In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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feathers
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6061

Post by feathers »

Kirbmarc wrote:
ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:Right, but what the fuck point was Dawkins trying to make with that? He is a bit of an arse.
I think that Dawkins want to make a joke about how people have no trouble believing that Newtonian physics, while not perfect, are a very good model to describe the motion of objects in space, but the same people seem to doubt that sexual dimorphism exists and has a biological origin explained by the theory of evolution.

It's not a very good argument, to be fair.
It's the pendant to the phenomenon that the religious are mostly happy to accept science when it comes to physics, sometimes even evolution where it applies to animals, but that humans somehow form an exception to the natural laws.

Dawkins wants to demonstrate here that the SJWs have gone down the same steep crevice without a rope. And PZ the biologist is willing to oblige.

feathers
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6062

Post by feathers »

"Can we bring our dog in for breakfast?"
"Only if you buy your drinks here."

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by MarcusAu »

And so what anyway - Dawkins can make a joke (or fail at making one) - contrary to what people might think (especially with regards the celestial configuration) - it's not the end of the world.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6064

Post by paddybrown »

Kirbmarc wrote:
Steersman wrote:Asserting that one's "holy book" [ha!] is quite literally the last word of Gawd, and is "perfect and unchangeable" in every last jot and tittle, looks like a very different critter - of an entirely different phyla - from accepting that it is at best merely inspired by a deity of some sort.
I have to admit that I'm starting to think that Steersman has a point here (maybe just because he actually bothered to read the sources this time :lol: ). Not that Christianity is intrinsically better than islam, but that it had the seeds of a potential reformation due to its ambiguities about secular authorities and divine inspiration. Not that literalism didn't or doesn't exist in Christianity, but there's marginally more wiggle room for interpretation.

In a way islam apologists are right and islam is a more refined form of Christianity (since Christianity predates islam by centuries it makes sense) with less ambiguities, less room for doubt, less ability to support change if pushed in the right direction. This makes it worse, like a mutation for a strain of TBC that makes it resistant to anti-biotics. Christianity seems to be more vulnerable to the immune system of secularization, while islam may have a protective shell that needs to be broken.
Christianity is vulnerable to secularism, because it has the seeds of secularism in it. There's a lot of stuff in the New Testament about God judging you by your motivations as much as by your actions, and how being outwardly pious doesn't count in God's eyes if you don't mean it, or if you're a hypocrite. It follows that you can't successfully force people to be Christians, because God knows what they're really thinking and will reject them. After the Reformation, when people actually started reading the texts, that eventually had to be acknowledged.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6065

Post by paddybrown »

Sunder wrote:Peeking at Jerry's, it's a bit depressing how many people seem to honestly believe that the whole statue crisis can be defused by migrating them to museums. I have a hard time believing anyone who's given the subject more than a tenth of a second of thought honestly believes that will stop calls for their outright destruction.

Also apropos of nothing Ben's still a fat-headed windbag.
The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6066

Post by paddybrown »

And welcome back Pitchguest, fingers crossed for you da.

gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6067

Post by gurugeorge »

paddybrown wrote:
Sunder wrote:Peeking at Jerry's, it's a bit depressing how many people seem to honestly believe that the whole statue crisis can be defused by migrating them to museums. I have a hard time believing anyone who's given the subject more than a tenth of a second of thought honestly believes that will stop calls for their outright destruction.

Also apropos of nothing Ben's still a fat-headed windbag.
The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's actually literally insane. It really is a mass hysteria.

Brive1987
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6068

Post by Brive1987 »

MarcusAu wrote:Governments giving gay/homosexual relationships the same legal status as heterosexual ones.

vs.

Extra-Governmental groups exercising vigilante justice.


...I'm really not getting the analogy.
I think you do. Think "unstated major premise" on Emma's part.

Ask whether the redefinition of the term "marriage" could maybe impact people,other than gays. Contemplate why white people, at no risk of lynching, may have an opinion and may be impacted by the act.
Also look on with awe at Emma's too-clever-by-half high school debating tactics.

CommanderTuvok
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6069

Post by CommanderTuvok »

paddybrown wrote:The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's So Wong.

;)

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by MarcusAu »

paddybrown wrote:And welcome back Pitchguest, fingers crossed for you da.
I haven't thought of that in a dog's age




I enjoyed it at the time - but the music in the trailer is a bit much...perhaps I'll watch it again.

