101

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 10:01:14 PM »

So mother, father, and gender differences should be erased from society and literature because some LGBT feel that it should be? Is there a coherent argument here other than that some people are gay and trans and think other people's children should be raised in the gay and trans-gender way they see fit?

Is gender neutrality specific to raising kids in the gay and trans-gender way?

Refer to the Mr Rogers example. Back in the 90's was his reshooting of earlier segments by removing the "he" assumption of an unknown person's gender or removing "housewife" in reference to a woman considered raising a kid in the gay and trans-gender way?

Evidently you are not too familiar with Mr. Rogers.

I don't know what that means.

It means your take on Mr. Rogers is not accurate.

How so?

102

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 09:47:36 PM »

So mother, father, and gender differences should be erased from society and literature because some LGBT feel that it should be? Is there a coherent argument here other than that some people are gay and trans and think other people's children should be raised in the gay and trans-gender way they see fit?

Is gender neutrality specific to raising kids in the gay and trans-gender way?

Refer to the Mr Rogers example. Back in the 90's was his reshooting of earlier segments by removing the "he" assumption of an unknown person's gender or removing "housewife" in reference to a woman considered raising a kid in the gay and trans-gender way?

Evidently you are not too familiar with Mr. Rogers.

I don't know what that means.

103

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 09:45:43 PM »

I can understand altering words to make it make sense to current child audiences.
Like changing "he was acting gay" to "he was acting happy" for books written when gay meant happy and not homosexual.

But beyond reading comprehension for children, I don't see the need to edit.
They're products of their time and its important for people to read and see how others were thought of in the past.
They need to critically think about race, for example, and these books help with that.

Gay doesn't mean happy? It has been synonomous with happy for as long as I remember.

It is but its hasn't been primarily used that way for several decades now.  So a 10 year old may be confused and use the current meaning instead of the one we know.  Which will give the wrong idea.

Why should we allow ten year olds to be blind to proper use of language within context?

"He was a delightful and gay young fellow..."

I'm pretty sure todays youth would default to, "He was a delightful and homosexual young fellow..."

"He ventured off to grab a faggot and then was headed back to the cabin to start a fire and cook some stew..."

I'm guessing here too the youth of today would not default to a bundle of sticks.

104

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 08:22:34 PM »

So mother, father, and gender differences should be erased from society and literature because some LGBT feel that it should be? Is there a coherent argument here other than that some people are gay and trans and think other people's children should be raised in the gay and trans-gender way they see fit?

Is gender neutrality specific to raising kids in the gay and trans-gender way?

Refer to the Mr Rogers example. Back in the 90's was his reshooting of earlier segments by removing the "he" assumption of an unknown person's gender or removing "housewife" in reference to a woman considered raising a kid in the gay and trans-gender way?

105

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 05:17:34 PM »

https://unshackledminds.com/convex-earth-the-documentary-the-flat-earth-scientific-proof/

No curvature with multiple tests.

The lies of a Globe are just that. ALL LIES

I scrubbed through the video. What's weird is that they don't show any of the results of any of the "tests". They just talk about them, but never actually reveal anything. Did you actually watch the video?

The results are where you usually find them...at the end.

Where? I just watched the last 15 minutes, it's just the UFO Cult Leader/Hoax Paranormal Mentalist talking about how they saw anomolies that will change the world and a couple of other guys talking about the same thing. No evidence. Just some guys talking.

Again, if I got some people together and filmed them just sitting there saying that they did experiments and found conclusively that the earth was a globe, how do you think that would be received by FEr's?

As well, the UFO guy says at the end something like, The complete research information, with regard to equipments, coordinates, images, all techniques, research content, technical reports, scientific papers, mathematical calculations and proposed theories will be available soon on the websites http://www.terraconvexa.com.br and http://convexearth.org A book with the complete compilation of the research will be released soon.

Both websites don't exist and there is no book. The video was published 5 years ago.

Edit: This is kinda funny, from Convex Earth DEBUNKED - Dakila Research & CTZ - Zigurats Technology Center; Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira...The "scientists" seem to have gotten the formula wrong...Not off to a good start...



Should be F = GMm/r²

106

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 04:45:29 PM »

Probably because this isn't good olde fashioned censorship, it's radicalized LGBTQ liberal hyper-woke censorship. Think of the children.

107

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 02:10:21 PM »

Yes, they "say" all of those things, but they don't show any of those things. All they do is talk about what they are going to do, show a guy setting up a telescope or some other gear then gut to a graphic like this with the 'Yes' box checked...





