RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive416

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, (new)(back)

Another mass shooting

Elementary school in Texas. 21 dead so far, 19 of them elementary school kids. Oddly this is only the 4th deadliest shooting in Texas, 5th if we include Waco. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a 10 year old with a gun? CorruptUser 16:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Both the Buffalo shooter and this one were 18, and had recently purchased the weapons they used. The Robb shooter at least wasn't wearing body armor or he might have killed the off-duty CPB agent who happened to kill him. Could have been even worse.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 18:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that the solution would be requiring that the gun owner prove they are responsible with a lower capacity rifle or whatever for a few years before getting a higher capacity gun. E.g., you get a gun license for a shotgun, low capacity hunting rifle or simple handgun, and after 2 years you apply to get the gun license upgraded to allow for bigger guns. The licensing would require the same evaluation that the military does when doing the draft, which included a mental, physical and "moral" evaluation. I do believe in the purpose of the second amendment, but I also believe that at its core it only applies to those who would either a) be those who could join the military or b) grandfather in those who would train those who could join the military. CorruptUser 18:48, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Might want to invest in mental health services too... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:58, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

That conflicts with the motto E Pluribus Unum, which apparently translates to "fuck the poor".

But yes. We didn't have mass shooting in anywhere close to this frequency before Reagan closed the mental hospitals. CorruptUser 19:18, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

And privatized the fuck out of the economy. Look I'm just saying that people being treating like shit has been researched and found to have a relative causal correlation to spikes in depression and anxiety. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:23, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

There's a reason mental health is on the hierarchy of needs after all. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

We also have a pretty violence-centric culture, so that probably also plays are role. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The singular problem, is that there are just too many guns and it's too easy to get them. If there were less guns there would be less violence. Some sort of license or certification is the bare minimum we could require. But the move that would have the biggest effect is stopping the manufacturing of guns, especially assault style rifles, until we can track all the ones that are currently in circulation.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 20:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Not less violence, but less dangerous violence. It's pretty hard to kill 20 people in a mass-knifing incident.

Also, there's 4 things virtually all mass murders have in common; troubled youth, crisis point, study of prior attacks, and the means. Guns are the means, as are rented trucks, and home-made gas, etc. Dealing with them is importantly, but ignores the other problems. I'm not sure how you prevent people from having a troubled youth; crackdown on bullying should help, but for all the mass murders that the anti-bullying campaigns stopped, it's almost as if social media added far, far more. I also don't know how to prevent a crisis point; a social safety net would probably lessen the impact of job loss, but there's no way to prevent divorce or the struggle to find a relationship to begin with. Studying the means of prior attacks is tricky; banning the media from covering a mass shooting isn't an acceptable solution, though not making murderers famous would help. CorruptUser 20:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to say something that's probably going to make people unhappy. I don't, at this time, think gun control is the main issue. Don't reply yet, there's more. So, why don't we have gun control, or at least a less toxic gun culture? Why do other countries, such a Switzerland, have less mass shooting events than the US? It seems like the problem is multi-fold. A) excess amounts of firearms, B) the NRA acting as the de facto voice for gun owners (they aren't actually that popular among the gun owning public), C) the NRA's real purpose, which is to ensure that their real clients, the arms companies, are able to sell as many guns as they can. So, the solutions are as follows. B and C) work with gun owners who are sick of mass shooting events to create a new org that represents the American public against the NRA, which will allow for A) reducing the amount of guns in circulation via policies such as gun buyback programs, investing in local communities to reduce poverty, investing in education and mental health, and protest the fuck out of the fucking NRA. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:25, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm in agreement B), C) and proposed solutions for B) and C). I disagree on A). The gun-nut with 100 guns in his rec-room? If he was the problem, he'd have committed a mass shooting before his collection grew so large. The widespread availability of guns on the other hand? That's a bit different than the number of guns themselves. CorruptUser 20:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

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Also I'd like to add D), Switzerland makes guns mandatory, but only for people that'd join the military. That means an eval for every single man in the country. If the US require a pysch evaluation in order to legally own firearms? That'd be great. CorruptUser 20:48, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I like the Swiss model. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:08, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

What about if the 'gun nut' gets robbed and his 100 guns etc stolen? That's a 100 weapons which go into the grey/black market. 'Clamping down on gun sales' mean precious little if I can go and a) buy it 'informally' and/or b) 'borrow' it from friends, relatives etc. GCs point is that the USA is so awash with weaponry (and they *last*) there would be serious gun issues decades down the line even if there were zero new firearms sales nationally. I'm also a bit of a cynic regarding some the headline restrictions like 'assault weapon bans' because often the definitions are utterly arbitary (something the pro-gun folks mock, because the anti-gun campaigners often know jack about guns, and thus are overly focused on 'it looks scary!' aspects than actual capabilities).

One issue about 'moral evaluations' is the folks doing said evaluations. I'm reminded of a story Condi Rice told; growing up in the late Jim Crow South, her father etc standing guard at night with guns to protect them from KKK attacks etc. If 'licencing' had been required, Condi's father and friends would have been disarmed by the Dixiecrat officials. How many MAGA-hats would like the idea they could legally disarm all the groups they don't like? KarmaPolice (talk) 21:23, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The 'licensing' would be the same as for joining the military. If you can't be armed, can't be drafted. CorruptUser 21:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The ableism of liberals really comes out of the closest whenever there is a tragedy like this huh? Quick reminder that mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence, not perpetrators of it. We jump on the "mental illness" explanation bandwagon a lot whenever something like this happens but it seems we only afford this explanation whenever the shooter isn't Muslim. -Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:55, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Andrew5 (talk) 01:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Mentally ill people are more likely to commit suicide. Ergo they shouldn't have guns. CorruptUser 02:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I take it you are not a right to die advocate then? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC).

But lets be honest with ourselves people don't get all uppity about mentally ill people having access to guns after a massacre because their first thought is about the probability of suicide, they do so because they believe mentally ill people are dangerous and harmful to society and it's easier to scapegoat the mentally ill then confront the realities of ideological motivations perpetuated by the status quo. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC).

I don't think the "right to die" means you can make that decision by yourself. There should be a psychological exam first, and a process. Not just someone having a bad day and pulling a trigger.CorruptUser 04:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

we don't provide such a psychological exam to grant people the right to abortion, or to have children, or to get a tattoo. Denying people the right to take their own life is denying them bodily autonomy. People having a right to continued life is incomplete if they don't have the right to dictate when that life ends. This is how we get into some really paternalistic and authoritarian politics that justifies restricting the rights of individuals in incredibly oppressive and harmful ways. This does not mean we should stop as a society encouraging people away from taking their life, or use suicide as an alternative to mental health care -- but if we are insistent that mental health has no real distinction from physical health then the mentally ill who are suffering indefinitely have just as much a right to death as those struggling with intolerable physical illnesses. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:11, 26 May 2022 (UTC).

Also it should be said despite the majority of gun deaths being suicides in the US, that does not mean any given mentally ill person who buys a gun is intending to kill themselves or even more likely to kill themselves. This is a statistical fallacy. Armed minorities are harder to oppress, and given the higher rates of victimization of mentally ill people they could possibly benefit from being armed. I am not convinced that the motivation here is not to further marginalize and oppress the rights of mentally ill people. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:19, 26 May 2022 (UTC).

That you think getting a tattoo is in any way comparable to suicide, like, WTF dude. And we DO have a vetting process for gender reassignment, as well as adoption, and we used to have a quasi-vetting process for childbirth; in ye olden days, the marriage certificate required a syphilis test. In an ideal world there would be a more stringent process to getting pregnant than "can hide salami", but we work with what we've got... CorruptUser 06:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who is not a citizen of the USA, is it just possible that the US has a disproportionate number of weapons in private hands? Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by countryBob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 08:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

As I said above, that's part of the problem. But we also need to cut off the flow, as it were, if we're going to going to even try to reduce the amount of guns in circulation. Sort of fixing a sink. It's a bit hard to do it if you don't shut off the water first. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 10:23, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser but those things were done away with because they were unjust much like the sterilization of the “feebleminded”. They are violations of people’s bodily autonomy, and the analogy being made is that people have the right to make permanent changes to their body provided it is done so with their informed and affirmative consent. Being suicidal or mentally ill doesn’t inherently make someone of unsound mind. There is nothing inherently of value in being alive, nor is inherently bad to die. Letting people die on their own terms instead of prolonging their suffering for the sake of mere existence gives them a chance to die with dignity. This whole idea of having the state decide what is best for people on their behalf is how we end up with people dying of insufferable diseases for long periods of time, in horrible pain, shitting themselves because it has been decided that death is “worse” somehow and therefore euthanasia immoral. It also the same paternalism behind drug prohibition and the immeasurable harm that has caused. In this case we are not even talking about having compassionate means to suicide prevention (which I would support) instead we decided mental health discrimination in the purchasing of fire arms is the way to go. This is all because an overbundance of guns produced under industrial capitalism, and the normalization of terrorist ideologies get redirected to be a problem about mentally ill people; because lets be real y’all rather do something about “crazies” then face the realities of overproducing free market capitalism, white supremacy, and religious fundamentalism. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 10:25, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Fewer percentage than ever own guns in the US, the people who own just own far more than they used to. And euthanasia is not suicide. CorruptUser 12:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't be absurd. Euthanasia is of course a form of suicide. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:15, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Seriously, it's definitionally suicide. It's in the entomology Cory! ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

It's assisted suicide, after there's been a thorough review, court approval, etc. And technically, Euthanasia can involve someone else doing the killing, ergo, Euthanasia is not a wholly contained subset of Suicide. I am ok with therapy and a process for Euthanasia. I'm not ok with people making that decision on their own, and I'm certainly not ok with giving suicidal people a gun. CorruptUser 13:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Cory, you realize that you're talking to someone who views forcing people to live against their will as morally bankrupt right? More to the point, your distinction is purely arbitrary and based off of personal opinion, not objective fact. A self death is a self death, regardless of if it's assisted or not. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I can't really see much logical connection between the suicide/euthanasia debate and gun control. But as an aside, suicide and euthanasia are clearly different. When an animal is suffering it is often subject to euthanasia, but I am sure that nobody would suggest that it committed suicide.

As far as the right to die is concerned I can't see any moral reason for withholding it. I have just had two friends suffer quite painful deaths from cancer but their families were insistent that they suffered every last minute of their deaths. If (or when) I get to that stage I want to disappear smoothly at the end of a needle.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

@Only Sort of Dumb How are you going to blame the left for this mental illness discussion? It's the go to cop out for the GOP. Abbot literally said something has to wrong mentally with someone who is ok with killing people. Consistently, discussions about background checks from the left include mental health evaluations, the GOP/NRA baulk at that every single time. As GC correctly notes, the purpose is to increase the number of gums in the US, period. Cory also correctly notes that there are fewer registered gun owners, but that means the people that have guns don't just have one, they have multiple. So reduce the number of guns available; make it illegal to import, freeze manufacturing of guns, (a lot of these companies have agreements with military branches, if they informed these companies that they will not work with any arms producer if they make certain weapons available to civilians, many companies would comply) start a voluntary buy back program, and lastly require all purchases of guns be traced.(This would be an actual good use of the blockchain)-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:38, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I am not blaming the “left”, liberals and conservatives both do this and neither of them would I consider “left”. We have to be really careful about what we advocate here, as many suggested forms of gun control often mean reinforcing the monopoly of legitimate violence of the state, re-entrenching the power of the enforcing part of the state more broadly (keeping firepower in the hands of the police and military, giving the state a huge advantage if workers choose to engage in direct action against capitalism and the state; you know a thing leftists would actually advocate). Historically the implementation of gun control often gets targeted towards marginalized groups, we saw this with the way California responded to the black panthers to which the NRA supported (the GOP and NRA broadly just want to keep nationalistic white people armed, and ensure the profits of gun-producing capitalists). When liberals advocate barring the mentally ill and people with a criminal past from obtaining guns this by and large is going to bias the laws against black people (with higher incarceration rates) and disabled people (as already established). We need to find ways to limit the accessibility and overproduction of guns as to reduce the presence and availability of guns from would be right-wings terrorists without leaving the state with the means to keep it’s hand of legitimized violence to shoot dead members of marginalized communities (which it does and historically has a long history of doing so against PoC and striking workers) - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:21, 26 May 2022 (UTC).

Yet that's not going to happen and everyone knows this. There shall be no 'limits of accessibility' on weaponry (apart from a bit of tinkering on the edges) because the gun control faction of the Dems don't have enough power to get it through Congress, and even if they did I'd bet a steak dinner the Supreme Court would knock it down. Though new sale limits etc would be seriously limited in their utility - I suspect most of the mass shooters, if they'd been unable to buy them from stores, would have resorted to informal channels and/or illegal ones. Nor does it really stop folks who'd brought their weapons *way* before they decided to go on a rampage.

Conclusion; constantly calling for Federal gun limitations to be put in is as predictable as the 'thoughts and prayers' line and about as useful - this cycle has been going on for at least 25 years now and the NRA etc have got their 'response' to the calls down to perfection. If 'public opinion' was going to turn against all this, it would have by now. So why bother continuing to play a game that you can a) see is rigged in advance and b) you know you won't win?

Also important is that in the USA there are *legitimate* reasons for gun ownership. Hunting / predator control is the obvious one, but self-protection is another - there are millions of Americans who live too far away for realistic police protection and due to the ~390m weapons in civilian hands I'd say it's a reasonable fear assailants shall be armed. I'm familiar just enough with UK rural life to know there's quite a resistance towards 'city mores' and outright opposition when it's attempted to be foisted on them by politicians - and I see no reason why their American counterparts would feel any different.

As many of these things, we have a situation where it appears two 'extremes' have dug in; the 'urban liberal' who'd ban even cap guns and the 'rights maximalist' who argues it's every American's utterly unlimited right to own enough ordnance for a small army no questions asked. With the inability to do anything on the legal front, I think the best bet is to work on encouraging responsible gun ownership, which includes speaking up (and having someone to speak to) when you think someone is going 'into a dark place' - for one of the things which I normally notice is that the majority of rampagers *should* have set off alarm-bells before they did the deed. Even moreso for the teenage ones; I normally don't like moralistic cliches but I agree that in this case 'where were their parents?' is a very reasonable question to ask.

And for the record, there *are* left-wing pro-gun groups. Such as the 'Socialist Rifle Association' and 'Redneck Revolt'. Proof, if any was needed that the term 'Left' is so broad it's meaningless. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:31, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

The cops are scum

They let kids die because they were cowards and wanted to save their own brats first. Abolish the entire department. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:59, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

It's incredible that every single fucking update has just been horrifically worse than the last update.--03:38, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I want to say you are wrong, GC, I really do. But I can't in this case. Waiting an hour outside the room? There's a damn good chance that some of those kids were still alive; it actually takes a while to die if you aren't shot in the head or heart and sometimes even then it ain't instant. CorruptUser 05:35, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

If we abolish the police, who's defending us and who's keeping guns out of people's hands? But yeah, they were not qualified at all. They have blood on their hands.Zodenticz Nexian (talk) 13:16, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

They apparently decided they'd rather just document what happened after the fact and let the crime occur; the situation ended when a Border Patrol agent showed up and did their alleged job for them. Like, if you have someone breaking into your home, they'd rather just wait for you to get raped and then document what happened than confront a rapist then turn around and tell you it ain't their job to stop crimes in progress; infamous case in DC which basically says the cops don't have a duty to protect you. If that's the case, they don't need guns or uniforms to be a glorified accountant. CorruptUser 13:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Zodenticz Nexian Nice strawman. I said department, not the police as a whole. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:45, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, just the department in that town? Alright, I get that. Zodenticz Nexian (talk) 14:48, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser In a technical sense they both do and do not have an obligation to protect you. Police and other forms of law enforcemnt exist, sort of self evidently, to enforce laws. This in turn is based on the general idea the Social Contract, wherein the state exists to protect us from each other via a set of rules. In exchange, we consent to be governed by the institutions of that state. (This is what Consent of the Governed actually refers to btw.) The problem is America is run by self centered dipshits who are not concerned with the common good and/or have no idea what to do to solve this shit. This has the effect of basically trashing almost all of those state institutions, which borderline voids the requirements for a social contract in the first place. Which in turn threatens the legitimacy of the state... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:51, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

This also is not true! Police have absolutely no legal obligation to protect you or render any service whatsoever in the USA! This has reached the Supreme Court in multiple cases, including Warren v. District of Columbia.138.207.198.74 (talk) 18:06, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Sigh... Ok, to any leftists reading this. Don't be like this moron. Read political theory and political philosophy and don't rely entirely on talking points. Thank you. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:09, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

You say this to someone who's stated concern is that which underpins law, and yet you appeal to law. What the fuck? I'm halfbaked? You're appealing to a fuck ton of loaded shit which is, bluntly speaking, not something you're apparently willing to back up when asked to. Apparently having a decent enough grasp of the ideas underpinning the legitimacy of law, goverment, and the state, as is "halfbaked'... And from someone who won't show anything to boot. Fuck off and do whatever, I'm too fucking tired to argue anymore. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:28, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I definitely agree with GC here. A government needs the ability to enforce order. If they don't enforce order, organized crime groups will. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 18:21, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@MirrorIrorriM In my view, that's a bit optimistic. If a government cannot enforce law, then it ceases to be a government. It becomes nothing more than a rather well armed cartel of some sort. Then, things become quite nasty, as the idea of "criminal" no longer holds sway. Who is a criminal when there is no law? Are not all free to vie for power in the resulting vacuum? We've seen the answer throughout history, and it isn't pleasant. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:47, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe if someone told them it was a black guy selling cigarettes in that school, they’d have gone in. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 14:47, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Or an unarmed pot farmer. They could score some free pot from it all too. CorruptUser 18:14, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

It's stuff like this that makes me leery of any attempt to increase police funding.-Flandres (talk) 19:57, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I think all of you need to get off Twitter for your source of news. Do you guys just listen to how unhinged you all sound? 2601:647:5F00:C4D0:5151:10EB:9DDC:C252 (talk) 22:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

"Unhinged"? There is nothing unhinged about criticizing the police for this colossal failure to respond. We are constantly force-fed stories, in MSM or entertainment or on social media, about how police are warriors protecting the masses from threats. It turns out they're only interested in using their authority to over police people who have no way to respond. -RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:54, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Each and every one of those incompetent cops should be fired with no ability to get unemployment benefits. Blood is on their hands and should be punished accordingly. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 23:40, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if they should be punished, as while it was their fault it appears to have been an accident. Maybe a one month suspension. Please keep in mind that Uvdale needs police to...function. People saying "Fire all Uvdale cops!" are advocating for anarchy in Uvdale. Andrew5 (talk) 00:22, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

What good is a police department if they are doing nothing? Obviously they would need to replace them. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 00:30, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@Andrew5 Yes, obviously a law enforcement mechanism is required for society to function. Duh. Obviously. The next person who tries to argue against a strawman of my position gets reverted. I've restated this position multiple times now, there's no excuse for ignorance. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:34, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I could support firing all of them iff a new department is hired at the same time. Andrew5 (talk) 11:29, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There is a certain oddity in that most police abolition advocates like myself insist upon on police being a net harm, but also maintaining the “lets get rid of them tomorrow and offer no alternative” as a strawman of police abolotionism. But then we got some rando in this thread insisting on exactly that. We still need some sort of social system to respond to and prevent antisocial behaviour, like bruh. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 02:29, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Then 1) in what way would your proposed system be meaningfully different from a police force, and 2) why is replacing the police with this system better than reforming the police over time to match your hypothetical system? CorruptUser 06:33, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Anti-poverty policies, social work systems, field mental health care, better infrastructure to reduce lead exposure, better funded schools, etc. Are all pretty reliable alternatives to preventing violent crime, it also comes with the advantage of being able to respond to emergencies such as folks having mental breakdowns without an escalation of violence.

