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@PressF4Respect
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What people privately do with their time should in no way affect their right to keep and find gainful employment, so long as they're fully capable of presenting themselves in a professional manner on the job.
This right extends to men who have sex with men, or men who surgically alter themselves to live like women. But unlike you cowards I go all the way and am not a hypocrite on this issue. Nothing that you say online using a private account or device, so long as no harm is inflicted on another person, should determine one's eligibility for participation in the normal markers of adult life.
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Considering that many people inherit political belief from parents I wouldn't put too much stock into this.
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Anyway if Trump has to leave the White House in Jan. 2021 the cause he at least nominally embodied and championed will presumably die with him. Every President after him will be like "Yup yup yup it's good that we run massive trade deficits every year, we're in mushrooming private debt to foreign loan sharks, and Americans everywhere are unemployed because U.S. businesses are either bankrupt or fled the country to avoid footing the welfare bill for 300 million unemployed people who expect to maintain an American-level standard of living".
The Third World has risen as a manufacturing power, eventually to be an entrepreneurial power, and the West can't keep up in the long term. They'll have bigger and bigger advantages over us and the only way to "win" that game with a hand like ours is to not play. If we keep ours borders open they'll gradually colonize us economically like our ancestors did to their ancestors. We can either be losers or loners. I pick loner, every post-Biden president would pick loser because that's the opposite of what "orange man cheeto immoral Trumpanzee liar-in-chief bone spurs Trump" would've picked.
Even if Trump's not a perfect savior he has the opportunity to set a precedent that will help us survive the next 100 years. Whether his presidency is considered a success or a failure really won't boil down to "oh he's such a repulsive and immoral guy" but "oh he got elected twice and left office with an approval rating of 46%". If the latter happens, it won't be taboo to emulate the Trump model. That model comes with a lot of bad but it also comes with an economic ideology which at least is a prototype for what we desperately need. Perhaps the next guy will take the economics bit one step further. But if he loses reelection every policy position he stood for will be considered "discredited" and that's very dangerous.
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A little something everybody's forgotten amidst Covid-19 and the craziness of 2020: China blinked in the trade war, though they don't have to actually do anything until after America's 2020 election (the Chinese agreed to this in the hopes Trump might lose reelection, in which case his successor, not agreeing with the trade war in the first place, wouldn't care if China reneged on its terms). The trade war partially held back the economy during the good years (2017-2019) but we could stand to see gains if China is eventually forced to keep its terms.
That wasn't the first trade win that Trump in his *ahem* erratic unpredictability managed to score but ultimately it looks like nobody remembers either way. He's been successfully painted as an establishment corrupt Republican except with infinitely worse manners whereas in fact he's among the only major personalities in American politics today (and certainly the only one to be President in living memory) who isn't pro-free trade. Everyone seems to have forgotten this, or the fact that he campaigned on this quality and won. His own supporters are starting to forget why they voted for him.
Trump's one step away from the truth: There's a limit to how much you can convince Europe, China and other countries to open up, as they won't deny their self-interests no matter how much bluster and strong-arming he tries. The Europeans have blocked American chicken imports since the 60s, and today they justify it on phoney charges of "American bleached chicken is dangerous" (it isn't), and that's just one example. They fiercely protect their economies from harmful competition and they have no rational basis for giving that up.
But the status quo is unfair to America. He recognizes that, but the solution is either still beyond him or after 3 1/2 years of slugging it out on the beltway he just doesn't give a f**k about his original mission anymore. Those of his supporters who still remember would like to think it's either the former or he's planning to step up his game sometime after reelection.
(Here's a hint, Mr. President: If you can't beat them, join them. Don't try to pressure other countries into conforming to our interests, raise barriers and build a new status quo that'll bring jobs back home.)
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Finally, a proposal to change everything.
First of all, the USFG must take a count of every dollar in circulation and keep count of every dollar printed afterward. At the push of a button the government should be able to invalidate any bill. All dollars leaving port must be required to pass through customs/documentation and the state should be able to demand audits at any time to track the whereabouts of dollars suspected to be missing from the country.
If cash is gone because those treacherous demon-possessed bastards fled the country with it, we could push the button and make their stolen loot worth nothing. That dollar could be re-printed immediately and re-enter circulation here at the government's discretion. Obviously there would be enough rule of law that it couldn't just randomly happen to any citizen but only as a consequence of criminal forfeiture. Fear of exchanging a valuable foreign currency or asset for possibly worthless money would force external parties doing business with these corporate thieves ponder long and hard before making a deal and consult USFG resources to make sure it was legal.
Obviously this would make it a lot more difficult for America to do business with the world. But that's actually the point.
Second, radically revise the tax code so the USFG can tax nonliquid assets that have traditionally been very hard to tax. Nobody evades our tax regime. The state and the citizenry it represents will take its fair share of the sovereign wealth no matter what.
Third, we should begin to shrink the national debt, even if it means several years of austerity. Once it's down to 80% GDP, we can safely proceed with:
Fourth (optional), block most imports. Require most items that Americans consume to be made in America. We'd become a closed economy and aim for self-sufficiency.
Fifth (optional), because this would make life drastically harder, a hundred other reforms in other areas would be needed. The entire available workforce would have to be mobilized like nothing seen since the end of WWII. We'd build our own solar panels, recycle our huge (currently unwanted) reserve of wasted plastic to produce carbon fuels to sustain powered industry, extract uranium from the oceans, and find ways to conserve electric power at all times. America, unlike most countries, is geographically massive, blessed with an abundance of diverse natural resources, has a varied climate ranging from northernmost Alaska to the tip of Florida, a well-educated workforce and a large industrial/infrastructure base to start with. The UK or Japan certainly couldn't pull this off but maybe we could. America's has always been in a unique and enviable position when it comes to this.
