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Honestly, this website should be more for high school students to experiment debate techniques, etc.
The main reason holding this website back is because this site is mostly composed of people with no life. Well, maybe not the causal one, but it is a reason why it is in a downward spiral. I have linked this site several times and some ppl thought this was a good idea. I think the only way(at least I can think of) to make DArt great again is if we transform this into a bustling practice platform for debating students.
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DebateArt.com
Hooray!
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DebateArt.com
For Physics Majors, is going to work after graduation better than going to grad school for research?
Title explains it. IDK what viewpoints will be on here but if you have a voice, shout thy lungs out so I could hear you.
Don't say stuff like "Ohh you shouldn't even go to colleges at all". If so, shut up. I am like top 1~3 in terms of GPA at my school, there is no reason for me to not go.
Also I am still just a HS senior. My major in the applications say it's Physics but obviously I am not yet a physicist. If you can somehow convince me to switch to engineering or something(despite in many schools the college of engineering is actually harder to get in), sure I guess, another essay topic.
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Education
I am thinking about Cambridge, Imperial College London, Cornell, UMich and GTech as my top choices between the UK and US schools. So did anyone of y'all go there or something?
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Education
Basically what the title says. Business and Economics have since been an integral portion of higher education. I mean, just look up websites of famous and prestigious universities such as NYU, Harvard, UPenn, Cornell, etc. and look how big their business schools are, etc.
Yet I have seen that in no core curricula is either business or economics listed as one. I have seen those with included Physics, Chemistry, Maths, History all from middle school for example, yet why is that for a field this expansive in terms of enrolled scholars did preparation only start at high school?
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Education
Just asking, because I just did.
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DebateArt.com
I was reading the materials the school gave out during this summer and apparently they classified the great pyramids of Giza as building but the Sphinx as a sculpture. Similarly, they classified Eiffel Tower as a building but the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore as sculptures.
If I seal every tomb chamber from every pyramid, would that make them non-buildings? If I build free warehousing inside the statue of liberty, would that make it a building?
The Eiffel Tower is unusable as a building except a few decks below and a nearly-inaccessible-unless-with-great-sums-of-money apartment at the top with no one living in it usually as of now. How much of a building really is it?
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Artistic expressions
With my 100th debate win, I am pretty sure I am the 3rd person ever to earn the gold medal associated with that after RM and Oro. It is a fitting celebration to the 3rd birthday of this account.
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Personal
I suggest changing the default to rated, not standard. Why have a leaderboard if there is like 1 movement per month?
In competitive sites that specialize in others than debating, the leaderboard could change on an hourly basis with everyone fighting all the time. DArt's format has made this less possible because a debate usually would take weeks on end, for argumentation and for voting. Slowing down leaderboard progress is one way the site becomes irrelevant as of this percentage of rated debates.
Sometimes, I accept debates for the sole reason that my rating could go up. I am sure in this opportunistic world numerous people think the same as well. Although not disconnecting them from the site truly and genuinely, this is one way to reduce their user activity and even decrease their effort, because everything is standard and matters negligibly.
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DebateArt.com
This debating site is competitive in the sense that it has a leaderboard that updates almost every Debate. When the default is rated.
Usually, back then, there was a symbol for when a debate is unrated. That is fine. Now what? The site telling me that the default is unrated?
I could live with it, it is just that this is not of the spirit of this site anymore.
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DebateArt.com
Topics related to famous people and their lives
The subtopics within this categories have long gone, straying away from "famous people". I suggest changing this description.
We can't have each topic on an actor or world leader, etc. In fact, all topic regarding actors can be put in "Show business", all athletes in "Sports", all world leaders in "politics", historical figures in "History", and debaters in "Debateart.com". What this category is and should be, ah yes, "people". I guess we can discuss cultures and subcultures in the "people" category, because that is farther away from anything else, at least further compared to people in fields.
If I am wrong, please tell me why. I will post an agreement post if you have convinced me.
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People
It has been 2023 already and I, who was supposed to be nominated for the 2022 HoF, along with Greyparrot and 3ru7al, didn't even get a post.
Or you can just tell me that the HoF ceases to exist, it is fine, it doesn't stop me from taking debating challenges.
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DebateArt.com
The original words of the Bible should not be evidence to negate this solely because the idea of communism and socialism would have not been accurately translated nonetheless.
So, as a non-theist, the heavens just sounds like a filter system where only the "best", the "most moral" people are selected to go do, the others go to hell or something like that. The morals align with the common knowledge of humanity for the most part, such as altruism and genuinity in actions, etc.
That would mean in the heavens:
- People are obedient
- People can live with other people in peace and harmony without discrimination for the most part
- People are all similar and share similar beliefs
- People are not greedy and only take what they need
- People actually think(which ironically is something a great deal of theists lack today --- They wouldn't qualify for their own heavens!)
