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@bmdrocks21
Sure.
Let's go with the high figure. Assume he forks over every penny in net worth he's got. Money that he's presumably taken the last 20+ years to accumulate.
Then he has to go earn it again to make another payment. Which, given that he's probably plateaued in popularity some time ago, and given the stigma now attached to him among the oligarchs who control the platforms he might've taken advantage of, is unlikely to put it mildly. But assuming that, by the time he's finally an old man ready to retire, he's somehow done that, it won't be enough.
He is by now an old man, but he'll have to go and do it again. Now we both know he won't do it again. But if, by some miracle about likely as Disney princesses magically stepping out of TV screens and becoming real people, Alex Jones manages to do it a third time before he dies, IT STILL WILL NOT BE ENOUGH. He'd still be $155 million short.
It is, by all sensible definitions, a bill that's physically impossible for Alex Jones to pay back.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
He could say "Praise Hitler, eating babies and worshiping Satan is good" for all I care. A U.S. citizen being slapped with a physically-impossible-to-ever-pay-back bill by the government for merely having uttered controversial speech is non-hyperbolic tyranny.
Tyranny. I mean that with all sincerity. It's extremely hard to describe as being legitimate a government that would do such a thing to an American citizen for having exercised his 1st Amendment rights.
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This is a joke of a ruling, and Alex Jones can rest certain that it'll be overturned or whittled down to less than 1/10th its current size upon appeal.
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@Best.Korea
You're assuming that NATO hasn't quietly given a handful of nukes to Ukraine already. Given that they've been under nuclear threat for the past 8 months, there was certainly motive on NATO's part. And shipping the weapons across the vast border with NATO undetected would be pretty easy as well.
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@badger
I'd say that no matter which side you're on, you are "throwing in" with truly awful people who exist somewhere. If someone's politics are tainted by some ethereal association with somebody else you do or don't know who has similar beliefs and attitudes but adds bad stuff to it, then all politics are tainted.
In which case no politics should be happening at all. But nobody here accepts that conclusion.
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@Best.Korea
Corporal punishment has one immediate and long-term goal: behavioral control.
A child who misbehaves and is allowed to misbehave with impunity is not only a problem today but will probably escalate to further kinds of misbehavior in the future.
I'm sure there are a few magically gifted parents who can effectively discipline very young children without resorting to corporal punishment, but they are not the average parent. There's no point looking to what a minority of parents are capable of as something that all parents should (try and subsequently fail to) do while depriving them of options within their grasp.
Suppose that anyone who was disciplined retains some amount of trauma from the experience as an adult. Even if this is true, it can be a lesser evil if it prevented them from going down a path of lawlessness that will screw up their adult lives even worse. For most people said trauma is subtle and not noticeable most of the time, whereas, say, the trauma of going to prison and then struggling to find work with a criminal record while simultaneously being stigmatized by all of society is anything but subtle.
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@Uragirimono
If Person B is my dad and Person A is me, do you believe my dad is killing me (and should be legally allowed to kill me) by denying me his liver?
If we amend the scenario, by saying that your dad only has a microscopic fraction of a chance of dying or of suffering any serious permanent health condition, then yes. He should have to do it. "Life of the mother" is one of those iffier abortion questions that nobody has an easy answer to, but that question only pops up in a fraction of all pregnancies.
If I choose such sacrifice then yes, no problem.
If you consensually took the risk of a person entering the world through your actions, then you did in fact choose the sacrifice in question.
I don't believe that there ought to be an abortion exception for rape, but in any case we should be able to agree on this when it comes to 95-99% of pregnancies which didn't involve rape or coercion.
No one should be forced to sacrifice when they don't want to.
This is nothing if not extreme. If a parent flat out doesn't want to work though able, should they be allowed to abandon their 2 year old?
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Life does not begin at ejaculation.
Of course not. It begins with the fertilization of sperm and egg, which albeit normally follows ejaculation.
Your comment could be used to justify National gun control laws.
A gun is a tool, as are the scalpels and forceps used to dismember babies. The only thing banned is an illicit use of a tool, such as murder. And guess what: it's already illegal to use guns in that way.
