Steerzing in a New Direction...

[Service Dog]

.

WATCH a homeless man stomp a 75 year old man in a bank lobby, yesterday:
https://www.nydailynews.com/5fd2416b-4a ... 4-132.html

WATCH as the attacker is caught today-- identified as a Level 3 (highest level) sex offender/ for raping a 12 & 13 year old girls.

WATCH as the attacker is IMMEDIATELY RELEASED TODAY WITHOUT BAIL
https://nypost.com/2021/12/31/nypd-repo ... eless-man/


Below is a recent Wednesday, according to a realtime crime reporting app. Distances are from my apartment.



I live in a trendy part of Manhattan. Close to Wall Street, Chinatown, Little Italy, major shopping districts, museums, galleries, expensive restaurants & apartments.

But no 7-11 store. They gave-up & went out of business, yesterday. Endless robberies, loitering homeless, and crazy drug addicts fighting inside the store. ALSO the giant line people waiting for mandated Covid testing/vax shots... blocked access to the store.

I'm 1055 feet from a Police Station and a Fire Dept station (*that Fire station is one of 26 closed to due-to mandated Covid-vax firings. 2nd closest station is also closed for same reason.)

broken glass everywhere
people pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care
i can't take the smell, i can't take the noise
got no money to move out, i guess i got no choice
rats in the front room, roaches in the back
junkie's in the alley with a baseball bat
i tried to get away, but i couldn't get far
cause a man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Don't push me, cause i'm close to the edge
i'm try
ing
not
to
lose
my head
it's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
how i keep from going under

[fafnir]

And Betty White has been...cancelled...

They should follow the same procedure as Joanna Southcott. Leave the body in a warm room until it starts to decay in case she is raised from the dead and is delivered of a heavenly child.

[Steersman]

No problem on this end - maybe you're starting at shadows. Or maybe here in Canada, there's less if not none of that ...

This is how it displays for me. Just a bluebird... and if I click on it... it doesn't lead to the tweet.

I don't have a twitter account, so maybe it automatically blocks anyone who isn't logged-in?

https://i.imgur.com/mkYBofs.png

Some flaky or obscure aspects as to how Twitter operates. I've had my Twitter account suspended - I should have expected the Transish Inquistion ... - so am more or less forced to go to Plan B - generally speaking, using incognito windows.

If you right-click on the time/date field in the Tweet then you should have the option of opening it in different windows, including the incognito one which seems to be more reliable.



The original Andy Swan tweet has apparently been deleted but it seems he's posted another one, although I'm not entirely sure the content, the video of Fauci, is the same:

[AndrewV69]

No problem on this end - maybe you're starting at shadows. Or maybe here in Canada, there's less if not none of that ...

This is how it displays for me. Just a bluebird... and if I click on it... it doesn't lead to the tweet.

I don't have a twitter account, so maybe it automatically blocks anyone who isn't logged-in?

I have a Twatter account. Until fairly recently, a link to a tweet would display that tweet right here on ye ole slyme pit.

Now it does not. All I see is a blue bird. No content is displayed.

So what I do is click on the "reply with quote" and copy & pase the link into another tab.

One of these days I may get around to asking the FT if he has any insight as to why this started happening.

But this day has yet to arrive.

The bottome line is with or without a Twatter account we are in the same boat.

[MarcusAu]

The bottome line is with 'r without a twatt'r account we art in the same boate.

Marry goode Sir, T maketh one wond'r wherefore thee both'r with t at all.

[Steersman]

You calling something untennable doesn't make it so.

Nor you calling something “morally damaging” ...

Look, your reasoning is based on a set of universalist, Kantian, enlightenment moral principles from which you decide what is good or bad, and to some degree really isn't dependent on the outcome. Your argument about prostitutes being teachers was an example of that. You aren't remotely interested about what the outcome might be on society for treating prostitution as morally neutral.

I am most certainly and not at all “remotely interested” in your “morally damaging” ipse dixit. Particularly when you flat-out refuse to address much less prove how someone having been a prostitute necessarily means that they’re intrinsically incapable of performing the duties of a teacher.

That “argument” of yours is little better than a thread-bare fig leaf over naked prejudice. Classy ...

Mathematicians invent new definitions and category systems, and change old ones, fairly regularly.

Sure. But they generally aim for consistency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency

The absence of which is largely what characterizes many if not most of the “social sciences”, the social constructionists, those who put far too much weight on “tradition” ...

Tweets_ZachKim_NonWhitesRacist_1A.jpg

(58.98 KiB) Downloaded 257 times

There is an infinite variety of ways we could categorise animals. That this particular set of properties is interesting to us and we recognize it as the same thing, all be it implemented differently in different species, is an entirely human thing.

You don’t seem to have a clue – or simply refuse to consider the idea – that some of those “infinite variety of ways” are rather better than many if not most of them. In that regard, Dawkins had a nice illustration of several principles of taxonomic hierarchies in his The Blind Watchmaker. Here he’s talking about evolutionary ones where the objective seems to be to reflect evolutionary progressions, but the principle seems broadly applicable to many other applications:

BlindWatchmaker_Dawkins_Taxon1C.jpg

(87.3 KiB) Downloaded 256 times

BlindWatchmaker_Dawkins_Taxon2B.jpg

(133.48 KiB) Downloaded 255 times

Cladists would look at [all] of the possible trees in turn and choose the best tree. How is the best tree recognized? Basically it is the tree that unites the [most] animals that have the most features in common. We label as the ‘outgroup’ the [animals] that [have] the fewest features in common with the other two.

Maybe males and females are the “ingroup” because they share the ability to reproduce, the ability to produce gametes of either of two types for the process of reproduction, while the infertile – the sexless, the eunuchs, the prepubescent, the menopausees – are the “outgroup”?

There’s some rhyme and reason to the process of categorization that you seem rather clueless about or pigheadedly refuse to consider.

The ultimate arbiter of what ideas have merit is how they play out in the world.

What horse crap; another ipse dixit.

Unfortunately, appealing though they are, I think the ideas that Sagan, Dawkins and others championed are social HIV.

Looks like a further ipse dixit, another case of 4 legs good, 2 legs bad. You must buy tar and wide brushes in bulk.

But precisely which ideas of Sagan and Dawkins qualify as “social HIV”? How so? Maybe the latter’s shot at “The God Delusion” in particular sticks in your craw?

I notice the Wikipedia article on The Enlightenment argues that:

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

Maybe you’re most bent out of shape by that “principle” on the separation of church and state? “We clearly went off the rails when we abandoned the ‘tradition’ of burning heretics, scientists, witches, and fallen women at the stake”?

Or maybe likewise both “the pursuit of knowledge by means of reason and evidence of the senses”, and “constitutional government”? Prefer “other ways of knowing” and theocracy? :roll:

[Service Dog]

:australia:

Australia govt admits the Pfizer, Moderna & Astra Zeneca vaxes cause the following conditions, and announces cash payments over $600,000 for victims:

anaphylactic reaction
thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome
myocarditis
pericarditis
capillary leak syndrome
demyelinating disorders including Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS)
Thrombocytopenia, including immune Thrombocytopenia, identified as a final diagnosis.

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-a ... ims-scheme

[Service Dog]

"In early December, :hankey: Biden claimed to have met with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the Six-Day War, when “she invited me to come over because I was going to be the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez.” Trouble was, Golda Meir was not Prime Minister during the Six Day War, and at the time Joe Biden was still in law school."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden- ... t-the-time

[AndrewV69]

:australia:

Australia govt admits the Pfizer, Moderna & Astra Zeneca vaxes cause the following conditions, and announces cash payments over $600,000 for victims:

anaphylactic reaction
thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome
myocarditis
pericarditis
capillary leak syndrome
demyelinating disorders including Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS)
Thrombocytopenia, including immune Thrombocytopenia, identified as a final diagnosis.

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-a ... ims-scheme

Oh FFS!

Anyway, I stole that and posted to Twatter.

[Service Dog]

Happy New Year, Andrew!

[AndrewV69]

The bottome line is with 'r without a twatt'r account we art in the same boate.

Marry goode Sir, T maketh one wond'r wherefore thee both'r with t at all.

Oi!:

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent.

[Service Dog]

.

At the stroke of midnight...

https://media.patriots.win/post/H1ts3e3V.png

[fafnir]

Look, your reasoning is based on a set of universalist, Kantian, enlightenment moral principles from which you decide what is good or bad, and to some degree really isn't dependent on the outcome. Your argument about prostitutes being teachers was an example of that. You aren't remotely interested about what the outcome might be on society for treating prostitution as morally neutral.

I am most certainly and not at all “remotely interested” in your “morally damaging” ipse dixit. Particularly when you flat-out refuse to address much less prove how someone having been a prostitute necessarily means that they’re intrinsically incapable of performing the duties of a teacher.

Why would I attempt to prove something I haven't claimed and don't believe?.

Mathematicians invent new definitions and category systems, and change old ones, fairly regularly.

Sure. But they generally aim for consistency:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consistency

The absence of which is largely what characterizes many if not most of the “social sciences”, the social constructionists, those who put far too much weight on “tradition” ...

If mathematics can't demonstrate that it's consistent, one can hardly expect much from something as wooley as the social sciences. This goes back to statements from the Frankfurt School about the need for a critical theory. The sort of consistency focused social sciences that you would prefer would be a very stunted thing that would say very little about anything of any importance. Plus, consistent isn't the same as "correct". One could have the most beautifully consistent body of knowledge that was based on false assumptions.

Tweets_ZachKim_NonWhitesRacist_1A.jpg

I struggle to see that that Tweet is an example of an inconsistent theory. A theory whose axioms and structure are motivated by an end we don't like, perhaps. That slurs against white people aren't as bad as those against non-whites comes directly from the assumptions of the theory. Are you sure that your problem with these theories is "consistency"?

There is an infinite variety of ways we could categorise animals. That this particular set of properties is interesting to us and we recognize it as the same thing, all be it implemented differently in different species, is an entirely human thing.

You don’t seem to have a clue – or simply refuse to consider the idea – that some of those “infinite variety of ways” are rather better than many if not most of them.

Sure, and which is better depends on what the goal is of the categorisation. That is chosen from a vast array of possibilities by humans as well. There is nothing intrinsic to the objects being categorised about the categories.

In that regard, Dawkins had a nice illustration of several principles of taxonomic hierarchies in his The Blind Watchmaker. Here he’s talking about evolutionary ones where the objective seems to be to reflect evolutionary progressions, but the principle seems broadly applicable to many other applications

Yes, the hiarachy comes from the question being asked. That one is based on a nested structure of things humans have identified as common and important features. There isn't one way of doing that. Doesn't the size of the ova seem a little bit arbitrary as a way of deciding what sex something is? There are a lot of such arbitrary decisions in that hierarchy.

