The Refuge of the Toads

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InfraRedBucket
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63121

Post by InfraRedBucket »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote: If the US government hadn't decided to have a blockade/boycott for so many years, for so many stupid reasons, Cuba would be in a much better place right now.
Cuban Blockade? Trade embargo?
Never stopped the Donald.
A company controlled by Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, secretly conducted business in Communist Cuba during Fidel Castro’s presidency despite strict American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal, according to interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.
http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump ... 4059?rm=eu

ROBOKiTTY
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63122

Post by ROBOKiTTY »

Sunder wrote: I've recently seen people post Churchill's famous "democracy is the worst system of government except for all others that have been tried" and had other people respond as though it were a legitimate criticism of democracy. Both disapprovingly and approvingly I might add.
That quote is no indictment of democracy, but surely what we've learnt in the past few centuries has demonstrated that democracy is at least in dire need of reform.

First, we realized that the simple and intuitive first-past-the-post system is extremely broken, but multiple proposals on replacing it have been rejected in the UK and Canada by popular vote. Arrow's impossibility theorem also shows that no voting system can satisfy all of the following conditions: 1) non-dictatorship, 2) independence of irrelevant alternatives (if voters prefer Obama to Romney, then Nader entering the race shouldn't cause Romney to rank above Obama), 3) Pareto efficiency (if voters unanimously prefer Bush to Hitler, then the result should rank Bush above Hitler).

Second, democracy requires an educated and politically active and savvy electorate. Events of the past few decades have shown that despite massive improvements in education, the electorate is still easily manipulated. Political apathy persists in countries with mandatory voting laws.

Third, democracy, with its focus on approval ratings and need to win re-elections term after term, fosters short-sighted governance and post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc thinking. The reality is that national economies and social progress are like drunken juggernauts with great inertia. They lurch this way and that unpredictably, and any government can at best hope to nudge them in the hoped-for direction. It's rather dubious whether any fluctuations in national economies can ever be rightly attributed to the administration that happens to be at the helm at the time or governed right before the current administration, but that's exactly what the electorate (as well as every administration) does. Politicians are also thus disincentivized from making long-term plans, and the electorate has short memories. Democracy seems ill-equipped to tackle the problems of climate change, pollution, mass extinctions, resource depletion, etc.

Now, a common criticism of democracy is that it's mob rule or tyranny of the majority. However, that supposition ignores group dynamics and human nature. In reality, mob rule is exactly the opposite of both tyranny of the majority and (ideal) democracy, in that mobs always consist of a few leaders and a great number of followers that could be swayed either way. When one speaks of mob rule, the French Revolution is often brought up as an example. However, as I've written in the past, even at the height of the French Revolution, the number of people taking part never even reached a tenth of the population of Paris. Fewer than a thousand people stormed the Bastille, and as many as 7,000 marched on Versailles, while the population of Paris peaked at around 600k in the 18th century and troughed at around 100k. And as the median voter theorem shows, it is the median voter who decides the outcome in majority rule systems. In short, tyranny of the majority is pure fantasy.

How can we fix democracy? Honestly I don't think it's possible. The only hope is to pour money into AI research for the explicit purpose of designing AI to rule over human societies. We need a system that is beholden to no one and nothing but life itself and cold, hard logic.

Sulman
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63123

Post by Sulman »

Look at this cunt

comhcinc
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63124

Post by comhcinc »

Some quick thoughts.

Some $900 hammers are actually secret ops things.

There are no asexual people. Some people just are not that interested in fucking. They don't need a special label.

Fuck Cuba and fuck anyone that blames the America boycott. China wasn't a part of that and China makes everything.

Brive this would have been the better version.


Brive1987
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63125

Post by Brive1987 »

Ape+lust wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:For Com.


[y.outube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rmOhQBloJI[/youtube]
:lol: :lol: :clap: :clap:

http://imgur.com/p2ASwao.jpg

Let's hope Peez didn't leave anything on you that won't wash off :D

Sometimes I think Peez's libido was distorted by porn he found in the woods in 1973. He justs reeks of the skeeziness baked into dirty pictures back then.
:lol: :lol: "the PZ effect"

So I used your graphic in my video which you then used in your pic :dance:

Which makes you the undisputed master in quality AND quantity. :clap:

Brive1987
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63126

Post by Brive1987 »

Com, someone with girl-cock doing a fag deliverance version is disturbing. Just not in the right way.

Old_ones
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63127

Post by Old_ones »

AndrewV69 wrote:
Steersman wrote: But one might suggest that your reluctance to recommend that for either Christianity or Islam betrays a belief that the Quran is actually the literal words of "Gawd Himself" - if they were actually such then you might have a point. But if you insist on that then, on that point at least, you're under the same tent as ISIS:
Oh FFS! Stop trying to read my mind Steers. Focus on what I write please and do not put words into my mouth.

I believe that people are not going to give up their religious belief no matter what force you exert on them. It has to come from within, and if what I strongly suspect is true, it is baked into "our" genetics. Bring people up as secular and they will find a religion to belong to, even if they do not realize it or recognize it. It may be something like feminism, but it is adopted as a religion.

