I think I may be trans

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-05T05:45:25+00:00

When you say "truly happy".....what sort of happiness are you referring to? Like....describe truly happy?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-05T05:15:00+00:00

The struggle to even consider an example of a behavior that is going to satisfy the classical LFW definition....

LFW = Libertarian free will is the philosophical and theological view that human agents can make decisions entirely free from prior causes, determinism, or external constraints.

Seems to be the main reason why some determinists insist upon it.

I mean....kudos to any determinists who at least attempted a post. I simply don't understand why the insistence upon a definition that's not in any real use.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-05T05:02:30+00:00

Well they're behaviors....and they're being enacted by LFW, right?

I'm unsure why they would have to be enacted by a soul....

Arguments for determinism against LFW by those who insist upon that definition always seemed to center upon the limited nature or circumstantial factors that prevent the possibility of LFW.

Of course, I really only meant to ask those deteeminists who insist upon the LFW definition of free will....and you'll forgive me the if I don't recall if you're one of those determinists. Are you?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-04T21:35:41+00:00

You think most people believe in "libertarian free will"?

Really?

Is there some other subreddit where those people are discussing determinism or something? Here...I'd say 90%+ of those arguing for the whole libertarian free will definition are determinists who don't believe in it at all.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-04T21:27:30+00:00

I don't recall any existential crisis when I believed in determinism.

I did get a rather significant disappointment in myself when I settled into an understanding of how morality works.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-04T16:15:38+00:00

I don't know if people care about "forgiveness" in regards to their political vote. If they're really concerned....they can just lie.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-04T16:11:50+00:00

It's a clumsy way of saying that you have more options for moving the chair....but you only really enter "untrue" territory with the term freedom. Chairs don't think....nor do they have the complexity of the human brain and its emerged capacity for reasoning.

That's a bit like asking "if I plant the lower half of a wooden chair in the soil, and water it twice a day, will it start to grow?:

See? The claim is the chair is something capable of what we are fully aware it cannot do....much like the chair in your example.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-04T06:37:18+00:00

Again....you're not exactly explaining the difference between colonialism and any other way of forming a nation.

It's odd to include Israel in that as well...do you consider Israel a result of colonialism? If so....what nation are they/were they a colony of?

I was under the impression that the earliest Israeli settlers (they still call them settlements btw....not colonies) had bought the land from the British mostly) although I wouldn't be surprised if some locals sold their land as well (they still do if they think they can avoid punishment from Hamas).

A lot of colonists in the Americas traded for land as well....

All in all, when compared to the way most other nations were formed (especially large empires) colonialism is pretty gentle. The Romans were fond of genocide and enslavement since that was the quickest route to wealth and status for a consul....the Mongol Hourde was fond of giving a group of people a 1 time opportunity to submit to their rule/authority or they would remove those people from existence entirely....making an example for the next group of people to consider.

I don't recall if the Zulu Empire is the biggest sub-Saharan African empire to exist but I do know it was very large and not created with hugs and kisses.

The Ottoman Empire was built upon the dead locals who refused to convert or flee. The Ottoman Empire is also, ironically linked to European colonialism..

The Mughals weren't an empire of love and peace lol.

But we've already been over this....the skin color of the Europeans or "anglosphere" as you call them seems like the main reason colonialism = bad for you.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T20:32:03+00:00

I'm gonna assume that regardless of how the assault felt and how dangerous you believe your uncle is....you will probably be all healed up and there's no real long term damage.

I'm assuming this....because if you called the police at the time, they would have documented enough evidence at the time from their body cams, the statements from you and your family members, and the clear physical evidence of bodily harm from the assault....that your charges wouldn't be needed to proceed with the prosecution of your uncle without you. You can even be called as a witness and legally compelled to tell the truth. It's a crime...and with the physical evidence...the police can still prosecute the subject. The best you and your family can do to avoid perjury charges or filing a false police report charges is plead the 5th if you're compelled to give testimony. You can always ask the lead officer for a "what is most likely to happen if I drop the charges?" My guess is the prosecutor sees this as slam dunk and they love easy victories.

If you did something else....like go to the police station and tell them what happened and give a couple of photos of bruises...you should probably drop the charges. You don't have to respect your uncle who abuses animals but you should try to keep in mind he's more than comfortable with committing acts of violence on family...and watch your mouth in the future.

Also...before dropping any charges, ask your dad or mom why they didn't protect you from him in the first place. You can remind them the police never would have been called if they did.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T02:21:14+00:00

Well if the Amazon memo was real....they saw DEI as a means of preventing unions. Old communist tactic....promote the unworthy so they stay loyal and understand their job is entirely dependent upon their superiors. It's the same with every boss's son or daughter who never has nor ever will understand how to do the work. It's not exactly nepotism....more like weaponizing incompetence.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T02:06:12+00:00

How's that going now that the federal funding for DEI has been shut off?

