RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive460

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, (new)(back)

So Trump will now see the value of gun control

For crying out loud, he has experienced now the dangers of shootings. If he has any sense he'd cut ties with the NRA and support gun control. The guy may be foolish but he's certainly selfish enough to not want to endanger himself. ^{— Unsigned, by: Drivingcars / talk / contribs}

If I recall correctly, he implemented one or two mild gun control measures when he was president, like the bump stock ban (overturned by SCOTUS later). I had a theory the shooter could've been a hardcore gun nut who was pissed about this. Would be a very curveball motive and I don't put much stock in it, but it's one that was on my mind. Chillpilled (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

What realistic gun control measures would have stopped the shooter's father from legally purchasing a rifle? Christopher (talk) 14:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the reaction, if there is one, will be anything but gun control. Something along the lines of "we must have more police officers, with far-reaching surveillance, and of course MORE GUNS". It's America, where bullets can be quickly obtained via vending machines. Impiricism (talk) 14:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps if the father had kept his firearm secure, his son wouldn't have taken it to try to assassinate the ex-President. Perhaps if the father had been more aware of his home-life, he might have spotted his son fucking up to the stage they started planning to assassinate said person.

However, it is predictable that the result will be more guns for Good People™ and blaming 'Democrats' / 'hard left' for stirring up hatred. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:30, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

too late for that. whatever you do, don't log on to facebook. The G (talk) 17:53, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

[1] Found this while checking News section on Google. So the NRA is suggesting banning elections now? Drivingcars (talk) 22:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Chaser is a satirical news source. Impiricism (talk) 22:32, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh. Wonder why it was mixed up with actual news sources? That said, wonder what response they will make. Will they continue to resist gun control or not. Drivingcars (talk) 22:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course "they" will - but only for people who are not Faux-xians and/or paid up Magamorons. Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 01:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Where to go in Florida?

Miami resident, shit gotten so expensive over the years. I heard inflation hit hard here because of the abundance of new yorkers and other businessemen moving here due to less state and city income tax. What hope is there for the residents that were born here. Plan on moving soon but I’ll need ideas where. ^{— Unsigned, by: MeesteeGerry / talk / contribs}

Troll rating, 2/10. *yawns* KarmaPolice (talk) 15:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

go to your next city council meeting and demand zoning reform in favor of more affordable housing. The G (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there a troll scale somewhere? Might be a good idea for a funspace article. Bongolian (talk) 18:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

If such an article is created then this troll post should certainly be included for its high farce quotient.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 18:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It scores lowly for it's very low originality scale. I suggest to the OP that they demand all taxes to be cut to zero at their next city meeting - no ifs, no buts. It's not like anyone needs them things like the alleged 'services' they provide with those taxes, right? Bet 90% of it goes on 'hug a criminal' woke policing, gender-neutral bathrooms, the daily Pride parades and giving to welfare queens watching their flatscreen TVs, right?

Failing that, I suggest the OP moves to Somalia. I've heard they have 0% taxes because there's not actually a functioning government [and thus, no tax collectors]. But business will sort all those things out, right? Government is the problem, not the solution to anything! KarmaPolice (talk) 20:00, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Any real Floridian (who has experienced the enshitification of I-75 over the years) knows that a lot of the "Florida growth" is Boomer retirees moving to planned community like The Villages, Florida in order to spend their last days not shoveling snow and getting angry watching Fox News. Also, there's that pesky factor of climate change that Ron DeSantis doesn't want you to know anything about, but insurance companies nonetheless are absolutely pricing in as best as they can. BobJohnson (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of jobs 'created' by creepy geriatric Disneylands are neither well-paid, offer career development or have decent benefits. It's something which I've noticed more and more of late; that quite often the 'money magnet' places of the world [like tourist destinations] run on the blood and sweat of a legion of folks working enshitified jobs. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if this was the same drive-by-poster who posted the lies about low student debt in Florida? Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 05:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

If it's not KenBot, it's a clone of. Look past the subject-matter and to the points they're making. KenBot got an update around '22 that 'inflation' is the #1 Bad Thing™ and so they're pushing it hard [as 'inflation is Biden's fault'] but in true KenBot style, they don't have a frigging clue of what they're actually talking about. I mean, why can't it data-scrape Investopedia or something? KarmaPolice (talk) 11:04, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Does Ken live in Florida? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 13:09, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

No, he lives in buffalo, ny. 2600:387:F:771B:0:0:0:A (talk) 01:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Or did. Servers can be moved, y'know. KarmaPolice (talk) 06:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Why is this site so damn slow?

For me, at least. It will take me occasionally 5-10 seconds to load pages on RationalWiki, despite other pages operating normally without this lag. Is a constant DDOS attack happening or what is the cause of this? --Chicken4War (talk) 00:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Inactive server maintainers, 3 simple words 👏👏👏. 2600:387:F:771B:0:0:0:A (talk) 01:22, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This has been discussed in Technical Support (RationalWiki:Technical support#Is it just me or is the searching function getting slower? and RationalWiki:Technical support#The DDoser is back). We have been under DDoS attack for a while. David Gerard implemented an easy but suboptimal fix that limits number of page loads per unit time. Someone yet to found to spend the time to make a better fix. Bongolian (talk) 03:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I honestly can't say I've noticed regular slowness being an issue.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I've had some real slow loads recently. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The two main symptoms that I've consistently seen are 1) the main page text loads quickly, then the icons on the page load slowly 2) the autocomplete search feature does not work until after a few seconds after the full current page has completed loading. These are explicable by the anti-DDoS fix that David Gerard had implemented. Bongolian (talk) 21:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Clovis first

Clovis arrowhead from 10,000 to 2,000 BP Bongolian (talk) 18:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Clovis first, America second. FirstAndFormost (talk) 17:02, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This seems incredibly niche... I'm assuming this is a shitpost? OP's account just created today too. Impiricism (talk) 20:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean, saying a American first nations tribe was here before America isn't exactly conspiracy thinking. I dunno what the point of saying this at all.2001:569:FDC9:AB00:1A2:B9FD:C9F4:AE48 (talk) 22:10, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Impiricism It's pretty much archaeological consensus that Clovis was not the first culture in the Americas. Carthage (talk) 23:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

That's what I gleaned too from the Wikipedia page I linked. My above comment was supposed to express mild confusion at OP's statement "clovis first, america second"; the entire subject of early cultures in the Americas and which one is the first seems like quite an obscure thing to post about. Impiricism (talk) 14:11, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The article is garbage, bull's shit, outright stupid to a point where you know it's all wrong. Dumb. The americas oldestes site is positing at the site of Monte Verde, in Chile. Please fix that fucked up piece of lies article. The peopling of America is on-mission, please cover it you geniuses. Oh, yea, my lord. Nothing. Anything. FirstAndFormost (talk) 15:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Why don't you fix it yourself instead of wasting your energy whining about it here? —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 15:18, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Fuck, I confess. Oh great lords forgive my stupidity. New world (talk) 15:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail

according to Homer, the blade itself incites to deeds of violence. When I was younger and more prone to fits of absolute despair that I believed I couldn't live through, it is maybe lucky I didn't have access to a gun. I once tried to kill myself with a helium mask. I figured I could do it if I built it myself and my worst fear is drowning. I thought, if I could go full hypoxia but keep breathing, it would be easier. My blood burned and I woke up with the mask off. I would love for my name to echo down the halls of history. I love in a way that I don't exactly get in return, and that's my lot. But, death will occur, whether I am in charge of it or not, so I'm willing to ride this nonviolent shit out. Getting to know myself has been a lot harder than just offing myself, but it has made assholes and bullies a lot easier to deal with. Torrent (talk) 06:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I find that some days the nihilistic despair can start to be overwhelming, especially when there isn't a readily available distraction to blind oneself to it, but well... there isn't much one can do. The body is biologically hardwired to want to live, and the ceaseless finality with death is a bit troubling... so uh... why not get a nice drink or something at a local cafe during this dreary waiting game and oh! a nice distraction! :D Impiricism (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

According to Callimachus, in reference to Homer, " A big book is a big evil." UncleKrampus (talk) 16:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump VP

He's headed to the RNC and my bets are he will pick J. D. Vance as his VP. Chillpilled (talk) 23:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

JD Vance is the smart choice to ensure he gets Ohio and a couple other key Hillbilly states, but Trump doesn't like people who have a chance to outshine him. That's why the prior VP was a sentient #2 Pencil that a fairy godmother forgot to "deal with" after the princess found her prince. CorruptUser 00:48, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The one thing authoritarians don't want is someone stealing the spotlight. For that alone Vance is unlikely. Count on the idiot billionaire from North Dakota or someone similarly unnoticeable, who's more in the Pence-mold. Bongolian (talk) 01:42, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

That's... quite a description of Pence. Impiricism (talk) 14:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

You win a prize, my friend. He's now the official candidate.

This user is RWs self-appointed culinary expert

N A Z U N A -H I W A T A S H I-

I'll burn ya!TheAlePower (talk) 19:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Mildly surprised that Trump chose Vance and not someone with a lesser personal profile. Apart from the advantages it could bring in terms of the electoral college, it might also be a sign that Trump is banking on a “tech bro billionaire alliance” to raise funds from the likes of Thiel (who basically invented Vance as a politician) and Musk who, while having different political projects from Trump, also see him as a potentially useful “agent of chaos”. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

So, Vance confirmed now? What tweets from 12 years ago yall gonna pullup about him now? 2600:387:F:D13:0:0:0:2 (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Why do we need tweets? J.D. Vance gained fame by writing about a "Cletus safari" book essentially blaming the culture of the poor for keeping them poor. Whatever you can say about that aspect, the one thing I wonder about is the contrast in education between his life story and GOP rhetoric. From what I can tell (he hasn't seemed to go into this part as much), Vance appears to have used America's university system to lift his way up out of "Appalachia" (actually, Middletown Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb, but whatever) into becoming a hedge fund manager. This stands in contrast to the Republican party's hostility to public education -- at least when it comes to that Project 2025 Heritage Foundation side, as well as the anti-intellectualism among many of the rubes. From what I can recall (and have Googled), during his Senate term, Vance was happy to patter the usual DEI/critical race theory bullshit in order to attack colleges, so I guess he's now firmly part of the "got mine fuck you" class of America now that he "made it". Le sigh.

Vance the politician has oddly made himself a "champion of the working class" when in reality, if you just look *slightly* beneath the marketing, he's essentially a tech-bro aligned with the increasingly authoritarian capitalism side of such (as epitomized by Musk and Thiel). That's quite similar to Trump in some ways (in that the "champion of the working class" is a ruse, though Trump is far from a tech-bro). It's just another sign that probably the most comparable political party to the GOP is not anything democratic, but Viktor Orbán's "illiberal democracy" of Fidesz. And that if you really are working class and voting Republican, you are going to get economically fucked over... again. BobJohnson (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Vance has so many skeletons in his closet that this could end up sinking the ticket a little. Some of the background on Vance's benefactor Peter Thiel is this right here. And then also this. Chillpilled (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Heh, at some point the neoreactionary movement article should be updated when the "dust settles". Vance does seem to have loose connections to the movement at first glance. In which case, that weird techno-libertarian movement full of incredibly strange long-winded bouts of hot air is not quite the "largely insignificant and mostly an object of curiosity" thing that it was several years ago. BobJohnson (talk) 23:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The connections are hardly "loose". He is personal friends with Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel. He follows Richard Hanania, BAP, that kind of crowd on Twitter. This guy should not be anywhere near power, much less a heartbeat away from the presidency. I figured he would run for president in 2028 but I wouldn't have guessed this would be the way he would make himself the heir apparent to Trump. His recent rhetoric and image are a deliberate act, evidenced in part by his radical switch in opinions. He has ulterior motives of some kind, probably simply fulfilling whatever Thiel wants in addition to personal careerism. He is the furthest thing from someone with this country's best interests at heart and manages to be someone who would be worse than Trump (in my initial estimation). I've just added something to WIGO Elections, where Vance calls for devaluing the US dollar. Some of you may remember that Milei recently took Argentina for a similar ride. Along with Trump's call for a 10% base tariff against every single country in the world, this looks like some real economic recklessness. Chillpilled (talk) 23:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I just thought of another thing that Vance might bring to the Trump campaign, and please tell me if I’m totally off my rockers here. But I think that, however bizarre it might sound, that Vance actually brings some “pundit credibility” to the Trump campaign. Vance is quite articulate and there’s still a lingering glow from Hillbilly Elegy that gives him a veneer of being cultured, or even an intellectual.

Remember that far fewer people actually read the book than have heard about it, and they’ll probably easily gloss over the kind of “white trash has a culture of poverty and should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps”-stuff in favour of some sense that Vance is “actually” a working class hero and champion. It’s also worth remembering that although critics panned the subsequent film, audience response seemed to have been more positive, so I doubt that it actually dimmed his halo much.

Similar to how Pence supposedly brought “fundie respectability” to Trump’s 2016 bid, I think that Vance will be portrayed as bringing some kind of “working class, upwardly mobile, erudite intellectualism” this time around.

Because Vance speaks in fairly clear, coherent sentences that are well tailored to the media and is arguably equal to Trump in projecting “faux working class populism” (“blue collar billionaire” vs. “bootstrapped hillbilly”, sigh), I think certain pundits will blithely ignore Vance’s blatantly obvious history of opportunistic flip flopping and toadying and the fact that his entire career has been as a wholly paid for Thiel boot licker. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I say this tentatively, but now I've looked into this Vance being better - I think he's more a threat than is being given credit for, and it's beyond the 'intellectual veneer' which Sceptic alludes to. I can feel the appeal of Vance to a particular demographic [the working class, not just whites], even across the ocean. And I shall sum it up in two 'generalised' lines.

'The 'Working Class' hates the 'Professional Class'.

and

'The 'Working Class' hates the 'Welfare Class'.

The first bit is the 'elite-bashing' we all know and love - said 'elite' in this case being folks like 'teachers', 'bosses', 'social workers', politicians', 'lawyers', 'journalists' and 'bankers', fairly thin on the ground, viewed as 'outsider adversaries' to the local's lives in all the brain-drained 'Middletowns' throughout America [and beyond]. In this, Vance is kind of painting himself as a kind of 'rogue element'; someone who did 'fly away' but didn't 'go native' by being 'indoctrinated by librul culture' in the process.

The second bit isn't so much 'blaming the poor for being poor', it's a more nuanced class division between 'working class' and 'underclass'. I found evidence in a '16 interview, in which Vance states his grandparents were comfortably retired and elsewhere says 'they weren't destitute'. His bitching anecdotes like his 'people on welfare with cell phones' and complaints of a co-worker who kept on skipping work is nothing special; because anyone who has been working class has known - and looked down on - folks who are like that. There's not a huge number of them, but there's enough in every community.

It's the whole 'Homer's Enemy' scaled down; the annoyance of the person who's having to slog to get anything then seeing a fucking lazy moron expecting - and often getting - 'it' for nothing. It's the anger of dried-out person at the end of long day labouring in the sun on seeing their 'disabled' neighbour has spent their day drinking beer on a lawn chair, or the footsore shelf-stacker hearing their cousin bitching about 'their very hard day' which they know mainly comprised of them watching TV watching their arse grow. Nobody likes a freeloader, esp one with learned helplessness. The issue is that most 'outsiders' cannot see this division between 'Frank' and 'Homer', and thus think when the former is attacking the latter that they're attacking 'their own'. And if you said that to Frank, he'd chew you up - that he had 'self respect', a 'work ethic', that he was 'a striver' - that if you hired him, he'd turn up clean/groomed and on time, ready to work well as he darn could, wouldn't steal or goof off etc.

This is the 'personal responsibility' and 'tough love' aspects Vance peddles; that in the former individuals have the responsibility to act least do all they can to try to get somewhere in life and the latter is making the culprit 'own' their failures etc. It can be said in some ways he's describing in 'Middletown' a situation where due to a local economic collapse a decent % of the population have lost hope of things getting better and have fallen into a kind of very insular rut of an existence. This does resonate - even with minority groups [because a lot of what he's describing is class in nature, not racial].

In true rightist fashion he might be vaguely-decent in describing the problems, but he is utterly shit in describing possible solutions. Even when they're literally in front of his face. He directly mentions how the local church had given him support etc growing up but he fails to appreciate that part of it's 'help' was due to it being a 'Third Place' [which means that an improvement of secular places - like children's centres, libraries, parks, gyms, youth groups etc would help this]. I mean, he to some extent 'worked his way out' of Middletown via education but doesn't seem to acknowledge the help he got on the way. No. It's all just him [and his grandma]. Obs, this is part of his 'fuck you, got mine' Horatio Alger thing he's got going [one review for Hillbilly summed it up as being a mix of Vances' gloating for having 'got out' while dumping on the folks who hadn't but also mythologising a 'blue collar white America' which he never had any personal experience of]. I've also seen a few questions raised about whether he really was as 'hillbilly' as he's making out [he's wouldn't be the first self-made person who's exaggerated their level of 'rags' at the start of the tale] but I don't know enough for sure... but I'm sure there's some journos beavering away right now digging all that up.

How much traction will Vance be able to generate with all this? I am not so sure. My suspicion is that ultimately, Vance resonates less with the 'Middletons' of America than the MAGA elite hope he will. But there is resonance there, and it would be very stupid for Democrats to ignore it. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:45, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Ultimately, Vance is more Peter Thiel than Joe Average, and the more the Democrats can paint him as "just another VC tech bro", the better off they will be at deterring his faux "hillbilly" vibe. Vance does have a voting record, and the executive summary I've seen so far is that it pretty much is "toe the GOP line" outside of a handful of symbolic things. For instance, Vance has said some surprisingly nice things about unions and worker's rights... however, so far, the actual voting record on worker rights is not impressive at all. In addition, we all know that the Thiel/Musk "tech-bro" VC types hate unions as well. Ultimately, no matter what comes out of Vance's mouth, the truth is going to be more "follow the money"; hopefully the Democrats can capitalize on that. BobJohnson (talk) 14:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yet that doesn't matter because 90% of these voters aren't gonna look up his record or even hugely study him beforehand. In this, they're gonna go more on the 'feels' he gives off and that's very hard to judge in advance. In the end, I think it's gonna all boil down to whether they believe a) he actually gives a damn and b) whether his promises [in short to 'bring back all the jobs' to the Middletowns] are going to be really achieved. I've done a little bit of digging on what Middletown actually thinks of Vance and I think the answer is circling 'meh'. He has no huge detractors but not really any fans either. 'Quiet kid who had a bit of a rough childhood and got out and did okay for himself' seems the consensus [they more remember his grandmother]. Some think his book was alright, others accuse him of overpainting the town as more a shithole than it actually is. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

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

I've actually been surprised at how big Project 2025 has been trending among "left-wing chitchat". Most of the time, policy-wonk stuff like think tank plans don't catch much currency. But this time, the Heritage Foundation wrote up something so extreme, it may actually motivate the other side to the polls to some degree. Obviously, this does not apply to the "casual voter"; rather, this applies to the politically active sort.

Likewise, with Vance, you have that whole association with the neoreactionary movement. As with Project 2025, highlighting this would not be something for the casual voter. But most people outside of the Silicon Valley scene have probably barely heard of this movement at this moment. And now we have a VP candidate who is a few hop skips and a jump away from Curtis Yarvin's extremely strange authoritarian fantasies. It's just something to highlight to make sure that at least people "in the know" are aware that not only Vance is not a "hillbilly", he's got a connection to some of the disturbingly weirdest feudal fantasy shit Silicon Valley has to offer. BobJohnson (talk) 21:55, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

It’s not for no reason that Trump has “talked down” the importance of Project 2025, because he knows that its extreme contents is more than likely to turn off swing voters and motivate his opponents.

