1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: September 08, 2024, 03:59:59 PM »

Poll update:

National: Harris +1.4 -- This Day In History: September 8, 2020: Biden +7.1 | September 8, 2016: Clinton +2.8
Arizona: Trump +1.6
Nevada: Harris +0.6
Wisconsin: Harris +1.5
Michigan: Harris +1.2
Pennsylvania: Tie
North Carolina: Trump +0.7
Georgia: Harris +0.1

All of these numbers are well within the margin of error for each individual poll, making them all essentially meaningless. Neither Trump nor Harris have made themselves a clear winner.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: September 05, 2024, 06:32:55 PM »

Donald Trump outlined a suite of economic proposals in a speech here Thursday, including formally introducing a government efficiency commission to be headed by Elon Musk

Nice.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: September 03, 2024, 07:32:55 PM »

people's lives actually were being put in danger and the online disinformation and inflammatory Tweets were contributing to that

Were they and was it? If I tweeted "the homes of immigrants should be burned down" and then it didn't happen, am I still breaking English law? It feels to me that this man is being held responsible because he agreed with someone's criminal actions, rather than actually performing a violent crime himself.

The UK has a long history of doing that, merely making an "offensive comment" about an incident often results in arrest: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-arrested-as-police-investigate-claims-of-offensive-twitter-message-about-glasgow-bin-lorry-crash-9942347.html

But the context of the unrest is key here. I do think the nature of social media changes the nature of free speech - when anyone has the ability to broadcast bile across the internet to a large audience I think there needs to be some thought about what people can use that for.

This makes it sound like you only think free speech applies when you're not speaking to anyone. It's like telling someone that they're free to travel anywhere they like in the country, as long as they don't travel more than 5 meters from their front door.

In some ways the UK isn't OK, but I'd suggest the same is true of the US. Both countries have their issues. But the UK isn't the dystopian nightmare some people are trying to claim.

I think routinely creating news articles that are something to the tune of "local police arrest man for making rude comments about the local police" sounds pretty dystopian to me. You're not living in 1984 just yet, but you're not in a shining beacon of modern governance, either.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: September 03, 2024, 01:47:59 AM »

Do you regard that as a good thing?

Alright, as an example, let's say instead of immigrants, I say "the homes of fascists should be burned down." Is that illegal to say in the UK? Would I go to jail for tweeting it?

Usually, when someone says a "call for hotels housing immigrants to be burned down" is bad, they end up believing that some other group should not receive similar protection. Think of every possible noun I could replace "immigrants" with. If there are some people you can aim speech towards, and some you cannot, then that is obviously not freedom of speech. That's speech for some, none for others.

People Tweeting stuff encouraging that sort of action directly contributes to people's lives being put in danger.

Do you have any evidence that tweeting a general call for violence actually results in violence? Are violent actions some kind of thought-virus that only occur if you read about them on popular social media platforms?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: August 29, 2024, 08:10:43 PM »

It's not like Trump has a long history of being a dick to military personnel or something...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 26, 2024, 03:03:41 AM »

But it doesn't say that, though. It lists a bunch of other issues, such as him being from Sutton, breaking out of the police cordon, and inciting disorder.

For some definition of "inciting disorder".

If we look beyond tabloids, we'll find that the man pleaded guilty to violent disorder: https://www.cps.gov.uk/london-south/news/rioters-who-admitted-taking-part-london-unrest-are-sentenced

Well, I can't compete with that. It's impossible to plead guilty to something you didn't do. Case closed.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 25, 2024, 04:11:21 PM »

I don't think it's a big ask for proof that the police are doing what they say they're doing without asking the police directly.

As much as I dislike cops, I'm going to hold on to my mantra of "innocent until proven guilty" - if the cops are demonstrably lying about what they're doing, then we need some evidence of that.

You mean like an article saying they arrested someone just for making rude gestures?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 24, 2024, 05:26:29 PM »

You specifically asked for proof of what the law enforcement is doing without referencing law enforcement. Of course you didn't get a response - after all, you never troll.

I don't think it's a big ask for proof that the police are doing what they say they're doing without asking the police directly. Otherwise this becomes:

"Hello officer, are you currently heckin' illegalin' right now?" 'no' "wow, have a good day!"

Careful, friend - your current options are Kamala and Trump.

Listen here, buddy.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Aliens!

« on: August 24, 2024, 04:47:13 PM »

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4845442-former-pentagon-official-ufo-disclosure/

A Pentagon official has released a book and made interviews claiming that the US has alien bodies and spacecraft. How soon might we be faced with complete disclosure of the existence of aliens and their technology? It might be sooner than you think!