Affordable housing and manufacturing jobs would be plentiful. One's private speech, beliefs, religion race or sexual orientation/gender identity would have no bearing on one's ability to find or keep work as long as one's conduct on the job was respectable. Measures of economy would have to be restructured but after adjusting for inflation each person would be paid as handsome a wage as could be sustained. Jobs would be plentiful and management positions would be too. Home design would be optimized for cost and ergonomics.
In the new economy employers would seek out workers and not always the other way around. They'd come to you and offer you intensive training to perform whatever task they needed performed. Approaches to technical instruction would be reformed; as the sum of knowledge continues to grow while human brain capacity remains the same, it's not sustainable to teach people more and more each generation. Instead, they'd be taught to effectively wield the evolving tools of their trade, each having been built upon prior industry knowledge that the wielder doesn't need to know much about. If one person with this level of knowledge wasn't enough, others could be taught to specialize, which would create more jobs.
Sixth, put limits on automation. Machines must always remain tools, not workers themselves. This cap will have awkward implications at times but if we're not competing with the world then we can afford inefficiencies.
Seventh, acknowledge that the US will suddenly become very weak compared to the rest of the world. With the rise of China and India we were never going to remain #1 and so long as we maintain a credible WMD deterrent, along with the political/moral will to use it, we needn't fear that outcome. As long as the average citizen has a better deal and a brighter future (even with some sacrifices), maybe it'll be worth it.
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Americans used to have a lot of opportunity because we were in a position of strength compared to the rest of the world. Of all the western countries we got scathed the least from WWII, the Soviets had a closed economy, and the 3rd world was too backward to seriously rival us. Boomers in their heyday enjoyed a minimum wage that adjusted for inflation was equivalent to like $12 an hour today and they got away with it. Work was plentiful and most people knew nothing of student debt. You could randomly walk into a factory and say "Well heya Mr. Schmidt I saw you had a job listing and I was wondering if I could fit the part" and walk out with job security to raise a wife and two kids and pay off the mortgage in 30 years.
Young people deserve to have it like that. They're not "entitled snowflakes" for asking for what their parents/grandparents took for granted. They shouldn't be afraid to demand what rightfully belongs to them, or to simply take it if words get them nowhere.
But unfortunately they lack the bargaining power their parents/grandparents had. America faces competition from the entire world. We import commodities and services from all over the place and struggle to produce goods that will sell on the global markets. For that, companies demand specialists with impossibly high levels of experience who can do hyperefficient work. The gap between entry-level and salaryman jobs has grown unbearably wide. Compared to the overall population size aren't many openings for these few positions so companies are very picky and resort to a variety of underhanded d!ck moves to filter out most ordinary applicants. They're not willing to give seemingly unqualified people a chance or believe in their potential to learn.
If wages were raised across the board to any significant degree, it would exacerbate offshoring and capital flight. To my knowledge the government isn't well suited to combat these phenomena. The status quo is an abysmal failure for tens if not hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens.
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To me, the perfect utopia would be a place that provided structure to anyone who wanted it and opportunity to everyone. All that I know is, that's not here and now.
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@RationalMadman
Structure is important. The option of noncomformity is important as well. Arabs in Muhammad's day were happy that God had sent a messenger to show them the true path and proper way to live but your typical 22 year old Saudi college student today just wishes he could watch his butt porn in peace without having to fear the government knocking on his front door. The exact same thing made one party better off but not the other.
Even for people who don't like structure, it can sometimes spare them a greater amount of pain and disappointment in the long run. Everyone should be taught structure as children, so that when they're older they won't simply be too weak to put up with a lifestyle that'd be better for them if that's what they would like to choose. Some people thrive in a cutthroat, ultra-competitive corporate rat race and the rewards for their diligence are huge. Other people just don't have what it takes. You should be able to get by with comparably less work but if you're simply incapable of exercising the self-discipline needed to make something of yourself then you have no real options. You didn't choose the easier but less rewarding path so much as the other way wasn't a credible option. In other words, you're stuck in one place with no way out even if you're not happy.
But if you've received discipline as a child and don't want structure as an adult, you should be able to walk away and do your own thing. This means feelings of hypocrisy will always be a part of the coming-of-age experience but that's a small price to pay.
If it were up to me, there'd be another option: adults incapable of exercising more discipline could go spend 3-9 months in boot camp and become existentially tougher people. who'll achieve better outcomes in all areas of life. Putting the impetus solely on them to fix themselves means they might never change so why not give them someone else to help them change? So far the military has been the only large-scale institution out there people can turn to in order to pull this off so to do away with it without some kind of replacement for that function will have negative consequences.
That's one piece of the puzzle. Opportunity is another. As the job market contracts over time, opportunity is also shrinking. Most people aren't bold entrepreneurs but instead seek career paths in companies/organizations founded and run by other people. So if they lack job opportunities they'll go their whole lives feeling like they're missing something. Obviously there are exceptions, such as people who could find something to devote themselves to while unemployed and be sustainably happy. But most can't function that way. So people need both structure and opportunity but neither resource is as plentiful as it used to be. This causes quarter-life and perhaps mid-life crises of identity, to say nothing of the implications for one's household earnings.
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@RationalMadman
Well, I suppose tradition is part of a civilization's culture. Old customs and through it history are preserved/passed on and each generation has a sense of historical perspective that would've otherwise been less present. Maybe it's a reminder that things weren't always the way they are now, for better or for worse. And collective participation in traditions can foster a sense of commonality and unity and strengthen social cohesion.
