastal progressive oligarchy that looks down on them. We’re caught in cycles of polarization that threaten to turn America into Northern Ireland during the Troubles. We have Republican hacks taking power away from the brave state officials who stood up to Trumpian bullying after the 2020 election. Democrats have spent too much time on measures that they mistakenly think would give them an advantage. The right response would be: Do the unsexy work at the local level, where things are in flux." - David Brooks, The Press Democrat, January 9, 2022. Granger34 (talk) 02:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Same ol same ol. The confusion of a "threat to democracy" with a "threat to the Democratic Party." This shit goes back to the Andrew Jackson and the ante-bellum South. Dutchbag (talk) 03:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

When I read 2017 The Atlantic article Why Do So Many Americans Think Democrats Are Out of Touch?: The party appears to be struggling to convince the public it represents a better alternative to President Trump and the GOP, I can't help but feel that the late great Yogi Berra was right about so many things. Berra said, " It's déjà vu all over again". Democrats are weak at the local level. Right now, The Trumpiest Republicans Are At The State And Local Levels — Not In D.C..

David Brooks of The New York Times is right. Democrats need to focus more on local-level politics. Trumpism is gaining at the local level. Granger34 (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 What are your thoughts on atheism? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

What the fuck is Trumpism? other than a bunch of bigoted crap Trump critics pile on Trump voters? Dutchbag (talk) 03:29, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Dutchbag, let me guess. Right now, you are not wearing a red hat. Granger34 (talk) 03:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag The provocateur contrarianism that the Republicans have embraced of late. Basically that thing you do all the time where you gesture conspiratorially toward the Dems to avoid talking about anything of substance, as if that sorry excuse for a party could scheme their way out of wet paper bag. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Granger, no, I was just wondering if there are 68 million racists, 8 million of which voted for Obama, running lose in the streets, running businesses, hiring people, growing food to feed the country etc. that media and Democrats swear is threat to Democracy. Dutchbag (talk) 03:36, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I love how Dutchbag is first to bring up racism, mainly to deflect from actual substance. Really says a lot about his intellectual prowess, or rather his lack of them. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

First my ass. Read the Trump article and tell me how many time the word "racist" appears. Dutchbag (talk) 03:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag I know you're unhealthily parasocially attached to Trump, but no one in this thread called you a racist. The fact that your so sensitive to this topic might indicate mens rea on your part. Food for thought. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and to answer your disingenuously framed question, yes most Americans are racist. It's baked into the culture. Duh. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm going to castrate myself now so as not bring anymore children into this racist world. Dutchbag (talk) 03:54, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

The right/left and Democrats/Republicans is the ying-yang of American politics. Both sides adjust to win elections. The pendulum keeps swinging back and forth. But in the end, the wealthy and powerful have the most influence in American politics. Granger34 (talk) 03:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 Not exactly. The really scary truth is that no one has control over American politics at the moment. Not the rich, not the poor, not the left, not the right, not even the center. No one is at the wheel. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:48, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(EC) Yes, that is the way things used to work in a formerly free and democratic America. Unfortunately, it appears to be a bygone era. "Freedom is never more than one gneration away from extinction." Who you gonna blame, the boomers who failed to teach it to their children, or the Xers and Millennials who were too stupid to learn? Dutchbag (talk) 03:54, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag Let me reiterate, since I forgot certain people who I was not addressing are mentally deficient. If no one is in control, then that means the whole system has broken down. Because the voters aren't even in control. No one is in control means NO ONE is in control. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:58, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh. Who's running the DC jails right now, then? Dutchbag (talk) 04:00, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag I know you're stupid, but could you at least try to engage with an understanding of political systems? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

There are people at the wheel, GrammarCommie. You just can't see them through the tinted windows. The American educational system, the media, PR firms, think tanks, political consultants, American traditions/culture and America's churches do the lion's share of manufacturing consent in the USA. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote about some of this in their book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. And politicians are marketed like tubes of toothpaste through polling, focus groups and adjusting to people's reactions to speeches. Granger34 (talk) 04:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

(EC) Sure. OSHA wants force anyone with a job to have a vaccine. They seem to be in control of the economic life of anyone with a job in America. Justice Sotomayor, who supposedly is part of a control mechanism, doesn't seem to understand even the basics of the problem. Dutchbag (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 I'm well aware of these things. I spend most of my waking life reading about them. But you're missing my point. What if these machines, once crafted through malice and ignorance, have taken on a life of their own? What if the machine makers are no longer able to control their creations, and have been reduced in power as a result? What power does wealth even have in a world where people will, despite all evidence, believe that an election was stolen and that there's a satanic pedo cabal in the basement of a pizza parlor... that doesn't even have a basement... Like I said before, it's a scary thought, one we instinctively try to reject, narrative brained as we are. So dependent on those narratives that we never stop to think about whether or not the meta-narratives are true or false... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:20, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Your speaking hypothetically, when the reality is here we are. Remember "We have to pass the bill to see what's in it." What if the machine makers are no longer able to control their creations, and what was in it was another lawmaking regulatory agency like just like OSHA. Dutchbag (talk) 04:29, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Trump and Hillary Clinton are both narcissistic egomaniacs who can't accept defeat. This will pass. The boomer "Me generation" will die off. But the damage is done by the selfish boomers. America has built up so much debt that Americans will soon be like the overleveraged Japanese/Chinese and another period of stagflation will eventually happen in the USA followed by another Great Depression. History repeats itself. Boom, bust, boom, bust. The economic pendulum swings back and forth. Granger34 (talk) 04:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep. That's exactly why they call us boomers, we were the boom generation that led the world out of the Great Depression, World War II, and depopulation that occured in those decades. When we're gone, you expect a bust. So you need to educate yourself now how to survive. Dutchbag (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Booms and riches lead to pride. Pride leads to overconfidence. Overconfidence leads to economic busts. It's a cycle like the four seasons. Endlessly repeating itself over and over. The boomers succumbed to riches and pride. It's human nature. Granger34 (talk) 04:45, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for those words of encouragement. I'm going to join a convert and live a life of meditation and prayer. Dutchbag (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Dutchbag, fewer children in this world would be great, so castration isn't a bad idea...though you might have to do it yourself as few nations provide that as part of their general health services. You joining a convent is not the worst idea, it would save us from more of your tedious sarcastic comments, misreading malicious intent into people's responses to your comments and the feeling of "ugh" after reading most of what you type out here. There have been people with contrary views in the past who have had interesting things to say that could make even the most progressive of us here take a moment and think about it. I'm yet to read anything of yours that ever has. ShabiDOO 05:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

China tried that business with its one child policy; hasn't worked out so well for them. Dutchbag (talk) 05:15, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag, touche. Granger34 (talk) 05:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

China's leaders still think they are the masters of the universe. They are trying to relive their past glory of the Middle Kingdom. Once the economic cycle of bust happens in China they will encounter some heavy economic seas. They have built up so much debt that it's going to be a perfect storm for them. They might not survive it and face regime change. Granger34 (talk) 05:23, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 Nonsense. You have absolutely no basis for this optimism. None at all. The GOP is aligning itself with younger voters, and trying to shift its focus to poaching disillusioned black and Hispanic voters. The modern Chinese state is a distinctly separate entity than its predecessors. It's expansionist policies are merely the result of it being a Nation-State, as literally every Nation-State engages in this sort of behavior, the US included. I urge you to move beyond this narrative of optimism and face the unpleasantness of reality head on. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ When you say that the GOP is poaching Black and Hispanic voters, it is essentially saying that the Democrats own these voters. That is an unrealistic idea. A political party earns votes by having policies that work for its constituents. And with high inflation and crime, a shortage of Covid-19 testing, greater labor competition from illegal immigrants, etc., Hispanic voters, black voters and women voters are leaving the Democratic Party in terms of their political party or political party loyalty. Democrats have to adjust their policies to get these votes back. Bill Clinton adjusted his policies to get back voters. Biden has to do the same. Granger34 (talk) 14:21, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

History shows that political parties and civilizations very often have shelf lives. Political parties lose favor and sometimes are thrown out. Revolutions and counterrevolutions happen. The Chinese Communist Party is not invincible. Granger34 (talk) 14:31, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

