oromagi

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@Slainte

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@<<<oromagi>>>
Please explain how Dr Hotez is "censoring the science"
Science is the art of discovery through investigation, experimentation and discourse. Dr. Hotez has put himself in the centre of the limelight as a fact authority with respect to COVID and Vaccines.

On his interview with Joe Rogan, when Joe asked a question, He said "don't know". times on serious questions. FANTASTIC!! Then lets be open and discuss and share our thoughts and knowledge

At 8:02. Joe asks about ibuprofin, Hotez says I don't know and responds with an aspirin answer
At 15:06 Joe asks about vaping, and the answer is we don't know
At 29:29 Joe asks why people tet negative then positive, and the answer was "I don't know"
at 39:47 Hotez says we don't know what is going to happen in rural areas and emphasizes social distancing, for which there is no scientific basis for the 6 foot rule, and the CDC admit social distancing was pure guess work.
In March 2020, Hotez describes the "unique potential safety problem of coronavirus vaccines", and a year later says "they are safe and highly effective"

In July 2021 Hotez says they had been working on coronavirus vaccines 10 years ago. and the vaccines have gone through as rigorous a process as any vaccine that we’ve ever released to the public.” Complete lies.

In March of 2023 Hotez says that there was so much emphasis on speed and innovation, and the focus was on new shiny toys

Anything counter to what Hotez says, which changes like the weather, is right wing, disinformation. He wont talk about anything he disagress with or not part of his agenda. That is censorship.

I think we have identified the problem. You don't understand what the word CENSORSHIP means. None of the above describes CENSORSHIP in any sense of the word.
CENSORSHIP is "The use of state power to control freedom of expression or press."

Dr. Hotez has no government position
Dr. Hotez has never prevented Rogan or Kennedy from speaking, he just freely expresses his opinion that Rogan and Kennedy are corrupt, foolish, and deluded.

I won't waste my time getting into the weeds here but I'm not likely to fault any medical professional for changes and reversals in recommendations in the face of new diseases. Real scientists say what they know and don't know as honestly as possible and change their stories as their understanding evolves.

In July 2021 Hotez says they had been working on coronavirus vaccines 10 years ago. and the vaccines have gone through as rigorous a process as any vaccine that we’ve ever released to the public.” Complete lies.

It is this statement that causes me to think that (even without getting into specific claims) that Dr. Hotez is probably a lot better informed than you are.
In fact, scientists have been working on coronavirus vaccines since the 1980's After the SARS outbreak of 2004 scientists predicted that SARS like outbreaks would increase in frequency and virulity so long as increases in human population heightened the frequency of zoonotic cross-species exposures and so the International scientific community recommended building the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a coronavirus-specific watchtower, laboratory, reference library. By 2008, they understood the mRNA structure sufficiently to theorize how a vaccine might be rapidly developed using a relatively limited set of genetic substitutions, even Governments and investors were so impressed by the possiblities that infrastructure began to anticipate the next SARS (as well as develop mRNA therapies in cancer, etc with some suprising success. Biontech and Moderna were purpose built mRNA labs becoming expert at such substitutions. So yes, in 2010, experts like Dr Hotez not only knew how science would develop a vaccine against the next SARS-like virus to emerge in humans, they could tell you which labs and which scientists were most likely to develop that vaccinne and estimated it would only take two or three years to develop. That is how well understood and pre-tested the COVID-19 vaccinne was with pretty good confidence years before they even knew the exact whens or hows that coronavirus would emerge.

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Public Moderation Log

06/25/2023

Moderator: Joint Decision

BrotherD.Thomas has been banned for 30 days for targeting users by religion with hyper-repetitive, hyper-bigoted vulgar abuse without any interest in the content or context of discussion or respect for fellow debaters.

Additionally it is noted continuance of previous obsessive attempts to derail unrelated topics with personal attacks stemming from other topics long ago. Although we promised to perma-ban Brother next time he violated our Code of Conduct, that was some time ago. We'll try 30 days and evaluate after whether Brother is able to exhibit self-control.

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In fact, by censoring the science, Hotez is only creating more vaccine hesitancy.

Please explain how Dr Hotez is "censoring the science"

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@Lemming

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@<<<oromagi>>>
I tried reading James Joyce's Ulysses,... Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, But for me they mostly just come off as nonsense,

When I was in college I worked at the college book store. Ulysses was one of those books like Statistics or Infinite Jest that you sold a bunch of in September but by October, so many copies had been returned that it hardly seemed worth the effort to stock.

Even if they are referencing this or that, Or one can see hidden meanings, To me, they irritate, some one trying to make subtle points or something, but in such a way I don't expect myself to see their point.

You were not Joyce's audience. Joyce's audience was the incredibly wealthy, well-read, well-educated literati of post-Victorian English speaking peoples. This was before the age of radio or TV and the academic class typically read hundreds of books per year. WIthin this set, everybody had read all of the Bible and Homer in Greek and could quote at length. Everybody had read all of Shakespeare and Dickens and Gibbons and Darwan and Freud. Everybody read French and German and Latin and probably had a few other languages at the ready. Joyce did not have to explain to his audience that he was compressing a happy day in the life of an ordinary Dubliner into the epic poetry format of the Oddyessey because it was so obvious- each of the 24 chapters of the Oddessey represented one hour of Bloom's day and everything he saw and experienced within that hour celebrated the epic achievement of the every day, the chapters starting and ending with riffs on Homer, every famous line of Homer getting some suprising, comical treatment.