- People can love and enjoy life
The result for this would be utopia based on how the system idealistically works. If we filter people to only benevolent ones that share a belief, surely we could get communism working, eh?
And yet some of the conservatives keep saying that God intended America to be capitalist and white. I am curious to see how many, if any, priests and preachers in the US would get into the heavens they themselves applied soundly inside built halls.
Correct me if I am wrong about anything, and yes, we know BrotherD.Thomas is being intentionally loathful.
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Religion
That is it. I have lost faith in the general mode of handling COVID in China. Maybe RNA tests once a day isn't enough. Maybe immediately restricting privileges(such as general shopping or drinking from a cafe) for having been in the same region as someone who was a positive individual(and said regions can be as big as, say, the entire upper east side) isn't enough, now we are doing this.
The fire—likely sparked by a discarded cigarette—started on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, 23–29 Washington Place, just east of Washington Square Park. That floor and the two floors above were occupied by the Triangle Waist Company, a manufacturer of women’s shirtwaists (blouses) that employed approximately 500 people. The flames, fed by copious cotton and paper waste, quickly spread upward to the top two floors of the building. Fire truck ladders were only able to reach six stories, and the building’s overloaded fire escape collapsed. Many workers, trapped by doors that had been locked to prevent theft, leapt from windows to their deaths.Though the owners of the factory were indicted later that month on charges of manslaughter, they were acquitted in December 1911; the owners ultimately profited from inflated insurance claims that they submitted after the tragedy. However, the uproar generated by the disaster led to the creation of the Factory Investigating Commission by the New York state legislature in June. Over the following year and a half, members of the commission visited factories, interviewed workers, and held public hearings. The commission’s findings ultimately led to the passage of more than 30 health and safety laws, including factory fire codes and child labour restrictions, and helped shape future labour laws across the country.
What happened was that in 1 building in Xinjiang, fire broke out in one of the higher levels. However, those that wanted to evacuate CANNOT find themselves exiting the building as the community the building was in was at the centre of one of said regions of high risks of infection, so the entire building was in internal lockdown. Residents inside cannot get out without approval and nobody can get in without approval.
At the time of the fire, nobody in charge of the community approved of exiting the building, as the region was still considered "high-risk" (The criteria of "high" risk would be like more than 1 Covid-infected indivduals were found there in the last 24 hour or something). The manager of the building told the residents to NOT take the elevator. Obviously, the fire trucks can't get there so quickly and immediately, so 10 people died, some burned to death, others jumped down from more than ten stories high as the stairs are either crowded or blocked, or both.
Isn't it crazy that after 110 years of progression, humanity has retreated to 110 years ago? No, no, I can't even give a source on it, because the moderation on verifiable websites would delete the videos and blogs on this matter, leaving that as a fact that even if I link anything here, by the time a second person posts, it is likely a dead domain by that point.
A woman was arrested for spreading exaggerated versions of this story, overestimating the number of people died from this fire. What is laughably funny is that after the event, all that worked at the community, the district, went out with their sleeves intact.
What is even more laughable, is that the second day(which is today) the news existed among the populace, another news headline was posted.
Number of COVID-positive individuals in Urumqi drops to zero
Urumqi is the city in which the disaster prescribed above took place. I cannot even begin to imagine what would come next for other cities(including mine) if they thought this was "efficient".
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Current events
I am not a large sports fan but the groupchats with my friends that clearly are show that this is in fact something intriguing and remarkable.
A meme has sprung up. It goes like this:
China 1:1 Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia 2:1 ArgentinaTherefore, China>Argentina
Let the other sports fans that clearly care more than I do talk here.
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Sports
What are you expecting entering this topic? I don't know. Either way, let me explain.
Heliocentrism isn't wrong, but inefficient: In that case, both the moon and the sun will orbit around the earth, while planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, with themselves many moons around them, are calculated to orbit a center that is closer to the sun than the earth. This would mean to calculate about Ganymede, you first have to calculate about the Sun's motion, then the motion of Jupiter, then Io. That is super inefficient. Instead of that, why don't we set the reference at the Sun?
It is the old religious who fixed the reference at Earth and accepted nothing else, not Galileo nor Copernicus. Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, etc... just provided new references that made calculation and observation more efficient.
In reality, we technically can define the Earth's surface as flat and anything tangential to the Earth "above it". The problem becomes that if some object flys directly above the south pole, the position for that object on the "flat earth model" would teleport from one side to another. All constellations would be on one side of "earth", the other side being what is "underneath the Earth", which we will have a mantle and core as wide as the surface of Earth itself. We can just fold space enough so that the Earth's curvature matches the morphed space so the Earth is flat according to that system. In that case, the earth is flat.
