Scott Mayers

Thank you. I haven't been here for a while and don't like to step into a thread that's a mile long that requires me to read too much to catch up. I just saw this on the news and am still pondering the implications. I don't personally accept "Palestine" area as Jewish nor essentially Muslim. Any country/territory that takes a National Socialist/ Fascist type view of a constitution, especially based on some belief in special peoples based on some ethnic-linked historical worldview, is regressive and dangerous. What the world should be trying to do is to reduce people's interpretation of 'ownership' of some arbitrary culture by some ancestral genetic link. That whole area is a historical link to everyone at some point in time. Trump is likely testing his power to engage in some justification of war acts. If his threats at home keep up, he'll need a big distraction. Since he can't seem to egg on North Korea fast enough to send off a threatening nuke, maybe riling up the middle east might do it?

BBC: Jersusalem is Israel's capital I commented on some thread last night of someone from the U.S. asking if Trump was all that bad for them. I tried to relate without prejudice. I assumed that much of the world's problems in communication/miscommunication deal with today's technology. However, today this announcement appears as though he may be setting up for some suicidal 'fuck you' before he possibly gets impeached. ?? I'm a bit surprised no one else here even mentioned it yet. What do you guys think?

I understand your concern and agree in part. I would have voted for Hillary and tried to appeal to Americans to do so knowing Trump's potential to win contrary to most doubting it. Trump takes a view that believes in a kind of Darwinian reality in the type of "power politics" akin to Greene's "48 Laws of Power". The reality is that such 'laws' actually work, regardless of their callous Machiavellian dog-eat-dog and cruel facts of life. To him, as to many in kind, if one doesn't take such attitude, it only takes one wild dog amongst a field of sheep to cause sufficient fear in the herd to run amok. So, given the chaos in reality, he opts to BE the dog. I don't think he actually expected to win the election and likely only opted to run out of emotional rivalry with disdain against those like Obama, who challenged his own perception of his own successes as deluded. He doesn't actually believe in most of what he says literally and expects other to clue into this without having to acknowledge it overtly. To him, as with many, throwing it out there, even IF in error is better than coming off 'nice' but being deceptive via the etiquette we see most practiced by those on the left. It is considered 'snobbish' to many, including myself, to think that an etiquette is more important than being more forward. Also, he is the kind to actually admire the disagreements, contrary to his apparent vile responses. Many today are WAY too sensitive beyond even the norm to such a degree they only have to be set off once to permanently write the one insulting them off permanently. I disagree with most of his ideas but NOT to his intentions knowing of HOW he thinks. But this is not the case for many of his supporters. However, this too is also the problem on the left today. I think our major problem today is adjusting to a technological world of the Internet and Smart Phones, etc. We need to get through a phase of adjusting to a world that accepts public people as 'flexible' to change. This idea is actually too new and shocking. We used to live in a world where we took any celebrity (any significant popular personalities in any field) as FIXED to some view they were quoted as saying once ANYWHERE in their life. While this is understood by ourselves locally, it is a shock to this new world where everyone is superconnected as we are now. Another point. The American system is a REPUBLIC, which most of the average people of the world do not quite internalize. That is, the position of the President of the U.S. is NOT as powerful as say, a Prime Minister, or their Royal Aristocratic Kings and Queens. Presidents are able to be in error. The House of Representatives and Senate are what really matters most. The President is just more of the external 'head' to the rest of the world representing the U.S. I think we just need some time to adjust with the relatively sudden changes and expectations today. It is like we now have the technology of the power in equivalency to mind-reading that just 30 years ago could not even imagine!

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/is-life-actually-worth-living Here is something that came up relating to this topic. It's Sam Harris's recent podcast interviewing David Benatar's philosophical view on "anti-natalism", a belief that one should avoid contributing to population growth by opting out of having children with a kind of nihilistic type belief. I'm not sure if I agree with his views or not but it might help to check out what someone as such might be thinking with a logical insight on the topic. I'm just beginning to listen now and so cannot speak much else on this.

