RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive448

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, (new)(back)

LOL

Well this place got lively. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 05:01, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

The pending winter solstice stimulates the drive for discussion and company. But I would say that; I'm a Pisces. Semipenultimate (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose, heck I’m less active. And I’m visiting India rn so I’m online when most North American editors are asleep. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 01:49, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

enjoy your trip! would love to go someday. also, i haven't been very active on this site, myself. The G (talk) 02:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Why is Joe so pro-Israel in the current Conflict?

Considering how scummy Israel is being, almost totally disregarding civilian casualties and caring not for the immense human suffering occuring, why is Joe Biden so firmly in the Israel camp? Even wanting to prevent oversight of weapon donations? I find it baffling, especially when it isn't a popular decision to the voters who would be likely to vote for him in the upcoming elections. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 19:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Insert skeptical-faced Fry "not sure if trolling" meme image here. Luigifan18 (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The answer, for both of you, has nothing to do with humanity, morals, no matter which side you choose. Israel is one of two (three if we count Turkey) regional powers in the area that generally aligns with America over, say, China. American foreign policy can't choose to alienate Israel. Put a slight amount of pressure? Sure, but don't expect meaningful accountability. Also, Luigi, why do you think Mirror is trolling? It's a valid question: why does a supposedly liberal president support a rogue state openly committing crimes against humanity? Because of power. Foreign policy is about power. Countries don't have friends, they have interests. Carthage (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Just a pre-emptive warning as a Mod here; Israel-Palestine discussions have a tendency to erupt into flame wars. If you find yourself getting upset, please, feel free to go for a quick jog, enjoy a nice cocktail, play a video game, enjoy an intimate moment with a (consenting) partner, but please do keep it civil. CorruptUser 20:08, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Carthage That's essentially the point I was going to raise: that Biden's hands are most likely tied to some degree. I'm not sure how harshly the American government would be able to rebuke Israel without risking foreign relations. Any attempts to steer Israel in a less… anti-humanitarian direction will need to be handled with care.

As for why I suspected Mirror of trolling, well, I haven't seen them before. For all I know, it could be Ken trying to engage in some sneaky Biden-bashing. Luigifan18 (talk) 20:13, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

They've made comments on the Bar in the past. One thread of theirs, the philosophy one, I remember engaging in. However, from their edit history alone, they edit very infrequently. I only know of them because of the philosophy thread (as for why that sticks out in my brain, I have no clue.)Carthage (talk) 20:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Also the other regional power that pretty reliably aligns with America are the Saudis. I exclude Turkey because while Turkey is a NATO member, they're too much of a wildcard to be considered a reliable ally IMO. YMMV, of course. Iran is the regional power that aligns firmly with Russia and China. Carthage (talk) 20:21, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

I've been a lurker here for like 6 years or something. I'm pretty internet shy and tend to not talk online much. This place usually offers nice counter opinions, and some things (such as my questions of philosophy or the current Israel conflict) are not easy to voice in person and get genuine / well thought-out responses. I tried editing some of the statistics articles a long time ago, but then the articles got closed and have been too shy to try and edit ever since.

Back to the main topic though, I am baffled by Biden's response. I guess he/the American government consider Israel, being a probably-nuke-having nation that shares some cultural ground, is worth keeping an ally at the expense of millions of innocents. Depressing. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

If America cut off all direct aid to Israel, they'd probably switch to another NATO member first. If all NATO allies tell Israel to fuck off, which is pretty unlikely, they'll turn to China. Israel has a lot of American technological secrets that they can use as a bargaining chip with either the US or China. Carthage (talk) 20:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Although Biden has been more reconciliatory towards the progressive wing of the party, he's been known for longer as a moderate centrist (a hint: this might be why Obama chose him for VP in the first place — his own signal of reconciliation to the Democratic establishment). Biden's foray into more progressive politics (like support for labor unionism) was a recent development. Given where the Overton window is in D.C. on Israel, this shouldn't come as a surprise at all. I'm honestly surprised people were politically unaware enough to think he was going to budge on it. Support for Israel in US politics is almost ubiquitous. Of course, most people may support a ceasefire or whatever it may be according to polls and all that. But it doesn't matter. US policy has never followed polling. There are some issues that poll at 90 percent approval which are never followed through on in DC. Now add in that Biden prioritizes more centrist voters on top of this. Chillpilled (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Anyone seriously involved in the activist scene I think is well aware that support for Israel in the establishment is near-ubiquitous. The idea is that politicians respond to pressure, and if they sustain and build up that pressure eventually politicians will be forced to adapt policy at least a little bit. We can already see this with Biden's shift in rhetoric regarding Palestine and the IDF's conduct. There's also pressure from within the federal government, as indicated by the many resignations in the State Department in protest over unconditional support. Carthage (talk) 20:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Activists, sure. But I see people on social media who almost seem completely new to US politics, and act genuinely bemused that the government isn't responsive to public pressure. Like, really — no other issue they're observed to have been unresponsive on? Ever tried getting a universal health care plan passed? Election reform? Chillpilled (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Honestly a lot of these people probably are completely new to civic and political awareness. I welcome them to the jaded wonderland that is American politics. Carthage (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

There are 4 ways of dealing with terrorists. You can 1) give them what they want, 2) hope they disband, 3) deal with them as a policing action, 4) fight them in war. 1) is a non-starter for Israel, because Hamas's end-goal is the ethnic cleansing of most/all Jews in the entire region. 2) isn't happening due to the constant inflow of money from the rest of the world. 3) would require a police force to exist, which is currently Hamas itself. 4) is the path that Israel is taking... which is ironically the least effective method of the bunch. What Israel could do, going forward, is re-occupy Gaza a la pre-2005, and once again become the police force in the region. It's moving backwards, in more ways than one, and makes a truly independent Gaza (and West Bank) that much less of a realistic possibility, but it might very well be the "least worst" option, at least until Iran/Qatar/etc stops funneling money to Hamas. CorruptUser 21:16, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

That assumes that Israel will be able to reduce Hamas' combat effectiveness. I am skeptical that will happen. Either way, the.... scale of what Israel is doing in Gaza has pretty much guaranteed another cycle of violence. All the people killed by Israeli bombs have family members who will want revenge. If Hamas is completely destroyed, which I still find unlikely, then new resistance movements will pop up that Israel will have a lot less intelligence on. This isn't the West Bank. Hamas has prepared for this. Carthage (talk) 21:23, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Something else I should have added: when Biden actually did follow through on the progressive anti-war milieu's line when it was Afghanistan, it's not like he was rewarded politically for that, even despite it having been a popular idea beforehand to pull out of Afghanistan. On the contrary it was one of the first big things to damage his image. So he may feel that contradicting Israel too much could be a fatally risky move, and might personally be less tempted to follow public opinion, reflecting on this. Chillpilled (talk) 21:25, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Carthage

By that logic, the violence inflicted upon Japan should've resulted in a population hell-bent on revenge against the US. Yet, that didn't happen. CorruptUser 21:31, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The US also did not ethnically cleanse the Japanese and ruthlessly subject the remaining inhabitants to apartheid while engaging in active subversion of Japanese (Palestinian) self determination. We did not go to Japan with the intent to colonize, we went there to pacify a belligerent nation, and left when we felt Japan was sufficiently pacified/the Soviets were becoming the more pressing issue for American national security. Ergo, that's a false equivalency. Carthage (talk) 21:35, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@CorruptUser The difference is that Japan had it's dignity left intact after WW2. The US was able to do almost anything but they had to stick to one promise: do not convict Hirohito, no matter how obviously guilty he is for Imperial Japan. Also in a general sense, America went really soft on Japan because they wanted to put a military base there due to fears for China at the time; the Japanese equivalent of the Neurenberg trials saw very few executions and convictions comparatively. Hell, a lot of the people given jailtime were released early, with some even going into Japanese politics. Japan was let off light, which you see reflected nowadays with how most Asian countries still have beef with Japan over their crimes during WW2. Israel/the IDF is not leaving the dignity of Palestinians intact with the way they're currently going and that's why it's gonna blow up. -- Techpriest (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

That's a good way to phrase it: dignity violation. You also have to look at the histories of both cases. October 7th did not start up out of the blue. The Palestinian case is very different from the Japanese case. Another factor is, in addition to the fact that the Japanese weren't ethnically cleansed and subjected to indefinite apartheid, is distance and time. Japan was only occupied for less than a decade, and we went there to pacify, not colonize. Zionism was, and is, a settler-colonial movement which used a combination of insurgency (terrorism) to kick the British out and ethnic cleansing to kick most of the Arabs out, and the Palestinian people have been pretty ruthlessly denied self-determination since then. Entire generations have lived and died in the refugee camps. The Naqba is still fresh in Palestine's social memory because, to them, it hasn't ended. That's not the case for Japan. Japan is also an ocean's distance away from the United States. Very different situation in terms of distance than Israel/Palestine. Carthage (talk) 22:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

The answer is mostly what Carthage says; de facto, the US has to support Israel because Israel is the power base for the US in the middle east after the US left Afghanistan. (There is also the very directly related fact that Israels economy is basically defined by fueling the American war machine, they're a big part in the military-industrial complex; there's a reason that you can find (former) Mossad agents all throughout it.) Do note however that "support for Israel" does not translate to liking Bibi, enjoying the genocidal behavior that the IDF is pulling in the Gaza strip and so on and so forth. It's very likely that Biden is gritting his teeth through all of this; Obama went on the record noting that the majority of the problems he had with attempting to reconcile the middle east were due to Bibi and in a lot of ways, Biden is just diet Obama. It's why you see Biden stuck in the weird paradox of having to shift his tone as public opinion turns on Israel but also in the same breath have to support Israel because it's diplomatically required. -- Techpriest (talk) 21:33, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Because aid to Israel is basically conditioned on them using the money sent (as far as I know, all or almost all of it) to buy back our own military gear, it does very much function as a military-industrial complex thing. So while this is aid to Israel, it also sort of functions as a subsidy to that US industry, and so, American jobs. One of the biggest reasons we never end up cutting back on military spending is the fact that no matter where in the country you represent as a US politician, there are almost certainly enough people working in the military-industrial complex there to threaten your election/re-election should it become some big campaign issue. I think Bernie Sanders might be a peculiar exception to this — I have heard something about there being significantly less military-related investment in his state. Chillpilled (talk) 22:15, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Japan 'succeeded' after WW2 mainly due to the fact the main ruling class and societal structure remained intact; there were attempts to breakup the keiretsus etc afterwards but many of those plans were scotched after the outbreak of the Cold War and finally, the Korean War. As the world chess-board changed, the Japanese elite became a new ally against the Sino-Soviet Communist bloc for Washington, and since when to turkeys vote for Christmas? From what I can tell, there has always been since the War a 'conspiracy of silence' within Japan about both the War and Japanese imperialism that led to it - which leads to the occasional international flare-up like with history textbooks etc.

Anyway, American support for Israel can be simply explained; 'the Israel lobby'. A combination of economic interests, governmental chess-players and a % of the voting population who urge Washington to 'be a friend to Israel' - part of the reason that area is such a fuck-up now is because after WW2 Truman was being bent by the pro-Israel voting bloc domestically and so screwing up the British attempts to impose a viable partition on the place. Note here I'm not saying this lobby is sinister or a conspiracy or anything; simply a usual triad of money, votes and ideology. Until very recently, there was almost no votes 'for Palestine' within the American population so Washington didn't consider it much - and let us remember here that generally speaking, Arab nations like the Saudis gave lipservice in their support for them. However, times have changed too; to younger people in the West Israel is no longer the land of kibbutz and a shelter for Shoah survivors but of angry altie settlers and Palestinian perma-camps. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:30, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

My opinion is that rather than a Japanese model, a German model might be more effective for Gaza. Keep a strong occupation force for a while, and send any troublemakers up where they want to go. In the meantime, conduct a deradicalization program - and I know this is controversial, but some degree of thought policing against jihad-preachers will have to be done because the locals are REALLY into the "die and get 72 virgins" thing (whether for good reason or not is up to you). And after a generation of education in a democratic setup, a working democracy might be established. The trouble is, Israel has shown no sign of doing anything like this in the West Bank, and seems content to let things be as they are until the next flare-up. Meow^Purr 15:47, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Funny, I'm in favor of similar thought-policing and deradicalization going on in Jesusland. Take the kids of fundies out of indoctrination homeschooling (actually, just take them out of fundie homes, period) and send them to real institutions that will teach them critical thinking, respect for rationalism and the scientific method, tolerance, and other such RationalWiki-approved virtues. Is it going to be brutal? Yes. Is it necessary to put a stop to the black-hearted willfully ignorant plague upon humanity that is Neo-Nazism and the Religious Right? Maybe, maybe not, and I'd love to have an answer to fundamentalism-borne problems that doesn't trample upon the human rights of the fundies, but I'm hard-pressed to think of other solutions. Luigifan18 (talk) 18:04, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Palestinian politics is more complex than "die and get 72 virgins." Hamas, PIJ, and the myriad of secular groups you're ignoring? They're not like DAESH. They're nationalists. They want to liberate Palestine. These people have legitimate grievances. For them the Naqba is still ongoing. You can't get rid of that by "deradicalization programs," what would that even entail when 18k people in Gaza in this war alone, most of them civilians, have been ruthlessly slaughtered by the IDF? By war's end there will likely be tens of thousands of dead Palestinians, if not hundreds of thousands, and the world is standing by and letting it happen. That alone guarantees another flareup of violence. Carthage (talk) 19:25, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Traditionalist I may be, but I too would sound trumpets for closing fundie schools. Those places are crazy. Meow^Purr 19:34, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Evangelicals and Jewish Americans, activists on both sides, support Israel. The metaphysical or power explanations are little better than conspiracy theories. Americans in general sympathize with Jewish people because of their historical experiences. Deaths are always regrettable. America is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in 21st century conflicts, so it would seem hypocritical to assume Americans have moral standing with Israel. The thing about religious people is, there is always a catch, or a reward in heaven. Religious idealism, like any form of idealism, is often fatal. I won't say those who support the Palestinians are wrong. I don't think any solution will save Hamas.UncleKrampus (talk) 23:03, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

From the evangelical american side, there is also a fringe minority that support israel in the hope that it will help lead to the rapture. Lavalizard101 (talk) 23:38, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

And how is it little better than a conspiracy theory? Biden himself has said that supporting Israel is in America's self interest: [1] If you doubt that power has nothing to do with why we support Israel... This is basic political science. Also, what do you mean by "save Hamas"? Insurgencies historically benefit from security crackdowns. That's not just me saying that, it's RAND Corporation's own researchers saying it. And when you say "Americans tend to support Israel because of historical experiences..." which Americans? There is a long history of solidarity between African American movements and Palestinian movements. Carthage (talk) 04:49, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Also the fact that America doesn't have moral superiority over Israel is irrelevant. We have leverage. We're the ones funding and supplying them. If morality, and not power, was what factored into the analyses used in international relations in Washington we wouldn't be supporting the Saudis and the Israelis unconditionally.

Regardless, the goal of activism is to shift the cost-benefit analyses that our policymakers use. If the costs of supporting Israel unconditionally (dead Palestinian children and burnt orchards et cetera) are too high, and not just a minor PR inconvenience, that will promote a shift in policy, as policymakers respond to public pressure. Carthage (talk) 05:31, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Meow's point is a critical one; that 'deradicalisation' does not and cannot mean [as I have argued by the more hardline pro-Israel commentators] 'get the Palestinians to accept with good humour a situation where they have 'Bantustan statelets"' which Israeli domination shall be eternal. My view is simple on this; I would not accept this situation if my own country had been dismembered like this, so they won't either. Colonial domination is like a rubber ball; as soon as the pressure is released it expands and flies out of your hand.

