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@zedvictor4
If there is no observer, then there is nothing to be observed.So a universe is simply a representation of time space and matter, created within and transferred from, one organic computer to another organic computer. Perhaps utilising an inorganic computer or some other medium of data transfer.
Interesting, I tend to think of it the other way around. The universe is the physical stuff that actually exists whether we are there or not, and when we observe reality and give it meaning that is the stuff that is outside of the universe.
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@3RU7AL
human culture and language evolves over timeindividual perceptions of "reality" also evolve over time (unless of course you lose the ability to form new long-term memories)you are free to call anyone anything you wish, nobody is "forcing" you to "conform"
Language might evolve, but that does not mean that I should support a rhetoric that is not in line with reality. I agree perceptions of reality evolve, but they always evolve in times of psychosis. Ideally everyone can agree on basic reality. In canada (and other places probably) you can go to jail or be forced to pay a fine for using the wrong pronouns. Even in America in some limited circumstances under sb-219: "Willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns."
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@zedvictor4
Cake is overrated, pie is better.
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@3RU7AL
We need to change our use of pronouns for one. We need to change our view of reality. All of the wedge issues. What don't we need to change in some way?
Then regarding the statistic. The rape of girls by trans men who are legally allowed in the woman's bathroom has gone up 100%.
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@3RU7AL
No, but I am not going to 'outlaw being transgender' either. I (a) do not think that it is possible to switch gender or sex and (b) do not think that changing our society to accommodate transgenderism is good.
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@3RU7AL
Yes, considering the small sample size. Regardless the individual event happened only because of this policy, and it would not have happened otherwise.
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@3RU7AL
i personally know females who are commonly mistaken for malesand it's ALWAYS the "conservatives" who complain that they use the female public washroomthis proves that "conservatives" are more interested in their own PERCEPTION OF OTHER PEOPLE'S GENDER than "the reality of the situation"
This just means that conservatives are wrong about this persons gender. In their best estimate, this person is actually a man. They still value biology more than gender identity.
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@rbelivb
primarily consider these as wedge issues,
Whether they are wedge issues or not, they create serious problems that result from gender ideology. I could also claim almost anything is a wedge issue, what about pronouns, 'hate speech' laws, the very concept of truth, or just the rhetoric we use.
however it is entirely possible to resolve them in a relatively straightforward and pragmatic way, deferring to relevant authorities or localizing the relevant decisions where possible.
They tried that in Loudoun county when they allowed trans men to use the womans bathroom in schools, and the expected result happened when a trans man raped a girl. These issues cannot simply be solved through localized federalism just as you can not legalize murder in some areas of the country, but not others. Likewise on the sports issue this can not be solved because sports occur on the national level, what happens in regional tournaments where two localities disagree?
this would not entail negating the validity of trans women's identity as a whole
That is exactly what it would do, you are either a real women or a fake women. There is a reason that you are not supposed to call a trans woman a trans women, but they just want to be called a women. It is not like you can be a women in one context, but not in another one. By saying someone is not a women in one context you do negate the validity of transgenderism.
it would be along the same lines as to claim that the abortion issue is so serious that we should condemn all premarital sex.
Considering STDs, the single motherhood rate, and the over 60 million abortions that have been committed since Roe v Wade, I am perfectly willing to condemn all premarital sex.
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@3RU7AL
both sides are doing this
I disagree, conservatives put a far higher value on the biological sex of an individual rather than their perceived gender. This is why they believe that males should compete in male sports regardless of their perceived gender, and hold other such beliefs that are tied directly to sex and not to a social perception of gender.
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I feel like in every day life most of the people I know agree on most of these right or left actually. For believe all women basically everyone (barring the furthest to the left SJWs ) has realized that women are people, and that some people lie. I also think the tara reed thing with Joe Biden brought a lot of people away from this slogan/belief. I feel like basically everyone says the war in Ukraine is bad, but we should not start WWIII. I think the only difference is that the left wants to send more aid (which in some cases is fine, but for example the airspace thing would have started WWIII, but this is more of a misunderstanding thing than anything else). I can honestly say I do not know a single person who supports the war in Iraq on either side. The LGBTQ issue can be contentious, but I do not know anyone who would fire someone for this even if they disagree with it.
The vaccine thing is definitely true, and covid is probably the biggest issue between the left and right currently in general.
The death penalty is an interesting one. Certainly the data shows that conservatives support it more, but I reality I think this may be an over simplification. Support could just mean reduce, and I also find a lot of leftists who want to save it for the worst of cases. I think that the entire population falls between very rare - never. More so than any issue I think this is the hardest to predict by party, and I know a lot of people go back and forth on it personally as well (myself included).
