David Warren: The Cairo disaster
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Stan Shannon wrote:
No, only a blind imbecile would believe that a group of closed-minded religious fundamentalist extremist nut-jobs could exist at all if a billion muslims actually supported us. Clearly, they support the closed-minded religious fundamentalist extremist nut-jobs.
Are you serious? :~ You seem to be suggesting that violent people magically disappear the moment nobody likes them anymore.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You seem to be suggesting that violent people magically disappear the moment nobody likes them anymore.
No, I'm suggesting that we stop pandering bullshit to people who have no intention of changing or doing anything at all to restrain the extremist in their own society. The violence will only continue until they understand that if that won't control it, we will, regardless of how many of them are standing in the way whining about how mean we are.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You seem to be suggesting that violent people magically disappear the moment nobody likes them anymore.
No, I'm suggesting that we stop pandering bullshit to people who have no intention of changing or doing anything at all to restrain the extremist in their own society. The violence will only continue until they understand that if that won't control it, we will, regardless of how many of them are standing in the way whining about how mean we are.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Yes, good idea. They should just go and stop the terrorists, as easy as that. I wonder why nobody thought of just walking up to them and telling them to cease murdering people before. As a side note, you have plenty of immoderates in your society as well. Why is that?
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You seem to be suggesting that violent people magically disappear the moment nobody likes them anymore.
No, I'm suggesting that we stop pandering bullshit to people who have no intention of changing or doing anything at all to restrain the extremist in their own society. The violence will only continue until they understand that if that won't control it, we will, regardless of how many of them are standing in the way whining about how mean we are.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. When the horse is thirsty it will drink, and it will do that in its own good time. The same will be true of those extremists you trouble yourself about. Just have patience and give it time.
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Ravel, I would rather suspect that the saying attributed to General Sheridan "a good indian is a dead indian" can, by extension, be applied to all that Stan finds objectionable including Muslims, Communists, Socialists and Democrats. Whereas the truth is somewhat contrary to Stan's apparent blindness.
Well, in my - admittedly limited - experience, mathematics is the only thing in which such extreme views of right and wrong can be supported. Maybe the radicals should pick up a calculus book and realise how petty their worldly concerns are.
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Yes, good idea. They should just go and stop the terrorists, as easy as that. I wonder why nobody thought of just walking up to them and telling them to cease murdering people before. As a side note, you have plenty of immoderates in your society as well. Why is that?
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
As a side note, you have plenty of immoderates in your society as well. Why is that?
That is precisely the point - we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east - because we refuse to tolerate them. We as a society stand up to them and compel them to slink away into the shadows. The fact that you draw an equivalence between the two societies is only more evidence of how twisted the liberal mind is. What you demand of your own society, you do not demand of others, but when someone in your own society does demand it of others, that serves as evidence to you of the 'immoderation' of your own society that you cannot tolerate. It is a blatant for of cultural insanity.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. When the horse is thirsty it will drink, and it will do that in its own good time. The same will be true of those extremists you trouble yourself about. Just have patience and give it time.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
The same will be true of those extremists you trouble yourself about. Just have patience and give it time.
Tell that to the 3000+ people who died on 9/11/2001.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
As a side note, you have plenty of immoderates in your society as well. Why is that?
That is precisely the point - we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east - because we refuse to tolerate them. We as a society stand up to them and compel them to slink away into the shadows. The fact that you draw an equivalence between the two societies is only more evidence of how twisted the liberal mind is. What you demand of your own society, you do not demand of others, but when someone in your own society does demand it of others, that serves as evidence to you of the 'immoderation' of your own society that you cannot tolerate. It is a blatant for of cultural insanity.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east
:laugh: Do you know how many people have been lynched in US history?
Stan Shannon wrote:
The fact that you draw an equivalence between the two societies is only more evidence of how twisted the liberal mind is.
That's not evidence. That's not even anything.
Stan Shannon wrote:
What you demand of your own society, you do not demand of others, but when someone in your own society does demand it of others, that serves as evidence to you of the 'immoderation' of your own society that you cannot tolerate.
Sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east
:laugh: Do you know how many people have been lynched in US history?
Stan Shannon wrote:
The fact that you draw an equivalence between the two societies is only more evidence of how twisted the liberal mind is.
That's not evidence. That's not even anything.
Stan Shannon wrote:
What you demand of your own society, you do not demand of others, but when someone in your own society does demand it of others, that serves as evidence to you of the 'immoderation' of your own society that you cannot tolerate.
Sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Do you know how many people have been lynched in US history?
The key term in that question is 'history'. I also don't know how many witches were burned at the stack. Or how many slaves were raped, etc. However, we do have a fairly accurate count of the number of men in our civilization who sacrificed their lives putting an end to all of that.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
That's not evidence. That's not even anything.
No, actually, it is very powerful evidence.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about.
I know you don't. You simply aren't bright enough.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Do you know how many people have been lynched in US history?
The key term in that question is 'history'. I also don't know how many witches were burned at the stack. Or how many slaves were raped, etc. However, we do have a fairly accurate count of the number of men in our civilization who sacrificed their lives putting an end to all of that.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
That's not evidence. That's not even anything.
No, actually, it is very powerful evidence.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about.
I know you don't. You simply aren't bright enough.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I know you don't. You simply aren't bright enough.
That's it, fuck you. You're the one incapable of constructing an intelligible thought. Your signature, for example, makes no sense. Maybe you should take a course in how to write less crappily.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, actually, it is very powerful evidence.
No it isn't, because you don't know my political stance. You'd fail as a scientist.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The key term in that question is 'history'. I also don't know how many witches were burned at the stack. Or how many slaves were raped, etc.
No, one of the key terms in it was history. Another was 'lynched'. And 'people'. I also seriously doubt that ANY witches were burned at the 'stack'.
Stan Shannon wrote:
However, we do have a fairly accurate count of the number of men in our civilization who sacrificed their lives putting an end to all of that.
Have you tried to count how many of their people have died trying to end the madness?
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Stan Shannon wrote:
I know you don't. You simply aren't bright enough.
That's it, fuck you. You're the one incapable of constructing an intelligible thought. Your signature, for example, makes no sense. Maybe you should take a course in how to write less crappily.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, actually, it is very powerful evidence.
No it isn't, because you don't know my political stance. You'd fail as a scientist.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The key term in that question is 'history'. I also don't know how many witches were burned at the stack. Or how many slaves were raped, etc.
No, one of the key terms in it was history. Another was 'lynched'. And 'people'. I also seriously doubt that ANY witches were burned at the 'stack'.
Stan Shannon wrote:
However, we do have a fairly accurate count of the number of men in our civilization who sacrificed their lives putting an end to all of that.
Have you tried to count how many of their people have died trying to end the madness?
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
That's it, f*** you. You're the one incapable of constructing an intelligible thought. Your signature, for example, makes no sense. Maybe you should take a course in how to write less crappily.
I see. But you can insult me all day long, and thats perfectly ok. Kid, you aren't bright enough. You've been patted on the head by incompetents your entire life for doing pretty much nothing at all but regurgitating the party line until you are actually convinced of your own intellectual superiority. Quite a lot like Obama in fact.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
No it isn't,
Yes, it is.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
because you don't know my political stance.
Yes, I do.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You'd fail as a scientist.
You will fail as a scientist.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
No, one of the key terms in it was history.
No, the key term was 'history'.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I also seriously doubt that ANY witches were burned at the 'stack'.
Hey, you burn 'em your way, and we'll burn 'em our way...
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Have you tried to count how many of their people have died trying to end the madness?
Obviously not enough.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
That's it, f*** you. You're the one incapable of constructing an intelligible thought. Your signature, for example, makes no sense. Maybe you should take a course in how to write less crappily.
I see. But you can insult me all day long, and thats perfectly ok. Kid, you aren't bright enough. You've been patted on the head by incompetents your entire life for doing pretty much nothing at all but regurgitating the party line until you are actually convinced of your own intellectual superiority. Quite a lot like Obama in fact.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
No it isn't,
Yes, it is.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
because you don't know my political stance.