True, however black voters support Democrats. 89% of them voted for Hillary Clinton. As such it makes sense the GOP is suppressing them. Also Ohio is being sued over partisian gerrymanders, not racial, which I assume isn't banned in Illinois but is in Ohio. Andrew5 (talk) 15:10, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 You recommend Manufacturing Consent and then act like voters are just dumping a party of their own rational volition? What framework are you working from to even get such a viewpoint? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Environments, societies, political parties, and individuals are always changing. In politics, businesses and relationships, there are no "guaranteed customers for life". Adaptation and the keeping of good relations is necessary. People have free will, but they can be influenced. I don't have anything more to add at this point. Anything more would be beating a dead horse. Granger34 (talk) 18:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 You're not really beating a dead horse, as there is no apparent horse to beat. I very much fail to see how I implied that those voters were "owned" by the Democratic party, except in the most literal and uncharitable reading of a turn of phrase. Failing to elaborate doesn't therefore make you look intelligent and knowledgeable, quite the opposite in fact. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:57, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That's fine, GrammarCommie. I received a rather inhospitable "welcome" on my talk page from Andrew5, so I decide to end the discussion quickly. Granger34 (talk) 20:11, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Granger34 I am not he, and despite our dispute have no reason to dislike you as a person at the present time. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

First off, {{meh}} isn't the worst template, that's {{unwelcome}}. (Though at first glance it appears meh might be worse). Essentially, chatting in the Saloon and making no contributions outside of it is suspicious, I saw you did one link fix but socks still do that, we aren't accusing you of being a sock but what you're doing is suspicious and I'm keeping alert of it. I don't dislike you as a person, but I cannot, even in good faith, disregard the possibility of block evasion. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. -- Andrew5 (talk) 20:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew5 We aren't doing anything. You are forming these conclusions, seemly out of thin air. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Guys, after getting Andrew5's inhospitable message, I did a bit of poking around on the internet and I saw my bad experience here wasn't unusual. On my off work hours, I like to do enjoyable things. So this website is not a good fit for me. Granger34 (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That is a problem with this site: some people will say what they actually think, and occasionally give the impression that their opinion is generally accepted. You shouldn't assume that here. Andrew5 is very active and comments frequently, but I wouldn't take his comments too much to heart. The welcoming is his responsibility. He is not an administrator here.Ariel31459 (talk) 21:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

While I found none of your comments particularly insightful, but more overgeneralising cliche talking points, I didn't read anything that resembles clear cut trolling or sealioning. I would recommend that if most of your contributions are contentious debates on the saloon that you do consider contributing in other ways. You didn't deserve a welcome like that and I apologise for it. I don't blame you for wanting to leave as I am a proponent of not wasting your precious free time in places that offer you nothing. Andrew, knock it the fuck off with your fucking wikicoping. It is an absolute fucking detriment to this site. ShabiDOO 21:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Trolling is completely irrelevant here and I never accused him of such. What I am suspecting here is the crime of ban evasion. At RW, at one point, we used to be very stern about ban evasion, what happened? There was a point where we were always very skeptical if they were a sock (if I recall correctly, it was June). I can see a case being made for Ken simply becoming less active (instead focusing on our gossiping issues). Nonetheless, a good point no one bothered to raise except for one user back in March was that Ken shouldn't have been permabanned. The vote was 14-10, which was 58%, not the required 66 needed to ban. Nonetheless, as he said, that ship has long sailed and he would be permabanned if it happened today. Typically, when I check users at RW, and decide to welcome then, I look at there mainspace contributions. Such as HeneryVII. When you are looking at things, you have to make conclusions based off evidence provided. No wikicopping is going on, so you'll need to find a new term to harp on (failure to assume good faith, if you want an easy one). Also, I was entirely behind nearly bringing 2018 midterm elections to bronze (probably would've been had my idea not been shot down by LGM), creating and improving 2014 midterm elections, bringing President of the United States to bronze and being a part of bringing Cold War to silver. Andrew5 (talk) 21:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, this guy isn't remotely Ken. You are ABSOLUTELY wikicoping. Stop wikicoping. Listen to other users instead of dismissing reasonable requests. ShabiDOO 22:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to be honest - I looked up wikicopping....and found 0 results. So I'll agree wikicopping would be open to interpretation by the mob, in this case, and it being construed broadly could include this in that category (and honestly, defining it clearly could be wikicopping in of itself, again, there is no definition so we have to create our own). That's about as far as I'm willing to go specifically on the wikicop issue. As in, I should probably withdraw from this conversation around now. Discussion about discouraging newcomers from the Saloon at first should be held in a different forum, anyway.Andrew5 (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I will see you at your inevitable ATIM or COOP then Andrew. ShabiDOO 22:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I always knew that could happen, but I also famarilized myself with past mistakes people made and essentially why people get banned after coops, so I’m trying to avoid their critical mistakes. The #1 way to get cooped is to file frivolous coops and ATIMs. There’s a reason why all of a sudden now I have an interest in sourcing articles, because I know that, temporarily, I am actually respected on RationalWiki. I actually have a proposal for us, to temporarily reduce drama: I call it a “silver article race”. Whoever can find a somewhat low-condition article and bring it to silver first wins. (And of course, the more silvers, the better). we would be so busy to improve the article that these issues would subdue, or at least that’s the goal. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 22:53, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Sigh. ShabiDOO 23:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

"I am actually respected on RationalWiki" By whom? Scream!! (talk) 23:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, please work on some main spaces for a while and stay out of the saloon, if you can, for a day or two. No one really wants to do anything extreme, I hope.Ariel31459 (talk) 23:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Scream!! Please see Special:Diff/2398311. @Ariel31459 Ok. Andrew5 (talk) 23:29, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Says nothing which any normal person would indicate respect. Scream!! (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong diff. I meant this. Andrew5 (talk) 22:55, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Guys, if people who mainly chat in your Saloon Bar are suspicious and unwelcome, then post that atop the Saloon Bar and save people the trouble of being hassled. Like I said, in my off work hours, I like to do enjoyable things - not unenjoyable things. And I saw on the net that other people found this site inhospitable. Like I said in our discussion, nobody is a "guaranteed customer for life". You have to treat people nicely if you want them to hang around. It's not like your the only website on the internet. There are other options. Granger34 (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I would call our users skeptical. Some of our users "have a good time," by gatekeeping, so to speak, which administrators should frown upon. That's not the point of the wiki. Our hope is that users will both have a good time and do some real work on the main spaces. So, if you have an area of expertise pertinent to our interests, do tell. Ariel31459 (talk) 21:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

From what I've seen...generally, the more successful users start out in mainspace, get welcomed, keep it up, get autopatrolled, keep it up, get sysop, and continue to work there but also do things like delete pages, move pages and block vandals (unlike Wikipedia, only sysops can move pages). If you manage to keep it down for 3 months and 75 edits, you can actually vote in penalty votes, like at RW:CC and RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation. I've always seen starting out in the Saloon as a risky start, and I think the general idea should be to encourage doing mainspace contributions first, and after you've built up a few edits (four is usually enough), then go to the Saloon. And yes, RW needs to communicate this to users better, that starting off in the Saloon has risks. Andrew5 (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, you are for good reason not a sysop and should STOP behaving as you do.You are NOT an arbiter of editors behaviour and should stop your unwaranted interfering. I rather think that the mods should be asked to rule on your actions. Scream!! (talk) 22:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)}

Andrew5 has a bad attitude. He is looking to arrest someone of a "crime" in his words. And he mentions that he would like to see the wiki practice "sterness". I don't see his mindset changing. Granger34 (talk) 23:46, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

it's okay, all i do nowadays is piss around in the saloon bar and watch people like andrew dig their own graves and ive never seen anyone question my own reliability :D БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 05:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Tips,tricks, and advice for a preschool teacher?

This question goes out to any and all fellow Rwikians who are in the education field (Preschool in particular). I have a friend who has started her first teaching gig as prek teacher and has just started the second semester. She is a good teacher but doubts her ability, feels a little overwhelmed and anxious that her kids aren’t learning enough and will “regress” by the end of the year. Is there any teaching methods she could utilize that she should or is it all just about self confidence? Any advice will be appreciated.SensaurC-137 (talk) 02:41, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

No specific teaching advice, but you might get her to look up "imposter syndrome". Many people starting out in their first job (or any new job) suffer from it to some extent.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:58, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

In the words of Dr. Benjamin Spock, "Trust yourself. You know more than you think." Spud (talk) 13:44, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Two of the best comedians to come out of the UK

These things are Mr. Bean and Benny Hill. They are the funniest comedians from the British isles. Change my mind. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm with you on Rowan Atkinson (particularly when you factor his Blackadder work.)