While I also agree that the mythical “average voter” is not going to check Vance’s voting record or fact check Hillbilly Elegy’s depiction of his background and career, any serious inconsistencies in these records can be used by his opponents to poke holes in his fake populist rhetoric, which is indeed a big bunch of “feels over reals” BS.

Similarly, beyond the Muskrats and similar cultists, who are probably not going to vote Democratic anyway, tech bros are probably not particularly popular among “average voters”, either — something that Trump is tacitly acknowledging with this “woke Big Tech” attacks. Highlighting Vance as a bootlicker, rather than his own claim to be a “self-made tech entrepreneur” could thus also work to undercut his BS.

One reason attacking Vance as a “billionaire booster” and “tech bro toady” might be even more feasible is because Peter Thiel is not a sympathetic character. He doesn’t have the (undeserved) aura of “real life Tony Stark” of Elon Musk and many of his ideas and projects are outright dystopian, even on their own terms (really, what kind of cartoon villain decides to name their own(!) nefarious surveillance project Palantir?).

All of this taps into a narrative about Vance that basically says “Nope, he’s not what he claims and he’s certainly not like you or actually trying to improve your prospects in life”. Of course, this has then to be followed by actual policy proposals that would help improve people’s life prospects and not tap into Vance’s “I’m alright, Jack” attitude. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

On a Project 2025-related note, I saw an interview with Georgetown history professor Thomas Zimmer and at the very end, he pointed out something that I hadn’t thought of before, but which speaks to something that is new in the MAGA-run GOP:

Back to at least Nixon, the GOP and US “conservatism” has always claimed to represent the “silent majority” or something to that effect. With Trump and MAGA, the party seems twilling to openly admit that it indeed doesn’t represent a majority, but that it sees this as an effect of leftist/globalist/woke indoctrination and thus as legitimising both the authoritarian plans to restrict the franchise and to take over or at least carefully control cultural and educational institutions.

I think that this point is quite interesting, because this acknowledgement that the GOP brand of “conservatism” isn’t particularly popular and cannot, under current circumstances, muster a majority behind it, is new and has dire consequences for the party’s views on democracy (basically the “Orbanist” conception of an “illiberal democracy”, which is definitely illiberal, but not much of an actual democracy).

Now, you could argue that the GOP held this view already (hence its history of electoral manipulation through gerrymandering, voter ID laws etc.), but it’s one thing to tacitly acknowledge it and try to “cook the books” more or less on the quiet, and quite another to openly recognise it and build it into your ideology. ScepticWombat (talk) 15:29, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

For the KenBots of this world, I think it's something they like to tell themselves, in the same way as they are desperate to cheer 'owning the libs' ['we are winning, yay!'] even if the thing they're celebrating hurts them too. But the MAGA 'ruling class' is under no illusion that they're a minority project; they just lie all the time to keep the KenBots pumped up, to attempt an 'Argumentum ad populum' to wavering 'moderate' Republicans and to lay the goundwork for election denialism.

Though to get back onto the original topic; I think someone needs to read 'Hillbilly' and write a killer take-down for RW. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:31, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Truly, a shit idea...

I'm not sure how terrible the idea to deliberately devalue the dollar is has resonated with folks. Trump's 10% world tariff is the stuff of a sane economist in comparison.

1/ USD hasn't been pegged since 1973 [when Nixon ended the gold peg] which means the only real methods to 'devalue' the dollar would be a) the Fed flooding the market with USD and/or b) buying up colossal amounts of Euro/Sterling/Franc/Yen so those rise in value. Now, the first will be inflationary and the second massively expensive. Like, 'costing more than the increased revenues from more exports would be'. Now I think of it, inflation will kick in regardless because all American imports [from timber to medical gear, oil to consumer goods] will become more expensive. The US domestic market would in fact be more hit by this than most advanced economies, because she has decided to allow said markets to be ruled by 'market forces'.

2/ The world will go apeshit. Every country holds their official reserves in mostly USD. Why? Because it is relatively stable in value and accepted almost everywhere. How did this happen? Partly because America has built over a century plus of being 'a serious donkey who never fucks about'. Pulling something like this will damage that hard-earned rep. Cue, for example losing that AAA rating for US Treasuries. I'm assuming Uncle Sam having to pay more interest on debt is such a good idea. Politically, it will be worse, as everyone [friend or foe] will feel fucked over.

3/ China's currency is pegged, so it could easily neutralise this by switching to a USD peg and 'riding it down'. Other nations who have pegs can do similar, such as [if I remember right] the Gulf States. What's more, chances are without further interventions, the USD will 'float' up to something approximating it's previous level. Minus the economic damage, that is.

Now, it's not insane to argue that USD is currently 'too strong' and needs to weaken a bit to encourage exporters and for domestic consumers to choose domestically-produced goods [I've argued this for the UK for years] but this would perhaps be the worst manner to do it in. However, as the holder of the de facto world currency in this particular situation the USA has less 'freedom to manoeuvre' than say, the UK does because [basically] Sterling is something measured, not the stick to measure with. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

'And that, my dear children, is how the (Mongolian tögrög, or other obscure currency of choice) became the official reserve currency of the world...' Anna Livia (talk) 16:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

It's basically the financial Nuclear Option. That $34T the US owes? It's almost all in dollars. The US can print $34T in dollars anytime it wants. The problems of course are that the US will never be able to meaningfully borrow in dollars again, at least not in the lifetime of anyone currently alive and probably then some. This isn't too much of an issue if the US doesn't need to borrow money to function... which it does, even without interest payments on debt. Compounding that problem is that, well, collapsing the US debt would effectively collapse the financial systems of the entire world as well; the second great depression would effectively cut off a lot of the government's revenue, and nobody would lend to the government to make up the shortfall, leading to even core functions of government being gutted, which would lead to even more drastic problems that either last for generations or simply end the "Pax Americana" of the past few decades. CorruptUser 04:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

A majority of people don't spend or save on economic principles, economic principles are bullshit, any statistic should be a sample that is unaffected by the conclusion, and yet. It's sampling inside a vaccuum. If Economics already work, why is it that sometimes things like UBI are received well, while other times somebody on food stamps is demonized for just having to eat? If we could truly solve this, via current economic practice, I think we would have. i think economists are ducking the 'anti-education' rhetoric because economists are of the belief money can go two ways while accruing, and that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If something has value, and you can hold half of it and spend half of it, how do you make more than half of it? If money is to replace direct goods or services, direct interaction, it must not be accrued by those unable to create. Economists are absolutely a problem in this 'Grind the money until there's no money then print the money' problem. It is not the people working for a living that shores up the pay v earnings whoops is better print more inflation bullshit. If Capitalism worked as intended, nobody would try to die with the high score. Problem is, you have to be a big weirdo, sociopath or psychopath to make it to the top of any common field. Economics is common, government is common, police is common. Economists at a federal level are psychopaths. Torrent (talk) 06:24, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

...? Is there a relevant point here? KarmaPolice (talk) 17:33, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Counterquestion: Is it a relevant question to look for relevance in a Torrent post?

You ought to have seen enough of their replies to know it's just another non-sequitor rambling, airing their personal grievances wrapped in a pastiche coating simulating the faintest superficial connection while actually offering nil to the topic at hand.

Devalueing the dollar, is, as you pointed out, Karma, a rather disastruous idea. Especially with the proposed tariff regime Trump's been touting., as it will make a new inflation wave highly likely. But hey, I'm sure Trump can will brag about giving the American people the "biggest, most beautiful inflation the world has ever seen, the world has ever seen" (even I doubt it'll go anywhere near, say, Germany's 1923 hyperinflation, of course, so even such a hypothetical satirical brag would be a lie - aka plausible Trump rethoric).

Anyway, Vance obviously wasn't talking economics but PR via right-wing populism, with the whole "[...] I know the strong dollar is sort of the sacred cow of the Washington consensus, but when I survey the American economy, and I see our mass consumption of mostly useless imports on the one hand and our hollowed-out industrial base on the other hand [...]" reasoning for it. Meaning: He was saying these things less to advocate actual policy than to sharpen his "Appalachian (non-appalachian) worker offspring" image. 2001:67C:2660:425:2C:0:0:3DB (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's even that complicated; in my book it's just a variant of 'owning the libs' and hoping that the marks are too stupid to notice that these policies would result in personal inflation rates of something like 50% and no, you ain't getting raises to compensate for that [it's also why I've not automatically criticised Trump's principle on tariffs, more the fact a blanket 10% is stupid]. As for Torrent, I do try to grant good faith for people and as I was posting from work I was not 100% sure I wasn't missing something there. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:33, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Amazing

The genocide in Gaza has claimed 186 thousand victims. Paid for with American tax dollars, of course. Carthage (talk) 20:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a research study, but an estimate marked "correspondence". Which in The Lancet, means a letter, kind of like a letter to the editor. Also, it's a projection of the ultimate death toll, not a count so far. But there was some discussion at Wikipedia about how and whether to use this letter as a source and I think some people make decent arguments it's not an implausible estimate, referring to other sources lending it credence: 1 2. Chillpilled (talk) 00:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

"Source: We made it up" CorruptUser 04:40, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you not see the difference between 'guestimates' and just 'making stuff up', Corrupt? The bits of data used to extrapolate includes from the UN, Hamas estimates [generally backed up by Israeli intelligence estimates] and using ratios gained from previous conflicts. Al-Jazeera might have exagerated the figure, but it's not one which was simply siezed on randomly. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

War is truly terrible, no matter who finances it. Looking back, it has been claimed, that nearly 10% of the world's population was killed during or immediately after the Mongol invasions. I do not point this out as a "what-about" fallacy. The point is, even with only knives, swords and arrows, Mongols killed maybe 40 million people. Taking away those folk's weapons won't stop them. They want to kill one another with a passion. Cutting off Israel from military aid will probably happen, eventually. Unfortunately, bulletsare cheap. UncleKrampus (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I remember that after one of the earlier wars, Hamas bragged that more people were born during the war than had died. I suspect that's still the case. CorruptUser 03:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

You have no evidence of them saying it this time, so who's 'making stuff up' now? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

In an area with no food, no water, no medicine, in increasingly crowded areas as people are pushed closer and closer together all the while starving and dehydrated and suffering relentless bombing campaigns? This "war" isn't like the others. Because it's a genocide, not a war. Carthage (talk) 04:07, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Israel has the power to shut off food, water, and electricity to Gaza. Palestine and Israel are not equal parties here. Palestine is under hostile military occupation from a military power that denies its very right to existence. Carthage (talk) 04:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

So why haven't they? CorruptUser 16:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Why haven't they what? Shut off power and denied importation of food and water? They've been doing that since the beginning of the genocide. Why aren't they exterminating Palestinians? Well, that's exactly what they're doing in Gaza. Carthage (talk) 18:48, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Because turning the entirety of the West Bank into a sealed ghetto and leave them all Palestinians to die would make their country a complete pariah to the point even the US would support arms embargoes etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't trust a thing the UN says about that region. CorruptUser 14:04, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

So you refuse to even read it out of willful ignorance. OK. Carthage (talk) 14:11, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Why? Who do you rely on instead, Corrupt? Would it be voices which backup your preconceptions? Now, I don't take every single thing the UN says as gospel but when they officially say something, they usually have some logical basis for saying it. Oh, and for the record; Israel still has produced *zero* evidence that Hamas had any 'control' over UNWRA. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:06, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I listen to the Beeb and Reuters, and even then I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. CorruptUser 21:23, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

You do know that almost all journalists/ activists are banned from Gaza, right? That effectively now the only two orgs remotely competent/capable in reporting is either UNRWA or the Hamas-run health ministry? How 'reliable' do the stats need to be before you'll believe them? Wanna see every single body? The truth is; like most wars in modern human history, we won't really know exactly because of incomplete records-keeping, destruction of said records and quibbles how you can count 'a death' [for example, does a death from a typhoid outbreak due to destruction of water supplies by bombing count or not?]. In cases like this, the best we can do is make the best stab at guestimates we can [hell, we don't even know how many people died of Covid due to recording issues etc]. Wanting to have the most accurate stats is a laudable aim, but there comes a point where you have to either accept the best guestimates provided or start to reek of being a denialist doing a 'just asking questions' defence with stats.

Anyway, the article cited at the top is saying that the final deathtoll could be as high as 186k, which would result in the loss of 9% of the Gazan population. Now, this is going to be a bit on the high side but as we don't know how much further it's going to go on and if indirect deaths [infectious disease, hunger, untreated medical conditions, exposure etc] are counted... I wouldn't be shocked if it turns out to be that high. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:31, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

"I am going to dismiss the report without even having read it because the evidence it presents is inconvenient to my preferred narrative." This isn't skepticism, it's denialism. Carthage (talk) 08:11, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I actually did read it, and it does detail some genuinely serious issues with the military. Conspicuously absent is any acknowledgment that Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that intentionally puts civilians in the way and dresses as civilians (both war crimes there), and also absent is any actual articulation of intent to commit genocide outside fringe lunatics that aren't actually empowered to make that happen. And yes, the UN has showed itself to be thoroughly unreliable in this region. Now I'm sure you'll fulminate at me for not reading it right or some such, but I did read it. You tell me; what do you think is an appropriate response to a genocidal terrorist organization murdering 1,200 civilians and taking hostages that it still has today? I'm no world leader, so I really don't know; I'm just glad I'm not making these decisions. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you honestly believe shutting off water, power, and electrity, destroying cemeteries, schools, hospitals, and universities, will cause people to turn against Hamas? No, that's stupid. I've told you this before: committing crimes against humanity is bad counterinsurgency practice. So, no, committing genocide in response to a terrorist attack generated by decades of apartheid and occupation is a horrible way to "resolve" this conflict, because all it does, besides making your nation look no better, or worse, than the terrorists you're supposedly opposing (and Israel hasn't even put a serious dent in Hamas' military effectiveness), is galvanize recruitment for the opposition. That's stupid. Carthage (talk) 00:48, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that a lot of this was of Hamas' own making [their plan all along was to provoke a huge Israeli response, get them generate a huge amount of collateral damage / death in the said response, then hope the world turns against the Israelis because of it.] I am not sure this needed to be explicitly mentioned in this attempted guestimate. I also ask for reason/evidence to why the UN is [as you put it] 'thoroughly unreliable'?

As to 'what should the Israelis have done... well, not have Bibi doing his 'divide and rule' on the Palestinians for decades or more recently utterly take his eye off of Gaza because he was more interested [due to politics] to redeploying the IDF to help expand/defend the settlements hacking up more and more of the West Bank and was too busy trying to gut the country's basic law and undermine the judiciary for his own partisan ends to read the fucking memos that Hamas were clearly up to something. Just a thought.

Anyway, back to the main point. There's one thing discussing probable death tolls, another regarding whether it is regarded as 'avoidable' in a realistic manner. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:36, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Blade mentions that Hamas has committed perfidy and used human shields. Should I mention how Israel has committed perfidy and used human shields in this war alone? Carthage (talk) 00:51, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Also can we stop pretending that Israel and Hamas are equal opponents here? Hamas, even before October, wasn't even truly in control of its own territory. Gaza is an open air concentration camp whose water, food, and power all are granted by Israel, and can be taken away by Israel. Gaza was a pressure cooker just waiting to explode. Carthage (talk) 03:28, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

The organization running it openly brags about turning water pipes into rockets. That seems like a pretty strong disincentive to provide water pipes to a designated terrorist organization. The death tolls... I don't know, I'm not there and I have no expertise in this (I'm better informed about what's going on in Bhutan and with the Montagnards). I don't trust anything that has connections to Hamas, and I certainly don't trust Netanyahu about anything period. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:50, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Israel lies. They have yet to provide any evidence that UNRWA is in anyway connected to Hamas, and the Health Ministry of Gaza's statistics are widely regarded as reliable. Also, Israel didn't withdraw water to provide disincentive, they withdrew access to water to punish the people of Gaza. They said so themselves. Collective punishment is a war crime, y'know. Not that you care (in fact you're defending it right now). Carthage (talk) 20:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I gotta be real, concerning the "water pipes used as rockets thing", I feel like there might be less of that happening if said pipes actually had water in them going to places in Gaza instead of lying empty. So I'm sure shutting the water off only made this happen far more frequently. But, like Carthage said, stopping rocket creation wasn't the point of doing that. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:12, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

UNRWA is more than simply a 'relief agency', it is effectively the 'welfare state' of the Palestinians - running stuff like foodstuff supplies, hospitals, schools and so on - I believe that as of now, it is the only agency still functioning within Gaza. If anyone could make guestimates of the current casualties of Gazans right now, it's them [they then feed these stats back to the UN proper]. I do remember reading that they do look at Hamas' figures with a critical eye, but so far they have at least accepted them as 'not being fabrications'. I also note that Israeli intelligence also accepts Hamas' figures as 'roughly correct', it's only the Government which denies them [for patently political reasons].

The UN knows it is walking a political tightrope here. I think we can assume here that it has done all the 'due diligence' it realistically can before it puts out any figures.

We also need to remember that Bibi and friends have a huge hard-on for getting rid of UNRWA. You see, it's not a 'normal' UN refugee relief agency, because their plan is basically 'aid, then return or resettlement'. If UNHCR had been given responsibility for the Palestinian refugee problem in 1948 they would have most likely resettled them in third countries decades ago. UNRWA is a 'relief and development' agency which basically treats Palestinians 'in place' until basically, they get a 'free Palestine' to live in. This is why there are 70-year old refugee camps and there are Palestinians who are third/fourth generation refugees. This is a unique historial anomaly, and one which extreme Zionists hate.

They think if UNRWA is disbanded, the 'protections' the Palestinians enjoy from it will go. That UNHCR will try to find places to resettle them all - I've heard said extremists engage in 'Palestinian denialism' aka 'they're just citizens of Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and therefore have no right to 'return' to our Arab-free 'Greater Israel'. It is partly this which has stopped the Egyptians from opening their border to admit refugees - because they know from previous wars experiences that Israel stops them returning afterwards.

As Carthage points out, the Israelis have shown zero evidence that UNRWA was involved, just repeats the claim. They've not even been able to show say, the Americans this evidence [for at least if it was 'secret evidence' Biden could have stood up and said 'yes, I've seen it and the CIA etc has confirmed it']. The UN have done it's own internal investigation but found nothing.

But guess what's still near the top of my Google search right now? At 3 of the 'sponsored links' is a link from 'govextra.gov.il' which reads 'UNRWA Neutrality compromised | UNRWA aid compromised'. But where's the fucking evidence? Put up or shut up. Put all this together, Occam's Razor suggests - the Israelis are lying.

Carthage is also correct in pointing out that due to the geographical location of Gaza, it has precious little native water supply; it has to rely on 'imports' from Israel [along with food, power, consumer goods, medicines etc]. Therefore the 'lack of water' isn't due to them 'digging up pipes', it's due to it being cut off. Now, it's true that Hamas has spent a lot of it's meagre income from Gaza to arm to the teeth and build bunkers [and I will not defend that] but I will point out the Bibi policy towards Gaza since 2005 has been utterly stupid - the idea that the blockade would have made the Gazans 'accept their lot' and settle down to live forever in a shite Gazan bantustan under eternal Israeli overlordship. I wouldn't accept this if I was in that situation, so I cannot expect others too [would Israelis accept this if the roles were reversed? You can fucking bet they wouldn't!] KarmaPolice (talk) 22:12, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia Politically Biased?