Imagine sitting down to a screening of Avengers:Endgame with somebody from one hundred years ago. Think of trying to explain all of that back story of all those characters all those easter eggs and inside jokes and celebrity walk-ons all the weirdness and conventions of comic book culture. To prepare a man from 1920 to watch that movie with good comprehension you would need to write a 300 page reference work for all of the unexplained elements - what the fuck is a superhero? why are they dressed like that? what's a tesseract? Why is that racoon flying the ship? etc.
It's the same way with Ulysses- if you aren't deeply familiar with all those of back stories and histories, you really have no hope of catching all the easter eggs and inside jokes (in many ways, this is the very novel that invents those post-modern elements like Easter eggs. You can't really fault the Russo brothers for not explaining all that background- the story would be ruined without assuming a familiarity of all these crazy complex cultural hits.

I read Ulysses the same way I read Homer and the Bible, as a 400 level English Literature class. On top of that massive novel, we probably read 10 other books of collected criticism, explanatory reference works, biography and autobiography, etc. That's really the only way a modern reader is going to appreciate the depth and complexity and wit and epiphany of that book.

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we could let RFK Jr. actually put his questions out, rather than surmise.

Nobody's stopping him. Your complaint is that you can't force or bribe one particulary well recognized scientist to lend Kennedy credibility.

Vaccines an autism... some serious questions. Check out this three minute deposition with an "expert".
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/proof-vaccines-dont-cause-autism/

I'm surprised you fell for that bullshit. So... if I made a video of a depostion with a prestigious epidemiologist where I asked, "How many clinical trials were designed to rule out that gun ownership causes genital warts and the prestigious epidemiologist said, "none," I guess you would follow your same logic again and conclude that there must be something to this whole gun warts conspiracy because otherwise what is the government covering up by never spending millions of dollars to determine whether guns cause warts or not?

Let's note that this website was bannned as medical disinformation on Facebook and Twitter. ICAN/Highwire sued over the ban and lost badly in court That is, judges have reviewed the testimony you submitted, noted the game the plaintiff's lawyer played and called bullshit.

I will assume you are aware that the whole "vaccines cause autism" belief system arises from the great Lancet MMR autism fraud of 1998 perpetrated by Wakefield, et al., one of the most throroughly debunked scientific claims of this or that century, the scientists took cash from 12 parents suing vaccinne makers and manufactured evidence of a link. Because of this fraud, science has now spent a lot of money establishing for a fact that no legitimate statistical link between autism (which is itself a subjective claims based on some pretty loose criteria. What many good doctors call autism, many good doctors won't. There is no objective test or common symptom that makes autism autism. The increase in autism is pretty well explained by our setting of a loose standard for what is autism and the more recent perception of autism as a scale of symptoms, a shades of grey disease where many more higher fuctioning autistic people were perceived and recorded.

The CDC is unusually unequivocal in its rejection of the claim:

Autism and Vaccines

Questions and Concerns

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)is a developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges. Recent estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network found that about 1 in 44 children have been identified with ASD in communities across the United States. CDC is committed to providing essential data on ASD, searching for causes of and factors that increase the risk for ASD, and developing resources that help identify children with ASD as early as possible.

Vaccines do not cause autism.

Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD. The National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as Institute of Medicine, reviewed the safety of 8 vaccines to children and adults. The review found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe.

Source: Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality [Institute of Medicine. 2012]external icon

A CDC study published in 2013 added to the research showing that vaccines do not cause ASD. The study focused on the number of antigens given during the first two years of life. Antigens are substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce disease-fighting antibodies. The results showed that the total amount of antigen from vaccines received was the same between children with ASD and those that did not have ASD.

Source: Increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines is not associated with risk of autism [J Pediatr. 2013]external icon

Vaccine ingredients do not cause autism.

One vaccine ingredient that has been studied specifically is thimerosal. Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used to prevent germs (like bacteria and fungi) from contaminating multidose vials of vaccines. Research shows that thimerosal does not cause ASD. In fact, a 2004 scientific review by the IOM concluded that “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal–containing vaccines and autism.”

Source: Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism [The National Academies Press. 2004]external icon

Since 2003, there have been nine CDC-funded or conducted studies that have found no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD. These studies also found no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and ASD in children. Learn more about the CDC Studies on Thimerosal in Vaccines pdf icon[PDF – 2 pages].

Even before studies showed that thimerosal was not harmful, there was a national effort to reduce all types of mercury exposures in children. As precaution, thimerosal was removed or reduced to trace amounts in all childhood vaccines between 1999 and 2001. Currently, the only type of vaccine that contain thimerosal are flu vaccines packaged in multidose vials. There are thimerosal-free alternatives available for flu vaccine. For more information, see the Timeline for Thimerosal in Vaccines.

Besides thimerosal, some people have had concerns about other vaccine ingredients in relation to ASD. However, no links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and ASD.

Define scientific consensus.

WIKIPEDIA defines SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS as:

Scientific consensus is the generally held judgment, position, and opinion of the majority or the supermajority of scientists in a particular field of study at any particular time.