Yes, I do.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You'd fail as a scientist.
You will fail as a scientist.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
No, one of the key terms in it was history.
No, the key term was 'history'.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I also seriously doubt that ANY witches were burned at the 'stack'.
Hey, you burn 'em your way, and we'll burn 'em our way...
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Have you tried to count how many of their people have died trying to end the madness?
Obviously not enough.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I see. But you can insult me all day long, and thats perfectly ok. Kid, you aren't bright enough. You've been patted on the head by incompetents your entire life for doing pretty much nothing at all but regurgitating the party line until you are actually convinced of your own intellectual superiority. Quite a lot like Obama in fact.
The...party line? :wtf: Your idiocy saddens me. Furthermore, you have no idea what I've been doing my entire life, and it has certainly not been 'nothing'. You're simply a more talkative version of Ilion.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Yes, I do.
What is it then, genius?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You will fail as a scientist.
Why? Because I don't buy your horseshit 'evidence'? If your society has no extremists, then what do you call the people who bomb abortion clinics? Who shoot doctors? What about Jim Jones? Timothy McVeigh?
Stan Shannon wrote:
Obviously not enough.
:doh:
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Stan Shannon wrote:
I see. But you can insult me all day long, and thats perfectly ok. Kid, you aren't bright enough. You've been patted on the head by incompetents your entire life for doing pretty much nothing at all but regurgitating the party line until you are actually convinced of your own intellectual superiority. Quite a lot like Obama in fact.
The...party line? :wtf: Your idiocy saddens me. Furthermore, you have no idea what I've been doing my entire life, and it has certainly not been 'nothing'. You're simply a more talkative version of Ilion.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Yes, I do.
What is it then, genius?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You will fail as a scientist.
Why? Because I don't buy your horseshit 'evidence'? If your society has no extremists, then what do you call the people who bomb abortion clinics? Who shoot doctors? What about Jim Jones? Timothy McVeigh?
Stan Shannon wrote:
Obviously not enough.
:doh:
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Furthermore, you have no idea what I've been doing my entire life
Yes, I do.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
What is it then, genius?
You are a standard, run of the mill, collectivist in training.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Because I don't buy your horseshit 'evidence'?
No, because you are incapable of discerning between evidence and propaganda, precisely as you have been trained.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
what do you call the people who bomb abortion clinics? Who shoot doctors? What about Jim Jones? Timothy McVeigh?
For the most part, we call them prisoners.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Furthermore, you have no idea what I've been doing my entire life
Yes, I do.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
What is it then, genius?
You are a standard, run of the mill, collectivist in training.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Because I don't buy your horseshit 'evidence'?
No, because you are incapable of discerning between evidence and propaganda, precisely as you have been trained.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
what do you call the people who bomb abortion clinics? Who shoot doctors? What about Jim Jones? Timothy McVeigh?
For the most part, we call them prisoners.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Yes, I do.
You don't. What the hell? You don't know me. What instruments do I play? What languages do I speak? What sports do I play?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You are a standard, run of the mill, collectivist in training.
This may come as a shock for you, but I'm scientifically motivated, and I barely care about politics at all. I don't know, nor care, what Collectivism is. You, on the other hand, ARE Ilion. He calls everyone a *liar*, and an 'intellectually dishonest' *fool*, and refuses to be moved on the issue; you call everyone a 'Collectivist', or a 'Marxist', or a 'Leftist', and refuse to be moved on the issue. It's Narcissism, plain and simple.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, because you are incapable of discerning between evidence and propaganda, precisely as you have been trained.
I know exactly what evidence is, unlike you. I, for example, know that you can't use one person's isolated statement to generalise across a political movement that the person doesn't even subscribe to. You, on the other hand, believe that a computer is a useful analogy for the brain, for which I award you 'Moron of the Month'.
Stan Shannon wrote:
For the most part, we call them prisoners.