A report published by the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute suggests Wikipedia has a left-leaning bias. It says that Wikipedia entries are more likely to associate negative/positive sentiment with right/left-leaning terms respectively. There's a Wikipedia Signpost article discussing this report: [2]. What are your thoughts on the report? Personally, to put it mildly, I think the report is bullshit. Sorry for poisoning the well. MayGodSaveUsAll (talk) 06:11, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Cool Story, bro. Revolverman (talk) 06:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Manhattan Institute has been spreading disinformation for decades, hence not a trustworthy source. Perhaps the 'bias' is well-deserved, and that the institute thinks that fascists and fellow-disinformation artists should be treated better. Don't forget:

“”And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

—Stephen Colbert[3]

Bongolian (talk) 07:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

You should read the RW article on Manhattan Institute before commenting. :)

Essentially, would you trust the so-called "think tank" heavily behind the propaganda effort to snarl word-ize "critical race theory", "woke", and "DEI" to be objective on anything? They're just whining that Wikipedia is actually a pretty decent source of information (and therefore is not a Republican propaganda mill), and that the one attempt to make a Republican propaganda mill Wikipedia ended up being a complete joke.

I noticed that even the paper's bias classification itself was called into question in the discussion (for instance, Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald was classified as "from the left", which is a complete joke). The "left-right" political binary really isn't terribly good when examined in close detail, and I would be skeptical of any paper that tries to be Science-y with that.

If the United States ends up embracing the Orban-style "illiberal democracy" courtesy of reactionary Republicans, it is very probable that sources like Wikipedia (as well as public education in general) will be under attack in the future. Many of the Manhattan Institute's snarl words have been specifically designed for attacking public education. Orban did a fine job warping higher education in his country to be propaganda mills after all. No doubt this is a space to watch as at the moment I believe our higher education system (flaws and all) is one of the US's competitive advantages. BobJohnson (talk) 10:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Another thing to skim read... and Bonglian is correct in their not-that-obvious guess to what MI's gripe is. Manhattan Institute/City Journal is mainly rated 'right', which means chances are they think the 'zero' is perhaps around the National Review you're gonna be seeing 'liberal bias' in loads of things, such as say, The Economist [something which can be described as the last tender of the flame of classical liberalism].

They start nit-picking about word usage, for example bitching about WP not using terms like 'death tax' but instead using the line 'estate tax'. In their world, the former is 'correct, neutral' while the latter is 'misleading, biased'. Shame that the latter term ['used by Democrats' *snarls*] is the official term while the one favoured by CJ is in fact informal and an example of mild loaded language. WP, being an encyclopaedia has a general desire to use correct termonology for shit. Let's see exactly what pissed them off, yeah?

In the United States, the estate tax is a federal tax on the transfer of the estate of a person who dies. The tax applies to property that is transferred by will or, if the person has no will, according to state laws of intestacy. Other transfers that are subject to the tax can include those made through a trust and the payment of certain life insurance benefits or financial accounts. The estate tax is part of the federal unified gift and estate tax in the United States. The other part of the system, the gift tax, applies to transfers of property during a person's life.

In addition to the federal government, 12 states tax the estate of the deceased. Six states have "inheritance taxes" levied on the person who receives money or property from the estate of the deceased.

The estate tax is periodically the subject of political debate. Recent opponents have called it the "death tax"[1] while some supporters have called it the "Paris Hilton tax".[2]

[WP, 'Estate Tax in the United States']

However... they do have a very minor point here. I picked another 'tax' which had a nickname and looked it up... the 'Community Charge' introduced by Thatcher in 1990. While the blurb is correct, the page is titled 'Poll tax (Great Britain)' - an informal [and perhaps politically loaded] term the opponents managed to glue to it. Something noted within the Talk page. There is a bit of a lack of consistency here.

(insert) 'Poll Tax' was used because of the historical references - the Poll Tax and the Peasants' Revolt. Anna Livia (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Technically, it was a flat tax, not a poll tax - it was the same rate regardless to whether the amount of 'heads' were in the property. It also was not it's official name, which was my main objection for it being titled it on WP. I referred to it as it as 'poll tax' for our 1992 general election page here, but we're not WP. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:08, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Next, let's look at MI's bitch that 'coverage of American polticians is biased' [link to the graphs here]. Now, ignoring the first one [I am not exactly sure what they're trying to prove here] you'll notice while on average Democrats appear to have higher plus rating, the real issue is a general clutch of very minus Republicans at the end [who will significantly drag down the median score]. Note that here the MI instantly concludes [with no evidence] that it 'must be librul bias' for this, rather than [for example] the possibility that the quality of Republican politicians might be lower [my pet theory is this; as rightist folks are more drawn to money, the 'cream' is more likely to go into finance, business etc than politics than their leftist counterparts].

There's another issue which ,NPR noted a decade ago as a rule there's more Republican Governors than Democrat. This means simply statistically, if you're sniffing for 'dirt' you're more likely to hit a person with a red rosette than blue. The nexus of money raises it's head again; as the article suggests, 'Republicans are more likely to be tight with local business interests' and thus raises the possibility of the very negative word [according to MI's survey] corruption in their WP article.

Lastly, I take issue to the methodology used here. Why, for example did you not combine the scores of 'Boris Johnson' and 'Prime Minister Johnson' - are they two different people? Could his very poor scoring be due to his name turning up next to 'emotionally negative' terms like 'pandemic', 'death' and 'war'? Why is a description in a WP page of 'conflict' between ideologically opposed persons/groups counted as 'negative'? Why didn't you mention in your conclusion that part of your results are clearly skewed due to the presence of a few very poor 'Right' outliers? Is is possible that more 'left' politicians are likely to have say, worked in the charitable sector or something which according to your wonky measuring 'generates a positive emotional response' which learning a rightist politician who formerly worked in say, a retailer's HQ doesn't [I accept there might be a slight coverage bias here; a person who worked in public service for 20 years is more likely to have their achivements noted in their WP biog, which the private corp achievements are much less likely to be].

Every remotely serious study shall make notes of the limitations of their study. This one doesn't [in fact, it tries to throw doubt on their own tools by suggesting the LLM used to evaluate might itself have 'liberal bias']. Why the hell do you need to suggest 'conservatives are happier'? That has fuck all to do with this topic.

So in my own conclusion, I say this is a very dubious bit of crap which tells the reader more about the biases of this Rozado believes exists and/or the rightist think-tanks have requested more 'evidence' of librul bias in everything. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

We've also seen this type of argument before, one that argues for truth-independent absolute neutrality, as with Wikipedia self-exile Larry Sanger's Citizendium and its promotion of a "neutral" chiropractic article written by a chiropractor. Bongolian (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Aren't objectivity and neutrality different things though? New world (talk) 17:38, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

They're overlapping, but related. When WP lauds it's 'NPOV rule', it doesn't literally mean it's neutral on every topic, merely that it endevours to be free of editorial bias. WP is 'biased', but towards stuff like 'reliable sources', 'expert consensus' and the 'reality-based community' in general. It is not 'neutral' in debates regarding, say discussing who caused 9/11 - there is a consensus they explain in the main page, the cranky conspiracy theories get shoved into the 'cheap seats' in this case literally called '9/11 conspiracy theories'.

And yes, the CJ 'report' literally cites Sanger about Wikipedia being biased. They have just enough self-respect to describe it as an anecdote. WP's response to this has been generally either calling out the shittiness of the report, making arguments regarding false balance and/or arguing that they'd be a fan of more 'right-of-centre' [sic] sources if they quit peddling their arses to Trump and his myraid of failings and outright lies. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:34, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

As it is said of various other 'providers of information' - if persons of different viewpoints complain that [whatever] is biased against them then [whatever] has a degree of neutrality. There is also likely to be 'bias' against 'constructed interpretations' and 'topics on the borderlines/yet to be analysed/where multiple interpretations exist' etc. Anna Livia (talk) 10:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Archiving

Is it normal for Inferno bot to take so long to archive? New world (talk) 17:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

'Someone said' when I asked before - sometimes if a number of discussions are (intermittently ongoing' the bot sits on its hands (or equivalent) until things settle down. Anna Livia (talk) 18:02, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Am no expert, but bot is still sleeping. New world (talk) 14:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Article 8K

What - no attempt by people of a sensible or look-at-me nature trying to hit the target? The probable article 'The US 2024 Election and its aftermath' should be at a slightly higher number. Anna Livia (talk) 18:02, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

So - what was it? (And does it 'deserve' a little note on the talk page, along with eg 'Oldest page' (other than the Main Page) - which is not the same as the 'oldest' page list), and, somewhat distant page 9k?) Anna Livia (talk) 13:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Farm labor supply

I wonder how farmers are gonna replace their supply of labor when the politicians they vote in deport their supply of undocumented, underpaid labor. Prison labor, perhaps? Carthage (talk) 01:58, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Republicans might be happy to have less food; that way, more poor people, Black people, indigenous people, etc. will starve. Fuck, that sounds dark. MayGodSaveUsAll (talk) 02:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

It gets even more fucked when you realize much of the global food supply comes from the US. Carthage (talk) 02:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Prison labor as a large-scale solution is disturbingly possible. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 03:08, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Most of the food harvesting is practically automated, even for things like carrots and blueberries. It's just a few crops such as tomatoes and peppers that require unskilled labor. Meat is a bit tricky, given how much illegal labor they use, in spite of the amount of automation those man-made horrors already have.

While the rising cost of meat and some veggies would in theory raise the demand for all other foods, given how much farmland is used for feed, the lower consumption of meat would end up causing a collapse in the price of grains. So no, we won't starve, nor will every food item go up in price. CorruptUser 03:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

People may not starve, but there would definitely be disruption to the orderly function of society. You forget that people rioted over masks and quarantine. Often times protests or riots or whatever over whatever issue is a symptom of deeper, systemic problems. If someone who is stressed, underpaid, depressed, anxious, and atomized from their community suddenly can't get the coffee they need to stay awake during a 12 hour work day? I can guarantee you there'd be at least a few mass shootings over that incident. Plus, there are entire industries that rely on crops like the tomato. You think that a sudden loss of labor won't have undue effects on those industries? I can see them lobbying Congress to institute prison labor in replacement of the labor lost to mass deportation. Carthage (talk) 04:00, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

It's ghoulish enough for the GOP to salivate over, yeah. Carthage (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

They won't, they just want to maintain the threat, the problem is they care so little that the threat of deportation is getting mixed with the right to just shoot. There are people at the border leaving water as a gift, because you can't just walk across Texas without water. There are also people https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-border-patrol-mexico-water-bottles-video-migrants-kick-over-video-illegals-mexicans-hispanics-a8165591.html who truly believe the 'other' aren't people. In what world would an immigrant steal your job as an abhorrent border patrolman? In what world would kicking over some water, what should be a human right, make your job easier? Fucking wait for them to need water and then arrest them, if you're honestly trying to nab criminals. The point is dumbass cruelty is a nonsense social survival tactic and it's the easiest way to be accepted. Violence as an invitation to a group is caveman shit, but so is fire, so it's not easy to discount. Kicking water into the ground because you have water and you don't like the idea of somebody, when the idea literally applies to a human someone is worse than caveman shit. Torrent (talk) 06:13, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Old age care homes are also heavily reliant on immigrant (not necessarily undocumented) labor (US & UK). Also regarding the automation angle. I've recently started working my way through the book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant. It's quite interesting regarding the parallels between Luddites in the Industrial Revolution and the reactions to "distrupter" tech bros of recent years. The complaint of Luddites wasn't anti-technology per se but against the technology that eliminated livelihoods. Bongolian (talk) 06:15, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Right-wing politicians don't really care. They are - at best - myopic businesspeople. They have a 'more where that came from' mentality when it comes to labour in their heads. They're the sort of 'pointy-haired boss' who will whine and bitch about not having enough staff for their fast-food joint but the reasons are never their fault - like being a PHB and your shitty pay and conditions. I expect if they actually go through in really cracking down on foreign cheap labour, their stock response will be 'why don't you hire all them Tammy Welfares and Johnny Sicknotes?' [which allows them to attack these groups due to being 'lazy'/'entitled' too]. They revel in their ignorance of actual business - like the fact some 95% of the people they're referring to are either physically incapable of doing the job and/or aren't in the correct area.

Businesspeople, in my experience are often pretty lazy thinkers and very entitled [this is what you get when you have a century-plus of fetishising the businessperson]. Their first stock response [when cut off from cheap labour] will to whine about it being restored - such as demanding exceptions for the ban etc. They will then say it is the state's responsibility to sort it out for them. And when I say 'sort it out' I mean 'put it in a cute box, tied up with a bow and hand-delivered to their desk'. They hate the idea of having to actually train them, or make any accomidations to them or even pay them a living wage. And don't you dare suggest they would invest in capital plant to make better use of the labour they do have or - gasp! - actually fucking improve your pay/conditions to attract more workers.A

Nah, I'll just continue to whine to all who'll listen while simply scheduling 5 people to do the work of 10 and putting them on PIPs when they don't do all the work. Easy.

The more cynical end of PHBs will believe the 'migrants ban' is just the circus for the plebs to believe in while they still can employ them via the backdoor because of 'light touch' enforcement. In fact, they might welcome it because it will make said workers even easier to exploit and underpay than before. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:26, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

"BaN tEH mIgRANtS!" is nothing new in the United States. See Alabama HB 56 and Arizona SB 1070 (both enacted in a 2010ish wave of anti-immigration sentiment). In both cases, the effect after a few years was... not much. Executive summary: Businesses whined, there was a few rather embarrassing incidents (such as a couple of C-suite folks detained for not having "the papers" in Alabama), courts struck down some parts of it, the remainder was quickly forgotten.

As I've mentioned before, the easiest way to stop illegal immigrants from coming in is to strictly enforce E-Verify and other checks when employing someone, and arrest C-suite level execs that fail to enforce this. I would be seriously surprised if something like this happens (for one, the economic impact will be significant; for another, the ruling class that drives American government won't like the notion of actually being held responsible for the situation). Instead, what we are seeing here is the development of what looks to me like two-faced politicians that throw out a lot of "red meat" "tough talk" but merely perform stunts (like all those busing stunts Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott do) to satisfy the Fox News crowd. (Though both Florida and Texas have enacted "tough on migrant" legislation, long term I think those bills probably will have the similar fate of the Alabama and Arizona bills 15 years ago.) BobJohnson (talk) 10:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. In my experience it's more important to actually have reasonable chances of being caught than having a huge punishment but near-zero chance of being convicted. Thus, beef up enforcement (but businesses don't like this *whine* 'limits In fweee enterprise' *whine*) KarmaPolice (talk) 11:58, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Here's the deal. They don't deport to the extent they promise. They use the threat of deportation as a stick to scare migrant workers into accepting subpar labor conditions. That's the upshot of all the anti-immigration panic: dividing and harming workers. Republicans still tend to support legal immigration: Trump was talking "stapling green cards to diplomas" recently. The furthest-right hates this but immigration in some form is currently almost an economic necessity unless you want to evolve past capitalism, which almost no one on the right wants to even entertain as an idea. With now-global, cross-cultural, cross-religious etc. drops in birth rates (unlike what Muskrät will tell you, it's every continent, not just Europe and Asia), growth could more or less be over this century if AI or some other curveball doesn't save capitalism. Chillpilled (talk) 04:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC) As for prison labor as an alternative solution, to the extent that would be required to patch that hole, it would mean what we used to call "labor camps". H. P. Lovecraft: "The only avenue of survival for plutocracy is a military & emotional fascism whereby millions of persons will be withdrawn from the industrial arena & placed on a dole or in concentration-camps with high-sounding patriotic names. That or socialism—take your choice." Chillpilled (talk) 05:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Which as I said above is easy to do; order enforcement agents to do lots of performative cruelty on the illegals they find, while gutting the capabilities to actually locate them and (ideally) don't really punish the dodgy employers for hiring them. In this case the UK under the (now-nuked) Tories were ahead of you lot in the US in regards to being shitty to migrants.

As for the use of prison labour... I am not so sure. Not that I don't think they'd wish to use it, more the fact most available labour is already being used. And as prison labour is hugely uneconomic, deliberately expanding prisons just to get some more farm workers is... unlikely.

But we have to remember that our lazy, spoon-fed businesses don't really know what to do apart from whine. This is the first time since the '50s where there isn't really 'more where that came from' and workers are understanding this. Therefore, some of the brighter bosses are urging the slashing of what unemployment benefits etc remain, in the vain hope that the 'brute hand of starvation' can rustle up some more cheap/docile labour. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:33, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Coffee tends to be imported from Columbia. If anything, tens of hundreds of thousands of unemployed Columbians returning would result in coffee becoming cheaper. CorruptUser 13:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Way to miss the point. Anyway, I had climate change in mind when I brought up coffee as an example. I should've been more specific. Carthage (talk) 18:41, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

We're talking about mass deportations and their effects. You're the OP, after all, no need to change the subject. Also, tomatoes could go either way in price; while US-grown tomatoes would obviously be more expensive, the US imports about 2m metric tons from Mexico, and much like coffee, the sudden surge of farm labor in Mexico would cause those prices to tank. It'd cause a trade imbalance, which is another long-term problem, but in the medium-term it's not the nightmare scenario you're envisioning. CorruptUser 04:26, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

What essentially will happen is that any commodity that requires significant immigrant labor would not be as competitive compared to other countries with cheaper labor markets. There are multiple other factors involved here, including growing seasons. Coffee of course is a bad example -- aside from a tiny amount in Hawaii, the United States hardly grows any coffee. Automated crops like grains or beans also are bad examples. The chief crops we are talking about are American crops that is too delicate to be picked automatically as of now (such as berries and apples) as well as meat and dairy processing where similar applies.

Even with a crimping in illegal immigration and political rabble rousing, America does have a system (H2-A visa) that allows farmers to temporarily bring in migrants to pick crops. It is more expensive than illegal immigrants, because there are some minimal (oh noes!) regulations for housing, pay, and food. (Despite this, there are still abuses, but I suppose it's better than the alternative...) So even with an illegal immigration crackdown, it wouldn't necessarily mean the complete end of American fruit, dairy, and meat. But it still will probably be a cost increase even in the best case scenario. (Not necessarily a *bad* thing of course if previous low prices were due to slavery-in-all-but-name of illegal immigrants... but some people just look at the list price in the store and nothing more...) BobJohnson (talk) 22:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm in favour to a form of H2-A visas, if it is run competently and with reasonable T&Cs [which are truly enforced]. Foreign-earned money can provide a welcome dollop of 'seed money' for folks back home.In fact, I would go as far to argue it should be run by the state so it's not left to local mafias as another money-maker. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

This is indeed a classic case of Republicans claiming to be all pro-personal freedom and small government then pushing against personal freedom and pushing for huge government restrictions. Seriously the right to live and work where one wants is so basic it shouldn't even be up for discussion, at least not in a "free" country.Brokenglass (talk) 14:08, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I have officially dumped all theology

My beliefs in terms of Satanism is the same as the Satanic Temple. I am in the ranks of the Godless. I consider myself an atheistic Satanist.