To expand on this point; we need to also remember that like Baathist Iraq, Hamas has effectively compromised the upper echelons of Gazan society - and unlike say, after WW2 Germany there isn't enough 'anti-Hamas' folks in reserve to provide a whole new ruling stratum to take over. What's more, like any ancien regime they will lurk in the shadows, ready to come back and try to get back power as soon as they can. Even more importantly, even the 'anti-Hamas' replacements will still be Palestinian nationalists and will want the Israelis to go to hell - which leads back to the earlier point; what do people mean by 'deradicalisation'? [KarmaPolice]

I've read that the US wants an Arab coalition that is neither Israeli or Palestinian to be the replacement security forces instead. Given that Israel has said they'll take over security for the Strip (which is honestly really fucking stupid if your goal is deradicalization and solving this conflict. The people of Palestine view Israel as their oppressor. Having the people who are the same people currently ethnically cleansing Gaza and arguably committing genocide also being the security forces is stupid from a counterinsurgency POV.) they're therefore at odds with the US over "the day after." Carthage (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Uh, which Arabs? A lot of the Arab world wants Israel to be erased (not all of them, though). If the new guard just starts launching rockets at Israel in Hamas's stead, the situation won't improve. Luigifan18 (talk) 18:49, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

You confuse the Arab public with Arab leadership. You also assume Arabs are interchangeable. Jordan and Egypt have both pretty resolutely told Palestine to fuck off. Also, again, this is just what I've heard. I've also read that there are no real concrete post-conflict plans. I don't think the Gazan people would accept the state currently committing an outright crime against humanity and who have expressed pretty genocidal sentiments (and a strong case can be made that Israel is committing genocide as I outlined in the OP. This article goes over some of the ground-details in depth. Be warned it's a gruesome read) to take over security, but I also don't think they really get a say here. Palestinian humanity and self-determination has always been conditional on Israeli security. Israel for its part, I don't think it can meaningfully assert administrative control. The PA is probably a good bet, but they're deeply unpopular, both for its corruption and the fact they're viewed as Israel's dogs, doing the dirty work of the illegal occupation. Also, I have to ask: why do you place the onus of responsibility on the brutalized people suffering under a monstrous regime of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and occupation and not the military and economic power and belligerent occupier? These "intifadas" flare up every 20 years because of hopelessness and despair. If this was any other country or conflict on the face of the planet people here would be up in arms over the crimes against humanity that take place on a daily basis. People still live in what are effectively concentration camps over 70 years (see Ain al-Hilweh which is basically Kowloon in Lebanon) after the Naqba took place. There is a real environment of hopelessness and despair in Palestine that's met in very few other places on the planet. What Hamas did on October 7th was awful, but so far out of this conflict they've been getting everything they've wanted as more and more innocent bodies pile up and more and more apartment buildings, hospitals, and mosques are razed. This is going to be remembered for a very long time. This is also going to be the last time I respond to this. I've said my piece, I don't feel like relitigating the same points over and over again. Carthage (talk) 18:59, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"rogue state", are you talking about Hamas? You know, the state that *actually* launched an unprovoked genocidal attack on its neigbhor, specifically targetting civilians, and livestreaming the rapes and slaugthering, to applauding gazaouis? Mayyyybe you know, they're the one who shoulder the most blame? Or is it the fact that palestinians negociators have systematically refused any two states solution that does not include the 1948 refugees return? Do we forget that, at first, it's all the Arab states that decided to ignore the 1948 UN Plan and attack? Or is it the numerous violent rebellions, coups and uprisings from palestinian refugee camps towards the countries they're in that may also be a problem? Why are the palestinians the only ones to be *generational refugees* regarding the UN? Since the *official manifesto* of the Hamas includes the genocide of the jews and totalitarian theocratic rule (that's also incredibly sexist and homophobic), mayyyyybe they're the bad guys in this case? Not saying that far-right rights-eroding colonization-suporter Bibi is the good guys. 147.161.184.196 (talk) 13:04, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

RationalWiki Foundation Board of Trustees meeting, 15 December 2023

The foundation board met on 15 December 2023, and the minutes of the meeting are now posted. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 00:09, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Ay, good shit dude. Tis good to know that RatWiki will be around for a little while longer. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 02:19, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I should note that as for operations and managing, I am quite unlikely to manage almost anything in practice. I log into the boxes occasionally and run around like Chicken Little only as appropriate, that's it. Stabby, otoh ... - David Gerard (talk) 09:47, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Jan 6 Inspector General review

If anyone's interested, I found this[2] to be interesting so far. Released on Dec 18th so it's relatively fresh intel. I'm not keen on what can be done with this, if anything, though. Is this a nothingburger? What historically comes from inspector general reviews like this? Can heads roll (figuratively)? Policy changes? Can this "be used in court" so to speak? I'm going through it but I'm just a big ole dumb and don't really understand the full scope of everything I'm reading so I'm hoping someone here can offer some perspective. 136.226.67.73 (talk) 07:54, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

This review was written about yesterday (December 19^th) in an analysis by Philip Bump in The Washington Post.[3] While Bump's article doesn't mention legal repercussions coming from the report, it's not impossible that it could inform current prosecutions. For example, the requested National Park Service permits did not mention marches, only rallies, but the planners were internally planning for a march. The NPS said that requesting if the planners had requested a march in connection with a rally, it would not have affected the permitting process but would have affected NPS planning for the event to assure that the march went safely. One could infer that the planners knew this and deliberately did not want to request a march to avoid having the additional NPS security personnel associated with a march (one "rally" was even titled "March for Trump", but did not mention a march in their request). Bongolian (talk) 00:04, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I looked at an official report. Nothing's first chapter is called " What we Learned" that's silly. Also, 'Nothingburger'is the dumbest, ugliest portmanteau that a certain group used in 2021. Nobody kept it. Torrent (talk) 07:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"Bullshit" packs a lot more of a punch IMO. Carthage (talk) 18:32, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Another George Santos interview

Why can't people stop giving this conman attention? Carthage (talk) 21:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe they're wondering how he's going to shove his foot into his mouth next. Luigifan18 (talk) 01:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I thought this said George Soros at first. I must have almost forgotten Santos existed already. Chillpilled (talk) 01:55, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

"Stop inviting me to these gigs of yours (if you want me to be gone)." - slight paraphrasing of something Jolly George said in this interview. Carthage (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

From the man who was convinced to say "I con." rather than "icon" in the interview. Bongolian (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

But is it Fun?

The fuck is all this, y'all are treating it like a job that nothing offends you. I am thoroughly disappointed. Nothing should offend you because you should already know about it. And if you don't, learn it. Torrent (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

It's gonna be a bleak day for humanity if people stop being offended by authoritarianism, especially of the fascist variety. Luigifan18 (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Carthage (talk) 14:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I was also wondering what this was in relation to. Reads like somebody started in the middle of a conversation with themselves.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what this is about, but I'm having plenty of fun. Chillpilled (talk) 19:44, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

hard to justify, I had probably 2 to a lot of things to say and couldn't put em together. But that doesn't mean I wasn't thinking about it. The title is easy, I mean. Torrent (talk) 05:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Well then I'll tell ya when the joke is funnu, wokka wokka. I'm not tryna be mean but... Torrent (talk)

Phantom social workers

New article just dropped. Carthage (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Holy hell.(I hope someone gets that reference...) - Rairyu75 (Talk) 23:54, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Google en passant? --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 01:02, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Are you kidding ??? What the **** are you talking about man ? You are a biggest looser i ever seen in my life ! You was doing PIPI in your pampers when i was beating players much more stronger then you! You are not proffesional, because proffesionals knew how to lose and congratulate opponents, you are like a girl crying after i beat you! Be brave, be honest to yourself and stop this trush talkings!!! Everybody know that i am very good blitz player, i can win anyone in the world in single game! And "w"esley "s"o is nobody for me, just a player who are crying every single time when loosing, ( remember what you say about Firouzja ) !!! Stop playing with my name, i deserve to have a good name during whole my chess carrier, I am Officially inviting you to OTB blitz match with the Prize fund! Both of us will invest 5000$ and winner takes it all! I suggest all other people who's intrested in this situation, just take a look at my results in 2016 and 2017 Blitz World championships, and that should be enough... No need to listen for every crying babe, Tigran Petrosyan is always play Fair ! And if someone will continue Officially talk about me like that, we will meet in Court! God bless with true! True will never die ! Liers will kicked off... - Rairyu75 (Talk) 03:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I’ll have you know I can reach 800 elo on chess.com for almost 4 hours! --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 09:20, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

New Wiki - Justapedia

Anyone's thoughts?

• https://quillette.com/2023/12/11/introducing-justapedia/
• https://justapedia.org/

From the few edits being made on Justapedia (I clicked on "recent edits"), it appears Justapedia is a magnet to right-wing trolls who were banned from editing Wikipedia's race and intelligence article. The author of the article promoting Justapedia in Quillette - Shuichi Tezuka (a pseudnonym) is allegedly (according to posters on Wikipediocracy forum), Jonathan Kane (alias Captain Occam) a race and IQ obsessed troll who was banned from editing Wikipedia years ago for editing warring on the race and IQ article. It seems he is currently active on Justpedia under another pseundonym ("Deva"). I searched social media and aside from a few conservatives and Larry Sanger - the only people who seem to have taken interest in Justapedia are "racial realists" (basically white nationalists) who like Kane see Justapedia's article on race and IQ as a place where they can insert their own hereditarianism bias they failed to insert on Wikipedia. 167.172.105.145 (talk) 22:24, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it is obvious that Shuichi Tezuka is Jonathan Kane. I wouldn't oppose mentioning the account on his article but if that content is the be added we would have to say he is suspected of running the account we can't say he definitely owns it as we do not have any sources outside of Wikipediocracy saying he runs the account. Johns (talk) 00:55, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

The Justapedia Foundation is a waste of time, they have basically just copied 1000s of Wikipedia articles word for word. It's founder Betty Wills is a well known Wikipedia user. I don't see the point of Justapedia. Johns (talk) 01:03, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

What even is this thing? Luigifan18 (talk) 02:28, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

It's basically a new wiki that is completely pointless. It promotes itself as being more neutral on controversial topics than Wikipedia. So far all it has done is copy Wikipedia articles almost word for word. Recently the wiki has been highjacked some race realist kooks who were banned on Wikipedia and are looking for a new platform. Johns (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

All this will end up being at this rate is a low traffic shithole with an outdated fork of Wikipedia, except every editor banned from other Wikis for bullshit can promote their pet cause. In the recent changes, one can see that not many people at the moment are editing, as one would expect. However, a few pages have changed depending on what "beef" someone has. Aside from the race realists, a certain editor (that, if I had to guess, is a certain editor banned here for very similar shit) completely whitewashed the incel article (and edited a few other topics like Modern Monetary Theory). r/KotakuInAction also found out about this Wiki and is attempting to whitewash the Gamergate article (even though these dweebs should be well over near-decade news that no one cares about now). A few other editors early on, likewise, have done the same for articles on George Floyd (now "unintentionally murdered!"), Elon Musk (no longer "polarizing"), Fascism (it's now Marxist, not far-right!), and the Epoch Times (which totally is not a conspiracy theory fake news site now).

According to a Reddit, the fork was done because said Wikipedia editor thought Wikipedia was too liberal. Sigh. So "here we go again" with the type of shit that led to failed projects like Conservapedia and Larry Sanger's crap. BobJohnson (talk) 03:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh god, the dreaded master villain whose name rhymes with “Peel Thy Sun Nun Can”. At least that’ll stop all the ban-evading BoNs. How long before Mikey gives them an article on “bald antifas”, DMorris writes about Christian high schools in Pensacola, Ken copies all his CP trash onto it to claim “victory on behalf of all christendom1111!!!oneoneelventy11one!!111one!!!11!!”, Aneris dedicates it to the glory of he IDF and screeches about “femeenazeez” and “evil transgenders!” and Logicnsuch spams links to the acid-trip vids mommy says make him special? --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 03:03, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I easily identified Joseph Bronski as the Justapedia editor BasicReality who is currently editing the race and IQ page. Bronski recently tweeted about Justapedia and his edits are identical matches to his own writings on his blog and social media. Bronski recently published a paper at OpenPsych, is a racist, eugenicist and is part of the HBD sphere. 165.232.64.49 (talk) 02:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

It is likely Emily Willoughby also has a Justapedia account based on this edit: "I'm aware of someone who's registered here who has a Ph.D in behavioral genetics, although they aren't very active." 165.232.64.49 (talk) 03:09, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Joseph Bronski probably qualifies for a RationalWiki article, he's written for far-right publications. Maybe Justapedia needs an article here. Johns (talk) 03:11, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I've not registered an account so may create some of these on a new user if I learn the basics. Thanks. 165.232.64.49 (talk) 03:12, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh boy, more right-wing echo chambers created by morons who are pissed about nobody taking them seriously (except as a potential threat to humanity). This should be fun. Luigifan18 (talk) 04:50, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Finally, the sequel no one asked for, Conservapedia 2. The Krusty Krab (talk) 17:20, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Conservapedia still has at least a handful of active editors after some... however many years it's been since Conservapedia was created (I think almost twenty). This on the other hand, is the sort of project that pops up and fizzles out every once in a while. Before this there was what, Citizendium? I suppose Citizendium would be the direct predecessor to this? Chillpilled (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I forgot, there was also Everipedia. And more. Chillpilled (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh god, looks like history’s repeating itself. Since the other far-right circlejerk site (at least in its “fun” form) basically died with one TK, looks like we’ve got another CP to debunk boys. I wonder if we’ll even get ourselves a cousin site out of all this, formed by disgruntled rationalist dissidents that starts out dedicated to mocking this JP, how funny would that be --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 02:46, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It's really more of a Sanger-projects warm-over than a Conservapedia redo. Not rationalists, but: there's a sphere of wikis made up of editors who were I guess "too left" for Wikipedia. These are usually tankie wikis. Chillpilled (talk) 04:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

And the dumbass wiki project by that one toxic, grudge-holding socdem bird who briefly edited here that everyone hated, who thought he was Kazitor (if you remember who that was) and got banned for taking his personal vendetta against another now-banned user too far. Also don’t forget the god-awful “Liberapedia” fandom site by a LANCB’d RW editor named after a star --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 04:46, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia’s children are Conservapedia and Justapedia because Andy and this JP guy were incensed by teh librulz and wanted their own pet far-right echo chambers, the late TK’s censorship of dissent while preaching about how "freedom from consequences" is a human right spawned RationalWiki while its originally-intended audience were scared off by Ken’s takeover of it and spawned Ameriwiki, and then a certain banned bird “LANCB’d” from here to found Socdemwiki (but then when it went nowhere he came back here to resume his personal vendetta against another now-banned user so spitefully that he talked his way into a permaban). So CP is our parent, WP is our grandparent, JP is our uncle, Ameriwiki is our brother and Socdemwiki is our disowned child. That’s funny --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 15:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Sincerity and grifters

How many "influencers" actually believe the bullshit they peddle and how many do it purely for the grift? Carthage (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Hard to say… Luigifan18 (talk) 01:56, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

According to some statistics I read recently (but can't find now) the answer is 73.28%.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It may be a somewhat trickier question, in that many quacks and other charlatans have a habit of lying to themselves first, and then repeating what they thereafter believe to others. Some seem to change beliefs and convictions as easily as they change clothing style when fashion changes in society. And I mean, they really do believe in what they say, even as they re-define reality moment by moment to never be wrong if pressed with argumentation and evidence. These tend to be dumber charlatans, followers rather than leaders in grifter trends, lacking the cunning of thsoe who're outwardly similar but much more cynical (lying to others but not the self). These dumber charlatans may often be blind contrarians, I think, enabling a pro-fraud "you don't know anything, you may as well believe this" culture. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:57, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

media literacy as something learned just sounds wild to me. Kill your idols, There is no such thing as a star. Consider stardom. It's our fault. Torrent (talk) 06:04, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

In my opinion, I feel this can be a deeper discussion about pyschology and persuasion. After all, Are the politicians that promote certain propaganda anymore grifting than a charlatan?SensaurC-137 (talk) 19:28, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

For Christmas I want a free instant gender change

Will Santa give me that? --Trans Fem Agenda 19:43, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I am guessing you mean “instant morphological changes to the sex characteristics I prefer” because you can change your gender at any time :p - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Honestly might stop believing in Santa if he can’t! Dude supposed to be magical, if he can’t do it fucking fraud smh. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Now, I can't help but feel you're being somewhat unfair. Historically speaking, Mr. Claus has been recorded as supplying toys, and to a lesser extent sweaters, socks, and coal. His record does not, as far as I can determine, include physiological transmogrifications of any kind to any significant degree. Certainly there is no record of his bringing the gift of being a good little girl to any good little boys, or vice-versa.

It is easy, far too easy, to claim that he should be able to do this because he is "Magical". Magic is, after all, a very variable discipline, and runs the gamut from deities with nearly unlimited capabilities to that house around the corner where Jimmy Figgin insists that there are goblin bunnies living. (And we all know how Jimmy can get, what with his rye bread experiments.) Mr. Claus is somewhere on the middle range, capable of phenomenal speeds, temporal manipulation and cargo transport, but there is no record of his surgical abilities, magical or otherwise.