Consensus is achieved through scholarly communication at conferences, the publication process, replication of reproducible results by others, scholarly debate, and peer review. A conference meant to create a consensus is termed as a consensus conference. Such measures lead to a situation in which those within the discipline can often recognize such a consensus where it exists; however, communicating to outsiders that consensus has been reached can be difficult, because the "normal" debates through which science progresses may appear to outsiders as contestation. On occasion, scientific institutes issue position statements intended to communicate a summary of the science from the "inside" to the "outside" of the scientific community, or consensus review articles or surveys may be published. In cases where there is little controversy regarding the subject under study, establishing the consensus can be quite straightforward.

Popular or political debate on subjects that are controversial within the public sphere but not necessarily controversial within the scientific community may invoke scientific consensus: note such topics as evolution, climate change, the safety of genetically modified organisms, or the lack of a link between MMR vaccinations and autism.

Get that? There is so little controversy within the ranks of expert study that MMR and autism are unrelated that lack of uncertainty is used in the WIkipedia article as one classic example of how overwhelming majorities of expert opinions can decertify insubstantial claims.

Since when is consensus science?

It's not.

Correct me if I am misquoting you, as I am not trying to do that. It appears you are saying that when there is a critical mass (an undefined one) that then renders any other conversation or opinion not worthy of exploration.

You have me wrong: go ahead and explore your theory that a whole bunch of very different vaccines all cause the same hazy, untestable , incurable, indefinable set of symptoms, just don't waste any more of the taxpayer's money on that bullshit because the taxpayers have already paid the best scientists in the world to look into and come back saying with confidence there is no link there to investigate.
Likewise, Kennedy may spew his sick deceits on Joe Rogan for twenty days straight for all i care. It is not as if either has any credibility with scientists. Rogan regularly begs his audience to not trust him or his guests.
I just think it kind of stinks to call a famous pediatrician, a well respected man, a coward for not wanting to lend creedence to the lies you are longing to believe. Think about it: rational men don't listen to Joe Rogan's show: crackpots do. Lot's of them. What are the odds a career lobbyist can charm a low info crowd like Rogan's better than a dull man of science? Hell, here's a Kennedy's Kennedy claiming the CIA is trying to assasinate him. The low-infoids are going to eat that shit up.
Even if Hotez kicks ass in a debate, nobody who listens to Joe Rogan is going to be persuaded by truth and evidence at this point. For Kennedy, that kind of public credibility is worth more than $1.5 million to his career, however he argues and knowing that for Hotez, the harm to his scientific reputation just for going on Rogan might cost his career worse than $1.5 million worth.

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@Slainte

What major questions are settled?

Between RFK Jr and the NIH? I think RFK's main complaints can be summed up as

Vaccines are the principle cause of autism
AIDS is not related to the HIV virus
Ivermectin cures COVID
NIH concealed known COVID cures
Anthony Fauci conspired w/ the GOP to overthrow democracy in the 2020 election and take the vote away from black people.

I do think scientific consensus considers all of these questions generally unworthy of further expenditures of resources.

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Mark of the Beast - False Christs have risen

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@<<<oromagi>>>
You told me to think. Okay, I will think. Just for you.

Buzzzzzz. Actually I claimed that Jesus wants you to think for yourself. That is, Jesus threw out the Old Testament, the Ten Comamandments, the proscriptions of Leviticus and replaced them with an easy to follow, easy to remember Golden Rule. Christ commanded you to never mind those silly old books and focus on being more kind to the people around you. You do the opposite of Christ's command but pretend to Christianity like a fool.

If homosexuality and pedophilia are the same

Homosexuality and pedophilia are not the same to any ratiional mind, any more than dancing and rape are the same. The difference is consent which is a rather obvious point only the most complusive bigots miss.

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@Barney

In Mohammed's own time, Mohammed's conduct was moral and legal, no?
As one who wrote the law, of course it was legal. However, just because one can get away with something, does not make it moral.

What I mean is that he wasn't getting away with anything. There was nothing is Muhammad's cosmology, theology that frowned on marrying six year olds. What would have been contrary to the morals of the time would have been to considered well-being of a six year in the sealing of a major geo-poltical alliance. Abu Bakr was the first man to adopt Islam of his own free will and the most important source of wealth and arms available to Muhammad's campaign. At a very young age, Aisha was Abu Bakr's only daughter and her marriage the only convention available that would make Abu Bakr Muhammad's heir in terms of tribal leadership/inheritance customs. It would have been nice to wait until AIsha at least hit puberty but Muhammad was an old man at war and he needed to seal his succession immediately. Aisha remained with her parents and the marriage unconsummated until Aisha hit puberty. SInce Muhammad's only really sacred, traditional, original and long-lasting marriage was to a woman twenty years older, and all of his wives except Aisha older widows, I think we can safely assume that Muhammad was not pursuing some pruient interest in his marriage to Aisha. Aisha might as well have been a box of gold for all Muhammad's contemporary morality required of his duty to her.

Consider Jesus being crucified; was he evil because the law was against him? Of course not.

Not to you and I but to the Sanhedrin and Provincial Governor who tried him, Jesus was a terrorist attacking the most sacred institutions in the land during a week and year when both governments were barely clinging to civil peace. Jesus was caught with a gas can in the munitions yard and such tresspassers are typcially shot on sight. The reason neither Roman nor Jewish records made any note of Jesus' execution was because a lot of rabble rousers were getting executed for committing less riot and treason than Jesus and neither government regretted their efforts to preserve the peace.

Plus when it comes to religious claims of perfection, the actions must hold up to the test of time or else not be perfect.

See, I don't know what that is. Who claims exactly what is perfect?