It took thought and consideration but I just can't believe in any God or supernatural. --Trans Fem Agenda 13:50, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I have a female figurine statue on a shelf in the one corner of my home. Once in a while I'll light some candles in the evening in front it and look at the dancing shadows. Most of my mind tells me that it looks nice but doesn't mean anything, but the small still-reptilian part of my mind gets exceptionally pleased with it for some reason. Impiricism (talk) 18:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

The Imperial Truth, but unironically. 2600:8800:7800:1204:A0C8:E15F:1084:C7AF (talk) 01:52, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

you are not a baby, you're gonna have to clear the pipes. Consider it an ablution. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/ejaculation_frequency_and_prostate_cancer if you get caught, you're fighting cancer. If you're horny for shadows, please get something more explicit. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vzCjQwt2rgI it is fine to clear the pipes, it is fine to use pornos to get there, it is important to remember what you want, because pornos are nutso bonkers anymore. I once was fully finished, no hormones, and I watched a lady put a bunch of eggs up her rectum. Only thing I felt was concern. I don't want to watch a lady lay a bunch of eggs, and I know that about myself now. Torrent (talk) 08:58, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not lusting after a statue if that's what you're thinking. On the contrary, it's usually in evenings after I've finished browsing and closing tabs of smut, and have switched to reading upsetting news stories and RW's articles on how disappointing the world is, that I often feel like lighting candles. And yeah there are some odd fetishes out there... I think the general rule is as long it doesn't harm others, do whatever. Impiricism (talk) 15:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

What a relief, don't go light in no fires you can't control. I really like to camp and I can solo, but I've never made a coal from friction. Maybe it's time I try that. Torrent (talk) 08:50, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

A laudible as it is to have dropped theology, I'll boldy claim that by defining yourself as "atheistic Satanist", you've just swapped out one vice for another (arguably lesser) vice. Comparable to your ventures into video-making/editing or your quests for a foreign language to learn, the crux of the matter seems to be 'external expectations' - both the actual ones and the imagined - as well as identity; i.e. it's not about belief but on how to represent yourself and how you want/think you need to be received. I do genuinely hope though that you, to my understanding, having already taken messures to tackle the more deeply rooted issues surrounding identity and identity expectations via GAHT/HRT may also alleviate the side symptons as you become more and more sure and secure of who you are. 2001:67C:2660:425:2C:0:0:3DB (talk) 18:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

CrowdStrike/Windows worldwide outage

Something that seems to be missing from the discussion on the CrowdStrike computer outage is what role, if any, did generative artificial intelligence play in the outage. CrowdStrike introduced "Charlotte AI", its own generative AI program, last year as being integrated into CrowdStrike, and it is part of the updating process, at least on the back end.[4]

Conspiracy theorists might think that the CrowdStrike executives who sold stock just before the stock dropped by more than 10% on news of the outage might have known something (insider trading), but Barrons reported that the stocks were sale was initiated more than a year prior.[5] The Charlotte AI announcement was also more than a year prior (May 30, 2023). Bongolian (talk) 15:33, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems far-fetched that their chatbot system would have caused it. The talk of AI in that old announcement mentions not only the chatbot, but in general terms older machine learning systems of the kind antivirus use, which they now highlight using the term "AI" in order to seem trendy. It seems more like a marketing gimmick to add the chatbot and make it seem more related to the rest of it all than it is.

The update that caused the issue would be something their developers pushed to the world. It's bad practice to auto-update without adequate testing, and in anything where security and reliability matters, bad practice to force an update on users without having verified how it affects them, like having only a smaller testing group receive it first and then changing course if it goes bad, otherwise increasing rollout, eventually all receiving it. Evidently there weren't safeguards here.

Coincidence or not, the CEO was in the past also at the helm of McAfee during an incident where an update messed up millions of Windows XP systems, the year before he left to found CrowdStrike. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 16:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

The fundamental problem as I see it, is that generative AI is far more susceptible to the garbage-in-garbage-out problem than narrowly-focused AI based on high quality datasets. They did say generative AI in the press release, so I'd take their word for it. If they were aiming at a marketing gimmick, they could have just said "artificial intelligence" and probably gotten as much PR as saying generative AI. There is also this idea floating around among techies, and promoted by LessWrong, that Bayesianism is superior to the scientific method, therefor the scientific method can be tossed out entirely. And as they don't mention, leaving themselves wide open to garbage data. Bongolian (talk) 18:28, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure, they did add a chatbot, and it could be a poor-quality feature. My point is, the announcement didn't really tie the generative AI to performing anything beyond people chatting with it, with vague and suggestive wording making it seem like its responses may empower users to deal with threats. There's an update too where they rolled it out. But you wondered what the connection may be with the outage, and I think it's completely separate; the outage had to do with some custom OS kernel module poking into the working of Windows in a hairy way and combined with a bad file it relied upon crashing the system. A chatbot would be elsewhere in code and functioning, not a kernel hack but far away from that "level". --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Turns out CrowdStrike actually broke Linux systems for versions of 2 distributions earlier this year.[6] This was a much smaller affair in numbers and didn't receive media coverage at the time. But it shows their M.O. is truly to push untested updates to their software, software which messes with the core of OS functioning. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 09:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Some people in China, which went largely unaffected, are thanking Microsoft for the impromptu "early vacation." Carthage (talk) 18:40, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

And "Russia thanks Western sanctions for helping it avoid the CrowdStrike IT outage". And Iran too.

These 3 countries could ironically, in the long term develop an edge in software security and reliability, even if in hardware sanctions do bite them. Because good software is freely accessible and can be built further upon, while big businesses and some government agencies in Western countries insist on running Windows servers with large attack surfaces in many places and buying questionable security software for it mainly in order to claim compliance for bureaucratic purposes while doing nothing more. And excessive reliance on cloud services is a structural weakness in adding single points of failure. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 20:57, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Will it be 'good software', though? You think Russian/ Iranian/ Chinese IT companies will be allowed to build systems in which their own Govt does not have a permi-backdoor built in for their own use and with loads of limitations? I predict that those countries [plus North Korea] are going to be even bigger than they are now in providing the myriad of authoritarian regimes around the world 'technological solutions' from content-filtering browsers to entire 'walled garden' national internets. The signs have been increasingly spotted for quite a few years now, but we are close - if not there already - to 'the internet' being dead, now being the 'splinternet era' of which some splinters are more 'isolated' than others.

However, with my economic-historical hat on, I would also question the premise that due to the embargos etc that these companies will develop independently and perhaps produce some truly innovative/original products. Case in point; the USSR. Now, they could of desiged from the bottom up an entire world of innovative/original products to populate the 'new civilisation' they were building... but as a rule they did not. They reverse-engineered almost everything they could get their mitts on [or simply bought the licence/prints to produce, like the Fiat 124] and after making a few tweaks for the local conditions would then start churning them out [which is partly why the latter years of the USSR looked so shit; it was like a dated, 'bad cover version' of the West]. The explanation for this is twofold; that firstly it is quicker and easier to 'steal' IP etc than develop it natively and that in the Eastern Bloc there was a bit of a fetishiation towards 'Western-looking' products. We are now seeing similar with our 'New Authoritarian Bloc'; product clones [legal or not], mass reverse-engineering, exploitation of expired patents and outright IP theft. It's why a ton of Chinese weapons now look/operate almost identically like the Soviet/Western products they 'coincidentally' look like [including the innards being cross-compatable], North Korea uses a Linux fork for their domestic computers and Chinese phones use Android instead of going out of their way to y'know, develop their own moble OS. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it may generally suck for their citizens, and at least in terms of them having state backdoors it seemed obvious enough to not need mention. I was thinking more in terms of how well the systems generally work as designed, and are resistant to outside penetration. I wrote a bit snarkily with a gloomy idea of what the future of Western formal and de-facto standards may be. Currently there's little or no progress towards sane security practices in the West (it's inherently at odds with big business outside way stricter regulation), and governments including the US, UK, and EU are even flirting with backdooring secure communication on a massive scale (EU "Chat Control 2.0" and equivalents), though they only hover around the idea so far (despite the UK technically having passed their version of such legislation already, passing off doing more for the time as they have no tech to their liking).

The idea Western countries flirt with is to mandate sloppy AI scanning for objectionable material, and to create a bureaucracy of officials reviewing alerts from the scanning, which at the outset is limited to child abuse and terrorism, but the scope could easily creep, and if actually implemented it would exceed what China does in terms of scrutinizing Internet traffic. The basic way in which the West currently still can be said to have embodied "liberal democracy" in the fabric and workings of the Internet could be killed off rapidly, if resistance to such changes is a little too weak.

On economics and countries developing their own solutions, my main point is that with software, given the enormous role of open source in modern IT infrastructure (every big corporation uses it majorly, its development has become in large part a corporate endeavor), the barrier is very small and historical rules don't really apply in the world of software. The example of Linux and North Korea is good in that regard. The point is, in such matters there don't exist and cannot exist embargoes, and there's no need to even do anything in order to "steal" something from the West -- it's all simply available for anyone for any purpose, that being a core tenet of open source. Embargoes only apply to proprietary software and to hardware, which means that everything needed to get going on the software side in any major area is usually freely available for years already. (Of course, autocratic countries could "steal" in the sense of not honoring the open source licenses.) --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I have considered for some time now the 'demands' of Western agencies for 'backdoors' etc for products etc to be a bit of theatre than anything else - for example, a lot of virtual ink was spilt about Apple refusing to break into their own devices on the behest of the FBI but I know for a fact [for example] the British police have their own tech-folks who can do this without Apple's official help. What's better for the look of the thing? That criminals etc believe their stuff is so secure that they continue to use it because of LEO whining about it? There's historical precident for this; Western powers often bitched about the Swiss company 'Crypto AG' for selling to unfriendly powers during the Cold War... but it turned out that the British had conventionally cracked their cyphers in the 50s and the Americans were basically getting the blueprints and update sheets posted to them on a weekly basis. Western LEOs to some extent don't need these backdoors, they want them - for roughly the same reasons they'd like cash to be banned and make it mandatory for all bank records shared with them routinely.

And while AI spying online will increase anywhere, I also predict that AI will quite quickly 'enshittify' the internet [whichever splinter] with their crappy generated/pirated content to the point I think a huge amount of folks will use it a lot less and new technological work-arounds etc shall counter the spying attempts - in tech like politics, actions cause equal reactions and all that.

Lastly, 'closed societies exploiting open societies openess for their own gains' is again, nothing new. During the Cold War [for example] the KGB made quite an effort to collect as much 'open materials' [scientific/health journals, think-tank reports, symposium memos etc] that they could get their hands on [I remember a quote from The First Circle, in which Solzhenitsyn mocked the fact that cryptography articles from magazines openly on sale on American newstands were stamped 'Top Secret' and locked in expensive Soviet safes lest American spies stole them]. Our 'openess' of societies is both a strength and weakness of ours - the weakness is obvious, but the strength is that 'alternative ideas' shall circulate to our elites, said elites get much more accurate information what's happening in the country and the greater freedom breeds innovation. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there's Western backdooring -- Edward Snowden revealed much about its extent. Intel CPUs have a backdoor in the "management engine" sub-CPU that can mess with computer memory, and access hardware including webcams and do internet traffic. And Windows is widely believed to have an NSA backdoor. That's not the end of it. But all the related surveillance copying Internet traffic amounts to so-called "big dick data", a way to feel powerful and important more than being able to do anything, unless you're able to target more precisely, because there's an ocean of targets and data sucked up across the world which can't be sifted through fast enough to be useful in most cases. Note how stuff just keeps happening which Western intelligence agencies would have meddled with if they could, but they couldn't.

But encryption is still a nuisance if you want, at least on paper, the ability to examine any data. Unless there's a great quantum computing breakthrough very soon, in practice the hands of spies are tied much of the time, and the only way to change that is to make proper encrypted secure communication illegal. (Western countries are now hoping to regulate quantum computing so that when that next paradigm comes around, they won't repeat the "mistake" of allowing encryption too strong to break to become the property of the global public.)

On AI and spying, two different topics are generative AI and AI snooping. Yes, the web is becoming more of a trashy wasteland. The Internet is however much more than the web, it's all systems and services using standard means to connect globally (both old and new standards). Encrypted communication systems won't go away, even if it's made illegal to use ones that actually are safe -- rather criminals will keep using them and others who feel they need them will become criminals. What's proposed to be mandated currently looks to be client-side scanning, automated reading of your stuff before it's encrypted, i.e. requiring government spyware to be included in services. It works badly, generating an overwhelming flood of false positives, and having weaknesses (the usual machine learning ones for scanning/recognition) allowing evasion in the future by smart actors who send stuff through it, yet it's always tempting to mandate such stuff no matter how bad it technically is, apparently.

A last point on open societies and open source, the latter has changed the IT economy greatly -- it's a large part of why such business has been able to profit so greatly the last decade. It greatly reduces costs of developing stuff, because so much can just be copied, and corporations love it because they get enormous unpaid labor by volunteers across the world. Corporations contribute, when they do, because they contribute a small fraction of the labor they get out of it. This is economics of open source in a nutshell. Actors in authoritarian countries actually often contribute back in the same way, e.g. Chinese and Russian developers, but not always -- it transforms their economies in the same way, because it just works better. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 09:47, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Again, this isn't anything new; in the 50s the likes of MI5/6 were collecting such a collossal amount of Signit that even with computing power they were processing less than what was coming in, and I've heard that the British police are a already staggering under the sheer volume of raw digital evidence collected in some cases - to the point there's been cases where defendants found conclusive digital evidence they were innocent within the data-dump the police had shown the defence [ie the cops had not been able to process the dump to find it]. I still suspect in a lot of this it's a 'want to have' rather than 'must have'; I am no criminal expert, but I suspect there's few crimes in this world where all the evidence would have been in uncrackable end-to-end enycription devices [and the increase of 'closed evidence' in English courts suggests that they 'have their ways' with tech without the maker's help and are doing their best to obfuscate their level of skill].

But talking of the shitty UK encryption bill actually revealed how shit the idea is/was. They basically demand that all message services to effectively create backdoors and share the location with the state - so far, their response is 'we'll see you in court'. The critical issue [as found with other backdoors] is that soon enough others find them and will use them for their own purposes, while a lot of legit uses exist [for example, a lot of smaller companies managed to survive Covid because they used cheap off-shelf 'secure systems' like WhatsApp for their homeworkers]. There's also the 'PornPass issue', in which their proposed solution was to create a big central dump of data which yes, could be stolen or leaked. Govts don't have a monopoly on either 'skill in the art', processing power or use of AIs. Or that said government would be a friendly one.

Which is a key issue. With the riddle of backdoors, the North Korean 'internet' [for an extreme example] is only safe from the NSA etc having the run of the place because it's in a walled garden with [apparently] no external links. The 'American' internet is a lot more open already, and when you consider it the banning of end-to-end and the placements of backdoors is basically making the country more vunerable to external subversion and attack. Again, the Ukraine War has shown us of the 'shape of things to come'; a situation where mass cyber attacks on civilian infrastructure and connections is now part of the 'order of battle' of any power with sufficient means to wield it. Which raises the question; perhaps countries should start viewing their cybersecurity sector properly as a 'strategic asset' [similar to say, arms manufacturing] and encourage the growth of 'domestic capability'. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it time to ditch "Twitter" and embrace "X"?

Troll has a point?

"X is a sufficiently different beast to Twitter that it is logical to speak of them as two different entities, including even having two different pages for them. Discuss". KarmaPolice (talk) 17:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I can see Wikipedia having separate pages for X and the historical Twitter in the not too distant future. But I think it would be a bit too hair splitting for us to do that at this time. That might change, depending on how long Musk's X sticks around for. Spud (talk) 07:03, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it shall remain for some time, most likely as a slowly decaying/sinking hulk. It's too big to fail. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:01, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Monkey Pawed

So, ever feel like this happens to you and your life at times? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 02:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

What the fuck does that mean? I'm guessing it has something to do with the classic horror short story "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs. Of course, there's no such thing as wish-granting objects or curses, so I guess it means, "Have you ever got something you wanted and then found out there were negative consequences to it?" But for all I know it might mean, "Have you ever been fondled by a monkey?" Spud (talk) 06:57, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Shit does suck sometimes, if that's what you're honestly worried about. Torrent (talk) 05:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Biden drops out

The idiots won out.UncleKrampus (talk) 18:14, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Its joever. 2600:387:15:3B1B:0:0:0:8 (talk) 18:19, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's 'the idiots' who did this - that in part Biden did this to himself. I actually think part of the 'Biden chaos' was not a sign of dementia or something, more a guy in his 80s trying to play a guy in his 50s as the 'active boss' but it simply burnt him out - that he'd have fared much better if he'd played the 'blue-skies strategic planner' role with his top team doing a lot of the public heavy lifting. Yet he didn't do this because... vanity. I'm reminded here of a quote from The Godfather on Hyman Roth - that while they talk of sucessors and suchlike, they secretly believe they'll live forever [and thus try to stop any of the 'next generation' poking through, like making much stronger use of Harris as VP]. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:44, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Given that generic democrat polls better against Trump than Biden, I think you got the "idiot" label backwards. Carthage (talk) 19:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The head of lettuce is undefeated! CorruptUser 20:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Good bye Biden

Is any candidate capable of winning? New world (talk) 18:17, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I dunno, but the Dems need to get fucking serious about beating Trump and unite behind Harris. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Kamala Harris (who will probably get the nod) did seem to poll reasonably well, and the "anyone but Trump" vote is significant for... well, anyone. My guess is that they'll pair her with one of the popular Democrat white male governors (ah, demographics!); one can name several that should be able to hold his own against JD Vance methinks. This should completely neuter the "too old" narrative floating around the conservative pundit scenes.

Still, from my perspective (something pointed out by AOC), this strongly has a whiff of being led by outdated Third Way pundits and the political "establishment" types. They have access to data that us peanut gallery types don't but still... given some of their lousy pushes in the past, one hopes they really know what the hell they are doing here. BobJohnson (talk) 18:38, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I accept Harris is going to be the candidate, so it's time for a VP. I would like, again Gretchen Witner [Gov, Michigan] but perhaps Andy Beshear [Gov, Kentucky] or Roy Cooper [Gov, North Carolina]. All three are generally well-respected/ liked and they are all in 'regions' which the Democrats are relatively weak [Rustbelt, Appalachia and Southeast Seaboard]. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

'By then, Biden' (works better with some variants of English) Anna Livia (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

"Is any candidate capable of winning?" - I'm pretty sure that one of them will! Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:25, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Name recognition helps. Cooper (who?) is actually North Carolina (big diff; I'd shit if SC had a Democratic governor in my lifetime). Also, it's Witmer. I think it's hard enough for a lot of Americans to overcome their misogyny to vote one woman on the ticket, let alone two. Beshear would be a good choice to pit against Vance, since Beshear won the 'hillbilly' vote in his own state, but it likely sacrifices the state to a future Republican governor. Gavin Newsom might be a good choice, particularly after sparring with with DeSantis. He's termed out as governor in California, but had previously declined replacing Biden. He might be convinced. Bongolian (talk) 19:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Newsom is out, because Harris is from California and a constitutional rule prevents electors from voting for a ticket that contains two candidates from their home state (so Newsom would be shut out of California's 54 electoral votes, which will almost certainly be needed to win the election) Plutocow (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I know Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (despite his relative inexperience) has been floated around; given his popularity in that state, it might help shore up the "Midwest state" vote. Arizona Senator Mark Kelly's been floated around to shore up the "Western state" vote. We'll see what happens, I suppose. BobJohnson (talk) 20:10, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I corrected Cooper's home state earlier, so it wasn't Bongolian misreading. I am theorising that the vast majority of voters who'd get freaked out that both picks are bra-wearers would be voting for Trump regardless [though I would be persuaded otherwise with key polling]. Cooper's very 'who?'-ness is an interesting point - it means Trump/Vance would be dealing with a relatively 'unknown' [unlike Clinton and Biden]. Plus, what little I saw of him for 2020 kinda impressed me; Here's some reasons to pick Cooper. I think all three [to some extent] would be a decent foil against Vance's attempts to court the blue-collar white vote. I don't like Newsom; I suspect a lot of folks would think he's 'too slick' and from what I've gathered his record isn't that great. Plus, California. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:20, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

For all the talk of Newsom (and setting aside the California issue), I too worried about him seeming too slick. To me, he seems to have some of that condescending, sleek and slick Hillary vibe that the Democrats need to avoid at all costs, if they want to (re)gain the White House in any presidential election.

