Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

@Yoda: Once again, no. I said we bombed the everliving **** out of them (read civilian’s memoirs: they **** themselves 24/7...hence everliving ****). You said we specifically didn’t. I gave you numbers. (And here is where the error is revealed) You gave me words about how those numbers are ok since it was a small portion of the overall numbers. (Thus, we bombed civilians, and I was right) And then 2 pages of how in the hell is that not self-evident?

Frankly I think my having to explain this is odd. It’s wayyy rude, too. I don’t like this ^ me, so maybe I prefer glib. Excuse me for trying to unwind on the Internet. I have enough stress at work and in real life. Pardon me for trying to respond to a one off post, which wasn’t even yours, with the same one off fashion.

This is getting downright bizarre. You seem to agree the whole thing is about proportionality, but in the very same post simultaneously state that agreeing we bombed some civilians proves you right. Here it is in a nutshell, all quotes from our last posts, respectively:

Me:
You:
You later, same post:
??????

Starting threads like this and tossing out far-reaching claims about war and politics doesn't really seem like an "unwinding" activity.

Anyway, I've said over and over to you and a thousand other people that I don't really mind if someone doesn't wanna argue this stuff. It's unpleasant and as you say, sometimes people just wanna wind. But I do mind if they don't want to argue about it while still replying to tell other people how wrong they are over and over.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Since you care about this stuff have a video

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sa-6pR5S5YY

It’s like the forums version of a Snickers

Had to do some catching up here and it seems much of the discussion has gone **** up. That is shame as I was hoping for some good debate from all involved. There has been some great discussion and some interesting points brought up, but the optics are pointing towards a one sided effort on the bombing topic. Not really wanting to get involved in the what was said department, but I do have something to say about "bombing" and the perspective that some have on America and us bombing civilians because it is "what we do".

This is a very flippant and cynical statement imho. It may or may not have been meant as such, but it is difficult for me to define it any other way. It takes away all the emotions and sacrifices and so many more things from all sides, including the victims. I have personally witnessed the decision making that goes into these types of things albeit on a smaller scale than WWII. It was above my pay grade to be a part of these things, but I did keep minutes and records and I saw firsthand the difficult time our country's on the ground leaders had when making these decisions. To say we just do it because it is what we do is quite an insult, but I am not angry, it is your right to say and believe what you wish - but it does disturb me a bit. I would be happy to give an example of why:

Lets say I bring up abortion. Not opening that topic here, but using it as an example because it is another topic that tends to split the country. Let say that I flippantly argue for pro life by saying "Killing babies", its what liberals do. First of all I would never say that, but as an example it is pretty close to what you are saying. it does not define anything but a hatred for abortion and does not take into account why a woman may have one or have a right to one. I do understand bombing and abortions are different in many ways, but the thought process is similar when it comes to debating the topic.

It is a close-minded stance to take, which again is a person's right to have, but it is indicative of how thick the barriers are that define all of us and our thoughts and beliefs. Facts do not seem to even matter anymore because if one is not on the "A" side of things then they are automatically wrong, there is no room for individualism.

This goes for so many topics in the world today. So many terms have become so watered down it boggles my mind.

Still love talking about this stuff though and will continue to do so, these are just my thoughts that I humbly share for whatever they are worth.

i don't study history, it doesn't interest me, at least wars of interest
what interest? ask the american companies who did business with hitler,
the IBM, Coca-Cola, you know the typical american ones, not to mention the financiers,
but they put the ww2 all in that battle like that's was all that mattered,
who're they? the owners of the american propaganda, spread across movies,
every single year another movie about american heroes in that war,
the russians were the nation with more causalities,
and they don't make tons of movies about it,
except the best of all come and see

i didn't respond to the "it wasn't our fight" because it's humorous, actually hilarious to me,
tell me one war that isn't an american war? with 250 years of history you had 5 or 6 of peace

i could make a google search and get some graph saying the gun violence is going up and not down,
but the trued is that i don't give a damn, i simple disagree with guns, they're a mechanism,
a mechanism american's used to implement the necessary violence to bully everyone around,
if you have a population that doesn't know what a gun is, how can you make them join there wars?

you shouldn't, because, i don't really care about arguments, at least political ones,
they're not interesting anymore, maybe two years ago i'd be here thinking about every angle,
doesn't worth it, i think i reached a understanding, that i end up pitying them,
i don't believe in living a life focused on glory, power, control and futile pleasures

i have a hasty opinion of american, the same way i have a hasty opinion about my own history,
i don't agree with how we "discovered" brazil in the 1500, and yes i can criticize there actions,
people in my country have an idea that only spain did damnable things, we did plenty of them

it's like it's said in the movie stroszek, at least during that time you saw it coming, was open,
nowadays you don't even know whose your real boss, is all made polite with an worse outcome

That's fine, but if someone doesn't study history and isn't interested in war, they probably shouldn't make claims about wars, no?

Anyway, the idea that the American war effort is like swooping in on "the last day" is absurd to anyone who's studied it even a little bit.

Why? It's true. We crossed an ocean to help fight a threat that was much more threatening to Europe than us for the foreseeable future. I think it was in the interest of all freedom-loving people in the long-run, but there was less direct threat to America than the other nations involved, which is one of the reasons our involvement was so significant. Almost everybody fights the enemy at their door, because they have no choice.

Yeah, this isn't even close to true. It's also unrelated to the quote above. At this point basically everything you're saying is false or exaggerated to the point of incoherence.

No you couldn't. Not over any reasonable time scale, with an actual cited data set.

And really, if I can link you to hard data about gun homicides going down and you'll just wave it off and say "I could make a chart showing the opposite if I wanted," then it proves you're not really interested in facts and aren't basing your beliefs in them. Which is already pretty evident, I'm afraid. You're basically just saying "fake news!"

We have an all-volunteer army, and there are other countries without major gun violence problems who actually make military training mandatory, so this doesn't make sense in either direction.

Me neither! But I also don't believe in living an uninformed life where I just sort of arbitrarily decide what's true without learning about it first. Especially if I'm going to tell other people how to run their lives/countries.

Anyway, political arguments are as good as you want them to be, in the end. I'm sorry if you've had a lot of lame, pointless ones. I sure have. Still seems worthwhile to try to be thoughtful and informed, though. It's how I've met some of my best friends, even though I had to wade through a lot of lame arguments to find them.

I guess I feel less singled out, in that sense, but I think ideally there'd be no hasty opinions about anyone/anything.

I think the idea that this is a "worse outcome" than the Nazis, or that not knowing "whose your real boss" (which isn't true, but I assume is going to morph into some hacky claim of oligarchy or something), is...pretty extreme. And I think you probably know that.

I'm afraid you just don't really have a good sense of what America is like at all. Which should not surprise you given that you don't live here, admit you don't care much about the facts, and admit you've formed hasty opinions. Just don't expect those hasty opinions to be uncritically accepted by people who know better.

The world is a lot more complicated than whatever you've constructed from stray media fragments.

I wonder why you'd post this at all. I mean, all these seemingly informed and thoughtful people are actually dumb and wrong because the issue's obvious, yeah?

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

@Yoda: I posted it because you obviously wanted a deep discussion about the finer points of morality in bombing civilians.

