[ home ] [ pony / townhall / rp / canterlot / rules ] [ arch ]

/townhall/ - Townhall

A place for civilized animals
Name
Email
Subject
Comment
File
Flags  
Embed
Password (For file deletion.)

 No.811[Reply]

I found it interesting.
13 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.862

>>859
Debatable.

Demagogues of this kind also characterize critique and satire as censorship and opposition. They will build an image for themselves as the valiant social pariah, no matter the amount of actual censorship or critique. The same single tweet or video can be used as fuel for framing by every single alt-right/far right or conservative demagogue in existence, and outrage can even be fabricated from nothing at all.

It doesn't matter what we do, essentially, their presentation of themselves remains as it is.

 No.863

>>862
But isn't the alternative literally being everything they say we are? Oversensitive, censor-happy people who'd rather pull authority than argue the points? So much so that even moderate-minded people would lean towards sympathizing with them? It's just hard for me to see that as being a good move, and i don't really see another alternative...

 No.867

>>863
It's not an easy problem, and as such there's not an easy solution.

A lot of this comes down to subjective determinations in the end. As we know, if we had lived nazi germany at the time of world war II we would likely have been nazis ourselves. The banality of evil is such that anyone can engage in it, and be convinced to engage in it.

There's a difference between choosing to platform something, and platforming it responsibly. Discussing naziism in a fact based way with a historical framing is useful and productive.

Letting some demagogue with no expertize argue that we should deport all brown people just because he feels like that's the right solution (and this is often what it boils down to, the stats from these kinds of demagogues are nearly always fabricated), is not responsible. Someone is going to be swayed, because they simply can't be bothered to fact check. That's why we have anti hate-speech laws for public forums in a lot of developed countries.


 No.749[Reply]

What are Townhall's thoughts on this kind of portrayal?
23 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.836

>>834
> if a joke implies male victims of rape are weak or cowards, yeah.
"Rape" jokes don't imply that necessarilly either

 No.838

I generally agree that these sort of portrayals do reinforce some frankly damaging attitudes towards male victims of sexual assault.

Now, I don't believe that such portrayals actually encourage assault. I don't think media can incite action (unless that encitement is explicit and overt) but media does influence attitudes, which in turn effects how people approach those who are male victims of sexual assault.

 No.853

>>836
Right you are, but in this thread we're talking about jokes that make fun of male rape victims.

So notice, that I am not saying, and have never said, that one cannot tell jokes about rape without doing this. Rape jokes can be empowering or humanizing.

>>838
I like that take.

The reason I personally feellike I do is that I've read a number of studies that indicate that holding certain attitudes can increase the likelyhood of sexual assault, and since we consider jokes like these to be influencing attitudes regarding rape and sexual assault, it seems to me I have to believe that it can influence behavior in some ways too.


 No.760[Reply]

File: 1562972421246.jpg (537.85 KB, 883x912, 883:912, CRISPR-1.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Part A.  Suppose that, 15 years in the future, scientists have discovered certain combinations of alleles affecting general intelligence.  Suppose that one common combination (let's call it "A") is found to be contribute, on average, to an IQ 10 points greater than other common combinations.  Suppose that the distribution is racially uneven, such that 85% of whites have combination A, while only 15% of blacks have combination A.  Further suppose that gene editing techniques have been developed so that parents can conceive a child with an A genotype regardless of their own genotypes.  Should the government fund this treatment for intending parents with a non-A genotype if the treatment costs an average of $10,000 per child (in 2019 dollars)?  What if it costs an average of $100,000 per child?

Part B.  Suppose that patent rights for the treatment are held by a white supremacist who refuses to voluntarily license them for use in the above-mentioned government program.  What should the government do?  
(A) seize the patent rights under eminent domain, paying fair market value (FMV) compensation as determined by a court,
(B) enact a law requiring that patents for such treatment be compulsorily licensed on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms,
(C) exempt human gene editing from patents altogether, or
(D) do something else (please specify).
29 posts and 7 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.833

>>808
>Sounds like the same thing we've been doing the last couple hundred years and it's really working out swell.

I can vouch for it. I'm only here today because experimental medicine saved my life when i was an newborn. If we were less willing to move forward, less willing to take risks moving forward, i'd have died before i was a month old.