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6071

Post by MarcusAu »

Brive1987 wrote:
I think you do. Think "unstated major premise" on Emma's part.

Ask whether the redefinition of the term "marriage" could maybe impact people,other than gays. Contemplate why white people, at no risk of lynching, may have an opinion and may be impacted by the act.
Also look on with awe at Emma's too-clever-by-half high school debating tactics.
The only thing I'm sure of is that this is not much ROI from following such media personalities.

SM1957
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6072

Post by SM1957 »

Muslims kill tourists in Barcelona.

The Guardian says there are too many tourists, they are the ones ruining the place

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -barcelona

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6073

Post by Hunt »

gurugeorge wrote:
paddybrown wrote:
Sunder wrote:Peeking at Jerry's, it's a bit depressing how many people seem to honestly believe that the whole statue crisis can be defused by migrating them to museums. I have a hard time believing anyone who's given the subject more than a tenth of a second of thought honestly believes that will stop calls for their outright destruction.

Also apropos of nothing Ben's still a fat-headed windbag.
The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's actually literally insane. It really is a mass hysteria.
Oh, that's nothing. We'll know they've gone full retard when they pull this down:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ngeles.jpg

shoutinghorse
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6074

Post by shoutinghorse »

Salzburg cant name a street after its most famous woman because she used to smack her kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-4101 ... -von-trapp

gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6075

Post by gurugeorge »

John D wrote: and... this is where the regular Christian gets is right. We are all flawed.... and we all need to be forgiven from time to time. And... the non-Christian left has NO forgiveness. Muslims have no forgiveness. Commies have no forgiveness.

I will pick the simple Christian any day of the week.
This has been my trajectory. I used to HATE Christianity as a young socialist, but over the years I've come to think that there's a lot of rationalist mythology around it - necessary for psychological self-bolstering as rationalists were pulling away from religion and carving out a secular space in culture, but not actually true.

The key to understanding Christianity is that it has tremendous continuity with the pagan culture of antiquity that came before it. Christianity has some Jewish elements, obviously, but by far the larger part of the effective part of Christianity (the part that worked on a day to day level in governance and personal psychology) was the Graeco-Roman culture and philosophy that Christianity inherited.

So when one disses Christianity, one is being rather silly, in this way: one is actually dissing an ancient culture that's been fairly continuous for a long time, at least as old as Buddhism, that's quite continuous with our modern scientific culture.

For example, the inheritance of the Stoic concept of Logos in Christianity, and of the philosophical armories of Plato via St. Augustine, and Aristotle via St. Thomas Aquinas, is what led Christians to view the world as intelligible and amenable to scientific investigation. Contrary to the mythology, the Roman Catholic establishment in the Middle Ages (during the Scholastic period) was generally pro-science.

The advance in science wasn't any sort of "clean break" with what came before, it was rather a particular focussing of attention on the kind of cause that's amenable to quantitative analysis, Aristotelian "efficient cause," and the bracketing of questions about "final cause."

Over time, final causes dropped out of the picture entirely, which is what led to secularism: without final causes and Aristotelian/Scholastic distinctions like actuality/potentiality, the Cosmological Argument has no logical force, and devolves to the easily-dismissable Paley type of "Argument from Design".

Brive1987
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6076

Post by Brive1987 »

MarcusAu wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:
I think you do. Think "unstated major premise" on Emma's part.

Ask whether the redefinition of the term "marriage" could maybe impact people,other than gays. Contemplate why white people, at no risk of lynching, may have an opinion and may be impacted by the act.
Also look on with awe at Emma's too-clever-by-half high school debating tactics.
The only thing I'm sure of is that this is not much ROI from following such media personalities.
To be fair, EmmaA does provide more dividend that others on the watch list.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... uLuSw1zAWa

Yes Wastson, I mean you and your rancid hipster sneer.

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by MarcusAu »

I suspect the history of christianity is a lot more interesting than what is generally taught.

Growing up catholic - not much attention was given to the gnostics or the mythicists - though the Council of Nicea and the Diet of Worms did get a mention.

The coptics, shakers, quakers, cathars, Eastern Orthodox and the mormons (if they still count) as well as the protestants, catholics, baptists & methodists all can be brought under the broad umbrella of christian - but what do they have in common? If it's just a shared community then people can become hindus, buddists, jains or new-agers for the same effect.

