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Post by miscmisc on Apr 27, 2021 21:14:36 GMT 1
Crap like this is absolutely harmful.  There have been millions of such articles lately, based on the "MIT study" that does NOT prove or even say anything even remotely like what the headline says. The funky assumption shared by all of these articles is that particles in the air disperse INSTANTLY no matter how big the space is. Needless to say that's just defying the laws of physics. It is airborne yes, but distance still fucking matters, like, a lot. What the study actually says is that if you stay at one spot for a long time in enclosed space, then you might get doses of SARS-CoV-2 even if you are relatively far away from the source of the viruses. Because they are airborne, and very gradually (but NEVER instantly or evenly!) disperse in the enclosed space. And that's very, very different from what the headline suggests above. Viruses aren't magical beings. They are subject to the laws of physics just like you and me. Airborne doesn't mean they can warp. Distance matters to them as well. You are far more likely to get infected if you are spatially close to an infected person than if you are at a distance. I can't believe that I have to actually remind people of that. |
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Post by miscmisc on Apr 28, 2021 8:11:18 GMT 1
I hope you guys now somewhat understand why I kept saying from the beginning that "defund the police" and its more radical cousin "abolish policing," which were (and still are) very popular in a large section of the left, are not only bad politics on the practical, strategical level but also on, well, every conceivable front. Some called me a neoliberal sellout for having that position, but it's just clearly bad politics even when you do acknowledge the absolute necessity of being bold and radical and "unrealistic" for sowing the ideological seeds in the society. That's what I mean by bad "on every conceivable front."
It's just a largely meaningless bumper sticker slogan that is also damaging for their cause. But they stick so adamantly to it, and that's a shame.
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Post by miscmisc on Apr 28, 2021 8:24:36 GMT 1
The best thing about Joe Rogan is that he's very curious on everything, and the worst thing about him is that he overrates his own intelligence. Granted, you can say the same about many other people out there, but given the size of his platform, people must stop equating the weight of his personal opinion/stance and value of his show. He's a great conduit (= a good host) for various opinions out there, but no more than that.
People should just stop, stop, STOP worshipping media personalities for no good reason.
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Post by miscmisc on Apr 28, 2021 8:31:47 GMT 1
LOL
Where in Belgium, though? His regional Dutch (Flemish) accent sounds super strong.
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bol
Novice Member
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Post by bol on Apr 28, 2021 19:55:27 GMT 1
Recently a book came out named "Influencer- Die Ideologie der Werbekörper" (Influencer - ideology of advertisement-objects) by Schmitt and Nymoen, just heard into their podcast about it. It describes the banality of social media influencer content, which is therefore easily in all situations consumable. It's not just a cultural conservative critique of the scene and it's fake authenticity, but also describes how they're exploiters (bullshitting the followers with this new form of teleshopping) as well as exploited. Their class place is not clear, they're in some sense self-employed but ultimately often depend on the platforms (that can ruin them by just some wrong algorithm), don't own their "means of production", and still sell their labour like other workers. And I think the authors might be right when they say it's an underestimated topic. One of the more obvious influences may be the masses of cryptocurrency advertisements on social media that spread to the "apolitical" users - ideal for this world of greed, fakery, paranoia ("all these people saying it's a scam are just jealous of the success!") and gullible people who think they now understand the world because they saw this video from some salesman with all the pseudotechnological buzzwords. With heads of the cult like Musk being able to farm money with an increased stock exchange price, just by tweeting buy ..coin after himself buying it.
Few will in the hectic and herd mentality of social media take the time to at least reflect if the promise that everybody will get rich through financial speculation is economically in any way possible and if there are not more likely winners and losers in this game. Quite the waste of resources for a speculation object with the freedom!(tm)-tag, cause some billionaires would like to have their own currency without democratic limits. |
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Post by Kenshin (Banned) on Apr 29, 2021 9:40:15 GMT 1
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Post by miscmisc on May 10, 2021 7:34:53 GMT 1
Yes, crypto is a tough subject for a place like this, so I wouldn't go into that except to say that it's not "currency" in any meaningful way. I kind of talked aimlessly and redundantly about it a lot back in the days, though.
I think the topic of herd mentality and all that comes down to the question of what "authenticity" means on the practical level, and how that is related to "authority."