I'm not a staunch traditionalist for the simple reason that I myself am not a traditional person. But committing to things beyond yourself gives discipline and structure, and believe me, life without any discipline or structure is just a giant mess.
(Not sure if that really answered the question but yeah.)
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@RationalMadman
So, to be clear do you or do you not support social security?
Well, to start it seems increasingly likely that Social Security will be bankrupt by the time my generation comes of age to retire. It's easy to see it as an entitlement until you realize it's only an entitlement to people who were born well before you. If you yourself would be thrown to the wolves once you become too old to work, is it so unthinkable that the older generation who's already there should suffer the same fate? For them to live off the public teat while you have no future, doesn't that amount to the most vile form of generational discrimination? (Keep in mind I'm speaking from an American perspective; perhaps the state of public pensions in the UK is better off, or maybe not. I don't know.)
That being said, I don't think retirement and budget constraints have to be mutually exclusive. Especially in the Third World the elderly congregate in dirt cheap public housing that basically supplies what they need to live. If we put our industrial might to it I think America could do it on a large scale for cheap and yet make it livable for the people who have to spend their final days there. We could also focus on cost-effective ways of increasing happiness for residents, like a walking trail with a zen rock garden (low cost maintenance) or yoga classes and literary clubs. The key to retiring well is to have some kind of goal you're still working toward, though obviously it doesn't have to be work-related. Retirement can be a good time to work on improving yourself in various areas where you just didn't have the time before. I believe a well-designed but fairly cheap facility can in some cases do better than a high-end one where patients just sit around and do nothing.
Social Security is just one piece of the puzzle. Massive structural reforms are needed to every level of government. It should serve primarily the interests of those who carry on in the world of the living, not of those who have one foot in the grave. "Disenfranchisement" is a dirty word and for obvious reasons but meaningful reform will be impossible so long as these people's names are still on the voting rolls. They cannot be allowed to use the government to enrich themselves if it means making life harder for young people and in doing so anyway they forfeit their right to participate in government.
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@RationalMadman
(cont.) As it stands right now, both parties answer to demographics as much as they're driven by ideological impetus. If you've read George Friedman's The Next 100 Years, you'll recall that he described the 2020s decade as one where elderly voters dominated fiscal and monetary policy, a reality which ends up having disastrous outcomes for the nation.
But my theory is that this has been true for a long time now. You see, the Democratic Party has always supported a retirement pension program known in the US as Social Security. It's an enormously expensive program but the GOP even in its more libertarian days was too afraid to touch it.
Republicans, meanwhile, are also giving freebies to middle aged and older people in the form of major corporate tax cuts. The windfalls from these are spent on repaying stock market investors, which keeps 401K accounts (retirement funds tied to the stock market) afloat.
What you have is high government spending on the elderly, combined with tax cuts for the sake of the elderly, and what you get as a result is crushing debt. Indeed, the federal government hasn't run a surplus since the Clinton era. There are no plans at this time to begin paying back that debt, but of course they have to keep the existing debt manageable by keeping the debt-to-GDP ratio from spiraling out of control. To accomplish this, they inflate the economy.
Inflation hurts people who are neither middle class middle-aged workers/managers nor retirees. In other words, young people who start out with nothing. Take for example the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage. It was last raised more than 10 years ago, when inflation would've been less. I'm sure it was incredibly hard to live on that c. 2009 but today it's flat out impossible. Today, even if you worked 50 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, that'd amount to less than 20K a year.
Inflation is one of two major factors putting economic stresses on the younger generation of Americans. I'll talk about the other some in a later post if prompted. But it's important to acknowledge the disruptive impact of these stresses. While us millennials (1996 so technically I'm a millennial too) are more freespirited in our outlook, for better and for worse, and reluctant to settle down and take on grown-up responsibilities, even many of those who would like to start a family just can't afford it. Home ownership's also a pipe dream for far too many. Conservatives have underestimated the role economic hardship plays in undermining traditional social values, which is but one sign of how utterly lost the modern GOP is.
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@RationalMadman
Hi RationalMadman, first of all thank you for agreeing to host this interview with me. I hope to express some concepts most people haven't really heard before, either from mainstream political discourse or from my own usual incoherent rambling.
First of all, it almost goes without saying that the wings and the left-right spectrum haven't had a persistent, concise meaning over time. Left used to mean republicanism/democracy over traditional monarchism but that paradigm's obsolete in most places. Then it meant communism vs. fascism. Today the American left and right are at each other's throats but they're not the same as the left and right in Europe, where even the latter is more similar to the Democratic Party than to the GOP in many respects. In China, the communist party has begun to present itself as upholding "traditional values" compared to a (supposedly) decadent West, and the media has argued there are parallels between the CPC's response to Hong Kong and Trump's calls to restore "law and order" through shooting rioters. Horseshoe theory is beginning to come full circle and old definitions are less useful nowadays.
The contemporary GOP either has inferior ideas or in the age of Fox News has grossly lagged in its perceived need for good optics and for presenting its ideas well. Until they get their act together and clarify their ideological intents to the general public I can't agree with them. But I can't side with the Democratic Party for the simple reason that I don't trust them either. On top of that, rabid "cancel culture" is arguably a personal threat to my own life prospects and every blow to its viability is probably a step in the direction of my own self-preservation.
Neither party truly believes in free speech anymore, which especially for the Democratic Party is a betrayal of core liberal values for which they used to stand in defense of. They openly support internet censorship (AKA deplatforming, which whether it constitutes de jure censorship or not it has that same effect) for wrongspeak and that's unforgivable. I would probably rather be ruled by a dictator who protected the right of every citizen to speak his mind without fear of life-shattering repercussions than by an elected oligarchy that trampled on this liberty.
