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@oromagi
It does matter because when you submitted this claim yesterday, the email and the accusation were all concealed behind a wall which required me to give my contact information to a cult.
It was walled? I didn't know. I am already a subscriber and nothing bad has happened to me. And it isn't a cult any more than Shaolin Buddhism or Catholicism or being Amish is.
Also, who said you needed to give your real contact info? You work in IT, you should know better lmao.
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@oromagi
they employ plenty of non-religious adherents.
Roger Simon:
Joshua Philip:
Jasper Fakkert:
Jeff Carlson:
Dinesh D'Souza:
Oh, and they once interviewed me for a position over at NTD, their cable news network. I hadn't even heard of Falun Dafa at all back then. And I am certainly not an adherent.
Also, here's a 2022 application page:
As you can see, the position is open for any Canadians at all.
The Epoch Media Group was actually dropped by The Epoch Times years before this happened
I had the names mixed up, since this was from memory, but that's their response to the false allegations.
You're talking about Epoch Vietnam, which, despite the similar name, is not currently affiliated with The Epoch Times and has not been for about 10 years
It was also 2018, not 10 years ago. But outside of that what I said was accurate.
They do not endorse or support Qanon in any capacity.
I don't have to prove a negative, but I will anyway:
The QAnon movement follows clues from cryptic messages posted to anonymous imageboards. A prominent aspect of the theory alleges that global elites are part of a satanic pedophile ring.
The newly elected GOP representative has been criticized over a number of statements including her support for the QAnon conspiracy, once claiming QAnon is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.”
Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/gop-candidate-marjorie-taylor-greene-wins-georgia-seat_3564493.html
His self-anointed title “QAnon shaman” stems from his personal belief that satanic pedophiles are running a child sex trafficking ring and conspired against President Donald Trump while in office.
And this final one is their first ever article on Qanon where they explain what it is:
While opinions vary as to its nature and intent, QAnon is a movement that started on 4chan and 8chan message boards with a trickle of clandestine-sounding posts, often centered on the theme of big government plots to curb individual liberties and advance so-called deep state and globalist agendas. It grew into a large underground movement with a number of splinter groups and often claims that members of the world’s social, economic, and political elites have engaged in child sex trafficking and cannibalism.There are many theories on who is behind Q. Among the more common beliefs is that Q stands for Q security clearance, the highest level of clearance within the Department of Energy. Others believe it refers to “Q” from the James Bond films, a figure who supports Bond as he fights a global corrupt shadow group.
Does any of that sound like supporting the movement to you? They didn't and still don't. In fact you can read all the other articles on their website about qanon here:
I have employed very specific evidence (Atlantic Monthly, NY TImes, LinkedIn, Epoch Times)
When did you cite an Epoch Times article? The others are not primary sources about The Epoch Times. To know what a person believes, you don't ask someone who hates them. You ask the person whom you wish to know what they believe.
The same applies to organizations. You actually go to them and you hear their side and you investigate whom they have hired and connect themselves to and figure it out from there. You don't just bring up news reports from organizations with known ties to globalist organizations and intelligence community psyop departments.
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You wanna know what's really funny about this forum post?
Nobody is actually reading the emails that The Epoch Times has in their article.
Everyone on here spent so much time bullshitting about credibility that they didn't even read the emails from CDC STAFF.
It doesn't matter if Russia Today released this article, it has the actual emails in it. It is primary source material. It could be released by a high school paper for all that matters. It doesn't change the content of the emails.
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@oromagi
I don't know about Li's writings but here is a portion of 1999 Time magazine interview that establishes that products controlled by Master Li ought not to be treated as reliable sources for information.
And this is your problem. You just decide to shut off your ears to everything that disagrees with you, even if what you believe is bonkers.
But I will say that Time Magazine interview was very interesting reading. But it doesn't count as official doctrine for Falun Dafa. The adherents go based off of the text that he left, which I linked to and wrote from extensively.
Li wouldn't be the first one to believe in aliens, and he certainly won't be the last. But regardless of his beliefs on this, it doesn't determine the whole religion. The fact of the matter is that Falun Dafa is just another type of Buddhism that teaches to let go of worldly attachments and seek enlightenment.