The people who are genuine Atheists, you can regard them as "abnormal". Something "wrong" with their genetics.

BTW:

Muslims in Ontarioioio have tried to bring up Sharia law several time and have been told repeated no. I do not think that is going to fly if only because generally speaking all the professions in Canukistan have a closed shop mentality.

I do not see Sharia Law being offically recognized any time soon in Canukistan.
Bolding mine.

I don't know about the genetic piece (it sounds plausible enough, but I haven't heard any supporting evidence either way) but history supports your assertion that people will not simply give up their religion because of external forces.

This sort of thing has been tried before, by Charlemagne against the pagans, and by the Spanish Inquisition against the Jews. It turns out that even when the options are torture and death or conversion, a significant number of people will pick torture and death. Charlemagne won out against the pagans, but the kind of extermination campaign he waged probably wouldn't be considered acceptable today (maybe even steers wouldn't advocate that).

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63128

Post by ROBOKiTTY »

Why take sides? American sanctions and authoritarian communism were both responsible for Cuba's poverty. China is doing fine because it abandoned communism long ago and went straight to fascism. For a country as large and populous as China, it would take serious incompetence to keep it from becoming a global power anyway, and they're clearly done with their phase of incompetent rulers.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63129

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

So i had plans to watch boxing all day with lots of events this afternoon (for me) coming out of UK and a very promising card tonight with Vasyl Lomachenko in the final fight. So far, zzzZzz zZzzz...

Sometimes i genuinely envy pro wrestling fans. Correct me if im wrong comhcinc, but i bet you don't have to regularly watch several totally boring fights in row and still clinging to the hope that the next one will be better.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63130

Post by ROBOKiTTY »

Old_ones wrote: This sort of thing has been tried before, by Charlemagne against the pagans, and by the Spanish Inquisition against the Jews. It turns out that even when the options are torture and death or conversion, a significant number of people will pick torture and death. Charlemagne won out against the pagans, but the kind of extermination campaign he waged probably wouldn't be considered acceptable today (maybe even steers wouldn't advocate that).
It's arguable in any case whether paganism really was exterminated from Europe. There's a case to be made that it just got subsumed under Christian orthodoxy. The veneration of saints and Mary, the wholesale adoption of old festivals, the paranoia towards witches, etc all suggest paganism just put on new clothes.

Speaking of extermination, the Jews proved particularly resilient to that tactic. Christianity was also banned in Japan for centuries, but the Kakure Kirishitan continued underground until modern times. Interestingly enough, it was after legalization of Christianity that the sect gradually began to die out.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63131

Post by comhcinc »

pro-boxing-fan wrote:So i had plans to watch boxing all day with lots of events this afternoon (for me) coming out of UK and a very promising card tonight with Vasyl Lomachenko in the final fight. So far, zzzZzz zZzzz...

Sometimes i genuinely envy pro wrestling fans. Correct me if im wrong comhcinc, but i bet you don't have to regularly watch several totally boring fights in row and still clinging to the hope that the next one will be better.
I don't watch that much live but there is a lot of wrestling on too. Remember just the WWE has three shows every week. Raw (3 hours) Smackdown (20 hours) & MainEvent (IDK don't watch it isn't really the main event and only has low and mid carders on it) plus NXT ( 1 hour). Then there is TNA, which I don't' watch cause I can't find it on TV plus it's shit, ROH which I catch when I can remember to look for it(1 hour). Then there is Lucha Underground which is another one I don't like.

So yeah there is a lot of boring shit out there and I tend put it on in the background so am aware of the story lines. The WWE, since the brand split are now running two PPVs per month and I don't really pay attention to most of those. I watched Survivor Series from about a week ago and was a lot of very good matches that ended with the return of Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar in an interesting angle.

Malky
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63132

Post by Malky »

pro-boxing-fan wrote:So i had plans to watch boxing all day with lots of events this afternoon (for me) coming out of UK and a very promising card tonight with Vasyl Lomachenko in the final fight. So far, zzzZzz zZzzz...

Sometimes i genuinely envy pro wrestling fans. Correct me if im wrong comhcinc, but i bet you don't have to regularly watch several totally boring fights in row and still clinging to the hope that the next one will be better.
The problem with pro wrestling is not only is it fake but all the fights are boring

dogen
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63133

Post by dogen »

pro-boxing-fan wrote:Interesting.
Wankers.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63134

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

The first openly gay active boxer is fighting right now for a world championship belt but after 5 rounds of another meh fight, the guy look outclass on every level. Still rooting for him though.

Brive1987
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63135

Post by Brive1987 »

PZ is trying to assure his Skeptical audience that no one put a jinx on 2016.

http://i.imgur.com/ZjMUDqz.jpg


I beg to differ.

http://i.imgur.com/DcGBvuz.jpg

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63136

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

Thanks for the input comhcinc. Didn't know there was that much wrestling available on US tv.

