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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Religion of Peace Strikes Back
« on: June 06, 2017, 02:07:01 PM »
You'd probably get attention from authorities no matter where you did that.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: June 05, 2017, 03:44:23 PM »
Can we please not turn this into another Inti thread? I feel like he's becoming the new sceptimatic.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Religion of Peace Strikes Back
« on: June 05, 2017, 03:42:47 PM »Well, there needs to be American jurisdiction, obviously, but my point is that it applies to immigration policies too. There's a reason why Trump's been insisting that his travel ban isn't a Muslim ban.
It actually doesn't, the president has legal precedence to block any group of people attempting to entering the nation, including those that belong to a single ideology. (Jews learned that the hard way in the early 1900s) People outside of the US are not covered by the first amendment.
It also isn't a Muslim ban, since it doesn't ban all Muslim nations (it doesn't ban Indonesia, for example). The insistence that it's a Muslim ban is a meme, just like "muh Russia conspiracy".
If it was as clear-cut as you're saying, there wouldn't be an ongoing court case about this to begin with. The historical precedents you're referring to are many decades old and have since been replaced by anti-discrimination laws and broader constitutional protections.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Religion of Peace Strikes Back
« on: June 05, 2017, 02:08:53 PM »
Well, there needs to be American jurisdiction, obviously, but my point is that it applies to immigration policies too. There's a reason why Trump's been insisting that his travel ban isn't a Muslim ban.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Religion of Peace Strikes Back
« on: June 05, 2017, 01:12:02 PM »the first amendment (which only applies to US citizens, anyway).
No, the First Amendment applies to everyone.
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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched
« on: June 04, 2017, 04:02:35 AM »
Free Fire (Ben Wheatley, 2016)
Not bad, but I feel like it could have been a lot better. There's a gritty, lo-fi feel to the chaotic shootout that takes up the bulk of the movie - the gunshots sound like real gunshots, the characters spend most of their time either lying still or slowly crawling around, the wounds they accrue continue to hamper them for the rest of the movie, etc. - which is all the more reason why it drove me nuts that it incorporated the trope where everybody can just spew bullets endlessly and only ever run out when the plot specifically needs them to. I know this seems like an odd thing to criticize, but it really, really stood out in a movie that was clearly trying so hard to deconstruct action movie tropes and portray its characters as violent buffoons rather than badasses. My other issue is the presence of two extremely obnoxious characters who should have been killed off early in the movie, but inexplicably survive until the climax, where they distract from, you know, the actual plot, and the characters we care about.
Not bad, but I feel like it could have been a lot better. There's a gritty, lo-fi feel to the chaotic shootout that takes up the bulk of the movie - the gunshots sound like real gunshots, the characters spend most of their time either lying still or slowly crawling around, the wounds they accrue continue to hamper them for the rest of the movie, etc. - which is all the more reason why it drove me nuts that it incorporated the trope where everybody can just spew bullets endlessly and only ever run out when the plot specifically needs them to. I know this seems like an odd thing to criticize, but it really, really stood out in a movie that was clearly trying so hard to deconstruct action movie tropes and portray its characters as violent buffoons rather than badasses. My other issue is the presence of two extremely obnoxious characters who should have been killed off early in the movie, but inexplicably survive until the climax, where they distract from, you know, the actual plot, and the characters we care about.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Modern Feminism
« on: June 02, 2017, 01:40:53 PM »
The artist's name is Emily Youcis. She's extremely open about her racist beliefs and proudly identifies as a Nazi, so it's not a parody.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: June 01, 2017, 04:37:53 AM »
But Kek and Pepe are frogs, not toads.
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Arts & Entertainment / Re: American Gods
« on: May 30, 2017, 05:25:43 PM »American Gods episodes 1-5
I love it. Neil Gaiman never disappoints.
Ian McShane steals the show, IMO. I just love that man.
Yay, roosroos joined in!
Also, Crispin Glover is great.
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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Black Mirror
« on: May 29, 2017, 06:19:47 PM »I've never seen the show, but just from reading the synopses on Wikipedia and articles like these, I can tell I'd hate it.
