Reading about the FSP I was surprised to hear that you got 14 members elected to New Hampshire's House of Representatives. I was pretty impressed, until I read that it has 400 members... holy crap. California has 80, by comparison. It's about 1 for every 3000 people, if the national Congress had that level of representation, there would be (Wikipedia did the calculation, not me) 99,000 members of Congress. I doubt even the Galactic Senate was that big.
Maybe you could start there to trim the fat, you know, instead of police and schools.
16 ambush shootings in 2016 is not unprecedented, because 16 ambush shootings occurred in 2014. Horrifying, yes, but not unprecedented. From the article you cited:
It ties for the deadliest year for such attacks, matching 2014's 16 ambush-style killings.
The reason the increase is so high is because 2015, the year immediately after Ferguson, there were only 6 (A 167% increase from 6 is 16). If you fit a trend line to those 3 points (16 in 2014, 6 in 2015, and 16 in 2016), it would be flat. Since 2014 and 2016 are both the deadliest years, there may be a trend that exists from before 2014. If the trend began before 2014, then what you're saying doesn't match up with the timeline of events.
The first one doesn't mention BLM at all. Furthermore while ambush killings went up 167% in 2016... well that's because it went from 6 in 2015 to 16, which ties it with 2014. So yeah I can explain it pretty well, the sample size is very small and thus the data is very noisy.
ZOMG it went up by infinity percent because last year it was 0 and now it's 1!
In what way has North Korea backed down? They always threaten violence and then don't follow it up. But it wasn't threatening violence against Guam that started the sabre rattling, it was the recent missile tests. If they are still pursuing their Nuclear program then they haven't "backed down" in any way, it's just the status quo with more bluster.
So... things stay the way they've been for decades, but somehow Trump did something magical?
Yeah, except that when the evidence does come out you suddenly start whining and bitching about leaks. The facts will come to light when the investigation is complete.
You're right though, the people in power are stirring up civil unrest. The President of the United States has legitimized and galvanized Nazis and white supremacists in a way that hasn't been seen in decades.
Because it's EASIER to recognize the world in motion than a pre-recorded stream of bits? ROFLMAO.
Yeah, actually it is. In the first case I just want to be able to recognize any car traveling down any road. Anything meeting this broad definition counts.
In the second case I need to know for sure that this isn't just a blue car driving down a road, or even a specific blue car driving down a particular road, but that it's actually the exact same footage of a specific blue car driving down a particular road.
Anyway, they do have detection techniques that work, clearly. That's why many videos of copyrighted material are cropped oddly, or it pans randomly across part of the footage every so often, or where the sound has been tuned to a higher or lower pitch. Sometimes all of the above.
So what? When did I say I was a part of or supported those groups or even that I was anti-Trump? Also, smear the Nazis? I'm pretty sure their reputation speaks for itself.
Unless of course you were also "smearing" the Communists?
What is wrong with you people? When did I mention Communists at all? Are you dyslexic or something? Seriously what the fuck? Is it just deflection so that you can defend Nazism without appearing to defend it directly?
Pardon weren't you the one who took the position it was OK to silence the NAZIs because of perceived potential danger ?
No, and that isn't what I said in what you quoted. I guess if you squinted your eyes a bunch you could infer that, but then your inference is wrong.
My point was really that if someone supports the Nazi ideology, then they cannot claim to want a peaceful revolution, by definition. Part of the Nazi ideology is to inflict violence and terror on those deemed inferior, whether by forced deportation or outright genocide.
I also absolutely did not mention Communists or Socialists, or say anything in support of either. Yet conveniently your latest reply ignored that detail, which you completely pulled out of your ass in order to, again, paint me in an extremist light that was not warranted.
Oh come on, that's not fair. Never once did I mention that I support Communists, Socialists, or a law banning either them or Nazis. And yet, because I point out that the Nazi's did not rise to power peacefully, you accuse me of exactly that.
I'm sorry, but if you're going to paint my position in an extreme light with absolutely no basis, then I am not going to take you seriously.
I want to add to my other comment that I am not detracting from your point about post WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, which absolutely gave Hitler a fertile ground to fuel his rhetoric.
Woodrow Wilson did predict exactly what happened, and it's why the US never joined the League of Nations.
Wow, if you think that Hitler's rise to power was peaceful, you need to seriously take a refresher in history. Ever heard of the brown shirts? Or the burning of the Reichstag?
Also, Communism is 'widely' accepted and tolerated? Where? Even in China they're Communist in name only.