Due to astronomical, geological, geographical(continents in the South will be disproportionally enlarged), physical, and maybe even archaelogical inconvenience, we pretty much discard this model the moment it is being formed in one's mind. That is why this model wasn't being thought of before with great depths, hmm, I guess.
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Miscellaneous
This is not a stereotypical thing. Ok maybe it is, but because it is so common.
This is not applied in all cultures, it is just something I see in the "mainstream" western or even oriental culture.
But seriously what purpose does it serve?
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Society
Yes, I am the same guy who asked how TOEFL works, Being the abominable monster of whatever I think I am I am, I simply went off defining teachers as anything that can teach(which includes Khan Academy the website, the Iphone, the Youtube App, etc) and got away with it because they only care about examples.
...
So, the justification for that is that if you insert a brain chip intended to enhance memory and essentially making a teacher more machine and less man mentally, it should still be considered as a teacher. If you chop the teacher's limb off, even put it into black armor or something, even going far enough that all "humanly" traits are gone and download the memory into a computer which retains all the memory and can display all of them freely, it would make no difference as that should still be a teacher. But after half-assing a proof, here is a question: does a teacher require sentience to be a teacher?
And let us not deny that websites and non-sentient objects like phones or even toasters can teach you stuff, regardless of them not being solely created to be teachers. Does a subject have to be specialized in teaching to be a teacher?
And I haven't started on part-time teachers working multiple jobs. I intend to apply the second question above to this group. How about scientists who just happen to lecture people because they are too good at their field and nobody else can teach it as good as them. Scientists are more bound to investigate the world than to teach it. In fact, any street cleaner paid minimum wage can teach me how to operate their sweeping vehicle on the street and any pianist can just teach me tunes, as long as they are willing. Is "Teacher" the title of a specific job or not, and are they a job that can be held by anyone? If not, what is the distinctive phrase describing what I have just described here?
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Education
You can bold, italic or underline in this text editor which is a rather rudimentary one compared to more professional and versatile ones like Word or WPS. I think the origin for these functions must have been old. Was there a cap/lower function like the bold function in older versions of any text editors and are just being phased out or did no one think of that?
I am not talking about this site. This site is fine without such function listed on top of a text writing box(in fact, writing all in bold or caps sorta makes you "yelling" which is impolite). I am talking about text editors in general, possibly its history.
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Technology
Darters in the west, what do you see wrong with it?
So, the foundational levels, the councils in districts, cities, and counties, will be elected by citizens themselves. Then, the candidates of the level above, such as larger cities, will be voted amongst the foundation level councils, in which the council members vote and the people with the most votes gets to participate in the higher-leveled councils. The provincial council is voted amongst the council members in all the cities(admistrative area, like the US's counties, a county in China is a part of a city-level admistrative area) within it, and the National People's Congress is voted amongst the provinces the same way.
Pretty much all the people that are being chosen are supposed to be elected from the people themselves at one point in their life but the decision on the tippy top will be handled by the governments at every level, which they are more qualified to make decisions like this than the people all across China which they probably don't work their entire life to be a governmental official. This is different from "democratic" mass ballots from all the people that exist, in which sometimes they don't know what they want or they don't know whatever they want actually means. Swaying the public does not work because the professionals decide on it.
So, what do you think is wrong about it?
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Politics
I am not the only one who disagrees with this decision, right?
From the Chinese perspective: Negotiating with a governor without contacting the Chairman and coming here is definitely NOT something you want to do as a governmental official.
From the American perspective: Triggering the 2nd greatest country as of this point in terms of global importance(when they are already somewhat triggered) is definitely NOT something you want to do as a governmental official. (Also, many Americans protested against this decision)
So, who supports this decision and why?
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Politics
Concession (in the comments) after all rounds of a debate have been filled should amount to nothing.
I generally disagree with what people think is "good faith" in debating. If I beat an instigator with a rational argument that is thought to be outside the consideration of the topic's scope(despite that a possible and rational interpretation can lead to that argument), it is the instigator's responsibility for not ruling out the consideration of such interpretation, and his own fault for not seeing this coming. If I am an instigator with a preset obviously favoring me and someone accepts it and loses obviously, it is the contender's responsibility regarding seeing how the preset really is. Debating a topic itself means that the scope should be defined as the topic itself and anything that could be interpreted from the topic itself should be valid.
In the same way, the scope of the vote is in the debating section for every debating webpage we have here. The comments should not be regarded unless they have been referenced in the argument section. We are really debating who has the better argument here, not who has the better faith or who is being convinced here, at least that is not decisive in terms of our voting structure on this very site. If you hold an argument, wrote an argument with significant quality, then decide that it is flawed so you concede, you should not lose because of it because then it is the equivalent of taking a position of "devil's advocate", and people do that all the time.
