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I think it's a common misconception that Buddhism teaches asceticism. The Buddha tried this and actually says it's generally not a good thing to do. Instead, he says others should opt for the "middle way." If we did not postpone/filter our desires through our reason when they arise, the world would be filled with rapists, murderers, and so on. Buddhism does say trying to fulfill desire is pointless, but it is also unavoidable. You should just be non-attached while partaking in them so as to not self inflict pain.
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Would you like to post which model you prefer RM? At least then it will give some of us the ability to poke potential holes in the actual beliefs of flat-Earthers.
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@zedvictor4
If there was a lower population, there would also be fewer doctors. It appears that the number of doctors scales with population size. What exactly makes someone "useful" in your eyes? Being useful to someone is not necessarily just being beneficial to the economy. Being useful could simply entail being a kind and lovely conversationalist. Maybe being useful is just being liked. Many aged pensioners do not offer society much in terms of economics anymore, but they certainly still have their usefulness in a family and community as a sentient being, person, and presence.
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@Yassine
Maybe you should've thought about that for a minute before you jumped the gun... I mentioned *native* Qataris, who constitute a tenth of the total population of Qatar, who also happen to be obscenely rich. The rest are immigrants who came to work in the country leaving their families back home. Of course Qatar is gunna have low birth rates stats, since the children of most residents in the country are born & live somewhere else.
Poorer immigrants always tend to have higher birthrates than the native people. Would you like to give a source proving either this wrong or that the Qatari's have higher birthrates than the immigrants?
You do have a tendency to skip a thought or two... How very convenient of you to ignore the fact that European Muslims still do have high birth rates: around 3 in countries like France & the UK for instance, about double that of the natives.
I did not find it very relevant to comment on, when we can already see the demographic decline in many middle eastern nations begin. In just the last 20 years many of them had birthrates per woman at over 4+ now many are only at replacement level at 2.2, like turkiye. Its only going to get worse in these nations. This source suggests, an immigrants birthrates mirrors its home countries. With the decline of Muslim birthrates beginning to happen, the immigrants from these nations will have less children too.
I wouldn't be so sure about that... the average income of Europe post WWII is less than the average income of Africa today. So, maybe by a couple of decades.
I'm not sure where you have got that information from. Would you like to cite this statement?
Time has told. Muslims always have higher birth rates, wherever they are. Evidently due to strong Family values. For instance, the countries with least female participation in workforce are all Muslim countries. Muslim women would rather leave their jobs & take care of their families.
You appear to be having contradictory statements. At one minute Europeans dominated the worlds population, the next minute Muslims always have higher birthrates. If Muslims always had higher birthrates it would be demographically impossible for Europeans to have ever surpassed them. Muslims currently have higher birthrates because they're generally poorer. Its mostly because of that. Muslim nations are usually significantly poorer.
- Evidence for what?! That abandoning Family in favor of Labour does not lead to lower birth rates?
well im sure we would both agree having women in the workplace does affect birthrates. But im asking how much? i want to know how much. Is it 0.1 births per woman or 1.2 births per woman? clearly the latter is much worse than the former, and if it is the case may make us have a broader discussion on whether the way the west currently functions is viable.
China in the 1800's represented 30% of the world's population, and India, 21%.- English, learn it. I said "by the end of the 19th century". There wasn't much global Colonialism in the 1800s was there! Regardless, in the 1900s, Western population (Europe, America & settlements) accounted for some 38% of global population, & the combined population of China & India accounted for some 41%.
You are aware the 1800's are the 19th century, no? if you actually wanted a 20th century demographic i can get you that too, but not much changed. heres another demographic map This map tells us the British empire constituted 23% of the worlds population. But if we click the "show" button on the British empire, we find out 300 million of that demographic was from Indians, not Europeans. You could add Britain, France, and the United states' population together in the 19th century and it still wasn't more than India. You're also once more still counting all of Europe vs. one country, which is ridiculous. If i counted the white declining population in the modern day, it still accounts for at least 500 million people on Earth, so still relative to India. Why are you counting the entirety of Europe vs. one country?
You're proving my case. The major European -later Colonial- states then (according to your own source) constituted a quarter of global population, also making up almost the entirety of Europe's population.