 No.844

>>827
Since intelligence is only 50% to 75% heritable and nurture plays such an immense role, wouldn't it make more sense to spend money ending the war on drugs, ending environmental racism, ending the school-to-prison pipeline, fixing the health care system for children, setting up a guaranteed minimum income, et cetera?
It's objectively clear that most African-Americans spend their early years in a more hostile environment compared to essentially all other groups, and that harms intelligence as much as it harms everything else.

It seems so much cheaper and easier. Not to mention less controversial. Less risk of genetic fuckery in terms of side effects too.

 No.845

>>844
> wouldn't it make more sense to spend money ...
I dunno, I'd have to run the numbers.  

>spend money ending the war on drugs
Or more likely save money by ending the war on drugs by defunding the DEA (which shouldn't even exist anyway if the government actually obeyed the Constitution).


 No.786[Reply]

File: 1563082716224.jpg (32.74 KB, 435x679, 435:679, 610mLB-9MCL._SY679_.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

I would like to discuss the recent film "Vice", and the aspects of the George W. Bush presidency and the time immediately before and following the 9/11 attacks covered by that film.

It's been nearly 20 years now since the George W. Bush administration began and a lot of the people who post on this site are too young to remember the events surrounding it with much clarity or context, if at all. A lot of things have come to light about the administration and actions taken by it in the intervening time, most notably the amount of of misleading information that was spread at the time.

I feel this film does a good job of covering the basics of that information in a factual, yet entertaining way.
1 post omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.794

>>791
I'd prefer people watch the movie before we discuss so that everyone is up to speed on the topic. But if you're knowledgeable about the topic, you can certainly weigh in.

 No.799

>>794
I'm not! I'll just be lurking.

A movie is a large barrier for entry, though, not sure how likely it is you'll get much discussion going.

 No.800

>>799
>A movie is a large barrier for entry

I thought it a smaller barrier for entry than having a vast knowledge of the Bush administration and the 9/11 attacks, which happened while many posters here were still children or infants.

This way, we can limit the scope of the discussion to only the issues covered in the movie, such as the Patriot Act.


 No.365[Reply]

File: 1561570214520.png (210.27 KB, 829x1063, 829:1063, 5db9e63df83eeb51fca73c2e32….png) ImgOps Google

This isn't so much of a debate topic or anything as a general sense of questions that have bugged me lately. There's three things sticking on my mind after spending too much time looking at 4chan /lgbt/.

A)What do you think is the best and succinct way to explain being 'non-binary' to people, like in a paragraph speech form?

B)What do you think is the best way to explain this as being distinct from being 'stereotypically transgender' in the sense of having to take hormones, eventually have surgery, and so on?

C)Do you agree with the idea of there being a kind of 'transgender umbrella' that extends over a wide group of people, or would you define that term more narrowly?
17 posts and 3 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.504

>>503
np <3

This is Eph, btw. Hope you're doing well.

 No.507

I used to watch videos by this one youtuber a while back. Was never a huge fan, but caught a couple of their videos because they were on a site with other contributors. In one video I saw her reviewing an anime, and they were utterly perplexed when they saw a male character urinate and then shake up and down a little after he did so. She went on to explain her asking her male friends about it. Turns out she was completely unaware of the after-pee dick shake male people do. It was kind of hilarious to me. Like I get that she wouldn't know about it because she was female, but to think something that is part of my life daily would so confuse someone else was shocking in a funny way.

Years go by, and later on I hear that the person who created that video had come out as transsexual and was living as a man now. it made me think, Isn't someone who had so little knowledge of the male experience living as a man now sort of strange? How does that work? I've never had a good time or place to bring it up, but it's been in the back of my mind for a while now.

 No.788



 No.407[Reply][Last 50 Posts]

Debate footage starts at 2:00:44.

So the first Democratic Presidential Debate was last night, the other half of contenders are going on tonight.  To anyone who watched it, what were your opinions?  Who would you say made themselves look good in that debate, and who are supporting right now?

I think Beto o'Rourke and Gabbard went off on some weird tangents in there.  De Blasio seems to have some pretty extreme viewpoints, but they're viewpoints a lot of people could support, too.  I thought Klobuchar, Booker, and Castro all gave pretty even handed answers.

Tonight I'm really looking forward to high pollers like Sanders and the former VP.  But I'm especially looking forward to Yang, who's still my favorite for the nomination, even though he's currently sort of behind.  This might be his chance to really get into the public light.

As some further questioning, what did you think of Hillary Clinton's race the last go around, and what do you think the democratic party needs to succeed this time?
213 posts and 30 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.710

>>709
But why spend billions upon billions on a wall when there are already fences along the border?