This is an issue albeit rare, but I have seen existing examples of it. Voters should generally not vote against someone just because they conceded in the comments, and if they conceded in the comments before the debate itself ends, they either should keep arguing a devil's advocate for the remaining rounds or just concede in a debate round in order to receive fair judgement. And if you really want to lose those points, which sounds extremely bizarre in my opinion, you are always free to open another debate.
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Miscellaneous
Suppose you run an empire. There is no competitors east but there is a larger and more powerful force in the west so you move your territory east and east every time, adding new territory to the east and removing those in the west. You are adding eastern soil to your collection, removing western ones so they are not yours anymore. This happened, well kinda. The Huns used to live in where Russia is now, but now their descendants live in Hungary with no territorial overlap.
If one component of the ship is removed, it is no longer yours, whereas the replacement of it is yours. That set becomes you, removing one element and adding another, recognizably. If another ship is built after complete replacement that it looks identical, it comprises of elements all of them being rejected away from you. Since none of them is now a part of you, that ship is not you. Instead, you should be the other ship, with replacements for all elements, because that set was from the beginning you and only removed and added elements revised onto it. A folder does not automatically change its name even if you delete all files and add new ones.
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Philosophy
I have read thousands of threads and what I have noticed is that in the older ones, most constructive posts don't get a single like. Whereas now if you say anything, you are being liked on that forum post. That is a good thing, it shows you that your posts are being read and respected by another fellow user on the site, as well as that it...boosts your like counter and fuels your arrogance...heheh...(although that is not the main point)
But the main thing is that in crucial threads here, most posts get not only a like but two or three, with the exceptionally useful tips getting five or more, whereas they are on par with the quality of posts of generally what you would expect a single like two or three years ago. Liking posts not only has been brought up, but it is a common behavior here. I find myself liking other posts much more often than before, before a certain point I didn't even realize there is a like button, and just read on without showing a feedback of respect even if I do. Discussions are really getting more civil, it seems, as you are firm to be respected no matter which standpoint you are on(although, a Nazi deserves no like on his posts exhibiting this view, obviously). Bottom line, I am pleased with it. Thank you.
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DebateArt.com
A seat, a single steering wheel and a shaft, an engine and 4 wheels with no suspension. Should you could this as a car? Why, or why not?
I want practical definitions. Attack helicopters are not cars practically even though we can define anything to the point of anything.
When do cars become NOT cars?
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Technology
It is that part of the year again.
I am not a fan of "4th of july", but hey, at least this is the 2nd birthday of this account.
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Miscellaneous
A few days ago, I got chopped off ELO points for tying the Chuck Norris debate with Conservellateral. First off, why does my ELO change for tying? Shouldn't it stay constant as long as it is a tie? To think a debate as honorable as one ending up on the report of DART Bard, I believe this is a serious concern.
The user ComputerNerd voted on that debate against me, claiming that I was not as funny as Pro whilst providing not even a mention of how I am being unfunny. I reported that vote because I don't think that vote explains thorough enough to be valid(I don't think he is voting against me on purpose though), but the mod's response is simply that this debate is a joke debate, so votes are not moderated. Keep in mind that this debate was RATED. What this means is essentially that vote wars on a rated but non-serious debate would be technically allowed, and provably malicious behaviors, disguised as just sub-sufficient harmless votes would technically be tolerated, meaning that such debates on DART are no longer guaranteed to be just anymore, since voters can just manipulate the winrates of both debaters without either of them getting any say. Sure, maybe this site is small enough that such cases has not happened yet or is not big enough for a serious concern, but it still bothers me.
I propose either of the two.
- Mods should be ready to moderate any debate votes and remove insufficient ones as long as the debate is rated;
- OR Mods should be able to change a joke/non-serious debate from rated to unrated if so, if they think moderating such debates will be too hard.
In that case, either insufficient votes are being removed justly or that informal humor are automatically ineffective to one's ELO rating as soon as such is spotted or called for by reporting as seen by mods. I think this is a good idea.
Either way, that debate should have never affected my ELO points, positively or negatively. It was lighthearted and it was a tie. If you guys have a justification on why a tie results in ELO trading, then tell me here. If you disagree with me, then comment here as well. Just please don't personally attack me for anything I have said and done, and it is fine and I will take them on with a normal heart.
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DebateArt.com
This post was made in the Misc category because it discusses something never tried and the world operates fine without any trials of it.
To be fair, this is the only thing I can think of when someone mentions "senatorialism". https://tse3-mm.cn.bing.net/th/id/OIP-C.dKj29vc7tMDptJj4uy2C8wHaDJ?pid=ImgDet&rs=1
Still don't know why I think of anything about it, and why anyone mentions it.
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Miscellaneous
I have prepared for a verbal PF debate tournament, for the first ever time. Honestly, they have this kind of topics all the time. On balance, the benefit>harms for X, bla bla bla. Bearing the creed of that "If people vote against you, it is because your argument is not strong enough", I started looking for bombs for this kind of topics. Being a DART user inexperienced in PF debating(in which you have to actually speak to win), I forgot to take account in for execution, which my stuttering made me lose the first tournament and got me eliminated.