Yes, it makes sense for an entire continent to have 15% of the worlds population. This is still relatively the case with Europe. Its just now not dominated by France, Germany and the UK anymore and Are you saying Britain was capable of doing what it did purely because of its population's size? that once more i find ridiculous. Britain had technological advantages. Do you really think the British empire in the 1800's was sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight in other continents? That's just not practical. We can see how Russia can barely send its army past its own borders in the modern day. What really happened is what you said, Indians sold one another out. Backstabbing each other, which let the British take advantage. Not manpower, but tactics and timing.
- Your ignorance keeps showing. There was no India in the 1800s. The Indian Subcontinent then had more states & kingdoms than Europe.
Relevant how? they're still the ethnic predecessors of modern day Indians. I know it isnt modern day india.
Here again you are proving my point. The Ottomans had less people than individual European countries like France, UK, Germany... (their predecessors) each. European population increased from 80 million in mid 17th century to some 500 million by the end of the 19th century.
So much for Muslims always having higher birthrates.
Yet, we consistently across the board see Muslims having higher birth rates than their counterparts everywhere in the world, no matter the income level, education, contraception access & everything in between. In Africa, Muslim nations always have higher birthrates than their Christian neighbors. Even within single nations, Muslims always have the highest birthrates. In India, more than Hindus. In Nigeria, more than Christians. In Palestine, more than Jews...etc.
Muslims within these nations are also much poorer and less educated on average. Again, im confident Muslim's demographics will fall. I'll listen to the experts. We can look at historic trends and see Muslims don't always have children the faster either. That's just not true. You will see your demographics fall below replacement.
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@Yassine
Wrong. Qatar is the richest nation on Earth & its native population still boasts +4 in fertility, one of the highest in the world. Even in the "richer" West, Muslims still have high birth rates (around 3 in countries like France & the UK).
That's not true. Qatar has a below replacement rate birthrate of 1.8. It is only going to get lower. Give them time, and they will catch up with the Europeans and North East Asians. We must remember that Europe has been prospering for much longer than these richer Middle East counter parts. Time will tell. If you're going to make these statements, you're going to need evidence to support them. You critique me for saying things with no evidence, speaking them into reality, but are you not doing the same if I'm guilty of it?
False. You seem to believe that if you say it magically becomes true. – The West's total population by the end of the 19th century was a third of global population, equivalent to China's & India's combined. & In terms of urban population -which is the effective population- they had more than two thirds.
China in the 1800's represented 30% of the world's population, and India, 21%. France and Britain were 5%, respectively. Maybe they're equal if you're counting literally every nation in Europe? And if you are counting every nation in Europe, that is nonsense. The French didn't add their army or men to the British army to take over India. It was Britain that took over India, with France as its main competitor. It should also be noted that this is counting British and French possessions, so colonises and not just the ethnic French and British.
We're seeing it. In 100 years, the Middle East will not be any different from Europe. In 200 years, Africa won't be either. Time will prove me right as Qatar and its neighbours have lower and lower birthrates. There are, of course, a million factors that go into a country's birthrates, from access to contraceptives and values, although the biggest factor is definitely wealth and education, not so much Islam.
Women being in the workplace also affects birthrates, but not having women in the workplace is even worse and could strip many western nations of hundreds of billions, if not into the trillions, of their GDP if women were to be taken out. making everyone collectively poorer. It's also very hard to raise a child on one person's income unless they have an affluent job. Which isnt many people, most people needed their mothers to be working growing up to have a decent life themselves.
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@Yassine
Population collapse has little to do with the LGBTQ community and more so to do with economics and technological availability. We can see these same demographic falls in China, despite them, as you yourself say, not being feminist in the least. This is also true in Korea and Japan. It has nothing to do with feminism and more so with industrialisation, cost of living and the availability of material options. Islamic nations will catch up the west in poor birthrates too when they get richer as nations.
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The west has also never really had a population advantage over the rest of the world, only coming close to China or India's populations during the industrial revolution. The west conquered most of the world through superior technology tactics and overall being less divided than other places, which constantly are infighting like china and India. Not population.
