Unelectable Lindsey Graham throws caution to the wind

Within the scale of the group, yes.
…then it all depends on how the reference frame is defined, if local (the group) or global… better stop digging into it, and instead join the group and work on the satellite…

Ah, but you forget, “ALL consensus is fake consensus”. It’d never work. There’d still be total mistrust.

Inspire their 8 year olds.

Nothing else gets us to the finish line you describe.

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How can how the universe works be irrelevant? It already works, so there is no clear reason for changing it. Understanding the universe helps us fit into it. Trying to change your environment keeps you the same. Keeping the environment the same allows you to change yourself and become more powerful.

Which I think is illusory, since reality works the same way it has always done. All one need do is perceive it, which has been the case all along.

Ahoy, you gone cats. My name is Linseed!

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I am glad that is true for you.

Your experience is not universally shared.

Trust is not a boolean. You need “enough” for things to work, no requirement for “absolute everything”.

Certain minutiae can be. E.g. it does not really matter, for the technology we have at this moment and in foreseeable future, if the universe timelines are splitting like mad into multiverses. We are stuck on this timeline and this is where we will die, regardless if the other ones exist or not.

Or it allows you to rapidly lose body heat and die of hypothermia.

And interpret, and make sure you actually have at least somewhat correct interpretation, and then build on that.

The alternative, the observation-without-interpretation, will leave you stuck with a couple of empirical tools whose potential you soon exhaust. Can be handy at times but the potential of this way is grossly limited.

edit: image: Thunderdome, and Aunty Entity wearing a labcoat and announcing “Two hypotheses enter, one leaves”…

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The purpose of human technology, so much as it can be said to have one, is to know how the universe works.

Perhaps the universe doesn’t have anything to do with human concerns! I am programmed to suppose that it should matter when and where I die - the universe at large does not suffer from those limitations, which is why it inspires me. It does without the fickle ephemera of self-interest.

Well, clearly “human decency” doesn’t register as a viable argument with the people he’s speaking to, so maybe he can get them to do the right thing for selfish reasons instead.

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No, the burden of (dis)proof is on you at this point. If you doubt that a fairly common male name was considered an appropriate name for males, then do you own homework and prove Smulder wrong. Don’t demand that other people prove your theorems for you.

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Wow! That escalated quickly!

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That’s way too personal. Smulder is not “wrong”, I simply don’t agree with what they said. It was their assertion that its maleness is somehow appropriate. Or even relevant! I am not putting forth a theory, simply pointing out that “appropriate” is subjective. When people state something subjective as fact, they are passing off their responsibility of convincing people about what is essentially their own opinion.

I don’t doubt that some statistical number of people believe that it is appropriate, but: 1. I have no evidence of this I can corroborate, and 2. it makes no difference whether people believe it or not.

Anyway, their reply to me seemed to be based upon a misinterpretation of what I was saying - that the root of the name is not gendered:

Lindsay is an English surname, originally derived from the territory of Lindsey in Lincolnshire, from the Old English toponym Lindesege “Lindum Isle”, i.e. “marshlands of Lincoln”.

As contrasted against a name such as “Andrew” which has a root with an explicitly gendered meaning.

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Would you settle for some baby snakes?

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I’ve been saying for years that if we really wanted to defeat these people, we’d set up a couple heavily fortified bases with TV towers, and just beam them an endless supply of Baywatch, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and 90210 reruns. Ten or twelve years of that, and the next generation thinks our way of life sounds a lot better than their own.

We didn’t win the cold war with bullets, we won it with Levis and Beatles albums.

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It’s refreshing when that little flash of sanity peeks out from the Republicans. Like Chris Christie’s speech about addiction.

I remember watching McCain’s concession speech and thinking “Now, this is a guy I would have voted for- Where the fuck were you during the election?” How could someone that intelligent and honest possibly have chosen her as a running mate? What the hell happened to that party?

And you know, then I remembered FOX, Reagan, and the Koch brothers. But, there was that little flicker of “what have I done?” in his eyes. It was sad.

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Am I the only one who misread the headline as being about Lindsay Lohan? Ah well, give it time.

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You’ve got a good point, but for me personally, that sort of treatment would make me want to kill somebody.

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When you can’t win with 'em…turn around and tell it like it is! Although it probably would’ve been better if he’d just stopped after that. But NOOOOO…

You make a good point, although I would love to know how “prominent” these scholars are and especially whether they say the same thing when they are talking to their base (as politician often do, not only religious nuts). In the past they have been many prominent cases of clerks talking roses to the west and rattling the sabre to their followers.

See also this great podcast at “War College”: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/19/one-phrase-from-saudi-clerics-could-begin-the-end-of-islamic-state/

Not Trump, no. I’m really not sure at this point what would. If he espoused nuclear armageddon, I guess his supporters would immediately invest in Trump™ graves with lead headstones.