Police fundamentally as an institution have been about controlling the powerless, and protecting private property. Our modern institution of policing started from a demand to respond to rioting workers in England, and then the system was adopted in the US. It was also adapted in slave patrols, then later border patrols in the US.

policing is one of the primary means of enforcing inequality, especially on racial lines in a number of countries, and there multiple lines of evidence that suggest police practices are largely ineffective in responding to serious felonies, and many police practices especially in regards to forensics is largely based in outright pseudoscience.

It’s an open secret that many crimes are happening on college campuses, with drug use, underage drinking, and more seriously sexual assault — and yet this is not where we find police presence (not that we necessarily want that either). Instead we find police in black neighbourhoods often harassing people for misdemeanours, or drug possession.

People need community defence without unilateral power, one that is answerable to the direct democracy of the people who need protection. That would be wildly different the current unelected physical force of the state. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 11:58, 28 May 2022 (UTC).

None of those social policies require the police to be removed. So again, how would your proposed system of rule enforcement be different than a police force, and why does it require abolishing instead of reforming the police? CorruptUser 15:49, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

the modern institution of policing did not start as a response to rioting workers in england. the cavalry were already dealing with such civil disorder. modern policing stems from the fact private policing existing before was ineffective at combating crime due in no small part from corruption of the thief takers, that'hue and cry' system does not work as populations grew and required crime to be witnessed and random people in the vicinity to pursue offenders. peelian principles and policing by consent is the foundation of modern policing. an alternative to draconian punishment or bloody military responses, it was meant to be a non militarised, civilian police operating through mutual trust and cooperation with communities policed, recognising that to do their job, the good will of the public is needed. the us has strayed far from these principles, with black communities never having been policed by consent. its important to understand the founding principles to understand what the policing could and should look like to offer an alternative to the current us police to realistically strive for instead of the choice between the status quo or the abolition of police entirely - as so unthinkable to many as to not worth consideration.

in my view defunding is required to help fund all organisations and infrastructure required to prevent people reaching a point where they would be criminalised and become the responsibility of the police, whose role is much reduced as a result, have a much less antagonistic relationship with some communities leading to more trust and goodwill all around. this would be dependent on a judicary and prison system far far less brutal, and not having to enforce laws that are by accident or design racist in there effect, criminalising more black people and at a younger age than any other grouping, making interactions with police involve being taken away to be brutalised by the state.

abolition on the other hand is a fantasy requiring a utopian society that can never exist and is a boon to any one favouring the status quo to dismiss defunding, already a tough sell and far simple a process even without resistance and inertia, out of hand as one and the same as abolition, and people stop listening. AMassiveGay (talk) 19:13, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

(my view btw is that of a dumbfuck limey from across the pond, so dont expect to much detail just broadish points)AMassiveGay (talk) 19:16, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser that runs against the is/ought problem as no ethical conclusion is going to follow from any set of factual statements. The police enforce inequality, are largely ineffective when it comes to serious crime, and are the means to which racist, classist, and queerphobic laws both historically and currently have been violently enforced. To see the police as something other than an institution of oppression is reflective of sociological privilege. If one was opposed to such inequality and oppression, then one would have to be for the abolition of the police. Reforms have a track record of largely being ineffective, and police, and police unions themselves provide extreme amounts of political pressure to prevent such reforms. The only data that suggests police are effective at preventing/responding violent crime, comes from police organizations themselves which presents a massive conflict of interest. At this point I think supporting police as a effective means of responding to “crime” and catching say “rapists and murderers” is borderline pseudoscientific. Especially consider all the openly used forms of forensic woo. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC).

@AMassiveGay My citation for my claims come from the book “The End of Policing” by Alex S. Vitale whose is a sociologist whose area of expertise is in the relationship between policing and social justice. None of the major academic criticisms I am aware of involve claims of historical inaccuracy, but I can fold on that and say I am likely misremembering the historical details Vitale described in the book. Regardless I think we need to be careful when we talk about “crime” as it’s a socially constructed category which definitely is/was used to target marginalized groups. As a Brit you should be plenty aware of how homosexuality was persecuted as criminal behaviour for most of the last hundred years.

I guarantee you as well that every person in this thread has committed a crime of some kind, but they probably don’t picture themselves as “criminals” which it is well established that folks generally tend have alot of implicit biases about what “criminal” looks like.

the “utopian fantasy” is fallacious objection as I can guarantee people have said the same about the abolition of slavery. People say it about responding to climate change now, and I have heard that exact objection to policies like UBI, or implementing public healthcare in the US. It’s the go-to response of any dismissive conservative to any progressive stance they disapprove of. Liberals adopt the rhetoric whenever they are dealing with someone farther left than themselves. It’s not a genuinely substantive argument, it’s a thought-terminating cliche. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:39, 28 May 2022 (UTC).

An important side note, though I'm sure it's obvious to most in this debate, but policing is only one form of "law enforcement", which is in turn only one form of controlling anti-social behaviors and maintaining some level of social cohesion. I'm making this side note to preempt the inevitable arguments that treat the police as the only form of enforcement that ever has been or ever will be, as such a view is both ignorant and absurd. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:44, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I have a question- Is there any police departments that don't have incompetent trigger happy cops? Is there any who do good honest police work? I suspect that it is very rare. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 00:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Cops have an odd job: dealing with other humans that we’d like for them to deal with the 4-8% of humanity who are happy to “make mischief”. I would imagine one would tend to get desensitized to violence (or, even (as a coping-mechanism), learn to ‘’enjoy’’ aspects of it, so that the horrible, horrible things that one needs to do, to do the job correctly don’t drive them insane. It must be a soul killing job for someone with a modicum of empathy…and now you can see the root of your query is defective; the job creates the monsters, and nobody knows that fact better than the cops themselves. (If you can imagine a real-life Stanford Experiment & Milgram Experiment mashup you can begin to flesh out the issues.)04:00, 29 May 2022 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Cops prove themselves to be often useless... again. With how the country is going I'm glad I have several firearms, gotta be my own first responder. Lada (talk) 02:40, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

American policing has existed since the 1880s. Suburbia and urban centers are growing in America. Virtually all American suburbanites want policing in their neighborhoods. Most American city dwellers want policing also. The number of police and detectives in the USA is projected to grow at a rate comparable with other professions. It's pure fantasy to believe that American policing is going to go away. Stafford (talk) 04:29, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't think 90% of protesters want police to 'go away'. They simply desire the overly-militarised, trigger-happy and undertrained variant to go away. I get GC's annoyance here; I mean, you're members of a profession world-renown to going into a situation and shooting everyone dead regardless and you couldn't even bloody do that here - the one time it would have been most welcome.

On a practical level, America (and her cops) are victims of the complete obsolescence of the organsational system for law enforcement. First off, there's simply too many police 'departments'. According to Google, there's 18,000 of them, and many of them are tiny. How *do* you reform such a lattice-work of jurisdictions, proceedures, management styles and so on? How can one spread 'best practice' within a force which is smaller than a bus, which shall invaribly end up with cops covering up for each other (like any work team does)? Some rinky-dink sheriffs etc might be decent cops, but know nothing about how to lead or manage anything. This is part of the issue Dumb cites - those cops are 'harrassing black neighbourhoods' because many colleges have their *own* police (of various forms) who are supposed to be going after the on-campus crimes. Ie they're not the same agency.

One of the answers to this is 'national standards' for policing, training etc. Yet the USA doesn't have them. Nor does she (apparently) have any national 'cop registration' system either. This means not only are training standards wildly different for each police academy, but the 'crap but not quite sackable' cops can keep on shifting PDs to keep one step ahead of their deserved 'day of reckoning'.

Speaking of academies... the model is screwed-up - expecting many of the prospective cops pay for their own training and kit. I mean, we stopped doing this for the military in the 19th Century. Some of the bigger PDs shall pay for your training etc, but the little ones can't afford this. There's a chronic shortage of police officers and this offloading of costs onto the prospective cop don't help. This can become a perfect storm for some outfits; short-staffed, can't afford to train new folks, ends up accepting poor/dodgy candidates simply because they meet the technical critera for employment.

Though the training leaves much to desired. American cops don't train enough for their advanced counterparts, too much of what training they do have revolves around shooting people/things and in smaller PDs the refresher training may be between little and nil. Even worse, there's a tendency to scrimp on the training but splash out for the bling of policing - new cars, big guns and so on.

So in short, yes some - in fact, most - police forces need 'abolishing'. And a lot of reform needs to be done. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:44, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Cracker Less then two percent of the crimes police deal with are classified as felonies, the vast majority of what cops deal with are minor misdemeanours. The idea that cops have these exceptionally dangerous jobs that drive them to brutality and violence is not factually supported. Most delivrary drivers and trade workers work jobs with a much higher probability of death or accident compared to cops. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC).

I get annoyed with this argument “most people don’t support police abolition” with the implied conclusion that minority opinions are unjustified opinions. If the majority of Americans supported banning interracial marriage, you wouldn’t therefore take the opposition to interracial marriage as morally justifiable would you?

The abolition of sexism, racism, albeism, transphobia, wage labour etc, are all “utopian” ideals that will never get accomplished any time soon, yet that doesn’t therefore justify being pro-sexism or being favour of racism, does it? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC).

I don't say holding that opinion is "unjustified", I simply say it's utterly impractical at this time/place. As long as you have laws, you shall require people to enforce said laws. Even minority groups who really don't like their current policing arrangements still accept the need for policing of some form because anarchy sucks. In quite a lot of cases, they'd simply like the police to operate in the way they're supposed to. That's why 'defund/abolish the police' is a crappy slogan; it makes it sound like you're advocating anarchy to much of the Big Public.

On a more practical front, the police are needed. They have the vast majority of policing experience and skills. Even if you 'abolished the police' today, you'd need to hire on many of them to help run the new 'Citizen's Watch' or whatever you call your police-by-another-name. And more importantly, if you don't fix the issues in training, the latticework of bodies, compensations etc chances are your new police shall have most, if not all the weaknesses of the old ones. So, no simply chanting 'abolish the police' is pointless on all fronts. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:05, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Life itself is ultimately pointless, and practicality can not be judged in absence of a stated goal. The fear of “anarchy” is ultimately a fear of constant responsibility, and the need for constant cooperation. There is no practical means or even practicality in of itself in the aim of the abolition of oppression and exploitation yet that doesn’t per se make the pursuit of such aims without value. Direct Democratic institutions of social work, mental healthcare, guaranteed needs satisfaction, and community defence built within bottom-up governance cannot be said truthfully to be identical to unilateral power enforced from the top, completely unanswerable to the working class by a privileged set of political actors afforded special rights undemocratically. What I argue for literally cannot be “police by another name” unless you define police so broadly as to be practically meaningless. Tribal communities can enforce their own laws and customs in the absence of the state and a police force, conflating the means to which such norms are reinforced, and transgressions responded to with the presence of police is some wild ethnocentrism. Get the boot out of your mouth. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 10:38, 29 May 2022 (UTC).

@Cracker Except, and here's the kicker, they've proven themselves (at least in this case) to be selfish cowards who will not perform their job if it means risking their lives. You are arguing we should keep a toaster that cannot toast, a freezer that cannot freeze, a computer that cannot compute. The proposition is absurd. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 11:39, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The police in high crime urban areas in the USA are faced with policing populations with: low quality public schools, high percentages of fatherless homes, high rates of drug abuse, a thriving drug trade and high rates of urban unemployment. America's police aren't miracle workers and we shouldn't expect them to be. Stafford (talk) 11:29, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

@Stafford To whom are you responding? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 11:32, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I take a middle of the road view as far as pro-police vs. anti-police. So I am not responding to anyone in particular. America's policing needs to improve in many areas of the USA, but so do the poorly managed governments with high-crime populations that are being policed. Dysfunctional cities in the USA have blueprints on how to improve - namely, well-run cities. In a democracy, people often get the governments they deserve. If people have dysfunctional governments and police forces, it's often because they have dyfunctional populations. Stafford (talk) 11:56, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, so you're an idiot. Gotcha. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 12:24, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Argumentum ad hominems in public discourse are illogical. I suspect you are aware of this. Please try to do better in the future. Stafford (talk) 13:06, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Might want to read the fine print on that fallacy you just accused me of. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:34, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and you are an idiot if you think that "high-crime populations" (read black people) justify the corrupt, cowardly, trigger-happy, panic-prone, idiotic, and sometimes just plain sociopathic mess that the US police systems currently exist as. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I'm a little late to the party here, but one of the more difficult things about policing, specifically in America, is a lack of uniform training and centralized authority. Police don't get their power from the federal, or state governments. Instead they are given power primarily from local voters. There are a couple reasons for this, however the source is almost certainly discriminatory. Currently for 50 US states there are 17.985 police agencies, the majority of which are local. If you reduced police forces primarily to counties, that would be roughly 3,000 police agencies, and if training was expressly the responsibility of states, it would be much easier to create best practices and enforce national rules and regulations. Obviously you need local training, but a universal policy for use of force, interacting with the public, and a constant refrain that police must serve the public, would address many of the systemic issues around policing.@GrammarCommie is also spot on that this can't be a discussion solely about the police, the entire system of public safety must be reimagined, just like the justice system also needs major reinventing. Both of those fall under the biggest debate, over moral judgements of this country regarding crime and punishment, another thing that is flagrantly imbalanced.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:57, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, echo (you basically agree with my 'organisational obsolescence' point above). On @OnlySortaDumb's point... well, there's no other way to say this; you are a policing luddite. Your 'solution' to a poorly-functioning policing system is to simply revert to an earlier system. You know what law enforcement was like before organised, state-controlled police? - informal 'citizen watches', private guards, criminal gangs and on the occasion the state *had* to intervene, the army. A combination of incompetent, corrupt, biased and/or violent.

Like hand-looms, these things bit the dust because they were crap. In fact, many of the people who don't like the American police now - the poor, the minorities and so on - would fare even *worse* under previous systems than the current one. No police, powerful criminals like Epstein, Madoff etc would have never been brought down. Or any corrupt companies. For there's be nobody there to investigate crimes formally, and if somebody did start doing it informally... well, I could simply pay for goons to have you beaten up and office trashed. Hell, I could simply have you killed if needs be; it's not like there's anyone about to stop me, is there? KarmaPolice (talk) 01:47, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

there is no "reverting" into a larger system of social services that have never been previously implemented on that scale, I am not the luddite here. You are politically reactionary and anti-social justice. Note I never mentioned "citizens watches" once, but you seem to think it's okay to provide whatever strawman representation of me that you want and that's good enough of a refutation. Really putting the good faith on display there. "Luddites" want to preserve the status quo, that's you in this conversation -- not the libertarian socialist advocating better infrastructure, mental health care, and social work services. Cops are just another criminal gang by another name sanctioned by the state, at least in some sense you sort of acknowledge it. You can't "reform" a criminal gang and preserve its existence as a gang. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 02:10, 2 June 2022 (UTC).

All this talk of reform or replacement of police agencies begs the question "can it be done?" Well, men have been trying to fly since Icarus, but it was only 1903 when the technology to create the first self-propelled, heavier than air craft was built and flown. The difference between these two ideals is aviation is an engineering problem and crime is a consequence of human nature, human failings, or just plain characteristic of humanity. We can assume that human character will not simply improve on its own. The claim that police themselves are criminals, if true, rather proves the point. Surrendering to the metaphor, let the police be criminals. The agency is an organized criminal enterprise. Such groups, odious as they may be, are concerned with monetary gains and tend to cause violent crime to be somewhat reduced because it is bad for business and also inspires the public to call for "reform," which the police certainly oppose. Only the most optimistic, and mostly broke, anarchists believe civilization would thrive without police agencies of some kind. Ariel31459 (talk) 03:16, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I really hate that term. It's always undefined beyond "bad shit just happens". ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:50, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 You started strong then you faltered. Richard Lewontin made exact the same argument you did about flight but instead to illustrate how it is actually impossible to predict political and technological limitations from pre-conceived ideas of human limitations both from biological and pre-conceived notions of "human nature". Such arguments are not ones based in genuine nuanced understandings of biological science or even psychological science-- they are purely ideologically motivated stemming from a "more than you can possibly know" bias and preconceptions of human essentialism that is existentially fraught. Crime is a social construct, not a fact of nature. I no doubt believe that we can never rid society of anti-social tendencies but the only organizations that claim police efficacy in "reducing violent crime" are police themselves which presents a huge conflict of interest. To talk about the systems we had before (which recall I am not advocated for) as flawed because they were corrupt, biased, incompetent, and/or violent -- all of those criticisms can be currently held against the police. To state otherwise is flying in the face of the mountains of evidence of systematic racism enforced by the hands of police that have been accumulated over decades. This is not a institutions that "works". - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:04, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

You complain about me representing you as a strawman, Dumb. Fine. Answer the following clearly and concisely;

Without any organised 'police' how do you propose...

1. ...society deals with the crimes committed which are *not* related to mental health issues, economic privation or substance abuse?

2. ...society deals with the crimes which are too complex for the layperson to solve, such as complicated frauds?

3. ...society avoids the blossoming of gangs, 'self-defence groups' (like my 'citizen's watch' you objected to), mercenaries and other actors which can make the lives of many of the public even worse?

4. ...how shall a state be able to enforce the laws it has made?

As for being a reactionary proponent of anti-social justice... I take it you didn't read my points above which taken as a whole would be revolutionary for American policing? I didn't say a word about either laws or the judicial system, which are the two other parts of the 'justice' triad - you cannot have laws without detection/enforcement, and you can't have a judicial system without both of the previous.

Police - in theory at least - are not simply 'another criminal gang'. Two fundamental differences exist; they enforce the laws made by elected representatives of the people and they answer to them for their actions (or lack of). They may fail to meet these goals - sometimes hugely - but the simple fact is that they have these goals and 'gangs' generally don't. KarmaPolice (talk) 04:22, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

See a strawman fallacy is when someone mischaracterizes or oversimplifies their opponent’s argument as to make it easier to rebuke, it’s fallacy because the response becomes an argument in response to a series of irrelevant premises that the opponent didn’t actually make.

In this instance you have constructed the argument that I would want modern policing replaced by the ineffective systems that preluded police, and that’s my proposal. My argument in not simply the implementation of neighborhood watches in replace of policing, while keeping everything else as is. I advocated specifically for a massive expansion of various institutions and social programs as to prevent crime from happening to begin with to lower the need for police as an institution. Now that doesn’t exclude the implementation of neighborhood militias that are directly elected by the communities they serve and are quickly stripped of their power when they wrong their communities, but that’s not my “solution” nor my proposal as to what should replace the police, though I am not excluding it either. Also to make the historical argument here about the neighbor and citizen militias of old is sort of fallacious on the grounds that it just assumes that technological advances since then are irrelevant, that no new systems of accountability could be adopted that were unavailable to people 100 + years ago, and that systems of old would just be adopted verbatim with zero relevant changes. That’s absurd.

I think most crimes are related to mental health, economic desperation, and the war on drugs. The crimes excluded from those categories that extend beyond mild misdemeanors (i.e. vandalism) are exceptionally uncommon(with the exception of maybe rape and serious spousal abuse), but as of now the more serious violent crimes are not effectively responded to by policing. Rape is notoriously poorly handled by police with less then 2% of those taken to court getting convicted for the crime. Not to mention that less than 5% of rape victims even feel comfortable going to the police. 60% of the murders committed in the united states never get cleared, so in all probability if you kill someone in the US provided there was no witnesses there is a good chance you may just get away with it. This doesn’t even get into the amount of pseudoscience that informs police forensic practices for solving crime, i.e. the use of bite mark and hair analysis, blood splatter analysis, fingerprint analysis, etc. if you are starting from the assumption that the police are effective and competent you are already starting from a false premise.