This doesn't make any sense. I don't know how people even entertain this idea.

It's like there's a miasma around Donald Trump that just kills everyone's brains.

 No.715

>>704
>the latter is just simply a rediculous idea. Unfeasible by any stretch of imagination.

There are active tunnels that people use to get into the United States from Mexico right now  We semi-frequently discover them and shut them down, but it's far from unfeasible.

I'm not sure it's entirely moral to shoot down civilian boats, either.

 No.720

>>715
>I'm not sure it's entirely moral to shoot down civilian boats, either.
You know how the saying goes though.

Don't expect sound moral reasoning from someone willing to place impoverished people in indentured servitude.


 No.385[Reply]

File: 1561657236508.png (470.13 KB, 680x425, 8:5, 387.png) ImgOps Google

I would like to propose an topic of discussion after reading and reviewing several Reddit threads and websites around Tech support Stories.

It's a very well known fact that in today's society computers and technology are not only a common thing, but practically required to be used in many cases.
Office jobs require computers for typing, paperwork, communication and data storage.
Along with that stores and restaurants are also moving towards automated and technical approaches to service with self-checkouts, ordering kiosks, and even little digital table menu's that you can pay your bill on.

With all of this going on it would seem common sense that people should have some sort of computer knowledge or at least some ability to be able to use the most basic of functions on a computer, even if it's pecking typing. More often than not though it seems there's a complete lack of understanding on using a computer, and in many cases a complete unwillingness to even try to learn or educate oneself.

Altogether this boils down to an interesting situation where many people do need jobs to survive and will work in jobs that require the use of technical equipment, and more often than not these people also have no ability to use a computer though it is a constant in their jobs. Granted people can avoid needing to use computers at some extent outside of the work, however at work many require and depend on computers.

The big problem I seem to see is many go to supervisors, managers, tech support, and colleagues asking about doing simple tasks over and over without ever learning, and it ends up leading to a lot of stress and frustration on all parts. And with a lot of jobs if they require the use of tools or knowledge they have to get a license or a permit to be able to do the job legally. Even someone working in fast food needs a food handler's permit.

So, my thought comes to this, with computers being so widespread and part of the mainstream of life nowadays, wouldn't it be a good idea of it was requires for people that have to work on computers to need a license or permit saying they're at least know enough about computers to know how to work a mouse or even turn it on, or would this be considered too restrictive of an idea and prevent people from getting access to necessary work to be able to live
10 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.697

>>406
If you can point and click a mouse you can use Linux...

 No.698

>>697
You can't really install new programs on Linux. What the fuck is a "directory"?

 No.700

>>698
It's really easy. Most have in built graphical package managers. As in you search for software and click 'install'.


 No.689[Reply]

This video from How To ADHD recently explains the differences between ASD and ADHD, and it's very informative. I want to open this as a discussion of the differences highlighted and ones not covered, and invite everyone with ADHD or ASD to share their experiences if they feel comfortable. let's all learn to understand each other
normies are welcome too.
Posting on townhall because I don't want this to get too silly and this is a sensitive topic for some people

 No.695

>>689
I have ADHD, well, it was called ADD when I was a kid, not sure when they added the H, or if I have hyperactivity.

But in either case, I was curious about this video because of that. But this video is really too casual and anecdotal for me. I'd be interested in a most scientific and/or informative exploration on this, if someone made that.


 No.655[Reply]

File: 1562290147594.jpg (7.76 KB, 212x238, 106:119, download.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

Is it moral for you to detach yourself from the violinist knowing that it would kill him?
11 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.686

>>672
It obviously causes both emotional harm and physical harm, though.

You're never going to feel safe again, you'll always be worried that you'll be kidnapped again, and god help you if the violinist had any kind of bloodborne disease, parasites or if the procedure causes an autoimmune response of any kind, or if your kidneys are caused some kind of damage from the overwork they've now been put on. not to mention, an incision or an insertion had to be made somewhere, so your circulatory systems could be connected, exposing you to infection and other problems.

Add to this that you can't exercise for nine months, you can't hardly do anything, and your mental and physical faculties are almost certainly going to atrophy as a result, plus, if you do unplug yourself, and you're not a total unempathetic asshole, you're at least going to feel a twinge of guilt or letdown, over having to be the one to pull the plug. You're forced into a situation where harm will almost certainly come to you, that's effectively the same as doing harm and actually a pretty large amount of it.