Who the hell reads synopses on Wikipedia to find out about a show? You're weird.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 27, 2017, 05:00:37 PM »I can't argue with this logical, well-reasoned takedown.There's nothing to take down - that's the entire point. By your own admission, you subscribe to a conspiracy theory which, at this point, does not have any evidence to support it. It's also based on online memes. Meme-conspiracy is just a useful shorthand for it.
Until the situation changes (either your views adjust to the evidence available to date, or evidence emerges which yields your ideas some credence), I'll keep laughing at you for pursuing the left-wing equivalent of Pizzagate.
It's an ongoing investigation based on the multiple undisclosed contacts between Russian and members of Trump's campaign/administration, compounded by Trump's many lies and efforts at obstruction. That's more than enough to warrant an investigation - which you apparently agree should happen, an idea that seems somewhat at odds with your belief that it's all nonsense. If you disagree with what I'm saying, then actually rebut me. Explain what it is I've said that's wrong and point out what's right. Just repeating the word "meme" doesn't help anybody.
What in saying is, you have no idea if the PM of Montenegro in any way contributed to this, or if it was an inside joke or if Trump was truly being a douchebag. Instead of focusing on important shit, like the content of the meeting, you are not-picking body language that could play out in a number of ways, some of them potentially positive. Some cultures admire and respect shows of strength, some don't and you can't be sure if this is a net negative or positive. So this just joins the ever-present chorus of ineffective criticism that makes criticism of Trump easier and easier to tune out.
My first instinct was to respond to this with something along the lines of "lol," but being mindful of what I just said above, I'll use facts rather than ridicule. No, I don't believe that this was any kind of friendly or cultural gesture, because if it was, Markovic would logically have pointed that out rather than just dismissing it as not being a big deal.
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Personally I care way more how Trump deals with international policy than if he wasn't super polite in a photo op.
Then you're holding him to a shockingly low standard, one that's only going to get lower as his term continues. You wouldn't tolerate someone you barely knew doing this to you, yet you've managed to convince yourself that it's okay when the president does it to another head of state.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 27, 2017, 01:40:27 PM »Oh, diddums, are you still upset about your conspiwacy theowy not being all that popular?
b-but the emails guys right haha? right? the emails thing justifies my bush-did-9/11-level stuff somehow yes???
I can't argue with this logical, well-reasoned takedown.
Tell me, do you have any context behind Trump's interaction or are you operating on instinct here?
All Spicer and Markovic have offered for context is that it was a group photo and Trump's assigned position was in the front. Combined with the video showing Trump not taking the time to spare even a glance at Markovic, but instead hilariously thrusting out his chin and tugging on his suit before addressing someone else, this strongly indicates that there's nothing more to this than Trump's usual obnoxious behavior. You're right that it's nothing new for him, but it's not something I'm willing to turn a blind eye to.
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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General
« on: May 27, 2017, 04:46:03 AM »Oh that's right. I forgot he was on Legends. I stopped watching that one because they can't make time travel work either and the show is all about time travel. And Savage really is Flash's best villain in the comics, what a waste.
The second season was an enormous improvement. It replaced the weaker characters with much more likable ones, stopped focusing on the whys and hows of time travel, stopped having the main characters cause most of the problems they have to solve, and gave them a goal that they could actually progress towards over the course of an episode, rather than one single task they could only fail repeatedly at until the finale. And in contrast to how tragically Vandal Savage was wasted, the villains in this season were fantastic. Not because they had especially flashy abilities or powers, but because they were fleshed-out characters with distinctive personalities and interesting motivations. They were fun to watch. That's what Flash has been missing from its last two main villains. It's not the fact that Zoom and Savitar were evil speedsters that stopped them from working well; it's that they spent most of their respective seasons as anonymous figures with no real character or personality, until the dramatic reveals that essentially turned them into completely different characters with nonsensical motivations.
