1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 08:17:50 PM »

I get it, you've been subjected to the same indoctrination that we all have. That The Thin Blue Line protects us from the murderers, rapist, robbers, liberals, socialist, homosexuals other freaks that are ready to destroy our world. It's part of what the corrupt law enforcement uses to keep us in line.

Lol, my dude, I'm pretty firmly against policing as a concept. I'm more radical than you can hope to ever be. Tubular, even.

That doesn't mean I'm an advocate for setting one's testicles on fire, which you appear to be in favour of.

You think this is about someone's sense of righteousness?

Of course not! It would be very unkind of me to project my thoughts onto you. I merely trust that you didn't lie to me when you explained your goals.

And it just so happens that your goals are antithetical to anything that's good in this world. Fix it.

Instead of defunding the police, maybe we should just call it an extreme retraining and re-budgeting of resources.

A good first step towards fixing it. Now you just need to realise that you've done much more than reword your ideas. You fundamentally changed them to no longer be immediately disastrous. Lots of work yet to do, but lots of progress made.

2

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 06:31:28 PM »

I disagree.  I think using police budget for retaining and training people who are not there to fight, shoot, or restle people but convince them to to stop peacefully... Is a good idea.

I should have spoken more clearly, and that's on me.

I think there is plenty of room for reform in American police departments. However, if the question is "defund or not?", my answer is "not". I believe there is no alternative to that answer to that specific question. If you expand the question to what Dr Van Drugs posited - "would you rather defund the police or do nothing?" - then my answer is "do nothing", because "defiunding the police" is only going to make things much worse.

3

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 06:21:29 PM »

If it fucks up, we'll try something else. If that fucks up, we'll try something else.

That's generously assuming you're still alive to try, or that you have enough of a societal framework reamining for that to make any sense. Your plans are likely to make that no longer the case, so we won't be trying them, thanks.

If it was your town, you would just deal with it?

Yes, because I have no alternative available, and just making things worse because at least we're doing something is a fantastic way of increasing misery in the world. I'm a big fan of not fucking up the world just to appease my sense of righteousness.

This is why I hope that the "dEfUnD tHe PoLiCe" idiots never gain any ground. Luckily, they're very unlikely to.

4

Technology & Information / Re: Steam Deck

« on: August 12, 2022, 05:39:58 PM »

So, I've had a little play, and so far I'm pretty happy. It's not breaking any new ground - it's just a small PC running what looks to be a derivative of Arch Linux, with a reasonable Steam UI on top of it.

One thing I do really appreciate, though, is the fact that they give you a simple way to drop out of the "games console" UI straight into a bog standard desktop environment. If you want a root password, you just set one and off you go. It doesn't feel like it's trying to stop you from using it in creative ways, and I really like that. I expect that as I get more comfortable with it, I'll come up with use cases that weren't originally intended, and the fact that Valve are happy to step out of the way and let me use my hardware is honestly a breath of fresh air.

As a gaming machine, it's competent, but nothing to rave about. You get a screen of reasonable resolution for its size, and a controller that, well, controls games. I realise this may sound like I'm punching it down, but that's not at all my intention. On the gaming front, it just does its job - nothing more, nothing less.

So far, I'd recommend it. If that suddenly changes, I'll make sure to post an update.

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 12:44:10 PM »

So tell us, you know a lot about what won't work. What would be your plan for dealing with a heavily armed police presence, protected by Republicans and police unions that are harassing good people while the criminals run rampant?

I don't have one. Shit's fucked. But I also don't pretend to have a revolutionary plan that will Totally Work™.

Revolutionary plans that will Totally Work™ are dangerous, because they're a fantastic way to make things much worse. Friends don't let friends spread that kinda BS.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 08:38:48 AM »

The municipality would simply dismantle the police department and rebuild a new one with a new name, new charter and new people.

So uh, just fire everyone and start hiring from scratch? In a field that's chronically understaffed and which keeps getting forced to lower its standards further and further just to keep the headcount at a reasonable level?

"lmao just get rid of everyone and then use our infinite pool of resources to build a new system"

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 11, 2022, 04:20:22 PM »

Defund the police doesn't mean we won't have police. It means we're going to stop paying these assholes and come up with a different vendor.

A different vendor than the government? Presumably that means you're in favour of private policing (if not, what's the alternative?). That sounds like a fantastic way to make things much worse.

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Technology & Information / Re: Steam Deck

« on: August 09, 2022, 08:00:33 AM »

Which model did you get?