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BSH1 MEMORiAL PROFiLE PiC PiCK of the WEEK No. 40- STAND with UKRAINE

Putin's genocidal invasion of Europe collapses (unsurprisingly) into civil war and Greyparrot's keen analysis blames....Hunter Biden's laptop. No actual parrot would keep aping the feckless words of his masters for so long. Might as well blame Obama's birth certificate.

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BSH1 MEMORiAL PROFiLE PiC PiCK of the WEEK No. 40- STAND with UKRAINE

It's all maskarova until the shooting starts.

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@Stephen

That's right. If Yahweh/Allah is knocking up 14 year olds, who is God to judge?

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That's right. If Yahweh/Allah is knocking up 14 year olds, who is God to judge?

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Mark of the Beast - False Christs have risen

Is there any perspective less modern, less orginal, less adaptable to circumstance than the fucking bible worshippers? Stone Age philosophy in a digital world. Jesus would want you to think for yourself. Observe the world around you and embrace the people here empathetically. Trolls can't be Christians any more than Christians can be trolls.

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BSH1 MEMORiAL PROFiLE PiC PiCK of the WEEK No. 40- STAND with UKRAINE

Russian mercenary chief says his forces are rebelling, some left Ukraine and entered city in Russia

Associated Press36 minutes ago

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FILE - In this handout photo taken from video released by Prigozhin Press Service on Friday, March 3, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, addresses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asking him to withdraw the remaining Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut to save their lives, at an unspecified location in Ukraine. Prigozhin's criticism of the top military brass is in stark contrast with more than two decades of rigidly controlled rule by President Vladimir Putin without any sign of infighting among his top lieutenants. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File)

The owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by calling for the arrest of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin was taking the threat, security was heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-Don, which is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the fighting in Ukraine.

While the outcome of the confrontation was still unclear, it appeared likely to further hinder Moscow’s war effort as Kyiv’s forces were probing Russian defenses in the initial stages of a counteroffensive. The dispute, especially if Prigozhin were to succeed, also could have repercussions for President Vladimir Putin and his ability to maintain a united front.

Prigozhin claimed early Saturday that his forces had crossed into Russia from Ukraine and had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”

Prigozhin says his forces entered Russian city

“But we will destroy anyone who stands in our way,” he said in one of a series of angry video and audio recordings posted on social media beginning late Friday. “We are moving forward and will go until the end.”

He claimed that the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, scrambled warplanes to strike Wagner’s convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles. Prigozhin also said his forces shot down a Russian military helicopter that fired on a civilian convoy, but there was no independent confirmation.

And despite Prigozhin’s statements that Wagner convoys had entered Rostov-on-Don, there was no confirmation of that yet on Russian social networks. Video posted online showed armored vehicles, including tanks, stationed on the streets and troops moving into position, but it was unclear whether they were under Wagner or military command. Earlier, heavy trucks were seen blocking highways leading into the city and long convoys of National Guard trucks were seen on a road.

The governor of the Voronezh region, just to the north, told residents that a column of military vehicles was moving along the main highway and advised them to stay off the road.

Prigozhin said Wagner field camps in Ukraine were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from Gerasimov following a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.

The Wagner forces have played a crucial role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, succeeding in taking the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place, Bakhmut. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized Russia’s military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition.

Prigozhin, who said he had 25,000 troops under his command, said his troops would punish Shoigu in an armed rebellion and urged the army not to offer resistance: “This is not a military coup, but a march of justice.”

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which is part of the Federal Security Services, or FSB, charged him with calling for an armed rebellion, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The FSB urged Wagner’s contract soldiers to arrest Prigozhin and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders.” It called his statements a “stab in the back to Russian troops” and said they amounted to fomenting armed conflict.

Putin was informed about the situation and “all the necessary measures were being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Heavy military trucks and armored vehicles were seen in several parts of central Moscow early Saturday, and soldiers toting assault rifles were deployed outside the main building of the Defense Ministry. The area around the presidential administration near Red Square was blocked, snarling traffic.

But even with the heightened military presence, downtown bars and restaurants were filled with customers. At one club near the headquarters of the FSB, people were dancing in the street near the entrance.

Moscow’s mayor announced Saturday morning that counterterrorism measures were underway, including increased control of roads and possible restrictions on mass gatherings.

Prigozhin, whose feud with the Defense Ministry dates back years, had refused to comply with a requirement that military contractors sign contracts with the ministry before July 1. In a statement late Friday, he said he was ready to find a compromise but “they have treacherously cheated us.”

“Today they carried out a rocket strike on our rear camps, and a huge number of our comrades got killed,” he said. The Defense Ministry denied attacking the Wagner camps.

Prigozhin claimed that Shoigu went to the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don personally to direct the strike and then “cowardly” fled.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” he shouted.

Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, urged the Wagner forces to stop any move against the army, saying it would play into the hands of Russia’s enemies, who are “waiting to see the exacerbation of our domestic political situation.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst, predicted this would be the end of Prigozhin.

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she tweeted. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. Surovikin was dispatched to convince them to surrender. Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, a top military officer, denounced Prigozhin’s move as “madness” that threatens civil war.

“It’s a stab in the back to the country and the president. ... Such a provocation could only be staged by enemies of Russia,” he said.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine was concentrating troops for an attack around Bakhmut to take advantage of “Prigozhin’s provocation.” It said Russian artillery and warplanes were firing on Ukrainian forces as they prepared an offensive.