Benny Hill... dunno, he's "of his time" and I don't think his brand of slapstick has aged very well. The Benny Hill stuff can be amusing regardless of this, but Britain has some huge competition in the comedy department to declare him the funniest. I mean, you're talking the country that gave us Monty Python (including Cleese's Fawlty Towers) and the folks that emerged from the alt-comic scene of the 1980s (eg folks like Rik Mayall, who deserves props just for his Blackadder scenes alone). And political comedy fun from Sacha Baron Cohen and John Oliver. Some comedy from the past, people still dig (ranging from the Three Stooges to the Marx Brothers). Others, well, they fade away, as Mr. Hill seems to have. Kind of like another British comedian, Bob Hope, who was huge in the past, but now seems to not be remembered (at least for his comedy) much at all... PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 22:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Benny Hill has "super sped up chase scenes". These are funny gags, but you see one, you see them all. Plus, random nudity isn't as exciting now that we have the intertubes. Monty Python has a lot of subversive stuff that still resonates even to this day, especially Life of Brian. I'm actually not a fan of John Oliver, because it seems his entire show is stolen from our website, and more than once I noticed that he will outright ignore facts if they conflict with his claims. Is he worse than, say, Bill O'Reilly? No, of course not, he's miles above O'Reilly. But I'll take Maher over Oliver any day of the week. CorruptUser 22:30, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Bill Maher the germ theory denialist? Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 10:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Neoliberals always stick together. 66.115.189.217 (talk) 10:28, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Craig Ferguson. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 11:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Charlie Chaplin. Obviously. TheFonz (talk) 12:17, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I would go for John Cleese (for flying Circus - series and films - and Faulty Towers) and then Rowan Atkinson for everything except Johnny English.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

He's also PETA and a whole host of other nonsense that only occurs when your arrogance is greater than your intelligence, and his head is so far up his own butt he gets to chew his food twice. However, I respect him because he's pretty much the only Lefty remaining that is willing to have an honest debate with people he doesn't agree with. When he argues for the right to freeze peach, he actually means it and isn't just using it as a cover for his own nonsense. CorruptUser 15:11, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

He's not a "lefty" though, he's a militant centrist masquerading as a leftist. The rest of us refuse to "have an honest debate with people he doesn't agree with" because right-winger don't do "honest debate" anymore, their default position is bad-faith. Arguments like the one your making now are why so many leftists hate centrists like you as much as we hate rightoids. 5.151.22.145 (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Maher? A leftist? Since when? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Maher's Maher. I'd actually put him in a somewhat fuzzy area where the center-left and libertarians collide. Especially given that the American right loves the Jesus (Maher hates that!) and loves the Trump (Maher hates that too!), it's hard to call him a Republican. Hell, on environmentalism as mentioned, he's a far-left PETA nut. However, he has this nagging, career consistent ability to turn into just another grumpy old wingnut asshole whenever social justice topics come up, and lately he has seen really susceptible to all the COVID-19 bullshit floating around in the right-wing Internet. So... PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:27, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Dividing the world into leftist and rightist (even if you include centrists) is stupid. Super super stupid. The left-right spectrum is just a guide. Overgeneralisations about left and right dumb down conversations and make us dumb as we talk about it. Resist the urge to tribalize people into leftists and rightists. These overgeneralisations make political discourse miserable. ShabiDOO 20:38, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

People who persist in using left/right nomenclature are perilously close to puritanical thinking. What happens then is basically predicted by the Dunning-Kruger effect with regard to the challanges of moral judgement. No matter what you have been told, the real tests are not easy. UncleKrampus (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@PanGalacticGargleBlaster PETA is far-left? How so? Because they identify with animal rights and environmentalism? So does Marine Le Pen, an open fascist. This is an extreme mistake in categorization. You take a position held by one camp, and essentialize it to that camp. You take the impermanent, and declare it eternal. This is shallow, sloppy, and vulgar. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:04, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

There is great danger in this essentialization, as it blinds us to the true complexities off political discourse. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:14, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

You know, RationalWiki does have an article on PETA. I did link to it. You should read it. Would you prefer the words "whackdoodle nut-job"? How about wannabe assaulters? Environmentalism these days is typically thought of as on the left in American politics (though this really shouldn't be the case, it is, and it would take a bit of topic space to explore the whys). PETA is on the radical side of the environmental movement, and I would question the sanity of those who dispute this. That's all that means. There are plenty of environmental movements that don't have a history of throwing fake blood at people. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@PanGalacticGargleBlaster I have indeed read our article on PETA. I do indeed decry them as extremists devoid of merit. And yet, in your reflexive bite, you have failed to answer the central question. How, exactly, does PETA, (and by extension Maher) fit into the category "far-left"? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Uh... I'd call PETA more populist than far-left. They're also hardly environmentalist. They're just nutcases for animal welfare beyond the point of any degree of sanity. And just like any true populist, their more insane stances are readily contradicted by what their leaders do. -- Techpriest (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Maher advocates for Medicare for All, vehemently loathes Bush, opposes religion, and quite a few other things. He's definitely Left, but he doesn't automatically takes the Left view on any particular issue. He said something you weren't supposed to say after 9/11; the hijackers were evil but they weren't 'cowards'. He... wasn't wrong, and it was a harsh truth we needed to hear at some point, but it cost him his show. But most importantly, he is willing to actually discuss things with Rightwingers, something other comedians/pundits have forgotten about. I saw his show with Ben Shapiro, Maher would actually talk while the other guest constantly interrupted Ben with nonsense, making Ben look far more composed/reasonable than Ben actually is and the other guest look like an ass. CorruptUser 22:06, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Classifying people like Maher just show the fallacies of treating the political spectrum as a hard set of rules rather than a general guide.

Apropos PETA, I've always seen them a generic attention grabbers with a vague political sheen rather than a group with an actual program.-Flandres (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

GC, I already answered, but the WaPo has a good article on the politics of the American environmental movement. Generally, in the modern era (not necessarily historically), the GOP has largely (although not always) opposed any environmental issue that may mess with their business interests. Hence, over time, environmentalism is largely seen in the "left" category in America these days, because a good bulk of environmental issues are supported by Democrats ("the left") and opposed by Republicans ("the right"). This association goes further in world politics. Most "Green Parties" in Europe and elsewhere are seen as on "the left" because, as noted on the Green party wiki article, they typically form coalitions with other "left-wing" parties and typically are in alignment with other issues like seen as "on the left", like social justice. There's certainly plenty of history to show that environmentalism really shouldn't be an exclusive issue of the "left", of course. But can you think of a Green Party that's gonna align with Vox, AfD, NR, etc. anytime soon? I can't. So until the basic politics change, that's where the label is going to stick. If you want to argue that political labels are stupid, that's fine, we can all agree on that to some degree or another. But the label isn't without reason given the current political state. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 22:19, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Pan, this is one of the few times where talking about left and right is useful, especially when discussing multi party coalitions and gaining a general sense of where parties stand in relation to one another. Yes, Green parties tend to work with parties on the left side of the spectrum, though certainly not always. Situating multi-party alignment is one thing...diving people into "leftists" and "rightists" is another. I never said that the left and right spectrum is useless. Simply dividing everyone into leftists and rightists or overgeneralising these poliities is problematic. I see it more and more in the saloon and often used with mindnumbing abandon. ShabiDOO 22:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@PanGalacticGargleBlaster and CorruptUser These are terrible metrics! Firstly, they presume that the Democratic party is "left" and that the republican party is "right", secondly, they ascribe a set of positions to the premise that those parties are in fact representative of "left" and "right", and they presume complete ideological alignments with 'left" and "right", AND they presume that what is currently considered "left" and what is currently considered "right" are themselves non-temporal in nature, something that is very much NOT the case when one reads any serious amount of political history! I repeat again, this is shallow, sloppy, and vulgar. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:37, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that Beethoven is K-Pop and Slayer is New Age music, eh? PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 22:40, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

What an asenine response Pan. ShabiDOO 22:50, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@PanGalacticGargleBlaster WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?!?! YOU'VE BOUND YOUR CLASSIFICATIONS TO POLITICAL PARTIES!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FUCKING MORONIC THAT IS?!?!!? HOW LITTLE TRUTH VALUE IT GIVES US?!?!?!?! ARE YOU FUCKING RETARDED?!?!?!?! IS YOUR BRAIN FUCKING DEGRADED!?!?!?! ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:51, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

TO EVEN SUGGEST SUCH A THING BETRAYS SUCH A LEVEL OF IGNORANCE THAT IT'S WONDER THAT YOU REMEMBER TO FUCKING BREATH!!! THE PARTIES YOU CITE HAVE HELD CONTRARY POSITIONS IN THE PAST, AND SHOULD WE FUCKING SURVIVE AS A SPECIES THEY WILL HOLD CONTRARY POSITIONS TO THEIR CURRENT ONES IN THE FUTURE, YOU UTTER MORONIC HACK!!! YOUR FUCKING CATEGORIZATIONS ARE ON PAR WITH THOSE OF CREATIONIST "KINDS", AND ARE JUST AS VAPID!!! ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:55, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Count to ten a few times GC.Ariel31459 (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I saw that Real Time Show with Shapiro and Malcolm Nance. I like Malcolm and generally agree with him, but on that show he didn't look good. Making generic arguments against a skilled presenter is usually a bad look. UncleKrampus (talk) 22:31, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Interrupting someone with baby talk makes you look like you belong on The View, not Real Time. Interrupting Ben Shapiro of all people, who talks as fast as he does because he grew up in a household of interrupters, is just asking for trouble. Ben Shapiro is not Donald Trump; interrupting him won't turn him into a gibbering moron that'll start yelling at Chris Wallace.CorruptUser 23:16, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Benny Hill was a bit of a 1 trick Pony - Dave Allen was better. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 04:45, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Count to a 1,000 GC. That was the worst angry outburst I have seen on a wiki. The Saloon Bar must have a light moderation policy which is fine with me. But it shouldn't be abused. Pokelova (talk) 18:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

It's very telling that people are more concerned with tone than with content. Very informative about their priorities, not to mention their intellectual merit, or lack thereof... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Commie; You can't discuss things with people that are having a meltdown.