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@rbelivb
If x = x, x = x. If female = trans female. Trans female = female. Even if for a little while people understand that what they are saying is just out of social convention, this rhetorical link inevitably leads to change. I do not even need to make a prediction about the future, just look at Lia Thomas who is a so called 'trans gendered woman' but is allowed to compete in female sports as if she had changed her sex. You might be right that no one actually is confused about biological differences, but one side puts a perceived gender identity over biology.
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@cristo71
Handguns already have an age 21 minimum.
I am well aware, but there are many other types of guns as well (such as shot guns) that can be semi automatic.
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@cristo71
All semi-autos, or just rifles?
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@rbelivb
Of course using pronouns does not imply anything about chromosomes, and not a single reasonble person actually believes that chromosomes can change. That being said, it does imply something about gender. Namely, that gender is both seperate and more important than sex.
We do not have to distinguish between gender and sex. According to the 2007 definition of gender from Merriam Webster gender means: “sex.” Clearly, it is a perfectly normal use of the word, but the left is attempting to erase this meaning. However, that being said, there is some truth in what they say. Another definition that has been widely used is: “the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex.” This definition is not just left-wing propaganda, and it is a perfectly valid use of the word.
Of course, this is not the definition that the left is talking about. While at first glance the previous definition may seem to confirm the validity of transgenderism, it actually confirms the opposite. Gender is the set of traits that sociology associates with sex — that is one of the two biological sexes. This is one of the main things that the left gets wrong about gender, gender is not a social construct, it is the set of traits associated with the social constructs around biological sex. Because gender is explicitly based on your biological sex, it is impossible to change your gender, but theoretically it is still possible to change ones perceived gender.
The whole point of using pronouns is to change this percieved gender, and to be 'polite'. The problem is that when we do this we create a rhetorical link to gender as an independent concept, rather than something that is inherently dependent on sex. From there gender is often conflated with sex, and this is where we get the idea that a man who is transgeder should be able to compete in womans sports — a field seperated by sex not gender, and other such ideas.
The problem with changing language, is that language communicates ideas and creates rhetoric, and this leads to semantic overload which enables bad ideas to take hold simply because we have changed the language. When you call someone a woman or a man whether they are or not it creates the perception they are, and sooner or later people start to believe it or to conform out of fear.
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Ten years ago this would have sounded like an onion article, just more absurd. But now this is tame. Not only do we have men who dress as women and throw cake at art. But now we have women who are cakegender who probably throw art at men.
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@zedvictor4
I disagree that inflation is primarly fuelled by global events. It seems like federal reserve policies affect inflation the most directly, for example attempting to get inflation down to a steady rate of 2% per year. Why do you argue that global events are the primary driver as opposed to national policy and events?
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@3RU7AL
Suicides are not caused by guns, if someone wants to kill themselves they can do that in any way they want. Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of policy makers to protect people from themselves. On the driving point, I do not think raising the driving age would work because the reason new drivers get into more crashes is mainly becasue they are inexperienced. I see no problem with spped limiters, there is no good reason to go 150 mph. Just because there are other things that kill people, it does not mean we should not still try to reduce crime.
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@3RU7AL
I was refrencing both mass shootings and crime in general
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@3RU7AL
Considering that guns are used 500,000 - 2,000,000 times per year in self defense I would say that it is quite substantial.
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@3RU7AL
Citizens have used guns to stop both mass shootings and crime in general[1]. With mass shootings the example that comes to mind is the church shooting in texas that was stopped by an armed person[2]. Furthermore, sometimes the police are actually obstacles and prolong shootings. For example in the recent Uvlade shooting, police officers actively prevented armed parents from saving their children instead opting to stand out of the school doing nothing [3] while children were being shot.
[1]https://www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/new-cases-armed-citizens-stopping-criminals-february
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@FLRW
Let me elaborate, AAWSAP was an actual program that studied many things including UFOs, although the vast majority of the program (97%) focused on paranormal activity. The first reporting on the program was carried out by UFO enthusiasts who left out the crazier aspects of the program. AATIP was the nickname that Luis Elizando gave to the program. The actual AAWSAP program primarly focused on investigating paranormal activity at skinwalker ranch, owned by Robert Bigelow who is a major fincial supporter of senator Harry Reid who was responsible for creating the program. Bigelow profited greatly from the whole thing, which is likely the reason the program even existed in the first place.
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@3RU7AL
There are more individual mass shootings, but most of these are small. For example the list in the wikipedia article that you provided includes shootings where only one person died, and in at least one case not a single person actually died. I don't think we can weigh a shooting where only a few people died the same as one where upwards of 50 died. The fact is that shootings tend to be less fatal in the US, often times because they are abruptly stopped by someone else with a gun.