 No.688

File: 1562409585535.png (603.11 KB, 646x983, 646:983, __fujimaru_ritsuka_fate_se….png) ImgOps Google

What method of morality are we operating under?

The question of if something is moral depends entirely on what moral code you're working under.

In mine, if I do not personally know the violinist, do not personally have a connection to them, or a personal reason to want them to stay alive, I would detach. My morality dictates that my life is the most important one, but I would make exceptions to that rule for people I have vested interest in, or personal relationships with.

ah damn i got the shitty animal this time

 No.691

Yes. It is moral. You have no duty to this person in the first place, and on top of that, you were kidnapped and assaulted. You owe nothing to this person, and the fact that neither the violinist nor this group that wants to keep him alive has offered you so much as a cent for your valuable amd unique blood, and is more or less stealing your body from you, when if they have the means to track down amd kidnap you, they have the means to make a reasonable offer to you, makes your duty to them even shaker. Any and all responsibility for what happens lies with the kidnappers.


 No.533[Reply]

File: 1561959548211.jpg (1.83 MB, 1364x1819, 1364:1819, IMG_20190501_170054700.jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Well I might not have agreed with everything being said, I was still interested in hearing the different view points.

Minty, not sure if you browse townhall, and you don't have to reveal yourself in the thread, but if you would like I am interested in continuing the discussion and hearing the different views.
36 posts and 16 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.624

>>622
>>622
>purpose is concerned, it's useful information, but I see no practical use for it.
The practical use of this information is to supplement with creatine if you're on a vegetarian diet.  (As a side note, even if on a diet that includes red meat, if you do weight lifting, supplementing with creatine is still helpful.)

 No.629

>>624
Sorry I'm being a bit obtuse. My point is if I wanted better muscle growth and performance, we already know that creatine can do that regardless of your diet.

And for the cognitive aspect, I read through the study myself, and it looked super weak. The sample size is so small, I feel like the margin of error must be enormous. Maybe this is how all studies are run, I don't read through many. But it felt kinda meh.

I've been vegetarian for a few years, no creatine supplement. I'm actually starting to care about muscle for once so I think I'll try starting to supplement. And I'll find some way to to test my cognitive ability before and maybe a month after. I'm not against the idea there will be measurable improvement, I'm just skeptical (for the cognitive side). Trying it myself could be interesting. I just need to figure out how best to measure it...

 No.661

>>629
>>624
A few things to note

Studies that use biomechanical outcomes, are as a rule, more reliable even at lower sample sizes, than studies that use more subjective outcome measures. This is part of the reason why medical science can often get away with really low sample sizes.

The only non-contentious cognitive effect of creatine that seems measurable so far on healthy adults is memory improvements.

The body has a natural desired level of creatine. Negative feedback loops will drive down your natural production over time, returning it to normal when you stop supplementing.

High levels of creatine are not reccomended for those with renal diseases

Vegans and vegetarians tend to have a lower baseline due to not consuming any meat, and benefit more from supplementation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0531556518300263?via%3Dihub
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.


 No.4[Reply]

File: 1559622788167.jpg (49.91 KB, 960x720, 4:3, Hard Determinism Compatibi….jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Today I heard a new term called compatibilism and it got me looking at this whole philosophical discussion.

I consider myself a hard determinist, though I'm honestly struggling to grasp the concept of compatibilism and what it implies. So I'm open to being that, it is possible that I claim I don't believe in free will while simultaneously not understanding what a compatibilist thinks free will is.

For instance I told a friend he should make a choice, to try to be better, to not let his emotion get the best of him. Does that mean I think he has the free will to choose that for himself? No, but what I know is that our determined course of action is calculated based on the entire state of the universe, including the words I have said to him. So, in effect, telling him to make a choice has not altered fate, but it was a component of fate in motion and that input into the cosmic equation was a necessary part of him getting from predetermined state to the next predetermined state.

Can anyone help me better understand what compatibilism is? It's completely frying my brain trying to understand the concept as I've been reading about it. Like, everything I read about it sounds precisely like hard determinism but just wrapped up in a way in which we can still hold people accountable morally for their predetermined actions. Maybe, that is precisely what it is? Thoughts?
55 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.513

>>506
Well this all looks very nice and I like it.

