iNow

Hence my request for source

And depending upon your habits and which bank you use, their AI algorithms will tend to identify transactions that don’t fit your usual patterns or come from a different region or IP address. They’ll automate processes which temporarily suspend payments, deactivate the card, and notify the customer from whom it was stolen. If any vendors got paid before this took place, the fraud departments at most banks will eat that cost so it’s not passed on to the consumer. I suspect you know much of that, so mostly posting for others who may not.

Perturbations is another word I like in describing this (though shimmering works too)

Unless using a random orbital sander and some good quality mesh sanding pads. In that case just don’t focus too long in one spot and be sure to vacuum dust from previous grits with the brush attachment on a shopvac

I know those freakish accidents well. Appreciate the extra insights into your experience. Sorry that happened ✌🏼

See thread title. It assumes the conclusion. That’s was what I challenged. Thx. I try. When you’ve seen this stuff enough times it tends to become more obvious, even if others feel I was being too hard on a science forum for having the audacity to request evidence confirming the core claim. Appreciate the extra evidence ✌🏼

Stop trying to derail the thread

Lol. Bad faith it is.

I’m am worried though… mate. I reject your premise. You’ve done nothing to support it. All you’ve shared is a YouTube video. That’s not supporting evidence. Said another way: You’ve not answered the question put to you, three times now. You’re evading. Here it is again, for convenience: What is the evidence validating this premise that paganism is supposedly growing? What is the data source? If you drill down into their sources, after you get to the Daily Mail, it then brings you finally a page for something called Quartz. That Quartz page cites a Pew study from 2014… I.e. the same one you already cited above.

YOU created an account here. YOU created this thread. YOU authored the thread Title which explicitly claims that paganism is on the rise YOU shared the video. The video makes claims which were questioned. The onus falls to YOU to support them when asked / challenged. Are you unwilling, unable, or just here in bad faith to spam a video? Oh, well now that you put it that way, I’m totally convinced. Gosh and golly. Why didn’t you just say so? Is this just because population as a whole is increasing thus total number of pagans is rising, or has the percentage of our overall population self-identifying as pagan gone up? If the total number on net is higher, but the per capita percentage has dropped, then saying it’s on the rise is a misdirection. I saw the article you googled and was hoping for something more recent than a decade ago. But that responsibility belongs to the OP, not me.

What evidence are you using to validate your premise that paganism is growing? What is your data source?

Not quite as much as these rare anecdotal stories being amplified in the press (and consequently in our minds) does. Sampling bias has us way overweighting the actual prominence of these events.

We are 100% aligned here. I support moving in this direction. Fully. I'm just trying to be realistic. It's an idealized outcome unlikely to be achieved, IMO. It's a state of perfection, and focus on this tends to prevent us from reaching a state of "better." I don't want to sacrifice the good in pursuit of the perfect. 100% correct, but not in the United States, which is where I've thus far been focusing my own comments in support of reparations. Glad we agree Or I paid off my student loan debt, why can't you!?

Belarus is looking more and more to me like the most likely split country who will return to the Soviet bloc Putin is trying to reconstitute. The Wagner team are also right now "training" the Belarusian team on battlefield logistics, and focusing especially on social media warfare tactics where they've shown themselves to be extraordinarily capable.

Which one(s)?

Yikes! Was it just that it wasn't bolted down properly, or maybe the pedestal shifted / fell while in use?

The more paranoid shopper will often just insert any cards of concern or items from wallets into a Faraday pouch which uses a mesh to help block EM signals. I've seen them in use with electronic key fobs for vehicles (so larcenous thieves cannot so easily create those fancy Lambo griefs), and technically any payment card with an RFID would enjoy similar reduction in risk. Whether or not it's worth it sort of depends on how frequent and common these sorts of crimes are where you spend your hours, but IMO most of the time this is overkill and intended just to bilk money from paranoid people.

I appreciate you sharing your viewpoint. Much of what you say has merit.