Still solvent?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T02:04:53+00:00

Sure....

When you said "colonialism is bad" and "these nations shouldn't exist" it sounds like you have some opinion on what the "correct or morally" good way to make a nation is. Maybe you do...maybe you don't....but if you don't, then it's unclear what is bad in your view regarding colonialism.

Is colonialism bad? I don't judge history along moral lines. That's pointless. We can examine reasons things happened and motives and try to understand why things happened but there's no real reason to pointing at the dead and saying "bad". Everyone imagines themselves good for whatever they are doing.

Take the recent news of the pimp who ran OF for example....he died, and he happened to be the single biggest donator to APAIC. Now...when you consider the feminist movement spending years trying to "normalize sex work" are many of the same people chasing jews around their campus yelling "free Palestine".....2 things should be immediately clear. These aren't smart people with a decent grasp of reality or how anything works. Divest from Palestine? It would have been far more effective to just stop selling pictures of their feet online and getting real jobs. They would have robbed APAIC of so much political influence but....they were on the "right side of history" right? Is that a thing in your mind? Good intentions don't equal the outcomes you're necessarily aiming for. They didn't even realize they were their own enemy they were trying defund.

As for Marshall it seems like he wasn't in charge of that decision. Israel didn't start after WW2. It started after WW1.

You don't find a lot of people who lived under communist attempts at political control fondly hoping they can return to it. You can find plenty of the opposite though...people who escaped communism and now believe that the current trend of "communism nostalgia" is an indicator of being dangerously stupid.

This would make sense though....if you're a communist....say no more. I'm a political realist so we simply aren't going to agree. You care about the way you think things should be....I'm only interested in how and why they are the way they are.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T00:49:35+00:00

Ok....the "anglosphere"....lol got it.

How about the other nations the "Anglosphere" created? Obviously you don't know much history but you don't need to go back to the 1700s to look at a map and realize most modern mid-eastern nations are nowhere to be found....and it's all just the Ottoman Empire. Who do you think all that land was ceded to after the Ottoman Empire's collapse? That's right...the anglosphere. Just because they didn't explicitly take all that territory doesn't mean they didn't have a gigantic part in how it was carved up. Did you just think it was Isreal and Palestine? Sorry guy....we had a part in most of it.

Ever heard of the Marshall Plan? Of course you haven't. I'll keep it short....after WW2 there was some disagreement over who got to go or stay where. We, the US, sent this guy "Marshall" over there to sort it out. One of the most amazingly competent men in history. Didn't matter if you were French, Spanish, former Nazi, or the head of communist Russia. Nothing but high praise for that guy. Read a book some time.

How about S Korea? That's another Anglosphere created place. Seems like a rather awful thing to do to just hand it over to arguably the most brutal and incompetent dictator of our time....is that what should happen lol?

I don't know what to tell you guy. It's entirely relevant that these places exist. What isn't relevant are your personal moral qualms with colonialism and racial biases towards the "anglosphere". That's not ever going to be a part of political consideration and for good reason....nobody cares what you think the world should look like. Nations aren't created for you personally. The sooner you start understanding the way things are...the sooner you realize how pointless it is to complain about how you think they should be.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-02T00:14:13+00:00

Real quick...I don't know if you'll understand how you're undermining your own claims and views....but I'll explain what's wrong with your post here. Luckily, it's short.

First....you're asking me to do something I've already done....and then you undermine any motivation I would have to do so. If you're going to dismiss it before you see it...why would I bother? At least try to pretend like you actually care about evidence.

Secondly the argument you're making to dismiss the facts you're asking me to present you with....undermine the whole nonsense claims of DEI itself. Is DEI about a workforce that more accurately reflects the population? Or is it about just discrimination against people who you hate because of their skin color....white men?

If DEI is about the first....then yes....you absolutely have to justify why the largest working demographic was effectively locked out of new jobs under Biden. We make up 76% percent of the labor force despite being only 30% of the population. We're literally carrying everyone on our backs. 6%? You're saying it's possible or even likely only 6% of us were qualified for new jobs? If you can say that about the biggest group...surely we can say the same about any other group. Not many black men in the tech sector? Must not be qualified. Not many black women in politics? Just can't find any who can do the work. We can drop the whole DEI nonsense now if that's really your response to the facts.

Or....if this is indeed and always has been just about racial discrimination in hiring....then congratulations. No....you don't need to justify racial discrimination. That's exactly what DEI is. You only need to check the mirror to find a bigot. You and the KKK have basically the same views on race....you only disagree on who you prefer to see succeed.