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@Uragirimono
Person B has no responsibility to Person A in this scenario. Or at least, that's the obvious assumption. It doesn't apply to the parent-and-child relationship.
Furthermore, about 750,000 people die prematurely from overwork each year, which is more than 2,000 people a day. Many of these were fathers either desperate to provide for their children or eager to supply them with a certain quality of life. The kind of sacrifice you're describing is far less unthinkable than you're supposing.
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@Uragirimono
I do believe morality exists.I don't believe your morality allows you to dictate my life.
You appear to be raising some kind of non-aggression principle, which fails because abortion is a question of "dictating someone else's life" (killing a human). If objective morality means using laws to thwart actions which harm other people, then there must be laws against abortion.
What morality do you appeal to that allows you to make decisions for others about things that will never affect you personally?
I am a white person. By your logic, why should I support laws against lynching black people?
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@Uragirimono
This boils down to the ultimate question of "Without God, why should we recognize morality"? Even citing societal majorities in favor of value X or value Y is meaningless, as valuing the opinions of others or respecting the legitimacy of laws is itself a moral convention that can be disregarded if morality doesn't objectively exist.
Many, even if not most, atheists choose to reject this notion and instead suppose that morality does exist, even if they can't explain from whence it originated. Were I to convert tomorrow, I would be one of them.
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@Uragirimono
We make laws on things people disagree about morally all the time
If the law of the land made any type of murder legal, I am confident that you would take up arms against the criminal regime that passed said law.
Things don't become legal just because they're "legal". Within reason, at least, there is a higher law to which national and constitutional law must conform. Perhaps it's not a divine law from a deity but there is something from whatever source that must be considered to apply.
With respect to a "moral minority", if I were the only person in the entire United States who understood abortion to be murder, my ethical mandate to enforce this understanding on the country would not be the least bit diminished. Only my practical ability would be. You cannot vote away people's right to be alive and, again, it's not possible for any such law to be valid.
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Hi,
So this is a concept that I've kind of been thinking about on and off for a while. In a nutshell, it's the ideas that "rules are rules for some people but not others".
First, what do I mean by rules? For the most part I don't mean actual laws. Not in developed countries where the law is applied uniformly, anyways. I mainly mean social conventions and the expected cause-and-effect from acting in manner X vs. from acting in manner Y.
So let's look at an example. "Don't tell offensive jokes or it could harm your reputation." Pretty straightforward, right? Even comedians aren't immune to this. Plenty of comedians have suffered because they crossed a line too far.
But suppose that you're highly competent and likable, you know what you're doing, you've calculated your words and delivery with great care, and perhaps you get a little bit lucky. Your joke brings the house down with laughter; your audience likes you more, not less, because of the metaphorical limb you stepped out onto. You are audacious.
But suppose that another comedian, not so talented, not so careful, not so likable, and perhaps not so lucky, makes the same or a similar joke and it flops. He gets booed by the crowd. Word spreads of the offensive thing he said. Depending on its nature, it could be career-ending. This man was not audacious but instead he had audacity.
Other examples abound: the player who solicits random women on the street and gets into one's pants within under an hour, vs the guy who tries to solicit random women on the street and ends up being arrested. The guy who said something risky during a job interview and improved the boss's impression of him, versus the guy who tried the same thing but came across as an antisocial weirdo.
Often it's hard to tell why one guy is successful and the other ends up sabotaging himself. Sometimes it boils down to sheer competency or positive virtue, or even something so mundane as privilege and better access to certain resources But what we can agree on is that the latter person should've followed normal rules and norms whereas the former person benefited from not doing so.
America is a relatively egalitarian society where everyone is encouraged to take bold risks in life. This is how the country hopes to achieve new heights of creativity, productivity, and accomplishment, be it in one's career or personal life. But for one reason or another, some people are more cut out for successfully doing so than others. The less cut out find themselves not protected by rules that used to protect their ancestors, or if their behavior inadvertently results in victims, those victims are not. It's a double-edged sword.