I don't know what to even interpret of Altai's interpretation of my own point and couldn't figure out how to even respond. The case of the criminal killing himself on the news and repeated above here is more about the fact that the court had not discerned that this man had even the power to commit this act by security. It is actually understandable 'why' this guy may have done this should his or anyone's circumstances be similar for some such life conviction. The case was more about retribution and vengeance of a public to which this guy ESCAPED 'our' preference to see him suffer for his actions. [I haven't a clue the circumstance of August's video link? Just to add shock?] My point was NOT to assert a futile hopelessness of the "nihilistic" stereotype of meaninglessness in life. Rather, I support a "logical-nihilist" about nature or totality as LACKING concern. WE, though, make or create meaning and it is NOT a diminishing factor to our existence with exception to the suffering that we feel due to that 'programmed' assigning function that I speak of. What we need to do is to first recognize this and then learn to find a means to 'reprogram' our interpretation of those things we suffer through discomforts, depression, and pain. For me, for instance, while I certainly don't welcome the condition of severe pain, should I come across it, remembering that the 'logic' of our system to merely 'assign' those sensations means that nature itself holds us hostage to nature to feel whatever we experience in periods of development in our environments to pleasures and pains arbitrarily. That is, I try to 'rationalize' the sensation as a neutral-type alarm system. An example of this is to the class of diseases, such as 'leprosy', which accidentally assigns NO discomfort sensations to certain things that SHOULD feel painful in order to alert us to avoid harms that make the ones with the disease get infected unintentionally. This KNOWLEDGE should actually HELP us recognize HOW we can learn to overcome certain discomforts and prevent ourselves from being too absorbed in accelerating comforts that lead to abuses. It really IS true that many people are born into this world and in specific environments which penalize them without their power to do anything about it. To make life 'meaningful' then, we can try to first ACCEPT these truths and then try to figure out how to ALTER those things which most lead to the discomforts in ourselves and others AS well as to curb our unsatiated tendency to abuse the pleasures without limits. Scott. P.S. I like your positive response, BP. (Even if I lack that 'positive' attribute myself)

I agree for the most part. I only assert that it is "not appropriate" as a means to actually determine one's guilt of sexual (and mischievous) behavior between different aged people. The older person could be relatively novel and naive to sex and/or social interactions. Present law is "an expedient". I disagree that we cannot be more flexible in creating laws based on maturity at some point in the future. "Motive" in law is a 'rational process' with regards to a system that we require to determine if one is or is not reasonably doubtful of some charge. But in many cases, motive (intent, maturity, etc) is treated irrelevant when it comes to sexual taboos to an extreme unwarranted degree. Age limit is too simplified for such a serious charge regarding sex when these types of crimes are often treated worse than murder itself.

Canada only relatively recently made 16 years of age the 'age of consent'. It was 14 before a few years ago now. Personally, I think ages are not the appropriate means to determine limitations. They are just politically expedient. I find it odd to watch Dr Phil repeat to a guest of 18 who sleeps with one under 17 as being unusually stupid not to recognize that the 'law' makes them a "criminal"?? The presumption is that the 'law' somehow is one passed down by nature (or God, with respect to most) as though these laws were already agreed to as ESSENTIAL by the perpetrators as much as the air they breathe. It would be best to find a means to measure maturity and conditional circumstances. The letter-of-the-law tends to get transferred into people's heads as laws of nature too easily.

"I" am only the conscious state of my active brain that acts as an interface to the environment that serves the collective cells of my body to compete to remain constant. This may be a bit too unappealing and over-rational to state for most here. But this is the simplest way that I think of it. I'm not religious and take Richard Dawkin's "Selfish Gene" concept to heart. We only exist because of a contradiction of physical nature: that remaining 'constant' is impossible. The perfect 'constant' in nature is an absolute state of nothingness. This very contradiction is what I believe acts as THE mechanism of all causation. With respect to humans (or any animal), conscious states require a type of hardwired program that assigns values arbitrarily to existence that SHOULD they be selected such that they allow you to survive, they incidentally persist by the nature of its opposite to lack such fortune in a hostile natural environment. As such, we have a form of initial program that assigns early life experiences (some or possibly most, in utero) that takes whatever is in our first experiences as "favorable" (like our mother's voices, for instance). Whatever that assignment is becomes what we seek as comfortable and to what our conscious state is assigned to seek in the environment. In essence, this reduces, for our interest, as pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. The complexity of life we experience is thus a kind of an illusion. I'm sorry if this is too nihilistic for some of you. But while it may seem depressing upon initial consideration, it doesn't detract its truth. However, I can assure you that it does not mean that such discomfort for knowing or first realizing this will doom you to emotional demise. I'm still alive and still enjoy the experience. I think the ultimate curse that the Adam and Eve story often portrays as "death" is misunderstood: the curse is NOT death.... it is itself more of a salvation! Imagine if you had to live as a god knowing everything, including the possibility that you could never die. You'd likely prefer to die rather than to feign laughing at the same jokes we tell in our lives over and over and over and over ..... ...you get it?

