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trump is just causing chaos. he's breaking a lot of things, but not really changing the deficit much. moderate republicans are fighting him on things that would really change the deficit, spending to the people. trump will probably just cause the deficit to spiral out of control and not change anything, just like last term. he's catering to the least common denominator, people's worst impulses, giving the people money at the expense of the younger generation.
so what should be done? a two percent wealth tax on the top one percent of wealth, and maybe cutting all spending by ten percent.
the top one percent own about 45 trillion worth of wealth. a two percent wealth tax would raise about 900 billion dollars per year. we spend about four or five trillion a year, so cutting that would save another 4 or 500 billion per year. our deficit is 1.8 trillion.
these measures would get our deficit down to where it grows about the same rate as our economy, which means it's under control. this is all without major shock to the population, and just taking a little off the top from the wealthy. the wealthy probably wouldn't move to another country just because of a two percent wealth tax.
if we wanted to raise a little more, it could make the tax on the top two percent of wealth, or top 5. i dont think we're desperate enough to need it on the top ten percent of wealth.
a wealth tax also forces people to pay who use loop holes to get their declared income close to zero for tax purposes.
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Tax Cuts Are Primarily Responsible for the Increasing Debt Ratio
Without the Bush and Trump tax cuts, debt as a percentage of the economy would be declining permanently.
it's completely irresponsible to put the government's spending on our credit card, like reagan, bush jr, and trump did. the article shows if they hadn't done that, our debt would be permanently manageable. so what do these goons do? they cut taxes primarily for the wealthy and then try to find ways to cut spending to regular people. republians just passed a resolution that they want to cut one and a half trillion per year from the budget. the only way to do that, is to cut medicaid to the poor and food stamps, among other things. every other civiilized society knows it's just part of living in a civilized socieity that you provide these services. i think the conservatives who wanna cut these things, aren't enlightened compared to the rest of civilized society... no, these conservatives including you guys here, are brainwashed. half of conservatives dont know that trump is trying to attack their welfare, given red states take in disproportionately more in these services than blue states. and the ones that do know better, are stupid and brainwashed. that's all conservatives are on these issues... ignorant, stupid, and/or brainwashed.
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Don't you pay attention to lib talking points or the news? The cost of living is way out of whack. The average house now is 400k, whereas in the 70s it was way less even after inflation. Education costs tens of thousands when before it's a few hundred or thousand, cause they privatized colleges. Healthcare was was less now it's 18% of our gdp, which also isn't competitive with other countries who spend half as much and cover everyone with less wait times and better in general. The minimum wage in the 70s was 15 bucks after inflation and is only 7 and change now. Wages just tread water and have barely gone up after inflation over decades.
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Our country is headed for bankruptcy. I don't see any realistic ways of remedy that in the foreseeable future. Given violent revolutions r sometimes morally justifiable, such as the revolution that began our country, couldn't a violent revolt be justifiable now, and if so couldn't a lawless coup also be justifiable?
For example, the usaid thing or the department of education or half of what trumps attacking trump has no legal authority to stop. Right now there's talk of this all being temporary but if that's the case, it was just chaos and destruction for no reason. But what if trump tries to make it permanent? Would it only last till the next president takes over to reestablish the rule of law? What if trump does what the libs were mocked for sayin he would do, and tries to establish a dictatorship? Would that be ethical?
I know I was playing devils advocate but I believe in democracy. If we destroy ourselves, we deserve whatever fate we get. Lawless coups r not justifiable.
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i mean, i can relate. the federal government is bloated and often dysfunctional. but how does slashing over half the work force help? i think laymen like me and you just go with our gut... my gut says maybe some good could come of it, but in order to effectively implement our laws like the president and executive branch is suppose to do, we need people who can make the details operate correctly. didn't they say they want to cut two thirds of the federal work force? while i can sympathize with trimming bloated government, i can't help but think getting rid of that many people will just lead to poorly ran and implemented laws and government.
trump's first term was chaos and dysfunction. it seems like his second term will be the same thing, on steroids.
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First corporations and foreigners shouldn't even be allowed to own houses
Next, to discourage rich people from hoarding property at the expense of others, the second house they own should be taxed at 10 percent of the profits, third house at 20 percent profits, and so forth, up to 90 percent tax on 10th and all subsequent houses.
