Billi vs the World [Archive]

Crazed_Insanity

November 14th, 2021, 09:52 PM

Man, this sure feels weird. DN is like a reporter interviewing the boards most ignored member. This thread probably won’t generate much ratings you know? ;)

Anyway, since you asked, it’s only polite for me to answer… I personally don’t believe we need to limit how much money a person can make. Minimum wage, definitely. Maximum wage? Never.

For CEOs, perhaps we can follow Elon’s footsteps… that is pay CEO just bare minimum wage because it’s just not right to not have a salary for CEOs, but have their bonuses tied to company’s performance. If the company performs well, then the CEO ought to be compensated just as well. If company didn’t do well, then ceo only gets the min wage for the year. Whether he stays on next year, that’s for the board and himself to decide. It certainly makes no sense for a ceo who screwed up and still get millions of compensations as he is let go…

Anyway, I really don’t think this wage gap is that big of a problem. Just as do you truly believe that if Elon became a trillionaire because Tesla and SpaceX end up doing super well by building cool affordable EVs and getting our asses to Mars within our lifetime… do you really believe that can be a problem for the world? Do we absolutely need to make Elon make less money?

I think the problem only comes when wealth clouds a person’s judgement… just like traps that any dictator/monopoly might fall into… they think they can do whatever they want… that’s probably when we need to step in and stop them because we all know absolute power/wealth can corrupt people.

We probably don’t want to have Tesla as the only car company nor SpaceX as the only rocket company in town… other than that, I’m not sure why we should care how much money Elon makes.

[edit]
Just saw this story and I thought might be relevant to our discussion:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/musk-taunts-bernie-sanders-suggests-164421929.html

Elon taunts Bernie Sanders because Bernie thought as you do that the amount of money Elon has is at an 'immoral' level... so Elon is firing back on twitter saying that he'll finally be paying his 'fair share' thru capital gains tax. (Given that his $1 salary probably won't generate much income tax)

I have to say that those 2 folks currently are probably my most admired folks each at the opposite end of the political spectrum. However, admiring them doesn't mean I have to agree 100% with them all the time. I think the key thing that I admire those 2 is their unwavering 'integrity' to avoid getting corrupted by money and power? Bernie's vision hasn't changed from when he was young til now. Likewise Elon's vision to get his ass to mars still hasn't changed.

I'd worry about those rich people without any real dreams and visions... those are the type who'd likely end up hanging out with the likes of Jeff Epstein and become cancers of society.

My point is that money itself really isn't evil. We don't need to limit the amount of money a person can make. It's the love of money that can be problematic. I think it should be clear that neither Sanders nor Musk are driven by money. I think that's the main reason why I love them. Where they land on the political spectrum is irrelevant to me. Bernie just need to focus on helping workers in need, rather than try to prevent rich people from making more money. Socialism should just focus on helping people earning below average income and let capitalism work freely, given that nothing illegal/immoral is really going on. Elon also should continue on making cool things that'll benefit our world and stop wasting time on twitter like Trump! :p

Of course, what is 'immoral' in a discussion that can't refer to ***?

Let's go back to loving our neighbors(and enemies) and relentless pursuit of self improvement and the improvement of our world. If we all do those things, it'll be hard for us to do anything immoral?

So I really think Jesus, the MAN, is probably the best role model for us. :p

Out of curiosity, who do you think is the best role model for humanity?

Dicknose

November 16th, 2021, 07:20 PM

Anyway, since you asked, it’s only polite for me to answer… I personally don’t believe we need to limit how much money a person can make. Minimum wage, definitely. Maximum wage? Never.

But its never that simple...
In most corporations the wages all come from the same pot of money, so the more you pay senior roles (not just the single CEO) means that there is less to go to others. Thats why Im saying that tying senior wages to lower wages could be good. No you havent limited maximum wage. But it stops them just throwing more money at people who have a large amount already. Want more - need to give a share to everyone else. Esp when those near the top are usually the ones making the decisions on where the money goes.
Maybe the lowest paid should have a go at setting wages!

This becomes even more important when you realise that 10% more money makes a huge difference to the lives of those on the least but makes a much smaller impact on those at the top.

Crazed_Insanity

November 16th, 2021, 08:25 PM

If a company’s board is dumb enough to pay all or most of it available pot of money to sr management and not enough to pay its workers…, then this company will likely go bankrupt eventually. Sure, they can attract top management talent, but if they can’t attract enough actual workers, not sure how they can survive?

Anyway, I just think it doesn’t make sense for government to intervene and micromanage all companies like that. It’s not like politicians are just so responsible financially themselves?

Having a min wage to protect the most vulnerable is probably enough? (we're having trouble to do even that, and do you really think our congress will be able to pass laws to cap CEO's pay?)

Besides CEOs, what about athletes? Should their pays be capped? We just should not pay Lewis Hamilton above X million dollars? Who gets to determine at what X, that level will all of a sudden turn ‘immoral’?

Also, just because Lewis can command such high salaries, does it make sense to also make the companies janitor to end up making a lot of money because his salary's tied to company's top earner? So if the janitor were to go work else where..., he will all of a sudden unable to support his family because his standard of living had been raised thanks to Lewis...

I think it'd be great if a company can profit share bonuses with it's employees if they had a great year or something, but probably shouldn't become their permanent salary.

Also, if such salary tying laws are in effect, do you know what would happen to Tesla and SpaceX employees? Given that their CEO is only making $1/year! :p

Personally, I'd like to see politicians passing laws for themselves 1st. It doesn't make sense for them to be making so little with their salaries compared to the corporate world. Politicians also should get bonuses if they can balance budgets that year... if they failed to agree to a budget and cause govt shutdowns, then they automatically lose their jobs as punishment and the government will simply revert/repeat to the same budget as last year. Politicians also shouldn't be allowed to own stocks of their own, but government should take good care of them financially for the rest of their lives. If you own a lot of stocks/private businesses that you just can't give up, then public office isn't for you! There are a lot of things that we need to fix on the government side 1st IMHO.

Point is, until we can have fiscally responsible government, I just don't believe it should have the power to tell corporations what to do.

Let companies experiment however they want provided that they don't hurt folks... entrepreneurs should be allowed to try new things without their hands tied behind their back such as bunch of govt red tape. Government can then regulate things that may be harmful to society. CEO's and Sports athletes high salaries are not that harmful to society I don't think.

I think the main problem with our current system is that our CEO enjoys all the benefits of high salary, but none of the responsibilities. CEOs of companies that caused market crashes or plane crashes are rarely held responsible financially or legally. That needs to change.

21Kid

November 17th, 2021, 02:36 PM

LOL

Thanks DN.

Tom Servo

November 17th, 2021, 03:17 PM

I think the main problem with our current system is that our CEO enjoys all the benefits of high salary, but none of the responsibilities. CEOs of companies that caused market crashes or plane crashes are rarely held responsible financially or legally. That needs to change.

Found the thing I agree with Billi on!

Crazed_Insanity

November 17th, 2021, 05:03 PM

Yeah! ;)

21Kid

November 18th, 2021, 08:32 AM

Found the thing I agree with Billi on!
Not only that, but if they fail, they usually get millions of dollars in buyouts somehow.

Crazed_Insanity

November 18th, 2021, 08:55 AM

Resistance is futile. You just can't ignore Billi. ;)

Anyway, upon thinking about this problem of avoiding responsibility some more, I think perhaps this has become a pretty pervasive 'cultural' issue? We all know about the CEOs usually don't pickup their responsibilities... if we look at average folks in our nation, it's obvious most conservatives would champion rights and freedom without considering the consequences that might follow by refusing masks and vaccines. We just can't achieve true freedom, and rights, if we ignore responsibilities!

The left isn't immuned to this benefit seeking and responsibility avoiding type behavior... particularly with social justice warriors. Let's just take fighting climate change for example. SJW would typically want giant corporations to cut things back, but wouldn't personally take up responsibility to do anything himself to help fight climate change. One might justify by saying hey, I'm just one poor person, I don't impact the environment much, we just need to get the rich corporations to do it! While that is a true statement, but again that is avoiding personal responsibility. Imagine if everyone takes on personal responsibility to fight climate change... to just compost food waste... we could collectively make a lot of difference!

I'm just glad Greta isn't a hypocrite like that. At least she travels by sailboat... not flying around on jets to make her appearances. Most SJW love the attentions but rarely live up to their own standards that they're fighting for.

I really think our entire culture has been trained to avoid responsibilities rather than pick it up... warning labels on products... frivolous law suits... Not really sure how we can fix that. It's always much easier to tell others to be more responsible. I guess the only way to fix it is to remind ourselves that we need to be more responsibly with our own lives. That way, you can be a more convincing and effective SJW or CEO or whatever it is that you do.

Dicknose

November 18th, 2021, 07:40 PM

If a company’s board is dumb enough to pay all or most of it available pot of money to sr management and not enough to pay its workers…, then this company will likely go bankrupt eventually. Sure, they can attract top management talent, but if they can’t attract enough actual workers, not sure how they can survive?

Well I think we can find hundreds of examples of companies that do this and are doing well enough to survive.

And I think that's a problem with your logic - it assumes that capitalism and a company doing well is a good enough excuse to justify most behaviours. But history has shown that the powerful will exploit others to make money (and more power) for themselves.
Setting a min wage would be good, but the USA has such a terribly low min wage that it barely protecting these workers.

And ignore Elon - that's one wage of a guy who owns a decent chunk of the company and doesn't need income.
Id guess that there are plenty of high paid senior people at Tesla and SpaceX.

Besides CEOs, what about athletes? Should their pays be capped?

I think its good that athletes that bring in the dollars are rewarded.
But this can also end up with a bad balance. We had an issue a few years back (10?) where the 2nd tier cricketers were complaining that they weren't paid enough. Not enough to live and put up with the stress and demands of the job. Unfortunately this level of the sport runs at a loss, it doesn't generate much income and costs a lot to run. Its funded from the top level. Now a few of the top level players came out and pushed this issue so they public were aware. But hey, were they willing to take a 10% hit of their million a year to top up some people who were on 50k a year?? They just wanted the players to get a bigger pie, they wouldn't consider how the pie was distributed.

So not capped - but the distribution of the funds should be reasonable.

Let companies experiment however they want provided that they don't hurt folks... entrepreneurs should be allowed to try new things without their hands tied behind their back such as bunch of govt red tape. Government can then regulate things that may be harmful to society. CEO's and Sports athletes high salaries are not that harmful to society I don't think.

I think some of the min wage earners working for them might have a different view...
And Id definitely say that this hurts society. A wealthy nation with people living in poverty, even people working who live hand to mouth, that's seriously messed up.

Crazed_Insanity

November 18th, 2021, 10:10 PM

If the US would tie min wage to actual living wage, maybe things won’t be as messed up.

If we’re talking about a boss exploiting his workers to enrich himself, that of course would immoral even in my eyes. However, if it’s the board of a company who willingly pays super high salaries to hire someone, that should be a different matter, right?

Also, athletes or f1 teams who can’t pay their bills should just get out of the way rather than expecting hand outs from top teams, right? Nobody’s exploiting these lower pay athletes and nobody is exploiting Williams Or Haas… if they just can’t go on any longer, just quit! Or sell your team or whatever else of value, right? Do they have a right to exist and to perform at such low levels? Who wants to watch that?

Budget cap is the right thing to do, it’s also to FIA’s(government) interests to help smaller teams if it want to give financial assistance to smaller teams, but I don’t see why Mercedes(rich company) needs to distribute their wealth and successes? FIA can use its own profit(tax) to help the little teams.

In my mind, company’s singular mission should be to turn out great products ( money will naturally follow). It’s governments job to look after those who need help. Of course ideally the government probably should NOT tax the money making companies so much that it stifles their growth.

Companies (capitalism). Government (socialism). Companies should not be distracted and be forced to take care of the poor. Governments should just focus on setting up sufficient safety net for folks who might need help and not use the net to trap rich companies.

Problems with the US is not because our companies are too rich, but our government, even democrats, cannot pass laws to make sure workers can have living wages! It’s our government failing it’s job because it’s hi jacked by the rich.

Even if I agree with you to cap CEO pays, there’d be no way that can be implemented. So why not 1st thing 1st? Let’s aim for living wage for all and make the most basic healthcare as affordable as Covid vaccines? If that doesn’t fix things, then maybe we can try your idea? ;)

I think I can bring this back to SJW thing that I was talking about. Yeah, we want to rich to cut back pollution, to feed the poor…, but who’s really gonna make them? Might as well just take matters into our own hands. Help the needy and fight climate change ourselves rather than counting on the rich. The people could also just revolt and riot and trash the rich and make everyone suffer if the rich became too out of touch I suppose…

Crazed_Insanity

November 28th, 2021, 05:46 PM

Okay, I finally found the source of what Neanderthal was talking about regarding Andrew yang. Apparently he was talking about that on David Pakman…

Anyway, so I’ll just reiterate this Billi vs Dems topic here in this thread rather than stuffing RWA with too much salad in the political thread… ;)

I think it’s pretty clear in the show that Yang was not really seeking help from white supremacists. He was just hypothetically asked the question and Yang stated that he’s not going to exclude anybody as long as this can help our democracy. (IMHO, that’s real diversity!)

I know Neanderthal is probably the minority dem ‘extremist’ around here, but he does represent the DNC pretty well. He would rather tell Billi, Yang, Tulsi, Bernie, AOC, Jordan Peterson… or anyone who doesn’t nicely fit under the liberal ideology to fuck off and lose the election… than to win with the coalition of a truly diverse group of folks.

Look, nobody is really with the white supremacists, okay? Once we get rid of this stupid lesser of the 2 evil 2 party system… in a more healthy democracy, do you guys really believe white supremacists will actually win any elections in America?!?!? Do you guys really believe white supremacists will take over in a nation when whities are now a minority? And the only human race /minority group NOT allowed to be proud of themselves?

I know CRT isn’t being taught in schools officially, but this ‘politically correct theory’ is definitely being shoved down people’s throats. If you dare go against that, then the dem collective will reject, ignore or cancel you. Whether it’s Andrew Yang or Kyle R or Dave Chappelle… if your speech isn’t PC enough… then it’s hate speech and so you must to be cancelled!!!

Look guys, the right is already crazy enough. I hope the left will also soon ‘awake’ from its own craziness…

Tom Servo

November 28th, 2021, 10:30 PM

Oh boy, I can't wait to revisit this tomorrow morning!

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 07:05 AM

Okay, to start, I think it's always been clear he wasn't "seeking help" from white supremacists, but that he was more than okay with it and willing to look past their white supremacist viewpoints if they helped further common goals. At least that's my takeaway from that quote.

Real diversity doesn't mean accepting in white supremacists. I know you think it's not real, but the paradox of tolerance is a thing, and not excluding people who want to exclude others leads to further exclusion. I think the only reasonable response there, much like if, say, ISIS wanted to join in on your coalition because they were also pro universal healthcare or something, would be "we neither want nor need their help, and they can fuck off."

Aside - I'm not sure where you got hung up on this idea that anybody said that someone should give up on a goal if a group like white supremacists also have that goal. You kept pushing that in the politics thread, but you were the only one who ever said it, and you kept doubling down on it when myself and others tried to point out to you that nobody else was talking about that. That's a common thing with you, basing your arguments on something that nobody else said and fiercely sticking to your guns as you argue with only yourself, what's up with that?

do you guys really believe white supremacists will actually win any elections in America?!?!?

Uhhh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_King#Racist_comments,_controversies_and_far-right_politics

Let's also not forget Paul Gosar.

And the only human race /minority group NOT allowed to be proud of themselves?

That's nonsense. The default state here is pride in white males - look at the vast majority of statues, holidays, Mt. Rushmore, etc etc etc. Having "white pride" rallies is a lot like "blue lives matter": It's the default state and it exists only to further the status quo. Everybody knows blue lives matter - when a police officer is killed in the line of duty, the police response is overwhelming, there's tons of news coverage, funerals get carried live on TV. When some black guy gets killed, you're lucky if it makes the news at all. That's why "Black Lives Matter" is important, because a lot of people literally treat a lot of black lives like they *don't* matter. Very few people do the same with cops.

I know CRT isn’t being taught in schools officially, but this ‘politically correct theory’ is definitely being shoved down people’s throats. If you dare go against that, then the dem collective will reject, ignore or cancel you. Whether it’s Andrew Yang or Kyle R or Dave Chappelle… if your speech isn’t PC enough… then it’s hate speech and so you must to be cancelled!!!

Can you give an example of this 'politically correct theory' being taught in schools? Can you give an example of, say, Dave Chappelle getting cancelled? How about pretty much anybody being "cancelled"?

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 08:41 AM

‘Politically correct theory’ is just something I coined and it’s should be very apparent that in most universities and even quite pervasive in our culture already.

Dave Chappelle is not under threat of cancellation? You also know how I thought cancellation of senator Al Franken was pretty stupid. Jordan Peterson fighting against the law compelling people to use certain pronouns was being viewed as him being hateful… but that’s Canada, let forget about that for now…

These are the kind of stupid fights we don’t really need to have!

Back to our original discussion, I don’t mind ISIS fighting along side me for a common cause. ISIS better not tell me that this is ‘their’ cause. If they wish to hijack the cause and make it theirs, then I’ll fuck them off too. However, the more important issue really should be winning the cause.

We can’t claim to be a free and diverse society if we selectively pick and choose who can join. Intolerance is intolerance. Be open about it. Let stupid ideas naturally die off by themselves! Harsh ‘bans’ rarely works… Didn’t work for alcohol, drugs nor terrorism… lastly, what are we to do with fellow Americans who got suckered into believing stupid ideas? Similar to Americans got sucked under poverty line, we ought to find ways to help them out, rather than cast them away in Florida!

Especially in universities, there ought to be opened intellectual discussions rather than just outright ban for pretty much most conservative speakers.

If your idea is so superior, why can’t others bring up other ideas? We don’t all have to agree on everything but at least to me, it felt like most liberals cannot handle other ideas very well. Things will quickly degenerate into accusing the other person as some sort of phobe.