In Washington, the Institute for the Study of War, said it appeared that “Prigozhin fully intends for Wagner to move against MoD leadership and forcibly remove them from power, more likely against the Southern Military District command in Rostov-on-Don but possibly also against Moscow.”

It added that despite Putin’s support for Prigozhin, he would be highly unlikely to accept any armed rebellion: “The violent overthrow of Putin loyalists like Shoigu and Gerasimov would cause irreparable damage to the stability of Putin’s perceived hold on power.”

At the White House, National Security Council Adam Hodge said: “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments.”

Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at the CAN research group in Arlington, Virginia, tweeted that Prigozhin’s actions struck him as “a desperate act, though much depends on whether Prigozhin is alone, or if others that matter join him. I’m skeptical this ends well for him or Wagner.”

In Kyiv a Russian missile attack killed at least two people and injured eight Saturday when falling debris caused a fire on several floors of a 24-story apartment building in a central district, Serhii Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, posted on Telegram.

He said more than 20 missiles were detected and destroyed. Video from the scene showed a blaze in the upper floors of the building and the parking lot strewn with ash and debris.

In other developments in the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on other countries to heed warnings that Russia may be planning to attack an occupied nuclear power plant to cause a radiation disaster.

Members of his government briefed international representatives on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose six reactors have been shut down for months. Zelenskyy said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow.

The Kremlin’s spokesman has denied the threat to the plant is coming from Russian forces.

The potential for a life-threatening release of radiation has been a concern since Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year and seized the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station. The head of the U.N.’s atomic energy agency spent months trying to negotiate the establishment of a safety perimeter to protect the facility as nearby areas came under repeated shelling, but he has been unsuccessful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency noted Thursday that “the military situation has become increasingly tense” amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began this month in Zaporizhzhia province, where the namesake plant is located, and in an adjacent part of Donetsk province.

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Islam is a subject about which I am quite ignorant. I have not read the Quran. I know the history some, but really only from the English point of view. The religious precepts I do know don't seem so different from the moral code of the Old Testament. I know you have spent some time in Muslim countries- do you feel knowledgable on the subject?

In Mohammed's own time, Mohammed's conduct was moral and legal, no?

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@Best.Korea

06.23.2023 04:18PM
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@<<<oromagi>>>
As Voltaire put it: "Définissez les termes, vous dis-je, ou jamais nous ne nous entendrons."
Sorry, I dont speak whatever that is.

So not just dumb but also dull- incurious, lazy....sad.

No good debater is ever afraid to define terms.
Well, then go ahead, dont be afraid. Define "child porn".

Of course, no good debater would ever pass up the opportunity to define the terms first, either.

But, as we have established beyond doubt, you are not a good debater.

Let's recall POST#6 when you demonstrated your incomprehension of analogy.

You demanded that we stick to the topic of pornography but now you are trying to shift the argument to child porn, which is a radically different, specifically criminal abuse compared to pornography generally.

Readers will take note that BK is a fucking hypocrite.
Child pornography as a criminal act is a concept developed by Western Feminists and brought to legal reality in the US through a series of bills written by Senator Walter Mondale and supported by fellow Democrats in the late 70's and early '80's.

PORNOGRAPHY, on the other hand, is a concept that dates back before human civilization.

Essentially, PORNOGRAPHY is just an ancient Greek word that means "writing about fornication" and that sums it up pretty well. Wiktionary says, "The explicit literary or visual depiction of sexual subject matter."

So, when Lot gets raped by his daughters in Genesis, that's a fairly old example of porn.

Personally, I am more engaged by Stephen Dedalus' interpretaton of Aquinas in Joyce's Portrait... Proper art is static in relationship to the subject and the viewer. Good art is disinterested in its own reception or value- the subject just shines through its instrument, its media without regard for impact. Improper art, (which Dedalus calls PORNOGRAPHY) begins with impact and works its way back to subject. The point of pornography is to ellicit an evisioned response. All advertising, all propaganda, all political art is therefore pornographic but Michaelangelo's David or Genesis or Kobabe's Gender Queer are not pornographic because the artist did not intend to arouse. That some sick fuckers are aroused nevertheless (or, as Savant calls them "the Republican Party") ought not reflect upon the artist or the work.
Contrary to BK's ingnorant presumption, the US Federal Govt. has no legal definition of pornography precisely because pornography is such a subjective notion that no civil body could ever come to a just agreement about what is PORNOGRAPHY.

If BK really wanted a federal ban on all PORNOGRAPHY, his first, impossible to complete task would be to convince the Federal government to define the word. For this reason alone, I think banning pornography in a Democracy or free nation is just not a realistic ask.

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@<<<oromagi>>>
Most people dont need a definition to know what porn is.

I mean, how can you not know what porn is in 2023?

No good debater is ever afraid to define terms. As Voltaire put it: "Définissez les termes, vous dis-je, ou jamais nous ne nous entendrons."

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@<<<oromagi>>>
Look, if you are going to deny that it is harmful for children to watch porn, fine.

Nobody made any such denial.

But remember, there are only two positions you can have:

1) Porn results in nothing good, but it harms children
2) Porn results in nothing good, but it doesnt harm children

Both these statements are obvious false. Arguments like this demonstrate more unacceptably superifical thinking.

"Porn results in nothing good" is a truism. There is no useful role that porn plays in society.