Apartment buildings should be taxed the same way, except it's not based on number of apartments but number of buildings. This would encourage efficiency in building and living
This all would lower house prices and encourage more home ownership
Why is this such a bad idea?
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The dude who exploded the cyber truck in nevada in his manifesto called out income inequality in the usa, and ultimately elevated trump and Elon musk as solutions to his grievances.
To me that doesn't make sense at all. But Which party to you is better at addressing income inequality and why?
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literally, of course they aren't asking to be raped or assaulted. but i saw an argument that got me thinking. true, just because you dress slutty doesn't mean you should be assaulted. and someone made an analogy... if you go out, does that mean someone can hit you in the head if you dont wear a helmet? no you shouldn't have to wear a helmet to avoid being hit in the head. but that got me thinking.... if i know there are people looking to hit me in the head when i go out, then it'd make sense to wear a helmet. so if women know there are lots of men looking to take advantage of them, doesn't it make sense not to dress slutty?
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The public sentiment on the intertubes is "fuck em". This insurance company leads the pack in denying claims, somewhere around a third of claims r denied. Some posts on the net are sayin vigilante justice is never acceptable, and those posts r actually getting down voted. There is a palpable bloodlust in public opinion from the masses, unsympathetic to the murder. The public knows enough to know health insurance companies are a middle man who serves no real purpose other than to leech money from healthcare and police coverage, deny claims. Of course the public doesn't realize that it's probably the hospital ceos who are just as if not more responsible for our exorbitant healthcare costs, although they aren't the ones denying insurance coverage.
What say you? Are you sympathetic? What do you think of the practical details of the assassination and of the politics surrounding it?
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trump says he wants universal care, but he's too incompetent to do anything smart in that regard. he tried to repeal Obamacare, but John McCain was the deciding vote to stop him. he tried to take away people's healthcare, without a replacement. then, in this election, he said his tinkering with Obamacare is what saved Obamacare. he didn't do anything constuctive with it, and only damaged it, yet tried to take credit for it. most experts think trump won't try to repeal Obamacare, cause it gives so many people healthcare, even early retirees and it's been the law for around fourteen years. so what will trump do this time? he'll probably gut the addded subsidides to make it more affordable. he'll turn it into a catastrophic plan essentially, and make it too expensive for most people to use, and many will drop it. that is a republican idea anyway, if they at least say they want universal care, catostrophic care. and then, in the next election cycle, he will simply say he saved Obamacare from imploding, and then blame a dysfunctional law, on Obama and the Democrats. that's the way trump operates, it's pretty predictable.
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two points to this debate... contradictions in the Catholic church and lack of evidence and contraindications in the early church for infallibility.
CONTRADICTIONS
an infallible church can't contradict itself when the pope teaches on faith and morals. that is self evident. however it contradicted itself on limbo, salvation of non catholics and the death penalty.
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limbo -
Popes of the Roman Catholic Church have taken four contrary positions regarding the fate of infants who die without baptism. The lot assigned by popes to the infants has gradually changed from including hell fire, through involving the pain of loss only and then no pain at all, to full beatitude in heaven.
The new Catechism, published by John Paul in 1992, encourages us to hope that unbaptized infants go to heaven.
“As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism.”
Answer: The Council of Florence stated the following about hell: The souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straight away to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains (Session 6 — July 6,1439).
The teaching of Carthage was infallibly approved as a rule of the Faith by Pope Zosimus and Pope Innocent I and by the ecumenical councils, which were approved by other popes.
“It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: “In my house there are many mansions”: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where happy infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God” [John 3:5], what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run into the left [cf. Matt. 25:41,46].”
“Babies dead without baptism go to Limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but neither do they suffer, because, having original sin alone, they do not deserve paradise, but neither do they merit hell or purgatory.” ~1905 Catechism of the Catholic Church
The XVI Council of Carthage (418) condemned the Pelagian fable that there is some place anywhere where infants who died without baptism live in happiness (Limbo).
The Council taught the Catholic doctrine that infants go into the fire to be eternally punished with the devil, being on the left hand at the judgement.
Pope Gregory the Great (-604) taught the eternal torment of infants in his Moralia on the Book of Job.