An back to KR, I really thought he’s just a white supremacist and really had no desire to get to know him until recently in this forum… that’s when I realized he didn’t kill any black lives! So how does he become a white supremacist? It’s just a tag the left gave him. I also learned that KR is actual a fan of Andrew Yang! He also declared himself as a BLM supporter on FOX! He only votes Trump because who else is he going to vote for in our 2party system? I also learned that the liberal group in ASU want the school to expel KR the mass shooter…

Okay, so the right likes alternate facts, but the left wants alternate verdicts now? I really don’t think we need to have Cancel Court around.

To me at least the jurors have been consistent. The losing side is the more aggressive/chasers. The videos are pretty clear who’s being chased and attacked 1st in both KR and Artery’s case and the jurors decided accordingly.

Look, conservatively guessing, let’s assume we have 2/3 of republicans as white supremacists… that means the other 1/3 might end up supporting a future Hitler because they have no other options to vote for.

So back to Andrew, if we can somehow get more than 2 parties going, I just don’t believe white supremacist could ever gain majority control. It’s not to the white supremacists advantage to help Andrew or help create other parties. So we also don’t need to have this hypothetical fight too!

Our current 2 party system is really killing us and forcing Americans into false dichotomy in pretty much every issue…

And to Neanderthal, I just want to say that the right is definitely more fucked up than the left. It’s just that this forum has already managed to exclude all those hateful righties so I can’t preach to them here! :p

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 10:00 AM

‘Politically correct theory’ is just something I coined and it’s should be very apparent that in most universities and even quite pervasive in our culture already.

Do you have an example? Also, what if it's not just politically correct but also just correct? What then?

Dave Chappelle is not under threat of cancellation?

No, I don't. He still is making tens of millions of dollars, still has a contract with Netflix, and was nominated for a Grammy. I don't know how you can get less cancelled by the mainstream than being nominated for a Grammy. He got criticized for his latest work. Some people wanted Netflix to pull it, but weren't calling for *all* his work to be pulled. He's not even remotely close to being "under the threat of cancellation." Al Franken wasn't cancelled, h's literally embarking on a comedy tour. Jordan Peterson isn't cancelled, he appears to be quite successful all things considered. Being criticized or losing your job isn't being "cancelled."

Back to our original discussion, I don’t mind ISIS fighting along side me for a common cause. ISIS better not tell me that this is ‘their’ cause. If they wish to hijack the cause and make it theirs, then I’ll fuck them off too. However, the more important issue really should be winning the cause.

This is one we'll just have to disagree on. To me, it's morally reprehensible to accept their help.

We can’t claim to be a free and diverse society if we selectively pick and choose who can join. Intolerance is intolerance. Be open about it. Let stupid ideas naturally die off by themselves!

1930s Germany would like a word with you.

As far as KR goes, there were two people were literally and irrevocably cancelled that night, and he's the one that did it.

Okay, so the right likes alternate facts, but the left wants alternate verdicts now? I really don’t think we need to have Cancel Court around.

Only the left? I wonder how most people (honestly, on both sides) would answer "Is OJ Simpson guilty of murder?" Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos both plead guilty, but plenty of Trump supporters think they're innocent. It is incredibly common for people to disagree with verdicts, this isn't just a "left" thing.

Look, conservatively guessing, let’s assume we have 2/3 of republicans as white supremacists… that means the other 1/3 might end up supporting a future Hitler because they have no other options to vote for.

Putting the discussion as to whether Trump is a white supremacist or supports them or whatever, I think it's really clear that one man with bad ideas *can* basically take control over the whole party. Even the "stronger" members of the party like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham fall in line real fucking fast after they dare criticize dear leader.

For the record, I am also not a fan of the two party system, but that's basically how our political system generally shakes itself out. Unless we go with more of a parliamentary style system, I don't see that ever changing, just the parties themselves change every once in a while.

Finally, maybe that's a good use of this thread. When things start getting off the rails in another thread, just start something here and post a link to it in the other one to avoid just taking over the other thread.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 11:33 AM

Do you have an example? Also, what if it's not just politically correct but also just correct? What then?
Example of political correctness? Here's a dictionary example:
the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.
"women like him for his civil rights stand and political correctness"
Also pretty much every Ivy League school began because of Jesus, but today, are these universities more conservative or more liberal? Are you really going to tell me university students and professors are all politically neutral?
Isn't it clear that most 'intellectual prof and students' believe liberal ideology is 'correct'? Profs like Jordan Peterson can't possibly be the norm in Western universities.
Also, I believe the Bible is correct, but that doesn't mean I need to ban all other 'wrong' religious texts. We don't need to be like CCP and censor all the wrong things to protect the mass. Especially college level students. Do they have critical thinking skills to differentiate good or bad ideas or not? Why do they need such protection?

No, I don't. He still is making tens of millions of dollars, still has a contract with Netflix, and was nominated for a Grammy. I don't know how you can get less cancelled by the mainstream than being nominated for a Grammy. He got criticized for his latest work. Some people wanted Netflix to pull it, but weren't calling for *all* his work to be pulled. He's not even remotely close to being "under the threat of cancellation." Al Franken wasn't cancelled, h's literally embarking on a comedy tour. Jordan Peterson isn't cancelled, he appears to be quite successful all things considered. Being criticized or losing your job isn't being "cancelled."
The cancel attempt wasn't that successful, doesn't mean nothing happened. I have no problems with critics, but if you believe he was only 'criticized' and nothing more... then let's just agree to disagree right there. I just think if it was Senator Chappelle in congress, maybe he'll be able to manage to save his seat from the dems. Al was just a bit too slow, maybe too old, to fight back IMHO. ;)

This is one we'll just have to disagree on. To me, it's morally reprehensible to accept their help.
I can respect that, but please just don't judge others when they fight side by side against some sort of existential threat.

1930s Germany would like a word with you.
The rest of the world was fucking with the Germans...making them pay for their past sins... because they're just such hateful assholes...
Just as today, we are now fucking with the Rednecks... making them pay for their slave owning past... because they're just a bunch hopeless assholes...

When a groups of folks are miserable and suffering and a guy offered to help make them great again... it'd sound very appealing.

We need to learn to give people some breaks okay? Stop creating the conditions that help people like Hitler and Trump to gain popularity. The hunt for the rednecks need to stop. IMHO, most privileged white people live in blue states. From Elon to Jeff..., these asshole white privileged billionaires didn't exploit anybody in red states.

As far as KR goes, there were two people were literally and irrevocably cancelled that night, and he's the one that did it.
KR shouldn't be guarding stores that ain't his... and those protesters should not be chasing a kid with rifles. 2 wrongs will never make anything right.

Only the left? I wonder how most people (honestly, on both sides) would answer "Is OJ Simpson guilty of murder?" Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos both plead guilty, but plenty of Trump supporters think they're innocent. It is incredibly common for people to disagree with verdicts, this isn't just a "left" thing.
There's no argument there. We can't laugh at their alternate facts if we believe in alternate verdicts. Disagreeing on verdict is one thing, but to actively push somebody out of an university is quite another... not to mention KR is attending online and would not be able to shoot any of his classmates.

Putting the discussion as to whether Trump is a white supremacist or supports them or whatever, I think it's really clear that one man with bad ideas *can* basically take control over the whole party. Even the "stronger" members of the party like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham fall in line real fucking fast after they dare criticize dear leader.
no disagreement there. This is why we need more than just 2 major parties.

For the record, I am also not a fan of the two party system, but that's basically how our political system generally shakes itself out. Unless we go with more of a parliamentary style system, I don't see that ever changing, just the parties themselves change every once in a while.
No disagreement there either.

Finally, maybe that's a good use of this thread. When things start getting off the rails in another thread, just start something here and post a link to it in the other one to avoid just taking over the other thread.
Yeah, I don't agree with the Kid and not sure if he's interested in political discussions at all, but he does have a point... RWA probably shouldn't be eating that much salad. :p

Still, I wish Americans can engage in more 'discussions', not just fights. It's all too easy for us to just shut others who disagree with us down. I know we don't actively ban conservatives in this forum, but have you considered why all the conservative GTXFers all would just either be quiet or just leave?

Aren't liberals supposed to be more diverse and tolerant?

The ideology of not tolerating those who are intolerant is just dangerous. Just label somebody as hateful and intolerant... voila! Now you are justified to hate somebody! yeah!

I really believed the media that KR is a white supremacist! I guess if you love guns and carry a rifle, white supremacist you are!?!?

I'm grateful for the heroic protesters who sacrificed themselves to tried to protect us from white vigilantes.

Storefronts are all insured. White vigilantes should all just stay home and let us rob these stores?

Not trying to stop people from protesting in middle of the night, but do you see why I'd prefer peaceful day time protests?

Currently both sides can only see the other sides' shortcomings, but totally blind to their own faults. We already know the limitation of such bipolar 2 party system, let's please try to be careful not to fall into this trap ourselves.

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 12:56 PM

I'm asking for an example because you keep speaking in generalities, like there's this foregone conclusion that all universities are now just this left-wing hellscape, the existence (and success) of groups like Turning Point USA being notably ignored. A dictionary definition of political correctness is an example of a definition, not an example of this "being shoved down someone's throat." Beyond that, you mentioned this in relation to CRT, which the whole controversy there is that supposedly this is all being taught in public schools prior to college/university.

My main point is that I think the media you consume is leading you to believe that the woke left has taken over all schooling from preschool to graduate school and that you're uncritically believing that. I don't doubt that there are instances of things happening, just like there are instances of teachers telling their students that vaccines are demonic and that Trump won in 2020.

Speaking of definitions, what's your definition of cancelled? What criticism is okay? If I choose not to spend money on a movie because I find it offensive, am I participating in cancel culture? What if I tell other people that I feel that way? What's the line there? I feel like under your definition I have to support everything no matter what it is or else I'm part of cancel culture.

Who's hunting rednecks? Are they being hunted for sport? Lynched? Eaten? What hunting is happening?

But besides that, your definition of privilege is not what people are talking about when they talk about privilege. Privilege in this context doesn't mean "all white people are successful and rich." It means that, as a general rule, white people have fewer disadvantages for a given socio-economic level than non-white people. For example, a rich white person is probably not likely to be treated the same as Salehe Gembury was for a jaywalking offense in Beverly Hills. A poor white person is less likely to get pulled over for a pretext traffic stop. Here in LA, there was just an article showing that Hispanic people on bikes were massively more likely to get stopped and searched/interrogated by LASD than other races. Privilege does not mean that you are rich and successful by default if you're white and you have no chance to be rich and successful if you're not. It just means that there's a structure in place that tends to make it harder for non-white people to be successful than white people. The existence of a poor white person does not contradict that, just like the presence of a rich black person doesn't contradict that.

As far as KR's victims go, the problem here is that they never got a chance to defend themselves in court. We don't know their thinking and we can never know their thinking. They may have thought they were protecting the crowd from a maniac with a gun. We'll never know. But there is a *huge* difference between verdicts and facts. Verdicts are judgment calls made by humans. Facts are...well...facts. There is no such thing as an "alternative fact." There may be alternative interpretations of facts, but facts are facts.

To me, though, diversity and tolerance doesn't mean that everyone's opinions are equally valid. Part of the marketplace of ideas is that ideas can come from everyone, but it also means that some ideas are shit and will be pushed out by the marketplace. You don't deserve a seat at the table just because you have an idiotic hot take.

And yes. All vigilantes should stay at home. Vigilantes are bad. We have trained and uniformed people who are empowered by the state to enforce the law. Having randos with guns out there is bad.

Speaking of, the "roof Koreans" were brought up in the other thread. I did a little research into what happened during the riots. Four people were killed in Koreatown during that. Two of them are unsolved (to the extent that they have no idea if the people killed were looting or just happened to be there), but in the other two deaths, they were people killed by friendly fire from people defending their businesses. One was a security guard, the other was someone coming to assist their family/friends in defending the store.

Vigilantism is *bad*. Full stop. An insured storefront can be rebuilt. Those lives can't.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 01:41 PM

Canada is certainly way more extreme than us... so the best example would be when Canadian government tried to compel certain pronouns be used, that's when Jordan Peterson bulked and that's how he got famous actually. It is pretty clear that even the American left views Peterson as some sort of homophobe for refusing to bend to the 'correct' use of pronoun. Do you believe it's correct to enact such laws to tell people proper usage of pronouns?

As for differences between criticism vs cancellation... naturally it's a critics' job to do their reviews... so our focus is purely from consumer point of view... we are definitely within our rights to not financially reward people who we don't like and stop doing business with them. However, if somebody loses his job or got their contract terminated earlier than expected... then I'd consider that cancellation. I have no problems with 'cancellations' if this person got convicted of crime or something, but people shouldn't be cancelled just because the mob is big enough. If consumers are upset enough to stop paying which cause that person's job to be terminated... that's fine. I'm okay with that. I'm just not okay with preemptive cancelling to cater to the demands of the mob. For sure Chappelle and Peterson are not cancelled, but what do you think happened to Al Franken? Just retired?

We need to allow proper due process, not just go along with the mob.

Regarding privilage, yes, I do agree color of our skin matters very little now. One needs to be rich to be privileged. So poor white people really should be able to celebrate their color of the skin without being viewed as white supremacists, right? :p

Regarding our recent trials, yes, dead people won't get a chance to defend themselves. Fortunately we have video footage. I think I'm with the jurors. Please don't go chasing aggressively when you see people you don't like. Because you'll either wound up dead or be found guilty. Best thing to do is to both stay home. If you really need to protest, then please don't cause property damages. If you want to play white vigilante or heroic protester, then you better not be chasing anybody down. If you don't let people run away safely, be prepared to die in self defense or be found guilty and be locked up.

To me, though, diversity and tolerance doesn't mean that everyone's opinions are equally valid. Part of the marketplace of ideas is that ideas can come from everyone, but it also means that some ideas are shit and will be pushed out by the marketplace. You don't deserve a seat at the table just because you have an idiotic hot take.
Of course not everything is equally valid. If you truly want a 'market' place, then let the market decide... If you are a market owner, you can't just decide for the market preemptively who's worthy to be in the market place. Are you CCP or something? And are shoppers really that stupid and can't figure out this vendor is selling shit that we need you to help them decide what is shit and what is not?

Market is usually not that stupid.

I think our market is fucked because we only have 2 vendors both selling us different kind of shit. But my shit is better than your shit? ;)

Maybe China knows best? They know the correct path for all Chinese people... and people and ideas that disagree with the CCP can just disappear into the sewage because they are all shit anyways?

If you don't believe in the absolute morality from God, then at least let market decide what stays and what goes. Those in power should not decide who's worthy of a seat in the market place or not.

Now, I think shit is probably not a very good adjective... is this product shit because it sucks or because it's just down right fraudulent? If the vendor is clearly cheating and fraudulent, then I suppose you can take away his seat in the market. However, I'd like to see a conviction of some kind proving that the vendor is selling ponzi scheme!

However, when it comes to ideas... sometimes that's just hard to prove.

I can't prove Jesus exists... and you can't prove Jesus does't exist. When this happens, naturally Jesus still deserves a seat... just as with any other religions.

Are all religions equally valid? Of course not..., but let's just let the market decide the fate of those different ideas... because none of us know what's really 'correct' with absolute certainty.

I don't believe the CCP single party model is correct. US's 2 party system isn't right either, but it's better.

I hope we can further improve upon that.

From a financial point of view, 'free market' capitalism really works. China clearly showed us that they collectively got richer by adopting the free market approach. I believe ideas can work the same way. Of course socialism works too. I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. Government's job is to help people in trouble to get better..., but not to tell people what to do and what to think.

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 03:15 PM

I'm not 100% clear on what happened with Peterson. I just read up on it and it sounds like a lot of him mischaracterizing the bill (I mostly see that if he continued to refuse the requested pronoun after being ordered by a court to use it, he could be held in contempt, and that the entire scenario was "extremely unlikely") and playing the victim. I do think refusing to use the requested pronoun unless essentially they asked nicely without "a chip on their shoulder" sounds like being a massive asshole, and yes, to me that sounds transphobic. I think it's reasonable to enact some laws - public institutions should use preferred pronouns - but of course I don't think that people shouldn't be required to use them in their private lives.

I know some trans people. Coming out as trans is not something they took lightly, and them being trans was most definitely not a choice. They did so fearing being ostracized and often at significant personal loss. I cannot come up with a reason to not use their preferred pronouns other than you just want to be a massive asshole. I will also say that for the people who came out when I knew them, I often used the wrong pronoun. They were never mad about it, because I wasn't doing it to be a dick, it was just an honest mistake. It's easy to tell which angle someone is coming from. But, I digress.

Onto cancellation: What if someone loses their job because the outrage they created just becomes too much of a liability to the company? Once you have signed on somewhere or taken a job, can you just do whatever you want without fear or retribution because that'd be cancellation? Do I think Al Franken should have resigned? Probably not. Was he cancelled? I'm still reading interviews with him and he's still out there in the public eye, going on tour, so I'd say no. He just lost that job. I lost my job for accidentally pushing something to production that was a little crude at best. That wasn't cancellation - I became a liability to my company and I lost my job. I'm still doing good, it was a momentary setback that I brought upon myself. I cannot think of anybody who is truly cancelled (other than people killed) outside of folks like Harvey Weinstein, where they aren't cancelled because of a potentially offensive view but because they're criminals. You might make a case for Roseanne Barr, though I would argue that spouting Q nonsense deserves a little cancellin'.

For what it's worth, due process applies to the law. You don't get due process being kicked out of someone's house, or a bar, or losing your job, or losing a friend, or whatever. There's no such thing as due process for that.

Onto the marketplace: If the market decides you suck and you get cancelled, isn't that part of the marketplace? Isn't that the marketplace deciding? If not, who decided it? There are little tiny boycotts all the time (I've been boycotting AT&T as best I can since the early 2000's), but it's only when there's enough genuine "fuck this person" response that you get what you're calling "cancellation". And of course a market owner gets to decide that! That's part of their own freedom of speech. Nobody has to allow any idiot on their airwaves/stream/on a soapbox in their store.

So here's where I'll agree with you. The market is not usually that stupid. That's why "cancel culture" exists. The market's had enough of intolerant assholes.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 06:02 PM

I’m no legal expert, but Peterson was either actually right about being compelled to speak ‘correctly’ or they were just passing a toothless law trying to make a minority group feel better? Either way, it’s not a very good law. Assuming Peterson mischaracterized, that law doesn’t really compel anything… That is actually the essence of what is wrong with PC. It’s fake niceness. You make it appear that you’re nice to the marginalized, but you’re not really doing anything of real substance to help. Just like fake Christians can always pray for you without lifting a finger to help.

