161

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 10, 2023, 12:01:31 AM »

The sexual abuse checkbox looks like could be talking about something in the present, such as Trump calling her undesirable and someone he wouldn't associate with sexually.

Yes, that must be it. Because calling someone unattractive is totally considered sexual abuse under the law and definitely something you can sue and win millions for.

162

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 09, 2023, 01:45:00 AM »

If you are referring to the "grab em by the pussy" clip, that's not saying he sexually assaulted women. "They let you do it" can easily be interpreted as consent. Is there some other clip I'm unaware of?

In the same clip, he also says "I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait," which is more or less describing sexual assault. Now, his infamous "Grab 'em by the pussy" line was immediately preceded by him saying, "When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." I had a discussion a few years ago with someone here who argued that this was Trump closing the subject of his approaching and kissing women and beginning the entirely new subject of how when someone is a star, women let them do "it" - "it" then being clarified as "Grab 'em by the pussy" - which is all discussed in entirely hypothetical terms, and therefore we shouldn't interpret the "Grab 'em by the pussy" line as being a continuation of the subject of how he approaches and kisses women without asking. There's no way to prove what it was that Trump really meant, but I'm pretty sure that most reasonable people would interpret "Grab 'em by the pussy" to be meant in the same spirit as approaching and kissing women without asking rather than the entirely new subject of how he hypothetically could grope women without their consent, but doesn't.

Is this the part where you tell me that every woman you've kissed you literally asked about it first?

This is a very disingenuous reading of what I'm saying, and not at all a reasonable interpretation of what Trump was talking about. If he had been talking about kissing women that it would be seen as generally considered acceptable to kiss without asking, like wives or girlfriends, then there would be no point to him saying this in the first place. Of course you don't need to be a star to kiss your wife or girlfriend without asking. Anyone can do that. Not even Trump would try to brag about something so unremarkable.

It's also worth pointing out that these "Trump didn't actually say anything bad if you pay attention " arguments hit a pretty major snag when you consider that Trump himself already admitted wrongdoing, so to speak, by apologizing for those comments. If he had only ever meant that he kissed his wife without asking or that he could hypothetically grope women without their consent, he would have said so. Trump almost never apologizes even when he is clearly to blame; why in the world would he apologize if he really had done nothing wrong?

163

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 08, 2023, 03:27:34 AM »

Well that deposition might change things lol. I don't know what his chances of losing were before but I think they at least went up after that shit show.

Why? What's actually changed? We've known that Trump is a sleazy creep for decades, and even if we take into account the numerous Trump fans who are apparently entirely ignorant of how their idol spent the eighties and nineties, he's still publicly demonstrated what a foul person he is many times over the past several years. If his fans didn't care then, then they won't care now.

I mean, it might not. It really doesn't change the fact that Carroll has no actual evidence of rape and no real grounds to claim defamation under the circumstances. It's just that whenever all someone has to do is keep his head down and answer the questions as simply as possible, and instead does... that... he can really only hurt his chances. It's the kind of reminder of how much of a slimeball he really is that we haven't seen in years. It's not a good look. So it might change things. But it might not, and probably shouldn't, because materially nothing has changed; it does nothing to dispel the fact that she's presented nothing notable to support her claim, or the fact that her claim of defamation solely because he denied that he raped her is laughably weak.

My bad. For some reason I thought you were talking about his chances of losing the upcoming election rather than this trial. I really have no idea as to which way the trial is likely to be decided, and I can't help but feel apathetic about it due to the fact that it will change absolutely nothing in the current political landscape.

If you are referring to the "grab em by the pussy" clip, that's not saying he sexually assaulted women. "They let you do it" can easily be interpreted as consent. Is there some other clip I'm unaware of?

In the same clip, he also says "I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait," which is more or less describing sexual assault. Now, his infamous "Grab 'em by the pussy" line was immediately preceded by him saying, "When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." I had a discussion a few years ago with someone here who argued that this was Trump closing the subject of his approaching and kissing women and beginning the entirely new subject of how when someone is a star, women let them do "it" - "it" then being clarified as "Grab 'em by the pussy" - which is all discussed in entirely hypothetical terms, and therefore we shouldn't interpret the "Grab 'em by the pussy" line as being a continuation of the subject of how he approaches and kisses women without asking. There's no way to prove what it was that Trump really meant, but I'm pretty sure that most reasonable people would interpret "Grab 'em by the pussy" to be meant in the same spirit as approaching and kissing women without asking rather than the entirely new subject of how he hypothetically could grope women without their consent, but doesn't.