Maybe I'm too literal - but I always thought it was a bit disrespectful to say you believe something when you don't - and probably many self identified christians would agree.

John D
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6078

Post by John D »

gurugeorge wrote:
John D wrote: and... this is where the regular Christian gets is right. We are all flawed.... and we all need to be forgiven from time to time. And... the non-Christian left has NO forgiveness. Muslims have no forgiveness. Commies have no forgiveness.

I will pick the simple Christian any day of the week.
This has been my trajectory. I used to HATE Christianity as a young socialist, but over the years I've come to think that there's a lot of rationalist mythology around it - necessary for psychological self-bolstering as rationalists were pulling away from religion and carving out a secular space in culture, but not actually true.

The key to understanding Christianity is that it has tremendous continuity with the pagan culture of antiquity that came before it. Christianity has some Jewish elements, obviously, but by far the larger part of the effective part of Christianity (the part that worked on a day to day level in governance and personal psychology) was the Graeco-Roman culture and philosophy that Christianity inherited.

So when one disses Christianity, one is being rather silly, in this way: one is actually dissing an ancient culture that's been fairly continuous for a long time, at least as old as Buddhism, that's quite continuous with our modern scientific culture.

For example, the inheritance of the Stoic concept of Logos in Christianity, and of the philosophical armories of Plato via St. Augustine, and Aristotle via St. Thomas Aquinas, is what led Christians to view the world as intelligible and amenable to scientific investigation. Contrary to the mythology, the Roman Catholic establishment in the Middle Ages (during the Scholastic period) was generally pro-science.

The advance in science wasn't any sort of "clean break" with what came before, it was rather a particular focussing of attention on the kind of cause that's amenable to quantitative analysis, Aristotelian "efficient cause," and the bracketing of questions about "final cause."

Over time, final causes dropped out of the picture entirely, which is what led to secularism: without final causes and Aristotelian/Scholastic distinctions like actuality/potentiality, the Cosmological Argument has no logical force, and devolves to the easily-dismissable Paley type of "Argument from Design".
Yeah - I also had a "I hate Christians" period in my life. I jumped onto Hitchen's idea that religion poisons everything for a while. Then I read more Dennett who believes religion was necessary to build modern morality. I just think Dennett is more correct than Hitchens. I think religion can mess things up, but it did create our ethical foundations. The basic foundation of modern western philosophy is that each individual has value. I just don't think you can end up with this kind of idea without the preceeding idea that god values every human.

I always enjoyed reading the Bible, so I think I was never a total Christian hater.

I highly recommend everyone read Ecclesiastes. Do yourself a favor and read it. I believe it is one of the greatest things ever written. Below is the start of the King James version.... but modern versions are also good.

http://christiananswers.net/bible/eccl1.html

Keating
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6079

Post by Keating »

Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.

InfraRedBucket
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6080

Post by InfraRedBucket »

shoutinghorse wrote:Salzburg cant name a street after its most famous woman because she used to smack her kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-4101 ... -von-trapp
I have never watched The Sound of Music.

Kirbmarc
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6081

Post by Kirbmarc »

gurugeorge wrote:
paddybrown wrote:
Sunder wrote:Peeking at Jerry's, it's a bit depressing how many people seem to honestly believe that the whole statue crisis can be defused by migrating them to museums. I have a hard time believing anyone who's given the subject more than a tenth of a second of thought honestly believes that will stop calls for their outright destruction.

Also apropos of nothing Ben's still a fat-headed windbag.
The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's actually literally insane. It really is a mass hysteria.
Robert Edward Lee
hanging from a tree
no statue for a racist
he was also a sadist
Jefferson is next
with a slave he once had sex
To hell with Old George Washington
he was a total waste of oxygen
Blowing up the Rushmore
is going to be our act four
Before we move to take down Gandhi
Indian outside, inside a honkey
(It's true, we might be white
but we are doing what is right)
Then we'll finally have justice
with role models that can trusted
like the feminist muslim, Linda Sarsour
or the political refugee Assata Shakur.

deLurch
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6082

Post by deLurch »

Keating wrote:Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.
I haven't watched a single one. Are they really that interesting?

As far a Christianity goes, keep in mind he isn't a theologian, doesn't go to church, and is in love with mythology. That may explain why you find value in his words on the bible.

deLurch
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6083

Post by deLurch »

CommanderTuvok wrote:
paddybrown wrote:The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's So Wong.