Might I suggest importuning one of the Classical Greek deities? Or alternately, pissing one off? They are known to be fond of corporeal restructuring, and have been known to cause sexual reassignment according to records-- in at least one case, the blind seer Tiresias, repeatedly. Kencolt (talk) 00:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Who has two thumbs and is going to get his PhD in economic history

This guy! GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:32, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@GeeJayK Welcome to the club! Spud (talk) 13:13, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Huzzah for you. And don't let anyone diss you for saying 'it has no use in the RealWorld™, right?' - how can you plan/predict future directions when you've not got an [economic] clue to how the hell why today is like today? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:18, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Was anyone really going to say that about economic history? Seems like a field key to understanding very-long-term macro-trends or whatever. Chillpilled (talk) 13:25, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, guys! And yes. Many people think it's useless, and that people with rEaL KNoWleDGe are not on the academia and are earning much more money in the private sector. Although, to be fair, as I said some time ago, I just want the title. I don't think I'll ever be a professor. And there are those that dismiss the entire field of economic history as being useless in the "real world". GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 13:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I think there's a 'Real World™' demand for economic historians. Development banks/NGOs for example - by looking at historical examples of what development plans worked [or didn't] gives you insight on how to attempt it better next time. Government finance ministries are another. And as an interdisciplinary subject, it lends itself to further 'bolt ons' [foreign affairs? sociology? geopolitics?] which I could see welcomed by other government departments, media outlets, think-tanks and yes, even intelligence agencies. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Congrats GeeJayK! --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 13:33, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@GeeJayK I somehow read that as "isn't going to get". So. Heartiest congratulations! Spud (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Best wishes on your endeavor! Bongolian (talk) 21:52, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Nice work, dude! -🎄Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano🎄^{Ask about our holiday specials!} 21:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

What was your thesis in, if you don't mind us asking for personal/privacy reasons? CorruptUser 22:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Congrats and good luck! -- Techpriest (talk) 10:37, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Great news. Excellent!Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:07, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks everyone! @CorruptUser, I don't want to go into details, but it will be about the USSR, War Communism and the New Economic Policy. And no, I don't speak Russian, and I hope I won't have to learn it. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 19:37, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you will need to; the opening of the Soviet records in the 90s was the biggest treasure-trove historians ever got to enjoy and economic historians were amongst them [I mean a lot would have to re-write their existing books as they now could see the secret official records, as well as candidly interivew former Gosplan economists, dissident's samizdat and so on] so a lot got re-written. Anyway, I am curious to whether you believe the Soviets should have continued with the NEP past 1928? KarmaPolice (talk) 15:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Will Santa get drunk after he visits the United Kingdom and Ireland?

Kids there leave Santa alcoholic beverages for Santa. British kids leave Santa a cup of Sherry and Mincemeat Pie while Irish kids leave Santa a bottle of beer and cookies. Santa must be wasted after visiting that region. --Trans Fem Agenda 17:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Funny enough, it seems that some news agency in the UK (National World I presume, which owns a ton of presumed "regional" newspapers) decided to make some sort of template in 2020 to answer that lingering question: how drunk will Father Christmas get during his passage through our locale? Thus, the same article with slightly different wording and calculations appears for North Hampton,[4] Wakefield,[5] Northumberland,[6] Hemel,[7] and Yorkshire,[8] along with others perhaps not detected by the Google. Ah, the joys of media consolidation...

At any rate, while the (cough) spirit of St. Nicholas is bound to be a bit sloshed after the UK visit, this certainly beats the United States tradition of cookies and milk. (Mainly the warm milk left out overnight. Yuck!) BobJohnson (talk) 18:20, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Santa is naughty every Christmas: flying while drunk (Britain) or while half-asleep from milk[9] (US). Bongolian (talk) 19:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

NORAD needs to blast his ass out of the sky tonight. We can’t have drunk pilots in American airspace. 🎄Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano🎄^{Ask about our holiday specials!} 20:18, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Arrest him Renaissance style when he comes to Wales.[10] Bongolian (talk) 20:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

FUI (Flying Under the Influence) --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 00:59, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I've always theorized that he decants all those drinks into a flask that operates on the same arcane principles as his bag'o'gifts. He drinks comparatively little himself on the actual 'road', as it were, bringing the vast majority of it back to the North Pole and his elves, who after all their efforts are due for a massive bender. Kencolt (talk) 02:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that he refines it to fuel the reindeer. It must take a lot of energy to haul that sled around the whole planet and to visit every household quasi-simultaneously. (It's probably quantum too.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:52, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Why do people hear always assume bad faith?

🤡Concern Troll Alert!🤡 Krusty the Clown finds concern trolling dull and not amusing. Imagine being on fire, running up to a firefighter screaming for help, and they hook their hands in their pockets and say, "Actually, before we start, I think you should say you're violently oxidizing. Not all oxidization is bad. I mean, some of my cells are performing oxidation right now, and I think it would be better if we ..."

Artificial Wombs: Ethics questions

One of the sci-fi technologies that may become reality in our lifetime are Artificial Wombs. At present, we can hook fetal animals up to the "womb" and keep them alive, but eventually we hope to use them on premature infants, and possibly further in the future, we could use them earlier in the process, perhaps all the way to embryos; IVF could one replace the pregnancy process entirely.

But this raises many ethical questions, especially around abortion.

To start with, this is a very thorny issue, where we have to balance the right of of the mother to Bodily Autonomy against the fetus's Right to Life, among other considerations. Many take extreme stances, and perhaps in order to elide their worldviews, people will insist that one or the other of those rights don't exist, let alone take precedence over the other depending upon the circumstance. However, with artificial wombs, Bodily Autonomy ceases to be a consideration. The only considerations at that point are matters of cost, as well as responsibility of care.

So with artificial wombs, when should abortion be allowed or forbidden, and how does that compare to the current times we should allow/forbid abortions? CorruptUser 14:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"Many take extreme stances". Balance fallacy much?

In any event, with hypothetical artificial wombs abortion ceases to be an issue. Just put the egg and the sperm in the artificial womb and away you go.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:56, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

What Bob is saying. The only issue would be finding someone who would be willing to take in the baby (ie. raise the child) after it is "born", and if abortions will continue to exist then I would assume this issue would be one of the primary reasons for it. ULTRACOMFY (talk) 15:04, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, Bob, the balance fallacy is a bs fallacy. It doesn't involve a logical argument. The concept of the middle ground is a metaphor, a euphemism for, " you don't get exactly what you were asking for." The mother doesn't have to carry the fetus to term and the bible thumper gets to save a life, so everyone is happy, yes? I can think of idiotic objections to "iron wombs" and I assume there are more than enough idiots to make them. UncleKrampus (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what point you are trying to make.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I took the opportunity to criticize pointless fallacy mentioning. But the issue itself is of no interest to me.UncleKrampus (talk) 16:17, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

(EC) It's only a balance fallacy if I'm using the extremes as justification for being in the exact center. If there can even be a center in Abortion, where there's actually multiple sides that simply don't fit neatly onto a line. Unless you want to try to force "abort mixed-race babies" onto the line, somehow. CorruptUser 16:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, you were the one complaining about two "extreme stances". But your balance fallacy issue is not the most important thing. The thing is that your hypothetical artificial wombs would make the abortion issue irrelevant. Women would no longer need to get pregnant in the first place.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I was ambiguous. I mean, aborting the fetuses within the artificial wombs. At what point should that be allowed or not? CorruptUser 17:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah! Indeed. You are saying that the "bodily autonomy" argument would no longer be relevant if the fetus were no longer in a "body" - and I think I should apologize for not realizing that was your exact point from the outset.

It is, in fact, an interesting question. I have no immediate answer.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:52, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

If you had an immediate answer, it wouldn't be a good philosophical question :P CorruptUser 19:06, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

considering we don't need artificial wombs, I would need a reason for an artificial conception. Given it already happened, the original question is dumb. It gives the question over to economics. Gross, and to present day,historically accurate if we want to talk about philoshy. Torrent (talk) 05:29, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

sorry, I went at this a little hammered. Let me explain. The question is faulty. It's outside of a reproductive right argument, in that it is explicitly a question involving reproductive intent. Let's fast forward through that entire mess, and now we have an artificial womb intended to carry a real viable human. If the artificial womb failed to carry a zygote, fetus, or baby to full viable term, it would be the fault of the designers of the artificial womb. If it happened because literally sometimes it naturally happens, it would be the fault of nature. If somebody knocked up the artificial womb by accident or non consent of all involved, it's a non-starter, misuse of equipment. if in the final hour there is a 'what has science done?' moment, I wonder if that is closer to the question? We certainly aren't concerned about the artificial womb. Who intentionally starts a hypothetically viable birth and then says 'but maybe I'm gonna abort it, just because.'Torrent (talk) 06:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

the question is dumb and gross with artificial parameters. Torrent (talk) 07:11, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

How likely is another technological civilization existing at the same time as us in the Milky Way?

I think there's fraught assumptions that intelligence must be technological, or that it must expand outwards to claim all that it can, but at the same time life does tend to aggressively expand to fill up all it can, and we don't see evidence of that in the Milky Way. There are the obvious caveats of a) we've only been looking for a couple of decades, and we don't really look at any single star system for a lengthy period of time; b) there could be biases in how we conduct SETI that have left us to arbitrarily exclude actual technosignatures (WOW! is probably the best example, but I could name others); and C) we don't really know the likelihood of intelligence in the universe or just our galaxy, although the fact that animals on earth at the very least trend towards intelligence does suggest that intelligence itself might not be a hard filter, although toolmaking intelligence and technological civilization might be. We don't really know, and we only have a sample of one (our biosphere). Thoughts? Carthage (talk) 19:57, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Answer; very likely, but it's likely that 1) there's actually limited resources on each planet and everyone runs out of stuff like easily accessible metals, hydrocarbons, and/or radioactive elements before becoming interstellar, or 2) it's in the very nature of intelligent life to fight amongst themselves, and they wipe themselves out, or 3) civilizations create population densities which are a paradise for disease, but only kept in check by antibiotics and so forth and eventually all the antibiotics run out, or 4) societies develop virtual reality and that is the last thing they ever invent. CorruptUser 20:03, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

RE: Virtual reality

Or maybe they take VR too seriously and start to think we’re all in a simulation, and that the only way to free oneself is by committing mass suicide by nuking their own planets. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 04:34, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Wait, how would antibiotics "run out"? Aren't they derived from other organisms' pathogen-fighting measures or substances that certain microbes produce to suppress their competitors? (For instance, penicillin is a substance emitted by a certain mold to prevent bacteria from growing nearby.) Luigifan18 (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

However, bringing up the topic of civilization does bring to mind another factor that could influence how detectable intelligent life could be: sociality. Humans are a social species; we're naturally inclined to form bands and tribes in pursuit of common interests. This tendency could have eventually led to the advent of civilization, which itself allowed for the development of advanced technology. Intelligent life elsewhere in the universe may or may not have this same tendency towards social behavior, and a species that doesn't tend to be very social isn't likely to group up into a civilization or develop a continuum of technology that builds off the accomplishments of predecessors, thus remaining at a primitive state regardless of its intelligence. Luigifan18 (talk) 20:22, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

That's a good point. Sociality emphasizes cooperation and empathy. I don't really see a sapient squid species really building up an interstellar civilization, for instance. Carthage (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

"If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now." This is called a paradox. But I think that technological life is not that easy. Humans have been around a long time, and civilizations have been around since the end of the last ice age (about 10,000 years). But it has been little more than 100 years that humans have used radios, and radio waves travel at light speed. The galaxy is 100,000 light years across. Anyone listening within 130 light years might have heard of us, but it might take a hundred years to get back to us, and they'd need a lot more technology than we currently understand to visit here. It took early holocene humans almost 10,000 years to create radios, despite having the same brains, I suppose, as we do today. Somehow I am not surprised.UncleKrampus (talk) 21:41, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

To paraphrase the Drake Equation: as life has emerged on one planet in a vast variety (including the deep underground equivalent of the Clock of the long now, to the upper atmosphere) and is somewhat adaptable (living in nuclear power stations), then it will probably emerge elsewhere in the universe; and as sentience has emerged (to some extent including 'non-human species') a certain proportion of those planets will have sentient life, and a fraction of those will be capable of considering technological civilisation and space flight (planet having a long elliptical orbit where some form of 'hibernation' is necessary; whales cannot create technology and would have difficulty in leaving a planet) 'and all the other issues we can think of' while FTL travel and communications are not presently viable on Earth (what is the SF story where 'a device' can read a stream of information being sent around the galaxy - and humans are not yet ready to access it?).

And quite possibly - the space travellers wait until the local sentient species are capable of understanding what is available (would Thag of the thagomizer be suitable - or the persons claiming to have been kidnapped by greys and others?) Anna Livia (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

It is interesting, I think, to note that the Milky Way is approximately 100,000 lightyears in diameter, while the diameter of the disk that Earth's radio emanations have reached over time is about 130 lightyears, so that the proportion of the Milky Way from which Earth's radio emissions may be observed is about V = (6.5x10)²/(5x10⁵)² = 1.69x10^-8. It is clear that there could be millions of non-intersecting radio disks in the Milky Way. Older radio civilizations would be have bigger disks.UncleKrampus (talk) 01:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I hear scientists think they might have seen artificial light on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, they might be a century or so behind us (as there are no suspiciously repetitive-sounding radio noises from that part of space yet). If we leave our planet in about a century or so, their karens and conspiracy nuts bouta rant about their world being infiltrated by a cabal of Space Orcs. (If it’s not just a supervolcano) --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 04:51, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

And possibly - it is only 'approximately this far into the history of the Universe/the Milky Way that 'sentience whether or not as we know it Jim' capable of developing the means of interacting with the Universe has started emerging? Anna Livia (talk) 10:50, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There's the hypothesis that because we don't see any other civilizations in this corner of the universe that must mean we're the first on the scene. I believe this one is probably one of the likelier ones if we assume that statistically speaking civilizations will expand out to consume all resources they can get their hands on. The thinking goes that the fact we don't see that either means all, or most, civilizations self-destruct, we're the only planet with a biosphere in this galaxy or corner of the universe, which I don't find likely, or that we're early on the scene.

It also took four billion years to develop a technological civilization on this planet, which might support that. People think the universe is old, which it is from our perspective, but the last stars will form 100 trillion years from now. So this hypothesis assumes that the solution to the Fermi Paradox is one of time, essentially, and the reason we don't see anything is because we're either the first one on the scene or one of the first.

Some criticisms I can raise of this model is that this arbitrarily excludes other possible factors like observational or conceptional bias, or the possibility that interstellar travel might be a lot harder, impractically so, than we currently think it is. Carthage (talk) 18:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Our current best guestimate is that the Milky Way contains between 100-400 billion stars. That's many, many 'bites of the cherry' and after all, improbable things do happen [our species made it!]. To apply Occam's razor here, I think Krampus' answer is the most likely one - that our galaxy is so damn big no signals have gotten through to us yet [here's a map showing how far Earth's signals have travelled].

When you think these things through, it becomes most likely that we learn that a technological alien species existed at some time in the past [and that past being anything from our 'late Paleolithic' to 'WW1'] than finding out one exists now. Plus, our current ability to watch is very basic; it's only in the last decade where we developed the ability to systematically monitor our own solar system and get the first data from beyond it. It's quite possible we might have 'seen' the signs of a technological alien speices yet we simply didn't know what it was. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:53, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I've spent much of the last few days exploring some harder sci-fi content (which I'd been short on for the past years), including a bunch of the Isaac Arthur YouTube videos which explore concepts and refer to a broader range of fiction, critiquing and going for scientific realism. Then I saw this discussion.

It seems like we simply can't know for a long time what is a truly good answer to the Fermi Paradox. Too little data, too little to go on in narrowing down possibilities. (Unless something big suddenly happens, of course.) Earth is the only place where it's easy to gather a lot of evidence, which is why the theories that aliens are or were here don't fare well. However, the "we are too early / currently everyone else is too far away or too primitive to get in touch" answer is a reasonable guess. (Unless ruins of civilizations are found later, e.g. around suitable stars a few hundred light years away, suggesting civilizations often don't live long.) Orders of magnitude are very uncertain -- e.g. maybe there's hundreds of civilizations comparable to our own in this galaxy, or maybe they only arise once in tens of galaxies or even less, or anywhere in between those two ideas.