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On second thought I nominate GreyParrot. He's always in the mood for short quips but hasn't really bothered to go into deep ideological detail. That'd be interesting to watch.
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1. Mr. Newman
2. No label
3. To promote a certain POV most people haven't considered. As I'm getting older, a little bit smarter, and starting to have actual life experiences in the adult world, my political ideology is starting to "settle" on a final form that, at least, should hold in loose form for a couple of years or longer. The ideological wanderlust of youth is beginning to subside I think. I've had a persisting gut affiliation with Trump and the GOP almost like a baseball fan does for his home team but they honestly don't seem to hold the answers we need.
4. Either empowerment or security under a paternalistic framework. But there's a kind of civilizational entropy that degrades empowerment, so security's probably more attainable/sustainable. Both require trust to work well but trust is a vanishing commodity.
Freedom isn't necessarily incompatible with either so far as freedom equates to permission. Intelligence does not equal happiness except so far as low intelligence hurts self esteem and employment opportunities (both of which are hurt either way by increases in relative intelligence). It's a tool rather than an end in itself.
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@User_2006
It was the enormous wave of spam that hit around mid-2018, which made it difficult to sustain forum conversations and sparked serious debate about an "exodus" elsewhere. Many of us were reluctant to do so but when another website (DART) came along that was designed to look very similar to DDO people made the change in droves. Debate.org had been on the decline well before this due to functionality slowly breaking down and waning interest among the core member base but I think everyone agrees the spam was the final nail in its coffin.
Seriously, in early 2018 DDO sustained a game of Survivor that had 9 participants, who collectively made up but a small fraction of site activity at that time. Immediately before the spam it had reasonably high forum traffic.
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@warren42
Are you active on the main DDO Discord? If so, where can I find it?
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@Barney
Sounds alright to me, for the reason that extremism which is not violent is not prohibited.
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@PressF4Respect
Yes, I know the definition. But who do you classify as a hate group based on that definition? It's broad enough that a number of non-hate groups could be defined as hate groups. Who decides which entities fit the mold?
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@Barney
"While we want people to have the freedom for controversial debates, we don't want this to become a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Forbidding people from advocating genocide is enough. Encouraging violence against people is the only kind of "scum and villainy" that really counts. The rest is just your subjective taste and should have no bearing on a platform dedicated to being a place where people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives air their beliefs and opinions with each other and try to make the case for what they think is true, however outside of the norm it might be.
For example, a person might start a debate and argue "Hitler would've gone down as a good leader who made Germany great again if he hadn't started WWII and genocided ethnic minorities."
In this case, he/she would be saying something positive about a blatant hate group (the historic Nazi party and its leadership) while not promoting genocide. He likewise wouldn't necessarily be encouraging anti-Semitic policies so much as saying that the positive aspects of Hitler's pre-WWII administration (uniting Germans across Europe under one roof, building the Autobahn, overseeing economic recovery, reinspiring confidence in the German state, passing laws against animal cruelty, etc) would've outweighed a systemic anti-Semitism that didn't culminate in the Holocaust.
Would this person be right? That's not the point. Should this person be banned from DART for attempting that debate? Under the new policy, wouldn't the mods have to delete that debate at the very least?
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@PressF4Respect
The SPLC is a terrible, hyperpartisan source. They would classify the American Family Association (AFA), a run-of-the-mill conservative Christian advocacy organization, as a hate group. They might similarly classify organizations like Samaritan's Purse, a Christian charity that has done a lot of good in the world, or Franklin Graham, one of the most well known and respected pastors/evangelists in America today.
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"Advocacy in favor of any hate group or their mission is likewise prohibited."
No. Take this one out. "Don't advocate genocide" is fair, but for one thing nobody can really agree on what a hate group is and also it unreasonably limits the parameters of open debate.
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As for why some of scripture is situational and some of it isn't, that's because the Bible (per the Christian interpretation, anyway) wasn't really supposed to be a book of rules. God reveals Himself to man, and reveals His expectation for man to be holy. The Bible gives many examples of what holiness (and its opposite) looks like but it doesn't cover everything. A Christian would accept that "Thou Shalt Not Lie" doesn't apply if you're trying to hide Jews in your house from the Gestapo (as Rahab was considered righteous when she lied to protect the Israelite spies in her home), and the reason is because our religion expects us to derive at conclusions by asking why something is right or wrong.
"Women should be veiled in church" doesn't seem to draw upon any absolute rule. Instead it was a cultural rule, an expression of modesty in that time. In eastern cultures there is a tendency among some men to fetishize women who wear veils so there's nothing inherently superior about it. In our culture there's nothing immodest about a woman with her hair down, as it's a woman's default appearance at all times. But covering her breasts in church would be required, whereas in some jungle tribes women go around bare-breasted and it's so common that (I presume) it doesn't cause the local guys to get horny and everyone just treats it like the norm. Americans in 2020 doing the same as those women in the jungles wouldn't end very well.
In another passage, Paul told believers it was up to them to decide whether it was okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols. There was nothing inherently wrong about it, as they didn't believe in the idols in question and the sacrifices were made by other people. Grilling beef at Baal's altar does not magically defile it. It'd still have all the normal properties of cooked meat. But it might bother the consciences of some, and violating one's conscience even in regards to something that isn't necessarily sinful might constitute a sin in itself. And he told them to avoid doing it if it'd serve to tempt or pressure believers whose consciences would've been bothered by it.
Let me clarify that humans don't decide the morals per se. But sometimes a thing is sin in practice and other times it isn't. Things that aren't normally sinful might be in some contexts and vise-versa so a very large list of absolute rules isn't helpful. Christians are called to be obedient to God but they also enjoy an enormous degree of autonomy from day to day. They have working brains and are adults who should be able to think for themselves so they should be smart enough to determine the right thing to do in a given situation.