I don't agree with it, but that is what it is. Personally the reason Falun Dafa isn't a cult is because it is similar to how Buddhism started, with the teachings of an individual. Li doesn't tell people to worship him and more than Buddha did. So it isn't a cult.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Here is what Newsweek reported:
According to AP, DePape, who remains in custody, grew up in the Canadian city of Powell River, British Columbia, leaving for the San Francisco area roughly 20 years ago to live with an older girlfriend.He has also been affiliated with a prominent pro-nudist activism group in the Bay Area. A San Francisco Chronicle report said that he was considered a "father figure" at a group home in Berkeley populated by members of the group.Politico reported how DePape was known to have attended several nudist protests across the Bay Area in the early 2010s, speaking out against local ordinances requiring residents to wear clothing in public.A photo has also been circulating online showing the attacker, with clothes on, at a nudist wedding in 2013. As of that wedding nine years ago, he was also known to make jewelry products out of hemp.DePape is said to have two children with a woman named Gypsy Taub, a Russian American pro-nudity activist from San Francisco, as well as another child with a different woman.He appears to have shared conspiratorial leanings with Taub, who hosted a public-access television program called "Uncensored 9/11" in which she discussed in the nude conspiracy theories surrounding September 11, 2001, attacks.DePape is said to have posted a number of mainstream and fringe conspiracy theories online, including that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump, climate change denial, COVID-19 vaccine and mask skepticism, and other narratives associated with QAnon.According to reports citing a blog allegedly administered by DePape, he also promoted a conspiratorial narrative blaming Jewish people for Russia's war in Ukraine, claiming the events are orchestrated as part of a scheme "for Jews to buy land."
Some relatives have since verified the contents of DePape's since-deleted Facebook page, which included posts discussing widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, posts with misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, and a YouTube video titled "Global Elites Plan To Take Control Of YOUR Money! (Revealed)."
So DePape is A San Franciscan Canadian immigrant nudist activist who also propagated conspiracy theories and alternative facts.
This is hardly a profile of any type of voter, let alone a "typical Trump supporter."
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@oromagi
Check- "Dragon Springs, also known as The Mountain
And Shaolin Monks go off and live in the mountains in facilities cut off from the world and the Amish live in their own communities separated from the world. Neither one of those is a cult. So why does having your own zone mean you are in a cult?
Check- "Li's success also had a large part to do with people seeking alternative medicine treatments at a time when China's health care system was struggling desperately to meet demand.
So treating people who are sick makes a person a cult leader? Additionally, Shaolin Buddhism also includes healing rituals and channeling of demons and working with energy forces. Are they a cult? And the Hindu religion also believes in healing through energies. The Native Americans also practice healing energy and many New Age religions believe in healing crystals which channel healing energy. All of those are not qualifiers of cults. So Falun Dafa is no different.
Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
The catholics worship the Pope in this manner. The Buddhists worship Buddha in this manner. Both of them are not considered cults.
In 1998 Li Hongzhi stated that he believes alien invaders walk the Earth and that modern science and race-mixing are part of their ploy to overtake humanity, and he has reportedly said that he can walk through walls and make himself invisible. Li says that he is a being from a higher level who has come to help humankind from the destruction it could face as the result of rampant evil.
Buzz Aldrin said he saw aliens on the moon. And the former head of national security for Canada said there are 80 alien species living on the earth.
Also, Li's writings do not state any of these things he reportedly said. And Falun Dafa people, so far as I can tell, do not believe them.
But what I REALLY LOVE about what you did was you constructed a case using hearsay and third party sources to invent your own opinion about a person.
You completely ignored the words I cited, from the person's own religious writings for the movement, mind you, and instead relied on telephone-style reports to invent your own opinion.
I gave you a link to the foundational texts of the religion, and you just ignore those and invent claims based on things you've read on the internet.
Look, I don't agree with Falun Dafa at all. But they arent crazies who are going around lying to people. The Epoch Times is a very honest paper. Biased, yes. But honest.
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@zedvictor4
that stupidity attracts stupidity
Right. That's why Antifa and BLM and AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are all conservati... Oh wait, they're all Democrats.
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@badger
If you've got a history, you've got to work harder for your "facts".
The appeal to authority fallacy is the oldest intellectually dishonest trick in the book that there is.
The ancient Greek politicians told people that the earth is flat because they said so and because the gids said it to them. People who questioned the authorities back then were murdered.
And you want to tell me that a person should be believed solely on their position of influence?
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@badger
I believe you two would be referred to as "suckers" in the business.
If you believe there is no spiritual realm at all, you're a bigger sucker than the person the goes to the psychic.
I personally know people who have witnessed demonic possessions. I have seen real videos of demonic possessions. This stuff is real.
But thay doesn't mean every prophet, psychic, faith healer, etc. is legitimate. There definitely is a lot of charlatans out there. I don't engage with psychics at all and I do not just randomly believe a person is a faith healer because someone got out of a wheelchair. I know there's charlatans out there.
But when it personally happens to you and people you know and they went to their family doctors (not special doctors or doctors recommended by the faith healers) who confirmed they were healed, that is irrefutable evidence.
You're the "sucker" if you think otherwise.
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@badger
Only in America.
I don't understand. I am a epistemic logic thinker. I do not just accept things at their face value but I investigate it and hold it to logic.
These people told me things I never told them about myself, and they never met me before or knew who I was.
And it isn't that vague bullshit like "someone close to you passed away of _____. Their name began with a P or an A." It was real, detailed, specific stuff.
And when three of these people all say the same thing, in the same wording, at completely different times, years apart from each other, you tend to not believe it is just a "coincidence."