If I presented the same only the 'No' box was checked on the graphic you would have a fit and fall in it screaming that I didn't show anything and that I was just claiming a whole bunch of stuff without evidence.

Go ahead and post your evidence.

They posted evidence the earth is not spherical.

My point is that they didn't post evidence. If I created the exact same video, showing the same footage and graphic, but had the check in the "SIGHTING: NO" box, you would not agree that I posted evidence the earth is spherical.

And not to mention the head of the experiments and maker of the video is a known UFO cult leader and hoaxer paranormal mentalist. Not really the most credible of sources.

108

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 02:00:31 PM »

I kinda think this sort of thing happens all the time in media. Movies have words bleeped out or overdubbed, deleted scenes, alternate endings. Music too. Whether the original writer, director, songwriter or whatever, approved or not.

Censoring common words like mother and father is not something that "happens all the time" in media. You are equating mother and father to profanity. Since when was there a widespread concern that those words should be censored?

There is no widespread social debate on whether gendered words like mother and father should exist in literature. This is a radical LGBT ideology that only few hold. It is entirely unjustifiable, and you are having to make ridiculous comparisons to the censorship of profanity to defend the indefensible.

In short, I agree, changes to the original text should not have happened. But so be it. I guess authors should put in their wills or whatever that the future copyright owners of their works are not allowed to alter anything. Perhaps a lessen to be learned.

"But so be it." "A lesson to be learned?" Yeah, this is clearly mostly the author's fault and not the fault of the radicalists trying to make changes to children's literature to suit the ideology they are trying to push onto children. 

Wow, you'd think that the Dahl estate was murdering children or something. I don't see anywhere where mothers and fathers are being forced to buy Willie Wonka or James and the Giant Peach. If enormously fat mothers and fathers are that concerned by these radicalist's influence, there are probably 1 billion versions on the market they can get instead that don't include such modern revisions.

Dr. Seuss Enterprise went through the same process a few years ago, altering some illustrations (ex., removing the yellow skin tone from from a chinese character) and instead of revising text they chose to just stop publishing 6 books they deemed questionable. Suess died in '91.
A slightly different example as the actual artist made the revisions, not someone else, "Mister Rogers, in the later seasons of his show, would sometimes go back and re-record segments of earlier shows. He’d put on the episode-appropriate sweater and erase the mistake of assuming that an unknown person was a he, or that a woman was a housewife."

Like I said, I don't think they should revise anything. I don't think Dahl should have succumbed to pressure and change the oompa-loopas back in 73' or whenever it was either. I'm all for 'it is what is is and leave it be.' But I'm also not going to get my panties all bunched up in a knot because some copyright owners decided to change something. People can do what they want and buy what they want and whether a social debate is widespread or not is neither here nor there. And it may be unjustifiable to you, but you're not the arbitor as to what is and isn't for others, especially those who have ownership over something.

109

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 08:22:29 AM »

Wokeness definitely goes too far. However, this is not the first time the books have been revised. This all started back in the early seventies. For example, Dahl himself changed the origin of oompa-loopas as originally published back in the early 70's from African pygmies Wonka "smuggled in crates" back to his factory to small white people who happily joined him. Revisions have been ongoing ever since.

How exactly is an author censoring himself comparable to someone else decades later removing references to "fat" and "ugly" and "mother" and "father" in literature? Revisions to Willy Wonka have not "been going on ever since", making corrections to the original work. It's not a living document.

If Dahl wanted to sanitize his own work, fine. But correcting the works of another author to promote your ideology is over the line.

Wow, I didn't mean to strike a nerve. I mean I opened up with "Wokeness definitely goes too far." I guess I need to be clearer. I think it's just kind of dumb for the estate and publisher to sanitize the work. It seems pretty obvious in this case, their idea was to make the works more "accessible" (read: $) for the times. Especially considering the Netflix deal. The skeptic in me is sure that the intent to do so was by no means noble but more about dollar signs.

As far as a "living documents", I agree, they are not in principle. But I guess how these things work is that the copyright owners can do whatever they want. It's kinda like how every few years some group wants the n-word removed from Huck Finn.

I wonder too if Rushdie has an axe to grind. From a 2016 New Yorker article, And, in 1989, Dahl, who had no trouble waxing indignant about attempts to ban his own work, denounced Salman Rushdie as “a dangerous opportunist” after the fatwa was issued against him.