My two cents’ worth is that the Democrats desperately need to field a VP that can bring some degree of “worker’ish authenticity” to their campaign, if they want any chance of winning. Something to indicate that they aren’t just a party for the “coastal elites” who look down on the “flyover country” (and the problem with Harris is that she can easily be made to fit into this image). Beshear, Cooper, Shapiro and Whitmer might all do that, or someone from the “prairie states”, although I frankly admit to not knowing enough about each to say who’d be better at it.

I’d still suggest that going for a governor, rather than a senator would be the better choice. It would blunt the “Washington insider” attack angle that’s at the heart of the Trump campaign and it can boost the kind of Bill Clinton’esque “I feel your pain” message that can counter Vance, while also pointing to actual, real world, governing experience (“being used to make hard choices”). ScepticWombat (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, fielding one of these governors means that it will be easier to depict the inevitable attempts at lawfare against the Democrats switching their ticket (The Heritage Foundation has been quite clear for some time that it’ll sue) as “Washington meddling” to “keep you from voting for our ‘local’ candidate”. Such messaging might also blunt Trump’s attacks by putting him on the wrong side of the “local vs. Washington” divide and clearly illustrate where the actual problems with “election meddling” stem from. ScepticWombat (talk) 02:52, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I forgot about that detail about not being from the same state. Bongolian (talk) 02:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

If the DNC is really stupid, however, it will choose someone like Pete Buttigieg, and he keeps popping up in the news coverage of potential VP picks. ScepticWombat (talk) 03:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't jinx us like that. Carthage (talk) 04:47, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible for an emergency rerun of a primary to happen? 2600:387:15:3411:0:0:0:1 (talk) 03:40, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I really doubt it. It’d be a legal mess and anyway there’s not enough time to arrange it, let alone for any campaigning to be done. ScepticWombat (talk) 03:43, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The short answer is absolutely not. Bongolian (talk) 04:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh its gonna be fun when Trump slips some hard slurs on someone who's both a woman and a mixed race. (I'm not even joking. I think Trump is gonna chase anyone not full MAGA with his behavior towards Harris.) Revolverman (talk) 21:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I think Trump is going to find it difficult to not be a condesending jerkwad to Harris - because I bet he won't be able to see her as a 'worthy foe' due to ownership of funbags. I also wonder whether needling him on his age etc might be able to rile him to screw up in debates etc. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

One problem for DT (who is somewhat less orange than he used to be) - *he* can be presented as 'the 'doddery old fool' in comparison. (ie 'the image thing' not the actuality.) Anna Livia (talk) 13:08, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Quite apart from the “theatrics” of it, I wonder whether Trump shit talking Harris in a live debate is actually going to change anything?

It probably won’t turn off anyone from voting for him who haven’t ditched him already. He has said so many outrageous things so far that I doubt there’ll be any negative shaming factor for those already in his camp.

One the opposite side of the line, I also doubt whether it will motivate anyone to vote for Harris who wasn’t going to already. Again, Trump’s views and rhetoric are both very well known, so I don’t think it’s likely to move the needle here, either. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:03, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of the racism against Harris of late has been pretty... aggressive... to say the least (even though it's early in the campaign). Such at minimum probably will lead to a stronger minority vote for Harris, which Biden was not attracting as strongly.

The other interesting factor regarding the "racist vote" is that JD Vance's wife Usha is Indian, and their marriage is of mixed faith (Usha remains Hindu while JD is Catholic). Suffice to say, the Nick Fuentes faction online is not amused. [7] BobJohnson (talk) 15:03, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I have been regularly saying ANYONE but Biden. It's that same strange cult that heard Trump call Hillary a 'Nasty woman' which as many times as I share my opinion here, I condemn H Clinton on some very specific reasons. I, of course have problems with Harris, but she is a politics nerd. Who would you rather have as a politician? A businessman who has legal hires to defend the grey area of business practice? Or anybody else? I don't like cops, I don't like violence, I don't think Democracy is exactly the trouble. I think the trouble is the right to vote which I will vehemently maintain. I don't really who you are is what you've done, the electoral college is standing in the way of better federal elections. Congress and senateare standing in the way of the supreme court nomination but not much is standing in the way of the supreme court.

The Checks and Balance system is getting min/maxxed. Project 2025 is nutso bonkers, but it can become project 2029. The worst feeling is voting for somebody you don't believe in or trust. You will have to do it again and again and again. That's the problem of the lesser of two evils, which is why libertarians and greens aren't running. An independent vote runs, I am a registered independent and I think it is very brave to vote your conscience. There are not 100 things that would be different under a democrat or republican presidency. But, I still side more with the Democrats and I really have been saying Trump is also too old. Torrent (talk) 04:19, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I think '24 is Trump's last hurrah; that by '28 he'd be 82 years old and I think by that time too he'd be too blatently decrepit [this not being a world where he wins in November and tries to self-coup so he can try for a third term later]. But the question is; if Trump dropped dead [natural causes] today - who could be the candidate they could pick which would 'keep the band togther' in a manner electoral victory is a definite possibility? It's something to remember; that quite a lot of the MAGA-hats aren't 'natural Republicans' and without that cult of personality to cicle around, their 'transferance' to a successor cannot be counted on. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:42, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

As for 'self-couping' ... while it was hardly a Nostradamus level prediction, I was not expecting Trump to be so quick to confirm it. KarmaPolice (talk) 22:09, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of “Who, if not Trump?”, I had that conversation a few days ago and my best guess is: Nobody.

Anyone but Trump would have a very difficult time keeping the current GOP/MAGA coalition together, because his “insider/outsider” spiel is hard to pull off in a way that will convince the MAGA hats while also cowing the GOP establishment and/or keeping them satisfied with tax cuts and dismantling the administrative state. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

New tech that impressed you?

Something positive for once. I saw a home HIV test for sale the other day; it appears I've reach the age where I've started being impressed by new technology. Anyone else semi-recently see or read about something cool [tech-wise] they'd care to mention? KarmaPolice (talk) 19:10, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I've been more annoyed lately: new tech on the endless software update pathway that stops working with a 4-year old cellphone. Bongolian (talk) 19:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

home hiv tests arent new technology. they have been available for years. PREP is what should be impressing on that front. and thats not really new either. hiv meds in general are pretty impressive these days. hiv has gone from a death sentence at its discovery, with the accompanying social death to an inconvenience in a relatively short span of time.

i was however rather impressed by videos of a...lets say toy, that thrusts. less impressed by the final product. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:04, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

.

Now that Biden is gone, what now?

Does this mean Trump now might win (especially with the late assassination attempt making hik potentially a martyr)? Biden seemed to be the man who could protect America from Trump. Now that he's gone it is worrying. Scaredperson (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

cool story, bro.154.5.228.234 (talk) 23:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Biden was all but guaranteed to lose against Trump. Carthage (talk) 23:26, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The "Only he can save us." idea is nonsense that can be found vaguely in great man theory, and more directly in sycophants of autocrats, like Trump. If you want Trump stopped, then ask yourself whether you can do more yourself to stop Trump (volunteering and donating to campaigns, national, statewide in battleground states, or local). Bongolian (talk) 03:00, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

"Does this mean Trump now might win?" It means Trump "might win" or it means Trump "might lose". It's not the most intelligent question.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 06:29, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

On the off chance that the OP is not simply an outright concern troll, I think it’s a case of mirror imaging: Because Trump supporters conceive of politics as a search for the right “strongman”, they think that switching out Biden must be a catastrophe, because he had already become the “Democratic Champion”. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:19, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Trump

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

A few months ago, some few particular users on this site were hyper-confident in Biden's victory, Trump was "no danger". Anything to say? Bavarian (talk) 13:05, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Really? Which users? Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 14:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

The ones that were claiming Biden was popular enough to defeat a convicted felon, those people. The ones concerned will know who I'm talking about. Bavarian (talk) 14:13, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Uh, okay. For my part, I’ve been consistently a doomer since Biden’s performance in the debate, although with him gone I’ve switched to a cautious sense of optimism. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 14:20, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's been any at the Bar who were 'hyper-confident' of a Biden victory. I'd like to know 'these users' too. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:25, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Don't remember names, but reading the archives, there were a few (not many) people confident in Trump loosing against Biden. @UncleKrampus was one of them, I'll search for more later. Bavarian (talk) 15:47, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

@The Blade of the Northern Lights Ok. Wasn't the smartest of Posts. I'm not a concern troll though, some people here liked him as candidate, neither am I conservative. I think those people, and those people only, owe us a reaction. Bavarian (talk) 17:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

(x) doubt. Carthage (talk) 21:27, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

@Bavarian. Why do you think you are owed a response from me? What business is that of yours?UncleKrampus (talk) 22:05, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

That was the premise of the question. Whatever. Bavarian (talk) 11:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it needs to be remembered that people's 'predictions' will be partly based on the 'known facts' at that time - even six months ago [for example], the 'Biden can't hack it no more' was mainly a MAGA smear-point than actual obervable reality [and I think it's more a 'can't take the pace' than 'am senile']. But I have not seen anyone here say 'Trump is no threat'. So I shall call out BS on that bit. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Daydreaming

I can't stop daydreaming when I'm alone. When I'm not around people talking it just starts. Are there any useful techniques to stop that? Bavarian (talk) 13:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

It depends upon what the daydreaming is - eg 'exploring various options' as to what you are going to do later, or distracting you from the practicalities. Otherwise - consider writing (fan)fic (many options available): having to actually do something useful with the ideas tends to resolve the matter. Anna Livia (talk) 15:07, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

It's anything really. Sometimes I don't even realise it started again. In the metro, at work, at home, in the street, anytime I'm not talking to someone. This very post results from daydreaming about it. Thanks for the advice, I'll try that right away (: Bavarian (talk) 15:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Damn, daydreaming about this post now… Bavarian (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Why would you ever want to stop? Daydreaming is a fun escape from the disappointing reality of this world. Impiricism (talk) 15:36, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you'd want to stop because you feel like you're doing less than you can due to daydreaming. Personally, daydreaming is my all-time favorite thing, so I'd rather tone my daydreaming down to a workable level rather than stop entirely. Plus, I find that my daydreaming can be useful to help tackle certain problems in the real world, like playing out a scenario that I'm either trying to predict or "calculating a line of reaction" to in advance. I also use it for worldbuilding. Yes, it's a fun escape, but I want to better tackle this disappointing reality to make it better, & sometimes I can use daydreaming to do that. You can't make something better if you don't try to, so let's do something. Zentashka (talk) 16:57, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Problem is I don't do it on purpose, it just happens, one way or another. It also involves weird stuff, which I don't want to think about. Sometimes I forget it's not real entirely. I don't like it, that's all. I get that it's nice to some people, to me it's just inconvenient. Bavarian (talk) 17:32, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

'Dead dove weird' or just ordinary weird'? If you look at some of the fanfic you will realise how tame many ideas are. (Take note of tags and ratings - though as with streaming service tags 'your mileage may vary'). Anna Livia (talk) 23:06, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Dead dove is usually a sign to stay as far away as possible from that fic. Carthage (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I've been working with mindfulness techniques to calm down any intrusive or unwelcome trains of thought as of late. While stopping them is extremely difficult, there is the goal to simply let them pass without engagement. Often the practice involves grounding one's self by focusing on the breath or the physical sensations around themselves and returning to that whenever the mind wanders so that the unwanted thoughts just fade off. Takes a great deal of work, however. One method I was instructed in was that if you are drinking something cold and things come up in your mind, then hold that bottle/can/glass/cup and take inventory of the sensations in your hand. The cold, the wet condensation, the texture and hardness of the container, etc.. There's no real sure-fire method that works for everyone, but it's worth looking into if you're really bothered by what your mind keeps coming up with. Paul S (talk) 14:29, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Should Governments Provide Free Body Disposal?

Just read the following CBC article about a woman who is unable to afford the disposal of her daughter's body, so it currently just sits in a freezer at a morgue. Definitely raises interesting questions regarding the legality, cost, and obligations associated with the dealing of the dead. I feel like the best outcome would be for a government to offer a basic "free" (taxpayer-funded) disposal option for people that have died; the government could then also use the option to handle unclaimed bodies for which the state eventually takes legal ownership of. Cremation, or the more environmentally-friendly alkaline hydrolysis, would likely be the prime candidate options for such a service. An uninsightful person may grumble that it would be a new tax on the general populace, but really it would save everyone money since it is something everybody eventually must consider. Conventional options, such as burial, I imagine would become more of a "boutique" option for those who can afford it. Thoughts? Impiricism (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like a morally good thing for a government to do, plus it seems to, at least somewhat, fit their job description. Zentashka (talk) 16:57, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

They already do in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health_funeral ('pauper's funeral'). In this case, the fact I come from poor people is an advantage because I've been to them.

Most are cremations, because many councils own them. They will give friends/relatives a chance to hold a short service in the chapel before the burning. Afterwards, you can either claim the ashes to do what you see fit, if not claimed they normally have a kind of 'garden of rest' they scatter it in.

I've also attended a burial verson of it too; there was only a token service [literally the local vicar turned up to do the basic read over the plywood coffin] and then it's put into a 'paupers' grave' [ie a space which is used for three people]. The main difference here is that there won't be a headstone; which means chances are after awhile unless you deliberately noted it's location you won't be able to find it unless you somehow dug out the records for the plot. I do remember the council woman [who'd turned up to make sure they were buried] said that it wasn't forever - I later did a bit of digging and learned that new regs now allow grave re-use after 75 years; so around 2088 they'll re-open that grave and do it again [but this is policy for all graves now, not just the 'cheap seats'].

The way it works is this. If there's an unclaimed body, the local council takes it on. They will first try to find a next of kin, hoping they'll take the body. If they can't find anyone, they'll then give them said pauper's funeral and [if possible] charge it to the estate of the dead body [unless there's a pre-arranged funeral plan all paid up]. If they do find someone, they'll try to strongarm you into signing for it. If you refuse, they'll then do the pauper's one and if they find no money to pay they try to charge you for it [I see £950 being quoted]. However, it is possible to wiggle out of this without too much difficulty and unless you're cuntish about it the council will allow you to recover 'personal effects' [with no real money value] because they also do the house clearences for the 'lonely dead' too [partly to recover money, partly to find next of kin etc]. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Some municipalities already do this to a degree with those who have no next of kin, no burial arrangements were made and who's remains are unclaimed. The documentary A Certain Kind of Death shows this process in Los Angeles County back in 2001. Often the deceased's belongings are sold to offset any costs for the labor and operational expenses. The deceased are then cremated and their remains are kept in storage for several years in the event that someone does claim them. After this period, the remains of all unclaimed persons who died in the same year are poured into a mass grave with a small marker listed only with the year of death. Paul S (talk) 14:13, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Torrent (talk) 06:46, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The idea that the government should pay for funeral expenses exists since the times of Urukagina, well over four thousand years ago. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 14:57, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Inferno bot

User:Inferno Bot still not working, according to User Contributions since 12 July no activity at all. New world (talk) 11:16, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I left Techpriest who runs it a message on Discord, since she's usually there, in case the talk page messages from the last days were missed. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:55, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Can a manual archive be done? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Cosmikdebris did 2 days ago, I did it again just now. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 17:24, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I seem to have an impersonator on Wikipedia?

Special:Contributions/Plutocow, who is most definitely not me. Now, it's possible this is a coincidence, but given a few of this person's edits they are very clearly familiar with RW. Granted, they registered in January of this year but only started editing a few days ago, so it's possible that they were unaware when they registered, but even then the timing of when they started editing would be suspicious. Probably my fault for not preregistering the name for myself, but eh. This still would probably be wise for me to pay attention to. Plutocow (talk) 03:08, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

"Tankiewiki"? Carthage (talk) 03:20, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

"in favour of Stalinist regimes wiki"? New world (talk)

The situation appears to be resolved. Nevertheless, it appears Wikipedia blocks registrations of previous usernames of renamed users, which is something this wiki doesn't do; this should probably be brought to the attention of the people with root server access. Plutocow (talk) 05:35, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I know I've blocked the reverse, accounts registered here with usernames impersonating Wikipedia admins and long standing editors (after asking said WP admin/editor if its them). Lavalizard101 (talk) 08:16, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Wasn't me - and I had to look up 'root server access' so could not be me.

What proportion of RW-ians are or were members of WP and elsewhere in the Wikiverse? Anna Livia (talk) 20:01, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

No idea proportion, but I edit both RW and WP (Also WikiSpecies and WikiData as well). Lavalizard101 (talk) 20:33, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

WP is probably the entry point to the Wikiverse for many (but may depend upon topics pursued through 'the tubes'), and probably a proportion will be using more than one pen name/user name depending upon where they happen to be. Anna Livia (talk) 23:29, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I use the same username on both RW and WP/WS/WD. Makes it easier to talk about x-wiki stuff such as impersonators of WPers appearing over here. Lavalizard101 (talk) 10:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Some people will use more than one pen name for different topics (though fewer than Eleanor Hibbert). Anna Livia (talk) 10:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I edit Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. I have edited Wikispecies, Wikibooks and Wikinews. I'm an admin on seven different Fandom wikis, one of which I founded. Spud (talk) 11:23, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia ('more than one length of service badges') and several Fandom/ex-Wikia wikis (plus an assortment of other contributory websites - fiction etc). Anna Livia (talk) 15:50, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

@Plutocow the account has been renamed, you may want to claim the username. Christopher (talk) 19:33, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I tried, but they wouldn't let me. Plutocow (talk) 19:56, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Team Trump's quest to "wipe Iran off the face of the Earth"

So... WTF. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240725-trump-discusses-us-wiping-iran-off-the-face-of-the-earth

Apparently this is because he got it in his head that the shooter was backed by Iran, and Netanyahu was encouraging this theory in his speech to Congress. The feds did claim some indication of an Iranian assassination plot but said it wasn't connected to Thomas Crooks.

Reason recently published an article, "Pompeo Is Selling a New Iran War to Republicans" (Pompeo being a former CIA director who was Trump's Secretary of State). One of the first gestures by J.D. Vance after his nomination as Trump's running mate was to give a Fox interview praising Trump for assassinating Iranian general Soleimani: "If you're going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard" (alt. non-registration-walled discussion article). And just a couple days ago, Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir endorsed Trump because: "with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran".

A bit much in a short period... Chillpilled (talk) 12:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

"Trump is the anti-war candidate." Carthage (talk) 12:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I've always hated the "MAGA is isolationist" liberal talking point-not only is it ridiculous to maintain if you do thirty seconds of research, it actually helps launder Trump's reputation.-Flandres (talk) 13:20, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The whole "the US prior to WWI was isolationist" talking point is bullshit TBH. We meddled heavily in the affairs of Latin America, and took on plenty of "punitive expeditions" abroad. The only reason the US was considered isolationist was because we stayed out of white people politics in Europe. Carthage (talk) 13:23, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The "MAGA is isolationist" angle comes from the MAGA movement's dismissive attitude towards former ally agreements like NATO and the MAGA movement's dismissive attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other things. Overall MAGA types tend to be far more focused on trivial culture war bullshit than foreign policy. There are still plenty of neoconservatives in the Republican party, and during Trump term 1, I think Donald Trump himself flip-flopped between the "MAGA isolation" and the neoconservative angle from time to time. Pompeo (and John Bolton) were some of the biggest neocon flag wavers during Trump term 1. BobJohnson (talk) 14:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Why ain't tobacco never been banned?