Gregory the Great: “For there be some that are withdrawn from the present light, before they attain to shew forth the good or evil deserts of an active life. And whereas the Sacraments of salvation do not free them from the sin of their birth, at the same time that here they never did aright by their own act; there they are brought to torment. And these have one wound, viz. to be born in corruption, and another, to die in the flesh. But forasmuch as after death there also follows, death eternal, by a secret and righteous judgment ‘wounds are multiplied to them without cause.’ For they even receive everlasting torments, who never sinned by their own will. And hence it is written, Even the infant of a single day is not pure in His sight upon earth. Hence ‘Truth’ says by His own lips, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Hence Paul says, We were by nature the children of wrath even as others. He then that adding nothing of his own is mined by the guilt of birth alone, how stands it with such an one at the last account, as far as the calculation of human sense goes, but that he is ‘wounded without cause?’ And yet in the strict account of God it is but just that the stock of mortality, like an unfruitful tree, should preserve in the branches that bitterness which it drew from the root. Therefore he says, For He shall break me with a tempest, and multiply my wounds without cause. As if reviewing the woes of mankind he said in plain words; ‘With what sort of visitation does the strict Judge mercilessly slay those, whom the guilt of their own deeds condemns, if He smites for all eternity even those, whom the guilt of deliberate choice does not impeach?’” (Moralia 9: 32)
According to Pope Innocent, infants suffer the pain of knowing that they have lost the vision of God but they do not have the pain of fire.
“Pope Innocent’s teaching is to the effect that those dying with only original sin on their souls will suffer ‘no other pain, whether from material fire or from the worm of conscience, except the pain of being deprived forever of the vision of God.’ It should be noted, however, that this poena damni incurred for original sin implied, with Abelard and most of the early Scholastics, a certain degree of spiritual torment.” (Toner, Catholic Encyclopedia 1910, Limbo)
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salvation of non catholics
noncatholics aren't saved versus they could be saved. the 'strict' teachings are bolstered by the fact that the laity and people in the church understood that no one could possibly be saved as a noncatholic when those teachings came down.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the phrase, "Outside the Church there is no salvation", means, if put in positive terms, that "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body", and it "is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church".[34] At the same time, it adds: "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men".[35] The Catechism also states that the Catholic Church "is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter", and that "those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways".[36]
Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (1441): "The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the 'eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels' (Matthew 25:41), unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church". The same council also ruled that those who die in original sin, but without mortal sin, will also find punishment in hell, but unequally: "But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains".[26]
Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved".[25]
morality of the death penalty
death penalty is admissible and morals versus it is inadmissible and immoral
In 2018, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised to read that "in the light of the Gospel" the death penalty is "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and that the Catholic Church "works with determination for its abolition worldwide."[3][4][5]
Pope Innocent I in his letter Ad Exsuperium, Episcopum Tolosanum (PL 20, 495) defended the death penalty:[11]
It must be remembered that power was granted by God, and to avenge crime the sword was permitted; he who carries out this vengeance is God's minister [Romans 13:1–4]. What motive have we for condemning a practice that all hold to be permitted by God? We uphold, therefore, what has been observed until now, in order not to alter the discipline and so that we may not appear to act contrary to God's authority.
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here is an article describing his supporters being low information
it also seems like they might have lower intelligence and critical thinking skills. i cant prove this point, but the low information thing looks to be true if you google credible google websites. now, trump supporters are disproportionately low formal education and blue collar. can people like me pick up on this via their poor reasoning and education? i think it's probably a noticeable thing if these facts are all true.
so it seems trump largely relies on low information voters, poorly educated voters, and his cult of personality and demagoguery.
what do we see on this website? a whole heck of a lot of poor reasoning ability from trump supporters. irrelevant arguments and denying all terms and conditions even when they are veritably true. a lot of alternative realities and 'alternative facts'.
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here's a study on trump's cult of personality and his supporters
now I know not everyone who votes for trump is part of the cult. there are many who are merely conservative and trump is generally conservative so they vote for him. in the primary, trump's cult and base is the biggest as per mob rule, such that he wins the primary even though he's not too popular overall. after winning the primary, even non cult supporters will pile on.
with all that said, do you who vote for trump acknowledge that trump mostly has been put into his position due to his cult of personality?