How do three random people, at completely different years and time intervals, all give a person the exact same prophecy, in the exact same wording, without knowledge of the other prophets doing it or any knowledge that I had even been prophesied over previously? That HAS to be supernatural. That's impossibly coincidental.
I personally believe that 90% of psychics are faking it. I think mentalists make a lot of money pretending to be psychics and they do the whole microphones all over the auditorium, digging into people's facebook pages and pairing with their phones via bluetooth to mine their data and other stuff to appear "clairvoyant."
But the thing is, this didn't happen at one of those "shows." This happened in individual gatherings of people or in one-on-one occasions. And all three said the same exact wording and phrase. So it was entirely different.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
DePape’s screeds included posts about QAnon, an unfounded theory that former President Trump is at war with a cabal of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring and control the world. In an Aug. 23 entry titled “Q,” DePape wrote: “Either Q is Trump himself or Q is the deepstate moles within Trumps inner circle.”
This reminds me of 1984 when they had the political prisoners rolling by thr crowd and people were yelling "traitor!" And it turned out they were just fall guys who were killed for no reason to instill both love and fear of big brother.
Does thr media show the facebook posts and the quotes and text messages or anything else? Of course not. So how the flying fuck do we know if it is really true or not?
Moreover, Q himself said that violence is not an option and that the movement is strictly nonviolent and works by enlightening people. So any Qanon supporter who engages in violence completely misses the point of it all.
But don't mistake me here. Qanon is most certainly a political cult and there is an unwritten rule that you are not allowed to disagree with Q. Q is always right, even when the "drops" with extremely garbled sentence structure and devoid of basic english grammatical knowledge don't come true. The person who points this out is lambasted for "disagreeing with Q."
And, no. I was never a Qanon supporter, but I did actually investigate the movement and lurk in their .win forum to learn what they were about.
I have serious worries about mischaracterizing them as something they aren't, though. Because that is partly how the Nazis rose to power in Germany. They were discredited mainly through censorship and outright falsehoods about them in their early stages, which actually backfired and caused level-headed people eho investigate claims and try to learn the truth to he fooled into joining.
We need to talk about Qanon the way it actually is, and that way people won't be fooled into joining it.
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But, just to clarify, I do not believe this religion is true. I also do not believe that healing abilities come from magic energies and special rituals, like many Buddhists do.
I believe true healing only comes from Jesus Christ. And I have been personally healed of things. I also know people personally who have been healed by Jesus, and then went to doctors who confirmed their healings. So I know from actual evidence that Falun Dafa is wrong, but that doesn't mean it is a cult.
Moreover, I know people who have the gift of healing. I also know people who have the gift of prophecy. So the only REAL enlightenment comes from God, not following some sort of mysticism or buddhism or other New Age type religion.
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@oromagi
it is reasonable to assume that these reporters have no control over what stories they print or the truth of those stories. They are required to attend daily sessions where the writings and will of Li are constantly consulted.
This one right here is the most factually false thing in your entire tirade.
First of all, it is called Falun Dafa officially, but it is also called Falun Gong.
The book they consult is called the Zhuan Falun.
I'll go straight to Li's writings himself (the Zhuan Falun) to completely discredit your beliefs about this religion:
Dafa is the wisdom of the Creator. It is the bedrock of creation, what the heavens, earth, and universe are built upon. It encompasses all things, from the utmost minuscule to the vastest of the vast, while manifesting differently at each of the cosmic body’s planes of existence. Out of the depths of the cosmic body, the tiniest of particles first appear, with layers upon layers of countless particles following, ranging in size from small to great, reaching all the way to the outer planes that humankind knows—those of atoms, molecules, planets, and galaxies—and beyond, to what is still larger. [1]
This is no different than the buddhist belief that Brahman is in everything and everyone.
If a human being is to understand the mysteries of the universe, space-time, and the human body, he must take up cultivation of a true Way and achieve true enlightenment, raising his plane of being. Through cultivation his moral character will elevate, and once he has learned to discern what is truly good from evil, and virtue from vice, and he goes beyond the human plane, he will see and gain access to the realities of the universe as well as the lives of other planes and dimensions. [1]
This is the Buddha's same concept of enlightenment. Doing good things will enlighten a person to the mysteries of the universe.
So what is this spiritual way of enlightenment? Li explains it is basically Buddhism:
You will get very little out of the practice if there are impure motives still with you as you try to learn it. In truth, the spiritual journey is none other than an ongoing process of learning to let go of the things of this world that we may be attached to. If you are someone who competes fiercely with others, who tries to cheat and outwit people, or who even tramples on others to come out on top, then you really have to change your ways. It’s especially imperative for you as someone who is here to learn the practice today. [2]
This is no different than what all forms of Buddhism teach, that enlightenment is letting go of bad thoughts and material possessions.
But also notice here how Li explicitly states that people who cheat and abuse and try to destroy others to succeed need to change their ways. He here is asserting an honest moral character. Therefore, people who practice Falun Dafa must be honest and have good intentions.