So the gay boxer, Orlando Cruz, just lost (TKO, 8th round). His opponent was way bigger than him and it showed.

Aneris
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63137

Post by Aneris »

ROBOKiTTY wrote:
Old_ones wrote: This sort of thing has been tried before, by Charlemagne against the pagans, and by the Spanish Inquisition against the Jews. It turns out that even when the options are torture and death or conversion, a significant number of people will pick torture and death. Charlemagne won out against the pagans, but the kind of extermination campaign he waged probably wouldn't be considered acceptable today (maybe even steers wouldn't advocate that).
It's arguable in any case whether paganism really was exterminated from Europe. There's a case to be made that it just got subsumed under Christian orthodoxy. The veneration of saints and Mary, the wholesale adoption of old festivals, the paranoia towards witches, etc all suggest paganism just put on new clothes.

Speaking of extermination, the Jews proved particularly resilient to that tactic. Christianity was also banned in Japan for centuries, but the Kakure Kirishitan continued underground until modern times. Interestingly enough, it was after legalization of Christianity that the sect gradually began to die out.
In his book “History of the Devil” (1869), Austrian protestant theologian Georg Roskoff illustrates how pagan beliefs never went away in the Holy Roman Empire, and just how much the Catholic Church struggled to teach the germanic heathens how to be proper Christians. It arguably never really worked. They moved dates of their Christian festivities around, so that they would coincide with local customs, but of course that led to blending of traditions. Pagan carried a deity idol on the acre for improved harvest, and clergy found to their dismay they would continue the practice, just with Jesus. There is lots of correspondence of clergy complaining about the locals. And of course: without centralized schooling, spotty infrastructure, and relying entirely on a few people effectively going around, it's a surprise that they had any success.

Effectively, Christianity never really worked for Germans. Martin Luther didn't like Catholicism and kicked off the Reformation, and half the empire followed suit. But even with the modification, the most fervent Evangelicals emerged elsewhere. During the Thirty Years' War and afterwards, superstitions took over, again older folk beliefs were devils and demons took the place of other spirits. After that, other ideologies were infamously more important than Christianity in Germany. And today, the East was polled the least religious place and we celebrate the two most important Christian days with painted eggs and rabbits (Easter) and with decorated trees and bearded guy or spirits (Christmas).

However, Roskoff's writings should be taken with some scepticism, because as a Protestant writing in the 19th century, he has reasons to mock the efforts of the Catholics.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63138

Post by Aneris »

ROBOKiTTY wrote:
Old_ones wrote: This sort of thing has been tried before, by Charlemagne against the pagans, and by the Spanish Inquisition against the Jews. It turns out that even when the options are torture and death or conversion, a significant number of people will pick torture and death. Charlemagne won out against the pagans, but the kind of extermination campaign he waged probably wouldn't be considered acceptable today (maybe even steers wouldn't advocate that).
It's arguable in any case whether paganism really was exterminated from Europe. There's a case to be made that it just got subsumed under Christian orthodoxy. The veneration of saints and Mary, the wholesale adoption of old festivals, the paranoia towards witches, etc all suggest paganism just put on new clothes.

Speaking of extermination, the Jews proved particularly resilient to that tactic. Christianity was also banned in Japan for centuries, but the Kakure Kirishitan continued underground until modern times. Interestingly enough, it was after legalization of Christianity that the sect gradually began to die out.
In his book “History of the Devil” (1869), Austrian protestant theologian Georg Roskoff illustrates how pagan beliefs never went away in the Holy Roman Empire, and just how much the Catholic Church struggled to teach the germanic heathens how to be proper Christians. It arguably never really worked. They moved dates of their Christian festivities around, so that they would coincide with local customs, but of course that led to blending of traditions. Pagan carried a deity idol on the acre for improved harvest, and clergy found to their dismay they would continue the practice, just with Jesus. There is lots of correspondence of clergy complaining about the locals. And of course: without centralized schooling, spotty infrastructure, and relying entirely on a few people effectively going around, it's a surprise that they had any success.

Effectively, Christianity never really worked for Germans. Martin Luther didn't like Catholicism and kicked off the Reformation, and half the empire followed suit. But even with the modification, the most fervent Evangelicals emerged elsewhere. During the Thirty Years' War and afterwards, superstitions took over, again older folk beliefs were devils and demons took the place of other spirits. After that, other ideologies were infamously more important than Christianity in Germany. And today, the East was polled the least religious place and we celebrate the two most important Christian days with painted eggs and rabbits (Easter) and with decorated trees and bearded guy or spirits (Christmas).

However, Roskoff's writings should be taken with some scepticism, because as a Protestant writing in the 19th century, he has reasons to mock the efforts of the Catholics.

Brive1987
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63139

Post by Brive1987 »

Well this is all too serious for me.

I am going to pick my nose and roll snot into small flickable balls.

Tribble
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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63140

Post by Tribble »

Scented Nectar wrote:
katamari Damassi wrote:Speaking of overhyped space games... Where's Scented Nectar? Still playing No Man's Sky?
Hi there! I've got a little over 500 hours in the game, but otherwise am busy with other stuff. I never thought it was overhyped because I never took Sean Murray's words out of context like the rest of the world has. It's pretty much exactly as I expected.