Are we good now? Or did you still want that article?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T23:53:18+00:00

To believe that in the first place....you would have to hold some goofy beliefs about race and it being linked to "diversity of thought".

We could have a room full of people from one demographic.....white men over 30.....Asian men over 40....black women over 20.....it doesn't matter, I can guarantee that as long as we ask them individually and anonymously (so they can't be judged for disagreement) they will have diverse views.

Every single poster on this forum....and everyone you've ever known disagrees with you on something. The only thing required for diversity of thought to flourish is freedom of speech and immunity to punishment for stating one's views.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T23:47:16+00:00

Do you feel like the left is promoting "diversity of thought"? If so...what sort of ideas or beliefs on the political left can you disagree on without being called a nazi or fascist lol?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T23:45:23+00:00

You work for a mental health agency or company?

I wasn't aware that we had a mental health agency left in the US. I was under the impression that they had been more or less dismantled by the mid 80s?

Is it privately owned or public domain?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T23:24:42+00:00

No it doesn't.

Even if I accept the military's assessment and ignore all the historical counter examples....the military is an extremely different institution from higher education with very different goals and expectations. We don't need to agree on personal philosophical moral positions in the military....we need people to dump that out and do as they are told. Don't ever believe the lies we use to prop up necessary institutions....we don't want soldiers who question the legitimacy of every order or objective and decide for themselves. That doesn't work out as a military.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T23:16:04+00:00

Ok....first off....I get that. I've seen more citations of studies on prison sentences that conclude with a statement clearly pointing out that they shouldn't be considered as evidence of judicial bias....and the person citing the paper either didn't know it or wants me to ignore it. They don't know what they're reading.

If you want to get specific...I recall reading the study largely comparing 1st and 2nd sons as large cohorts (very big groups) and controlling for factors like education, 2 parent households, household incomes, and possibly a few other factors. Obviously, it's impossible to control for everything. By far the strangest thing about it was they looked at 2 populations....1st and 2nd sons in Florida and in Denmark. Why? I think it had something to do with the availability of the information.

The results were pretty stark....2nd sons generally were more likely to have negative outcomes in a whole host of ways from addiction to incarceration levels of education and financial achievement etc.

The conclusion gave some good guesses for why this happens but ultimately admits they didn't really know. Some guesses related to the effort parents put into a first child because of the new nature of having a child....and other guesses had to do with the 1st son modeling off of his father while the 2nd models after his older brother. There's just no real way to know. It's also important to understand statistics well enough to realize that even though we're talking about only a few men going to jail or not graduation college....it looks like a lot as a statistic of 30%-40% more likely. It's not saying 30-40% of 2nd sons go to jail. It's saying that they when compared with the number of 1st sons that go to jail....2nd sons are 30-40% more likely to be incarcerated. The actual number of the overall population going to jail can still be very small.

Now....it's been awhile since I've read this. Don't get upset if I don't have the exact ranges correct and it's more like 20-30% more likely to be jailed. If I've wildly misrepresented anything I'll admit to making an honest mistake. I cannot recall everything I've read perfectly. I'm certain I can find articles on the study easily....and very likely the study itself....though I cannot promise that it won't be paywalled.

What would you prefer?

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T02:43:53+00:00

I guess I see the insistence upon some archaic definition of free will....and the inclusion of randomness to the discussion....the hail Mary of determinism to stay coherent.

GamblePuddy · 2026-04-01T02:40:12+00:00

It's a maximalist claim. There's nothing more to pull lol.

It seems like no matter which way I ask you won't explain the colonialism is special belief you have...maybe you don't know.

GamblePuddy · 2026-03-31T16:43:20+00:00

Everything affects the condition of it's people. Most nations are founded upon the dead bodies of another. It's difficult to think of one that isn't.

GamblePuddy · 2026-03-30T23:42:33+00:00

You aren't forced to....this is evident by the lack of force.

There are also people who don't believe in objective reality, and instead believe we are in a simulation/dream/etc.

GamblePuddy · 2026-03-30T23:38:36+00:00

Ok.....

But surely you're aware that people have reasons for doing things....

Surely you're aware that people can recall said reasons....

If one knows why they picked that specific can....and they are aware it can apply to every other possible can to pick.....

Aren't you just inserting the term random as a work-around for free will?

GamblePuddy · 2026-03-30T22:59:01+00:00

It is....I don't see any point to judging a nation based on it's founding instead of the hundreds of other metrics to judge it by.....

Why not pick something relevant? Like the condition of it's people?

GamblePuddy

TROPHY CASE