164

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 07, 2023, 03:54:18 AM »

Well that deposition might change things lol. I don't know what his chances of losing were before but I think they at least went up after that shit show.

Why? What's actually changed? We've known that Trump is a sleazy creep for decades, and even if we take into account the numerous Trump fans who are apparently entirely ignorant of how their idol spent the eighties and nineties, he's still publicly demonstrated what a foul person he is many times over the past several years. If his fans didn't care then, then they won't care now.

165

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Do liberal elites worship Satan?

« on: April 30, 2023, 01:41:56 AM »

At one point Joe Biden's website https://buildbackbetter.gov had the IP address of 66.6.45.1.

Just out of curiosity, are the other 65,535 IP addresses in the 66.6.*.* range evil too, or is it just Biden's site?

I don't know what the motivation is.

He didn't ask what the motivation is. That's something we already know, thanks to the candid admissions of everyone here. Yes, we are Satanists, and soon we will abort every baby, transify every young person, and rig every election. There's nothing you can do about it.

166

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General

« on: April 30, 2023, 01:37:55 AM »

These effects are awful. Everything looks so weightless, so fake. This isn't in the MCU with its ten projects a year; they should have had plenty of time to make this look good. What happened? What changed between five years ago and now to apparently make almost all capeshit movies suddenly start looking like ass? Apart from that, well, my misgivings about this movie haven't really changed. They're really counting on people being nostalgic for MoS, even though that movie's biggest fans will almost certainly be hostile towards this one for "replacing" Cavill's Superman with Supergirl. I hope Keaton has more to do in this movie than just repeat his most famous lines and appear in ludicrous all-CGI setpieces. Sorry, I still can't get over the CGI Rubber Man thing.



Maybe it's just the general lack of hype or expectations, but I kind of like this one. The joke at the start made me laugh.

167

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 27, 2023, 03:09:55 AM »

https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-disney-trump-2024-gop-primary-analysis-polling-endorsements-2023-4

Remember how after the midterms, a number of important conservative moneymen and media outlets were making a big deal about distancing themselves from Trump and embracing DeSantis instead? What an absolute joke. Republicans are the party of Trump whether they like it or not. He'll be their nominee for every presidential election until he dies, and even after his death, Republicans will strive to appear loyal to his legacy for many years to come.

168

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 24, 2023, 04:01:48 AM »

Members of important or well-connected families are regularly offered high-paying jobs in the hopes of currying favor or influence with their relatives. George W. Bush, for example, spent most of his adult life crashing and burning in multiple cushy high-paying jobs that his family had arranged for him until he stumbled into politics. It's not pretty, but it happens, and I don't see any realistic way of getting rid of the practice without severely curtailing the right to free enterprise. It could be worse, though. At least Biden's relatives are still just private citizens. It would be a pretty major scandal if these unscrupulous relatives held government positions and abused them to usher business their way, or indeed, if the president himself was the one doing that. Can you imagine how awful that would be?

169

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)

« on: April 23, 2023, 04:13:07 AM »

The Last of Us Part I

This is what gamers have been raving about for the last ten years? This mediocre walking simulator crossed with a mediocre third-person shooter? Boring level design, overwrought "emotional" dialogue, uninspired combat, and a thoroughly unlikable main character, all wrapped together in yet another zombie game, because that genre hasn't already been oversaturated for years now. This one goes in the trash for me.