Then there's currently unfalsifiable ideas like multiverses and other types of universes. What if means for such travel and colonization is developed first, or soon turns out to be a more rewarding path for civilizations to take than spreading out in the galaxy in our current universe? Maybe others disappear because they move to greener pastures. There's lots of wild sci-fi ideas like that which there's no evidence either for nor against. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 01:38, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Coal for Christmas

The internet is pre-enshitified as we should all know by now (See Enshittification). So it is no wonder that generative AI, based entirely on the internet, is just more shitification, a sort of Meta-enshitification if you will.

RationalWiki is not immune from enshitification as anyone who knows how to handle a mop will know. In this case we've allowed for lazy people who see quote aggregation sites (Goodreads and Brainyquote seem to be the two of the main offenders) plopping quotes down in RW. But who knows where the quotes actually came from or whether the quoted person ever said the words. I present the lumps of coal that I've found so far:

• Cognitive dissonance: "Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against this belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."[11]

  It's all over the internet that Franz Fanon said this highly plausible quote, with one writer in an academic book even plausibly but falsely claiming that Fanon wrote it in his book Black Skin, White Mask (Talk:Cognitive dissonance#Awful example of relying on bad sources).[12]

• Great Wall of America: "Men build too many walls and not enough bridges."

  Usually attributed to Joseph Fort Newton, as RW had falsely claimed,[13] but it has also been falsely attributed to Isaac Newton. Joseph Fort Newton actually did write something similar in meaning and lengthier to that quote, but never that quote.[14]

• Anti-intellectualism in American Life: "An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."

  This was reputed to have been said by Eisenhower, as we indicated on our page.[15] The problem with this is we were doing something anti-intellectual (using a dubious quote) on a page about a book about anti-intellectualism.

  The oldest attributions of this quote to Eisenhower that I could find were from 1958, which was at least contemporaneous (i.e., Eisenhower was still alive), but problematically the quote appeared as part of a list of quotations (i.e., more quote aggregation), probably as a wire service story to help fill empty space in newspapers.[16][17][18]

The problem with trying to fix quotes from these damnable quote aggregator sources is that there are many, many quote aggregators using the same often-unsourced quotes, but there is often only one true source if there is one at all. It helps if one knows a little about where the person might have actually written it if the person did indeed write it all, but still, it's fighting against the tide of shit.

To top it all off, Goodreads has been going through a period of re-enshitification after being bought by Amazon. All their reviews are now being turned into shit so as to maximize Amazon's profit.[19]

So in conclusion: I beseech you, dear editors, to not insert quotations from quote aggregators; stick to original or at least reliable sources instead, and fix or remove quote aggregator quotations on sight. Bongolian (talk) 21:48, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

This reminds me of the problem with AI model collapse. In the same way that quote attributors build off each other; AI's are at risk of using other AI output as input. Given the problem of "AI hallucination" this could result in the whole of the net becoming vastly more unreliable than it already is as AI errors metastasize.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:09, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Coal? But I wanted a pony!

I want a pony! I want a pony! I want a pony!

In all seriousness, that bit about Amazon buying Goodreads for the purposes of market manipulation is pretty disheartening. I'll keep an eye out for suspicious quotes. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 22:36, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Here is your pony, RW-style:[20] Bongolian (talk) 02:03, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

And the certain editor who kept putting mini-essays in there after repeatedly being told to stop; while I know they mean well if they’re reading this, but just add a new in-text paragraph/section if that’s what you want to add. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 02:19, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Rairyu75 In regards to the Indian ladies’ attraction to atheism vs. ponies, ponies win apparently. LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 13:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

"In Defense of Independent Journalism"

I have started up a new essay project called In Defense of Independent Journalism." I would appreciate comments and criticism. Carthage (talk) 03:14, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Happy Winter Solstice one and all!

Happy Holidays! Any grievances you’d like to air? --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 02:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Tis the season, and yet the Fox News blasting at the hotel this morning was still wailing about immigrants, the Mexico border, and trash talking Joe Biden (but of course). My wife wondered what a Fox News report on the Flight into Egypt Bible story would sound like. BobJohnson (talk) 05:11, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

”DA JOOOOOOZ who os fundig and controlling the Roman Empire ([parenthesis 3x]Herod[parenthesis x3] is one of them, COINCIDENCE??????/????slash/??//slashslashityslash///???slash??????) that literally enslaves them are sending themselves to invade the Egyptian border to illegally immigrate and bring their Herod’s rule to us and destroy our way of life!!!1 AND TAEK-ER-JERBS!” --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 06:44, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The Americanisation. No, it is 'Father Christmas', 'Lapland' and 'mince pies & brandy/whiskey'. This is the hill I'm gonna die on. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

When I was a boy, it always used to be said that Father Christmas lived in Greenland. I guess that Finnish Lapland ultimately won out because, unlike Greenland, it's easy to get to from the UK and they had the infrastructure in place to build Christmassy tourist attractions. Spud (talk) 13:21, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The US will not be outdone in the commercializing religion department: North Pole, Alaska, North Pole, New York and Santa Claus, Indiana. Bongolian (talk) 20:16, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I actually know a girl from Finland- I must ask here where the Finns say Santa comes from.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Can Mithras' Day and Gauda Prime Day be added to the celebrations? Anna Livia (talk) 00:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Anna Livia I googled what Gauda Prime was and all I found were people who seem very angry about the ending of some TV show from... 40 years ago? - Rairyu75 (Talk) 00:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Given that there are Richard III-ians, 'Druids and others dancing around Stonehenge and other places, people who make a habit of sea-swimming at Christmas and pursuing other mildly eccentric historical and other pursuits, are you surprised? Anna Livia (talk) 15:49, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Touché. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 18:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

And proponents of such minor eccentricities are (and are regarded as being) 'mostly harmless' and confine their hostility to verbalities (written, filmed, computerised, or spoken), while 'recourse to violence' is confined to historical re-enactment societies. Anna Livia (talk) 10:51, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Russia nav template

Given the number of articles we have on Russia and Russian politics, perhaps there should be a dedicated nav template for Russia-related articles. Carthage (talk) 16:00, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

And create a Russian-language version of it for Russian RationalWiki, if any of our Russians still edit RW (some of the most recent edits I’ve seen there were reversions of Davyd Morisov’s BS about cheerleaders). --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 17:11, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I just made the first edit there in months- the creation of my userpage. I don’t speak Russian, so all I managed was a single sentence lol. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 04:22, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Highlighting new articles

Since the last time we did this thread was in November, let's have November the new arbitrary cut-off date. There's AstroVictoria's article on Project 2025, Chilled's articles on Evie Magazine, Janet Bloomfield, and dentistry. Monochroma published the articles on bad faith (long overdue IMO) and Andrew Wilson. Natsuki wrote the article on Douglass Mackey. Umaru also wrote a new piece on the Zhonghua minzu. I wrote the articles on Melvil Dewey, Quranism, and phantom social workers. Does anyone remember anything else? Carthage (talk) 17:00, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I just did an AFD for the Andrew Wilson page: too few followers for a YouTuber.

Additional new pages:

• Chillpilled: Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine
• Yacob01: The Fandom Menace
• ‎ApooftGnegiol: Hidden Hand
• ‎Chillpilled: Journal of Controversial Ideas
• Box: Natal Conference

Bongolian (talk) 19:16, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I just added a section to the SEGM talk page. I was going to reply with it here but it became too long and I realized I should probably put it there anyway. Basically there are a couple things the page should still perhaps address, but which might be more complicated than simply demonstrating that they're maybe not such a good-faith operation.

As for JCI, that one is just funny. For Bloomfield's hoax sites, and Evie Magazine, I had seen screenshots from these websites all over the conservative Internet. I honestly had no idea Peter Thiel funded Evie's period-tracking app until I wrote the page. I had heard he was funding a period-tracking app, or something, but I didn't know it was Evie behind it. This seems to be some weird pro-natalist push recently. Abby Shapiro makes a lot of the same arguments. They make this surreal argument that "motherhood isn't a choice", i.e. that every woman must have children (not a straw man). It is so obviously ham-fisted. And then you have Thiel's frenemy Elon Musk always talking about how everybody needs to spam as many kids as possible. Look, I'm not some r/childfree type, but this is just weird, like they're trying to pressure people into having children or something, as if that's their choice to make. Chillpilled (talk) 22:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Zombie wrote the military occupation article. Carthage (talk) 06:56, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Linking to an extended interview with an O9A member

So about a week ago I asked on the Atomwaffen Division talk page if we should link to an extended interview with a member of the O9A but I never got a response. So I'm taking it to the Bar instead. Carthage (talk) 18:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

It's perhaps better to link to an archived copy. Is there content in the interview that would specifically inform the page? Bongolian (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

O9A and Atomwaffen are interminable, it's hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. Do you know any archiving service that can archive Youtube videos? (The interview in question is here BTW.) As a sidenote, I really think we should have a full article on O9A. Carthage (talk) 07:00, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe we should link it on the Satanism page itself. This interview is with an O9A guy, not Atomwaffen. Carthage (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello everyone! Newbie here, is there a mentoring programme like Wikipedia?

As I wrote on my profile page, I have wiki experience in a Wikipedia (not the English one), including featured articles. But I have never written seriously and extensively in English, and my contributions to my local Wikipedia were translations, I have no experience with original articles. Could someone help me get started? BrazilianAtheist (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

There's no specific structure for mentoring here, everything tends to be a bit disorganized and improvised. Unlike on Wikipedia, drafts on RationalWiki are usually collaborative ones, so a simple way to work with others on a topic (if others are interested in it too) is to start a draft. Most articles start as drafts here, usually staying that way until they're no longer stubs. And people sometimes mention their drafts here, in the Saloon Bar, to ask for feedback and maybe get some more involvement. Apart from that, people more experienced with something are sometimes asked on their talkpages about how best to do things. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 17:36, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking at what RW considers 'good articles' is a fair start. There's a few users who rarely/never put their heads into the Bar but do keep a watch on new/edited articles and do 'step in' to correct issues etc. Plus; RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article?. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:20, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice @ApooftGnegiol Thank you for your answers, I will certainly follow your advice. BrazilianAtheist (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

What do you need mentoring on? I'll help out if I can, if not, someone else might. ShabiDOO 00:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

When starting an article, make it a draft and then put {{draft}} on the very first line, enter and then start typing. Normally you'd then have your navbar templates right before the Boldfaced Title (and any snarky nicknames as appropriate), then a summary of the topic. Then add sections for different, more specific aspects of the thing, then your usual "See Also", "External Links", "Notes" and "References" sections. Once you've filled out all empty headers, ask an established user to make drafts walk their category as equals. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 01:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@BrazilianAtheist You could also contribute to our Portuguese-language category by translating more of our existing articles out of English. Spud (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Welcome to RatWik! CorruptUser 18:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

News sources

Can people please when they make references to news websites like the Times of London, Washington Post or Daily Beast, used an archived page facility like archive.is. It is because sometimes news websites are subscription only and thus difficult to read the source. Euromec (talk) 20:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

You didn't hear it from me but you can just open the Daily Beast in incognito mode. Chillpilled (talk) 00:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Like it or not mainstream media sources need to make money to stay in business, which nowadays means online subscription and ad revenue. If people want to avoid supporting media with these methods, that is their own business (it's usually not hard to find an archived copy). My own rule of thumb is: put the direct link only if it's a news source that hews to good journalistic practices unless the page has disappeared. Ephemeral or shady sources usually get an archived copy. Bongolian (talk) 18:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

If choosing between a paywalled and non-walled article, I'd go with the non-walled. However, sometimes that isn't possible, and we don't have a good solution. Luckily uBlock stops some of that, but not all. CorruptUser 18:31, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I've actually been thinking about this recently; is there an element of selection bias in online coverage because many of the better sources are paywalled and thus cannot really be shared? For example, I normally find when I'm sticking articles in the WIGO/WIGB that I'm relying on three sources - the BBC, The Guardian and LBC for the coverage [I usually do the 'UK beat']. Now, all three I would rate as generally reliable but I know there's stuff [esp for WIGB] from other sources such as The Economist. While I get they need the ad revenue and all that, but I do find myself wondering if it's possible [somehow] that the RW's of the world can't get some kind of limited 'fair use' free access - say, we're allowed to archive a dozen articles a year which can be shared with the public.

Oh, and the relative lack of free reliable access is perhaps more problematic than the OP's point; thinkpiece - https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/the-truth-is-paywalled-but-the-lies-are-free/ KarmaPolice (talk) 09:30, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Running a news corp costs money. When the cable companies began bundling their networks, they could've used the cable news as a tax write-off, but this would mean giving up billions in revenue from the "news" entertainment channels. Which, in fairness, always was the case; the newspapers weren't exactly bastions of honesty in the days before television and were also beholden to corporate advertisements. CorruptUser 16:15, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

funspace articles about animals.

Do we need more fun space articles about animals, or do we have enough? I would just add one or two, but I don't want to make a mess. (I've only helped start one article before) If it's okay, I'd be happy to help. Koafox (talk) 16:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

We don't need more funspace articles about anything. However, if you want to create them, they won't do any harm. Spud (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. We don't need any at all. Funspace is for people to have fun in. It you want to do it, go ahead. Though you might be better off improving mainspace.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

There's a lot of lameness in Funspace. If you're going to make a Funspace article, try to make it fun! Bongolian (talk) 18:19, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It's fine, but article titles should be sentence case, like "Jumping spiders" instead of "Jumping Spiders", unless it's a proper noun (like a movie named Jumping Spiders). Typically it should be singular too like "Jumping spider". I didn't change "Foxes" to "Fox" since that was already a redirect (and it's a disambiguation now); that's more flexible. Chillpilled (talk) 03:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Third Anniversary of the January 6th Attack: The State of US Democracy

Well, it's now three years since a bunch of right-wing extremists launched their violent attack on the Capitol. So, anything new on the current state of US democracy and national security going into 2024? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 14:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Project 2025. Carthage (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Besides voting, there has to be a way to completely prevent Project 2025 from ever entering policy. (Indictments on those think tanks for treason are one solution.) TheEternalOutsider (talk) 18:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

As it could possibly snowball into rubber stamp amendments being passed left and right, leaving the Constitution in shambles. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

My guess is that Project 2025 won't happen ("as planned" at least) simply because Trump wants loyalty to *himself*, not to the Heritage Project.

Such is probably the best case scenario for the state of United States democracy should Trump win: a scenario where vicious infighting and bickering between the extremists mitigates erosion of democracy. Now, I personally wouldn't want to "put this to test", so to speak ("worst case scenarios" can happen, and particularly in cases where Republicans have held the trifecta, nasty laws have indeed passed); but chaos and infighting is exactly what has happened in both the House of Representatives the last several years, as well as in the governments of several Republican-dominated states like Idaho and Texas. BobJohnson (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Realistically, voting, and the electoral loss of tRump is the one and only thing that will repudiate him. Courts are to some degree already stacked in his favor (e.g., Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana). There is no law that prevents a convicted criminal behind bars from becoming president, so thinking that the court cases alone can take him down is completely unrealistic. The House needs to be taken back by Democrats to assure that a Republican majority does not choose to ignore the Electoral College. There are some parts of the country where Democrats are almost guaranteed to win (e.g., large parts of California). If you live in one of those places, you can still contribute to Democratic campaigns elsewhere, either by financial donations (as a US citizen or permanent resident), or remote volunteering (phone or text banking). Bongolian (talk) 21:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

It's amazing that the most armed demographic on the planet brought surprisingly few guns. I think the majority of people had no plans beyond some "day of rage" bullshit, but enough lunatics showed up and made a bullrush towards the capitol building and enough of the regular crowd started following them and there wasn't enough police, well, then you had problems. And Trump was either horribly incompetent and refused to act quickly to stop the whole mess, or he was playing "wait and see" to see if the crowd could overturn the election; either explanation is a good reason for why he shouldn't be re-elected. CorruptUser 04:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

There were several factors that reduced the number of guns at the insurrection: 1) A substantial number of weapons were confiscated at the main (incitement) rally preceding the storming of the Capitol. 2) A sizeable number of people probably knew about the strict gun laws within DC, particularly the various event organizers and lead rioters (Proud Boys). PBs didn't want to get arrested for carrying a weapon before the main event started. PBs actually stashed weapons at hotels as a backup that didn't eventuate. 3) The knowledge that if any of the insurrectionists started shooting, it would probably force the National Guard's / Army's hand into moving in and outgunning the mob. Bongolian (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I think there's an easier answer; 4) the mob believed that they had 'legitimacy' [we're doing it in the name of the Orange One!'] and more importantly 5), they believed that the military/law enforcement 'was on their side' so weapons were not needed. Remember, it's a article of faith for such folks that in their Turner Diaries/Handmaid's Tale putschist dreams that the vast majority of the forces will support the overthrow; I am reminded of a [perhaps former] user here called 'SwampFox' who repeatedly claimed that 'nobody can get us' because [basically] the local LEOs supported them and their seniors wouldn't dare bringing in outsiders to do the job. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

One of the things that you quickly note about a large part of the 2A crowd is how many of them are, by and large, quite incompetent at actual military tactic (and many other practicalities with weapons, often including simple handling and safety protocol). It is best to think of the vast majority of the US "pro-gun" crowd as a part of a consumerism culture, albeit one with society consequences like mass shootings and other gun violence. Guns in America these days tend to be more of an identity and a statement more than anything else. As Waco showed (whatever else you can say about that shitshow), a simple organized SWAT team can handle a typical paranoid group stocked with weapons just fine, but such matters little, I guess.