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 24, 2024, 04:34:06 PM »

Europeans tend to omit obvious statements like these, because they're obvious. We don't feel the need to caveat our statements with something like "we'll enforce the law unless it's illegal to do so", because we don't have a culture of cops breaking laws when it suits them.

It's amusing that Pete's argument requires we take his word for it, after all, Europeans are too enlightened to state details about things. Therefore, we must accept vague allusions to reality. Reminder: I asked Pete for a link to prove his point and he stopped responding to me entirely. This isn't unusual for Pete, but it is still disappointing.

You see, honk, you incorrectly took a European's word at face value. You should have simply played mental gymnastics until they actually said something completely different. Europeans do this so often they think it's not abnormal to do so. It's also, coincidentally, why Europe keeps falling for memes like fascism and communism. They're uniquely, culturally prone to such things. You need to look no farther than modern day Hungary to be reminded of that.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: August 24, 2024, 12:29:00 AM »

I'd imagine the majority of Kennedy's voters only do so because it's a "I don't like either of these options  " protest vote. I expect Stein's percentage to receive an increase, and maybe Trump will get a small bump from the true "I love Kennedy's policies!" nutters.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: August 23, 2024, 01:17:37 PM »

I think it's important to remember that candidates typically poll best during and immediately after their convention. I expect Harris' numbers to keep climbing for the next few weeks (polls are lagging indicators!), then around the middle of October we should start seeing numbers closer to a "settled state". Trump also had an assassination attempt pump his numbers, so his will probably settle out far lower than Harris'.

We're still not seeing Harris poll at numbers anywhere close to Biden's 2020 performance or Hillary's 2016 performance. That is still troubling for Democrats as none of the polls are pulling her out of the margin of error.

For reference, Harris is currently +2.0 nationally. These are the historical numbers: August 23, 2020: Biden +7.8 | August 23, 2016: Clinton +5.5

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Presidential Election 2024

« on: August 22, 2024, 01:54:53 PM »

Current poll averages:

National: Harris +1.6
Arizona: Harris +0.6
Nevada: Trump +2.2
Wisconsin: Harris +1.5
Michigan: Harris +2.4
Pennsylvania: Harris +2.0
North Carolina: Tie
Georgia: Trump +1.7

Current election status: it's Trover

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: X can now fake election tampering evidence

« on: August 18, 2024, 08:29:34 PM »

That would require for him to liquidate some of his very hypothetical wealth (and pay taxes), and then to fund his company (and pay taxes). Also, he might have to pay his debts if some actual funds pass through his bank accounts. I honestly don't think he's smart enough to pull any of that off.

I'm sure his endless army of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists can find a way. They'll just submit a write off. Write it all off. All these big companies, they write off everything.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: X can now fake election tampering evidence

« on: August 17, 2024, 09:52:54 PM »

Given Elon's net worth, he could run the company for the rest of his life with no company income whatsoever. It costs only one billion dollars per year to run Twitter. He's not going to let it go bankrupt because it's his personal playground. He wants advertisers to come back because he's greedy, but he can easily afford to keep Twitter going without them.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 17, 2024, 01:33:50 AM »

No you haven't. You went on some weird ramble on page 2 where you tried to define it in terms of itself.

Of course its defined in terms of itself, it's a legal term defined by a legal framework. What you're doing is nonsense. You might as well tell me you define "freedom of speech" to be a purple elephant, and so therefore no one meets your requirements.

These are adopted into UK law in the Human Rights Act of 1998.

In other words, they're not UK law, which is why coincidentally the UK doesn't actually follow them. You might as well reference some old EU laws. The UK didn't follow those either, even while it was in the EU!

Are you just doing what you did when I showed you that US Citizens have been jailed for Tweets and just going "well that doesn't fit very well with my argument so it doesn't count. So there!"

The only example you had was someone that posted copyrighted style material from an official campaign in order to impersonate a campaign official. That's not remotely as egregious as someone posting racial slurs and getting arrested in the UK. I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between "I got arrested in a conspiracy to strip voting rights from people" versus "I got arrested because I made a rude gesture in the general direction of a police officer". It's comedic that you would compare the two at all.

Maybe if you wave that little Stars and Stripes hard enough and shout U-S-A loudly enough then that will become true. Back in the real world, nah. If you did invent freedom then you're doing it wrong:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/18/facebook-comments-arrest-prosecution
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/guantanamo-bay-human-rights

Guantanamo bay isn't in the US and the prisoners there were not US citizens. "The US is mean to its enemies" is not particularly relevant to this discussion.