I love the game, and I'm saving up for a PS4. I've already got the game for both versions. I'll have to start over, but I'll have great frame rates. The PC frame rate sucks, even with a pretty good new graphics card.
Nobody took his words out of context. They were lies.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63141

Post by Tribble »

So, my daughter and her boyfriend moved into Ferguson couple of weeks ago. They hired this guy to rake the leaves as they were moving in to their new house and didn't have the time to do it with all the goings-on of moving in. Couple of days ago he came into the house and scared the shit out of my daughter and propositioned her. She told him no, had him leave and told him not to comeback.

Today he was walking around the outside of her house so she called the cops. You know, the Ferguson cops. The most evil police department in the world. She wrote a nice Facebook post about it, though left out the creepy details:

Hey guys... I just had to file a police report for the first time. Don't worry, I'm fine! No one got hurt or anything. Unfortunately my ex-gardener didn't understand the concept of leaving people alone when they tell you to, and also apparently really wanted to get one over on me by stealing my rake, for some reason... anyway, the officers I've been dealing with have been amazing and have made me feel very safe and cared for. So, shout out to the Ferguson police department! Many thanks for taking care of this for me and taking it as seriously as I and my family have been.

Oh, on a less serious note, the officer who responded to my call was the most hipster cop I've ever seen! He looked like he came straight out of Portlandia! I guess that's what happens when Millennials grow up?
It's amazing. They didn't shoot her. They didn't shoot him. He didn't resist arrest or act 'the fool' and there was no police brutality. Just like the vast majority of the 12 million annual arrests that happen every year.

So, she's going to spend the next couple of days with us. They're going to put in a security system. And I ordered Pepper Spray for her. :)

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63142

Post by Tribble »

His words. His claims. His lies.


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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63143

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

Brive1987 wrote:Well this is all too serious for me.

I am going to pick my nose and roll snot into small flickable balls.
Is this pushing too far?

http://i.imgur.com/0HyVj1m.png

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63144

Post by Kirbmarc »

ROBOKiTTY wrote:
<snip a lot of interesting reflections>

How can we fix democracy? Honestly I don't think it's possible. The only hope is to pour money into AI research for the explicit purpose of designing AI to rule over human societies. We need a system that is beholden to no one and nothing but life itself and cold, hard logic.
There are at least two big problems with this approach:

a) An AI complex enough to handle the problem of human governance will probably be likely to be prone to the same problemi of human intelligente, namely irrationality and biases. As Douglas Hofstadter put it we shouldn't be surprised if the AIs we will create will be as confused by the concepts of free will, of taste, of subjectivity and of predictability as we are.

b) People likely won't accept the "benevolent tyranny" of AIs. Someone will always be damaged by decisions which benefit society or the world as a whole, and when they'll be upset they'll find it easy to blame the AIs themselves (it's easy to scapegoat humans, eventi more so to do it to something perceived as "alien"). The result will be likely along the linea of a Butlerian Jihad, the luddist prohibition to create AIs or along the lines of a not-so-benevolent Skynet domination, where the AIs will protect themselves and their goals by enslaving humanity.

There's no "universal fix" to the problems of humanity. There is, and always will be, no perfect system. There's only a choice between evils, and trying to find the lesser evil.

Liberal democracies with decent, stable institutions have proven to be, along with mixed economies and with a society open to scientific advancements, to be the lesser evil. Facts show that this combination produces wealth and better living, so much so that people leave unstable places with weak institutions, to emigrate to "the West" in droves.

Some threats to those systems of lesser evils come from the idealistic perfectionists, who are looking for the perfect system, a mirage. People are attracted by idealism and perfectionism because they offer theorethical quick fixes to social issues.

Perfect gets in the way of good eventi in politics. There'll always be inequality, injustice and crime to a certa in degree.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63145

Post by Really? »

Tribble wrote:So, my daughter and her boyfriend moved into Ferguson couple of weeks ago. They hired this guy to rake the leaves as they were moving in to their new house and didn't have the time to do it with all the goings-on of moving in. Couple of days ago he came into the house and scared the shit out of my daughter and propositioned her. She told him no, had him leave and told him not to comeback.

Today he was walking around the outside of her house so she called the cops. You know, the Ferguson cops. The most evil police department in the world. She wrote a nice Facebook post about it, though left out the creepy details:

Hey guys... I just had to file a police report for the first time. Don't worry, I'm fine! No one got hurt or anything. Unfortunately my ex-gardener didn't understand the concept of leaving people alone when they tell you to, and also apparently really wanted to get one over on me by stealing my rake, for some reason... anyway, the officers I've been dealing with have been amazing and have made me feel very safe and cared for. So, shout out to the Ferguson police department! Many thanks for taking care of this for me and taking it as seriously as I and my family have been.