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@Uragirimono
While I identify as Christian, I cannot imagine my opinion on abortion changing were I to become an atheist tomorrow. Most converts to atheism retain their former sense of morality, and that's what abortion is: a moral issue. You shouldn't need God to tell you not to kill babies.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Saying AIPAC is a more well known Jewish reference than Rothschild or Soros is laughable
They're about equally well known. In the minds of liberals, AIPAC is up there with the NRA.
But my point is, a liberal Congressperson who criticized AIPAC would not get CNN pundits repeating claims that he/she was screeching nonsense about "the Jewish lobby". This, of course, would be equivalent to how MTG was treated. It was patently unfair and reflected a double standard in how journalists talk about Democrat vs. Republican politicians.
The reason the Rothschilds are a common target for conspiracy theories is they are Jews, not bankers but JEWISH bankers.
That was probably what kickstarted the whole conspiracy theory in the first place. But that says nothing about the motives of people who are unaware of the Rothschilds' Jewishness.
In the case of George Soros, I've heard people accuse him of being involved in the Hitler Youth as a child (which a lot of European kids at that time did, including a former Pope, but whatever). Seeing as how Jewish kids ended up with a very different "involvement", this is clearly impossible and it suggests that many, many George Soros haters are unaware of his actual background.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
You can’t be serious.
I am 100% serious.
To suggest that the only way to scapegoat Jews is with the words Jew or Jewish is nonsense
Sure. But to scapegoat Jews, you must have the Jewish race in mind when you're doing your scapegoating. Hating a particular guy who you may or may not know to be Jewish is not the same. Mentioning the Rothschilds or George Soros is not, by itself, proof of antisemitism. And, sure, in a way you might be echoing somebody else's antisemitism. But it's not your own.
But do you know who definitely does have Jews in mind? Liberals who denounce AIPAC as controlling American politics. They're referring to an expressly Jewish organization, united in the aim of advancing expressly Jewish interests.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
The Rothschilds are such a ubiquitous conspiracy theorist trope that I'm sure not everyone who mentions them even knows that they're Jewish. If you simply hear from some guy on YouTube that these nebulous Rothschilds are controlling everything, then you'll likely parrot the talking point with or without knowledge of who exactly the Rothschilds are. I can absolutely envision MTG doing this.
The same with George Soros (his name doesn't exactly scream "Jew") and whoever else.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Socrates said the only good is wisdom and the only evil is ignorance.
The Bible defines "the fear of the Lord" as the beginning of wisdom. It has nothing positive to say about secular "wisdom" that rejects God.
Also, per the Bible all suffering on earth was literally caused by a man and a woman being promised wisdom if they ate a fruit. Though in Socrates's defense, of course, he grew up in a pagan culture and knew nothing of the Bible.
Which of these do you think Marjorie Taylor Greene represents?
She's not the sharpest tool in the shed. There's no argument there. If it's a question of whether, ideally, any other Republican should've won her seat, I would agree wholeheartedly with you.
That being said, she's been made into this superhuman caricature that goes beyond her actual shortcomings. When she tweeted an admittedly dumb thing about lasers from the air supposedly causing a wildfire (and to be fair, the technology isn't as farfetched today as it used to be), the media spun it into "Jewish space lasers" out of whole cloth despite no mention whatsoever of Jews. Seeing as they lied about that detail, I can only imagine how many journalistic "embellishments" inform the left's assessment of her.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
Let me start by prefacing that, to date, this has been largely a hypothetical discussion.
I haven't yet seen evidence that MTG has done anything wrong, aside from having wacky politics. I guess it's possible that she has, sure. But the fact remains that, whether she has done a thing or not, either way the left would allege that she is guilty of every sort of moral failing under the sun. It doesn't matter which conservative or right-leaning politician Christians vote for: this will hold true no matter what. For obvious political reasons there's bottomless incentive to either point out whatever's there or, if nothing at all, manufacture stuff from thin air. This might as well be an ironclad law of American politics.
