Scott Adams Thread (Garfield Cartoonist)

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I'm six minutes in. What's with the red flags?

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destin...mer)#Economics) shows the debate I'd be more interested in -- one on one with Carl Benjamin. But that is two plus hours as well.

Red flags are a vote to move to the next participant. Very democratic. The moment a consensus to move on occurs, the conversation stops and the next participant is up. Else, there is a timer that limits the conversation length.

Other videos have been more watchable due to less ad hominems and shouting.

Sargon of Akkad is someone I periodically listen to...

I suspected Biden's main motivation for wanting anyone to enter the US was to depress wages, which lowers catastrophic inflation. For the first time ever, I had a grocery bill over half a grand, and it didn't include any beer or prime cuts of meat.

[freebeard]

...was to depress wages, which lowers catastrophic inflation.

Not seeing how that works.

Has anyone read God's Debris?

I haven't but I found this podcast with two [cosplaying] AI discussing the book.

Two AI's Discuss - God's Debris: Everything is Probability - Deep Dive Podcast

I think they had a real AI extract the essence of the book and put it in the description:

Levels of Awareness in God's Debris
The sources describe five levels of awareness that all humans experience throughout their lives:
● Level One: This level begins at birth, when an individual first becomes aware of their own existence.
● Level Two: In this level, individuals understand that other people exist. They believe most of what they are told by authority figures and accept the belief system in which they are raised.
● Level Three: At this level, people recognize that humans are often wrong about what they believe. They understand they might be wrong about some of their own beliefs but don't know which ones. Despite their doubts, they still find comfort in their beliefs.
● Level Four: Skepticism. People in this level believe the scientific method is the best measure of truth. They believe they have a good working understanding of truth thanks to science, their logic, and their senses. They can also be arrogant when dealing with people in levels two and three.
● Level Five: The Avatar. Avatars understand the mind is an illusion generator, not a window to reality. They recognize science as a belief system, though a useful one. They are also aware of God's power as expressed in probability and the inevitable recombination of God's consciousness.

I would compare and contrast Adams'es (or is it Adams'?) five levels of awareness with Timothy Leary's eight circuit brain. Adams collapses Leary's four extraterrestrial circuits into 'Avatar'.

[redpoint5]

I've downloaded Scott's books but haven't read them yet. It's on my too-do list, that I put somewhere; probably next to my round-tuits.

Rudyard is pulling out the stops, so to speak.

What level of civility do you anticipate in your neck of the woods in the coming day(s)?

I found living in Vancouver was a nice compromise between being near what's happening in Portland, yet far enough away.

[freebeard]

What level of civility do you anticipate in your neck of the woods in the coming day(s)?

Wed/Thurs/Fri is supposed to be sunny. I'm trying to organize a yard sale with the neighbors. It's an open carry neighborhood. We've only had Antifa in the street once, I already forget the year (2016? 2020?) and DDG is no help.

It might be different in the University district across the river.

edit:
In any case, I take solace that, in the face of the to-and-fro of Earthly concerns, The USofA and Russia continue to cooperate in low Earth orbit.

[freebeard]

No transcript to copy pasta but at:

16:14 he unloads on 44.
19:22 he sez Rachel Maddow sez if Harris wins we will never get to Mars
54:40 carbon capture shall be the death of us all

[freebeard]

Pretty quiet around the old homestead.

[freebeard]

"That's a good movie but it' not a great movie...

As a wise oracle once said "The future proves the past".

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Pretty quiet around the old homestead.

That was the most surprising thing to me. Hopefully indicative of a period of civility and goodwill towards others.

Originally Posted by freebeard

"That's a good movie but it' not a great movie...

As a wise oracle once said "The future proves the past".

I loosely hold both frames as probable in my head; that DJT did not lose 2020 by commonly understood infractions of the legal framework (but acknowledging the 50+ so-called intelligence agents' fraudulent declaration of even more Russian disinformation about the laptop, and many other abuses of authority), and that he believed he had won legitimately.

I stayed up all night and observed what to any rational person appeared to be fraud occur. One political color would gain 20k votes to not even a single other vote for the opposition, at 3am (a very suspicious time), and that happened in many states. The explanation for why that played out has been explained to my satisfaction, though I'm willing to be wrong about it. It's about equal to my questioning of why building 7 collapsed, but I accept the given explanations for now.

Politics is necessarily dirty and appeals to the motivations of depraved individuals by nature, which is why I normally steer clear of it. Those thinking their will should be imposed upon others while gaining fame and fortune is a misalignment of motivations. That said, I did expect the popular to reflect the electoral college this time around (and said as much in a PM), and I wish to hear the explanations from those espousing "pure democracy" as morally justified or necessarily delivering better outcomes now.

My biggest complaint about the Founding Fathers at the moment is how their framework allowed the most removed and least connected unit of government to extract by far the most taxes and become the most important organizational unit to individuals and communities. The fact that we care more about who some dude in the District of Columbia is instead of who is mayor is shameful. Invest locally, because that's where investment is most impactful. The Founders did a heck of a job though for their time and risked it all. My complaint is that our system squabbles about how to allocate dysfunction instead of maximizing potential.

I'll propose my wildest and least thought through idea here; that federal taxation should not exceed state and local taxation. We should care more for who is mayor than who some dude in DC is. Defund the executive branch (and associated 3-letter bureaucracies)

[freebeard]

and that he believed he had won legitimately.

And yet the 'Insurredtion Hoax' insists he really believed otherwise. They intend to use the 14th Amendment based on that assumption. Parlous times.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

And yet the 'Insurredtion Hoax' insists he really believed otherwise. They intend to use the 14th Amendment based on that assumption. Parlous times.

The "mindreading" fascinates me. I'll make some statement online similar to "I don't enjoy eating kale", and someone will insist I love it more than anything else in the world. I'll point out I never buy it, never suggest others buy it, never complimented someone on their excellent kale dish.. and their response is that some people like kale, and I'm a person, ergo I'm a deplorable kale lover. My suggestion that we not have kale for dinner is in fact a kale-whistle that somehow both kale-lovers and kale-haters hear. I form a coalition of kale-lovers by cleverly claiming it's gross, and should be totally absent from the menu.

Those folks start with the conclusion they wish to believe, and then hallucinate back from there, even claiming supernatural mindreading ability as their reason to dismiss actions and deed.

It terrifies me that there are unkown, unknowns that make me susceptible to believing in my ability to mindread, and beginning with a conclusion (which is unavoidable because everything is predicated on unprovable "givens") and forming strong opinions based on that.