People used to believe in all kinds of crazy stuff back in the no-internet 20th century as well. You should never underestimate people's total dependence on their own "reliable" channels for information. It's ridiculous to even suggest that people are capable of thinking on their own. They aren't. That's not because they are dumb, but mostly because life is too short for a vast majority of people to be truly "informed," let alone to be able to process and analyze the damn information in an objective way.
I said "mostly" because you always have to take into consideration the tribal nature of human beings in general. Information flows create tribes. Or, to be more precise, they reinforce tribal differences. Most people think the way their tribe does. That has always been the way it is since the dawn of civilization. In a sense information itself doesn't even matter, what it says, suggests, deduces is not the point; The point is the color of the flag.
Authenticity comes from the size of the tribe, and this "internet" era quite obviously magnifies and exaggerates it. The Facebook ad algorithm super-accelerates it, needless to say.
Ultimately you can prove anything in an internally coherent manner. Ancient Greeks were aware of that thousands of years ago. You can deceive other people, and often yourself, quite easily. Most drivels in the world "make sense" if the bar is low enough. And that's enough for most people to believe it, invest their emotion in it. We pay too much attention to who "controls" information, and not enough to how people submit themselves uncritically to their own channel of information, which in many/most cases they didn't even select by themselves.
Now, have you noticed that I've been deeply conservative so far? This is broadly speaking a right-wing point of view, namely the necessity of having "authority." Strong consensus. One Truth, as opposed to the roughly left-wing position of relativism.
But it's not exactly me showing my true right-wing colors here, although I do have quite a few right-wing colors. It's just that I'm not like a self-proclaimed postmodernist who has no clue about modernism to begin with, someone who thinks they can "post" something without understanding the damn thing in the first place.
The society is very clearly in a crisis, but I don't see anything that can stop this fragmentation process. And this is exactly the kind of a place that a Chinese guy told me 12 years ago that we would end up in sooner or later.
"You guys will have to give up the concept of society for the sake of liberty."
I hope I've been cryptic enough. Hell, these things always end up falling into circular logic, so the super-difficult meaningless math questions required to mine the coins may be less "cryptic" in comparison.
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Post by miscmisc on May 11, 2021 9:34:43 GMT 1
It's a Japanization of the world. The people who want to keep masking: ‘It’s like an invisibility cloak’More than a year into the pandemic, some people prefer to keep wearing their face mask – even outdoors in public www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/10/the-people-who-want-to-keep-masking-its-like-an-invisibility-cloakThis had been a social phenomenon for years in Japan, with the excuse being seasonal pollen allergy/hay fever instead of Covid-19. A lot of people told me that it was something uniquely Japanese, and I disagreed every time. Now I feel vindicated. |
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Post by miscmisc on May 11, 2021 17:05:50 GMT 1
You open a history book, of any region in the world pretty much, and quickly realize that the history of homo sapiens is mostly about commerce/trade, war and pandemic.
It's true that SARS-CoV-2 is a very formidable virus, primarily due to its nasty asymptomatic/presymptomatic transmissions, but the fact that outside the vaccine technology most of us failed miserably to deal with it is a testament to how much of a fucking failure we are. With all the knowledge and technology that we have accumulated over the centuries we still failed to deal with something absolutely basic like a pandemic.
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Post by K1power on May 12, 2021 8:52:18 GMT 1
Western media loves to paint the picture of 'the Palestine problem' and that this is somehow an 'even fight'.
Palestinians are losing their land and lives while the world watches and applauds Israel's actions. It's sickening.
I don't have a lot of strong political opinions, but if there's one country I could do without it's Israel.
And I have nothing against Jewish people, just anyone who supports Israel in any way, shape or form. I'm very judgmental on this.