I just wanted you to leave me out of your word games. It's a win-win!

you can make your picture and base yourself in newspapers owned by the people i despise,
i can make my picture based on the peoples i find logic, noam chomsky for example,
but i could spend half an hour thinking about what to write and find the sources but i don't want to
it doesn't worth it because i don't give it value anymore, and honestly i don't want to start again
any perspective you might give me, where this social system is not ruled by psychopaths i don't agree
the stats your based are from media that depends majorly on ads, those ads are from big corporations,
our "elected" presidents depend heavily, not to say exclusively from funding and corporations fund,
is a viscous circle of accumulation of wealth, the owners of the corporations dictate the rules,
and they want everything for themselves and nothing for anyone else,
lockheed martin corp, boeing, raytheon want wars to sell there guns,
exxon, valero want more and more oil and they'll use there power to get it, look at venezuela
pfizer, johnson & johnson, monsanto, will keep making diseases to sell there cures,
it's business and this is applied to everything out there to be sold, i an't buying, sorry

i could go back and gather all the information about mass slaughters made by the united states
but i just don't think it worth anything, because i don't want to change your perspective,
and frankly, i don't change mine that easily, i don't change opinions based on information,
who made that information you call facts? who says i have to believe them?

What I want is for people who start discussions on contentious topics to see them through. Or at least bow out gracefully if it reaches a point of effort or complexity they're not interested in, as opposed to just telling people they're wrong without saying why.

But sure, it's a nice link apart from all that. Thanks. :) Of course, I have to note that its existence pretty clearly undermines the idea that the answer here is obvious or self-evident.

The only word games are me quoting the words that were said, which seems pretty relevant, but okay. :shrug:

Huh? I don't follow. Are you saying you despise the Washington Post? Tell me honestly: do you know anything about it, other than that it's an American newspaper?

It doesn't take anywhere near that long to verify basic facts. But sure, if you don't want to have the argument, that's fine. But it's not exactly fair to make the argument, repeatedly, and not have it. You said something that isn't true, so I'm pointing it out.

Er, not really. Typically these articles are citing publicly available data. They even source it on their charts. You'll see that if you click on the link and investigate the issue for yourself, rather than dismissing it out of hand because it doesn't fit the worldview you constructed without those facts.

Would it surprise you to learn that Trump hates the Washington Post and has criticized them constantly for attacking him? I imagine that's inconvenient to the theory you're crafting here, but it's true.

I hope you realize how much like Trump this sounds.

But okay, I'll bite: what information is your opinion based in, and who says you have to believe that? Be specific, please. Let's be clear about which sources you're trusting. Because it sounds to me like you're dismissing official government statistics (which come from a variety of sources and would be very difficult to manipulate at this scale) in favor of...what? A hazy sense of the number of news reports or articles that have happened to reach you? Please describe the information you use to reach these conclusions, and why you think it's more trustworthy than those basic statistics.

I think that just leaves emotion as the only thing you may change opinions on, yes? I am guessing you might be quite young if you consider this to be a worthwhile approach to building a long term worldview.

Reading through you recent posts in this thread, it's fairly clear you have no interest in actual discussion on this topic, which you even state directly when you say you used to be interested in it, but no longer are. I guess my question is: Why are you in this thread? To bask America, capitalism, and random Americans in the the discussion?

If so, I would ask that you kindly step out of the thread and get back to discussing things you do enjoy discussing on the board, like films and the like, as the only trajectory I see this current discussion taking ends in more unpleasant actions taken by all. I've seen this all before, usually in political threads. The thread usually ends up locked, people end up leaving the forums in a huff, or worse, getting banned; none of these things is very constructive.

If course, you are free to inject your opinions on any subject into the discussion, but if it isn't enjoyable or constructive, why bother?

Whilst conveniently ignoring the things that contradict you. That’s the definition of word game.

And this is the definition of projection.

I give you specific quotes each time. Most of your replies ignore those (case in point: my post right before you posted the video) and give me generalized contradictions like this one. That's how you know who's playing games and who's not.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

@Yoda: Your arrogance amuses me. :yup:

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Lmao at the amount of ducking and clucking in this thread :D

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Oof. It takes some serious mental gymnastics to post sarcastic GIFs and spend more time trying to find creative ways to say "I'm right" than to respond substantively, and yet still somehow allow yourself to believe the other person is being arrogant.

I guess on some level I have to be appreciate that you decided to immediately demonstrate the thing I'd just described, but still, really disappointing exchange overall. Not sure there's much more to say, though I imagine I'll get another glib, content-less last-word-itis insult anyway on my way out. It's all yours.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I just thought the whole thing was hysterical. You making a big deal out of nothing. Digging a deep hole for no reason. I prefer to chew the fat. I’m not all about that word salad.

i don't believe in arguments because people see them as a battle, like a philosopher once said:
i never start an argument with anyone that thinks differently, because nothing will be accomplish
you might think that person is a coward and have fixed ideas, or doesn't want to confront them,
it's exactly the opposite, he just doesn't give enough importance to his ideas to defend them
that happens when you see everything as an opinion, like the dude said:
that's just like, your opinion man
my ideas, i know how unimportant they are, and i'd love to dialogue with someone with this perspective

@Yoda i don't know what you believe in, i don't know where you get your information,
any source of information that is mainstream, in my opinion is rigged, for the reasons i stated,
corporations basically run everything, and when you base your contradictory opinion on there info,
basically are doing exactly what i'd expect, and that's why i don't really give it value

about american wars, i think it's clear that america made enormous atrocities around the globe,
but you can easily find that information, julian assange is a hero on the department
since 9/11 is now legible to bomb a group of people to kill a single target, my source? dirty wars
it might tell you nothing, but it was made by jeremy scahill, creator of an good news platform,
the intercept, might tell you nothing but is among democracy now! truly independent news,
you get your information from corporation newspapers, i get them from independent ones,

you said i think like donald trump, that anything that goes against my ideas are fake news,
well, for me fake news are a way america fond to put the bad apples in one basket,
now everyone believes that the ones that aren't on the bad basket are actually good,
i'm not saying russia is clean, they obviously conter attacked america global media propaganda,
when most of the sources of mass information are american you have to make people dough them,
that's basically what russia successfully did, and america obviously tried to take advantage

about trump criticizing media platforms on the states, that's just good acting in my opinion,
like some thug said, his a puppet, who runs america are the "man's in dark suits",
the corporation owned media don't show information that damages there owners,
and there owners are not presidents, are like i said, corporations, brands
i show an aggression against america because some/most of the things i don't like born there,
i criticize some/most of my own country history, and i was educated to think we were always good guys,

if you talk with me with information based on platforms that don't have any hidden agenda, we can talk,
any other thing, i don't believe it, even with conscience i don't give importance on not believing it

@Sedai like i said i don't think about what i say, don't see much worth in it,
i don't change my opinion based on information that doesn't come from independent sources,
sources that don't have the "man's dressed in dark suits" behind, and they are difficult to find nowadays,
about not giving importance to the subject, honestly i don't give much, because i, i'm sorry,
i think people who do are fools, because like the thug said, presidents don't really change,
is always the same thing all over again, so why should i follow there news and discuss there information?
and because i don't choose words carefully and people tend to miss use them, i'll quote someone:


i try choose my cursory readings, magazines and digest carefully

Are you basing your stance on this one report? The story looks legit but it comes from the Post. So to me, I'm in quandry. In order to refute you I have to refute the post. Which isn't hard to do. But I don't think that really helps my case.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

From where I stand, your left is my right.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I have a really nasty opinion of the whole political spectrum, but thanks to MoFo's coding all that would show up is asteriks. So I'll just put it like this: when people can stop whining like children at each other over a topic which needs only to be handled professionally, then I'll get back into politics. Its because of the extremists the OP mentioned that I hate politics through and through. It didn't take me long to notice that the liberals and the conservatives could be just as nasty about things as each other. Every discussion you get into is a chance to call each other a murderer, idiot, nazi, etc. I was willing to try and calm others down, but when I found out both sides were arguing over which political party is more like Nazis, I had enough. Now we're living in a country where it's normal to call each other NAZIS over a couple of common factors where everything else is completely different.