But moreover he even affirms many Buddhist beliefs:
In Buddhism there has long been a belief that when one’s divinity shines through, it is moving to higher beings throughout the many planes of the universe. All who behold it will wish to provide help, and will do so unconditionally. Buddhists believe that higher beings expect nothing in return when they save someone from this world; they don’t affix any price, and their help is always unconditional. [2]
Li also tells followers with ailing bodies to seek medical care and also purify their mind of evil thoughts before going further in Falun Dafa:
So what do we do? We cleanse their bodies for them so that progress in our practice will be possible. The first, most basic stage of the spiritual journey involves thoroughly and completely cleansing your body, as well as clearing out all of the bad things in your head, the cloud of karma engulfing your body, and the factors compromising your health. Without this cleansing it would be hard for you to make spiritual progress, plagued as it were by a body dark and foul, and a mind that unclean. Our practice doesn’t work on the basic kind of energy known as chi.* You needn’t work on such basic things with our practice. We boost you past that stage, so that you begin with a body free of ailment. But at the same time, we still provide you with everything that one would normally develop as a foundation at the basic stage of practice, ready-made. This means you start right off at an advanced stage. [2]
So this religion is nothing remotely similar to what your sources claimed about it. It is simply just another form of Buddhism. Li, himself, did not ascribe any sort of god status to himself and even told his followers not to grow attached to having healing powers, as attachment is ultimately what a practicer is trying to avoid. This is basic buddhism.
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@oromagi
Falun Gong religious cult
I destroyed you on this one last time. Do I need to do it again?
They are no more a cult than buddhism is. The fact you listen to CCP propaganda is astounding.
Since escapees report that members of this cult have little control over who they marry or what profession they choose or where they live,
The funny thing about this is that there are no actual witness statements about this. It is kind of just FBI bullshit based on "anonymous sources." Also, The Epoch Times has an office based in New York City and they employ plenty of non-religious adherents. So they regularly break their "rules" all the time, apparently.
Mediabias/factcheck:
Media Bias Fact Check is run by a hard-left sciencism believer who thinks consensus equals science and that the supernatural doesn't even exist. The owner is not only an atheist but is more of an anti-supernatural person than Richard Dawkins, and that is saying something.
The Epoch Media group, which pushes a variety of pro-Trump conspiracy theories, spent $9.5 million on ads to spread content through the now-suspended pages and groups.”
The Epoch Media Group was actually dropped by The Epoch Times years before this happened. You're talking about Epoch Vietnam, which, despite the similar name, is not currently affiliated with The Epoch Times and has not been for about 10 years. The Epoch Times dropped years before for doing precisely what you said they were.
the Epoch Times frequently publishes pseudoscience news, such as Supernormal Abilities Developed Through Meditation: Dr. Dean Radin Discusses.
It is an interview with a doctor. Is it wrong for news outlets to conduct interviews?
the channel pushes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits that the same “Spygate” cabal is a front for a global pedophile ring being taken down by Trump.”
First of all, there is no "Qanon conspiracy." Qanon is a political cult that follows sporadic droppings by a person named "Q." Additionally, the REAL Qanon conspiracy is that there is going to be a One World Government and that the current elites are satanist pedophiles.
But they believe all sorts of things. Moreover, The Epoch Times does NOT adhere to Qanon. They are not members of Qanon. And, while they do believe in a global elite, they also recognize that there are many different sex trafficking and pedophile rings. They do not endorse or support Qanon in any capacity.
Goodness gracious, man. You have to read primary sources. Your sources are an atheist militant liberal who has a grudge against anyone who doesn't agree with "consensus." And NBC, which has a major media deal with the Chinese Government.
So you believe two people who write propaganda for a living.
I have actually read large sections of the Falun Gong website and compared it to buddhism (the REAL Eastern Buddhism, not the fake western Buddhism propaganda) and it is literally just another form of buddhism. Their books are available to read online for free at their website.
Obviously I don't believe it is true any more than any other religion except for Christianity. But that doesn't mean there are no elements of truth in it.
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@Shila
Trump should be credited for pulling out of the middle-east and letting Putin in.
Actually, Trump accomplished the Abraham Accords, which was a historic partnership between Muslim, Israeli, and Arab countries united against terrorism.
Trump also increased our sales of weapons to Israel and the UAE (it might have been Saudi Arabia, I cant remember for sure).
Trump also got the Taliban to agree to stop killing people and engaging in war against their neighbors in exchange for some land they already controlled.
So Trump didn't really "pull out." We simply phased troops out. Trump also didn't "let Putin in." He did a lot of work to strengthen our allegiances there and the Abraham Accords was the culmination of that.
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@RationalMadman
I disagree though, that's just data storage, the real skill is in utilisation.
Well his point was that having that data could be utilized to make a more persuasive case. Not just the having of the data but being able to wield it appropriately.
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"U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials were alerted that they spread misinformation about child COVID-19 deaths but still did not issue corrections, according to emails obtained by The Epoch Times.