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@oromagi
You were purely hoping for a semantics-based win. Which a lot of the more prominent voters on the site seem to prefer (which I think is awful for intellectual progress in discussion). I'm actually glad most people looked past the semantics of that debate and instead decided to vote on whether it should be considered slavery. Most debates are won on semantics. People just run to definitions and discussions never really get off the ground, even when the opposing side makes more sense. In ancient Greek debates, if they found a contradiction, or a definition outside the norm made more sense than the primary definition, both parties would agree to use the new definition to find a more sound conclusion. That doesn't happen on this site, it seems. That's the core of Socrates's method of finding truth, poking holes in commonly held beliefs and usages of language.
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If people refused to consider enslaving black people as slavery because they were black and not white (as in we made that the definition of slavery when one is only white), you would have a permanent semantic pivot to never consider enslaving black people as an equal wrong as a white person. Based on semantics alone, this is an issue.
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@3RU7AL
do you not believe there can be aspects to a truth, or multiple moral truths? I don't think truth has to be black and white, where something is either true or untrue, something can be partly true, partly true without error even, but not the whole truth. It seems to me that two people can have correct assessments of a situation, person or thing, while their perspectives are polar opposites, its only when we synthesise the two do we find a more complete truth. This could arguably go on ad infininitum. Is there a limit to the body of knowledge, and therefore truth? the philosophy you promote seems to think "yes", to that answer.
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@3RU7AL
Well im saying gods preference could change infinitely. Maybe he does have a best solution within that moment, but its only the objectively right course of action from one perspective, but from another perspective another way of acting is the best way, therefore god experiments with them all infinitely, as they're all infinitely as good as one another. I also like to think of time as not linear, but existing all at once, therefore god could experience past, present, future all at once, making all decisions at once. That doesn't mean he didnt actually make those decisions, as in reality all that exists for him is the present, he is simply present within all tenses.
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I of course don't think god is a he, i just see no issue with using he as a placeholder, it feels strange to me.
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@3RU7AL
Well, I would say what is the "best" move is rather subjective. Maybe moral arguments such as that work against a Christian or Abrahamic god. Not so much as other hypothetical conceptions. I, for instance, don't believe in good or bad, in the common sense most people seem to. I don't put prescriptions on what God creates as necessarily "better". Its certainly not hypocritical to imagine he does either. What he creates as the best may change infinitely.
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@3RU7AL
I hope i haven't missed your reasoning as to why God does not have free will. Can you give me your perspective on why you think he couldn't? I probably wouldn't disagree with you on him only being capable of acting on his nature. I would just argue that his nature is infinite by necessity and therefore he has infinite options within his nature. From this free will is performativity and intellectually preserved.
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@3RU7AL
Although I cannot demonstrate it in the way I would like, assuming that everything is the I-gap or God, When things "influence" us outside of ourselves, Or another takes something from them. We, in actuality, take something from ourselves. Do we not? So no one's separate will is in reality being snuffed out except through the illusion of a different will or separation. In this view, it appears to me that it is only ignorance that leads to a lack of free will or the perception of a lack of free will. If God in fact does put these conditions on his own will, such as allowing natural disasters, he doesn't actually lose any free will, as that is the exercise of his own free will, and he experiences said disasters along with and through us consensually. Am I missing something in your analysis?
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@3RU7AL
Sorry for not replying to your last message, for some reason i must of not noticed it. I think premise 3 needs more justification.
"3) let's consider based on at least a small shred of logic, what could be in that pesky i-gap that might actually be an influence. well, whatever is in that i-gap can't be influenced since it is inside something defined as an influence-gap. so maybe there's an uninfluenced-influence in that i-gap; we could call it something mysterious like, an uncaused-cause, or maybe a first-cause, or better yet ex-nihilo. could that uncaused-cause be influenced or originated by anything at all? no, of course not because it's in the i-gap and it is defined as being uncaused. so could a human take credit for a decision or action that emerged from the i-gap? how could they possibly take credit or be responsible for something they had no conceivable control over? anything emerging from the i-gap would be indistinguishable from a random event. and randomness is incompatible with choice."
What if the human being is the I-gap, or the uncaused cause? As a pantheist, that's exactly what I believe. I believe the self, or the pure awareness of being, is infinite in nature. You later seem to address this argument by saying it is no different from randomness. How is that so? I get the sense you believe that more so because you still create a distinction between "I" and the I-gap. When you claim and point out something is an uncaused cause, what is it causing except itself? Therefore, the I-gap can cause itself but nothing outside of itself, unless I've missed something in your analysis?