Oh, on a less serious note, the officer who responded to my call was the most hipster cop I've ever seen! He looked like he came straight out of Portlandia! I guess that's what happens when Millennials grow up?
It's amazing. They didn't shoot her. They didn't shoot him. He didn't resist arrest or act 'the fool' and there was no police brutality. Just like the vast majority of the 12 million annual arrests that happen every year.

So, she's going to spend the next couple of days with us. They're going to put in a security system. And I ordered Pepper Spray for her. :)
Odd. It's almost as if most people don't care about race and gender and are happy to be friends with or hire anyone, but they're deadly fucking serious about not being raped on their kitchen floor.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63146

Post by KenD »

Sulman wrote:Look at this cunt
I don't think I've run into this guy before. I can't say I was particularly surprised to find that he's an academic working at an American university...

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63147

Post by Sunder »

The name rings a bell but I can't place it. He does come off like a total tosspot, especially in failing to spot the L in flood.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63148

Post by Steersman »

feathers wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:
The Czech president of the kingdom of Norway?
Some of the obscure arcana of Twitter: my tweet was in response to one from Anne Marie Waters, and the link for which was visible in it; my link to the Czech story was to underline my "Muslims don't play well with others" (more or less):

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63149

Post by Steersman »

AndrewV69 wrote:
Steersman wrote: But one might suggest that your reluctance to recommend that for either Christianity or Islam betrays a belief that the Quran is actually the literal words of "Gawd Himself" - if they were actually such then you might have a point. But if you insist on that then, on that point at least, you're under the same tent as ISIS:
Oh FFS! Stop trying to read my mind Steers. Focus on what I write please and do not put words into my mouth.
Sorry about that Chief; mea culpa; shoot me at dawn. Maybe I should have said "suggests a belief". Although, I might point out that I did say "if you insist on that ..."; hardly a categorical accusation.

However, you also said:
AndrewV69 wrote:If I would not ask a Christian to piss on the Bible, then it stands to reason I would not as a Muslim to piss on the Koran. Simple as that.
My point or argument, even if poorly made, was that not being willing or prepared to do that suggests you or they hold the contents or supposed divine authors in higher regard than is at all justified. Hardly helps matters to pander to the delusional.
AndrewV69 wrote:I believe that people are not going to give up their religious belief no matter what force you exert on them. It has to come from within, and if what I strongly suspect is true, it is baked into "our" genetics. Bring people up as secular and they will find a religion to belong to, even if they do not realize it or recognize it. It may be something like feminism, but it is adopted as a religion.

The people who are genuine Atheists, you can regard them as "abnormal". Something "wrong" with their genetics.
Force is probably "contra-indicated", at least in some cases. But closing the borders to Muslims in general, or deporting them (Greece, India), or outright banning of the religion (Albania) does, miribile dictu, tend to reduce the incidence of religiously motivated hate crimes. Quite reasonable precedents that we all might give serious thought to.

But I expect also that there are many cases where discussion and debate has weaned many from the "addiction" of religion, cases in point being all the ex-muslims. And I seem to recollect that Damion gave a testimonial to that effect as well. Although I'll concede that many such ex-devotees tend to have replaced one addiction with another, frequently making a "religion" out of the replacement, even atheism. Although there is a significant difference in that the former is predicated on a belief in a divinity who has supposedly promulgated a set of laws that are beyond reproach or modification - Huxley's point.
AndrewV69 wrote:BTW:

Muslims in Ontarioioio have tried to bring up Sharia law several time and have been told repeated no. I do not think that is going to fly if only because generally speaking all the professions in Canukistan have a closed shop mentality.

I do not see Sharia Law being offically recognized any time soon in Canukistan.
Seem to recollect the attempt to implement Sharia law in Canada several years ago - several women's groups in particular, credibly, anathematized the entire concept. But I rather doubt it was anything to do with a "closed shop mentality"; more a case of recognizing the barbarism and inconsistency with secular and democratic values.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63150

Post by pro-boxing-fan »

At this point, we have evidences Marc Randazza is really PZ's lawyer or counsel? I think i remember someone here posted a link to legal document where the info might have come from. Or is it more of a rumour/somebody said thingy?

Anyway, i like the guy.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63151

Post by Barbie's Boyfriend »

The voice of Betty Rubble was done by the same actress who played Cousin Pearl on the Beverly Hillbillies, and Kate on Petticoat Junction. In case y'all were wondering what she looked like IRL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bea_Benaderet

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63152

Post by Sunder »

Don't forget to vote for the Cunties now they're officially open.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63153

Post by Karmakin »

KenD wrote:
Sulman wrote:Look at this cunt
I don't think I've run into this guy before. I can't say I was particularly surprised to find that he's an academic working at an American university...
He's actually the guy that really pushed forward the term "Identitarian", very strong anti-SJW leftist.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63154

Post by Karmakin »

The next tweet puts it in context for what it's worth.