Onto cancellation, I don’t think anyone would actually defend Harvey, right? Some cases are just so black and white. Just as nobody in their right mind would defend blue live and say George Floyd’s life don’t matter. In gray area cases, people can just agree to disagree.

Point is i don’t believe in market manipulation. When it’s not genuine market forces causing this change in market, then I think it’s wrong. Problem is this is never very obvious. Remembered the day when CA has power shortages and Enron was blaming our stupid liberal state for not building enough power plants? Also during the financial crisis, we couldn’t even find anyone to blame!

I think the only thing we really need to regulate is fraud and cheats… and punish them severely so that it won’t happen again. We don’t need laws enacted to help people feel better. We only need laws to protect people from getting ripped off! Obviously GOP don’t protect consumers that much, but Obama admin wasn’t doing that great in that respect too, right?

If you want to act PC and pray for others, that’s fine, but don’t enact any laws regarding those things. Be nice for the sake of being nice. We can have laws protecting people from assholes I suppose. Make sure the laws are enforcible and can truly protect people!

I don’t believe Peterson or chappelle are hateful assholes. If you don’t like them, that’s cool… but you don’t need to hate them for sure.

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 08:05 PM

That's the thing - the market is the market. If there are stronger market forces that manipulate the market, that's still the market. I personally fall on the side that regulation is important, but I feel like you believe that the market should sort itself, but then get mad when it sorts itself in a way that you don't like. Enron got itself to that point via the unregulated market. Those are "genuine" market forces. Monopolies and oligarchies are "genuine" market forces, and why we've had the power structures we've had for millennia. It's only recently that there's been a concerted effort to level the playing field.

I don't hate Peterson or Chappelle. I, as a general rule, like Chappelle, though I think he's going down a misguided path. I think Peterson is an asshole. I think that *they* hate people, I don't hate them.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 08:45 PM

Regulations are definitely needed. We can’t have zero check and balances… however, I just don’t want regulators stifle the market with excessive red tape. Main objective of regulators is to detect fraud and punish appropriately. Not to tell the market what to do.

Also, beside stamping out fraud, monopolies and oligarchies/dictators, “gambling” speculators can definitely be a threat to free market too. If the market is no longer behaving to normal supply/demand, then it’s not free anymore. If it’s manipulated, it’s by definition no longer free. I don’t think we need to allow whatever outside forces to mess with the market.

Anyway, obviously we are wearing different political lenses…

So may I ask why you think Peterson is a hateful person or why is he an asshole?

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 08:56 PM

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 09:29 PM

I think you are mischaracterizing Jordan Peterson. He has no problems not being an asshole by referring to someone with whatever pronoun the person wishes. His main beef was with government enacting laws compelling him to say the ‘correct’ things.

https://youtu.be/44pERGAaKHw

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 09:32 PM

When asked in September 2016 if he would comply with the request of a student to use a preferred pronoun, Peterson said "it would depend on how they asked me.… If I could detect that there was a chip on their shoulder, or that they were [asking me] with political motives, then I would probably say no.…

"Dance for me" bullying.

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 09:40 PM

Okay, I watched that video. He's a bigger piece of shit than I thought. He's straight up arguing against legislation that he misunderstands on the backs of other people. He's willing to disrespect and bully other people in a protest over a law he doesn't fully understand.

What a fucking asshole. Even if he's right and the law makes him use certain language, he's still targeting people who aren't responsible in his protest. Absolutely bullying nonsense.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 09:48 PM

It’s the Canadian govt compelling him to dance to a certain tune… and you are saying Peterson is mischaracterizing that… nobody is really compelling him to dance… and if he doesn’t dance, then he must be an asshole.

That’s the power of PC. If you don’t submit to its correctness, you are always the asshole.

He is very clear with his statement that you quoted. If you genuinely wish to be called a certain pronoun, he’s fine with that. But if you are the asshole bully trying to paint him as the asshole bully, then he will tell you to fuck off.

Who is the ultimate bully here?

The left think it’s the right and the right think it’s the left.

Video footage is clear… the chasing aggressor is more bullish according to the jurors.

Jordan Peterson got famous just as KR. They fought against the liberal bullies and won and therefore will forever remain assholes because of that.

I just don’t see it that way.

These conflicts/fights really should not even happen in the 1st place.

We shouldn’t enact such laws in the 1st place. KR should not try to be a vigilante and protesters should not be destroying properties.

How hard it is to just say and dance for me and be nice? How hard is it to watch your store burn down? Insurance will pay you back! Don’t be an asshole like Jordan!

Tom Servo

November 29th, 2021, 09:52 PM

Will revisit this in the morning to hopefully not awaken my wife with the typing. Much like you're revisiting things I thought we already hashed out this morning, but apparently are repeating.

Crazed_Insanity

November 29th, 2021, 10:09 PM

I don’t really know KR; however, obviously something is not right if we can see the same Jordan Peterson so differently.

These different lenses that we’re wearing probably changed the way we see Jesus as well.

Hope we can truly help each other clear up each other’s lenses…

Anyway, good night and please don’t wake your wife up. :p

Btw, I think I found a better video explaining why he refuse to dance to that ‘law’. This clip also has the comments opened. So you can also see other peoples thoughts.

https://youtu.be/s_UbmaZQx74

Yw-slayer

November 30th, 2021, 03:30 AM

Pretty sure I already went through that. If you purposely refer to trans people by a pronoun they've asked you not to because you think they "have a chip on their shoulder", I think you're an asshole. "Dance for me, or I call you what I want no matter how it makes you feel." I do not see any way that's not about just being a bullying asshole.

Possibly the reverse (or is it the same?) of how some Protestants in HK insist that only THEY are "Christians", and that Catholics are merely "Catholics" (as opposed to Christians). Whereas anyone not involved in this pathetic extremist pissing feud (like me) knows that they should all actually be called Christians.

I mean, there's no real point to this example, other than perhaps to demonstrate if I'm being an asshole by insisting to these Protestants that Catholics are also Christians (which I probably am, but fuck them and the misguided and pathetic high horse they rode in on) then whoever refers to trans people by a different pronoun to have a chip on their shoulder is almost certainly also an asshole. So does he justify this sort of behaviour against trans people but get outraged when others do it to his religion? Hmmmmmmm

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 07:31 AM

I can't speak for Peterson, but I think you are right to consider them all as 'Christians' because all of their faith is due to Christ. No Christ would mean none of those 'Christians'.

Now some Christians might find it offensive to be 'lump' as those other less worthy 'Christians'... so they might prefer you to call them Catholics or Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses or whatever they self identified as, but the point is there shouldn't be any kind of laws telling people to refer to religious people by their appropriate names. Whether the law actually criminalizes or not is kinda irrelevant to me. Either way, this supposedly 'compassionate' law is dumb. If it doesn't criminalize violating assholes, then what's the point of the law? If it does criminalizes, then it's a law worthy of CCP(Canadian Communist Party)!

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 08:40 AM

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 08:47 AM

Back to Peterson - the short version of my thoughts is that he's transphobic and couching that in a "I'm protesting against government overreach" argument. To me, that feels a lot like "my parents abuse me, so I'm going to be a bully in school to my smaller classmates."

He might have a legitimate argument, but his method of arguing it is just being a bully and an asshole to people he perceives as lesser. He both shows a disdain for trans people and also claims that he's the arbiter of who is "truly" trans, like he's some sort of master judge of it. There's also an element of "you have to make me comfortable with your being trans" that he brings up. Like it's their job to make their existence palatable to him for him to accept it. There's no reason he can't be respectful of people while also arguing what the government should be able to dictate, and I think beyond that he's grifting off anti-trans sentiment.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 09:31 AM

I really think you're mischaracterizing what he's saying.

He's not asking the marginalized to make him comfortable in order to be nice, he's just warning the leftist bullies to not push him around.

It's really simple actually... if somebody dresses as a girl, any normal human being would address to 'her'. Likewise, if some look like boys, then they'll be referred to as such. If you look neutral and we can't tell easily... then maybe we'll try to avoid referring to you as anything until you tell us who you really are. No biggie. Now, if you self identify as a king and wishes to be addressed as your majesty, then you can fuck off. To me, that's essentially what he's saying.

This is what's scary about the left extremists. It's just so easy to label somebody as a hateful asshole. I really don't believe Peterson and Chappelle are hateful assholes... and to me, Chappelle is pretty much the same Chappelle and not venturing down any misguided path. You only think he's venturing down a misguided path because of the corrective lenses that you're wearing.

I'm really interested to hear what Neanderthal has to say about Chappelle. Is his favorite comedian really is venturing down this misguide path?

Or how about you explain to me how is Chappelle venturing down a 'misguided' path?

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 09:42 AM

I made an effort to listen to what he was saying. That's my take on it. I'm not sure how I can mischaracterize that.

He's claiming to be the arbiter of what gender is. His target is trans people and claiming he knows about gender identity, and that the government is trying to twist that. Is he making the same argument that the government is overreaching when it insists that 2 + 2 = 4? He's not. He's specifically saying that this is the line, that he knows better, and that the government is trying to force him to acknowledge otherwise.

Not only is he wrong about whether he's being forced, he's insisting that he knows better than actual trans people how gender works.

Call me an extremist if you want - he is using his transphobia as a way to grift off other hateful people to make a name for himself and make money. He is not a good person. He talks about people coming together in good faith to find the truth, but he is not doing that.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 10:15 AM

The search for truth shouldn't be about compelling others to dance for you. Peterson shouldn't do that... nor should trans people. People should just be allowed to freely have their conversations... and be allowed to choose to be nice or assholes on their own accord without a law hanging over their head.

Whether it's search for God or for gender, who really knows it all with absolute certainty? Do Christians really know who or what Jesus is? If so, there wouldn't be so many denominations! If Christians wish to preach, go ahead, you can preach, but people don't have to be compelled to do anything. People should be free to choose. Christians also shouldn't consider unrepentant sinners as assholes. For Jesus is pretty clear, we ought to not only love God, but also love our enemies! Christians are only commanded to spread the good news, not to compel people into a religion that they don't want to be in.

You are free to believe Canadian government knows better than Peterson if you want. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

It's just mind boggling to me that you don't think people on the left are capable of being bullies. It's always the folks on the other side who are bullies.

Okay, let's just say Peterson is the asshole and move on...

What about that piece of Canadian law? Do you think it's necessary?

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 10:36 AM

A while back I mentioned that you have this penchant for arguing things that nobody else has said. When did I say that people on the left are incapable of being bullies? I certainly don't remember saying that. If I did, I was incorrect - of course I believe you can have bullies on all sides.

That said, when it comes to gender, I will defer to people who know differently about their own gender. Similar to sexuality - I do not find men attractive and I don't know how one could. Yet, many men I know do find men attractive. My personal experience doesn't discount theirs. Why would gender be different? As I previously mentioned, I have a friend who came out as trans. He was Jake, now she is Jolie. She did it fearing that she might lose her job, that her coworkers and friends might reject her, and that it might destroy her home life. It was clearly a part of who she is at her core, it wasn't something she just did on a whim. Why would Peterson know better than someone who has gone through that?

In addition - the law change that Peterson is so bent out of shape about is Bill C-16. It is, and I quote:

The bill is intended to protect individuals from discrimination within the sphere of federal jurisdiction and from being the targets of hate propaganda, as a consequence of their gender identity or their gender expression. The bill adds "gender identity or expression" to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the list of characteristics of identifiable groups protected from hate propaganda in the Criminal Code. It also adds that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on a person's gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance for a court to consider when imposing a criminal sentence.[6]

It wasn't even a new law. It just added gender identity to the list of already protected classes. It didn't create new penalties or requirements, it literally just added gender identity to other classes such as race and sexuality.

Jordan Peterson didn't object to this bill before when it was about other classes, a bill that has been in existence in Canada since 1985. He objected to this specifically because of gender identity. It is not a principled stance against government overreach. It is specific bigotry against a specific class of people.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 12:41 PM

My apologies for putting words into your mouth... again... It just felt like you think left can do no wrong and is always the victim to me.

Anyway, Peterson has issues with 'hate speech' bans as well..., but I think his only objection was that it'd be stupid to have laws dictating people to never say anything offensive. If we're no longer allowed to say anything offensive, then everyone will eventually sound like CEOs and politicians... using bunch of fancy inoffensive words in their speeches while telling us absolutely nothing of substance... However, he does understand some hate speech can be really bad... so he didn't object to that as vehemently because it's just so hard for everyone to draw the same line as to what's really hate speech...

He only has issues with gender pronouns because he felt compelled to speak in a certain way he disagree with thanks to this new amendment... It's this 'compulsion' which made him necessary to draw a line in the sand.

So okay, let's just say he misinterpreted or mischaracterized that amendment and using it as an opportunity to make his asshole truly shine...
The law was only intend to protect people from discrimination, nothing more. No compelled speech at all. That asshole simply made a huge fuss out of nothing.

I'm no legal expert, so I'll go along with that narrative, but based on what I've read and heard from Peterson, he just doesn't sound like an asshole to me. I can't agree with his strange diet and he obviously has his health issues, but whatever works for him I guess.

Now I do realize just because you think somebody is an asshole, doesn't mean you hate him or want to cancel him. You're only making a judgement on him based on this particular issue. That's totally fair. But do you believe that's the general consensus of the left?

Same goes for folks like Dave Chappelle and KR I think.

I don't really know what KR is good for... since he's just a kid, but Chappelle is hilarious and Peterson IMHO is just an amazing person in a lot of levels.

Anyway, to me, the danger of extreme liberal ideology is that they can hide behind the marginalized people and then use them as tools to justify bullying others. As I mentioned earlier, to me, PC is fake niceness, just as fake Christians' croc tear prayers. I don't like fake things, not even Christian fake things...

So I think YW's actually astutely pointed out this is pretty much all 'faith' based. Whether it's Jesus or Jordan, do you 'believe' what he's telling you? We are obviously seeing the same things, but perceiving them differently. Like you said, maybe I'm just too gullible? Or maybe I have homosexual tendencies and I just like assholes? ;)

BTW, based on what you've read about what Jesus said, do you think he's an asshole too? :p

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 01:16 PM

But his compulsion is new based on a specific class. He didn't have the same objection before. He might have had it to some extent, but he took a stand when it came to gender issues and trans people.

I assume that you don't think he's an asshole. I think if you don't view him through a critical eye, he sounds eloquent and principled. I also think that under a small amount of scrutiny he turns out to be a bigoted jerk that is really good at sounding eloquent and principled.

I do not expect to change your mind. You like Jordan, I get that. I don't, and that's also unlikely to change. I personally think it's dangerous to try to push him as a cure of all ills for people here that might be struggling, as I think he's insidious.

This is going to sound dumb, but your next to last sentence struck a chord with me. Not all homosexual guys are into butts. Some are. Some straight guys are too. There's not actua a oflly an equality there.

I don't have much of an opinion on Jesus. My only real opinion is that very few people who claim to worship him follow in his example.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 01:36 PM

Jesus himself said it... he's not going to 'know' a lot of them self identified Christians... it is a very narrow gate to heaven. I hope I can make it...

Anyway, pushing or compelling anyone or anything for all people can be dangerous. For some, maybe masks could be harmful... plus I saw an article saying some had to go back to online schools not because of covid, but because some kid had lost proper social abilities and became too much of a trouble... so they had to go back to virtual for now... Vaccines too. Some people ARE allergic to it. Plus, if there really is something wrong with our vaccines and caused all of us to die, at least those anti-vaxxers will survive. ;)

I'm definitely not smart nor eloquent enough to know all the answers or even ask the right questions... all I know is that something is wrong with our current culture. I sorely miss the days when this community was full of truly 'diverse' group of people. Don't get me wrong, I like you guys, including YW and Neanderthal too, but I just wish we could be even MORE diverse...

Also, percentage of republican assholes will probably be very high wearing your lenses, but my gullible lenses could be under-estimating all the GOP assholes? ;) Best way is probably try to get to personally know your conservative neighbors around us rather than just assume they're assholes? Our political stances could very well be like our sexual orientations. Our tastes vary, but we are not really defined by these preferences? Try to overlook these difference and try to find what we have in common? Gran Turismo was the common theme that brought us together I guess. Once that common ground faded away, all we have left are our differences?

Yw-slayer

November 30th, 2021, 02:26 PM

That's actually kinda fascinating, because my wife was raised Catholic and she has insisted that only Catholics are Christians, and that Protestants are Protestants. It's my understanding that if you follow a religion based on Christ, you're Christian.

In her case it definitely doesn't come from a hateful place (at least not with her, it likely did originally), it's just a categorization thing, like how you'd classify a tomato as a fruit rather than a vegetable.

I suppose the more radical factions of each side will try to claim ownership of the term to indicate that they are right. On the occasions I've encountered it in Protestants he zeal (almost religious, one might think) with which it is advanced is shocking, sad, and funny.

Of course, there are segments/factions within other religions who take a similar attitude toward other segments/factions.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 03:32 PM

When religious factions look the same as any other political factions , then it should be clear God is not there… for God is love. If God/love makes no difference to how people behave then what’s the point?

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 05:06 PM

(shit... been busy and missed this for a few days. good to see its doing its job of keeping billi vs the world)

Tom Servo

November 30th, 2021, 06:15 PM

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 06:22 PM

But besides that, your definition of privilege is not what people are talking about when they talk about privilege.
Its also very hard to be aware of your own privilege, esp if most people around you have similar privilege.

Many people who scream "what privilege?" are unaware that just going around and not being hassled is a privilege that others dont have.

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 06:30 PM

Call me an extremist if you want - he is using his transphobia as a way to grift off other hateful people to make a name for himself and make money. He is not a good person. He talks about people coming together in good faith to find the truth, but he is not doing that.
I see that with some people I know. It doesn't fit their narrow world view and it seems to be a personal affront to get them to be respectful to others. They them twist it like they are the victim because they have a right to be an arsehole.
Then there are those in the media who then leverage this to build a following.

Golden rule - you expect others to correctly use your name, your chosen pronouns (even if you argue you didn't chose them). But then they refuse the same basic civility to others.

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 06:32 PM

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 06:37 PM

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 06:38 PM

Heh, it ultimately feels a little futile as Billi is world-class at digging his heels in, so most of the time when you're going back and forth with him it's in an attempt to make your point to onlookers rather than to each other. Still, glad to be able to go toe to toe without pissing too many people off.