Cladists would look at [all] of the possible trees in turn and choose the best tree. How is the best tree recognized? Basically it is the tree that unites the [most] animals that have the most features in common. We label as the ‘outgroup’ the [animals] that [have] the fewest features in common with the other two.

Maybe males and females are the “ingroup” because they share the ability to reproduce, the ability to produce gametes of either of two types for the process of reproduction, while the infertile – the sexless, the eunuchs, the prepubescent, the menopausees – are the “outgroup”?

OK, so we have chosen some criteria that we like and overlaid it on nature. That's a human set of categories. Pick a different set of criteria and the outcome will be different.

There’s some rhyme and reason to the process of categorization that you seem rather clueless about or pigheadedly refuse to consider.

I'm not clueless about it. I don't think you have said anything I wasn't already aware of on this. It's just that the choice of the question the category system is supposed to answer, the rules by which things are put into categories, and what counts as an important property (or a property at all) is a human thing and could easily be different. You have a system that says old women aren't female. Everybody you debate with has a category system where old women are female. It's arbitrary choices like this all the way down.

The ultimate arbiter of what ideas have merit is how they play out in the world.

What horse crap; another ipse dixit.

OK, now we are getting somewhere. Your position is that a theory that plays out like shit in the real world could still be a good theory? Is that how things work in the hard sciences? Do you have a theory in mind for which we should reject the results in the real world in favour of the theory?

Unfortunately, appealing though they are, I think the ideas that Sagan, Dawkins and others championed are social HIV.

Looks like a further ipse dixit, another case of 4 legs good, 2 legs bad. You must buy tar and wide brushes in bulk.

Maybe the difficulty is that I care about how their theories play out in the real world and you don't?

But precisely which ideas of Sagan and Dawkins qualify as “social HIV”? How so? Maybe the latter’s shot at “The God Delusion” in particular sticks in your craw?

I notice the Wikipedia article on The Enlightenment argues that:

The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

Maybe you’re most bent out of shape by that “principle” on the separation of church and state? “We clearly went off the rails when we abandoned the ‘tradition’ of burning heretics, scientists, witches, and fallen women at the stake”?

I would say that there is a basic assumption in all of this that a world based on individualistically understood notions of equality and liberty and a rational deconstruction of the institutions and beliefs of society is a good thing and leads to a maximizing of human happiness. I have grave doubts about that assumption. It smells of "nice idea, wrong species" to me just as much as the Marxist attempt to solve the problems in implementing it. That assumption is why Dawkins and Co aren't worried about what will replace the moral vacuum left by religion, and you aren't worried about the impact on society of well known prostitutes working as school teachers. It's baked into the axioms of the faith that it's all going to work out if we just keep marching left.

Or maybe likewise both “the pursuit of knowledge by means of reason and evidence of the senses”, and “constitutional government”? Prefer “other ways of knowing” and theocracy? :roll:

I haven't argued against those things. A constitution can serve some of the same functions as tradition in slowing down social change against the whims of the moment. The difficulty is that there is nothing intrinsically "true" about it that is immune from deconstruction any more than there is in the Bible. Ultimately, in a country that believes in the principles of you and Dawkins, the Constitution is just a dry old piece of paper that fewer and fewer people believe in.

[AndrewV69]

Happy New Year, Andrew!

The same to you and yours.

Also a belated Merry Christmas to one and all.

[Service Dog]

Below are notes I took, watching that video produced by the alliance of Canadian doctors. Title: “More Harm Than Good”
The video uses Pfizer’s own trial data to show serious problems with Pfizer’s drug.

Link to the vid: https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.o ... an-good-2/

1.) Pfizer advertised the jab as “95%” effective. Which sounds as-if the drug saves 95 people/ and only 5 get sick. In REALITY 99 people already don’t-get-sick, with-OR-WITHOUT the drug. The only way to detect the drug doing anything-at-all… is to start with 100,000 people. 99,912 won’t get sick… even-if the drug doesn’t exist. Of the remaining 88 people… the drug helps all-but-4. BUT: 84 out of 100,000 is NOT 95%. It’s 00000.84% Pfizer’s ‘relative’ method of counting (95%) is well-known to be misleading, and the FDA recommends using the ‘absolute’ percentage: (0.84%). Pfizer disregarded the FDA.

2.) Pfizer spoiled their control group: They were supposed-to give half the people their drug/ half get no drug… then follow both groups for years. But, after just a couple months, Pfizer gave the drug to both groups, and stopped ‘study’ing them at-all.

3.) Pfizer's own study showed that their drug caused illness & death. Pfizer buried those results in a ‘supplementary appendix’, hidden-away from the main numbers. But those results are just as valid-- as anything-else in their study. Deaths were higher among the inoculated people vs. the control group. Those illnesses & deaths should be Subtracted From the benefits claimed for the drug.

4.) Pfizer did not follow established protocols for vaccine development. I won’t go into detail, but Page 14 of the .pdf accompanying the video is an infographic showing how a 5 to 10 year development process was squashed into less than a year, with many crucial steps skipped. Even if Pfizer had adhered to the shortened schedule: the trial would not end until 2023.

5.) The mRNA technology is claimed to be safe. But, even if (IF!) that’s true: mRNA is just the delivery mechanism. Not the ‘active ingredients’ of the product. Which is like saying a cup of mystery-liquid is ‘safe’ to drink, because the cup is safe.

6.) Only 4% of the trial subjects were in the ‘at risk’ group who actually suffer greatly from covid. Four Fxcking Percent. (if you tested a cancer drug on people who don’t have cancer/ you couldn’t honestly claim the drug cured their cancer. Heck, it might kill sickly cancer patients!) This drug was tested on HEALTHY PEOPLE in the lab, but administered to FRAIL PEOPLE in the real world: elderly & those with serious health conditions.

7.) Many health conditions were cited as reasons to Exclude a candidate from participating in the trials: pregnancy, breastfeeding, allergies, psychiatric conditions, immunity disorders, previous exposure to Covid-19, prior use of prescription steroids… So the drug has NOT BEEN TESTED on those groups of people. Pfizer suspected their drug might harm those people. Yet, there’s no exemption for people with those conditions— from vax mandates & vax passports.

8.) Pfizer used inadequate control groups. In particular: people who had previous exposure to Covid were excluded. When the the drug was released-- it was injected into Covid-recovered people, without checking whether it would help or harm their immunity… or strike them dead. (We now know, from other research, that people recovering from Covid are at higher risk of adverse effects from the drug.)

9.) The trials did not use “bio-markers” to detect long-term effects of the vax, before the long-term effect fully develops. For example: if the vax triggered “bio-markers” which are Known to indicate cancer, or diabetes, then the we could know the vax was dangerous Without Waiting Years. Pfizer avoided this option… which can predict Thrombotic Clotting, Strokes, Cardiac Damage, increased susceptibility to Alzheimers, & susceptibility to auto-immune disease. Also: Barrier Permeability (<—that “bio-marker” test WAS required by Japan/ and the vax was shown to cross the blood/brain barrier & enter organs, such as ovaries. The english-speaking world only discovered this risk— when a Canadian veterinarian obtained the Japanese documents & translated them to English.)

10.) The end point of the study should have been: “How many people die With vs. Without the drug”. Instead the end-point was “Do the people given this drug test-positive less-often than without the drug?” That’s the wrong question to ask! As established decades-ago when cancer drugs DID shrink tumors/ but those cancer drugs also directly killed more people than they saved.

11.) Vax Passports, Mandatory Firings, Segregation & Apartheid of the UnVax’d… are based on the assumption that the drug works to stop SPREAD of Covid. But effectiveness-against-spread was Not studied in these trials. There’s zero evidence here to show the drug stops spread or transmission of disease.

12.) The researchers Did Not Test each trial participant for Covid-19 !!! They ONLY tested those who displayed ‘symptoms’ of Covid. But Pfizer didn’t establish what that list of ’symptoms’ was. So there was a wild variance in what each doctor believed to-be a ‘symptom’ of Covid. Which introduced random Subjectivity, not scientific Objectivity.

13.) Basing their study on ‘symptoms’ fails-to-see Asymptomatic Spread. That brainfart left us without-data to fight Variants. There is nothing in these trials— showing the jab fights asymptomatic spread.

14.) Due to the Subjective Guesswork about which-participants actually had covid (they shoulda tested Everybody!)… only 8 inoculated participants, and 162 control participants were deemed to be Positive with Covid. BUT the researchers LOST TOUCH with 80 inoculated and 86 control people— before the study ended. That’s 10x the number who Tested Positive! How Many of those 80 inoculated people Never Reported Back to the researchers Because They Died Of The Injections?!, How many were on Ventilators? Those unknown numbers could change the picture drastically.

15.) Even Worse, there was a “Suspected But Unconfirmed” category. People Suspected of Having Covid-19 due to exhibiting Symptoms Of Covid-19… who were Never Tested for Covid-19. Pfizer counted ALL of those SICK PEOPLE as Negative for Covid-19. How many? Answer: 1,594 vax’d subjects & 1,816 control subjects. 3,410 sick people, counted as Not Sick. That total DWARFS the 8 vax’d and 162 unvax’d subjects… counted-by-Pfizer as Covid-19 positive.

16.) IF we (reasonably) assume that all-the-people who displayed Covid-19 symptoms… indeed had Covid… then the “Relative Risk Reduction” provided by the vax is only 19% improvement over the control group. 19% is better than 0% right? BUT… 19% is below the threshold required for an Emergency Use Authorization. An EUA requires a 50% or greater improvement! 19% isn’t-even close! Either this vax was mistakenly granted an EUA which it didn’t earn/ or it was INTENTIONALLY given a bogus EUA.

17.) The part of the trial studying 12-to-15 year olds… was too small to trust. And yet— a 12 year old girl in the study— suffered SERIOUS REACTIONS to the drug. (video timecode: 20min30sec for gruesome details) She was hospitalized within 24 hours of injection, paralyzed, couldn’t eat (her stomach stopped contracting), suffered nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, memory loss, brain fog, headaches, dizzyness, fainting, seizures, verbal tics, motor tics, menstrual issues, loss of feeling from the waist-down, lost bowel control & bladder control. 10 months later, she still required a feeding tube & wheelchair to live. In Their Report To The FDA, Pfizer DESCRIBED HER INJURIES AS “FUNCTIONAL ABDOMINAL PAIN” which suggests OTHER ADVERSE EVENTS may have been MISREPRESENTED or SUPPRESSED. People who hurt children & cover it up deserve a very hard time in a bad prison.

