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_Robert_ wrote:
You made a statement that Everything I know about Covid is wrong and you have shown me that nothing that I know about covid is wrong.

My very first take on that topic title was “clickbait”, and not necessarily a true representation of Unseen’s fleshed out opinion. Superlative. But with possibly good data in the discussion, anyway.…[Read more]

Trivia: In a typical online video session, you’re not seeing the same image of yourself that others are seeing. That’s because you’re shown your mirror image, the kind of image you’re more familiar with, and you would likely feel disoriented if shown your own image from the natural point of view of other people.

At your next video meeting, hold…[Read more]

My bigger-picture Occam’s razor is that if Putin isn’t stopped or at least discouraged by what it costs him, he will continue to keep his people in the dark while throwing tens of thousands of them at Ukraine as fodder. If USA blowing up the pipeline is a war crime, it still pales in comparison to Putin’s war crimes. If his nuclear threatening is…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
Let’s try this a third time. I didn’t say we did not do it. I said I hope we did. I have seen no evidence.

I’ve not decided either, lacking a verifiable source. I’m doing my part to not waste time on pushing an opinion so strongly on one side. What’s actually lost by admitting “I don’t know”, compared to the cost of strongly enc…[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]

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]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Jake,

That is racist!

Funny, I didn’t think old duffers who are Smedley Butler wanna-bes at best or propagandists for hostile foreign powers at worst were a “protected class” or a “race.” If they are, you got me. I am, as the kids nowadays say, a “hater.” 😁

I took Jake’s comment as satire, but I may be missing your…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:
I simply wonder how ritualized behavior originates and becomes coded.

Just guessing at an example, a ritualized behavior might have been facilitated by an odd genetic mutation, e.g. a vocal tract optimization that enhances communication just enough to help the vocalizer sound sexy and communicate juicy love (and so on) so he can…[Read more]

Touting “medicines” without transparency and evidence is an age old snake oil approach.

For more detailed, specific research, I’d try google scholar, e.g. starting with something like this:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2018&q=traditional+chinese+medicine&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

I limited those search results to 2018 and later, just to…[Read more]

Enco, you often pack so many points and/or opinion into a post that it’s impossible to respond to all of them, so I’m forced to just reduce and prioritize, while just plain trying to ignore other points.

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Why would we want to fuck up all of that good work by adopting a policy of “respect” and “understanding” towards…

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TheEncogitationer wrote:
[…] nor can any Government scheme produce affordable health care and education. When a third party pays, there’s no reason to hold down costs.

The VA health system has saved my mental and physical health. Why? Because people (and enough politicians) care more about veterans. The VA is an example of how a “social w…[Read more]

Just a reminder, in spite of the 2022 “red wave” amounting to less than we feared, the 2024 campaign to rig ballot box supervision, especially in Democrat-majority precincts, is (imo) probably still going to happen. With or without Trump. The robustness of it is currently unknown, but I’m afraid these arrogant, entitled-acting partisans are…[Read more]