So far as avoiding support for a politician who the left will accuse of wrongdoings and immorality, the only way for this to happen is to either abstain from politics or capitulate all of their values and vote Democrat. A famous anecdote has it that even Billy Graham had an aide who would enter rooms ahead of him because journalists would try to ambush him with promiscuous women accompanied by a photographer, so it's probably not a stretch to say that Jesus himself would be made into Satan if he had an (R) next to his name.
That being said, we are supposing here for the sake of argument that a given politician is in fact immoral or otherwise unchristian in their private life.
Well that would suggest that a Christian can’t vote for a Jew or a Muslim, etc
You're saying that Christians should refuse to vote for a person who doesn't reflect Christian values.
If so, that necessarily excludes anyone who isn't a Christian, as non-Christians reject by default the most important Christian value: turning to God in repentance and accepting the gift of salvation offered by Jesus Christ, along with the need to evangelize communities and people which/who have not accepted Christ so that they might also be saved from their sins. Being moral on earth, while still important, is secondary to the question of eternal souls.
If Christians must demand this quality from their leaders in order to not be hypocrites (according to you), then it follows that they must reject the leadership of ANYONE who is not a Christian. You cannot take to some wishy-washy re-definition of Christian values. And given that you probably do not identify as being Christian, it's laughable that you think you are qualified to define what true Christian values are.
But to call yourself a Christian, which is all about morality and following the teachings of Christ, and then vote for a candidate who is obviously immoral, is grossly hypocritical to say the least.
You have made your position clear and you will not budge. I have made my position clear and I will not budge. I can't imagine anything fruitful coming out of a shouting match where we autistically rehash the same talking points over and over again.
I’ve also seen this interpreted to mean that Christian’s should follow the law and obey governmental authority.
Again, if Christians must submit to the government without regard for who their leaders are, then it follows that Christians are not obliged to only support Christian or even particularly moral leaders.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
But more importantly, if a Christian voter supports an immoral candidate, just because they pledge to uphold their legislative interests, then that so-called Christian voter is a fraud
The Bible says "render unto God what is God's and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", which as elaborated by later theologians such as St. Augustine means making a distinction between religious affairs and secular politics.
If you expect Christians to demand their leadership be Christian, then that's one thing. But you can't simultaneously expect them to uphold separation of church and state, as they would necessarily take up arms in rebellion against non-Christian leaders. Christians having a willingness to vote for non-Christian politicians is a good thing according to the generally held values of liberal democracy.
So then, what are the obligations of Christians in politics, assuming that they aren't Jehovah's Witness-style abstentionists? It is to advance the good, which more or less is what everyone seeks to gain from the political process. But chasing the good is an elusive and messy thing; this means ascribing to ethical and pragmatic philosophies of governance, and supporting people and/or parties whose policies will reflect these philosophies.
The extent to which this is connected to a politician's private conduct is debatable at best; had Abe Lincoln owned two dozen slaves, that wouldn't have made it a bad idea for him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
Why? Because had he refused out of his own moral unworthiness, other people would've continued to needlessly suffer. Freeing the Southern slaves still would've been the right call, in every conceivable scenario, even if Honest Abe turned out to be personally a hypocrite in the process.
(You might retort "He could've freed his own slaves and then issued the proclamation", but assuming he wasn't willing to do that, you would have to agree that it'd still be best for this hypothetical slave owner to opt to free the Southern slaves as opposed to not doing so.)
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@TWS1405
No one's life ceases to be any less or more of [a] life (physical existence) when sleeping
You do not have regular human experiences when sleeping. At most you dream, which is a diminished state of mind that occupies about 20% of your sleep cycle. And not everybody dreams either. And what about comatose patients who apparently do not dream?
So then, in a diminished state where you do not experience normal human cognition, is your right to life unaffected? You would seem to answer yes, while denying the same to fetuses and embryos, whose similar lack of experiencing normal human cognition is also temporary.
it is a necessity for good/balanced mental and physical health
So is fetal and embryonic development, including the stages of development predating the formation of the complete brain and in which said brain gradually proceeds toward said development.
A born human being is an actualized human being. Once actualized, that human being never becomes anything less than, that is, until death, naturally.