I feel like if you denied it, you would be denying reality as per the linked study. so defend the position that trumpism isn't a cult, if that's your position.
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Instead of accepting evidence of the supernatural, many skeptics reject the science and revert to thinking naturalism explains everything. It's nothing more than "science can't explain it, but it WILL". They can then reject anything and everything, and they do. "I don't have an answer... but my answer is right"
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questions, comments, words of wisdom?
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the beast is awakening...
destruction is at hand...
let the bodies hit the floor
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Which would you rather have? Im mostly curious how many would say a comfortable lie
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i know i'm condemned cause i have eaten carrots. but i still have converted to Carrot God. let Carrot God be true, though every man a liar. if Carrot God condemns me, i deserve to be condemned.
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the problem is that the republicans would attack any tax increases and eventually get it lowered. which would result effectively with lowered spending. since democrats dont want that, i can see why they dont like negotiating on it.
yes, spending needs lowered, but it's more of a structural problem than bad programs, for the most part. we have a meager welfare state. so cuts to that would be hurting regular people. our defense is bigger than the next ten countries combined, and our medicare/medicaid is the same size as other countries even though they cover everyone while we only cover half our population with government healthcare. point, the healthcare is bloated. and they've been borrowing against social security for decades and now it's time to start paying it back. these are the real drivers of the debt, not welfare, yet these are imp;ossibile to cut politically.
if someone could be a dictator, they could increase taxes and decrease spending, with a scalpel approach, trim the fat. i remember john mccain and obama had that debate... should we take an ax to spending or a scalpel? back then, i thought ax... but after seeing the budget quiz with committee for a responsible budget, i see that we can get our debt to a managemable level with just scalpel level spending cuts.
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trump has been winning in the polls for a long time. it looks like he's going to win the election. biden has refused to make ukraine negotiate with russia, but trump will probably force a negotiation. that's what russia wanted not long after the war began, but ukraine and biden wasn't having it. since ukraine is dependent on the usa, the usa has the power to end the war within a week, or thereabouts, as long as russia is willing to talk, which i bet they still would. trump wants to look like the cause of the war end, and russia wants trump to look good... so ukraine will probably be forced to give up some of their eastern territory that speaks and is ethnically russian. then, both countries will acknowledge their concession and both sides will declare victory. that's how diplomacy works in the real world.
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Trump was convicted of falsifying business records, which normally is a misdemeanor. No worse than and actually less serious than shop lifting. It only becomes felonious when fraud was also committed. The jury I think didn't agree what fraud was committed, just that there was fraud.
So it looks like the reasoning is circular... it's fraud, just because it's fraud. It's a felony, just because it's a felony.
It's all a joke anyways. Who cares if he trying to hide hush money? It's like Bill Clinton lying about a blow job. Who really cares? At most its just a technicality, cause dems r weak politically.
I don't even support trump. But I can call a witch hunt a witch hunt when I see it
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Instead of just listing the last 5 most recent topics on forum page, list the last 20, or more is better. They draw a lot of traffic, but usually end up getting lost in the maze of forum sections cause they don't stay on the list long enough
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DebateArt.com
is our default conclusion that there's no evidence, thus we can't know if we're just elaborate flesh robots?
here is my response to someone who tried debating this with me... what say ya'll?
"Complete and total BS. The most you've ever presented are anecdotal stories of NDE's which is not science."i presented evidence that out of body experiences are almost always accurate or consistent with reality. there's more than one scientific experiment that shows that this is true. either there are people who can verify what happened outside the dead person's body when they were dead, or the description is at least consistent with reality. the AWARE study had someone describe the operating room with specific details that no one who was being operated on could have known, and they also had auditory ability in a dead person when they were dead. this is a good example of 'accurate or consistent with reality'. then there's lots of stories like pam rynolds and other common stories that the dead person coudln't have known the details. this is more than just one or two anecdotes, this is a trend that is almost always accurate.then there's the blind people coming to grips with seeing for the first time while dead.these things are objectively evidence of the afterlife. it's good evidence. the most i see anyone here do with this stuff, is ignore it. the few times they respond to it, it's irrational ramblings. incoherent.so yes, i maintain that there's ample evidence and other common sense things that point to humans being more than elaborate flesh robots. yet, you irrationally ignore or respond to it... then have the complete lack of awareness to say we can't even know if humans are more than elaborate flesh robots.