Drs. Katherine Fleming-Dutra and Sara Oliver were told within days of presenting to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, in June that statistics from a preprint study they shared were wrong, the emails show. But after internal discussion about how to respond, neither the CDC nor the officials corrected the false information.
Fleming-Dutra and Oliver both referenced the study, which has not been peer reviewed, while the CDC’s advisers weighed whether to recommend the agency grant emergency authorization for COVID-19 vaccines for babies and toddlers.
The committee ultimately recommended the CDC authorize Pfizer and Moderna shots for children as young as 6 months of age and the CDC quickly accepted the recommendation.
A week later, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky appeared to cite the false statistics while urging parents to get their children vaccinated, despite no evidence the vaccines protect against severe illness and despite the clinical trials returning substandard or unreliable results for shielding against infection."
***THEY SHOW THE EMAILS IN THE ARTICLE***
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The beauty of debating online is that it gives you time to think up smart-ass answers.
Or time to think of answers in general.
Cicero said the most important part to being persuasive is to be as knowledgeable as possible on every topic imaginable. That way you can use it in debates at a moment's notice.
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@RationalMadman
paleocons less so and paleo are closer to the opposite.
Trump was a paleoconservative. He got us reinvolved in the Middle East and declared war on ISIS. And all the paleocon thinkers egged him on.
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@RationalMadman
The point was both are the opposite of progressives and they are very interventionist when a fascist attacks a country. Meaning that it isn't a progressive belief. It is more a known conservative one.
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@RationalMadman
It's progressive to be a warhawk against an invading fascist tyrant, that's very progressive.
RationalMadman, meet Neo-Conservatives and Paleoconservatives. Neo-Conservatives and Paleoconservatives, introduce yourselves to RationalMadman. Y'all get acquainted while I go get some more party punch.
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@RationalMadman
I mean all aspects of fascism, in particular the tyranny and censorship.
Right.
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@Greyparrot
Why would these people care about a foreign country meddling in a nation they have zero pride in?
Exactly. And, even further, why do they care WHICH country it is? Why is it had if it's Russia but not China?
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@Greyparrot
It's possible China is trying to manipulate opinions weakening the USA and misdirecting blame to Russia.
Well American billionaires and the CCP have a lot of mutual interests... Could be a team up.
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@Vici
I'm just proving that he is not a good debater.
Not good = bad.
I made the argument that definitions we use are universal
Only: alone in a class or category : SOLE (from Merriam Webster).
So, by your own admission you therefore MUST accept that you are using Just DebateArt and nothing else to determine whether someone is a good or bad debater. There's no other option here.
I am using the COMMON DEFINTIONS OF public speaker
And by doing so you violated your own debate prompt. You are only considering DebateArt. Nothing else, according to the definition of only as provided.
Your definitions are setting your own little special pleading standard that is completely different from the standard you made in your description. That was my issue with your approach. You so obviously and brazenly went outside of your own description.
The debate was never if Barney is objectively good. Your own description limited it to "only DebateArt." Well, only on DebateArt, Barney is a good debater. So you lost.
If you wrote in your description that the debate is over whether Barney is objectively good compared tocall debaters of all time, then I could judge you on your argument. But your argument was nothing but one big red herring from the actual topic of the debate.
You even admitted to this now:
Again, saying "we only consider debate art" CLEARLY indicates we are only using debate art as a source of evidence to draw upon, especially since the second half of the sentence was "we do not consider DDO".
Well, if we are using DebateArt for the evidence to draw upon, then Barney is a good debater. All other evidence is not allowed to be used. According to DebateArt, the leaderboard, the elo system, other people on the website, Barney is a good debater. He even beat Novice, who is undoubtedly the best debater on this website. So he is a good debater based on your own admissions now.
Based on the only allowed evidence, the only conclusion is that Barney is a good debater.
Changing the rules with your opening argument is special pleading. And being pointed out on it, and then insisting that your reinvention of the debate's rules is the real debate topic, is a red herring. The point is your description forces me to evaluate the debate based on it. You can't change the debate in the debate itself. You both accepted and agreed to the debate as-is. And you therefore lost it, as is.
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@Vici
I know you're talking about me, so I will respond.
For starters, let's start with your description:
we only consider debateart because debate.org is gone and we don't know about it.
Now let's look at what I said again:
According to the debate description, we are considering DebateArt as the criteria. So for PRO to insist an outside definition should be used as a standard for a good debater is to go against the description. CON structured his....
This isn't some deepthroating of Barney's dick or anything. It is applying what you wrote in the debate description as the criterion for the debate. I do this with all my votes.
To be honest, I know almost nothing about Barney. I have rarely interacted with Barney. I have only seen, maybe, one debate he was in. So I came to this basically fresh and non-partisan. I also barely saw most of the forum posts you did and barely knew anything about you.
If you didn't want "only DebateArt" to be considered then you shouldn't have said that. It was a very easy problem to avoid. But it is clear from your description you are evaluating Barney's ability based on DebateArt. That is what your description stated. And that is how I rated the debate.
