1

Philosophy, Religion & Society / George Santos

« on: January 19, 2023, 03:31:42 AM »

This story just got weirder than I would have thought possible, apparently he was a drag queen back in Brazil?

https://twitter.com/MarisaKabas/status/1615808517176234020

Also George Santos is not his real name?   Not sure but apparently Anthony Devolder,  is at least a name he used previously.

There is a movie in here somewhere.... 

2

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Who is going to become Speaker?

« on: January 03, 2023, 06:39:29 PM »

Nope,  this is not a poll,  I'm curious as to who will become the speaker.
Given, that it can be anybody,  not necessarily a member of congress,  who would you choose?


I'm thinking someone like Mike Lindell would be good entertainment value,  or perhaps Hershel Walker?

3

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Ultra

« on: December 06, 2022, 08:17:33 PM »

Just finished listening to Rachel Maddow's podcast Ultra. 

Seriously interesting parallels with American Politics today.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra

4

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Revolution in China?

« on: November 27, 2022, 09:55:11 PM »

Widespread protests are getting media attention, but is it enough to topple the Chinese leadership?

https://twitter.com/MavenMemer/status/1597093399194402816

Maybe another Tiananmen Square massacre coming?

5

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Iranian Revolution

« on: November 18, 2022, 03:03:48 PM »

It looks like a revolution is gathering pace in Iran.

Protesters burned down house of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of #Iran's Islamic Regime in the city. Since 30 years ago, Khomeini's house had been a museum in Khomein.

https://twitter.com/dpatrikarakos/status/1593529893907832832

It's probably too early to call it a full-on revolution, but seems to be gathering pace and depth.

6

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Go Phillies!

« on: October 28, 2022, 10:01:59 PM »

A new religion emerges from the chaos that is MLB. 

7

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Pink Slime Networks

« on: May 31, 2022, 06:40:53 PM »

Just learning about these fake "local news"  websites, very effective with the co-ordinated messaging structures to feed fake news into the mainstream networks.

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/as-election-looms-a-network-of-mysterious-pink-slime-local-news-outlets-nearly-triples-in-size.php

So, how it works is that there is a network of 1200 or so sites that pretend to be local news,  and they feed fake stories into the mainstream.

Here's an example.  This is completely made up fake news.

Oak Park and River Forest High School administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students.
School board members discussed the plan called “Transformative Education Professional Development & Grading” at a meeting on May 26, presented by Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Laurie Fiorenza.
In an effort to equalize test scores among racial groups, OPRF will order its teachers to exclude from their grading assessments variables it says disproportionally hurt the grades of black students. They can no longer be docked for missing class, misbehaving in school or failing to turn in their assignments, according to the plan.
“Traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap,” reads a slide in the PowerPoint deck outlining its rationale and goals.
It calls for what OPRF leaders describe as “competency-based grading, eliminating zeros from the grade book…encouraging and rewarding growth over time.”
Teachers are being instructed how to measure student  “growth” while keeping the school leaders' political ideology in mind.
“Teachers and administrators at OPRFHS will continue the process necessary to make grading improvements that reflect our core beliefs,” the plan states, promising to “consistently integrate equitable assessment and grading practices into all academic and elective courses” by fall 2023.


https://westcooknews.com/stories/626581140-oprf-to-implement-race-based-grading-system-in-2022-23-school-year

Next,  Dailycaller picks it up and runs with it,  then Fox News, before you can blink it's across all the news networks. 

8

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Tucker Carlson has gone bananas.

« on: April 16, 2022, 07:37:22 PM »

What Tucker imagines manliness looks like.  Stick your weiner in a Tesla Charging Station?   LOL



Here's the video version
https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1515130557675581442

9

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Murdoch

« on: April 04, 2022, 03:13:21 AM »

I think the dirty digger has earned his own thread.


"When asked why New Zealand does not suffer from the rage of older white men, PM Jacinda Adern replied, "Because we've never allowed Rupert Murdoch to set up a media outlet here."

Imagine a world without FOX

10

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Here's the thread on cocaine fuelled orgies?

« on: March 31, 2022, 04:22:41 AM »

I looked and all I found was pictures of Marsha Blackburn...    Any ideas?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/30/madison-cawthorn-washington-orgies-cocaine-claims

11

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Mass Formation Psychosis

« on: January 03, 2022, 04:34:22 PM »

My take away from the (now banned)  Malone interview with Rogan.

Malone began this part of the conversation by asking Rogan, “What the heck happened to Germany in the 20s and 30s? Very intelligent, highly educated population, and they went barking mad. And how did that happen?”

“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.”