Pokelova; Ariel already said it and GC calmed down. Your comment was unnecessary. CorruptUser 18:34, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

If he calmed down, why didn't he apologize? You can be civil and have sound content. And calling people retarded is inappropriate. I am glad polite society avoids the word retarded. Ableism should be avoided. Pokelova (talk) 18:47, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser An outburst of frustration and anger at frankly child level political categorizations. Not once did anyone actually address the content of my critique, and Pan specifically tried to avoid addressing the central problem. I frankly don't give a damn if I hurt someone's feelings by subjecting their asinine drivel to scrutiny. If you want to actually address the central issue, then do so. Do not, however, resort to asinine remarks or complaints about tone. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Calling someone retarded is not only ableism, it is also an ad hominem attack which is a logical fallacy in argumentation/debates. Pokelova (talk) 18:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish there, Poke.

As for GC, no. Nobody can swear and insult and scream, and then claim that other people aren't willing to engage in honest debate. CorruptUser 19:12, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser So you've chosen to favor tone over substance. Disappointing but not unexpected. @Pokelova You might want to look up another fallacy, called the tone argument. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:22, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Would you prefer people respond to your arguments in the same manner you present them?

Did you get anything out of the above? No. No one does, bro. CorruptUser 19:32, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

"NO YOU FUCKING FUCK, THE LEFT-RIGHT MODEL IS FLAWED BUT IT'S STILL USEFUL!!!!" I never claimed it wasn't.

"OF COURSE IT'S RARE FOR SOMEONE TO BE PERFECTLY DESCRIBED BY ANY CATEGORY, BUT PEOPLE DO TEND TO ACQUIRE THE VIEWPOINTS OF THOSE THEY ROUTINELY HANG OUT WITH, YOU MORON!!!!" I never claimed they didn't.

"MAHER, LIKE ALL PEOPLE, IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN A ONE-WORD LABEL, BUT HIS VIEWPOINTS ARE MORE OFTEN WHAT WE WOULD CALL 'LEFT' THAN WHAT WE WOULD CONSIDER 'RIGHT', REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY ARE THE RESULT OF IDIOSYNCRASIES OR A TRADITIONALLY LEFT-WING PHILOSOPHY, YOU INBRED MORONIC HACK!!!" The affirmative claim that was uttered was that he was "left wing" as a result of supporting PETA, who was then asserted to be "far-left" because they (nominally) support animal rights and environmentalism. When this assertion was challenged the response was that such policies are part of the United States Democratic Party's platofrm, with the implicit(and fallacious) assumption that the Democratic Party of the United States of America is, in fact, left wing, rather than being to the (relative) left of the Republican Party of the United States of America, which is such a low bar that the Conservative Party of Great Britain clears it with only a few inches to spare. This also happens to be a major blunder that PolSci generally frowns on, as it does not bring us closer to any further understanding of these terms and instead binds the categories in question to relatively ephemeral constructs, and thus robbing them of any long term value beyond the present paradigm.

"CAN YOU READ THIS WITH EASE, OR DO YOUR LEARNING DISABILITIES PREVENT YOU FROM READING IN ALL CAPS?!!" @CorruptUser This was not only easy to read but trivial to address. Perhaps you should have tried doing so yourself eh? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:49, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I suggest we archive or collapse this early as this is getting out of hand. Andrew5 (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, going this deep into the "oh, categories, they not only don't matter, they pollute the discourse" is one of the stupidest argument I've seen on this Wiki in particular. To be timely, count the number of instances the political "right" term is used in the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot article. (I counted 21.) There are plenty of other examples in the Wiki. So what would PolSci have to say about that? Political labels are a "mob decided" thing and imprecise, so there is room for disagreement, and my gut feeling is this whole thing is because people have a disagreement over certain political labels. Just say you disagree and move on then. The territory being tread here is serious glass house territory. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:30, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

All substance is loss when multiple sentences are written in all caps, especially peppered with profanity and insults. GC, it is silly that you find it unfair that people get turned off by your occasional extremely confrontational histrionics and disengage. Have you even found a constructive outcome from doing this? Consider the next time to feel such rage building up inside you, that you do anything else for 20 minutes and then come back when you are ready to respond without the verbal violence? ShabiDOO 20:35, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Overgeneralising makes us dumb and dumbs down everything. Including this overgeneralisation. Dividing the personal political ideologies of everyone in the world into two camps is participating in silly overgeneralisation. Try to avoid it if possible. ShabiDOO 20:35, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@PanGalacticGargleBlaster Please link the exact edit where I supposedly expressed the sentiment that "oh, categories, they not only don't matter, they pollute the discourse" or retract your statement. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

There is a reason why the English language has capitalization conventions. All caps is more difficult to read. When I see all caps, I skim the material because experience has taught me that not only is the material more difficult to read, but it is not worth the effort. Cognitive psychologists will tell you that it is harder for people to reason when they are extremely angry. So their output is generally of less quality and their ability to be reasoned with also suffers. In addition, if the person is going to go out of their way to be inconsiderate and make their material purposefully more difficult to read, they are invariably more self-centered so their view of life is stunted. Of course, there is the angry lover rule exception to the angry all caps rule, but if you are careful who your lover is that never comes into play. In the long term, it's always good to seek out a lover who has self-control. Pokelova (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Let's stop here please.Ariel31459 (talk) 20:53, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@Pokelova I'm neither your intimate lover nor do I care about your tone arguments. If that's all you have to contribute, you should probably refrain from expressing such limited opinions. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:59, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

When multiple people are telling you the same thing, it is an intervention. Take the hint and be more civil. Pokelova (talk) 21:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Please let's not have an intervention, The Saloon is not for that. You have said enough on this topic Pokelova. Don't make me stop the car! Ariel31459 (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Ronnie Barker, genius both at comedy writing and comedy acting. Frankie Boyle, darkest comedy you're ever likely to hear. The Inside No.9 lads too. Alexei Sayle, Mark Thomas, Rob Newman, Stewart Lee. All incredible comedians and I'm sorry to say far better than the shite Benny Hill (a rather sad man in private, unfortunately.) ever churned out. And let's not forget the sheer brilliance and breath of work from Barry Cryer. Cardinal Chang (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

"Morecombe and Wise". I think this should be closed now. -Roxy the dog (talk) 12:54, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I think I covered Morecombe and Wise with the Barry Cryer reference. But still, i think we can say the notion that Benny Hill was one of the two funniest comedians to come out of the british isles was a bit presumptive and clueless. Oh, let's not forget Dave Allen. 23:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Ready for some mind numbing BS? Several of my brain cells were killed

https://www.citizensjournal.us/category/life/healthy-living/

I swear that this "news" site has every piece of right wing BS possible. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:54, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

"It's basically one half-step above a collection of your angriest neighbors' Facebook feeds." Hope they have permission to reprint the Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro columns! (For all I know, they might, as the New York Times reported in 2019 about the recent proliferation of sketchy "local news" sites etc. then, with some being fronts for conservative politicians / groups, and even Da Ruskies getting involved on Twitter.) PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 03:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/citizens-journal-bias/ Cardinal Chang (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Like many of these things, I enjoy reading the ads - would you like some 'citizen dialouge' too? And the letters to the editor - nothing like a nice dose of green ink and excessive capitalisation/marks to START. MY. DAY!!! And the business section - where I learn that I should invest in coal and that urban planning is bad.

I now feel fully equipped to deal with the world now. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:43, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, I finally saved up enough to get a new CPU/GPU...

You know that that means! Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 18:06, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Bonus fact, I get to build good credit! Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 18:08, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

What are you gonna get? And where? :D NastyNugget (talk) 14:51, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Somewhat related is my tale of my new PC (yay) and how I wound up making the dive for it.