So let's go to your arguments now. I'm going to block quote because you clearly seem to think I had it in for you.
- How we determine this? Two ways
- Look at all their opponents holistically - what is their combined record?
- Combined records is a good way to determine strength. Eg. if my record is 100-0 but all my opponents have lost 10 times this isn't impressive. However, if my record is 10-3 and all my opponents have won 100 times, this is indicate of a better debater. It isn't perfect, but the probabilities of noob sniping is much less in the bare record (more difficult to find 10 bad opponents who've won 100 times than to snipe 100 people).
Your OPENING ARGUMENT is using debate metrics PROVIDED BY DEBATEART.COM.
You then provide a statistical analysis of why you think elo doesn't matter. But, here's the thing. YOU made this about debate records. YOU made this about DebateArt performance. And YOU made this about "only DebateArt" as the metric.
But it gets better:
- Combined record
- 390-1104
- FUN FACT - Barney has, out of his 37 opponents beaten on 3 people with a positive win loss ratio
- Strong opponents
- Novice (who he calls bad at debating) and who he is currently running from.
- shas04 who is 0-2, 17 years old and who barney said "Were this debate to happen today, I am quite certain I would lose; and justly so"
- Literally no one else. I couldn't find a single person who hadn't lost three times more than they had won.
Here is where you shoot yourself in the foot. While trying to prove Barney is a terrible debater, you list how he has beaten Novice_II, who is honestly the best debater on this website.
You do this to prove he is a bad debater? You shot yourself in the foot. I didn't even need CON to respond. You already made the case against yourself.
But you then further proceed to shoot yourself in the foot with your final opening argument:
Argument three: No one on this site is a good debater
If you think no one on this site is a good debater, then why did you bring up Novice_II? Why did you make your own personal tier list of debaters based on wins against strong debaters? Why do any of that?
But even more so, WHY BOTHER SAYING YOU WILL ONLY CONSIDER DEBATEART IF YOU DON'T EVEN THINK ANYONE ON HERE IS A GOOD DEBATER?
But, knowing that I am not allowed to respond in place of CON, I waited to see how CON responded.
And he nails it on the head:
I shall prove my case on three fronts, which shall be given their own sections below
- Win Record
- Leaderboard
- Quality of Debates
Why did he nail it on the head? BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY CONSIDERING DEBATEART. He is following the prompt.
He also notes this in his opening argument:
ScopeThis debate is limited to DebateArt.com, as written in the description: “we only consider debateart because debate.org is gone and we don't know about it”[sic]. Therefore, I shall seek to prove myself good by the standards of this website.
He is making a statement of fact here. A statement of fact that could have easily been avoided if you wrote the description differently. BUT YOU DIDN'T.
He then defines good in a way that you also agreed to with your opening argument:
Given the many definitions for good, I shall assume via context that it is a reference of degree of skill and quality to a notably above average at debating within the confines of this website.
You said, in your opening argument:
B must prove that he did this, again, from my chaotic state observation, the status quo is that he has not done any of these things (we should assume he hasn't) so to disprove this point he must prove that he has done some good debates
So you are both working out of the same definition for good.
He then proceeds to show how he is good, and, THIS IS THE KEY PART HERE, ONLY CONSIDERING DEBATEART.
So he followed the prompt, unlike you, btw. Your argument three days that outside accolades matter more than wins on DebateArt. You also asked Barney to prove he has won accolades. I don't know what in the world that has to do with "we only consider DebateArt."
To be a good debater out of the wide pool of debaters that exist, you must have some great debating skills and corresponding prizes (participated in national debating, participated in Ivy League debates, participated in high level debates e.g. Harris vs Peterson, or debated in high level debating contests). B must prove that he did this, again, from my chaotic state observation, the status quo is that he has not done any of these things (we should assume he hasn't) so to disprove this point he must prove that he has done some good debates. If he hasn't then he isn't a good debater, in the sense that in society, he is not a good debater.
No you don't. Not for this debate at least. For this debate we are only considering DebateArt. So what the flying fuck do accolades and participating in Ivy League Debates have to do with this debate? They are outside of DebateArt. You basically decided to abandon your own argument and begin requiring a different test than your description.
So CON won not because "I hate you," or because "I am biased toward Barney" or any other horseshit. CON won because he stuck to the prompt and proved USING ONLY DEBATEART that he is a good debater. Like it or not, according to the WEBSITE METRICS, which you also used, and according to WHOM HE HAS BEATEN, you lost this debate.
All CON had to do was make that clear. DebateArt uses a leaderboard and elo rating to determine the best debaters. Barney is one of the highest-ranked debaters on this website and he beat Novice_II, which you noted, who is a higher rank than he is currently.
Look to be honest, you are actually right that he noob snipes. But rather than use DebateArt metrics to prove this and then proceed to discredit the elo rating and leaderboard, you could have come at it from an entirely different angle and simply showed how Barney's debates themselves were not impressive. But you fucked up when you went to the leaderboard and used DebateArt statistics to make your case.
