alanschu

I suppose it is if you just paint anything less right (not even left) as Communism Ardent capitalists like Milton Friedman have also advocated for a UBI too. https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070

I was unfamiliar with the term Whiskey Throttle but looking it up, I did do that on my low speed dump when learning hahaha. Engine was revving good on the ground but I had the good sense at least to flip the emergency kill switch at least.... I think I probably did something like that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back as an 11 year old on a little 50cc dirt bike that I promptly concluded I didn't like after popping the clutch in the back common area when we moved out to an acreage. I enjoyed being a passenger with my Dad or brother as a pre-teen though.

Oh I understand why I dumped the bike. I was a brand new beginner and didn't yet know how to drive. As I said, I was just learning to ride (I wasn't leaning though... you may have misread learning for leaning?). I just joke that that counts as me checking off the "we all dump the bike" box haha. I took a motorcycle course which was good and a lot of it was emergency driving and driving slowly and learning about the friction zone with clutch/throttle/rear brake. One of the better decisions I did and wholly was a much better rider after that.

It shouldn't be surprising that when one is compelled to act in a certain way, substantiated by the claims that your everlasting life after this one requires it, that in some it would lead to additional scrutinizing compared to other abstract concepts such as honour or love. And sure, honour is intangible. But it's largely an adjective that comes with it a series of contextual assumptions as to what traits that espouses - many of which are culturally dependent. It still gets scrutinized and questioned, especially by outsiders of those cultures. Pacific Theater saw both parties question the honour of the other through the lends of what their cultures feel honour is - that it is subjective. Love is also an emotional feeling that is very thoroughly questioned both academically (trying to evaluate it physiologically in hard biological terms, as well as social sciences of psychology and sociology) as well as colloquially. As Haddaway so eloquently put: What is love? (Baby don't hurt me). So if all abstract concepts are just intangible human inventions not worthy of being discussed lest we be hypocrites... then I guess we're all hypocrites because they're going to get scrutinized. I think the issue I have is that your usage of the term skeptic rational is too vague, since it too is an intangible that is going to be very subjective and heavily influenced by a host of other intangible values that are unprovable by your standards. Concepts such as equity, fairness, vengeance, and so forth. You can 100% have total wankers that are atheists and pieces of **** to religious individuals on the basis of something that is not falsifiable. If that's your position then I will definitely agree. I will disagree that that is the notion that is central to being an atheist though. To break it down, it's an abstract concept evaluated with one's own logic and reasoning, both of which are also abstract concepts (that get thoroughly discussed), within the context of their lived experiences.

I have heard that as well. I dumped the bike while learning to ride going less than 5mph so hopefully that was my when I'm definitely a lot more hyper aware of things when I'm on the bike that I never am while in a car. If I'm in busier traffic I make sure I can see the face of the people beside me in their side mirrors to have more confidence I'm not in a blind spot. Every intersection I anticipate whether or not there is someone in the oncoming traffic about to turn left and don't drive in the middle of the lane in case in an emergency I need to lane split because I'm hitting the brakes and the person behind me is a bit too close. Certainly my brother's accident helped play a role in having a healthy dose of respect both for the machine as well as the risks. That said it is a thing and nothing saying a crash is always something that I could have avoided if I was just more diligent. I drive a Suzuki Boulevard M50. It looks a lot like this but has an after market seat that gives me a bit more of a backrest if I need it.

Yeah, unfortunate accident with some bad weather on a motorcycle. Interestingly 15 years later (2009) I started to learn to ride myself. Face fears type of moment and a way to spend time with my Dad.

These are all questions I don't have the answer to. I'm an atheist that largely became so because as a 13 year old I found many of the explanations to be inconsistent and/or bull****. My assessment is that our understanding of any sort of heaven or hell is firmly rooted in projecting what we consider rewarding and punishment as human beings. For example, the supposed suffering of Hell are things that are very understandable from a human perspective (burning, having our physical bodies tortured, etc). But it's not one based on any sort of scripture.

Knowing two kids that have transitioned (to non-binary), the answer is definitely yes. Unfortunately for some, kids are definitely property and any "secret" from a parent is roughly equivalent to mortal sin. My cousin actively advocated for Gay Straight Alliances in school to mandatory report any involvement a student has to their parents. When I told her (and showed her studies) that this can be a threat to children who are often harmed as a result of being outed, her explanation was simply "if parents are going to harm kids for this they are probably already abusive so this shouldn't be a reason to not inform parents" which was, well, infuriating to read. Even pointing out that 50% of our homeless youth identify as LGBT as a result of hateful parents but god forbid we trust kids to not inform their parents about something like this.

Oh no I can't edit it now either lmao

This is largely my position now - my getting into a twist about it I was 13 and grieving so hardly rational. I'm atheist/agnostic, but am way less militant about faith in principle (i'm much more scrutinizing towards religious institutions given that they can wield and exercise power in harmful ways). But yes, plenty of perfectly fine people where faith is a part of their lives and I have no issue with that and IMO it's largely a way to try to make sense of things that are beyond our ability to perceive and comprehend. Plenty of Internet Atheists infuriate me too. I always found some of the timeline stuff interesting because my argument against some of it was things like "Evolution doesn't mean there is no God..." But for some Evolution is borderline hearsay and I find it just baffling. A friend of mine growing up and with aspirations to become a doctor had a sticker in his back window that was "Evolution? HA HA HA" with some random alien looking creature with limbs coming out of random parts of a sphere which was to me. I never really understood why people held onto those beliefs, beyond some organization/institution insisting that that be the way.

I imagine that that is the belief, since to imagine an afterlife we project ourselves as we are into it. It was a ton of fun when my brother was killed when I was 13 years old, and some of the **** I tried processing was that either I might not recognize my brother when I finally passed, or that he might not recognize me. I was heavily assured that it all would work out. Unfortunately stuff like that, as well as all the people telling me "he's in a better place" did a lot more to make me skeptical about the whole concepts. The latter in particular made me bitter towards religion and is probably a big reason why my early 20s was filled with militant atheism.

No, but some people have been very effective at claiming that that was the case to fuel some outrage and the funny thing is that one of the big proponents of pushing back on it just openly shares that his goal is to bundle all sorts of things into it to poison it all. I don't even think it's that they don't like change. That is some level of a component (especially if say, jobs are in some way tied to the extraction of fossil fuels, such as in my province), but sometimes financial realities just make it impossible. Make the options to avoid using an ICE vehicle too inconvenient (mass transit) or if they're more expensive (EVs), it'll greatly complicate wide spread adoption. My provincial premier once lambasted an empty Tesla power station (installed by Tesla at no cost to the public) at 7am on a Winter day because doing so served as a rallying cry for supporting the oil industry.

I won't dispute this. My issues lie largely with a concerning amount of long time DNC leadership that at times seem to come across as "once Trump is out of the way, things can get back to normal" without recognizing their own mistakes which (as you point out) helped shift Obama voters to Trump voters as well as the fact that the problem extends well beyond just Trump. I think Obama's 2008 campaign did a lot to help capture people that felt like some level of shakeup was needed, only to IMO see an administration that largely resumed some degree of status quo (including things like not looking to codify Roe despite being a campaign promise). Trump positioned himself as a candidate to shake up the status quo as well. I agree that a lot of the older school, mainstay long time GOP members recognize they can't speak overly ill of Trump supporters (as well as groups like Evangelicals) without risking electoral backlash. So you'll get someone like Mitch McConnell who will go in and talk about how the recent SCOTUS ruling is Very Good and so forth, even though I suspect he personally is not overly insistent that it was something that had to be overturned. 100% agree. It's "fun" to suggest this on social media which evidently makes me just a closet GOP supporter lol. As for the rest of the post, I do agree that current GOP cannot alienate the Trump supporting base and have any hope of winning. A chunk of my concern comes from the notion that someone that is a bit better at being an authoritarian is going to come along in Trump's footsteps... and I feel that the GOP is going to close ranks behind whomever that is because it's a path to power and that's what matters. To be clear this is true for all parties*, as you say. it's just in this circumstance I feel there's a lot more at stake than a few terms of some tax breaks and some public policy I don't agree with. * It is also fun to point out to Liberal Party of Canada supporters that given our voting demographics, an excellent way to insulate Canada from our current Conservative Parties would be for Justin Trudeau to actually fulfill his election promise for electoral reform with some form of ranked ballots and/or proportional representation. Doing so would pretty much guarantee that the CPC never obtain a majority.... but it'd also mean that the LPC would likely never get one as well and that'd forfeit too much power. LPC supporters really love it if you point out that by maintaining the status quo, the LPC are willing to accept the possibility of Conservative majorities in order to secure majorities themselves... while simultaneously a huge chunk of their supporters talk about how the CPC being elected a threat to Canadians. Hmmm. Even Alberta's NDP party waffled after winning their one election and for some reason opted to not implement that campaign promise. The taste of power is too alluring even if you've only tasted it once in half a century I suppose.

To be clear I'm not framing this as an example of "Republicans being terrible" or anything like that. I just laugh that for all the whinging about Democrats ramming through Obamacare, it's ironic that it was so much worse than it could have been because of a insistence on trying to work across the aisle. It's one thing (especially today) that a lot of lefties point to as an example of them utilizing their opportunities to help people super poorly while Republicans arguably use their positions (minority or otherwise) more effectively. I think Republicans arguably can benefit from this a bit more because conservatives a largely fine with limited opportunities to actively govern (ostensibly they are about small government!) while simultaneously recognizing that their dominance of SCOTUS gives them the ability to do things without worrying about the Legislative or Executive branches. Recency bias plays a role I suspect, yes. I definitely won't dispute that there are indeed a whole bunch of liberals that do believe that Republicans are up to some sketch stuff - you do have high profile Democrats like Pelosi and Biden suggesting that the US needs a strong Republican Party - just one that is somehow significantly different than what the party currently is. I also feel that this type of messaging has greater risks of disengaging otherwise supportive voters for limited gain in appealing to conservatives. January 6th investigations are revealing with some of the curtain pulled back shows people disagreeing and pushing back against Trump. I suspect it was always there to some extent, but ranks were definitely closed in party solidarity IMO. And while Trump received a ton of criticism from a lot of the GOP opponents in the primary, that all very much disappeared once Republicans recognized it as a path to victory. IMO I'm not 100% sure how genuine a lot of those criticisms prior to election were and if they would have been brought up if the likes of Lindsey Graham and whatnot felt that Trump would definitely win (i.e. I believe a lot of the critiques were brought up because they were worried he'd tank the GOP chances of winning). That said, it's juxtaposed with their support afterward that I can't be certain if it is just closing ranks (again, Jan 6th investigation seems to indicate that that is the case on some level), or a reflection of "oh damn, we can actually just say this stuff out loud now?" after the GOP was rewarded with a victory with Trump as the candidate. I'm curious what will happen leading into 2024 with someone like DeSantis and Trump squaring off as DeSantis will definitely be looking to secure away a swath of Trump's base. But how will he be doing so? I'm not convinced his path to securing the nomination would necessarily come from taking a higher ground relative to Trump. EDIT: I find it interesting because I agree with the sentiment with respect to conservatives although I admit I'm skeptical wrt to politicians within the Republican Party. Especially given a lot of the farther right, Tea Party and beyond influences within the party. But I actually dislike a lot of the blanket vilification of people, especially poorer ones, that are definitely not immune from the anxieties the world provides. I think the Democrats would benefit from more outwardly championing policies they've done that have been helpful, and absolutely should have a national effort to have on some level grassroots efforts in every congressional district of every state. I think we see some of this with ACA (which some people do not even realize is Obamacare due to aggressive and effective messaging making them feel they are something different), saw increases in its favorability over time and anxiety even among conservative individuals at its potential repeal and the impacts it would have on them and their families. I think there's a lot of challenges to getting this messaging out there beyond the DNC's control, but part of the frustration about a willingness to get Republicans on board for ACA 12+ years ago is that I wouldn't be surprised if a better solution that actually helped people, even conservatives, moreso got passed along because of a willingess to work with GOP politicians. I 100% agree with this and it's one of the ways I feel we've seen Republicans leverage this particular aspect more capability than the Democratic Party.

I go through phases of binging but yes he's a rare Patreon contribution I have

@GorthI feel you will be able to appreciate this one for sure

It's interesting because it seems part of the reality of Obamacare is that the Democrats openly came to the table not just trying to "ram whatever they want through" and started with already offering concessions in hopes of getting bipartisan support because they wanted to make sure they were not just appealing to the people that directly voted for them (including using Romney's Massachusetts health care bill as a starting point). The hilarity of the second image is that, knowing what they know now, he feels they'd still reach out for bipartisan support (to me this is completely baffling thing to say, but here we are). So I feel there's a few things that could be learned... and it seems like there's a Democratic contingent that obstinately refuses to actually take one of the lessons (???). One of the most telling things for me is that the Democratic leadership still consistently talks about how a strong Republican Party is very important, yet I'm unaware of any such commentary that ever comes from the Republicans at least in the past couple decades.

Someone posted a bunch of cats on ships pictures earlier, and Drachinifel had a fun video about ship cats on his channel.

Was effectively a thing at my wife's hometown. Been going on as long as I've known her, when conservative groups were advocating that any and all books that had any LGBT content were inherently sexual in nature and needed to be removed from any public library. Was interesting as Taylor's uncle (a Vietnam war veteran that had health issues related to Agent Orange) went up with a few others to basically talk about how this is dumb and you shouldn't ban books.

Looks like Twitter is planning on suing him to complete the deal. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/elon-musk-seeks-end-twitter-deal-1.6515431

It's funny because for the most part I think we were just taking the piss out of a fellow poster but I think your post is interesting to reflect on given that said admission did seem to be necessary for the lies to be seen as real. Which indeed serves as an example that never admitting that you lied is indeed a viable (and powerful!) tactic.

Oh god I totally forgot! You're right lol

Unfortunate order number XD

Hahaha

It's super unfair that his own party thinks him lying about stuff in Parliament is somehow disqualifying of him leading the country. I mean he paid a fine at one point... his fellow party members should have just let it go and recognized some of the other stuff that wasn't the lying, including the recent lying thing re: an appointment's history with sexual harassment. WHy is it such a big deal that his first response to something bad to just be to lie about it?