"we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east" No, you don't call them prisoners, you refuse to acknowledge their existence.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Yes, I do.
You don't. What the hell? You don't know me. What instruments do I play? What languages do I speak? What sports do I play?
Stan Shannon wrote:
You are a standard, run of the mill, collectivist in training.
This may come as a shock for you, but I'm scientifically motivated, and I barely care about politics at all. I don't know, nor care, what Collectivism is. You, on the other hand, ARE Ilion. He calls everyone a *liar*, and an 'intellectually dishonest' *fool*, and refuses to be moved on the issue; you call everyone a 'Collectivist', or a 'Marxist', or a 'Leftist', and refuse to be moved on the issue. It's Narcissism, plain and simple.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, because you are incapable of discerning between evidence and propaganda, precisely as you have been trained.
I know exactly what evidence is, unlike you. I, for example, know that you can't use one person's isolated statement to generalise across a political movement that the person doesn't even subscribe to. You, on the other hand, believe that a computer is a useful analogy for the brain, for which I award you 'Moron of the Month'.
Stan Shannon wrote:
For the most part, we call them prisoners.
"we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east" No, you don't call them prisoners, you refuse to acknowledge their existence.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I don't know, nor care, what Collectivism is.
Perhaps you should.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
call everyone a 'Collectivist', or a 'Marxist', or a 'Leftist', and refuse to be moved on the issue. It's Narcissism, plain and simple.
I am actually pretty damned sure that I have been 'moved' on far more issues than have you, or probably most of those who hang out here. Hell, I swithc back and forth on issues every day. It might surprise you that most of the people who actually know me consider me to be quite the raving, anti-christian, liberal.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You, on the other hand, believe that a computer is a useful analogy for the brain, for which I award you 'Moron of the Month'.
That comment demonstrates your problems quite nicely. First, I've never said that, you are simply incapable of considering perspectives different from those you have been carefully trained to consider. Secondly, the issue I've raised, becuase it is one I am fascinated by (being someone actually able to think out side the box), is what is so magical about the nature of consciousness that it could not be incoporated into other kinds of processing mechanisms? You ,on the other hand, as with most of your generation, accept whatever you are told on the subject as gospel with no apparent intellectual curiousity of any kind. When someone ventures an observation outside your carefully managed world view, you go ballistic. You actually appear threatened by it, which I find odd, and somewhat amusing. You are no more capable of thinking a thought that you haven't been programmed to think than is my computer. Which perhaps makes the point after all.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east" No, you don't call them prisoners, you refuse to acknowledge their existence.
What I acknowlege is that ours are captured and imprisoned or executed before they grow a movement large enough to threaten those outside of our own society. You are incapable of understanding that that is all I am asking of Islamic civililzation. I am demanding no more of them than I am demanding of myself, but I do demand at least that much from them. I don't want to hear lectures about what kind and moderate people the
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Well, in my - admittedly limited - experience, mathematics is the only thing in which such extreme views of right and wrong can be supported. Maybe the radicals should pick up a calculus book and realise how petty their worldly concerns are.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Well, in my - admittedly limited - experience, mathematics is the only thing in which such extreme views of right and wrong can be supported. Maybe the radicals should pick up a calculus book and realise how petty their worldly concerns are.
So, here I am, backtracking through Stan's posts -- and I freely admit that he is displaying far more patience than I even care to have -- when I come across his prior response from which the above dangles. And I think to myself, in reference to the above: How self-blind can a person be? What is this "extreme?" What does that even mean? What is the moral standard by which you are declaring someone else's moral claims to be "too extreme?" How great, and for how long, a fool do you intend to be?
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
I don't know, nor care, what Collectivism is.
Perhaps you should.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
call everyone a 'Collectivist', or a 'Marxist', or a 'Leftist', and refuse to be moved on the issue. It's Narcissism, plain and simple.