>5. As a corollary of the above, when two different models not linked in such a hierarchy use the same term for their definition, that fact technically means nothing by itself - these concepts are completely unrelated to each other, even sharing that name. The definition would actually have to be the same.
I do have a bit of a problem with this assumption, not because I think it's a bad deduction from the other assumptions, but because I think it doesn't accurately characterize how things tend to work in reality. The concepts are unrelated, in a sense, but they're attempting to account for the same human tendency, so in application this makes a comparison valid. If you're going to build a moral framework, and your framework relies on free will, you have to consider which kind of conception you're going to use. The two conceptions of free will we've discussed in this thread are likely to be contenders for such application, and it's valid to compare and contrast them.

In regards to 6, I agree, and of course I am not claiming that free will in disparate models is always or even usually referring to the same thing.

>Nah, "convenient" was right. If a concept is so orthogonal to reality that its truth or falsehood literally has no effect anyone in said reality can detect (so, that blows the "congruent with reality" criterion out of the water from the start), just picking the convenient stance and going from there seems to me to be correct. It's possible discuss what's more convenient, at most.
That really must depend on what you mean by convenient.

>It's a straightforward purely logical process that under-the-hood doesn't actually rely on anyone's opinion to work. The idea isn't to produce a "useful" object at the end of the construction, the idea is to expose a hole. What we do with that hole is a separate question entirely.
I see what you mean, about how your process works. I find it interesting, and of course it is not unusual to try and strive for this kind of proces in philosophy, but I wonder whether it's of much use to view the world through only a purely logical process, in this particular case. Can you actually say anything relevant with this?

 No.516

>>513

>I think it doesn't accurately characterize how things tend to work in reality

Isn't this covered by #6 though? That to make things practical we do have to bring in a whole host of tacit assumptions? And that it's okay to do so, so long as we're aware it's what's happening?

As you say, there's a human tendency to think of "free will" in a certain way. I'd say it's even a specific aspect of human decision making that these models are trying to address. That aspect is common to them, yet the commonality is not explicitly defined, and what makes it work for enabling comparisons is that it's part of that grab-bag of tacit assumptions we're bringing in. Otherwise the "free will" of one model and the "free will" of another would simply be different unrelated things with the same name. How can you compare such things?

And yes, you do need to pick the specific variant when you want to work within a model. Just be aware that it might not just be a different slice of the same thing, but a different thing entirely.

>That really must depend on what you mean by convenient.

Well, here's a few examples of stances I would call convenient. Consider Russell's teapot, except in a different star system for good measure. The consequences if it were real would be massive, yet we can't check for its existence. The convenient option is to essentially just shrug and proceed with the assumption it's not there*.

Consider the old cliche "if a tree falls in a forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound", with its modern day update to account for the possibility of scientific equipment etc. acting as observers, and "hearing" being just whatever form of detecting through observation. What if it didn't make a sound under such circumstances (because, say, the simulation hypothesis is right and the simulation is optimized to save some CPU cycles)? That would be hugely interesting but we'll never know it is so. Might as well shrug, apply the Occam's razor and go with the convenient option of "yes it does".
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

 No.628

>>516
Sorry, I've been working out some shit the past few days.

>Isn't this covered by #6 though? That to make things practical we do have to bring in a whole host of tacit assumptions? And that it's okay to do so, so long as we're aware it's what's happening?
I felt like it didn't really, because you characterized it like it was being drawn from a vague notion of free will common in the discourse, and that this vague notion might have ambigiuous meaning which resolves to an individual conception when read by different people, but I think it's more common for a good model to have a specific and defined idea of what free will is, since it's so foundational to assigning moral value to an action.

>How can you compare such things?
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by tacit assumptions, but it seems you can easily compare different conceptions of free will by examining the assumptions behind the conceptions, how they differ in the ways they tie free will to reality, and what the consequences of implementing different conceptions into a moral or ethical framework would be. There's plenty to compare, I think.

Are you suggesting that there is nothing to compare or what do you mean?

>Well, here's a few examples of stances I would call convenient. Consider Russell's teapot, except in a different star system for good measure. The consequences if it were real would be massive, yet we can't check for its existence. The convenient option is to essentially just shrug and proceed with the assumption it's not there*.

I agree, but I don't think just saying convenient is sufficient explanation for why we don't want to believe this hypothesis.

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.