America tried to ban alcohol once. And today many try to restrict other drugs. Yet tobacco has never been a target for banning. Why the double standards for addictive substances? Why target only some? GrumpyHippo (talk) 18:02, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Follow the money. Carthage (talk) 18:10, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Tobacco is both widely used by white people and unmentioned in religious scriptures as a vice. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

OP: "Follow the money" and racism aside (all true points), your initial statement is nonetheless not true. Please refer to the Wikipedia articles on Lucy Page Gaston and the Anti-Cigarette League of America. Between 1890 and 1930, 15 states banned cigarettes and/or tobacco in some form or another. Per this paper it appears that the portability of cigarettes made enforcement difficult; cultural changes in World War I (where there was a tobacco-industry sponsored "patriotic" campaign to "make the (soldiers) happy" by sending them tobacco) made smoking "respectable" and dealt the anti-smoking temperance movement a death blow. Thus this relatively short episode of the temperance movement has been largely forgotten.

Currently, there is legislation in progress in the UK to ban tobacco sales to anyone born after 2008, as I understand it. (New Zealand also tried similar, but repealed it.) BobJohnson (talk) 19:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

OP is wrong - tobacco has gone though stages which it was banned in certain countries, as outlined in the 'smoking ban' WP page. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:35, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Tobacco is harmful, but doesn't have the absolutely revolting stink of marijuana. So there's that. I'll have a cigar once every few years, and there's never been a time when I felt compelled to have another one right away. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:11, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

As a child, I was regularly fumigated by second-hand tobacco smoke (both cigs and stogies). I find the smell very repulsive and never tried tobacco in any form. Marijuana smoke doesn't bother me so much though it can smell skunky. Bongolian (talk) 02:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I also find secondhand smoke to smell way worse than cannabis. I used to have a neighbor in the apartment next to mine who would smoke nonstop, and the fucking smell would ooze out whenever they opened their door. Absolutely horrible. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 03:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I cut my use of cigarettes down from a half a pack a day to two, and then quit. The smell of secondhand smoke sends me. I love it, and I have always enjoyed it since I was like 3 going with to my brother's little league gamez. I am old enough to have experienced smoking sections in restaurants. If you don't enjoy the mild flavor of wafting ash, I cannot help you. However, I have been to national parks before vaping was a thing with pack a day friends, and it was always a little embarrassing to be there when they lit up, 'World is my ashtray' style. I do not mind tobacco smoke, I don't mind marijuana smoke. The only problem is I still dress and behave like the dirty hippie that burned all that leaf, so generally if people are doing it where I am when they aren't allowed, the attention gets set on me. I'm not against it and I'm not a narc. I had downstairs neighbors that were filling the stairwell with... Probably very good weed.so And they were a young athletic couple, ran, did bikes, and I was the guy who was probably smoking weed. I ran into them on the stairs once and lady was literally in the middle of saying 'I can't wait to eat eggs'. Yeah man, and I know you're stoned when you say something like that, because eggs fucking rule, but it's a stoned sentence. And I'm the one taking sideways glances because y'all are just filling the stairwell with that wacky tobacky, and I'm not gonna say who it is, but gee Dee it ain't been me in a decade. Weed is too strong anymore, got the normies saying shit like 'I can't wait to eat eggs' out loud. All power to em.

So anhway, tobacco smoke. Love it, have always loved it, learned to smoke, learned NOT to smoke, I Keep a single pack of cigarettes for about 2 months at a time, I make sure to go way out of my way to smoke one and I dispose the butt like I'm picking up after Friends at a park. Back pocket if necessary. If it was banned, I probably wouldn't buy black market. But, as not 'fuck you' punk as it gets, I do occasionally rip a dart where nobody can tell me I'm not allowed. Torrent (talk) 07:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

We also need to remember that other drugs were legal too. Generally speaking, *everything* was legal until the 'Efficiency Movement' reforms of the early 20th cen (a combo of recognising danger and the screams of the moral puritanism which was behind the clean living movement. So if you want to know who started the 'War on Drugs', it was the proto-technocracy. They also went after alcohol and to a lesser extent tobacco - but the latter survived because it didn't get you high, the cancer link wasn't proven until the 50s and due to the burgeoning 'big tobacco' who were busy introducing machine-made 'gaspers' with all the poor-quality leaf sweepings (previously waste from cigars) to flog to the proles. Anyway, they never won in banning smokes, but in places they managed to ban the sales to kids and to light up in public places etc (although the latter didn't last). KarmaPolice (talk) 08:59, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘There was evidence for tobacco being carcinogenic starting in 1898, but the evidence only became incontrovertible in the 1950s (Tobacco#Dirty tricks played by cigarette manufacturers). Bongolian (talk) 17:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

tobacco as a drug, is a pretty shit one. a 20 a day habit doesnt leave you destitute, its doesnt leave you a shambling wreck or result in psychotic episodes. you can operate heavy machinery and it wont lead to waking up the next morning mortified by where you are waking up and what you did to get there. not only did productivity not suffer, you could probably find research to show productivity benefited by peoples habit. its not booze. it is not opium. it is not smack, crack, coke, or speed. it not ketamine or ecstasy or acid. its not even anywhere close to puff. the effects of addiction and abuse of those drugs was very much evident to everyone everywhere pretty much right away. easy to get momentum for prohibitions with those drugs. what tobacco essentially is, is smokable caffeine. you wouldnt hear of a ban on your morning coffee now would you. it dont do much for you, but holy fuck its super addictive which werent a problem until the whole cancer thing gave people a concrete reason to actually try and quit. mass production and the total war of ww1 saw fags handed out by every government and every organisation international or local to everyone everywhere killed any hope the puritans had of any early bans sticking. everyone smokes at that point. literally everyone. a whole world of addicts rationalising their habit. and all the vested interests enabling them.

i vape these days. its the lesser evil, and quite honestly, the least concerning of my habitsAMassiveGay (talk) 17:44, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Alcohol was banned in America (partly) because of its effect on crime, particularly domestic abuse. Christopher (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

What pushed it over the edge was anti-German sentiment, since during WWI beer was the product of the Hun and therefore associated with filthy krauts. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:46, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

James VI of Scotland and I of England spoke against tobacco.

Banning tobacco would cause significant financial problems - the corner shops and similar who sell it (who would have to change their fascias), sellers of advertising (where allowed), manufacturers of cigarette etc boxes, the providers of anti-smoking services etc. Anna Livia (talk) 18:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Often those displays are given away free by the tobacco companies, sometimes with the restriction that they don't stock competing companies products in it [though as far as I can tell, they never really check]. Is there going to be economic dislocation due to a tobacco ban? Clearly yes. But that can be said about anything; the phaseout of incandesant light bulbs, leaded petrol, asbestos, analogue television and town gas. There is always going to be economic costs to changing, just like there will be to not changing. On tobacco itself, an excellent fictionalised episode everyone should watch is the 1986 Yes, Prime Minister espisode 'The Smoke Screen' - it being a 'serious comedy' here because everything said is true.

The thing is, outright tobacco bans are the end of the process, not the start. The 'phaseout' of tobacco in the UK [I can't comment on other countries, don't know enough] was a combination of 'boiling frog' and 'foot in door' techniques; it started in the 1960s with the first anti-smoking ads and TV ad bans, the building of the 'anti-smoking lobby' [to counteract the tobacco lobby who was FUD'ing all they could] in the 70s helped give governments of the day the backbone to start yanking up taxes on it and the first packet health warnings, by the 80s the NHS was openly trying to help people quit and 'national no smoking day' had arrived , by the 90s the 'war on passive smoking' had arrived and 'indoor smoking bans' [buses, shops, cinemas, trains, offices] were exiling smokers either into a designated room or out by the doors, by the 00s the 'big black death warnings' had arrived, smoking vanished from bars, clubs and restaurants along with any advertising and by the 10s the smokers got pushed even further away from the doors, 'lung and Pantone' packets had arrived, all POS displays vanished and the tax on it had doubled since 2005.

And it's worked. In the 1950s about 60% of the UK adult population smoked, by the 90s it was 30%, the 10s it was 20% and now it's 13%. What's more, even the people who still smoke are smoking less - for if nothing else, there's so few places which you can smoke, it's become much more socially unacceptable and it's so ruinously expensive [20 a day now is going to be £5,840 a year, so ouch]. The 'Leslie Potts argument' about economic damage is becoming obsolete; it's a smallish and declining market [so the corner shops have had to diversify though I think the death of newspapers/magazines has hurt more], UK exports of the stuff is in solid decline, the factories in 'Bristol, Basildon, Nottingham and Northern Ireland' are no more and even the 'Sir Humphrey' argument over taxes [£8.8bn in '23] is less than 1% of total tax income. However, I will argue the main thing which has made smoking completely obsolete is the widespread availability of vapes [which are a reasonable substitute if you don't wish/can't give up nicotine and still enjoy having tastes in your mouth]. Which is what corner shops are doing; these days their displays seem to be more vapes [both disposables and juice refills] and nicotine pouches than the old death-sticks [they just need to now start selling 'tobacco substitute cigarettes' for folks to make into joints and I think we're done with 'baccy forever].

Anyway, the point being was that the Anti-Saloon League etc who campaigned for Prohibition didn't go 0-60 overnight. Like with the 'creeping smoking abolition' they moved bit by bit; 'licencing of saloons', 'limiting opening hours', 'regulation of booze strengths', 'making Sunday a dry day', 'sales limitations' and so on. They then worked at every level of government, meaning that by 1919 23 US states were 'dry' while 23 were 'wet' and 2 'moist'. One thing we also need to recall is that some areas were 'dryer' than others; for a lot of folks thought 'intoxicating liquor' meant only distilled drinks like rum, gin, whiskey etc, others felt it only applied to high-strength alcohols [so beers and lower wines were exempt] and there was debate whether the cut off point should be from anywhere from 10% to 3.2%. In this respect, the 18th Amendment was a complete bait-and-switch by the most extreme prohibitionists; where a lot of legislatures ended up ratifying something they neither agreed with [the most extreme form of prohibition] or when it came into force, basically declined to apply [similar can be said with cannabis today; in the 1920s sympathetic/overworked local cops might 'not notice' somebody's own homebrew beer in the same manner they don't spot another's joint, but would come after a distillery or a meth lab]. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:21, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Civil Society Initiatives: Making Dominionists Bite the Dust

Fundamentalism and Dominionism are still dangerous influences no matter what, and many democratic countries are at risk of succumbing to theocratic totalitarianism at their hands. What can be done as members of civil society to put an end to said threat or hasten the demise of their congregations and render them harmless? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 12:40, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

which countries are at risk specifically? which democratic countries? im not sure theocratic totalitarianism is all that likely that many democracies. maybe if trump wins president and goes all hunger games AMassiveGay (talk) 14:55, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Currently, the US is the most vulnerable to Dominionist takeover compared to much of the West because of the sheer numbers in lackeys and dollars the Christian right possesses, but conservative populists infesting parts of Europe means they're not completely immune either. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 15:00, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Consider the demographics. Western Europe is much more secular than the US. Even the far-right in Western Europe tends to be pretty secularist. That's actually a talking point by the far right in France: that Muslims threaten the foundational secularism of the French Republic. Carthage (talk) 16:15, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Even in the United States, despite depressing clear theocracy musings from the fundies these days, and despite Trump clearly aiming for illiberalism... I don't really think pure theocratic totalitarianism is terribly *likely* here (though still sadly possible) due to entrenched federalism, a pretty strong opposition, and other factors. It's honestly a sad state of affairs where 1/3 of people in the "land of the free" actually *want* military rule or a strongman,[8] but that's still a minority. The main thing an individual can do at the moment is vote out illiberal candidates, of course.

I really can't think of any religious-influenced populist right parties in the developed world apart from some Catholic-adjacent ones in Eastern Europe. The driving force of most European populist right parties tends to be *identity* oriented (eg nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-globalism) as far as I know. BobJohnson (talk) 16:23, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

We also need to remember that much of Europe is Catholic, and Catholicism and Dominionism aren't the tightest of bedfellows - the latter is very tied to the 'Boomer Awakening' c1960-1985 coupled with comsumerism while the former is the most successful organisation in human history mainly because it knows when to stand firm and when to flex with the times [Mussolini once described the Church as a rubber ball that you constantly crush in your hand, because the moment you let up the grip it will bounce away from you]. That isn't to say that a kinda of 'clerical authoritarianism' can't arise - or more correctly, return to the Catholic-majority lands of Europe [Poland under the 'United Right' is a fair example of] but it would be pretty hard to institute a full-blown system because almost all the countries don't have winner-takes all, extreme two-party systems like America does. It is also notable that the European country which does [the UK] it hasn't really appeared on the electoral map either because they simply lacks general electoral support and unlike America, we don't have any geographical clusters of them either which could sustain them.

However, we need to remember two things. One, a lot of the social policies the cultists want overlap with other right-wingers [shitheads like Andrew Tate wouldn't mind all women having 'Kinder, Küche, Kirche' drilled into them because it restores the traditional patriarchy] and two, the cultists generally don't give a fuck about those pesky bits of the Bible which deals with charity, social justice or mutual respect so they'll get on fairly well with the 'fuck you, got mine' right-wingers. But right-wingers don't want our cultists to actually get into genuine power, because there's the risk they'll genuinely wish to apply their straightlaced mores on the ruling class, not just on the plebs. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:07, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I know they are not very relevant, but I wanted to point out that there are indeed people that want the US to become a Catholic theocracy, Nick Fuentes probably being the most prominent activist for a Catholic theocracy. Among the intellectuals, I think Adrian Vermeule is the most famous Catholic integralist that I'm aware. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 11:17, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

True. However, the issue is that generally speaking, the Catholic Church isn't going to knuckle down and suck up all the 'unChristian' things the authortarian ruling class does. For example, if MAGA granted them oversight over shit like divorce and contraception, they are still not going to shut up about climate change or poverty. At best, they might be able to successfully get individual American bishops etc to 'pipe down' or even coopt them to the new regime - but the day the Pope speaks, they shall almost without fail jump into following Father's line. Now, there's a possibility that 'the stars will align' [like say the Church under John Paul II and the Moral Majority Reaganites] but that is more a more 'meeting of minds' than anything else. In fact, a lot of the 'Catholics' who are hard-on for strongmen like Trump often come from the 'Evangelical Catholic' section, which mainline Catholics [and the hierarchy] regard as suspect at best and outright heretical at worst.

Anyway, my sociological view of the Catholic Church is this; that as the most successful org in human history, it knows to never explicitly tie itself to anyone else's mast - it's 'institutional memory' and records are vast and it shall know 'temporal power is fleeting', 'empires come and go' and the core goal of the Church is 'to survive as strong as possible until literally, Doomsday' and that previous 'dalliances' with political movements [such as their alliance with Franco or de facto control in Ireland between 1860s-2000s] has ultimately damaged their org, perhaps irredeemably in those locations. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:47, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of the American Catholic organization (the "traditional Catholic" sect in particular) has essentially become bedfellows with the fundamentalists — it's the whole reason why abortion is a heated topic in the United States, and as such has evolved to where some of the American Catholic leadership (much to Pope Francis's chagrin) has become culture warriors above everything else. Likewise, some American Catholics have in essence become fundie Dominionists in all but name. Examples include Kevin D. Roberts (of the Heritage Foundation) and a significant portion of the current Supreme Court (well, at least Samuel Alito).

What I don't know is what happens with this lot in the future. For a start, American fundamentalists have traditionally hated the Catholic church, and though this hatred has faded over the years, I don't think that this has entirely gone away yet. Though they play some key roles in Trumpism, Catholic nationalists are only a small minority of Catholics and also a small minority of Dominionists. If push comes to shove, you'd think the fundies would end up calling the shots in the end. Also, as mentioned above, the current papacy seems to take a dim view of "culture war" posturing (to the point of firing Joseph Strickland and excommunicating Carlo Maria Viganò for schism; both were "trad Catholics" that played up the "culture war" a lot). I personally think the papacy's dim view of culture war posturing is probably long-term correct; it's pretty obvious that the "culture war" style "churching" has caused tremendous damage to the American Christian institution over the last 30 years, and given the already significant damage the Catholic sex scandals have caused, the church at this time doesn't need to take on additional damage from hard-ass "culture warrior" hardliners.

At any rate, the American Catholics that have gone full-on Dominionism don't really have great equivalents in Europe that I can see. Poland's PiS (or Sovereign Poland) and Hungary's Fidesz might be the closest (the later especially given how much the GOP and Fidesz have "mingled" over the last decade or so). But neither of these have as much of the "fundie philosophy creep" that the American Catholic Dominionists have got. BobJohnson (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Stats from the '20 election said that the Catholic vote was basically split 50/50 between Trump/Biden, suggesting that [within margin of error] that being a Catholic doesn't really have an effect on your voting behaviour. We also need to remember that the first modern 'culture war' was waged against the Catholic Church by the likes of Bismarck in the 1870s [spreading into the Anglosphere] and they will remember that, the same way as Mormans remember how they were once targeted by the majority as an undesirable 'Other' [and which perhaps part of Trump's slide with them]. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

JD Vance and the Loveseat

So... basically, a story got spread that JD Vance had made love to a couch, as evidenced by his book.

Only, that never appeared in the book. That didn't stop the spread, of course.

This makes it a great example of a phenomenon we here at RatWik should be familiar with; it's easy to convince a toddler that there are 9 planets, but that toddler will argue with you about the number of planets when 3 days ago they had no idea what a planet was. CorruptUser 23:37, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Counter point, he's JD Vance. A somebody. (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

There's an old axiom floating around, "a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on". Such has (per Quote Investigator) existed in various forms since the early 1700s. The Internet sadly fuels this well known phenomenon of the velocity of bullshit with even greater speed. BobJohnson (talk) 23:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

He looks like the type of guy who would have sexual relations with a couch, especially if that couch was Usha Chilukuri; it's a bit odd though that they would continue being together though when Vance appears to acknowledge but not contest those who have a vitriol dislike of couches. Impiricism (talk) 00:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

He's a US Marine; using cushions to make a love-doll is probably a time honored tradition or something, along with discovering that the red crayons do not, in fact, taste like cherry. CorruptUser 02:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

This was satirizing actual mildly weird stuff in his book. Far as I can tell, it's full of a weird mix of poverty fetishism, stereotypes about Appalachians, and bootstraps ideology. If I had to guess, the couch thing was specifically a response to a part where he has a dialogue with his "Mamaw" who asks him: "do you want to suck dicks?" (yes I know Goodreads but this really is an actual quote appearing in some book reviews from years past). You may notice the moral of the exchange doesn't exactly line up with his current views on gay people so much (he's since opposed gay marriage). Chillpilled (talk) 08:50, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've not interacted with a single person who actually believes it, or has seriously questioned whether or not it's actually true. I don't think this is being pushed as, or believed to be, a real thing (at least not since day one). It's just stupid and funny enough that people are running with it as a joke/insult (or a joke insult) rather than a serious criticism of character. The most similar thing I can think of is all that nonsense around the Morbius film - when somebody tweeted that "it's morbin' time" is their favourite line in the film, and we all knew it wasn't really in there but at the same time so few people knew or cared enough about the film to really put up a serious defence against it. I think the JD Vance thing is a combination of the surge of energy the Dems have been enjoying since Biden dropped out, and also just a bit of schaudenfreude at someone on the MAGA camp taking a hit that seems to have actually stuck for once.

