Billie M Jones

Enco, your radical free market libertarianism is as untenable as communism is. Just because the free market works in most markets doesn’t mean it makes sense everywhere. Just as “socialising” things like paving streets and criminal policing working doesn’t mean we should socialise everything (such as say, toy factories and supermarkets).

It is…[Read more]

I just picked an arbitrary latitude, 40 degrees, and looked at my beach ball globe. Was surprised that there’s almost literally nothing in the southern hemisphere at 40 degrees or lower.

In the northern hemisphere near or above lat 40, barring Canada, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and North Korea, lies all of Europe, Scandinavia, Greenland and…[Read more]

There’s so much misinformation spread by new social media that misleads millions or even billions of people who have trouble thinking and investigating for themselves, my first take on this thread has been to just skim it. In my mind, that’s the bigger story, and the real crisis that goes beyond just the topic of how we’ve succeeded and failed…[Read more]

Ideas are ideas and what you or I or anyone else says is beside the point. The point is what I said.

BTW, don’t interpret anything I post as an indication of what I believe one way or the other, sincerely or insincerely. Trusting what I say to be sincere is very beside the point. Whether what I say is a sincere expression, or not, has nothing t…

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Unseen if you want to play devils advocate then just transparently play devils advocate. Pretending you believe something outrageous will simply make me doubt the sincerity of what you say next.

Yikes. Very glad to hear it isn’t as serious as it could be and that you are on the mend!!!

It all just goes to show that someone trained in rigorous critical thinking methods can fall so god damn far from the wagon. I wonder, on what topics I pull such a blatant “unseen” as unseen is. Picking out things that are true out of context, selectively listening to the fraction of dissenters and blatantly missing the broader picture. I know…[Read more]

Unseen I never thought you’d turn into a vaccine sceptic. What the fuck?

The goal of health care should be that of any other joint human endeavor: Trade. Voluntary mutual exchange to voluntary mutual benefit.

So uhh, under this extreme ideology (and please don’t pretend it is not radical/extreme), a doctor would be totally at liberty to turn away someone who needs emergency surgery if at the same time a patient who is…[Read more]

Enco thank you, every point you’ve made here is clear, even if my experience with the system still differs from your perceptions.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
The long game best way to benefit future Veterans is to assure that our defense is strong enough that the world’s rogues would never fling so much as a Minié Ball in our direction and to as…

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TheEncogitationer wrote:
Every apartment I’ve ever seen that excepts Section 8 vouchers immediately draws criminals, gangs, scofflaws, and freeloaders, has revolving-door management and maintenance, gets overgrown shrubbery and grass, has falling-apart facilities, and eventually becomes unfit habitation for man or beast.

Maybe you’ve just not m…[Read more]

I don’t mean to re-energize this topic, but find it easier to consider a future without Trump after watching 5-1/4 minutes of this hilarious Kimmel monologue. (The rest of the monologue is completely unrelated and can be skipped.)

Simon Paynton wrote:
In a non-patriarchal society, the first strategy is the only acceptable one.

I pretty much believe a matriarchal world would be a better place. Wouldn’t mind if 2/3 of us self-identified as women, or at least not dominant males. Men could be happy with that, right? Would have to ask women first, though.

I’d consider what seems to me to be the most plausible: Technology-caused illusions. I worked on pre-“stealth” electronic technology in the Air Force, designed to make aircraft appear somewhere other than where it actually was, or to some extent invisible. The colloquial phrase for it was “radar jamming”. That was almost 50 years ago now, and…[Read more]

Interesting Enco, I want to live in a society where nobody is so neglected by society that they are so desperate that they are exploited into selling one of their kidneys, but instead people are encouraged to donate them or do so by default after death. Wait a minute…that sounds like most of Northern Europe. I would much prefer that to say,…[Read more]