plus there's the arguments for God's existence. while it's objectively possible to say it' not actually evidence, it is completely lacking in common sense to argue that.
evidence: God, christianity, miracles, NDEs, the afterlife
it is irrational to argue that there's no evidence for the afterlife
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We reached a milestone this year... in 1974, the minimum wage was 2 bucks per hour. The average inflation per year has been 4.13 percent since then. That means, if the wage kept up with inflation, it'd be 15.13 today. So considering that I've always said our minimum wage should be the same as the 1970s, after all these years my position is officially that the minimum wage should be 15 bucks.
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i posted this in the wrong forum, so i'm reposting. i need to try harder to be careful where i post, this is like the third or fourth time ive made that mistake in the years ive been here.
I think that instead of us having a legal relationship with God to appease God's wrath, we have a parent child relationship to magnify God's love. The relationship is like the prodigal son.
The bible does say that Jesus dying prevented God's wrath, but the distinction is that that don't imply appeasing God's wrath.
The bible said Jesus nailed any legal requirements to the cross. Literally, instead of saying we have a legal relationship with God then like is said in western Christianity, we no longer have a legal relationship with him.
There r verses that say Jesus became sin for us, and by his wounds we r healed. But these just mean that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice. Love wouldn't let Jesus die, Jesus conquered sin and death with his sacrifice. He could have engaged in the Christian doctrine of self defense, but he chose to offer himself instead. The Bible says the spirit that rose Jesus from the dead lives in us and will raise us from the dead. We are adopted children of God and brothers of Jesus when we believe in Jesus and try to do his will.
This is basically, christus Victor atonement instead of penal substitution. Christie Victor was the predominate view in the early church, the other was minority view. Penal substitution is also based in paganism, a blood sacrifice on a technicality, instead of a sacrifice of first fruit, an offering of ones gifts in sacrifice. The bible says god takes no pleasure in burnt offerings but prefers gifts of the heart. Of course, they usually talked in terms of ransom, I think, so me saying love conquers death as central might be heretical or not pure doctrine. My love conquers death ideas are present in all forms of atoenment historically, just not the critical part of the theories. it should be the critical part.
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I think that instead of us having a legal relationship with God to appease God's wrath, we have a parent child relationship to magnify God's love. The relationship is like the prodigal son.
The bible said Jesus nailed any legal requirements to the cross. Literally, instead of saying we have a legal relationship with God then like is said in western Christianity, we no longer have a legal relationship with him.
There r verses that say Jesus became sin for us, and by his wounds we r healed. But these just mean that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice. Love wouldn't let Jesus die, Jesus conquered sin and death with his sacrifice. He could have engaged in the Christian doctrine of self defense, but he chose to offer himself instead. The Bible days the spirit that rose Jesus from the dead lives in us and will raise us from the dead. We are adopted children of God and brothers of Jesus when we believe in Jesus and try to do his will.
This is basically, christus Victor atonement instead of penal substitution. Christie Victor was the predominate view in the early church, the other was minority view. Penal substitution is also based in paganism, a blood sacrifice on a technicality, instead of a sacrifice of first fruit, an offering of ones gifts in sacrifice. The bible says god takes no pleasure in burnt offerings but prefers gifts of the heart. Of course, they usually talked in terms of ransom, I think, so me saying love conquers death as central might be heretical or not pure doctrine. My ideas are present in all forms of atonment historically, just not formally.
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i use two unconventional proofs for god. one is healing miracles, i dont see the kinds of miracles that happen to theists happen to atheists, or even non christians honestly, despite looking for that evidence and asking around. i realize that just because we dont see it, doesn't mean it's not there, but this is still significant.
the other one is that the large majority of atheists come back believing in God after NDEs. it's irrational to say there's no evidence for the afterlife, when you get into the science of NDEs, and the credibility of NDEs lend credbility to all the atheists that convert. it's also been objectively studied that christian NDEs happen at a much greater rate than non christian themed NDEs... such that jesus is a common component of these experiences. nonchristian themes are very rare, and hard to quantify or qualify, and open to interpretation, and might be unreliable.
there's all the philosophical arguments for God, such as the design argument and the causality argument. these are best kept at the level of philosophy but dont get much beyond just corroborating the God theory.
in fact, all these points could be said to be just consistent with God, and if you wanted to split hairs, not evidence. a skeptic on this site made that point once, is this more about evidence or just 'consistent with the God theory but not evidence'. but with the miracle and NDE point, it's majorly lacking in common sense to stay atheist.