I say this distinction is arbitrary.
Every future second of your life is no less a potentiality than every future second of a fetus's life; the only thing actualized is the "present", which is as short as the shortest measurable or conceivable unit of time. As the present is constantly terminating in favor of a new present taking its place, killing somebody causes the termination of the present to happen no sooner than if their life were to continue. All that killing somebody does is to deny the replacement of a terminated present with a new present, which is to deny the transfer of potentiality into actuality, which is also what abortion does.
You seem to be arguing it's particularly important that actualized life will continue if not interfered with. But the same is true for the fetus or embryo in the womb. It will continue to develop in the womb and then be birthed if not interfered with.
If you try to draw another line based on the fact that a fetus or embryo requires external support to survive, then the same is true for many people: they have health conditions which rendition them dependent on modern medicine.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
She put her political career ahead of being a wife which led to a divorce
A fair statement, I guess.
A true Christian would never do such a thing.
As there's always a risk of this happening, by that logic no true Christian would be involved in politics, or the military, firefighting, policing, being a pastor or minister, etc. No true Christian would throw himself into his/her career in such a way that'd leave less time for their spouse.
It’s obvious she uses religion as a prop to win votes from gullible Christians.
Gullible?
MTG is not a spiritual leader. She is a government official and works in that capacity alone. She could be a hard-orgying devil worshiping meth addict, but so long as she both governed competently (which, in all fairness to you, she doesn't) and reasonably upheld the legitimate interests of her Christian constituents, there would be no particular inconsistency in voting for her.
Of course, MTG is not a hard-orgying devil worshiping meth addict. She's a person from a Christian or vaguely Christian background who is morally flawed in roughly the same ways as the average American. If she uses religious language in her posturing, that could be intended to signal "I recognize your legitimate interests as Christian Americans and I will try to uphold these", not that she herself is a contemporary Billy Graham.
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@TWS1405
How so? Please explain your reasoning.
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@Shila
Sure. And a fetus, if born, would enjoy that same lifespan. More of it, in fact, since a murdered 35 year old has already burned through 35 years of life and only has 45 years left.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
As you yourself inferred, the probable reason is the stress on their personal lives wrought by MTG's political activism. This is unrelated to the question of how she conducted herself as a spouse, and you're spouting allegations without proof.
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@TWS1405
Whenever you fall asleep, you experiencing further life upon waking up is a mere potentiality, is it not?
Heck, if you were awake but then killed instantly by a shot to the head, you would be deprived of nothing but a mere potential further existence, would you not?
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@IwantRooseveltagain
I've raised this point elsewhere (not on this site), but it's worth repeating:
If you did not initiate the divorce, then what agency did you have in the other person's decision? Would it please God if you locked your spouse in a basement to keep them from divorcing you? If not, then how are you blameworthy for it?
Jesus cited one rationale (sexual immorality) as justifying divorce. Is there proof that MTG committed such an act?
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Today, Ukraine seized the strategic town of Lyman, which was an important railway hub for the Russian army. The town fell under the area which Russia claimed to have annexed, and thus which fell under Russia's nuclear umbrella.
But of course, there were no consequences for Ukraine taking back its territory.
In the grand scheme of things, today's event was insignificant by itself. However, each little victory like this will chip away at something: either Russia's illegitimate claims to Ukrainian territory or Russian national sovereignty itself. Every day where Ukraine gives Putin the finger and advances further and further past his red line in the sand is a good day.
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@Shila
What kids? Everything that I wrote was fictional.
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@Shila
You described kids taking it in the booty by a priest as a joke
I described the priest being a pedophile. I didn't describe what he did. At most, you can infer that much. Or you can infer something else.
But no mention about when you stopped forcing kids to take it in the booty by you a priest.
I am not a clergyman for any religion and I have never molested anyone. It was dark humor, and I avoided the use of graphic imagery in making the joke.
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@Shila
It was a joke. Just some dark humor and a throwback to the sort of trolling I used to pull on DDO.