While there were a few rioters like the Proud Boys with more malicious intent, I do agree that a lot of the rioters were conspiratorial types who stupidly bumbled along; the "face" of the riot after all is the "QAnon Shaman", about as ridiculous as it gets. Many of the other notable participants (like Baked Alaska and Nick Fuentes) were mainly known for being dumb and/or racist online. Such still probably suited Trump's purpose; there's plenty more evidence that he tried to overturn the election in several other ways, including "fake electors" and pleading with Secretaries of States. And it's fairly clear to me that the pre-riot words of Trump (and some of his other sycophants, especially Rudy Giuliani, who was no stranger to inciting riots) played a significant role in activating the shitshow. BobJohnson (talk) 14:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Which is why their 'the military/LEOs are with us!' mantra is a cornerstone of their belief system; most of them know in their subconscious that they're too few, too unfit and too incompetent to be able to mount anything more than a token resistance against anything stronger than a few patrol cops [and thus 'mass defections/quitting' is the only solution to this to keep The Dream™ alive]. I personally suspect that the more intelligent end of the putschists half-believed that they needed to 'do this' to say, provide a distraction while the Orange One and Co self-couped legally or something. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:34, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Turns out, the US government is made up of 1.5m officials, appointees, judges, bureaucrats, officers, agents, employees, etc etc who are all on no one else's side but their own. Because every government since the dawn of time has been this way. They more that people realize this, the better.

The only real protection you have? It's your community. Your friends, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers. Dividing people based on ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, or whatever lines? Turning neighbor against neighbor? That's how you get your rights trampled. I wish that the regular-joes who get suckered into the extremes had seen that. Yes yes, "both-sides", but it's true. Trump doesn't represent the average Joe, he never has; his entire business model was about screwing over the average Joe contractors to whom he owed money, because it was a good "business" practice or whatever. If you're being led to believe that your enemy is the otherwise-productive member of your community because they hold a reasonable, well thought out view that happens to be different from yours because they have a different perspective than you? That's not your enemy. The person telling you that's your enemy is who you need to watch out for. And apparently the idiots who got suckered into storming the capitol didn't understand that. CorruptUser 19:07, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Eh, I'm not that cynical; it's more often a case that the status quo has an inherent strength to it that 'revolutionaries' seem to miss. Yes, it's quite possible that quite a lot of military personnel [for example] did/do have a 'pro-Trump leaning' but it was not enough to make them to 'intervene' in a putsch attempt. Esp as it would involve violating their oaths; again, the cynics can scoff at the idea of 'a few words' shackling their actions but hell, they do matter to a significant slice of people. Plus, looking at the oath gives a triad of loyalty; 'the Constitution', 'the President' and 'your legal superior' - one of the interesting things to note is that all appearances that Trump's own appointees at the top level refused to go along with his half-arsed self-coup attempt. This is a lesson I am sure the Orange One has learned... KarmaPolice (talk) 09:44, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

We used to have a loon here who honestly could not understand things like "laws" existing outside of a secular-religious framework. Like, he believed that if we followed laws, that meant we worshipped the State. The country itself didn't exist because it was intangible. It was like reading a freshman philosophy student at a community college that smoked way too much weed.

Apparently, he was not the only one who couldn't understand what an "oath" actually meant to the people taking them, and just why people are willing to follow rules and behave as they said they would when they signed a piece of paper. The rioters who expect people to just ignore oaths, rules, laws? Seriously, these people have the mental capacity of children. It's the Kohlberg stages of moral development that normal people go through. Yes, it's true that there's no inherent "rights" or "justice" in the universe; no bear goes to the pearly gates and is told they are being denied the Land of Stingless Bees and Poorly-Guarded Picnic Baskets because they violated the commandment "though shalt not eat the hairless monkey". We behave as we are "supposed" to behave, because we want others to behave as they are "supposed" to behave; others behaving in a "proper" manner encourages us to do the same, just as they are encouraged by seeing us do the same (Kohlberg stage 3). We have rules we all follow, because we want others to follow the rules too (stage 4). We have a "social contract" with everyone around us, including authorities, where we behave in a "proper" manner and they ensure basic services and protections exist (stage 5). All 3 of these stages involve following rules we agree to, and we generally reach the 5th stage by our teenage years (and the final 6th stage as adults). But these people don't seem to have that. CorruptUser 16:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

There are several criticisms of Kohlberg's theory. Anyway, I'm not sure how relevant applying a questionable psychological theory to very specific social circumstances is. To the rioters of Jan 6th, they viewed what they were doing as moral. You're also stating ideological principles as fact, as if these ideological axioms that you posit are sacred and exempt from critical examination. Carthage (talk) 01:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

New draft article

I have a new draft I'm working on: Draft:Gerard Bull. Carthage (talk) 06:55, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Despite having been born in Canada, he rates a German language Wikipedia page,[37] but not an English one. Bongolian (talk) 07:22, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

That's surprising considering this guy was literally building super guns for Ba'athist Iraq and was most likely offed by Mossad. He's definitely notable. Carthage (talk) 07:28, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

German Wikipedia has a lot of pages on political people not covered by English Wikipedia, regardless of where they're from. I think something is they don't care about notability as much, possibly. Chillpilled (talk) 07:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

This man was covered by the BBC and the Times, among other outlets. I think he's notable. It's weird TOW doesn't have an article on him. Carthage (talk) 07:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I've heard of him from some media story somewhere. I take it back, there is an English language article on him (Gerald Bull) something weird happened with my search earlier I guess. Interesting that four different biographies came out about him within two years after his death. Bongolian (talk) 08:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not everyday a Canadian-American rocket scientist with a security clearance builds fucking syfy cannons for Saddam Hu-fucking-ssein and gets offed by Mossad (most likely). Carthage (talk) 08:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It's complete. Carthage (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

OK, that's why I couldn't find him on Wikpedia. I was looking up Gerard instead of Gerald. Bongolian (talk) 23:59, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I had a brain-fart. Carthage (talk) 00:20, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Watched Killing of a sacred deer last night

Twas a good movie. Jakester499 (talk) (contributions) 17:39, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I concur. Very good, very eerie. If you like that film you may also like some of that director's non-english work. Dogtooth comes with high recommendation. For another english-speaking film I would also recommend his film "The Lobster". - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

So Alex Jones Made a Video Game

For the reasonable price of $22.20 (Is this a reference?), you too can fight the globalist's supporters by picking up this lazy, Metal Slug clone game, Alex Jones NWO Wars. To quote a reviewer:

The game has 5 levels and lasts maybe an hour if you’re really stretching it. It’s a marginally competent sidescroller that I’m confident anyone with a free weekend could make in Unity. The pixel art is surprisingly good, though some animations could use some polish. I suspect that’s where the majority of the effort went.

It's pretty much an Alex Jones, "You're the Soyjak and I'm the Chad", proclamation to his perceived enemies, but in game form. If you want to help support a scrappy, Sandy Hook massacre victim's parent harassing, game creator, well, you're a terrible person to be around and will definitely enjoy being fleeced by this game.-Ryan1257 (talk) 05:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Jewish Tunnels conspiracy theory

So basically, underneath Chabad in Brooklynn there was a tunnel dug, and it's not clear why. But as soon as the story broke, a swarm of conspiracy theories flooded the internet without any substantiation. Welcome to 2024... CorruptUser 19:09, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Yep, sounds about right. This is the new asian hate --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 21:34, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Rolling Stone [38] appears to say that the tunnels were dug as part of a dispute between factions of the Chabad community there. A small splinter group of this community is devoted to Chabad messianism, a position that is not endorsed by the general Chabad community. As the non-messianist Chabad own the building, for some reason the messianists desired illegal access to the building (a reason not specified in the article... nor is the reason why they would need to enter the building illegally... but my guess is, since this building is a synagogue significantly related to this group's "messiah", Menachem Mendel Schneerson, something involving "religious significance" and "religious sect conflict" is involved.)

I mean, of course there are conspiracies. We're at the point in Internet devolution where a brawl in a Miami mall becomes 10 FOOT ALIENS!!! for some reason. (And in both cases, the clear leader in Internet devolution, Elon Musk's Twitter, is leading the way in spreading the bullshit.) BobJohnson (talk) 22:02, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Don't forget, the public, politicians, and media are now numb to mass shootings because they know nothing productive will get done now that conspiracy theorists now control the conversation on anything gun related. We're now at the point where conspiracy theorists feel comfortable enough making their claims of false flags/crisis actors/MKULTRA immediately as soon as the news breaks and don't even bother with evidence because they know they don't have to prove themselves anymore, they have a whole, major political party who backs them up.-Ryan1257 (talk) 22:31, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Though I think it's worth stressing how much Twitter's new management is responsible for this phenomenon getting worse since now, every extremist has a safespace, gathering place, and megaphone all built into one service.-Ryan1257 (talk) 22:35, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

It is decently clear why. I made an entry on WIGO. I find it sort of funny. Also, there may have been some religious significance with connecting the closed-off mikveh to the study hall, I'm not sure though, just something I heard (it would track, because there are some specific regulations around how a synagogue is supposed to be set up including a specific way to set up a mikveh, I never paid much attention to these though). Chillpilled (talk) 23:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Apparently the tunnel went underneath several office buildings. If I owned those buildings, I'd be livid; that's a structural risk if I ever heard of one. CorruptUser 22:36, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, vacate orders were issued for three buildings impacted by the makeshift tunnel. [39] On Google Maps, all of the addresses in the ABC News article appear to be Chabad-related buildings, so some sort of disruption to that Chabad community is likely. I'm sure there's more than a few members in the community ticked at the "young agitators" involved in the tunnel creation right now... BobJohnson (talk) 18:29, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

This has been the dumbest decade of my life. Carthage (talk) 03:06, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I suspect 'You ain't seen nothing yet' may apply. Anna Livia (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Just wait until you are in your 30s. Everything that made you cool when you were a teen now makes you a loser, and what makes you cool now was one of the things that made you a loser in your teens. CorruptUser 16:28, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Just updated my signature ^^

Would like to get a little feedback on how it looks! That's all for now :) I have another saloon bar topic in mind for the future though that will be considerably more interesting 😈

Sincerely, Postuhenin the neurodivergent doodlebug! (say hi! ^^) 03:07, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I like it! It looks cool --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 07:40, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Me too! 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 22:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

A little long, but it does the job, so it's good. Feel free to add randomness in your sig with this code. CorruptUser 21:33, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Naivety on full display at Reddit

Ahahahahaha… I'm pretty sure the requirement to swing a typical Republican voter's vote to blue is a cult deprogramming program. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:52, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Sensors detect racism as well as white male persecution complex and oh-so-many contradictions (eg "government is not good", but secure the border and regulate the hell out of "DEI" initiatives). Voters of this ilk should pay more attention, unless they like voting just to "feel good" about smoke and mirrors.

For their biggest point: I'm old enough to have been through a few "tough on immigration" political song-and-dance cycle before in the United States. The thing is, a *lot* of business depends on paying shit wages to often-illegal immigrants. Many of these businesses actually tend to vote conservative (think farmers and construction). So there's "competing interests" in the GOP on this subject.

So what's usually happened in these sorts of cycles in the past:

A) In response to Republican voters fearing scary brown people, TOUGH ON IMMIGRANT laws are passed.

B) Industries that depend on paying shit wages to illegal immigrant labor get ticked, start lobbying. Maybe there's a few embarrassing incidents as well like when Alabama police arrested a visiting Mercedes executive for not having his papers. But most of this lobbying will be "under the radar" of the THEY TOOK MAH JOBS! crowd.

C) Quietly, enforcement of any illegal immigrant law fades. In the end, illegals are still working the farm fields and house cleaning the hotels. Nothing much changes.

Now, the US government has developed tools to help businesses determine employment eligibility status. If E-Verify was *strictly* enforced (with significant fines for the businesses caught employing illegal immigrant labor), that would be the one sure way to stop illegal immigration, far more than any sort of "wall" ever will. But the way the US economy (and a *lot* of others) are set up, it's not going to happen. Or, if it is actually attempted (as Ron DeSantis is trying to do), it usually isn't attempted for long. The urge to race to the bottom is too strong. BobJohnson (talk) 18:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

It's an "Intellectual Dark Web" subreddit, what did you expect? They're libertarians who think fascism and aristocracy isn't all that bad. They're the Republican's main allies in Silicon Valley, so the only way they'd vote Democrat is to bring back the Dixiecrats (or even better, the pre-civil war Southern Democrats).-Ryan1257 (talk) 20:28, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking for a new and reliable news resource

I used to use Fox News for my source, primarily due to familiarity. However, you must now submit and register an email to access the vast majority of content. Additionally, the information found there isn't much more than constant fear mongering and china scares. Does anybody have any suggestions for a better/reliable/new source of news? Gang O' Shadow Wizards 🧙‍♂️^{Bore me} 17:36, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I admit I haven't touched the conservative media for years, so I won't be able to give you a suggestions on that one. But news are often the same across most outlets (though the tone and writing are of course different, and often loaded). Most of the news outlets nowadays ask you to subscribe, which might be a bit intrusive and annoying in the first time, but you only have to do it once. Among the sites I check on a regular basis, I'd recommend Reuters, APnews, BBC, The Guardian and DW from Europe, and CNN, NYT and The Washington Post. Most of them have the same news on their main pages, which I believe are the same things on Fox News. If I want an analysis instead of just reading the news, Financial Times (why don't we have an article on them?) is my favorite, but that's very personal opinion. I used to read The Economist a lot too, but I have no idea about their current status. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:04, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

If Fox News is your baseline, almost *anything* would be a better source. I am not that sure of availability of various American outlets, but would vouch for the BBC being fairly decent (www.bbc.com) - and yes while it is British it has fairly good American coverage (good enough to allow me to participate in American topics here, for example). (KarmaPolice)

I think that's a bit funny coming from someone from the UK, since you guys have the Daily Mail and The Sun as some of the most important outlets. Do think that Fox News is actually worse than Daily Heil? GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:29, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I think that Whataboutism is a crap counter to his point. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

@Aloysius the Gaul it was an honest question, I wasn't trying to counter anything. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:20, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

My "American" take: The non-editorial portion of Fox News is "mixed"; they are extremely biased (very prone to Republican propaganda pushes), selective as hell, and prone to all the bullshit documented in their RW page. But their straight-ahead reporting does not rise to the level of fake news, some of it is quite reasonable, and some of their daytime anchors promote credible content sometimes (in between the partisan crap). (Their TV channel, however, has way too much yelling. Good god, tone it down, folks! And their prime-time "editorial" programs are just garbage). The Daily Mail, on the other hand, is pretty much fake news at every level.

Put it this way: Fox News is fine as a source on Wikipedia. The Daily Mail is blacklisted. For good reason. BobJohnson (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Answer; the print Hate Mail is poor, but it's possible to glean some truth from its 'hard reporting'. Its investigative dept also occasionally breaks scams/scandals. The Heil Online is a different beast, and one which is terrible to the point it suspect ignorance is superior to reading it. Suggesting a 'foreign' news source has the plus side of being written by folks who are more emotionally detached from the polorisation in American society. (KarmaPolice) ^{— Unsigned, by: 31.51.207.37 / talk 22:47, 10 January 2024}

ProPublica and The Intercept also are good. I'd recommend relying on multiple media sources, not just one, as relying too much on one media source can lead to an information silo. The Times, CNN, and the Post have all received criticism before, as have the BBC and The Guardian. Our article on media covers some of the aspects of media bias and how that negatively filters information. Media Bias Fact Check is also a good cudgel to use as a starting point for reliable sources, but keep in mind it's really only good as a starting point. Carthage (talk) 18:15, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I thought a bit, and I think two center-right sources that might be actually reliable are Barron's and Fortune. I admit I don't read them very often though, so I can be wrong. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:35, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Because I'm an Internet "old fart" who yearns for the days when Google Reader ruled and algorithmic Facebook bullshit didn't exist, my "baseline" is the BBC world news RSS feed and select Voice of America RSS news feeds, along with a few others like the RSS feed for Science magazine (for science news, of course!), and electoral-vote.com for a (biased but reasonably factual) daily US politics write-up. I actually also subscribe to a local newspaper (Tampa Times) that's amazingly still locally owned and still pretty good; and also because the corporate enshitification of local news in the US has been a sad thing to see.