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@Barney
Christians accept the writings of Apostle Paul as being part of the Biblical canon, divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit to impart relevant truths to believers. Some of the content found in his Epistles is situational, such as his advice to Timothy to drink wine for his health. Likewise, no surviving denomination to my knowledge requires women to wear a veil in church, not even the Eastern Orthodox. But his writings are in large part a divinely inspired commentary, to help believers make sense of events and developments that came before. That is to say, Paul was the author of Christian theology as we know it.
One tenet of this is that there exists a difference between men and women, who were "created male and female" in the words of/to paraphrase Jesus, and that with this difference comes assignment of different roles. Paul made it clear that all humans may be saved and follow Christ in their everyday lives irrespective of gender but part of the rightful gender division includes male leadership.
When you think about it, this makes sense. Men are always the ones who have to take initiative in starting a relationship. They pursue a woman, brave the emotional hurt of rejection, belittlement and vilification in order to establish something long-lasting. The burden is on him to improve himself in order to become desirable, as opposed to a woman who takes desirability for granted. In Bible days he would've literally had to build the house they'd be living in as a married couple, he had to leave the house every day and go out into the world to make ends meet for the entire household. The safety of the family was his duty, and he had to take up arms to defend the family and his community against outside aggression.
In all of these areas he took/takes the initiative, as a leader does. A man is built physically stronger but even in a post-industrial era he has more aggression, which translates either to more destructiveness or more constructive ambition. It's no coincidence that *most* great innovators, CEOs and statesmen are male, as are most felons. A man who doesn't shoulder big responsibilities or goals is more likely to end up wasting his life or in prison, and so the argument could be made that a man needs to be playing a vital role in some project for his own good. The church is meant to reflect the correct order of things, in which humans obey rather than rebel against God, and in which the household functions according to the framework God designed for it. And that includes male leadership. Women obviously do have a meaningful contribution to make in the church but it's to be headed by men so far as circumstance will allow.
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@triangle.128k
Many Evangelical Christians would point to OT prophecies and the Book of Revelation as evidence that in the last days Israel would be reestablished, and believe that the fact of a general covenant between God and humanity through the coming of Jesus did not nullify God's promises to the Jews. They see the events of 1948 as the fulfillment of End Times scripture.
They also believe that the Third Temple will be constructed by the Jews (on the site of the Temple Mount), and that the Antichrist will defile it. But since prophecy must be fulfilled before the Second Coming they welcome all of these developments.
Some years ago there was an American Christian man who came to Israel seeking to burn down the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque which would pave the way for the rebuilding of the Temple. So yes, supporting Israel is quite in line with some interpretations of the Bible.
Of course, it helps that Israel's culture and norms of government is a lot more western than the surrounding Muslim country, so even though they're Jewish the argument could be made that this is a Huntington-style case of "members of one civilization come to the aid of their own in defense against the alien other". Both the conservative and religious motivations are compatible within the Republican party.
They also believe that the Third Temple will be constructed by the Jews (on the site of the Temple Mount), and that the Antichrist will defile it. But since prophecy must be fulfilled before the Second Coming they welcome all of these developments.
Some years ago there was an American Christian man who came to Israel seeking to burn down the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque which would pave the way for the rebuilding of the Temple. So yes, supporting Israel is quite in line with some interpretations of the Bible.
Of course, it helps that Israel's culture and norms of government is a lot more western than the surrounding Muslim country, so even though they're Jewish the argument could be made that this is a Huntington-style case of "members of one civilization come to the aid of their own in defense against the alien other". Both the conservative and religious motivations are compatible within the Republican party.
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@Envisage
Those killed were probably members of Shi'ite militias backed by Iran. It's no secret that Israel's policy since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War has been to try to kick these influences out of the country, as it considers them a security threat. It's done this before, more than once. This is simply the latest instance.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I stand by what I said. The primary duties of the church include:
1. The preach the Word
2. To guide new believers in their spiritual walks
3. To be a collective gathering of believers, which is spiritually good for each of them and was strongly recommended by Paul
Note that "conversion" is not one of these. Only God can do that, unless by conversion you include that which does not stem from a transformed heart. The preaching of the Word presents God with an opening, as He doesn't go around converting jungle tribesmen who'll never hear the Gospel preached (or at least, this hasn't happened as far as we know). This is why Christians are under obligation to preach to unbelievers, and why ministries exist to translate the Bible into every known language so that even the most fringe, far-flung populations might one day hear it.
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@zedvictor4
I meant exactly what I said. The work of transforming the heart of the believer can only be accomplished by God. Kind of the whole point of the OT was that it was a demonstration that making people conform to an outward law is pointless if in their hearts they don't want to do the right thing. Hence, theocracy is fruitless because it attempts what's already been shown not to work.
In addition, a Christian would reject your assumption that the Bible is not applicable to modernity (as the Word of God, so far as it contains information intended for humanity across time, is timeless and does not become obsolete). Hence, there's little point engaging you on your last four lines as those words of yours originate from an assumption that a Christian could not accept, and a Christian's response would originate from an assumption that you could not accept.
Nothing at all would be accomplished by that. If you wanted an answer from a Christian point of view why theocracy is wrong, I've given one already.
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@Alec
Because the believer comes to saving knowledge of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit upon the hearing of the Word. It's not a process that can be accomplished by a government.
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@weareacouple
I mean, why? And especially why would you raise your kids in that lifestyle? You might get lucky and it not harm their normal development, but that's it. So far as I can see, the only positive is that something really bad *might* not happen. What's the benefit? Are you doing it merely because you can?