James Joyce's Ulysses is considered the most significant work of 20th century literature. Ulysses is also undeniably pornographic. Miller's Tropic of Cancer, Ginsberg's Howl, Morrison's Bluest Eye are all very dirty and essentials of American literature. Currently, images of Michelangelo's David are banned pornography in some Florida schools. A short term ban on the Bible in some Utah schools was just lifted, although the Bible is undeniably pornographic. The definition of porn is highly subjective and constantly shifting, inconsistent with any truism. We should note that BK is making no distinction between legal consensual depcitions of sex and obviously exploitative or sensationalized works. BK seems completely uninformed regarding research into the utility of porn in societies, most importantly as a canary in the coal mine of free expression- when the totalitarians start banning porn, citizens should read that as an alert that essentail civil rights are coming under threat.

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@ADreamOfLiberty

Normalcy in nature or history is no guarantee of superiority or acceptability. Certainly the kids won't melt after seeing porn. They'll still grow up, be productive, have families; but maybe they'll be a lot more casual about sex. Maybe that was a detriment in early civilization but is a net benefit now that we have contraceptives?

I don't know. It could be debated, but these are not trivial matters. I distrust flippant attitudes on it.

I agree with all this as reasons to remain skeptical about the degree and scale of harm exposure to porn generally inflicts on children.

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If Joe Rogan Asks You to Debate, Be Suspicious

Analysis by Tyler Cowen | Bloomberg

As an economist who is skeptical of MMT, also known as Modern Monetary Theory, I am often urged to take part in a public debate with its advocates. I routinely decline, in part because I cannot answer “yes” to this question: Will this debate bring us closer to the truth?

It is something everyone should ask themselves before engaging in open discourse of any kind, on any subject.

The most common (and correct) criticism of MMT, presented by Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, is simply that its advocates have never presented a coherent model showing how their arguments fit together. But repeating that basic point is not so effective in a public debate, especially if MMT advocates are making all kinds of specific claims about inflation, interest rates and deficits. A lot of macroeconomics is counterintuitive anyway, so mere verbal sallies do not settle whether a particular set of claims is valid.

Rather than staging a debate, it is better to ask MMT advocates to outline their claims more formally — and then to push those claims through peer review. Then we can see what the evidence indicates.

Crypto is another area where public debates can be misleading. It is easy to find a long list of frauds and fraudsters associated with crypto, and to present their offenses to a receptive crowd. The skeptic can then challenge whether crypto has any legitimate uses at all. The best rejoinder — many innovations end up being useful in ways that are not immediately evident — is not exactly guaranteed to wow the audience, despite its validity.

Existential risk from super-smart artificial general intelligence (AGI) is another topic on which public debate is unlikely to land upon the truth. The most extreme worriers can present a long list of concerns, and then ask their disputants to prove that the risk from AGI is zero or non-zero. In any case, a captive public audience is likely to go away worried. Vivid disaster scenarios are often easier to communicate and more memorable than an explanation of how, through decentralized systems and checks and balances, things might work out fine.

A better approach is to ask AGI worriers to act like climate scientists. That is, they should formally model their arguments, present those models for peer review, and then test those models against incoming data. Just how robust are predictions of doom in a world where most individuals and institutions will invest their resources in cooperative AI?

Perhaps the AGI worriers will show they have a point. But in the meantime, slinging arguments back and forth will make their doom scenarios look more plausible than they probably are.

Recently, Joe Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to a charity of vaccine scientist Peter Hotez’s choice if he appeared on his podcast to debate presidential candidate and longstanding vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Most scientists consider the major questions settled — and not in Kennedy’s favor.

Of course people should always be open to revising their views. But a public debate is not a sufficiently structured setting for adjudicating right from wrong on these issues. The claims of vaccine skeptics generally have not held up when confronted with data and methodological critiques. Instead, the skeptics tend to rely on unverified anecdotes or misunderstandings of the data.

There is a justifiable argument that the peer review process itself is unfair. Yet scientific rebels, from the late Nobel economics laureate Robert E. Lucas to mRNA vaccine scientists, have managed to use it to persuade others. Despite its faults, the peer review process does help to strengthen arguments.

As a general rule, one should not debate publicly with conspiracy theorists. Some conspiracies may be true and should not be dismissed out of hand. But any discussion needs to start by demanding the best available documented evidence, and then subjecting it to rigorous scrutiny. This is very often impossible to do in a public debate, where the unverified anecdote is elevated and methodological issues are obscured or unexamined. Furthermore, it takes more time to rebut a charge than to level it, and in the meantime the rebutter has no choice but to repeat some of the other side’s talking points.

So when someone demands a public debate on an issue, be suspicious. Why can’t the supposed truth be established by other means? Is it really helpful to throw so many scientific questions into the boiling cauldron of our delightful but chaotic culture of public debate? It may not be realistic, and it would definitely not be as exciting, but in many cases a better use of public resources would be to spend $100,000 on a panel of experts to summarize the best available evidence.

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@Savant

I'm with the Republicans on this one.

You think the Republican Party is anti-porn? The leader of the party is so crazy about porn that he paid tens of thousands of dollars to fuck pornstars and then hunreds of thousands of dollars to make them deny it. The leader of the radical wing, Matt Gaetz bragged about fucking a famous porn-star when she was 17 on the floor of Congress, with a nude picture of her in hand. The Republicans are the porn star fan-boys- they go to all the conventions.