512GB. It should be getting here any day now!!1!

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Buy Illegal Abortion

« on: August 08, 2022, 07:12:27 AM »

Fixed the title for U guyzzzz.

SARCASM!!!!

If you post like this once more in PR&S or other upper fora, it's off to the shadow realm with you.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Old Politicians

« on: August 04, 2022, 11:43:58 PM »

Maybe you just went to a really shitty school?

It doesn't take that much effort to find an American sporting a "BACK-TO-BACK WORLD WAR WINNERS!!1!!!" t-shirt with a bald eagle carrying 5 guns in the background. They sell them at WalMart, and cheaply.

Perhaps you just live in an extremely sheltered part of the country? As a litmus test - how surprised were you by Trump's 2016 election?

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Technology & Information / Re: Steam Deck

« on: August 04, 2022, 09:46:27 AM »

My preorder just became available. I doubt I'll be using it much, but I'm curious enough to order one. I'll let you know how it goes.

12

Flat Earth Media / Re: NASA caught in the lie...

« on: August 03, 2022, 12:27:40 PM »

And? [essay follows]

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=10089.0

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Theory that Black Holes are Land Mass

« on: August 01, 2022, 12:25:04 AM »

It would be helpful if you can be a bit more specific.

If you cannot figure out why providing no content other than an IMDB link to Amazon Women on the Moon is not in line with a well-spirited debate, then you are beyond help and should be ejected immediately. If you do understand why it's not OK, then you've got your final chance to behave.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Theory that Black Holes are Land Mass

« on: July 31, 2022, 11:24:15 PM »

In one corner we have every physicist since Newton with massive confirming data and in the other we have Tom with no credentials, papers, education in or understanding of physics or any data at all.    Why Tom would you expect anyone to take your argument as remotely credible?  Of course FE in general falls to the same critique.

You might as well be claiming that there are Amazon women on the moon!

If you can't figure out how to post in the upper, don't post in the upper.

15

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: July 26, 2022, 02:05:50 PM »

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Suggestions & Concerns / Re: On the notion of suggesting a school shooting and/or suicide

« on: July 17, 2022, 08:00:41 PM »

Putting my moderator hat on for a moment: there isn't an obvious correct course of action. We have 2 conflicting arguments here:

• Saddam's usual manufactured outrage
• Tom's bizzare argument

Neither is made from the position of good faith, and neither should be taken seriously. However, continuing that line of questioning is not helpful to the discussion, and at this point it only serves to be unproductive. So, my suggestion and polite request is that both sides drop this line of inquiry and focus on something more productive.

Tom - it seems to me that you've made your point, and that the sum total of people's responses to it has been exhausted. It seems that some people are finding the subject of mass muder and suicide to be sensitive, so could you please them do the courtesy of dropping it?
Others - please could you make it easier to drop the subject by not fuelling it further?

I hope we can all reach a consensus on this. There is no other solution here that would keep everyone happy, and any forceful action from the mods would set an uncomfortable precedent for the future. Let's just move on, okay?

17

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What is the Gospel?

« on: July 16, 2022, 06:55:42 PM »

So yes, it was obviously written by humans but the Christian belief is that it was inspired by God.

How would you, personally, describe this "inspiration"? Is it a Qu'ranic kinda deal where the supposed deity dictated it word for word? Or is it something more relaxed? To what extent do you think humans may have corrupted the intended message?

To be clear, I'm really asking for your personal take here (and the personal takes of anyone else who feels like sharing). I already know the "right" answer for at least some denominations of Christianity, but I also don't really care what they think.

18

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What is the Gospel?

« on: July 16, 2022, 01:15:43 PM »

It doesn’t. That’s humans you’re thinking of

You've lost me. Who, in your opinion, wrote the Bible?

19

Flat Earth Theory / MOVED: Apollo Software Programmer Margaret Hamilton

« on: July 14, 2022, 06:29:28 AM »

This topic has been moved to Flat Earth Community.

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=19468.0

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 08, 2022, 02:15:55 PM »

Ignoring the "By 'press' BoJo meant something else than the contextually obvious meaning of 'press'" argument for a moment: it's actually quite likely that he didn't notice the press around him. Don't forget - this is the guy that excused himself out of an interview, entered a walk-in fridge, and closed the door behind him. It's also the guy who grabbed someone's phone and put it in his pocket because he didn't want to address the picture he was being shown on said phone. Politics aside, his awareness of his own surroundings is clearly not always all there.