;)
I think the world is well overdo for a Civil War-Kung Fu movie mashup. I would love me some kick ass kung fu Robert Lee action.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6084

Post by Bhurzum »

Interesting clip of Ricky Gervais debating racism with a black dude...



(The host is a fucking bellend - talk about fanning the flames!)

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6085

Post by Bhurzum »

deLurch wrote:I think the world is well overdo for a Civil War-Kung Fu movie mashup. I would love me some kick ass kung fu Robert Lee action.
Sort of, kinda, almost in the same ballpark:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067770/

It's got Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune in it, what more could you want?

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/12/70/29/1270 ... movies.jpg

Mind you, several of Kurosawa's films were ported over to the West and turned into cowboy flicks, so... :dance:

Keating
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6086

Post by Keating »

deLurch wrote:
Keating wrote:Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.
I haven't watched a single one. Are they really that interesting?

As far a Christianity goes, keep in mind he isn't a theologian, doesn't go to church, and is in love with mythology. That may explain why you find value in his words on the bible.
I still don't understand what I find fascinating about Peterson. There are times he can literally move me to tears. I've never had that before, and I'm trying to work out what exactly it is that's speaking to me. I certainly agree with his core message about the way to live. There's certainly things I disagree with him on, but for the time being I just like listening to him talk.

Lsuoma
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6087

Post by Lsuoma »

Kirbmarc wrote:
gurugeorge wrote:
paddybrown wrote:
The hysteria has gone so far that ESPN have taken an Asian-American commentator off a big football game in Virginia because his name is Robert Lee. Would putting him in a museum help?
That's actually literally insane. It really is a mass hysteria.
Robert Edward Lee
hanging from a tree
no statue for a racist
he was also a sadist
Jefferson is next
with a slave he once had sex
To hell with Old George Washington
he was a total waste of oxygen
Blowing up the Rushmore
is going to be our act four
Before we move to take down Gandhi
Indian outside, inside a honkey
(It's true, we might be white
but we are doing what is right)
Then we'll finally have justice
with role models that can trusted
like the feminist muslim, Linda Sarsour
or the political refugee Assata Shakur.
Plagiarizing Yemmi Fisting can get you a ban..

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6088

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

MacGruberKnows wrote:
she literally jumped for joy in a floral corset laced sundress with a tiered skirt by Rodarte because she’s a video gamer at heart and it touched her inner Daenerys.
Rodarte is all about the video-gamer inner Daenerys.
I'd like to touch Daenerys' inner Daenerys.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6089

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

AndrewV69 wrote: I believe I heard somewhere that Lee freed his slaves.
I believe someone did that for him.

Wild Zontargs
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6090

Post by Wild Zontargs »

We Live in Fear of the Online Mobs
We Live in Fear of the Online Mobs
Internet shaming spreads everywhere and lives forever. We need a way to fight it.
By Megan McArdle

James Damore, the author of the notorious Google memo, has had his 15 minutes of fame. In six months, few of us will be able to remember his name. But Google will remember -- not the company, but the search engine. For the rest of his life, every time he meets someone new or applies for a job, the first thing they will learn about him, and probably the only thing, is that he wrote a document that caused an internet uproar.

The internet did not invent the public relations disaster, or the summary firing to make said disaster go away. What the internet changed is the scale of the disasters, and the number of people who are vulnerable to them, and the cold implacable permanence of the wreckage they leave behind.

Try to imagine the Damore story happening 20 years ago. It’s nearly impossible, isn’t it? Take a company of similar scope and power to Google -- Microsoft, say. Would any reporter in 1997 have cared that some Microsoft engineer she’d never heard of had written a memo his co-workers considered sexist? Probably not. It was more likely a problem for Microsoft HR, or just angry water-cooler conversations.

Even if the reporter had cared, what editor would have run the story? On an executive, absolutely -- but a random engineer who had no power over corporate policy? No one would have wasted precious, expensive column inches reporting it. And if for some reason they had, no other papers would have picked it up. Maybe the engineer would have been fired, maybe not, but he’d have gotten another job, having probably learned to be a little more careful about what he said to co-workers.

Compare to what has happened in this internet era: The memo became public, and the internet erupted against the author, quite publicly executing his economic and social prospects. I doubt Damore will ever again be employable at anything resembling his old salary and status. (Unless maybe a supporter hires him to make a political statement.)