See, for Xmas my brother (who knows hardware far better than I do, and who for reasons I shall not go into here tends to have some approval over my expenditures-- and more money than I) bought me a new monitor. A beautiful thing, 32 inches, 4K HD capable, and it's curved-- which to my surprise makes a lot more difference than I ever thought it would. For a week I had a super-clear picture on my rather behind-the-curve box.

On New Years Day, my GPU blew. Dead. This rendered my PC an electrically powered brick.

We'd been discussing the idea of my upgrading the GPU (I wanted this for my gaming, which Bro honestly doesn't understand) and the rest (which again, behind all the curves), and after some discussion, decided to just get a whole new machine. And he had a line on a prefab from Costco, and after some checking with more knowledgeable geeks decided to go for it.

Took four days to arrive. It arrives. I spend a careful 30+ minutes wetting it up, wishing to make no possible error--

And Murphy laughed.

Yup. I'd just spent rather a lot of bills on a high-powered brick. A brick with a 1TB SSD, a high powered CPU, and a Nvidia GeFOrce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, yeah, but still a brick.

Bro comes over, again being a bit more hardware savvy than I. We spend about an hour and a half, and can't figure out why it doesn't work. (At one point we thought that it had somehow shipped without any actual storage drives, but later found it did have one-- one of those new postage stamp sized SSDs. Neither of us had ever seen one, because his machines aren't new either.)

He takes it off to return it, but before he does, swings by his office to see it it'll work on the displays there, and for some godforsaken reason it does. Looks like the new monitor's somehow at fault.

So, he brings it back here, we figure it's going to be a while on the old monitor until we can exchange for the new one, but he gives it one last try--

And now, everything works. New machine, new monitor, everything. Smooth, fast, pretty pictures.

Why the ever-bouncing fuck it didn't work at first, well, we don't know. We have a couple of hypotheses, but in general, it seems to be just one of those things.

Fuck you, Murphy. You're supposed to at least let us know what went wrong... Kencolt (talk) 06:11, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Bot Idea

I have an idea for a bot. It would be RationalWiki's version of User:SineBot, which would automatically sign people's post. (Fun fact it's most recent signing was a hurricane article.) See no negatives, except if a person didn't want it sign. I think RW should have it.

Thoughts? Andrew5 (talk) 22:43, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I hold no antipathy towards this proposal and concur at the present time. And a side note to state here is that a more relevant area of addressing this is the talk page for RW:ATIM. Ushit the dipshit ^{(I shit, Ushit...)} 22:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't see why we'd need it. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

My reasoning is, @GrammarCommie, that if these IPs/new accounts aren't signing their posts, a bot automatically does it rather then us having to do it. Andrew5 (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I still don't see the point. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:32, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Having to manually sign posts rather then a bot do it automatically is a good thing? Andrew5 (talk) 21:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

More sueing

Nevada, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Michigan have all had their maps sued. Andrew5 (talk) 02:18, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

'Sueing' is definitely the wrong word. Litigation is the word you're looking for, and of course there are lawsuits, every single state is gerrymandering their congressional districts. Some are illegal.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

As much as I find gerrymandering to be horrible, here in Maryland anything that can be done to get rid of the useless, awful, pseudoscience-pushing, nutjob-supporting waste of a House seat that Andy Harris inhabits is a good thing. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 21:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree Harris should be ousted but it shouldn't be via gerrymandering, rather that the people do it. As his district moved from R+28 to R+8, that's definitely possible. Andrew5 (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

What is the best Saloon Bar discussion you have ever seen? Epic Games (talk) 05:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The funniest one is back in archive 395 or 396, when Unclescrooge announced his new gender identidy, immediately followed by a trollcollapse, which got him taken to ATIM and permabanned. (He just came off a pi month block). Andrew5 mobile (talk) 12:04, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

RationalWiki:Saloon_bar/Archive396#My_new_gender_identity.21 Andrew5 (talk) 22:14, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

It's not funny for people who are transgender. Don't validate their dumb joke. LongStylus (talk) 00:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

First of all, I am permitted to have an opinion. Second of all, it's not funny for their comment, but, as someone else puts it, This was an excellent example of situational comedy as well. "My new gender identity!" is immediately followed by a troll collapse, this made me laugh. Artificius (talk) 19:44, 10 September 2021 (UTC) CorruptUser's comment was also funny. And it's also funny (but also sad and depressing, dark comedy), how a bar discussion leads to a permaban. Andrew5 (talk) 00:18, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Whats counts as a real gender identity and what counts as a fake? Epic Games (talk) 00:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

We have an Non-binary gender article to deal with that. Study it and use google if you have further questions. Ariel31459 (talk) 02:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

If you could add one extra book in the Bible what would it be?

Your answer Epic Games (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I would do what they did in "The 100 year old man who climbed out the window and disappeared". Just tack on: "...And they all lived happily ever after" at the end. ShabiDOO 11:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

50 shades of grey AMassiveGay (talk) 12:11, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd sooner take books out, tbh. Everything from St. Paul is terrible and Revelations is just a fever dream. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 12:36, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd add the Lord of the Rings trilogy.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:05, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes". There are valuable life lessons to be learned from that story, which is more than can be said for most of the Bible. Spud (talk) 14:43, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd re-add the long missing preface. Semipenultimate (talk) 15:58, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Song of Songs 2: now with even more innuendos! Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 20:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The book of orgies/karma sutra. Might lead to pedo acceptance, but at least not homophobia.2603:7080:A203:1900:CD14:B92D:B993:F526 (talk) 22:13, 13 January 2022 (UTC) ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ 120 Days of Sodom by The Marquis de Sade. Leucippus^{Salva veritate} 22:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The Book of Brian, as documented by Apostle Monty Python. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 23:04, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The Euclid Elements. We could use some geometry in the bible. Andrew5 (talk) 00:26, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Epic Games (talk) 00:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Equal Time for S_atan. Or better yet, the Book of Errata. Bongolian (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

If you could remove a book from the Bible, what would it be?

The Book of Job. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The Book of Habakkuk. Then I'd wait so see of anybody actually noticed it had gone.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:10, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Genesis; starting in medias res is a better storytelling technique. Semipenultimate (talk) 15:56, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I actually dislike the in medias res technique, as it tells the audience too much about where the story is heading. There are obvious exceptions such as "Memento", of course. CorruptUser 18:31, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I cannot stand Deuteronomy. Get rid of it. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 00:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't rid of them altogether, but I'd take out all the slavery justification in each book it appears in. Exodus, Ephesians, etc. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 14:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

What is the user with the most contributions to RationalWiki?

Epic Games (talk) 06:12, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

It’s User:Human https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Editcount — 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 07:35, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

What happened to him? Why does he no longer contribute to RationalWiki anymore? @Human Epic Games (talk) 07:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Either real life had more pressing things for him/her. Or the DRAMA some users caused here was a bit too much. Or maybe they changed their name. Cardinal Chang (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Have I been spending too much time in diff logs...

...or have there been way more BoN trolls lately? I feel like every day the recent changes log is just flooded with reverted edits and blocks. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 18:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I can remember much worse. Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 18:55, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

It's basically a "troll with VPN" deal (a lot of the IPs trace to Tunnelbear VPN). PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 18:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

New (un)official Discord server!

In case anyone doesn't know, we currently have 2 affiliated severs. However, due to a certian gentleman joining the support chat to quotemine, a few mods decided to remove the URL to the other server as it has a completely different culture from us. In addition, there are very few users of that server that even edit the wiki. However, I feel like having only one server listed that currently does not have a proper verification system is not in the best interest of the community, plus the fact of its format being for Wiki related support. In order to kill 2 birds with one stone, I decided to create a new server for general chatter, appropriately named "the Saloon Bar". The server administration will mostly be the same as the wiki's and I require that anyone that joins have an active Autoconfirmed account. The invite link can be found here. Keep in mind that I'm still busy today and it might take me a while before I can approve people. Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 15:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Rockford, the URL is missing an S. Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 15:25, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

fixed Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 15:52, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Uhh, the quotemine incident is separate from the "completely different culture" RatCord thing. The latter happened months ago. — Exaskliri _(they/them) (talk | contribs) 07:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

ICR's new logo

ICR has a new logo with a DNA graphic. Apparently the DNA part has the wrong chirality (think this is the right word), though from what I've read there is more than one type of DNA and they don't all have the same chirality. I was wondering is anyone can give some more insight? CPWatcher (talk) 11:38, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

its a logo and doesnt matter AMassiveGay (talk) 13:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

When it becomes a Swastika or some other extremist symbol, come back to us. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:57, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