18.) In 5 to 11 year olds, Pfizer acknowledges their drug WILL cause Myocarditis (Enlarged Heart, a deadly condition.) Pfizer optimistically says No deaths will occur from the Myocarditis, based-on “predictive models”. Yet there’s no sane reason to intentionally give myocarditis to kids who are at zero risk from Covid. Long-term studies show myocarditis KILLS 50% of its victims… within 6.5 years.

19.) Pfizer admits: “Limitations of the study include the lack of longer-term follow-up to assess the duration of immune responses, efficacy, and safety.” “The study was also not powered to detect potential rare side effects… in 5-to-11 year olds.” (these quotes are from the study).

20.) A Regional Director for the Testing Company which Pfizer used to conduct the tests… became a Whistle-Blower. The British Medical Journal (one of the oldest, most well-established Journals in the world) reported her revelations: Her company: Falsified Data, Unblinded Participants, Did Not Follow-Up nor Test Participants who Reported Symptoms, aaand they “Mislabeled Specimens”. Despite All This: neither Pfizer or the FDA ever audited or investigated the research company. Pfizer has now hired that same company to run 4 more Covid-19 trials.

21.) All of the above flaws are from Pfizer’s original 2-month report. In their 6-month report… Pfizer improperly MANIPULATED their efficacy data: Pfizer MIXED-IN (with the results of their adult trial) the results from their 12-15 year old trial. Big problem: The adolescent trial began 4 Months AFTER the adult trial. Blending-in those Freshly Injected kids… disguised the rapid decline in drug effectiveness-- in the adults injected 4-months earlier.

22.) In the real-world roll-out of the Vax… Adverse Events are not being tracked in an active, accurate way. Canada lets bureaucrats overrule patients who report negative side-effects of the drug. How many complaints are overlooked or deleted? Here’s a clue: 78% (OVER 3/4!) of trial participants reported adverse side-effects. In the real-world, nearly Zero Percent report adverse side-effects. During the trials, researchers were required to actively track effects. Now, nobody’s actively collecting that data.

23.) Ontario Public Health says 1 in 5,000 young men (age 18-24) have developed Myocarditis after Moderna. 1 in 28,000 after Pfizer. BUT Astra-Zeneca was HALTED due-to a 1-in-60,000 risk of blood clotting. SO, by that standard, both Moderna & Pfizer should definitely be halted. The regulators aren’t being consistent.

24.) Pfizer did collect adverse-effects data for 2.5 months after the real world roll-out. Pfizer is seeking to Seal that detailed data/ away from Public Release… for FIFTY YEARS. Until 2076! All we know is: Pfizer’s data includes: 1,200 deaths, 25,000 nervous system events, cases of Anaphylaxis, and Vaccine Associate Enhanced Disease. Politicians & medical bureaucrats who flatly declare the product “safe” — are not saying the truth.

25.) Pfizer is a many-times repeat offender against public health & safety, including: Lying to win federal approval of a heart valve- which fractured, killing hundreds. Clinical trials on children without their parents’ consent (some of those children died). Bribing doctors. Suppressing research. Manipulating data. Withholding information that their products caused cancer. And: fraudulent marketing. They have been ordered to pay Billion$ in fines & settlements.

26.) 84% of the researchers behind the Covid study have conflicts of interest, including the lead researchers. Just 2 authors of the report, for example, (a husband & wife team) profited $9 BILLION from the release... of the same drug they were assigned to test.

Pfizer’s own trial data shows the product causes harm. Pfizer knew or should-have-known. Governments which approved use of the Pfizer jab were negligent— and must be held accountable.

[Steersman]

Below are notes I took, watching that video produced by the alliance of Canadian doctors. Title: “More Harm Than Good”
The video uses Pfizer’s own trial data to show serious problems with Pfizer’s drug.

Link to the vid: https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.o ... an-good-2/

1.) Pfizer advertised the jab as “95%” effective. Which sounds as-if the drug saves 95 people/ and only 5 get sick. In REALITY 99 people already don’t-get-sick, with-OR-WITHOUT the drug. The only way to detect the drug doing anything-at-all… is to start with 100,000 people. 99,912 won’t get sick… even-if the drug doesn’t exist. Of the remaining 88 people… the drug helps all-but-4. BUT: 84 out of 100,000 is NOT 95%. It’s 00000.84% Pfizer’s ‘relative’ method of counting (95%) is well-known to be misleading, and the FDA recommends using the ‘absolute’ percentage: (0.84%). Pfizer disregarded the FDA.

<snip>

26.) 84% of the researchers behind the Covid study have conflicts of interest, including the lead researchers. Just 2 authors of the report, for example, (a husband & wife team) profited $9 BILLION from the release... of the same drug they were assigned to test.

Pfizer’s own trial data shows the product causes harm. Pfizer knew or should-have-known. Governments which approved use of the Pfizer jab were negligent— and must be held accountable.

Wordy bugger, aren't you? ;-)

Pfizer may well have at least cut a few corners, though Canadian Covid Alliance might be making more out of the evidence than is justified. I sure can't say one way or the other, but you may wish to try rattling the cage of someone who might be able to separate wheat and chaff.

Like David Gorski over at Science-Based Medicine:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/pfizer ... vermectin/

I'm not entirely impressed with him and them - not least because some writers over there have peddled the unscientific view that the sexes are spectra, that sex itself is a spectrum.

But Gorski has at least acknowledged, even if somewhat belatedly, that ivermectin does have some anti-viral actions, even if at levels that may not be achievable without getting into toxic levels:

Again, it reminds me a lot of how ivermectin came to be thought of as a “miracle cure” for COVID-19 based mainly on in vitro studies of its ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication cell culture. .... Before I get to this, let me just point out that it was thought that ivermectin inhibited SARS-CoV-2 replication through the inhibition of a different protein, α/β1 importin, something reported a decade ago. This particular protein is involved in the transport of proteins into the nucleus from the cytoplasm. .... This was almost certainly the reason that ivermectin doesn’t work against COVID-19 in spite of its activity in vitro against SARS-CoV-2. It requires a concentration 10- to 20-fold higher than is safely achievable in the blood.

But he has also recognized that pharmaceutical companies are not exactly known for being paragons of ethical virtue:

No one, least of all I, denies that large pharmaceutical companies have done some pretty shady things, but “suppressing” ivermectin in favor of the Pfizer and Merck drugs does not appear to be one of them

Though it is still decidedly moot whether that's the case with Pfizer and Moderna or not.

[Service Dog]

Dr. Malone tweeted a link to the Canadian Covid Alliance video.

So twitter permanently banned him.

So Joe Rogan invited Malone as a guest.

Malone alluded-to 'Mass Formation Psychosis'-- to explain Covid Hysteria.

A viral frenzy of googling ensued. Google panicked:



So... a dozen hours later...

Enough time has passed, for Google to scrub-away misinformation, to show-us clean, accurate results for this search.

Let's see what Google's "reliable sources" have to say.

Oh... one thing first. I should mention: Dr. Malone is MODERNA VACCINATED for Covid. And Dr. Malone is a VACCINOLOGIST. He holds patents for the VACCINES he invented.

[Hunt]

This is pretty awesome. It's great to see Ennio Morricone recognized as a legit musical master. When even the Scandinavians get in on the action, you know he's arrived.



This one's pretty good too. This girl is like fifteen or sixteen.

[zou3gou3]

<SNIP

17.) The part of the trial studying 12-to-15 year olds… was too small to trust. And yet— a 12 year old girl in the study— suffered SERIOUS REACTIONS to the drug. (video timecode: 20min30sec for gruesome details) She was hospitalized within 24 hours of injection, paralyzed, couldn’t eat (her stomach stopped contracting), suffered nausea, vomiting, erratic blood pressure, memory loss, brain fog, headaches, dizzyness, fainting, seizures, verbal tics, motor tics, menstrual issues, loss of feeling from the waist-down, lost bowel control & bladder control. 10 months later, she still required a feeding tube & wheelchair to live. In Their Report To The FDA, Pfizer DESCRIBED HER INJURIES AS “FUNCTIONAL ABDOMINAL PAIN” which suggests OTHER ADVERSE EVENTS may have been MISREPRESENTED or SUPPRESSED. People who hurt children & cover it up deserve a very hard time in a bad prison.
<SNIP>

Very sad, but NOT caused by the vax.

26 physicians examined Maddie de Garay, including 7 paid by her family

You know who of those 26 attributed it to Pfizer vaccine?

Only her Mother

She has a rare autoimmune disease called MOG Antibody Disease (MOGAD)

100% NOT vaccine related. Look it up

[fafnir]

Does that mean it isn't vaccine related? I mean, ultimately there is always a reason why any given bad reaction happens. Is the claim that her being hospitalised within 24hrs had nothing to do with being vaccinated? I know I don't know enough to be sure, but a quick Google of "MOGAD and vaccination" turned up this paper claiming that stimulating the immune system can cause some kind of flare-up.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7204366/

I'm not sure I quite follow the thinking in excluding this case. Assume the vaccine isn't pure poison, then most people will be fine for it. Anybody who isn't fine will have had something off about them physiologically, or the vaccine will have been applied in some nonstandard way... in which case anybody who isn't fine shouldn't count towards adverse reaction data...? Do we just count people where we weren't able to determine what the underlying thing that was different about them was?

You seem very quick to hit the Case Dismissed button.

[zou3gou3]

I had never heard of this disease before & I'm certainly no doctor, so if twenty-six specialists say the vaccine wasn't the cause, my tendency is to believe them. Vaccines can also cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is also an autoimmune disease of the nerves, but influenza, not a vaccine, caused it in someone I know who had it.

[zou3gou3]

What I really wanted to say: Millions of children have now been vaccinated and are thus reasonably well protected. Even if this one case was caused by a vaccine, the good far outweighs the bad.

[fafnir]

What I really wanted to say: Millions of children have now been vaccinated and are thus reasonably well protected. Even if this one case was caused by a vaccine, the good far outweighs the bad.

Millions of children were very well protected before the vaccine. As Fauci has explained, the stats on kids in hospital, or dying, are "with" covid, not "from" covid. The risk to children dying from, or being significantly harmed by, covid who don't have very serious health issues is so close to zero that, if I was going to spend much time worrying about it, I wouldn't let my children outside for fear of them being brained by random objects falling from the sky.