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Ok, so you agree that its okay to harm children for your pleasure lmao

and you're such a concrete thinker that you can't perceive any nuance of position between "ought not be banned" and "okay to harm." Frankly, I'm skeptical there's that much harm in kids seeing porn. I think back on human history and reflect that most human families throughout history have slept together in a single big room- caves, tents, tepees, little clay or stone houses, little two-room apartments. Until the 20th century these families were much larger while losing a lot more kids- commonly the oldest children were grown and married themselves before the youngest child was born. That tells me that it is probably pretty normal for kids to witness a certain furtive amount of adults having sex and this may even be an important part of the process of growing up and understanding sex. Seems like most resonant coming-of-age movies feature some scene of sex witnessed.
I also think there's a certain amount of dark fantasy in porn that I can't imagine would be helpful or healthy for young minds to experience, perhaps much of that dark fantasy is still perceivable in non-porn expressions....I don't know. I think the line between art and porn is too fuzzy to get away with banning porn.
Much great art was called pornographic in moment of creation, after all. So- do you forbid your kids from watching porn and work hard to keep them from exposure? Yes, that seems prudent. But if you want curtail a whole selection of free expression to avoid some harm, the onus is on you to show that harm is sufficeintly greivous to suffer the cultural loss, a burden that I've never seen persuasively argued.

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@Savant

My point had nothing to do with guns or water. My point was that BK'a zealous reasoning did not weight values or impacts. HIs argument is only that anything that harms children is justifiably banned, ignoring the fact that we knowingly risk harms to humans, including children, in exchange for any of our liberties. Children are harmed by telling them that Santa Claus is real but that does not justifiy banning Santa Claus from society.

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@ponikshiy

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@<<<oromagi>>>
This is sad. He would ban candy and children would hav to eat vegetable.

Many children are harmed by water each year. All water must be banned.

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For DavidAZ: Christian Heaven Question

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@ludofl3x

How is this not a call out thread? Has DavidAZ agreed to be addressed this way?

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If "harms children" is the only necessary and sufficient standard on which to base a government proscription, then it follows that many things should be banned:

P1) If exposing children to guns harms children, then children shouldnt be exposed to guns.

P2) Exposing children to guns harms children

C) Children shouldnt be exposed to guns

P1) If guns being available for sale harms children, then all guns should be banned

P2) Guns being available for sale harms children

C) All guns should be banned

We know that children sometimes find guns at a very young age.

P1) If the only way to reduce the exposure of children to guns to the minimum is to ban all guns, then all guns should be banned.

P2) The only way to reduce the exposure of children to guns to the minimum is to ban all guns

C) All guns should be banned

As long as guns are easily available, some children will find it and be harmed by it.

So basically, the only way for you to argue against this is to say that something that harms children should be allowed due to your pleasure lmao

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Look at Everything That is Happening.

I literally just said it was how far we’ve fallen as a society in America.

Exactly, you could be talking about anything from the rise in Republican autocracy to the price of cottage cheese. So generic that your thesis was left underterminable.
Drag Queens were not unspoken of in 2003, three decades after "Pink Flamingos." If anything, Drag culture was a little more popular twenty years ago than today.
Most public universities offered gender unspecified bathroom facilities by 2001.
The practice of forcing some pre-pubescent boys to live as females by surgical castration for a variety of political, sexual, and theatrical purposes goes back to Ancient Sumeria. There has never been a time in human history when there have been so few sex change surgeries performed on under 18s as the modern age and now those are almost entirely voluntary.
I can't find a single example in America of a young person under the age of 18 getting trans surgery without the parents permission and all these cases are mastectomies for 16 or 17 year olds. Statistics weren't kept at all until 2012 and the numbers are still very sketchy. The State of California documented 2 cases of girls under 18 (both 17 years old) getting trans mastectomies in the Northern California area during the years 2015-18, I know many will argue that such surgeries are becoming more common but as far as I can tell trans surgeries under the age of 18 are still less commonplace than shark attacks. By comparison, thousands of girls under 18 get breast enhancement surgery each year although that practice is just as frowned upon by mainstream medicine. I'm not sure I see a scenario where that statistic is not a bigger worry than the very rare trans surgery under 18. Certainly, such surgeries are too rare to qualify as "Everything that is happening."

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Look at Everything That is Happening.

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@Rieka

How far have the American people fallen as a society? I mean, things that were unspeakable 20 years ago are here now. This society is so brain-dead, so perverted, and the fact that it's going to get worse is honestly scary. We're really the dumbest and most twisted human civilization to exist at this point, aren't we?

You are speaking so generically that it is not possible to figure out your topic.
Name three "things that were unspeakable 20 years ago" that are speakable now.

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STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds - my review as a TREKKER!

Leave it to TWS to say he's going to review a TV series and then exclusively focus on the appearance of the actors. I don't think I've ever seen a more literally superficial review of any entertainment- it is as if he based his review on the show on actor's head shots.

Also, he neglected to tell us whether he liked the head shots of the two main characters.

Is there more profound example of missing the point than a white supremacist who says he enjoys Star Trek. I guess you'd have to be insanely superficial because if you listened to the words coming out of the character's mouths, you'd understand that this show's values are diametrically opposed to white supremacy.

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https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8938/posts/375186

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@TWS1405_2

If I made such a claim, prove it. Oh wait, you can't.