My main frame of arguments is as follows(Most topics in this format applies).
1. It is true that humans can evaluate benefits and costs.2. When something is done, the sum of benefits is larger than the sum of costs, vice versa(this is a basic economic principle).3. Opportunity costs exist and is the benefit being given up if one chooses to instead do an alternative act than the act that gives said benefit.4. Thus, taking account in all costs and benefits, because only the optimal choice of action results in that when accounting for the opportunity cost, the total net benefit is the most positive, humans will choose to act upon what they consider to be the optimal action every time they do ()anything.5PRO. X has been done6PRO. Because when humans do it, they mean it, thus the benefit must outweigh the cost for X's existence.5CON. Less than 3.5B people do X ever6CON. Because the average individual does not do X, thus the benefit for X is less than the costs for the average person, or "On balanace".
In other words, "on balance" debates have essentially reduced itself to an argument about the domain of where the debate topic should apply, and sadly I have yet to find a solution to counter those two head to head each other. Luckily, no opponent has tried to even consider anything close to this in PF debating.
So...change my mind, and maybe find flaws to this argument if you really want to.
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Economics
I have seen thousands of cases of people saying that pineapple do not belong on pizzas, in fact, more than a hundred have reported that it would be a sin for pineapple to be unironically put on pizzas.
As well, from the Chinese side of media that I have access to, there has been reported japanese twists to a staple Sichuan spicy tofu dish, in which the domestic Chinese have too considered (such that) adding strawberries to it is a disgrace. In fact, then they expressed that they understood what the traditional Italians have felt when they see pineapple pizzas.
But the Hawaiians felt fine and does not consider the pineapple pizza a disgrace, well, for most of them probably.
Then there is nutraloaf. Made from kitchen waste probably(or the equivalent of), this is served in some prisons in the US. It is edible, but no one likes it.
So, what I am thinking is that when pineapple is put upon rolled pizza dough, it ceases to be pizza for some. When strawberries are put onto Sichuan tofu, it ceases to be Sichuan tofu for those who thinks so.
As someone who has a polar mind instead of a linear one, I have always tried to think of different combinations for food. For example, the Hot dog is structurally identical to a taco, so is a pie to a burrito. Well, topographically, and you have to think really hard, because absolutely no one, unless they have huge gaping mouths and are crazier than me in doing everyday things, would eat a pie like they eat burrito.
So, when does a burrito stop being a burrito? When does food stop being food? If a mixture of perfectly edible things is crafted to be something perfectly edible but is so pungent and unsettling when attempting to enjoy it, resulting that even was it edible, it simply wouldn't be eaten, is it even food anymore?
When does a taco become a non-taco? If I put sausage with mustard sauce instead of anything else in a tortilla, is it a taco, or is it a hot dog? If I use layers of tortilla to make a very thick but narrow deep dish pizza, is it a pizza, a pie, or a burrito? When does a kind of food becomes something else, and when does food become something else in general?
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Miscellaneous
Putting a single speck of bacon on a crust and bake it.
Put a mountain of cheese and nothing else on a crust and bake it.
Put nothing but sauce on a pizza crust and bake it.
Of these which ones are pizzas and why? Please state your opinions.
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Miscellaneous
To be fair, I am happy that I can debate people here, critique people from different angles and get smarter every debate at the same time winning and gaining virtual points. I don't care who wins, as long as they don't ban me for just normally debating.
Why do many people care substantially about who wins an election on a small website? I am not criticizing people who care, I am just curious. Your experiences won't change by very much, honestly, and cyberbullying is borderline neglectable on this site(I have yet to hear someone leaving this site because they had been bullied intentionally, and no, willingly-accepting debates then leave with a loss does not count).
I mean, even without a president, the site is fine. At least the voting system is not broken and the mods are welcome to ban any ad bots. Why do we care so much about who gets to be the president on this site?
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DebateArt.com
Honestly, both in DDO and in DART, a clog of debates such as "god exists" has been common enough that upon seeing it makes me snort.
Atheists can live their lives without, say, a god, and they would live fine. So would religious people praying to their god every day and living fine.
Why do these clashes exist and are as common as they are right now? Why are so many topics of debates and forums centred upon whether god exists or not?
Is it perhaps a duty in religion, or in some parts of a religious groups, to convince others that your god is real?
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Religion
Title says.
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Society
I am obligated to take TOEFL in order to get into a good university and there’s an issue with the writing. The topic statement is just way too vague.
For example, there is
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?It is easier to become an educated person now than in the past.
What is “educated”? What is exactly “now” or “the past”?
It is better to travel to different countries when you are young than when you are older.
What exactly is “young” or “older”?
