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  Overestimating of politicians capability.
Posted by: Szuchow - 03-17-2024, 07:52 AM - Forum: World News, Politics and Current Events - Replies (8)

I often hear how jarosław kaczyński is smart, insightful or even good at making speeches. Granted his party ruled Poland for 8 years but this is the guy who said that kids aren't being born in Poland cause young women drinks* and called his opponents treacherous gobs when speaking in Parliament. He is not at the level of trump incoherence but his usage of polish language makes mine own English to be Chaucerian (or Shakespearean if previous does not carry weight I ascribe to it) in comparison. So I wonder if it is situation in which he won therefore he is great apply? Or perhaps public likes language taken straight from tabloid journalism.

I realize that not many will be able to comment on situation in Poland but surely there are equivalent situation in your countries. So what's your take on this? 


*dają w szyje was exact phrase which while not vulgar certainly shouldn't be used by member of Parliament

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  hi there
Posted by: PaperSun - 03-16-2024, 10:59 PM - Forum: Introductions - Replies (12)

Just a quick hello. Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Cheers!

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  How online communities can foster hate.
Posted by: Szuchow - 03-16-2024, 10:05 AM - Forum: Philosophy and Ethics - Replies (34)

 I recently read interesting book and I think that excerpt below is worth sharing as it shows how internet instead of fostering understanding reinforces primitive, tribal views:

     This analysis highlights that online communities like Stormfront may provide a space where users collectively create interpretations of reality that guide their understanding of problems and potential solutions. Narrative construction is an evolving and emergent process, an interpretive action, that comes into being when persons, along with others, attempt to make sense of self and world. Rather than harmonious and consensual, this takes place through a dialectical process fraught with conflict, hazards, and fragility, as different movement actors are fighting it out over how to frame and understand the opportunities and challenges of a changing reality. Narratives provide comfort and a sense of security; they give guidance for how we can understand reality, ourselves, and our roles in it. By participating in the processes of co-creating these narratives, we simultaneously become part of the community. In this way, the formation of narratives is intertwined with identity construction.
     While the Habermasian story suggested that political communities arrive at their position through rational deliberation – if at times founded on faulty grounds – we have here outlined a Durkheimian perspective on community reasoning. We found what can be described as a form of “tribal epistemology”, in which stories are evaluated not on common standards of evidence but on whether they support our tribe’s values and goals. What is “good for our side” and “true” becomes nearly impossible to distinguish.
     The Durkheimian perspective thus offers an explanation of the observed link between echo chambers and the rise of misinformation. As communities form within these spaces, they build their own worldviews based on what they wish to be true. These spaces thus give room for the growth of conspiracies that are disconnected from reality, as the members so strongly want something to be true to keep their connection with their community. Truth becomes a question of identity, as information is evaluated based not on common standards of evidence applied to commonly accepted facts but on its alignment with our social identity. Our very ways of knowing become defined by identity and belonging, and what we know is reduced to just another expression of who we are. [Anton Törnberg, Petter Törnberg, Intimate Communities of Hate Why Social Media Fuels Far-Right Extremism, p.95-96]*

It's a sad thing that medium which should spread knowledge instead serves to promote ignorance, hate and all around idiocy. It however explains why fools are so resistant to facts - they no longer can distinguish between their wants and reality, at least when it comes to things they held important. 

It's not world shattering I guess as the idea that truth is what is good for group is at least as old as christianity with it's pious fraud but it's nice to have an empirical support.

*https://imgur.com/a/Pk4kmGW

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  Sex Math
Posted by: airportkid - 03-14-2024, 08:34 PM - Forum: Philosophy and Ethics - Replies (11)

I had (have) a great deal of editorial comment concerning the following but present it here with only one editorial observation at the end, and leave it to the forum to dissect or ignore:


The human population today is just over 8,000,000,000 people.


Roughly half are opposite sex; so 4,000,000,000 couples.

34% are child bearing age, 66% are children or otherwise non-procreatively capable.

2/3 of the 66% are nonetheless sexually capable.

Roughly, 75% of the population is sexually active.

So, 3,000,000,000 sexual pairs at any given moment.

On average, sexually active couples have sex once every 12 days.  That’s the average.  Naturally age and other factors will have averages other than that, but the whole population averages out to 12 days.

12 days is 17,280 minutes.

3,000,000,000 divided by 17,280 is 173,611 sexual couplings every minute, on average.  That’s all 3,000,000,000 couples having sex across 12 days.

There are 267 births globally every minute.

267 of the 173,611 couplings produced a child.

0.15%

The odds of sex producing a pregnancy is 20%.

5 times 267 is 1,335 sexual unions conducted with procreative intent.

0.769%

 
Percent that sex is solely recreation:

99.23%

 
Any argument that people have sex for the purpose of procreation is grossly incorrect.  For human beings, the overwhelming purpose of sex is recreation (and other non-reproductive reasons).