Apart from that, it's "bounce around". I think all the sources GeeJayK mentioned are fine for instance, though they all have a bias and "angle" (but hey, who doesn't?). Despite my "baseline" I think it's good to get stories from multiple angles, if possible (as long as the angle is "of reasonable factual accuracy", of course... you aren't going to learn nothing from Breitbart).

If "center-right" is a goal, of what I'm most familiar with, I consider the The Economist a reasonably solid "center-right" source (despite some significant quibbles I have, but I have significant quibbles for most media). However, it depends on what "left" and "right" mean to you. More accurately, The Economist tends to be biased towards classical liberalism. "Back in my day", neoliberalism was pretty much the economic policy base of American conservatism. But since The Economist has been largely hostile to the new ruscist authoritarians/auth-wannabes (like Trump,Putin,etc.) and is also quite biased in favor of globalization, in this new era of "conservatism" (shills, troll farms, and all), you can definitely find forum chatter (eg: [40][41]) calling The Economist "left" for being pro-globalization! BobJohnson (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I think BobJ hits the nail on the head here; it's all about your definitions. The Economist is 'right-slanted' economically but leans mildly socially leftwards. What's more, it normally doesn't do hit-pieces on 'lefty' topics like UBI, economic inequality and corp welfare. However, there's a key issue not mentioned; the magazines' target audience; basically, the British AB demographic [ie wealthier, well-educated persons often in professional occupations]. This might not tally well into American experience, but here in Blighty I've come to see sources tailored towards the ruling/professional classes much more reliable than the mass media - I reason this is because as they run the country, they need to have to some extent an accurate picture of what the hell's going on in it [or counterpoint; it doesn't matter one jot if us plebs are fed shite in the dark]. This is partly why I judge a media source on the type of adverts that it runs; I want to see bespoke tailors, wine clubs and cultural weekend trips, not for Asda, discount sofas and caravans. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, y'all Gang O' Shadow Wizards 🧙‍♂️^{Bore me} 20:37, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm late, but for general news I like the Associated Press (AP News). A lot of what they post gets republished to other news outlets anyway. Chillpilled (talk) 11:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Check out GroundNews, which is a media site similar to MBFC. 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 22:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Anything right-wing can be safely assumed to be wrong. Luigifan18 (talk) 21:39, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

niceness vs kindness(Is it better to be kind or nice?)

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/13/health/nice-vs-kind-difference-wellness/index.html I come to discover they are not the same thing.SensaurC-137 (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Potential Apple Antitrust Lawsuit

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/technology/antitrust-apple-lawsuit-us.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-big-tech&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc

Hope this works out, Apple has certainly been dominating the tech industry with many of its anti-consumer and competition practices. This would be great for the tech industry and consumers. Gang O' Shadow Wizards 🧙‍♂️^{Bore me} 16:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

In some ways Apple looks like small potatoes compared to Amazon, particularly when viewed by the reach of their subsidiaries. A person could easily live their entire life, except perhaps for education, totally attached to Amazon and its subsidiaries. The subsidiaries have an incredible breadth (manufacturing, sales, credit cards, delivery, healthcare) and depth (e.g., sub-subsidiaries within the book business: Bookfinder owned by Abebooks in turn owned by Amazon). Amazon was sued by the FTC last year for monopolistic practices, but that was narrowly-taylored to the main company. Bongolian (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

One problem about Amazon that few people seem to talk about Amazon is that they have some monopsony power on publishers. Basically, they have to accept the price Amazon is willing to pay or they don't have anywhere else to sell their books. The good news is that I think (and here I just guessing by what I've seen on the news) that they work like the leader firm in a Stackelberg competition model. Basically, they set prices, and other companies set their prices based on them. This is far from perfect competition, where price equals the marginal cost, but their prices aren't probably that much above of their marginal costs. Their cases also seems to have some similarities with the computer industry from the 80s and 90s, when computer manufactures would set prices based on IBM. And we all know what happened to IBM's computer division. Don't get me wrong, the Sherman Act and the rest of the anti-trust legislation are important, but I don't think their market power will last forever without a strong lobby (which is definitely a possibility, but far from a certainty, as the IBM case shows). History shows that in a big, competitive economy like the American economy, innovation and efficiency can also erode market power (though, again, history also shows that a strong lobby can help maintaining it). GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:24, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Bar Menu: Suggestions and Ideas

This is something done out of fun, but I just started a page for a menu that the Saloon Bar could have to further the theme of this being a bar. Any more ideas for items? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:40, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

The menu will look a bit off right now, but with some formatting and extra pictures, it will be in shape. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 23:56, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

There's always this page for reference. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and such esoteric and cult-like things

This wiki doesn't have a real article on George Gurdjieff yet (it redirects to Enneagram, a small but more mainstreamed part of his teaching). Skeptic's Dictionary has articles on Gurdjieff and his supporter P. D. Ouspensky for those curious about the skeptical big picture. But we could cover more than those pages, digging into some woo concepts and more. I have some Gurdjieff and Ouspensky books and have explored this stuff earlier, so I'll probably get doing with at least some draft later. It's a structured woo teaching with links to earlier theosophy and more, and later conspirituality stuff. Anyone else interested? --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 04:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I remember reading Meetings with Remarkable Men when I was a college student. Gurdjieff's central claim is "people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings." Now, like it or not, that sounds more like a presumption of contemporary social activism than nonsense. Woo was certainly involved, but it was really interesting woo. UncleKrampus (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

It can be related to more "ordinary" ideas in various ways, though of course, the teaching itself contains many warnings about not confusing it with any ordinary ideas. Gurdjieff taught that conscience is universal and objective and lacking in most people due to their sleep, while morality is subjective, culture-specific, and a form of such "sleep". Only the universal is good, the rest is sleep and in its grip all goes aimlessly in circles at best, movements inevitably become their own opposites in time, and world events devolve towards great destruction. Only the few who truly develop souls unlike the rest of humanity can stay awake and, through great striving, change metaphysical lanes and become part of something other than the water circling the drain.

Ouspensky mixed existentialist teaching, including Nietzsche, with theosophy and occultism prior to meeting Gurdjieff, and Gurdjieff's teaching includes in part a similar mix of ideas. Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous gives both woo and history (with some omissions). An existentialist striving to be as well and as much as one can be was extrapolated towards reaching for the miraculous, trying to transcend the material and mechanistic through some kind of East-West metaphysical synthesis. Gurdjieff himself described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity". (Boris Mouravieff went further in Christianizing the teaching and giving it an Orthodox mystical monastic gloss.)

Ouspensky also believed that in a later era, mainstream psychology would explore the "psychology of the development of man" but miss all the esoteric insight, thus doing it on "a wrong foundation". In part he may have a point, if you think of things like "McMindfulness" and modern wellness woo. But modern psychology also explores cognitive biases, and how people are "asleep" in some ways and fail to direct their lives sensibly, and even how the self a person experiences is an illusion -- the whole, the "I", is a synthetic experience created by some subsystem of the brain. But of course, here there's a stark contrast -- between promises of transcendence, vs. a new and deeper skepticism which unmasks much in the esoteric teaching. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 02:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Error 503

I couldn't open rationalwiki yesterday. I keep getting error 503. Does anyone know what happened? Koafox (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I had that issue for a bit. Server host issue, perhaps? (https://www.auslogics.com/en/articles/fix-error-503-backend-fetch-failed/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CError%20503%20Backend%20Fetch%20Failed%E2%80%9D%20is%20an%20HTTP%20status%20code,data%20to%20process%20the%20request.) Gang O' Shadow Wizards 🧙‍♂️^{Bore me} 17:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

About 4 days ago we likely got DDoSed by someone with a chip on their shoulder. But yesterday’s downtime wasn’t as persistent, from what I remember seeing from the site discord --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 21:27, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Anyone with a few hundred dollars can rent a botnet to DDoS an arbitrary target. It might be worth looking into DDoS protection, e.g. Cloudflare. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 13:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

DDoS? Is it common? Koafox (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Happens every now and then; it’s sort of a right of passage. We’ve pissed off plenty of people whose livelihoods/passionately-held but unevidenced beliefs are based on deceit of all stripes, from the oppression of males and the inerrancy of the Bible/Quran to homeopathy and fad diets- as well as historical woo and us daring to suggest that God/Allah/YHWH/the FSM doesn’t exist. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 22:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

“Skepticism”

https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/08/the-death-of-skepticism/ https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/11/do-your-beliefs-reflect-reality-or-create-it/

I guess I wanna preface this by saying that folks like this guy aren’t going to change their minds. I know the type and it ain’t gonna happen. It’s that former “I was a science guy before X” which leads me to believe they never really were. It’s also convenient that he advocates “manifesting” since he can just attribute it to luck.

That said I don’t think he gets skepticism right. It’s not really about fear but questioning and learning. Not just accepting something because someone says so. It’s the enemy of anyone looking to take advantage of others and also keeps you humble.

He also references objective and subjective universe as if they make his argument when I don’t think he understands either. The things can work out for you in an objective universe and I doubt he’d be singing this tune if his decisions led him homeless or broke.

IMO beliefs dont affect reality, ignoring the nonsense he says about quantum physics (especially butchering Schrödingers cat), but more how you interact with it and he seems to conflate the two. Anywho, thoughts?2600:387:1:805:0:0:0:55 (talk) 18:38, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

FYI Rationalwiki actually has an article on Steve Pavlina, his woo has not escaped this site unnoticed. BobJohnson (talk) 18:56, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Holy shit how did I not notice that? Then again I guess there is just too much woo and junk to keep up with and remember.47.5.66.54 (talk) 19:57, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

We also have our article on skepticism.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

He was a Catholic who turned atheist before he turned New Age, if one believes him. Bongolian (talk) 19:56, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Nice find, thank you for sharing, welcome, I know we're all autistic here and knowitalism runs unchecked. is I think what everyone was trying to say. Torrent (talk) 03:29, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

It's pretty common in New Age to associate fear with everything "other", fear-based things being false and negative and self-defeating as an axiom, and everything believed not good necessarily having some connection to fear as well, due to everything being tied to just a few subjective universal things.

He makes the connection by means of the idea of mistakes. In a subjective universe, it's not possible to mess up, and there's no reason to fear anything (given a sweet dream which of course a healthy person would have). All who believe that it is possible to make mistakes and who feel motivation to avoid doing or not-doing some things because it may turn out bad are thus rooted in fear in his view.

He also describes his own fear of missing out if he were to begin believing in objective reality again. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 03:44, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

It sounds more like he's trying to convince himself rather than anyone else. It's also rather convenient to have people think like that so they can be duped into getting his stuff.47.5.66.54 (talk) 20:29, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

A problem with the autism speaks logo

The autism speaks logo looks a lot like the bi flag. I tried emailing them to change it. Is there a better way to change the logo? Koafox (talk) 16:24, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Eh, I don’t see the likeness. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 19:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

It's the same colors, but anyway, is emailing a hate group a waste of time? Koafox (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Don’t feed the troll. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 21:55, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Thought Experiment: More Temporal Dimensions

For some reason, I was thinking of Edwin Abbott's book Flatland for a moment, and that got me thinking once again about something that messes with my mind. What would spacetime be like if there was a second dimension of time, so that time is a plane rather than a line? As for reference, this Universe contains three spatial dimensions and only one temporal dimension, so time is effectively a line. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:36, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

So if "time" represents the passage of events from the past into the future - what could another dimension of "time" possibly measure? I can't imagine it - but then the inhabitants of flatland were unable to imagine another dimension of space, so I guess that would figure. Good luck with it. :-) Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:45, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

"We're pretty sure that if the universe had more than four dimensions, we would've noticed by now." is the the kind of general opinion that can be found through Google. Time can be thought of as a spatial concept. If you select two separate objects, then any period of time can be represented by the change in relative position of those objects. The passage of time is locally represented by the change in spatial relations. An hour, for example, is one twenty-fourth of a planetary rotation. Time is a completely local phenomenon. Additional dimensions are likely to be no more than geometrical curiosities. Ariel31459 (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Backwards rather than forwards, Bob? Carthage (talk) 08:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

It's described here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Spacetime. The arXiv article linked mentions too that when the timelines of two observers crossed they'd be able to interact just to drift apart when both time dimensions separated, so to speak. Panzerfaust (talk) 15:04, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I missed this discussion. In that paper, it's noted that though life as we know it would not be able to exist, there's no rigorous proof that more dimensions (either of space or of time) would make life impossible. It's very speculative of course that there could be intelligent life with more dimensions, but there's still a loophole for hard sci-fi at least. Maybe some other kind of living structure would develop something other than a mind as we know it which could navigate and do something other than what we think of as prediction which would work and be useful in such a universe? Though older and softer sci-fi ideas of hyperdimensional beings tend to cut the big mysteries of how they are able to function short by attributing superpowers to them (and of course, if they have "magic" they may not need technology).

A rather different idea of multiple time dimensions (well-suited to fit stories) is found in some other fiction. Like in the video game Chrono Cross (and in part the earlier Chrono Trigger) there's two time dimensions, but both move forwards like an arrow, so all essentially moves in a fixed diagonal way. Except that time travel is possible, and it means free movement in the first of the two time dimensions, but not the other. But that's simplified, because there's a more complex and mysterious idea of timelines. All spaces and beings are primarily oriented along one of the two time dimensions, experiencing and living accordingly. The second time dimension appears to be outer in a nested structure; places and beings of it can observe timelines in the first dimension of time and move around in time freely. "Time error" is the name of the second dimension of time, because a secret society of researchers were conducting experiments when the results made little sense, then the name stuck. For each timeline, there's an infinite plane of virtual alternative possibilities extending down below it, and time travel moves down the present version into nonexistence and moves up another version. But the cause-and-effect chain that brings a time traveler from an old version to a new is rooted in the old version, so the time traveler becomes immune to being erased by further time travel. (That's simplifying away all the ad-hoc extra bits and more fantasy-like elements.) --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 02:07, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

so I personally have a problem with people categorizing a lot of fantasy stories as sci-fi on aesthetics. I just finished Scavengers Reign (worth the watch, there were some things I absolutely hated about it, but more that I loved and a ton more that I really liked versus kinda didn't like) and because I think it is clever in its storytelling I won't spoil anything, but I think it is a really good example of a fantasy story being incorrectly called sci fi, as opposed to a fantasy story with some sci fi beats. I think Chrono Trigger is an easier example of a fantasy story with a careful sci fi element. Chrono Trigger is awesome, but I wouldn't work off of it conceptually. 1 dimension, we see as a single point. I personally wouldn't even trust that as conceptual starting point to talk about time. A lot of time travel sci fi forgets space. We are hurtling so far and fast, if we were to dimension skip, arguably around 100 percent of the destinations would be a vacuum. Torrent (talk) 05:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn't really categorize the Chrono games here, just extracted relevant sci-fi elements for the discussion. But yes, they're more fantasy than sci-fi. There's a big fan article on how time and dimensions work in the Chrono stories.[42] Reading that is what made me begin to think more of it, though the entirety is rather ad-hoc and complex. As for your point, it's not very clear where people should end up, since the solar system in turn revolves around more, which moves in relation to other things, etc., but probably vacuum, though there apparently isn't really any center to the universe, any point being as good as any other for that and the things moving in relation to one another probably extending beyond the visible universe. Then there's the problem of chaos, which seems to rip almost all time travel fiction apart on second thought.[43] --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 08:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn't intend 'people' as you but I think we both kinda get it so I won't spend too much time on an apology. There is, undeniably and sometimes unfortunately, the ability to perceive and comprehend a universe. Just because it sucks doesn't mean it's not normal. The pursuit of getting a bigger view of the normal is, in my opinion, very cool. If Time is a fourth dimension, it does contain the 3rd in a sense that the 3rd contains the 2nd and the 2nd contains the 1st. I think if time travel were to be tried, it would have to be done in a vacuum. I also think matter pushed through time would have to be stable in the 4th dimension, and we haven't found that. An element that literally does not decay. Xenon-124 [44] is cool, but to me just spells a dead end to working on anything 4D. Torrent (talk).