So why is this expectation that the system that doesn’t deal with these problems effectively should be expected to persist as is, but any alternative that may be just as effective but solves a lot of other problems related to crime is simply a non-starter? I think a good chunk of this is going have to be dealt with by abolishing patriarchal power structures and ensuring that men don’t hold unilateral power over women --- because lets be real the majority of those crimes are being committed by men against their partners and spouses.

Fraud for that matter is not effectively dealt with by police, the most common response to fraud by the police is simply prevention via education. A culture that implements critical thinking and fraud prevention as a normal part of society’s education system is going to be better equipped at preventing fraud, police aren't really a requirement. Tax agencies are better at handling fraud then the police are.

Honestly a lot of “gangs” and mercenaries that make people’s lives worse is because they implement the incentive and power structures of capitalism as to establish economic coercion on small communities, or they are motivated by ideological extremism and far right nationalism (which the police openly engages with and often ignores).

I am not going to give the last point a response because as an actual socialist and not a pretend one I know the DoTP isn’t characterized by the existence of a centralized state. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:51, 2 June 2022 (UTC).

Also nothing short of actual revolution is actually revolutionary, your modest demsoc proposals is not at all revolutionary. This the rhetorical equivalent of sucking your own dick. Only Americas and Brits would think that defunding police and creating a strong tie between the police and federal government is "revolutionary" a very liberal American or brit at that. That's just another complex proposal for reform, that's not revolution. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk).

Simply claiming "crime is a social construct," doesn't establish that it is irrelevant to human nature. Look at those places where there is no crime (sic). Ideas derived from observation are generally regarded as scientific, provided they are consistent with observations through time. The idea that crime is absent when certain social criteria are operational is an academic construct without evidence of any sort. Utopianists, in order to obtain their desired ends, often seem prepared to engage in all necessary mass mayhem with the expectation that Utopia will burst forth. This type of belief is like a religious faith--pleasant to imagine and impervious to reason.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:45, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice and GC seem to be the only ones engaging in anything a reasonable person would describe police reform.@Only Sort of Dumb I get where you are coming from, but I can see how KP and GC wouldn't take it seriously. You've identified serious deficits in police abilities to deal with serious crimes, as well as interactions with those experiencing homelessness, mental instability or drug addiction. But it appears you want to instead move many of these interactions to community members instead of a state sponsored force. You're addressing a serious problem with policing, that often members of the police force are not members of the community they are policing. So expanding community involvement in public safety I agree is critical. However, there is still a need for some sort of central governing body. That body would be responsible for training, distribution of resources, and accountability. Likely then you also need to break out groups based on what their response would be to a call. Somewhere around a third of 911 calls in the US, are some version of a welfare check, which doesn't require an armed response. Domestic disputes, and crimes of a sexual nature, probably need social workers to spearhead victim contact, but may require some form of armed response. There are examples of this working, especially in Western states, alleviating some pressure on police. But honestly why stop there? Why do you need an armed officer for traffic infractions? Why do you need an armed officer in any school? That sort of evaluation should encapsulate our immediate reforms. Investigative techniques, imprisonment and the judicial process all need to be addressed, however in the immediate we need to address officers on the street primarily.

Disturbingly, Uvalde PD have chosen to stop cooperating with Texas investigators. These smaller police forces may have the equipment, but they are woefully unprepared for any form of accountability, because they've never had to.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:43, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 You misunderstand the fallacy you are making. You assume a fixed essential human nature exists and that it has a tendency towards behaviours we would classify as crimes in modern society unaffected by environmental and technological changes — I am telling you that no such thing exists. “Human nature” is an ideological concept, not a biological reality. Most biological anthropologists I know don’t even believe such a thing exists because there is no absolute universal behavioural characteristics that exists across all human cultures besides the most basic needs satisfaction for human survival. Even in that case some cultures actually take on ritualistic forms of suicide and starvation that put even those basic universals to doubt. Human emotions are even disputed as universal by scientists. It would be very odd if somehow emotions weren’t universal for humans but “crime” was. Assuming a human nature does exist judging upon it on the basis of behaviour in the industrialized modern would be like trying to infer an animal’s “natural” behaviour while kept in captivity in a zoo.

but you know whose very inclined to believe in human universals and inherent tendencies towards evil? Fundamentalist christians.

If the absence of police is your standard for “utopianism” then your standards are low. There is no faith in acknowledging the realities of an ever evolving and socializing animal. The existentialists understood that atheism implied the absence of human essentialism, and yet you cling to the belief of such essentialism with the explicit argument that it’s rejection exist on the basis of faith? I will admit an inevitability of violence and shitty behaviour, but crime is arbitrarily delineated. Most countries declare me being butt fucked by my boyfriend a crime, it’s not a consistent set of outlawed behaviours across cultures and time. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:35, 3 June 2022 (UTC).

@RipCityLiberal My favorite political philosopher to date is Machiavelli. Highly misunderstood and underrated. Anyway, to the reason I'm bringing it up. I'm highly flexible when it comes to these problems. If we need to keep the police around for the time being, sans certain powers or certain equipment, fine, I'll support that. If the cops are unable to fulfill their role however, (this is very important) then I would be in favor of abolishing them, and blacklisting them from future employment in similar fields. I take all of you seriously, basically. Except people who think there should be no enforcement mechanism for social norms or people who think everything is fine. I don't take those people seriously. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ (ec) It doesn't really matter whether you like the police and the State or not. They are inevitable, and places without an effective government are also the worst. This article by Mancur Olson is pretty good.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/dictatorship-democracy-and-development/2776079374BF1E318DF928EA79EF2294

Also, this book by Daron Acemoglu and Jim Robinson.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555400/the-narrow-corridor-by-daron-acemoglu-and-james-a-robinson/ GeeJayK (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@GeeJayK OnlySortaDumb isn't opposed to governments, to my knowledge. He's opposed to states. These are different things. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

@RipCityLiberal I don't buy the necessity of the centralized nation-state. Why not direct democratic intuitions made up of a confederacy of workers councils informed via the direct voting power of the workers in the workplaces they represent? Government can exist in other forms then the one currently existing in imperialistic WEIRD nations. WEIRD nations are not the template to how every governing institutions needs to be and the belief that it is has some deeply fucked up colonialist implications. I don't buy this the inevitability and necessity of capitalism and the centralized state, to me is no different of an argument for the necessity for patriarchy and systematic racism. It's a commitment to the implementations and preservation of class inequality and in essence an argument for the moral necessity of classism. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC).

@GrammarCommieCorrect - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC).

(EC) My mistake, I used the two words interchangeably. Nonetheless, I do think the state is inevitable (or at least some sort of authority) . It's no coincidence that every landmass in the world is "ruled" by a state. Failed states like the ones in Africa are the worst, and I do think abolishing the police will inevitably lead to them. The book I linked kinda touches this point: places without an effective government (and a strong state) have been the least prosperous historically to my knowledge. The point is, how to prevent the government from oppressing the people? You need institutions for that. Luckly for us, we do know at least to some extent what kind of institutions we need. GeeJayK (talk) 01:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

A few anthropologists such as David Graeber would probably want to refute that claim. Government oppressing the people is far less likely if the government and the people are one and the same, unless you take it as possible that a government can suppress itself. Also I absolutely hate it when people look at social sciences as prescriptive enterprises telling us how best to organize society, that is not what science is designed to do and that is not something science can do. Economists describe economic systems and their consequences but they don't tell us what is and isn't a ethical economic model, or what is best for achieving social justice on the basis of the values of those advocating social justice. When you start to descriptively study the mechanisms of a capitalist economy, and design systems to measure it's success towards that very system's aims then there is little to no generalizability at all to other economic systems. Economists come into conflict with other social sciences a lot, (namely psychology, and anthropology) and isn't exactly a social science built upon experimentally testing hypotheses under controlled conditions. It has more in common wit sociology then it does with medicine -- and for that it is incredibly limited. When I took political science too my prof straight up said political science is not even a science and is better called political studies. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Two important things about a centralized system: uniformity and accountability. It wouldn't work to have different rules governing different parts of a state or a county, or a city or even a block, because a group decided to enforce regulations differently. This also includes fines for infractions. A system that punishes people for violations, which they cannot pay fines and a subjugated to a denial of freedoms is the exact system we already have. A central entity can also be targeted for accountability of it's trained personal. You can't hope to receive some sort of compensation if control were to change from one group to another, or even ensure that personnel have some sort of training.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 21:57, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There is no reason why a confederacy of workplace councils could’t implement rules that applies to the every membered council. With bottom-up power structures it allows for the total consent of the workers any policy that is being applied to them via bottom-up direct democracy.

I don’t think accountability or transparency is lost by having communities directly decide what rules should be implemented when provided with a delegate to represent their direct decisions in the higher structures of the overall union.

Creating a centralized authority that imposes it will from the top-down essentially allows for agents divorced from the needs and experiences of individual communities to impose it’s will without the consent of the governed.

If individuals know who personally is delegated to “protect” them and they personally get to say who that person is, what they are allowed to do, and that delegated person is subject to intense scrutiny from workers in the community they “protect” — I can only see that having more accountability not less.

The alternative is having an abstract bureaucracy imposes it will on communities to which they have next to no say to how they operate, and with such institution often functioning primarily to protect itself and it’s own members.

Even with federal regulation you are just pushing that power back into a larger bureaucratic engine that’s primarily designed to protect the private property of the ruling class.

It’s a problem in a liberal democracy when individual districts give their police organizations partial or total regional independence but the solution to that is not greater authoritarianism with increasing the states monopoly on legitimate violence — especially when such state has specifically implemented “harsh on crime” measures in the past specifically to increase the means for law enforcement to target marginalized communities.

The problem is in liberal representative democracy and the very institution of policing itself. - 22:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC).

@OnlySortaDumb Human nature is a scientific concept that depends entirely upon induction from observation and is unlike the ideological rationalization common to contemporary documentary fields such as sociology or anthropology as such. It would be lovely if "construct" could be used to make human nature somehow unimportant to the understanding of human cultures. Almost all people can see color, and the few individuals who are completely colorblind do not suggest that color sight is a construct of some kind. Human ethology is not a fake science. This is part of utopianism: defining away problems that can not otherwise be eradicated.Ariel31459 (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 Please stop making creationist tier arguments... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie I don't see how Creationism comes in here. The assumption that humans are unlike other animals with respect to their behavior seems to have much akin to the creationists set of mind. Please be more specific. Ariel31459 (talk) 00:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Human nature” is not a scientific concept simply because you assert it as such. The idea of anything being a wholly “human” nature is that is has to be defining to a species. “Seeing colour” is as defining as “having a heart beat” and illustrates how little you actually know about what you are talking about.

If you have to dismiss entire fields of science to make your point then you are not by any means being scientific. I have a degree in psychology, not once in my courses did the concept of “human nature” ever come up as a serious scientific construct especially not in any way that gave it a useful operational definition. You can find some stuff that are seemingly universal across human cultures but at the end of the day you have to explain why those traits are particularly informative, and specially unique to humans. The best you can probably find is the use of language and the emergence of culture; but what is there to even gleam from that? The existence of violence is not at all defining to humans. Humans can and sometimes do exist peacefully in small communities. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:28, 7 June 2022 (UTC).

Ethology is the study of the relations of biology with behavior. That some people are prepared to act in a criminal manner given even the most generous of social circumstances is a commonality of humanity. Being in denial isn't constructive. Ariel31459 (talk) 00:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you think physical anthropologists and biopsychologists are studying? Ethology doesn't start with the premise "there exists a human nature". Ethology is also the study of behavior broadly as interpreted as adapted evolutionary traits.

Dismissing relevant experts skeptical of the usefulness of this construct (which doesn't actually follow from a evolutionary account of human behavior) is a type of anti-intellectual denial.

Also a lot of evolutionary studies on human behavior from social sciences are rife with methodological flaws, ignoring the relevant limitations and methodological controls biologists apply to evolutionarily analysis, which leads you to problematic fields with varying degrees of scientific quality in thieir literature, such as with evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. This is why Lewontin (a influential population geneticist studying evolutionary changes via allele distribution in populations) refers to such references of human nature as an example of "biology as ideology". The biological world is hardly so simple and essentialist. You can probably call such tendencies "pseudo-biology" or "folk biology" and they are as about as useful to evolutionary theory and biology more broadly as human "races" are. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:49, 8 June 2022 (UTC).

@Ariel31459 "Why can't we improve society?" Your reply is basically just "because human nature/original sin". It's the same black box, sans the saving graces of its original use. At least the theological version has a series of explanations to construct something out of. Yours is just an appeal to nature fallacy. Literally. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:06, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and it gets worse. So the fun thing about appealing to "the natural order" is that this is definitionally a reactionary argument. As in it was used, in the 1700s, by monarchists, to argue against Liberal revolutions. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:09, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

But wait! It gets even worse! Because then I can take all of this, and argue against law itself. All the nasty shit that law prevents comes right back in if we're appealing to some kind of base nature, as if humans wallow in filth and rape each other to mate... Because law is one of those constructs you sneered at... Yeah... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:11, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

OK, so I see that you simply did not follow what I have been saying. My fault. Really, when smart people don't get me, it is usually my fault. Sorry. There is no original sin in the proposition that "Nobody is perfect." This is because people make mistakes. Where does "Human nature" come in? I don't know about you but I hate to admit when I have made a mistake. Many people try to hide their errors. This may explain why hypocricy is such an important topic for moralists of all sorts. The religious mind may say "everything is according to god's will." I don't. We each modify our behavior using the self-reflection theologians used to peg as "free will." That's a bugaboo that sticks it's head in almost every argument concerning human behavior. Language makes the problem even more difficult. Everyone is capable of self-improvement. Improved individuals should result in improved society. Yes to that. How to improve everyone? Not likely. Most maybe. But even those will make mistakes, and not own up to them and create problems. Humans can't be perfect, though Jesus wanted us to be.. That may be a weak hypothesis but I'm sticking with it.

As you can plainly see the "natural order" does not come into play but rather the natural disorder caused by errors propagated in large social systems. A sort of second law of thermodynamics analogue may be in play. Again, society can improve by increments. I'd be a terrible progressive not to believe that. I just don't know how it can be done in a way that eliminates error, and crime. You may argue against law, but what would be the point? Human social systems are not constructed by individual arguments. The products of human reason are not always well-reasoned or permanant.Ariel31459 (talk) 02:20, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

You took the rejection of the concept of human nature being scientifically meaningful as implying human beings were flawless? No one was arguing that human beings are without flaws, but like it's weird to try to "naturalize" that flawed character. You make a mistake or are in error when you do something you didn't intend to do that deviated from your intended behavior. Nature has no intentions, it's not a conscious entity, it does not make "mistakes" or errors.

The point GC is making is that this "just nature" argument has historically been used in politically reactionary ways. I.e. the natural right to rule, Thomas Hobbes's argument that without a state life would be "nasty brutish and short", not to mention evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists attempts to argue for the "natural" tendency for humans towards bigotry.

It all comes to serve the same function in the end, namely the status quo is inevitable as it is justified. Lewontin thought that biology at all suggested this was absolute bollocks - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC).

@Ariel31459 If anything, the social sciences generally agree that humans are very much flawed. They're actually pretty focused on that, psychology and sociology in particular. Aka those fields you bashed earlier has engaging in "ideological rationalization"... Yeah those fields. Yeah, they kinda think humans are pretty flawed. Yeah... @OnlySortaDumb Your sig hasn't been applied correctly. Might want to look into that. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

this all seems rather premature to me. social programs, mental health services, reform of prisons and the judicary, and a whole lot more needs to be in place before abolition becomes a viable option. those things should be striven for because they are worthy goals in and of themselves, whether you want to aboltish the police or not. its only when such things are in place will abolition begin to look like a possibility, and its only then should it be a goal one can work towards - it should b a simple task by that point, as it likely being natural progression. whats missing right now is are those social programs, mental health services, etc. whats missing is what form they take, how they would be implemented, what they are meant to do, how they might compliment each other. not knowing any of that, abolition is based on wishful thinking, taking it for granted these will all be effective in doing what they are intended and will naturally do whats required to make abolition possible. nor is possible to say abolition can never work, without these supposed services in place to refer to and show us what they might be inherent shortcomings preventing abolition ever being viable.

we cannot say one way or another if abolition will ever be viable right now, and we are far from a time when we can say, and without all the assumptions that have right now. until then we have essentially a pantomime debate - 'is it possible?' 'on no it isnt' 'oh yes it is'. all these social programs and assorted services that might someday come together to make the police redundant will come into being to meet specific and current community needs and for the benefit of the community not for a distant and uncertain goal of abolishing the police. i have no clue what these services will look like, what they would do, and how they are to be integrated with one and other and within the community - anything and everything from youth clubs to needle exchanges, i should imagine. nor do i know what challenges there are getting such things up and running. community activists and volunteers probably better placed to tell you what issues there are and what would help. this debate does not tell me, and the debate is pointless until these things are known. AMassiveGay (talk) 04:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I personally don't think we should care too much about viability to hold an ethical or political stance. That's not how change happens. Queer people didn't wait until a moment of political viability to fight for equal rights. I don't take a stance of anti-racism because I believe it can be abolished in my lifetime. But like your whole "we need to do x, y and z before police abolition" is in essence what police abolitionists are arguing. No one (well no one who is serious) is saying if we got rid of the police tomorrow, or even next year without any radical shifts in society everything going to be okay. I am a police abolitionist in the same way I am a feminist, or a socialist, or anti-fascist. I am defining my end goals, not what I believe is achievable here and now. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:24, 8 June 2022 (UTC).

A Very American Solution

Require gun club registration to buy a gun. You can register as a gun club, even as an individual. The gun club then becomes responsible for the equipment registered to the club.

https://www.silencershop.com/blog/post/who-is-allowed-to-shoot-or-use-my-silencer

It's literally already there. The flow chart just needs to read as always responsible to the club. 185.229.59.115 (talk) 03:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Huh, that might work. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:00, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

You could even profit, charging dues for your club. 185.229.59.115 (talk) 04:07, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

But if one of your gun owners went off, it's beauracracy up the ass. 185.229.59.115 (talk) 04:16, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Same thing could be accomplished by requiring owners of certain weapons to join recognized militia's, similar to the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Force. Feds could then outline a series of requirements for these militia's, including establishing that certain types of arms remain at a secured training facility.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:25, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

'a very american solution' - do not most other countries already require you register your guns, as well as requiring a gun license? honestly, you dont need a novel approach to gun control, you mainly need to not have any and all attempts at legislation shot down in the senate. AMassiveGay (talk) 01:34, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm in senate, then, am I? This is about cool and unusual and established weapon control. It literally doesn't work with the government. It has to work with the voters. 45.38.179.190 (talk) 05:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Like, I've always been a fan of you, amassive, but treating guns like silencers is how it could get a little bit closer. 45.38.179.190 (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I watched "What is a Woman" so you don't have to

Someone uploaded it to youtube, probably down now. Basically, Matt Walsh interviews a bunch of different people including Jordan Peterson, and includes some of his prior interviews such as the Dr Phil special or some stuff about Johny the Walrus. It's basically him talking with various professors or doctors, politicians, etc, and asking them about Transsexuality, and "proving" they don't know what a woman is. The only interesting segment is with a Transman whose surgery was botched and he is going to have a slow, painful death, but it's emotional appeal. CorruptUser 17:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I think the botched surgery thing is illustrative of the risks invoked by the intense societal pressure on trans people to get said surgeries in order to better conform. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:21, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I would've thought the intense societal pressure would be to conform their identities to their bodies, not their bodies to their identities... CorruptUser 19:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@CorruptUser It's a bit of both. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

The idea that you must conform to one of the most common monkey shapes is stupid and dangerous. Be who you wanna be and if the people around you don't like it, find better people. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 20:50, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

$10 says that it is used by transphobes as proof that being trans is wrong. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

So his only point is that there are risks to being trans? (Besides the ones that he's directly contributing to, of course.) Maybe your surgery gets botched. Maybe you get hit by a car crossing the street on the way to the doctor. Pushing to ban something because one guy was harmed because of it is ridiculous, and I don't for a moment believe that these rare incidents are what Matt Walsh or his fans actually care about. Vomitorium (talk) 21:22, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

No, there were more points, that was just the only time it ever really got emotional. Oddly the case of the Transman was actually an argument for Uni-Healthcare; the problems weren't fixed because he lost his insurance, allegedly. Matt's other points...