(Also, I hope your kids are either the same gender or very far apart in age.)
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@fauxlaw
From 1969 to 2018 the world used about 1.3 trillion barrels of crude oil. In 2018 it was estimated that the world had a reserve of 1.7297 trillion barrels left.
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Consider, first of all, that the world's population roughly doubled during this time. But increase in demand for electricity far outpaced population growth when you take into account the skyrocketing economic growth of the Third World and rise of Third World middle classes. So we'd naturally expect consumption in 2018 to be several times higher than in 1969. It's not unreasonable to assume that in another 50 years we'd consume *at least* 1.7297 trillion barrels worth of crude oil, if not several times that.
Consider that the world's had millions of years to convert decaying organic matter into fuel prior to the Industrial Revolution. We went through something like 40% of that in just 50 years, and we'll easily go through the rest in another 50. Are you saying that the world's going to do millions of years worth of natural fuel creation in just 50 years?
Think about the impact of even temporary fuel shortages, like the 1970s Arab Oil Embargo (which I'm assuming you lived through and remember). The world is much more dependent on oil today than it was back then. Are you saying we can live like they did during the Arab Oil Embargo for millions of years while we wait for the planet to play catch up?
(While it's true that the amount in "discovered" reserves is increasing over time, this simply means technology is improving and allowing us to find deposits we didn't know existed before. That doesn't mean these deposits came into existence in the past 50 years but only that we're only now discovering them. Technology's gaining at an exponential rate, meaning we'll eventually be at the point where we can find all existing deposits. In fact, we might very nearly be at that point already. Once this happens, oil reserves will only go down after that.)
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I'm laughing at that third woman. Single mothers don't get to be choosers, unless of course by "choice" one includes the option of remaining perpetually single.
Oh and wontcha look at that, she has a master's degree. I'm sure the highest status men who have easy pickings already will flock to a fricking single mother who just so happens to also have a master's degree, because men have been known to place such a high priority on the level of educational attainment of their female spouse.
Maybe she can find men willing to sleep around with her, but finding a spouse is not going to be easy. By demanding men who also have a master's degree she's pretty much shooting herself in the foot.
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@Dr.Franklin
Is that like a Catholic thing or something?
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(I must issue a correction: The drug which Trump has endorsed is hydroxychloroquine, which is both more effective and safer than chloroquine phosphate. The latter drug is commonly used as an additive to fish tanks, and is highly toxic. It appears that a handful of people misunderstood Trump and began self-medicating on the latter drug, sometimes to lethal effect. His recommendation was the use of hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, an antibiotic. One study has suggested that when taken together it will not only treat but actually cure COVID-19 within a mere six days.)
(As with "regular" chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine must be taken at controlled doses to avoid dangerous health outcomes. Ideally the treatment ought to be supervised by medical professionals.)
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@skittlez09
I do it whenever there's a relevant social event at the local skating place, and I always enjoy myself when I skate. But I don't do it as a sport or anything, nor do I go up there by myself.
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First thing to note: a vaccine for SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) is still (probably) quite a long way off from being ready for commercial use. This is the only true "silver bullet" in the fight against the coronavirus. But in the meantime, the world might've stumbled upon something:
It's hit the news cycle that South Korea and some other countries are using a drug known as chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, to treat the coronavirus in infected patients, with encouraging reports.
While many in the medical community are still skeptical (and for good reason), it has been effective in primate studies as a treatment against the original SARS, which of course is a related virus.
On the US scene, President Trump was immediately enthusiastic about the drug's potential in combating a crisis which has effectively paralyzed the entire US economy. But at this current stage of the news cycle maybe half of sources are ridiculing him for this; whether this will change later on, or whether this touted treatment might eventually be discredited, remains to be seen.
It appears that the treatment may be particularly risky in patients with certain commonplace conditions, such as diabetes, and those with kidney disease. It might also not be the best possible option for treatment. It is yet unknown what constitutes a safe dosage that will still be effective against the virus. And finally, how the economics and logistics of mass-supplying this drug to tens of thousands of patients across the country fare I have no idea. Though Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act (authorizing large-scale manufacturing for a purpose that the government deems necessary), It seems the federal government is still dragging its feet on actually responding to the outbreak on American soil.
The first piece of good news is that chloroquine has been around since World War II, meaning it is not a patented drug. There should be no legal obstacles to mass producing and distributing it.
In the meanwhile, the Trump administration has fast tracked "compassionate use" of this drug for very ill coronavirus patients, and in coming weeks may evolve into a systematic remedy.
The second piece of good news is that because this coronavirus is novel, it should demonstrate a novel reaction to antiviral treatment.
For example, penicillin quickly rendered many deadly diseases curable, but eventually new strains developed that were resistant to it and to similarly common drugs. Because SARS CoV-2 has only existed in humans for maybe 4 to 5 months, we should have many years, or even decades, of potent use of a treatment that shows itself initially effective, meaning streamlined and routine chloroquine therapy for the coronavirus should not risk viral resistance in the foreseeable short term.
The bad news is that this, assuming it works, will only reduce the fatality rate in those infected, not halt the spread of the virus. Millions might still end up infected, in which there might just not be enough treatment to go around. There is a huge shortage of testing equipment for new cases and by the time it's readied and delivered, demand will likely have outpaced the fresh supply.
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@K_Michael
Well, paganism was about finished anyway. Socrates and Plato blew its head off with a shotgun, and then the Roman legions steamrolled over its dead body. That's the first thing to note.
If Christianity didn't "make the cut" a pseudoscientific gnostic cult (e.g. Manichaeism) would've taken its place. Christianity suffices to say "God created the world and sometimes performs miracles within it" but doesn't bother to try to explain the mundane workings of the natural world and explicitly forbids such practices as astrology and divination.