Potential technosignature

Could a potential technosignature be a Venusian-type hellhole occupying an area of the habitable zone where based off of solar illumination you should find an earth-like world? And what implications would this technosignature (necrosignature?) hold for the fate of our own planet? I am aware that anthropogenic climate change itself is incredibly unlikely to turn Earth into a Venus-type hellhole, but with slightly more solar luminosity... What do people here think?? Carthage (talk) 13:59, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Not inherently. Turning into a Venus is very dependent on material composition of the planet, whether the planet has a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere, and the gravity of the planet. The moon, for instance, lacks elemental carbon and cannot form the kind of gases necessary for a thick blanket atmosphere. Venus lacks a magnetic field but has perfect chemical composition. Titan lacks gravity but is protected by Jupiter's magnetic field and has the chemical composition.

Far more useful would be knowing the composition of the atmosphere. Earth's atmospheric composition is very different post industrialization (trace amounts of gold, lead, mercury, etc) than you would expect. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 10:49, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

According to a pop-sci news video I saw, which described the results of a recent simulation of runaway greenhouse effect, it could happen to Earth in a billion years due to the Sun becoming more active that Earth becomes Venus-ified. That would be a result of increased temperature (incoming solar increase) causing a tipping point to be crossed, increased water vapor in the atmosphere greatly amplifying Earth's greenhouse effect in a runaway chain reaction (the effect of more water vapor dwarfing all human influence), until the oceans boil away, leading to a later temporary slow cooling when the water molecules break down, and then a later hot stage with an altered atmosphere, resembling early development on Venus. Venus-like planets could be a case of bad luck and/or running out of time, ending up just outside the Goldilocks zone on one side. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 11:34, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

A somewhat related question - to what extent could a technologically developed civilisation co-exist with a Deccan Traps phenomenon/high level of significant vulcanism? And what degree of orbital ellipticity (across the Goldilocks zone) is likely to be the maximum compatible with life (in some form) - with hibernation and aestivation equivalents being a survival option.

When the actual 'Listing of the Planets of the Galaxy' is created there will be a number of 'should-be-Venus' type planets and 'Unexpectedly Venus-like' planets. Anna Livia (talk) 13:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

From my experience in engineering applications and a touch of medical, it really comes down to whether the hypothetical civilization is particularly susceptible to being poisoned by the chemical releases, whether there are "safe zones" on the planet from either chemical or excess heat, and whether they have access to metals and the "full periodic table". If they were able to survive on the planet up to that point, then I would presume they either are resistant to the chemical toxins, or grew up in a safe area on the surface. If they have modern technology akin to ours, they should be able to mass produce gas masks to wear on the surface, and maintaining a positive pressure in living quarters would massively cut down on new contaminants. Assuming they are DNA based, their internal temperatures couldn't exceed ~75C or the DNA would begin to break down. From this we can presume they would need some kind of endothermic chemical process through which to dump heat, or large regions of the planet that are not at this temperature through which to direct heat piping to. If they have neither of these, they would not be able to survive. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

I am confused by... A lot, here. Deccan Traps is a volcanic area near India, Aestevation is a like hibernation's Cousin that just won't go to bed on Christmas Eve, for Venus like planets to have Level 0, some natural civilization would have to evolve to design gas masks or live in a weird safe part of the natural atmosphere. Or the point is the earth is getting too warm, and we're still level 0. Torrent (talk) 06:34, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Torrent - I was giving a couple of random examples of situations which are likely to have a negative correlation with the development of 'civilisation whether or not as we know it.' Anna Livia (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

~:I appreciate that. Torrent (talk) 03:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

An example might be a Uranus-angle Earthlike and location world: life could evolve, but large areas would have significantly different climates over the course of a year. Anna Livia (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Life would be tricky there. I think I get the idea of sleeping half the year. Torrent (talk) 09:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

On being large and containing multitudes

Here is a poem from Walt Whitman, a guy who died in 1892. I am also large. I also contain multitudes. So do you. Let's go.

' The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late? '

End.

There is an urgency, baby, dorkass, who remembers this? Contain multitudes yourself. It's okay. It's necessary. Torrent (talk) 08:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not the biggest free verse guy. Not everyone has to be as hyper-traditional as Robert Frost, though I'm partial to him because The Road Less Traveled lent its name to one of the biggest independent breweries in the country (which is conveniently 10 minutes from where I live) plus he wrote the definitive ode to a proper New England winter (here's the man himself reading it). But Whitman never did a whole lot for me, I know his influence but it just never clicked. The prose equivalent is the Bronte sisters, I wanted to like them but I powered through Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights without ever really getting into them. Plus Whitman had a thing for young boys, which somehow gets excused as "an anachronistic definition of childhood" or similar for reasons that elude me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Free verse is tough. Old American standard Gilded age is generally boring. It's most exciting on the same sled that Frome was riding. I actually like Jack London, I'm less impressed by Hemingway than I am supposed to be. So, there's a million ways to move forward here. But what strikes me, exactly, and the reason I'm bringing this up, is the idea that we are each something not quite explicit, and we are allowed to confidently be that. I mean, knowing the artist has bad taste making the art taste bad is real, I won't argue against that. Torrent (talk) 06:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

This verse was also referenced in Invicible. CorruptUser 19:00, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I find Hemingway fine but not earth-moving (kind of like the band equivalent, Cake), though if you gave me a choice I'd sign up for re-reading For Whom The Bell Tolls over the Bronte sisters in a heartbeat. Nothing wrong with having different views on writers, otherwise we'd all produce the same drivel; I remember reading Lu Xun sarcastically pointing out the apotheosis of Soviet poetry had to be "Oh steam whistle/Oh Lenin". And I've read the two books most Americans would cite Jack London for, I liked both but since my background is in history I'm trying to set myself up to read The People of the Abyss. And incidentally, just being traditional doesn't necessarily do it for me; I also never quite got the fascination with Emily Dickinson, she was... fine, I guess. For my money, at least in fiction I'll back Carson McCullers and Ursula Le Guin. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:21, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

on walking away from Omelas easy redirects: Snowpiercer by Bong Joon Ho, Us by Jordan Peele. Parasite, also by Bong Joon Ho I think has some aspects, but there is a lot less to Unpack in Snowpiercer. It's harder to write a story about someone who stayed. Torrent (talk) 07:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

What the hell is this?

I hate it. The Krusty Krab (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

AO3 has some pretty good shit, but this is just clownish. Carthage (talk) 20:50, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

'Real person fanfic'.

When looking through AO3 /Archives of our Own, read tags carefully (especially beware of 'Dead Dove' and similarly designated stories, and 'stupid' tags). If a fanfic article is created (most writers are fairly harmless, though some are, possibly, 'externalising their weird or perceived as 'bad' ideas') there should be a mention of this odditiy.Anna Livia (talk) 10:57, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I try to avoid slashfic too, but that's more of a personal preference. Carthage (talk) 17:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Slash is often written by women for other women, and has a different 'feel/emphasis' to gay fiction; and many tastes are catered for in fanfic ('and that's OK'). Just ensuring that people know to take appropriate care. Anna Livia (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I’ve seen some MCYT stans ship “Dreamnotfound”- so not even content creators are safe. (And those two are so incompetent at handling their fanbase, they ENCOURAGE it lol --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 20:43, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

How can cats be attracted to any other cat (never mind same-sex ones)? Those kept as pets are usually given the snip-snip as soon as they’re big enough, so they’re all aroace. And this doesn’t even hold a candle to some of the shit I’ve seen involving an IRL "ship" (!!) between a certain green guy who doesn’t know how to be famous and a certain colorblind Brit-turned-Yank that has ruined the Minecraft fandom. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 21:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

None of you know what Warrior Cats is? The Krusty Krab (talk) 17:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

There is weirder. Anna Livia (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC).

Indeed.

--Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 00:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

The True Crime Podcast Cadence

So. I am going to try to explain this. This (laughter), ok, this weird phenomena, okay? Because it's everywhere (are we gonna talk about) Hold on, justbecause ah, well, we are going to talk about that, but first, we need to talk about the true crime (sure the!) Cadence (oh). Look, I want to (no, you're right) I just want to start at the beginning (okay). there is a way of speaking right now... That has become very.. Popular.. andI'mnotsayingit's wrong, but. (alright..) I am saying I have noticed it, especially in news narration. And... (...uh) I don't necessarily think it's WRONG or a BAD thing... (but) but I think it's kinda calculated. (calculated?) Calculated and really easy to replicate... (...so... So what does that mean because you said people are speaking a certain way)Well what it means is there's a modern CADENCE to narration (uh huh), and once you hear it, you can't UN hear it... (...wow, so like, everywhere?) .........yeah.Torrent (talk) 08:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Numbers game

7890 pages for those indulging their inner child.

And can the Saloon bar page have some archiving, as its present length is causing problems. Anna Livia (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

We already archive the Saloon bar… Luigifan18 (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

It was an issue when I mentioned it (taking its time to save etc) - and various sections having different update frequencies can cause problems with archiving. Anna Livia (talk) 00:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Can anyone explain this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMsbl22gQLg I was perusing YouTube and stumbled upon this video. Contrary to what I have been told, it is essentially stating that salt does not have as severe of a negative effect on blood pressure and that things like processed foods are more to blame. My mother has issues with high blood pressure and regularly limits her salt intake, so it immediately attracted my interest. However, our article on salt doesn't seem to agree with the video's conclusions, so I figured I'd bring it up here for everyone to give their two cents. Thoughts? Crazymantis91 (talk) 06:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If you want actual health advice, don't listen to randos on YouTube. Bongolian (talk) 08:03, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't really looking for advice, just shocked that this video might be spreading misinformation so successfully. Is there a growing number of people who believe that this information is correct? Crazymantis91 (talk) 08:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

There is no way I'm spending 45 minutes of my life watching some young guy with apparently no qualifications whatsoever giving his personal understanding on salt and health.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:07, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I will say that there actually has been some counter-articles in legitimate sources concerning the consensus on salt and hypertension (Scientific American posted one a little over a decade ago [45] as one of several examples). It comes up every now and then. That being said, overall the consensus significantly points to lower sodium diets helping with hypertension.

Now... having said *that*... of the Mayo Clinic's guidelines to reducing hypertension, [46] "reducing salt" is only one point in 10. Frankly, I don't see *too* much to worry about regarding salt intake if you follow the guidelines of "eat fewer processed foods", "cook" (particularly because you can use other herbs and spices besides salt), "eat a healthy diet", and "exercise regularly". Like Bob_M, I don't have time to sit through 45 minutes Youtubes. But if that was the takeaway of the video -- that over-promoting the salt/hypertension link is wrong-headed when other actions will probably have far more impact -- I think that's an okay take. On the other hand, if the video is over-weighting counter-claims and poo-pooing the current consensus, that's also wrong-headed. BobJohnson (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

'Limit salt intake' is a good nutrition maxim. But maxims can be broken - if you have a legitimate reason to [because maxims usually come from stats which might not apply to you]. For example, physically active folks shall sweat out more than inactive ones, thus the former's 'upper limit' of sodium is likely to be higher. But they are also correct in pointing out that excess sodium is not the only cause for high blood pressure; obesity, stress, physical inactivity and [recently noted] poor/lack of sleep might be in fact be more important factors on the blood pressure. But Crazy's mother would have been told these too. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:24, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

It’s always a good idea to limit salt intake. Higher blood salinity increases your BP, as Na+ ions are extremely positively-charged and therefore very good at soaking up water molecules. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 17:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Not if you're working on say, a manual job in 30-degree heat and you're wondering why the hell your limbs are stiff as hell and overly fatigued. But then again, this is the 'exception to the maxim' from above. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

The general opinion that youtube videos are not useful for medical advice is sound advice. Look at it this way, nobody is getting rich by recommending a low sodium diet. Low sodium foods don't cost more than the higher sodium products. There is no real possibility that there are intentionally misleading opinions involved. Your mom won't be injured, I believe, by reducing her salt intake to something above the minimum, about 1500 mg/day.UncleKrampus (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Except that's wrong. I pay x3 the 'normal price' for stock cubes which are salt free, about x2 for naked peanuts and x4 for low-sodium salt. Like with the low/no sugar stuff for diabetics, being 'low salt' does have a cost premium to doing it. Now, I fully accept in this case it's not a 'let's get rich' conspricy or anything [the higher costs being due to relative lack of demand, lack of competition to keep margins down and so on] but your statement is obviously wrong for anyone who goes into a store and looks at prices, which makes some people to ditch your other, reasonable/correct points. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Really who cares anymore? Everything kills ya. The Human body is such an RNG engine that besides LD50, I feel nutritional advice is uselessly broad. Revolverman (talk) 01:36, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice And I hear KCl, the second most common salt in seawater, is slightly radioactive because of a radioactive potassium isotope with a really long half life- and too much K+ causes different problems- not with BP, but with the kidneys. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments}

You might not care, but I do, Revolver; fitness is one of my hobbies, healthy eating is a vital part of this and I'm acutely aware of how fucked-up the situation in the Anglosphere is re diets - too many people can't eat healthily because ultra-processed crap is cheap, it is tasty and it is easy [and part of this is due to excess salt]. And as this is one of the major factors for the 18 years of difference of lifespans between the richest and poorest Britons, I will go further to argue it's a perfect example of a 'social justice issue' which is actually worth getting behind to help fix. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:22, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

One thing I've noticed with this last round of inflation (in the US, at least) is that "cheap" is no longer a word that describes some ultra-processed crap at this time... anecdotally, it seems like the more name brand, highly advertised junk food it is, the more eye-popping the price is. Costs actually have noticeably declined for some goods here since the inflation peak mid-last year (eggs, chicken, and some fresh vegetables have certainly dropped some, at least). But fast food prices keep going up and Corporate Food (TM) products seems to remain stickily high. The French supermarket chain Carrefour got so pissed at Pepsi's prices a couple weeks ago, they gave their entire lineup the boot (no doubt spurred by some French legislation, of course).

Now,I don't know if this will do anything to change the "food desert" issue, as it is more crap is becoming unaffordable and not healthy stuff becoming cheaper. It's just "interesting" how it seems like the main "WTF" prices in the store to me are on crap like soda, chips, and breakfast cereal. BobJohnson (talk) 15:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Relatively cheap. Poor people are not eating loads of fast food; they can't afford it. More often than not, they're the ones with a diet of lots of frozen/tinned/dried foods; lots of starchy carbs, stuff with artificial flavourings and normally enough food science behind the production to make sure it survived doomsday. I'm a Brit so I hit up Walmart using a VPN and a shortlist of cheapo food staples I'd heard of [tinned soups, Hamburger Helper, frozen pizza, cube steak etc] and I made 'meals' cheaper than a couple of fast food sites I had open.

This article is an interesting [but depressing] look at the poor end of the food market in the USA; the one line stuck in my head was 'They prefer items with longer shelf lives, lower prices, and easy preparation'. Long shelf life, meaning that you know it'll always be edible and 'easy prep' vital for hurried parents slamming together a meal for the family between say, their main job and their evening job, or for a fried worker at 10PM after a four-hour commute and a 12-hour shift who barely has enough energy to remove the external clothing before falling asleep. What does this mean? That the average poor person will be consuming a lot more sodium unawares because of their diet has a lot more of these ultra-processed foods and it normally costs more to produce a low salt etc version of said product. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

LOL

Someone’s getting salty on Trollpedia. (If I had to guess, it’s a certain user banned here, as he has also whitewashed TP’s incel article, and also from what I hear took at least 40 edits to type this paragraph.) --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 17:33, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Ancient history in internet time (2-3 years ago regarding the two mentioned editors). Bongolian (talk) 19:12, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I remember Oxy, I think I vaguely remember Raven, no idea on the others. No doubt I could look them up - but caring is difficult.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

As a mod who's been known to quote Marx and occasionally even Lenin in the Bar, I suppose I fall into the 'no true Scotsman' territory, eh? KarmaPolice (talk) 20:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

This whole thing is very inaccurate, actually. Oxy was banned because she asked, and GR was banned for being an asshole (as the name of his wiki suggests, he wasn't even that much of a leftist). All I think is that I would be a very sad, miserable person if I kept re-litigating Internet squabbles from years ago, like Neiltyson1fan does. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 20:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a mistake to think of this as an explicitly left-wing wiki, as I've said in the past. Though certainly the mission will lead you to "jumping to the left" a lot, the cranky and/or authoritarian left gets criticized as well. This means tankies (like those of the tiny Prolewiki) don't tend to like RW at all.