[fafnir]

I had never heard of this disease before & I'm certainly no doctor, so if twenty-six specialists say the vaccine wasn't the cause, my tendency is to believe them. Vaccines can also cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is also an autoimmune disease of the nerves, but influenza, not a vaccine, caused it in someone I know who had it.

Do they explain why the vaccine wasn't to blame in any detail? At the moment we've got them saying that it wasn't the vaccine that caused her to become sick within 24hrs of taking the vaccine, it was her pre-existing condition that can maybe be aggravated by vaccines. What I've seen so far is like one of those suspicious non-denial denials. Do they explicitly say that the vaccine didn't aggravate the condition, and the condition then caused the symptoms? If we assume that they are the scientific equivalent of Mr Smith Goes To Washington, then the denial is good enough for me.

[zou3gou3]

Millions of children were very well protected before the vaccine. As Fauci has explained, the stats on kids in hospital, or dying, are "with" covid, not "from" covid. The risk to children dying from, or being significantly harmed by, covid who don't have very serious health issues is so close to zero that, if I was going to spend much time worrying about it, I wouldn't let my children outside for fear of them being brained by random objects falling from the sky.

Are they well protected though? Young, fit athletes have had their health ruined by covid, and some children (not many so far) develop Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children. No one knows what the long term effects in children will be. As I looked for some data just now, I found this study taking place over the next 3 years.
www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/l ... -19-begins
Why take the risk when you can get your child vaxxed. The chances of an adverse reaction are minimal.

As for the MOGAD case: as I said, I'm no medic, just quoting the tweet. I suspect the vaccine may have triggered the outbreak, but it just needed something to set it off; in this case the vax.

Mr Smith Goes To Washington. Never seen it. I just know it's about that strange USA custom of filibustering.

[fafnir]

Are they well protected though? Young, fit athletes have had their health ruined by covid, and some children (not many so far) develop Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children. No one knows what the long term effects in children will be. As I looked for some data just now, I found this study taking place over the next 3 years.
www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/l ... -19-begins

Perhaps in 3 years the study will produce something to talk about.

Why take the risk when you can get your child vaxxed. The chances of an adverse reaction are minimal.

Short term risks may be minimal, but then again the short term risks of covid are minimal. There is huge pressure to overstate the dangers of covid and downplay the dangers of the vaccine to get people to take it. Given that, if the current very minimal dangers to children is all they have to show, I'm really not concerned. This is the kind of risk that children have run without issue every day for generations. If we really are this risk averse, I can't imagine how radically our lives will have to change to manage other similar tiny risks.

As for the MOGAD case: as I said, I'm no medic, just quoting the tweet. I suspect the vaccine may have triggered the outbreak, but it just needed something to set it off; in this case the vax.

Right, but that would be pretty much true of any possible side effect caused by the vaccines, no? Myocarditis for example can be caused by the immune response to catching a cold. Really then, if you have the sort of immune system that is going to react to the vaccine in this way, it might easily have reacted to something else like that as well, so Myocarditis really shouldn't be counted as a side effect. Is it possible in principle for the vaccine to have side effects if we reason in this way?

Mr Smith Goes To Washington. Never seen it. I just know it's about that strange USA custom of filibustering.

I haven't seen it in 30 years. As I recall, it's about a gosh darned salt of the Earth good man played by Jimmy Stewart who is almost destroyed by the corruption in Washington he is too naive to see, but ultimately stands up to it and is vindicated.

[John D]

Predictions for the new year:
1) The Democrats will start telling the public that the "trump" mRNA vaccine was over-sold and the reason we still have Covid is Trump's vaccine.
2) Data will finally come out that children are being harmed more by the mRNA vaccine than helped by it.
3) The stock market will close the year of 2022 down by about 5% from the start of the year.
4) There will be another Covid variant that rips through the world by December 2022.

[fafnir]

Predictions for the new year:
1) The Democrats will start telling the public that the "trump" mRNA vaccine was over-sold and the reason we still have Covid is Trump's vaccine.
2) Data will finally come out that children are being harmed more by the mRNA vaccine than helped by it.
3) The stock market will close the year of 2022 down by about 5% from the start of the year.
4) There will be another Covid variant that rips through the world by December 2022.

You can pierce the veil and perceive things before they come to pass! Is It Possible to Learn This Power?

[Service Dog]

Even if this one case was caused by a vaccine, the good far outweighs the bad.

[Service Dog]

Predictions for the new year:

SPOILER ALERT!

[John D]

Personal update: Skip this if you don't care.

Apparently, when I "told" my wife and daughter to fuck off I did not really tell them anything. It was late.... I had been very busy since 6am. I was drinking. At about 1:00 in the morning I just shut down. I laid on the floor and fell asleep. When my wife shook me to try to get me up I gave her the bird. Haha. My wife was mad at me... but my daughter just told me she thought it was unusual.... which it is.

The thing is that my wife falls asleep all over the house all the time. I never try to wake her. I just let her sleep until she wakes up. Then she can decide what to do. For some reason this same behavior is not allowed by me. No wonder I flipped her off in my dozing state. Haha. I thought I maybe drank so much I had amnesia...but really... I was tied and fell asleep at 1:00am.

My 30yo daughter also explained that she really wants me to get along with her trans-boyfriend better because they are going to get married and have a child. Fuck. This is my kid whose bills I pay. I will probably end up raising this kid... which I can probably do. At least, if I raise it, it might be able to get a job one day... maybe. It will probably not even have any of my DNA. I just listened to this story from my daughter...but... my wife went off on her telling her she was not ready and needed to pay her bills etc. Haha. I thought the same things my wife did... but I am already the evil autist so I didn't want to add more fuel to the fire.

We had a great new years party at my house. I setup the house, cleaned, etc. and we had PF Changs ordered. Music playing and UofM football downstairs, games and puzzles upstairs. Only my brother got a bit too drunk and we told him to stop drinking. All was well except for when one of the ladies went off on one of the guys. The guy said that the jab should be mandatory...and the lady went off on him... woot! It is hard for a guy to defend against a raging woman...haha.

I told all my friends that my daughter diagnosed me as being autistic. We all had a good laugh. The conclusion from my crew is that young people like to medicalize everything. It is not the same as when we were young. We had this idea that everyone had this thing called a "personality". Unless you were staggeringly depressed or psychotic you did not have a mental disorder. Now... it appears... that everyone has a mental disorder. and... no one has a personality.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

My 30yo daughter also explained that she really wants me to get along with her trans-boyfriend better because they are going to get married and have a child.

They might need a refresher course on how to mak babby.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Marjorie Taylor Greene permanently suspended from twatter for posting VAERS data.

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

I told all my friends that my daughter diagnosed me as being autistic. We all had a good laugh. The conclusion from my crew is that young people like to medicalize everything. It is not the same as when we were young. We had this idea that everyone had this thing called a "personality". Unless you were staggeringly depressed or psychotic you did not have a mental disorder. Now... it appears... that everyone has a mental disorder. and... no one has a personality.

I'm not laughing. Young people medicalise everything, older generations morally judged people with personality disorders. Wish I'd had my problems medicalised when I was young. A lifetime of being shamed and blaming yourself for your lack of willpower, forgetfulness and inability to focus is what you get from undiagnosed ADHD. Finding out at 54 that you are ADHD and that your wasted potential and shitty life is textbook ADHD isn't a joke. People just do not understand that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you will it, the same things will keep happening. You cannot overcome neurotransmitter or brain structure problems, at least for any significant time. I will always forget where I just put my keys, what I just read or the priority I just set an hour ago because my brain doesn't handle short-term memory properly. The opinions of the judgemental who are lucky enough to have "normal" brains are worthless. Rant over. Yes I am a little bitter. Can you tell?

[Service Dog]

https://media.patriots.win/post/XdE4fEYNgzUG.png


I just dropped in
to see what condition
my condition
was in



It wuzsn't me that started that ol' crazy asian war
But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore
And yes, it's true that I'm not the man I used to be
Oh Fauci, and your Pfizer Company
It's easy to out run a vax'd man whose legs are bent and paralyzed
And the wants and needs of a vampire your age, Fauci, I realize
And it won't be long, Twitter say, until I'm not around
But Fauci, you're still goin' down
Don't leave now, circle back round, bitch don't slam the door
Don't change your story like you did one hundred times before
If my fingers still move I'll get my gun and put you in the ground...



but seriously folks...

https://gettr.com/post/plggir65ca

[Service Dog]

https://media.patriots.win/post/HtH9nmAEnmKn.jpeg
"As I terrorize Gotham I will feed its people hope to poison their souls."

[fafnir]

My 30yo daughter also explained that she really wants me to get along with her trans-boyfriend better because they are going to get married and have a child.

They might need a refresher course on how to mak babby.

How is babby formed?

[John D]

I told all my friends that my daughter diagnosed me as being autistic. We all had a good laugh. The conclusion from my crew is that young people like to medicalize everything. It is not the same as when we were young. We had this idea that everyone had this thing called a "personality". Unless you were staggeringly depressed or psychotic you did not have a mental disorder. Now... it appears... that everyone has a mental disorder. and... no one has a personality.

I'm not laughing. Young people medicalize everything, older generations morally judged people with personality disorders. Wish I'd had my problems medicalized when I was young. A lifetime of being shamed and blaming yourself for your lack of willpower, forgetfulness and inability to focus is what you get from undiagnosed ADHD. Finding out at 54 that you are ADHD and that your wasted potential and shitty life is textbook ADHD isn't a joke. People just do not understand that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you will it, the same things will keep happening. You cannot overcome neurotransmitter or brain structure problems, at least for any significant time. I will always forget where I just put my keys, what I just read or the priority I just set an hour ago because my brain doesn't handle short-term memory properly. The opinions of the judgmental who are lucky enough to have "normal" brains are worthless. Rant over. Yes I am a little bitter. Can you tell?

But is your life really improved through medicalization of your problems? There are no drugs that will "fix" you as far as I have learned. Perhaps I am wrong, but my experience is that the drugs just create all kinds of other side effect problems. I am asking this in a very blunt but honest way. I feel like you can tell me what your experience is and will be honest.

I never lose my keys anymore. I used to lose my keys...but now... I only put my keys into about four places. If my keys are in my hand they cannot be placed anywhere except for my certain places. This is not ADHD. This is discipline. The keys will only be 1)in the pocket of my pants 2) on the shelf in the kitchen 3) on the living room table 4) on my end table in my bedroom. The keys will not leave my hand until one of these opportunities present. All other things are secondary. They keys will be a priority. Same is true for my wallet which follows the same rules.