It is difficult for teachers to be both popular (students like them) and effective in helping students in learning?
How popular or effective exactly is it?
Taking a lot of time to make an important decision is a bad character for a person.
How much time is “a lot”? How important is “an important decision”?
You see, the problems never give any definitions at all. How, exactly, could I or anyone write things without proper definitions, and how could we write arguments based on muddy environments?
More than that, how are “normal people” able to write, and even give examples on these topics? How do I think like a “normal person”?
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Education
Is there even "fake art" at all? What is real art, if then?
Sure, you looked at a picture that looks like the real Mona Lisa. Everyone cheers and nobody notices that it is a replica. Is it fake? NO! It is as visually pleasing as the "real" Mona Lisa painting. This picture is basically a replica, and thus would lose in originality for so and thus may be valued less socially(even if we exclude the credits of the artist, in which Da Vinci took years to finish this one), but nevertheless, it is real art. You can look at it, you can appreciate it. It satisfies anything and everything a regular piece of art does. A "replica" of Mona Lisa is nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the real one on its own, and to call it fake art would be disrespecting the artwork's beauty in of itself.
Do we, perhaps, call any book other than the final draft written by the author "fake"? Do we, perhaps, call cars that are produced and assembled in factories systematically instead of handcrafted by car designers as a concept in the ball room exhibited "fake"? Do we, perhaps, call that everything on Art magazines "fake" because they cannot afford to resurrect Van Gogh or Da Vinci to paint one for every copy of it?
Nope. Art can be replicated and replication, if done in the same quality, does not make it fake. If a drawing is of the exact same configuration and quality as "THE Mona Lisa", then what is fake about it, consider no one can tell it apart? Even if one considers it a "fake Mona Lisa", it is still as non-fake art as Mona Lisa itself, aesthetically.
Then, comes modern art, which is still not "fake art". Sure, art people can just splash paint upon crusty canvas and call that a piece of art. Someone could just take a piece of canvas and chop it in half, dip it in oil, and call that art. Yes. That is art. Due to the little effort it takes to create those, it may be less "art" than Mona Lisa, but it can never be non-art, since one can find it expressive and beautiful in of itself, as well as that it is intended to be "art". No matter what, it was meant to be expressive and that is what art is all about, and you don't call a 5-year-old's stick figure drawing non-art just because it is easy to replicate. Those replicas, on the other hands, are as much as "Is art" as the original one, even though it may be lacking in originality, thus being less "arty" than the original.
Unless originality and effort are both extensively required for any given piece of art to be even considered art, there is no "fake art" as we know it here.
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Artistic expressions
Why do we need to exhibit something we can easily see everyday, especially since it can literally be seen, felt and used a few hundreds of feet away?(museums, especially ones that display "famous" works, like this, should have bathrooms).
This "fountain" is no different than the normal one you use in the bathroom, except for maybe a few signatures. If anything, it is WORSE at being an urinal due to it being an old model and new designers have came up with more ergonomic designs. Why do we have to appreciate this one thing we consider as art when we can see equivalent-artistic things, but more useful, in the bathroom? What more artistic value does this one bring when you can't even use it(you will get fined and get kicked by the guards if you attempt to pee in this one artwork)?
The fact is that most urinals we see in museums qualified enough to exhibit this artwork is as artistic, if not more artistic than Duchamp's fountain. If we are appreciating a certain fountain just because someone signed on it or someone touched on it, aren't we straying away from the message it is trying to convey?
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Artistic expressions
Our science and morality is built upon one "fact": That experience matters, and that what you see is true. That simply isn't true, as we cannot prove anything based on experience: How do we know that invisible aliens aren't pushing all these objects to create the illusion of Gravity? We do not know. Even though the current physics may not be "true", it is plausible, or that we think it is true, or that it is subjectively true. There is nothing preventing someone with what we call schizophrenia to actually see objects "with mass" to float upwards without seemingly any force exerted on it. In fact, we cannot conclude that those ones with schizophrenia are seeing the real world as it is, and we just have the same symptom of schizophrenia. How do we determine normal vision and abnormal vision? By social categorization, or what we "think" is right versus what we think isn't. Even how we see the world cannot be proven to be true, let alone speculation based on it.
You cannot prove that the next time you push a shopping cart "forward" and nothing else, it won't push back at you and smash you to the walls. You cannot prove that the next time an apple grows ripe, it won't fall endlessly to the sky. Even though we tend to believe our experiences and more often times than not, you see the objects behave exactly like how the old people tell you through the physic textbook that they are going to behave, it is through YOUR vision. You can only prove that this time it worked, subjectively, but never that it WILL work next time, objectively.
Objective truth based on experience is equal to nonsense because objective experience is impossible and experience is not objective. Anything we consider true, based on experience, are, at most, subjective truths.