Oh com’on, my heels have definitely been moved over the years… by Doc Love, Jesus and now Jordan Peterson… well Peterson never drastically altered my world view, I just thought he’s very smart, with broad knowledge and also just very motivating… he has also talked about women and relationship stuff because he’s a psychologist… so I guess seeing him on YouTube is like me finally seeing Doc Love and Jesus all at the same time where as I usually just read about them… ;)

Anyway, I really think political orientations are very similar to sexual orientations…, we just won’t be able to convince each other to actually switch sides. I do quite enjoy our discussions though. Thanks for spending the time. Roofer for sure won’t have sufficient patience to have such in depth discussions with me when we talk about what’s fucked up in the right side of the world. ;)

Dicknose

November 30th, 2021, 06:43 PM

Billi - one thing you mentioned above, that we shouldn't cancel/shut the door on people.
People who are behaving outside what is socially acceptable shouldn't just be punished. Think racist, sexist, phobic people. Esp ones that might end causing real harm.
Its much better to have an environment where they can feel that they can be encouraged to change/grow, rather than be outcast. Ostracising can result in people going rogue or worse joining a group.

There is still a big issue with sexual assaults and men who are sliding down a slope from yelling, threats that will lead to increasing violence. Its good that we are encouraging society to say a big NO to this behaviour, but if it means we cut off people who are at the lower levels of harm then it doesn't help them move in the right direction.

So yeah - we shouldn't just "cancel" people, we should give second chances and help. But they do need to accept this help.

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 06:52 PM

When these arseholes can lead to serious issues and mental health troubles - yeah why not use the law to protect people.
We have plenty of other laws against being a dickhead - like defamation. As long as the punishment fits the crime, I dont have a huge problem with putting some legal weight against people being arseholes.

I can agree with what you said here if there’s really an asshole causing people mental harm. However, situation is never that straight forward. How far would you go with that?

So you believe it’s a good idea to criminalize people for refusing to ‘dance’ with the trans community by addressing them properly?

Protecting the marginalized is perfectly fine, but if a law compels people to refer to them with more special pronouns, we really need to criminalize people for refusing to play nice? What kind of punishment would fit that crime?

Or you’re just making a claim that Peterson the psychologist is just a bully asshole causing problems for Canadian trans people mental health? So should an asshole like that be allowed to teach at any schools?

Crazed_Insanity

November 30th, 2021, 06:54 PM

Dicknose

December 2nd, 2021, 04:10 PM

So you believe it’s a good idea to criminalize people for refusing to ‘dance’ with the trans community by addressing them properly?

Protecting the marginalized is perfectly fine, but if a law compels people to refer to them with more special pronouns, we really need to criminalize people for refusing to play nice? What kind of punishment would fit that crime?

Or you’re just making a claim that Peterson the psychologist is just a bully asshole causing problems for Canadian trans people mental health? So should an asshole like that be allowed to teach at any schools?
I think he is an arsehole. Actually I think that's pretty clear.

Punishment - I think it should be a bit like defamation. The punishment is monetary and fits the scale of the crime, which includes the size of the audience and the harm caused.

I can understand people making mistakes or assumptions, but once someone has said "please call me X" you are just a dick if you dont. Im sure even Peterson would get annoyed if people starting call him something he didn't like.

As for teaching... if he does that inside a job then it could be covered by workplace bullying. I have no problem with someone losing their job from deliberately being a dick to annoy others.

Dicknose

December 2nd, 2021, 04:12 PM

I agree.

However, current cancel culture isn’t what you are describing here, right?

Wasn't saying anything about cancel culture. Was just saying that people who are outside acceptable behaviour (esp behaviours that were ignored or accepted previously) shouldn't be just hung out.

Crazed_Insanity

December 2nd, 2021, 06:14 PM

Anyway, I was talking about cancel culture. :p like I said, I have no problem with your suggestions.

Cancel culture is essentially mob taking over as judge and executioner… the equivalent on the right is of course authorities taking over as judge and executioner such as just shooting someone dead… both extremes are just wrong.

As for Peterson, I really don’t believe he’ll be an asshole to a trans person. He’s just being an asshole to a liberal govt which he felt like it’s ready to criminalize him if he doesn’t speak more politically correctly…

I personally place Peterson as high regard as Bernie Sanders. I don’t always agree with them on everything but based on all the old videos of them, you can tell they haven’t changed much over the years. That’s a sign of a person with high integrity. Whatever they said, they really mean it!

Can’t say the same for Andrew Yang or Obama. Both I also held in high regard at 1st, but it’s obvious to me now that although they sound good, they don’t alway mean what they say…

Tom Servo

December 2nd, 2021, 08:00 PM

Not changing at all is also a sign that someone doesn't listen or learn as they go through life.

Crazed_Insanity

December 2nd, 2021, 09:14 PM

True. But that’s assuming you’ve been an ignorant fool when you 1st enter into politics or become a college professor! :p

I also don’t think Andrew Yang changed for the better. Likewise Obama. AOC could also changed to become the next Nancy Pelosi. Learned to be more pragmatic is nice for self preservation I guess, but not something most people find admirable.

Of course the ultimate guy who doesn’t need to learn anything is Jesus. Interestingly both the right(Pharisees) and left(Sadducees) rejected and crucified him. That’ll teach Jesus to learn! ;)

Tom Servo

December 3rd, 2021, 08:08 AM

You don't necessarily have to be an ignorant fool. Another way to look at it is to not think you already know everything.

Crazed_Insanity

December 3rd, 2021, 09:05 AM

Jordan Peterson read a lot of stuffs and knows a lot of stuffs but I don't think he ever made the claim to know everything. I don't think Bernie Sanders made any such claims as well. It's just that most of the stuffs that they said over the years seem to ring very true to me.

As for the gender pronoun issue, hey, that's pretty new, right? Is there really scientific data we can back it up that we can just self identify as something? I can self identify as a 'born again' christian! Can this be proven scientifically? Nope. This is just what I believe. Even Jesus himself didn't expect other people to treat him nicely and make him feel good. We gotta do what we gotta do to be true to ourselves. I get that. I really don't believe Peterson is against that. The issue was should govt get into this business of forcing others to acknowledge something they don't quite believe and we don't really know with at least some degrees of scientific certainty.

Should government really get into the business of regulating PC speech or perhaps prayers? You don't like to be forced to pray or even listen to prayers, likewise there are people don't like to listen to and speak PC.

We have assholes all over the world, I just don't think we can enact sufficient laws to turn all assholes into nice guys. :p Just leave people be and let them learn how to be nice themselves. We can just criminalize actual physically harmful behaviors to protect people and maintain some order...

I don't 'believe' Peterson and Chappelle are assholes, but of course I could be wrong. Its just that we all gotta live in accordance to what we believe. You guys also are allowed to live in accordance to what you believe in. Governments just need to stay out of the belief regulating business... and just focusing on stuffs that's actually causing obvious harm... and try that stop those 1st. There are a lot of people being hurt, not just the trans folks. Plus, the trans community is not just a Borg collective who all think alike. There are plenty of transgender people who love Peterson and Chappelle.

Tom Servo

December 3rd, 2021, 09:41 AM

I'm going to disagree with your argument that we even need to assert that gender self identity can be scientifically proven. If you work in a public institution, I think the government has every right to tell you how to do your job. In the meantime, I notice you're still not arguing that he not be able to call various races by epithets, it's still specific to gender.

Which is the crux of my problem. Even if Peterson is taking this principled stance against government overreach, he's doing it on the backs of trans people. He's making them the example. He doesn't appear to be doing this with any other protected class. He isn't insisting that he be allowed to call women "broads" or Germans "krauts." They are the ones that are potentially suffering at his hand so he can make his point. It's like bullying one kid to try to protest that the principal can't tell you what to do. There are better ways to do that that don't involve hurting an innocent party to prove your point.

That still smacks of asshole to me, even if it is a principled stance.

Crazed_Insanity

December 3rd, 2021, 10:59 AM

I still don't think it's specifically about trans people..., it's only because they're creating new words and it's one thing if population slowly picks up on new terms and making it into our language and culture... vs having government mandating it. If we come up with a law compelling everyone calling black people only as African Americans and nothing else, I'm sure Peterson would bulk against that as well. As you stated, perhaps Peterson simply misunderstood the law? There's no such law in place instructing us how to address African Americans. We don't even have a law against the N word, right? Yet the entire Western community knows you have to truly be an asshole to use that word without government telling us you can't use it.

Anyway, I understand how you feel about Peterson. A lot of folks here think he's an asshole. I get it. However, we all just have different ways of seeing the same things. Who's correct and who's wrong? There's really no way to tell. That's the main issue I think... when something is so controversial, government probably should just stay out of it.

It's really quite amazing how people can see the same thing and perceive differently. Take the bible for example, let's just forget about you atheists and agnostics for a moment... Christians can often interpret the same passages differently. Who's right who's wrong? Only Lord knows. In the mean time, we all can only live in accordance to what we choose to believe... but also remember at the same time don't see others who disagree as assholes. I don't agree fully with Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc... however, I do still see them all as brothers in Christ. It is very possible I'm the one who's wrong theologically, but I don't think Jesus saves people based on people's understanding of proper theology... we're supposedly saved by faith. Anyway, plenty of Christians fall into this trap of thinking other Christians who interpreted the bible 'incorrectly' as heretic assholes who should goto hell too. I suppose that's just human nature.

Scientific reality is that everyone has an asshole. We should also try to focus on other body parts. :p

Tom Servo

December 4th, 2021, 03:01 PM

Billi - is Chris Cuomo getting fired part of cancel culture?

Crazed_Insanity

December 4th, 2021, 04:28 PM

I think he’s kinda like the parents of Michigan shooter…

If his bro’s situation is still unclear, and CNN prematurely fire the brother, that’d be wrong. However, at this stage of the game, it’s kinda hard to feel sympathy…

Cuomos and Al Franken are just not quite on the same level, right?

If it is clear there’s a long history and cover up… and it’s something that can be criminalized, then that’s that. I don’t have any complaints about that. As for the accomplices, should they be criminalized? Not a legal expert here, but like you said, CNN is seeing him as a liability. I was not aware of any mob trying to persuade CNN to fire him?

Anyway, Al Franken was just not in the same league, right? However, I can understand congress was probably under the same pressure as CNN except there was nothing criminal going on.

Tom Servo

December 4th, 2021, 04:40 PM

Not to jump on the RWA bandwagon here, but I honestly have no idea how to parse that word salad.

JoshInKC

December 4th, 2021, 04:47 PM

I would argue that CNN shouldn't have hired the brother of a major politician who is certainly going to be covered in national news in the first place.

Crazed_Insanity

December 4th, 2021, 05:03 PM

Billi - is Chris Cuomo getting fired part of cancel culture?

Let me compact the salad a bit… to answer your question, no.

Crazed_Insanity

December 4th, 2021, 05:07 PM

I would argue that CNN shouldn't have hired the brother of a major politician who is certainly going to be covered in national news in the first place.

Generally agree with that sentiment, but what if a famous political family has someone really wish to be a journalist? Just because of his name, he can’t pursue his dream?

Companies probably just shouldn’t hire families of famous politicians to be board members. That’s not really a legit career path…

Tom Servo

December 4th, 2021, 05:45 PM

My twitter feed was full of examples of journalists who didn't pull strings for their family members/loved ones/friends who got themselves in hot water, so I'm hesitant to say you shouldn't be hired. I think existing journalistic standards (make a specific note of any potential conflict of interest as part of the story, don't go interfering with other stories) are good enough, and I think CNN did the right thing in terminating him as soon as it was found out. And I'm glad to hear that, Billi.

Crazed_Insanity

December 4th, 2021, 07:43 PM

I’m kinda with josh, but kinda not… if I’m CNN, I’d like to give somebody who really loves journalism a chance… not to give the famous family member a job to score political points. I’d also have him sign a conflict of interest form to never report anything about his own family.

This COI agreement might also help save my employee too when his brother gets into trouble…

Getting too closely associated to your famous family can have its disadvantages I guess…

Anyway, yeah, I can’t blame CNN for whatever it wants to do.

The kind of cancel culture I don’t like is a frantic mob ‘believing’ someone should be canceled without solid evidences.

Tom Servo

December 4th, 2021, 08:14 PM

For someone who often demands a black or white answer to things, that's a surprising amount of nuance.

Crazed_Insanity

December 5th, 2021, 07:57 AM

Sometimes things can be pretty black and white… like George Floyd and Harvey Weinstein.

Other times it can be like Dave Chappelle and KR…

There’s always a correct way of doing things…, that should be pretty black and white. Is something just or not? Such answers should be pretty black and white, but execution of it in the real world will have nuance I guess.

Prolife and prochoice are not black and whites.

Police unnecessarily executes a poor black suspect and mob prematurely cancels a rich powerful suspect are both clearly wrong and ideologically driven.

Unfortunately Americans now tend to just see their ‘party’ as right and the other ‘party’ as wrong.

When we see the same exact thing and reach different conclusions, then we are probably not dealing with black and white no more. Somebody is getting it wrong.

Unless we have solid evidences to prove anything otherwise, it’s probably best that we let people do what they believe is right while not force others to do what they believe is wrong. We should try to achieve freedom of beliefs without going into fights! Of course we’re not there yet. Each party just kept on trying to force the other party to do what they don’t want to do. Such is politics I guess? ;)

When it comes to politics, religion and sex, people tend to end up wanting to rape one another. We just need to really learn how to love one another.

JoshInKC

December 5th, 2021, 08:14 AM

Police unnecessarily executes a poor black suspect and mob prematurely cancels a rich powerful suspect are both clearly wrong and ideologically driven.
It is deeply insane that you are suggesting these are equivalent.

On one hand, some people think that a major corporation shouldn't pay someone who is already a multimillionaire more millions of dollars to broadcast him talking about how an oppressed minority is mad at him and shouldn't be allowed to be mad at him because they think he's an asshole.
On the other, an extrajudicial murder by police.

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING

When it comes to politics, religion and sex, people tend to end up wanting to rape one another. We just need to really learn how to love one another.
WTF?

Tom Servo

December 5th, 2021, 08:22 AM

When it comes to politics, religion and sex, people tend to end up wanting to rape one another.

We have had our disagreements on each of those subjects. I can confidently say that I never once thought about raping you. So...uhh...speak for yourself there, turbo.

Crazed_Insanity

December 5th, 2021, 11:13 AM

Swervo, just saying in general and in a figurative sense. That’s why people tend to want to avoid such discussions. For example people feel like I’m raping them when I preach about ideas they don’t want to hear… or sandy making a creepy joke and Cam felt very uncomfortable about that…

People often find it very difficult with these highly sensitive topics. Obviously not very many are interested in these types of discussions with Billi. :p

Crazed_Insanity

December 5th, 2021, 11:50 AM

It is deeply insane that you are suggesting these are equivalent.

On one hand, some people think that a major corporation shouldn't pay someone who is already a multimillionaire more millions of dollars to broadcast him talking about how an oppressed minority is mad at him and shouldn't be allowed to be mad at him because they think he's an asshole.
On the other, an extrajudicial murder by police.

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING

WTF?

Point is we can’t skip proper due process. I don’t care if it’s for poor black or rich white, police or massive mob. Don’t understand why I’m insane to insist on that.

As for CNN, I think clearly they hired the name when things are going good. When it goes bad, they’ll just drop him. It’d be better if companies could just hire and fire based on job performance only. Anyway, for sure that’s not the cancel culture I’m unhappy with.

Dicknose

December 5th, 2021, 01:59 PM

Ah capitalism... do what you think is best for your dollars!

I thought you were a big fan of them doing whatever they think is best as long as its not illegal.

Crazed_Insanity

December 5th, 2021, 04:11 PM

Still am. CNN can hire fire however they want. They’re not doing anything illegal. It’s just that I’m not sure if they’re high on journalistic excellence. Their hiring/firing practice demonstrates that they’re more political…

Better capitalist would be Elon! He decided to make money and get humanity’s ass to Mars no matter what! He is still doing that and along the way became richest dude on earth. Like him or hate him, you gotta respect that.

If only Tesla himself had similar entrepreneurial skills, humanity would be in much better position today. Although asshole like Edison got his way, but capitalism was still able to lift the entire humanity up in terms of standard of living.

China for sure can’t be where it is today without capitalism. Again, I like socialism too. Just like prolife and prochoice… I’m against neither! I’m not against liberals nor conservatives also. I’m just against their incorrect methods sometimes… I don’t like it when police abuse their power nor do I like out of control mobs.

Tom Servo

December 6th, 2021, 08:56 AM

I'm sure you'll see this as political correctness run amok, but I hope you'll find a different term than "raping" in the future for that. I know some people who have been raped, and let's just say it won't be as gentle of a request as this if you happen to use that term that flippantly in front of them.

Crazed_Insanity

December 6th, 2021, 11:14 AM

Did my word salad really sounded like I was talking about literal rape? If that's the impression you got, of course, my apologies for that.

My point was to differentiate the difference between love making and forced love making.

Good nature intellectual discussions where 2 parties genuinely try to understand one another would be similar to love making. Both can end up feeling satisfied. Even if one of them didn't reach orgasm, it could still be a pleasant intimate experience.

If the conversation is purely single direction with one person just telling the other person what to do in a condescending manner, it could feel like rape or just one person fucking with another. Conversation about politics, religion and sex can often degenerate into such circumstances rather quickly when 2 people hold different world views in our current culture.

I know you were never trying to rape me and rest assured I was never trying to rape you or anybody, okay? Just trying to make love that's all. :p (Now, I don't mean having sex with you. I love Jesus, but I don't really want to have sex with him, okay?)

Tom Servo

December 6th, 2021, 02:09 PM

No, it didn't sound like that. I'm just saying that what you're describing is nowhere near as horrific as rape, so maybe don't equate 'em.

Dicknose

December 6th, 2021, 03:02 PM

Agreed. It can across as diminishing the impact of rape if you toss it around casually.
Maybe take a moment or two to consider what that word means to someone who has been raped. Then how they would feel about your use of that word.

Crazed_Insanity

December 6th, 2021, 05:05 PM

I agree in general too. However…

What about words such as fuck and Jesus Christ?

