141

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: We are saved by faith alone, and the evidence of faith is works.

« on: August 26, 2022, 12:44:08 PM »

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, but is really a hateful, judgmental hypocrite spreading a message of anger and subjugation.

142

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Monkeypox- the best way to attack LGBTQ

« on: August 22, 2022, 12:32:15 PM »

It shows that you don't have much of an argument. Homosexuals themselves have conceded that HIV/AIDS a "gay disease". Any disease which disproportionately affects and is spread by gays is a gay disease.

Why is the monkeypox pandemic real but covid is not?

143

Technology & Information / Re: machine-generated art (DALL-E, Imagen, Midjourney, etc.)

« on: August 17, 2022, 08:18:47 PM »

Most artists of any kind produce their art because they are compelled to. They don't produce art because they feel the world does not have enough art in it already. In fact, if you ask most hardcore artists, " Would you still produce art if you knew there was no one to see it?" Most of the time, they say yes.

Writing and digital publishing has been a side hustle of mine for many years. I've written novels and nonfiction but now there is software that can artificially create stories. It's easy to imagine a website where an AI could create a novel for you based on your input. I don't see that as a threat, just another competitor.

I think I'm okay with an AI novel writer ingesting some of my work along with Hemingway and whoever to produce a story. However, if the AI created a story starring someone else's intellectual property like Spider-Man and sold it for money, then there could be some serious shit.

144

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 08:07:43 PM »

Its a problem with slogans.  Big, complex ideas ,that probably take a few pages to explain, are boiled down to a few words.  They are memeified, if you will.

This is an excellent point. The fact is that every reform measure Pete mentioned has been tried over and over and over again with no results. The situation continues to decay.

Instead of defunding the police, maybe we should just call it an extreme retraining and re-budgeting of resources.
It wouldn't frighten the mainstream masses as much.

145

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 07:49:17 PM »

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.

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

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.

I'm a big fan of not fucking up the world just to appease my sense of righteousness

You think this is about someone's sense of righteousness? We're living with this fucked up shit.

People all over the world use this local issue in their own political agenda.

There's a point at which inaction is making things worse.

Dr Van Drugs

I resemble that remark.

146

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 01:08:54 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.

Yes, shit's fucked. But some of us know that things are getting worse and we can't go on this way.

Some people just point and say, 'this won't work' or 'that won't work' but we have no choice except to try. If it fucks up, we'll try something else. If that fucks up, we'll try something else.
What we can't do is just accept that this is our life.

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

If we accept this bullshit from our cops, we're just as guilty as they are.

147

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 12, 2022, 12:05:38 PM »

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"

Yep, that's the exact smug attitude we get from the corrupt police department. We have a force dominated by corruption and violence backed by a powerful labor union laughing at us saying, "You can't fire us all!"

We hire good cops and good police chiefs but they get their lives threaten. They have to communicate outside of the department for their safety and the safety of their families. For years, this city had a 'metro gang strike force' that was terrifying the community. It didn't stop until they started blatantly shaking down random people of color for their cash before the Feds finally started to take action. They told us that the gangs would take over the streets if we dismantled this 'strike force.' It turns out, they were having zero impact on gang activity.

Americans will stare at a Chuck Norris movie for an hour and a half watching, "one good cop fighting a dirty department with corruption that reaches into the highest levels of political power." But, in real life, they have no answers. Chuck Norris isn't going to beat up an entire police force and throw a corrupt Senator off a building.

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?

148

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 11, 2022, 08:38:10 PM »

In the news....

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/florida-man-taunts-trump-by-flying-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-banner-over-mar-a-lago/


LOL...
He just needed to add "COCK SHIT" to the end of the banner.

149

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 11, 2022, 06:28:42 PM »

That's pointless and likely not possible.

Imagine telling 50 cops "You're fired" then having no police coverage for like 2 weeks, while you try to hire people to replace the people you just fired, knowing there likely won't be anyone to hire and/or they are people who were fired for doing the same shit you just fired your force for doing.

It's definitely a heavy lift that would require a high level of choreography between the outgoing and the incoming. Instead of going weeks without a police department, they could have the old and new departments overlap by a few weeks.

The problem is that taking the corrupt cops off the force is like whack a mole. Remember, one of the cops standing around watching George Floyd die was in his first week on the job. If no one had videotaped the incident, those cops would have gone back to the office, written their reports and been heroes that killed another filthy criminal. That was the training that the newbie was receiving.

Imagine a new, honest police chief walking into a department looking at 50 crooked cops. Is he going to tell them that they're fired?

150

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 11, 2022, 05:01:49 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.

