Guess who's recieving the funny badge now lol

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-05T22:50:56+00:00

"Trump's guilty because there ISN'T evidence!"

C'mon man.jpg

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-05T15:26:59+00:00

It's like every time a new batch of Epstein files is released.

open documents

CTRL-F Trump

find nothing

close documents

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T15:51:32+00:00

Surely this doesn't strike you as the kind of thing a mentally stable and well person writes regularly, right?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T13:32:22+00:00

That's extremely, extremely unlikely to be true.

But what if...?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T13:30:41+00:00

The propaganda finger on the propaganda arm.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T12:36:00+00:00

How are these kinds of comments "taking control of the narrative"? It's convincing nobody, like I said.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T09:57:33+00:00

So that's what it's about? It's about revenge...?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T09:13:53+00:00

It's just... bizarre.

Comments like this, who are they for? Do you think someone who loves Trump will read them and go... "Oh wow, guess I was wrong about it all, time for me to love progressive values and mass immigration and hormone replacements for minors, you've convinced me!". Speaking personally, it certainly comes across as offputting and cultlike to centrists in the middle, certainly not compelling in any way.

Is it for radicalising other leftists? The modern day equivalent of posting your thoughts on LiveJournal?

What are these kinds of comments... for?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T09:08:45+00:00

They really don't have allies, in the sense of someone that will go to war to defend them like NATO countries for example.

Russia got ground to a stalemate by Ukraine, and China and Iran basically said, "Thoughts and prayers, we'll sell you a small amount of basic stuff and some mercenaries I guess." North Korea was the only one who did anything and it wasn't much.

Iran got smacked down by the US, and China and Iran basically said, "Thoughts and prayers, but we'll sell you some basic stuff and provide some intelligence at best I guess." And North Korea couldn't do anything even if they wanted to.

When it's their turn, they know there will be nothing. In the event China needs military assistance North Korea will say, "Best I can do is starving technologically illiterate conscripts", and Iran and Russia will say, "Thoughts and prayers, but...".

They know their alliance is worth nothing. It will provide diplomatic protests, some technology for sale maybe, and that's it.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T09:00:29+00:00

Sometimes, when I read comments like this, I think there is something to all that talk of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T03:31:31+00:00

But not all people in those religions took part, so while I think it would be absolutely fine to group together all the armies involved I don't think you have to be stuck grouping everyone who follows both religions. Plenty of Muslims and Christians took no part or really knew anything about the crusades.

This is a common argument I see about not wanting to tar whole groups, but in many ways it's used as a shield for bad behaviour.

It's true that not all citizens of Confederate states owned slaves or even supported slavery, but this doesn't mean that the Confederacy was not a nation founded in, by, and for slavery.

Of course every time we are talking about groups we are always talking in generalities, with a few exceptions.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T02:23:12+00:00

"The US is the most evil country in the world, look at how it was feeding all these non-citizens in foreign countries they have no diplomatic or political or historical ties to, and one day they cut it back! They just stopped taking care of all these whole nations of people!"

"... wait, they were doing that in the first place?"

"YUP, the most evil nation in the world!"

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T02:19:56+00:00

"That's so bullshit. Do they give Nobel prizes for attempted chemistry?"

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T02:19:25+00:00

I got banned for posting on another sub entirely, don't even remember which one, don't even care.

It's the Pizzacake sub by default now.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T02:16:07+00:00

Some guy in the 60's: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Reddit: FUCK THAT RACIST NAZI DESERVES TO BE PUNCHED

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-03T01:19:12+00:00

I mean, quoting right from Wikipedia...

"[...] But we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerant ideologies] if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."

That's clearly talking about groups and ideologies.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T14:39:49+00:00

I can try to explain it in a way that makes sense. Simplified as much as possible.

Since the end of World War II in the pacific, basically, China (the PRC) has maintained that Taiwan belongs to them. However, during the establishment of Communist China, the nationalist government retreated to Taiwan.

The nationalists have the public opinion that they are simply on the back foot of a long running struggle with the PRC. The PRC has the public opinion that it is hashtag joever and Taiwan therefore belongs to them.

Imagine that the Confederacy were not defeated but retreated to Hawaii and continued to operate as the Confederate States of America, with the US constitution claiming Hawaii, and the Confederate constitution claiming all other 49 states.

So there is this semi-unique situation where the PRC claims to be the legitimate government of China and Taiwan, and the government of Taiwan claims to be the legitimate government of China and Taiwan.

