Simon Paynton
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School August 3rd 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months agoReg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Conspiracy theorists don’t realize they’re on the fringe.That’s a very interesting finding. Conspiracy theorists, as a whole, have an over-inflated sense of their own cognitive abilities, leading them not to question the fact that they might be wrong. That’s one reason why they cling onto bullshit beliefs, that…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton posted an update 9 months, 1 week ago
According to the BBC, Russia is flooding the internet with pro-Russian disinformation, so as to influence what turns up on Chat GPT.
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Simon Paynton posted an update 9 months, 1 week ago
I can’t post graphics in my update.
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Same here, for a while now. And I can’t add graphics to my media area either. But I noticed Reg can post graphics. I’ll try a few more things before passing this problem up the chain.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 27th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 1 week agoI find that AI is good at summarising textual information, and keeping meanings largely intact, based (apparently) on the philosophical idea that the meaning of a word lies in how it is used.
I had it summarise my book in Adobe pdf reader, and it didn’t tell me anything new, just made a good hierarchical summary. Maybe if someone started asking…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Trumpism vs Far-Leftism in the forum
Politics 9 months, 1 week agoCluster B people are known for being thin-skinned: “emotionally unstable”, “impulsive”, and “intolerant of perceived slights or insults”. If you’re a narcissist, you’re perpetually at odds with and competing with everybody; and human beings are not competition machines, we’re not built to cope with that, so it hurts personally when someone…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 20th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 2 weeks agoYes, it’s frightening how quickly all the rich and powerful (except Rupert Murdoch) are spinelessly caving in to kiss the orange arse. After Trump’s reign is over, they will be called collaborators.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
It’s sometimes pointed out when one argues that matriarchies simply don’t work that they worked in Polynesian societies.The absence of patriarchy doesn’t necessarily imply a matriarchy. It implies egalitarianism.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
A bunch of hippies are smoking weed and chilling out….very calm and egalitarian. One of them opens a box of chocolate cookies. He becomes the leader. Humans just cannot cope without having a leader. And if he (or she) can do the thinking for them too, then the happier they all will be.In an egalitarian society, i…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
This makes anarchism a practicsl impossibility.It’s a practical impossibility within a delayed-return economy, because, at least: 1) hierarchical coordination is necessary to get the jobs done; 2) a small group of people is always going to control the means of production; 3) if they’re lucky, a small group of people can control a…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
It is what Stephen Jay Gould called ‘Punctuated Equilibrium’, a theory that suggests Evolution proceeds with long periods of stasis, Interrupted by short, sharp bursts of rapid change.If the environment changes in stops and starts, then it makes sense for evolution to do the same.
Unseen wrote:
I mean, if bees and… -
Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
What if archaeologists are finding evidence of human settlements and the rudiments of culture 800,000 years ago?I’m sure that other species of human beings were capable of making settlements, if the conditions were temporarily right for it, i.e., if there were rich resources in one place, like next to a waterway or sea. Culture -…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
If there were diagrams, we would be finding at least some of them.There are loads.
Unseen wrote:
Your comment about Stonehenge seems to imply that it was used as a diagram of sorts… to pass along astronomical knowledge? If so, how did that designer (or designers) of Stonehenge gain the knowledge needed to do the alignment c… -
Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Unseen wrote:
Many of these cultures, so far as we know, didn’t really have an effective way of documenting their knowledge and discoveries, so was astronomy carried on by an oral tradition? We may never know.Surely they had all sorts of diagrams, and they had Stonehenge, which among other things is aligned with the Sun’s solstices and equinoxes.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic We thought civilization required agriculture until… in the forum Science 9 months, 3 weeks ago
_Robert_ wrote:
When you consider that homo sapiens has been around for about 300 thousand years, this is not too, too surprising. Neanderthals apparently just didn’t have what it takes, but the genetic material they contributed to us may have played a part.All the settled living seems to be in the past 10-15,000 years. I understand that the cl…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 4 weeks agoI read a book about the development of Christian sexual morality recently. (“From sin to shame” by Kyle Harper.)
The Romans had very patriarchal attitudes towards women, and they said it was OK for a man to sleep with whoever as long as they were “smooth” (a boy or a woman) and didn’t take the passive part.
The new Christians were at odds with…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 4 weeks agojakelafort wrote:
In Jamaica i think gay men are known as battie boys. Not sure of spelling.Because they do it in the bottom or battie. Men of Jamaican or African descent are usually pretty homophobic in the UK, but they keep it to themselves out of politeness towards the prevailing norm of tolerance.
Rivalry or healthy competition can be…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 4 weeks agojakelafort wrote:
Regardless it is a woeful history. A history of classism. A history of exploitation. Native peoples divided and conquered. Their resources taken. White man’s burden and all of that, what? If that is not tribal, us and them, then what is it? Charley Dickens and exploitation of children… Having said that English are just human and… -
Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 9 months, 4 weeks agoThe UK isn’t all that tribal. We have a long tradition of civility together with freedom of expression. We seem to value people being themselves. The extremists (left, right) are the most tribal, but then, we know why. They just love competition and dominance.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agoStrega wrote:
kakistocracyThat’s a great word, I’ve never heard it before.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School July 6th 2025 in the forum
Sunday School 10 months agojakelafort wrote:
“Pediatrician fired for vile post suggesting Texas flood victims were Trump supporters who got what they voted for. New York Post” In the comments the following appears. “Leftists, liberals and Democrats need to be rounded up and put into concentration camps for treason.”Those are dreadful things for anyone to say, and extremi…[Read more]
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