 No.283[Reply]

File: 1561392824230.jpeg (68.95 KB, 512x317, 512:317, 2CA246E4-A367-4AA2-868E-A….jpeg) ImgOps Google

Given how sexualised and generally inappropriate Pride tends to be, with things like sex toys, drugs, various states of nudity, and in some extreme cases sexual acts being more common than some might want to believe, is Pride really an event that children should be allowed, and in some cases encouraged to attend?

If so what should be the age limit 18? 16 or 14 with parental guidance? Should it depend on how mature said Pride tends to be, with San Francisco Pride being an 18+ plus event, and most other Prides being 16+?
24 posts and 3 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.399

>>396
>>396
>It very clearly does not look like a quick peck,


Well that's a bit of a problem with pictures, they might have caught it at that exact second, or like the other guy was saying-a kiss on the lips in some cultures is acceptable, and they might have held it for the camera.

I don't have a problem agreeing that children shouldn't be allowed to overly sexualized events, but I am not going to take your argument into consideration without some more solid proof of the point you want to get across.

And, considering I have been to a couple pride parades in my home town that were very mundane and had one fenced off booth giving away free condoms, protection,and sex education pamphlets, I would say that, to me at least, it looks like you are basing your argument on the extremes of the spectrum.

 No.400

>>398
>>398
The burden of proof is on you, though. If you claim there's this big conspiracy theory, what  evidence to it do you have that isnt conjecture or assumptions?

 No.403

>>396
I've been kissed by my parents lots of times, also when I was a kid. It wasn't a sexual thing, and there's no reason to assume this is.

Innocent until proven guilty, is a standard we tend to abide by for a reason. It's especially pertinent to hold to this standard when you're dealing with a LGBT people. There are many private interests, who would deliberately defame LGBT groups, which makes the likelyhood that you would see LGBT critical content in you day to day life, that much higher, regardless of the actual incidence of problematic LGBT behavior. If you go to 4chan's /pol/ or 8chan's /pol/ this image gets posted multiple times a day, while /pol/ users circlejerk over how right they are, in assuming that all gay people are degenerates and that they're right to lean into their prejudice against them.

This thread was made by someone who's specifically and outspokenly biased against gay presence in society. I'm not just saying that as a matter of speculation, I actually know the person who made this thread. The guy's an ethnonationalist, that used to frequent /pol/. His views are heavily colored by the environment here, which does not present an unbiased or objective view of reality, to put it sort of very lightly. The fact that you're seeing this image which frames gay people in a particularly poor light, is deliberately or non-deliberately, a product of prejudice and cherry picking evidence to suit an agenda. In other words, it's not a good indicator of reality. I encourage you to go watch the actual livestream of the most recent pride, which gives a more objective view of the event, and see how the events actually tend to unfold, instead of getting a very, very biased view of reality fed to you by other people.

If you look into the background of this photo, I think you might also find, the relationship between the actors is less insideous than it seems at first. Or maybe you won't itnerpret it that way, but that's how I see it.

Being convinced all of pride is a debauched breeding ground for pedophilic behavior, because it's been brought to your attention by someone else, that there exists a single image that looks like, but isn't necessearily, something that could happen at such a thing, is actually an example of extreme confirmation bias. If you want to make a case for this, present some actual evidence, preferably collected witPost too long. Click here to view the full text.


 No.352[Reply]

File: 1561532992401.jpg (281.21 KB, 800x1067, 800:1067, II._Ort_des_Gedenkens_auf_….jpg) ImgOps Exif Google

Reports like this has been floating around various news sources: http://www.bpnews.net/53177/report-young-adults-less-lgbt-tolerant

""Overall, only 45 percent of non-LGBT respondents in the younger bracket said they were "very" or "somewhat" comfortable around LGBTQ people... [with] young males, dropping from 62 percent in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017, then 35 percent in 2018.""

This sort of thing makes me think about broader issues, even if the actual poll could be distorted or just an outlier. LGBT rights over the past three decades or so has been remarkable and kind of unprecedented in terms of social movement success. Do you see any evidence of it stopping? Or even possibly reversing in the future?
4 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.363

>>354
I've seen the "Anti-SJW" trend, but mostly as it applies to political, racial and feminist movements. I've never seen it applied to LGBT issues.  Although, I could be mistaken, since I'm not part of the LGBT community. Even the term "SJW" has become a dog whistle for "groups who's arguments and stances you should automatically ignore if you are a white male" so I can easily see LGBT rights issues being included in that. I think it's become a bigger problem than people are ready to admit.