"There's never been a coherent methodology about what types of suffering are indicative of the failure of a broad system. It's pure ideology." IMO is a criticism of both the left and the right.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63155

Post by ROBOKiTTY »

Kirbmarc wrote:
ROBOKiTTY wrote:
<snip a lot of interesting reflections>

How can we fix democracy? Honestly I don't think it's possible. The only hope is to pour money into AI research for the explicit purpose of designing AI to rule over human societies. We need a system that is beholden to no one and nothing but life itself and cold, hard logic.
There are at least two big problems with this approach:

a) An AI complex enough to handle the problem of human governance will probably be likely to be prone to the same problemi of human intelligente, namely irrationality and biases. As Douglas Hofstadter put it we shouldn't be surprised if the AIs we will create will be as confused by the concepts of free will, of taste, of subjectivity and of predictability as we are.
I'm not even talking about general AI, which is still the stuff of science fiction at this point. It doesn't have to start out with anything as futuristic as that. With a modular approach and existing technology, domain-specific systems could be built to work on many things and gradually expand to cover all of government. Now that smart phones are becoming ubiquitous, even in the developing world, people are already putting a lot of trust in artificial intelligence technology, even though they might not think of it as 'AI' anymore. As automation continues to replace human labour, the political and legal establishment will have a harder time justifying its exemption from progress.

The DoNotPay bot was created to help people contest traffic tickets. Following a similar principle and expanding its scope, AI could complement and gradually take over the roles of legislation, judicial review, and even legal representation. So long as the modules are separate, they are free to operate on different principles and thus compete with each other, so we need not dismantle existing checks and balances. With self-driving cars replacing human drivers, the next obvious step would be let computers take a more active role in road design and infrastructure planning.

It's a logical extension of the coming wave of automation.
Kirbmarc wrote: b) People likely won't accept the "benevolent tyranny" of AIs. Someone will always be damaged by decisions which benefit society or the world as a whole, and when they'll be upset they'll find it easy to blame the AIs themselves (it's easy to scapegoat humans, eventi more so to do it to something perceived as "alien"). The result will be likely along the linea of a Butlerian Jihad, the luddist prohibition to create AIs or along the lines of a not-so-benevolent Skynet domination, where the AIs will protect themselves and their goals by enslaving humanity.

There's no "universal fix" to the problems of humanity. There is, and always will be, no perfect system. There's only a choice between evils, and trying to find the lesser evil.

Liberal democracies with decent, stable institutions have proven to be, along with mixed economies and with a society open to scientific advancements, to be the lesser evil. Facts show that this combination produces wealth and better living, so much so that people leave unstable places with weak institutions, to emigrate to "the West" in droves.

Some threats to those systems of lesser evils come from the idealistic perfectionists, who are looking for the perfect system, a mirage. People are attracted by idealism and perfectionism because they offer theorethical quick fixes to social issues.

Perfect gets in the way of good eventi in politics. There'll always be inequality, injustice and crime to a certa in degree.
All true, but humanity is facing some very serious problems in the coming decades, and western society is still largely complacent. Inequality, injustice, and crime rather pale in comparison. People are hardly doing anything about growing antibacterial resistance, a threat that could bring life expectancies back to pre-industrial levels. Humans are running out of phosphorus and arable soil, which could end the Green Revolution and cause billions to starve within centuries. Potable water is running dry, and underground sources are being contaminated by mining and fracking. Immigration only exacerbates the crises. For each one of these issues, humans are still actively making things worse, and there are substantial numbers of people denying the problem even exists. The rightward shift that has been taking place in the anglophone world has just handed more power to the deniers.

The future truly sounds grim if humanity doesn't get its act together, and the only realistic way of achieving that is by making radical changes in government.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63156

Post by comhcinc »

Malky wrote:
pro-boxing-fan wrote:So i had plans to watch boxing all day with lots of events this afternoon (for me) coming out of UK and a very promising card tonight with Vasyl Lomachenko in the final fight. So far, zzzZzz zZzzz...

Sometimes i genuinely envy pro wrestling fans. Correct me if im wrong comhcinc, but i bet you don't have to regularly watch several totally boring fights in row and still clinging to the hope that the next one will be better.
The problem with pro wrestling is not only is it fake but all the fights are boring

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63157

Post by Skep tickle »

Karmakin wrote:
KenD wrote:
Sulman wrote:Look at this cunt
[.tweet][/tweet]
[.tweet][/tweet][.tweet][/tweet]

I don't think I've run into this guy before. I can't say I was particularly surprised to find that he's an academic working at an American university...
He's actually the guy that really pushed forward the term "Identitarian", very strong anti-SJW leftist.
Sunder wrote:The name rings a bell but I can't place it. ...
Name's been mentioned here before: search.php?keywords=deboer

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63158

Post by pro-boxing-fan »


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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63159

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

I voted for the Cunties.

Now, I just need to figure out what MVP stands for. Skep Tickle was not very helpful in that thread...

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63160

Post by comhcinc »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:I voted for the Cunties.

Now, I just need to figure out what MVP stands for. Skep Tickle was not very helpful in that thread...