There is condemnation, for sure. And sometimes the media is not quick enough to report on it. And I am also happy to have seen more and more Muslims taking direct action recently. It pains me very much to watch my culture and my history be maligned and vilified, and I do not take this position lightly.
I am not lying, there are many secular/moderate Muslims who are the way I describe. Some are within my own family, who are highly educated (often in Western countries), and highly secular. They call themselves Muslims, they participate in Ramadan (generally), but they drink alcohol, don't pray 5 times a day (or even at all), and generally are like most Christians in the west. Like me, if they actually thought about it, they would probably become atheists.
Often they will make arguments along the lines of "The US invasion of Iraq was an act of terrorism, and that was much worse than." Again, very similar to the right pointing the finger at BLM or whoever in response to what happened in Charlotte. It's not that they are right or wrong, but rather that it doesn't matter. You can't deflect from your problems by pointing out others' problems.
The War in Iraq was wrong. 9/11 was wrong. What happened in Charlotte was wrong. Period. Moderates on all sides must condemn violence in all forms, without hesitation and without caveat.
Many people are familiar with the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck/Richard Dawkins argument on radical Islam. After that episode aired, I showed it to my very devout (but completely OK with my apostasy:D) friend, Mohamed. He is like a brother to me. At the end of the argument, the comparison was made between fundamentalist Christianity and Islam. Bill Maher said (paraphrasing) "One is herpes, and the other is cancer." That is a very strong statement, and my initial reaction was to take offense, even as an atheist.
After that, Mo and I discussed the issue at length. It was very heated, although we weren't arguing against each other, per-se. At the end, he looked at me, his eyes misty, and said "I'm mad. But I'm mad because they are right."
So you condemn the violence that occurred, right? Because that's the problem in the Muslim world (I'm an ex-Muslim atheist, FYI).
Even reasonable, or secular, Muslims are often apologist towards violence or terrorism because a part of them feels it's justified by historical events (Western foreign policy, propping up dictators, toppling legitimate democratic governments, etc.). I have often told my Muslim friends that it was predominantly white Christians who fought and died to defeat the Nazi's, and so it must be Muslims who must unite to defeat Islamic Terrorism. The problem is internal to the group, so the group must fix it.
Muslim terrorists are terrorists. White nationalist terrorists are terrorists. Can we agree on that?
You describe yourself as a "white nationalist", and I'm not going to read into that in any way, it's just a label. All I'm asking is that if you are truly not violent, then don't turn a blind eye to those on "your side" who are.
Like with Islam, you may quickly find that if this minority becomes large enough (which can still be very small) it will usurp your movement, and you will find it very difficult to separate yourself from them. Similar to the secular/moderate Muslims, you may find your legitimate concerns or grievances being constantly overshadowed, and you will be unable to gain any real traction in achieving the change you want.
And, again paralleling Islamic Radicalization, you may find that you are their first target. The people who primarily suffer from Islamic Terrorism are other Muslims. I guarantee ISIS hates me more than they hate you, because I am an apostate. The first thing radicals do is eliminate the moderates within their own group.
Tread carefully, my fellow American. I mean that in all sincerity.
Yeah, because when I think of peaceful revolutions, I think of the Nazis. It's not like they silenced dissent when they were in power, or that their entire ideology is based on the genocide of anyone deemed genetically inferior?
Does it still count as a peaceful revolution if you plan to commit terrible violence after you're in power?
It's difficult to define what 'AI' is, because it's difficult to define what 'I' is. The human brain is the most complex thing (that we know of) in the Universe. Only in the last few decades (maybe) have we really started to figure out anything about it, and yet we still know almost nothing.
And that's the real problem that I have with the term AI. How can we design an artificial version of something we barely understand? It always seems to me like we are putting the cart before the horse. Maybe we do discover AI before we understand I, but how would we even know? What do we compare it to? How do we tell the difference between something that is actually Intelligent vs. something that just mimics Intelligence incredibly well? Maybe more importantly, does it even matter?
After all, maybe we are just a highly complex, but ultimately deterministic, 'program' that appears intelligent.
Oxford also agrees, and apparently so did Shakespeare:
Despite objections, there is a trend to use ‘singular they’. In fact, it is historically long established. It goes back at least to the 16th century, and writers such as Shakespeare, Sidney, Byron, and Ruskin used it:
There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend (Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors)
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Reading about the FSP I was surprised to hear that you got 14 members elected to New Hampshire's House of Representatives. I was pretty impressed, until I read that it has 400 members... holy crap. California has 80, by comparison. It's about 1 for every 3000 people, if the national Congress had that level of representation, there would be (Wikipedia did the calculation, not me) 99,000 members of Congress. I doubt even the Galactic Senate was that big.
