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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: February 21, 2024, 06:58:11 AM »Well, it looks like there are a lot of very stupid people out thereThat was pretty much my point
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Well, it looks like there are a lot of very stupid people out thereThat was pretty much my point
I'm not sure Trump is actually malicious. He's not trying to take America down from the inside. He's certainly a narcissist and I suspect he mostly wants to be president to go down in history and as a route to making ever more money. His physical health probably isn't that great, I think mentally he's mostly all there, but in other ways he does have a somewhat tenuous grip on reality. I was reminded earlier about Trump's rambling about Covid - his thoughts that they could just shine UV light into people to eradicate the virus. Chuckle. But, overall, I don't think the world will fall apart if (I'm coming to the depressing opinion that it's "when") he's president again.Biden just isn’t well enough to be president. He’s not well enough physically or mentally.Hmm. I dunno about this. To me, one of them (Trump, to avoid ambiguity) has bad intentions, while the other one is "just" in bad health*. We definitely agree that neither is ideal. But, to me, it seems like our options are a comparably healthy person who's actively malicious, and one person who might end up handing power over to another milquetoast Democrat if things get bad enough.
* - if we even accept that narrative to begin with. I honestly don't know if he's any worse than Trump on that front. Recall the hysteria around Trump's health when he was president - and the counter-argument in which his health was declared to be Truly Presidential™ by his doctor.
You characterized the pitch of the sneakers as "grifting."Yes. And, unusually, you are right in that I somewhat mischaracterized it as such.
Are you against licensing agreements?I'm against idiots further enriching Trump. But I guess it's their money to waste as they see fit.
How are the new shoes?D’oh! I meant…Where's the grift?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-68329886
compos mentis1Ah. Thanks. I rarely see it written down so I took a punt!
Many of the things he's said, especially during his presidency when his publicity was at its highest, strongly suggested that his grasp on reality was tenuous at best. Are you sure that you're comparing the two fairly, rather than falling for the trap of hearing Biden say silly things more recently?
I can't think of anyone off hand.Trump it is then, unless he’s in prison.
There surely has to be someone else who is vaguely popular and who has the mental ability to be the president. No?Well, you said it made sense for Biden not to drop out. It doesn't.Who would even replace him?
Trump has touched on the animosity a bit, and I agree with him.Cult member agrees with what cult leader says and tells him to think shock exclusive.
And you got that from me thinking it's bad that Trump said that he'd "encourage" nations to invade countries who don't pay their NATO subs, did you? Interesting take.Well, you should because wars are, in general a bad thing.Seems you want everyone to be involved in one, though.
You seem to believe that I secretly care deeply about NATO allies. I do not.No. I believe you are part of the Trump cult and he has programmed you to believe that everything he says is good, no matter what it is. The flip side of that being you believing anything politicians he doesn’t like says is bad, no matter what it is.
I don't care if Estonia gets invaded. Why should I?Well, you should because wars are, in general a bad thing. I get that you’re American and therefore barely acknowledge that the rest of the world exists. I’m mildly surprised, even impressed, you’ve heard of Estonia (maybe you haven’t, and Googled NATO members and picked an obscure one you haven’t heard of).
None of what Trump said is detestable.Because of the word I bolded. You don't care what he said, he said it so it's OK.
Trump is on the right track here.lol. There’s a good cult member.
You guys should pay the amount you agreed to for protection. America shouldn't protect dead beats.Well, that seems fairly reasonable.
AATW has done nothing of the sort. Tom clearly stated the effect was inconsistent. Which it is, despite AATW's protestations otherwise. He goes on to write that because all ships (we might as well add any object traveling on any surface) traveling away from the observer disappear from view eventually, it must be due to the horizon based on Earth's sphericity.The effect is NOT inconsistent in the way he claims it is. His Wiki page claims that "at times it occurs and at other times it does not occur.". That just isn't true. Ships always disappear below the horizon, distant landmarks are always partially obscured. And here's the point, they always disappear bottom first. Why? Why would they if the earth is flat? I've posted the Turning Torso video multiple times on here. It's clear that the further away the picture is taken from the more of the building is hidden. Why would that be? Yes, the amount of occlusion varies depending on atmospheric conditions but it's never the case that it just doesn't happen at all.
It is an obvious truth only to you and re-adherents. Given the great amount of evidence right up against us, and the well-documented instances of space agencies of various countries fabricating data, the alternative evidence can be summarily dismissed.As discussed, evidence from space agencies is just part of the alternative evidence. The earth's shape was known for thousands of years before we had the ability to launch things in to orbit. Your "great amount of evidence" seems to amount to you looking around and thinking "looks flat to me". Can you really not understand why that is not sufficient to determine the shape of the earth? Let's try this. If the earth is flat, what shape is it? I mean is it round? Square? Another shape? Does it go on forever? Your honest answer surely has to be you don't know. Your observations don't give you enough information to determine that. It's the same with the overall shape of the earth. Your observations don't just leave one possibility, so aren't sufficient to determine the reality.
When somebody makes some image that is coming from their mind, they are "fabricating' it.The implication in the way you use that word is that they are trying to deceive. This is untrue.
Yes they are.Some are, some aren't. The blue marble is just a photo, taken with a camera on film. The same for earthrise.They are not point-and-shoot.
The iconic photo, known as “Blue Marble,” was taken by NASA astronauts Eugene “Gene” Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt on December 7 using a Hasselblad camera and a Zeiss lens, about 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles) away from home, as the Apollo 17 crew made its way to the moon.
"Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" Bill Anders shouted at fellow astronaut Jim Lovell. "You got a colour film, Jim? Hand me a roll of colour, quick, would you?"
"That's a beautiful shot," said Lovell as Anders clicked the shutter and captured what has become one of the world's most famous photographs.
I fixed that last part, as there is nothing to support the claim it is required.it doesn't need supporting, it's an obvious truth. Someone referenced the story of the 5 blind men and the elephant above and it's a good analogy. The men all felt different parts of the elephant and came to different conclusions about what an elephant must be like. None of them had enough data to be correct. In the same way, looking around your local area and thinking "looks flat to me!" is not sufficient to determine the reality of its shape, that observation can be explained in multiple ways. One of which is that the earth is flat, but alternative evidence shows that it is not.
These people are accepted by the gullible populace as experts, when all they are doing is producing more science fiction, just like Hollywood. Fabrication. You buy into it willingly, as do many others.This is simply untrue. You're mixing up two things. Three really.
The scans (not actual photos in the sense of point-and-shoot camera like here on earth) taken from high up are stiched together.Some are, some aren't. The blue marble is just a photo, taken with a camera on film. The same for earthrise.
The flat map exists.Does it? Cool. Can you link me to it. The Wiki has multiple maps on it, which one is definitive?
The supposed distances between various points on the earth are extrapolated only from the given travel times.This is incorrect. Travel times are a reasonable proxy for distance, but you can use Google Maps to find the distance between places and compare it with measurements you take mistake. There's a reason that as you zoom out the curve of the earth is now shown. Before that the world was extensively surveyed. There's a whole field of geodetic surveying which takes the earth's curve in to account.
The actual straight-line distances are not known as they are not able to be taken due to the methods used for long-distance travel where waypoints are not visible at ground level.Also not true. It hasn't been true for centuries since Harrison cracked the problem of accurate timepieces at sea - using those and combining it with celestial observations meant that ships knew where they were. And it's definitely not true in the era of GPS.
The routes taken are the routes based on the celestial sphere routes that have transcribed down to the flat earth plane, routed by the star patterns overhead.This is just incorrect. They're based on the great circle route between those two points.
There is no distortion on any useful travel map.