 No.367

>>359
I'm personally concerned that the 'arc of history', as such, doesn't really exist and it's all a lot of tenuous gains that could easily slip back.

After all, look at how sexually acceptable Berlin was in the 1920s and 1930s. Then, the Nazis rolled in. Extreme case, for sure, but things can move backwards quickly.

 No.376

File: 1561592505748.png (429.21 KB, 1280x720, 16:9, autumn.png) ImgOps Google

>>367
>'arc of history', as such, doesn't really exist

In modern times we live as Kings and Queens in an absolute sense (although humans still shuffle relatively into rich and poor) because of our access to energy, and therefore access to a wider range of experience and education.  If there is an arc, it probably has to do with this.  So you might fear the energy spigot turning off.

>Then, the Nazis rolled in.

Also brings up an idea that repressive, perhaps hateful groups can cobble together a military force to catch more liberally-minded folks off guard.  The Nazi state only lasted 12 years, though, it wasn't an enduring trend, and if anything people generally recoiled to less bigoted positions.


 No.203[Reply]

File: 1561166771466.png (945.84 KB, 1280x960, 4:3, chern.png) ImgOps Google

An HBO documentary has created in interest in the topic of the 1986 Chernobyl incident.  I'm studying physics, but am pretty ignorant of nuclear physics, so am reading some books to try to learn a bit.  Just thought I'd make a thread for Chernobyl and other nuclear-type topics.  Nuclear topics can be 'a serious nature' so this board is appropriate.  I don't have any strong opinions yet so can not do dialectics or debates, but I think you don't have to have all three to have a thread, only one is needed.  If you want to debate that, I guess we can make a new thread, this one is just for nuclear stuff.  I can ask questions, but I think for now, I'll just see if anyone has anything to say.
5 posts and 2 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.213

I want to see the development of Thorium reactors.  They produce much less waste than existing fission reactors.

And in the long term, hopefully we will develop profitable fusion reactors in sometime this century.  (Existing fusion reactors consume more energy than they produce.)  I've read that, to stop global warming, we're going to need to sequester CO_2 from the atmosphere, and the availability of cheap, nearly limitless energy will certainly help in accomplishing that.

 No.230

The Cynical Historian did a bit of a review of the series and it's historical accuracy and I thought it was rather interesting.

Apparently, the mini-series takes certain liberties with history for dramatic effect, but introduces a few key historical inaccuracies.

Basically to sum it up simply. Chernobyl was an RBMK reactor, a sonewhat lower cost nuclear fission reactor that used carbon (in the form of graphite) as it's primary reaction moderator material. It was designed to be as safe as possible, but a certain design flaw made the explosion of Chernobyl possible, even though it was believed that such a scenario was impossible by various nuclear engineers in the Soviet Union. Apparently though, the percise circumstances in which an explosion could occur were so unlikely that no one who engineered the reactor even imagined the scenario so the flaw went unnoticed until they figured out what caused Chernobyl to explode.

The mini series, however, suggests that the flaw was discovered after 16 of these reactors (including the four at Chernobyl) were launched and operational but before the explosion, but the Soviet Union was not forthcoming with this to anyone outside the Kremlin, not even the nuclear engineer community. This apparently contradicts real history, in which the flaw was not discovered until after Chernobyl exploded and certain engineers worked out what the flaw was, and the actual cover-up was about those findings. Basically, the mini-series implies the Soviet State cared more about keeping cost cut and covering up an oversight rather than fixing it until it was too late when in actual history the cover-up was more about trying to keep the state from seeming incompetent after the fact, basically it was a futile attempt at PR damage control andan attempt  to prevent mass panic over the 15 other RBMK reactors, where they tried to shift all that blame onto the operators on duty that night, and not acknowledge that even with operator error, the only reason that would cause an explosion was because of the design flaw

 No.357

File: 1561553501030.png (751.13 KB, 1280x857, 1280:857, fs_chern.png) ImgOps Google

>>211
I think the problems have been mostly in less developed countries, but it's true you have to communicate the danger nonetheless, and encourage people to listen.

>>213
Thorium.  The web says the products decay in 100's of years.  That seems better.

>nearly limitless energy will certainly help in accomplishing that

Yeah, I think that's about the only way that would happen.  Do you have any ideas about the timeline for energy from fusion?