Just kidding, this game is terrific. The characters and story really are as great as everyone has said they are. For all the terrible things Joel says and does, he has a weird sort of menacing charisma to him that makes him compelling, and Ellie is portrayed as a realistic and likable teenager rather than the impossibly pure and innocent waif that so many games with a similar premise show us instead. It feels kind of silly to weigh in on this debate ten years later, but I loved the ambiguity of the ending and how far from black-and-white the awful dilemma that Joel is ultimately faced with is. I wasn't expecting to be wowed by the gameplay, but it's almost as good as the story. The combat is weighty and visceral, the scarcity of ammo and resources really makes you feel like you're desperately scrounging in a post-apocalyptic world, and even the quiet exploration scenes that let you soak in the beauty and bleakness of the world are gripping. It's done so much better than, say, Bethesda's Fallout titles, where virtually every location you can visit feels untouched since the collapse of society, and the "environmental storytelling" is limited to arranging skeletons in silly positions because the devs think it's funny (it's not).

There are a few flaws with the game, but nothing major. The shotgun feels underpowered, as you have to be at practically point-blank range for one shot to take down an enemy. It's so jarring to see an enemy stagger to their feet as if you've only winged them after you've blasted them from just six feet away. The idea was presumably to stop the player from dominating the game entirely with just the shotgun, but they would have been better off just making its ammo more scarce than so obviously nerfing it. There are also a number of times during the non-combat sections where you're presented with an obstacle, typically a high wall or a body of water, but rather than solve an environmental puzzle or anything, all you do is grab the nearby ladder, pallet, or raft and bring it back to where you are. It's that simple. I'm not exaggerating; the item you need is always right there. No puzzles, no platforming, just grabbing the item that's always literally right there. It feels like a placeholder for an environmental puzzle, and it's little more than busy work. If they didn't want to take the time to create puzzles, then I honestly think they would have been better off just removing these weird sections entirely.

I'm also puzzled by the role of the military in the story. The game quickly establishes that the military are needlessly cruel and oppressive, but never really takes the time to explain how or why they came to be that way. I don't know, I feel like the U.S. military being petty tyrants is kind of a big deal and something that's worth exploring in a bit more detail. It's not helped by the fact that after the opening chapters, the military vanish from the game and are never encountered again. Why even bother having the military as antagonists when the Fireflies are there to play the role of a (supposedly) reasonable authority figure? The story would have been a lot simpler if they had dropped the idea of a military junta and a plucky rebel alliance opposing them and instead just had Joel be delivering Ellie to the remnants of the U.S. government/military who are looking for a cure.

170

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 21, 2023, 02:21:05 AM »

I don't know what the exact terms of this arbitration panel were or how binding their decision is supposed to be, but assuming that Lindell appeals and this whole thing ends up in court, I really doubt that he'll end up having to pay. There's always an escape hatch in these "Prove that evolution/income tax/flat earth is real and I'll pay you money!" gimmicks. For example, it often turns out to be the case that the claim must be proved to their own satisfaction, and all they have to do is insist that they aren't satisfied to avoid having to pay.

171

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene is crazy stupid

« on: April 17, 2023, 03:04:44 PM »

A reasonable person would have never thought that something as ridiculous as QAnon could be true for a second. MTG enthusiastically embraced QAnon and advocated for it online for years. That she finally realized it wasn't true years later simply isn't making a good case for her mental fitness.

172

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Marjorie Taylor Greene is crazy stupid

« on: April 14, 2023, 08:53:55 PM »

God, please let Trump be their nominee in 2024. That would be off-the-chart hilarious.

There are really only two options for the Republican nomination, and Trump is by far the stronger choice. DeSantis is genuinely one of the least charismatic politicians I've ever seen. He almost never drops his constipated scowl, every speech and public statement he makes have a snappish and scolding tone to them, and by all accounts, he's extremely awkward and abrasive in face-to-face encounters with individual people. I don't see someone like that thriving up on a debate stage next to candidates who are capable of showing off charisma, enthusiasm, and personal warmth.

173

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: April 12, 2023, 02:10:47 AM »

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, 2023)

This is a thoroughly mediocre movie, and one that perfectly embodies the cynical mindset that movies geared towards kids don't need to be good, just bright and noisy enough to keep kids entertained. It arguably doesn't make any real effort to actually be good. It knows that its story is simplistic to the extreme. It knows that its characters have no depth. It knows that it ruins almost every joke it has by immediately having another character spell it out for the audience. It knows that it has almost no real narrative cohesion, instead mostly just being one setpiece lurching into another like a series of disconnected video game levels (Mario fights Donkey Kong, because reasons, which is immediately followed by the characters having a big race on Rainbow Road, because reasons). This was all by design, and it didn't need to be. There are so many family movies out there that have all the bright colors and cute characters that a kid could ask for while still being great films in their own right. It's also worth pointing out that those are the movies that will endure the test of time. Parents nowadays show their kids the Disney classics that they themselves grew up watching. I seriously doubt if anyone's going to be showing their kids this movie in ten or twenty years time.