I kinda think this sort of thing happens all the time in media. Movies have words bleeped out or overdubbed, deleted scenes, alternate endings. Music too. Whether the original writer, director, songwriter or whatever, approved or not. But again, in principle, should that ever happen in the arts, I say no. I even thought the whole Tipper Gore demanding parental advisory labels on "offensive" records/CD's was way over the line. So yeah, I'm in your camp on this one.

In short, I agree, changes to the original text should not have happened. But so be it. I guess authors should put in their wills or whatever that the future copyright owners of their works are not allowed to alter anything. Perhaps a lessen to be learned.

110

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Absurd censorship

« on: February 21, 2023, 04:15:55 AM »

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roald-dahl-censored-gbr-scli-intl/index.html

I agree with Rushdie, and everyone else that has spoken out against this. If the books offend, don't publish them. According to the article words that have been removed include "fat" and "ugly". That is, indeed, absurd.

Beyond that it's just not right to monkey around with the language used by the original author. Honestly, sometimes this trend towards wokeness really does go too far.

Wokeness definitely goes too far. However, this is not the first time the books have been revised. This all started back in the early seventies. For example, Dahl himself changed the origin of oompa-loopas as originally published back in the early 70's from African pygmies Wonka "smuggled in crates" back to his factory to small white people who happily joined him. Revisions have been ongoing ever since.

As well, in an interview, he said he was a self-proclaimed "anti-zionist and anti-semite". In the same he added, "Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”  I had no idea how controversial he was until this story popped up a few days ago.

The Dahl Company/Family has been apologizing for some of his views for decades. Point being, this is not just 2023 wokeness, these types of revisions have been going on for ages.

Probably doesn't help matters that Netflix bought the rights to Dahl's entire catalog for $500 million a few years back.

111

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 21, 2023, 02:55:18 AM »

"The Documentary, available in three languages: Portuguese, English and Spanish and published on the websites terraconvexa.com.br and convexearth.org Seven scientific experiments were carried out, including the geodesic, which consisted in measuring the distances between the bases and tops of a building in Torres (RS) and another in Natal (RN), with a distance of 3,050 km between them. reference to sea level. “The measurements were the same. If the Earth were spherical, the measure of the distance between the bases should be smaller than the measurement between the upper parts of the buildings because they would be following the curvature of the Earth, “explains Urandir de Oliveira, founder of Dakila Research. Engineers from the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) participated in the action."

You need to hone your scrubbing skills.

You need to actually watch the video.

Yes, they "say" all of those things, but they don't show any of those things. All they do is talk about what they are going to do, show a guy setting up a telescope or some other gear then gut to a graphic like this with the 'Yes' box checked...



Then they do the exact same thing for their next "experiment".

If I presented the same only the 'No' box was checked on the graphic you would have a fit and fall in it screaming that I didn't show anything and that I was just claiming a whole bunch of stuff without evidence.

Some more interesting info...

Here’s the leader of the “experiments”, Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira, mental spoon twitser extrodinaire…


Urandir mostra como trabalha com o seu poder mental afetando objetos.

This is kinda interesting too…

From A.J. Gevaerd
To the International UFO Community:
Very important December 13, 2002
Please be informed that the story of a man abducted in Brazil, with dramatic photos of the scenario, is a campaign to promote overseas the biggest UFO hoaxer of all times in Brazil, Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira, who has actually created a sect of fanatics around him, composed of people who blindly believe in his alleged ET contacts and healing powers, none of them ever confirmed by anyone. The man has been repeatedly exposed as hoaxer by dozens of UFO researcher and many people even from his sect, after "waking up to reality", have come forward to describe Urandir´s tricks and scheme. His last great attempt to go public in Brazil and overseas happened last year, when he invented the story (easily exposed) that a UFO had crashed at his friend¹s farm. It was only another of his hoaxes, perpetrated to attract people to his activities, to which they are invited to join if they pay a considerable amount of money. His history is all fake and the man is fastly becoming a millionaire with his obscure agenda, supported by thousands of fanatics. Urandir is largely rejected by 99% of the Brazilian UFO Community, who perfectly knows that he is nothing but a hoaxer. This story is NOT to be taken seriously, as no responsible UFO researcher has been allowed to scrutinize the scenario and the alleged case. Urandir has been interviewed by Jeff Rense on Thursday night, December 12, assisted by his fellow Felipe Castelo Branco. This has taken serious people in the USA and all over the world to believe in the story invented by Urandir. The damage can be much bigger than one can think. In Brazil, responsible UFO researchers and large media stream have succeeded in debunking him at a considerable level. We have succeeded in preventing that thousands of Brazilians being cheated by Urandir and now he is trying the USA and other countries to establish his sect. Serious UFO researchers all over the world cannot let it happen. The man is as fake as a 3-dollar bill. He spent time in jail for selling property that doesn¹t belong to him.
- A. J. Gevaerd, gevaerd@ufo.com.br Editor, Brazilian UFO Magazine. National Director, Mutual UFO Network. Director, International UFO Congress