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Post by Kenshin (Banned) on May 18, 2021 11:54:04 GMT 1
And I have nothing against Jewish people, just anyone who supports Israel in any way, shape or form. I'm very judgmental on this. I'd say that this would include most people who identify as Jews though. |
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Post by K1power on May 18, 2021 17:55:24 GMT 1
And I have nothing against Jewish people, just anyone who supports Israel in any way, shape or form. I'm very judgmental on this. I'd say that this would include most people who identify as Jews though. I have no clue what the numbers suggest, but sure, it's a given that a lot of Jews are Pro-Israel Zionists. |
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Post by kickboxer (Banned) on May 18, 2021 20:17:32 GMT 1
Western media loves to paint the picture of 'the Palestine problem' and that this is somehow an 'even fight'. Palestinians are losing their land and lives while the world watches and applauds Israel's actions. It's sickening. I don't have a lot of strong political opinions, but if there's one country I could do without it's Israel. And I have nothing against Jewish people, just anyone who supports Israel in any way, shape or form. I'm very judgmental on this. Yeah, but some facts: Israel withdrew from Gaza about 15 years ago and are still bombed by the Philistines. Based on their backward and sometimes Jihadist thinking, you can always disrespect the new borders. It can also easily happen in Belgium. The United Nations divided Palestine. It is true that the probably Jewish American propaganda works. The West Bank is also "Palestinian". Ruled by a Palestinian authority, non-extremist Hamas. This is how the conflicts in the region were simply extinguished. And now the Philistines, even though they have lost territory, still have a much larger territory than historically. They had a historical territory if I'm not mistaken just Gaza, and they were invaders, people of the seas. Okay, here's a special case, that Israel was actually British Palestine and then the Jews emigrated back. But the borders were established in 1947. The territories must be respected and after 75 years we are already talking about irredentism. Am I missing something maybe? Not to mention that the United Nations is said to have provided constant food rations to 50% of Gaza's population. Gaza has no leaders. And certainly no one applauds the war. I don't think today's people have anything to do with what happened 100 and 75 years ago. Only if the governments still support reunifications and extremism.  |
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Post by kickboxer (Banned) on May 18, 2021 20:36:11 GMT 1
Also not to forget there was an Exodus of the Israelites to Egypt, whilst during the Crisis of the Third Century, economic disruption and high taxation due to civil wars in the Roman Empire caused many Jews to migrate from the Land of Israel to Babylon under the more tolerant Persian Empire.
Battles between them:
* The Battle of Shephelah
* Israelites defeated at the Battle of Aphek, Philistines capture the Ark
* Philistines defeated at the Battle of Eben-Ezer
* Some Philistine military success must have taken place subsequently, allowing the Philistines to subject the Israelites to a localised disarmament regime
* Battle of Michmash, Philistines routed by Jonathan and his men
* Near the Valley of Elah, David defeats Goliath in single combat
* The Philistines defeat Israelites on Mount Gilboa, killing King Saul and his three sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malkishua
* Hezekiah defeats the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory
At that time the Philistines being settlers on the land of Israel.
Israel had always been a persecuted territory, even in the Middle Ages.
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Post by kickboxer (Banned) on May 18, 2021 20:49:09 GMT 1
K1Power, if the Israelites were actually persecuted in history by the Ottoman Empire and the Arabs? Just saying. The Jews were driven from their own country. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_JerusalemEven in Antiquity, Israel had been under Roman, Persian and Byzantine rules. In the Third Jewish–Roman War many Jews were vanished. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revoltJerusalem was conquered by Turks and Arabs. From 1516, Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire until the XXth century. The Jews lived in exile because of that. Considering the pogroms against the Jews, it was a historic restoration. Unfair to the Palestinians after so many years, but they were invaders who kept on expanding in the region due to the Ottomans and not only. The aggressors are the ones who settle on your territory. Do you think that the Jews just abandoned their country like that? Or that the Philistines were few in number at that time? Just look at Erdogan and Iran, how extremist they are! No wonder Muslims (fake, not real) even made war on each other. And generally newer coalitions. That is the truth, the Muslims and the Russians live at least a few decades ago. Actually not the real Muslims, because I have met in my life a lot of good people from Muslim/Arabic countries. And not the Russians, the Putinists. Erdogan is radicalised, a future jihadist. Turkey was on a European path. Erdogan cursed Austria publicly for raising the Israeli flag.If they were Hamas instead of Israel, they would probably completely destroy their country. You are from Holland, you didn't face the invading Ottoman Empire like us. Hundreds of battles in which my country took part. And in Israel (Muslim Jerusalem), the invaders were not the Crusaders. I have absolutely nothing against present Turkey and the real Muslim people, my friends. I only hate extremists and jihadists, Putinists and even non-Jewish Jews (a few Jews can be dangerous, but also a few Europeans can be dangerous). The policy of Jordan is different. When the Orientals and the North Africans will all advance, we will live in peace. So do the Russians. I think the Black Africans have greater potential of doing it ASAP. |
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