Maybe I deserved that. But come to my house we will play some groovy bongo rhythms and I’m sure you will have a good time.

Great question. It turns out protesting doesn’t seem to have that much effect, unless a lot more people participate.

I mostly posted my rant just to be contrary, but I still feel like there is something erroneous to this argument, even tho you do make it seem clear and sensible.

I offer Japan as an example: the whole country is very neat, tidy and orderly. People know that if you see garbage, or something out of place, you put it where it belongs. People take the personal responsibility to clean up after themselves very seriously, and willingly clean up after eachother. As it was explained to me, 'If you’re the first person to see it, then you are the person to take care of it."

So you would expect this baseline indication of ethical behavior to translate into other domains. Surprisingly, people who as a group score very well on this test of self-regulation and ethical behavior seem to have a systemic problem with violence, sexual abuse and sexual harassment against women. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/3/8/sexual-assault-in-japan-every-girl-was-a-victim

It could be that individuals not putting things away is a sign of a deeper societal issue, but group/individual fastidiousness doesn’t seem to generalize to broader ethical adherence.

Maybe there is a mistake somewhere in my thinking.

Nope, I don’t buy it.

• An estimated one out of every 500 Americans is homeless
• Unarmed noncombatant civilian women and children are being bombed, shot, and starved to death.
• There has been a nearly 70% reduction in wild vertebrates worldwide since 1970
• The leading cause of death among children and teens in america is firearms

Privileged westerners could do something about these things, but they are sipping their pumpkin spice lattes and congratulating each other for putting their shopping carts back because, you know, it’s the ultimate test of moral righteousness. Ugh.

I’m getting really damn tired of having a choice between the conservative party cosplaying as liberals and the fascist party cosplaying as conservatives.

damn straight.

I think intelligence/personality are about even for me. I think I would not have rejected my wife if she were average intelligence, but the fact that she has a science background, and the quick way she thinks are part of the package that I fell for. So I will say very important, but not the most important.

Thank you for your service.

Ok, but there like it used to be was better than there is now, and if here could be like there used to be now it would be better than there is now and its my opinion that if here now was like there then it would be slightly better than here is now and I don’t think thats too much to wish for.

Well it seems there’s a plan to take the white house no matter what the election results may be:

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-new-over-the-top-secret-plan-518?sort=new

It kind of worries me that this could actually happen and people would be like, “Aw shucks, I guess there’s nothing we can do.”

I’m voting Harris, for all the reasons outlined in this thread, but damn it chaps my hide that this is like the trolley problem where the trolly will go down the 100% evil track unless you pull the lever to go down the %25 less evil track. Everybody in here seems to think we shouldn’t want a better track, it’s just not practical or possible to do anything better.

Is nobody else here frustrated that the only alternative we have to the orange fascist is a prosecutor that put countless brothers and sister into the racist for-profit prison system for having weed? This is the alternative that progressives are excited about?

I read a line somewhere -I forget where- but it was something to the effect that always voting for the lesser of two evils means getting the second worst possible america. Are y’all so pragmatic that wanting anything other than the second worst america is automatically interpreted as a bot, or a Russian troll, or a stupid college kid in a Che t-shirt that only wants to endlessly critique?

Is anyone on the fence going to be swayed by a debate anyway? I think the people who are really not sure about which way to vote at this point likely can’t be reasoned out of wasting their vote on some third party.

To anyone reading this that is considering voting 3rd party, my advice is to vote dem and then put as much political pressure on the democrats as possible the other 364 days of the year. The alternative, while maybe morally pure, is a lot less workable and doesn’t benefit others.

I’m interested and curious to see what happens with such a setup. I wonder if I will end up on the ban list as a result of mostly participating in the conservative community and being contrary.

Twinings.

I don’t 100% know if this is what mockingmoniker is getting at, but I want to give a word of possible explanation from my own perspective: Christians make a distinction between “sin” and “sinner” - or are at least supposed to. It’s my understanding from being sent to Christian school that people are decieved or led astray or get tempted or whatever, but it’s the actions that are “sinful” or “evil” or “demonic,” not the persons. This is the meaning of “hate the sin but love the sinner” - which is not actually in the bible btw. There are some verses that address this, for example Romans 5:8 or Ezekiel 33:11 in which God says he isn’t happy about the death of wicked people but would rather they turn from their ways and live. Look up that one- it literally says “turn back from your evil ways, for why do you die, Oh house of Israel?” Still relevant. But I’m going off topic.

Of course, Christians are people too, and are generally pretty poor at following their own code of conduct. Also there are plenty of wolves in sheep’s clothing that use theological language for their own worldly goals, and it can be difficult to know which is which. Generally people in worldly positions of power that use theological language are the latter.

You are wrong. Olives are great.

I confess I do believe in the right of nations to pursue socialism by different paths, dictated by the conditions, culture and social institutions of each nation, but I would not say I am 100% anti-revisionist. Mostly tho. I mean, don’t try to deny class struggle with me, because I am not having it.

Unless you have something in mind that you want, that you know you can get a good deal on, I think you would be better off saving your money than buying something you don’t want/need just for the sake of a black Friday deal.

This whole black Friday thing gets hyped so much that you start to think “I better get in on these bargain prices,” but the truth is that some retailers actually raise their prices on some things in October and then lower them back to regular 40% markup and call it a “SIZZILIN SALE PRICE!!!”

So in conclusion, if there’s something you want, check different sources and compare prices. Otherwise, don’t get scammed into thinking you’re missing out, you are not. Source: I am 55 years old, have worked in retail.

Just finished it. It had some very challenging moments, and extremely clever puzzles. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Several times I thought "this must be the end," but it kept going. Then I was sad when I got to the actual end.

Been in the foodservice industry for a lot of years. Quit that and switched to nonprofit social services.

I am of the age that I remember helping my mom set the time on her VCR so it would stop blinking 12:00. Now I need my kids to help me with stuff they consider pretty basic.