Of course, this movie has also earned the unwavering support of legions of adult Mario fans online, primarily because of the references. Yes, this movie is packed with references, Easter eggs, and tributes to tons of Mario and other Nintendo properties. Some of them are obvious, and some of them are more subtle. I think it's great that the movie has these, but I don't believe that they're a substitute for good filmmaking. I've also heard the defense that none of the mainline Mario games have especially great stories to begin with, so there's no reason to expect a good one from the movie either. Yes, video games can get away with having bare-bones stories. It probably has something to do with the fact that, being games, they can give players great gameplay instead. Movies obviously can't do that, so this defense is more than a little flawed. Speaking of gameplay, it also kind of bugs me how this movie presents power-ups in pure video game terms, rather than incorporating them in a way that feels more natural. That's certainly not a big problem with the movie or anything, but it's something that jumped out at me as weird.

In short, kids deserve better than this, their families deserve better than this, and a gaming icon like Mario absolutely deserves better than this. Don't settle for crap just because it goes through the motions of catering to you by including King Bob-omb or playing the "DK Rap." Mario should be starring in a great movie, not a mediocre cash-in like this one.

174

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 09, 2023, 09:45:41 PM »

After reading that article twice, I still don't understand exactly what Snopes was supposedly lying about. It's mostly just splitting hairs about wording choices and weird assertions like this:

Then Snopes tries equivocation, saying that Clinton didn’t laugh about the outcome of the case. I see: she laughed (three times!) while talking about the case, but wasn’t laughing about the case’s outcome, just…the case.

Ridiculous.

How is that ridiculous? It's clearly what happened, and an entirely relevant point to make when the meme it was responding to was making out that Hillary was pleased or amused by a child rapist being acquitted.

175

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 09, 2023, 06:03:11 PM »

You mean this?

Just asking...

Anyone's daughter ever write a personal story about how she was afraid to be in the shower with her daddy?

Brandon's daughter did...

This is neither evidence nor a source. It's just an accusation. We're asking if you have evidence to support this accusation.

176

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 09, 2023, 03:27:50 PM »

We weren't talking about Biden's hairy legs; we were talking about Biden supposedly creeping on his daughter in the shower. Do you have any evidence that's true?

177

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 09, 2023, 02:39:31 AM »

This is the online equivalent of muttering something under your breath and immediately responding with "What what?" loudly when someone asks you what you said.

178

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: April 08, 2023, 07:22:54 PM »

When did Biden ever say that he did something like that?

179

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 05, 2023, 04:41:17 AM »

Here is the transcript of Trump's arraignment, if anyone's interested.

180

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: March 31, 2023, 07:17:00 PM »

I had to search for the clip because I can't believe Blago, a Dem, served 8 years on federal charges of public corruption, actually said that. He did.

Equating DJT being indicted/arrested to the opening salvo of the Civil War? He must have been super high on something quite potent. Even if you don't agree with the actions, Civil War? Really? We should lock him up for another 8 years just for being an idiot. Maybe throw Tuck in the joint too just for having him on. No wonder the country is so fucked up with pundits like this in lofted positions influencing public opinion, all just for ratings and stock prices.

Of course he doesn't really believe that. He's a grifter talking to another grifter, trying to rile up the rubes who support yet another grifter. They know that Trump is guilty. In fact, I'm sure that most of Trump's fans know he's guilty as well. They just don't care. Undoubtedly many of them envy and admire Trump for his affair with a porn star, while simultaneously believing that the affair never happened, because Trump is a pious and respectable family man who would never cheat on his wife - and also because Trump is such an awesome stud who scores all the time that Daniels was far below his very high standards for women. As I've said before, Trumpism is inherently contradictory.