I used to love good political discussions when they were calm and mature. Nowadays, that's too much to ask from people and insults are the closest thing we have from a real political discussion that actually gets anywhere (which is nowhere). Every single little thing has to be a victimizing offense even though they'll just as easily offend you right back if they don't do it first, even if the arguments have NOTHING to do with them. It's all about being a child and throwing insults for both parties. I thank God I grew up with a conservative father who proved every extreme view politics holds wrong by just being himself and respecting other people no matter how different their views were.

I am a free man who is non-political and I don't give a damn what people think. Politics is a way to help the world, so why not help the world by telling everyone involved to chill out because such arguments will only make things worse? That's my final word on the matter.


Edit: this is probably the single most controversial post on MoFo.

Plenty of data on PEW research, as well. Here is one article of many from PEW:

Gun Violence

That is from 2015. As Yoda says, there has been a bit of an uptick in recent years, but it is still well down from its highs back then.



@JoaoRodrigues - I am not going to go item for item on your post, but I will say that as far as I am concerned, I try to read alternate news sources as much as possible, and from what would be considered a broad spectrum of political views, at least relative to the American political system. I do read The Intercept, as well as more right-leaning sources as well, and I watch commentary on YouTube from people like Styxhexenhammer (Libertarian), Jimmy Dore (Progressive), and Matt Christiansen (Right). I tend to avoid propaganda cults such as MSNBC or Fox News.

That said, I love my country, and I wouldn't live anywhere else. I will agree with you that America should meddle less in global affairs, on the whole.

One of the big issues in the upcoming presidential campaigns will be gun violence. Especially with the recent mass shootings of a few days ago this will be an important topic.

I wonder if we can discuss this without flaming or soap boxing? I'd be interested in hearing what key politicians are suggesting and what they suggest is the cause and possible solution to these mass shootings...and your guys take on all of that.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I haven't looked into pew or how they come about their numbers. So I'll try not to comment about them. My problem once again is trying to figure out if I can just get my message out without being so much of dick that you can listen to me. To put it simply, we've been lied to. How much you have been lied to really depends on how much you are willing to look into where your information comes from. The Washington Post for starters might be one of the worst offenders. And yet this rag has shaped millions of minds over the years. I've been accused many times of not trying enough to see the other side of things. I assure you, I obsess about the other side. Maybe not in the way you might think, but I do. So, care to journey with me? This guy says the Washington Post is the worst kind of fake news. He says the Post works for the CIA. Pretty interesting story. I hope you watch it. Is he completely full of sh*t?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDF1kDhHDEI

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

No matter what anybody thinks, whether they're a thug or not, this thread is painful to read.

It doesn't come from the post, and it isn't really a report; it's a recounting of data compiled from the CDC. Official crime statistics, basically. What else could someone possibly base a stance on? If you are skeptical (it sounds like you are), what is that stance based on?

Sure it does. If you think it isn't hard to refute such a simple statistics, by all means, please do so. It looks pretty unassailable to me, but I'm happy to hear you out.

What most concerns me about these statistics is how suicide has ticked back up, and if the trend continues we will see numbers higher than the 90s. When people talk about mass shooters in relation to mental health it does a disservice to the real risk that firearms play to people with mental health issues. I can only speak for myself: I am currently unable to own a firearm, and I have a greater fear of offing myself than being unarmed during a mass shooting, which is why I haven't gotten them reinstated.

It is clear that unfettered access to firearms is the number one contributor to gun violence in America, but what isn't clear is how to restrict firearms without infringing on 2nd amendment rights. For instance, I am not in favor of banning assault weapons/weapons of war because, as crazy as it sounds, protection from your government's military necessitates that you can own the same hardware, or as closely similar hardware as possible. What does bother me is the ability of gun manufacturers to skirt legislation (bullet buttons and Hellfighter Mod Kit) to continue selling easily modifiable equipment (San Bernardino shooters removed the bullet button on their rifles) in places where the public has decided they do not want such hardware. I think gun rights has largely become a state issue (when it comes to what you can own) and we shouldn't allow gun manufacturers/third-party sellers the ability to skirt these types of laws. Just about every major shooting in the past decade has been committed by someone who, at the time of the shooting, owned hardware that was illegal for them to possess (the gun itself, the modifications, and/or the magazines). These most recent shootings show us just how easy it is for someone to go from gun noob to mass shooter. This has to stop and our country's access to guns is the best place to start.

It's about time we had a process for universal background checks for all firearm related purchases, including aftermarket modifications/hardware.

Some do. Some people actually use them to try to get at the truth. It's rare, and all of us are guilty of seeing it as a confrontation to some degree. But it doesn't have to be that way. And the really sad thing is that, if you go into an argument already thinking this way, it'll automatically become true. I'd encourage you to try to have a substantive discussion from the get-go. People will occasionally surprise you and reward that attitude. :)

I've shown you where I get my info. And while I can appreciate general skepticism, the idea that "corporations" run crime statistics for the CDC is kinda ridiculous.

But here's the larger problem. Let's say you're right to dismiss any data you get from the CDC (nevermind that it's a government entity and not a corporation). Hey, I can't stop you from disbelieving any official statistics. BUT, even if you're right about that, the only logical position left is for you not to have an opinion either way, because you have no reliable data, right? And yet you seem to not only have opinions, but very strong ones. So the thing that's allowing you to ignore inconvenient facts--your blanket skepticism of any statistic I give you--should simultaneously stop you from having a contradictory opinion. Yet you do.

We can haggle over "enormous," but it's not material, because this isn't what you said, or what I contradicted. You seem to have no sense of the frequency or nature of most military conflicts.

Yes, this happens in all places I'm sure. But it doesn't mean that it's sophisticated to go to the polar opposite position of thinking literally every fact or number is false, either.

Somehow I suspect any source that contradicts these ideas will turn out too have a "hidden agenda" that lets you dismiss them.

But how about this: let's flip the burden of proof. Let's say you're right and you can only base opinions on these kinds of sources. That means you should be able to show me independent sources that form the basis for your broad opinions about gun violence, right? I would like to see those. Please show me the independently-sourced evidence that gun homicides are going up, for example.

I saw this after I posted my reply. I'm happy to watch it, and I don't take a lot of convincing to be skeptical of mass media. I think this goes preeeeetttty far, and I think we can see from the current President how dangerous it is to give yourself license to throw out any reporting we don't like based on indirect funding, or whatever the excuses may be.

HOWEVER, none of this matters, because I'm not asking you to trust the Washington Post. That's just an article about the data I'm referring to.

Gun violence obviously is a problem, but even if you took guns away completely there would still be mass killings. I could take 50 people out in about 30 seconds with my truck when Fenway Park lets out, and it doesn't take much to make a bomb. I think guns are more of a problem with the violence that doesn't include mass killings.