Locking people up for FB posts, locking people up without fair trial.
We were codifying things like right to a fair trial in the Magna Carta centuries before we even invented your country.

For some definition of "fair trial", certainly.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 16, 2024, 01:52:13 PM »

Freedom of speech is just one aspect of living in a free society. Your argument seems to be that we don’t have freedom of speech in the UK because people can be jailed for things they say online. Which is both true and rare. And when I provided an example of that exact same thing in the US your response was along the lines of “well that doesn’t count”. So…

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can literally say anything you like. Both the US and the UK have protections for free speech and limits to that too. Your claim is:

I already explained what freedom of speech is. You keep inventing in your own definition, then getting upset that no country on the planet matches up to the definition you invented. I'm not sure what else to tell you in that regard. Should I start incessantly repeating myself? That seems to be your favorite activity.

Far more vague is incorrect - Pete has gone in to some detail about how they are defined.

Pete didn't reference laws in the UK at all.

Far more oppressive is incorrect too according to the freedom indexes I have linked to.

This just in: Freedom index produced by horrid authoritarians perceives authoritarian nanny state as "more free" than libertarian society. There are also tankies in the US who think the USSR was "more free" than the US. Are you going to start citing them as well?

Far more silly - I disagree. There have been occasional silly cases (look up the heil Hitler dog thing). But those are very much the exception not the rule.

A legal system is defined by its exceptions, not its rules.

In general we do have a pretty high level of freedom of speech over here. The trouble with you lot thinking you are “THE land of the free” is it implies you’re the only one. You aren’t.

We are, actually. We literally invented freedom.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 16, 2024, 12:07:57 AM »

Right, but we've already established that that premise of your argument is largely just your imagination, so repeating it for emphasis doesn't change much.

Alright, so since I'm the one imagining things and you are the harbinger of truth, do you have anything to back up your claims? And since I'm generous, let's focus just on this one man. Did you read something in the news to indicate that he went around doing something violent (and no, a police report doesn't count!)? I haven't seen any and you obviously have, but you keep not linking it, so I think that's a bit curious.

I have a sneaking suspicion that your claim is based only on the output of your corrupt justice system and, coincidentally, contains further claims only put forward by people who are incentivized to make them. That would also be quite a bit curious, wouldn't it? Authoritarianism always has a funny way of self-justifying with that sort of circular logic. "Well the police said he's a big meaniehead and the police wouldn't lie about that!"

So many that you couldn’t name one.
Even if you are right, many laws say what you must or must not do. They restrict your freedom. But if you’re so free then sure, you just drive how you like and see how that goes.

So, am I to assume you've given up on debating about freedom of speech and you've moved on to... whatever this is?...

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: EU Hypocrisy

« on: August 14, 2024, 09:07:58 PM »

As someone who lives in Europe, let me just say how it would suck alot for me if they stopped.

Remember that undersea pipeline that blew up?  Yeah, so Norway began exporting even more power to Denmark and possibly Germany (can't say for certain) because electric heat was being used alot.  Needless to say, my power bill went up X4.  It was a very unpleasant winter.  Alot of companies and people had issues paying.  Fortunately the government stepped in to help but it's still hurt.

It's an unwinnable situation.  You either fund Russia, or you can't find Ukraine.

If only there were a very large nation that kept warning about this very thing for over a decade only to be ignored because it was economically uncomfortable.

The fact of the matter is that most, if not all, European governments do not actually care about Ukraine. Which is why, coincidentally, they send very little armaments to Ukraine while sending billions of euros to Russia. It was all, once again, just political pity points for everyone to gather up. A moral high horse to ride until the high wore off.

We blew up that pipeline because we knew Europeans can't be trusted to make the correct decision. We should probably blow the rest of them up.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is the UK okay?

« on: August 14, 2024, 09:03:47 PM »

Speeding is actually a good example, I'll bite. For it to be analogous, we have to describe it as "fining people for driving their own cars", though. Driving cars is more socially acceptable than inciting murderous riots (just about), so fining people for driving cars seems, on the whole, much sillier than what OP is complaining about.

America is so un-free. It fines people for driving their own cars. What's next, requiring a license to make toast in your own DAMN toaster?! :(

Pete, I know it's hard to comprehend, because your mind has been poisoned by the serious lack of freedom of speech, but angrily yelling at a police officer and making rude gestures is actually not equivalent to murdering him.

There are laws in the UK which restrict what you can say and do, there are laws in the US which do the same.

The laws in the UK that restrict what you can say and what you can do are far more vague, far more oppressive, and far more, dare I say, silly than the ones in the US.