But Ler

Davis wrote:
criticism, humour, parody, discussions, moral disagreements, full out rejection of an ideology, ridicule and even a thrashing of a set of ideas…are all fundamental to breaking down some of the worst elements of an ideology and the effect it has on an open society

Good point, and arts like plays, drawing/painting, music, poetry, and o…[Read more]

tom sarbeck wrote:
PB, religiousness or religiosity? Didn’t the misinformation always exist? The press and later the web told people it existed.

Religiousity; yes (“science of spreading misinformation”); and maybe the press then the web also told people that the misinformation existed. (I’m still not yet feeling absolutely totally qualified in wo…[Read more]

So it comes down to what and how we build with ambition. We could have been less aggressive in general, perhaps more matriarchal and less patriarchal, and I think the result would have been less crime and less war, but also less rapid modernization. The ruling classes made (and still make) things happen, but often using lower classes for labor. I…[Read more]

_Robert_ wrote:
All of this cultural Marxist nonsense just strengthens the right.

Yes, the simple hive minds of populism, allergic to progress, claiming to be its victims, have been rising and winning, recently. It’s the Western version of Boko Haram, all those poor victims of modernity. It’s always the fault of those who don’t share the…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
an article on conspiracy theory worth a read

Thx Reg. Can’t remember where I heard it, but the invention of the printing press caused the biggest surge in religiousness ever seen. Now, misinformation can spread worldwide in a matter of hours, and the science of disinformation keeps evolving and spreading.

I personally appreciate @toms tenacity and sincerity, but/and not attributions of nefarious purpose. I over-use the word charlatan, when I should reserve its use for pushers of woo who are blatantly pushing it for personal profit. Most anti-vaxers, for example, aren’t in that category, but are truly ignorant of the facts at large, and/or are…[Read more]

tom sarbeck wrote:
I find April 18th important, for that date I don’t drink JWBL

Thank you for saying that, for I wouldn’t have figured out JWBL was a drink, and not Jehovah’s Witness something something. 🙂 (Even in my 60’s I haven’t yet attended any conversations in someone’s study. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a smoking jacket.)

So @toms,…[Read more]

Emma Leigh wrote:
a really annoying conspiracy theorist Ive named Bill

I like that! I’ve had a lot of therapy which has helped a great deal, and I think I have only one real issue left that I’d like to take care of. Being a veteran has helped immensely in getting that help, even though it wasn’t the military service that caused any of my…[Read more]

Not too long a story at all, Anth. Welcome!

Shaming and intolerance is even worse in autocracies, theocracies, and in cultures clinging to strong tradition for its own, intolerant-mindedness. I don’t mean to bad-mouth anyone but the leaders claiming authority. As in your case, the cultural peer-pressure overwhelms free thinking and choice. I…[Read more]

tom sarbeck wrote:
Or, a large-by-networking telescope to gather data interpreted as an event horizon

These days I never see you contribute any alternate explanations for recently explored phenomena such as this, even when I ask for it. Humanity has a dire need for individuals to find credible sources of information, as well-known…[Read more]

A. Not sure which discoveries of the black hole you’re asking about, but it’s been long known that stars in M87 are orbiting something with obviously huge gravity. As for the recent data in the news, scientists around the world are excited about it. This, from Luciano Rezolla (a minute into the first video on the…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Pardon me, but that doesn’t prove anything. Behavior doesn’t prove that the one behaving is having experiences behind the behavior. Again, I refer you to a Turing Human who is simply responding in believable ways to inputs.

I can only speculate on that thought experiment, which may never even produce a satisfactory answer. I’ve just…[Read more]

Just now talking about my mom’s decline during dementia makes me doubly certain that consciousness exists, as medical workers know, at various and varying levels of lucidity… which can be roughly (and routinely) measured (albeit not thoroughly empirically), respecting more than one kind or channel of conscious awareness, and the patient’s sel…[Read more]