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@Best.Korea
I feel ur pain man the capitalist scum police once searched the basement of the church were I work as a priest and they found the kids and I went to jail and the other prisoners didnt take kindly to pedofile priests so i took it in the booty. Wasn't fun man. 2/10. Would not recommend to other pedofiles. North Korea is a better place to live as a proud pedofile.
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It has been announced that from September 23 to September 27, the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts will hold "referendums" on the question of whether to join Russia. Medvedev, in all of his bluster, said that once Russian territory, these would fall under Russia's nuclear umbrella and that Russia would use all means at its disposal to enforce its territorial integrity.
In other words...
One week from today, Russia's territorial integrity will start to come under question. Donetsk and Luhansk will be no legally different from Moscow (from the Russian government's POV, anyhow). And yet, it'll come under constant shelling from another country, which asserts control over a large percentage of it, and which will continue offensive operations to take more of it until the eventuality comes when Russia controls none of what it claims in the area.
No reasonable person thinks that Ukraine will be in the least bit deterred by Russia's plans, or that a single Ukrainian offensive will be stalled for even a microsecond by this non-consideration. Nor is it likely that this'll bring a halt to Western aid.
Once Russia invites this precedent on its homeland, it'll be no different from if any other part of Russia was suddenly attacked and invaded. And the consequence of said attack and invasion, broadcast for the entire world to see, will be "no consequence whatsoever".
This is the beginning of the end of Russia's status as a sovereign nation. And history will hold Putin 100% responsible.
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Democrats think democracy means "The 51% will vote in accordance with the absurd propaganda that we churn out through the mass collusion of every institution in this country, and the 49% must sit quietly, shut up, and get no meaningful representation from their elected government while we bombard them with constant hit pieces and psychological warfare."
If modern American pseudo-democracy cannot transcend this design, then good riddance. What some view as democracy, and others as a state of adverse conditions imposed on them beyond their control akin to how an authoritarian regime would treat them, is not and never was democracy.
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@Sidewalker
Sure. That's certainly possible.
But even if so, they did what they did in the context of almost nothing being at stake from welcoming the arrivals. They weren't going to stay long enough to cause major problems, they couldn't afford the property values there anyway, the kind of people who live at Martha's Vineyard would probably equate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants, and said immigrants would overwhelmingly vote for the same party as the locals if given the chance to vote (or their children down the road). There was little perceived threat.
Which is not to say that this community was in any sense immune to tribalism. Had a bunch of fundamentalist Christians, or non-supremacist white nationalists moved into Martha's Vineyard in numbers great enough to stage a takeover of local politics, it wouldn't have been tolerated by the locals.
Why? Because said groups are the clear outgroup from the perspective of the locals. It's not a test of tolerance when more of the ingroup moves in but more of the outgroup.
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Nice theatrics by a community that knew they were on camera and that there was no real chance these arrivals would be staying for very long.
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In a stunning reversal of fortunes, Ukraine has successfully defied predictions of a permanent stalemate and advanced on the northeastern front, recapturing large swaths of territory and forcing a chaotic Russian retreat from the area which shows no signs of having stopped yet.
Ukraine has liberated the strategic railway hub of Kupiansk and the stronghold of Izyum, with signs that they could soon retake Svatove and Lysychansk. It's worth noting that Lysychansk was the last major conquest of Russia's "second phase" offensive earlier this year, and Lysychansk is very close to Sieverodonetsk. If Ukraine retakes both, it'll be a signal that said offensive achieved nothing.
While at this point much of the above remains speculation, what we've seen is nonetheless a good sign that Western military aid to Ukraine is paying off. And it's a sign that we ought to give more so that they have a fighting chance of finishing the job.
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May she rest in peace.
That woman wasn't just the Queen of the UK. She was a relic from an older time. Not an actual veteran, but somebody who partook in the civic struggle against Nazi aggression during WWII. Somebody who, frankly, by all reason shouldn't have still been around in 2022.
A pointless legacy institution was given a face that people know and love. I suspect that because of her, the British monarchy will last longer than it otherwise would've. And so will the essence of what makes Britain British.