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Philosophy
Mass surveillance isn't the bad thing here: The abuse of power due to it is the main cause of problem. I think a society where everyone is watched and footage of everyone at every segment of time is possible to be acquired in a database, but the user of the surveillance doesn't abuse the power to absolutely punish everything they like, and use those footages to punish those that commit rape, murder, etc... That is a good society right here. There is not even need for "witnesses", any problem have real-time evidence and every criminal will be found responsible.
However, I can see how this is near impossible. I can hardly think that a government can keep in this state for a decade before going out of control and abuse its powers.
As for people not wanting to comply, there is nothing scary with it, mass surveillance in this way should be done chill. the phobia of it is due to that in past attempts it has been done the complete wrong way: To instill power and propaganda instead of actually having more evidence for crime, etc.
If this kind of government exists and is shown to have little to no corruption, then I am all for it. China is currently the closest thing to this, but sadly even then they still instill propaganda and punish people who just criticize the state. Disappointing, yes, but it also means it is the easiest to transform into this, where it is extremely easy to find evidence for everything and solve problems for everyone.
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Society
How exactly do I know that anything outside of my consciousness exists?
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Philosophy
Would you keep pulling the lever in a situation like this? Why or why not?
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Philosophy
If we allow biological males into sports meant for females, let's not say if it is fair or not on its own: It is basically the same as letting a cisgender male to compete with women on a physical level. That is not fair regardless of if it is advantageous or not. We are trying to compare apples to apples, and not apples to oranges. Sports is about the body and how capable it is, and who is in the mind is not important at all(other than maybe they motivate themselves to work out). Putting a female mind in a male body who can be a 100M champion and they will run like men. Sports is all about the biological body.
I support transgender athletes into competitions as the gender they identify with, but only if, they are also biologically the sex they consider to match their gender. Putting a biological male in a female race is biologically the same as letting men into female events.
Change my mind if you will. I am just trying to make an argument.
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Sports
We stop feeling pain after death due to our neurons going offline after the execution is done. Today's forms of executions are MUCH LESS painful than the classical counterparts. Injecting chemicals for cardiac arrest, especially after chemicals to put you into sleep, is much less painful than firing squad and guillotine.
Why do we fear death? Hell? Pain after death? Not being able to reunite with your family? Well, life imprisonment is worse.
Death:
- There is no hell proven
- Modern execution methods are less painful
- You aren't meeting with your family.
Life Imprisonment:
- Living there is akin to hell as physical limitations are painful on its own
- Constantly suffering and painful due to lack of space
- You aren't meeting with your family anyways, probably.
We are too scared of death. Death is less painful than suffering the every second you are existing in a painful place. If I ever get myself in a situation where I have committed a crime harsh enough to guarantee life imprisonment or death(which hopefully I won't), I will choose the latter.
As for being bailed out, if they have to be bailed out after a few years, they should never even get life imprisonment anyways. Genuine life imprisonment is literally hopeless for you and an experience worse than death.
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Society
Basically the title.
I believe there is a heaven, or a hell, depending to how you look at it.
The world is a heaven or a hell, or a limbo even. No matter where God(if applicable) sent you, you will always feel the same.
To those grateful for everything for a strong belief(for example, in a Godly figure in any religion), placing them in the world will feel like a heaven to them.
To those complaining everything and blame their neighbors for their faults, they will blame and be angry elsewhere too unless they change. The world feels like hell to them.
And to those who has nothing to do but to waste time with useless things, the world will feel useless, gray, and uneventful, kind of like Limbo.
The world is a heaven to the people who treat it like one. The world is a hell to the people who treat it like one. The world is a limbo to the people who treat it as one.
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Philosophy
Duchamp's "Fountain" is basically an urinal with words written on it. Using 'utilitarianism, we could find that this artwork, if valued relatively objectively, brings LESS value than the average urinal since it is no different than the average urinal, but you aren't allowed to urinate in it because you are in a museum's exhibition section and not its bathrooms.
The things that make something admirable is not about how you look at it, but how you use it. I see no reason why it wouldn't be used as an urinal, it is built for that purpose. The fact I can't use it makes me admire it less.
This is different with classical artwork, where you have no intended use other than to look at it for Mona Lisa and other sculptures.
Of course, it could be categorized as a "sculpture", but it is a sculpture that could be used as an urinal and peeing on it doesn't make it less artistic: Cleaning is required for every public restroom whatsoever! Even if there are morons who will just pee on the side and not the way you are expected to pee, even janitors could do the restoration works necessary to keep this piece artistic and useful.
The only problem is that this is a urinal. However, on that gender-neutral bathrooms exist, this would be something.
Oh, you can't use it? Great, is it an urinal anymore? It certainly could be used as one, just not here. No matter what, this artpiece could be given a useful purpose and yet it is locked behind glass bars. I don't like that. I want it to be placed in bathrooms, where everyone can not only see it, but use it.