That being said, though, it would be nice to get some variety and not have a speedster for once. Grodd would probably be too expensive from a CGI standpoint. I feel like they really missed an opportunity with Mirror Master by introducing and defeating him in a single episode; he could easily have made for a great arc villain under different circumstances. Shade is cool too, but he was completely fucking wasted by the show - I vaguely remember that he was only the B story in the episode that introduced him. The show hasn't done anything with T. O. Morrow or the Thinker, despite teasing the latter - oh, who am I kidding, they'll just go with this asshole, who'll be voiced by Steve Blum until he pulls his mask off two episodes from the finale and reveals he's fucking Cisco:
...
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wonder_woman_2017
Holy shit, it looks like they finally made a good one.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 26, 2017, 09:04:35 PM »
Excellent counterarguments, guys. Almost as convincing as SexWarrior's bulletproof debunking of the Trump-Russian connection by repeating the word "meme."
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 26, 2017, 06:03:38 PM »
Yeah, who cares if Trump is a walking armpit fart. He's only the President of the United States. It's not like we need to hold him to a particularly-high standard. Or any standard at all, really.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Modern Feminism
« on: May 25, 2017, 06:38:10 PM »
Mohammed and his toxic masculinity.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 24, 2017, 04:16:15 AM »
Meaning a good tactic, a sound one, logically valid. More than "sensationalist drivel."
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: May 24, 2017, 03:02:57 AM »Do you think the mainstream media don't normally strategise their coverage of politics? That seems to fly in the face of the fact that most American media are extremely partisan. They all carefully select what to report and when, don't they?
Sure, but their criteria is more sophisticated than "Does this help Candidate X and/or hurt Candidate Y, and how can we maximize this impact?"
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Also, it was a tape from many years ago that was conveniently released just before a debate. The timing was obviously deliberate. It ended up backfiring because Trump turned it around on Bill Clinton (by presenting people actually willing to accuse him).
Okay, first of all, and I'm going to go a bit off-topic here - you're not being true to yourself here. You're willing to set aside your moral reservations to analyze Trump's lewd comments and defend them as not being as incriminating as many people thought, but you'll sit back and act like a tu quoque argument aimed at Hillary's husband somehow implicates Hillary herself? I know you too well for this. Admit it, you don't think it's fair to criticize Hillary for Bill's behavior. You pride yourself on your rationalism far too much to let your political preferences override it.
Second of all, at least this gave Trump time to respond, to fight back, to recover from a scandal that many believed at the time to be fatal to his campaign. Releasing the tape just one or two days before the election, letting people vote while the tape was still sinking in and Trump was still reeling in response, would have been a far better strategy for manipulating the vote, something that the media absolutely would have known.
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Also, the "Grab them by the pussy" story ran in October 2016. The DNC leaks were published in July 2016. Of these two, which one was timed closer to the actual election (November 2016)? Honestly, the more I look into it, the more it sounds like they did sit on the story until just before the election. I don't know when the DNC attack took place (as opposed to when the data was published), so I can't comment on that one.
EDIT: Looking at the stolen e-mails, the most recent ones were from 25th May 2016. Assuming the actual data mining took place at that time, that gives us a 2-month turnaround, which is not unreasonable given the amount of data.
A second batch of DNC emails were released the day before the election, and the Podesta emails (which I had been thinking of mainly, but mixed them up with the DNC emails in my mind, sorry), were released in installments every day until the election, as WikiLeaks all the while loudly bragged about how much devastating material it had yet to unveil. Never mind that the vast majority of the emails were utterly benign and simply discussed politics in frank, candid terms. It was the sheer volume and pace of these releases, not their contents, that WikiLeaks used as a crude bludgeon to manipulate voters into switching sides at the last minute.
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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Explosion at UK concert
« on: May 23, 2017, 06:55:03 PM »We can't possibly identify their motives for doing this. We may never know. However, what we can tell you is that it was just a lone wolf. An isolated incident. Move on, nothing to see here.
Oh, and the lone wolf whose motives cannot be identified was happy to inform us of his intentions hours before the bombing. What a nice guy.
Islam is the religion of peace! Allahu Ackbar!