And more…Apparently he is kinda a UFO cult leader…

Here in Brazil, only some weeks later, indifferent to the immense worldwide repercussion of the U.S.A.occurrence, an ufological cult started to prosper and even in its beginning already showed some fanatism. In April , 1997, the UFO Magazine, together with an Educative TV team of Campo Grande went to the farm where Projeto Portal was placed and had testified, for hours the event of fanatic practice. Mentor and founder of the project, the former brick-layer, former goldwasher and amateur magician Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira used primary tricks with laser pens, operated by his employees camouflaged in the bush, to illude the about 70 members of his sect, that today has more than a thousand followers. Although coarse and simple, the luminous effect fascinated those that followed the former brick-layer, already in advanced process of psychological and emotional controller.

If you want to die on the Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira hill, have at it.

112

Technology & Information / Re: Cybertruck

« on: February 20, 2023, 07:08:18 PM »

Just like how the F-150 Lightning had an MSRP of $40,000 but the real price starts at $60,000 for a bare bones model that they don't seem to actually produce. Similarly, prepare to get screwed by Elon's bait-and-switch tactics.

In my experience, this applies to pretty much all vehicles at any dealer. The "real" price is always way more than the advertised stock, barebones model. And a stock, barebones model never seems to exist on the lot and is impossible to get.

You paid $100 for Elon to send you a sheet of how much the truck will cost, which means if you wait until that point and decide not to buy it, you don't get a refund and Elon keeps your $100.

I think you can get your 100 bucks back and the 100 bucks is applied to the final price, though that's 100 dollar credit, so to speak, on an $80k hunk of dangerously sharp delorean stainless steel...

"Until your Vehicle is delivered to you, you may cancel your pre-order at any me, in which case you will receive a full refund of your Pre-Order Payment. When you take delivery of the Vehicle, we wil provide a credit to the final pre-order price of your Vehicle equivalent to the amount of the Pre-Order Payment you paid."

All with a grain of salt. There may be language buried further down that says something like, "Though you can cancel anytime prior to delivery and receive a full refund of your pre-order deposit, you must first provide 10ML of blood from the very rare Lange’s Metalmark butterfly contained in a vial of pure gold encased in a 300x300MM calfskin lined box made of palladium."

113

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: The Flat Earth Scientific Proof

« on: February 20, 2023, 01:37:04 AM »

https://unshackledminds.com/convex-earth-the-documentary-the-flat-earth-scientific-proof/

No curvature with multiple tests.

The lies of a Globe are just that. ALL LIES

I scrubbed through the video. What's weird is that they don't show any of the results of any of the "tests". They just talk about them, but never actually reveal anything. Did you actually watch the video?

Same thing...

I scrubbed through the video. What's weird is that they don't show any of the results of any of the "tests". They just talk about them, put up a graphic saying what they saw but never show what they saw. They actually hide the visuals behind the graphic of their experimental "stats". Did you actually watch the video?

114

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 14, 2023, 10:36:34 AM »

It does seem bizarre that somehow the Pentagon retroactively said there were others from forever ago. Even one from earlier in this administration. And they are all cagey about what exactly all these balloons were carrying. And now we seem to be missiling a new one everyday. Looners are attacking us! Next it will be the furries...

115

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 14, 2023, 05:25:15 AM »

3. They flew 3 of them across America during Trump's time undetected. 

Begs the question, if they were undetected, how could anyone possibly know?

"A senior Pentagon official told reporters last week that Chinese government surveillance balloons hovered over the continental U.S. “at least three times” during the Trump administration, and one additional time at the beginning of the Biden administration."

Supposedly, for unknown reasons, the pentagon did not inform the Trump whitehouse nor the Biden whitehouse. Who knows why.

Then there's this to muddy the waters even further...

"The transiting of three suspected Chinese spy balloons over the continental US during the Trump administration was only discovered after President Joe Biden took office, a senior administration official told CNN on Sunday.

The official did not say how or when those incidents were discovered."

And this...

