Phi for All

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60736185 I'm waiting for your hands to start waving this away. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/understanding-russian-oligarchs Clearly these are people you admire as leaders?

The purchase of the Sibneft oil and gas company through the rigged Russian government auction in 1995 is a great example of rape and robbery of assets that were once owned by socialist soviets. Or do you contend that someone who can snatch a company like that for $250M and sell it 10 years later BACK to the state for $13B is just a good businessman? Are you proud of the accomplishments of the Russian oligarchs who preyed on their own? Does that make them enviable wolves taking their just share from the sheep?

I can argue the rationality of ritual fairly well. For people who can't read, ritual repetition is one of the best ways to learn. It's how most of our oral stories were passed down. You see early religious individuals trying to "control" their group, but it probably just started out as teaching what they though was right, in the right way. You repeat the chant, and if you get it wrong you get corrected. Most teaching progressed like this, and still does.

So a rich murderer is better than a poor murderer? I would argue that Abramovich is not only a bigger robber and murderer, but he has the wealth to also be a source of corruption, something the poor lack. You're ignoring the scale of his corruption because there's only one of him, but look how he raped Russians of assets from the former Soviet Union. Do you admire him for this?

I think you're completely wrong here, because there were a LOT of folks who had Jada's reaction. And as far as "just doing his job" goes, I'll ask you to think about this. What if Will had stood up just the way he did, walked up on stage just the way he did, but instead of acting like an animal and striking a fellow human, imagine if he used his words instead, and said, "Shame on your hypocrisy, joking about a black woman's medical condition! If you can't be an ally, Chris Rock, then keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!"? Rock would have had the choice then to acknowledge him or treat him like another heckler. Either way, this situation would have a better framework for discussion. Without the slap, it's more about whether comedians should be encouraged to make fun of medical conditions or not. Without the slap, it's just Chris Rock trying to justify why he in particular would joke about a black woman's hair in the first place.

Staff split his first comment off of a larger thread about a different subject, so mistermack didn't "start" this thread. The post was deemed off-topic for the other subject and threatened to take it off course, but mistermack seemed like he wanted to make the point that poor people get everything handed to them and rich people get all the blame, so this post was set as the OP for it's own thread. I think it gives people the opportunity to respond specifically to assertions made that would likely derail the main conversation. I'd like to use splits more often, especially when the comments seem like they're made specifically to drag a good talk into the mud. It gives us a chance to really drill down and find out where someone is coming from.

OK, forget it. My arguments specifically about the foundations of religion can't seem to get through your desire to bash all current religion. I'm tired of trying to work past this obvious strawman. I hope this isn't intentional. NO! That's not at all what happened. I listed some of the noble reasons a religion might start (you know, foundational stuff), and you listed the bad things many have become. I don't know how to explain the difference to you anymore, and I'm frankly tired of your insistence on dragging my posts through the dismissive filters you've installed surrounding the subject. It's a mark of integrity that you can understand something and acknowledge it without embracing it or accepting it as right. I don't embrace religious beliefs, but I certainly don't think they started out corrupted. That happens over time to most human institutions.

I'm trying to be extremely specific and thoughtful in my wording, and you're trying to dial your arguments back to the point of overgeneralized meaninglessness, so no, I don't agree. I'm arguing that the foundations of most religions are rational, and you seem to be arguing that it can't be true because of what they've become. I'm trying to defend the site owner's decision to encourage posting about the rational foundations of religion, so I focused on just that, the foundations. I think you're forgetting that it wasn't myth to the people who created the foundations of the religion. You have a modern perspective that lets you see myth = bad, but Zoroaster brought a whole bunch of people together in the belief that, if you believed in the wisdom and benevolence of Ahura Mazda and fight to uphold his principles of happiness for all, good will conquer evil. It wasn't myth then, and those foundations influenced the best parts of most other religions that came after.