It's lipstick on a pig. DNA has no business being in creationist circles since DNA sequences are kinda those things in nature that provide blatant obvious evidence FOR evolution??? --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 02:02, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Very cold in India

Jammu and Kashmir, an Indian region disputed with Pakistan (taking India's side, full disclaimer) is about to dip below freezing. Andrew5 (talk) 02:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Scam in the Japanese language learning community

A Youtuber may be promoting a scam targeting Japanese learners. [3] An exposé was written on Reddit, but it got taken down by a mod with a conflict of interest. And apparently the Youtuber likes to insult other learners on Discord? What a mess. LongStylus (talk) 03:31, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Your 2 options

What do you want me to post, dark humor jokes (such as, "You don't need a parachute to go skydiving once, but you do to go twice"), or intense math problems, like factoring out (361x^2-4225)? (Answer to the math problem, btw, is (19x+65)(19x-65).) Andrew5 (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Do Math--Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 00:28, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

First person to factor out (4,913x^3-970,299) wins. Andrew5 (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Since no one bothered to answer in ~45 hours, I'm ending the competition. The correct answer is (17x-99)(289x^2+1683x+9,801). Andrew5 (talk) 21:28, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Who said goats weren't cool in the poll?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VPJ0TAaJDbM&t=1m16s :P ^{— Unsigned, by: Friedman / talk / contribs}

Rip Trevor Moore. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:52, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Book fuckery out from Amazon best sellers

• The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism by Glenn Beck.
• The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense) by Robert Kennedy Jr
• American Marxism by Mark R Levin

When has it that people have jumped off the deep end??? Epic Games (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably around the time that Biden tried to eliminate the right of bodily integrity by requiring people to take a highly profitable pharmaceutical product that has not met the quality control standards traditionally associated with the field or the product liability standards common to other parts of the economy, via executive order. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 13:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

FuturamaOhWaitYou'reSeriousLetMeLaughHarder.gif Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 14:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Why do you assume they weren't pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse and good taste to begin with? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

just throwing this out there, but maybe dont buy these books if they repel you so? AMassiveGay (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I have seen plenty of right-wing propaganda books at Wal-Mart. Why any store would sell that crap is beyond me. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The Amazon bestsellers list is no stranger to woo, bullshit, and crankery 2600:1002:B124:18F4:189D:FBE7:3B44:4139 (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

As a general rule, if the RW has an article on them (there is, indeed, one on Glenn Beck, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Mark Levin), and one of the categories they are under is "conspiracy theorists", the book you are going to get is going to be a bunch of bullshit. It makes you feel sorry for the trees that were sacrificed to make the product.

Mark Levin has been spewing bullshit since 2002 on radio (and previously worked with the Chief Dittohead himself). Though I'll admit, the title of one of his older works (2005's Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America) is rather ironic considering current politics. Glenn Beck has also been spewing bullshit since 2002, and is well known for being too extreme even for Fox News back in the early Obama years. (Youngsters that are more intelligent than Beck should Google his insane chalkboard drawings he did on the Fox show. They are delightfully unintentionally humorous!) Robert Kennedy Jr. has been spewing anti-vaxx bullshit since 2005, and is the one you most have to ask "what the fuck happened?" (His 2000s era books were about environmental activism). So, there is nothing new about these names pooting forth garbage. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Ive havent bought any of the books above. I have just seen them atop Amazon best sellers. Epic Games (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I honestly don't see anything very surprising about the list. Depressing perhaps, but not surprising.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This is uncommon

When a volcano in Tonga leads to tsunamis in California. Wow. Andrew5 (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

was there a tsunami in california though? there was in TongaAMassiveGay (talk) 20:41, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Andrew5 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

higher than normal waves hardly screams 'tsunami' unlike the above video link to the tonga tsunami AMassiveGay (talk) 11:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

it shoulnt even be considered uncommon either. the 2004 boxing day tsunami crossed an entire ocean devastating everywhere it made landfall. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

It did cause 2 dead and 3 injured. Andrew5 (talk) 13:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

not in californiaAMassiveGay (talk) 14:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The 2 deaths were in Peru, 2 of the 3 injuries were in California and the final injury was in Japan. Andrew5 (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, the 2004 example doesn't work to prove it's uncommon as it was over 17 years ago, events that happen 17 years apart are still uncommon. Andrew5 (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

2004 example was about distance they travel and we shouldnt be surprised when they make landfall hundreds of miles away. and tsunamis are not uncommonAMassiveGay (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

and including deaths in peru and injuries in japan as example of the tsunami's severity in california is pretty fucking weak. the tsunami was centred around tonga, but americentric focus on california having slightly larger waves than usual speaks volumesAMassiveGay (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

But there was a 3rd injury in California. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 16:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh. a tragedy. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, for reference, the March 16-18 tornado outbreak gained quite a lot of notability despite only causing 6 injuries in Alabama, and this is half of that amount. Three injuries in California is something typically only seen in wildfires. There was also a 5.8 earthquake. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 17:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Tsunami: Bet conspiracy theorists will call it a false flag

With the underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga causing a tsunami, it is safe to say that someone will call it a false flag for some stupid reason.

Figured that I would get this out there now. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

How on earth could it be a false flag operation? Epic Games (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Flat Earthers exist. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Obama had a weather machine to manipulate the weather to win the 2012 election. Not too much of a stretch. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 02:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

flat earthers dont exist. they are just contrarians and should be ignored. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'll take that bet. How much do you want to put up?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 10:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Doubt it. They would exploit something like the January 14–16, 2022 North American winter storm instead, which will cause significant snow in the Southeast today. Andrew5 (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about statistic category pages

Wouldn’t statistics category pages, by default, also fall under the maths category? I could be making a category mistake here but I’m just unsure why it wouldn’t be the case. Thank you.—WMS (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Category:Statistics is a subcategory of Category:Mathematics. Scream!! (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah fair enough, don’t know how I didn’t notice that. Thank you.—WMS (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Major snowstorm in store for Southeast

[4] Now as for the Northeast, it says <1 inch, mainly because when it starts, it will be well above freezing, and will get kinda warm in the midst of the storm tomorrow, which will be weird. For a number of reasons.Andrew5 (talk) 14:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Question for all you Non-Binary's here

How many of you developed your own pronoun? I personally have. I heard that non-binary's have invented their own pronouns known as neo-pronouns. If you are going to spread transphobia (non-binary is a type of trans person; for those who don't know) nonsense, take a flying leap. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The one other non-binary I know, JJPMaster, is very inactive, both here and on Wikipedia (though they recently became active on Uncyclopedia again). In any case, I'm not non binary so I wouldn't know. Actually I think Plutocow is also non-binary. Andrew5 (talk) 02:40, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

No, I have not. Nor have I adopted any of the neos [let alone making my own]. But I'm in two minds about it - one side doesn't like it because a load of very similar pronouns [in my opinion] fails 'the laugh test' and would prefer us all to simply rally around 'their/[name]' to help 'normal' folks understand/respect. In this, I see sie/hir etc as not much more than an group/subject jargon which has little space for everyday speech, and even less space for folks getting narky when others don't use them/don't get them.

But on the other side, I am okay [kinda] with having a 'gender of convenience' [out of sheer pragmatism] and unless someone lathers it on real thick, are okay with folks referring to me as it too [bigger fish to fry, in the grand scheme of things. Plus, I don't want to make it an *issue*; last thing I want is to be the one person at work etc which means *everyone* else has to go through with the politically correct 'let's all tell the group what pronouns we wish to have used' stuff which just draws more, undesired attention.] Plus, NB is merely a collection of folks who don't fit the two binary options, so no sod can even remotely claim to 'speak for the NB community' or to 'express their desires' past 'we are diverse in views' - so in this respect, I can appreciate that gender baggage can hurt [any baggage can hurt.] However, if the below chart is vaguely accurate, I shall guess my opinion is *perhaps* a majority one. [if someone knows how to embed properly, feel free to do so].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender#/media/File:Non-binary_preferred_pronouns_chart.png

KarmaPolice (talk) 03:31, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Neos are, for the most part, reasonable, I think. Older ones like xer, zir, sey, have been around enough for syntax to be developed for them. I don't think every single enby should make their own pronoun; we'd run out of letter combos and be left with schmlee/schmlur and whatnot. Besides, they is usually just fine. Some enbys use she and he as well. There's no shame in making your own, of course. More power to you! Jake Holmes^{yell at me} 03:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Reasonable to you, perhaps. But I'm a pragmatist and in this case, it's a hell of a lot easier to get 'ordinary' folks [like say, my older blue-collar relatives] to get their heads around 'they' than any of the other options [ie 'they' 'is a real word', one-size fits all etc]. Plus, it can be also touted as a 'safe' way to address folks you 'can't tell if they are male or female'. Lastly, few NBs want to have to constantly explain stuff. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