Most Valuable Player.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63161

Post by Kirbmarc »

Aneris wrote:In his book “History of the Devil” (1869), Austrian protestant theologian Georg Roskoff illustrates how pagan beliefs never went away in the Holy Roman Empire, and just how much the Catholic Church struggled to teach the germanic heathens how to be proper Christians. It arguably never really worked. They moved dates of their Christian festivities around, so that they would coincide with local customs, but of course that led to blending of traditions. Pagan carried a deity idol on the acre for improved harvest, and clergy found to their dismay they would continue the practice, just with Jesus. There is lots of correspondence of clergy complaining about the locals. And of course: without centralized schooling, spotty infrastructure, and relying entirely on a few people effectively going around, it's a surprise that they had any success.

Effectively, Christianity never really worked for Germans. Martin Luther didn't like Catholicism and kicked off the Reformation, and half the empire followed suit. But even with the modification, the most fervent Evangelicals emerged elsewhere. During the Thirty Years' War and afterwards, superstitions took over, again older folk beliefs were devils and demons took the place of other spirits. After that, other ideologies were infamously more important than Christianity in Germany. And today, the East was polled the least religious place and we celebrate the two most important Christian days with painted eggs and rabbits (Easter) and with decorated trees and bearded guy or spirits (Christmas).

However, Roskoff's writings should be taken with some scepticism, because as a Protestant writing in the 19th century, he has reasons to mock the efforts of the Catholics.
Southern Italy is still by and large pagan, eventi though it was under the domination of Catholic kings and clerics for centuries.

Catholics in Southern Italy pay lip service to christian monotheism but in practice worship local saints (often local gods given a Christian background like San Gennaro/the Vesuvius in Naples) and local preachers who are sanctified/deified (the Padre Pio cult is massive and easily eclipses devotion to Jesus).

They also believe in jinks, demons and some forms of witchcraft even though the church officially scoffs on those beliefs.

I suspect that Christianity never truly eradicated paganism, especially in the country, where people were less likely to be educated and exposed to the cathechism.

The Catholic church is still based on Roman institutions and by and larve absorbs local deities by renaming and rebranding them, just like the Romans did to a certain extent. The same is true, in a differenti fashion, for Eastern Orthodoxy.

The protestant sects are more fragmented, localized and dependent on the charisma of their preachers. They tend to be based more on the Jewish preacher/monotheism model and it's not a coincidence that they rely more on the Old testament than the Orthodox/Catholics.

And then there are hybrids like Santeria where the pagan/polytheistic roots are more explicit, or new cults like Mormonism where Christianity is localized and expanded upon.

Despite its obsessive insistence on monotheism even Islam isn't immune from polytheism: djinns, demone and angels are old Arab/Berber/Indian/South-Eastern Asians deities given new names and titles.

Religione rarely die out: they change, hybridate, develop in secret, etc.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63162

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

Kirb, I think your spellchecker is set to Italian...

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63163

Post by MarcusAu »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:Kirb, I think your spellchecker is set to Italian...
What-a mistake-a to make-a.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63164

Post by HunnyBunny »

Good point Phil. I asked Google to translate this page into Italian. It finally all makes sense.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63165

Post by HunnyBunny »

I think we have a new record from the good Doctor:
I’ve noted recently that often enough Ehrman does not read the peer reviewed literature on the subjects he has an emotional investment in—not just mine (which is bad enough, since my book is not only the latest but the only peer reviewed book ever published on the question of the historicity of Jesus in nearly a hundred years), but even articles I cite from the peer reviewed literature that support me (likewise the peer reviewed literature that supports others he is intent on disagreeing with, from Murdock to Doherty to Goodacre).
Yes folks, there you have it, FOUR peer-reviewed mentions in the same sentence. Bravo Duck, bravo.

Link is non-existent because I can't be arsed making an archive. It's the 2nd post on his blog thingy.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63166

Post by KenD »

Karmakin wrote:The next tweet puts it in context for what it's worth.

"There's never been a coherent methodology about what types of suffering are indicative of the failure of a broad system. It's pure ideology." IMO is a criticism of both the left and the right.
In this case it strikes me as a pretty blatant false equivalence - the fact that poverty exists in capitalist countries like America doesn't make comparisons with the level of failure in communist states a matter of "pure ideology".

To me it looks similar to the cultural relativist apologetics some people engage in for Islam. For example, people who bring up fringe Christian extremists like the Westboro Baptist Church when someone criticises the death penalty for homosexuality in countries like Saudi Arabia. Criticising both, as if one causes as much harm as the other, is a damage control tactic for the ideology they're interesting in defending.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63167

Post by KiwiInOz »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:I voted for the Cunties.

Now, I just need to figure out what MVP stands for. Skep Tickle was not very helpful in that thread...
Mostly Vertical Phil.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63168

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

KiwiInOz wrote:
Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:I voted for the Cunties.

Now, I just need to figure out what MVP stands for. Skep Tickle was not very helpful in that thread...
Mostly Vertical Phil.
That's pure fiction.