Should we also be considerate of feeling of folks who had been fucked bad or born again in Christ? ;)

Of course in theory we should all be nice, but sometimes we should also consider the context a bit and not be so easily offended?

Take my usage for example, I wasn’t trying to diminish its impact, a lot of folks think listening to ideas they don’t agree with can result in feeling just as violated and disgusted, right?

Of course it’s not that bad for me, that’s why I rather enjoying political religious discussions. Even if we’re talking about opposing views. Also for folks dared enter this thread, surely you guys have very opened minds as well.

Anyway, your concerns noted, will try to minimize salads and poor word choices the best I can in order to avoid derailment of our discussions.

Tom Servo

December 7th, 2021, 08:28 AM

I can't believe you decided to try to debate it. That that was the normal and reasonable thing to do.

Crazed_Insanity

December 7th, 2021, 09:43 AM

Better believe it cause I’m just abnormal and unreasonable, right? That’s why the creation of this thread, isn’t it? :p

Anyway, if our discussions are over, we can let this thread drop now.

Tom Servo

December 7th, 2021, 01:18 PM

Well, let's just say that I have my doubts Jesus would want to debate whether or not it's okay to equate a one-sided conversation with rape. As far as I know, he wasn't really into whataboutism. Also, I don't think he followed up the camel through an eye of a needle speech by saying "man, I really raped 'em that time."

Crazed_Insanity

December 7th, 2021, 02:32 PM

I think we're really getting distracted by my use of the word here. For sure preaching the gospel isn't 'rape' or forcing anything down anyone's throat... however, are you sure nobody feels violated listening to the gospel stories? There are people who think preaching the gospel should be prohibited, right? Because it feels like preacher is shoving things that they don't want to hear down their throats. It is for that reason I used the term 'rape'... just short for 'shoving things down people's throats'. Yes, I don't think preaching gospel or political discussions are like rape or shoving anything down anybody's throats, but there are certainly other people who disagree with me and Jesus. Can you pick a word that describe their feeling if mine sucked so horribly? Now, you don't have to if you don't want to, not trying to twist your arm to also say anything you don't want to say either.

Point is, I've also apologized for my use and promised to try to pick words more carefully. I don't know why we still need to have this discussion about rape? Are there nothing else more interesting to talk about?

I definitely think this is another example of political correctness run amok. Because our deeds are not very correct, we have to over compensate with our speech, right? Discrimination against blacks and minority couldn't be fixed... so we'll fix how we can more properly address them using nice words as if that's a meaningful fix. We couldn't stop sex trafficking and girls getting raped so we gotta be super careful with the use of the word rape. Don't want to offend anyone with our speech here...

I have to admit I would NOT use such word if I was talking to a kid or women, so for sure I'm not perfectly in the right, but I think our current culture is also a bit too easily offended nowadays. Is it necessary to take offense to easily? Can't we consider overall context and content of the speech as well? If this trend continues, pretty much all words would end up at the same place as the N word and then we'll just have to keep up inventing new words I guess... otherwise we'll all just stop talking! ;)

I guess I'd prefer you debate me on the merit of the ideas I'm trying to convey... rather than focusing in on a particular word usage... worst yet, there can be 'english teachers'... instead of having discussions, all they want to do is to correct typos and poor grammar. I suppose if I screwed up spelling or grammar or my salad, yeah, it's my bad, but I hope you understand why that's annoying? Who the foque doesn't make grammar and spelling mistakes on the internet!?!?!? I also self identify as a salad poster! :p

Yw-slayer

December 7th, 2021, 08:06 PM

Fuck Christmas.

Crazed_Insanity

December 7th, 2021, 08:34 PM

Y Werry Christmas to you too! :)

Tom Servo

December 8th, 2021, 06:51 PM

When I was in my early 20's, some friends were over and we were taking turns at the keyboard + mouse playing Quake 2 CTF. At one point, I said that the other team "raped" us. That's when I found out a good friend of mine had been raped. She was not as gentle as I'm being letting me know how belittling that was, how it discounted what she'd been through and what she continues to go through. Since then, over the years, I've found out that the number of people I love that have been raped is way higher than I would have thought.

You didn't apologize. You apologized "if that's the impression" that I got. That's not apologizing, that's putting the onus on me. *I* got it wrong. You then followed it up with whataboutism comparing the utterance of "Jesus Christ" and "fuck", neither of which have the same connotations as rape. I'm sure you find Jesus enjoyable, and fucking is often enjoyable, rape isn't. Then even when you claimed that you did apologize, you followed up by calling it political correctness anyway.

To me, this fits in with the "Billi vs. the World" theme. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that you seem to be almost incapable of admitting that you might be wrong. You respond to everything with a defense/deflection, often combined with demanding that everyone else admit some sort of wrongness, like "say something bad about Obama" or "say something nice about Trump" or "admit that saying Jesus is bad."

At any rate, I got my word in. I'm disappointed, but I don't know why I am, as I don't know what else I expected.

Crazed_Insanity

December 8th, 2021, 07:40 PM

If you could remember that incident vividly back in your 20s, naturally that must have made a huge impact on you…

I was more like the 20yr old you; however, I don’t think I was using that word lightly. Pretty sure some people here find more than just a word from me offensive, but pretty much the entire speech!

Anyway, like I said, I can only apologize for hurt feelings and I will do my best to avoid unnecessarily hurting other peoples feelings, but I honestly didn’t think it’s that wrong using that word to equate ‘shoving things down people’s throats’. I thought they’re pretty much synonymous. I also don’t agree with them regarding their feelings about my speech, but that’s just how they feel..

Anyway, I’m disappointed too… that our discussions had to be halted because of a word. However, if you feel that strongly about it, I guess it’s understandable that this happened and best I can do is to promise to you that I won’t use that word again unless it’s used to describe an actual incident.

I suppose this is another issue why people don’t like to talk about politics, religion and sex… because we all probably cannot agree with one another exactly what is right or wrong and we end up getting too emotional about it and that’s all part of being human I guess.

Dicknose

December 8th, 2021, 08:26 PM

Your "I think our current culture is also a bit too easily offended" is worse than your trivialising use of the word rape.
Now its not that you haven't considered how your actions are, its the world that's soft.
You know I like you, I have time for you. But Ill say this here... dont be a shit.

Dont justify, deflect etc.
You dont need to apologise. But I think you do need to understand. Someone has pointed out how other could feel about it. And that this "others" could be a reasonable number of people and something you might not know about them. So just think really really carefully about using the word.

Our discussion has halted because you are incapable of considering others. You know - one of the basic concepts that the Jesus dude was about.
Hint - you are also pretty cavalier with Nazi. You use it a lot. These words can have a much stronger impact on some people and you need to realise that and be careful with their use. Not saying dont use them, but you use them so often and easily it does seem like you consider them trivial.

Crazed_Insanity

December 9th, 2021, 10:24 AM

You know, I do always try not to justify and deflect when it involves issues with the wife. It's best to avoid arguments with the wife at all cost. :p If I really screwed something up, I will now just quickly apologize and fix it. If I really don't believe I screwed anything up, I'll try to sort out the misunderstanding. I have made plenty of mistakes justifying and deflecting in the past when blamed by my wife and I've learned to be better now. :)

I think it's just human tendency to do that when they're 1st blamed by somebody... supposedly happened with the very first humans named Adam and Eve? ;)

Anyway, I believe I do need to apologize for hurt feelings and I meant that sincerely and I've also promised to not use that word again unless absolutely necessary...

I really don't mean to be so shitty about it, and I really believe we ought to raise our boys better rather than just tell them to hush up about usage of certain words. Of course I suppose it won't hurt to do both.

I think the situation I'm in is kinda like what Dave Chappelle went thru. No, I'm no Dave of course, at least not as rich nor as funny, but this incident can also kinda explain why I thought Dave was just being his usual self while Swervo thought Dave is going down a misguided path and not very funny... and you probably thought Dave is being shitty as well? Point is that it's just very hard to draw a line and define exactly what is hate/offensive/shitty speech. Safest approach is probably to become more PC.

Lastly, I wish to point out that although Jesus loves everyone, he often does say things that sounded offensive to some people. End result is of course his crucifixion. Now, I'm not saying everything I said sounded like what Jesus would say, just that sometimes what sounds offensive may not always be incorrect... being nice is nice, but even Jesus cannot be nice to everyone all the time. Everyone has different personal stories. Jesus would know such stories and adjust accordingly when engaging somebody personally. When delivering a public sermon, offending somebody will probably be inevitable. When that happens, should that be considered as hate speech and be banned?

Dicknose

December 9th, 2021, 05:40 PM

If you can't see that Jesus talked bad about those who abused power and didn't use language that trivialised or traumatised victims.

And its not that you are talking bad about people - its the language you use that can hurt your audience, not your target.
When delivering a sermon, dont abuse your audience.
I dont remember Jesus saying something like "those Romans are a bunch of lepers"

Crazed_Insanity

December 9th, 2021, 08:59 PM

How would you interpret mat 13:12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

Yw-slayer

December 10th, 2021, 05:41 AM

Dude, seriously, trolling aside, just take the L man. No one is right 100% of the time.

Crazed_Insanity

December 10th, 2021, 06:53 AM

If I really think I’m right 100% of the time, I would not bother apologizing and promise to not use that word again.

Dicknose

December 10th, 2021, 03:38 PM

How would you interpret mat 13:12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

What has that got to do with this???

Dicknose

December 10th, 2021, 03:39 PM

If I really think I’m right 100% of the time, I would not bother apologizing and promise to not use that word again.

Its more your comments seem to be that you dont even understand why its wrong.

Crazed_Insanity

December 10th, 2021, 04:29 PM

What has that got to do with this???

You tend to believe Jesus only say bad things about those in power. The haves not would never hear anything offensive from Jesus.

Here's also the parable Jesus used regarding the passage I quoted you earlier:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mat+25%3A14-30&version=NKJV

The 'talents of gold' used in the parable can be faith and good works or perhaps referring to our natural born talents or perhaps it can be literally just gold(money)... it doesn't matter IMHO.

My interpretation of that is although Jesus loves everyone equally, it's also clear that everyone just isn't equal in all areas of life. People are just different, with different IQ, talents, different work ethics and will therefore end up at different places. This passage is probably the main reason for me to believe Jesus isn't against capitalism(as long as you have good work ethics)? Point is Jesus isn't somebody who'd take from the rich and give to the poor unconditionally. In fact he just might do the opposite! Jesus has no problems feeding the hungry and helping the sick and poor(the socialism aspects), but he'll only help people get back on their feet. Then you gotta take whatever 'talents' you have and try to grow with it, rather than expecting others with more 'talents' to just help you out. Anyway, during my 1st reading of that parable, I thought Jesus was pretty mean(or offensive) to the guy with the least talents too. So I really think Jesus is an equal opportunity offensive preacher, doesn't matter what classes we are in, when we've done something wrong, we just might hear something from Jesus that we don't like. Of course people might disagree with what Jesus considers wrong. The guy with only 1 talent might be complaining about why he only got 1 to begin with when the other guys got so much more! But anyways, who am I to disagree with Jesus. I can only sometimes disagree with you guys! :p

My point is, offensive speech isn't always wrong. At least Jesus' offensive speeches are meant to correct and guide us back on the right path.

Crazed_Insanity

December 15th, 2021, 10:08 PM

https://youtu.be/PYM-sS-0-yg
Found this cool interview of Jordan Peterson. I really can’t not see that hateful asshole, but you all know that I’m super gullible! ;)
Don’t know why it’s not showing, oh well, here’s a link.
https://youtu.be/PYM-sS-0-yg

Tom Servo

December 16th, 2021, 02:42 PM

It wasn't really much of a hard hitting interview. There are a few things that stuck out to me.

He seems to blame everyone else for the place he finds himself in the cultural spectrum. It couldn't possibly be the things he says, it's just that he's a successful white male, and that's just what happens when you're a successful white male. I mean, except for all the people that doesn't happen to, but I'm sure that can be explained away.

He calls out comedians as canaries in a coal mine, comparing them to the jester in the court. But his analogy only works if the King is demanding that the jester be silenced, which isn't what's happening here. Private companies choosing not to host something isn't the same thing. People choosing not to give money to private companies that host those things isn't the same thing.

He talks about how comedians live on the edges, and they are important because they break up categories, which strikes me as odd as the thing he's the most famous for is refusing to consider that the categorizations he grew up with might have changed.

Finally, he talks about how important freedom of speech is, but I think he makes the same mistake that a lot of people who consider themselves all about speech make. Criticism of your speech is also speech. Telling you you're wrong is also free speech. Part of freedom of speech is people shouting down things that are considered beyond the pale.

I'm not saying he's beyond the pale. I am saying that in the few parts of the interview that weren't just being a normal human ("I worry about my loved ones when they're sick"), he just seems to think that he should be unchallenged, and that the way people feel about him has nothing to do with him, it's all mean old society doing it to him. For a person who I've gathered is all about taking responsibility, he doesn't seem to be that into it himself.

At least now I know where you get a lot of your conversational tactics from.

Crazed_Insanity

December 16th, 2021, 06:31 PM

I don't get the sense that he doesn't like to be challenged at all. Trump is the type who doesn't like to be challenged for sure, but I don't get that from Peterson. Perhaps he's just very opinionated or has a strong conviction? Also, was he really blaming everyone due to his stand? I'm not so sure. I thought he was just 'explaining' why this is happening to him and he understood this kind of thing goes with the territory. I really don't get the feeling that Jordan Peterson is telling people to stop saying bad things about him.

Anyway, Peterson didn't really altered too much of my thinking... I personally find him amazing because often times I find him able to articulate the things that I believe in way better than me! On all those taboo topics of politics, religion and sex(he understands gender due to his psychology background), I just haven't found anything I disagree with him on. Which is pretty amazing if you think about it. :p

Lastly, I also pretty much agree with his comedian analogy. In this case, the tyrant king would be the leftist mob and Dave made fun of something that he shouldn't so the 'king' wants him to shut the fuck up!

Seriously, comedians often make fun at whatever opportunity they got...whether on the right or on the left.

Bottomline is that I don't sense that folks like Dave and Jordan are hateful people. Maybe they're hiding their hatred well? Maybe I'm just too gullible? Or perhaps maybe I'm also a hateful person? Anyway, I know I'm not. Of course I'll watch out how I deliver my speech and not to ra**, no I meant, abuse my limited number of audiences. ;)

Tom Servo

December 16th, 2021, 07:56 PM

He says that he wants to be challenged a lot, but when he is he dismisses it as the other person's problem with the person he is. It's just because he's white, and successful, and male. He's very opinionated and has a very strong conviction - one might say that he's stubborn and unwilling to listen to other voices that might disagree with him.

He speaks very eloquently and is surprisingly soft-spoken. I think he uses that to his advantage, because I think he's more than willing to believe that he's right about all things and dismiss anyone who disagrees as doing so because of who he is, not because of what he says.

Also, this is a massive red flag for me:

he understands gender due to his psychology background

Why does that follow? How does he understand gender better than someone who is of a gender that he doesn't understand? Why would having a psychology background make him understand people's lived experiences better than they do? That's a pretty well known logical fallacy, "appeal to authority." I don't even see that he specialized in gender psychology when I look at the areas he's specialized in. If this opinion was that based in psychology, why aren't other psychologists saying the same thing and also being chased by the supposed "leftist mob?" There's a lot of "why specifically him" when it comes to his victim complex, and he never seems to think that it might be because of something he does or something he says. He's principal Skinner saying "Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong."

Anyway, onto the court jester thing. There's a huge difference between the opinion of so many people you can't avoid it and the opinion of the person at the head of power.

Many comedians don't make fun at whatever opportunity they get. That's part of the whole concept of "punching down." A lot of right wing comedians like to lionize George Carlin and bemoan that he could never be successful now and that's bullshit. Carlin was hugely careful about the targets he chose, and they were always the people in power. I've gone to a lot of comedy shows, listened to a lot of comedy albums, and am friends with some comics. They aren't just mockery-cannons that go after anything and everything. The noble goal is to speak truth to power, and the historically disenfranchised are not power.

I get that you don't think they're assholes. I think they are, or at the very least they act like assholes and do asshole-y things. I think now I've done you the courtesy of watching enough of Peterson that I'm not going to watch any more, because I find him wildly unpleasant and I don't want to spend my time listening to him. I've watched and listened to plenty of Chappelle, so I think I'm fine on that front.

Crazed_Insanity

December 16th, 2021, 08:51 PM

Appreciate the courtesy, won’t be posting any more of him. I’d also apologize in advance if I sometimes end up sounding like him though. :p Hope my abusive language along with Peterson like rationale won’t cause you to get too sick? I’ll try my best to not be too unpleasant, but such is life? We can’t please everyone nor can we always agree with everyone?

I think even with Peterson, I take back what I said earlier, after thinking about it some more, I found out that I disagree with him on 2 things: his crazy diet and he views only totalitarian states have vaccine mandates.

Anyway, we all have our own beliefs/convictions. Peterson only has the hatred coming from the left. Interestingly he self identifies himself as a liberal! I personally think I’m liberal leaning as well, but some see me as a trump supporter probably? Just because I don’t quite fit in their liberal ideology?

The worst guy than Jordan would probably be Jesus. That’s a guy who was hated from all sides which resulted in crucifixion! Yeah, certainly he can’t play to be a victim. He pretty much asked for it. Not to mention his Dad supposedly planned it from the very beginning of time! ;)

With Chappelle, he’s made fun of pretty much everyone. I really don’t think he’s really punching down to a group who are being trampled on, he has friends in that group! I think he’s just punching back at those threaten to cancel him. The powerless would pose no such threat…

Tom Servo

December 16th, 2021, 09:10 PM

It's not that you talk like him, it's that you use conversational tactics that he mentions. You often ask me to find faults in Obama or say something nice about Trump, for instance. It's something I notice - you have certain rhetorical devices you use a lot, and the times I've heard Peterson talk, he often mentions at least one of them.

As for Chappelle, it is an impossibility that he is punching back at those that threaten to cancel him. Nobody trans wanted to "cancel" him until he started started punching. He 100% threw the first punch. Don't forget, he was pretty much universally beloved up until a couple of years ago.

Crazed_Insanity

December 17th, 2021, 08:56 AM

Interesting that I use similar conversation tactics… have to look into that… did I subconsciously copied him or was I like that before…

Anyway, Chappelle pretty much punched everyone. Whoever threatened to cancel him before? He had only canceled himself once. I agree not all trans wants him canceled, just the ones that could not take a joke.