I second this. What is troubling is that the supposed 'agreement' doesn't indicate WHAT the change was and to WHY. The wording too about what it NOT allowed raises concerns and to the absolute right of the site to discriminate IS a censorship that threatens my OWN right to copy protection. It also now hides the site from those NOT signing up which makes it an completely private forum. So, I only signed up now to state this disappointment and assert that I will no longer come here. I discourage others too. Politics IS necessarily problematic because it involves real concerns that affect people. To dictate the terms going in to LIMIT what people are allowed to say, (from the 'agreement' taken by its wording, we cannot even discuss "sex issues". Is there some government intervention trying to force this site into complying with some censorship. Is the 'agreement' intended to both allow this site to take the Benefits of right to censor or even take ownership of content BUT also allow them to USE such information to give to governments as well? Is this not proof that you guys here are likely disappointed particularly with some specific personal biases? So good bye.

I'm familiar with their views. Your links are problematic and I warn others NOT to use them!! As to Harris' take against Muslims, this is distinctively different than to the nature of the Palestinians. The Israelis, if you want to treat this issue fairly, are MORE troublesome simply because given BOTH groups of people as being Nationalistic, arrogant, and hateful of the non-favored peoples, only the Israelis are the ones in ACTUAL power. This makes their relative capacity to 'appear' less overtly violent misleading. Liberals are not all uniformly of character any more than conservatives are. But the point about the problems there are about how normally one's wealth makes them tend towards non-Nationalistic fervor but yet this is NOT happening with the Israelis. This is a serious red-flag that they, and NOT the Palestinians are at fault. It is already default to assume ANY more impoverished groups, such as the Palestinians, will end up using more desperate tactics.

If it were real, I would agree with you only in that is does not mean we should 'love' it; this would be like our computers becoming so artificially 'real' that it BEGS US for solutions, like a calculator demanding us what 4.974 / 8.8 is when we designed IT to do the work. Otherwise, what purpose would it serve other than to entertain? It would make this "being" lack actual determinate value other than what we do even by mere ACCIDENT. We don't blame the computer when if fucks up..... we blame our own faculties in programming it.

"Liberalism" is basically a stance that treats the individual among ALL people as justly significant regardless of one's accidental inheritance. The faults that exist in it is precisely the same fault in the "conservative" camp. It is the GROUPS with power who always take president over the individual simply because their cohesiveness and the numbers of those involved. As such, the 'faults' present in the "liberal" camp is of a CONSERVATIVE form in that they represent a belief in preserving distinct status for some CULT(ure), Religion, or some form of Inheritance 'rights' that they believe are of their own particular in-group alone. The only reason these conservatives exist at all in the "liberal" camp is that they UTILIZE it by collecting others from other similar 'conservative' interests who believe they are intrinsically more worthy than others. To any present FORMAL 'conservative' group, the represent some general power or relatively fewer powers of Nationalistic assholes in sync with these other ones stealing the 'liberal' political side. So please....give us all a break. Your own formal present majority of "conservatism" is not only no different, it is WORSE by the fact that it is both as discriminatory AND in a highly more advantageous position than the rest of the collective ones robbing the LEFT. That is, they actually believe precisely in the same exact policies you do other than they don't have the present power. For those on the sincere "liberal" side, if you are not one of these collective Nationalists, please take careful notice at what is going on. We need to take the reigns of power to get every individual treated fairly. The opposing factor in the 'conservative' side is actually the "libertarians", who at least have some similar rational interest in the individual. So we should also try to encourage them too to defeat the Nationalistic Cultish groups of the Right-wing parties so we can at least have any government better than these segregationalistic discriminatory hateful Nationalists all taking notice and ruining it for us all!