It was a bad debate on your part. You handed Barney the victory.
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@PREZ-HILTON
You can slow the spread internationally, even if the virus has already went global.
Agreed. The ticket was focused protection for the elderly and letting doctors do what they did early on. Treat the symptoms and also give Ivermectin or other proven medications to stop it.
But they didn't do that so quarantining did basically nothing.
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@Athias
I'm not suggesting one should just accept one's talking out of one's ass, for lack of a better term, but sources should amplify an argument, not replace it.
Well proof is half of the battle. Good sources are always better than shitty ones.
This is why primary sources are always the best. You can't just write off a primary source.
But I do agree with you that it is disgusting on here when two people are debating using Wikipedia and CNN for the crux of their proof. Like, yeah, that's a good source for information. Lol
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@Novice_II
The majority of people exaggerate about the sources they cite, and engage in bad faith.
Well I mean people in real life do that too, so wouldn't it be helpful being on here to see it in real life and combat it?
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@3RU7AL
the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."
Yeah but that was, like, different man. It was the 70s. The CIA doesn't do that anymore. /s
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@oromagi
Were you born deaf?
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@oromagi
True but there's not much public policy can or should want to do about that.
Yeah? How about not using Facebook and Twitter and news corporations and internet service providers as an extension of the Federal Government's psyops and let people be free to say what they want unless it will cause real, trackable, and provable harm to someone else?
Or is that not a policy that a government can implement?
To me it seems very cut and dry. The government isn't a newspaper or a social media website or an internet service provider, so it should stop controlling them.
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Have you all found that debating on this site has helped you all become better debaters outside of the website?
Are you able to demolish all your friends in debates and stuff? Do they all assent to your superior skillz?
Or has this website not really transferred over into the real world?
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@Shila
Musk already said he will follow the government in censorship.
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@PREZ-HILTON
shutting their borders down providing statistics to the WHO etc. Etc.
COVID-19 already spread globally by December of 2019. It wasn't officially recognized until March, where it was already globally spread.
My proof is mainly in emails from scientists working in this area, and I don't have permission to share their names or thoughts
I'm sure your scientist friends may know some things that were not leaked to the general public, but I highly doubt that the CCP were instrumental in stopping COVID-19.
Did the CCP contribute? Of course. This is publicly documented. But they were not instrumental by any means and, for the most part, gave out disinformation, like how lockdowns slowed the spread. They had no data proving this. They made it up. And most of the rest of the world didn't check it first to see if it made any sense. They just blindly followed suit.
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@PREZ-HILTON
They live in a totalitarian regimes
Except the ones here on Visa lol.
You are not realizing just how big of a role Chinese scientists played in understanding the virus.
BoP is on you to prove that. The earliest vaccines were developed by American companies and American scientists. [1] The models they used to predict the spread all came from western virology institutes, particularly London (imperial college model) and Johns Hopkins.
Most of the agreed-upon science for how COVID spread was already laid out by western countries long before China even opened their mouths on it. In fact the State Department already knew China had an outbreak of SOMETHING based on satellite images of overflowing hospital parking lots. [2] So we didn't even need the CCP to tell us there was a viral outbreak. They also likely had an idea that it was a COVID outbreak because, as the State Department said, the lab was working on coronaviruses and they had a known problem with safety standards. [3]
SOURCES:
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@3RU7AL
that's why RT is now banned, because "censorship bad"
Exactly lol. The inconsistency of this is astounding. And I don't even really trust RT any more than any other news outlet. I am just showing how nutso this resolution is. "We hate censorship! But we are allowed to censor whatever we want and have our own laws and work together to keep it that way!"
Like, if anything this document is proof now that 60 countries are going to engage in unregulated censorship and they will just point to the agreement and say is it "disinformation" and that they have complete autonomy under this agreement to censor whatever they want.
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Don't forget about the science of the voting process. The consensus says elections are always perfect, so anyone who disagrees is a science-denier!
CISA is the most reputable cybersecurity department in the entire universe. Even aliens can't compete with CISA. CISA's skills are so advanced that our own government's election interference equipment doesn't stand a chance! And CISA says the election was secure. All hail CISA and their security ability!
Let's go lock up those Trump supporter bigots now for questioning our perfect election.
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@PREZ-HILTON
They sequenced the virus 14 days into the pandemic.
From there you just make the mRNA vaccine. They didn't "need" scientists of a particular ethnic origin go accomplish this. Any competent group of scientists could have.
Also, who is to say all the Chinese scientists would refuse?
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@RationalMadman
upvote if you like btw, that is the tradition here.
Mi forgesis.
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Ĉi KLARE estas kiel estiminda debatretejo devus esti funkciigata. Mi ne povas kredi, ke mi ne rimarkis tion pli frue.Estas EVIDENTE, ke Esperanto estas la sola lingvo por debatoj!!