Bottom line is that I don’t think Dave is a hateful person. If you don’t like his show, you don’t have to listen to it. If his not funny, let a comic be naturally canceled. Not need to apply PC pressure.

Tom Servo

December 17th, 2021, 10:12 AM

But he didn't punch everyone. In fact, the reason he "cancelled" himself is because he thought that some of his fans thought his punches were going towards one group when they were really going towards another. That was his whole point in leaving his CC show. He quite famously felt like the direction his punches were going was being misinterpreted, so he clearly wasn't punching everyone.

Crazed_Insanity

December 17th, 2021, 01:14 PM

By punching everyone, I meant he essentially made fun of everyone. I thought he’s an equal opportunity puncher.

He also walked away from huge sums of money because he didn’t want them rich folks controlling him. One of the main reasons he’s partnering with Netflix was because there are enough mutual respect for one another.

If netflix was all about making money off of Chappelle and keep him under their control, surely he would’ve been canceled by now.

Dave just doesn’t want others controlling him. Not media execs nor any PC groups. He was clear that last episode would the the last time he punch back to the T community. So hopefully that’ll really be the end of that flame war between them.

If this drags on anymore, it ain’t gonna be funny no more…

Tom Servo

December 17th, 2021, 01:29 PM

I get what you meant. I disagree. I don't think he did make fun of everyone. And I don't think he does that now.

He's publicly said why he walked away and that wasn't the reason. From GQ's writeup:

You ever hear the one about the famous Black comedian who disappeared when he realized the white people watching him were laughing a little too hard and likely for the wrong reasons? Deal with white people long enough, especially the ones who’ve enjoyed enough episodes of “The Wire” and Wu-Tang albums to believe they’re in on the joke, and you can easily understand why Dave Chappelle walked away from $50 million rather than tape a third season of Chappelle’s Show for Comedy Central. He was fighting for his life.

JoeW

December 17th, 2021, 01:34 PM

I honestly can't believe there are 113 posts in a thread title Billi vs the World.

Shocked I tell you...

Tom Servo

December 17th, 2021, 04:00 PM

My shame knows no bounds.

Tom Servo

December 17th, 2021, 04:10 PM

As an aside, one thing I noticed in that video was the host kept talking about how, at a death metal show, the singer had pissed on someone's face and then apologized for it, and there was a lot of "well, what do you expect from a death metal show?"

It wasn't death metal. It was a group called "Brass Against" that do brass-instrument based covers of songs by bands like Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, Living Color, etc etc.

I've been to a ton of death metal shows. I don't even expect them to be pissing on anyone's face. I don't think anybody expected that from basically a ska cover band. But that whole thing is presented as fact in that video, like not only did it happen the way he said, but that "of course it did." It shows a lack of bothering to know what you're talking about, and an assuredness that you're correct about it.

I know that's not about Peterson at all, but it struck me listening to that. I was like "I'm aware of this incident, and it's not at all what this guy is saying."

Crazed_Insanity

December 17th, 2021, 05:08 PM

I’m not familiar with that performer at all. However, was that fan who got pissed on enjoyed it?

I assumed that fan enjoyed it?

Anyway the thing we need to consider is who really has the ultimate authority of what is correct?

PC group? Conservative Christian group?

Law is simple. We can easily figure out if something is legal or not by checking with existing laws. Even that may be up to court interpretations sometimes…

However, when it comes to being ‘correct’, who’s to judge? Obviously each group have different ideas of what is correct… when groups disagreed and believed differently, what are we to do?

The bigger more powerful group shall just force the smaller weaker group to apologize or else beat the crap out of them? Or perhaps people can just agree to disagree?

Crazed_Insanity

December 17th, 2021, 05:11 PM

I honestly can't believe there are 113 posts in a thread title Billi vs the World.

Shocked I tell you...

Maybe DN could start one for you too! JoeW vs the world in the racing forum? :p

Tom Servo

December 17th, 2021, 05:14 PM

Presumably it was pre-planned as the audience member was earing a gopro on his head, from what I remember. The rest of the band weren't expecting it though and were pretty disgusted with their singer.

But there was a presumption by the host (that Peterson appeared to agree with) that death metal fans are just the kinds of people that would do that. I've been into death metal for 30+ years, and I am not like that. Nor are any of my friends who are also into death metal. I actually did find that pretty offensive.

I think there's also a duty to let people know that that kind of thing is going to happen at one of your shows. Back when he was alive, people knew what they were getting into going to a GG Allin show. People know what they're getting into when they go see GWAR. I think people rightfully had an expectation that this would not happen at a trombone cover band show.

Crazed_Insanity

December 17th, 2021, 08:40 PM

I don’t know the band nor any metal music well… was that incident pre planned or spontaneous? Who knows?

Let’s just removed all these ass holish people out, and maybe even exclude ourselves too and go with whatever unspecified generic issue for a moment…

When 2 people or groups of folks disagree with one another and maybe even find each other offensive…, after depleting each other’s patience trying to figure out who’s really correct… what should they do next?

[edit]
I guess you’re not interested in answering, so I’ll just answer… I think baby Jesus would want us to do like prodigal son’s dad. Personally I’m not sure if I could be that obedient… to give my no good kid his inheritance before I die? Anyway, that’s what the parable was indicating. To just agree to disagree like that while never holding a grudge. I don’t think I am at that level yet, but at least I try to aim toward that.

Anyway, merry Xmas! :)

Crazed_Insanity

January 29th, 2022, 11:38 PM

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-admits-josh-szeps-made-him-look-dumb-podcast-vaccine-debate-1669399?amp=1

Did a bit of googling and found this might be relevant to our discussion about Rogan…

Somebody actually went on his show and pointed out the error of his way! Joe resisted at 1st, but truth is like Borgs! Resistance is futile. Joe was big enough to concede and admit his guest made him look dumb! So I think Joe is probably not as bad as Trump. He can be reasoned with… people should just go correct him on his show rather than cancel themselves.

Don’t want to continue this in pandemic thread, so moving the discussion here.

Did some more digging on Joe Rogan. I really think some of you guys are having a serious case of pink eyes or ears. ;) I never regularly listen to the guy, Only seen clips of him on YouTube interviewing guests I’m interested in. Naturally folks like Jordan Peterson, but also Andrew Yang, Bernie sanders, Robert Downey jr,… I thought Rogan seemed alright and guests all had a great time too.

I think the main episode in question that sparked it all was the one with Dr. Malone? One of the main guy who pioneered the mRNA tech but is now somehow antivaxxer… I’m personally a bit perplexed about that but would not mind listening to him speak. I think that doc has already been banned on Twitter and YouTube so Joe Rogan giving him a platform pissed some people off? That’s probably what prompted an open letter by 270 some doctors asking Spotify to take some action and probably why Neil Young took matter into his own hands by canceled himself?

Anyway, ironically the 270 some doctors who signed the opened letter… most of them are not practicing medical doctors either.

So for a lame person like myself, why should I trust these mostly fake doctors over dr malone?

Point is, I don’t mind seeing/hearing more dialogues on Joe rogan rather than trying to just shut him down.

However, I think most mainstream leftists probably think Rogan to be too deplorable to be given the time of day? Only the fringe left who nobody likes such as Bernie or Tulsi would appear in such deplorable shows?

Anyway, I honestly believe more open dialogues between 2 sides will help decrease future conspiracy theories. I thought Joe rogan has been pretty fair. For sure roofer would not give Bernie the time of day… to me, Joe doesn’t seem like the type who wants to control any narratives… he does learn from his guests.

Yw-slayer

January 30th, 2022, 03:16 AM

Lol typical, I click View Post and there he is defending Joe Rogan. :lol:

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 07:16 AM

Cancel culture is just too fucked up. I’ve also seen lots of critics from Don lemon of CNN to other podcasters critical of Joe rogan and his guests, particularly Jordan Peterson, on their own shows, but do they actually invite Rogan or the guests on their shows to talk about it? Nope. They’d rather continue twist joe’s or his guests words condescendingly just like YW is doing to Billi…

Dr. Malone is definitely one of the pioneers of the mRNA tech. We should not act as the Catholic Church silencing him as Galileo. Let him talk. If he’s talking BS, address these BS and try to prove Galileo wrong if you can. If you can’t, all the reason why you shouldn’t silence Galileo…

200 some fake doctor’s signatures are not better than one quack doctor. Even if the quack doctor is claiming flat earth and sun is going around the earth, we should not cancel Joe Rogan because of that. We probably should cancel our education system and start over. ( including canceling student debts)

We actually should use Joe Rogan to our advantage and get to more people. If for whatever reason you just believe a group of folks are just too deplorable to even talk to, then I guess our nation will just remain lousy again and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with you of course, it’s all them deplorables fault.

Tom Servo

January 30th, 2022, 10:10 AM

So for a lame person like myself, why should I trust these mostly fake doctors over dr malone?

That quote right there is the *exact* reason why Rogan's show is bad.

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 11:04 AM

Bad meaning a good show should never allow doctors with contrarian viewpoints on the show?

Good means when a bunch of non-practicing doctors signed an open letter, then we ought to take action because they have bigger number?

Can people just have discussions, on a talk show? If Joe Rogan is able to convert most Americans into flat earthers or help Bernie Sanders win the presidency, more power to him!

Silencing his platform won’t help Americans get smarter. Our education system is truly lousy. Higher education is also unaffordable so most Americans couldn’t afford it… for the ones able to ‘afford’ the debt, they become indentured servants for the rest of their lives with a mostly useless degree…

Tom Servo

January 30th, 2022, 11:29 AM

Your gish gallop of logical fallacies is kinda amazing. An appeal to authority, that "he's just a doctor with contrarian viewpoints." No, he's a misinformation crank who did not, in fact, invent mRNA vaccines. He did help contribute to them. He also sent a message to someone who contributed a lot more than him that she'd "get what's coming to her" after she got a writeup in the Washington Post, but then claims that wasn't a threat.

What I find most fascinating though is that you continually claim you're all about free speech but you always choose one side that should have it. You moan about cancel culture, but that is in itself freedom of speech. Twitter banning someone is part of their freedom of speech. Freedom of speech does not mean you can say whatever bullshit you want to say and nobody can tell you you're full of it.

I realize I've said this about 1,000 times and you'll never get it, but ffs, Joe Rogan is the opposite of cancelled. Calling out the damage he's doing by putting on known bad actors and failing to even remotely challenge them on their nonsense is part of my freedom of speech.

Dicknose

January 30th, 2022, 12:23 PM

Nothing to say... just letting you know Im reading and enjoying

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 02:18 PM

Take it easy with your jaundice eye. I never said Malone invented the vaccine, but he was definitely one of the pioneers of the mRNA tech… and not a complete quack. He may very well has some other hidden motives against the vaccines or just a sore loser thinking that he should have more credit than what’s given…

Anyway, I have no problems for you to call out BS on someone else. I did find a recent guest who called out Rogan’s BS on his show! Rogan did eventually concede that he fucked up! That’s what I like to see! I just have a problem with cancel culture in general that we need to silence people with contrarian view points and just forget about them.

Joe Rogan is indeed the opposite of cancel culture that’s why I’m speaking out against canceling him. Of course Rogan is making enough money for spotify to not have to worry about that, but Neil young canceling himself was also totally unnecessary IMHO.

If there are guests in his show spreading bogus info, then get on his show or invite him/guest face to face to set things straight rather then just trying to pressure management to cancel shows.

We’re not suppose to run like the CCP.

In all honesty, I didn’t like seeing Bin Laden cancelled in the middle of the night. I’d like to see him put on trial. Similarly, we also cannot give Snowden a fair trial for some reason.

Cancel culture is just not ideal.

I’m not an antivaxxer, but knowing Pfizer has strong grip of our government and mainstream media, I definitely didn’t rush out to get their vaccines right away… :p

Talk to your fellow Americans. No matter how you cancel them, they still live next door to you.

Tom Servo

January 30th, 2022, 02:55 PM

You are still equating voting with your dollars or pulling your support from someone as not being speech, or at least lesser speech than what it's arguing against. Nobody owes people who spew misinformation an audience. There's overwhelming data that the vaccines work, and Malone is a tool who should not be listened to. Giving him an audience is a losing proposition - at best, everyone thinks he's an idiot, and anything less than best will literally lead to people dying.

You may be the poster child for why the goal you're going for doesn't work. It doesn't matter when someone comes in with data showing that someone who says something you want to believe is wrong, you still believe it. You will believe things despite mountains of evidence and multiple people pointing out that evidence for you.

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 05:20 PM

I have no problems with people voting with their dollars. I have no problems with CEOs or sponsors withdrawing support on whatever projects of theirs. I don’t think I should be so free to be able to tell them what to do. However, if you are a public company or government, then I’d hope for more transparency and accountability. Only things I can do is to not buy their products or sell their stocks or not vote for them.

To me, cancel culture is more like suppression of other speeches. Think of freedom of religion. There just won’t be enough data to prove either way… what then? Then may the best religion or non-religion win! (Provided that you don’t suppress/persecute other religions) A religion will cancel itself when people choose to stop believing. Likewise any other ideology being spread during a ‘speech’. Just promote your idea. You can even demonstrate why your idea is better compared to other lame ideas. I don’t believe the best way to go is to just tell others to shut the fuck up or shut yourself the fuck up.

Tom Servo

January 30th, 2022, 08:00 PM

There will always be suppression of some speech. Some speech is bad and should be suppressed. It's the marketplace of ideas, as some like to call it.

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 09:02 PM

If there’s a fire, for sure we need to suppress it. However, let’s say there’s a dangerous cult rapidly gaining converts and popularity, what would be the best way to suppress that and fight that fire?

Cancel that cult leader and force that cult underground would solve the problem?

Well, that didn’t work for Christianity and in more modern examples, cancellation of bin laden didn’t end the war on terror. We also banned that mofo Trump on Twitter and he didn’t quite go away, did he?

Market place is not about looking for products to ban, but about finding great products to buy.

Tom Servo

January 30th, 2022, 09:03 PM

I think this article does a great job of laying out the consequences of propaganda and why I think this belief that there's a level playing field that can be overcome by truth is incredibly naïve.

https://wapo.st/3KTaz3A

Crazed_Insanity

January 30th, 2022, 09:38 PM

Fauci is in a similar position as Masi. However, it is super clear that Masi fucked it up and he should leave his post to make peace with all the dissatisfied fans and perhaps also Hamilton himself.

Now, wrong-doing on Fauci’s part is less clear, but there’s similar loss of confidence thing going on. He has been doing this same job for a long long time… very high salary and also in control of $6 billion in research budgets.

If I were him, I’d just retire and hand the job over to someone else. There are only 2 possible reasons why he insists on holding onto this thankless job. 1) he’s not a quitter. 2) he has to cover his ass.

Personally, Fauci has lost my confidence in him. Maybe I got suckered into the propagandas, but to be fair, it’s not just Fauci, I won’t even trust CDC or other govt agencies’ guidance automatically anymore. And I’m not an antivaxxer and I still make sure my kid stays home with remote learning option and even got her vaccinated! So at least I didn’t buy into those propagandas entirely. :p

I personally am a firm naive believer of truth being like bubbly foam which in time will always rise up to the top and reveal itself. I might not know the real truth at the moment, but eventually we should all know the real truth.

Back to using the market place of ideas and let's use transportation as example. We don't need to ban horse carriages during the introduction of IC cars. Most people will adopt the new and better tech automatically. No need to make the life of the Amish miserable by making them walk! :p Similarly now with introduction of EVs, I'm not sure it's a great idea to ban combustion cars... EVs have their limitations especially during extreme hot and cold climates. Encourage with temporary tax credit in the name of climate change is fine IMHO. Not sure if bans are the best idea. The truth offered in the market place has to be better than the other products in order for people to buy into it. Banning stuffs just don't usually work very well. Didn't work for alcohol nor drugs... pretty much anything. We should try to make whatever's true way more attractive in the market place. Demonstrate that this truth is NOT on a level playing field, but way above that level. Then all the conspiracy theories will go away... nobody to tweet about horse carriages being way better than cars or cars are hoax and don't even exist. Not even the Amish.

Problem with our government is that it sometimes impose too many mandates and it's also not very transparent. Anyway, there are a lot of problems with our country, I just don't think cancel culture will fix any of our problems... in fact, I believe it'll only exacerbate our problems. I do like free markets. Real free market shouldn't allow bigger companies to destroy/silence other competitors. Just let the buyers decide with their votes and may the best product win.

Crazed_Insanity

January 31st, 2022, 11:47 AM

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/joe-rogan-apologizes-to-spotify-and-musicians.html

Joe Rogan actually apologizing to spotify and to the musicians who've canceled themselves and promises that he will have a more 'balanced' set of guests on his show. Supposedly he books his guests himself and he admits that he needs to do a better job.

Like I said, I don't know Rogan that well, but this is the kind of gestures that I have seen and I think it sets him apart from folks like Trump. I don't think Trump will ever apologize for anything or believe he is capable of doing anything wrong.

Of course now it remains to be seen if he'll stay true to his words. If he does, I will most likely become one of his fans. I'd be able to hear things on his platform that mainstream media trying suppress like what CCP does. Whether if the info is actually legit or just bunch of flame, I hope I'll have to brain power to figure out. ;) Seriously, people should be able to decide for themselves rather relying on government censorship... or the warning labels on various consumer products... Oh really? Smoking is bad for my health? Really? If I put a pillow over my face I could suffocate? Thanks government for the warning!

Tom Servo

January 31st, 2022, 03:13 PM

I think something I was trying to explain with the Julian Sanchez thread before is that just having a different opinion doesn't validate that opinion as worthwhile or even non-dangerous. There is no inherent goodness to pushing a narrative that lies outside the mainstream, and often times there is lots of badness. "Balance" isn't necessarily an admirable goal. People who believe a cabal of secretive Jews are controlling the world aren't inherently worth listening to just because they don't agree with the status quo.

I'm a little set off because I just saw that Newsweek, which admittedly is a shadow of its former self, published an article by Jack fucking Posobiec and that is goddamn shameful.

Crazed_Insanity

January 31st, 2022, 06:32 PM

People definitely still has the right to silence others who they perceive as wrong or dangerous.

