daughterofkarl

Ivy wrote:

@davis I’ll be going la la la….my sister just suffered a horrible still birth and the hospital sent her home with a dead baby and said “good luck.” We may as well be living in a third world country. Burying the baby today

I know we don’t know each other, Ivy. But, I am so very sorry. I can’t imagine a pain deeper than the loss of…[Read more]

Glen D and Unseen,

I am not ignoring you.  I am taking a Summer writing seminar for my job, and I have a paper due this week.  I’m on a deadline, so I need to give that my attention.

Glen:  In retrospect, I was kind of hard on you.  Sometimes I forget what it was like to have been new to discussion/debate forums, and I let my frustration get the…[Read more]

Glen D wrote:

“I love to hear variations on the “Hey, everybody was doing it” kind of excuse. Mom and Dad didn’t buy it.” Nor should they; the argument is based on a Tu qouque (you too) logical fallacy. If the USA was founded on theft, murder and genocide, the charges must be answered by themselves. What other countries did is irrelevan…

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“I love to hear variations on the “Hey, everybody was doing it” kind of excuse. Mom and Dad didn’t buy it.”  (Unseen)

Oh, I’m sorry, Professor.  I was under the impression that this was a discussion forum, not a venue for Unseen to make his little pronouncements and gift us all with his unassailable wisdom.  Nice straw man you built there, b…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:

America started, it’s been said, as a criminal enterprise. Slavery. Genocide.

To be fair, the same could be said to be true of almost every civilization that ever achieved ascendancy on the world stage, whether it’s the French slaughtering the Huguenots, or the English starving the Irish. Genocide and slavery were not unique to A…[Read more]

We have never lived in a democracy.

I am increasingly concerned that the transfer of power following the current regime will not be achieved without bloodshed.

The American Civil War was the bloodiest and costliest war we have ever fought.   The next one will be worse.  And our enemies rejoice, because a second Civil War effectively removes t…[Read more]

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar.

Bartender says, “What is this?  Some kind of joke?”

Why did the punk rocker cross the road?

He had a chicken stapled to his face.

How many punk rockers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Two.  One to screw the bulb in, and one to kick the chair out from under him.

How many p…[Read more]

jakelafort wrote:

Daughterofkarl, you just brought back a memory. 2001 was first serious book i read at age of six. And it was a tough read. After that reading was a ritual for me and i read every night. Also it is weird to read a book first as a child and then as an adult. I did that with some Bertrand Russell. Read him when i was around 12 and…

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Davis wrote:

daughterofkarl wrote:

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a Search for Who We Are

Hey. THanks for the recommendation. I have a pretty enormous reading list but I will put the book on it. Sometimes older books can explain general concepts and I find older books also add a lot more humanity and an intersting narrative. For example Desmond…

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Hi, Simon!  (Can I call you that?)  You wrote:

“Competition / cooperation” are standard terms and they express the essence of the situation in my opinion. If you think about it, if one is “an army of one”, then competition is inevitable.

I think you’re probably right, that competition likely rises inevitably where there is not cooperati…[Read more]

Hi!

I’m from Texas.  The big, shiny brass buckle on the Bible Belt, USA!  LOL

DOK

Hi, Davis!

If you haven’t read Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, a Search for Who We Are, by Carl Sagan and Anne Druyan, you should.   It is a fascinating take on the subject of human evolution and human and animal behavior.   Wikipedia describes it thus:  “The authors give a summary account of the evolutionary history of life on Earth, with pa…[Read more]

Hello, Simon Paynton,

I’m glad you’re rethinking your use of “sheeple” in the bottom right of your chart.  Referring to people who fall into the category of being both cooperative and passive as “sheeple” is…well, sort of passive-aggressive, to be honest, and seems to betray a distinct bias.   Nowhere else is the terminology you use so o…[Read more]

1996, Driving drunk, rear-ended another vehicle hard enough to break my kneecap against the dashboard of my car.  Could have killed somebody.  Eternally grateful that I was the most seriously injured one involved.  Arrested for DUI.  Two years probation, huge fines, 100 hours community service.   And just to make it extra special, I got to call…[Read more]

Hi, Emma.

I am glad you’re here, and that you have found a place where you can be yourself as you embark on this journey of self-discovery.  I was fortunate to have grown up in a family that was tolerant and supportive of any exploration I chose to undertake, but it sounds like that is not the case for you.  I’m sorry.  If we can provide a sa…[Read more]

New Atheists.  What does that mean, exactly?  On the one hand, I suppose it is a tacit acknowledgement that atheists and atheism didn’t pop out of the proverbial woodwork just recently, that we’ve been around for centuries.  But, what does it mean now?  I grew up in a family of friedenkers and atheists, (and Southern Baptists, and Catholics.  It’s…[Read more]