Maybe I am an insensitive shit head. This is possible. I tell you that I have this conversation with my wife and daughter. I think that the only way you can always lose your keys is lack of discipline. PRIORITZE YOUR FUCKING KEYS, AND YOUR FUCKING WALLET. DO IT ALL THE TIME. and yes.... this makes you a kind of slave to your keys.... tough shit... this is the best way to run your life. DO THE WORK! (also... make a fucking do list for GOD'S SAKE!)

Perhaps you have been helped by being medicalized. If so, how so? Perhaps I can understand better. I tell you that this whole thing is a bit frustrating to me as I am the one that holds the chaos together with my family. (Perhaps it is my weaponized autism)

I honestly think I have been too kind. When my daughter was young, I would be sitting in the living room watching my last show of the night. My daughter's schedule had her getting ready for bed. She would often walk through the living room and stare... transfixed... to my stupid TV show. It was not even a show she liked. It could be a commercial. She would just get sucked into the boob tube. At the time I would laugh and turn off the TV. In retrospect I think I should have yelled at her to get her fucking shit together and leave the fucking room. But no, I would usually laugh... and turn off my show... and guide her to the bathroom to brush her teeth.... and then take her to her room. All this coddling does not look like it helped. SHE STILL LOOSES HER FUCKING CAR KEYS. FUCK!

So... I ask people... what are your goals? One of my goals is to never lose my keys or my wallet. I can accomplish this goal using very simple behaviors. Select the few places you can place these objects and never vary from this. If you do not accept this behavior then you really are not making this a goal. If you do not come up with a behavioral pattern to ensure success you are lying to yourself. You want to not lose you keys while you also prioritize other things. I call bullshit. I don't want to hear about your fucking keys. What really happened is that you did not set your priority for this behavior.

I am sorry... but you just saying the same shit will "just happen over and over" is bullshit. Are all of us non-ADHD folks just supposed to pick up after you? Perhaps it is best if we just leave you alone.

Another pet peeve... while I am on the subject. It is the behavior of my ladies and shopping. They do not accept that shopping is a multi step process. Shopping includes the following steps... 1) decide what you want to shop for 2) Go to a place to shop for these items 3) Buy the items that best fit your desires 4) return home with the items and put them away. This is pretty straight forward. This result is total success. You wanted something... you got it... you placed it in storage. But no.... my bitches say that there is no process to shopping. To them shopping includes spending hours looking at things you will never buy. It includes going to a store without any idea of what to buy. It includes buying items and leaving them on the kitchen table for a month and not putting them away. This shit is not hard. Just do it... but my ladies blame it on ADHD. Fuck that. It is lack of caring. They don't care if their shit is on the table for a month. I don't understand. Do they get pleasure from looking at shopping bags on the table for a month? Does that make them happy? I can tell you this... they get no satisfaction from cleaning off the table. I know this for sure. Maybe they need more fucking drugs.

And to conclude... I will say that I like the company of people. I played some wonderful war games with my friend last week. I hosted a party with 20 friends.... we played music and drank and watched football. I work with fantastic people from across the world and we have great business success. But... maybe... I have gotten to the point where I don't want to live with anyone. My wife moved out of our shared bedroom into her own room. I don't miss her a bit. It has been great. I don't have to deal with her shit... her mess and her stupid schedule.

<end of rant>

[Matt Cavanaugh]

AOC thinks getting criticized for vacationing in Florida without a mask on is really about conservative men frustrated they can't have sex with her.

Imagine if she read the things Bhurzum has said about her.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

oops, link:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/ocasio-co ... m=facebook

[Steersman]

I told all my friends that my daughter diagnosed me as being autistic. We all had a good laugh. The conclusion from my crew is that young people like to medicalize everything. It is not the same as when we were young. We had this idea that everyone had this thing called a "personality". Unless you were staggeringly depressed or psychotic you did not have a mental disorder. Now... it appears... that everyone has a mental disorder. and... no one has a personality.

I'm not laughing. Young people medicalise everything, older generations morally judged people with personality disorders. Wish I'd had my problems medicalised when I was young. A lifetime of being shamed and blaming yourself for your lack of willpower, forgetfulness and inability to focus is what you get from undiagnosed ADHD. Finding out at 54 that you are ADHD and that your wasted potential and shitty life is textbook ADHD isn't a joke. People just do not understand that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you will it, the same things will keep happening. You cannot overcome neurotransmitter or brain structure problems, at least for any significant time. I will always forget where I just put my keys, what I just read or the priority I just set an hour ago because my brain doesn't handle short-term memory properly. The opinions of the judgemental who are lucky enough to have "normal" brains are worthless. Rant over. Yes I am a little bitter. Can you tell?

That sucks - sorry to hear it. Though I can sympathize, what with various other Pitters making snarky comments about me failing the Voight-Kampff or Turing tests. Various family members in the same vein.

No doubt you've looked into the issue in some depth, but as John D. just suggested and as I've found myself, part of the problem is a matter of discipline. You might enjoy Barbara Oakley's Mind for Numbers which goes into some depth on that score:

https://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Numbers-Scie ... B00G3L19ZU

But I've found that Sudoku in particular is a great game for promoting logical thinking. Not to mention being a great entree into group theory.

Somewhat apropos of which, I've been amused - and encouraged in a way - by the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős who more or less took Ritalin and amphetamines as if they were candy:

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities (this quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős, but Erdős himself ascribed it to Rényi). After his mother's death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that it impacted his performance: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his use of Ritalin and Benzedrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

The brain is something of a muscle - needs exercise and drugs for optimum performance ... ;-)

[Service Dog]

not the bee

https://media.patriots.win/post/icrvME1R7FF7.png

[Service Dog]

My 30yo daughter also explained that she really wants me to get along with her trans-boyfriend better because they are going to get married and have a child.

They might need a refresher course on how to mak babby.

How is babby formed?

[Steersman]

Why would I attempt to prove something I haven't claimed and don't believe?

So then you agree that having been a prostitute “does not necessarily mean that they’re intrinsically incapable of performing the duties of a teacher”?

Good to hear if that’s the case. But, pray tell, what other reason could you have for denying said ex-prostitute the opportunity to work as a teacher? What reason do you have for declaring her beyond the pale or thinking, apparently, that she should be put in stocks? :think:

Pascal_MenNeverDoEvilSoCompletely.jpg

(76.77 KiB) Downloaded 91 times

If mathematics can't demonstrate that it's consistent, one can hardly expect much from something as wooley as the social sciences.

Certainly agree with “wooley” – being charitable, but it still seems a bit disingenuous, self-serving, or intellectually dishonest to even suggest that because mathematics – as with most if not all “sufficiently strong recursively enumerable theories of arithmetic” – can’t be shown to be both “consistent and complete” that therefore it’s riven with contradictions and is entirely useless:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consisten ... set_theory

Plus, consistent isn't the same as "correct". One could have the most beautifully consistent body of knowledge that was based on false assumptions.

True enough. But which do you think is more consistent and therefore more useful? Newtonian, quantum, and relativistic mechanics? Or “social sciences”?

You seem to “think”, in effect, that if one system of reasoning – like mathematics – has some rough edges then all similar systems, including those with the merest pretensions to being logical, are equivalent. Do you seriously think that cargo-cult “science” is just as valid and useful as quantum mechanics?

You seem incapable of admitting that, as Sagan suggested, it is simply disastrous to argue that all ideas have equal merit; that there may be reasons why some ideas – some “narratives”, some “interpretations” – are substantially better than others. Seems to put you squarely in the camp of the social constructionists:

It has been objected that strong social constructionism undermines the foundation of science as the pursuit of objectivity and, as a theory, defies any attempt at falsifying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_co ... Criticisms

Seems you’re less bent out of shape at other “subjective narratives” cutting the ground out from under “traditional” ones than that it’s your own subjective narrative that’s becoming less and less credible.

Pot, kettle ...

Tweets_ZachKim_CrackerSlur_1A.jpg

(61.39 KiB) Downloaded 94 times

I struggle to see that that Tweet is an example of an inconsistent theory. A theory whose axioms and structure are motivated by an end we don't like, perhaps. That slurs against white people aren't as bad as those against non-whites comes directly from the assumptions of the theory. Are you sure that your problem with these theories is "consistency"?

You may well have a point there – at least at first blush before looking underneath the hood and kicking the tires.

Doing so we see that their first premise is that racism is bad. But then their second premise – i.e., except when it’s applied to whites – is a qualification, an intrinsic contradiction which qualifies as an egregious case of special pleading:

Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein one cites something as an exception to a general or universal principle, without justifying the special exception. It is the application of a double standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Affirmative action may well qualify as a justified "special exemption". But where’s the justification for anathematizing “nigger” while condoning if not endorsing and promoting “cracker”?

Rank inconsistency and hypocrisy.

You don’t seem to understand – or simply refuse to consider the idea – that some of those “infinite variety of ways” are rather better than many if not most of them.

Sure, and which is better depends on what the goal is of the categorisation. That is chosen from a vast array of possibilities by humans as well. There is nothing intrinsic to the objects being categorised about the categories.

Sure. For one thing, the labels, the abstractions “female” and “male”, aren’t intrinsic to the organisms being put into those categories. I rather doubt any one of us could say exactly how much our “males” or “females” weigh, or say where they’re located.

But maybe there’s some benefit for Matt to know which of two types of horses he should put into a single pasture if he wants another foal next spring? The labels – the words we use – are irrelevant. We could – using some Latin for extra pizzazz as I suggested in my Medium essay on Reality & Illusion – call those two types of organisms, the “parit-ova (produces ova) and the sperma-facits (produces sperm)”.

Labels are largely irrelevant; what objective traits they denote and are possessed by those qualifying as referents of the terms is often of crucial importance. And if we can’t agree on what the words denote in which contexts then they are literally meaningless, worse than useless:

Wikipedia_HumptyDumptyAliceWords_Sctn.jpg

(109.38 KiB) Downloaded 89 times

Doesn't the size of the ova seem a little bit arbitrary as a way of deciding what sex something is? There are a lot of such arbitrary decisions in that hierarchy.

Not at all sure you really get the concept of anisogamy:

Anisogamy is a form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes that differ in size and/or form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisogamy

Or really understand or appreciate the principle undergirding the science of taxonomy:

In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement', and -νομία (-nomia) 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.