• John Money and Alfred Kinsey were pedophiles or something (mostly untrue, but best lies always contain a nugget of truth in them)
• Binary views on sexuality are not unique to the Western World (also not untrue)
• Trans people emotionally bully people to get their way, including getting his Dr Phil segment removed (eh, can't really say)
• Johnny the Walrus was the greatest children's book in the post-Seuss world (false)
• The suicide rate for trans people pre/post-surgery is a misunderstanding of stats or something (very false)
• His wife struggles to open a jar (lady, you have hot water for a reason)

And, of course...

• Trans and other "gender theorists" don't know what a woman is (it's actually a good philosophical question, so calling this one false too) CorruptUser 21:36, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, you're saying that the case of the trans man that Matt Walsh brought up demonstrates the value of universal health care; Matt Walsh didn't say that. (I'd find it hard to imagine that he would.)

Aside from the truth values of the individual points that he made, the true ones don't seem to add up to his thesis, which I assume is that people with gender dysphoria should not be allowed to transition. If his thesis was significantly weaker than that, I'd suspect him of being dishonest about what he wants to convince his viewers of; for example, if his thesis were merely that gender self-identification was invalid in some philosophical sense, I doubt he'd be satisfied with someone who accepted that point but believed it had no bearing on medical treatment of gender dysphoria, nor appropriate social treatment of trans people. Vomitorium (talk) 22:04, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah Matt always seemed like a crackhead and he always did act like it Some dude (talk) 04:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

...No? Nothing about him says "drug addict". He's a professional troll, not junkie. CorruptUser 05:45, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Aren't all trolls, professional? I mean, there's nothing special about being a douchebag on the internet. Anyone can do it. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 08:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

No, because most don't paid to troll. CorruptUser 16:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

This is by no means an original point but it’s worth mentioning that Matt Walsh can’t define “woman” either. Your first attempt might be based on the ability to give birth, but then everyone stops being a woman when they hit menopause. Then you might say it’s the presence of a uterus; the only reason you’re using this definition is because it’s a proxy for the ability to give birth, but it doesn’t disappear with age. But there are still some people who are clearly women but don’t have a uterus, so you define a woman as a human with two X chromosomes, and now people with Kleinfelter syndrome are women. Universal definitions of concepts are usually impossible and/or useless. Christopher (talk) 19:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I mean, as I keep pointing out, "woman" and "man" are memetic tautologies almost entirely rooted in human social interactions and determined largely by "feels" aka memetic signifiers. Don't believe me? Try to define woman in a way that includes all cis women, excludes all trans women, and can be used in a social context. The trick here is you can't. You can't make a coherent trans-exclusionary definition of "woman", because you definitionally have to redefine "woman" out of a social context, at which point the term becomes meaningless. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:40, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Universal concepts in nature seem to only exist without exception at the most basic fundamental components such as with subatomic particles, and chemical elements; so called paradigm examples of natural kinds . Philosophers of science are sort of at consensus that biological kinds are rarely natural kinds - it’s incredibly difficult to come up with a unproblematic definition of a species for example. So is it really a surprise if biological sex is no different? That’s also if we look solely at sex too, gender on the other hand is almost exclusively a social kind — I don’t think we would ever have that much success in traditional analysis in that area.

Cressida Heyes is a feminist philosopher who argues that “woman” is a Wittgensteinian family resemblance concept. That any attempts to “draw lines” to what is and isn’t a woman is never solely in the interest of neutral unbiased classification but exclusively for political aims. So when someone tries to answer the question “What is a woman?” It’s for the best to ask yourself what is their political aim in attempting to find the line to draw in answering that question. -Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC).

@OnlySortaDumb To clarify, early Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) or later Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations)? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:43, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Nevermind, followed the link and answered my own question. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Christopher In biology, a "female" is a member of the sex that produces ova, whether or not the female does so herself. For about 98.3% of humans, they have no abnormalities (in the pants at least), and it's pretty obvious they are one sex or the other (not to be confused with gender!). The remaining 1.7% is almost entirely comprised of conditions of varying severity, e.g., about 1.5% would be late onset congenital adreno-whatsits, which isn't a genital abnormality to begin with and very few if any medical doctors consider it to be any form of intersex at all. About 90% of the rest have various conditions or deformities, but will only have reproductive organs from one sex or the other; a human with XXX trisomy will still produces egg and can give birth, a human with XXY Klinefelter still produces sperm albeit often has fertility problems, so it's rather silly to insist they are a form of intersex. Beyond this, point, the lines do get blurred; Swyer syndrome is where the person has all the female parts but XY genes, this person will not go through puberty on their own as their gonads are non-fuctioning and thus no ova produced, so it's no longer cut and dry that they should be "female" but it would not be wrong to say they are either "female" or "inter"; yup, social construct. For about .02%, they do in fact have genitalia that's made up of both so they don't really belong in one or the other sex. CorruptUser 09:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Y'know, I think a lot of the debate around "Gender" could've been avoided if the terminology hadn't used the words that already exist. "Homemakers" are usually women, but "Mr Moms" exist just as "athletes" are often men but Tomboys are a thing. Like, "My sex is 'Woman' but I identity as a 'Caretaker'" or something along those lines. CorruptUser 22:40, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Gender in general is stupid, but binary gender is even worse considering never in human existence has there ever been a time when only two genders operated in society.[1]-RipCityLiberal (talk) 22:31, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

There is only one gender; The human gender. Matt Walsh said on twitter that it was one of the most talked about movies right now and someone did the google trends comparing it to morbius and it was a ratio of 99:1. lol PhoxyDude (talk) 01:01, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Why

What is with the essays here like why are most of them trying to tackle real world problems? it makes zero sense A wiki will not change the world especially one with 314 recent contributors. i’m not saying that The wiki should be closed down but at the same time it said stop trying to handle big problems that I’ve been going on for decades stick to what it can change and that is the wiki. Some dude (talk) 04:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Punctuation, how does it work? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:27, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude wow, that was one long sentence. i didn't read it all, but i'm happy for you... or sorry that happened. G Man (talk) 04:33, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

In a nutshell here’s what I said rationalwiki trying to change the world with so little everything it’s like watching a Individual ant attempt to change the universe it’s not gonna work for either of them there’s simply too much to handle Some dude (talk) 04:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, most of the discussions over here are meant to fritter away time (timepass). Kind of like a venting spot.Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 06:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Why would one have any expectation that we are going solve any of the world's problems? Where has that ever been been a stated or assumed goal? We are minor wiki of small renown the internet. I don't think anyone has any illusions as to what is achievable. It does not mean discussing issues of interest here is a pointless endeavour. I personally appreciate the debates here in the saloon bar in helping to really crystallise my way often cluttered thoughts on issues of close to my heart and improve my understanding on topics both on and off my radar. It is useful to me have these discussions here when I would otherwise not really have the opportunity to challenge or confirm my assumptions out in the real world. And it's nice to feel sometimes that my understanding of something might even help to inform others in some small way.

It might be an insignificant contribution to any change in the world, but surely improving understanding is always a positive, no matter how slight it may be on the scale of things AMassiveGay (talk) 07:54, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Why shouldn't 'a wiki like this' discuss 'real world problems'? Most of us are not 'basement-dwellers looking at weird stuff' - we discuss things with non-RW-ians, encounter material where we want the opinions of other parts of the RW-hive-mind etc. We can appreciate the more robust discussion styles prevalent here (and the benefits of pen-names that can be distinct from those we use elsewhere in the wikiverse). Anna Livia (talk) 09:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

People already understand most of the stuff and most of it is copied Some dude (talk) 12:53, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah but it’s not doing anything it’s literally just wasting time we have 314 recent contributors we’re not changing anything anytime soon Some dude (talk) 12:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I mean the users here have lives elsewhere, and some at least are likely politically active so... Yeah, some people might be convinced by an essay and then have a real world impact, however minor. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:37, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

There can be many reasons for 'discuss first, then act' (PRATTs, reinventing the wheel, alerting someone more knowledgeable on the topic...).

Some dude - don't complain here, but actually act (and you are going into 'but I thought this was Rationalwiki' territory). Anna Livia (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

The website is a lot less popular than it used to be and it has far fewer contributors, but if the remaining contributors still want to contribute, why complain about it? Each website has its specialties and RationalWiki is sometimes the only website that covers obscure cranks pushing pseuodoscience. Blythrock (talk) 14:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

The Wiki has made zero impact so far Some dude (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

That is false there are plenty of sites that do that rationalwiki is just worse at it and most of the stuff is copied Some dude (talk) 14:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude And your basis for these claims is?... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Some dude Even if a fair amount of the content is not original, it can be useful if it presents the content in a way that is easier for the average person to understand than the original source it is based off of. And sometimes RW does, in fact get used as a source to understand a topic. Lastly, it's clearly not the case that "People already understand most of the stuff" written about on RW. For example, RW has a lot of articles on alternative medicine, which people wouldn't buy if they understood that it was nonsense. If one person reads the homeopathy article and decides not to rely on homeopathy because of it, then the article has done something of value. Vomitorium (talk) 15:06, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Websites that stick to the facts and avoid trying to make opinions into facts are in the best position to solve real world problems. Unfortunately, like a lot of websites, RationalWiki has become more opinionated. Maybe that's why its popularity has waned. It drifted from its original mission. Blythrock (talk) 15:20, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Choosing to stick to the facts is a very opinionated thing to do... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:23, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

by facts you mean opinions that are literal garbage? Some dude (talk) 15:46, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Moved your comment down. Best to stay away from ad hominem. Doesn't really get you anywhere. TheTallMass (talk) 15:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude Could you enlighten us to what, exactly, you think "garbage"? You've made a lot of assertions, so it'd be nice if you started backing them up. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:15, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude You're wrong. At the very least, this wiki helped me specifically. Around the 2017 time frame I was going through some very hard times emotionally, and I found solace in the unique combination of logic and humor found on this wiki. It helped bring me out of the oppressive southern baptist denomination of christianity, and I am very grateful for the thankless job they do maintaining this wiki. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 16:48, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

That’s good but it still needs improvement the wiki is only getting worse Some dude (talk) 17:09, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude For the third time, I will ask that you provide examples. I will not ask a fourth time. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

'Ten green bottles...]' seems to be appropriate here (as SD does not wish to answer the question). Anna Livia (talk) 19:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

here’s an example public education] this article acts like it’s flawless they also act like it’s perfect and no one should dare question it Some dude (talk) 20:10, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Some dude Quit being so fucking vague. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:15, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I gave you an article and I explained why it’s a problem what do you want my soul? Some dude (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

You linked and article and more or less said "I don't like this". Why the fuck do you dislike it? Be fucking specific. Lay out a case. Otherwise you're just spouting hot air. Also indent your fucking posts. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I looked at the public education article. It doesn't mention that one of the primary criticisms of the public education system is its quality. There is a reason why the wealthy often send their children to private schools and one of the primary reasons is due to the higher quality of private schools (Lower teacher to student ratios, better staffing, etc.). Also, I found this interesting fact about private education and its from The debate over private and public provisions of education: "In some countries and regions, private schools already outnumber the public sector. In Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, for example, 78% of schools are private, and 70% of children attend private schools." Blythrock (talk) 21:07, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

yeah for some reason the article includes zero criticism that’s really odd and there praising the thing Some dude (talk) 21:11, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blythrock I'd appreciate it if SD made his own arguments. @Some dude Provide evidence and examples for the claims "What is with the essays here like why are most of them trying to tackle real world problems? it makes zero sense A wiki will not change the world especially one with 314 recent contributors.", "i’m not saying that The wiki should be closed down but at the same time it said stop trying to handle big problems that I’ve been going on for decades stick to what it can change and that is the wiki.", "In a nutshell here’s what I said rationalwiki trying to change the world with so little everything it’s like watching a Individual ant attempt to change the universe it’s not gonna work for either of them there’s simply too much to handle", "People already understand most of the stuff and most of it is copied", "The Wiki has made zero impact so far", "That is false there are plenty of sites that do that rationalwiki is just worse at it and most of the stuff is copied", "by facts you mean opinions that are literal garbage?", and "...the wiki is only getting worse" or fuck off. Also, I haven't missed how you've slowly backed off your original claims. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:39, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Seriously, if all you have to say is "I don't like this site very much" then all I really have to say is "That's nice, I don't care." ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I already told you do you actually read my stuff or do you just get a copy and paste to make it look like you read it either way I’m not gonna spend all day here arguing with some guy who cares a bit too much about grammar Some dude (talk) 21:57, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Ok then. Fuck off. You come into a skeptic community and make a bunch of assertions, be ready to either leave or back them up. Also fucking indent your motherfucking posts! ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:36, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I literally backed them up you refused to listen Some dude (talk) 22:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

You provided a single article, and your complaint was "I don't like the tone of this article" and then, only after someone came in to speak for you, did you add, "I don't like that it's only positive about this subject". You gesture vaguely and then confused when people demand more rigorous standards. None of which supports your notion that this Wiki is declining, or that it's shit, or that it has no effect on the real world. Up your game if you want to be taken seriously. Also, I'm not going to keep indenting your posts for you. Indent them from this point forward or get reverted. I'm fucking tired of cleaning up after you. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:50, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Sd - you are free to write essays about what you think important: we do not listen to hot air. RW deserves better than 'all mou' and no trou'. Anna Livia (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

you can’t just throw away criticism otherwise it’s gonna turn into garbage Some dude (talk) 00:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

If the criticism is low effort crap, yes, actually, you can. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It’s genuine criticism unlike most of the shit you say Some dude (talk) 02:46, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Some dude - I see no 'genuine criticism' - only that you don't like some article, and describing other contributions negatively. We are moving up this list. Anna Livia (talk) 09:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm always genuine. Unpleasant perhaps, but genuine. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Some dude - I challenge you to provide a criticism or critique that can be discussed. Otherwise you are somewhat below this and 'translating the Voynich Manuscript using Finnegans Wake (and vice versa).' Anna Livia (talk) 22:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

you don't even know what ur talking about Some dude (talk) 00:04, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

any other articles you wish to mention? surely signing up to this site and declaring its failure is based on more than just one article. i assume you can point to other examples of articles you have found wanting? maybe let us know what criticisms you have of them. one article on its own is hardly enough to warrant your condemnation of the wiki as a whole. particularly when your (vague) criticism of the one article you do hold up to lambast us with suggests to me you have not read the article in question. the public education article, without going into needless detail here, details neither the pros or cons of public education for there to be any bias along those lines, let alone any bias warranting condemnation. its focus is not so much public education specifically but more with some issues around it. vague criticism like 'this article acts like it’s flawless they also act like it’s perfect and no one should dare question it' could be applied to plenty of other rw articles but not that one, it has issues of a different nature. try again with criticisms bearing some relation to whats in the article. or discuss it on its talk page rather than here if you have no more examples or arguments to show us the fundamental error of our ways AMassiveGay (talk) 13:27, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I made an account after lurking and using this site for years. GrammarCommie's point about "people having a real world impact" is spot on for me. I work at a museum, and the big section on the different flavors of pseudohistory (and the pseudoarchaeology, but that is easier to sniff out) is useful and has had an influence out in my corner of meatspace. Buck (talk) 05:44, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Professor Dave and Transgenders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpGqFUStcxc A youtuber who goes by the name of professor dave explains made a video concerning transgenders. In an attempt to display objectivity, he put the liberal/conservative arguments on an equal footing. At the end of his video he stated that transgenders have an unfair advantage in sports. It seems like he is making the same mistakes as "Rationality Rules"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0kph-aaQ2I, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw4r3XuO9TE). Does anybody want to address this affair? Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 10:58, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Imagine if someone did this with race and IQ. It wouldn't even be a debate whether they're mistaken or not, because their intentions functionally wouldn't matter, because the crap they're pushing is harmful. What I'm saying is fuck that guy. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 12:14, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Fuck whom? Dave or Rationality?Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 12:31, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I mean you guys do have a flattering article about dave.Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 12:32, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Highboi Both. And I didn't write the article. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:35, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

i don't know anything about his transgender content. however, i can say that his science videos (especially the organic chemistry vids) have helped me a lot with my studies. that's about the full extent of what i know about him. G Man (talk) 00:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Now that I have come to think about it, I think we should cut him some slack. He seems to be pretty left wing when it comes to social issues. He isn't a politics expert and he probably isn't aware of the studies concerning transgender sports. I don't think he had malicious intentions. Just that he made profoundly ignorant statements. The problem is that anti-trans activists would abuse his scientific authority to push their agenda. Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 01:48, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

"Why science and religion are the same"

Yup, probably the worst header but it's the title of the article I'm sharing. I've been back into r/christianity for the last few months and while I won't say it was a complete waste of time, it has flared up my scrupulosity to a point it hasn't quite been for about 8 years. Mental Illness denial is rampant there and one user claims calling someone crazy or a troll is the "unforgivable sin".

But it led me to this article. This article, written by an engineer (yes, I know) is what I owe the header to but I'm still curious of the opinions, even if the personal opinions here are "this is stupid" or *reverts and acts like it never existed* it at the very least tells me I'm taking rediculous ideas seriously at 5 AM.

Essentially the message is Religion is an "Inner experience" and Science is an "Outer experience".--2friedeggs (talk) 11:47, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward God!" Guess who said this(He was a deist. Just so you know that I'm not quote mining.).Anyway, I personally take a Kierkegaardian approach to this dilemma. Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 12:40, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

They have the persistent arguments but science is clearly superior. Wik10 (talk) 13:58, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• Insofar as science is fundamentally characterized by methodology, it is transparently not the same as religion.
• In my education I read and accepted science just as I blindly accepted the Bible as the unchallengeable word of God; with regard to the science side, this is a commentary on science education, not scientific practice.
• both are based in the explanation of human experience; supposing that this is true, it overlooks substantial methodological differences. Scientific observation and experimentation is systematic; the same cannot be said for the pagans' explanations of "the forces of nature as the acts of various gods".
• Scientists also have their own social structure, with professorial high priests and rebellious researchers. Like religions, they claim to be working for the good of mankind. And, like religions, they are intolerant of contradictory views, with cruel ways of ostracizing those who stray too far; nothing in my experience indicates that the generalizations of professors as priest-like or of researchers as rebellious hold up. I'd be curious to see more details about the "cruel ways of ostracizing" practiced by scientists. Intolerance here is being used with a degree of equivocation.
• There is no interesting connection made between Kuhn's idea of scientific revolutions and religious revolution. Even if an interesting line were explicitly drawn, it is unclear how far this would go in justifying the claim that science and religion are the same.
• you cannot prove anything; This is kind of true.
• How can you disprove the existence of God? Well, what follows from the existence of God? If there is nothing that follows, then you can't do so with deductive certainty, because any observation would be compatible with the existence of God. But that is a poor justification for belief in God. Furthermore, if gods with different dispositions would be expected to behave differently, then empirical evidence could provide justification to have greater credence in some statements of the form "if there are gods, then they have traits ______". Additionally, given that on some versions of the god hypothesis, it is possible for god to interact in obvious ways with the world, and that there is no (reliable) empirical evidence for such interactions, there is justification for disbelief in god.