This kind of private coercion is not entirely new, of course. Community outrage cost plenty of people their jobs or their businesses in the old days. But those were local scandals. Rarely would someone's notoriety follow them if they moved to another city.

Over time more and more people have suffered national stigma that outlasts their 15 minutes of fame. Cable news accelerated this: Think of Monica Lewinsky in 1998. The internet transformed the degree of scrutiny, the extent of its reach, and the shelf life of the scandal, so much as to make it different not just in degree, but in kind.

Whenever a new form of power arises, we need to think about how to safeguard individual liberty against it.

In the early days of Twitter, I used to say that it was a bit like I imagined living in a forager band to be: You were immersed in a constant stream of conversation from the people you knew.

Ten years later, I still think that’s the right metaphor, but not in the way that I meant it then. Back then I saw Twitter as a tool for building social bonds. These days, I see it as a tool for social coercion.

Forager bands do not have or need police. They have social coercion so powerful that it is just as effective as a gun to the head. If people don’t like you, they might not take care of you when you’re injured, at which point, you’ll die. Or they won’t share food with you when your hunting doesn’t go well, at which point, you’ll die. Or they’ll shun you, at which point … you get the idea.

We now effectively live in a forager band filled with people we don’t know. It's like the world’s biggest small town, replete with all the things that mid-century writers hated about small-town life: the constant gossip, the prying into your neighbor’s business, the small quarrels that blow up into lifelong feuds. We’ve replicated all of the worst features of those communities without any of the saving graces, like the mercy that one human being naturally offers another when you’re face to face and can see their suffering.

And, of course, you can't move away. There’s only one internet, and we’re all stuck here for the rest of our lives.

Private coercion starts looking less and less like a necessary, if sometimes regrettably deployed, tool of local community-building. Without the tempering instincts of intimate contact, without the ability to exit, it looks a lot more like brute, impersonal government coercion -- the sort that the earliest and highest U.S. laws were written to restrain.

Given the way the internet is transforming private coercion, I’m not sure we can maintain the hard, bright line that classical liberalism drew between state coercion and private versions. We may have to start talking about two kinds of problematic coercion:

1) Government coercion, which is still the worst, because it is backed up with guns, but is also the most readily addressed because we have a legal framework to limit government power.

2) Mass private coercion, which even if not quite as bad, still needs to have safeguards put in place to protect individual liberty. But we have no legal or social framework for those.

I find myself in more and more conversations that sound as if we’re living in one of the later-stage Communist regimes. Not the ones that shot people, but the ones that discovered you didn’t need to shoot dissidents, as long as you could make them pariahs -- no job, no apartment, no one willing to be seen talking to them in public.

The people I have these conversations with are terrified that something they say will inadvertently offend the self-appointed powers-that-be. They’re afraid that their email will be hacked, and stray snippets will make them the next one in the internet stocks. They’re worried that some opinion they hold now will unexpectedly be declared anathema, forcing them to issue a humiliating public recantation, or risk losing their friends and their livelihood.

Social media mobs are not, of course, as pervasive and terrifying as the Communist Party spies. But the Soviet Union is no more, and the mobs are very much with us, so it’s their power we need to think about.

That power keeps growing, as does the number of subjects they want to declare off-limits to discussion. And unless it is checked, where does it lead? To something depressingly like the old Communist states: a place where your true opinions about anything more important than tea cozies are only ever aired to a tiny circle of highly trusted friends; where all statements made to or by the people outside that circle are assumed by everyone to be lies; where almost every conversation is a guessing game that both sides lose. It is one element of Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale" that does resonate today: Any two acquaintances must remain so mutually suspicious that every day, they can discuss only the pleasant weather and their common fealty to the regime.

It’s some comfort that the social media mobs don’t have guns. But that raises the most troubling question of all: how to disarm them.
How to deal with this without giving whoever happens to be in power a mass-censorship stick they can wave around is left as an exercise for the reader.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6091

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

deLurch wrote: I think the world is well overdo for a Civil War-Kung Fu movie mashup. I would love me some kick ass kung fu Robert Lee action.
amanda_marcotte_samurai.jpg
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MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6092

Post by MarcusAu »

The closest I can think of is 'Hell in the Pacific'

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6093

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

InfraRedBucket wrote: I have never watched The Sound of Music.
You're in luck! Rumor has it a director's cut is about to be released, with all the nude scenes restored.