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@3RU7AL
The article that you are referring to also includes the CRPC data, which would confirm my point on Norway, but then it gives several reasons the data that you presented is better than the CRPC data.
Average (Mean) Annual Death Rate per Million People from Mass Public Shootings (U.S., Canada, and Europe, 2009-2015):
- Norway — 1.888
- Serbia — 0.381
- France — 0.347
- Macedonia — 0.337
- Albania — 0.206
- Slovakia — 0.185
- Switzerland — 0.142
- Finland — 0.132
- Belgium — 0.128
- Czech Republic — 0.123
- United States — 0.089
- Austria — 0.068
- Netherlands — 0.051
- Canada — 0.032
- England — 0.027
- Germany — 0.023
- Russia — 0.012
- Italy — 0.009
Article objections to the CRPC report
1. The CRPC report only includes high-ranking countries, giving the false impression that the US has a lower comparative death rate. (would not change position of US on the list)
2. Average deaths per capita can have a “statistically oversized influence” Norway specifically only had one mass shooting of 69 people in the time frame.
3. It gives an example of the method applying to the 9/11 attacks
An easy, though arguably insensitive, way to illustrate the shortcomings of this approach is to apply it to the 9/11 attacks, which killed 2,977 people in the United States on a single day in 2001. Running that data through the CRPC formula yields the following statistic: Plane hijackings by terrorists caused an average of 297.7 deaths per year in the U.S. from 2001-2010. This is mathematically accurate, but it gives a badly distorted impression of what actually happened during those ten years.
4. It says that population size warps death per capita for smaller countries
Response
Excluding low-ranking countries definitely could be a valid concern. That being said, it does not matter because it has been disclosed, so we can avoid any false impressions. It is also an irrelevant concern regarding this issue because we only care about Norway as relative to the US, and not any other country on the list.
Using deaths per capita does not create a statistically oversized influence. This would only be possible if the sample sizes were small, but even ‘small’ countries have millions of people. Sure, Norway only had one mass shooting in the time frame, but the population of the US is about 6125% that of Norway. Assuming Norway were to have the population of the US, they would have about 61 shootings in the time frame — and spread out roughly evenly across years. Similarly, if the US had a population the size of Norway, it would only have 0-1 shootings within the time frame.
I see nothing wrong with the example given on 9/11. Especially when looking at the overall impact of gun policies, we should care more about the overall impact than the year by year. Any way you phrase it the same amount of people die.
When it says population sizes ‘warp’ the death per capita, this is a given and intentional. Per capita corrects for population sizes, and if we did not do this, then large countries would always have the most mass shootings, which is technically true numerically, but it does not account for population size. I definitely could be missing something here, but this point just seems invalid.
My objections to the alternative report
My main issue with the data here is that it tests for propensity, meaning the amount of deaths from mass shootings that are likely to occur in any year. Larger countries will always have numerically more deaths, but not necessarily proportionally so. This translates into how likely a shooting is to occur in any year, but the deaths say the same. This means that major mass shootings are discounted simply because they happened in a small country with numerically fewer shootings.
The report also gives the false impression that other countries have no propensity for mass shootings. This is, of course, false, it is just that smaller European countries with smaller populations will have shootings with longer intervals as they have less people.
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The entire UFO story is wrong, and there wasn't even a program named AATIP.
I kind of hope there are UFOs, but I doubt that any of the evidence we have so far actually points to it.
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I would say that the universe is a set which encompasses everything in space and time. In this sense, our thoughts could be considered part of the universe. Our brain fires neurons which are most definitely in the universe, but then we ascribe meaning to that which may or may not be outside of the universe.
I would argue that meaning arises from consciousness which is not part of the universe, but instead a behavior or understanding that arises from perception that is itself enabled by the universe.
In the same way that our brains ascribe meaning to signals in the brain we as conscious beings have ascribed meanings to numbers. If there are 3 rocks, they all exist with or without us. That being said the number itself has no meaning, and the rocks simply exist. With consciousness we ascribe a meaning to numbers, and can observe that there are three rocks.
So I think that everything exists in the universe physically, but we derive meanings from the universe that are themselves outside of the universe. The words on the page exist, but they do not mean anything unless given a meaning.
I don't see how another universe could exist. What would seperate it from the universe?
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Norway has by far the highest mass shooting rate per capita out of any country, and it has gun laws that are stricter than in the US. You can only legally get a gun for hunting or for sport shooting. Only 9% of the population owns a gun, but in the US there are more guns than people.
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