You said they were wrong/false earlier. Whichever you really believe, I think you're being irrational now. None of these were foundational goals. They had no science to reject wrt Bronze Age mysticism. They put all the wisdom they could muster, at that time, into their beliefs, and if they prospered after getting others to believe similarly, it was proof to them they had it right. If a religion tells a Bronze Age person about a god who created everything yet wasn't created himself, and believes ultimately in giving humans a choice between good and evil to test their worthiness and make them responsible for their choices so they can bring happiness to the world, it's foundations aren't to blame for what is done with that religion later.

I keep seeing various violations mentioned by various folk, but I see no patterns I recognize. The video quoted by mistermack is obviously pro-Putin disinformation, but that same reporter was accused of misleading viewers about something innocuous Putin said that she claimed was a "rape joke" about Ukraine. OTOH, YouTube blocked WION last month for violating it's restrictions on denying or trivializing well-documented violent events. They are part of the more infamous Zee Media Corporation, which has pushed fake news stories on multiple occasions and been caught out. The little I've read about them suggest they run a lot of stories denigrating other countries, almost like they're being paid to. Nepal thinks Zee Media is paid by China to make them look bad, and have banned them from cable and satellite programming there.

Which ones, the ones that emphasized working with nature to ensure easier living, or the ones that established fair trade practices, or the ones that emphasized bonds of friendship and family and nation, or the ones that attempted to show the difference between good and evil to bronze age humans?

If you click the Enlargement of NATO link in your own link, it points out that Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, and Georgia are aspiring members specifically because they "formally expressed their membership aspirations". It seems like you're taking your "facts" from Putin. You seem to be arguing that an alliance that was formed to defend democracies against a tyrannical Russia is a justifiable threat to Putin, when the treaty basically states that "we'll come to your aid if Putin attacks you". Are you arguing that Putin should be able to invade whoever he wants to? I think your position is just getting uglier and uglier to defend. Right? The bully whines about the fact that you have so many friends willing to help you because you're a good person. What a shocker!

This is true. This is false. Most things have a rational foundation at the start. That's why they get started, because they're needed and they make sense. Explaining various phenomena as best you can with the knowledge at your disposal is rational behavior. Religion is no different to begin with. We wanted life to have certain rules and consistencies, so we made them up and we made them important enough so everybody would follow them. The foundations were rooted in the kind of reason we were capable of at the time, and included philosophies we knew would help humans survive closer proximity to each other in denser populations. You may not like what modern religions have become, but their foundations at least were rational.

It's a very flawed argument, so it's more likely it was ignored because of that. Watch the video again, and realize she keeps referring to "NATO expansion", as if they're actively recruiting member states. That's disinformation, and fosters the Putin viewpoint that an aggressor is threatening. That's not the unvarnished truth you seem to think it is. I'd love to hear from some of our Indian members to see what they think about WION. To me, it seems like cheap propaganda claiming to be fair and balanced. In truth, NATO is an attractive alliance for many former Soviet territories looking to form democracies, or anyone looking for collective security to protect from greedy neighbors. What Putin (and the disinformation journalist in your video) fear is that the contrast between Russian dictatorship and NATO democracies is becoming ever more apparent, and making NATO look especially good by comparison. So tell me, do you think Mexico should invade the US because they're NATO members and so many Mexicans are applying for US citizenship? Mexico used to own parts of this country too. Is this an example of American/NATO expansionism, where we conquer them by being a more desirable place to live?

Is this true? I don't think pointing out the insensitivity of the joke is an attempt to justify the violence of the response. It's not even trying to mitigate it. I'd like to think it's an attempt to heal multiple harms done within the population over time. Why else spend so much time on celebrity gossip, right?

When an idea is shown to be false, we move on to the next. MOST ideas end up being false. Age only restricts the time you've been able to spend studying science. Perhaps you haven't yet figured out how deeply layered scientific knowledge is. Seriously, it's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle cut from the layers of an enormous onion. You can get some pieces to fit together, but you need more of the puzzle before you can start guessing what the rest of it looks like. Does that make sense? I'm not sure how it's applicable here, but the science is certainly discussable. You still assume your idea, which was falsified, is supposed to "blow our minds"? The replies you got showed that your idea can't be correct, so I don't know why you think we'd be "hurt" by it. Again, MOST ideas are wrong, and that's only bad if you don't acknowledge it. Wrong isn't horrible. Nobody is shocked by an idea that isn't true. You aren't challenging mainstream science the way you think you are. Only if you promise to find someplace else to learn about science. You're a smart person who is ignorant in many areas, which describes most of our membership. If you leave here, find someplace that will help you learn.