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6094

Post by MarcusAu »


John D
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by John D »

Keating wrote:
deLurch wrote:
Keating wrote:Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.
I haven't watched a single one. Are they really that interesting?

As far a Christianity goes, keep in mind he isn't a theologian, doesn't go to church, and is in love with mythology. That may explain why you find value in his words on the bible.
I still don't understand what I find fascinating about Peterson. There are times he can literally move me to tears. I've never had that before, and I'm trying to work out what exactly it is that's speaking to me. I certainly agree with his core message about the way to live. There's certainly things I disagree with him on, but for the time being I just like listening to him talk.
It is because we are finding the old writing. And it is fantastic. I feel the same way you do.

Ecclesastes Chapter 9:
4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

8 Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

9 Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

paddybrown
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by paddybrown »

deLurch wrote:
Keating wrote:Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.
I haven't watched a single one. Are they really that interesting?

As far a Christianity goes, keep in mind he isn't a theologian, doesn't go to church, and is in love with mythology. That may explain why you find value in his words on the bible.
For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by MarcusAu »

paddybrown wrote:
For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.
Well as he says for himself:


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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6098

Post by deLurch »


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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by deLurch »

paddybrown wrote:For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.
To myself, I have described that as being hippy-dippy like Sam Harris.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by gurugeorge »

The trouble with the "old writing" from the Rousseauian Left point of view is that it hints there's such a thing as (a relatively-stable-over-time) human nature, which is a concept that is strengst verboten among all right-thinking people. (Same reason evol psych is the devil's work too.)

For if there is such a thing as human nature, it means that at least some part of the Right-wing "tragic" vision of humanity is correct, that some people are unsuccessful because they're lazy not because The Man did them in, that crime in the inner cities is partly a function of the destruction of the black family by well-intentioned welfare provisions, etc., etc., etc.

Basically if Rousseau is wrong (if the kernel idea that we're born free and good but everywhere in chains and twisted by social structures is wrong), Marx is wrong (oppressor/oppressed class analysis is wrong) and the entire Postmodern Left is also wrong (the extension of Marxian oppressor/oppressed group analysis to gender and race is wrong).

That doesn't leave Left-wing instincts entirely high and dry (you can sometimes point to actual instances of oppression, actual oppressive social structures, actual racism in actual institutions, etc. - the ordinary usages of those concepts do have verifiable meaning), but it does leave the Left as an inspiring and emotionally satisfying quasi-religious cult high and dry (the broadened cult meanings of those terms are null and void).

John D
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by John D »

deLurch wrote:
paddybrown wrote:For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.
To myself, I have described that as being hippy-dippy like Sam Harris.
Peterson does come across as hippy-dippy, but he is really pretty much anti-post modern. Perhaps he is post-post modern.

The whole point of his lectures is to find a meaningful ethical system based on ancient stories and texts. I think that our morality/ethical system is modulated by stories. I am enjoying taking a look at the old stories and seeing how old some of these ideas are. Harris is into mindfulness and meditation which is a very different thing.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by jet_lagg »

John D wrote: Yeah - I also had a "I hate Christians" period in my life. I jumped onto Hitchen's idea that religion poisons everything for a while. Then I read more Dennett who believes religion was necessary to build modern morality. I just think Dennett is more correct than Hitchens. I think religion can mess things up, but it did create our ethical foundations. The basic foundation of modern western philosophy is that each individual has value. I just don't think you can end up with this kind of idea without the preceeding idea that god values every human.

I always enjoyed reading the Bible, so I think I was never a total Christian hater.

I highly recommend everyone read Ecclesiastes. Do yourself a favor and read it. I believe it is one of the greatest things ever written. Below is the start of the King James version.... but modern versions are also good.

http://christiananswers.net/bible/eccl1.html
Hitchens had a very nuanced view of religion that is easily missed because of his willingness to engage in such fiery rhetoric. If someone was able to phrase a question just right, I'd bet you he'd have agreed to, like Einstein, believing in the God of Spinoza. Notable there is that being called a Spinozist was tantamount to being called an atheist, and Spinoza was driven out of his home for the oh so heretical idea that maybe God is just an elaborate, beautiful, powerful metaphor.

I think that's a decent summary of what was meant by religion poisoning everything. Extract the beauty from it, and the system will eject you, torture you to death, given the opportunity. The only question is whether or not people can live without it, and if not, whether we can somehow get the baby out of the bathwater.