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Almost every line you wrote has some level of hypocrisy to it. Your ability to moan and whine about votes and other users' actions begs to differ that you're not interested in how your "enemies" should act. I'm unsure why you think your moaning and whining and mass reporting is making any of your allies particularly happy. It seems much more likely to me that you do such things to get people to stop doing things you don't like, as opposed to making allies happy.
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If I see a post where someone has been reported, I've come to associate and assume it's RM who has made the report. I believe it's his goal to make enemies of every individual on the site. We can know with a high likelihood it was RM who reported undefeatable. For god knows what reason, RM acts as a defacto mod. He even reported Bearman's debate because he said "he wanted a free win." It only takes one look at his about me to understand what type of person he is. Homelander is very fitting. He considers himself some sort of divine, special miracle. Above the rest of humanity, he is the saviour of this site. He also finds some way to talk about how good he is at something, whether it is his intellect or his ability to sexually please women.
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users
3RU7AL
Bones
Novice_II
debates
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@3RU7AL
I think there are a million factors that go into how much free will someone has, such as education and wealth. Once more, though, free will isn't an issue for me if I believe we all share the same will. The questions you're posing against me are more issues for non-pantheists. In my pantheist worldview, when you limit someone else's ability, all you really do is limit your own. We all then, within my worldview, possess a responsibility to aid one another if someone is disadvantaged by someone's advantage. I believe the world is such a horrible place for 80% of the worlds population precisely because of this sense of separation from one another. We do not foster love nor true comfort and community within one another. Everyone is a threat. I don't think we need to think in black and white terms in regards to free will, we can have free will to act in some circumstances, yet our free can be snuffed by a greater collective free will of others.
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@3RU7AL
If everyone had free will, it stands to reason that others' wills would occasionally clash with yours. Meaning, you cannot always have what you want if others also want or don't want you to have it. That doesn't mean you don't have free will or choice; your choices just necessarily become limited based on others' choices, we then necessarily collectively share the same will. As a pantheist, this isn't a problem for me. An atheist, maybe so.
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If free will exists we have control to make of ourselves what we want of ourselves.
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@K_Michael
I personally don't have much of a view of Mormons. I don't believe I've ever met any in real life. In terms of second-hand knowledge, they appear to be a bit more quiet than other sects of Christianity, but maybe that's more to do with them having fewer followers. Although I am not a Christian, I tend to have a profound respect for most organised religions, so i personally don't dislike them.
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i think public choice should be a mod. I think they would do a really good job of it.
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@Avery
Men tend to be more attracted to more neonotenous traits in women, such as larger eyes and just in general, youthful features. I can't remember where I read it, and I can't seem to find it now. Although most men do see strong bone structures as masculine. A woman can have high cheekbones and still look feminine. She can even have a jawline and look feminine. It's just harder to pull it off on average, it seems. A weak chin does not necessarily make a girl look more attractive than a well-developed one, but it certainly does not make her look more masculine to have a weak chin. A weak chin on a man makes him look more feminine on average. Which just means a woman can get away with having a weak chin or a negative canthal tilt easier than a man can, as it doesn't change their sexual dimorphism profile.
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@Avery
I personally can quite like a girl with short hair, as long as it looks healthy and she doesn't look sick. Most female models also do not look anything special to me. They tend to have very masculine bone structures when a more moon face shaped has been shown to be generally preferred by men in the modern day. Although i would agree with you that it is probably very silly to believe all our beauty standards are cultural. It seems much more likely to me that it would take vast amounts of socialisation to get us to stop liking some physical features.
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@ILikePie5
I wouldn't be surprised. Look at RM's habit of blocking individuals. I get the sense he may be a little bit trigger happy with the ban button too. Thankfully, he has to go through the mods to do that (I believe). If RM does ban people for insulting others, he ought to ban himself before anyone else. He can be very insulting, especially to voters or those who question his abilities. Considering how much the mods get hassled on this site, I believe it may be fun to see RM get hassled the same way too, and see how he handles it. As long as he's on a tight leash by the mod team, it might be fun to see.
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@Vader
If the president is meant to be a bridge between site users and site mods, I can't imagine RM being a good president. He seems to be arguing with a mod every other day about something. The Site president should be someone who can be a mediator between the two, so that both parties can be satisfied. I believe 3RU7AL fulfils this criteria much more than RM does.