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  The probability of the existence of the Christian God
Posted by: neutral - 03-14-2024, 10:42 AM - Forum: Atheism & Theism - Replies (78)

World organized crime has gained revenues in the amount of tens of thousands of billions of dollars in recent decades. Today, there are no known billionaires from illicit activities. There aren't tens or hundreds of billionaires in dollars missing, but thousands of billionaires. The combined wealth of organized crime is much higher than the wealth of all the billionaires in the world. If the vast private wealth of the world's organized crime is missing, it means that the Western States are those that organize and use the profits from illicit activities. We have a choice between believing that the states controls organized crime (because states in the past were the ones who organized drug trafficking, and today there are no known billionaires from illegal activities) and believing that there are many hidden illegal billionaires and organized crime is the main force of the global economy (because organized crime is richer than all the legal billionaires in the world).

There are only two options:
option A: (Western) states are involved in illegal activities.
option B: (Western) states are not involved in illegal activities, in which case organized crime is the main force in the global economy.
Which option do you think is the correct one? More importantly, what facts do you base your choice on? Do you agree that, in both options, the world is ruled by criminals?

No industry or large company is controlled by organized crime, therefore global organized crime cannot be the main force in the global economy. If it is the American state that rules global organized crime, then one of the most important prophecies of the Bible, namely that the most powerful kingdom (state) that has ever existed will lose its power in judgment, is about to be fulfilled.

So far, prophets have failed to provide evidence that they speak in the name of God, so religion has been based on faith alone. This time, one of the most important prophecies (the judgment of the ruler of this world - the American state) is fulfilled by a man who has 6 coincidences in his personal data, out of a total of 32 coincidences. Through the man, name, initials of the name, location of the town where the theory was created, street names, date of birth, links to the three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and all elements of the Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) can be made. Most of these coincidences can be verified, and for the first time, we have something real, something that can be measured about God. The coincidences can be used to estimate the probability of the existence of the Christian God.

Link removed

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  I love gummies.
Posted by: OMM - 03-08-2024, 03:11 AM - Forum: Eats and Treats - Replies (3)

I know they're just animal bones and sugar, but they're so good.  Angel

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  USA - too rich to afford an ambulance?!
Posted by: Dexta - 03-07-2024, 07:23 PM - Forum: World News, Politics and Current Events - Replies (15)

So somebody said to me that the relatively poor get emergency hospital treatment and the use of an ambulance to that end for free, due to their being relatively poor. Those who are somewhat wealthier however have to pay thousands of dollars for an ambulance because they don't qualify for "free" ambulances due to their wealth. so here's a scenario for such a relatively wealthy cardiac patient:

"Hey hun, I'm feeling a tightness in my chest, I'm short of breath too..."
"Aw, you just ate too much too fast probably, give it a few minutes to calm down, you know how much an ambulance costs, give it a chance to settle."
RIP

Does this situation really exist in the USA? Too rich to call an ambulance?

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  Colbert Discusses Rich Fucks
Posted by: Minimalist - 03-07-2024, 05:52 PM - Forum: Memes - Images and Videos - No Replies

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  The Creator
Posted by: Charlie24 - 03-06-2024, 09:06 PM - Forum: Atheism & Theism - Replies (59)

Let me show you something odd in the Scripture. I found this many years ago and at the time I wondered what this means.

When God chose Moses as the deliverer to lead Israel out of the land of Egypt, Moses was afraid of the people. He thought his fellow Hebrews would kill him when he told them God called him to lead them out. So he asked God, "who do I tell them has sent me?"

Exodus 3:14
"And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you."

God refers to Himself as "I am."

When Jesus was having one of His many arguments with the Pharisees (religious leaders of Israel), the subject of Abraham came into the conversation. Jesus told them, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it, and was gland in it. They told Jesus, you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?

John 8:58
"Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."

In the book of Exodus, God refers to Himself as "I am" and in the book of John Jesus refers to Himself as "I am."

Doesn't that seem odd? Actually it's not odd at all when you read on in Scripture and find out who Jesus Christ really is.

In the book of Hebrews, the apostle Paul tells us who Jesus Christ is. 

Hebrews 1:1-2
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;"


Paul tells us that God the Father made the world by Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ is the One who created the world.

In the Gospel of John, the apostle tells us who Jesus Christ is.

John 1:1-5
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

John 1:14
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

Here the apostle John tells us that Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things, and that He is God. John calls Christ "The Word" which is the Eternal Logos, the existing One without beginning or end.

Jesus Christ is the "Word" that spoke the universe into existence.

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  Requirements for a Prophecy
Posted by: Jarsa - 03-06-2024, 02:03 AM - Forum: Atheism & Theism - Replies (65)

A Muslim friend of mine is putting together a doc with Islamic prophecies. I told him I would convert if he could give me a prophecy that has become fulfilled but isn't too vague. What are some requirements for the prophecies that I could tell him, so that it would be valid evidence for the existence of a god?

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