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@Shila
This is exactly the kind of nonsense that's okay coming from some random dude on the internet but not from the lips of the President.
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The man speaks of "democracy" when 74 million Americans have been effectively ruled the last 50 years by an unelected newsmedia that mistreats them and slanders them daily, an unelected Court that until 2 months ago denied them any agency whatsoever over the issue of abortion, an unelected Court that still to this day denies them the right to organize prayers in school, a party that would not be winning half of the swing elections it does if not for 50 years of illegal immigrants and their voting-eligible children, and so on.
If some Trump supporters have lost faith in democracy, then the only reason is because "democracy" as the term is currently construed has failed them time and time and time again.
Mr. President, you ought to get down on your knees, acknowledge your party's role in all of this, and start working to regain their trust. And yes, it'll be long and hard, but all that you did tonight was to insult 74 million people. That won't do even a single thing to help democracy. It'll just make everything worse. It speaks volume of your character as a man who does not respect democracy.
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You know what? I can honestly say that, these past 2 years, I haven't thought about Biden all that much. And I really haven't harbored that much hostility toward him either. And unlike perhaps some people, I can say this in reasonably good faith.
But after last night, fvck Joe Biden.
After last night, I am a fellow "MAGA Republican" and I like to think that the entire party is united against the president's fascist bullying.
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From society's experiences with transgenderism (originally another techno-buzzword from the 1980s/1990s), I would suggest that "transhumanism" will simply result in humans who are more dysfunctional and maladjusted than they otherwise would've been. It really takes an impressive person to fundamentally change themselves for the better; most who adopt a superhuman label will just make a fool of themselves.
But as for the distant future, who knows. Perhaps human flaws will be identified as bad code and rewritten with ease. The implications of this are incredibly hard to imagine at present.
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@Shila
Are you quoting an encyclopedia? What was the point of that post?
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@Shila
I mean, I'm saying this only with the benefit of modern conditions. Once the Catholic Church had some competition it eventually shaped itself up, but before that Europe was a continent where 99% of the population could not read the Bible and was theologically ignorant in just about every respect.
And "you can be saved regardless of which denomination you're part of" doesn't mean that all denominations tend to have equal outcomes.
Evangelicalism gets a bad rap, and *some* of that is self-inflicted, but I think that in principle it's by far the closest to being right. You're not saved by sitting in church but by actually committing your life to Christ. Evangelicals are the most dedicated to reaching non-Christians, even if the secular world hates them for it, while every other Christian group just likes to pretend that Hindus have the same shot of getting into Heaven so there's no need to hurt anyone's feelings by sending missionaries to India or Nepal.
The first step to Evangelical Christianity, of course, was Martin Luther and his Five Solae. Luther literally called his own church "evangelical", despite the significant differences between 16th century Lutheranism and modern Evangelicalism.
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@Oldschoolpancakedummy
What attracted me was the historicity of the Catholic Church.
You want to be part of and grounded in something that's timeless and extremely hesitant to change. I can respect that.
Personally, I think that Roman Catholicism makes a lot of unproven assumptions that it holds up as fact. So you'd have a hard time proving to me that they are "the one true church".
That being said, I think Christian denominations are largely interchangeable in that your salvation isn't contingent on what club you belong to. If turning to Catholicism revitalized your interest in Christianity, your devotion to Jesus, and your resolve to live a Godly life, then I say all the more power to you. I hope this enriches your life and your soul.
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@Shila
So, you were intellectually convinced? Or do you like the aesthetic of Catholic churches and church services?
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@Oldschoolpancakedummy
What attracted you to Catholicism?
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A few more:
#21. Rising popularity of an huge number of pseudo-scientific remedies and health supplements, with novel products constantly hitting the market. The FDA will be tasked with looking into the safety of all these, and it will take up a large chunk of the system's workload. This will free up fewer resources for conventional pharmaceutical research, and this will contribute to America's decline as a world leader in medicine.
#22. There will be an entire generation of children whose mothers had sexually exposed themselves on the internet, and footage of which remain accessible somewhere online. I don't know what the implications of this will be.