(Sidenote - I'm so out of practice at wiki-ing that I've forgotten the etiquette for indenting. I'm replying to the original post and not any of the replies so this feels the right way to do it, but it looks stupid on the preview, please feel free to fix it or yell at me below. Or above, if that's where it's supposed to be). X Stickman (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Wasn't this a joke recycled from American Dad? In fact, twice [once by Stan getting it on with the couch cushions and the other Steve describing said couch as 'his lover']? [I personally prefer to alternate indenting because it merely makes the different messages easy to read and excessive indenting looks really shit on phones]. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:53, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

True, there's no evidence that couch eroticism was ever in any version of he book, but AP's retracted fact check set the stage for doubt. As per Snopes' analysis AP initially stated as the page title, "No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch".[9] It was pointed out to AP that there was no way that they could definitively say that there was no way that AP could have proved the assertion in the title. Rather than just rewriting the title (the text made no such claim), they just deleted the whole fact check.[10] So now, thanks to AP, there's reason to believe that it's quite plausible that he did. Thanks, LBJ ("I know. I just want to make him deny it.")! Uh, maybe thanks.[11]

The dicksucking text really is there (pages, 97-98).[12] Bongolian (talk) 06:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Not so long ago in the uk similar stories surfaced about david cameron fucking a dead pig in university. it was completely unsubstantiated in anyway, an clear and obvious fabrication from an unofficial autobiography, with no believing it for second. it did garner headlines though because it was pruriently sensational and we love that shit more than cameron loves fucking dead pigs. in the short term, it just makes the target look kinda ridiculous and we revel in the embarrassment they might have having to answer questions on lurid bullshit. the thing is though, whether we believe these things or not, they do lodge somewhere in our subconscious, particularly when they are about someone we dislike, making us view these people as weird and deviant, as wrong uns capable of any depravity. we wont quite remeber why we think they weird and deviant, it will be just a lingering feeling that you sense something off about them. it will make you more likely to accept at face value all manner of false claims about someone because in the back of your mind your subconcious is telling you "i told you he was a wrong un". pig fucking or couch fucking might be more on the ridiculous side of things, but we look at claims of child grooming and paedophilia, more insidious than ridiculous but just as lurid, made against trans people and you can start to see obvious false claims become dangerous. they confirm and reinforce in existing prejudices or plant the seed of a new prejudice. no smoke without fire kinda thing. conversely, if you like the targets of this kind of slander, you wont believe these obvious lies, those people are telling lies about your man for office. but end up not believing anything bad that appears, even when proven fact, and will discredit in your eyes otherwise respected sources of fair and balanced news. of course, these kinda stuff is rampant on social media, and people will vote for proven rapists while sending death threats towards trans people whom they already see as sexual deviants, of course they must be paedos. american dad/family guy might made these jokes first, black mirror might have had a whole episode about pms fucking porky pigs corpse long before cameron did, but generating lurid headlines and garnering much discussion over claims noone will admit to having believed for a second, we miss the insidious effects they can have. david cameron didnt fuck a dead pig. wouldnt put it past johnson to have done though. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:27, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, Johnson did have an odd fixation on Peppa Pig World, but the only Johnsons who've bedded a pig are his ex-wives... Anyway, I'm not so sure that's the whole story, Gay - I think that like the allegations of Carl 'Nick the Fantasist' Beech or Pizzagate, there's a % of the population which wish these tales were true, because they already loathe the subjects ['the elites'] and just want more reasons for that. There's also the 'door in face' strategy [which I think you're alluding to], where the throwing-out of obviously untrue allegations [so outragous nobody could consider them true, which can serve as a libel protection (as seen with John Oliver's 'Eat Shit, Bob' musical number which included allegations he jerked off watching Shindler's List, was behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and was the Zodiac Killer)] but can subconsciously turn the recipient's mind againt the target(s). KarmaPolice (talk) 15:05, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

AMG, you just described the illusory truth effect. It was described in this article you may have picked up the idea from in WIGO Blogs (where I added it as an entry during the UK's election campaigning), and Poynter discussed briefly here one way to counteract it. Chillpilled (talk) 16:47, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Question regarding WIGO

What is the function of the upvote and downvote system in the WIGO pages? Like, in what conditions is someone meant to upvote something, midvote something, or downvote something? I know that in WIGO World, you upvote and downvote depending on the reliability of the news source, does the same apply to the other WIGO pages? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 16:58, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I was under the impression you're supposed to vote on the relevance of the article to RWs mission. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:28, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It's both TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Some people downvote based on how they feel about the story, but that's not how it's supposed to be done. It's based on relevance to our mission and quality of the story. The people who do that haven't read the top of the WIGO page. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Today I learned Ye tried to run for president in 2020.

Who knew so many TV celebrities are getting interested in the office. That said, what president might Ye have been? Would he have been competent in any way or as bad as Trump (former host of "The Apprentice")? Squidwardenrepose (talk) 23:31, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

The Milei of the United States. New world (talk) 23:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

he seems about as thinskinned as trump, while being just as chronically unself aware as trump along with trumps huge ego and obstinance that hed be just as shit as a trump president for the same reasons just probably in different policy areas. his version of a maga cult might look vastly different too, but just as culty. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:39, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

A Ye presidency would probably have been a slightly more chaotic and unhinged version of Trump’s first term. Just as in Trump’s first term, the “institutionalists” would almost certainly have ended up blunting a lot of the batshit ideas and as Ye frankly seems a lot dumber than Trump, he would likely have been even more ineffective at actually governing.

Trump cynically manufactures, latches onto and promotes conspiracy theories to boost his own status and motivate his MAGA base, whereas Ye seems to actually believe in the bonkers shit he says. Trump has a certain cunning and his thirst for vengeance and decades of experience shafting people in the construction and media worlds has given him some degree of street smarts, while Ye really doesn’t seem to have a clue about what he’s doing or saying or to what end.

And unlike Trump’s alliance with Heritage and Project 2025 which makes the prospect a second term a lot more worrying than his first, Ye would almost certainly not have been able to create this kind of marriage of convenience and thus would probably have been doomed to ineffective and incoherent ranting for both his terms.

Milei is far more of what I’d expect a second Trump term to look like in terms of (in Milei’s case literally) taking a chainsaw to the existing state institutions and (formerly) bedrock policies. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:11, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Milei (literally) sees dead economists, gets advice from his (deceased) dog, former gladiator, and was given a sacred mission to save Argentina, but instead of treatment he's getting elected president of Argentina. I was referring more to the mental health of West and Milei than to ideas. New world (talk) 14:18, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Jey_McCreight#Attack_by_Roosh

Not notable enough for the Saloon Bar. Moved to Talk:Jey McCreight. Spud (talk) 12:40, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

In the history of mankind, Trump probably has one of the biggest falls from grace

Going from successful businessman an TV host to awful president who makes a mess of everything. And refuses to graceful take defeat. What a fall. Sandcastlecrab (talk) 00:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Was it though? He was always a bit of a sleazy joker before 2016, he was certainly no Warren Buffett. And did he fall? The left never liked him to begin with, so he didn't really have anywhere to fall to, and the right still worships him.Brokenglass (talk) 00:06, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Imagine if JK Rowling just wrote Harry Potter then shut the fuck up. Women be quieter and start apologizing challenge. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 12:00, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Second Cold War?

So... everyone knows what the Cold War was. Folks might also know the period since ~1991 was called 'the post Cold War era'. But the question is, are we in a new Cold War now? If we are, when did it 'properly' start? And what's the new name for the period between them? 'Inter Cold Wars?', 'the Neoliberal Interregnum?' KarmaPolice (talk) 14:36, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems a bit hot for a cold war. Global cold war-ming? During the original cold war, all of the hot wars were taking place far from the protagonists' doorsteps. Even during the Cuban missile crisis, no shot was fired, though it did come close to the brink. There's a hot war right now on Russia's doorstep of Russia's own doing, their invasion of Ukraine. Bongolian (talk) 15:53, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, what about Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan? I will argue that this 'Second Cold War' won't officially become 'hot' until/if there's a direct clash between Chinese and American forces [the two principals], just like in the last one the line was a direct Soviet/American clash [which got incredibly close in Korea 1951 when Soviet 'volunteer' MiGs started shooting down Anglo aircraft or in 1963 when Soviet ships bound for Cuba contemplated forcing their way through the American blockade with force]. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

You're right. Bongolian (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Of what I can gleam from the history of the 20th and 21st centuries I'm not convinced the cold-war ever really ended. The players have changed a little but the endless politicking and military intrigue has remained steady. Tikitime2 (talk) 19:39, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Depends on whose persepective you're looking at. Putin, for instance, has been an enemy of the United States for a long time. But US presidents like Bush and Obama were continually talking about Russia as a partner up until at least the 2014 Crimea annexation. In the 2012 presidential debates, Romney called Russia, "our number one geopolitical foe," and Obama laughed at him and said, "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years." Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 20:08, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the Cold War never truly ended, though it's obviously much different than before, with Russia not being the only enemy. The dick measuring and fearmongering will continue until America can move past the military industrial complex (i.e. it will continue for a very long time). Brokenglass (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

China's and Russia's imperialism has nothing to do with the US MIC. The attitude of the US towards Russia after the USSR was a proof that the US was ready to be partners to countries willing to be partners. But some countries/idéologies don't *want* to be partners.2A02:8440:640C:DB87:0:3:65D2:EB01 (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think Putin has seen the USA as 'an enemy' of Russia until relatively recently. A rival, an opponent? Yes, clearly. But not a 'not-one-fucking-inch-shall-I-give-ye!' mentality which you normally get in cold wars. Bush and Obama were speaking of Russians as 'partners' because then they were; that while Russia had her own 'views' on subjects which were very different from the American position [which was then different to the myriad of European views] they were able to compartmentalise those disagreements away and then have 'constructive discussions' on other topics. Macron of France discussed the clear deterioration of Russia/US-Europe relations though the '10s; that at the start the 'other topics' were many, diplomats were flexible and Putin was willing to cut deals, but by '21 the 'other topics' had dwindled to almost zero, diplomats gave condescending ultimatums and Putin simply could not get his myriad of 'grievances' out of his head [which was why his role as peacemaker fell so flat Macron went back to Paris with a view Putin needed to be actively opposed]. Back in '12 Obama was right; Russia was not the Soviet Union and thus, was only a geopolitical rival of secondary worth - let us remember, Obama was the instigator of the American 'pivot to the Pacific' which showed clearly what the Pentagon did consider their main geopolitical rival - China [in fact, it can and sometimes is argued that Russia geopolitical goals now don't directly conflict with American interests, only Europeans'].

Anyway, the 'Cold War' clearly ended by 1991 because the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated, the Soviet Union fell apart and the ideological underpinnings were as dead as Lenin. We then had an era of about twenty/twenty-five years where the Americans were the undisputed world 'hyperpower'. My argument is that around 2015 the 'Second Cold War' began when Xi's China started to forcefully dispute the American hegemony. And when I say 'dispute', I don't mean instantly in military terms [though the growth of Chinese 'hard power' is an element of this] but by economics and even more importantly, offering a differing model of development to the world than the American one [I mean, how many of you are aware of how deeply China has been 'engaging' with Africa and Latin America in the last 15 years?] KarmaPolice (talk) 21:57, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

'I mean, how many of you are aware of how deeply China has been 'engaging' with Africa and Latin America in the last 15 years?'

Can you elaborate on this? I'm certainly not. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 00:59, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Briefly, China’s involvement in Latin America and especially Africa is so extensive that The Other Wiki has an overview article on the former and several on the latter.

China has sought to ensure its access to vital raw materials to protect its “workshop of the world” status and has tried to place itself as an alternative to the US in Latin America and to both the US and Europe in Africa. The main venue has been to essentially buy political goodwill by financing infrastructure projects (again, especially in Africa), but the Chinese navy now also has a base in Djibouti alongside France and the US. China also tries to become a military partner by training various African military forces, but apparently also targeted the African Union by hacking into its IT systems in 2018/‘20. Then there’s the whole Belt and Road thing too, of course.

I agree that the Cold War really did end and that the current confrontation is different in that it’s mainly a US/China confrontation, not US/Russia. The main reason Russia is so high on the US agenda (or even on it at all) is the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise, it’s almost certain that the US would’ve moved further on the “pivot to Asia/Pacific” confrontation with China instead. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:49, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

The more suspicious minds think a lot of these loans is an attempt to ensnare these countries in debt traps, but I am not so sure - esp as China seriously reigned back on debt extentions after the pandemic [though this simply might be because China's creeping banking crisis limiting extra capital]. I personally think it is simply China looking for raw materials, export/investment markets - esp as the 'Sinophobia' in Europe/America/Japan effectively precludes expansion there. The Indian-Chinese rivalry also plays a significant part - that a lot of Chinese moves are an attempt to counter Indian influence/investment/military extensions [and then vice-versa].

I will argue that three things need to be remembered; that one, China offers a 'different model of modernity' which does not include democracy, human rights or the deposing of the currently ruling elites. Two, China does not hector them on shit like democracy or bundle up their agreements for assistance with humanitarian issues - this is very appealing to nations sick and tired of all the strings which sometimes makes even aid not worth the candle. Lastly, China - like the old Soviet Union - is a 'one stop shop' for developing nations. She can provide everything and anything desired/needed - from nuclear power stations to jet fighters, telecommuications to biotech. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the dismissals of “debt trap diplomacy” fundamentally miss the point of these loans: They give China leverage not because they create debt traps, but because renegotiation and extension allows China to gain concessions and because their “no strings attached” (i.e. no demands on human rights, good governance etc.) is a way to get “easy money” for local regimes. As China offers substantial sums to local regimes on terms that they know these regimes can’t get elsewhere, this makes these regimes more receptive to Chinese views.

However, the infrastructure projects do actually come with some strings attached, namely the heavy reliance on Chinese, rather than local, labour, which is one of the reasons why several African states have become more wary of them. Sure, they do get some shiny new infrastructure, but they don’t get the multiplier effects usually associated with infrastructure investment, as a lot of the money spent returns to China as wages. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Don't tell me that the infrastructure doesn't have to be built using Chinese capital goods either or the infrastructure is there to facilitate the export of raw materials etc back to China (which incidentally, may be owned by Chinese firms) and/or open the place up to greater Chinese exports. This is more old-school 'economic colonisation' than debt-trapping in my book. But who needs to trap them? You cannot kick your major shareholder in the balls, can you? The lesson for Africa here being 'Here comes the Chinese exploiter, same as the European exploiter'. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:09, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that these deals are probably best described as “economic colonialism”, rather than “debt trap diplomacy”, but I was addressing the kind of criticism of the debt trap diplomacy concepts that seems to fail to consider that the Chinese do indeed get leverage through these deals, just not via debt traps. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:59, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

How exactly could Jesus and Christianity become a conservative icon considering they actually are the complete opposite?

The New Testament pretty much paints Jesus as a radical with the evil Pharisees being clearly the conservatives who behave very much like modern televangelists. How could a story of a radical bringing trouble to the conservatives of his day become an icon to modern conservatives? ^{— Unsigned, by: Mossrocks / talk / contribs}

Second Thought has a video about this, though you might not want to watch it given how, though the video itself doesn't have anything bad in it, Second Thought is friends with Hakim, which seems like a questionable individual, albeit I haven't come across enough conclusive evidence to call him an outright Tankie. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 03:15, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Second Thought is absolutely a tankie, he's just smart enough to not say the really bad stuff outright. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vjnOc5UBbU That said, I'm not necessarily speaking for or against his specific video here and both stopped clock moments and reverse stopped clock moments happen. As for Jesus and Christianity being a conservative icon, that's just how religion is. There is no hypothetical ideal form of Christianity or any other religion, there is only how humans have interpreted and practiced it. The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by people from many different cultures, positions and classes, translated multiple times over. You can use it to argue for or against any moral position. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Can you give a recap on the stuff said in the video you linked (Preferably in my Talk Page, as to not interrupt the currently ongoing conversation)? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:30, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I would say that the Old Testament aligns really well with conservative values. It's about as horrible a document as you could imagine. People just pick the parts of the bible they like and either ignore the rest or say it doesn't count.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 07:02, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Even for the Old Testament you get stories like David and Nabal where a rich landowner is treated as evil for refusing to give help to a fugitive and outlaw. In fact there is not one story which depicts a rich person who puts every one in place and supports the status quo in a positive light. Mossrocks (talk) 14:11, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but I’ve always found those Christians who obsess over the Old Testament to be frankly weird: If you prioritise the Old Testament and ignore large parts of the New Testament, why be a Christian at all and not Jewish? Not to mention that these believers conveniently never accept some of the more bothersome parts of the OT, namely the dietary prescriptions.

So, if you accept Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God and that he basically annulled the OT laws on diet, why insist that all of the other OT prescriptions laws and prescriptions remain valid? And since you clearly accept that the NT superseded the OT by dropping the dietary laws, why not emphasise the NT contents over the OT more generally? ScepticWombat (talk) 08:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure. It's all pretty nutty and contradictory.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:55, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

The particular brand of American religion the OP is thinking of is tightly coupled with politics by design. The Religious Right article heavily goes into this. Historically, this coupling of religion and politics is not an anomaly; probably the norm, I'd say.

But yes, this leads to some *very* contradictory and/or unsupported positions between Republican Jesus and actual scripture. In fact, I would argue this applies to several fundamentalism "memes" even outside the political angle of the Religious Right. For instance, the whole Rapture thing has very poor Biblical support; the American style of Rapture essentially stems from a theosophical invention of John Nelson Darby after he fell off a horse.

(I have no doubt that there is similar doctrine abuse in other non-Christian theocracies, I'm just not familiar enough with other religious texts to figure out similar contradictions.) BobJohnson (talk) 13:53, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Mainstream Christianity in the western world became conservative as soon as it seized control of Rome. It became the status quo that gets "conserved."-Flandres (talk) 14:27, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Basically is that, even among those who claim to be against "organized religion" and it associated with power. You can't also expect something different with a text as the OT, moreso considering its context and the fondness of some especially Fundies of it and Paul, and for that matter Paul or at least bits of it (and not everything was sunshine and rainbows with Jesus). Panzerfaust (talk) 07:16, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

The books are so old and so vague and so contradictory, there is no reason to take anyone who says they draw their morals from the Bible or The Old Testament or the Quran seriously. The danger is in centralizing. Midwest evangelical thought is very different from WASPy protestant thought. It will always be meaningless if we continue to justify to an unknowable higher power and crave a personal afterlife. Torrent (talk) 06:11, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Flandres is right in essance; that Christianity became conservative the moment it became a temporal authority. Any establishment religion will throw it's weight against 'modernity' because it was one of the first things which folks kicked against - for example, removing all educational facilities from their direct control. Look at this in sociological terms, not theological.