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some other points. there are credible medical doctors who are exorcists who say they have seen supernatural phenomenon. there are credible doctors who study young children who remember past lives, and say that the children couldn't know the details they explain. i think there are professors out of the university of virginia for example who study this.
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it has to do with more than the fact that 'they were indoctrinated' at school. it has to do with more than the fact that they probably have student loans and want a hand out.
what are your theories?
isn't it fair to just think that trump voters are just not as educated and are lower information? that's what it looks like. i can't see any objective person who looks at the quality of thought in the real world, or even on here, of the different voters and reaching a different conclusion.
if you are a highly educated high information trump voter, do you admit that you are an outlier? if not, how do you weasel out of reaching my conclusion?
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If God punishes sinners, they say God is bad. If God doesn't punish sinners, they say God is bad.
I see these impossible standards all over the place when it comes to religion.
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A common standard among progressives is that everyone should get a free income of 1k per month. I think that's excessive. Instead, I think everyone with below average income should get 100 bucks in cash stipend and a hundred in food stamps. It's too much of a struggle to survive for lower income folks, and a small amount is helpful without being excessive. The philosophy behind it, is social contract, where the rich shouldn't be allowed to hoard excessive wealth while the poor languish. It's something like the top 1 percent own more than the bottom half of the country, and that's unacceptable. A simple wealth tax can help with this redistribution. Yes a work requirement can be fitting for the stipend.... welfare already has work requirements elsewhere so it's a functional established practice
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there's a lot of ignorance here and in general so i thought id set the record straight, again.
every developed country but the usa delivers universal healthcare to everyone, at half our cost per capita. the difference is enough to get our deficit under control. their wait times aren't generally worse there... there're generally better. the usa does have better specialized doctor wait times, due to how much money we got floating around in that sector. but again generally wait time are worse here, and the reason is because we have a doctor shortage. doctor supply determines wait times. we artificially limit the supply of doctors, unfortunately. it's hard for us to get our system like everyone else, given we have a status quo of hundreds of millios of people and many states. it's hard to change a status quo, whereas otehr countries developed organically. also, on the insurance point, insurance is mostly a pointless middle man... tho to be fair, most countries have insurance, it's just considered non profit. the main way they keep costs under control is by regulating medical prices. again i understand that's hard to regulate when we have a status quo, but it is posisble. we need more doctors, and we need to allow doctor owned hosptials to compete with other hospitals.... unforteunatly doctor owned hosptials isn't allowed much.
there are also free market based healthcare where government role is minimized but is indeed present and strong, but the healthcare lobby would never allow that.
these are just some highlights off the top of my head, to educate most ya'll's ignorant asses.
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Politics
1. we are slaves to society. i know ive debated this before, and it's plausible to not think that way, but it's what drives our country, and thereby the world. almost everyone has to work forty hours a week just to survive, and then take whatever the economy gives them back in return, which often ain't much. the money mostly goes to the rich and powerful, landlords, corporations, professional class. i understand that this is what drives the economy, and yes the usa drives the world... but it's a grueling way to survive. i guess no one said life was easy.
2. we spend twice as much as other countries on healthcare if you count the private sector, and ten times as much on defense as the next biggest militaries combined. if these were run better, we could at least not deficit spend, or choose other priorities like other countries. we have much less social nets than other countries, our welfare is actually pretty meager. we do spend less on taxes in general than others, but not if you count private sector healthcare, and these bloated things are what our default priorities are.
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Politics
this presidential election will be biden v trump. pick your favorite, list him. then list five reasons to vote against your favorite choice and five reasons to vote for the other guy.
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Politics
especially if we are branching out into space. just let the best and brightest reproduce, say on mars. then remove problematic humans and genes and put them back on earth. even if there is speciation, it's still a decendent of humans and part of our lineage, so it has value. we have the knowledge and technology to do this... so it should be done.
even if this wasn't done on mars... we can still breed super humans on earth.