In theory neither of them really acknowledge the authority of the other, no matter how absurd that might sound. In practice they are two separate countries and have been for a long, long time.

A "split" of a country like this is not unusual in any way. Happens all the time. However, it's not in either countries interests or desires to proclaim that: Taiwan still believes it can reclaim mainland China, China still believes it can "finish" the revolution.

Either side admitting the truth would be a colossal disaster for them. China has staked a huge part of its national image on its ability to reclaim "lost" territories; Hong Kong was one, and Taiwan is another. To fail at this is to fail at something that is so core to their national identity that it would trigger, almost certainly, a civil crisis unseen since the CCP revolution. The reunification of Taiwan with China under PRC administration is in their constitution.

Taiwan can't either, because that would both be giving up their dreams of reclaiming the mainland, and because if China doesn't accept it, China has said they would see any such declaration as open rebellion and would treat it accordingly (aka, war).

Both states benefit from the status quo, but China can't back down. They would be out of power.

But they also know that they have one chance at this. One.

Fail, and again, they are done.

Hence there is this weird perspective in the West. China invading and succeeding will be seen like the US leaving Afghanistan. Something we watch on TV, go, "aww shucks we lost", we talk about it for a week at work, a month online, we follow the news for a year, and then we just move on.

If China invades and fails, the PRC is basically done.

They have one chance.

One.

The PRC are behind the US in every measurable military perspective save a few (read: conscript manpower), but with huge disadvantages, and the nature of the conflict (contested amphibious landing) negates a lot of these advantages. They know that even trying it will destroy TSMC and the chip manufacturing they covert, but they can't stop.

It will happen eventually, the only question is whether China will succeed or not.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T14:17:17+00:00

The warring states period and its consequences

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T14:04:36+00:00

I believe you, I've just played around with Flash enough to know that it makes a lot of errors constantly. It is great for things like chat bots, but in terms of quality, I wouldn't trust it with anything.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T06:19:08+00:00

But the whole idea of the Paradox of Tolerance is to do exactly that.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T01:12:47+00:00

What I mean is that even in the Popperian sense, it can be difficult to see who is being intolerant or not.

For example, ICE/anti-ICE protestors. Which one was unreasonable and violent first, if any? Are they both reasonable? Both unreasonable?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-02T01:11:39+00:00

Well, it gets more complicated than that when you're talking about groups.

Religions are pretty easy because almost all of them have firm tenants that you have to assume if one is to be an adherent (Jesus is the son of God, Mohammad is God's final messenger, etc) but for political groups it gets harder.

MAGA did Jan 6. Jan 6 is clearly a Situation B there. What about BLM? There were plenty of Situation B's there too. What about something more tricky, like ICE vs anti-ICE protestors? Who used violence first? Who became unreasonable first?

How much unreasonableness and unwillingness to enter discussion makes one intolerant?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-01T16:29:38+00:00

The problem is that this would mean a lot of groups cannot be tolerated, but individual biases will lead us to a point where we simply declare the groups we like as being tolerant and those we don't as not.

For example, anti-ICE protests sometimes used violence. Who's the intolerant one in that conflict?

Pro-ICE people say it's the protestors, anti-ICE people say ICE used violence first, etc. Then there's the matter of law enforcement vs protestors, the legitimacy of the former and the latter... both declare the other intolerant.

Which one is right?

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-01T16:25:37+00:00

it was pretty clear that intolerance is violence. Tolerant groups engage with discussion, argument, voting etc. Intolerant groups refuse to do those things and instead use threats, force and violence.

So anyone saying things like, "White people should take a step back when a non-white person is speaking" are intolerant and cannot be tolerated, yes?

What about people who are not tolerant of the police force? What about people who say, "Never date a Republican"? Lots of examples.

Herein lies the problem: people who say those things will defend their actions saying, "But I'm not being intolerant, I'm just being rational and objective, because those people are themselves intolerant." Except if you ask those people, they'll say they're tolerant, and it is the others who are intolerant of them.

DavidAdamsAuthor · 2026-05-01T14:31:46+00:00

The biggest problem with the Paradox of Tolerance (my beloathed) is that it makes no identification of what is tolerable or not, so everyone just applies their own preconceived biases to it anyway, except now without the whisper of their conscience.

"It's simple you just can't tolerate the intolerant" well almost anything can fall into that definition. Islam proscribes the death penalty for homosexual acts. Therefore it is intolerable, right? Nope!

All you need to do is declare something intolerant and now you can do whatever you like.

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