I've been at Fenway Park after it has let out, and there's no way you could take out 50 people in 30 seconds. Whilst I see your point, it doesn't account for the fact that we design pedestrian heavy zones to minimize the speed and the type/amount of traffic. We can do that yet we continue to do nothing to prevent people from getting tools designed to make killing more efficient.

Wholeheartedly agree with the bold, though.

I can agree with that. As far as I know the mass shootings in America seem to be a recent phenomenon and have only occurred with any regularity in the last 20 years. So what changed? More guns? I don't think so. There were plenty of guns around a half century ago and yet we didn't get people 'going postal' back in the 1950s. Hell they didn't even know what 'going postal' meant. From the first mass work place shootings it morphed into school shootings and very recently has become mass shootings of complete strangers. I don't think we can tag easy access of guns as the cause, as we've always had easy access of guns in America.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

@Citizen Rules: August 1, 1966 was our nation’s first mass shooting, and I would argue that it sets the model for what we continue to see today: angry and isolated individuals who see, whether fairly or not, systems of power operating unjustly and with impunity.

And a strong argument can be made that had it not been for other armed citizens that day the dude would have killed a lot more people.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2007...boston-600.jpg

You sure? I've been on Landsdowne St. in my truck with a crowd like that completely filling the street. I literally could not move an inch and had to sit there for a half hour. They pack it so tight that there is nowhere to go.

I half wonder if it's the celebrity of it. I don't mean specifically as a search for fame, but I mean if someone is angry for whatever reason and feels that nothing is being done against the cause of whatever anger, then as a matter of mutant principle they may think making a stand/statement/example may be the catalyst to enact whatever change they feel is needed to fix their perceived problem. Or that at least they have done something for their bastard cause.

The celebrity draws attention. News and, worse, social media thirst for biting headlines so of course names and faces will spread like wildfire. Perhaps they think their distorted views of the world will gain traction in other like-minded people.

I do not condone that btw. I'm just trying to empathize or project possible motivation to do something so extreme. I can't argue that guns are a cause, but they do make an easy choice for such an action. This is a huge gray, feathering area of cause and effect dynamics. I imagine it would be difficult at best to form some type of equation from all the variables at play.

I'm positive. That's an image from 2007. Pre-London and Westminster bridge attacks (2017) and even those attacks didn't have near as many fatalities as you claim is possible to achieve. They now have the Landsdowne St locked down to thru traffic when there are major events going on, so the conditions don't exist anymore because event planning has changed. What hasn't changed is our unfettered access to guns.

Believe me, I find myself in those crowds often and 50 people don't take up a whole lot of space, and when it's part of a bigger crowd there's nowhere to run. Of course as a truck driver, I have better access and know the spots, but anyone can get a job driving a truck. Imagine being behind that bus but turning right instead of left.

@cricket: Mass + speed = force. So I am positive it's not possible and the bigger the crowd the harder it would be.

Let's go back to something that, so far, we have all been able to agree upon. We need to approach gun ownership from this angle if we are to have any hope of preventing gun violence/deaths, including mass shootings.

It's not only possible, it wouldn't be that hard. Maybe if you were me, you would know.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I would really like to participate more in this particular line of discussion (why there are more mass shootings now when we have always had guns around), but I am totally slammed at work and will have to check in later. Meanwhile, consider these quick bullet points:

* More hate group inspired information and way easier access to it for pretty much everyone on the planet.

* Men are consistently called toxic and accused of being a major problem in society. I see this constantly.

* Broken homes without a strong, cohesive family unit based around a strong value system of some kind.

* More and accelerated moral decay in part due to the above bullet point, and also due to the rise of technology and the fact that it infests everyone's lives. This has an isolation effect. creating more lonesome/desperate people that feel disconnected from society.

I don't have to be you to know an object requires speed to impact a force large enough to kill. A vehicle going from standstill to top acceleration requires distance and limited forces acting against it (Newton's third law), and crowds are a type of force. A bullet going from standstill to top acceleration only requires the pull of a trigger. This is why death counts from vehicular attacks are vastly smaller than a gunman firing indiscriminately into a crowd. Just look at the Charlottesville attack: one dead, 28 injured. That attack took place in the same amount of time as the Dayton attack, which killed 9 and injured just as many.

Physics and event planning just don't make this sort of thing possible, especially post-2017.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply...I've been thinking about the cause and solutions to mass shootings. I've concluded that while it's complicated of course, I do think part of the problem is that shooters do seek the anti-hero celebrity of it. The news media never misses a beat to turn each shooting into a media circus complete with live around the clock coverage, and complete with interviews of the survivors and profiling and history of the shooters. To someone who feels isolated and abused by society and is full of rage, these previous shooters then become like legends to be emulated.

It's known that some of the school shooters actively studied previous school shootings and had their favorite mass shootings. As sick as that is, it does seem to be a case of monkey see, monkey do.

A partial solution (and this will probably never be implemented) would be to restrict news media coverage of mass shootings to only having news anchors reading.

What in the world are you talking about? I never said anything about doing the attack from a standstill position. The scumbag in France killed over 80 people not that long ago.

Pre-2017. Large mass + high speed = Thank you for proving my point again.

I can do that now. When you have a job, you get access that the public doesn't have. I've been following the thread and I don't think you know what making a point is.

So your argument is that an individual can kill just as many people, if not more, with a truck? This assumes they have access to a cargo truck, a job that gives them passage in an area closed to public, an event with heavy crowds, and enough roadway to accelerate to at least 60mph. Whereas a mass shooter just needs a couple hundred bucks, a strong trigger finger, and a soft target accessible by foot, which there are hundreds of in everyday America.

OK, I concede to your point. This is why we need autonomous trucks so we can get all those workers and potential mass murders out of the driver seat. :yup:

I have no idea which is easier but the point was that there'd still be mass killings.

Oh. Well, in that case, why even bother? :shrug:

there's where we divert opinions. i don't believe that's possible


it looks ridiculous, but really depends the angle your looking from
mass-shootings f.e are good each way, they'll either buy more guns for protection or fight against them

you keep talking about guns and the most important thing i saw in that meme was health care,
i couldn't care less if your killing yourselves, i mean, i care, but not to that extent,
i still don't agree with guns, i don't believe everyone/anyone should possess one, it's an opinion
i mean, when i see people glorifying america and there democracy and there are SO many problems
it amuses me and makes me angry at the same time,
amuses me when i see who actually said it, some patriotic guy that voted for trump because he insultes him without he even realize and makes me angry when is just some rhetorical gownsman with the same ambition and hypocrisy the president he decided to vote

i don't make an effort to go against the current, or have any pride in it, i just see hypocrisy,
i mean, that's what made trump elected, people got tired of masks, i'm tired as tired anyone can be

not really, but most sources that don't have, or at least i believe don't have an hidden agenda show information that goes together with the picture i made. on the other hand, you don't believe media is owned by the most powerful companies and there information goes together with the picture you made,
i might be expressing myself wrong, the information they give makes our pictures, and that's the problem i believe. and because i saw that problem i started to be skeptical, cynical about most information i see

like i said, i don't care about gun violence, i believe it would be worse if they were blades instead,
these are not independent, it was just a two minutes google search, and are from your newspapers,
new york times: nearly 40,000 people died from guns in u.s. last year, highest in 50 years
(didn't actually read the full article, might prove your point, or not)

https://thelibertarianrepublic.com/w...FD73CB958.jpeg

i find amazing they let this guy run for president,
the podcast was 5 minutes long and he was already talking about free health care as a human right,
it's not free and more expensive, because it's created to profit to the drug and insurance companies
this guy is the personification of everything i believe in

Before I clicked the link, I said to myself "I bet this includes suicides."