I've seen lots of addicts in my life and thankfully my own is only tobacco and coffee. But they are extreme. But the ones I've seen most troubled with addiction factors and to which I MOSTLY still find personal frustrations with often have to deal with accessibility to other options better than drugs. The insanity does occur but CAN be curbed by first teaching about drugs not as a mere socially vial things as they do in most educational forms but to HOW one can use them in ways with better responsibility. For some, the abuses that cause harm to others, are often of non-drug related mindsets of people prior to using drugs which when used improperly do lead to abuses. I won't go further into this now as I'm having an ongoing related debate on sugar elsewhere. It seems that now some are trying to find some means to get government to intervene to impose taxation on those taking sugar. It's a con like the "Super Size Me" concerns that cleverly make our OPTIONS in supply a 'fault' for giving us actual advantages. I like, for instance when companies 'super size' products. But you can opt to NOT super size or dump out what you don't want. But why the hell DEMAND these companies to make them purposely more expensive? It's a con just like with the way governments use legalized products like tobacco or alcohol and their controversially associated problems as justifications to extort those who like things that are in both high demand and high supply (which normally should make prices go down, not up).

I agree too to some degree. I think that the cheaper for more idea is actually better. It's the unpredictability of it that makes it troublesome. As to 'addiction', I think life itself IS an addiction and while it is good to try to postpone experiencing such things for as long as life without these are good, I don't even think addiction itself is necessarily a bad thing, including the potential of death that may arise. What matters though is to HOW people use them where it directly imposes potential harm on others. I'd like to see legality be done WITHOUT the haters using it to exploit the nature of it as they do with tobacco and alcohol. Controlled environments and good supports can help if legal. I think the major concern is more to those who prefer to keep the poorer people sufficiently desperate enough and ONLY enhanced in ways that make them more productive at minimal cost. Who'd be the maids and butlers at $2/hr if they could escape to a relatively better life as an addict that makes them feel like Gods?

He awkwardly even shook one of the celebrities' hands on his "Apprentice" show I recall. You notice that you said, "germanphobe" right? The spell checker doesn't correct it and why I took that out for being uncertain. I think a politician might have to be forced to NOT shake hands or have direct contact if only for the potential risks....especially when some will inevitably use this as a tactic to harm others.

They DO use favorable stereotypes when they escalate calls, but not always on a first call. The British accent is favored when they do this to me without me expecting anything. But these help lines are designed to simply allow you to speak more than to actually solve particular issues since they know that most people simply find sufficient comfort psychologically if they actually have the appearance of getting assistance. Their function is thus deceptive regardless....but not the fault of those answering the phones necessarily. NOTE: Microsoft made more of their money on HOW they set up their supports than to their actual products. They make it difficult unless you want to pay extreme phone costs and often refer you to a 'community board'. I'm sick of having to wait through the announcements up front meant to delay and hopefully get you to hang up by announcing how 'easy' it is to go online to seek for help. Yet when you have problems regarding the very connections you must go through, it lacks sense other than to entice you to hang up.

Does Hillary get close up with people, as in 'contact' such as shaking hands, hugging, etc.? I'm sure that Trump was always shy of handshaking even.

I'm atheist [or Atheist, ??]. Why would I not know this? I've learned of many others who assert they are 'atheist' but are widely different and retain some religious rationalizing that they don't necessarily see they hold. I could go into depth on this but it would be too digressing for this topic. Personally, I treat my atheism as an absence of belief in gods or even spiritualism, etc. But I'm also Nihilist (logically, not of a defeated depressing emotional judgment about reality). So I even question other skeptics in practice.

Reminds me of a friend who complained how some 'creeps' in the bar keep expecting her to feel obliged for simply buying her a drink. I suggested that she should learn to turn down a free drink and she'd save herself the trouble. She, as in many women, will go 'underfunded' to a bar, expecting free drinks. This is a form of abuse to which most would trivialize and opt to agree with her that the other men are certainly 'creeps'. Why? (and was MY comment out of order?)