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Society
as a science, nuclear makes sense as an energy source. there are states who want to do it more, but they find it too costly and time consuming. i assume that's a regulatory problem, but i could be wrong, otherwise i dont now why it's so burdensome to do nuclear. it's been decades and we're barely making progress in getting more nuclear, cause of all the negative stererotypes and mostly the costs. we need an alternative to fossil fuels cause those are dirty and unsustainable.
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Science and Nature
electric ones require too many minerals. it requires tons and tons of rare minerals, which which we have limited amounts of, and that damage the environment when they mine for them. hydrogen as far as i know just requires energy to separate the atoms before they're reunited in combustion. car manufactruers are already getting on the fuel cell band wagon, so it looks like i might be right on this.
i could be wrong about this, but that's the way it looks to me.
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Science and Nature
electric ones require too many minerals. it requires tons and tons of rare minerals, which which we have limited amounts of, and that damage the environment when they mine for them. hydrogen as far as i know just requires energy to separate the atoms before they're reunited in combustion. car manufactruers are already getting on the fuel cell band wagon, so it looks like i might be right on this.
i could be wrong about all this, but that's the way it's lookin to me.
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Religion
here is a poem that is extracted from a movie about a priest getting the third degree.
Frank Vs. God
I asked God for strength
and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom
and God gave me problems to learn to solve.
I asked for courage
and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love
and God gave me troubled people to help.
My prayers were answered.
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Religion
do you think NDEs are a product of evolution? they'd have to be, considering how common they are if they are products of the brain only. how does an end of life hallucination improve one's ability to reproduce?
some thoughts on nde's as a product of evolution
what are your thoughts?
it looks like the people posting their theories are grasping at straws.
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Religion
some folks say like the double slit experiment, that the particles are affected by measuring them.
others say often on the topic of quantum mechanics, that simply observing particles at the quantum state affects them.
the bigger implication, is that there's those who say our consciousness can affect reality. which is true to the extent that we can measure quanta, with our devices and tools. but if all that is requirement is observation, then that's a bigger fish to fry for consciousness affecting reality
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Science and Nature
They say if aliens are going to exist, they should exist already and maybe have contacted us.
But the universe is young... why should we assume aliens would already exist let alone have contacted us? I don't see why they call it a paradox.
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Science and Nature
He cut taxes permanently, only for the rich. Then attacked welfare which in our country Is meager. But trumpazees and magats only care about his culture of personality. and don't care about substance
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Politics
it happened a lot in many states. in order to get a mail in vote thing, by law the citizen was suppose to request it. but, due to covid, many governors sent out those mail in vote things, to everyone or a lot of people. they technically broke the law by doing this. if that hadn't been done, given the election was already so close anyway in a lotta states, i'd surmise that the election would have changed for trump. another part of that logic, was it was mostly liberals who voted by mail.
the most i've seen as far as a fair counter to this, was the republicans should have challenged this in court, and that that was their legal recourse whether they did or didn't. that's true... but the fact remains that many enough govenors probably broke the law enough, to change the outcome of the election. in short, the election was rigged.
i ain't a trumpanzee either, and most of trumpanzee ideas are baseless conspiracy theories... but these facts are accurate, and they are what they are.
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Politics
I know some folks say good faith, or honesty in lay men's terms, is what the legal standard already is for him. But some people debate it.
But just in terms of justice, would it be fair to find him guilty if he was lying about his reasons to overturn the election, and let him go if his reasons for trying were honest?
I think there's a certain justice there, tho it looks like he knew he was lying, sometimes, while other times he had no grasp of reality and probably believed his own bullshit
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Politics
it's too difficult to freeze and unthaw humans after thousands of years. it's too difficult to maintain a civiliization on a spaceship. but it's feesible to liter the galaxy with embryos, who will use quantum communication with earth, and use artificial intelligent robots to raise the embryos that have human connections through communication. if quantum communication doesn't pan out, at least use robots to raise kids. it's more likely artificial intelligence will work out, than cryo or spaceshipcivilitions will work out.