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Capitalism

#63169

Post by Aneris »

A nitpick: many people confuse capitalism with decentral ecenomy where actors buy and sell using currency. Capitalism is a far more specific system:
Wikipedia wrote:Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets. In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investment is determined by the owners of the factors of production in financial and capital markets, and prices and the distribution of goods are mainly determined by competition in the market.
It's a bit of an ideological trick to tell people buying and selling is already capitalism, set against the dreadful Soviet Communism. That has arguably numbed the imagination of most. I'm not in favour of radical utopia and believe, like Karl Popper did, that sweeping changes never worked out. But refomative transformation are necessary and inevietable. This is not the end of history. Of course, that's resembling the “it never worked before” killer argument meant to shut down trying something new, but in this case it's a well-founded one, that is not only informed by history, but in my view also supported by every engineering task, ever. Nothing fell out of the sky, not the designs honed by evolution over the aeons, no longboat, and no bridge. Inherent in that thinking lies a confusion of design with artefact. One particular bridge is drawn from scratch, but bare a few innovations, everything going into it is the robust application of storm-tested knowledge, which is a stable, slowly evolving body of useful information.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63170

Post by feathers »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:So what?

At least the tourism industry might get a new kick. And let's be honest, that's the only important thing out there.
I don't know, but I kind of frown on sleeping with an AirBnB host knowing that the nice hacienda next door is used to stick electric probes up someone's ass.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63171

Post by feathers »

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:
(just because I'm not a horndog and I don't watch porn or masturbate)
I'm so, so sorry. :(
Come now, you have no need for porn and automanipulation if the Swiss girls lie begging at your feet every day.

http://worldcupgirls.net/girls-pics/swi ... 010_03.jpg

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63172

Post by gurugeorge »

Screening of the Red Pill by University of Western Sydney Sceptics Society cancelled:-


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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63173

Post by screwtape »

Further silliness over l'affaire Galloway in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/boo ... e33049536/

Students who haven't been able to write their thesis for over a year simply because they heard it happened, someone who feels her health is worse because she heard about it, and a professor who wouldn't want to be alone in a room with anyone who signed a letter asking Galloway receive due process. Best of all, a petition demanding that people who signed the letter remove their signatures from it. We have moved from saying someone's opinion is wrong to saying they must change it. The enlightenment is officially over.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63174

Post by feathers »

Brive1987 wrote:PZ is trying to assure his Skeptical audience that no one put a jinx on 2016.

http://i.imgur.com/ZjMUDqz.jpg
Probably ninja'ed, but how can Trump "continue" to do something he hasn't even started yet?

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63175

Post by feathers »

Kirbmarc wrote:
ROBOKiTTY wrote:
<snip a lot of interesting reflections>

How can we fix democracy? Honestly I don't think it's possible. The only hope is to pour money into AI research for the explicit purpose of designing AI to rule over human societies. We need a system that is beholden to no one and nothing but life itself and cold, hard logic.
There are at least two big problems with this approach:
1. Steersman

2. Look at Steersman ferchrissake!!

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63176

Post by Stout »

Months ago, that BE DEUTSCH! [Achtung! Germans on the rise!] video made a great impression and Idl like to respond in kind with this one from the same account. Fuck knowledge to learn how to properly imbed, I'm a lazy slob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZc8tBtIDhI

I've noticed I can no longer comment as "guest" and I'm wondering why ? Did this place ever get seriously trolled and I just missed it ?
I'm familiar with that Nec something or other, and IIRC there was another one in the same vein but I've never noticed any SJWs coming in here and going full McIntosh which I was kinda sorta hoping for.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63177

Post by sp0tlight »

Karmakin wrote:He's actually the guy that really pushed forward the term "Identitarian", very strong anti-SJW leftist.
You, Freddie is a pretty decent writer and you can't just throw him with ctrl-left. He's a witch for them.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63178

Post by Spike13 »

[quote="Brive1987"]PZ is trying to assure his Skeptical audience that no one put a jinx on 2016.

http://i.imgur.com/ZjMUDqz.jpg


You're right Pizzy, there is no hope! (Not for you) now you need to do the right thing.... stick your head in the plastic bag and draw the belt around your neck tight....think of Becky and fap yourself to oblivion.... it's about the most dignified way for you to go.

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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63179

Post by fuzzy »


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Re: The Refuge of the Toads

#63180

Post by Lsuoma »

HunnyBunny wrote:I think we have a new record from the good Doctor:
I’ve noted recently that often enough Ehrman does not read the peer reviewed literature on the subjects he has an emotional investment in—not just mine (which is bad enough, since my book is not only the latest but the only peer reviewed book ever published on the question of the historicity of Jesus in nearly a hundred years), but even articles I cite from the peer reviewed literature that support me (likewise the peer reviewed literature that supports others he is intent on disagreeing with, from Murdock to Doherty to Goodacre).
Yes folks, there you have it, FOUR peer-reviewed mentions in the same sentence. Bravo Duck, bravo.

Link is non-existent because I can't be arsed making an archive. It's the 2nd post on his blog thingy.
He's also an illiterate cunt because "peer reviewed" (sic) is a compound adjective and should be hyphenated.

Locked