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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by AATW on Today at 06:11:43 AM »

I was looking at Arnie’s IMDB page. He did a few things but there’s a noticeable gap when he was the Governator. Because he had a different job.
Being President is not a side gig, neither should it be used as an opportunity to further enrich oneself.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by Lord Dave on Today at 06:09:33 AM »

It doesn't matter.
MAGA will happily let Trump di as he wants then condemn anyone else who does the same if they're against Trump.

Profiting off the office of the VP?  Condemnation!  Jail!
Profiting off the office of the President when Trump?  Yes! Bravo!  This is a smart president!

The hypocracy is so think, it may as well be a concrete wall.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by honk on May 08, 2025, 11:02:16 PM »

No politician should

Again, this is the issue. He's not a traditional politician, so he doesn't play by those rules. He is a television star and world famous comedic personality whose running theme is that he runs businesses and makes money, so he can get rich off of his crypto business and meme coins if he wants to.

You may as well argue that if Elvis were elected President that he shouldn't continue to sing in concerts, but those arguments will obviously not go far in the realm of public opinion if President Elvis Presley wanted to lead in a concert. Your social expectations of a traditional president would mean nothing, and they mean nothing here with Trump.

It's an ethical expectation, not a social one. The president's first priority should be making decisions that are in their country's best interests. A businessman's first priority is making decisions that are in their own best interests, financially speaking. Those are two entirely different goals. Two entirely different masters to serve, so to speak. As citizens, I think we deserve a president whose undivided loyalty is to the country and not their wallet. A businessman who's elected president ethically should put their business career on hold while they're in office. I also don't think that your Elvis analogy changes anything. If a famous singer were elected president, then they too ethically should put their singing career on hold while in office, regardless of how popular they are as a singer.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by AATW on May 08, 2025, 09:46:50 PM »

This is obviously bullshit. When you appoint or vote someone to a certain role you expect them to do that role and act professionally.

Actually no, why would you vote for someone and then expect them to act completely different?

Because they're in a different role which requires them to.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by Tom Bishop on May 08, 2025, 09:38:43 PM »

This is obviously bullshit. When you appoint or vote someone to a certain role you expect them to do that role and act professionally.

Actually no, why would you vote for someone and then expect them to act completely different? If for some reason the people voted for Snoop Dog into a political position they would expect him to continue being Snoop Dog. They would expect that his anti-police mannerisms stay the same, that he continues to smoke reefer, and so on.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by AATW on May 08, 2025, 08:59:15 PM »

More directly, if as Ukrainian President Zelensky went on stage and did the bit where he plays the piano with his testicles again, no one would bat an eye. He would lose no popularity, simply because that is the person they voted for. They would clap and call it hilarious.

This is obviously bullshit. When you appoint or vote someone to a certain role you expect them to do that role and act professionally.
When Sebastian Coe became an MP he didn't run laps of the House of Commons during debates and had he done so literally no-one would have said "What did you expect? You elected an Olympic runner!"

Trump is unconventional and in a way that's not a bad thing. The issues with him are the complete lack of honesty, integrity and strategy.
You MAGA lot might not care, but I'd suggest these are not ideal traits in a leader. Your strategy for coping with it is to either not care or simply pretend those things aren't true.

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Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Physicist Brian Cox on Universal Acceleration

« Last post by Longtitube on May 08, 2025, 07:54:09 PM »

Direct experiments on the earth's surface tell us that the earth is accelerating upwards.

The OP and the relevant wiki articles all frequently and approvingly refer to the Equivalence Principle when discussing UA, but the EP states that acceleration of the Earth and gravitational acceleration are experimentally indistinguishable. How then can experiments on the Earth’s surface tell us that it’s the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

The OP has some explaining to do before rubbishing general relativity.

The problem is that you read a sentence about gravity from physicists and think that it's talking about Newtonian Gravity because that is the topic in dispute here. Those the same physicists also say that General Relativity succeeded Newtonian Gravity long ago. The gravity they are talking about is General Relativity. They are saying that upwards acceleration of the earth's surface and the General Relativity theory of gravity are experimentally indistinguishable in laboratory experiments. You will also find that those sentences of indistinguishability appear in articles about the history and advantages of Einsteinian gravity, giving additional context to which gravity it is talking about.

Remarkable. I'll be blunt then, which experiments on Earth's surface tell us it's the Earth physically accelerating upwards, not gravity pulling us towards Earth?

Your difficulties with Brian Cox are at least partly accounted for by his mischievous nature – in the original video you referenced, he's already mocked people calling him a paid NASA shill by claiming that's how he can afford to stay in the Raffles Hotel, Singapore, lol. General Relativity builds on the work of Special Relativity by developing a means of relating different frames of reference where acceleration and/or rotation are involved. The mathematical methods of accomplishing this are indeed very high-level, but they allow us to consider a reference frame with the Earth moving upwards through space if that suits the case we want to analyse. Cox and others enjoy provoking the viewer's interest by citing just such a case, as well as having a dig at those who believe the Earth is physically accelerating upwards. Protesting about "metaphysical mathematics" only shows no appreciation of the breadth and scope of the subject – it's beyond my pay grade too, but you might at least try. On the other hand, UA is easily dismantled with some experimental evidence and schoolboy physics.

Should anyone's interest be piqued, Einstein himself wrote a more accessible book on both SR and GR. https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Einstein/Einstein_Relativity.pdf

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by Lord Dave on May 08, 2025, 05:20:21 PM »

Up to a point. Zelensky was a comedian before he went in to politics. I don't think the people of Ukraine elected him and then expected him to go on another standup tour or launch a new TV comedy series. Whatever background someone has, you elect someone to run the country, not to enrich themselves.

Actually Zelensky proves that the rules of traditional politics don't apply to stars. There is a video segment of Zelensky playing the piano with his testicles in front of an audience. If a traditional politician went on stage and did it, or if previously filmed segment was uncovered and publicized as they were campaigning, this would be campaign ending for them. For a traditional politician a video of them pants down in front of a piano would be professionally embarrassing and they would have to resign or get rejected by their party. Zelensky got away with it because he was a media and comedic star, and his antics even gained him popularity.

Zelensky may not be using humor anymore in his role as president, but if he had continued with it he would assuredly get away with a lot.

You do know American and Ukrainian culture is different, yes?

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by markjo on May 08, 2025, 04:57:06 PM »

And thus Tom is now fully in the  "The President should be able to be corrupt if he wants to" mindset.

Well, maybe if he could do it without wreaking havoc on the economy, taking a chainsaw to government services, alienating our allies or shredding the Constitution then it might not be such a big deal.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« Last post by Tom Bishop on May 08, 2025, 04:44:51 PM »

But there's a difference between Zelensky using humour in his speeches - which many politicians do anyway (often with...mixed results) and him launching a new comedy show or stand up tour. If he did those things I suspect there would be a feeling of "shouldn't you be running the country?"

I bet Zelensky could launch a new comedy show or stand up tour as he was president. It's hard to prove that he's not running the country, and everything is arguably delegable. His supporters would just argue that he's providing important social commentary in his role of communicator, and justify it completely. After all, a comedic social communicator is who they wanted as president.

More directly, if as Ukrainian President Zelensky went on stage and did the bit where he plays the piano with his testicles again, no one would bat an eye. He would lose no popularity, simply because that is the person they voted for. They would clap and call it hilarious.