From the article:

"There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides."

Those people would in many cases still be dead, even if there were no guns. Maybe not all of them, but a large portion of them, anyway.

The discussion so far has centered around gun homicides, just to be clear.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I'd wager that many of them would still be alive, depending on their choice of method. The only majorly successful method is a gun. Just about every other method has success rates that are lower than 20%. And not everyone goes on to try again if they fail. With a gun...it's easy to be successful the first time.

Plus, there's planning involved that allows for someone to stop you or to find you or you to back out. Suicide by gun takes all of 2 seconds.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Ran across this today, thought it was somewhat related to this discussion in a sort of meta way...

My Dad is a Right Wing A$$hole

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

"Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter."

:rotfl:

That dude totally got pwned by that op-advice.

I am skeptical. Statistics can be so easily manipulated. This is why I try to stay out of these things. You're already are kinda looking at me funny I bet. A few years back we used to talk data points about climate change. You demonstrated that its pretty easy to manipulate data. And that's true. The problem I have with the Post and that recounting of facts is not so much their data but the way its portrayed. It may even be true that homicides are down. It doesn't really matter.

Shootings are not going down tho are they? I know its hard to track because all of the shootings that don't get reported. Mass shootings are happening more and more frequently too, can we agree? 3 people were shot within a few blocks of me just this week alone. None of them died, so no stats. But I read a story like that and wonder how we can have mass shootings at all? Homicide is down right? So naturally gun violence is also going down right? It paints that picture but that's not what's really happening is it?

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I'd like to point out Joao has made some really good points in this thread. I think some of the disparaging remarks further illustrates our American arrogance. The dunning kruger effect is particularly high in America when it comes to guns.

two years ago this would be gold for me, it would be like christmas in august,
being in a discussion with american's about there polices and there country?- man, wow

you want the trued? america was always something i was/am very curious about,
so many different cultures in the same place, hollywood obviously helped a lot

but what i was/am curious about are the minorities, that's my real curiosity, not the american dream
my opinions are formulated on racism, gentrification, health care, wars of interest a culture of violence

it's like i lived there, my perspectives are there views because they're the people i'm curious about,
try to change there mind... never worked and neither will until you elect someone that thinks about them

but i empathize, i know we owe america for putting pressure on russia, china and middle east,
they're political correct all the time, but they're diabolic when we're talking about human rights

we owe america most of the technological advancements, and there view on a global world,
but we have to think what will come with all that and you, the creator, have to be open to criticism

What is it Powered Water that you specifically want to say about guns in America?

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Sadly it’s behind a paywall but I read this article on Snapchat. Discusses the idea that violent video game communities that are far-right are a greater risk than the games themselves. I kinda wanna say duh but then I realize not many more places are talking about it. So I have to give The Telegraph some props.

Food for thought.

I don't get this sentence? 'greater risk' from what? Can you explain that a bit more.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Violent video games have been shown in countless studies to have little to no effect on a person’s propensity for violence. But there is a risk, an unexamined one, that communities built around violent video games could be responsible for indoctrinating youth. It goes back to what @Sedai said in his 4 bullet points at the top of the last page.

Ah, OK I get it, thanks.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

It's been years since I've been in college, but I remember in Criminology (one of my majors) that we went deeper and dissected the stats, and crime seemed to be concentrated in "the bad part of town" where you have mass shootings in random places, usually in middle-class areas like Parkland, etc.


Also, many gun deaths are specifically targeted people. I think 4/5 of deaths are people you know.. Could be gang members or your own family, whereas many mass shootings are simply places with a lot of people out, which makes it scarier. Before, if you "kept your nose clean" you'd be fine, but now I hardly ever hear of mass shootings in a ghetto.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I think that’s kinda the point with mass shootings. It’s an attack against society and systems of power. So their targets are ones of everyday normalcy.

Speaking of crime, our city has had an uptick in organized crime and the number of shootings has risen exponentially. Plenty of local news reports about shoot outs and they are always gang related and usually on their own turf.

If God forbid Kamala Harris ever became the Democratic nominee, what nickname could Donald Trump give her? We already have Pocahontas, Crazy Bernie, and Sleepy Joe. Although I have a soft spot for Cameltoe Harris, I think Trump could risk getting labeled as sexist. Of course, he also has to watch out for the race angle. With her record that Tulsi Gabbard pointed out, I think Trump could go for Clink Clink Harris, and whenever he says it he could put his hands together simulating being handcuffed. It would look similar to someone singing along to The Village People.

"Kamehameha-HA-rris!!"
???

Maybe a lil too nerdy for the average Trump crowd to grab onto tho. Hm.

https://youtu.be/qiaoSC91Ils

Now that I think about it, I don't think anything would beat "The Ugandan Giant".

asked if she had ever smoked. "I have. And I inhaled, I did inhale. It was a long time ago, but yes," the California Democrat replied.

Realizing the admission might "break news," Harris explained that she smoked a joint in college while listening to Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. However, as someone pointed out on Twitter, Harris graduated Howard University in 1986 and UC Hastings College of the Law in 1989—years before Snoop or Tupac released their debut studio albums.

I think she must gave been doing molly when she said this.

KaMolly Harris.

He's also the guy who wants to pull every video game off every shelf in the country,
because he believes that the video games diminish the intelligence of our youth.
Come on, Dick. It's the only education we got.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MixedWilte...restricted.gif
Moral is, DON'T BE A DICK, DICK!

Except your behavior indicates you do, in two ways:

1) If the truth were not obtainable, you couldn't reasonably express so many confident opinions about what's true.
2) If the truth were not obtainable, there'd be no reason to argue about what's true.

It can't be that we get all circumspect about the truth after someone starts posting facts that aren't aligning with our worldview.

I'd love to hear the angle from which "the CDC is lying about its data" is not ridiculous. It's a government entity, and the data spans decades.

Huh? What's any of this got to do with what I asked? Here's the thing you were (ostensibly) replying to:

And yet you seem to not only have opinions, but very strong ones.

My point is that you argue that data is unreliable, yet still have strong opinions. You quote this point and then...just list a bunch more opinions? I don't get it.

Two huge problems with this:

First, as Sedai already pointed out, this includes suicides. My number was homicides. So it's not the same thing, and it's a little disconcerting that you're not (apparently) looking at any of this all that closely even while you're in the middle of telling people they're wrong (which you seem to be admitting: "didn't actually read the full article, might prove your point").

Second: you tried to dismiss the numbers I posted because they were from the Washington Post, seemingly just because it's a large newspaper (I asked if you knew anything about the Post, and you didn't reply, and I'm going to assume the answer is "no"). So how can you respond by citing an even larger one? How is The Washington Post suspect, but The New York Times isn't? :confused:

You said you trust independent sources. I asked you for an example of one that showed gun homicides going up. This example doesn't fit your criteria for an independent source and doesn't show the thing you're suggesting, either.

I don't suppose you've investigated this claim at all? Or understand that corporations don't pay taxes when they lose money, for example?

I don't want to talk you out of being skeptical of data, because I am, too. And yes, a lot can be easily manipulated. But this seems awfully straightforward: it's the CDC, counting gun homicides. I honestly can't even think of a way, hypothetically, to manipulate that.