'Older ones like xer, zir, sey, have been around enough for syntax to be developed for them' they are completely unknown outside of a select few internet forums AMassiveGay (talk) 11:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Which is why I called them 'jargon'. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Book fuckery out from Amazon best sellers

• The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism by Glenn Beck.
• The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense) by Robert Kennedy Jr
• American Marxism by Mark R Levin

When has it that people have jumped off the deep end??? Epic Games (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Probably around the time that Biden tried to eliminate the right of bodily integrity by requiring people to take a highly profitable pharmaceutical product that has not met the quality control standards traditionally associated with the field or the product liability standards common to other parts of the economy, via executive order. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 13:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

FuturamaOhWaitYou'reSeriousLetMeLaughHarder.gif Queex_{chthonic murmurings} 14:15, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Why do you assume they weren't pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse and good taste to begin with? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

just throwing this out there, but maybe dont buy these books if they repel you so? AMassiveGay (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I have seen plenty of right-wing propaganda books at Wal-Mart. Why any store would sell that crap is beyond me. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The Amazon bestsellers list is no stranger to woo, bullshit, and crankery 2600:1002:B124:18F4:189D:FBE7:3B44:4139 (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

As a general rule, if the RW has an article on them (there is, indeed, one on Glenn Beck, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Mark Levin), and one of the categories they are under is "conspiracy theorists", the book you are going to get is going to be a bunch of bullshit. It makes you feel sorry for the trees that were sacrificed to make the product.

Mark Levin has been spewing bullshit since 2002 on radio (and previously worked with the Chief Dittohead himself). Though I'll admit, the title of one of his older works (2005's Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America) is rather ironic considering current politics. Glenn Beck has also been spewing bullshit since 2002, and is well known for being too extreme even for Fox News back in the early Obama years. (Youngsters that are more intelligent than Beck should Google his insane chalkboard drawings he did on the Fox show. They are delightfully unintentionally humorous!) Robert Kennedy Jr. has been spewing anti-vaxx bullshit since 2005, and is the one you most have to ask "what the fuck happened?" (His 2000s era books were about environmental activism). So, there is nothing new about these names pooting forth garbage. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Ive havent bought any of the books above. I have just seen them atop Amazon best sellers. Epic Games (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I honestly don't see anything very surprising about the list. Depressing perhaps, but not surprising.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:36, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This is uncommon

When a volcano in Tonga leads to tsunamis in California. Wow. Andrew5 (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

was there a tsunami in california though? there was in TongaAMassiveGay (talk) 20:41, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Andrew5 (talk) 20:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

higher than normal waves hardly screams 'tsunami' unlike the above video link to the tonga tsunami AMassiveGay (talk) 11:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

it shoulnt even be considered uncommon either. the 2004 boxing day tsunami crossed an entire ocean devastating everywhere it made landfall. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

It did cause 2 dead and 3 injured. Andrew5 (talk) 13:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

not in californiaAMassiveGay (talk) 14:14, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The 2 deaths were in Peru, 2 of the 3 injuries were in California and the final injury was in Japan. Andrew5 (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, the 2004 example doesn't work to prove it's uncommon as it was over 17 years ago, events that happen 17 years apart are still uncommon. Andrew5 (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

2004 example was about distance they travel and we shouldnt be surprised when they make landfall hundreds of miles away. and tsunamis are not uncommonAMassiveGay (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

and including deaths in peru and injuries in japan as example of the tsunami's severity in california is pretty fucking weak. the tsunami was centred around tonga, but americentric focus on california having slightly larger waves than usual speaks volumesAMassiveGay (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

But there was a 3rd injury in California. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 16:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh. a tragedy. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, for reference, the March 16-18 tornado outbreak gained quite a lot of notability despite only causing 6 injuries in Alabama, and this is half of that amount. Three injuries in California is something typically only seen in wildfires. There was also a 5.8 earthquake. Andrew5 mobile (talk) 17:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Tsunami: Bet conspiracy theorists will call it a false flag

With the underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga causing a tsunami, it is safe to say that someone will call it a false flag for some stupid reason.

Figured that I would get this out there now. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

How on earth could it be a false flag operation? Epic Games (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Flat Earthers exist. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Obama had a weather machine to manipulate the weather to win the 2012 election. Not too much of a stretch. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 02:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

flat earthers dont exist. they are just contrarians and should be ignored. AMassiveGay (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'll take that bet. How much do you want to put up?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 10:46, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Doubt it. They would exploit something like the January 14–16, 2022 North American winter storm instead, which will cause significant snow in the Southeast today. Andrew5 (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about statistic category pages

Wouldn’t statistics category pages, by default, also fall under the maths category? I could be making a category mistake here but I’m just unsure why it wouldn’t be the case. Thank you.—WMS (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Category:Statistics is a subcategory of Category:Mathematics. Scream!! (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Ah fair enough, don’t know how I didn’t notice that. Thank you.—WMS (talk) 18:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Major snowstorm in store for Southeast

[5] Now as for the Northeast, it says <1 inch, mainly because when it starts, it will be well above freezing, and will get kinda warm in the midst of the storm tomorrow, which will be weird. For a number of reasons.Andrew5 (talk) 14:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Uprising in Kazakhstan

https://news.yahoo.com/kazakhstan-facing-most-dramatic-political-210913528.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

So will an oppressive dictatorship fall or will it prevail? I suspect that the people have had enough. Russia is deploying soldiers to the Kazakhstan to tame the unrest (thus complicating its plans for the Ukraine). --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 22:05, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

The uprising has failed to produce an inner circle of leaders within the last 48 hours. It will likely be crushed. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:23, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Russian rapid response forces have entered the country in support of the government. It'll be a nice diplomatic feather in Putin's cap.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 01:15, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if anybody in Russia will rebel against Putin? If Russia is using most of its military on two fronts, they would not likely make it through an uprising. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Highly unlikely. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I was afraid about an eventual disruption of the Potassium supply, but turns out that Borat is not a reliable source about Kazakhstan and they are not the greatest exporter of Potash, not even a top ten. GeeJayK (talk) 01:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Violent suppression of the revolt will probably cause further revolt. Over 20 years of oppressive dictatorship, many probably have nothing to lose. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 01:52, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Not really. You might want to take a look on a book called Polyarchy, by the great political scientist Robert Dahl. Dahl gives us three axioms:

AXIOM 1. The likelihood that a government will tolerate an opposition increases as the expected costs of toleration decrease. However, a government must also consider how costly it would be to suppress an opposition; for even if toleration is costly, 
supression might be very much morecostly and hence obviously foolish. Therefore: AXIOM 2. The likelihood that a government will tolerate an opposition increases as the expected costs of suppression increase. Thus the chances that a more competitive political system will emerge, or endure, may be thought of as depending on these two sets of costs: AXIOM 3. The more the costs of suppression exceed the costs of toleration, the greater the chance for a competitive regime.

Furthermore, many countries have to deal with even more brutal dictatorships for longer periods. See for instance the protests in Cuba in July. The government managed to supress them. Kazakhstan is not even the worst dictatorship on Central Asia~. I'm not saying that the regime will fall. I hope it does. But repression often works. No one wants to risk their own neck. GeeJayK (talk) 02:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@GeeJayK That matches up with most of the psych and sociological research I've read. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:31, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Nazarbayev quit two days ago. Where does this "oppressive dictatorship" crap come from? Dutchbag (talk) 03:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Nazarbayev stepped down from the presidency, "officially". Unofficially Tokayev is a standin for ]him. I know you're a terminal contrarian but have you ever thought of not looking like an idiot? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and lest we forget, Tokayev is no saint himself, with his presidency being marred by human right violations. So, even if we were to take Nazarbayev's resignation at face value, it isn't as if the country suddenly turned into a utopia. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:00, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

China stomped out Tiananmen with zero consequences. 🎄Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano🎄^{Ask about our holiday specials!} 05:18, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Damn. You guys are right. NATO needs to do something about this right now. Dutchbag (talk) 05:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Do *what*, exactly? Country outside of NATO's geographical/political remit, nobody has military bases near there. We could do sanctions, but they'd be of limited worth. Lastly, Biden ain't gonna touch this with a 100m barge-pole, with real good reason.