“And one of the aspects of that phenomenon is that the people that they identify as their leaders, the ones typically that come in and say you have this pain and I can solve it for you. I and I alone. Then they will follow that person. It doesn’t matter whether they lied to them or whatever. The data is irrelevant.”

Sound familiar?

Trumpism is an example of "mass formation psychosis"    A kind of mass hypnotism.

12

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Don't look up

« on: December 28, 2021, 09:06:12 PM »

Anybody else watch  "Don't Look Up"

Watched it last night,  and it was depressingly hilarious. 

We are doomed. 

13

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Birds Aren't Real

« on: December 13, 2021, 03:44:34 PM »

Anybody else following this satirical conspiracy?



It's pretty funny.

14

Philosophy, Religion & Society / The Viceroy has fallen

« on: December 08, 2021, 05:09:57 AM »

The huge hideous clansman has fallen.  LOL



Does the Viceroy ( aka Crouton) need to get a new avatar? 

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/fall-of-heinously-ugly-racist-statue-marks-another-step-in-slow-march-of-progress-128167493824

15

Philosophy, Religion & Society / What is behind all these conspiracy theories?

« on: October 05, 2021, 05:02:12 PM »

Brexit, Antivaxxers, Trumpism,  Climate change denial, Qanon  what do they all have in common? 
Stephen Fry makes some good points,  but misses the impact of self-reinforcing algorithms that prioritize engagement on Facebook and Youtube. 

16

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Will Brett Kavanaugh be impeached?

« on: July 23, 2021, 08:36:16 PM »

Serious questions remain unanswered about how Kavanaugh got on the Supreme Court.

Who convinced Kennedy to retire?   

What was Kennedy's son doing working for Deutsch Bank approving Trump loans?

Who paid Kavanaugh's $200,000 credit card debt?

Why did the FBI drop their investigation during the confirmation hearings?

How long before he get a chance to drink another beer?

Will he ultimately get impeached?

17

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Marjorie Taylor Greene is nuts

« on: January 21, 2021, 03:55:33 PM »

This Qanon weirdo GOP congresswoman deserves her own thread,  I predict she will be in the news for all the wrongs reasons in the near future.

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1352359178355011586

18

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Tulsi Gabbard GOP Mole?

« on: October 19, 2019, 01:10:36 AM »

What's the big deal with Tulsi Gabbard? 

Hillary Clinton claims she is being groomed by the Russians as a 3rd candidate spoiler.   Sort of a Jill Stein 2020.



Gabbard Fires Back



https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1185289626409406464

19

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Don't you just love evangelicals?

« on: June 01, 2019, 06:51:53 AM »

The looney stuff evangelicals get up to is worthy entertainment. 

As an example,  take this guy,  he's off the planet.

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1134509543612911617

20

Philosophy, Religion & Society / AOC

« on: March 27, 2019, 07:17:46 AM »

It speaks volumes where I can start a thread with just 3 letters and immediately everyone knows not only what it's about but immediately start to take up their pre-ordained positions on the left vs right spectrum of political viewpoints.

I suggest that you all sit down for a minute and actually listen to what she is saying, it might change your mind.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/27/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal/index.html?utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2019-03-27T13%3A50%3A09&utm_medium=social&utm_term=image

21

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Flat Earth Philosophy Explained

« on: May 07, 2018, 12:54:41 AM »

Interesting take.

Ahead of the curve?

In the 21st century, we are witnessing another important shift in both power and knowledge due to factors that include the increased public platforms afforded by social media. Knowledge is no longer centrally controlled and—as has been pointed out in the wake of Brexit—the age of the expert may be passing. Now, everybody has the power to create and share content. When Michael Gove, a leading proponent of Brexit, proclaimed: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts,” it would seem that he, in many ways, meant it.

It is also clear that we’re seeing increased polarization in society, as we continue to drift away from agreed singular narratives and move into camps around shared interests. Recent Pew research suggests, for example, that 80 percent of voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election—and 81 percent of Trump voters—believe the two sides are unable to agree on basic facts.

Despite early claims that a worldwide shared resource of knowledge such as the internet would create peace, harmony, and a common interpretation of reality (this idea comes from as far back as HG Well’s “world brain” essays in 1936), it appears that quite the opposite has happened. With the increased voice afforded by social media, knowledge has been increasingly decentralized, and competing narratives have emerged.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/i-watched-an-entire-flat-earth-convention-for-my-research-heres-what-i-learned/

22

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Qanon Conspiracy

« on: May 01, 2018, 01:51:45 AM »

Is anyone else following the Qanon story?

If you like conspiracy theories,  this one has it all.