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@RationalMadman
Mi pli frue iĝus transgenra nur por havi lesban sekson kun via eks kaj sendi al vi filmeton pri ĝi ol subteni ĉi tiun politikon.
😂
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@oromagi
So, no committee just a declaration and a shared vision
From the declaration:
In signing this Declaration, the United States and partners will work together to promote this vision and its principles globally, while respecting each other’s regulatory autonomy within our own jurisdictions and in accordance with our respective domestic laws and international legal obligations.
They will all WORK TOGETHER on this. If committee isn't the right word here then what word do you suggest???
So, no connection to WEF.
Where did I say it was connected to the WEF? I said they took the idea of stakeholder capitalism and applied it. I was EXPLAINING WHAT THAT MEANT.
Do you purposely misinterpret people to win debates? If so that is really dishonest.
Internet users, for example, are clearly stakeholders in this context.
No they aren't. Read it again:
In signing this Declaration, the United States and partners will work together to promote this vision and its principles globally, while respecting each other’s regulatory autonomy within our own jurisdictions and in accordance with our respective domestic laws and international legal obligations.
The stakeholders are the member countries' governments. They are not the people who pay for internet usage. We, the customers, are more screwed under this than before it was signed.
In other words, no signatory has to change any law they don't feel like changing.
So then, by your own admission, this resolution allows them to keep censoring content they are already censoring anyways. But that isn't what it says. It says they reserve the right to implement this partnership however they want, and they are therefore free to censor other people.
Remember the reason they are doing this is to stop disinformation. Disinformation is fought through censorship in this context. They make that clear im the first paragraph:
Globally, we are witnessing a trend of rising digital authoritarianism where some states act to repress freedom of expression, censor independent news sites, interfere with elections, promote disinformation, and deny their citizens other human rights. At the same time, millions of people still face barriers to access and cybersecurity risks and threats undermine the trust and reliability of networks.
So they basically denounced censorship by China and Russia and then said they can censor whatever they want. This is a censorship partnership. That is all this is.
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@oromagi
Government can't force Facebook to publish a lie any more than it can force Fox News to publish the truth.
They can and do:
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@oromagi
And when Facebook censors information and the mainstream press say it is lies and Google deletes articles from their blogger blogs they host and other stuff, that doesn't bother you?
China has censorship but ours is just as bad.
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@RationalMadman
Maybe try TOR at times if you are that concerned.
The five eyes own the gross majority of the tor exit nodes. So they can still track you.
Like I said, I'm not WORRIED. I just know that it is futile to try to get around being tracked unless you go completely off the grid but still live in a city.
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@RationalMadman
In fact, why are you on the Internet or worried?
I'm not "worried" worried. I am more generally worried about the tide society has chosen to take and the leadership we have taken to get us here.
America is not nearly as free as it was 7 years ago. In just 7 years we have accepted the Bill of Rights being put in the shredder and want it to continue indefinitely and maybe even continue stronger.
That is the "worry." The fact that, if we keep this up, we won't have an "America" in 20 years.
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@RationalMadman
Until the US outlaws VPN use there is absolutely no grounds to do this
They said the same thing about censoring people on Facebook and stopping people from protesting.
But here we are today...
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@oromagi
QUESTION 1: What committee are you talking about?QUESTION 2: What doe the WEF have to do with this statement?QUESTION 3: Please show exactly where this document affirms censorship.QUESTION 4: Are you for or against censorship by authoritarian govts? Is Russia an authoritarian censor?
Answer 1:
The censorship Committee that is outlined in the declaration:
Today, the United States with more than 60 partners from around the globe launched the Declaration for the Future of the Internet.This Declaration represents a political commitment among Declaration partners to advance a positive vision for the Internet and digital technologies.
i.e. the 60 member partners will all collude on it.
Answer 2:
The stakeholder ideology is straight from the WEF's playbook:
That is the core of stakeholder capitalism: it is a form of capitalism in which companies do not only optimize short-term profits for shareholders, but seek long term value creation, by taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders, and society at large.
The Declaration states:
Protect and strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to governance that keeps the Internet running for the benefit of all.
That was my only connection to the WEF, that they took the idea of stakeholder capitalism and applied it to internet Censorship.
Answer 3:
I already cited it, but ai might as well cite it again:
In signing this Declaration, the United States and partners will work together to promote this vision and its principles globally, while respecting each other’s regulatory autonomy within our own jurisdictions and in accordance with our respective domestic laws and international legal obligations.
Respecting our own regulatory autonomy = censoring whatever we want.
Answer 4:
I am usually against it. I think censorship makes people stupider and more susceptible to things like a flat earth or Naziism or totalitarianism. We need herd immunity against ideas just as much as herd immunity against diseases. By exposing people to the dirty things in life, and allowing people to argue against it freely, the facts win out.
But when you censor things, the public has no idea what the other side really believes, and then they fall prey to stupid ideas or dangerous ideologies.
So censorship is dangerous to society.
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we should not resort to homophobia when insulting Trump's supporters.
This.
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