It is not at all “arbitrary” that those organisms that are able to produce sperm or ova can reproduce, and that those who aren’t able don’t – it’s an essential part of the whole process of reproduction which is often of paramount importance in many facets of society. The overarching category of “sex” – “males” and “females” being subtypes in the category hierarchy is – by definition – all about reproduction. Note the standard dictionary definition and the emphasis on “reproductive functions”; no function – i.e., no ability to reproduce, no sex:

Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/sex

One can, of course, say that the sexes denote concave or convex “mating surfaces” as with plumbing and electrical connectors. But that’s a different kettle of fish then – isn’t it? – and one then has to specify the context if it’s not obvious.

You don’t seem to understand, or want to understand, at all how categorization and naming actually works, the motivations for different choices of criteria and objectives, and how some are substantially better than others. Keeping in mind Occam’s razor and Einstein’s dictum about making everything as simple as possible, we first note that there are two types of organisms – those that can reproduce and those that can’t. And then further note that what differentiates the first group into two subtypes is the type of gamete produced which is essential to that process of reproduction. THEN we assign names – “males” and “females” – to those two subgroups.

You have a system that says old women aren't female.

And you apparently want a system that says menopausees are still females. Apparently because you think that they will be offended by denying them membership cards in that category. Not that many of them haven’t made it clear that they actually are offended.

Such delicate souls, so susceptible to attacks of the vapours, the poor dears ... :roll:

You might reflect on Stephen Fry’s “so fucking what?”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706825 ... i-m-rather

And you might try asking your wife whether she’s offended by that. I rather expect many “women” wouldn’t be, that they’re much stronger than what you’re giving them credit for.

OK, now we are getting somewhere. Your position is that a theory that plays out like shit in the real world could still be a good theory? Is that how things work in the hard sciences?

Yep, as matter of fact it does; see Huxley:

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_huxley_101763

Scientific theories, premises, and definitions – even mathematical ones – are generally not created to pander to the delusional, to the vain, or to the ignorant – see transgenderism, evolution, biological definitions for the sexes, heliocentrism, etc, etc. They’re designed to be accurate and succinct reflections or models of “reality”. Why else do you think that Sagan argued against the “dumbing down of America”, against the too common inability to “distinguish between what feels good and what’s true”?

Though the accusation might just as well be leveled against much of Western “civilization”.

I would say that there is a basic assumption in all of this that a world based on individualistically understood notions of equality and liberty and a rational deconstruction of the institutions and beliefs of society is a good thing and leads to a maximizing of human happiness. I have grave doubts about that assumption. It smells of "nice idea, wrong species" to me just as much as the Marxist attempt to solve the problems in implementing it. That assumption is why Dawkins and Co aren't worried about what will replace the moral vacuum left by religion ...

Can’t be good without Gawd, amirite? :roll: See Pascal again. But maybe it’s you who has the “nice idea, wrong species” misconception of humanity? Thinking that it will put up forever with being spoonfed religious pablum. One might reasonably wonder how long societies can survive – or should survive – if they’re based on fantasies and delusions if not on outright lies, on magical thinking.

But you remind me of another poster here – Hedy? Hedley? I can never keep the names straight ... – who also had some knowledge of science and mathematics while also being rather clearly in the camp of the religious. And likewise the Catholic theologian, of sorts, Edward Feser and his The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism; a quote therefrom:

For however well-meaning this or that individual secularist may be, his creed is, I maintain (and to paraphrase Dawkins’ infamous description of critics of evolution) “ignorant, stupid, insane, and wicked.” …. For when the consequences of its philosophical foundations are worked out consistently, it can be seen to undermine the very possibility of rationality and morality themselves. As this book will show, reason itself testifies that against the pest of secularist progressivism, there can be only one remedy: Écrasez l’infâme

Kind of ironic that Merriam-Webster says “écrasez l'infâme” is from Voltaire and that it means “crush the loathsome thing —referring to the Roman Catholic Church”. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander I guess.

But, to give the devil his due, it is actually an interesting book, and provides something of an illuminating insight into religious thinking and dogma. It also makes some cogent observations and criticisms of both “new atheism” and “secularist progressivism” – including some amusing shots at leading proponents such as Hitchens and Dawkins (“a writer of pop science books who evidently wouldn’t know metaphysics from Metamucil”). But in particular, while Feser styles himself as an “Aristotelian”, he’s no rabid fundamentalist foaming at the mouth and provides some credible justification for teleology even if he more or less concludes, “therefore Jesus”.

From the comments in a blog post of his which was something of a response to a “discussion” with blogger and Anglican priest Eric MacDonald on his own Choice in Dying blog, although it’s no longer up and running:

Dr Feser, On MacDonald's blog you argue: "We Aristotelians hold that whether teleology exists and whether a divine “designer” exists are separate questions; the second doesn’t follow directly from the first. (Some of us think it follows indirectly, with further premises.)"

Of maybe some relevance and interest is that MacDonald had become “disaffected” “with the faith he’d practised and preached all of his life” as a result of his wife’s assisted suicide in Switzerland because of her multiple sclerosis:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/201 ... _life.html

Life’s a bitch and all that. Apparently more so for some people than others.

But of even more relevance is that, as I had argued on Feser’s blog, while he had some justification for aspects of his teleological argument, MacDonald had the higher moral ground in his criticisms of religion in general:

I am also likewise happy to see some “substantive” and “fruitful” discussions taking place, in large part because I largely agree with one of Feser’s central arguments, to wit, that “teleology, as an objective feature of reality and not a mere heuristic, cannot be eliminated”. ....

Which provides, in my view, some justification for MacDonald’s argument that theocracy – in general and in all its variants – entails a “besetting problem for the religious [and the rest of us], because they do, in the end, insist on speaking for God.” Premises which lead – all too often – to some decidedly “callous and inhuman conclusions”.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... 8670847830

That’s the kicker, that’s the crux of the problem: “the religious do, in the end, insist on speaking for God”. Even if they tie it up in “tradition”, pretty pink ribbons, and colourful Christmas wrapping paper.

[Bhurzum]

Imagine if she read the things Bhurzum has said about her.

I simply stated that I find her very attractive.

What's so wrong about that?

I mean, if I said I'd like to suck her cunt until all the pigment drained from her skin, that would be noteworthy.

(seriously, I'd hammer her farting-tackle until I passed out from dehydration!)

Oh, and whilst I have been summoned and the sulphur is still thick in the air...



Very entertaining movie, protagonist (played by Simon Rex - "George" the white-boy rapper from Scary Movie) is an absolute dirtbag who spends all of his time selling weed, lying to people, cheating on his wife (also an ex pornstar, heroin junkie) and trying to talk a 17 year old girl into becoming a pornstar. Of particular interest, an early scene where he tries to get a job, any job, but his past (quite famous pornstar) comes back to bite him on the ass.

Note: It's quite graphic in places (lots of nudity and sex etc) but all done in service to the plot.

Highly recommended!

[fafnir]

Why would I attempt to prove something I haven't claimed and don't believe?

So then you agree that having been a prostitute “does not necessarily mean that they’re intrinsically incapable of performing the duties of a teacher”?

Good to hear if that’s the case. But, pray tell, what other reason could you have for denying said ex-prostitute the opportunity to work as a teacher? What reason do you have for declaring her beyond the pale or thinking, apparently, that she should be put in stocks? :think:

This is the problem with arguing with you Steersman. I spend post after post explaining this to you. Instead of taking that on board you make up a reason for me to hold this position. Now, finally, after being told over and over that the reasoning you are attributing to me isn't mine, and telling you what my reasoning in fact is, you act like you have dragged this out of me like an admission.

As I must have told you 100 times already. You are looking at this from an individualist frame. I am not. I think it is certainly the case that historically, being a well known prostitute has been regarded as a moral failing that would exclude one from at least some future roles. Along with all such social norms, it can't justify itself against the standard you want to apply. Probably there are some terrific, highly moral prostitutes who would make excellent teachers. Measuring the wider social impact of normalising well known prostitutes being teachers seems like a hard thing to quantify until it's too late to wind the social changes backwards.

Still society needs to have social norms, and necessarily those social norms will fail your demand for rational justification. I don't doubt that at some stage well known prostitutes, and drag queens, and paedophiles will be normalised as teachers. It's part of the general march towards entropy where social rules are cast aside in favour of the freedom of the individual. The Chesa Boudin approach to running society. Hopefully enough new rules will come along, and hopefully the rules being created by the current woke establishment will be good enough rules that society will hold together. I am not sure.

So, your reasons for normalising well known prostitutes being teachers seem to me to apply to so much else that either you for some reason only want to apply it to prostitutes, or it is really a radical and wide ranging demand to reorder society. That such a society will function, or be pleasant to live in, seems like an article of faith. I assume it relates to the Enlightenment idea that man, in a state of nature, is like some kind of idealised hippie and that if we just strip away the demands of society this character will be the result. Just like we see in San Francisco at the moment.

If mathematics can't demonstrate that it's consistent, one can hardly expect much from something as wooley as the social sciences.

Certainly agree with “wooley” – being charitable, but it still seems a bit disingenuous, self-serving, or intellectually dishonest to even suggest that because mathematics – as with most if not all “sufficiently strong recursively enumerable theories of arithmetic” – can’t be shown to be both “consistent and complete” that therefore it’s riven with contradictions and is entirely useless

Do you work for a fact checking organization? What is with adding that last bit on to the end of my argument. If you meant I claimed mathematics was useless, I certainly didn't say that. If you meant the social sciences, I didn't say that either, I said that they could hardly be more internally consistent than mathematics.

Plus, consistent isn't the same as "correct". One could have the most beautifully consistent body of knowledge that was based on false assumptions.

True enough. But which do you think is more consistent and therefore more useful? Newtonian, quantum, and relativistic mechanics? Or “social sciences”?

I'm not sure that being consistent makes a thing useful and you don't define what you mean by useful well enough to answer the question. I doubt I have any radically non-mainstream opinions on this.

You seem to “think”, in effect, that if one system of reasoning – like mathematics – has some rough edges then all similar systems, including those with the merest pretensions to being logical, are equivalent. Do you seriously think that cargo-cult “science” is just as valid and useful as quantum mechanics?

What are you talking about? You keep turning this into a defence of hard science. I haven't attacked hard science beyond mentioning the limitations that have been readily acknowledged for 100+ years. Whose position are you attacking here? It certainly has no relationship to mine.

You seem incapable of admitting that, as Sagan suggested, it is simply disastrous to argue that all ideas have equal merit;

Awesome, I haven't claimed this and never thought this. Another admission that your skilled argumentation has dragged from me. Application to the real world is a great way of finding out what ideas are sound and what aren't. Many ideas are simply wrong.

that there may be reasons why some ideas – some “narratives”, some “interpretations” – are substantially better than others.