  The way the article is phrased betrays that the author is reflecting primarily on a monotheistic (probably Christian) theology. They speak of capital-g God, not gods in general, despite offering no reason to prefer belief in God to belief in gods. Granted, they do mention the "pagans", so they aren't considering this exclusively.

• "And what of religious experience, on which religions place such emphasis? To the neuroscientist it is simply the activation of a bit of the brain. Yet this also explains the whole of our experiences and thoughts. And, reflexively, we are using our brains to think about our brains, which poses another conundrum. Yet religious experience has converted hardened scientists as it creates bottomless feelings of joy and connection. With the mysteries of quantum science and things yet to be discovered, we cannot say what connection there is between people and beyond, though we surely experience this in our daily interactions."; This is a non sequitur, another non sequitur, a third non sequitur, and blind speculation that is transparently not rooted in a thorough understanding of contemporary quantum physics.
• "Both seek to explain outer and inner experiences. Each professes to serve both individuals and a wider society." Let's grant this. Then we can evaluate each on how well these ends are achieved. Given the depth of the explanations scientific investigation has afforded, and the resulting enhancement of human ability to manipulate things in the world, it seems to me that science has done relatively well both in providing explanations and in serving society. Perhaps one could dispute over how well it has done with regard to "inner experiences", but that is quite plausibly down to the difficulty and complexity of neuroscience, and while I confess to a relative ignorance of religious claims broadly speaking, I am not aware of (i) any unified account of inner experience or (ii) any in-depth explanation of inner experience.
• Overall, the central claim is false, and the justification is shallow and meandering, overlooking crucial points of difference between science and religion which serve to undermine the overall argument. Most notable is the methodological distinction, which is ignored. Some of the parallels drawn are dubious, and don't withstand reflection beyond the "seems plausible" level of evaluation; others are superficial. My key takeaway is that the author is mistaken about his alleged "tendency to analyze everything", which is far weaker than he supposes. There are other problems, but addressing them would not make my critique much more interesting, and would take more effort than I am interested in giving. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 21:41, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

On the origin of the hakenkruez

I always thought that Hitler appropriated the swastika from Hinduism(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4183467.stm). However, this article suggests that Hitler appropriated it from Christianity(https://cohna.org/swastika-is-not-hakenkreuz/).Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 14:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

It seems kind of moot as there are swastikas symbols found all over the world unrelated to Nazism. The Nazi swastika does closely resemble the Hindu swastika except for the angle and direction (clockwise vs counter-clockwise). It's the intent that matters. Bongolian (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess so, perhaps that person is Hindu nationalist or just misguided. Although, they certainly are a lot more verbose than your run of the mill nationalist The ending paragraph doesn't reflect prejudice. Either way, it can't be called a Christian or a Hindu symbol as it wasn't invented by a Christian or a Hindu.Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 17:21, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The swastika came from four uppercase gammas stitched together: Γ. We'll have to thank the Greeks for it. /s LongStylus (talk) 19:29, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The gammadion Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

and the Fylfot Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:33, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

swastikas are such a simple design, they happen just by accident. its no wonder they are literally everywhere. i used to have a tendency to doodle a fair bit when i was in college. my notes were filled with absent minded random squiggles. its just so easy to fill the margins with swastikas if you are not paying attention. i kept catching myself drawing the fuckers and had to amend my doodlings into something a bit less hitlery. i'm super blonde and at the time (and times since) rocked a skin head - i was a nazis wet dream. it would not have looked good for me. i had to train myself to absently mindedly sketch triangles to avoid anyone getting the wrong idea. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:47, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@AMassiveGay This^. So often in art and engineering The swastika pops up just because it is a super simple design. A fantasy art design I had for a goblin helicopter was ruined when someone pointed out the way I did motion in the helicopter blade looked like a swastika. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 14:04, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

If there isn't a page here already, there could be a need for one, the 4 gammas symbol is old, and in many cultures, Samurai had it too.(Manji) Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:49, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

This has to be the most laughably bad study published in a while.

This study tries to link the COVID-19 vaccine to prion diseases. It has not been peer reviewed and is full of informal language, formatting errors, unsourced content, and grammatical errors. Anti-vaxxers actually believe this horseshit. This is insane. Nature's Mockery (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I heard of that conspiracy. A case of correlation being passed off as causation. Someone should tell them that prion disease has a very long incubation period and that a sizable chunk of cases are due to genetics. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Argument against solipsism

Warning: Solipsism conversation ahead may rot your brain!

Please correct me if I'm misrepresenting this philosophy
1: Solipsism states that you can only ascertain the existence of the mind.
2: If the mind is the only thing you can ascertain then how can you prove the validity of statement 1.
Also, existence is not a predicate. Mere existence cannot be the sole property of a thing. Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 13:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Descartes, Russell, and Hume sort of answer the first question in a sense. Descartes thought by doubting your own existence, you do so by thinking which is only possible if you exist. Hence cogito ergo sum, or “I think, therefore I am”. Descartes argued it was the only thing that could be known for certain as it was the only self evident statement in response to any skeptical hypothesis. Hume wasn’t so permissive arguing that the use of “I” assumes a coherent and singular self underlying experience, to Hume it can only be argued that thoughts and experiences are being had. Russell reiterates this from Hume. You can’t really “disprove” solipsism which is why it works as a skeptical hypothesis in an argument for global skepticism. Though you can probably argue solipsism assumes too much in assuming you yourself exist. Also existence is treated as predicate in certain forms of logic. Free logic for example: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-free/. Also it should be said in logic “validity” doesn’t apply to individual propositions. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC).

Weak logic, but - I wear glasses, am not a millionaire, other people have tastes I disagree with, and there are mass murderers around. Therefore solipsism is wrong. Anna Livia (talk) 09:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Solipsism wouldn’t imply that the simulated reality you experience is necessarily one that is desirable or controllable by you, so as an objection it’s sort of a strawman fallacy. The point of solipsism as a skeptical hypothesis is that you cannot know that the people around are not in fact p-zombies. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 11:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC).

What is the point of a simulated reality that is so flawed? Why should 'I' be the only non-p-zombie? Does Occam's razor go towards 'everybody being real people', 'the people I interact with are all or partially real people' or 'only I am a real person'? (Given that 'other people' act in ways I cannot always predict.) Anna Livia (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Appealing to Occam's razor probably isn’t the move you want to make as the assumption there exists other minds is not as parsimonious as making no assumptions on the existence of other minds at all. Also why assume there is a “point” to the solipsistic reality to begin with? -Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:28, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

If the p-zombies come up with a diverse range of opinions why not treat them as independent minds? Anna Livia (talk) 09:25, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I don’t think you understand what a p-zombie is if you think they “come up” with anything. Think of Solipsism as like living entirely in a dream reality where you are the only true conscious agent. If people disagree with you or have diverse opinions in your dreams is it not because you are constructing genuinely conscious beings making independent decisions is it? With the exception of lucid dreaming people usually can’t control their dreams, they can have “bad” dreams, or people in their dreams act in ways they don’t want to. Solipsism is basically like constantly living in a dream without your control. Now when philosophers bring up solipsism they don’t do so as an argument for it (usually). It’s more so presented as threat to you having knowledge of the external world. That usually comes with the simple question how do you know that you aren’t living in a incredibly vivid dream right now? How can you prove that aren’t? Intellectual honesty comes in admitting that you can’t and typically the epistemologists goal is providing an argument to why you can have knowledge of the external world despite not being able to prove you aren’t dreaming. Inference to the best explanation is used by the likes of Russell to provide reason to believe that a mind-indepedent world is causing your experiences but having a reason to believe and knowing that are not synonymous. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:18, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Solipsism can be a very hard idea to shake but funny enough Got Questions of all places helps me do so. "That is, belief in solipsism can’t really be lived out in any meaningful way. Nor can it be proved or disproved by any possible experiences or evidence. To break loose from a concern over solipsism, one has to realize that it’s a pure abstraction with no practical application".

P Zombies, brought up above, is another hard idea for me to shake but to me it's not much different from the old NPC meme. The latter is a pretty antipathetic version of the former, and I feel like assuming P Zombies as a concept could lead to you being perceived as pretty callous. --2friedeggs (talk) 22:38, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Jan 6. Insurrection Hearing tonight

I cannot help but wonder what unseen footage and facts will be shown that is being mentioned? I will say that it is very stomach churning. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 21:04, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Recently there was a US podcast on events leading up to Jan 6th https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101307755/will-be-wild-explores-how-we-got-to-the-many-system-failures-of-jan-6 It's well worth a listen, it just broadcast the 8th and final episode, but I still have a description from a DHS officer of a phonecall from Trump, and the standard routine, phone is put on mute, and they let him just rant away while they utterly ignored the halfwit. And the gem, the insight into just how dim, uneducated and plain stupid Trump really is gets mentioned in relation to his wall. "Can we build a moat in front of the wall and put 'dangerous' animals like crocodiles there to stop the illegals?" It's like dealing with a child that unfortunately suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:45, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding nationalistic (not my intention), their betrayal of the country via act of terrorism makes me angry. How could they do something like that. In my 28 years of life I honestly did not expect something like an armed insurgency on US soil. Not attempting to sound nationalistic but I love my country despite its many, many faults. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 22:52, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

January 6th

Watch the evidence. Ignore the deniers. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah so why are we not doing individual trials for the perps?--2friedeggs (talk) 00:32, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@2friedeggs Possibly because the charges are criminal conspiracy and sedition? Beyond that I don't know. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:36, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

I thought about it a lot and this is my hypothesis- The insurrectionists were mere expendable pawns. They had no real value in such an unprecedented investigation. Kind of like a fall guy for the mafia. There is nearly no value in a fall guy. Investigators tend to give the more serious charges to kingpins and other integral power players. In this case, Trump and many of his goons were integral while the insurrectionists are more akin to the fall guy. Just some of the more minor charges already ruined their lives. Bringing down the kingpin would be much more pressing. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 01:02, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

This is some top-level Conspiracy fiction. Make a book--2friedeggs (talk) 04:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Politicians endorsed by criminal ringleader Trump

Okay, there is a guy running for the Michigan House of Representatives by the name of Kevin Rathbun. He is a Republican running on the Pro-Life platform and proudly shows off his endorsement from Trump on campaign signs (Seen plenty of those signs around). Why would someone be proud of that? Might as well be endorsed by Benedict Arnold, Stalin or Mussolini. I would not want to be endorsed by a guy who betrayed his country and incited an act of terrorism. Then again Trump supporters believe that the only ones that can betray the country and commit acts of terrorism are anybody who is not white. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 01:09, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

A Trump lawyer argued that Trump told his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically" make your voice heard as far as the January 6, 2021 march to the U.S. Capitol Hill. Blythrock (talk) 01:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@Rationalzombie94 Because Trump is a kingmaker in rightwing circles, and people want to court his favor. @Blythrock Plausible deniability is a thing. Might want to read up on it. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington D.C. were largely in charge of security for Capitol Hill for January 6, 2021. They obviously did a poor job in terms of the number of police, national guardsmen, proper barricades, monitoring of potential troublemakers, etc. There's plenty of blame to spread around as far as GOP/Democrats/media when it comes to the Capitol Hill riots and the events leading up to it. Blythrock (talk) 02:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Except Trump incited them. Trump egged them on, even after they began their attack. It'd be like blaming Bush for 9/11, even though, proportionally, the bulk of the blame lies at the feet of Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Which you would only do if you were either A) stupid and naive or B) dishonest as all fuck. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd say calling Trump a "criminal ringleader" is a bit harsh. Andrew5 (talk) 00:33, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blythrock DC is not a state where a governor can simply call in the National Guard. DC is a federally controlled area thus requiring Presidential or Vice-Presidential authorization to deploy the National Guard from other nearby states. Trump refused to; the local police would have been outnumbered in every way. The congressional building is a federal building thus security personnel are hired by the federal government. You are merely deflecting blame to others. The capitol riot was an act of terrorism and treason. Then again, many of you who shift blame are those who think that only non-whites can be terrorists. All of those involved, Trump included, should be punished to the fullest extent. @Andrew5 Trump was the one who convinced those people to engage in violence. If someone encourages people to engage in criminal activity, that means that they are a criminal ringleader. Charles Manson did not personally commit murder but he convinced his followers to do criminal activity; hence a criminal ringleader. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 00:40, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Trump has not been formally accused of that in criminal court, hence using "criminal" is false. Andrew5 (talk) 01:23, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Also, @Andrew5 I think you've missed the point of the previous post. Vomitorium (talk) 01:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘@Andrew5 Okay, this is very simple. Say I committed a criminal offense (Ex. Auto theft) but police investigators have not determined that yet and I am not charged with anything. I still (hypothetically, not literally) did the crime. Does not matter if I were to be criminally charged in this hypothetical scenario, I still would have done it. This is very easy to understand. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I still believe Trump is not a criminal ringleader. Plus, then Washington would definitely be a criminal ringleader. Or maybe not Washington, but definitely some Revolutionary War heroes. Because that's what it was. Treason. Andrew5 (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a reminder that Andrew doesn't believe in anything. He just says shit. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 19:48, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Wrong. I personally believe that (1) what Trump did was bad, but not criminal, (2) people who say Trump commited a crime is just left wing propoganda, and (3) Washington was one of our worst president and commited treason against the UK. Andrew5 (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Liar. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:24, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Washington was one of our worst president and commited treason against the UK. I'm not usually the one supporting American nationalism, but you can suck an egg.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 21:53, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, for the record. The American colonies seceded from the British Empire, not the United Kingdom, an entity that wouldn't exist until the 1900s. Just thought it was an important thing to point out, since Andrew is pretending to know history. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:25, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and left wing propaganda my fucking ass. The Dems are fucking centrists. Fucking dishonest coward. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:31, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Correction, the first iteration of the United Kingdom was formed in 1801. Andrew is still talking out of his ass to carry water for Trump. He's also still a weaselly twit who really ought to run back to whatever hole he came from. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:09, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Be calm. Andrew is a troll. He throws his bombs and wanders back under the bridge to watch.Ariel31459 (talk) 04:01, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

LOL Andrew, the sky is blue whether you agree with it or not. Nobody cares about your denial of Trump's criminal behaviour. In most other democratic western countries Trump would have been charged and tried for sedition. I wouldn't say what you are doing is exactly trolling, though it might as well be. Try to be of some actual use here on the wiki. Find something useful to do besides saying stupid shit on the saloon, trying to get moderate pests permabanned, wikicopping, quoting wikipedia policies and bickering with grammarcommie. ShabiDOO 00:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Try to be of some actual use here on the wiki. Find something useful to do besides saying stupid shit on the saloon, trying to get moderate pests permabanned, wikicopping, quoting wikipedia policies and bickering with grammarcommie. Wow, is that far from the truth. "Trying to get moderate pests permabanned? How was Special:Diff/2460824 an attempt to get a moderate pest permabanned, other then saying, "this action may be necessary?" (Need I remind you Plutocow was the one who initiated the thread.) "Quoting Wikipedia policies." I haven't done that in months, after doing a quick search of my contributions. Need I remind you GC is the one who always starts the fight, so much that it is currently an ATIM thread right now? You know, Shabidoo, I wouldn't be talking so much this way when nearly all of your edits are in the Saloon (partly fighting with Machina), while also making few edits to mainspace or to the backbone pages. It's just some food for thought. Andrew5 (talk) 21:02, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Are Gnostic and New Age beliefs becoming more popular?

These are common boogeymen in Christian end times circles and I'm curious how popular they exactly are and whether the popularity is increasing or decreasing. From what I know it's heavily unlikely either would become a "World Religion" anytime soon.--~~ ^{— Unsigned, by: 2friedeggs / talk / contribs}

The "New Age" movement, from what I understand peaked in the 1980s (although the Western esotericism which fueled it has a long history prior to then) and has declined from those times. However, the spirit of the movement lives on in certain things, disassociated from its hippies-incense-and-Enya reputation of old. Some parts of New Age became relatively mainstream (the Westernized yoga stretching exercise, for instance) without much issue, but what's probably more interesting is how the occult / esoteric and alternative medicine part of New Age have crept into certain spaces, including Christian ones, in a similar fashion. Many Christians in America now also hold at least one New Age / esoteric style belief according to a 2018 Pew survey. To me, it's not that Christians have become New Age all of a sudden, but the esoteric elements have seeped into the paranoid style crowd. Hence for instance the New Age elements in portions of QAnon. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 19:15, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Sounds to me like New age itself is not more popular but smallish elements of it seeped into everywhere and end times proponents take this as infiltration or something--2friedeggs (talk) 03:47, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are the juggernauts when it comes to growth in the world. Bradley (talk) 19:54, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Alt-med got a huge boost from Mormon Senator Orrin Hatch, who wrote the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). Hatch was probably a true believer in alt-med, but DSHEA also gave a huge boost to the supplement industry in his state of Utah. Though DSHEA regulated supplements, it was extremely weak, not requiring any evidence of efficacy or safety. Bongolian (talk) 19:57, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Canada's 2022 Ontario provincial election has the lowest turnout in history

Only 43% of eligible voters showed up in the 2022 Ontario provincial election. The Progressive Conservatives win with an 18% share of all eligible voters. What in the world is going on??? LongStylus (talk) 23:10, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

It turns out when your platform is just charismatically saying that you will do almost nothing, there's a shelf life on your time as ruler. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:15, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Justin Trudeau is a fly in the Canadian government soup that is having an effect on local elections. He is very abrasive and takes a "my way or the highway approach" to governing rather than pragmatically compromising in some cases. Trudeau being caught wearing blackface in the past doesn't help either. Blythrock (talk) 01:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I mean he literally hasn't had a reason to compromise since he's held power without having to do so, so... Yeah, there's that. Also, can we get rid of the idea that rule by compromise is good? Compromise is a tool between conflicting groups, not a moral axiom. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

compromise is the reason the political system in the us is as messed up as it is. G Man (talk) 02:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

i posted an entry about it in wigo blogs. canada might not be perfect, but their political system is objectively more efficient than ours. G Man (talk) 02:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

My general impression is that people just didn't care about this election. I listen to a lot of both public and commercial talk radio, and outside of the occasional election ad or short comment from one of the hosts, you wouldn't have even guessed an election was on - not a lot of people were talking about it. There were relatively few election signs in my area too. When I went to vote just after lunch on election day, there was no line - for the sake of contrast, in the last federal election, we arrived just after 9:00 and had to wait in line for about 30-45 minutes - and that was for an election no one wanted that changed nothing. This time, it just seems like no one cared. 43% is pretty gross, though. AcidTrial (talk) 13:32, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I thought the turnout would be higher and the PC party would be voted out because a lot of people didn't like how Doug Ford handled the pandemic. Turns out I was wrong. And good on you for voting. I did as well. LongStylus (talk) 14:20, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blythrock Strange then that the Liberals did well in Ontario during the Federal elections of 2019 and 2021. Vomitorium (talk) 15:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The Westminster system (those which haven't adopted proportional representation) is viciously undemocratic. All that is left really is the UK (at a country level), Canada and a handful of Caribbean and Pacific Islands. Almost always a single party wins a majority, rarely with more than 50% of the vote. Canada and the UK regularly have governments by a single party with sizeable majorities with 40% of the vote (or even sometimes around 35%). Ford won with 40%, meaning 60% of the populous did NOT want his government nor their policies. This is absolute madness. Resistance to proportional representation in these countries are driven by the two large parties who refuse to give up their duopoly in government, and the lie that coalitions don't work. They can be problematic in Italy, Israel and occasionally in a few countries, but are extremely successful in 50+ other functioning democracies. The only time Canada or the UK tends to pass truly progressive policies are those few times there are minority governments (hence in Canada at the moment they are looking at universal day care and stronger gun bans). Having said all this, there actually isn't a massive difference between political parties in the UK or Canada. They all fall very close to one another on a three dimensional political ideology chart. None the less, over the long term it keeps Canada and the UK from more closely following successful Scandinavian policies. ShabiDOO 12:36, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

in the uk, the lib dems lose out the most in terms of seats/vote share with fptp, and have always had pr in their manifesto. then when they finally in government, in a coalition with the tories, their big chance to bring in pr as a condition of getting into bed with a tory government and they half arse with a referendum to ditch fptp in favour not of pr but av, which is very much not pr, very much wanted by anyone, and is fptp but worse, and the uk public told it to do one. david cameron ensured it was a choice between fptp and shite and thus a foregone conclusion (the golden rule of referendums - never agree to one if you dont know how it will go). and the lib dems somehow agreed to all of this ensuring pr gets kicked into the long grass for another generation and nick clegg learned too late never to trust a tory AMassiveGay (talk) 19:50, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

BoJo wins against the tories

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-61709441

Wasn't even aware that there was a confidence vote for him. Especially surprised that several tories asked for this, with some of them being concerned about higher taxes. Since when are conservatives against higher taxes? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 17:38, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

'Since when are conservatives against higher taxes?' they have always been the party of low taxes, on balance. and their back benchers like a tax cut or two going into elections. especially when there is so little to vote tory for but so much to not. AMassiveGay (talk) 19:59, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

May won her vote of confidence too, but was gone within 6 months. While Corbyn lost his and remained for a few years. Here's hoping the labour led vote on Standards may have a more damaging effect on Bojo and his horde of uncaring pricks and the chief islamophobe himself, Gove. (Sorry, well not really, BoJo is an embarrassment. He has proven to be a shameless barefaced liar and is utterly incompetent at any position he has held.) And the notion of "But who will replace him?" Who cares, that's an issue for the Tories to deal with. Bojo out, and f**k right off.Cardinal Chang (talk) 20:06, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

may promised to leave once key brexit legislation was passed. her premiership had a clear expiry date. boris gives us nothing but his determination to cling onto power for powers sake alone. he started his time as pm with no purpose and no vision, his sole motivation was to become prime minister. he will end his term still with no purpose and no vision, and the shambles of a government is a direct consequence of this lack of purpose and direction. the vacuous prick. AMassiveGay (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The problem for those Tories who want to get rid of Johnson is twofold: There is no obvious successor, and it’s unlikely that any of those who have been mentioned as potential replacements are able to do far better than BoJo when it comes to retaining the new seats gained by the Tories in 2019.

