Recent comments

Rambler wrote

Sorry for the inconvenience. This is done on purpose because of the amount of abuse, spam registrations and posts that happens through Tor.

In the meantime, please consider using I2P or Yggdrasil if you'd like to also post from an alternative network. Tor is on time-out until we can figure out a way to make it not just a ripe avenue of abuse and spam. =/

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smallpond OP wrote

If we're more in agreement, all good. There are many people who consider government inherently evil, and simply want as little of it as possible.

place where free speech can be used as a tool to bring disparate groups into alignment

You seem to be on some odd do-gooder crusade... I hope that feels nice. If you want to bring groups into alignment, focus on the people physically close to you who actually matter, then slowly work outwards.

This website doesn't need to come into alignment, it just needs to be a place where people can speak. It's far better that we all disagree as much as possible. Coming into alignment means becoming just another moronic circlejerk unaccepting of outsiders.

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takeheart wrote

Speed up the film, Zenen, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Environmentalism? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!

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Zenen wrote

I'm reading your response like you chose to interpret what I said in a controversial way so that you might have a reason to disagree with me. Regardless - I agree with you, I think that what you call 'corruption' is a consequence of what I call 'bloat'.

I also think that governance is a useful & necessary tool to getting human beings to work together... I have just never seen it scale past a city-state level without starting to collapse in on itself.

Re: establishing common ground, finding agreement is what makes the difference between this website being a platform being an excuse to get into arguments on the internet versus a place where free speech can be used as a tool to bring disparate groups into alignment so that we can talk about things like "how do we learn to self-govern and create systems that work for everyone rather than only the wealthy?"

Question: what do you think about digitalized democracy? It seems to be a way to create a "belevolent dictator" that is resistant to some of the corrupting influences that humans fall victim to.

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Zenen wrote

I don't have the time to watch a documentary, but it seems like you're on the same page as Wahaha and smallpond in the opinion that corrupt governments are creating problems for the common population and not acting with citizen's interests in mind.

Mind giving me the thesis of Planet Of The Humans?

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Zenen wrote

Okay, while I don't know if we see democracy the same way (I think that what we refer to democracy is actually oligarchy wearing a funny hat), I definitely agree that we need to do away with systems that divide populations that need to stand together and fight for common goals - the net survival & prosperity of as much life on this planet as possible is what I'm after. What banner do you want to see people unifying under?

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Zenen wrote

It's a rock in space that somehow underwent abiogenesis to bring about living organisms. Separating the substrate of life from the things that grow out of it is like separating the laws of thermodynamics from the fact that the self-replication of life itself is a force that actively fights against entropy.

Also, we have no idea what creates consciousness, but we are far from the only example of interconnected neurons and synapses on the planet. Did you know that trees send signals to one-another through fungal networks that connect their roots to one another? Maybe they know something about interdimensional travel.

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Wahaha wrote

No, it is based on the laws of thermodynamics. There is no cherry picking of data, because it is not based on data points. It's just a consequence of how the universe works. The sun is burning something. Once this resource is exhausted the sun will go dark. It will never go back to providing "green energy". Everything in the universe is like that. The only way to prevent the heat death of the universe is to reverse entropy. That is like traveling back in time. Impossible.

So going to other planets isn't a solution. We have to actually leave this universe. Whether this is even possible or not, I do not know. But if we do not, we will 100% perish in the future.

The Earth is not alive. It's a rock in space. Whether it has living organisms on it or not doesn't matter to the rock in space.

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Wahaha wrote

The problem with government is the blatant corruption. I think the things you perceive as bloat were things added to reduce the corruption, but it isn't working.

The core problem is that democracy is an awful system, where you essentially give power to the people that have a big influence. So essentially rule of the rich by proxy of exchangeable puppets.

To solve the core problem of government being "incompetent" you have to solve the corruption, which you cannot do in a democracy.

Compare this with a monarchy where at the end of the day you have someone actually responsible. In a monarchy you at least need to keep everyone from hating you so much that they would go out and kill you. Not in a democracy. If any puppet gets a bit of heat the puppet is exchanged and then it is business as usual.

If the puppet tries doing things itself you just assassinate it.

The core problem is democracy.

It is designed to divide a people who should stand united. To divide them on as many issues as possible.

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smallpond OP wrote

Yes, I probably disagree with that. It's not that they're bloated, it's that they've been completely corrupted so that they no longer serve the interests of citizens. Big government is probably the only way to attempt to tackle societal problems, but unfortunately the world seems to lack benevolent dictators.

We're here on this website, that's all we need to agree on. There is no need to establish common ground.

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takeheart wrote

Reply to About IQ by Wahaha

IQ is statistical test about sorting geometrical figures, not a real property of man. I remember what Shulgin wrote about IQ tests. I remember my own experience where I was accused cheating. In this wall of greentext I can believe claims about mapping, and that's about it. Claims about empathy are especially out of place.

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Zenen wrote

One of the great things about a website like this is that it offers a bridge between people who live in different realities. We live in a post-truth world, which means that what is 'true' for you is not necessarily 'true' for someone else. What we can do is establish common ground between people who carry different views than us by finding things that we agree on and building on that as a foundation.

Seems like everyone in this thread agrees that national politics and governance systems are overly bloated and unhelpful towards solving the problems that we face on a personal scale, anybody disagree with that? /u/Wahaha /u/takeheart

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