The real 'Christian/Conservative nexus' came about in the early 20th, because the vast majority of socially conservative folks were also active believers, and almost all Churches had declared themselves to be an enemy of 'socialism' in particular and 'progress' in general. In the counterpoint, a lot of freethinkers/progressives were at least not into Biblical literalism and supported public secularism. The meddling pastors used their pulpits to mobilise the faithful in fighting said secularism as being 'a war against Christianity!" and portrayed stuff like the teaching of evolution, public health campaigns against STDs and female education as 'threats to our faith' and/or 'the spectre of immorality!'. The merging came complete in the 1950s when the Cold War was at it's height and the Communists were hugely anti-Christian. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:24, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikiversity's wikidebates

I discovered that Wikiversity, a sister project of Wikipedia, hosts "wikidebates". In my opinion, the wikidebates are not very good. For example, take this debate titled "Is LGBTQIA+ being forced on society?". The debate contains an argument that the LGBTQ+ movement could normalize pedophilia. The Wikiversity project says that wikidebates are merely passive archives of "all arguments on a given issue", and not for defending one's own personal point of view (see the template on the top of that LGBTQ+ debate), so the "pedophilia argument" could just be added by someone playing devil's advocate. But the problem is that it doesn't do a good job of rebutting that argument, and seems to imply that it is a respectable, philosophical argument, with the lack of strong counterarguments. Other wikidebates are also problematic, and seem to only contain weak armchair philosophizing, as many arguments are not backed up by strong reliable sources in the way Wikipedia articles are. What are your thoughts on these wikidebates? How could they be improved? 45.130.81.27 (talk) 22:43, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Reminds me of some of the stuff I see on Quora. Do people look at this stuff? I know Quora is highly visible, but I'm not sure I've really even heard of Wikiversity altogether. Chillpilled (talk) 10:58, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Quora has some great shit: "Do you go all out, even if it kills you?" Carthage (talk) 11:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikiversity is basically a haven for users that get banned from the English Wikipedia to try to refight whatever battles they lost. No one pays them any mind, for good reason. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:56, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

There are relatively few debates on that site,[13] but it's probably an outgrowth of NPOV extremism that never got tempered. Currently, there's one on an aspect of eugenics,[14] there don't seem to be any rules banning topics, so in principle there could be one on even more extreme topics: slavery (pro and con), the Jewish question (pro and con), etc. Bongolian (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

These are not really "debates", just a list of pros and cons that a few accounts are imagining up. Most of the "debates" have very few contributors and you can even find "debates", such as this one on "Do antipsychotics cause more harm than good?" entirely written by one account -- hardly what you would expect from a normal debate process. Given that this same account mostly wrote "Is Wikipedia consensus process good?", and that both "debates" wear their bias on their sleeves, one can infer that at least some of the contributors to these "debates" are taking advantage of the low contributor activity of this project and using it as a sounding board for spiels that they were banned for on Wikipedia, as Blade of Northern Lights suggests. BobJohnson (talk) 16:54, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I've been on-off line for the whole duration of the above sites' existence and I have never come across them being mentioned or coming up in search results. This suggests it is very small and also judged to be of low quality. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting interview on how the Jan 6th "Ziptie Guy" was found

So from the same guy who did the research for the Bellingcat article on Ashli Babbit came an interview with an antifascist researcher who specializes in OSINT on how they found the Ziptie Guy: [15]

Really interesting stuff. They narrowed down his approximate state of origin just from a particular patch he was wearing on his vest (Tennessee for those curious). A real help in finding these assholes was how they all livestreamed their crimes, and generally engaged in piss-poor opsec. Carthage (talk) 13:56, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I just learned recently that the person who, "stole* then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop*", apparently had O9A links. (Massive content warning on that link.) Chillpilled (talk) 15:02, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

US Election Update: 3 Months to Go

What an eventful month July was for the election! So, any thoughts on the US election heading into the final three months? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 13:48, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Thinking whether to buy dill or jalapeno seasoning to put on popcorn when the time comes. For a serious answer though from an external Northerly neighbor looking in, I am warily hoping the democratic party wins. Even if Kamala Harris does become the next American president though (which would be cool being the first female one), I still have a general sense of foreboding thinking about American politics. I've read too many articles on multiple minor Republican officials who are just as rotten to the core as their headlining members like the orange man himself. I think it would take the Republicans losing multiple consecutive elections and imploding as a party for the anxiety felt to really be alleviated... and at this point, I don't that's going to happen. Impiricism (talk) 19:25, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

The GOP is not popular. That's why they resort to antidemocratic measures to stay in power (gerrymandering, stacking the courts etc). The core demographic of the GOP is also ageing out. Religiosity is also on the decline. The GOP is dangerous because it is dying, IMO. Carthage (talk) 19:47, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Even though Harris winning won't completely reverse all the shit the GOP has done over the last 8 years, it would still be a big step forward; IIRC, Trump is facing treason charges, and a judgement on these charges won't come until after the election, so if he is ruled guilty, he won't be able to worm out of the consequences by giving himself a presidential pardon if Harris wins, and he would be ruled inelegible. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:32, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

One thing is for sure, a LOT of people will deny the results of the election. Brokenglass (talk) 22:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I am being alarmist in saying there is a non-zero chance that Harris wins, but then SCOTUS gives the victory to Trump. I truly don't want to imagine will happen then... KarmaPolice (talk) 11:12, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

The Democrats will most likely sweep, in my analysis, but no one can truly predict the future and we should have contingency plans for every eventuality. If SCOTUS does try to override the election, I highly doubt it would end up going through for a few reasons. That power is in the VP, and Harris would have no reason to go along with it. Federal agencies are, no doubt, making plans for any future January 6th-like event. And if it really comes down to it, military leaders have made it very clear they're loyal to the office of the Presidency and not the Presidency itself. It ultimately just comes down to who has the monopoly of violence. Worst case scenario, in my armchair opinion, is moderate civil unrest. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 11:59, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

If Harris wins, and I believe that she will win, there will be a new congress, dominated by democrats, in place on January 6, 2025. I don't see how SCOTUS could horn in to decide the election.UncleKrampus (talk) 17:52, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Issue is, there is several ways that the electoral process could be subverted; from key states fucking about with voter suppression to ramming through legislation at the last moment to allow them to choose the electors for the college over the public via voting. Even more critical is the fact a lot of the American public don't trust SCOTUS to give an unbiased result, which means that if we have another Bush v Gore a segment of the Democrats might kick off - esp if it's an ideological 7-3 split.

The other issue is the fairly obvious fact the Orange One is going to declare victory regardless of the result, and even if only a small slither of the military get it into their heads that they could install him without resistance it could get very bad very quickly. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:38, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Luckily the Electoral Count Reform Act has some safeguards against the "fake electors" and Congressional objections to state electors. States also can't change the laws about this between Election Day and Inauguration Day anymore. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:58, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

unless a miracle happens in venezuela, trump is probably going to win this one. up to a third of venezuelans will leave the country if maduro clings to power, and immigration consistently ranks among the top issues americans are concerned with (i posted a thread about this earlier). unfortunately, a crisis of any kind (not least a border crisis) clouds people's rational thinking, and populist demagogues like trump readily exploit people's fears. i hope i'm wrong in the end, but i'm not feeling too excited or confident about the future right now. The G (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

@IntrepidSkeptic @UncleKrampus Why do you think the Democrats will sweep this election? I’m genuinely curious, because the GOP has done a lot to insulate themselves from their lack of widespread, popular support through voter ID legislation, REDMAP and similar suppression initiatives, so I’m wondering what you see in the polls etc. that would allow the Democrats to blow the GOP out of the water.

It’s also worth remembering that a narrow congressional majority is no good to a Harris presidency, if it depends on Mancin/Synema types. And I’m a lot less sure of a Harris win in the presidential election anyway, though I really hope for one (and especially a fairly solid win that will be hard for the 6+3 SCOTUS to finagle).^{— Unsigned, by: ScepticWombat / talk / contribs}

I'm not IntrepidSkeptic nor UncleKrampus, but just to add my 2 cents as to why I personally am cautiously optimistic about a Harris win, opinion polls seem to be slowly but surely leaning to Harris' favor, and the latest Media Bias Fact Check simulation indicates she has a 75.60% overall chance to win the election; It's hard to not be optimistic given this info. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:56, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I’m beginning to share the cautious optimism regarding Harris as well (though I fear 2016 style hubris as well), but I’m far more sceptical about a solid, Democratic win in Congress, due to hurdles that I mentioned above. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:42, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Kamala seems to be treading the tired old genocide-enabling Biden line regarding Israel, so that's a disappointment. Carthage (talk) 16:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@ScepticWombat I think polls are not reliable, although they do suggest Harris will win. I am an Allan Lichtman fan.UncleKrampus (talk) 16:53, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

@UncleKrampus Huh. Why do you think they're not reliable? TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 17:47, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Funny you should ask. The polls said Romney and Hillary were going to win. What happened?UncleKrampus (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

That's true. TheOneAndOnlyCirrusMan (talk) 18:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Articles like this one summarize the problems:

A) No one answers their phone anymore (because voice phones have become enshittified with spam and scams). This makes getting a representative population sample much more difficult.

B) There's too many polling firms these days. Many of them are shitty, with issues ranging from using loaded poll questions to simply PIDOOMA-ing the data.

C) Not in the article, but there's also too many political pundits out there with shitty hot takes. This "amplifies" bad arguments... there's so many pollsters out there of varying quality, any pundit can pick and choose the data that they want to believe in.

In 2022, even the polls were predicting a "red wave". RealClearPolitics for instance, on October 31st 2022, had the predicted House of Representatives as 228 Republicans, 174 Democrats, and 33 toss ups. (The pundit class, of course, was much worse with their insistances.) The actual numbers ended up being 222 Republicans-213 Democrats... quite the miss there. This is not an anomaly; I think one could actually argue that the pollsters have had weaker prediction power (compared to previous decades) since at least 2016 (not always in the Democrat's favor, of course).

One of the big takeaways of the 2022 election was that practically everyone missed just how big the impact of repealing Roe v. Wade was. Since then, Democrats have been overperforming polls in special elections. This doesn't guarantee anything, of course... pollsters of course notice their misses too (well, at least the non-shady ones). So maybe pollsters have corrected their internal models by now. Or... maybe not. BobJohnson (talk) 18:14, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I put this down to the old 'data vs information' problem. Here in the UK, for example a lot of 'polling errors' comes to incorrect weighting of particular voting groups - 2015 was the 'shy Tory factor' while 2017 lowballed the youth vote. 2024 seems to have been wrong due to a) lowballing the 'apathy factor', b) lack of data on ethnic minorities [and thus poor projecting of votes] and c) and getting tactical voting proejctions wrong [there was more LD-Labour overlap than expected but Green voters proved rather resistant]. This is why in the immediate runup to the election, I was saying here and everywhere that there was a distinct mismatch between my personal experiences of door-knocking and the polls.

However, I have noticed that American polling does seem to be more dodgy that British - and as they share the same methodology it suggests that elements of 'political bias' and/or 'giving the customer what they want' issues might be having a part to play. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:43, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Accurate polling is and should be difficult, given today's technology and strange political climate. I would think it is nearly impossible to obtain a sample space that were both representative and responsive. The era of the 24 hour news cycle has created an environment in which a new kind of content distribution has become fashionable: that I call "synthetic news."

This brand of content is wholly based upon manufactured or factitious information, and is content that is ostensibly a representation of a contemporary state of affairs, based upon numerical conjecture. The polling companies are not selling predictions, they are selling subscriptions. Their product offers a perfect source of content in the modern news cycle. The bias implicit in polls can often not be averaged out, especially with uniformly bogus sample spaces. Liberal and conservative media companies may favor content claiming results that favor their own subscriber's perspectives. If advertisers will sponsor the product, the bias of any single synthetic news article doesn't matter.UncleKrampus (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Except the British are suffering similar issues [both due to the huge cesspit of social media/fake news as well as an electoral system which makes it hard to translate polls into actual seat results] but I believe is more accurate than the American polling. I will offer as a possible reason - money. That the British system isn't infested with a welter of SuperPacs and megadonors doing what the hell they want, so there's less push for biased polling to be done to encourage them. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

olympics manufactroversies

has anyone else on this site been keeping up with the latest manufactroversies in the olympics? if it's not the opening ceremony that some fundies considered blasphemous, it's the transgender athletes hoax. are the olympics a new culture war front? i think it's all smoke and mirrors that distract from the legitimate issues with the sporting event (corruption, displacement of residents in host cities, etc.). The G (talk) 22:07, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

The controversy, while exaggerated by the far-right, about levels of testosterone levels seems semi-legitimate to me (though I admit I'm not familiar with the subject). At least in my country, the media presents it as semi-legitimate.

The opening ceremony angered reactionaries across the world, Russia and Hungary started and represented it as the west "declining". It's fascinating. New world (talk) 22:18, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

i can understand if testosterone levels are too high (doping on peds isn't unheard of in the olympics), but it's still hilarious (and pathetic) how anti-trans bigots are purposefully lying about it. The G (talk) 22:29, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

With the Olympics, there are culture war memes and there is everything else. Paris has a 134 year old cabaret that probably would scandalize the culture warriors (which to everyone else is just a kind of kitsch tourist attraction). It's not surprising that the opening ceremony had something artsy that the cultural warriors would be outraged over. The two Olympic boxers do not appear to be trans or even intersex, but it appears that the trans moral panic crowd is using some shady disqualification from the shady Russians of the International Boxing Association as the basis of their narrative -- the IBA of whom were so shady that the International Olympic Committee (no stranger to shadiness) expelled them in 2023. Culture war addicts are outraged over everything though and swallowing Russian bullshit on social media is par for the course for these folks.^{— Unsigned, by: BobJohnson / talk / contribs}

Fuck Russians. Why do they have to be the arch-conservative? Most people in my country praise Russia and Putin. 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 08:27, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, you have more fun memes like the "calm shooting Dad" meme of shooter Yusuf Dikeç and inexplicable food memes involving chocolate muffins and wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. The heavy metal community also appreciated that the band Gojira actually was featured in the opening ceremony. That was a bit of a daring choice for a ceremony that normally features safe and too often schlocky pop. Sure, the culture warriors didn't get the obvious Marie Antoinette references, but who cares? It is probably best, by and large, to ignore a lot of the culture war outrage; a lot of it is actually pretty sad looking compared to the more fun memes floating around. I don't get why some enjoy being perpetually angry.

(I'll count gymnast Simone Biles as a half-"culture war" story since when she withdrew from the Olympics in 2021, not-exactly-athletic-powerhouse trolls like Charlie Kirk, Piers Morgan, and (unsurprisingly) JD Vance[16] gave her shit about it because that was supposedly weak or something. Of course Biles won an all-around gold this year. So now it is the rest of humanity's turn to give the 2021 negative nancy trolls some shit back.) BobJohnson (talk) 22:59, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

as it turned out, she quit because her aunt unexpectedly died during the olympics [17] (talk about bad timing). charlie, et al. have yet to apologize to her. The G (talk) 01:45, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

It was totally predictable that there would be both controversies and manufactroversies at these Olympic Games, ‘cause they’re at every new reiteration of that event.

1. Any LGBTQetc. or drag person at the opening ceremony was of course going to piss off countries like Russia, Hungary and the rest of their gang.
2. Any emphasis on women’s issues at the opening ceremony was just as predictably going to piss off the “gender warriors” as being “woke”.
3. Conspiracy theory minded Christians have a long history of spotting “satanic” patterns in all kinds of things — just like they spot Jesus’ face on a piece of toast.
4. It’s unsurprising that the women’s boxing thing was going to rile up the anti trans (and especially [[TERF])) segment — even though it has nothing to do with transsexuals. The two pieces of legitimate discussion is whether genetic conditions that might advantage some athletes should be taken into consideration (which is a topic of debate regardless of gender) and whether such advantages are of particular concern in the martial arts, as a seriously overmatched opponent might be badly hurt.
5. Simone Biles simply got “the twisties” before Tokyo 2020, which is a fairly well-known (if little understood) condition for gymnasts. This kind of disorientation is extremely dangerous for such high level athletes due to the potential for serious injuries and thus it was sad and tragic but completely expected that she withdrew in 2020.

I find it really cool that Paris chose to include Gojira in the opening ceremony, not just because they are awesome and I agree that the usual musical choices tend towards completely bland pop, but also because a general broadening of the repertoire is badly needed for such events, if they are to remain musically relevant, or at least attempt to have a “soundtrack” that brings “something extra” to the event. Of course, if the musical backdrop is just going to be the equivalent of elevator music, then by all means continue with the bland and toothless pop. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll let you know if all the Harry Potter books have been removed from display when I next go into my favourite bookshop now that Taiwan supposedly finally hates J.K. Rowling. Spud (talk) 12:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I've just been to my favourite bookshop. Not only are all the Harry Potter books that were prominently on display eight days ago still prominently on display, but they've just put a load more expensive Harry Potter tat (wands and wand shaped-pens) on display too. So my anecdotal evidence suggests that the whole of Taiwan doesn't despise J. K. Rowling yet. Spud (talk) 12:08, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, friend Spud, if there is somewhere that generally hates J.K. Rowling, called the highest paid author of all time, it is nowhere I can locate on a map.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:34, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Historically, I generally think that being a shithead (within certain boundaries and with exceptions, of course) has not done a *huge* amount to impact artist legacy that truly are at the top of their game. But significant amount of such always adds an "asterisk". And this "asterisk" could have a little impact here and there. Richard Wagner is the classic example of this sort of thing, tremendously influential operas, with the "asterisk" that he was a tremendous antisemite, and that has occasionally affected performances and/or people's opinions. At any rate, while Harry Potter was a powerhouse in the 1990s and 2000s, Harry Potter is done, it's been done for over a decade (counting the main books and movies), and the influence is waning (as it naturally does). So it's now all about legacy. Will Rowlings' "asterisk", that is, her massive TERF turn, matter much to Harry Potter's legacy? I don't know. Many may not care. But it certainly won't be seen as universally good, methinks.

One thing about this recent news cycle is the tidbit that Twitter was heavily involved in both the Olympic boxing disinformation as well as disinformation surrounding the recent UK far-right riots. Given that the EU are already planning to fine Twitter for disinformation, I wonder how these recent events will "play out" regarding that angle... BobJohnson (talk) 02:54, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I thought about asking you on that, Spud. It was actually strange to me that the reporting suggested the backlash against her was stronger in Taiwan than Algeria, considering she was going after Khelif much more than Lin, though there did seem to be something of one online against her in Taiwan or that TIME article wouldn't have appeared. In any case my impression is the backlash was worse against her among Algerians and people sympathetic to them, especially since she's decided to double down. I suggest this article to understand why the IBA's allegations are incredibly doubtful: https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-khelif-russia-boxing-b53b1edda21139d14a572bd35ca440e6

Also, the IBA held a bizarre, chaotic press conference yesterday in which they contradicted their own claims about the athletes (they previously said the test they failed wasn't a testosterone test and now they are claiming that was the case): https://time.com/7008028/iba-boxing-gender-controversy-paris-olympics/ Chillpilled (talk) 15:53, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The example of Karl Marx is also very interesting. He is considered, in some quarters, a racist as well as an anti-semite. The political far right is at home with those opinions, while the socialist-leaning shot-callers on the left are disinclined to dump on the paradigm of anti-capitalism. It's hard to find that asterisk in common discourse. As for disinformation, I don't see how that comes into play. Can't Musk tell them to go sit on a hot rock? UncleKrampus (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Atheists, what would you say if you died and met God?

This is kinda old school, HitcheNs, Dawkins, Harris before we all kinda met our heroes, I have always said if I die, and meet God, without having believed, at that moment I will say 'I was wrong'. A lot of atheists say they would challenge God given the opportunity. I'm not mad at God. That's silly, God isn't real. If I died and met God, none of this is God's fault. The angry atheists are really a problem.

I am an atheist leaning towards anti-theism, but I can read a room. If I bit the big one, and was sat in front of God, I would say 'I coulda sworn you didn't exist'. Until then, I will not be upset by an ever changing unknowable ghost. Torrent (talk) 06:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

'If you are an omnipotent being, you will know exactly why I didn't 'believe' in your existence'. There is also the little issue that the 'God' that we are meeting might not be the 'Christian' one... KarmaPolice (talk) 10:43, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

“Okay, okay. You got me.” Patty Pat 11:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Which god? There are over 2,000. Nowhere Man (talk) 11:39, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

(EC) OK, Zeus. Can you explain how changing into a swan helped you to seduce Leda. It's always puzzled me. Wait! Which version of god are we talking about?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:42, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the only way you can ever tell if any god is the real deal is if he takes no interest in your starship. Spud (talk) 12:14, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I've got it! "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier""! Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

"Do you have any chocolate milk?" Carthage (talk) 15:41, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Exactly what god(dess)?. In the case of the Judeo-Christian one, a lot of people believers included would be fucked up ("the gate is narrow", "many are called and few chosen"). I'd prefer Hades (NOT the Disney version) instead and I'd even get to meet Hecate in such case. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Which God? As if it matters? Every God. Weigh my heart against a feather if you have to, the point is I do not believe in any deity, therefore any deity I would meet in an afterlife, any afterlife, I would have to say 'my bad.'. It does not matter which religion you don't believe in, because you don't believe in any of them. Be less mad about it. Torrent (talk) 08:48, 8 August 2024 (UTC)