At any rate, since this "William" on Trollpedia claims to have written incels.wiki and incelwiki.com, yes, that is indeed Neiltyson1fan, aka Willwill0415 on Wikipedia (account permabanned since 2019). BobJohnson (talk) 20:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, his SocDemwiki is dead from what I've heard on the Discord. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

"Banned for contributing too much" — So true. We're actually more leftist than whoever wrote that, because not only do we come for your toothbrush but we come for the edit-kulak rationalwiki contributors. Under communism everyone has to be equally poor, that's why we ban anyone for contributing too much. Edit-hoarding kulak bourgeois need not apply. Chillpilled (talk) 20:36, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Funnily, Wisconcom, the only "ProleWiki admin" who was banned here, was banned for lying in an attempt to get another ProleWiki admin banned, with said admin (Ledlecreeper) still editing here occasionally. Plus, listing both GR and Oxyaena when they hated each other is funny. Plutocow (talk) 20:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, apparently this isn't from ProleWiki but Trollpedia, aka MarioSuperstar77's site (though he appears to have nothing to do with this). Plutocow (talk) 21:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, despite being very short, our article on PW is quite funny. Apparently, saying that "Stalin is responsible for a gross amount of death, crimes against humanity, and general suffering, whether directly or indirectly" is imperalist propaganda. Ledlecreeper wrote it. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 21:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The best articles of a wiki are usually marked in some way. Here, with brainstars. On Wikipedia, as "good articles" or featured articles. ProleWiki seems to have featured articles that appear on the front page, but I had trouble finding a category or page listing them. One featured article that popped up was "LGBT rights and issues in AES countries" which was intriguing enough. Of course from a skim it appears to almost only ever mention positive or neutral facts. But it does get at a misconception of socialist countries as all being completely anti-LGBT, which is something even some tankies end up believing themselves. Chillpilled (talk) 21:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Oxy requested her ban, GR was banned for having a rock-hard hateboner for her he took too far, and wiscontankie was banned for trying to dedicate RW to the glory of Daddy Stalin 🤤. And Neilty still clearly prides himself on trying to get GeeJayK indeffed over a typo (I was there, he tried to quotemine me multiple times. He really is the Left-Wing Ken, sans the wife his homophobic Mommy DeMyer forced him to choose over a bearish, atheistic Spanish man with machismo- or any woman for that matter ofc.) --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 23:04, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I would say that Wisconcom was primarily banned for being a lying sack of shit. (Falsely accusing Ledlecreeper of creating risibly bad, so called "anti-RationalWiki" propaganda that he had in fact created.) That was my motivation for voting for a permaban, anyway. It's true that he thought he could get elected as a mod and then turn this into a Stalinist wiki. But that was never going to happen because being a mod doesn't give you that kind of power. And as for the rest of that Trollpedia excerpt, what a load of fucking bollocks! Spud (talk) 08:39, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, this was in early '23 when Billy was still having his conniption fit about getting banned on here (and made a few socks/single-purpose BoNs to keep on vandalizing his two favorite articles to promote his pet causes, then make legal threats when he got reverted). Apparently he’s now on Justapedia too, with the same incel-whitewashing compulsion taking 44 edits per paragraph. If his stuff isn’t impressing anyone it means nobody cares, he should just leave the wikisphere and go create a hugbox on Reddit or some other platform that welcomes fucked-up people like him. --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 19:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

My newest RW project: Jewish Voice

It is similar to Jews for Jesus in terms of beliefs and tactics. Very cultish vibes. --Trans Fem Agenda 15:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

HELP! HELP! I'M STUPID!

The choice between breastfeeding and bottle feeding should be left up to the parents and their doctors.

Guuuuuuuuuys, I want these two images to be the same height like you see in Template:Multiple image. I spent more time f@cking around with the parameters than reading sources, ffs. How does this work? - Rairyu75 (Talk) 15:42, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't 't it be easier to just cut off the bottom quarter (or so) of the one on the right and move it up fractionally?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I did some cutting and gluing. I was kinda hoping to avoid that by just getting that template to work (though you were right, it wasn't all that hard, used Pixlr in the browser). I feel like this might come up in the future again and it would be nifty to know the ins and outs of it. I found it strange that copy and pasting the example code (the fish and the donkey are supposed to be the same height here) gave such different results and I can't tell if I made a mistake or if it's a mediawiki quirk. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 18:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Rectangular image of a donkey, originally 536 pixels high.

Square image of a trout, originally 300 pixels high.

Both images have been rendered with the same height, and a total width of 320px

GOP Update: SNAFU

Looks like Trump is still the frontrunner for the GOP, winning 51% of the votes at Iowa. Combined with his authoritarian streak, things don't look good. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

That's the trajectory this gop nomination has been on since it began, so less than surprising. DeSantis having a leg up over Haley is a more notable development. 2600:1002:B103:3DC3:8991:26B:E12C:BFFF (talk) 06:43, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Counterpoint; turnout was extremely low and even with his spotlight, he only got half of the votes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgbZzDLDDqE I'm hoping the massive anchor around his neck ends up sinking the Republicans. Now, that being said, Biden needs to do a 180 on Israel yesterday. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 08:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Almost half of the Republican base [who bothered to turn out] didn't want Trump. That is worth remembering and noting. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

What is more significant is 'potential Vice Presidents'.

Has DT 'de-oranged' to some extent? Anna Livia (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The non-Trump candidates were never gonna win this. The funniest part is that I hear DeathSentence was deemed too anti-"LGB" (I say that because as far as they're concerned transgenders aren't "true" members of it) even for the non-Florida right, who have largely moved past caring about homosexuality. (In fact, nowadays there are even lots of openly-gay conservatives who objectify non-white and/or young gays and think transgenders are not, and don't deserve to be, part of their community- and of course the lesbian TERFs who started all this transphobia stuff.) Anyone remember Twinks 4 Trump? --Goatspeed. _{See what I'm up to}CircularRasoning^{My experiments} 20:21, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The low turnout was not exactly a bug or a feature, in my opinion. I live close to Iowa and, yeah, it was really awful weather. But I think the people who stayed home were majority Trump voters who had confidence Trump would win or at the very least, republican voters who don't care if Trump is the nominee. If you aren't registered Republican, you can't vote in the primaries, so it's not like we're looking at non GOP voting stats. The people who would have voted for other candidates but stayed home probably had the same confidence. The weather was awful out there, really. Turn out for what? Torrent (talk) 08:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Right you funny bastards, caption this image for me:

Insert hilarious text here.

The Breastfeeding article needs some goat, and I spotted this little guy while I was looking for better images. I was thinking of "Just chilling" or "Baby bottle, here seen attached to baby" but if any of you can do better, let me know. Peace! - Rairyu75 (Talk) 03:11, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

@Rairyu75 Before seeing what you wrote, I immediately thought of "Just chillin'". But it has to be chillin' without the g. I still hope somebody else can do better. Spud (talk) 03:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

By the way, the trout is saying, "Who you bleedin' lookin' at?" and the donkey is saying, "Piss off! I'm having my lunch." Spud (talk) 03:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

The trout and I are having a bare-knuckle fight in a Tesco's car park later, for sure. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 04:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, "Insert hilarious text here" is about as good as it gets. That bought out a grin where the others failed. Kencolt (talk) 13:16, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Come now @Kencolt. We can't be that meta about things in Main space. (Or can we?) Also, if you need more grinning, how about this?

The Virgin Mary deploying her anti-monk defence system, 12th century CE.

Imagine reading The Conversation and this just sitting in the article. Maybe these stuffy academic types are more fun than I gave them credit for. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 17:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Does free will exist or not? (I'm inclined to say no)

This was originally supposed to be part of something else about whether we can control or choose our emotions but I couldn't cite the text without it being flagged as spam so I guess I'll skip ahead on this one. I don't have the wall of text for the following but I think the major bits still hold. The more I reflect on free will the less I think it is true, since everything is influenced and impacted by everything else. The site I was quoting says you can choose your emotions when what I think they mean is reaction. But even then what reaction you choose is based on what you think is "Good" which just kicks the can down the road. Even if you could pick what you want to feel, how would you do it? Why that one and not the other? Granted I can't study their inner world to know if they're actually doing it or not.

MY thoughts on it is no, though I guess it depends on your stance on free will. All the articles I show say that we control only our reactions to things and no how we feel. Meaning you can feel great anger and not lash out, though I guess that itself might depend on other factors. Any way I slice it everything depends on other things. So in my wall of text I got from another "mystic" site the notion is that you can control your emotions and pick how you feel. Even IF that were true that IMO just kicks the can down the road since you then have to wonder why you picked that emotion and not something else. Though now that I think about it not lashing out in anger could be because one is taught that is good and so they do it.

I found myself ending up nowhere there with arguing against free will because...well you know they're too far in "it" (mystic stuff) to see otherwise. I mean the reason we all react differently to stuff is because we are exposed to various things and even our genetics are different. The MASSIVE irony in the wall though is that he can't see how he's just putting in another form of programming into people who read it and now they'll react like that when that happens. Why? Because they're taught it's good to do X and it's good to do good. But yeah...I kinda hit a wall there. Even the example of the kid and the ball he just laughed because he did and kids copy stuff all the time. Even still they seem to say they can choose what emotions to feel, though my next question would then be "wouldn't that render them meaningless then"? Like if you could just control and pick and choose what to feel that would mean your emotions wouldn't mean anything and they wouldn't really be able to inform your actions. I realize I'm at an uphill battle arguing against people like that, still...I kinda want to break them out of it.47.5.66.54 (talk) 00:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't personally believe free will exists, as our brains are made of matter, there's zero evidence for mind-body dualism and what we call decisions are simply the result of very complex chemical reactions. That said, I'm nowhere near educated enough in neurology or philosophy to make a viable argument. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

But - we think we have free will, and 'if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, perhaps it can be treated as a duck.' Anna Livia (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we feel we have free will. I also believe that this makes the question ultimately more philosophical than practical in any sense. However, if we're debating in the sphere of what is philosophically true rather than practically true, that's a different matter. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 00:22, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe in free will, and I don't really see any loss in doing so. Whether or not our actions are part of a causal chain of events like everything else and can be theoretically predicted doesn't really matter to me in the experience of living my life, it just has some implications for how criminals are treated (as they necessarily lose any moral responsibility for actions). BumblingBuffoon (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Many compatibilists would agree that you do not get to choose your baseline emotional dispositions, that your beliefs and desires are likewise heavily influenced by your environment, and that you would have no coherent basis for choosing your beliefs and desires if you had the ability to do so, given that you would then have no pre-existing beliefs or desires to inform your decision. A typical line of reasoning goes on to infer that this ability - to choose what to believe or desire on an arbitrary basis - is not actually the valuable capability at the core of the free will debate. Rather, given that people have beliefs and desires, the ability to act on the basis of their beliefs toward the fulfillment of their desires is a valuable ability, and one that people do seem to have. That is, I can make decisions based on my beliefs and act in accordance with those decisions in order to bring about some end that I want, and it does not seem to undermine this ability that my beliefs, desires, and decisions are part of some causal chain. In fact, it would seem to be more problematic if I were not part of some causal chain, as a lack of causality would threaten to undermine the connection between actions and outcomes - when I make a decision to act in a certain way, I rely on this connection to effect my desires. Likewise, if my environment had no impact on me, then I would seem to be inappropriately insensitive to my circumstances, which could likewise undermine the efficacy of my decisions. 𝒮𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓃𝑒 ^talk 15:51, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There's also esoteric teachings that try to make this a multi-level question (as in multiple planes of existence, beyond the physical), possibly claiming that some have more free will than others. Variations on theosophical ideas have it that a "causal body" is a kind of more abstract, conscious, and powerful being surviving between incarnations. Then there's teachings which claim that not everyone has a soul, and free will along with more attributes tend to be associated with souls. In Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching, there's physical, astral, mental, and causal bodies, but most people only have physical bodies; those who have more than that can survive physical death, and exercise real self-control (e.g. astral body can control emotions), and those who have a causal body have a true free will as it contains its own causes in itself (and by Gurdjieff it's associated with divinity). Naturally, people need to struggle very hard, and sincerely, with themselves--dividing themselves into the good part and the false part, and obeying the cult leader esoteric teacher in doing so properly and becoming the "true" self as judged by said teacher. Otherwise there is no hope, and people just "die like dogs", becoming nothing, or even worse, eaten by demons or maybe "the Moon". --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 07:23, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a question I only engage in with good faith. On the most basic, free will is the ability to act. On the most complicated, causality requires the past influencing the future. All the nonsense in between is exactly where we are stuck. Can't change the past, the future is barreling at us so fast it's already the past by the time you've read this, so in what sense can you change the past? So in what sense can we will the future? I would be inclined to introduce absurdism and remind everyone of scope and scale, the past is infinite, the future is maybe longer. Free will can exist inside of physical laws as long as we consider free will as a very conscious experience. It is synonymous with experiencing the present in my opinion. We have very good hardware to do that. For example,I think dogs use free will too. To 'die like a dog' is language that I think diminishes free will. Torrent (talk) 07:01, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

What I mentioned may or may not be that interesting. "Die like a dog" is Gurdjieff's phrasing, and that's why I used it. I brought up that esoteric stuff as it's an intriguing woo take on it all. (Gurdjieff talked like a determinist and claimed people were strictly machines one moment, then claimed the next that the only practical way to develop something "more" and a genuine free will was his cult, and claimed all kinds of supernatural wonders were possible. Some modern conspirituality teachers are similar.) As in the woo of needing to "wake up" and escape the "prison" of the world we live in meeting the question of free will.

Outside all that, my personal take is that I don't really know how free my will, and that of others, is. Depending on views it may or may not all be about semantics. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 08:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll hold you to it. How free my will is something I think I'll always have to ask myself. Torrent (talk) 08:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I notice in some spirituality threads that there is a premium placed on free will, freedom to choose how to shape your life. But very fact they are on there means they were swayed by what some people said and by performing the practices and believing what they were taught it impacted them and their thinking. So they were still shaped by something whether they know it or not. They say they can choose their emotions, but even that isn't the case as it is just the result of acting on what they read and where taught and thus it affects whatever they "choose to feel". Granted I can't get in their heads to examine whether they are right or not but I know better than to take their word for it. What they take to be a choice is merely acting on a different set of conditions they don't control. Even when you examine your likes and wants you only get so far before it becomes "I just do or like it". Hence they don't actually choose their emotions, because they don't choose their wants.47.5.66.54 (talk) 05:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

And even if that is a natural process, just energy passing, what name do we give it when it gets to us? Torrent (talk) 06:12, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The ability to choose an emotional response is certainly a claim about free will that must be incoherent. To suppose it possible is to conflate the emotional tone of an experience with an ordinary rational mental construct. Emotions are constructions of the mind on the occasion of sense, but they are like raw sense data such as a sensation that is too hot or very cold, or a color that is more green than blue. The idea that one should be able to reinterpret experience so that it makes a predetermined impression would require an act of self deception. If one knows oneself, one should know what ones emotional response will be, given sufficient foreknowledge of the experience. One can no more choose ones emotional responses than one can choose whether an object is hot or cold, or if a physical blow is painful or pleasurable. UncleKrampus (talk) 04:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a little more complex; emotions form in a multi-layered process, where the raw responses are shaped into something more complex or sometimes differently experienced according to learning, expectation, etc. The exact same stress-related neurochemicals flood the brain when someone has a frightening experience and when someone has an enjoyable, exciting experience with a rollercoaster, for example; which of the two experiences the stress-arousal turns into is determined in a secondary process, not the primary emotional arousal, though the eventual feeling differs a lot. Humor is also more complex, and how much a person laughs (strongly influenced by more basic neurochemicals) may differ from how much they mentally "decide" they appreciate something. There's plenty of elasticity there in general, though it's trickier to say how free choice in attitude, expectation, etc. is. Seems like a large gray area even if choice were free at a more intellectual level. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Certainly. Philosophy is less complex than scientific descriptions of neurological processes. The mental digestion of experience is very complicated. Humor is a great example to consider. One reacts, emotively, to ones own conceptualizations. Often one considers the way in which ones own brain is operating. These sorts of behaviors have exact scientific descriptions. We create our own sensory data, such as laughter, in the process of interpreting experience. To be short, we don't choose our own interpretations in mid experience. We are set up, often by our own intensions, to understand and respond in the ways we do.UncleKrampus (talk) 19:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)