In the QAnon reality, Trump only pretended to collude with Russia in order to create a pretext for the hiring of Robert Mueller, the special counsel, who is actually working with Trump to take down an inconceivably evil and powerful network of coup-plotters and child sex traffickers that includes Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros.

This has led to the issuing of 28,000 sealed indictments, or is it (25,000)  is one of the themes.

The central claim of the #QAnon conspiracy theory is that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has filed thousands of sealed indictments against Democratic leaders, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy elites.
All are guilty of a variety of misdeeds, horrific sex crimes, affiliation with the “deep state,” and/or intent to harm the president and his administration.
And when the time is right, Trump will order the indictments unsealed, prompting a massive wave of arrests, with the accused tried in the field and sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention.

And that's not even the half of it.   Great stuff if you love conspiracy theories.

23

The Lounge / Agressive Penguins

« on: April 21, 2018, 08:03:38 PM »

Penguin hassles Cormorant to join the avian revolution.



Write your own caption contest.

24

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Psychographics and Social Media Psyops SCL and Cambridge Analytica

« on: March 23, 2018, 06:26:19 PM »

This is a complex topic, and bound to cause confusion as people divide along predetermined lines of thought.

It's been established that SCL and it's subsidiary Cambridge Analytica has used data driven psychological targetting to influence public perception and election results,  in dozens of countries,  Brexit and the 2016 US Presidential elections,  Kenyatta re-election in Kenya (twice),  the Polish Elections and anti-eu media campaign,  Erdogan's campaign in Turkey,   I suspect Hungarian, Austrian, and Italian election results of the past year have been skewed by these "psychographic"  techniques. 

What's the motive?  and why does Robert Mercer's name keep popping up?

Some research materials.   Cambridge Analytica claims to have been employed in hundreds of election campaigns and lists numerous case studies on it's web site.
 
https://ca-political.com/casestudies/

The background of SCL is British Military Intelligence and they have "ListX" status with the MoD.   https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/mod-cambridge-analytica-parent-company-scl-group-list-x

SCL is contracted to the US State Department,  psychographic profiling of Iranians who want regime change perhaps?   
https://medium.com/textifire/scl-group-joins-the-us-state-dept-ad5cac8155ff

This rabbit hole is about as deep as it gets.   

25

The Lounge / Red Alert

« on: March 02, 2018, 08:14:44 PM »

A “supercolony” of Adélie penguins has been found on a remote chain of rocky islands in the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula



Even more worrying is that they have developed their own drones for their own nefarious penguin purposes.



http://abcnews.go.com/International/supercolony-adelie-penguins-discovered-antarctica/story?id=53463806&cid=social_twitter_abcn

26

Flat Earth General / Interesting Flat Earth Research Project

« on: January 24, 2018, 06:20:23 PM »

When last we heard of "Mad Mike" Hughes, the 61-year-old limo driver and stuntman who planned on launching a $US20,000 ($24,947) steam-fuelled rocket with "RESEARCH FLAT EARTH" painted on the side some 550m into the air at 800km/h, the gosh darn US government had intervened to tell him he couldn't conduct any such launch on public lands.

From here.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/01/rebuffed-flat-earth-rocketeer-says-he-will-actually-launch-himself-into-the-sky-at-800km-h-this-time/

Sounds like a good day out for any flat earthers who live nearby.

27

The Lounge / Viceroy Cruton hit by vandals

« on: December 27, 2017, 05:02:14 PM »

Viceroy Cruton has been vandalized.   

According to the article in AP,  he's been shot at 6 times as well. 

https://apnews.com/257c19ce9c11411e8909679e71d514f3?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=APSouthRegion

28

Flat Earth General / Apollo 17 Mission - End of the conspiracy.

« on: August 04, 2017, 10:35:00 AM »

When Apollo 17 left the moon, they shot 16mm video of Apollo 17 landing site during the ascent stage.   

The linked video compares the pictures from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with the earlier 16mm film.

29

Flat Earth General / Where does the sun go at night?

« on: July 16, 2017, 06:28:59 PM »

The more highly evolved published flat earth theories,  have the sun light bending in weird ways at the horizon,  but the newish converts like "Resistance is Futile"  and "Dutchy"  seem blissfully unaware of the problem that sunsets and sunrises cause for flat earth theorists.

So where do they think the sun goes at night?

And,  please don't say the other side or spotlight,  we know those ideas don't work.

30

Technology, Science & Alt Science / Observation Skills Test

« on: April 29, 2017, 06:53:48 PM »

Ok here's an experiment in observation skills.  ( or maybe it's an experiment in confirmation bias? )

Whio can see the plane in this picture?



Here's where it's thought to be.



Both those frames are from this short video