Then there was the “Samson-like” threat that BoJo might respond by calling a snap election and thus take a lot of Tory MPs with him in the fall. So, a lot of Tory MPs probably made a sort of “Hail Mary call” on the off chance that BoJo can come up with some stunt that allows them to keep their seats, or at least that a more plausible successor can be found later on, but before the next election. ScepticWombat (talk) 12:27, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Boohoo, the poor Tories. Honestly, tough. If he's poison as leader and they can't find anyone to replace him, that's pretty damning of the party, isn't it? Would it really be such a tragedy for the Torys to lose power or even to decline out of elect-ability for a few decades?. The UK, like Ireland are wealthy nations, and like to portray to the world that they are, as it makes them attractive to investors seeking stable nations for their funds. But both, (I'm aware there are other countries, but I'm only speaking from experience as I live in both) have rising levels of poverty, levels that should be a national embarrassment, levels that should and would have had leaders in the past forced to resign in shame. And yet, the mindset seems to be, it's their own fault, they've brought the depredations of poverty upon themselves. So, f**k the Tories and BoJo. And whatever sack of silage they prop up to replace him. Could you image the DUP taking over though, holy moly there's a nightmare Cardinal Chang (talk) 15:36, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Will note the near-invisibility of the Lib Dem leader (and MPs/speaking heads in general): and during the May 2022 local elections I saw no political posters of any kind. Anna Livia (talk) 19:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

the lib dems made the biggest gains in may. 194 seats compared to 22 labour and -336 tory. seem to have managed just fine. they knocked on our door in the run upv- the only party that did so. they still lost in my area - its a safe labour seat. in our system tends to favour the two largest parties, tory and labour, as they are the government and opposition respectively. lib dems are the 3rd largest party by votes cast and have a paltry 13 seats to show for it. is it surprising they are not ads visible as the cons or lab? a better question is starmers relative invisibility. hes there for PMQs but he doesnt grab many headlines because hes not that exciting. not next to the car crash of the bojo show and the news media is more interested in the opposition within the tory party itself. one could be forgiven for thinking that we are a one party state from the news coverage. we could do with uk politics being a lot less exciting. politics in general should not be interesting. if its interesting its usually means a bitterly polarised electorate and everything has gone to shit. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:26, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Is it the RW consensus that transgenders don't have an advantage in sports, at least in certain circumstances? I haven't watched the video, but I would have to disagree with such criticism. Kauri0.o (talk) 01:36, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

What in Hades name are you blathering on about? Cardinal Chang (talk) 12:12, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Kauri0.o did you mean to post this in another thread?-Flandres (talk) 12:46, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

What? My post makes perfect sense in this political context.. hehe. Thanks Flandres.Kauri0.o (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hindu Nationalism and Islamaphobia

I took a recent dive into India Twitter and was met with a hive of controversy and accusations of Islamaphobia against high ranking members of their ruling political party. Being a clueless American outsider, Indian politics is a mystery to me. Does someone have a quick historical summary? Explain it like I'm 5 (or whatever the kids say). MirrorIrorriM (talk) 14:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I do not look into this stuff give me a link Wik10 (talk) 14:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Apparently, a bjp spokeswoman said that Prophet Muhammad married Aisha when she was 6 years old and consummated the wedding when she was 9. This statement was made during a debate on national television which invited the anger of the Muslim community. The Bjp has suspended her.
If you think you understand Indian politics, you don't understand Indian politics. - Feynman probably Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 16:06, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

There have been arguments about their age of consummation and that there was no formal age of consent back then.[2] As far as the controversy, the arguments are besides the point. It was a BJP (Hindu nationalist) politician who made the claim, so it was inherently inflammatory to Muslims since it was completely unnecessary. Bongolian (talk) 16:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

... But it's *right*, RW own article on the subject is clear. It only became a controversy when in the modern times we ended up asserting that pedophilia is bad. Which is the correct moral position. For a thousand year, it wasn't a problem for muslims. Somehow.165.225.13.65 (talk) 07:16, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-foreign-desk/explainer-319/ Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

And now the BBC is reporting how the BJP is apparently taking a page from Israel’s book (though the BBC doesn’t mention this parallel) and has decided to demolish the homes of some of the Muslims that the authorities blame for the riots. How swell (statement may include sarcasm). ScepticWombat (talk) 20:27, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

This incident does not prove that BJP cares about Muslims. They only suspended her because of the outrage it generated in the Gulf, upon which India depends for trade and oil. — 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 03:38, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I never said that the bjp cares about Muslims or any other minority in India. Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 03:47, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, as a side note: her excuse was that she heard somebody blaspheme against Shiva which doesn't add up. How did she know that the blasphemer was Muslim? This points towards malicious intents.Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 03:55, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Another controversy concerning Prophet Muhammad's daughter

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-owned-chain-halts-uk-screenings-of-film-about-prophet-muhammads-daughter/ Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 17:17, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, the only thing surprising about the film is that ancient middle easterners have a British accent. I guess the sun just doesn't set on the British empire Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 17:21, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Trump 2024!

Now that I go your attention

Oh yeah, 20 years in prison for treason and 24 years in prison for domestic terrorism. Toss on a few extra years for financial fraud. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 16:13, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Nothing happened to the teflon president Ronald Reagan. And nothing has largely happened to Trump despite attempts to criminally prosecute him. Trump is a billionaire who has a phalanx of high paid lawyers at his disposal. Bradley (talk) 23:08, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Correction - alleged billionaire. I remember reading Trump Orgs redacted, partial tax returns (well, the summary) when they finally appeared and they were really wonky. And the myriad of the Orange One's activities money-wise are more like a chronic overspender always on the mooch for another line of income. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:06, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The fact the former president actually meets the criteria for being called a fascist and is still around and politically relevant should be more of an issue in the US than it currently is. 2024 Has the potential to be an intensely unpleasant year. How much do you have to say "just kidding" after changing your country's name to Weimar 2.0 before it stops being just a joke? BumblingBuffoon (talk) 22:31, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Biden keeps insisting that he will run in 2024. But Democrats are starting to tell him very publicly to not run due to his unpopularity and age. Biden strikes me as the type of guy who will run again despite his unpopularity and age. He wanted to be president for a long time and he is not going to give up the presidency easily. The runway to solve the major economic problems and other problems that America faces is short - like a little over 2 years. As unpopular as Trump is with a segment of the American population, Trump has a good chance of being reelected in 2024. Trump beat the weak presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. And I don't see a very talented and popular Democrat with name recognition who can beat Trump in 2024. There is always 2028 I suppose. The more congenial political doppelgänger of Trump, Ron Desantis, will run in 2028 against a Democrat. RumAndCoke (talk) 23:37, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Truth time, peoples.

Trump is unpopular (outside of his base) - but find me a Republican who isn't. Biden is as unpopular (and has a less solid base) - but find me a Democrat who isn't. This iteration of American politics is becoming massively unstable and entrenched because whoever wins shall instantly have the ground-in emity of at least 30% of the adult population.

Personally, I think Biden would decline to run in '24 if he genuinely believed there was a better (aka more popular) candidate than he. But I don't think such a candidate exists; they should have appeared by now, but I've seen nothing (and I don't think Harris has grown into this either). In fact, I don't think it's possible for such a candidate to exist - the simple fact that Old Man Biden, the American Brezhnev is reviled and attacked for being a 'hard left socialist' (or being a senile puppet of previous) by Republicans shows that the general 'political worldviews' of the two sides (there's way more than that in reality, but this is a simplified model) no longer have any real overlap, even to the point where they cannot even agree on the general 'rules of battle'.

Trump was perhaps the sole prompter for Biden to come out of retirement. Not just believing the man could very well bend the American political body so far it finally snapped but the fear the Democrats would pick their own 'Trumpian' figure to oppose; aka one who is very popular with the base but would be regarded as Satan Incarnate by Republicans and would piss off the 'don't spill my drink' centrists. I am naturally speaking of Sanders.

I don't think Trump in fact has a 'good chance' of coming back in '24 - I think he's gotten a good chance of getting the nomination, but shall fall a little short to pull a Cleveland. If nothing else, I think a combo of his post-election 'antics' and his dodgy record re: Putin shall make more 'moderate' Republicans bail on him. They might be all but dead within the party itself (see Bill Weld, perhaps Biden's GOP counterpart) but they exist enough in electoral numbers to throw the result.

Couple the simple fact that the Republicans electoral base is being washed away quicker by Mr Reaper than the Democrats means Trump's '24 hill to climb shall be steeper than either '16 or '20. The only ray of 'hope' here is that increased voter suppression might be enough to counteract this. KarmaPolice (talk) 05:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Today Yahoo News reported: Poll: Biden disapproval hits new high as more Americans say they would vote for Trump

Polls show that the Democrats are losing young voters, Latinos and Black males. RumAndCoke (talk) 13:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Putin is not even pretending anymore about "de-Nazification"

He compares himself to Peter the Great. A translation of his statement: "During the war with Sweden, Peter the Great didn't conquer anything, he took back what had always belonged to us, even though all of Europe recognised it as Sweden's. It seems now it's our turn to get our lands back."

If it weren't for nukes, I would almost get pleasure seeing how the US and NATO can crush his pathetic army. ^{— Unsigned, by: 130.76.112.23 / talk}

Signature please. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 21:01, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

non paywall/register version Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 22:05, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

putin's stance has been that ukraine is part of russia, and that ukrainians are fellow russians, since before the invasion. blaming nefarious outside forces (nato) for its estrangement. this is more propaganda to that end. harkening back to past glories is nothing new, and peter the great is good fit for what hes selling. its better than comparisons to stalin which happens everytime ww2 is alluded to. they still saying de-nazification is or was an intended goal - russia's western cheerleaders need that bit of artifice to sleep at night. at any rate, it was never the sole rationale for the invasion. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

What has happened to this place?

Are any of the fun people from the olden days still here? The Saloon Bar is a drag. ^{— Unsigned, by: MarkGall / talk / contribs}

Sign your posts, MarkGall Cardinal Chang (talk) 21:37, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Who are you? I remember wishing for the old days on Kongregate back in 2011-2013, and people them wished for the old days of 2009. People get nostalgic for any forum-esque setting.--2friedeggs (talk) 23:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

@MarkGall This website’s dead, or as dead as a website ever becomes. The Judge (talk) 00:45, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

John Passmore Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 03:34, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not dead, new people just get chased off by a couple of aggressive sysops.--2friedeggs (talk) 00:46, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

One man's aggression is another man's mild escalation. Vargus (talk) 20:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, nothing attracts new user confidence like a bunch of older members starting rumour mills about each other in public instead of keeping that to themselves for the greater good. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 22:34, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

A concept for a post-apocalyptic zombie story that satirizes illegal military occupation and totalitarianism

Just a concept-

“”The Human Free State was home to some seven hundred thousand people that survived the pandemic. Many of whom lived in large apartment complexes. All of which were in very poor quality. Residents all lived in terrible poverty. Starvation, disease, depression and suicide were commonplace. The Human Free State claimed that living inside walled off cities was the best humanity could hope for. Just being able to wake up in the morning was considered good enough. Outside the walled off cities had its own set of horrors that made Human Free State cities look like a utopian paradise. Outside hosted monstrous creatures wanting to consume people on the inside. Their eternal hunger made the enemy relentless in their assaults. Self Defense Forces held off the attacks with all their might. Casualty rates had always been significant. Morale among the armed forces was extremely low; so low that many would go outside the cities just to become infected and join the ranks of the enemy. Miles Lykaios sat on the couch of his loft. Nothing actually happened in his simple existence. Calling it life would be a completely inaccurate description. How anybody could call being a resident inside a Human Free State city was beyond him. Sitting on the couch was likely one of the only real comforts available. The food given out by the Department of Food Production barely qualified as edible. Drinking tap water was akin to drinking toxic material. Advancing to a better quality of life had been reserved to the rich and powerful. The television played its usual propaganda of how humanity is rebuilding, essential services are available to all and healthcare quality is at its highest in a decade. Miles knew that the propaganda was almost all bullshit. Everyone knew that the Human Free State was poorly governed by an ultra-nationist political party.

My idea is that the fictional human government is in league with the zombies. I will mock the illegal military occupation by various world powers, governments of occupied areas not doing anything and suppression of civil liberties. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 02:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

In league how? Is the ruling government's goal to get everyone infected into zombies? Are these zombies intelligent and capable of negotiation, or mindless? Are the zombies not an actual threat anymore, and just an excuse the government is using for oppression? Is the Human Free State the only government the protagonist is aware of, or do they have diplomacy with other large colonies to worry about? Are the zombies to be interpreted literally or figuratively? MirrorIrorriM (talk) 15:44, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

For the zombies, they are intelligent and the Human Free State commonly sacrifices political dissentients. There will be a few more countries that deal with similar issues. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 17:18, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

So are they basically vampires then? Just dealing with human politicians so they give them food in exchange for not eradicating the human colony? Is the human government just effectively ranchers herding cattle? Do the zombies need to eat or is it only for pleasure? MirrorIrorriM (talk) 00:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The HFS gives the zombies food in exchange of avoiding the genocide of the human race. The HSF happily tighten control on the population by killing the older free thinkers and academics then replacing them with a much more ignorant populace. The zombies will eat flesh for both the need of food and for pleasure. The other governments I have yet to determined. The HSF will be a criticism of Hamas in telling people that they are fighting military occupation when it reality, they take Iranian money and are happy to oppress their population. Another government will be like Western Sahara who actually tries to fight the occupation but does not have the resources. I will also make jabs at authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia, North Korea and Eritrea. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 01:08, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

OK then, why zombies? Zombies who plan and negotiate are not the stereotypical zombie at all, (which isn't on its own a dealbreaker) so why make it zombies? What about it being zombies informs the motivation or characterization of their faction that makes it either integral to the plot, or a clever subversion of the classic zombie tropes? Are the average zombies mindless, but their leadership is not? Are the average zombies intelligent and just desperate, alla "The Return of the Living Dead"? Are they "science" zombies brought about through a horrid experiment or fluke of biology, or "magic" zombies brought about by divine powers or necromancy?

If you are going to make zombies intelligent, they need to be a faction with complex motivations and desires. Just wanting to eat is insufficient, as it makes them boring. The compelling aspect of the stereotypical zombies is human appearance with inhuman behaviour. If you give them human behaviour (intelligence), then what makes them zombies and not just ugly cannibals?

I'm not saying the idea is bad, I'm saying the viewer will have these questions and your story will be even better if there are answers for them. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 02:51, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@MirrorIrorriM I am thinking of having it where the zombies think that they are the new Manifest Destiny. The cause of the zombie plague will be biological. Another concept is half human half zombies created by earlier attempts to cure the plague. The half breeds (I will call them that) are discriminated by both humans and zombies. The half breeds are non-infectious and only eat living animals, not humans. The zombies hate them because that they consider them impure while the humans see them as run of the mill zombies. Two uprisings will take place, one where the humans in the HSF are fed up with the totalitarian government while the half breeds rebel against the zombies for being discriminated against. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 15:52, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

But why zombies? Honestly? A portrayal of a never ending, never stopping, unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring horde is brilliantly encapsulated as a zombie horde, anything else and it somewhat falls short. There can easily be other side-effects of bizarre genetic experimentation, and/or cosmic event/catastrophe. And as a metaphor, you'll be hard pushed to better Romero's usage. Cardinal Chang (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

"A portrayal of a never ending, never stopping, unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring horde" You're right. They'd be better off getting a horde of MAGA's instead. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 16:55, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Maybe a plague that turns people into intelligent flesh eating mutants? They could have major physical mutations. --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 22:39, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

What about a sort of hive-mind intelligence? Individual zombies have no real intelligence, but collectively have a consciousness. It is an entity which still seeks food, status, and survival. Perhaps it is even a greedy monolithic entity. You could still have "escaped drones" which are zombies which retain some individual consciousness, and still get to have hordes of unthinking zombies pushed along by an intelligence that can be bartered with. The have mind I think could represent a cultish mentality that acts towards the benefit of the cult at complete expense of its members. Just a thought. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 21:15, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

y'all banned a VPN IP

To be honest, I'm frustrated.