Artpieces have been commercialized over the past century. Bugatti make art that are cars, and you wouldn't just not drive it because it is intended to be driven. The same. The fountain urinal is intended to be urinated on, and not to be locked behind glass. Unleash its full potentials.
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Artistic expressions
You have Men's billiards, and you have women's billiards. Those are two separate competitions.
This is not like weightlifting, where men has superior strengths overall; and this is not like gymnastics, where women is more sufficient at balancing.
To be fair, most of us that can type a computer should be able to exert a force that would knock a white ball onto a red ball, then into the socket, even if the balls are on either walls of the pool table. As of the precision, Most of us can just train enough to get good.
So why exactly is pool billiards separated by gender?
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Sports
庄子与惠子游于濠梁之上。庄子曰：“鲦鱼出游从容，是鱼之乐也。”惠子曰：“子非鱼，安知鱼之乐？”庄子曰：“子非我，安知我不知鱼之乐？”惠子曰：“我非子，固不知子矣；子固非鱼也，子之不知鱼之乐，全矣！”庄子曰：“请循其本。子曰‘汝安知鱼乐’云者，既已知吾知之而问我。我知之濠上也。[1]
A rough translation:
A: Wow, look at the way the fishes are swimming! They must be happy!
B: You are not the fishes, how do you know that they are happy?
A: You are not me, how do you know that I don't know that I know that the fishes are happy?
B: I am not you, so I can't understand you; but you aren't the fishes, so you can't tell if they are happy or not. That makes sense.
A: Let's go back to the original premise. You are asking me "How do you know that they are happy", implying that you know that I know that they are happy. As to how I know, I know it because I am looking at the fishes right here and right now.
This is an excerpt from an actual Chinese classic, and it is written into the textbook. Happy or sad, this excerpt isn't meant to teach how semantical K's work.
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Philosophy
Think about it.
Neuralink can connect our nervous system to the internet, without us being dead or replaced. We can play songs just by thinking about it, and apes can play simple video games with their mind.
What if the same technology is being used on birds? They can fly around just like usual except everything they see can be transcribed on a computer(likely first a code, but it won’t be distant for somebody to convert nervous signal to images), thus making birds government drones just by flying around minding their own lives.
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Technology
The following is to be considered as a joke but nevertheless actually happened for some reason.
Background
Okay, so you know I am a pretty marginal figure in school, and the people who live with me at the dorms pretty much stronger than me in every way except maybe the usage of logical thinking. They have decided that I cannot poop in the school dorms even if they are asleep because "it smells bad". When I sneak into the bathroom at about 11:00 PM, the guy who proposed it suddenly woke up and stopped me. When I kept deciding on that I should have the freedom of pooping in the dormitory, he kicked me near the nuts. It was at this moment that I think that this guy is equivalent to a wall titan in intelligence and reasoning with him means nearly nothing.
Other than a few discussions in Chinese Language Arts class(I am in a school in China in which I cannot get access to freeflow forms of communication with the outside from Mon-Fri usually), I rarely engage in logical thinking during the weeks. It was at this moment that my logical thinking awakened. Immediately I read "The Inevitable" by KK(Because a normal one will always keep the eyes on somethings they would not have -- Internet) and suddenly came up with 5 approaches to prove why I should be able to poop in there.
The person is to be called T as no personal information of anyone should be leaked here.
These are to be agreed on as these are basically true and I can confirm that what I am saying is true:
- By that time, I have gone a full 4 days without pooping, which is considered unhealthy according to medical standards[1]
- The sleeping sector of a dorm room is separated from the bathroom sector via a door
- I have pooped in the same dorm room for at least 10 times before this occurrence, with T being here not minding it at all
- T and other people have pooped in the same location with no one minding it
- There is a toilet in the bathroom but not a urinal
- No other places have allowed me to poop there
- The original proposition is to be phrased as "The person known as Intel_06 must not defecate within this room" while we were sleeping on our dorm beds
Method 1: Moral Kritik
This is the most obvious one on this list, as generally nobody likes being stripped of doing something they would consider normal to do in their everyday life. a middle-class teenager who can go to their home and play PUBG every night in his family's 2-storey house with 2 bathrooms shouldn't be restricted to do such a thing. The syllogism should be paraphrased as:
- It is generally established that pooping is a normal thing that everyone does and should be able to do at a toilet
- T has restricted me from pooping in a toilet
- Therefore, T has restricted me from doing a normal exercise of normal people.
- Stripping the rights of someone doing a normal exercise is selfish and has violated that someone's personal rights, and that is immoral
- T has done so
- Therefore, T is selfish, has violated my personal rights, and he is to be considered as immoral.
More will come next, do not post yet.
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Miscellaneous
Why does anyone oppose free healthcare? It literally saves the lives of more people.
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Politics