The uber-cynical follower of realpolitik within me hopes Russia intervenes militarily to prop up the local oligarchs-kleptocrats and then *discovers they cannot leave* for it would cause said regime to fall over. Bonus points if Putin pisses off Xi while doing so (it's their 'backyard' too!). Or even better, Putin does some revanchism and tears off the Russian-inhabited bits or at least starts treating Kazakhstan like a colony so the Kazakhs get even more pissed. Russia is already rather overstretched; a large open-ended commitment could be even more draining for Moscow. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:43, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Here we go again: "Will Putin Put Down the Kazakh Spring?'. Dutchbag (talk) 19:12, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I love how Republicans have been reduced to cheer-leading the very people they used to call for nuking, solely to "own the libs". Really shows their intellectual worth, i.e. none. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:16, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

oh, do you think people who behead police are human rights advocates? I can see the POV of some defund the police protesters, but beheadings is a bit much. Dutchbag (talk)

@Dutchbag I never claimed they were. All I did was note how people like you used to hate Russia, but now that your politics have regressed to simplistic tribalism you'll suck Putin's cock and sing his praises if it means "owning the libs". To put it bluntly, you have no standards and it's funny. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

You're projecting. I never said anything "pro-Putin." I said media reporting, like Trump-Russia, is bullshit. Dutchbag (talk) 20:27, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean "bullshit" like this? Ariel31459 (talk) 20:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Exactly. Dutchbag (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

That liberal Washington Times eh? You just never know what Republicans will do next, bless their hearts! Ariel31459 (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Here's the now current SSCI chairman colluding with Oleg Deripaska § Paul Manafort of Trump-Russia fame, whose home was recently raided by the FBI. And we all know the former GOP chair and later vice chair was ousted in an alleged corruption probe. But we'll have to wait to see if (1) Durham will indict any current or former government employees, and (2) Durham will challenge the separation of powers doctrine by indicting sitting legislators. Dutchbag (talk) 23:06, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

We don't need to get too far in the weeds on this (unless you want to create another subhead), but WP says: "in 28 March 2017 Deripaska published open letters in the print editions of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal in which he denied having signed a $10 million contract with Manafort in order to benefit the Putin government.[120] He also stated willingness to testify before the United States Congress about these allegations,[121] and argued that the accusations were part of "the negative context of current US-Russian relations."[122]" Wow. Why do you suppose the SSCI refused to allow him to testify? Oh, that's right. In 2017 we had to wait 2 years for Mueller to say Trump-Russia was all bullshit. Dutchbag (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

NATO intervention in Kazakhstan would result in an avoidable conflict that would result in mass military and civilian casualties. There is the fact that Ukraine and Taiwan would be high on NATO's priority list. --Non-Binary EAS Creator (talk) 23:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

uh, neither Taiwan or Ukraine are NATO members, so it would be difficult for them to invoke Article 5, "an attack on one is an attack on all." NATO is not the world's policeman. Dutchbag (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag This is correct. NATO only protects member states. Also part of the reason Russia was getting angry was specifically because Ukraine was making noises about NATO membership. The same would likely be true with the PRC and Taiwan/ROC. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

NATO will most likely not grant access to Ukraine and Georgia. Andrew5 (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Not unless NATO thinks it can fight and win a nuclear war. Hitler wanted to extend the Autobahn from Budapest to Sevastopol and make it the 'German Riviera'; NATO has its eyes on the same town for a naval base. Hitler found out the hard way. The only question now is what kind of idiots are running NATO. Dutchbag (talk) 21:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Straight from using your brain to turning it off. I guess that was an anomaly. Firstly, Hitler did little other than lead the NSDAP, and even then, the Nazi contribution to the Autobahn is grossly exaggerated. Mainly because they lied when took credit for it. So you're uncritically spouting nazi propaganda. Well done. Secondly, NATO has zero reason to expand. As I explained before, the majority of NATO states are in the EU, and the EU gets gas and oil from Russia. So breaking the global supply lines is going to be a no go. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:08, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Well that's what Hitler said in Tischgesprache to justify Lebensraum in Ukraine. Bottomline: Sevastopol will never be a NATO base, and NATO needs to stop attempting to provoke nuclear war over such a ridiculous prospect. Dutchbag (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and let's not paper over your comment, "NATO only protects member states." Yah, right. And the Libyan war was just a figment of our collective imagination. And the brains behind it, Samantha Power § Criticism, now heads up USAID, which funds coups worldwide. Dutchbag (talk) 22:42, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

You seem to think Putin believes he can fight a nuclear war and win. I always thought of him as intelligent, but maybe he is more like Trump than I suspected, that is, a moron.Ariel31459 (talk) 23:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

It is not Putin proposing to make Sevastopol a NATO base, and the idiots behind NATO know the ground rules. Dutchbag (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I get it. You think Putin believes he would have no choice? Then that makes him a moron alright. Under those assumptions he could invade Europe, because, you know, they know the ground rules. Pathetic argument.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag Don't pretend to be anti-imperialist with me. The GOP has zero qualms about any of this shit. And, since you exist as a hollow shell of a human being with no purpose other than to attack the Dems and justify GOP talking points, neither do you. Now I'm not a big fan of NATO, or really any of the power blocs, but that's just me... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:05, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Ariel, ok, alternatively Russia could use a bioweapon rather than a nuke in this new era of modern warfare, but that risks some blowback they may not have prepared for.

GC, I have no idea what the GOP or Dems have to do with any of this, other than both are a bunch of idiots (save Tulsi Gabbard). My guess is you've been partisan so long, if you stubbed your toe in the middle of the night getting up to take a leak, you'd somehow be able to blame your political opponents. Dutchbag (talk) 01:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Keep a lamp next to your bed, then you won't keep wandering around in the dark. It can become a habit.Ariel31459 (talk) 23:03, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Dutchbag Lol. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘:Anyways, back to Kazakhstan (and laying aside the NATO/Savastopol question): Sources say the recent events in Kazakhstan, which borders Xinjiang, are related to curtailing the CCP's Belt and Road initiatives in Kazakhstan, and reducing the CCP's encroachment on the Russian sphere of influence. And neither the Kazaks nor the Russians toss Muslims in gulags to deprogram them and turn them into loyal communist subjects. In fact, Muslims actually hold positions in both the Russian and Kazak civil service. Dutchbag (talk) 02:41, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Rebuttals: "But Dutchbag, Russia & China are allies." Dutchbag: "You listen to too much fake news media propaganda." Dutchbag (talk) 02:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea. Would imply though that China is threatened by Islam, which I think is true culturally, but no geopolitically. China's response to this exercise was in support of the government.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:07, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

No, the Chinese state sees everything as a threat, that's all. Anything which can be percieved as providing 'false loyalties' [ie anything not the CCP and worship of Xi] or even simply 'outside influence' is to be suppressed or if it can't be, co-opted and controlled. From big business to ethnic minorities, pop celebs to hobbies, manga to Marxists - anything which is even *remotely* promising to shine cracks through the Chinese panopticon and encouraging 'Ownlife'/'Thoughtcrime' is to be removed.

The strange orders and actions being done in the last decade *only* make sense when you look at it this way. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Very astute observation, and spot on. Now, I wish I could say the same thing about the comments below on the Russia/US talks (it has little to do with the person of Vladimir Putin or the moral character of people who disagree with CIA assessments). Dutchbag (talk) 08:42, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

'Seeing everything as a threat' does not mean everything or even anything *is* a threat. Part of China's problems are, like Russia's self-inflicted. Plus, the position of China and Russia are completely different. In short; China is motivated by ambition and dreams of the future, while Russia is motivated by fear and memories of the past. Xi is the head of an 'institutionalised dictatorship' which means if he suddenly died there would be an orderly(ish) succession, Putin is more an old-school strongman of which everything would fall apart if he croaked. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

IMO, you have that exactly backwards. Russia has established a practice of orderly succession, whereas China recently amended its rules (in violation of the hoops the WTO required to jump thru for admission) to allow for a president for life. Furthmore IMO, the CCP is in the midst of struggle for power right now. But all this is a discussion for another place and time, not here. Dutchbag (talk) 04:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Your 'O' on anything to do with Russia is not worth the energy it would take me to refute it, Dutch. On the China situation, the CCP is still in charge; that while it may be more nominal at the moment due to Xi's actions history shows normally such things snap back to 'collective leadership' with little change in policy. Thus, it is more stable than the 'traditional strongman' model. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:43, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Sure, if you call purges, executions, and gulags 'stable', that makes sense. But let's stay focused on Russia. Dutchbag (talk) 18:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

To quote myself: 'Seeing everything as a threat does not mean everything or even anything *is* a threat'. Anorexia doesn't make you obese, paranoia doesn't give you RL enemies plotting against you. Sometimes, leadership elites can become so deluded their 'worldviews' become really out of whack with reality [qv: Late USSR]. What's more, the Chinese drive may be one more pre-empting feared future fissures than dealing with current ones. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:31, 18 January 2022 (UTC)