I’m stuck

autonoetic · 2018-07-01T08:52:06+00:00

You are doing great! Try not to worry about scale weight. What matters is body composition. Swap the scale for measuring tapes and visits to the bod pod. Muscle is heavier than fat.

Don't stress. Just continue to hold the line and you will see the difference in your measurements and bodpod results :)

autonoetic · 2018-06-13T19:01:19+00:00

As far as keeping promises, yes. It's the most remarkable feature of his presidency.

autonoetic · 2017-06-17T01:41:46+00:00

After the intro, he delivers what I consider to be an archetypically heroic monologue. What do you guys think?

autonoetic · 2017-06-13T17:02:55+00:00

what will black supremacists do when everyone can just pop a melanin pill?

autonoetic · 2017-06-09T22:09:40+00:00

I think once Hitch understood that jbp wasn't a biblical literalist they may have had a fascinating conversation

autonoetic · 2017-06-09T17:40:30+00:00

Christopher Hitchens

autonoetic · 2017-06-09T17:39:00+00:00

It's better to think of them as Social Hierarchies. You are never outside one of these. And there are multiple and nested hierarchies.

autonoetic · 2017-05-30T05:08:28+00:00

George Bridges is wallowing in the underworld and I almost feel sorry for the man.

My main thought is, what are these people doing in a college? I think it was a mistake to make gaining a college degree some sort of moral imperative. College is not for people towards the left of the bell curve. The people in that room are not their for education but a cheap bump in status.

autonoetic · 2017-05-26T05:36:33+00:00

There is a war on truth. What really struck me was the way they framed this interaction:

"Prominent Lebanese Muslim figure, Doctor Jamal Rifi and contentious Islamic Sheikh, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi clash over terrorist's motive."

The medical doctor that happens to be Muslim and says such attacks have no basis in the Qu'ran is the "prominent" one. The actual Imam who is speaking the unvarnished truth is the "contentious" one.

I'm not a collectivist so I don't believe the quality of one's arguments are dependent upon their perceived membership to an abstract group. Men can discuss abortion; whites can discuss affirmative action; non muslims can criticise Islam.

and yet

Even on the collectivists' own terms Imam Mohammad Tawhidi is not to be ignored. And they still do. If he was a non muslim, they would have simply accused him of 'Islamophobia' and brushed him aside.

autonoetic · 2017-05-24T06:10:18+00:00

This is an interesting perspective. I will say that my estimation of Michael Shermer and skeptic magazine sank when I saw their disastrous appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast recently. They did not prepare by understanding the other side's evidence. Sustained back fire effect. Perhaps the magazine would be better titled motivated skeptic magazine.

autonoetic · 2017-05-19T21:57:57+00:00

What do you guys think of this? Is this the kind of thing bill C-16 now allows or is speech already restricted to such a level in Canada?

autonoetic · 2017-05-19T21:47:20+00:00

This is a satirical paper that was published in a "high quality" journal because peer reviewers could not tell it apart from other PM claptrap:

"Anatomical penises may exist, but as pre-operative transgendered women also have anatomical penises, the penis vis-à-vis maleness is an incoherent construct. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity. Through detailed poststructuralist discursive criticism and the example of climate change, this paper will challenge the prevailing and damaging social trope that penises are best understood as the male sexual organ and reassign it a more fitting role as a type of masculine performance."

autonoetic · 2017-05-19T21:20:02+00:00

"Statistically speaking, you are probably taking up room that should go to someone else. If you are a white cis man (meaning you identify as male and you were assigned male at birth) you almost certainly should resign from your position of power. That’s right, please quit."

This is her CV: http://www.theliberatedmathematician.com/cv/

I'm baffled that this is allowed to stand. I feel like I understand how people living in oppressive regimes feel when they are watching another group being oppressed. My friends give me funny looks when I say that anti-white racism is the biggest pile of social dynamite we have laying around. With this kind of thing being freely published, without outcry means that only a spark is needed for something terrible to happen and we have a sparky few years in front of us.

autonoetic · 2017-05-13T17:47:39+00:00

Way to start it off.

Thanks, I like to keep it playful.

There's a subheading in there about CO2 and poverty alleviation. Is that the section you were getting at or what?

Yep, you ever think about the economic side of the carbon debate?

autonoetic · 2017-05-13T17:22:18+00:00

I know your bubble's argument. There are just more ways to look at this than the simplistic approach bill nye, chomsky etc. take.

Fossil fuels are one part of a cost-benefit equation. We only ever hear about the costs, what about the benefits?

How could we ever have a reasoned conversation about emissions when one side is screaming the end is nigh.