Phil_Giordana_FCD
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6103

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was very enjoyable (especially if you liked the first one).

MacGruberKnows
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6104

Post by MacGruberKnows »

Remember the guy behind Trump at his public meltdown in Phoenix last night?:

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/ ... jpg&w=1484

Don't think you can forget him. Here is his Gods2.com site he had prominently displayed on his t-shirt.

Here is a taste:
The Real K K K Slave Master Revealed & are the Cherokee Indians
A.) Question: Who are these WHITE & Red Cherokee?
B.) Answer: Cherokees are Phoenicians who are a group of 2 main (r.peoples
1. White Cherokees are Biblical Cursed White Canaanites (Canon) Slav or Peoples who came to the Americas calling themselves Phoenicians Incas & changed name to Cherokee!
2. Red Cherokees are disinherited Ishmael, Gen.19ch. Father of Arabs, Pakistanis & East Indians, (r.1).
White Canon & Red Ishmael Married together, Gen.36:1-5. called Hyksos,(Hagarenes Ps.83:1-9). When Murdering Canibalism was Discovered they ran from justice & changed their name to Egyptian then Philistines, next Babylonians, next Asians/Slavs (Red & White Indians) then Phoenicians, then came to the Americas & called themselves Inca&Aztec, in North America then called themselves the five Indian tribes: Cherokee, Seminole, Creek, Chickasaw & Choctaw Indians. All five tribes are the same peoples the Illuminati & Masons hidden from Justice So when I say Cherokee it's all five Tribes. The Real Slave Masters of Blacks, (r.8). Cherokees who look White Deceived the World into blaming White Gentiles for Slavery Rev.12:7-9. But YAHWEH's 1st. book called You are not a Nigger pg.29 paragraph 2 Reveals the Truth which is the real White people who had Blacks as Slaves were White Canaanites (Canon-Slavs) not White Gentiles who's totally different from Canaanites!!
Canaanites are Sons of Ham (Father of Africans) Grandson of Noah, Gen.10:6. Cannon Cursed White for disrespecting our father Noah Gen.9:18-28, (r.9).
Scary to think this guy was allowed within a mile of the POTUS.

Fucking Inca Phoenician Canannite KKK Cherokees. I new there was a reason I never trusted them.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6105

Post by jet_lagg »

Steersman wrote:
jet_lagg wrote:
Steersman wrote: Asserting that one's "holy book" [ha!] is quite literally the last word of Gawd, and is "perfect and unchangeable" in every last jot and tittle, looks like a very different critter - of an entirely different phyla - from accepting that it is at best merely inspired by a deity of some sort.
Asserting that Christians, historically or today even, hold the bible to be "merely" inspired by a deity, let alone a deity "of some sort" is putting your thumb on the scale to say the least. People say Mozart all sorts of works of literature are inspired by God. I promise you they have something else in mind when they're talking about scripture. And the existence of Muslim reformers and cultural Muslims is enough to demonstrate reform can occur. It's just a question of how to accelerate the process and ensure it sticks. That last bit is where I see some valid argument to be had.
<snip>
While I'll concede that I was maybe generalizing a bit too much, I wasn't arguing at all that all Christians see all of the Bible only as "merely inspired". And I'll concede that many people lose sight of that difference. For instance, you might check out the Pew forum landscape survey on religious beliefs in America, particularly Questions 37 & 38 (pg 170) which essentially ask "Is your holy book literally the word of god?"
<snip>
Thank you for the link. I don't feel like litigating the rest of the points, since we already agree there's a difference between the Quran and the bible, and that it makes the Muslims worse than Christians. How much worse comes down to how you slice it. From that survey 59% of evangelicals (who outside of Catholics in the developing world are the only Christians I think it's worth launching any sort of offensive against) believe the bible to be the literal word of God. Catholics tally up at 23% to Muslim's 50%, so is that a whole new kind of bad or still a matter of degree?

screwtape
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by screwtape »

Blaire White is back. Improved or not? You decide, as they say on the news.


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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6107

Post by Shatterface »

Matt Cavanaugh wrote:
InfraRedBucket wrote: I have never watched The Sound of Music.
You're in luck! Rumor has it a director's cut is about to be released, with all the nude scenes restored.
Nuns and Nazis aren't enough for you?

MarcusAu
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6108

Post by MarcusAu »

That bloody singing counts as cruel and unusual under the Geneva Convention.