I think generally you do have to say what particular interpretations are better for. I'm not sure that there is any universal "better". I take it you aren't thinking of categorical imperatives here?

Seems to put you squarely in the camp of the social constructionists:

It has been objected that strong social constructionism undermines the foundation of science as the pursuit of objectivity and, as a theory, defies any attempt at falsifying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_co ... Criticisms

From your link "As a theory, social constructionism rejects the influences of biology on behaviour and culture". If that statement is true of Social Constructivism, I am certainly not a social constructivist.

Seems you’re less bent out of shape at other “subjective narratives” cutting the ground out from under “traditional” ones than that it’s your own subjective narrative that’s becoming less and less credible.

I don't know what you are talking about.

Pot, kettle ...

Tweets_ZachKim_CrackerSlur_1A.jpg

I struggle to see that that Tweet is an example of an inconsistent theory. A theory whose axioms and structure are motivated by an end we don't like, perhaps. That slurs against white people aren't as bad as those against non-whites comes directly from the assumptions of the theory. Are you sure that your problem with these theories is "consistency"?

You may well have a point there – at least at first blush before looking underneath the hood and kicking the tires.

Doing so we see that their first premise is that racism is bad. But then their second premise – i.e., except when it’s applied to whites – is a qualification, an intrinsic contradiction which qualifies as an egregious case of special pleading:

Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein one cites something as an exception to a general or universal principle, without justifying the special exception. It is the application of a double standard.

It's not special pleading. They have a different definition of racism. The argument isn't inconsistent. Special pleading would be if they were making an exception to the conclusions that came from the premises. You are changing the premise and then acting like you've found something when the argument no longer works.

Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein one cites something as an exception to a general or universal principle, without justifying the special exception. It is the application of a double standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

Not that this is special pleading, for the reasons stated above.... but even if it was there is 170 years worth of explanations of explanation justifying why they define racism in this way going back to when the same game was being played over class. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it a logical fallacy.

Affirmative action may well qualify as a justified "special exemption". But where’s the justification for anathematizing “nigger” while condoning if not endorsing and promoting “cracker”?

It would only be a special exception if they were reasoning from the same premises as you about race. They aren't, so it isn't. All that stuff defives just fine from their premises.

Rank inconsistency and hypocrisy.

Steersman, to understand and refute other people's arguments you need to understand their assumptions about the world and the meaning they intend to convey by their words. Taking their conclusions and showing they are inconsistent with your assumptions and what you mean by the words isn't very useful.

You don’t seem to understand – or simply refuse to consider the idea – that some of those “infinite variety of ways” are rather better than many if not most of them.

Sure, and which is better depends on what the goal is of the categorisation. That is chosen from a vast array of possibilities by humans as well. There is nothing intrinsic to the objects being categorised about the categories.

Sure. For one thing, the labels, the abstractions “female” and “male”, aren’t intrinsic to the organisms being put into those categories. I rather doubt any one of us could say exactly how much our “males” or “females” weigh, or say where they’re located.

But maybe there’s some benefit for Matt to know which of two types of horses he should put into a single pasture if he wants another foal next spring?

Right, so it is a category formed around a human goal. Without a rational agent with such a purpose, there is no male and female.

Labels are largely irrelevant; what objective traits they denote and are possessed by those qualifying as referents of the terms is often of crucial importance.

And what things we recognise as traits that things have in common, and what traits are collected to form a category, is a decision that requires a rational agent with a goal. Traits and categories are mental constructions that humans use to organise the world and make it understandable. Christ this is getting into the weeds.

And if we can’t agree on what the words denote in which contexts then they are literally meaningless, worse than useless

Fortunately, that doesn't seem to have been an insurmountable problem for 10s of thousands of years now. I'm not sure there is a problem here that needs fixing.

Doesn't the size of the ova seem a little bit arbitrary as a way of deciding what sex something is? There are a lot of such arbitrary decisions in that hierarchy.

Not at all sure you really get the concept of anisogamy:

Anisogamy is a form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes that differ in size and/or form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisogamy

That there is a property that one can form a category around doesn't make it non-arbitrary to choose this property to form this category. This is a ridiculous digression from the question the question of societies which I think is the main topic.

Or really understand or appreciate the principle undergirding the science of taxonomy:

In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement', and -νομία (-nomia) 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.

Yes, I get this.

[fafnir]

– it’s an essential part of the whole process of reproduction which is often of paramount importance in many facets of society.

I haven't argued this. Obviously this is the case.

The overarching category of “sex” – “males” and “females” being subtypes in the category hierarchy is – by definition – all about reproduction.

Sure, always has been so far as I'm aware as far back as recorded history goes.

Note the standard dictionary definition and the emphasis on “reproductive functions”; no function – i.e., no ability to reproduce, no sex:

Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/sex

Sure, but that quote doesn't say that their reproductive function has to be currently functioning, or indeed have ever functioned. When the clutch went in my car, it didn't stop being a car.

One can, of course, say that the sexes denote concave or convex “mating surfaces” as with plumbing and electrical connectors. But that’s a different kettle of fish then – isn’t it? – and one then has to specify the context if it’s not obvious.

One could indeed do this. There is nothing about the creatures being classified that says this is wrong or right. There is no higher objective essense of "maleness" or "femaleness" that we can compare this classification scheme to and say that it is wrong.

You don’t seem to understand, or want to understand, at all how categorization and naming actually works, the motivations for different choices of criteria and objectives, and how some are substantially better than others.

Better for particular purposes. I'm sure biologists are very sensible people and the definition they have gone with is helpful to them. That doesn't make colloquial definitions wrong. That doesn't make definitions used in sports wrong. What is "better" in one of those contexts may be worse in another.

Keeping in mind Occam’s razor and Einstein’s dictum about making everything as simple as possible, we first note that there are two types of organisms – those that can reproduce and those that can’t. And then further note that what differentiates the first group into two subtypes is the type of gamete produced which is essential to that process of reproduction. THEN we assign names – “males” and “females” – to those two subgroups.

Sure, but both Occam's razor and Einstein’s dictum are rules of thumb in particular domains towards particular goals. You've missed out at least two steps from your story... step 1 where for some reason we decide we are going to be classifying organisms based on reproduction. I assume somewhere there should also be a step dealing with agamogenesis and the like? Since I'm not arguing that biologists should have any definition of male and female than the one they have, I'm not sure what the purpose of this argument is.

You have a system that says old women aren't female.

And you apparently want a system that says menopausees are still females.

It's not a question of want. That's basically the system we've had for thousands of years. I'm mostly just acknowledging that reality.

Apparently because you think that they will be offended by denying them membership cards in that category.

You are doing it again, ignoring numerous explanations and making up a motivation for me. Listen to the positions of the people you are arguing with, don't just robotically have the same argument with everyone regardless of what they actually think.

Not that many of them haven’t made it clear that they actually are offended.

I imagine very few have, since you are the only person I have ever encountered arguing that elderly women aren't female. My guess would be that they are entirely unaware of your crusade and are much more likely to be concerned about your alter-egos on the trans-activist side trying to make their changes to these definitions. The words and concepts of "male" and "female", "man" and "woman" are written into laws and baked into all sorts of social norms and conventions. I would think that if there were any likelihood of elderly women not counting as female any longer, there would indeed be pushback.

Such delicate souls, so susceptible to attacks of the vapours, the poor dears ... :roll:

You might reflect on Stephen Fry’s “so fucking what?”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/706825 ... i-m-rather

I rather think Stephen Fry is arguing against speech codes and the like that penalise people for stating their sincerely held beliefs, not in favour of Orwellian programmes to rationalise language. Stephen Fry had a bunch of cancer treatment not so long ago. Are we sure he is still male?

And you might try asking your wife whether she’s offended by that. I rather expect many “women” wouldn’t be, that they’re much stronger than what you’re giving them credit for.

I already had, and she rolled her eyes. I think it would have to have some degree of plausibility of happening to get more of a reaction than that.

OK, now we are getting somewhere. Your position is that a theory that plays out like shit in the real world could still be a good theory? Is that how things work in the hard sciences?

Yep, as matter of fact it does; see Huxley:

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_huxley_101763

Scientific theories, premises, and definitions – even mathematical ones – are generally not created to pander to the delusional, to the vain, or to the ignorant – see transgenderism, evolution, biological definitions for the sexes, heliocentrism, etc, etc. They’re designed to be accurate and succinct reflections or models of “reality”. Why else do you think that Sagan argued against the “dumbing down of America”, against the too common inability to “distinguish between what feels good and what’s true”?

OK. So when I said "The ultimate arbiter of what ideas have merit is how they play out in the world." and you replied "What horse crap; another ipse dixit." you are or you aren't saying that the ultimate test of scientific models is whether they work in the world? I assume we are talking at cross purposes.

Though the accusation might just as well be leveled against much of Western “civilization”.

That's the assumptions of the Enlightenment playing out for you. Equality in particular is a pernicious idea for taking apart a culture. That goes back a long way before the Enlightenment, of course.... but I'm not sure it has ever been quite the guiding principle the Enlightenment made it though.

I would say that there is a basic assumption in all of this that a world based on individualistically understood notions of equality and liberty and a rational deconstruction of the institutions and beliefs of society is a good thing and leads to a maximizing of human happiness. I have grave doubts about that assumption. It smells of "nice idea, wrong species" to me just as much as the Marxist attempt to solve the problems in implementing it. That assumption is why Dawkins and Co aren't worried about what will replace the moral vacuum left by religion ...

Can’t be good without Gawd, amirite? :roll: See Pascal again. But maybe it’s you who has the “nice idea, wrong species” misconception of humanity? Thinking that it will put up forever with being spoonfed religious pablum.

Well, I think given the thousands of years that it did exactly that, and continues to in many parts of the world today, I have a hard time buying that there is something intrinsic to humanity fundamentally incompatible with "religious pablum". It's often said that the SJWs, and the Marxists before them, just replaced one religion with another.

One might reasonably wonder how long societies can survive – or should survive – if they’re based on fantasies and delusions if not on outright lies, on magical thinking.

Well, given that humans are, what 200,000 years old, and belief in Gods, spirits, magic and the like goes back as far into the past as we can look, I think you will have a hard time saying that religion is antithetical to human survival. The meta-civilisation of Christondome survived and held Europe together for, what 1,500 years? Scientific rationalism doesn't bind communities together. Ancestor worship worked as a functional foundation for early communities. The spirits of the ancestors don't actually have to exist for that to be the case. Such beliefs, and their later equivalents, have a functional purpose and it isn't clear that rationalism can replace them, or even thinks it's it's job to replace them. It just knocks the support beams down because they are build from the wrong sort of wood.