I'd be curious to know why it doesn't matter. But anyway, I'm not endorsing any particular framing here yet, just pointing out that gun homicides went way, way down from 1993 to 2013. This doesn't mean we don't have a problem with guns, it just means reality is a lot more complicated and nuanced than the loudest people would have you think.

It also seems to very, very strongly suggest that people's perceptions of this issue are driven by media coverage more than facts. Kinda like terrorist acts, yeah? I assume you agree with the same idea there: that people are disproportionately scared of terrorist acts even though they're rare because they get a lot of coverage. There's obviously something similar happening with shootings.

I don't quite follow what you mean. IIRC some subsets, like mass shootings (which have a very technical definition, just as a heads-up), are more frequent, or at least aren't dropping like overall gun violence. And that's worth talking about. But from a societal perspective that's a very different problem if gun homicides overall are dropping so much.

Mostly, I'm just trying to show people that anecdotal media coverage is not the way to gauge which things are getting worse, and which things are getting better, overall. The world is too big for that, but it's easy for even very smart people to lose sight of it when this is all they see on the news.

I dunno, man. If an American was writing off another country so blithely like this, while saying things at odds with the facts and not really being interested in what they were, wouldn't you think that American was being arrogant/ignorant? Maybe you feel these are the right targets, but even if they are, these aren't the right projectiles. A lot of these claims are just false, and I'm not nuts about listening to someone who basically just tells me upfront they aren't going to believe anything I show them.

I agree, but I see it most in the gun control side. I'm amazed at how many people want to ban guns without being bothered to learn even the most basic definitions of them. Like, it's amazing how many people still have no idea what an assault rifle is.

Credit where its due: I think this is a really thoughtful and mature reply and I really appreciate it. :up: I appreciate the nuance in it.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Relevant: Mass Shootings Are A Bad Way To Understand Gun Violence

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Chameleon (she does change her "policies" every other day)

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I found this be fairly interesting...

Uniform Crime Report

In 2017, 403 people were killed by rifles. In contrast, 1,591 were killed by knives/cutting instruments, and 467 were killed by blunt instruments (clubs, hammers etc.)

Handguns clearly the weapon of choice here, with 7,032 deaths.

Sadly no time to read the article so if you'd be so kind as to expound just a little more ..... just how many were actually killed by uniforms??? :goof:

Well, Citizen Rues... I say we have far to many guns.

yoda, you're that type of guy that always wins by adversary forfeiting, right?
should i be calling my lawyer?

i'm not arguing about what's true or not
i'm arguing my perspective of a situation
what i'm doing is like two guys arguing if the clouds indicate that it's going to rain or not,
one guy says it's not going to rain because the news guy that never misses says it wont,
the other says it goes to because it's indian uncle made a rain dance and he never misses as well,
in the end it snows, and you strike me as the guy that would argue that snow is water, so it rained

you already know what i think about the government, so
for me government have to prove they're telling the trued, not the other way around

so what's the problem with suicides? it doesn't matter because it's a harm they did on themselves?
you don't know but you can guess it's hard, even if you're a death adventurous like i call them
a gun is one of the easiest ways for you to commit suicide alongside with poison,
the second one might be harder to get in america (irony)(or not)
and since you see things from all angles (irony)(or not), did you ever considered this:
since health care evolves(irony)(or not), the treatment to gun shots also evolved,
a simple flu was a death sentence, now it takes four days to cure,
that's the same with gun wounds and that obviously has to be acknowledge in your "statistics"
do you fell like searching for attempts of murder? guns related crimes? you might get a surprise

i didn't even knew what the number were,
didn't knew the washington post was larger, i just did a five minutes google search and that showed up

you either aren't as smart as you might think you are or you're just playing dumb,
you know very well that the today's world "playing with money" is the base of any large corporation,
just moving money around, isn't production, just look to the highest paying positions in those corps,
they're already planning the next financial crash because they're the ones who make it,
just like the big banks, the "too big the fall", they show losses, the tax payers inject money
if the owners of those companies are the richest man's on earth, there companies have losses?
on paper i might believe they have, in reality? doesn't seem legit mate

you're probably thinking: "another. they hate us because they want to be us"
nonetheless, thank you for the acknowledge

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Joao just made another great point that may get lost in the shuffle here. There's less gun deaths today because many hospitals have great gunshot/trauma teams, that save many gunshot victims lives. It might interest you Joao to know that we don't really track any of that data. So when guy like me says it doesn't matter if the homicide rate is going down for guns because shootings and not just mass shootings either are way, way up. I can be easily dismissed as nutter because I can't prove my point. But yeah, those stats are nice right? Doesn't it make us all feel better to know that less peeps are dying from guns today? No, not really. We are now living like this today...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5IHQ5yFfeQ

This, uh...seems like a problem.

To argue is to presuppose that there's a truth, and a truth that might be demonstrated by that arguing. Otherwise there's no point. If your response to inconvenient facts is just to say "who's to say what's true?" then that's the same idea I'm going to throw right back every time you tell me about your perspective. I don't have to refute it, because you've already done it for me by undercutting the idea of truth altogether.

The problem with this analogy is that the people in it are disagreeing about causes, but not facts. They both agree it's going to rain. The problem we have is that I'm telling you it did rain, and showing you the water on the ground, and you're telling me you don't believe it because the weather report has an ad next to it.

And how would they prove that to you, exactly?

It matters very much. It's just a totally separate issue, policy-wise, from gun homicides.

Sure! I'd love to introduce more facts into the discussion, provided you'll actually agree to acknowledge them if I do. But I'm not going to do more homework if the result is that you'll accept them if you like what they say, but not if you don't.

Good grief! Then why do you trust it, and why did you post it? You dismissed my source just because it came through a newspaper and you only trust "independent" sources, so I specifically asked you for an independent source...so you just Googled the question and posted what you found, without knowing or caring if it was independent? Huh? :confused:

This is a whole lot of vague "everybody knows" stuff without any actual substance. The idea that businesses should pay tax when they LOSE money is kinda crazy. If you wanna argue that they're not really losing money, you should be prepared to elaborate on how, and how you propose to change that. As opposed to just seeing the image, taking it on faith because it tells you something you already agree with, and tossing your skepticism out the window.

That's kind of the problem: you're not wrong to be skeptical of sources. But if you're only skeptical of the stuff you DON'T agree with, that's not really skepticism.

I'm not. America has plenty of problems. But they're not all the ones you think, and some of the things you're saying are just false, sorry to say. And I think it's awfully presumptuous to pretend you know what another place is like based on scattered media reports and basically no effort to find sources or establish facts.

I complain about thoughtlessness because I really DO value thoughtfulness, so when I see it, I'll always say so. :up:

We do, it's just not tracked as well as it used to be. It sounds difficult to track, presumably because the requirements for tracking injuries and deaths are quite different. Anyway, this seems like a recent problem, so I don't think it presents a big hurdle for the overall long-term downward trend we've been discussing.

You keep saying stuff like "you'll probably think I'm crazy" or "dismissed as nutter," but I don't see anyone saying anything like that. Just asking for data, and for rationales. That's certainly all I'm trying to do.

Same thing here: why do you think it's "way, way up"? People keep expressing skepticism about such a simple statistic, and I keep asking why, and nobody seems to answer. It seems like they just feel it must be wrong. And my theory has been that they're basing it on media coverage, simply because nobody's answering and that's the only thing I can come up with. I'm happy to be corrected on this point.