Those Nazi's should be given reparations.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6109

Post by screwtape »

MarcusAu wrote:
paddybrown wrote:
For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.
Well as he says for himself:

He answers like a philosopher, concerned not to state what he cannot know, rather than giving his personal opinion, which is what was asked. I'd still like to ask him the question "Do you pray and expect it to be heard?"

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6110

Post by Shatterface »

I have literally spent the entire afternoon listening to hundreds of Germans shouting and chanting.

There's a bazillion of them in Liverpool for some football thing.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by MarcusAu »

screwtape wrote:
MarcusAu wrote:
paddybrown wrote:
For someone with such an eloquent downer on postmodernism, Peterson's postmodern as fuck when it comes to religion.
Well as he says for himself:

[youtube.]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIB05YeMiW8[/youtube]
He answers like a philosopher, concerned not to state what he cannot know, rather than giving his personal opinion, which is what was asked. I'd still like to ask him the question "Do you pray and expect it to be heard?"
Though he obviously finds personal meaning (and thinks others should too) in the stories around christianity and those formed around other faiths / mythologies - it's pretty clear that he makes a distinction between them.

How or why he sees them differently is the interesting thing - but I'm not holding my breath for an answer.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6112

Post by katamari Damassi »

Keating wrote:
deLurch wrote:
Keating wrote:Peterson's Biblical lecture series also moved me further away from the "I hate Christians" phase.
I haven't watched a single one. Are they really that interesting?

As far a Christianity goes, keep in mind he isn't a theologian, doesn't go to church, and is in love with mythology. That may explain why you find value in his words on the bible.
I still don't understand what I find fascinating about Peterson. There are times he can literally move me to tears. I've never had that before, and I'm trying to work out what exactly it is that's speaking to me. I certainly agree with his core message about the way to live. There's certainly things I disagree with him on, but for the time being I just like listening to him talk.
I followed him on Facebook for a while, but some alt-righty references and his biblical stuff made me nervous, so I stopped. I just assumed it was a matter of time before he called my kind an abomination.

Barbie's Boyfriend
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6113

Post by Barbie's Boyfriend »

screwtape wrote:Blaire White is back. Improved or not? You decide, as they say on the news.

Do you suppose this video showed up on Dr Richard Carrier PHD's Youtube recommended list? I mean, it does contain the word "facial "

feathers
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6114

Post by feathers »

Pitchguest wrote:When I read a few years ago that ISIS had destroyed hundreds of priceless historical artifacts thousands of years old because it offended their beliefs, I was appalled. Like the book burnings of yester year, it was obvious fascists would take after fascists. Little did I know that the far left would soon emulate these tactics.
They'll probably be more subtle than ISIS, so if they want to have a monumental church torn down, they'll organise demonstrations to have it dropped from the protected building list, so any subsidies for its maintenance stop, etc. But yes, you can see it coming.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6115

Post by feathers »

free thoughtpolice wrote:Are you blind now?
He didn't say he fapped to it, did he.

feathers
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6116

Post by feathers »

shoutinghorse wrote:Salzburg cant name a street after its most famous woman because she used to smack her kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-4101 ... -von-trapp
What's next, that they can't name a building after their first native to conquer Paris?

Phil_Giordana_FCD
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6117

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

feathers wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:Are you blind now?
He didn't say he fapped to it, did he.
He didn't say he didn't.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6118

Post by feathers »

MarcusAu wrote:I suspect the history of christianity is a lot more interesting than what is generally taught.

Growing up catholic - not much attention was given to the gnostics or the mythicists - though the Council of Nicea and the Diet of Worms did get a mention.
Good for you for it's hard to imagine how horrid an upbringing on a diet of worms would be, for anyone who did not come from an egg and a feathered mother.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#6119

Post by windy »

Keating wrote: I still don't understand what I find fascinating about Peterson. There are times he can literally move me to tears. I've never had that before, and I'm trying to work out what exactly it is that's speaking to me. I certainly agree with his core message about the way to live. There's certainly things I disagree with him on, but for the time being I just like listening to him talk.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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Post by DrokkIt »

Bhurzum wrote:Interesting clip of Ricky Gervais debating racism with a black dude...



(The host is a fucking bellend - talk about fanning the flames!)

Wow.

"white people tryna define racism"

"ok, please give me your definition of racism"- is how I would have handled this.

Locked