WASHINGTON — The top military commander overseeing North American airspace said Monday that some previous incursions by Chinese spy balloons during the Trump administration were not detected in real time, and the Pentagon learned of them only later.

“I will tell you that we did not detect those threats, and that’s a domain awareness gap,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, the commander of the Pentagon’s Northern Command.

One explanation, multiple U.S. officials said, is that some previous incursions were initially classified as “unidentified aerial phenomena,” Pentagon speak for U.F.O.s. As the Pentagon and intelligence agencies stepped up efforts over the past two years to find explanations for many of those incidents, officials reclassified some events as Chinese spy balloons.

It is not clear when the Pentagon determined the incidents involved Chinese spying. When the determination was made, officials kept the information secret to avoid letting China know their surveillance efforts were uncovered, the officials said.

116

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 14, 2023, 01:35:37 AM »

That's what I'm thinking too. Cheap, inconspicuous. Culpable deniability. Pretty smart actually. And here we are with things in the past like the billion dollar SR-71 blazing over China, 70k feet high at mach gazillion with humans onboard and in 2023 China has a happy, fun bobbing innocent weather balloon probably capturing just as much data

117

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 13, 2023, 09:41:34 PM »

I guess I'm assuming all the super powers have the satellite super power resolution we have. Balloons just seem so quaint and 1800's even at 50-60k feet. Especially with all the hysteria around UAP's, mystery super sophisticated tech and such.

But maybe sometimes spycraft requires unexpected old-school methods.

118

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 13, 2023, 07:58:37 PM »

It is kind of strange. Apparently we used AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles to shoot down the balloons...at a per unit cost of US$381,069.74. The payload on the first one was the size of a bus if the reporting is correct. Perhaps worthy of a $400k missile. Not sure about the others. F-22's have a 20mm Gatling gun. I would think you could just plink-plink a balloon with a few rounds at a fraction of the cost. Guess not.

If you look at war economically the numbers will always look silly, but would you rather shoot down a $50 balloon staring at your missile silos or let the enemy get very valuable intel? It's hard to put a price tag on knowing precisely what occurs around your enemy's military bases.

I kinda think it's more about, "Hey! You can't violate our airspace with your looners!" I mean, doesn't everyone these days have satellite images and such of everyone's missile bases/silos? It all seems hardly "hidden".

A quick google search:




To Find America's Nuclear Missiles, Try Google Maps

119

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Balloon Madness

« on: February 13, 2023, 04:57:29 PM »

It is kind of strange. Apparently we used AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles to shoot down the balloons...at a per unit cost of US$381,069.74. The payload on the first one was the size of a bus if the reporting is correct. Perhaps worthy of a $400k missile. Not sure about the others. F-22's have a 20mm Gatling gun. I would think you could just plink-plink a balloon with a few rounds at a fraction of the cost. Guess not.

120

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Died Suddenly

« on: February 12, 2023, 11:30:41 AM »

The FDA is going to take 75 fucking years to produce the evidence it fucking used to approve an experimental vaccine (one that doesn't even fucking work, mind you...and one that forced all the wordsmiths to actually rewrite the definition of the word vaccine)and you fucking you want them to regulate something?

Go ahead. Be my guest.

I'm not the fucking idiot here.

And I can look at current actions and draw highly reasonable conclusions as to outcomes.

So, yeah. It ain't gonna pretty for you and the rest of the usual suspects here.

So do you want to get rid of the FDA or not? It's just a yes or no question that doesn't require incoherent hysterical vitriol.

Nothing incoherent about it.

You come here demanding simple, immediate answers from me, yet are perfectly willing to defend the actions of a government agency that claims it needs 75 years to explain how they speed the approval of an experimental shot with an unprecedented dearth of human clinical trials.

GTFO of here with the BS.

I'm not demanding anything nor did I make your response time bound. Just asking a question. Yes or no? Apparently that's too much to ask of you to put your money where your mouth is. You never really add anything of import to a discussion anyway nor back up any of your notions. So yeah, to be expected, actually.

Aw, you're full of it.

Apparently, a simple yes or no answer suffices for you when it comes to someone's thoughts on an issue, yet the rushed regulatory approval or denial of a new method of treatment, and government implementation of mandatory shots, mandatory lockdowns, and forced segregation, for what amounts to a severe cold, is somehow justified in your mind.

Might as well ask the FDA to come up with a new medicine that will shield you from the effects of what awaits you and others adopting your philosophy.

Cool, I guess that's a yes then. Thanks for clarifying.