! Moderator Note I hope I did the right thing by removing the poll you had set up. This doesn't seem like a question for a poll, but if I'm wrong I can put it back (maybe). Iirc, K1 and K2 have fundamentally different sources. If you're at the initial stages of research, perhaps that would help.

! Moderator Note beecee, dimreepr, if you can't participate in these discussions without attacking each other personally, I will suspend you both. Stick to attacking ideas and stop trying to out-insult each other.

I think you're the one missing the point. Chris Rock made a joke about a black woman's hair a decade after he made a documentary about how damaging misconceptions about black women's hair can be to their relationships and self-esteem. He made the goddamn film after his own daughter asked him, "Daddy, why don't I have good hair?" I think that elevates the situation above "He just made a joke about it". He had all the data at his disposal to make the decision that a joke about a black woman's bald head would be hurtful, but he did it anyway for a laugh. I'll take this same stance if Jon Stewart waits 10 years and then starts making fun of 9/11 first responders.

I applaud your non-binary stance!

Not if you're going to be this vague. "Similar information" is too broad to be helpful. Can you be specific about the help you need?

This is the position Chris Rock takes in his documentary about black women's hair, almost exactly. Black women are blamed for damage done to their hair from relaxers and wigs and weaves designed to make their hair more palatable to employers and white society. They often feel guilty about their real hair and what's happened to it. They get blamed (and often blame themselves) for their own condition. I can only imagine someone with alopecia feels much the way you do, and sees the harm done by further misunderstanding.

I'm not sure why you think this matters at all. Hasn't everyone involved in the thread disparaged the "actual harm" Will Smith caused? And since comedians don't make jokes about type 1 diabetics (though at one time I'm sure they did), your lack of offense is no surprise. Are you saying that, since you don't think you'd be offended by a Type 1 diabetes joke at your expense, nobody else with an autoimmune disorder should be offended by being made fun of? What's the difference between "It doesn't bother me" and "I've become numb to it"? One of them at least seems like a coping mechanism. I'm a dreamer, I guess. To me, attacking someone's physical shortcomings for comedy is like running out of good arguments in a debate and just yelling "Fuck you!" You're scraping the bottom of the barrel if that's all you got. Our society used to work children to death, and have touring freak shows and dog fights as entertainment. I like to think that as our compassion has grown, we laugh less at the physical disabilities of others. I hope this is a further evolution of comedy, and the lazy comics poking fun at disabilities will have to try harder next time to earn a laugh.

Will Smith shouldn't have hit Chris Rock. Chris Rock produced a documentary called Good Hair, specifically about what hair means to black women, and then made a bald joke about a black woman with alopecia in front of her peers. He shouldn't have used the joke, and it has nothing to do with how many people don't mind his humor. Would it be out of line for Jon Stewart to make emphysema jokes at the expense of a 9/11 first responder? I haven't seen Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity Variety Show, but I'm willing to bet they don't make fun of Alzheimer's patients. Will Ferrell doesn't joke about college kids with cancer, and I would imagine Bob Saget didn't tell jokes about scleroderma after his sister died of it (probably hard to raise $25M for research if you're being insensitive about it).

Are your toes short because of some medical condition? Are you self-conscious about them because they're obviously not what society considers "normal", and now they're on display in front of millions of people, including some very close friends and peers? Have your shortened toes ever stopped you from getting work? Are they ever used to judge whether you're attractive or not? Did your wife film a documentary about how men like you struggle every day with short toe syndrome, then make you the butt of a short toe joke in front of your friends, peers, and fanbase? When you first mentioned this, you said bald jokes were kind of a cheap shot and weren't particularly funny to you. Are the toe jokes the same? They may not bother you, or cause you any embarrassment, but is it safe to say you'd prefer your wife doesn't make fun of physical conditions you have no control over, even though you know she's only joking and doesn't mean anything by it?