What do I have to do to keep an IP clear. I asked for deletion; sure. I warned you guys about Jan 6, I called your Schlafely bot unethical, what do I have to do without doxing myself to get back on? 185.247.70.158 (talk) 06:36, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

You could create an account. You can't reasonably expect VPN IPs to consistently be unblocked. Vomitorium (talk) 16:06, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Shush, that's clearly too much work. Obviously they want the site to facilitate them. Also, forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, but you can not dox yourself. So, what you should do, is have a quiet think to yourself, realise you're being rather silly (I'm being diplomatic.) and either do what every other contributor does, and create an account, or simply bugger off and be tedious elsewhere. Cardinal Chang (talk) 16:10, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

And you are? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

That would be telling, wouldn't it? Cardinal Chang (talk) 17:22, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Quite the conundrum, VPNs. People can either use VPN ips for a reasonable expectation of privacy or do damage. This is why blocking IPs forever isn't a good idea.--2friedeggs (talk) 22:37, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

The spooky action is if I create a user, as I have before, and post from a consistent IP, could be skimmed. I still would be required to VPN to keep username ip cold. I understand my complaint is entirely on my end, thanks for the responses. 64.44.84.199 (talk) 03:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Jordan Peterson says "BECOME A REAL WOMAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLW6ZZ0l0a0&t=564s What do you think of this? Hrs (talk) 03:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

A real woman? Well, first we have to discuss what we mean by "real". You might say "If I'm a woman, am I not a real woman by definition?" But that's not what we mean by "real". My favorite example of this is the Disney movie Pinnochio. We have an old man who wants this wooden puppet to be a real boy. Yet, even when he is brought to life, he's still not real. You say "He's alive, so he's real." Yes, but you can't help but feel that he's not real. You can't avoid that. /s LongStylus (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Peterson going full transphobic again, it seems... Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 09:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

A quick skim of the video suggests its less this and more Peterson saying women shouldn't work and should go forth being barefoot and pregnant or something. It's Youtube, and Peterson is well known for taking something that can be said in a few sentences and making a multi-minute rambling babble, so forgive me if this isn't quite correct as I really don't want to spend more than a minute wasting time on a Jordan Peterson video. The number of people deciding how many kids to have based on a Jordan Peterson babble is going to be extremely low, so... 35.140.177.2 (talk) 13:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The thing about Mr. Peterson is that he tries to sneak in pop psychology into self help. If that helps lonely men, then I wouldn't have any problem. He usually focuses on individualism and cites the existentialists. Although I'm pretty sure that Kierkegaard would not find Peterson's ideas interesting. This is evident from the quote: "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 13:55, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Oh please, we all know how Pinnochio finally became real... CorruptUser 14:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I know there is something that attracts people to this guy and that he is heartily disliked by many users on this wiki. I am not going to defend a freaking thing the man says in the video. But he does not say "BECOME A REAL WOMAN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.." At least, when I listed to it twice I didn't hear that said. The thing about therapy in a youtube video is, most people don't need it, and don't care to really listen to it. The video was posted by someone else, and the conservatives seem to like JP because he is unkind towards the left in some cases. But, however one evaluates the advice, which is ostensibly oriented towards answering questions from women worried about having children, he only discusses strategies for dealing with the prospects of raising children. He specifically says in answer to a question from a woman, you don't need to have children to have a happy and productive life (paraphrase). This seems to be an fairly ordinary pep talk for people depressed about the idea of raising families yet still are interested in doing so. Everyone else would either be disinterested, bored or repelled by the topic.UncleKrampus (talk) 19:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, upon a small bit of Googling, the OP link is a clickbait video that stole at least the first bit of audio from a Jordan Peterson Q&A posted on July 2017. I'm not going to research anymore about the OP video because Youtube is a steaming pile of bullshit and shit like this is pretty much proof of this. I am not a fan of JP (obviously) but there's no way I can use clickbait shit to evaluate one way or the other. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 20:22, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Sounds like rambling to me. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 22:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Why is it that you find more women working with people who have special needs i.e. developmental disabilities then men?

Having Autism myself, I interacted with numerous special needs workers and most of them were women. Is it because women are naturally more soothing among people with special needs? --YouTube Demi-Queen (talk) 20:15, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

IMO, I have had around four helpers (I have minor Tourette's syndrome) and three of them have been men. I have never had an issue with them, so to me its just a reflection of more women being in education and mental health then men. An Advocate (talk) 20:26, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

What are women? Vargus (talk) 20:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The various "caring" professions such as nursing have always been predominantly staffed by women. I am sure you can find many articles on why this might be so, from "traditional roles" as mother/career, to the patriarchy limiting women's options, etc etc if you are actually interested. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 20:57, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I've noticed this too. I live with my Girlfriend and an old friend from school now, but when I lived in carehomes I worked much better with a male case manager and lived the most smoothly in a home with predominantly male staff. Why this is I have no idea but I have thought much more than once about why.--2friedeggs (talk) 21:46, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Dunno. My mother works at a care facility for the elderly- easily 2/3 of the care staff are women. I’m inclined to agree with Aloysius about the forms of employment folks take often mirroring normative views on gender roles. Probliknaut (talk) 14:33, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

As one of the men who works in that field, while it's not the main issue there's also palpably more mistrust in male staff. Not as much among coworkers, though there are a few loud fringe voices who can make things difficult for individual people, but in some families especially. In one fairly extreme example, one client in particular had a mother who was totally fine if her Down syndrome daughter talked about having a good time with female staff, but actually called in state abuse investigators if she talked about going to literally the exact same programming events with male staff. Because, as we all know, a female working with this population would never sexually abuse a client, or something. Thankfully I don't run into it that much, and my agency is very careful about making sure we know which clients will make up stories and/or have a history of targeting certain types of staff, but that's not the case for all of us. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:19, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Principle of identity and quantum mechanics

how does something being in two places at once not contradict aristotle and become a violation of a logical axiom ^{— Unsigned, by: 2603:9001:301:3600:8d0a:2037:13d1:9979 / talk / contribs}

As I see it, there are several answers to your question. First, the principle of identity is an epistemological principle, whereas the nature of things is an ontological question. There is no necessary relation between what makes a statement true and what is going on in the world. Second, leaving the above aside, A being in two places at once does not contradict A=A. A is still A, it just does not have a fixed position. Third, your question seems to imply that a particle being in a state of superposition means it is in two places at once. This is only true, if true at all, on a certain interpretation of quantum phenomena. 101.100.131.204 (talk) 03:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't see the relevancy of the principle of identity so I will assume you mean the law of non contradiction. In that case it's not literally that the electron is at location 1 and not at location 1 at the same time t as a discrete entity, it's more that the electron is at location 1 and it is at location 2 at time t. The fact it is at location 1 is not negated by it's presence at location 2. The electron is a wave-like particle which does not have a definite border. It's not a solid object. There are spaces to which the excitation of an electron field can exist, and there places it can not. When a wave passes through said space the excitations just happens void of the space where the probability of finding the electron is zero. At least that's how my ignoramus brain understands it reading the handful of books written by physicists for the layman crowd. There is no principle in classical logic that quantum mechanics actually contradicts (so I have been told). There were philosophers at a time that thought that there was a tension and developed quantum logic as a result, but it turned out the motivation for this was based entirely on a misunderstanding. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC).

QM does not imply that nature can have contradictory properties. While this is one possible interpretation of QM, it is not a necessary consequence of the theory. First, even in QM, nature is never literally observed to be in contradictory states at the same moment. No particle or system of particles is ever measured at the same time to have conflicting properties, since each measurement returns a single value for the parameter under investigation. In general, this is an inevitable consequence of measurement, since detecting the state of a system destroys its superposition, thereby “collapsing the wave function” and forcing it to take on a definite value for the measured quantity. It is true, however, that things can display apparently incompatible properties when observed in different ways (and at different moments in time), behaving like waves in one instance and like particles in another. But it is not contradictory to suppose that things behave differently at different times. Second, we can specify the states of systems without contradiction if we are more precise in our description of them. First, we should simply deny that being in a superposition of A and B is equivalent to being both A and B simultaneously. For instance, in the case of Schrödinger’s cat, we should deny that it is both dead and alive prior to observation. Second, we can consistently describe the state of a system in a superposition of A and B as being in a state such that <if it is observed/measured then it will return the result A with so and so probability and will return the result B with such and such probability>. There is no contradiction in that description of the cat, once again, since it avoids attributing inconsistent properties to the cat. Analogously, for wave-particles, we should say that the object is in a state such that <if it is measured in way X then it will appear to be a wave, and if it is measure in way Y, then it will appear to be a particle>. No contradiction here. But hold on! Recent experiments lend support to the claim that a single system is literally in two incompatible states at once.

If a system is in a superposition of two states and the measurement doesn’t interfere with that state, then it can remain in the superposition without collapsing into one or the other as a result of the observation. In that case, the two measurements returning inconsistent properties (e.g. wave or particle, dead or alive) pose a greater mystery. It is a delicate matter to carry out such a measurement, but researchers claim that it can be done. In one of the most striking examples, a metal paddle composed of roughly a trillion atoms and just barely visible to the naked eye has been put into a state of vibrating and remaining at rest at the same time! However, we can resolve these cases, too, without admitting contradictions, by a more careful specification of the state as suggested above. For the vibrating/non-vibrating paddle, we should specify its state as <if measured in a way that does not destroy the superposition, 50 percent of the measurements will yield vibrating, while 50 percent will yield non-vibrating>. Note that these measurements are made at different times. However puzzling this state might be—and no one could legitimately claim to understand the underlying reality of such a system—this description is not equivalent to both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time.
A more simple objection would be that if it violates the Lnc, it would at the same time not violate the Lnc. Source: https://philarchive.org/archive/MCBWQM Herr Doktor Enter into the rabbit hole 04:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Gun control in the United States and firearms currently in circulation

To those who believe in banning limiting certain types of firearms (assault weapons as an example), what would your plans be for dealing with the possibly millions of these firearms in circulation (and in some cases, tens of millions)? Just curious about the approaches you propose. SF (talk) 08:44, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

If you were suddenly thrust into the position responsible for implementing this...how would you do it? ShabiDOO 09:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

For a limited time the gov't should buy them at a reasonable price, thereafter it should be an offence to own one and they should be confiscated and the owner/user prosecuted. I think that's more or less what happened in the UK after Dunblane. Scream!! (talk) 11:20, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Start with voluntary buy-backs, and halt production of new small arms. Then introduce a mandatory buy-back and create a formal civilian militia/territorial defense organization with rules regulating use and storage. Lastly start seizing weapons and destroying them.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 16:29, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

The National Guard already exists as a territorial defense force. The militias have shown since the time of the Whiskey Rebellion that they are insurrectionist or para-insurrectionist. Bongolian (talk) 17:43, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that you'd have a hard time finding the manpower to confiscate. Every non-POG veteran I know is pretty strongly 2A and every cop I know is as well. I wouldn't murder my fellow countrymen over guns (boating accidents and such, however...) but there are absolutely people who will. It only took Waco and Ruby Ridge to make Timothy McVeigh commit the most abominable act of terrorist in American history until 9/11, and there are a lot more people who would do that in this day in age. Confiscation seems really dangerous and ineffective imo, just my 2¢. Swamp Fox (talk) 22:51, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@Scream!! Also, what would a reasonable price be? Swamp Fox (talk) 23:06, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Market rate is fine. The seizure portion of this process really cannot be seriously considered, until the voluntary program is exhausted and new weapons are no longer being sold. I also question the threat of domestic terrorism considering there is plenty of that right now, doing absolutely nothing.-RipCityLiberal (talk) 23:33, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd simply tighten current Federal regs to include SMGs and any rifle calibre weapon not obviously for hunting. Like with say, old ivory; preexisting weapons shall remain legal, and can be inherited - just not sold on except to a licenced dealer (who then disposes of it). I would also go after parts for said weapons, hoping the lack of spares over time shall help said weapons slowly fade away. I wouldn't do any siezing, at least not at a Federal level.

I would allow exceptions to this for current members of entities deemed to be 'a well-regulated militia'. Hell, I would even provide some seed money, Federal trainers etc to help the States to restore State Defence Forces. If some folks desire to play soldiers in the woods, I'd prefer them to do it under some form of sane supervision, thanks.

This is what was done to the UK; our restrictions came in bit by bit, between 1920 and 1997. The most effective plank of this - in my opinion - was the restriction of ammo. This meant that even like when my family found the guns in an ancient relative's house in 1994 they were effectively useless because the ammo had degraded and there was no easy way to get more 0.303 or .455 rounds. (You see this in firearms amnesty haul pictures; the vast majority are normally of WW2 vintage, or before). KarmaPolice (talk) 00:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

A lot of modern firearm parts can be 3d printed or made with parts sourced from a hardware store or lumber yard. Would be pretty hard to control parts.

Ammo is a bit of a different story considering that it's a lot harder to make but there's an incredible amount of it in the United States alone with a whole lot more in Latin America and Canada. The easiest parts of reloading cartridges consist of the bullet (presses are very common for this purpose) and casing (pick up your brass!). Less easy, but absolutely doable, are the powder and primer. There would probably be a pretty similar phenomenon to meth labs where homegrown operations make smokeless powder if somehow all ammunition on the North American continent disappears with quality ranging from doesn't work, kills you or better than factory made. Swamp Fox (talk) 01:02, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm aware of the ammo issue; I listed the types to highlight that it was doable in the UK *only* because we used particular calibres for our weaponry and once we ceased producing the stuff they'd gradually become extinct over decades of non-production. The only time the USA pulled this off was - if I remember right - with .50 cal weapons.

I am kinda sanguine regarding the various elements of 'create-your-own' (and not just with guns). Can you 'stop' all 3D printing of guns and/or parts (for example)? No. Can you throw enough hurdles at the person desiring to do it so a lot, perhaps the majority shall be thwarted by cost, effort, skill and/or time restraints? Hell yeah. Simply not buying the 3D moral panic, sorry. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:36, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you propose for these hurdles? Swamp Fox (talk) 01:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

For 3D printing? Limit the availability of firearm .stl files, put limitations of said .stl's being used on printers, put in a couple more hoops to buy printer carts for weapons-grade materials (like if you're buying chemicals), use the 3D printer MIC markers to allow tracing/prosecution of those who fabricate 'illegal' weapons/parts and so on. A kind of Newton's Third Law of tech shall apply here as ever; as 3D printing allows 'bad things' to be done with it, tech shall react to nullify/lesson the threat of said bad things. The internet gave us hackers and viruses, but it also gave us sysops and antivirus programmes.

We also don't know what the final market for 3D printing shall look like yet. While it clearly has a future, we do not know whether it shall end up like 2D inkjet printers (in most advanced homes) like photocopy machines (mainly in communial areas, such as libraries, businesses etc) or like the internet (utteerly ubiquitous). If 3D mainly remains the preserve of local 'makerspaces' and printing stores the panic shall be less because the printers shall be supervised on the main. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

For better or worse, the cat is long out of the bag on the first two things. I've seen a lot of .tor sites hosting those files and a lot of people have already downloaded them. I don't believe that .onion is in United States jurisdiction so the FBI/DOJ can't seize any of the domains unless they seize the server itself. It's also pretty easy to modify any files to evade detection unless every file has to be manually approved. Jailbreaking printers would probably also become more common. Even if all this happens, an idiot can make a Luty and a competent gunsmith with the right machinery can build a Type 56. As long as the free exchange of knowledge is not infringed upon, significant gun control in the United States is going to be unfeasible. Swamp Fox (talk) 03:04, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Still not buying it. Using Tor, jailbreaking etc is already beyond the ken of some 75% of all users. Getting all the kit etc shall cost. Also, many people won't want/need to do it. This is a triad of 'desire', 'funds' and 'skill' which only wins when all three overlap.

Law agencies have taken down 'bad' .onions before (like the Silk Road) and shall do again. Even if the FBI can't legally move against this 'free knowledge of making RPGs and machine guns' (which they might be able to, under anti-terrorism clauses) I'll point out that *other* nations have law enforcement too. Many of them know what computers are! Lastly, even if they are unable to legally prosecute, they shall often content themselves by simply destroying the offending site.

So in short; when confronted by the spectre of 3D printed weapons, the forces of law and order shall come up with many countermeasures, rather than sinking into a corner muttering 'it's impossible' while crying. KarmaPolice (talk) 03:41, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Not entirely sure that someone who knows how to operate a 3D printer wouldn't understand how Tor works, it's a slower version of Firefox to the average layman. Also, I'm pretty sure that unless it violates arms export or atomic security laws, it's not legal to completely ban and criminalize 3d printed firearm files (correct me if I'm wrong).

Also, it's a bit harder to deal with bad .onions there are a lot of them (plus Silk Road was taken down because Ulbricht was a class-act fuckhead prior to making it and ignored opsec) and they're run by people who probably have guns too. Other countries likely have weaker freedom of speech protections but I'm mainly talking about the United States.

Like I said above, any large scale action is also dangerous considering all it took to push McVeigh and Nichols from being anti government to turning a Ryder truck into a bomb was Waco (and to a smaller extent, Ruby Ridge). Any talk of prohibiting sales is going to inject possibly millions into the market through panic buying.

I've seen thousands of people posting boogaloo memes and there are tens of thousands more. Out of tens of thousands of people (especially /k/omanndo types), there is likely to be at least one person who can successfully preform a domestic terrorist attacks possibly as bad or worse than Oklahoma City. If you're going to confiscate guns, take your pick on what American city experiences the next major domestic terrorist attack: New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Albany, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, what one? Pissing millions off (all of whom have guns) is a dangerous game and could lead to major civil unrest and at least thousands of deaths. Swamp Fox (talk) 04:00, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Think you're missing my point here; I never said 'eliminate', I said 'minimise'. A series of hoops and walls that a person would need to clear to get their printed weapon. Which most won't bother with, because simply buying a 'traditional' gun will be easier, quicker and for a long time, viewed as superior. The situation you're describing is in fact more a threat in nations like Germany, where gun control is much stricter but ammo is still obtainable, rather than the USA where the land is awash with them (and thus much cheaper).

The other issue is that ironically, 3D printing shall drastically *reduce* 'ghost guns'. Printers leave their own unique marks on their works, meaning that the majority of guns printed shall bear them (and thus be tracable, at least back to the printer).

Lastly, the vast, vast majority of mass shooters (~75%) bought their weapons legally. The bulk of the rest were obtained illegally; normally stolen from family members (predominating for minor shooters). This would suggest printed guns are a relatively minor issue; at least for now.

As for the other bits... well, let's sum it up nice and simple. 'You can't do anything for some crazy somewhere shall go and shoot up the place if you do'. As folks are already doing this on a daily basis anyway, I do not see that as much of a threat. (Though I don't advocate any mass without-cause confiscations, merely the ending of new SMG/assault rifle sales, mainly on logistical grounds). KarmaPolice (talk) 05:36, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

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

Why are we repeating topics here?

At any rate, I find a lot of the above discussion silly. The only reason some of the US tiptoes around the white nationalist militia pretend "warriors" is that, politically, the Republicans have moved hard-right and therefore bow down to this mall ninja crowd to get votes (plus, the paranoid style is profitable anyways). Waco proved that all the semi-autos in the world (or even full autos) is useless against even a simple organized SWAT team if one is your typical mall ninja dweeb and completely unorganized. Imagine reacting to Islamic terrorists by tiptoeing around them, that's kind of what seems to be advocated here by one account for the white supremacist terrorists in the US. They would howl if the US government took similar actions to what, say, France is taking with Muslims... 35.140.177.2 (talk) 11:59, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

In fact, I'd go further; if they did do tantrum-attacks, it *proves* the point that ownership of 'military grade' weaponry should be a privilege, not an automatic right and if I was the government I'd be *more* inclined, not less to double-down and squeeze the poison out. I find it interesting that often the more 'reasonable' maximalists shall normally fall back to the 'it's impossible to do anything' line to justify chronic inaction. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The reason why 4 ATF agents died at Waco is because, if you watch videos of it, the Branch Davidians allowed the ATF to retrieve their wounded and retreat. They could've killed every one of them.

While it is true that a mall ninja wouldn't be able to take on a SWAT team, there are a lot of people who aren't mall ninjas who would be able to cause severe wounds to one. Most SWAT teams are part time made up by guns who are a bit more in shape and spend more range time than the average patrol officer but at their core, they're still deputy dingus and officer wingus with cooler toys. SWAT teams rely on superiority of numbers, firepower or the element of surprise. Remove any of these and they are fighting an armed defender who now has some sort of advantage over them.

Out of tens of millions of people, there are quite a few who can stand up to law enforcement and win. Swamp Fox (talk) 19:08, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

One of the funny things about identity politics in America is how the police force (well, the bigwig unions, at least, like the FOP) generally aligns with the NRA anything-goes policy, despite this policy making their job much more hazardous. You would think that things like the North Hollywood shootout would've taught them that maybe American gun culture needs to be nipped a bit if only for police safety reasons. But no, we get a more militarized police force instead, with all the crap that entails.

