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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: Today at 11:05:25 AM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: Today at 08:18:49 AM »

This is an oddly ironic form of projection. You are on Team Woke

No, I'm not. I'll add this to the very long list of "things Tom is wrong about".
You really need to stop telling people what they believe.

which is trying to convince normal people that that men can be women, that abortion is just fine, that mass migration is beneficial

I don't believe any of those things. They are all complex issues which people like you try to pretend are simple ones.

and yet you think that the other side is a cult.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

The way you slavishly defend everything your Supreme Leader does, no matter how clearly wrong.
The way you do mental backflips to believe the obvious lies.
Those are the actions of a cult member.

Grown ups consider statements and actions on their merit. Your first reaction is not "what was said?" or "what was done?" but "who said/did it?".
The answer to that last question then forms your opinion. If it's your Supreme Leader or one of his minions then your reaction is thisisfine.jpg, no matter how blatant the lie or how egregious the action.
Those are the actions of a cult member.

Different beliefs on the issues of trans, abortion and migration are not the actions of a cult member.
My beliefs on all those things are different to yours, they're just not as simplistic and reductive as you have claimed above.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 23, 2025, 11:26:11 AM »

What's that you say? Not as many people want to go and visit an authoritarian regime?

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/a-road-less-travelled-why-tourists-are-shunning-trumps-america-62qqfvmgx

Tourism is another industry Trump has taken a wrecking ball to, inadvertently in this case.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 23, 2025, 08:41:56 AM »

This is an interesting choice of a comeback, considering that you have an avatar of an internet troll.

That isn't even true. Can you literally not get anything right? It's just a posh gentleman meme.
https://meme.fandom.com/wiki/Feel_Like_a_Sir

Your response is basically "no u", and you've not even got that right. Dear me.

The Trump/Johnson "lies" argument is objectively false and silly.

Yes yes, you just keep telling yourself you can see 5 fingers. There's a good cult member.
You may fool yourself, you don't fool us.

We are supposed to believe that they walk around irrationally lying

It's not irrational. With Johnson it's strategic, with Trump I'm not sure he even knows what the truth is.
It's hilarious that you continue to pretend you're winning arguments - you generally walk away from a thread when you've been humiliated declaring yourself the winner.

Your constant thisisfine.jpg meme is fooling no-one. It's a bit embarrassing watching you flail around trying to justify the unjustifiable.
People would have some respect for you on here if you admitted when your cult leader makes a mistake.
The mental backflips you keep doing to pretend he's infallible make you look ridiculous.
Yes yes, your side "won" - I just wonder how bad things have to get in the US before you stop to consider than it was a pyrrhic victory.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 21, 2025, 08:01:00 PM »

What now?
What's my world view?

Yeah, I don't know what he's going on about either. Maybe Tom is drunk.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 21, 2025, 05:07:13 PM »

Yes, it's actually a good thing that an unqualified drunk is in charge of the military and regularly shares classified information on unsecured platforms with people who have no security clearance.

I’m quite enjoying Tom’s constant thisisfine.jpg meme responses. It’s hilarious that he thinks that because senior members of the US government have certain powers it’s fine for them to use those powers incompetently or even accidentally.
Obviously he doesn’t think that, but Tom’s gotta Tom

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 20, 2025, 06:59:32 PM »

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-counterterrorism-czar-says-kilmar-161028821.html

And there goes the first amendment.

Some would ask “Is the US ok?”.
I am surprised that the rumblings about all this aren’t louder. The right are so excited about “owning the libs” that they don’t seem to care that some fundamental parts of the US constitution and laws are being ridden over roughshod

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 20, 2025, 04:51:31 PM »

The problem here is the poor quality of arguments.

The actual problem is that you are either a troll or, less likely but certainly possible, you’re so deep in the Trump cult that you have managed to convince yourself you see 5 fingers when only 4 are held up.
But even if you have convinced yourself, you don’t convince anyone else.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 20, 2025, 08:51:39 AM »

I think we just gotta ask ourselves... If a president will lie about something as trivial as his weight and height... What else is he gonna lie about?  How can we trust him?

You’re right.
But the issue is Trump lies endlessly. One side know this and are bemused that he has ended up in power anyway. The other side just don’t care about his endless lies or have somehow deluded themselves in to believing he doesn’t lie. From the other side of the pond it is all a bit baffling. But we had similar with Johnson over here. I miss integrity. Although I do think Starmer has some - regardless of whether you agree with his policies, we do at least have a grown up in charge. The issue with Trump is he works by instinct, not strategy. We’ve seen that with the tariff stuff, he’s constantly changing his mind about things because he doesn’t really have a plan. It’s pretty terrifying really.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 14, 2025, 06:15:09 PM »

He doesn't care about you.

^Uttered by the most caring bot on the site.

I think that's whataboutism, which is always irrelevant. Whether I care or not has zero impact on your life.
Whether Trump cares about the American populace does, given that he's your president and making decisions which affect your lives.

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Science & Alternative Science / Re: Blue Ghost

« on: April 14, 2025, 05:32:46 PM »

And now Katy Perry is "in on it"

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 14, 2025, 06:31:08 AM »

I have repeatedly pointed out

You repeatedly point out lots of things which are wrong.  You generally then walk away from a thread declaring yourself the "winner".
Multiple people have picked you up on the way you cherry pick. I'll ignore the rest of your trolling.