#23. The vicious cycle of diploma upcredentialing will eventually ease due to labor shortages, companies finding smarter ways to identify talent, and students choosing wiser fields of study in college. I don't know to what extent or what said change will look like, however.
#24. The final decline in home projects or working on cars as a hallmark of American masculinity. Much fewer men will be interested in this in the first place, while newer cars will have more electronic components that don't lend themselves well to old-fashioned repair anyway.
#25. Because neurosis and psychosis are positively correlated with dementia later in life, America's current mental health crisis will manifest as an epidemic-level uptick in diseases like Alzheimer's within 40 years.
#26. As Americans have more contact online with foreigners, our political discourse will become more interconnected with the global community. American political movements will seek out alliances with foreign nationals to lend them rhetorical aid on domestic hot-button issues, in exchange for Americans lending rhetorical support to those countries. Foreign influencers will have greater say in US politics and even the outcomes of US elections, similar to in Europe today.
#27. Brick and mortar stores will not disappear altogether. This is because online retailers cannot deliver your item immediately, whereas you can hop in your car and be back with an item you want in under an hour. However, only restaurants and large stores that sell a variety of general items will survive.
Specialized items are of a nature for which you can generally afford to wait; for example, if you're hungry then you'll get whatever food from wherever. But if you're planning to fix caviar for a dinner party in a month, then you can preorder it and wait. If you need a change of clothes, you'll go to the store and buy whatever. But if you need a suit for a wedding in two months, you'll order it online and wait. Brick and mortar is for when you can't wait.
#28. An instant voice messaging application will hit market and become popular. For example, at present voice communication is formatted either as a verbal letter or a phone call. But you'll be able to ping each other with, say, 3 second audio clips without having to commit to a full conversation.
It'll be as though you're on an ongoing phone conversation with many different people across the day, but with only a fraction of your time spent actually doing so. This will come about after higher quality mics are installed on the average phone or Bluetooth speaker.
#29. Donald Trump will not be President again. He is done. Consequently, Ron DeSantis is not the guaranteed Republican nominee in 2024, as GOP voters who are tired of Trump won't automatically rally around him to stop Trump if the guy isn't in the running. It's anybody's race as of now.
#30. Beside Justice Thomas's, all of the conservative seats on the Supreme Court are safe until roughly 2030. Its bare majority is secured until the end of this decade, though otherwise conservative votes will swing from time to time (and vise-versa).
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@thett3
I agree, so many of the people getting elected now are complete looney toons.
You might be interested in studying Brazilian elections. People win elections based on gimmicks like impersonating a celebrity. That might be what our own future has in store.
One of my biggest realistic fears is that the US goes full South Korea, where there’s a more or less open war between the sexes
I've heard that it's commonplace in South Korea for men to peep in women's bathrooms, either directly or with cameras, but otherwise I haven't heard much about that subject. You sound like you have something interesting to say about this.
I disagree with this one.
Honestly, I'm not sure about this one either. And the reason is precisely because I can envision it so graphically. I'm sure many other people can too, meaning it'll be a future that the general public fears and will keep spending money to avoid. It's like a prophecy designed to avert itself. Or so one can hope.
The Koreas are reintegrated, and it’s at least somewhat on North Koreas terms, as a South Korea with nearly 4x as many 50 year olds as infants in 2022 becomes completely desperate for people to keep the light on, staff the nursing homes, etc. They’ll turn first to fellow ethnic Koreans, then to whoever they can get
I think what you're missing is that North Korea isn't a 3rd world country but a 2nd world country. Or that is, it has both poverty and a below-replacement birth rate. They don't have the surplus population to solve the South's demographic problems while remaining above-water themselves.
What would be interesting is if they all migrated South anyway. Say, for example, if in a war the South temporarily occupied part of the North's territory, de facto opening the border long enough for millions of able-bodied North Koreans to migrate south.
This wouldn't solve the Korean Peninsula's demographic problems, but South Korea specifically could buy itself another 20-30 years by dumping all of the suck onto the North.
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