At any rate, Uvalde is an example of an outcome that can happen when a local unit is embarrassingly incompetent: in this case, a BORTAC team came in to finish the job (way too late, of course). Uvalde is, of course, is also an example of the nearly uniquely American phenomenon, the school shooting, a direct result of the shit gun culture in the US. As noted by KarmaPolice, if your defense for AR-15s is an argumentum ad baculum that folks like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers will kill cops and commit terrorism etc. if their toys are taken away, I'd actually say that's a pretty good sign that things indeed should be clamped down. You don't negotiate with terrorists after all. (Of course, it's far more likely that an 8chan Internet "warrior" would shoot up a kindergarten or church at this point in time, but the same thought process applies in my opinion.) 35.140.177.2 (talk) 23:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, perhaps, create a culture of 'join your local re-enactment societies - they are allowed to walk around with weapons [3] or make use of serious artillery [4] and nobody stops them - to divert attention, and find other ways of allowing people to draw attention to themselves in a non-dangerous way. Anna Livia (talk) 11:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with 35.1's point. Even more importantly, the USA - and any other mature democracy - is supposed to be ruled by the ballot and law-book, not by intimidation and bullets.

You want to make this an issue of 'might makes right', Fox? If your band of rifle-toting extremists thinks their weaponry makes them exempt to laws and decisions made by a legitimately elected state, I will expect law enforcement to deal with them. If 'Dingus and Wingus' refused to do so, I will demand more officers be brought in do finish the job - because nobody is above the damn law. If this proves insufficient, I think I'd be justified in seeing this as 'an insurrection', expect the invoking the emergency laws there for this purpose and see the troops turn out. If this isn't enough, I'm sure the draft shall be restored because it's clear a civil war has broken out. (I feel I'm challening Sam Vimes from Thud here; when staring down the isolationist dwarves).

No state worth it's salt would allow the development of areas of her territory where her writ did not run, nor sections of society within her borders which were exempt from her laws. The moment the state does, it starts to crumble in legitimacy and it shall be rapid.

As for Anna's point... I do think there's something to be said about the idea of setting up groups which are almost like 'adult scouts' or something. I suggested the idea of the return of forms of 'state defence forces' to allow those who feel the need to play soldiers in woods to do so under a form of responsible supervision; it could also involve training for 'emergency response' and so forth. If nothing else, it might pull some folks away from extremism simply from a mixing in a wider social pool and under leadership which is a lot less crazy. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:42, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

There are no "more officers" to send where I am. 2a sanctuary red county in a 2a sanctuary red state where law enforcement from the city I live in to the state and all levels in between are some of the strongest 2a supporters I've seen. Our National Guard is mostly 2a supporting republicans and the combat arms are almost entirely pro gun.

You'd be sending in... ATF and FBI agents? If they can handle the heat and survive the swamps, sure. But they can't expect any help from law enforcement on any level. You have a very small pool of federal agents spread thin with little to no combat experience where every loss hurts them greatly in their already small numbers. You might get urban departments and some state police organizations to do in in blue areas and that's about it.

The extents to what this would get to would be nation destroying and there's a good chance you lose loyalty of the military after ordering them to march on their otherwise peaceful countrymen and use undue amounts of violence upon them for policies they don't support. Do you know what happens to leaders who lose the support of the populace, police and military? Swamp Fox (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

You're so round the U-bend it's impossible to have a sane discussion with you. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:23, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Swamp Fox (talk) 02:29, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

What if the 1993 World Trade Center bombing went as planned?

If I remember correctly, the original goal of the 1993 WTC bombing was to collapse 1 WTC into 2 WTC, killing tens of thousands in the towers and likely thousands more who lived and/or worked in their shadow. Considering that this would be significantly more damaging than 9/11, what would the likely reaction be? How would this effect the future? Been interested in this for a while. Swamp Fox (talk) 00:30, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Most likely the same reaction as 911 just bigger death count and earlier. remember people don't really remember too much about 911 other than it killed a lot of people. it could potentially make rumors spread that New york isn't safe or something but that's alt' history shit.TH (talk) 01:35, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Gen Z/younger millennials really don't know how significant 9/11 was. You couldn't walk down the street without seeing American flags everywhere. If 1993 was successful it would be arguably even worse with no warning and an x10 death toll. Swamp Fox (talk)`

Impossible to know what even one person might have done or not done since then. That's the problem with alternate history, there are so many unseen factors and missing information that it is very hard to tell or predict anything truly. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 22:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Andrew5 (talk) 00:23, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Time spent constructing alternative histories is better spent investigating and analyzing actual history and publishing the findings. The past is a bottomless ocean. There is always more history being created. 217.170.206.18 (talk) 01:07, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

'But I thought this was Alternative History wiki! Anna Livia (talk) 14:50, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Yet you cannot have history without 'alt-history'. You cannot consider the importance of a historical figure or event without mulling over the situation if they were removed from it.

Then you come to the somewhat disconcerting conclusion; that the weight of socio-politico-economic factors grant our historical figures rather less 'agency' than you'd think - to cite an alt-history American obsession; it's very difficult to realistically get the Confederacy to win the Civil War, because the deck of 'historical forces' is so stacked against this eventuality. And to cite a British one; a 1940 without Churchill doesn't instantly shunt the Empire into a surrender/appeasement path under Halifax.

In short; alt-history helps you understand history. Why things happen and so on. And by understanding history helps the present. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

There are several sorts of alt-history including (1) What ifs - eg what if Franz Ferdinand's car had stopped 'somewhere else' (he would have survived at that point; would 'the Great War' have happened in the second decade of the 20th century anyway?), and (2) multiple interpretations of a particular individual/group (Richard III - negative interpretation and Richard III - maligned monarch) or two different states/historian groups interpretations of the same events. Anna Livia (talk) 16:13, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Which is why it's so useful; asking 'Type 1' questions leads you to look at the things below the surface; in this case realising the Germans were deliberately goading the Austrians into conflict with Serbia because they wanted a general war.

Why? Because the General Staff believed that by 1917 the Franco-Russians would become unbeatable (which was 'unacceptable' in their minds).

Conclusion; if the Archduke hadn't died, *another* casus belli would cropped up soon enough to be used.

Lesson; when a nation comes to believe a major conflict is inevitable, it *becomes* inevitable. You might be able to delay the conflict, but unless you can fundimentally change the worldview of the nation in question (which is almost impossible) we can end up drifting into war almost unawares. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

” in this case realising the Germans were deliberately goading the Austrians into conflict with Serbia because they wanted a general war.” That’s not exactly either a settled or dominant interpretation. Unless you want to go full Fritz Fischer (and hardly anyone I know of do these days), that’s simply overstating and oversimplifying to a degree verging on being outright misleading. ScepticWombat (talk) 01:43, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

I clarified it was the General Staff who had this POV, not Germany as a whole. There were folks who opposed/questioned the logic, problem was, the Kaiser was malleable and the soldiers simply bent him to their POV. They also didn't mind manipulating and lying to people when needs be. But this is hardly the place for such a discussion. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:26, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Even this is debatable, as the General Staff was uncertain as to whether the Russo-French alliance was set on an aggressive war against Germany and the push for a conflict with Russia was not least seen by the military as a way to get a clear answer to this question. There were, of course, several obvious problems with this notion:

1. It was based on a great willingness to risk a great power war in Europe (and thus globally, by virtue of the European empires).
2. Rather than merely identifying Russian intentions, it risked creating the war by pushing the Russians, not least by suggesting that Germany was spoiling for a fight.
3. There was indeed the kind of “it it has to be, then rather sooner than later” attitude that would border in fatalism and further lowering the threshold for an actual war.
4. The complete lack of strategic flexibility symbolised by the abandonment of any strategic planning, but for a western strike into France, meaning that war with Russia was doctrinally wedded to a war with France (not that it would have been easy to avoid such a scenario, but a failure to even plan for alternatives was extremely neglectful of both the High Command and the political system and can be seen as a crucial failure of both).

It seems odd to me to make such a grand statement as this as an example of lessons to be learnt from (counter factual) history and then become all cagey about actually discussing the reasoning behind it. If it’s a strong, well founded lesson, then it’s surely worth discussing and elaborating? ScepticWombat (talk) 15:42, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Donald Trump reportedly told Mike Pence that he was a "wimp" and "pussy" on January 6, 2021

It's just been reported that Donald Trump told Mike Pence that he was a "wimp" and "pussy" on January 6, 2021.

Previously, Trump said that Pence was well protected, but it was "common sense" that the January 6, 2021 protestors wanted to hang Mike Pence. RumAndCoke (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I assume you mean January 6, 2021? That's when the insurrection was. Andrew5 (talk) 00:23, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Your assumption was right. I made the correction. RumAndCoke (talk) 00:41, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone think Pence has a chance to be president in 2028? DeSantis is liked by more Republicans and he has executive experience. RumAndCoke (talk) 00:47, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I've seen a bit of talk about Pence as a presidential candidate, but he's obviously not going to get support from the insane pro-Trump wing of Republicans, and the pro-business/elite/technocratic wing has better candidates closer to their interests. Pence's main strength is as a religious fundamentalist, but we're way past the era where that was sufficient to win the Republican nomination, especially without the support of the craziest Christians. --Annanoon (talk) 11:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Changes since last visit

Has anyone else had their changes since last visit option disappear? ShabiDOO 13:31, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Leftist argument against PR in Current Affairs smacks of vanguardism(?)

I hardly know where to start with this train wreck of a mishmash of bad arguments, bizarre examples and dubious reasoning in recent (June 16^th, 2022) article in the leftist US magazine Current Affairs by Benjamin Studebaker entitled Proportional Representation Is a Terrible Idea That The Left Should Not Embrace.

So, I’ll just start with a general worry I took away from this: It seems that it is essentially based on the notion that because it is difficult for “the left” to gain a majority in PR systems inn the guise of a single coherent, FPTP is just great! The reason I find this such a problematic argument is, that it seems to be based on an idea of politics in which the great hope for “the left” is that it can basically do what the GOP does and “game the system” to bulldoze its ideas through without having much of a majority support by having pluralities (or at best slight majorities) magnified through the FPTP electoral system. It seems to me that the article is shot through with an updated, if less openly authoritarian, vanguardist conception of politics in which “the left” is so self-evidently good and right that the inherent problems in FPTP (that results far less resembles broader, public sentiments) is actually good, because it keeps the far right out and if “the left” can become just a little more popular, it can do what Reagan and Thatcher did (but just in reverse). This seems to me to smack more than a little of the kind of “the end justifies the means” and “we are the smartest guys in the room” thinking that amounts to a form of vanguardism.

Then there’s the actual arguments and oh boy they’re terrible. The examples of “bad coalitions” include:

1. The Tory/LibDem “hung parliament” and the older Lib/Lab coalitions of the early 20^th century, which is bizarre, given the UK’s FPTP system and distaste for coalitions in general (note the term “hung parliament” as an aberration).
2. The Spanish socialists having to barter with Basque separatists. Yup, PR systems can be especially volatile if you have strong secessionist sentiments, but is that really applicable to the US? And is there any less horse trading between different factions in the kind of “big tent” political parties fostered by FPTP?

Studebaker spends a lot of time discussing the isolation of Die Linke in Germany, but again, the specials circumstances goes totally over his head: Yes, it’s isolated because of (half of) the party’s origins in the GDR ruling party (the SED), but the reason it’s hard to simply build another leftist political party (and why the leftist breakout faction WASG joined with the ex-SED) is Germany’s unusually high electoral threshold (specifically instituted to counter party fragmentation, cf. Weimar).

Then there’s Studebaker’s claim that the right wing also tends to do well under PR, which first of all is only a problem if you think only some sentiments should be allowed to compete in the parliamentary arena, and secondly, it was not a PR system that elected Trump or fostered January 6^th. If anything the US and UK governments over the last decades have been consistently more prone to tagging to the right wing, even compared to public sentiment as seen by polls.

Studebaker’s argument that “leftist” parties have no reason to stick together under PR is equally bizarre, unless the assumption is that all “leftist” parties under PR are driven by ideological purity and narrow minded vote optimisation for their own party, with total disregard of actually gaining power. Sure, you can find examples of that, with the splintered left of the 1970s lampooned in Monty Python’s Life of Brian being an excellent example. However, those trends tend to eventually give way to cooperation among those parties who actually want to influence parliamentary politics, and not just a fan club for the “ideologically orthodox”.

Similarly, Studebaker lambasts the coalition agreements as being of dubious value and that they may water down political platforms, but are these really more solidly followed under FPTP than PR? And is his idea of “keeping the centre out” via FPTP (as opposed to his description of PR) actually realistic? Because to my mind, the examples of FPTP has generally evinced the exact trends he excoriates PR for, just in the guise of the “big tents” necessitated by FPTP.

In short, I wonder if anyone might spot something I’ve missed? Am I misreading or over interpreting the points? Or is this really just a terrible set of arguments used to back up a dubious conception of politics and power? ScepticWombat (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Off topic, i do apologise, but what's with the use of the word "leftist". Maybe because I'm on the other side of the Atlantic, but it just rings hollow and daft, what's wrong with left-wing? Do you also say rightist? Sorry,it's just something that slightly annoys me when reading through American webpages these last few years, and it usually results in me dismissing the author as a half-wit (Probably applies to Studebaker above). I don't mean to sidetrack your post. Cardinal Chang (talk) 11:19, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

@Cardinal Chang Leftist or leftism is often used more specifically then "left wing" as it denotes left-wing ideologies that share a position of anti-capitalism. Welfare Liberalism, and social democracy are "left wing" but they are not typically denoted as "leftist". Rightist is sometimes used, but there really isn't a defining feature to right wing ideologies even when only looking at the far right. At least not any that is defining against "left wing" ideologies like liberalism and social democracy.- Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 16:31, 18 June 2022 (UTC).

Current Affairs as far as I can tell self-identifies as a progressive (American style) political magazine, there's no need to resort to the fuzzy "left / right" supposed dichotomy.

In France right now, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has steered a new left-wing coalition NUPES to become a major opposition force in their Parliament at minimum, and a small chance of becoming the majority in parliament, depending on how the second round goes. Since this author is a no-compromise type I don't think he likes this scenario much for some reason, but it seems like Mélenchon's doing pretty good as a political leftie, power wise, with the "let's work together to nip Macron" approach. In short, I agree that this article is a hot mess of a take, the guy is young and probably in too much of an ideological purist phase at the moment. 35.140.177.2 (talk) 20:23, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

If you want to make radical changes, the possibility of gaining a lot of power with only a small amount of support that FPTP allows might be attractive, but it can benefit your political opponents just as easily as it can benefit you. Of course, if you think democracy is still something worth keeping around, doing a whole lot of unpopular things after getting a majority with few votes is likely to end in your party losing the next election and everything you've done getting reversed. If your opposition doesn't mind sacrificing democracy for power, losing a majority to them could shut you out of power for a very long time. If you want your political movement to be able to make a lasting impact via the ballot box, you have to win and win again (unless the changes you make would be really difficult to reverse, which maybe is what the author expects?). The feature of FPTP that the article seems to find desirable is that it is chaotic (in the sense that small changes in the composition of the electorate can produce wildly different assemblies) and that this could allow the left to lucksack its way into a majority sometimes. But a FPTP majority won via lucksack is likely to result in your splintered opposition uniting against you and booting you out.

Also, the history of the SNP in Scottish elections runs counter to the narrative presented by this article.

Also: "If the right can use PR to grow in European social democracies, there is at least as much reason to think it could use PR to grow in the United States." Too late, buddy. Vomitorium (talk) 02:01, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Fist, a note on terminology: The reason I wrote “the left” in this way was that it seems unclear to me what it actually means, especially in Studebaker’s version. There are a host of different type of “left”/“leftist” ideas from various types of social liberalism at the centre over socialist and social democratic to various types of anarchist and communist ideas on what may be loosely termed the left wing, to mention just a few.

As for the actual contents, it’s exactly this gambling or chaotic attitude to politics of rolling the dice to get a clear majority on a fairly weak electoral majority/plurality that I find so puzzling. Usually, I see the emphasis on the left being to create and sustain a solid and stable electoral majority in order to have a sound foundation for introducing and maintaining the societal choices the left wants. The main exception that I can think of is exactly vanguardism, which I find smacks more than a little of the kind of paternalism that is usually more associated with the right (e.g. aristocracy literally meaning “the rule of the best”).

What seems even odder to me, is that the supposed reasons that Studebaker presents for lambasting and warning against PR are already present, and occasionally even more pronounced, in the current US (and arguably UK) FPTP systems. He also seems to have a very limited understanding of the actual political and societal context of the examples he cites, which leads him to either misinterpret them or to conclusions that are basically the opposite of what a greater understanding would entail.

Usually, Current Affairs tends to have some interesting pieces that are fairly well argued, which was why I took this one to the saloon bar to see if I had just totally missed or misread its contents. I hope that there are some editors that might check such pieces in the future, because this kind of train wreck slapdashery risks reflecting badly on the publisher as well. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Your powers of bullshit detection continue to serve you well, Wombat. For this article is a classic example of GIGO. The main issues (not yet mentioned) I picked up on were...

- The inability to understand that 'PR' is not a single alternative to FPTP. There are many different types, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Including hybrid systems.

- The ignoring of the fact that PR might reduce the bias towards major parties, it doesn't eliminate it. Majors still hold the advantages of organisation, name recognition, deeper talent pool, bigger war-chests, media coverage and so on.

- Their 'three party PR' example is very simplistic. They fail to mention that in a two-party FPTP the 'centre' party would be the 'floating voter' part the two would normally fight over. They ignore the fact that it's quite possible to end up with a five-party layout; two 'right', two 'left' and one 'centre'.

- It also seems blind to the appeal that PR can crack the rightist bloc too. Folks who know me know I've blamed the 'moderate' Republican and Conservative for the rise of Trump and Johnson; that for all their complaints, hand-wringing and professed disgust about them, they still end up 'staying with the devil' and thus enabling them to electoral victory (mainly due to above reasons). PR in the USA would have given the 'NeverTrump'ers a few electoral claws to allow these folks 'somewhere else to go'.

- They don't think things through. They are right in the respect that UK Coalitions / Minorities are usually unstable and/or poisonous. The reason for this is simple; because it was FPTP. When you believe that an intra-party agreement is a freak situation, the major member has little to no motivation to not screw the minor over – like how the Conservatives first screwed over the Lib-Dems and then the DUP. PR provides a huge disincentive to shafting because chances are you'll need that dancing partner again soon and parties in PR systems change their actions accordingly.

- This failure means the writer doesn't get the value of minor parties. They are often limited/one issue parties, which means their price for support is relatively clear (and their voters know this too). They're 'ginger parties'; groups designed to 'enliven' the majors. Both sides win; the major gets the support but can blame the 'unwelcome' changes on the minor, while the minor gets a bit of drink in their glass.

- They are also seemingly unaware of how FPTP in three/four party situation becomes really screwed up. Case in point; the recent election in Ontario - the 'winner' got a landslide on only a 40% vote share.

- Lastly, truth be told FPTP has a dozen parties already – they're simply factions within the larger party. Theresa May had to contend with three major ones which made Brexit become a Conservative bowel obstruction, while Labour couldn't really make much hay from this for two major wings were too busy trying to knife each other and throwing hissy fits. And this isn't new either; Major spoke of 'the bastards' which hamstrung him all through his ministry, while Wilson attributed his success in government partly down to 'shoe leather and whiskey' – ie going around, drinking with faction members and talking them around to his POV.

I could easily pad this out as an essay... but this is enough today. Though the article is sufficiently poor I'd be tempted to shove it into the clog-list. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:02, 20 June 2022 (UTC)