There are different ways to interpret statements

Generally true, but the meaning here is clear.

you consistency take the most disingenuous and hack partisan approach

Lol, yeah. Assuming that when someone says "I never said..." they mean "I never said...". How disingenuous   
It's quite amusing to watch you repeatedly do mental backflips and take things out of context to pretend things mean anything other than what any reasonable person would understand them to mean. I guess that's easier than admitting that your cult leader is a liar, a grifter and a fraud despite having been proven to be all of those things. It's quite interesting, psychologically. I like to think you're just trolling rather than actually being this deluded, but who knows?

The comment about scummy journalists is interesting and telling. That's another trick your cult leader has pulled with depressing efficacy. Convince his cult members that he speaks the truth - even though he is repeatedly proven to lie, far more than any other president in history. That way all the criticism of him, all the people who should be holding him to account - they're the bad guys, they're the liars. The more they criticise him the further you can entrench yourselves in the position that he's the one telling you the truth.
He isn't.
And all the flailing around with tariffs, constantly changing his mind about things, shows he has no plan for the country. Because of course he doesn't. He doesn't care about you.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 13, 2025, 04:48:43 PM »

Please stop that. You are continually posting articles and content which you have barely even looked at.

You are not a mod here so you don't get to tell me what to post or what not to.
The video is relevant to this thread. And of course I looked at it. To say I haven't is an incorrect accusation and ironic from someone who often posts cherry picked quotes from articles which actually say the exact opposite of what the cherry picked quote implies.

I don't see any evidence of this.

An interesting and somewhat baffling response given that this exchange started with a video which juxtaposes one of the lies with the proof that it's a lie. Of course you see not just evidence of it but absolute proof of it. Your response is interesting. You have a cult leader who you believe to be infallible and truthful. You see a video which clearly demonstrates he lies. What do you do with that contradiction? An honest response would be to change your views on the fallibility and honesty of the cult leader. It is interesting that your response is to try and reconcile the lie with the proof that it's a lie by pretending that words don't mean what you know they mean.
The only question is are you pretending to see 5 fingers when only 4 are being held up, and therefore trolling, or have you really convinced yourself somehow that there are 5 fingers. I like to think it's the former but I fear it's the latter. We have seen other examples where your response to indefensible events is not "what happened and is it OK?" but "who did it?". The response to this last question informs your response to the "is it OK?" one. This is not an honest way to assess things. The question is are you lying to us or to yourself?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 11, 2025, 09:09:55 PM »

Why are you posting this?

"The algorithm" spat it out this morning and I thought it was interesting.
All politicians lie of course, but Trump lies in an interesting way. Boris Johnson is similar in this regard. Him and Trump both lie like a young child does. My niece tells a story of a time she was baby-sitting for a friend, and one kid pushed another over right in front of her. My niece said "why did you do that?" and the kid said "didn't!". The kid obviously did it. She knew she'd done it. She knew my niece had seen her do it. And lied anyway. I find it bizarre when an adult does that sort of thing.

And the really interesting thing is Trump has managed to get this cult following who must at some level know he lies to them but somehow manage to convince themselves that he isn't. The term Orwellian is overused but I don't know what else to call it. It's literally the scene in 1984 when Winston sees 4 fingers held up but manages to convince himself he sees 5.
And here you are, right on cue, managing to convince yourself you see 5 fingers by pretending words don't mean what you know they mean. I like to think you're trolling and not actually that far gone, but I honestly can't tell.

Had reasonable comprehension skills been applied to this one would see that the person being interviewed is saying that he approves of tariffs, and that tariffs are a good strategy. His disagreements are about the exact particulars of the tariffs. This opposes the narrative you guys have been arguing that America imposing tariffs on its trading partners is bad in general.

Why are you lying? You know my posts are still there, right? You can just look at them. Like the one where I said:

The issue isn't that tariffs are bad, they're not good or bad - they're just a mechanism. The issue is very little analysis has gone into this, they've just used a blanket formula and used that to come up with some numbers. And Trump is doing it unilaterally without any of the checks and balances that should be in place in a functioning democracy.

The dude in the video calls what Trump has done a "terrible policy" and says it will do "real harm to Americans". He also explains what reciprocal tariffs actually are, and it isn't what Trump has announced despite him calling them that.

My issue isn't "tariffs bad". They aren't bad. But there's no strategy behind what Trump has done - well, there sort of is but it's based on a completely flawed premise that if country A is exporting more to the US than the US is exporting to country A then the country must be ripping you off somehow. That's far too simplistic when there are lots of countries and it's all so interconnected.

Another issue is that Trump is misusing emergency powers to set these tariffs without the checks and balances which should exist in a functioning democracy.

And every 5 minutes he changes his mind. First he announces the tariffs. Then there are rumours he's going to pause them, the White House say they're not looking at doing that and then 2 days later he pauses them. I saw an interview with a small business owner in the US saying she just doesn't know what to do right now because the policies keep changing. The market and businesses need stability and they're not getting it right now.

In brief: setting tariffs is complicated and should be done carefully and strategically. It cannot be reduced to an Excel formula.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 11, 2025, 07:49:43 AM »

We really are living in the stupidest timeline

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 11, 2025, 07:31:23 AM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 11, 2025, 07:30:14 AM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 10, 2025, 04:09:59 PM »

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 10, 2025, 02:55:35 PM »

Good to see that while dealing with trivial matters like breaking the world economy he hasn't lost sight of the really important stuff

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2eeggyppzo

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 10, 2025, 09:27:24 AM »

We can only predict based on current policy. Not our fault current policy changes on a whim.

It's quite funny that Tom is trying to characterise this as "leftists" being all over the place with their forecasts or predictions, when it's actually Trump flailing around making different decisions every day.
Trump is not a complicated person - he just craves attention because he didn't get enough from his daddy. All this chaos puts him on the front pages every day, which is what he needs as a distraction from the self-loathing.