That is to say, in an environment where people knew next to nothing about science to begin with, it did way more good than harm via imposing a stable framework for a thousand years where unknown elements of the world were to be explained by means other than sorcery or magic or witchcraft. With there being no god but God, you couldn't say "Lightning is caused by Zeus!" or "the lunar cycle is caused by Artemis!"
And yes, the natural world was governed by knowable rules because the God who set it all into motion was a God of rules.
In theory one could've substituted for the polytheistic gods by saying "God directly causes every effect in every moment" but Christianity never seriously went down that path anyway.
(That's not to say that there wouldn't still be some people making scientific inquiries, but I imagine the rate of progress in discovery would've been slower.)
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@Dr.Franklin
Buddhism and Taoism both make cosmological and spiritual claims inconsistent with a simple "way of life".
In addition, RM made the choice of wording "converted", which denotes conversion to a religious tradition.
For example, you might say "I am a communist now" or "I've embraced communism" or "I've become a communist" but you probably wouldn't say "I have converted to communism".
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Personally I don't see value in converting to anything from Christianity (beside atheism).
Judaism and Islam both say the morality God expects of man is a series of rather arbitrary rules which in many cases just aren't relevant in an industrialized world. And neither one seems to have a theology which is better than in Christianity. Islam's selling point vs. Christianity is that it's Unitarian, but they also believe that the Qur'an is co-eternal with Allah, even though its text is very much temporal and human in content, so I fail to see how they're much better on that front.
Hinduism and Buddhism have so much garbage attached that you can't just believe in the sophisticated theology separate from all that (or you can, but you'd be believing separate from any sort of divine revelation).
Zoroastrianism might seem sophisticated at first but if you actually view the primary texts (as I did) it's like a nominally monotheistic variation of Hinduism but without reincarnation, and it definitely reflects tribal norms of the ancient Indo-European nomads as opposed to being a universal revelation for mankind.
In addition, Ohrmazd failed to protect the belief in him from being driven to the point of near extinction, which is an enormously discrediting factor for any religion.
(Did I forget to mention also that Sassanid-era Zoroastrianism gave direct religious sanction to brother-sister or even mother-son incestuous marriages? Or that the Iranian natives were actually somewhat relieved when Islam took over the area just so that they wouldn't have to go through with that?)
Finally, Bahai faith touts itself as a modern religion but if you'll examine it closely you'll find problematic elements there as well, reflecting the arbitrary whims of its two founders.
It lacks real sophistication and simply repeats the old trick of "prior religious revelations were canon in their day but it was all (somehow) pointing the way towards this final revelation now". It's easy to add liberalism to your new religion if you're founding it in the modern era, so don't be impressed by how progressive it might appear on the outside.
The New Testament has a theology which is universalist in scope, basically satisfactory, and sufficiently removed from ancient Hebraic norm to not be totally irrelevant to a Westerner in 2020. In believing in it as opposed to a general deistic liberal fluff you have the added benefit of divine revelation, and a clear sense of how to enter in a personal relationship with a God who loves you, will forgive you literally no matter what you've done in your past, and will show Himself to those who diligently seek Him through prayer and the reading of His word.
The amazingly beautiful and well-composed message of the Gospel was written without the benefit of modern thought and attitudes, but rather came to the conclusions that it did in spite hailing from a thoroughly barbaric and unenlightened time almost 2000 years ago. That in itself is quite possibly a miracle.
The problem with Christianity, I suspect, is that it may seem incredibly boring to a person who spent his entire life steeped in that religion's culture. While spiritual matters are far more important than "having fun" on earth, there are mystical strains of Christianity based in ancient monastic and ascetic traditions which can make for more spiritually intense and gratifying experiences. As a demi-Catholic nation, the UK is fortunate enough to have readily accessible resources and networks toward this end, if you know where to look.
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A lot of Westerners "convert" to Eastern religions (usually Buddhism) on their own terms, based on lofty universal values of zen, harmony, and "duality" that said religion is supposedly all about, according to the naive convert's own telling.
"Real" Buddhism is basically polytheistic, so far as concerns the way it's actually practiced by most native Buddhists. There's a butt ton of random cultural baggage attached that you can't simply ignore and still call yourself a true follower. You gotta accept the icky stuff along with the not so icky.
I'm not saying that a Westerner can't authentically convert, but it takes many, many hours of research beforehand, and sometimes it's difficult to find the original, relevant holy scripture translated into one's own Western language. Often there may be a religious devotee somewhere who puts this material online for free to increase general knowledge among X linguistic group about what they believe in, but these websites may take a little searching to find, and then time to gloss through.
And finally, you must consider whether a religion actually reflects divine truth before converting. Because converting just "because it's cool" is a bad idea. It's not like flirting with different political ideologies: you're contending with God Himself and He definitely wouldn't appreciate people acting like that.
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@Barney
Best friend of course. What's your point?
Obviously, you have the freedom of speech to say this. But there's virtually no way a normal person, if actually presented with that exact situation, would choose as you're claiming. You might feel a greater bond with your best friend than your newborn child, sure. But in the right moment you'd know who your greater responsibility was towards. One is not only a child, but also your child. The other is an unrelated adult who you have no obligation toward beside those entailed by the bonds of friendship that you regularly choose to sustain.
It may still be a noble thing to lay down your life for your friend. But you can't prioritize him or her over the wellbeing of your children.
What you're talking about sounds like emotional bonds. Why should your emotional bond to some random woman's fetus, outweigh her lack of said bond when she's the one measurably affected?