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8938/posts/375052

@<<<oromagi>>>
Are you daft? The subject of this debate has nothing to do with just fentanyl being the cause of death, but everything to do with the “speed ball” mixed drug cocktail he took. Reading comprehension matters.

PS. He consumed the speed ball right there in the car just before police made contact.

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8938/posts/375068

PS. He consumed the speed ball right there in the car just before police made contact.
No testimony supports that claim. You are just making up lies.

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8938/posts/375111

No testimony supports that claim. You are just making up lies.
It's on the body cam video, which was introduced at trial.

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/8938/posts/375185

It's on the body cam video, which was introduced at trial. Floyd can be heard saying he was having trouble breathing as the initial officer approached his car on the driver's side.
Thomas Lane was that initial officer, on the job less than week after falsifying his own prior criminal record, and here is that body cam video.
https://www.fox9.com/video/838956

Please identify the timestamp that shows Floyd consuming a speedball, as you claim
Please identify the timestamp that shows Floyd saying that he is having trouble breathing, as you claim.

I never claimed video showed him using a speedball.

Here is the transcript of Lane's video as he approached the vehicle on the driver's side as submitted in court:

Speaker 1:Before they drive off, he's parked righthere, its a fake bill from the Gentlemen , sorry.

Kueng:The driver in there ?Lane: The blue Benz?

Speaker 1:Which one ?

Speaker 3 :That blue one over there .

KuengWhich one?Lane:yup -yup Just head back in . They're moving around a lot. Letmesee yourhands.

George Floyd:Hey, man. I'm sorry !Lane:Stay in the car, letme see your other hand.

George Floyd :I'm sorry, I'm sorry !Lane:Letme see your other hand!

George Floyd :Please, Mr.Officer.

Lane:Both hands.

George Floyd:I didn't do nothing.

Lane:Put your fucking hands up right now ! Let me see your other hand.

Shawanda Hill:let him see your other hand

George Floyd :All right. What I do though?What we do Mr Officer ?

ane:Put your hand up there. Put your fucking hand upthere! Jesus Christ, keep your fucking hands on thewheel

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@badger

You can't be for real dude.

At its core, debate was invented and still mostly exists as practice for law in a democratic society. If we want to attract real debaters, we must demonstrate our respect for laws.

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POST#63: There is no such thing as humanity or inhumanity in an online environment.

POST #69 Nowhere have I ever said, directly or indirectly, that I do not recognize anyone here as not being a human being. Ever. That is a lie made up to justify your obvious disdain for me.

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@Lemming

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@<<<oromagi>>>
Personally I suspect 'many people in the world, are psychopaths and sociopaths,
What 'matters though,
Is whether they break the law.

Sure it also matters if they're a jerk,
Then less people associate with them,

But policies such as blocking or restraining orders exist on this site, (I think)
That people have the option to 'avoid people they don't like,
And if that person 'continues their harassment,
Well, 'then they've broken the law, and can get kicked.

I agree. Any society comes with rules for membership and for disqualification and the priniciple of equal protection dictates that rule governing disqualification must proceed the act of disqualification.
Which bring us back to my original question: is there a specific rule TWS has violated? Real violations should clear and recent. If the answer is no, then I oppose banning TWS.

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@TWS1405_2

citing the thread I made on Floyd and how he killed himself…whining about that thread chaulked full of fact based truths I put forth, simply because you can’t handle the truth let alone discussions on the FACT that less than 0.5% of the black male population commits over 50% of the entire nations violent persons crimes SPEAKS VOLUMES about you triggered ostriches.

Of course, you are well aware that Badger is talking about your abominable piece-of-shit creulty to a stranger when that stranger advised you that he'd just suffered a loss of friends to a plane crash. You accused him of being a liar and a coward and mocked him with maximum despite. When he sent links showing you that the plane crash was real, a national story, you admitted that you knew his story true but told him to that he could go fuck himself for failing to document his grief to your satisfaction.

That really is just perfect evidence of sociopathy.
Let's take full note of the fact that you have not once, in this forum, addressed the specific behavior Badger is citing as inhumane. He's not talking about your White Supremacy propaganda, he's talking about your apparent lack of empathy.

You ALL hate the truth because the truth sounds and feels like hate to you ignorant (uneducated) liberals who lack the emotional and intellectual temperament to have an open and honest debate/discussion on race relations in America.

You falsely claimed that you had video evidence that George Floyd took a speedball immediately before his arrest. When I demanded that you show me that evidence you dodged and squealed and then quite cowardly denied that you had ever made such a claim. Please don't try to pull that "honest debate" bullshit with me. You are the most despicable of cowardly liars, trying deserately to make your fake news seem true by constant, compulsvie, disordered, unwanted, unwarrented repetition.

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@TWS1405_2

There is no such thing as humanity or inhumanity in an online environment.

The fact that you believe as much (I have no doubt you do) is probably the best argument yet for disposing of you. This website is an online society and a fundamental prerequisite to any society is the recognition of the group's shared humanity, as well as a shared cultural interest. It is clear from this and many of your posts that we are not fellows to you, much less humans- we are your targets, your prey. If you can't recognize your fellow humans in an online society than you are a textbook sociopath, at least in any online context. Furthermore, I think moderators do have some responsibility to protect our community from sociopaths, when they can be identified.

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@badger

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@<<<oromagi>>>
He should be banned for gross inhumanity. I can't find the CoC now, but that shouldn't be so controversial.

Fortunately for all of us, gross inhumanity has its limits when posting anonymously.

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