I don't know what that video is supposed to demonstrate; that people are scared of guns and kind of in a panic about them? Because that seems to fit pretty well with what I'm saying about coverage.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Allow me to summarize my issues/questions with/for both of you:

1) If you believe we can't really know what's going on and you're skeptical of all the reporting you see, fair enough. That allows you to ignore or dismiss things like CDC data. But that logically requires that you also relinquish the ability to contradict the claim or pretend you know what's happening at all. It reduces the entire issue down to guesswork and speculation and doesn't allow for the kind of confidence that people are throwing around about their conclusions.

2) If you believe we can know what's going on, but you believe some sources are trustworthy and others are not, then it's obviously incumbent on you to explain why some are trustworthy (and it has to be better than a newspaper has an ad, and ads automatically mean you're a puppet of corporate America, or whatever) and some are not. And then, from there, it's incumbent on you to provide data from one of those trustworthy sources to support your conclusion. And if you can't, then we're back to point #1, where you're admitting there's no way to know and you're just speculating.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Medical advancements and technology in general will lessen the probability of gun deaths.

I found this article from The New York Times. It seems relevant to what Sedai and others were saying about certain types of media helping to spread hate group messages and spawning (in part) mass shooters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/t...manifesto.html

i don't see it as a problem. we just have different ideas to what truth is, or means
you believe in a truths reached by the majority. try to refuse galileu now; flat earth idiot they'll call you
i don't believe any human being can achieve any truths, that's what we're being doing all this time,
from conscious to language we created concepts, ideas, rules, laws, religions, faiths to shape conscience
i give my opinions the same way a musician give his music, i like you to see my picture,
doesn't mean my picture is truth. what makes it truth is a global, majority acceptance, validation? no.
our pictures have influences, and they are different, doesn't mean they're truths, the influences the same

they aren't both agreeing that's going to rain, one thinks it is going to rain, the other thinks it's not going,
but my point was, even, (hypothetical here) you considering snow water and rain, you'd be correct,
because like i said, was one way to look at it, was it not?
well, if i didn't saw the raining how could i know that water didn't came from something else?
but i see your point in all this, you're based on fact, that you believe to be true, and me just discrediting

prove is like trust. how do you know you can trust someone? actually it isn't, but okay
if we're talking about countries, it would be a good start by taking care of those they can't profit from

do you believe me when i tell you i didn't even knew what we're talking about until sedai?
i'm putting in question all guns, didn't really knew was only about homicides.
i believe mass shootings depend mostly on control and regulation and not on the gun itself,
i'm saying this taking in consideration banning all guns is out of question

my mother always ask me: why do you put everything in question?
why don't you trust anyone? why do you always see the worst in people?
honestly, i don't make an effort, my brain simply connect dots and makes a picture
you'd be great to make a nice picture all the time, but normally does the worst,
doesn't mean i'm unhappy, you know why? i don't give much importance to the picture i make,
the same goes to the dots, my skepticism came when i placed the dots in question

i don't trust it, that's why i didn't read it. i was hooping it would refuse your idea and you'd move on

agree, that was vague, but my boss was always behind me and i had to think fast and write faster,
agree also, business shouldn't pay taxes if they've lost money, business, we're talking corporations,
i don't believe amazon lose money, if that's what you're asking me,
i don't believe most huge corporations out there lose money if that's what you're asking me,
and if the conversation goes that far, post the ones that did and i'll make an search just for you

my disagreement was created because of the sources i've been reading, the same as you and everyone,
the famous quotation on digests, newspapers and magazines i've posted before

so tell me, how did you form your opinions? did you suffer from injustices? probably not, it was the media

no, it wasn't thoughtfulness you give value back there, was honesty, or what appeared to be honesty,
obviously thoughtfulness is a way to reach honesty if we're talking about discussions, arguing's

I don't think we do. We already have words like "opinion" or "perspective" for things that aren't clear or don't have simple true/false values. "Truth" means something else. Truth, by definition, is a quality that transcends opinion.

No I don't.

Then why argue at all? Anything you say I can just say "no such thing as real truth!" and blow it off, and everyone can just go on believing whatever they want. It's pointless.

You think "X number of people died to firearms over this time period" is an equivalent statement to "I like heavy metal"? Really?

You're saying if the United States took better care of poor people you'd start believing its homicide statistics? :confused:

Yes.

I mean, I said homicides. It's a little bothersome that you're disagreeing with things you're not reading.

I don't understand the point of this. I didn't ask you why you were a skeptical person, and I'm not questioning skepticism in general. To the contrary, I admire it as a default posture. But, in my experience, people who talk about their skepticism like this are not actually skeptical. They're just skeptical of some things. They defend the idea of skepticism so they can dismiss certain ideas or facts, but then somehow they have strong opinions on those same issues.

What on earth are you talking about? I asked you for an independent source that shows gun violence is getting worse. You're saying you don't have one, so you just Googled some random thing to make me leave you alone about it?

Fair enough, but you don't have to respond fast. I'd much rather wait a bit longer for a clearer response. :)

Again, not nuts about doing homework if you're just going to tell me "oh, they're lying" any time I bother. Which is what I'm pretty sure is going to happen.

What sources? You say things like "independent sources" but you don't actually cite any or name any. Every time I ask you for specifics, you reply with general statements about your life philosophy.

Like any reasonable person, I attempt to ascertain truth through both data and experience. I try to prioritize data because it's actually very unreliable to try to extrapolate truths about hundreds of millions of people, in all sorts of different circumstances, from my own narrow life experience.

I also don't understand your question about injustices or what relevance you think it has towards forming these opinions. Are you saying that if someone is the victim of gun violence, that gives them a sense of how prevalent it is over an entire country?

Those are not mutually exclusive. Just because you honestly believe a thing, doesn't mean it's not thoughtless. And yeah, I think having lots of strong negative opinions about a country you don't live in and haven't even bothered researching much is a fairly thoughtless and unfair thing.

yoda, this will be my last post about this discussion, arguing, what ever...
it will be because, even so i understand your view, i don't believe you're trying to understand mine

i've already talked about this in the last post, you didn't get it, won't really elaborate much more about it.
you have the same certainties people who persecuted galileu had, he challenged common belief.
the only diference is that people back then called it the "truth of god" and that got ridiculous over the time,
but if you think harder, we're doing the exact same thing "both" quoting infallible sources, how smart...
and before you start again, no i'm not comparing myself galileu with my "life philosophies" like you call it

that's exactly the point, don't you see?
the only thing i can help you with, is exactly not solving anything, postpone any resolution or any beliefs you might have on achieving a truth, if you do that i'll not close any doors to the future, any person that believes he reached a truth he doesn't care about what comes after, the other aspect is when someone believes he reached a truth he wants to do exactly what i under-marked in your comment, he wants everyone to reach his truth, and the next thing you know, with a little power his starting a dictatorship to obligate everyone reaching his truth. that's been the history of some religions and beliefs around history. that's the insanity people reach when they believe they have some truth.

you choose not to understand and pick up peaces and place them at the wrong place to make a point,
that's one of the reasons i don't see a point in continuing this discussion.
what i was trying to say was why am i talking with you here, the why man

i didn't said poor and i spoke globally, and that's because countries take advantage of poor people,
won't really dig much into it because i believe i'd have to reply once again.