Maybe you could start there to trim the fat, you know, instead of police and schools.
16 ambush shootings in 2016 is not unprecedented, because 16 ambush shootings occurred in 2014. Horrifying, yes, but not unprecedented. From the article you cited:
It ties for the deadliest year for such attacks, matching 2014's 16 ambush-style killings.
The reason the increase is so high is because 2015, the year immediately after Ferguson, there were only 6 (A 167% increase from 6 is 16). If you fit a trend line to those 3 points (16 in 2014, 6 in 2015, and 16 in 2016), it would be flat. Since 2014 and 2016 are both the deadliest years, there may be a trend that exists from before 2014. If the trend began before 2014, then what you're saying doesn't match up with the timeline of events.
The first one doesn't mention BLM at all. Furthermore while ambush killings went up 167% in 2016... well that's because it went from 6 in 2015 to 16, which ties it with 2014. So yeah I can explain it pretty well, the sample size is very small and thus the data is very noisy.
ZOMG it went up by infinity percent because last year it was 0 and now it's 1!
In what way has North Korea backed down? They always threaten violence and then don't follow it up. But it wasn't threatening violence against Guam that started the sabre rattling, it was the recent missile tests. If they are still pursuing their Nuclear program then they haven't "backed down" in any way, it's just the status quo with more bluster.
So... things stay the way they've been for decades, but somehow Trump did something magical?
Yeah, except that when the evidence does come out you suddenly start whining and bitching about leaks. The facts will come to light when the investigation is complete.
You're right though, the people in power are stirring up civil unrest. The President of the United States has legitimized and galvanized Nazis and white supremacists in a way that hasn't been seen in decades.
Because it's EASIER to recognize the world in motion than a pre-recorded stream of bits? ROFLMAO.
Yeah, actually it is. In the first case I just want to be able to recognize any car traveling down any road. Anything meeting this broad definition counts.
In the second case I need to know for sure that this isn't just a blue car driving down a road, or even a specific blue car driving down a particular road, but that it's actually the exact same footage of a specific blue car driving down a particular road.
Anyway, they do have detection techniques that work, clearly. That's why many videos of copyrighted material are cropped oddly, or it pans randomly across part of the footage every so often, or where the sound has been tuned to a higher or lower pitch. Sometimes all of the above.
Nothing to say? That's what I thought.
So what? When did I say I was a part of or supported those groups or even that I was anti-Trump? Also, smear the Nazis? I'm pretty sure their reputation speaks for itself.
Unless of course you were also "smearing" the Communists?
What is wrong with you people? When did I mention Communists at all? Are you dyslexic or something? Seriously what the fuck? Is it just deflection so that you can defend Nazism without appearing to defend it directly?
Pardon weren't you the one who took the position it was OK to silence the NAZIs because of perceived potential danger ?
No, and that isn't what I said in what you quoted. I guess if you squinted your eyes a bunch you could infer that, but then your inference is wrong.
My point was really that if someone supports the Nazi ideology, then they cannot claim to want a peaceful revolution, by definition. Part of the Nazi ideology is to inflict violence and terror on those deemed inferior, whether by forced deportation or outright genocide.
I also absolutely did not mention Communists or Socialists, or say anything in support of either. Yet conveniently your latest reply ignored that detail, which you completely pulled out of your ass in order to, again, paint me in an extremist light that was not warranted.
Oh come on, that's not fair. Never once did I mention that I support Communists, Socialists, or a law banning either them or Nazis. And yet, because I point out that the Nazi's did not rise to power peacefully, you accuse me of exactly that.
I'm sorry, but if you're going to paint my position in an extreme light with absolutely no basis, then I am not going to take you seriously.
You willing to call for outlawing socialists and communists ?
I wasn't aware that Discord wrote the laws. This changes everything!
I want to add to my other comment that I am not detracting from your point about post WWI and the Treaty of Versailles, which absolutely gave Hitler a fertile ground to fuel his rhetoric.
Woodrow Wilson did predict exactly what happened, and it's why the US never joined the League of Nations.
Wow, if you think that Hitler's rise to power was peaceful, you need to seriously take a refresher in history. Ever heard of the brown shirts? Or the burning of the Reichstag?
Also, Communism is 'widely' accepted and tolerated? Where? Even in China they're Communist in name only.
There is condemnation, for sure. And sometimes the media is not quick enough to report on it. And I am also happy to have seen more and more Muslims taking direct action recently. It pains me very much to watch my culture and my history be maligned and vilified, and I do not take this position lightly.