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Religion
According to a 2011 paper, early humans began to shift towards monogamy around 3.5 million years ago. However, the species never evolved to be 100% monogamous.Fossil evidence suggests that monogamy predates even Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4-million-year-old partial female skeleton.Recent anthropological data suggests that the modern concept of life-long monogamy has only been in place for the last 1,000 years.In Israel, the Second Temple period, from 515 B.C.E. to 70 C.E., brought about widespread monogamy. Men began to pledge their fidelity to their first wife and polygyny in the area was reduced.Scientists at University College London believe monogamy emerged so males could protect their infants from other males in ancestral groups who may kill them in order to mate with their mothers.
i've read that most males, historially, didn't reproduce. a minority of men, were responsible for multiple women having babies. the current trend with dating, in the usa, is that women only are atracted to the top fifth of men, and get passed around by them when they are younger. i think what's happening, is that many women refuse to settle or lower their standards, in expectation of our still mostly monogamous society, and so we see stats that show half of adults will soon be unmarried and childless, women included.
but is this trend to fuck around when younger, and the breaking of social norms regarding sex and marriage and attractions, leading to a time when only 'chads' and above average men will impregnante the majority of women? if life long monogamy is only recent, and being serial monogamous before that for a short while... are humans evolving back to the old polyamorous set up? are we in the process of switching? it kinda looks like that, and it's at the root of humans as a biological species.
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Science and Nature
on one of the most fundamental levels, the old testament teaches an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. the new testament teaches turn the other cheek. how can such a fundamental difference be something that a christian must accept both as infallible truth? does truth change? how?
but it's more than that core theological difference. the old testament has God killing people over and over again, or commanding them to die. see the story of noah where he killed the whole earth, or the time he turned a woman to stone for questioning where she was headed and looking back to her old lifei understand that it's plausible that the consequences of sin is death, which even the bible says and is as true a statement as they come. but it seems to again be in stark contrast to the God of the new testament. what's with this bipolar God of the new testament and the hippie God of the new testament? i realize even Jesus pointed out that the commandment and consequence of disrespecting ones parents is death, but how can such a difference be fundamentally compatible with each other? (i often wonder if jesus was being literal that that's the way the world is, or if he was saying 'even by this standard, the pharisees weren't being consistent with mercy')
but it's more than these broader frictions. the old testament says unclean food is ungodly, yet the new testament says nothing God has made clean is unclean. how should we accept that Jesus' death change something unclean to something clean? or the old testament says men with deformed penis' can't enter into the assembly of the lord, which sounds like they can't enter heaven. how did jesus' death make deformed penis' acceptable? and the context doesn't indicate this old testament verse was against self mutilation, but that any deformed penis was too much, even from a disability or injury. the best i can surmise, if these old testament verses are true... is that these are ceremonial laws, and ceremonial laws can change with a covenant change, assuming the covenant change was legit to begin with. it's kinda like how often cultural differences are legit changes in the bible, (why it says women can't lead or wear hats in church, even in the new testament, but everyone now accept as just cultural norms being changed) and not infallible differences being changed arbitrarily. ceremony and culture are both legit and reasonable ways of differentiating, but the theology for why the rules were the way they were to begin with, or how they can change, can still seem arbitrary and capricious, to use legal jargon.
we also have things that dont make sense theologically.
-the bible looks literal of the story of noah in the old testament, and the new testament treats the story literal too. i dont have time to list all the scientific discrepancies of that story, such as how there's a constant lineage of cultures everywhere and constant archeological evidence of no flood everywhere, yet supposedly God destroyed it all... and hid or changed the evidence? to me, when God performs a miracle like he does with phsyical healings even in this day and age, he supports the miracle with evidence and truth. (such as the congregation of the causes of the saints with the catholic church) the story of noah isn't supported by evidence, but contradicts it. maybe it wasn't meant to be taken literally or was a local event?
-i'll add more examples in the future.
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Religion
I think if you remove the objective standard of God, a case could be made for a lot different morals.
If your enemy is ruining your life, is the only thing stopping you from murdering them that it's against the law? If you feel there is a deeper truth involved stopping you, what is that basis?
And why don't you pay for prostitutes if you are horny? I often tell people, if it wasn't for my Christian faith, I'd frequent sex workers a whole lot more. Is the idea that you feel you're exploiting them so don't do it? I think a basis could be made sometimes that it's not exploitation, but even if it was... why would you care?
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Religion