I see. Thank you for claiming and explaining. Sorry I made you feel worse than you apparently already do. That's not what I want. I want you as an ally, I recognize that's a huge hill to climb, and I'm not allergic to hard work so am willing to, but you obviously don't have to. Cheers. One quick PS... FWIW... I'm also totally willing to explore how to make Africa whole again after the centuries of stealing their people as slaves, but would see that as more of a UN or IMF owned effort whereas this thread has focused on reparations in the US. Maybe we do a "pilot" program in the US and after we see proof of concept THEN we expand elsewhere? Not sure. Just trying to find a way to meet you in the middle somewhere. I'll start walking your way if you start walking mine... We'll meet in the middle beneath an old Georgia pine.

Doubtful, especially given the regional nature of that behavior. I think some people are just tight asses when sexuality is involved, even more so among those who feel guilty for sex or ashamed about sex or unconfident about their weiner or maybe fearful of burning for eternity due solely to dreaming of someones weiner being placed inside their own otherwise tight ass. Basically, religion. (j/k)

Benchtop grinder with polishing / buffing wheels (or wire wheels to start if it's really bad) also works.

Well, that's fair, and that'd be my preference too. However, IMO it's not reasonable nor scalable when discussing tens upon tens of millions of people across multiple generations. If it were easy and we could use AI to do it or something, then sure. Let's go!! Done!! But it's not, and it therefore introduces an obstacle so significant as to make such programs unworkable and doomed to failure. We either choose to accept the risk of the program being imperfect, or we do nothing. That's obviously not your stated preference or position (doing nothing), but it's the logical outcome and consequence of what you're proposing, IMO. Thanks for the article. Seeing that folks like Louis Gohmert from TX who brought a snowball on to the House floor as evidence that climate change is a hoax are in the opposition and folks like Elizabeth Warren whom I'm caucused for in the presidential election are in support, that makes me feel slightly more justified in my stance... but that's admittedly just a bit of confirmation / group preference bias on my part. Slightly surprised to see my post from last night where I tried to connect with MisterMack on a human level got negged, but that's fine... Curious to know what I said that was offensive there, however, so I may use that feedback to adjust my own behavior moving forward.

I’d support means testing if that’s a sticking point Some sort of graduated scale

Please permit me to take this opportunity to remind you that the enslavement of entire civilizations was only ONE single piece of what’s under discussion here in terms of reparation. For centuries, even after emancipation and even after amending the constitution itself to ensure equal rights and opportunities for all, despite those steps we’ve seen how the enforced rights and systemic experiences of millions upon millions of US born citizens have remained very much unequal. For generations and with appalling consistency and based solely on the melanin content of one’s skin. And let’s recall that it’s not like we need to engage in some archeological dig or interpret barely visible hieroglyphics to see evidence of these skin color based inequalities. We need only to drive today across the tracks down any MLK Blvd in any major US city, open our eyes, and look around. Right now. Today. In the summer of 2023. We still see it everywhere. 2 years since Daunte Wright was killed by uniformed officials of the US government. 3 years since George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. 5 years since Stephon Clark. 7 years since Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. 8 years since Walter Scott. 9 years since Tamil Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner… and that’s only a subset of what we’ve seen this last decade. It’s not comprehensive, and it’s only a tiny sliver of this much larger puzzle under discussion in this thread. These asymmetries in rights and experiences across the US system are still happening right now today 50 years AFTER the equal rights amendment. 150 years AFTER the 14th amendment and reconstruction began. 160 years AFTER the emancipation proclamation was signed. Not measured in days, weeks, months, or years. Not even measured in decades. It’s measured in CENTURIES these segregated Jim Crow KKK redline underfunded asymmetries. Can we please agree that mention of what to do in Africa is a bit of a red herring here and remain focused / not intentionally throw wrenches into the gears? Can we please agree that historic slavery is a related, but very much separate topic? Will you please join me in AT LEAST recognizing that continuously reintroducing that separate thing is NOT helpful toward progressing THIS discussion HERE about MODERN issues? Will you please consider that doing so only further distracts from our attempts to nourish threads of consensus across diverse minds? How you and me already agree that we both can and should be better as a community of citizens, and that one possible path for getting there together involves reparations?