you twist things to your advantage in hilarious ways. you know how this started?
it started with a famous reddit picture that i posted, are actually the guys words.
i didn't even looked at the statistics, because they don't matter to me,
they're statistics made by one of probably many agencies or newspapers,
and like i easily pointed before, they can be easily answered to if someones think hard,
if i wanted to play your game i'd say you didn't answer to that either, but it's not my point

i might agree with you. maybe you have more experience than me, who knows right?

if i posted a independent source you'd probably dismiss it because it's not an official one,
i tried my luck with your newspapers for you to cut the subject and focus on the fundamental thing,
that quite honestly it's what i've been trying to do all along, try to focus on how do we formulate ideas,
if you had understood that, or chosen to understand this could have been a great discussion

fast is good, is what you're really thinking without thinking what other's will think.
you're not who you think you are, you are not who i think you are, you are what you think i think you are.
don't remember exactly you said it, charlie kaufman maybe, google it if you find it interesting

i agreed with you on the part i shouldn't have said: "everyone knows", as nothing to do with homework

i've talked about democracy now!, the intercept not that long ago.

again, okay, i understand, that's what an academic should do, or what they call them?
what about thinking a little bit further that as been where i'm trying to get.
because i've been saying the same thing over and over about data, info, newspapers... i'm tired.
i thought i'd start there and move forward, it didn't happen.

if you didn't cut the word "media" in the end of my comment like you've been doing, you'd be easier
but just to be as vague, no i don't think that and you probably know it

not they're not mutually exclusive, neither i said it were, you just understood that,
for me to explain it we would have to have an all conversation about honesty,
it would have started with that quote above, about how we see ourselves.
you're saying i didn't research because my research goes against your's, and it was a meme, come on.

even this gif you can twist if you want to, but i don't mind. you're smart, thanks for the time

Please don't confuse my not agreeing with you with not understanding you. I think I understand fine. And to whatever degree I don't, I've asked lots of fair, simple questions about your position to give you the opportunity to explain. Unfortunately you've mostly chosen not to explain, but to respond with general philosophical leanings and head-scratching analogies.

No, but you're obviously comparing me to the people who persecuted him, which is silly. And mostly backwards, since that was a case of someone arguing for objective truth and others arguing against it, so I'm not so sure you'd be Galileo in this analogy, anyway.

Saying believing in truth can lead to dictatorship is like saying a drink of water can lead to drowning. Sure, obviously someone can be TOO SURE they've found the truth, but thinking you have does not obligate you to stop examining more beliefs.

More importantly, thinking you don't have the truth (which is reasonable) isn't the same as thinking there is no truth. That's an important distinction.

None of this changes the point I've been making over and over, however: if you want to say there's no truth, fine. But if you think that, then the act of argumentation makes no sense, and neither does having opinions with any real conviction, either. Saying there's no truth doesn't just invalidate my claims, it invalidates yours, too. It's a very short-sighted argument because it inherently undercuts even itself.

No, I understand just fine. I'm simply using a rhetorical question to demonstrate that it's not a good comparison.

Well, yeah, you would, because it's another example of responding to a simple question with a hazy non-sequitur. I asked you what it would take for you to believe government statistics, and you've suggested you might if they took care of poor people.

How is it "twisting" things to point out that you're disagreeing with stuff you're not reading?

The fact that you didn't look at the statistics is the whole point, dude. You say you don't think I'm trying to understand you, but at the same time you admit to not really reading or caring about what I'm saying, and not even looking at the things you're replying with.

I don't really understand how experience relates to it. I'm pointing out that there appears to be a double standard here: skepticism about some things, but not others. Genuinely skeptical people don't pick and choose what to be skeptical of. And if they're not evenhanded, they're MORE skeptical of the things they want to believe or already believe, because we're all human and need to counteract our natural desire to interrogate other ideas more than our own.

Yeah, wouldn't that be lame, if you dug up a source and someone dismissed it out of hand? I wonder what that's like. :indifferent:

Look, you said you trust independent sources, so I've asked for independent sources with information on gun violence. It's a really simple, relevant request, and after like five replies I haven't gotten anywhere with it. Which makes me think these opinions aren't really based in anything other than exactly what I suggested from the beginning: anecdotal media coverage.

"Tried your luck"? You Googled something, didn't read it, and then posted it without realizing or caring it was talking about something else. You basically just threw a random link at me to get me off your back. You didn't make any serious attempt at understanding what I was saying or trying to communicate with me at all. It's a little insulting, frankly.

It still can be, but great discussions involve give and take, not just making a bunch of claims and then following them up with vague philosophy when someone asks about them.

It's also what people think before they've really had time to consider something properly. The problems we're talking about are not things people just know in the moment, they're hard problems that require serious thought. Those kinds of things are not better off-the-cuff.

Alright. What do they have to say about gun violence?

I literally have no idea what else you could mean. Please stop accusing me of trying to misunderstand you. There is a language barrier, and you have a very stream-of-consciousness style of responding. Both make it very difficult to understand what you're saying. I'm not upset about that, and I'm happy to take the time to try to figure it out, so long as you don't act like it's my fault when I don't.

We haven't been talking about the meme for quite awhile now. You obviously said all sorts of other things after that. You didn't just post a meme and then get hit with a bunch of questions. You said many, many accusatory things, I took issue with one or two, and it went from there.

guess you understood some things about what i'm trying to paint here.
------
doing some effort not to answer most of the things you said, because it's more twists, but it'll worth,
i'd probably arrive at the same destination again, so, why bother?
but you got some of the picture in your upper quotation.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

The thing is, I'm not sure you understand the implications of that.

If you wanna throw up your hands and say "who knows what's true?" that's the kind of philosophical axiom I can't really argue with. Frankly I wish more people were closer to that position, most of the time. But that's not what you're doing. You're expressing all sorts of very strong opinions, and you're even arguing with others about them...it's only when they argue back that we get all "what is truth anyway?" Which seems a little convenient.

I have zero issue with it if you want to say none of this stuff is really knowable. But I don't see how that belief is consistent with all the stuff you posted initially, which is conspicuously missing that kind of epistemological humility.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Yeah, but humans are not wired to operate that way. You can easily say there’s no arrival at truth and assert a strong claim at the same time. We certainly have the ability to rise above this trait, yes, but I think most of humanity has had an affinity for speaking about things as if they were truth.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I mean, we're "not wired to operate that way" in the sense that we're wired to behave in irrational ways sometimes, especially when we're worked up about something, but it's not a good thing. And it's a fair thing to note when that manifests itself in telling people on the Internet what's wrong with their beliefs or country.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I’d say it’s one of the best things about being human. That propensity for madness. It is part of what has driven us. I mean, people connected globally with screens of information. That’s just insane, yo!

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

Heh. I'd make a distinction between madness in the "dream big" sense, which is awesome, and genuine/literal irrationality, in the "these two things are logically inconistent" sense.

Creativity and logic may not marry very well, but there's nothing inherently at odds about them.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I’d wager some of the greatest inventions were derived from logical incoherency. I’d have to think about it for a moment but I’m trying to rip a bandaid off my leg right now, so all I know right now is pain.

Re: Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left
 

I'm not sure how we could determine that, but I don't think it matters. Whatever the merits of unconventional or irrational thinking in total (though it's worth noting that to be tangibly useful, they have to become coherent/rational at some point), obviously it's a problem in argumentation. If someone wants to say otherwise, well, then I need not refute them, since their own position allows me whatever degree of irrationality I like. ;)

Good luck with the band-aid. Oof.