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@Vader
I agree. As others have already suggested, i also think 3RU7AL would be a good temporary president.
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@zedvictor4
3 months isn't enough time to notice his erratic and sometimes spiteful behaviour? As I said, I wouldn't trust that man to make me a sandwich. I don't need to be here for 2 years to notice these patterns, do i?
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@zedvictor4
I wouldn't trust RM to make me a sandwich.
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what is the dart president even meant to do?
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Shila has spoken to me in private messages so that theory is obviously wrong. She just ignored them. That or this NASA programmer is working around the clock. Or lemming is right and they're on and off, where the bot sometimes takes over. I'm not intelligent enough to figure it out i don't believe, RM may be capable of the job.
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@Vader
you can google a Chatbot, and talk with them on the internet. Chabot's which have entire teams behind them and they're less comprehensible than shila.
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If shila is a chat bot, whoever created it should be working for the US government. She is the most advanced chatbot on the planet if she is one.
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I watched bleach many years ago, i dropped it in the end. I cant remember the reason exactly, i think it was because they were running up some stairs for what seemed like 100 episodes. Maybe im conflating it with another anime.
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@Shila
Sounds like RM must be projecting then.
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4D Why are you so obsessed with finding people's alts? Are you a mod or something? It must be an ego-boosting Sherlock Holmes thing for you or something. That or you feel like you have some control over your life through pointing out others' alt accounts.
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@rbelivb
Dating apps are only getting more popular. I believe over 50% of relationships are formed online in the modern day and it is only skyrocketing. Nothing is going to change. I imagine the incel epidemic is going to get worse and worse for the time being. The internet is largely to blame for it.
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If push comes to shove, we ought to make RM head moderator. As the greatest tactician and innovator on the planet, we can sleep well knowing the site will be in the good hands when he steps up. When RM is president, he will usher in the golden age of debate through his tactical genius and his 4D unthinkable maneuvers. These maneuvers will be completely incomprehensible to 90% of the lowly vile human population. Such is life when you're as smart as his highness.
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@Shila
Don't you find it weird that RM's mind wished to use his sexual pleasing skills as his example of "adapting in the jungle" when he could have said literally anything else? He didn't even have to bring himself into the discussion and what he's good at, especially not with something so weird.
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What does being able to "sexually please women very well" have to do with anything else you said RM? it sounds so out of place. Is being able to sexually please women "very well" meant to make you less misogynistic or something?
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I've never heard truer words "no life, no problem" - mahatma Ghandi
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@Intelligence_06
Not unless that pedo is kin jong un.
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@Novice_II
That makes it even better then. I would nominate Bones and whiteflame for their abortion debate.
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@Sidewalker
Space as we know it to be possesses 4 Dimensions. One of them is time, which we cannot see unless we were in 4D. Which may explain why we cannot understand how it looks for something to be expanding while only expanding into itself while possessing shape. I think Aristotle is wrong for thinking infinites cannot exist, if he believed that. Saying we cannot know is one thing - saying they cannot is another.
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@Sidewalker
The idea that space is expanding is based on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, and backed by Hubble’s observation of Redshift. The General Theory of Relativity says space has a shape, if it has a shape then it isn’t infinite. The Standard Model of Cosmology presupposes a Big Bang universe expanding from a point in time and space, because you can’t traverse and infinite either spatially or temporally, both the Standard Model of Cosmology and the General Theory of Relativity explicitly deny the proposition that the universe is infinite. If it was infinite, it couldn’t be expanding, it’s also logically and cognitively inconceivable that an actual infinity could exist. If an actual infinity did exist we could not confirm it through observation because there would be no way to measure it. If I did exist, there is no way for us to know it.
For something to have shape it must have dimensions. As such, even a flat surface has shape - by virtue of it having at least one dimension. There is no contradiction nor shared consensus on whether the universe is infinite or not. We don't know if there is an issue with infinity. I would wager there isn't as it isn't contradictory to imagine something being infinite. It is perfectly logical to imagine a flat plain going on forever. 0 x 0 also always equals 0. Would you claim there is an issue with that and that we cannot find 0 of something in the real world?
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I think it would be wonderful to have more people on the site. Just having 10,000 members would be enough. It doesn't have to be DDO big.
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