Yes, of course it would HAVE to be another guy, right? Ha ha...now turn that into "a woman" and think this through again. Then such a remark might be said in light of 'advice'. There IS a double standard here. There has been worse male-bashing commenting that gets trivialized everywhere as though a 'man' should be default able to take it or be considered a wimp or coward. And it is also in this latest few years that a rise in unsubstantiated claims of abuses get published without one's capacity to a fair trial. Think Jian Gomeshi or Bill Cosby. If you default to assume should they be found guilty for offense after the fact of some successful conviction where possible that the end justified the original accusation, you have to ask whether the public accusations themselves are the cause of successful convictions rather than the facts of a case. Like I said, I remain neutral without knowing context. If a judge can comment to someone found guilty, are they not allowed to also comment on anyone else in the same case for their opinion of the case? For example, if some particular person is found to frequently make accusations and take these to court repeatedly, even if all their charges against each other person is 'valid', it might suggest that there is a pattern of choice selection that some person has the actual POWER to avoid in order to diminish the continued abuses. A comment would thus be warranted even if the public or jury are not permitted to KNOW of past prior cases of the same person making charges. This is just one possible example of likely many.

On the topic, while I appreciate the 'Four Horsemen' of Atheism, I disagree with Sam Harris since even what is apparently 'less subtle' as being extreme, ALL religions are just such when or where they are pressed. Much of the less obvious forms of abuses are always the indirect hidden forms that authoritarian cultures conspire among themselves. Religion is overtly a construct of irrational beliefs and is NOT always simply of the 'traditional' forms. As such, even Atheism by some is a religion. Islam is no more 'extreme' except by chance. To me (and many others), Israeli Nationalism (Zionism) is just as equally violent. They just have the fortune of power in relative wealth and support that grants them the capacity to delude others (even themselves) into interpreting their acts as non-violent (as "terrorist" implies of the 'enemy'). Every cult(ure) who supports a fixed belief in themselves as having some collective inherent right is a threatening 'religion' to at least some outside group. They use 'terrorist' tactics when they are in relative weakness only. [Even Hitler's "Final Solution" against the Jews and many other victims only derived as their weakness was more perceptible to themselves in the end.]

I couldn't determine anything this judge said without knowing the literal context that the media had not presented. Judges are still people who have a right to opinion of which we CAN use to help determine whether we continue using those people. I don't particularly like simply the fact we are asked to 'swear to speak the truth' in context to some Bible that is somehow magically assumed to assure the person's integrity. In actuality, its intent is to help indicate to others whether the person being sworn in is or is not religious and to which religion they associate with. So simply up front, the court is biased in all systems this way. What would have happened had a judge commented to some guy that he should learn to keep his dick in his pants....even to some relative participant in the case NOT on trial but who may have either contributed to the problem OR was a victim? I doubt this would have been an issue. And the reason why it is is due to the ever more present tendency to favor women as default innocent vulnerable children. I wouldn't have favored such an inverse statement to a man in this way. But I wouldn't think it had anything to do with the credibility of the judge, just to the bias he or she represented in that case. We need more information to determine the context regardless.

It was an underground explosion and we have to wait for any reports on any escaped radiation. However, you are correct on the warhead thing. This is the concern right now....that they may be ready to be able to use effective warheads WITH sufficient power. It was actually bigger than Hiroshima other than that it was diminished by being underground. The earthquake registered something in the '5' Richter scale and differed in that the pulse was one solid one rather than a measure of two pulses used to determine the normal rate.

I'm forced to accept a package deal and cannot do without the internet now due to everything tied to my email. It is NOT cheap and I cannot figure out how to go 'cheaper'. Suggestions?

I looked at the last few minutes and noticed it claimed that it was Canadian. Regardless, if this extends to the U.S. channels as well, we are in worse trouble. The nature of these channels to even permit simultaneous shows of the exact form other than to one's political leader's speech demonstrates an unusual bias. I don't give a shit whether some cancer fund raising initiative is common to a lot of people's "heart". It merely exploits that to dismiss the significance of the point I am making on the likely connectivity of those who are empowered to make this occur. Note too that all our internet is also owned now by the same interests. Our media for expressing ourselves should not be 'owned' by private hands as this is precisely what occurs.