I am actually pretty damned sure that I have been 'moved' on far more issues than have you, or probably most of those who hang out here. Hell, I swithc back and forth on issues every day. It might surprise you that most of the people who actually know me consider me to be quite the raving, anti-christian, liberal.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You, on the other hand, believe that a computer is a useful analogy for the brain, for which I award you 'Moron of the Month'.
That comment demonstrates your problems quite nicely. First, I've never said that, you are simply incapable of considering perspectives different from those you have been carefully trained to consider. Secondly, the issue I've raised, becuase it is one I am fascinated by (being someone actually able to think out side the box), is what is so magical about the nature of consciousness that it could not be incoporated into other kinds of processing mechanisms? You ,on the other hand, as with most of your generation, accept whatever you are told on the subject as gospel with no apparent intellectual curiousity of any kind. When someone ventures an observation outside your carefully managed world view, you go ballistic. You actually appear threatened by it, which I find odd, and somewhat amusing. You are no more capable of thinking a thought that you haven't been programmed to think than is my computer. Which perhaps makes the point after all.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
we don't have 'immoderates' in our society who are in any way comparable to those in the middle east" No, you don't call them prisoners, you refuse to acknowledge their existence.
What I acknowlege is that ours are captured and imprisoned or executed before they grow a movement large enough to threaten those outside of our own society. You are incapable of understanding that that is all I am asking of Islamic civililzation. I am demanding no more of them than I am demanding of myself, but I do demand at least that much from them. I don't want to hear lectures about what kind and moderate people the
Stan Shannon wrote:
Perhaps you should.
Perhaps I shouldn't.
Stan Shannon wrote:
I am actually pretty damned sure that I have been 'moved' on far more issues than have you, or probably most of those who hang out here. Hell, I swithc back and forth on issues every day.
Name three.
Stan Shannon wrote:
That comment demonstrates your problems quite nicely. First, I've never said that, you are simply incapable of considering perspectives different from those you have been carefully trained to consider.
Yes you did: "Anything that computes is, by definition, a computer. The mechanical adding machines that used to be so common back in the day were computers. A fly's brain is a computer. I would say that it enhances our understanding by first establishing the fundamental purpose of the thing we are trying to understand." I have not been 'carefully trained'. There is nothing that I haven't been encouraged to think and learn about.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Secondly, the issue I've raised, becuase it is one I am fascinated by (being someone actually able to think out side the box), is what is so magical about the nature of consciousness that it could not be incoporated into other kinds of processing mechanisms?
I'm able to think outside of the box, and it means that I don't fruitlessly obsess over stupid questions like that. There's nothing impossible in theory about constructing a brain in another medium, but the structure of the brain is currently impossible to replicate using anything other than neurons. Unless you want to put together a hundred trillion synapses by hand, you'll have to use something self-assembling (and probably self-replicating), so you're pretty much stuck with something organic. There's also an inherent problem in trying to replicate the parallel processing capabilities of a brain using conventional technology, so you wouldn't be able to make it with just silicon and transistors. And then, a brain is able to change its structure whenever necessary, giving it a great degree of flexibility that a computer doesn't have. Since you've got something organic, you'll need some chemical means of sustaining it, which means you'll need some sort of circulatory, excretory, and respiratory systems. The only way you're going to be able to input and output
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Well, in my - admittedly limited - experience, mathematics is the only thing in which such extreme views of right and wrong can be supported. Maybe the radicals should pick up a calculus book and realise how petty their worldly concerns are.
So, here I am, backtracking through Stan's posts -- and I freely admit that he is displaying far more patience than I even care to have -- when I come across his prior response from which the above dangles. And I think to myself, in reference to the above: How self-blind can a person be? What is this "extreme?" What does that even mean? What is the moral standard by which you are declaring someone else's moral claims to be "too extreme?" How great, and for how long, a fool do you intend to be?
That's a good question. Because it's you, I'm not going to answer it.
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That's a good question. Because it's you, I'm not going to answer it.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
That's a good question. Because it's you, I'm not going to answer it.
It's not important that you give me the answer; it's not even important that you come up with the absolute answer. edit:
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
... Because it's you, ...
And that, coming from you, is funny.