I just don't agree with that because I believe symptoms like Hitler or Trump are not really the root problems. Opened dialogues can perhaps help us find out the root problems... I don't even agree with the Crusaders fighting and killing in the name of Christ. Jesus doesn't need you to defend him... nor does real truth need your help to prove itself... Anyway, and I really don't know what else to say. We'll just have to agree to disagree like our views of Jordan Peterson. :p

Crazed_Insanity

February 2nd, 2022, 07:10 PM

Don't want to derail pandemic thread too much... so I'm moving this here. ;)

The problem with your idiotic example is that the "truck driver" can not only get a whole bunch of other people sick trucks sick with the same bad brakes, but also that when his truck becomes really sick MY FUCKING TAXES pay for it's care. When that bitchass truck could've got a free vaccine. And not wasted tax dollars on care that could have been prevented (in most cases.)

You're really bad at this.

Anyway dude, I was not trying to be good or bad, just trying to be consistent.

I am pro-life and pro-life saving vaccines and pro-eternal life giving gospel. However, when push comes to shove, I'm also pro-choice and don't think government should force women to have their babies nor force people to vaccinate nor force people to convert to Christianity. Doing it against people's will in the name of goodness won't really be goodness anymore. Yeah, it'd actually be really bad.

Dicknose

February 3rd, 2022, 02:10 PM

However, when push comes to shove, I'm also pro-choice and don't think government should force women to have their babies nor force people to vaccinate nor force people to convert to Christianity. Doing it against people's will in the name of goodness won't really be goodness anymore. Yeah, it'd actually be really bad.

But should it be anything goes?
Here (in commie Australia) we force vehicles to have inspections for their brakes. Since this affects others on the road its important that there is a basic safety standard. Vehicles (esp trucks) with faulty brakes or steering can kill people. And punishing people after the fact doesn't help the families of those who were killed or injured.
Some govt control is good for the greater wellbeing of society.

Now Im probably changing my view on vaccines as it seems that with omicron they aren't doing much to stop the spread. The balance has moved towards it being personal protection.
But I still think the idea that a govt can enforce medical requirements is ok. There must be compelling reasons and it needs to involve a group benefit. But its a reasonable concept.

Crazed_Insanity

February 3rd, 2022, 02:50 PM

It’s definitely a reasonable concept! I thought we sort of had vaccine mandate when my daughter started elementary school before the pandemic. Of course there were probably also anti vax parents trying to get waivers for their kids back then that I just never paid attention to… I really thought it’s just a small minority and most folks would be fine with vaccine mandates.

Also, it’s perfectly reasonable for government to want to save unborn babies too, right? So I don’t think the issue is due to the unreasonableness on government’s part.

The issue is should we allow people to make unwise/unreasonable choices? Or maybe perhaps big pharma influenced the government to mandate the sales of their vaccines continually in the name of protecting the public?

Of course there are good reasons to abort babies and some just can not take vaccines, but surely most of those people are probably making their choices poorly…

Nevertheless, I just think it’s more wrong to suppress people’s free will.

Ideally we can have majority of our population making wise choices without governments making decisions for them. We don’t need a bunch of babies who cannot make their own choices, right? One advantage of allowing people to make their own choices is to allow them to learn from their mistakes?

Temporary measures are acceptable to me , but if governments begin dragging its feet, continue on its power grab years after 9/11 and pandemic… then that’s probably not right. US government is better than CCP, but still not very trustworthy.

Crazed_Insanity

February 3rd, 2022, 08:59 PM

Back to Joe Rogan, I think Jon Stewart and I are like totally on the same wavelength.

https://youtu.be/Ifp0VzSMeAs

Yw-slayer

February 4th, 2022, 12:14 AM

lol whenever I click VIEW POST it's clear that this guy really can only see things as being pure black and pure white. It's guys like him who created Trumpeo and their lovers. Enjoy!!!

Dicknose

February 4th, 2022, 12:28 AM

Nevertheless, I just think it’s more wrong to suppress people’s free will.

My issue is when your free will interferes with me, especially my safety.
Is it free will to drink and drive?
Or walk down the street with a gun which you might pull out if you get angry.
Or even just shoot people!

Its easy to have rules for "after the fact", but again that doesn't help the victims.

To live in a society is to trade off some of your rights to benefit from the group. We have laws and restrictions. These all restrict your free will.
The issue is just where do we draw the line.

Crazed_Insanity

February 4th, 2022, 06:49 AM

Yeah, gun rights is probably one of the most controversial issues…

As for vaccine, once we’re vaccinated, we’re protected, right?

I think temporarily lockdowns to stop the initial spread or buy scientists time were necessary for everyone’s good, but >2 yrs into this, I think it should be clear that we don’t really need such a mandate to feel safe.

Lastly, when you have significant # of people protesting, whether it’s for BLM or FREEDUMB, governments can ignore them at their own peril. BLM is more complicated... it's not like we could just pass a law to end racism, but vaccine mandate is a specific policy. Canada already has like 80% vax rate…, I just don’t think it’s wise to further piss off your truck drivers for the rest of the 20%… JT's push for mandate is mostly politics now... even by looking at politics of it, will vaccination of 99+% of canadians be worth it when your nation is paralyzed in supply chain issues? Anyway, I wish US has 80% vaccination rate...

The policy I'd recommend is to encourage people to vaccinate. People should come to their senses eventually.

Abortion rate is also on a steady decline although currently we still have pro-choice.

I'm pretty sure I will never be a Christian if there's a mandate to follow Jesus in America. I'd probably flee to China and be a communist.

Crazed_Insanity

February 4th, 2022, 08:07 AM

lol whenever I click VIEW POST it's clear that this guy really can only see things as being pure black and pure white. It's guys like him who created Trumpeo and their lovers. Enjoy!!!

Dude, cancel culture is probably more black and white than Billi. Either Joe disappear or my music disappear! That's called 'nuance'? Who's being black and white here? With regard to vaccines, at least 'most' folks are vaccinated already. Why is it necessary to 'mandate' it for 100% of the population? As for those immune compromised folks... do they need like a bunch of doctor's notes to get a waiver? If they couldn't get a waiver in time, they'll just get jabbed anyways because we have a 'mandate'? And for those anti-vaxxers, they can probably buy a fake waiver from some asshole doctors anyway. Government's job should just be assisting/regulating big pharmas to come up with safe/effective/available vaccines for all. Forcibly jabbing in people's arms should not be necessary. There's absolutely no nuance in 'mandates'.

You know, I really can't tell if you're truly happy when CCP took over HK or being sarcastic..., but either way, as long as your happy, what can I say?

I, on the other hand, would not want to see Taiwan be forcibly taken over. I'd like to see reunification of China, but not by force. Any governments that wish to do something against people's will, I'd be against that.

I do approve of CCP's initial lockdowns, but they still reacted too little too late. Had WHO listened to Taiwan's warnings, maybe things could turn out better for the rest of the world? But what do those Taiwanese freedumb people know, right? Oh wait, I forgot, Taiwan doesn't even exist according to China, that's why WHO couldn't hear Taiwan's warnings. WHO was pretty useless in the beginning. When China said there's no virus, WHO believed China. When China lock herself down, WHO applauded and praised her for doing a great job. WHO just wasn't independent enough. I could tell by how they ignored Taiwan's early warnings.

Now of course China got things under control much easily than rest of the world because Xi can mandate whatever he wants! He could also fudge the #s if he wants. Whatever he wants goes. He's also very good at silencing contrarian voices. Doesn't matter if you're a billionaire! CCP is like God! CCP can give and made Jack Ma a billionaire... CCP can also take it away. Let's praise the Almighty CCP! China is so awesome! But I take that back. Even God respects people's free will and would never force us into doing anything.

Tom Servo

February 5th, 2022, 02:39 PM

Back to the Malone/Rogan thing, here's a doctor's take on it. It's a long twitter thread, but worth the read IMHO:
Part 1: https://twitter.com/grahamwalker/status/1489429245520580608
Part 2: https://twitter.com/grahamwalker/status/1489617274918957056
Part 3: https://twitter.com/grahamwalker/status/1490027556044566529

Crazed_Insanity

February 5th, 2022, 03:50 PM

Can you share with me why it’s worth reading? Does it really has to be this long?

If there’s really no way to shorten that, then I guess I will have to go and read the whole thing… :p

Anyway, point is I’m discussing this with Tom Swervo, not Graham Walker. I’d like to know what you think.

Do you still think Billi is wrong and Jon Stewart has turned right wing and became somebody like Jordan Peterson?

Tom Servo

February 5th, 2022, 05:51 PM

It's worth reading because a practicing doctor who deals with Covid patients did the work to go through the claims that Malone made. You previously stated, without evidence, that the people who wrote the open letter to Spotify were unqualified, so here's a guy who's qualified and can explain why Malone is not - or at least not qualified to make the statements he made on the show. He goes through in a significant amount of detail what Malone gets wrong as well as how Rogan lets him spout things he's either unqualified to say or has already been debunked completely unchallenged.

As far as what I think: you like to see anybody who goes against the "mainstream" as automatically correct. You are the person that Julian Sanchez described. You read somewhere that the people who wrote the open letter weren't qualified and therefore Malone is the truth-teller that the mainstream is trying to keep down. And before you say it, no, I don't think being mainstream makes it automatically right, either. I think the person that posted all that was good about showing receipts.

I haven't watched Jon Stewart's thing, but part of what I'm not liking about his stance lately - Stewart is a great debater. Just because I am not a good debater doesn't mean that I'm wrong and the person demanding that I debate them is right. Also, he's proof that even if you are a great debater, it doesn't really end up doing a ton. He famously debated Tucker Carlson on Crossfire, and look where that got us? Did he change Tucker's mind? Did he point out to TV execs that Tucker is an unserious man who will say anything to make a buck? Maybe for a very short time, but certainly not in a lasting way.

Crazed_Insanity

February 5th, 2022, 07:45 PM

Now, I don’t automatically dismiss mainstream everything just because they’re mainstream. I do try to critically examine their stances. Like in RWA’s Christian school’s case, I stayed consistent to my understanding of the Bible and didn’t just accept whatever a ‘Christian’ institution must be correct. I also didn’t disagree just for the sake of disagreeing because they’re ‘mainstream’.

Similarly, my argument had never been about Dr Malone. I haven’t heard everything he said, but based on whatever I’ve heard so far, I am not 100% convinced that he is correct. My argument is that we ought not to silence him just because he doesn’t go along with the mainstream narrative. Let him speak and let listeners decide for themselves. I just don’t believe free speech is about having the freedom to shut somebody up.

Governments really should create better and more affordable education systems so that your democratic constituents are not so stupid to be so easily swayed by false information. Governments ought to also earn the trust of the people. Our government pretty much failed on both front. There are a lot of Malones out there. You will not be able to silence them all!

Anyway, I really can’t believe even Jon Stewart is causing your jaundice eye too…

Tell you what, I will take the time to read that long tweet, but please view that fairly short video of Stewart and let’s come back and see if we can come to an agreement?

[edit] okay, only finished part1 at the moment… the only thing is might disagree with this doctor on is that he used a fortune article to prove that vaccine is more effective than natural immunity against omicron. Realistically that’s just difficult to believe, right? That a vaccine developed not for omicron in the 1st place is actually way more effective than our immune system? If this science holds true over time, than big pharma must be really really good!

Anyway, onto part2.

Tom Servo

February 6th, 2022, 10:46 AM

Okay, so I'm about 4 minutes into Jon Stewart's interview there. Right off the bat, that's what I'm talking about. "Engage." Now Neil Young has to be a debater on someone else's podcast. Nobody's telling Rogan he needs to become a singer-songwriter.

I'm glad that works for Jon. He's talented at it. I think he puts *way* too much faith into it. He was great on the Daily Show at that, and the Daily Show has spun off a lot of other people who are great at that. That's wonderful! If you can do that, do that. But expecting people to be talented debaters and great orators to be able to make their voice heard isn't fair to a lot of people. Some people just don't have great voices. Some people get flustered, even when they're right. Forcing them to "engage" with a guy who gets kicked in the head for a living on his podcast is not the right answer.

The second part is pointing out that one thing that everyone points at for Rogan, where someone went on his show and corrected him about myocarditis in kids. Here's the thing I notice about that: Rogan pushed back on this claim. He didn't push back at all against Malone that I can see. He also didn't ask to look up data with Malone, but he needed to go to the data for something that honestly is common knowledge for the vast majority of us.

Jon comes from a comedy background, has likely worked with Rogan, and enjoys engaging like that. I don't think that's necessarily the wrong step if that's something you're good at and want to do. If I'm at a bar and some guy is going off on racist and homophobic nonsense, I'm not the person who's going to go toe to toe with him. If the bar won't kick him out, I'm leaving and not coming back. I think that's also a fully appropriate response.

Let him speak and let listeners decide for themselves. I just don’t believe free speech is about having the freedom to shut somebody up.

Malone is speaking for a position of supposed authority, I don't think it's realistic to let the listeners to have to go to medical school to decide for themselves.

And why would it be difficult to believe that the vaccine is more effective than natural immunity? Omicron's actually been shown to be extremely effective at evading natural immunity. The same thing happened with the Spanish flu.

Crazed_Insanity

February 6th, 2022, 05:16 PM

I only finished part2, will find time to finish part3 soon, but so far, I mostly agree with the ER doc rather than Malone… anyway, I’ll write more about it until I actually finish part3.

Regarding Jon Stewart thing, but I am not asking Neil Young to personally kick Joes ass! We are debating public policies here. Rather than just asking Spotify to remove JR, we need to ask Joe to have somebody who’s a good debater, trustworthy authority figure to clear things up! Forget Fauci, but maybe this ER doctor who actually responded on Twitter at length!

But going on the podcast not just to make Joe look bad, but to educate him and his listeners.

Yeah, if I’m in a bar and met someone I dislike, I most likely won’t stick around engaging in a verbal fight too. No need to get too personal. However, when it comes to public policy, we can’t just shut things down, right?

In politics, Naturally each party just want their president/candidate no matter how lame he is, the opposition party must be lamer, right? It’d be nice to just have an insurrection to cancel the guy we don’t like…, but we need to have public debates/elections between the 2 and just let voters decide for themselves.

I really don’t think we need to actively control the narrative and shut other ideas down. Truth will prove itself over time. People can be stupid, but eventually they will turn around. Jon Stewart’s ‘engage’ is probably for us to engage our own family and friends rather strangers in bars. If it’s engaging Joe Rogan, naturally we can’t send Neil young! He could write a song about it… rather than pulling his music.

[edit] ok I finished part3.
Yeah, I think it’ll be great for this ER doc to go on the JRE to have a chat with Joe. I did not catch him saying JRE should be canceled, but of course he is obviously very irritated by RM’s disinformation and JR seemingly letting him off easy.

Like I said, I don’t really know Joe that well, but at least the guy admits his mistakes and he was obviously very provaccines during the early stages of the pandemic. It’d be worth asking him what happened? Why are you leaning this way now? What info have led to this change? And let's unpack these new info that you got...

Anyway, clearly even if Spotify dumps JRE, surely he could set up his podcast elsewhere or independently on the web and he’d still get millions of listeners.

So yeah, I still agree with Stewart that engagement is probably best course of action.

To use science as example: scientists themselves come up with various 'theories' when confronted with a new thing they don't quite understand. They would then test their various theories and let them drop away over time... not just have a chief or the most powerful scientist prematurely declare certain theories as conspiratory and discard them and force other scientists to never talk about nor test them...

Just let each scientist or people do their thing. The truth must win out in the end.

Free speech/religion is based on the assumption that nobody really knows the absolute truth. I think that assumption is spotify on! ;) No matter how stupid or conspiratory it sounds, maybe we could still learn something? The other thing we need to self reflect is why has our government become so untrustworthy?

We've see so many of our politicians preach the do as I say not as I do. Telling people to lock down, but they'd attend parties. Governments really need to be more convincing... in the world where nobody really have their acts together all the time, I appreciate some free speech... and the ability to freely choose... and I'll also learn to take responsibility of my chosen actions.

Dicknose

February 7th, 2022, 03:50 PM

Free speech/religion is based on the assumption that nobody really knows the absolute truth.

Really?

I dont think that's the reason for it at all. You are allowed to lie, say things that are incorrect - that's part of free speech.

Tom Servo

February 7th, 2022, 04:03 PM

Hot damn, Billi's a nihilist. There is no truth, time to burn it all down!

(Yes, I know you're not a nihilist)

Crazed_Insanity

February 7th, 2022, 06:22 PM

Really?

I dont think that's the reason for it at all. You are allowed to lie, say things that are incorrect - that's part of free speech.
If none of our speeches are absolutely true, then we are all liars to a different degree, right?

From the other perspective, if none of our speeches are absolute false, then all of our speeches have different degrees of truths in them, right?

Point is no human speeches or religions are absolutes, either way you look at it.

You might think religious BS lies could last thousands of years, but even for religions, every world religion has certain truths in them. They are not pure absolute lies. As long live as they can be, we have seen some of them falling away.

Just as Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme could last a long time, but my theory is that if something is really based on lies, it should inevitably collapse! Only real truth could not be suppressed, beaten, crucified, killed and buried.

Anyway, maybe I’m just too naive to believe that good and truth will always triumph over evil and lies in the end. However, I sincerely believe real truth doesn’t need me to win a debate for him… and truth just cannot be suppressed.

Listen, if Jesus Christ is really just a lie, he will eventually fall away too. I believe Jesus to be true, but that doesn’t mean I should mandate everyone to believe in him, nor should I suppress people of other religions.

Crazed_Insanity

February 7th, 2022, 10:50 PM

Okay, Joe Rogan has became much harder to defend. Even before political correctness, I think it was frowned upon for a nonblack dude to use the N word. Even I knew that… because I grew up in Pasadena, where schools have predominantly black kids! As much as I’d like to imitate the way Samuel L Jackson or Dave Chappelle talk at times, I had be conditioned to self bleep out the N word. Joe actually used the word in his show?!??

Trevor Noah was kinda defending free speech earlier on, but now…

https://youtu.be/D5SYrX41BtA

I get the feeling JRE will probably get canceled and Spotify will probably lose out to Amazon music. Enriching Jeff Bezos further and push Joe and his supporters further to the right…

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 07:16 AM

I finished watching the Jon Stewart thing finally. I think his argument works *for him*, and I'm glad it does. On the other hand, I think he praises Rogan for not being an idealogue while being a bit of an idealogue himself ("my way is to engage and any other way is wrong and bad").