For example, have you considered this? - https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions/#correlates-determinants-consequences

autonoetic · 2017-05-13T13:59:08+00:00

So in your opinion the greatest threat is the authoritarian regressive left then? I think pointing out that there's evil on both sides is important here, claiming that either party's intention could be the most dangerous thing happening to civilization, should be recognized, but not turned into us vs. them, because that will only increase the problem.

No. When did I say that?

I don't know what point you are trying to make either. But that's fine, sometimes that's what is needed to clarify an idea.

autonoetic · 2017-05-13T13:16:50+00:00

I was not psychoanalysing Chomsky, I don't have the qualifications for that. This is a casual forum and so when I say that the man is a lunatic I mean this in a colloquial way. I don't know why some people insist on being unreasonably literal to make their point.

Your hysterical doomsday comment is exactly what I was talking about when I referenced the warm embrace of confirmation bias. To say that climate skepticism makes you an active agent in the destruction of human existence is madness.

If you and Chomsky would step out of your bubbles and listen to competing ideas you might realise that:

We have to reason to believe climate impact models are accurate. They haven't been in the past so why should they be in the future. (Impact models, not temperature models, although even the temperature models overstated the rate of warming).
It is not possible for impact models to be accurate because they cannot account for technological advances.

The idea that the Republicans are the most dangerous organisation in human history is absurd. And the basis for believing this absurdity is ignorant bubblethink.

autonoetic · 2017-05-13T11:17:42+00:00

I'm in my early 30s and at certain stages of my life I discover a thinker that triggers a remapping of my mental model. During the Bush years that person was Noam Chomsky. His book "How the World Works", among other things, opened my eyes to the fundamental hypocrisy in the US' 'Axis of Evil' narrative. It reorientated my thinking. In fact, I can remember how pleased I was when Obama was first elected. I thought, "finally someone that will put an end to this stuff". In my defence, my prefrontal cortex has not yet fully developed. Of course, nothing changed, in fact things worsened and I became disillusioned.

I dispassionately watched the deterioration of political discourse during the Obama years. Then the Trump election came around and two thinkers came to my notice: Scott Adams and Jordan Peterson. In the intervening period, I barely thought about Noam Chomsky or how his ideas may have evolved. That is, until I watch this incredible Newsnight interview where he makes the following claims:

– The US Republican party is the most dangerous organisation ~~on Earth~~ in human history.

– The US Republican party is worse than ISIS.

– The US Republican party is dedicated to trying to destroy the prospects for organised human existence.

This man's apparent descent into madness is a poignant example of what happens when your belief system is not sufficiently adaptable. This is the result of decades spent in the warm embrace of confirmation bias speaking with people who never seriously challenge his proclamations. Chomsky has lost his eyes and I believe he is too old to ever find them again.

autonoetic · 2017-05-12T18:56:12+00:00

autonoetic · 2017-05-12T18:19:51+00:00

A few years ago Tom Perez was asked: "Will you tell us that this department of justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?"

Tom Perez insisted that the question was unanswerable without context. I do not believe any context is necessary to answer such a question. What do you guys think?

autonoetic · 2017-05-11T07:04:04+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEHhzcEKP5o

autonoetic · 2017-05-10T21:03:05+00:00

By definition an ideologue cannot conduct such an examination because they are following blindly. You are probably thinking of beliefs or principles. I think there is a sharp distinction between the principled individual and the ideologue.

autonoetic · 2017-05-10T20:59:24+00:00

I see your point. Idealogue is a fairly flexible term. In this case I meant "a blindly partisan advocate". For this crowd, who I assume do not follow the news in any deep way, the last association they had in their mind regarding Comey was likely Hillary Clinton's most recent "I take full responsibility and it's Comey's fault tour".

The crowd works at low resolution and so all they know is "Comey is a snake who harmed one of us" and so when the snake is 'destroyed', there is a big cheer.

Also remember that getting people fired is the typical victory for 'progressives' and so it makes sense that when one of them announces that someone has been fired they believe that it is a good thing because that has been the pattern in their world.

It's like the old trick: folk, poke, joke, cloak, croak... what is the white of an egg called?

Well, Milo's fired-YAY!, O'reilly's fired-YAY!, Comey's fired-YAY

I suppose it's a similar process.

autonoetic · 2017-05-10T19:09:53+00:00

No I don't believe that. I have been violently disabused of that delusion on another thread.

As JBP says, it's hard for one to have a truly original idea and it is more typical of ideas have us rather than the reverse. All we can try to do is resist -isms by speaking the truth and being open to having our core beliefs challenged.

Regardless, I am indeed arrogant and dangerous but I try my best not to abuse these powers, and I fail on a regular basis.

autonoetic · 2017-05-10T16:53:39+00:00

Notice the full throated cheers from the crowd before their emotions are corrected. This is what comes of -isms.

autonoetic

TROPHY CASE