BillyClark

Wait, you can learn about something just by searching for that thing on Wikipedia?

I respectfully disagree. Humans are a part of the universe, and they care about themselves.

I guess if you tend to look at things scientifically, you are more likely to see it as a responsibility. Humans are something that came about in the universe, and we are trying to learn about the universe. Another way of saying that is that we are the universe trying to learn about itself.

Of course, otherwise, even if you didn’t ask to exist, it’s quite presumptuous of you to make that decision for everybody else. If you’re going to judge civilization for bringing about your situation, it seems hypocritical for you to think it’s okay to make a different decision unilaterally.

The premise is only true if people, or even animals, never get hit by trolleys unless they are tied to the tracks. But we know this not to be the case.

Without civilization, there would be nobody to judge civilization, either.

I recently heard a science popularizer like Neil deGrasse Tyson or maybe Brian Cox talking about tangents to the Fermi Paradox. Essentially, even if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, it’s possible that we’re the only scientifically advanced intelligent civilization in the Milky Way galaxy. As long as we don’t know otherwise, it’s not a terrible assumption.

But anyways, if we do happen to be the only intelligent civilization in the Milky Way, it’s quite a responsibility. It’s a shame that we seem to be racing towards our own doom. We should be doing whatever we can to save our civilization. Of course, it may be that most civilizations that reach this point destroy themselves.

Your response is nonsensical. First, if they are killed, that doesn’t count. The terms we used were “going broke” and “going bankrupt”. Nobody uses those terms in their normal sense and means “gets killed”. So, your claim that a person getting killed is a counterexample is nonsense.

Lawsuits don’t generally count, either. First, if those lawsuits are big, they are usually about who owns the lottery winnings in the first place. It means the person’s winnings were not as big because they were trying to keep winnings from other rightful winners, not that they lose money. If the lawsuits are big decisions against them for other reasons, then the person was already screwed with or without winning the lottery, they just weren’t worth being sued before. If the lawsuits are worthless, then a lottery winner can afford to hire a lawyer. If they inexplicably don’t hire a lawyer and just pay out settlements, that’s just a stupider example of what I was talking about where they don’t control their spending.

Your. examples. do. not. make. sense.

And on top of that, just go do the tiniest bit of research. I can tell that you didn’t even do a search because when I did, the search results were all about people spending too much. Some of them even appeared to have legitimate statistics. What you’ve done is pull your entire comment out of your ass. If you continue trying to defend these points without linking any proof, I will simply block and report you for trolling.

I’m with you until you get to the lottery part. Your description implies that those lottery winners who don’t go bankrupt are somehow worse than the ones who do go bankrupt, which doesn’t make any sense.

They lose their money because they can’t control their spending, not because they lack the mental illness of money addiction.

What a strange perspective you’ve given. It makes me suspect that you have a personal motive for thinking that way.

Trump has now gotten us into a war that cannot easily be gotten out of. Even if he completely withdraws today, Iran has said that they’ll charge large amounts of money to use the Strait of Hormuz. Which they need now because their country has been destroyed by Trump.

Somebody needs to teach Pete Hegseth the meaning of FAFO.

“I’m serious as a heart attack,” he tells Gamble when the audio begins to play on the 14-minute body camera video.

You’re exactly right. Just like a heart attack is a sign that a person is in distress and dying, people like you are a sign that our government is in distress and dying.

“I’m not gonna sit here and argue with you.”

Typical statement from a person who shouldn’t ever be allowed authority over others.

“I would like to hear how you would explain to my children what you’re supposed to be.”

They’re your shitty children. It’s your job to prepare them for the real world, not mine. If you can’t figure out how to explain something like this to them, then you probably shouldn’t have children…

But I’m guessing you haven’t done much to raise them yourself. Someone like you who bludgeons people with authority probably leaves the actual parenting to someone else, and only makes yourself known at home through violence.

I understand what you mean, then, but I think it’s part of a definition of a con man that they know they are deceiving others.

The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat the voice of authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect.

If you look at that Wikipedia page, you’ll see that the largest correlation, in America, with authoritarian personality, is being poorly educated or being an evangelical protestant.

If you really think there are zero preachers who honestly believe in their religion, then you are just as divorced from reality as they are.

Trump doesn’t have any preachers in the normal sense. Trump is most likely a psychopath who wouldn’t pay any heed to moral advice from anybody.

So, any preacher who he acknowledges like this is undoubtedly deeply corrupt and a con man. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Trump chooses preachers who are compromised on purpose, so that they can be controlled. Trump famously tries to get people to swear personal allegiance to him.

The text of the constitution sort of assumes that Americans wouldn’t elect a person who cannot be trusted at all.

The people who wrote and signed the constitution, on the other hand, believed that people would try to seize personal power, and many even believed that George Washington would try to make himself king.

Born: Robert James Ritchie, January 17, 1971 (age 55) Also known as: Bobby Shazam

I’ve always thought “Kid Rock” sounds like a competitor to Kidz Bop.

It’s weird that his name is in that order. You’d think he’d be James Robert, because he looks like a Jim Bob more than anything, no offense to Jim Bobs.

There’s a similar problem with defining “pornography”, but one of the most famous Supreme Court decisions managed to rule on it, saying “I know it when I see it.”

It also doesn’t matter whether it’s an attainable goal. For a famous current example, the 2nd Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.” There’s famously, and problematically, no exceptions, depending on how you read the “militia” part. Yet how many people are arguing that, for example, violent criminals currently serving prison terms should be allowed weapons inside prisons? The whole constitution, as is, is only followed as much as it can reasonably be followed.

No, the important thing isn’t whether a lofty goal can be achieved, but that obvious violations can be detected and punished. And that as long as we have a lofty goal, we can continue to aim to better ourselves and try to achieve the goal at some point in the future.

I would argue that not only should we be funding PBS and NPR, but we should spend whatever money is needed to get unbiased facts out to the people. Not only to create the data, but to ensure that it is widely disseminated.

Although it tends to be pretty dry, PBS Newshour is one of the least biased sources of news that I’ve seen. I want a less dry version of that. Just to get more people to watch, but not to be sensational.

I think a modern democracy cannot be expected to work if people get biased news, and so if I was redoing the US Constitution, I’d make it one of the Bill of Rights that people have the right to an unbiased source of news, and furthermore that people who are speaking on behalf of the government must tell the truth.

People cannot vote correctly if they don’t have the correct information to vote with. That’s the very basis of democracy.

No it isn’t

I disagree

Who could argue with that?