Another thing that stood out is that he says that we should go after the sources of misinformation, the known bad actors, the people who are maliciously spreading this. Malone is one of those people! We've already identified him as someone who will grift like a motherfucker and is willing to put people's lives at risk to make a buck and Rogan still put him on his show!

Finally, while I agree with Stewart that "the algorithm" (and I assume he's alluding the the Facebook one and then sorta expanding that to all of them) is a huge problem, Rogan's popularity at this point literally comes from that algorithm. The algorithm that creates a feedback loop that pushes up content that stirs up anger, then tells the person doing that that their views and engagement metrics have gone up, so they keep fine tuning it and it only gets pushed up more. That's how he got to the point where Spotify paid tons of money so they could push him up their algorithm exclusively.

I love Jon Stewart, but I think he's misguided here. I think he absolutely should engage in the way that he is best suited to. I think we've been trying to engage for a whole lot of time, including that open letter speaking about the dangers that come from his show. It's one thing to have on some flat earther or UFO guy to spout nonsense, but it's another to have someone who we know spouts falsehoods about a live-saving vaccine during a pandemic and let them talk as though they know what they're talking about. It's not like people haven't been trying to engage in the way that Stewart wants them to, people have been, for years now. Young's move to start people pulling their music off Spotify is the only thing that's actually moved the needle so far.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 08:25 AM

Personally, I'm very skeptical of everything... given that Neil Young no longer owns his own music, in order to pull such move off, he needs agreement of some rich guy who owns his music. It's not like Neil Young couldn't find any platform for his music, right? So this could be a coordinated attack on Spotify... and the winner is kinda obvious. The owner of WAPO? WAPO could also continue to write these stories to spice things up...

These are the real 'establishment'... basically getting tired of Joe Rogan's growing popularity and power. Found a great way to put him and spotify down. Like I said, this is the classic divide and conquer technique. In the end, the right end up righter. Left end up lefter. Rich end up richer. Poor still end up poorer. Nation is more fucked up than before..., but as long as the 'establishment' ends up richer, that's all they care about.

With regard to Robert Malone, given that he is one of the original developers of the mRNA technique, I'd really want to know what are his true motives. Why is he spreading malicious lies and trying to destroy his own work? That makes little sense... or at least that's something I haven't figured out yet. My current guess is that perhaps it's sour grapes mentality? He didn't get more credit for his work so he decides to screw it up for everyone?

I think establishing motives will help give us clearer understanding, but of course we may not be able to uncover true motives...

Anyway, regarding to Jon Stewart, I still agree with him. I wish the open letter is to persuade Joe and Spotify to include other folks with opposing viewpoints of Dr. Malone rather then a cancellation.

You know these attackers could really save a lot of trouble by presenting this N-word video 1st. It would've been a way more effective blow to Joe and Spotify. But I guess it takes time to go thru 12 years of podcasts to compile that video... and they just finished that recently?

But anyway, I think cancel culture is going to win out again. I'd be amazed if Joe Rogan and Spotify can survive this. Should they survive this, then our nation will be fucked even more because now it'll become clearer to the left that we have a lot more dumb racists in our nation than we thought... so this 'fight' will only get worse...

If this kind of movements continues on, America will be fucked... and YW should be very happy that America has no will to build anything back better, but instead rather be willing to fight each to the death. :smh:

Well, America survived a civil war before..., let's see if we could survive another one. If we're not lucky enough to get another Abe Lincoln, America's days may be numbered... in seemingly hopeless situations like this... all I can do is to resort to praying for America. :)

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 08:57 AM

Oof, holy conspiracy theory, Batman!

Yes, this is clearly a coordinated effort by someone evil and not, ya know, the normal thing that happens when someone keeps pushing the limit too far and suddenly finds out when you get more negative attention than you wanted.

But as to Malone - he's a grifter. He's making money off of this. His website offers numerous services for pay including speaking at events like that anti-vax...oh wait, sorry...medical freedom rally in Washington DC a week or two ago. You know, the one where RFK Jr once again claimed this is all just like the holocaust yet again. That's his motivation.

At any rate, if your theory that this is a coordinated effort by Jeff Bezos, whoever owns the rights to Neil Young's Music, and the Washington Post to drive Spotify out of business, then if it works that's not cancel culture - that's capitalism.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 09:02 AM

Yes, it's capitalism for sure... and leveraging cancel culture.

I have generally no issues with free market capitalism, but when one company becomes too monopolistic and utilizing warped ideologies to make money... that's a problem.

There's s difference between healthy free market economy vs having a cancerous monopoly, right?

Remember, you guys always want me to stop thinking black and white, right? For sure Joe is no angel, but I don't think the other side has only pure motives either.

Regarding Malone, it'll be so sad if your theory is true... that he'd abandon his prior life's work just to make a few bucks on speaking fees. He must be very proud of himself?

I know he's probably no Galileo, nobody would invite Galileo to talk about how earth revolves around the sun too, but I still would like to be able to hear Malone speak, rather than just have him silenced.

Point is, you can't really silence them. Not Malone, not Trump... the more we try to silence them..., the more attractive these figure will become to those who believe in them. Just let people choose, rather than taking people's options away.

Alcoholics and druggies can always find whatever they want even if you ban the things they're looking for.

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 09:36 AM

Point is, you can't really silence them. Not Malone, not Trump... the more we try to silence them..., the more attractive these figure will become to those who believe in them. Just let people choose, rather than taking people's options away..

That part isn't quite true. When's the last time you heard from Milo Yiannapolis or Richard Spencer?

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 10:18 AM

After a person is sufficiently discredited, his silence should be automatic.

Just saying we don't need to have government or whatever social media actively silencing people. Sure, exercise your free speech to discredit these malicious assholes... that's what I'd like to hear, rather than just silencing them.

In a free market place of ideas, inferior, bogus ideas/sellers should fall out of favor eventually. It's just impossible to sell malicious lies and be able to profit from that indefinitely. Maybe only in a market place where nobody's selling truth? I just believe truer and better should always win out. When outside(non-market) forces are trying to shutdown a seller, there's always the risk of it being driven by some other seller trying to get rid of his competition. If it's a truly malicious seller cheating customers, once found out, he should be out of business naturally. But of course, in such circumstances, I would not be totally against the authorities removing such vendor out of the market place, just saying it's probably unnecessary.

Anyway, I think sales of alcohol/drugs can be a good example of why we shouldn't suppress their sales because it's futile to think addicts can be stopped by a legal ban. US has already experienced it. Prohibition didn't make things better. War on drugs/terror didn't make those things go away. Universities banning right wing speakers on campus didn't stop people like Trump from gaining power.

The worst the right could go is some sort of fascist/monopolistic dictator like Hitler.

The worst the left could go is some sort of tyrannical dictator like Marx or Mao...

Both are into suppressing ideas contrary to their own.

Healthy societies really ought to be more free..., without the dumb part of course.

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 10:41 AM

But that's what this is! That's what "cancel culture" is! It's enough people sufficiently discrediting someone. And the silence is automatic!

People collectively deciding that what someone has said is so beyond the pale that they would rather forgo a service they like or whatever than support that person is exactly what you're describing.

Twitter didn't just decide to drop people like Milo or Spencer or Malone. Those people generate engagement. They *make* money for social media companies. Think of Howard Stern - he had more listeners (and therefore more advertising revenue) from people who hated him than people who liked him. Services decide to drop people like that because of public backlash that they believe will ultimately counteract the increased revenue they get by not dropping them, which is essentially the sufficient discrediting you're asking for. And, as far as I know, the government has not been involved in any "canceling" of these people.

I think you're wishing for a world where all the bad people will realize the err of their ways after a stern talking to and leave of their own accord to sit in the corner and think about what they've done. That basically makes a self-selecting set of the absolute worst people who then will never, ever go away.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 11:46 AM

Yes, not all prodigal sons will realize the error of their ways, but I still would like to let them make their own choices rather than forcing them to come home. Maybe the prodigal son found a better place than home..., then good for him.

My main problem with cancel culture is that if Galileo were a pedophile or used the N word, people would toss the idea of earth goes around the sun along with the person! I'd like to have ideas discredited, not focusing on the personal attacks. If it's purely about discrediting ideas, I'm cool with that. Tell people why this idea is wrong/bad and sensible folks should move on from these lame ideas.

Now if it's a sexually predatory boss, we should lock that boss in jail, not just cancel him. We can't give up the presumption of innocence without actually proving somebody guilty.

I really think our founding fathers had the right ideas, but since they're created by a bunch racist slave owning white christian rich assholes, we end up looking down at our constitutional rights that made this nation flourish...

Oh and lastly, does our government attempted to control narratives? Remember the lab leak 'conspiracy theory'? Although science has no answer how the virus came about, we just know we cannot even entertain the lab leak theory because that's just racist! However, what if this is actually an American virus? It's just that we out sourced our jobs to China and let China do the dirty work cheaply using our tax money? What if it's us who funded the research that went wrong?

Now, that'd make sense for US government to want to make sure lab leak should never be one of the theories for the cause of this pandemic. The more they want to shutdown certain ideas from top, the more suspicious I become of their motives... Only way to truly resolve this is for scientists to actually figure out what happened. Until then, conspiracy theories will continue...

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 01:28 PM

Where have we tossed an idea because someone who believed the idea turned out to be bad? What constitutional rights do we look down on (other than I know there are quite a few people that aren't fans of the 2nd amendment, but as far as I know that's not because a supporter turned out to be a pedophile)?

The lab leak 'conspiracy theory' is frowned upon as racist because a bunch of people who wanted to have someone to blame to deflect attention from them started running around calling it the "China Virus" or "Kung-Flu" and claimed, without any actual evidence, that that had happened. Nobody is arguing against investigating if that was the case. I don't think any of us don't think it's a little suspicious how closely the Chinese government is keeping things to their chest. Everyone is arguing against people like Trump who want to try to distract you from the fact that he did less than the bare minimum to protect the American public by just blaming the Chinese. Those same people are sitting there spending way too much time focusing on where they want you to think it started than actually doing anything to mitigate the thing that *has already started*.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 01:56 PM

Americans in general would disregard ideas from the other side of their political spectrum. Conservatives don’t always have bad ideas. Not all of their policies are racist. Similarly democrats are not all socialist commies. Take the rand Paul Fauci discussions, often times they would degenerate to personal attacks rather than discussing the real issues at hand. Listening those 2 talk, I honestly cannot decide who to believe.

Lab leak theory doesn’t have to have to involve Trump or the Chinese at all. We all know how lame trump was at his handling of the pandemic, US has had lab leaks before too. Nobody’s perfect. All I want to figure out is how did this happen and how can we prevent it from happening again. Trump the idiot most likely did not leaked this virus. That’s be a conspiracy theory that’s too far fetched, right? However, US might still be involved.

At least for me, finding someone to blame is pointless now, but we absolutely should try to determine the real cause if possible. The investigation cannot be properly done if investigators are not allowed to go down certain paths.

On the flip side, same goes with all these trump or Epstein investigations as well, investigators are probably not allowed to go down certain paths that’d implicate some other more ‘established’ guy… that’s why we seemingly could never get to the bottom of the issue when there are high level guys involved.

We can only catch and punish the little guys whether it’s the financial crisis or insurrection.

When there’s little transparency up top, no wonder people resort to conspiracy theories.

Let’s just assume this virus is from Jesus or Mother Nature for now… Root cause of financial crisis remains unresolved, shit can certainly happen again. NSA mass surveillance is also elephant in the room we can’t do much about.

At least I’m not crazy enough to not believe moon landing! :p anyway, it’s just kinda hard for me to trust the US government regardless of who’s in charge. I do like our constitution though.

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 02:27 PM

I wish that this board supported animated gifs. There's one I wanted to post of a raccoon excitedly grabbing some cotton candy, only to go wash it before eating and it dissolves into nothingness, leaving the raccoon confused and ultimately unsatisfied.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 06:11 PM

At least YouTube is supported and raccoon decided to just eat without washing in the end. :p

https://youtu.be/eesxH2-8Jlo

Tom Servo

February 8th, 2022, 07:28 PM

I appreciate the video. I'm never going to complain about raccoon videos.

Crazed_Insanity

February 8th, 2022, 07:32 PM

If only we could take whatever theories and wash it with water or whatever and figure out if it's safe to consume or not... :p

Dicknose

February 8th, 2022, 10:21 PM

If none of our speeches are absolutely true, then we are all liars to a different degree, right?

Truth, absolute truth etc...
My point was I dont think that is anything to do with freedom of speech.

Yw-slayer

February 8th, 2022, 10:52 PM

Crazed_Insanity

February 9th, 2022, 06:45 AM

Truth, absolute truth etc...
My point was I dont think that is anything to do with freedom of speech.
You are free to think how ever you want, and please feel free to speak candidly of what you really think. So far I only know you disagree with me, but I still don't know why you disagree with me.

So far I think Swervo and I have agreement on the part that we need to speak out against charlatans to discredit them. We just disagree on the need to actively silencing charlatans. I think most people should be smart enough to figure things out themselves; however, Swervo isn't completely wrong to want to protect the naive population like myself. ;)

Crazed_Insanity

February 9th, 2022, 06:46 AM

He says "Just let people choose" lol. Like how the American public chose Donald Trump to be President WHAT AN INCREDIBLE ACHIEVEMENT SHOWING HOW PEOPLE ALWAYS MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Yes! That’s what a democracy is about!

Too bad our current system rigged us with only 2 lousy choices.

Dicknose

February 9th, 2022, 12:35 PM

You are free to think how ever you want, and please feel free to speak candidly of what you really think. So far I only know you disagree with me, but I still don't know why you disagree with me.

Google - why is freedom of speech important.
My looking found nothing related to the concept of absolute truth.

Some stuff mentions that a downside to freedom of speech is that it is also freedom to lie and spread misinformation.
But I can't find any reference to the concept that its based on not knowing what is true.

You have free speech to say otherwise, but evidence or references would help your idea move towards the truth.

Crazed_Insanity

February 9th, 2022, 01:27 PM

This is like a philosophical debate/discussion, do we really have to rely on google to further the discussion? Google can be full of lies too. I could easily google Dr. Malone.

Why do you think free speech is important or why not? If you find my idea disagreeable, can you share why you disagree?

We can probably do away with the baggages of our past founding fathers... them being rich, white, christian, and slave owning and all that.

Let's say we're starting over to establish a new nation. What kind of 'free speech' would you like... or would you even allow people to freely lie! Why and why not? Can we let this just be a thought exercise without involving google? Of course if you find something on google that can discredit me, that's fair game. Just saying we probably shouldn't stop talking about it because google couldn't find anything to prove Billi is right? :p

Knowing the actual history of free speech or the constitution may be nice, but reality is that people today could also interpret the history/constitution differently. Who's right who's left? Who knows. We should be able to try to dig closer to the real truth ourselves? If there is such a thing?

Yw-slayer

February 19th, 2022, 03:21 AM

Confucianism – like the Ten Commandments without any god

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3167678/confucianism-american-professor-and-believer-its

Congrats, your religion just copied a bunch of universal truths and slapped a bunch of stories on top. No surprise that you'll believe anything.

Crazed_Insanity

February 19th, 2022, 07:36 AM

Absolute truth has to be universally true by definition.

Confucianism shouldn’t be so confused to be able to come up with alternate truths as Trump supporters.

Now whether if you should post this finding in this thread remains questionable because I don’t believe Confucius was that confused to believe he is a god. (Oh wait, this is not the religion thread, so you’ve made the right choice!)

Taoism is more like a religion. Tao in Chinese means literally the Way. Religion of the Chinese Mandalorians. BTW, Jesus annoyingly claimed that he IS the WAY too.

Believe or not, its up to you my friend. There’ll be no mandates. Jesus is not a dictator.

Tom Servo

February 19th, 2022, 07:55 AM

Believe or not, its up to you my friend. There’ll be no mandates. Jesus is not a dictator.

He might not be, but the Spanish Inquisition and The Crusades would like a word with you about that mandate bit.

Crazed_Insanity

February 19th, 2022, 08:58 AM

He might not be, but the Spanish Inquisition and The Crusades would like a word with you about that mandate bit.

No hablo espanol…:p

Anyway, rest assured that Jesus doesn’t need them to defend him. See? They’re gone and Jesus is still around!

Dicknose

February 19th, 2022, 05:23 PM

The article was a bit harsh on Confucianism. In particular... "The problem is that Confucianism’s key ideas are largely commonplaces, and are arrived at quite independently by most of us without any need for the framework Confucianism requires"
Well its amazing how many people dont see or conceptualise the obvious. They might recognise it when they see it, but that is different to being aware of it and being able to think about it, its implications, applications.
There is value in being able to summarise an important concept eg golden rule. It also helps you discuss it and maybe find out it means more than you first thought.

FaultyMario

March 17th, 2022, 03:50 PM

Lesson learned, I guess.

Crazed_Insanity

March 17th, 2022, 06:39 PM

What lesson? Did you tell JoeW?

Crazed_Insanity

August 18th, 2022, 07:51 AM

Is it?

Its a balance. Is it worth throwing out all laws for 1 life?
Is it worth losing the WHO over this issue?

What if breaking that law and saving a life results in a war that kills millions???
Would you want this to be the thing that ends in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan?

WHO can't make this decision on their own, they answer to the UN. Got a problem, take it to the UN.
But I dont think the issue of not dealing directly with Taiwan over the pandemic is the way to go about confronting the China/Taiwan situation.

Want to break this off of the pandemic thread, but it's not related to religion so posting it here...

What would be the point of taking something like this to UN? Forget China/Taiwan for now, just look at Russian/Ukraine. What could UN do?

Not much.

So what's the point of taking it up to UN?

I think UN, EU, and even huge governments like the US government are in similar boats. They try to act they're just and fair, but those with actual power could always get in the way, preventing these organizations from doing the right things. So in the end, people lose trust in these institutions and what we end up having is these anti-establishment sentiments all over the world.

Of course I'm not proposing we go extreme and be like Trump supporters; however, I also don't think we need to defend the CCP, WHO, UN, EU and even the US government as if they can't do anything wrong... these 'experts' must know what they're doing. That's their full time job. What do I know...