New Testingstan

adr wrote:"Why Smart People Are Stupid"

The head of one of the big skeptics organizations out there (Michael Shermer, I think) summed it up more succinctly. Smart people believe stupid things because they are better at rationalizing their stupid beliefs.

ok imagine the aliens are coming from another star in sleeper ships and something went wrong the technology limitations means they can't expect help from their own ppl. they have no way to just leave. and they are colonists rather than conquerers so they don't have access to ALIEN BATTLECRUISER and...

you may be viewing it through bile-coloured glasses (lol you lot take that place waaay too seriously), but I think you are broadly correct and man, the implied hatred & disdain of the working class I see in so much of what they write... well actually no, hatred is the wrong word: but a sort of ...

Hahahaha, did DA actually say that? :D I paraphrased, but it basically covers the whole of his argument. Can't provide a link at the moment because search isn't working over there right now, but he created the thread specifically to argue his accelerationist reasoning behind voting for McCain. Umm,...

It's less a left tack than it is a rising crescendo of "Obama isn't what I/We thought he would be I didn't believe what he actually said and never read Dreams From My Father shit I'm blindsided by this guy why whyyy WHYYYYY!?!?!?!?!? he doesn't even really support OWS he LIED my political hyme...

because it's not like stuart was flat out full of shit, no it must be left-leaning groupthink and wong leaving and no adult supervision It's funny because, while it may just be me, it feels as though the board has been tacking pretty hard to the right since Obama was elected. Both from Randroids th...

I don't take author intent too much into account, unless they come right out and say "I wrote this part to represent this other thing" because they do not write in a vacuum. Tolkien explicitly said that he wasn't writing allegory, and I can believe he wasn't doing it consciously, but his e...

The scope on the first picture of the mug makes it look like it has a lightsaber strapped to it.

How about we bring back the random post count function. Because that makes things much better.

I'd actually switch those first two. Quoting yourself in your sig is nearly identical to quoting another board user, but with more masturbatory self-congratulation.

Three words: Black powder musket. Cleaning that shit is one thing I don't miss about reenacting. Do you use actual powder? Cause I use pyrodex I used the real stuff. FFg black powder. Basically had to give it a quick field cleaning after every single battle, then a real cleaning when I got back hom...

Three words: Black powder musket.

Cleaning that shit is one thing I don't miss about reenacting.

Zod wrote:hitler also loved his dog

do YOU love dogs?

He also didn't smoke or drink.

Losonti Tokash wrote:they're probably less likely to do it in their private letters, i'd think

In those cases, they say what the person they are writing to wants to hear.

Lincoln wanted to end slavery in the US, and he wanted the US to stay a coherent nation. When the two came into conflict, he realized that one of those priorities might have to supercede the other. People may need to give up something they want in order to get something they want even more. Who knew...

Although, that does make me wonder - do public schools east of the Mississippi get more into that kind of trivia? Because I've heard that people in the eastern US - especially the South - treat the Civil War as a big deal , whereas there's not nearly so much emotional investment in it on the west c...

Zod wrote:I always hear people that should know better talk about the civil war as being about "states rights" and not "slavery". It just happens that they're from the South.

It was about states rights.

Specifically, the right of states to have legalized slavery.

When most people talk about how devastating a war was they usually refer to casualties. They'll usually refer to casualties as a short-hand, since it's easily quantifiable, but even that's not the entirety. Non-combat dead as a direct result of the war (through stuff like starvation and disease) an...

Well, the most devastating war in US history was a pretty small brush war by European or Asian standards. Make of that what you will. What? How was that the most devastating war in US history? Or are you thinking in terms of % population killed? 'Cause the casualties in that war were not even 10000...

But even the American Civil War is fairly small compared to Napoleon or the Seven Year's War in terms of mobilization and resources consumed. This is the point I was making. I do find it interesting because after firearms were invented, war between western countries was couched in this air of false...

Oxymoron wrote:or that it's so insecure about its own achievements that it has to belittle those of others to feel good about its owns, I guess ?

Well, the most devastating war in US history was a pretty small brush war by European or Asian standards. Make of that what you will.

If America going to war stopped the holocaust Did America not going to war earlier enable it I'd say so. I'd also argue that if America going to war stopped the holocaust, Russia going to war stopped the holocaust even more. The US may have contributed a lot by having production centers that the Ax...

Yeah without liberating The Netherlands, oma dies and my family never exists. That's a hard pill to swallow. It's similar in my family regarding the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My grandfather was assigned to be in the second wave of marines landing on the main island. When he went over as pa...

I doubt the dial would be set to carte blanche, Probably the opposite, actually, at least in the US. I can see major opposition to even having them be legal from both ultra-conservative anti-stem cell research and anti-euthanasia types who would think it's playing god, as well as hardcore animal rig...

Even in a super capitalist dystopia it wouldn't just be available to the people who could afford it. Corporations would also be interested in augmenting their employees. It'd just be a question of whether they feel that they could guarantee a certain length of employment in order to pay off the cost...