I'm a little puzzled by why you say that a society based on religion maybe shouldn't survive. It feels like you have some kind of theoretical feeling about how the world should be that is refuted by all of recorded history.

But you remind me of another poster here – Hedy? Hedley?

I don't recall this poster.

I can never keep the names straight ... – who also had some knowledge of science and mathematics while also being rather clearly in the camp of the religious.

I think I've mentioned this before. I am not and never have been religious.

And likewise the Catholic theologian, of sorts, Edward Feser and his The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism; a quote therefrom:

For however well-meaning this or that individual secularist may be, his creed is, I maintain (and to paraphrase Dawkins’ infamous description of critics of evolution) “ignorant, stupid, insane, and wicked.” …. For when the consequences of its philosophical foundations are worked out consistently, it can be seen to undermine the very possibility of rationality and morality themselves. As this book will show, reason itself testifies that against the pest of secularist progressivism, there can be only one remedy: Écrasez l’infâme

Kind of ironic that Merriam-Webster says “écrasez l'infâme” is from Voltaire and that it means “crush the loathsome thing —referring to the Roman Catholic Church”. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander I guess.

I suspect the irony is intentional. Beyond that, I'd have to read the book to say more. Voltaire died before the French revolution. I think it's generally safe to say that almost anybody from that long ago would be in the camp of the most frighteningly right wing conservatives if they were alive today. Maybe Voltaire is an exception, I don't know?

But, to give the devil his due, it is actually an interesting book, and provides something of an illuminating insight into religious thinking and dogma. It also makes some cogent observations and criticisms of both “new atheism” and “secularist progressivism” – including some amusing shots at leading proponents such as Hitchens and Dawkins (“a writer of pop science books who evidently wouldn’t know metaphysics from Metamucil”). But in particular, while Feser styles himself as an “Aristotelian”, he’s no rabid fundamentalist foaming at the mouth and provides some credible justification for teleology even if he more or less concludes, “therefore Jesus”.

I will take this as a recommendation and add it to the list. I think I probably go as far as "if not Jesus, what?" given that we are presumably all in countries and cultures that have been marinating in Christianity for 2000 years. Even the Enlightenment and Secular Humanism are cultural offshoots of this. The degraded state of Christianity these days with the CofE and Catholics going woke, I'm probably more thinking "since it's not Jesus, what?". A pity.

From the comments in a blog post of his which was something of a response to a “discussion” with blogger and Anglican priest Eric MacDonald on his own Choice in Dying blog, although it’s no longer up and running:

Dr Feser, On MacDonald's blog you argue: "We Aristotelians hold that whether teleology exists and whether a divine “designer” exists are separate questions; the second doesn’t follow directly from the first. (Some of us think it follows indirectly, with further premises.)"

Of maybe some relevance and interest is that MacDonald had become “disaffected” “with the faith he’d practised and preached all of his life” as a result of his wife’s assisted suicide in Switzerland because of her multiple sclerosis:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/201 ... _life.html

Interesting, but I don't think I'm an Aristotelian. I am interested in teleological explanations of things though.

[fafnir]

Life’s a bitch and all that. Apparently more so for some people than others.

But of even more relevance is that, as I had argued on Feser’s blog, while he had some justification for aspects of his teleological argument, MacDonald had the higher moral ground in his criticisms of religion in general:

I am also likewise happy to see some “substantive” and “fruitful” discussions taking place, in large part because I largely agree with one of Feser’s central arguments, to wit, that “teleology, as an objective feature of reality and not a mere heuristic, cannot be eliminated”. ....

Which provides, in my view, some justification for MacDonald’s argument that theocracy – in general and in all its variants – entails a “besetting problem for the religious [and the rest of us], because they do, in the end, insist on speaking for God.” Premises which lead – all too often – to some decidedly “callous and inhuman conclusions”.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/08 ... 8670847830

That’s the kicker, that’s the crux of the problem: “the religious do, in the end, insist on speaking for God”. Even if they tie it up in “tradition”, pretty pink ribbons, and colourful Christmas wrapping paper.

Sure. But we are not comparing societies founded in religion to ideal societies. All societies come to conclusions that are objectionable in one way or another. Doubtless some more so than others, but that's a trickier thing to argue. Even the criticism of “callous and inhuman conclusions”, strikes me as coming from an individualistic frame which smuggles in some of its conclusions along with the framing.

We see endless complaints now about society being atomized and lonely. The old communities that our grandparents grew up in are gone, or going. My uncle moved to a little village a few years ago. He was raised Catholic, and there was the local Catholic church and it's fetes and so forth providing a community. I was raised without religion and, as nice as they are, I'm an outsider to that community. It seems like a net loss to me. Communities on the internet are great, but communities physically around you are better in a lot of ways.

[fafnir]

Apologies to everybody for the eye watering girth of that response.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Highly recommended!

In that vein, but perhaps a bit more serious, check out Unreal, about the behind-the-scenes machinations and Cluster B shenanigans of a reality TV show.

Anything would be welcome after the final? season of The Expanse, now unfolding. Only six episodes due to budget constraints, floundering after episode 4 in multiple story lines and subplots and new characters which would've choked Amazon's already limited 10-episode format. Also lots of darkly lit, choppy space battles, also presumably the side effect of budget constraints. An inordinate amount of the scarce time spent on the intricacies of Belter society, who are now elevated to the moral nobles of the show, when they used to be more accurately depicted as ADHD space pikeys.

The show hasn't so much jumped the shark, as behaving like the diner who accepted the free 48 oz steak dinner challenge, has slowed down scarfing, will clearly not get it all down within the time limit, and has begun to upchuck a little in their mouth.

[fafnir]

A comparatively small post now as I've just read the blurb of the book Steersman recommended. Effectively the claim seems to be that the New Atheists view what they are doing as battling religion because it is irrational. What his book argues is that in fact that the world is mechanical, and materialist, and nothing else is an assertion which can't actually be justified and serves the purpose of undermining a rival social order. This is a very similar argument to one I read recently in Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. In that the notion of equality comes in with Christianity and the equal moral worth of people's souls. The church then used that first as a way of appealing to low status people in Roman society, but then as a wedge to take power from the kings and princes of Europe.

Anyway, I thought that might be interesting to people.

[Fegg]

That’s the kicker, that’s the crux of the problem: “the religious do, in the end, insist on speaking for God”. Even if they tie it up in “tradition”, pretty pink ribbons, and colourful Christmas wrapping paper.

Someone has to speak for God. "God" is for practical purposes the name of the "ought" of the is-ought problem.
You can do moral reasoning, but the stuff your moral reasoning works upon is your imaginations and desires and not your experiences and observations.

Religion is a method of sharing an imagination of the "ought." People who suppose that they are not religious also participate in an imagination of the "ought" but mistake what they are doing for something different in character from religion in general.

[fafnir]

That’s the kicker, that’s the crux of the problem: “the religious do, in the end, insist on speaking for God”. Even if they tie it up in “tradition”, pretty pink ribbons, and colourful Christmas wrapping paper.

Someone has to speak for God. "God" is for practical purposes the name of the "ought" of the is-ought problem.
You can do moral reasoning, but the stuff your moral reasoning works upon is your imaginations and desires and not your experiences and observations.

Religion is a method of sharing an imagination of the "ought." People who suppose that they are not religious also participate in an imagination of the "ought" but mistake what they are doing for something different in character from religion in general.

I've been trying to read Kant try to derive morality from reason. All things considered, I think there is a lot more genuine insight about humans in the Bible.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Sage advice for John's daughter and son-in-trans-law:

https://notthebee.com/article/somebody- ... OKHx_nIj18

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I've been trying to read Kant try to derive morality from reason. All things considered, I think there is a lot more genuine insight about humans in the Bible.

I warned you.

May I suggest digging to some Leibniz instead?

► Show Spoiler

leibniz.jpg

(96.94 KiB) Downloaded 69 times

[fafnir]

I've been trying to read Kant try to derive morality from reason. All things considered, I think there is a lot more genuine insight about humans in the Bible.

I warned you.

May I suggest digging to some Leibniz instead?

► Show Spoiler

leibniz.jpg

I knew it before I started. If I ever get Kant figured out, I may try Hegel. Kant seems to act as a focus where lots of 18th century ideas get collected together and then expand out again into the 19th Century.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Coyne's latest evidence that he's still very blue-pilled:

The editors of the New York Times have gotten together on an official editorial, “Every Day is Jan. 6 Now.” They raise the alarum of an existential thread in the form of many Republicans (and an appreciable number of Democrats!) are willing to use violence against the government. The difference is that it is Republicans and not Democrats who fomented the January 6 insurrection....

The WEITards' squawks are typically 'tarded and not worth reviewing.

What Coyne and all the other shitlibs always forget is, our nation was founded by those "willing to use violence against the government." The key element they miss: it's deemed both justified and necessary in response to a tyrannical government.


Coyne should set down that illiberal, tendentious, hysterical rag, the NYT, and pick up some TJ:

“[W]hat country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.… The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

[Matt Cavanaugh]

If I ever get Kant figured out, I may try Hegel.

Next time, before flushing, take some time to inspect, scrutinize, and play with your own poop. Then you'll have Kant, Hegel, et al., sussed just fine.

[fafnir]

If I ever get Kant figured out, I may try Hegel.

Next time, before flushing, take some time to inspect, scrutinize, and play with your own poop. Then you'll have Kant, Hegel, et al., sussed just fine.

Indeed. But how can one be considered truly accomplished if one can't tell one poop from another by flavour, scent, colour, texture and consistency.

[fafnir]

What Coyne and all the other shitlibs always forget is, our nation was founded by those "willing to use violence against the government." The key element they miss: it's deemed both justified and necessary in response to a tyrannical government.

Do they forget it, or is their actual position not what it purports to be? I used to hang out on the JREF in the early 2000s and spout Dawkins and so on. I thought we were all disinterested critical thinkers. Then the culture war hit and it became clear that lots of people only appeared disinterestedly because they assumed the victory of their tribe was guaranteed. Rather like a billionaire acting disinterested in money, until then discovering they might be on the point of losing it all. It was a bourgeois affectation.

Of course Coyne has learned nothing. Is it remotely likely that he will learn anything? The activist, political side of his career is based on trite, complacent arguments and he has always been able to rely on his audience agreeing that it's obvious that he's right and not taking his opponents seriously or getting deeply into understanding the positions that he attacks. That way of operating can only function behind the shield of mainstream acceptance. He has always, and can only, speak from a blue pilled position to a blue pilled audience.