Does not compute. You're claiming I said literally the opposite of what I did. A person has obligations towards close family, near-infinitely more so one's own child, whether they particularly like said family member or not. One's unborn child falls under this category and therefore is unlike a stranger.
Call it you feeling obligated if you want, and the woman in question still doesn't have it.
????
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@Barney
1. In terms of the inherent obligations one has for another, one's son or daughter cannot be compared to a random stranger, or even to somebody you consider yourself friends with. Its most fundamental basis is neither affection nor emotion and exists in the absence of either.
For example, who would you sooner die for (if you had to choose)? Your three month old, or your best friend of 15 years?
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I mean, in hindsight the OP was sort of right. But it wasn't until after the start of the year 2020, and the cause was the coronavirus, a force majeure. Otherwise the economy would've kept chugging along slowly but not so slow as to make for a recession.
The point of Republican tax cuts is that the money that doesn't get taken from a corporation or business it can invest, which in the long term is a smarter use of that money than whatever the government would've spent it on. That is to say, the government refrains from "eating its seed" so that it can be sown for the future instead.
This of course assumes an economy interested in investment. But it appears that this does in fact describe the US. Per one source, investment as percentage of GDP was, at the end of 2019, at levels comparable to the gross average from 1947 to the present.
Investment is probably not easy to measure. When an investment will eventually bear fruit, and to what degree, or if at all, will obviously vary a lot between one industry/company and another. But the US faces steep international competition on all fronts so merely maintaining a GDP of 21 Trillion, much more growing this figure by a couple hundred billion dollars a year, would naturally be quite the feat that'd require no small sum of short-term sacrifice to pull off.
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I mean, he was eventually going to start picking off people for being lazy, so...
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@WaterPhoenix
You got one thing wrong: If the coronavirus blows over, people will simply forget about it. There's no payoff for Trump.
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@WaterPhoenix
Here he accuses Dems of playing up the coronavirus threat and politicizing it as a weapon against him. He goes so far as to call it the "new hoax".
And here's him, a couple days ago, saying that:
"And the number one priority from our standpoint is the health and safety of the American people. And that’s the way I viewed it when I made that decision. Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low."
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There is no derogatory term exclusive to the male sex that's anywhere near as harmful as those directed towards women.
Fa**ot is probably the closest thing because of the tendency to think of that lifestyle as being worse when men do it (probably because it carries connotations of emasculation), meaning that a woman is less likely to be called this, and it is a very hurtful thing to be called if you belong to the class of person it describes.
But "cuck" or "small penis man" just doesn't carry the same weight. Not in 2020. A lot of young(ish) guys nowadays just don't care about whether that thing happening to dangle from our legs is particularly large or whatever size. Likewise, whether or not a woman would find its size appealing is also something we don't spend a lot of time thinking about.
I suppose there are still men for whom this is a sensitive topic. But mostly these are lesser men. For the most part, the traditional male-specific slurs have lost their sting.
Look, "skank" and "bitch" have the capacity to be cruel beyond imagination. It can be used to denote a person who (supposedly) has no value except as a fleshy object to be used, hurt and demeaned, the property of a man who holds her in utter contempt. It signifies the ultimate denial of human dignity.
Nobody deserves be treated that way.
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Okay. So...
Donald Trump has done something really, really stupid:
He has made, and then has doubled down on repeatedly, statements which have little in way of potential payoff to him and his 2020 campaign but which, on the other hand, could backfire tremendously.
He chose to downplay COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus.
The instinct behind this is obvious: Thus far, the left has tried to paint everything about his time in office as being doom and gloom, so it's no wonder he interpreted their coverage of the coronavirus outbreak from this same angle.
To be fair, there is another practical reason for this: to prevent a stock market panic. But depending on how bad it gets that's eventually gonna happen either way, no matter what he says. If anything, a measured response of "We acknowledge the problem but we'll deal with it strongly" would be far more reassuring (to ordinary people, and certainly also to day traders) than a leader who metaphorically buries his head in the sand.
Of course, the Dems are gonna hammer him on that, and rightfully so. I'm sure some of them already have. But here's the thing: the full consequences of this are not yet clear. We've now gotten the first confirmed coronavirus death in the US, but we're nowhere near the level of mass pandemic just yet. It's still a relatively marginal issue, so far as the 2020 election goes. Railing about "Trump corruption" and climate change is still far more potent a message to their base than focusing on the coronavirus.
But it could get worse. A lot worse. This presents a window of opportunity, between the time of posting and when this finally happens: an opportunity for one of the lagging Democratic candidates.
If said person, preferably somebody who enjoys rapport with the medical profession, turns their campaign around right now and makes the coronavirus their hot button issue, early, and therefore "corners the market" on this talking point while demand for such is still low, then it *could* pay off big time in coming weeks. Maybe not, but it could.
If, as one prediction have put it, 40-70% of all people on earth will catch the coronavirus within the next year, and if the death rate amounts to 1 out of 30 infected, somewhere in the area of 4 to 7 MILLION Americans could die from this thing, easily the biggest national catastrophe since 9/11.
If you'll recall George W. Bush was a dull, maybe not too bright Republican governor, who probably got the nomination because daddy was president, and who in 2000 still lost the popular vote in spite of the 8 year rule, a much more right-leaning America and press compared to today, and a demographic map that was not as skewed by illegal immigration as it is now.
Come a certain terrorist attack and then the year 2004, he won the popular vote by 3 million.
At this point the common assumption has become that this is Bernie's game to lose. He's emerged as the obvious front-runner, and by a large margin. The only person he has to worry about is Trump. You know what that means? The rest of those guys have nothing to lose. They can either drop out now, continue to putter along until they run out of money, or make a wager on death.
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