I am not lying, there are many secular/moderate Muslims who are the way I describe. Some are within my own family, who are highly educated (often in Western countries), and highly secular. They call themselves Muslims, they participate in Ramadan (generally), but they drink alcohol, don't pray 5 times a day (or even at all), and generally are like most Christians in the west. Like me, if they actually thought about it, they would probably become atheists.
Often they will make arguments along the lines of "The US invasion of Iraq was an act of terrorism, and that was much worse than ." Again, very similar to the right pointing the finger at BLM or whoever in response to what happened in Charlotte. It's not that they are right or wrong, but rather that it doesn't matter. You can't deflect from your problems by pointing out others' problems.
The War in Iraq was wrong. 9/11 was wrong. What happened in Charlotte was wrong. Period. Moderates on all sides must condemn violence in all forms, without hesitation and without caveat.
Many people are familiar with the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck/Richard Dawkins argument on radical Islam. After that episode aired, I showed it to my very devout (but completely OK with my apostasy :D) friend, Mohamed. He is like a brother to me. At the end of the argument, the comparison was made between fundamentalist Christianity and Islam. Bill Maher said (paraphrasing) "One is herpes, and the other is cancer." That is a very strong statement, and my initial reaction was to take offense, even as an atheist.
After that, Mo and I discussed the issue at length. It was very heated, although we weren't arguing against each other, per-se. At the end, he looked at me, his eyes misty, and said "I'm mad. But I'm mad because they are right."
I'm not sure I understand your point? There are other dictators who aren't Nazi's therefore...? Profit?
You know those aren't just movies, right?
An insane majority of us aren't.
So you condemn the violence that occurred, right? Because that's the problem in the Muslim world (I'm an ex-Muslim atheist, FYI).
Even reasonable, or secular, Muslims are often apologist towards violence or terrorism because a part of them feels it's justified by historical events (Western foreign policy, propping up dictators, toppling legitimate democratic governments, etc.). I have often told my Muslim friends that it was predominantly white Christians who fought and died to defeat the Nazi's, and so it must be Muslims who must unite to defeat Islamic Terrorism. The problem is internal to the group, so the group must fix it.
Muslim terrorists are terrorists. White nationalist terrorists are terrorists. Can we agree on that?
You describe yourself as a "white nationalist", and I'm not going to read into that in any way, it's just a label. All I'm asking is that if you are truly not violent, then don't turn a blind eye to those on "your side" who are.
Like with Islam, you may quickly find that if this minority becomes large enough (which can still be very small) it will usurp your movement, and you will find it very difficult to separate yourself from them. Similar to the secular/moderate Muslims, you may find your legitimate concerns or grievances being constantly overshadowed, and you will be unable to gain any real traction in achieving the change you want.
And, again paralleling Islamic Radicalization, you may find that you are their first target. The people who primarily suffer from Islamic Terrorism are other Muslims. I guarantee ISIS hates me more than they hate you, because I am an apostate. The first thing radicals do is eliminate the moderates within their own group.
Tread carefully, my fellow American. I mean that in all sincerity.
Everyone is focusing on the people who were the victims of violence and ignoring things like the two police officers who the violent left got killed.
So you claim. Anything to back that up? How were they killed by the left?
Yeah, because when I think of peaceful revolutions, I think of the Nazis. It's not like they silenced dissent when they were in power, or that their entire ideology is based on the genocide of anyone deemed genetically inferior?
Does it still count as a peaceful revolution if you plan to commit terrible violence after you're in power?
The company cares about security, battery life, and customer satisfaction.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like it was copy-pasted from Apple's Marketing Dept.
It's difficult to define what 'AI' is, because it's difficult to define what 'I' is. The human brain is the most complex thing (that we know of) in the Universe. Only in the last few decades (maybe) have we really started to figure out anything about it, and yet we still know almost nothing.
And that's the real problem that I have with the term AI. How can we design an artificial version of something we barely understand? It always seems to me like we are putting the cart before the horse. Maybe we do discover AI before we understand I, but how would we even know? What do we compare it to? How do we tell the difference between something that is actually Intelligent vs. something that just mimics Intelligence incredibly well? Maybe more importantly, does it even matter?
After all, maybe we are just a highly complex, but ultimately deterministic, 'program' that appears intelligent.
Determined by who? And how?
Yeah, doesn't sound like Trump at all.
Oxford also agrees, and apparently so did Shakespeare:
Despite objections, there is a trend to use ‘singular they’. In fact, it is historically long established. It goes back at least to the 16th century, and writers such as Shakespeare, Sidney, Byron, and Ruskin used it:
There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend
(Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors)