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ITT 2: We post shit that is neither funny nor interesting

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Hika
why ya here tho.
EneT
Word spreads around fast among the under-age child lovers. He must be here because he heard something to do with children.

Railey2
will khelly ever be better at mania than raspberriel ?
B1rd

Railey2 wrote:

not over everything. Free speech is a core value for the left as well.

I want to make some arguments for governmental control then.

This is why governmental control is needed. The notion that a free market regulates itself is simply wrong. This has been demonstrated multiple times, often with horrible consequences. When you give people too much freedom, they will find a way to exploit that to fuck others over for their own benefit. People are too scummy to be allowed to be completely free, all the time. An instance like the government is needed to keep things under control, within reasonable boundaries.
This doesn't mean the government controls everything. Personal choices that don't affect others, aka most choices about your personal life, aren't affected. Saying that the government wants to control everything is insane. Governmental control realistically won't interfere with most parts of your life.
You only hear of it if you are in a position of power, such as an employer. That's when the government checks up on you, to see that you don't fuck people over.

Similarly, the government also doesn't want you to fuck yourself over. You can't just go "oooh I just won't get sick, so I don't need healthcare, haha! My children also won't need healthcare cause they won't be sick!" And then you break your leg and can't pay your bills because you don't have insurance.
People need to be protected from their own choices too, sometimes. It's the compassionate thing to do. It's like a benevolent parent that tells you to not be an idiot.

What irks me is that people pretend freedom is a good thing. It's not. Freedom can be a horrible thing, because it gives people the opportunity to hurt others or themselves. There needs to be a balance between freedom and control, if you want anything to work.
Again, this doesn't mean that everything is controlled.

Having a state controlled curriculum that is up to date goes without saying, otherwise you run danger of having creationist bullshit being taught in public schools.


I think it's a real problem that people spout bullshit over the value of freedom without second thought. Freedom isn't good by itself, it never was. And it surely can't fix super complex, multi-layered problems.


To conclude this post: I think that holistic arguments like this one are pretty useless in general. It's a lot more useful to look at single regulations/laws, and see what they want to control, for what purpose they want to control it, if they can be expected to fulfill this purpose, and lastly if the purpose is good.
Everything else seems like a waste of time. When you break down an argument like I just described, I don't think that the left and the right would disagree as often as they might think. There is a lot of potential for common ground.
Free speech is not a core value of the left. The people who I always hear who want to get rid of free speech are leftists. They claim that some speech is classified as 'hate speech', and since they can apply their arbitrary definition of 'hate speech' on anything they don't like, it destroys the concept of free speech. This will tie into my further points about government control.

No, the actions of one company to not necessitate government control. I've heard multiple times already of the same pills being developed for a small fraction of the cost. That is the free market in action, you just fail to comprehend the way in which the free market can solves problems and thus your instinctive reaction is 'the government has to regulate it'. No, it has not 'been demonstrated multiple times' that a market can't exist without regulation, a genuine free market has never existed.

And yes, government control has a MASSIVE effect over everything in our lives. Your income, the economy, what media you consume, your ability to travel, what items you can acquire, how safe your environment is, your right to defend yourself... everything. If you don't believe me, people in America have been forced to shut down lemonade stands because they did not have a 'permit' and a business license. Your claim is utterly false.

Now there is another claim I really hate: people are too stupid to have responsibility over themselves and their family. They must be coddled by a nanny state. Ridiculous. People should not be forced to buy healthcare or insurance. People should not be forced to give away cash not only to the government to pay for other people's mistakes, but to a mandatory retirement fund. This is the government overstepping its bounds and interfering with people's freedom to make their own decisions. People should be allowed to make mistakes, and also they should suffer the consequences of their actions. It should be up to a person to look after their own self preservation and further their own interests, the state's job is to protect people from outside harm. If you suddenly decide it is the state's job to protect them from themselves, the suddenly nothing is off limits. In your position, the state should ban tobacco because it does no good and only causes harm. In fact, something doesn't need to be dangerous, it only needs to appear to be dangerous to be banned. In Australia, many things are banned because of this. Throwing stars are banned, likely because of their appearances in ninja movies, despite being on of the least dangerous 'weapons' out there. A type of kelp that is essential to Japanese cooking is banned, because it is high in iodine and one pregnant women ate high amounts of it every day and got sick and miscarried.
And before you tell me 'bla bla every policy should be considered for its own merits', that's not how democracy works. Logical arguments are worthless in the face of mass hysteria and emotional arguments. Once you concede your rights to the state, you are at the mercy of the tyranny of the majority, you are at mercy of the whims of politicians, without effective means to fight back. This is the case for everything. Once you give the government direct control over the education of an entire nation, you open up the means for the government to push ideological propaganda and subversive teachings that further the state's interests.

You say 'people are inherently irresponsible and need to be controlled'. How does that makes the the ones governing us any better? how does that make the majority from which our democracy is supposedly controlled any better? The fact that people can be bad is the sole reason that centralised power is BAD not GOOD. Because people can abuse their power and affect millions. Unlike your dubious claims of tyranny under a free market, we have many examples throughout history of the state being tyrannical, and killing millions of its own citizens. An yet you argue that the state should be given more power over us.

This is the reason one must have unalienable rights and I can make absolute statements about the jurisdiction of the government. If you give an inch they will take a mile. Giving away your rights is a slippery slope to tyranny, and don't say 'that could never happen to my government'.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin


The left and right have a similar purpose, the betterment of society. The difference is the method they try to achieve that purpose. The left has a simplistic and often emotional view of things; "to make people less poor, give them money"; "the only way to stop this behaviour is to use the force of the state"; "some people got hurt by something, therefore it must be banned/regulated". The right understands that things are more complicated than that.

Rasberriel wrote:

If you can't see how accusing an entire demographic (that has already been accused of mounds of other shit for centuries) of being "pedophile apologists" is bad, then there's really no point in continuing this. And I haven't even touched on the fact that even the assumptions she used to make that claim are flawed. But yeah, whatever, keep defending YouTube comments.
Who's fault is it that the Jews have been accused of shit thought out the centuries and have been kicked out of pretty much every country they have inhabited at some point or another?


Railey2 wrote:

another example for my claim that freedom isn't always good: Journalism that is solely after money instead of promoting honest argument to confront serious topics, quickly turns into something akin to buzzfeed, fox news, or this. There are easier ways to make money on the free market, after all. If there is nobody to hold journalists to a standard, the quality of overall media will plummet sooner or later.

Who could hold journalists to a standard? The government. For example by implementing laws that state that you aren't allowed to misrepresent political arguments on purpose to influence your readership in a certain way, etc.
Another example of how you can't understand simple concepts of the free market. If people are sick of the MSM lying to them, they will watch alternative outlets. And this has happened a lot recently. If people want to watch news that parrots their own views on matters, then they will. Regulating the media is a horrible idea and violates freedom of press. This is happening recently as right wing sites have been attacked for 'fake news'. Censorship under any other name would small as sweet.

Also, your bias is showing when you insult Fox News despite the left wing media outlets being a lot worse.



the point is, it should not up to the people. It should be up to a third party organization that hopefully consists of unbiased, qualified people, who can tell the difference between fair coverage and blatant dishonesty.
There are many instances where news stations straight out lied about the facts. Take for example climate change, or creationism. As soon as you call yourself a news agency, or seek to fulfill the same function under a different name, you should under no circumstance be allowed to lie about clear facts.

Now this sounds pretty radical, so let's put it a different way:



There are two extremes.

1) People just say whatever they want. We have creationism being taught in public schools, news stations just report whatever they like, some of them still try being honest but most just pander to their audience and feed them with the information they want to hear. Nobody is being held to a standard, facts don't matter, it's just everyone living in his own echo chamber.

2) A government that has all the tools to censor opinions on national TV and elsewhere, if they deem them unfitting. Even though the tools were meant to enforce something that may look like this, it is easy to see how such power could be abused pretty quickly.



I believe that the the US is approaching the former in a frightening speed. People already talk about our days being a supposed "post-fact-era", and I believe there is a lot of truth in that, simply because nobody is holding the media to a standard.
Standards are important in journalism, they are immensely important, but currently there are no ramifications if you simply break every golden rule known to journalism. There needs to be an authority that can take the role of a governing instance, otherwise every country will slowly but surely approach the post-fact-era, just like the US is doing now.
And I bet you that this authority will not be the public. The public cares more about its own biases and indoctrinated beliefs than about facts and honest journalism, unless you make them care.

However, we can't have the second extreme either. Free speech is important, but so is the truth. There needs to be some sort of balance. I wouldn't know how exactly that balance can be achieved, I just know that it is very important to not arrive at either extreme.
as i said, balance is key. The left is definitely in favour of more governmental control, but nobody wants a dystopian future where everything is censored and controlled.

And no, my views on creationism and climate change denial aren't opinions. It's a fact that climate change is real and that the world is older than 6k years. Those are facts. It's important to get this distinction right. Teachers that teach their students wrong things about the world shouldn't be teachers. News anchors that blatantly lie shouldn't report on the news.
That's one of the worst statements I've heard this year. You think you can get a team of unbiased, qualified people to dictate the media? Ridiculous. You can never prevent corruption and personal bias when you give people tool like this.

And I've already said, evolution and climate change are not facts. They might seem very likely given the evidence, but that does not make them a fact. A fact is something like 'the sky is blue'. I'm not interested in debating the probability that these things are true. What is important is that there is a possibility that they are not. And that's why free speech is so important, sometimes the minority of voices telling the majority that they are wrong are actually right. Instead of being extremely dogmatic and censoring people who want to promote their point of view through a public broadcast, just engage in civil discourse. People will believe what they want to believe. Censoring or regulating the media will never result in more truth.

Funny that I hear you using the word 'post-truth', I read a newspaper article about it a couple of days ago. Basically it comes down to people, and by people I mean left-wingers, who use this term to imply that the people who disagree with them are ignoring the 'facts'. I think left wing people are ignoring the facts and truth, but I'm not trying to shutdown left wing sites because I don't think they are correct.

You keep saying you don't want a 'dystopian future of government control', except that's exactly the result of what you're arguing for. You're the one who naively thinks the people in power, i.e. the government can regulate itself when given authority over everyone.

Railey2 wrote:

well d'uh free speech is already restricted in many places and nobody would even think of suggesting something else. He's acting as if only the liberal party has an interest in respecting free speech, but actually.. every single party known to me does.

If you have cancer and you go to the hospital, the leading surgeon can't just go: "Hey man guess what you don't have cancer after all now go home to your kids and don't worry about it anymore!"
That's illegal. He is not allowed to lie to you because that would have horrible consequences. It's a restriction of free speech.


Freedom of speech isn't always something positive, but people get indoctrinated to a point where they just go against everyone who claims otherwise, without second thought. I bet B1rd internalized the equation freedom = good so much, he will just discard my comment without reading it a second time.

(on a side note, a "theory" is often an immensely well supported fact, in scientific lingo. Like the theory of gravity, or the theory of evolution)
More like you have internalised the the word freedom to mean chaos and violence without understanding why it is a good thing. And you don't understand the concept of freedom of speech either. It's not the same as medical misconduct, like what is in your example. It relates to the idea that people should be able to espouse ideas and concepts without retaliation from the government. And every government that is taken part in indoctrination has censored speech. When you try to stop 'indoctrination' (i.e. people with different ideas) it quickly can turn into you becoming the ones indoctrinating people.

You don't have a 100% guarantee for anything in life. If your standards for what constitutes a fact are so high that you think it is valid to ignore decades of well-founded research, then facts might as well not exist in your world.

That's what people mean by "post-fact-era". When you say "hey, only because scientists talk about it doesn't mean it's true", as if that's a valid excuse for believing something that is completely unsupported instead of acting as if the vastly more likely option is true, then every rational discussion becomes completely useless.

News anchors have an obligation to the public, just like doctors or teachers do. It is their duty to inform the public. News HAVE to be factual, otherwise they aren't news.

If someone is casting a talkshow, that's a different issue, but news channels? Just look at fox news, or even CNN recently. The public forgot what makes facts facts, and more importantly, they forgot to care about facts. I accredit this partially to the criminal neglect of the media outlets. This is what we get when we don't have an authority putting its foot down to hold people to a set standard. You'll get a country with lots of dishonest, biased and simply stupid people. I can't stress this enough: Holding the media to a standard is immensely important. Restricting free speech is important.
Holding to media to standards is good. Censorship is not. Expose them and call them out on it if they lie about facts. Facts are something like "the black guy did not have a gun' when it is shown clearly on film that he did. Like I have already said, 'decades of well founded research' does not constitute a fact and is not valid grounds for censorship regardless of how likely you think the theories are. I don't care if there is a 0.0000001% chance that something is incorrect. The possibility that it might be wrong is enough justification for people to be able to espouse skeptical views.

And even if something was a 100% fact, telling people that they can't talk about or teach creationism in private schools is a violation of religious freedom.



RoseusJaeger wrote:

That doesn't mean anything unless you have cold, hard evidence for the claims. That's why conspiracy theories often stay are just that, a theory. It may be possible and may some convincing arguments but that doesn't make it fact.
Regardless of how plausible some theories (or 'hypothesises' for our autistic friends here) are, a lot of people write them off simply because they sound too extreme to be real. Some Conspiracy theories are speculations of mentally unstable people, which they have a stereotype for being, but this clouds the fact that some have some solid evidence for.


EneT wrote:

You clearly didn't read or understood the entire discussion
Forgive me but it seemed like a whole lot of uninteresting arguments on semantics.
B1rd

EneT wrote:

Word spreads around fast among the under-age child lovers. He must be here because he heard something to do with children.

She may look like a pre-pubescent little girl, but in reality she's over 2000 years old :^)
Faust
That was alright. B1rd poster of the year.
lol
next time i get an essay asssignment ill hit u up b1rd
myniga
Railey2
Free speech part

the value of free speech means that you can speak your mind without having to fear governmental persecution.

Medical misconduct is an example of free speech being limited, because the doctor lying (sir, you don't have cancer after all!) will lead to him serving prison time. The doctor is not at all free to say what he pleases because he is in a position of medical responsibility. His free speech is limited, and everyone would agree that a limit is useful in this case.

One can agree that limits like this are useful while still supporting the general concept of free speech.
The press is also in a position of responsibility, and as such should have some restrictions put on it. The press should not be allowed to claim that there is no war in Syria, for example.

You say that this is a slippery slope, and that's true. But the alternative is living in a society where the public is critically misinformed, which is already happening in many parts of the US. Just look at this election cycle. Lies and deceit on both sides, because facts don't matter anymore.



Free market part

completely free markets do not work the way you intend them to.

if there is no governmental control, there will be cartels, fraud, environmental damage, monopolies, collusion, the list goes on...
The reason why a true free market has never been attempted because the idea is absolutely ludicrous. Who stops companies to dump their toxic waste in rivers to save costs? Think about it. this already happens in countries where there is too little governmental control to stop it. The same companies also exploit their workers because there is no authority to stop it.

Complete and utter freedom doesn't necessarily mean chaos, but people will find ways to exploit it in the most spectacular fashion, and it will be to your very detriment. History has shown that, if you look at the third world you can see it live in action. The thing that sets the first world apart from the third is functioning governments that take care of their citizens. The more the US backpaddles on this, the more it starts to look like a third world country.



Facts part

Yes, creationism should not be taught in school. its not education, but harmful ideologist indoctrination. Being skeptical is not the same as being stupid, B1rd. if you think we can teach children creationism for reasons of skepticism, you do not know what skepticism means. Religious freedom my ass. i am glad bullshit like Scientology is banned in Germany.
Evolution and climate change are facts. This is not something to argue about. The world isn't 6000 years old, hence it should not be taught. Facts are important, the truth is important. if an educational system compromises the truth for the sake of religious freedom, it is doomed.






''Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."[/i] -Benjamin Franklin
what a nice blanket statement from a guy who lived in a time far less complex than ours.

Do whatever the fuck you want man. You have no idea how the economy works if you claim that it can do without regulation. You say evolution isn't a fact. You say indoctrination is just people having different views from other people. im glad that i don't live in a country where there are many crazies like you.
its insane how you mistrust the government so much when it is currently doing an excellent job at making sure that your ceiling isn't made of asbestos, your drinking water doesn't contain lead, your working hours don't exceed a reasonable amount, and your neighbour doesn't shoot you.

i kinda wish for you to be transported back to the 16th century, where governmental regulations were basically nonexistent. im sure you'd that a lot. Surely, private businessmen are more trustworthy than a modern government. You'll be treated well by them! Yay for the free market with absolutely nothing to prevent people from fucking each other over!
Mahogany
Railey I like you again :D

Railey2 wrote:

i kinda wish for you to be transported back to the 16th century
Or 1930s Germany, he'd love that too
B1rd
I already told you how you were wrong about free speech, but you didn't understand my point at all. Free speech relates to ideas only. It does not refer to lying that causes people serious harm. You could talk someone into commiting murder but that has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech doesn't cover things like this and it never did.

I don't care if the press announced there was no war in Syria, they would be a laughing stock if they did because there is a freedom of information. What you want to do is reduce the freedom of the press and potentially create a situation where the media is controlled by the government. Again you completely fail to comprehend my point that having the government control something like the media is a horrible idea because it can never be trusted to do the right thing.

The reason why the press can get away with what it does it because people some people don't care. They are happy with lies that sound good rather than the truth. This isn't the fault of the company, it's the fault of the consumer. Yet there was a large backlash against the left wing MSM over all their obvious lies over the election cycle, and alternative media sites such as Breitbart have exploded into popularity. This is how things work. You don't need the government to interfere and if it did it would be extremely detrimental.


Now onto the free market, basically your entire text centers around the fact that like I said, you can't personally envision how things would work so you fall back to the simplistic line of thought that 'the government must control it'. You think that if the government disappeared, then all the services offered by the government would disappear to. When you take a rock out of a riverbed, water goes and fills the place where it used to be.

The things that separates the first world and third world is the IQ of the population. You can't have a functioning democracy if the average IQ is 80 or below. A lot of European countries are starting to look like third world countries because they have taken a lot of third world immigrants. Simple as that. It has nothing to do with the type of government.



Creationism should be taught in schools. Not in all schools, but whichever schools deem to teach it. You're not forced into sending your child to a school that teaches certain things. Unlike what you want, which is all schools to be forced to teach something that could very well be ideological indoctrination.

And just calling something a fact doesn't make it so, no matter how many times you say it is. It's a theory. And yes I know what theory means. And guess what, despite people being free to dissent, most people still believe that your theories are correct. So guess what, you don't need to silence harmful indoctrinating dissenting opinions for people to believe what they will.

It's funny how you try to make a point about how things were different back in the olden days yet couple paragraphs later you use what it used to be like then as an example to back up your point. You can't have your cake and eat it too. And it's also funny that you use back then as an example when most places were monarchies and the ruling classes had absolute authority over its citizens, it doesn't help your point that the powers of the government should be expanded.


And yes I trust a businessman more than the government, typically businessmen don't have armies and a police force that actually can fuck people up. You're really showing your true colours as a typical left-wing bigot here by calling me 'crazy' because I repect people's rights like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and religious freedom. I wish there weren't a whole lot of people like you in my country, being useful idiots and giving up everyone's rights and freedoms on their behalf.



Edit: I mean, the ulterior motives of the government have even been proven by such things as wikileaks, yet despite all the evidence both past and present you refuse to believe that the government abuses its power.
Endaris
Well, it's hard to deny that the modern democratic state is an absolute wreck that keeps making things worse.
This sort of construct is spread all over the world with no real alternatives at all.
Guess why I'm fancying anarchy. (educate yourself about it before you jump at me)

However, this doesn't mean that capitalism in its blue-eyed theory of the free market can be approved. Railey mentioned some reasons and even if you claim that businessman don't have armies and a police force that can fuck people up, fact is, there are quite some companies who could easily achieve something like that if they bothered. The problem about capitalism and the free market is that it serves the capital and not humanity. The biggest thing we get out of it are big numbers.
When the world started to modernise people were dreaming of a world in which machines would do the work and people could spend a lot more time on any kind of art or research. Now look at this bullshit, it doesn't work because capitalism and its interest force people into working more and more. If capitalism cared about people we would have an established 25h week and significantly less inequality between continents. But that is not how capitalism works and not how it was ever supposed to work.
This system does not deserve any kind of praise.
B1rd
People today are thousands of times wealthier than they were before the industrial revolution. We can have 1% of the population working in agriculture instead of 80% or whatever the statistics were before. We're not living in a utopia where no one has to work not because of capitalism, but because machines haven't advanced to that point yet. But thanks to capitalism they have advanced to the point they are and are continuing to advance.

A lot of problems today are caused by the government corruption. Companies and businessmen don't have armies, but they use the army and force of the government by bribing and lobbying politicians. When you get rid of the government you get rid of the leverage these companies have.

I don't really get your criticism of capitalism. It's not an entity that can care about people, it's a system made up of lots of people. How long people work and how much people earn are not decided by capitalism itself, but by the various forces that affect the market that finds the most efficient ways to do things. And by doing this, it creates the most wealth for everyone. A few millennia ago we had a massive percentage of the population working 100+ hours a week (slaves), things have been improving from there.

Inequality between continents is natural, the concept of equality does not exist in reality.

I also fancy anarchism myself, anarcho capitalism that is. Or at least right wing libertarian values. All the other types of anarchism and communism seem quite absurd to me.
_handholding
did you change your sig from "2 edgy for Tuuba" to "to edgy for Tuuba"?

Also why to instead of too? is that part of the edginess?
Razzy

Kisses wrote:

did you change your sig from "2 edgy for Tuuba" to "to edgy for Tuuba"?

Also why to instead of too? is that part of the edginess?
MC B1rd's latest single, "2 Edgy 4 Tuuba"
Foxtrot

Kisses wrote:

did you change your sig from "2 edgy for Tuuba" to "to edgy for Tuuba"?

Also why to instead of too? is that part of the edginess?

Kisses wrote:

Not trying to come across as salty or w/e but why is it you always get involved in other people's exchanges? This is like the 50th time now
B1rd
I did change my signature actually, like wow thanks for noticing. faggot
winber1
same
Faust
I can't fall asleep. This is taking a while but luckily my schedule is blank for today wew.
abraker
Mahogany vs ColdTooth
Mahogany
Coldtooth is being hardcore Tsundere to me like seriously
EneT

B1rd wrote:

EneT wrote:

You clearly didn't read or understood the entire discussion
Forgive me but it seemed like a whole lot of uninteresting arguments on semantics.
Forgiven.
B1rd
Railey2
ok B1rd you really annoy me here so i'll take my time to take this trainwreck apart. This will also be my last post on this. Hopefully, the points i raise will be strong enough so it doesn't matter when you get the last word with your inevitable response later on.


B1rd wrote:

I already told you how you were wrong about free speech, but you didn't understand my point at all. Free speech relates to ideas only. It does not refer to lying that causes people serious harm. You could talk someone into commiting murder but that has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech doesn't cover things like this and it never did.
SPOILER
if you don't believe me then maybe you will believe John Steward Mill, one of the most influental thinkers in the 19th century, who (among others) shaped the conception of liberty. There are resources you can find over wikipedia, either on his page or on the freedom of speech article, but take it that the working definition of freedom of speech is: ''the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction.''

Lying is allowed under the definition of freedom of speech. if it is your idea that the patient does not have cancer, then telling him that is exerting your freedom of speech. However, Freedom of speech is limited by our government, which means that even though telling the patient a lie falls under freedom of speech, it is still being punished.
This is how it should be. if you say things that can have grave consequences, your words should be subject to great scrutiny.
if joe from across the street says that creationism is true, let him. if joe is running for president, then just no.

Let's take a break here and look at what limits are being imposed on the freedom of speech:

  • - libel
    - slander
    - obscenity
    - pornography
    - sedition
    - incitement
    - classified information
    - copyright violation
    - trade secrets
    - non-disclosure agreements
    - the right to privacy
    - the right to be forgotten
    - public security
    - perjury
with full freedom of speech, these would all be legal. And that's why we limit freedom of speech, because it fucking sucks on it's own and needs to be cut down to prevent harm. One can agree with that and still value free speech on it's own, apart from the issues it has, which is what most people do.

Back to our friend John Steward, who says: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
This maxim is known as the ''no harm principle'', one of the most universally agreed upon ethical principles. All of the restrictions on freedom of speech follow this principle.

My argument is: News sections that are telling lies violate the no harm principle and should be penalized, just like all the other things that are outlawed because they are bad. Spreading misinformation is something that has serious consequences.

Freedom has been characterized as this great awesome thing, but this is not at all true. Freedom isn't great on its own, and it surely is not what makes America great.


B1rd wrote:

I don't care if the press announced there was no war in Syria, they would be a laughing stock if they did because there is a freedom of information. What you want to do is reduce the freedom of the press and potentially create a situation where the media is controlled by the government. Again you completely fail to comprehend my point that having the government control something like the media is a horrible idea because it can never be trusted to do the right thing.
SPOILER
Syria was an extreme example, but what about a conservative newschannel telling its viewers that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) allows taxpayer-funded abortions for everyone? (which is a lie)

You don't realize that most lies aren't obvious nowadays. Even about Syria, a clever newscaster could just obfuscate the issue to paint a different picture. Of course he won't say ''there is no war'', but he could still tell lies about the war to make people believe things about the war that are not at all true in order to influence their vote in the next election. The point was: There is nothing to prevent this from happening, and yes people fall for it en masse all the time, on both sides of the political spectrum.
Because nobody gives a shit about facts. You even denied that facts exist beyond obvious empirical truths like ''the sky is blue''. if relatively intelligent people like you can't even distinguish between fact and opinion, what does that say about the effectiveness of the democratic process?
i accredit this development to the media, politicians and the educational system blurring the line between facts and opinions for decades, and probably decades to come.


B1rd wrote:

The reason why the press can get away with what it does it because people some people don't care. They are happy with lies that sound good rather than the truth. This isn't the fault of the company, it's the fault of the consumer. Yet there was a large backlash against the left wing MSM over all their obvious lies over the election cycle, and alternative media sites such as Breitbart have exploded into popularity. This is how things work. You don't need the government to interfere and if it did it would be extremely detrimental.
Most people don't care. Most of the time there is no backlash. As i said above, its only getting worse. The only reason why there was a backlash this time is, because they got undeniably refuted by trump taking the election home. Like saying ''the sky will be blue tomorrow'', but then it suddenly turns bright red. Of course there is a backlash.
if clinton had won by a hair there would have been no backlash, despite the left wing media's persistent dishonesty throughout the election cycle.
And both sides keep lying. The left lies about Trump's stances, the right lies about what the left wants. Nobody has to fear consequences, even though it clearly harms everyone.



B1rd wrote:

Now onto the free market, basically your entire text centers around the fact that like I said, you can't personally envision how things would work so you fall back to the simplistic line of thought that 'the government must control it'. You think that if the government disappeared, then all the services offered by the government would disappear to. When you take a rock out of a riverbed, water goes and fills the place where it used to be.
SPOILER
You seriously answer my economic points with:
''When you take a rock out of a riverbed, water goes and fills the place where it used to be.''

lets make some examples here to clearly illustrate how the free market does not regulate itself.

  • - A company uses Chlorofluorocarbon instead of alkanes, because that's cheaper. This will never regulate itself because it is not visible to the customer.

    - 3 companies form a cartel to control the oil price countrywide. Being the only companies that have access to the distribution infrastructure, no other company can just come in and compete with them. Even if they do come in and build their own pipes, the 3 powerful companies will just offer super low prices wherever the new company settles down, to prevent customers from switching. Eventually the new company gets forced out of business and is bought up by the other 3. They can just set whatever prices they want. They also have the option of sharing their unfair profits with the oil-suppliers, to assure loyalty, making it impossible for anyone to just come in and compete.

    - A company claims that their product does not contain lead. it does contain lead! Since there is no control mechanism in place, and of course no regulation, it is only found out when the damage is already done. Since there is no regulation that says they can't do that, there also won't be any repercussions other than no more customers. The company has done a lot of profit by saving all the costs related to filtering iron out. They can use that to move to a move to a different business.

    - 161 factory workers die in a fire because the factory wasn't required to install sprinklers and expensive fireproof doors
the list goes on.
And believe me, these things have been happening all the time, and ARE currently happening in places that aren't as regulated. What's your answer to this? ''Things will fall into place''. ''People will find a way''

Don't accuse me of being naive for not believing in the completely free market. You are the one that is naive when you think that insanity like taking away all governmental control would work out.

Your beliefs about economics are ridiculous.



B1rd wrote:

The things that separates the first world and third world is the IQ of the population. You can't have a functioning democracy if the average IQ is 80 or below. A lot of European countries are starting to look like third world countries because they have taken a lot of third world immigrants. Simple as that. It has nothing to do with the type of government.
The average iq is so low because these people don't receive any sort of formal education. i can assure you that the average iq was just as low before everyone started going to school. if these countries had functioning governments, the average iq would shoot up over the decades as well.
Look up the Flynn-effect if you want. This is an irrelevant argument and i do not care in the least about it.



B1rd wrote:

Creationism should be taught in schools. Not in all schools, but whichever schools deem to teach it. You're not forced into sending your child to a school that teaches certain things. Unlike what you want, which is all schools to be forced to teach something that could very well be ideological indoctrination.
SPOILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACyLTsH4ac

people should watch this. is Freedom of religion something that should be protected in every case? When the children from this video grow up and have children on their own, is it their ''decision'' to send their own children to the same camp?
if schools did this (and they do, in some places), they have failed their purpose. The educational system has to educate, not indoctrinate. The goal of education is for people to grow up and become adults that can make decisions on their own.
indoctrination achieves the opposite and hence should be outlawed, just like scientology is outlawed in Germany.
it is factually wrong, it uses dishonest and harmful methods and people need to be protected from it.
Teaching things that are factually wrong is not education, it's simply spreading misinformation. The opposite of what you want. People need to learn the most accurate description of reality for them to be able to make accurate predictions about reality. This is why unaccurate descriptions about reality have no place in school.



B1rd wrote:

And just calling something a fact doesn't make it so, no matter how many times you say it is. It's a theory. And yes I know what theory means. And guess what, despite people being free to dissent, most people still believe that your theories are correct. So guess what, you don't need to silence harmful indoctrinating dissenting opinions for people to believe what they will.
Once you said that evolution and climate change aren't facts, it became very clear to me that you either can't distinguish between opinion and fact, or that there are ideological reasons for you to deny these facts. No matter which of the two it is, they both most likely run too deep for anyone to correct on this platform.



B1rd wrote:

It's funny how you try to make a point about how things were different back in the olden days yet couple paragraphs later you use what it used to be like then as an example to back up your point. You can't have your cake and eat it too. And it's also funny that you use back then as an example when most places were monarchies and the ruling classes had absolute authority over its citizens, it doesn't help your point that the powers of the government should be expanded.
you can't compare a monarchy to a modern government, that's ridiculous. A government consists of a shitload of people and multiple instances that exert power over each other. A monarch is one guy who can do basically what he wants. Nothing in a modern government comes even close to that.

if anything, a monarch is more comparable to a corrupt CEO with a lot of power in an unregulated system where he has full control over his company and can exploit the market however he wants. Like a super rich and influential business owner in a third world country. This is super ironic, because the analogy works more against you than it works for you, but you don't even realize it.



B1rd wrote:

And yes I trust a businessman more than the government, typically businessmen don't have armies and a police force that actually can fuck people up. You're really showing your true colours as a typical left-wing bigot here by calling me 'crazy' because I repect people's rights like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and religious freedom. I wish there weren't a whole lot of people like you in my country, being useful idiots and giving up everyone's rights and freedoms on their behalf.
They do have armies in countries without governmental control, and they had armies in the past in europe. They will have armies again when you take away all control. Who currently prevents them from having armies? The government.



B1rd wrote:

Edit: I mean, the ulterior motives of the government have even been proven by such things as wikileaks, yet despite all the evidence both past and present you refuse to believe that the government abuses its power.
SPOILER
Power will always be abused. At least democratic governments have mechanisms to prevent power abuse. You US is pretty corrupt and known for being imperialist, but the countries in the EU (say Germany) are operating with a minimal amount of exploitation for the power they have. i would even claim that the ratio between power and abuse is better than it ever has been before in the history of humanity.

i concede that it won't be perfect. But you leaving it up to people that mostly care about money is far worse. FAR WORSE.


you call me naive, so let me tell you something. You say i am blind for trusting the government like that.

i don't trust the government. But i know that thanks to regulations and the government's protection, we live in the safest time since the dawn of humanity. Power is super scary when someone other than yourself yields it, but yielding it correctly can make a lot of things better. What you suggest is just letting things fall into place on it's own. That won't work. it just doesn't. We saw the consequences in the past, we can see them now, and we can predict what would happen in the future.

i don't think you're naive. i also don't think that you're stupid, far from it actually.
i think you're delusional, and that's far worse because it can't be easily corrected by talking you out of it, like it could work for naivety.

if you take anything from this post, that'd be great. But i won't get my hopes up.
have a good night.

(also, the reason why i didn't capitalite my i's, is because my i key is broken. They're all copy pasted ;_;)
B1rd
You know, at least I didn't call your posts 'trainwrecks' or call you 'delusional' and act in a condescending manner. I hardly see the point in replying at all if you've stated that you're not going to post again and you've shut off the possibility that anything I might say will change your mind on anything.
Zain Sugieres
where's tldr
Endaris

B1rd wrote:

When you get rid of the government you get rid of the leverage these companies have.
Erm...I think that's a bit shortsighted isn't it? When you get rid of the government these companies can just start exploiting their customers with no backlashes. I mean they're already doing it or trying to do it now (see Volkswagen faking data) but they would have a significantly easier time with the vast majority of customers being unable to make a qualified decision on which product to buy just due to how much expertise is needed to evaluate highly specialised products with hundreds of single parts.

B1rd wrote:

I don't really get your criticism of capitalism. It's not an entity that can care about people, it's a system made up of lots of people. How long people work and how much people earn are not decided by capitalism itself, but by the various forces that affect the market that finds the most efficient ways to do things. And by doing this, it creates the most wealth for everyone. A few millennia ago we had a massive percentage of the population working 100+ hours a week (slaves), things have been improving from there.
Lol.
Capitalism doesn't aim to create the most wealth for everyone. And in terms of efficiency it only seeks the easiest and most profitable way to create more capital. Capital however does not equal wealth when you interpret it as "quality of life". In fact capitalism couldn't care less about "quality of life" because the maximum yield is gained when you're exploiting people. People have to make a living and big companies don't rely on single workers in particular. Every individuum is exchangeable at will. If you don't cope with what the giants tell you, they just throw you out or do worse things.
That is efficient in terms of accumulating more capital for the company (that will just be used to exploit more people and accumulate even more capital) but not efficient in terms of creating the wealth and quality of life of the society. Accumulation of capital is the only premise in capitalism and the single human means nothing to it. Due to that, a lot of the accumulated capital is wasted on things that don't benefit mankind at all. As such capitalism is actually fairly inefficient.
tl;dr
Capital on its own holds no value, especially not if its products are landing in the trash cans (thanks to stuff like planned obsolescence) and polluting the environment.

B1rd wrote:

Inequality between continents is natural, the concept of equality does not exist in reality.
You do get that I used a relative description just saying "less". I'm well aware that equality in all aspects is impossible to achieve. Less inequality would already be a fucking great lot to reduce warfare and conflicts.

B1rd wrote:

I also fancy anarchism myself, anarcho capitalism that is. Or at least right wing libertarian values. All the other types of anarchism and communism seem quite absurd to me.
That's just an opinion of you though. It's not really the anarchist's fault that every anarchic society on a bigger scale was violently taken down by autocratic nations.
Mahogany

B1rd wrote:

You know, at least I didn't call your posts 'trainwrecks' or call you 'delusional' and act in a condescending manner. I hardly see the point in replying at all if you've stated that you're not going to post again and you've shut off the possibility that anything I might say will change your mind on anything.
oh look b1rd needs his safe space, he's really offended right now

Zain Sugieres wrote:

where's tldr
tldr b1rds ideas about stuff are dumb as usual
_handholding

Railey2 wrote:

Hopefully, the points i raise will be strong enough so it doesn't matter when you get the last word with your inevitable response later on.
This point actually past ages ago, at least from a spectator's point of view
Railey2
since this isn't about the argument but rather how we conduct arguments..

you've called me ridiculous, biased, stupid, (autistic? can't remember), and a lot more in arguments before


i don't take it personally, i know you don't either.
it's not my intent to alienate you, but things can get a bit hairy as time goes on, when i read your text again and again to find an adequate response while every fibre of my mind is in pain over how wrong and harmful i find what you wrote to be.

i am sure you can relate to that feeling. Don't take it personally. it's certainly not the most effective or mature way to handle arguments on my side, but at times i write them more for technical correctness than for persuasiveness anyway.

Now don't complain and read. Me being condescending at times still doesn't change the validity of my arguments.

And lastly, there is one thing. i truly believe what i said about you being delusional. Your persistence when confronted with evidence that suggest the opposite of what you say made me say that, and thats one thing i won't take back. Now go read or don't, i'm done either way. Take it or don't. You can't ask much more of me.
B1rd
I don't recall calling you stupid, not recently at least, and I called your statements ridiculous, not you. Is calling you biased an unforgivable insult? Nothing wrong with a bit of banter but going out of your way to characterise me as delusional is starting to get personal. I'm not bothered by intellectual arguments and I don't see why you are. You seem to have an unhealthy intolerance for opposing viewpoints, which frankly is something I see a lot of left wing/sjw type people.

You have confronted me with arguments, you haven't confronted me with much evidence. You don't seem to understand the difference. Again, you seem to have a dogmatic tendency to confuse your subjective opinions with objective facts.

I'll probably get to replying to your post sometime in the future. But your inability to respect intellectual arguments, as long as they have a reasonable level of competency, just reflects badly on you.
lol

B1rd wrote:

not recently at least.
Railey2
don't bother
dNextGen
anyone from Germany/Sweden able to confirm what really happened with the influx of refugees ?

Like, are they really that BAD or just okay, or what

Did they really do nothing and get paid, cucc'd lots of people, making a ruckus etc etc ?

i've seen those crap over and over again and sometimes i saw the other side of story where the refugee got bullied by some people, so i dont really have a real conclusion / opinion

This has nothing to do with my political correctness/beliefs or some shit like that, just plain curiosity
Railey2
they keep to themselves mostly, as one does in an environment where the only semblance familiarity can be conveyed by your own people. Most of them speak neither German nor English. They form their own groups and live life with the people that speak the same language as them, aka people from their neighbouring town.

Most of them are idle, but not by their own choice.

source: Currently live in Germany
EneT
SO YOU DO LIVE IN GERMANY!! Traitorous scum.........
Railey2
);
dNextGen

Railey2 wrote:

they keep to themselves mostly, as one does in an environment where the only semblance familiarity can be conveyed by your own people. Most of them speak neither German nor English. They form their own groups and live life with the people that speak the same language as them, aka people from their neighbouring town.

Most of them are idle, but not by their own choice.

source: Currently live in Germany
I take it they're not that bad then?

can you please elaborate this thing, not that clear to me

"Most of them are idle, but not by their own choice."

Also do you really think that someday they'd take over the said countries or not? I'd say it's almost impossible (seems dumb to me imo) yet some people keeps repeating that over and over again but im pulling this outta my ass so w/e
Railey2
they're not that bad. i wouldn't be surprised if the crimerate within the refugee-population is higher than the crimerate within the German population due to their shitty situation (lots of distress) and cultural differences (often poorly educated -> more violence), but the violence mostly stays in the camps.


They want to do stuff but are forced to stay in the camps, they're mostly just sitting around. Most of them are not allowed to work.


''The refugees'' taking over the country, haha.

First off, the refugees aren't a unified group but rather a set of multiple different groups. Secondly, they make 1\100th of the population. Theres no taking over the country with figures like that.
The majority of them will have already left in 5 to 10 years.
EneT
The Jews will stay; the Jews always find a way to stay.
dNextGen

Railey2 wrote:

they're not that bad. i wouldn't be surprised if the crimerate within the refugee-population is higher than the crimerate within the German population due to their shitty situation (lots of distress) and cultural differences (often poorly educated -> more violence), but the violence mostly stays in the camps.


They want to do stuff but are forced to stay in the camps, they're mostly just sitting around. Most of them are not allowed to work.


''The refugees'' taking over the country, haha.

First off, the refugees aren't a unified group but rather a set of multiple different groups. Secondly, they make 1\100th of the population. Theres no taking over the country with figures like that.
The majority of them will have already left in 5 to 10 years.
That's bretty sad man, but yeah i wouldnt be surprised if anyone does not willing to give them a job if they cant speak neither german nor english
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