>>230
I saw a video where someone spent a long time debunking the Lady Scientist in the show worrying about an explosion that might decimate much of the continent.  Your video mentioned it, too.  They were worried about what books call the 'China Syndrome,' I guess from a movie by that title.  It was feared the core would melt down to the groundwater, probably causing a steam explosion of some kind.  And in the post-mortem, long after the disaster, it was found the corium was making its way down, but fizzled out before melting through the lowest part of the plants foundation.

>no one who engineered the reactor even imagined the scenario

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.


 No.252[Reply]

Recently a hip-hop artist named Lil Nas X created a song called "Old Town Road". The song is a fusion of the hip-hop and country music genres. The song was popular enough that it managed to make the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart before being abruptly removed. Billboard issued a statement saying that the song did not meet enough of the requirements to be classified as being part of the country music genre. Had it not been disqualified, "Old Town Road" would have been the number-one song on that chart.  

Some people believe that the decision to disqualify the song could have been motivated by a bias against hip-hop within the country music industry. Other still believe it could have also been racially motivated, (Lil Nas X is African American) or that it was some combination of those two things.

I have two questions regarding this subject.

1) No matter how knowledgeable or unknowledgeable you are on the country music genre, In your own personal opinion would you consider "Old Town Road" to be "country music"?

2) Do you believe there is any validity to the claim that the decision to remove the song from Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart was motivated by a bias against Hip-Hop music within the Country Music industry? Do you believe there is any validity to the claim that it was motivated by Lil Nas X's race?

P.S. Some of you may be more familiar with a later re-release of the song, featuring country artist Billy Ray Cyrus. This version of the song was created because Cyrus was a fan of the original, and disagreed with it's disqualification. There has been less claims of that newer version not being country music, because of Cyrus's inclusion. I will link that version of the song as a comment in this thread as a matter of comparison between the two versions.
9 posts omitted. Click reply to view.

 No.291

>>252
From what I understand, country music has been having this particular problem for a while. They can't quite seem to decide the flat standard they want for 'country music'.


I don't think I'd really put this in the "country" scope, myself, but, that's just my own ear. Besides, this seems to be following the more western stuff. Or, is western also country?
Either way, I personally never put much stock in 'genres' for music.

Is something like this, for example, "country"? I always considered it more out in the 'western' or some such category. But, I guess that might not exist. Either way, it doesn't seem to follow the usual "country" route I've seen before.
>>253
I would say his inflections on his own parts do pull more to that route. But, that's probably due to my limited exposure to older country stuff when I was a kid, back when literally every single one had pretty much the exact same sound.
Usually the same words, effectively, too.

 No.336

>>284

I would bet that the criteria that Billboard uses to determine which chart a song belongs on is first a matter of the label that the artist is published on, and then the history of the artist, as well as what else is on the album that the song appears. And then possibly they might also classify these things based on who is buying them as well.

Remember, Billboard isn't really treating genre the same way fans or music critics or even artists themselves treat genre, but rather they treat them the way record labels, retailers and radio stations always have, as marketing categories. They also serve as a classification for the consumers themselves.

Historically what Billboard charts even exist are based primarily on Radio formats, which still form the basis of categories used on streaming services like Spotify and digital storefronts like iTunes. They also serve as a categorization system for record labels as well, with many (if not all) labels focusing primarily on one of these marketing categories, which also serve as the primary reason why artist are classified the way they are on radio and streaming services.

It certainly does create conflicts when it comes to the question of "how do we classify this?" when someone comes along and makes music that breaks out of the mold, but that's literally nothing new when it comes to the interest of artist vs the interest of business. Businesses like discrete categories and most importantly, they like consistent products, cause they like having a clear idea of where they are going to sell those products, and to whom.

Looking at the EP that Lil Nas X released COld Town Road" on, it kind of makes sense why they would take the track off the Hot Country charts, the EP has 8 tracks, only 2 of which are Country Rap tracks and a third track which is a remix of "Old Town Road". The other five tracks seem to be in a variety of Hip-Hop subgenres (and some pop punk) ... which basically means that the entire EP would probably best be classified as Alternative Hip-Hop.

>But this is all very interesting. One of the things I love about music is how much it mixes with other genres and then back in on itself.

Yeah, and there's always been a tensioPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

 No.351

File: 1561530574230.png (297.02 KB, 639x580, 639:580, 0d2350518cde333ae876abe47d….png) ImgOps Google

>>336
Hmm... That's certainly pretty funky.


[]
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
[ home ] [ pony / townhall / rp / canterlot / rules ] [ arch ]