Privatizing any use of force, police, prisons or military is a bad idea.

The municipality would simply dismantle the police department and rebuild a new one with a new name, new charter and new people.
Hopefully, this could skirt the union protections that have helped protect the corrupt cops.

151

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 11, 2022, 03:51:34 PM »

I live in a town where a corrupt and violent police force has brutalized the citizens for over half a century. Only in the last 20 years is the truth starting to surface about them.
People filed ethics complaints, they had peaceful protests and vigils then escalated to violent riots. Nothing changed.
The police were protected from the city authorities by powerful unions. The state officials didn't care to take any action. The federal government threatened to support the corrupt police with Federal troops.

The roots of this corruption are so deep that three police Chiefs have come and gone in 2 years trying to get the Department under control.

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.

If your cable company gives you shitty service, you fire them and go to a different cable company.


.

152

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: August 09, 2022, 06:20:24 PM »

"When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing," Huckabee Sanders wrote in Nov. 2016



Apparently it's only okay for the FBI to investigate democrats.

153

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Old Politicians

« on: August 05, 2022, 07:18:02 PM »

It is because the pre-1950's generations are still considered by society to be the greatest generations. They are a hard-nosed, no-frills, people with traditional morals who tell it like it is.

Yep, those were the good old days. You could beat your kids and beat your wife. Child molesters were never prosecuted. There were places where white people could be white with other white people. There were no homosexuals to corrupt the minds of young people. The Republicans were protecting us from the red menace.

Then the damn liberals came along. They legalized interracial marriage and now we have all kinds of racial tension and riots. They destroyed thousands of jobs for the hard-working folks in the tobacco industry. We have rampant homosexuality, shemales and transvestites. Then the tree huggers came along and destroyed our economy with their ecological bullshit and workplace safety crap.

154

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked..

« on: August 02, 2022, 11:49:45 AM »

And I have no problem with that. My problem is when they indoctrinate children with their garbage ideas using the Bible as justification.

The Christian Nationalist don't call it indoctrination, they call it, "Spreading the good news of our Lord!"

Of course, the good news of the Lord is, "Join us or you will perish in eternal suffering you heathen!"

155

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked..

« on: August 01, 2022, 10:02:25 PM »

The thing is that anyone can pick up any version of any Bible and interpret it in any way they choose. What they get from the Bible is a reflection on them and not a reflection on the Bible.
They say that God created Man In His Image but people grab the Bible and create a God in their image.

A racist, Trumpian shithead will read the Bible and find a racist, Trumpian shithead God.

156

Technology & Information / Re: Steam Deck

« on: July 30, 2022, 12:01:03 PM »

157

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 29, 2022, 05:07:39 PM »

Thankfully I can't see him getting anywhere near a second term

Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.

There is an idea among some Democrats that if we can get Trump elected as the Republican nominee then the Republicans will certainly lose the presidential race.
The problem is that we can't count on the Democrats not to do something stupid like nominating Darth Vader or Kim kardashian.

158

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 29, 2022, 12:46:03 PM »

It is all fake news.

Unbelievable...

It's just like all the suckers that fell for Trump's bullshit get-rich-quick scams.
But this time it's even more spectacular. Trump's people are on a nationally released video openly talking about what a scam it is and yet the dumbass suckers still sign up.

"It's not a scam! This time Trump's telling the truth! I'm going to flip my way to financial independence using the Donald's proven foreclosure real estate techniques. I'll make my $10,000 back in the first week."


The Trumpians remind me of the old saying:
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me over and over again means I'm a hopeless fucking idiot.

159

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: July 28, 2022, 08:53:19 PM »

Trump is planning on winning Presidency 2024. Will the Dems steal the election again? Biden has more than crushed this country in one year. What a dufus and the fools that cheated for him.

You understand that we have a lot of Trump's people on tape in their own voice talking about the stolen election lie.
They discussed the fact that they didn't have to win the election just convince enough idiots that the election was rigged to cause a problem.
Bob Barr, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone knew that Trump lost the election but built this conspiracy lie. Every one of the idiots that attacked our capital and ended up in jail came to realize it was all bullshit.

What will it take for you to understand that you have been lied to by washed up, 1990s, flim-flam man?

160

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Devil's Horns hand sign... why are they all doing it?

« on: July 28, 2022, 02:53:13 PM »

Doesn't shock me at all.  Clearly all these miscreants have been smoking marijuana cigarettes and listening to Rock and/or Roll!

Marijuana cigarettes, goofballs, yellow jackets, gorilla biscuits, windowpane acid...
Who knows what kind of junk these freaks are on.