Thanks dag & transmopher.

Oh yeah, this 3rd Testament you advocate would be most useful. There are external references throughout the centuries that helps people understand it in better context. Matthew Henry for example - not perfect, but useful. But I'm afraid human nature would just twist and corrupt anything. Pretty soon a 4th Testament will be needed.

The big problem with religion is the defensiveness of its practitioners. When people outside of their religion points out the weird crap in their holy text (weird in the present, not so much during the time it was written), they go all up in arms and goes on the attack. Yet so many withing their rank uses bits and pieces of the text out of context to justify horrendous behavior. Where is the self-criticism? Where's the self-reflection? Where's the self-correction?

It's no wonder atheist wants religion out. But realistically, religion is not going out the door anytime soon. I can understand that want too, really, I want the bad crap out of religion just as much.

But I do see the goodness within and just trying my best to achieve the same goal from an opposite (?) vantage point. If we're all here fighting evil, I don't care in what name you do it for, I'm going to support you.

Today's terrorism problems have no better authority than Muslim leaders coming out and condemn and explain their religion to the world. Christians needs to preach compassion towards their neighbors rather than fear & loathing, it's what Jesus commands. That's peaceful, cross-faith discussions the religious leaders of all faiths lack so much of. But I just don't see much of that up top...

Sunday morning, 9:30'ish -- someone's cutting stones for their driveway, neighbour's washing her car with music cranked up to 11...

As Marcuse said, "there is no free society without silence, without the internal and external spaces of solitude in which the individual freedom can develop".

Patriotism is not bad, fundamentalist patriotism as an ideology is bad.

Patriotism or its effect is really just a will to support and defend a local community that can then defend itself from external forces and organize internal infrastructure and services.

National states just happen to be strongly defined communities that can be organized fairly easily.

As with other ideologies it is important to try to not let one take over the state without any recourse.

Misuse of xenophobia in politics is just as worrying as the apparent lack of will to defend the "European community" from external forces. No one is willing to die in trenches in the name of Europe just yet. And there is still a lot of internal xenophobia within Europe.

balance =
fight AND flight
external AND internal material arts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neijia

I dunno if it's gunpowder that they put in firecracker fuses, but once it's ignited, gunpowder doesn't need an external source of oxygen around to burn. I think it frees more oxygen than it uses or something like that, but I'm too lazy to google it.

I'm basically done with defending WikiLeaks as well, after the shit they pulled with the leaks of Turkish data. Completely irresponsible, that one.

However, WikiLeaks doesn't need credibility -- the data does. And the data they published vis-á-vis Clinton/Podesta/DNC is, as of now, solid. There was one fake document, but that was shown to have been injected by someone other than WL.

"Strong bias" -- oh, I do have a strong bias. Plural, as in biases, actually. For instance, I'm disinclined to take anything the US intelligence agencies say at face value, given how they manufactured more than one casus belli. I don't put much weight into (un-)official statements in general, but especially since all the misinformation they spread about issues like the coup in Honduras or the actions of Nazi militias in Ukraine.

In this particular case, however, my argument is much simpler: Occam's razor seems much more likely than malicious intent. Propaganda outlets on both sides are run by people. Maybe the propaganda outlet Sputnik intentionally twisted the content of email, or maybe they just fucked up, like people are wont to do. Maybe someone intentionally fed Trump this bad info, maybe his people are just as incompetent as he is.

There are too many parts in this that include people who have more than once proven themselves to be utterly incompetent, or in complete ignorance of even the concept of truth. I don't think Trump gives a shit about truth or facts, he strikes me as the typical blowhard who spouts whatever shit comes to mind, and spins stories on the fly like a 4-year-old when caught red-handing.

No need for a conspiracy there, with all this incompetence, naiveté and plain disregard for facts.

So when they keep on pushing the Russian angle in this, it just seems like a desperate attempt to conjure up the old unifying enemy. Why worry about Russian propaganda when there's plenty on FOX and MSNBC/CNN? Why worry about Russian hackers when you accept the unbelievably insecure method of eletronic votes, partly without paper trails, and completely controlled by private companies?

It's just very strange to an outsider like me to see them focus on perceived external influences when the internals are a complete clusterfuck. And this presidential election is the biggest clusterfuck I've seen in 30 years, which doesn't mean much, admittedly.

That said, we can't just be looking at it from the outside with binoculars, not when people are back to full-blown Cold War rhetoric. When the ruling class in the US and/or the ruling class in Russia start their pissing contests and other forms of grandstanding, it's usually brown people who pay the price, like they have been in Syria for the last couple of years. And Libya. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Afghanistan, And Iraq. And Pakistan.

Personally, all the rhetoric about "standing up to Russian aggression" and similar nonsense makes me keenly aware that the bridge just outside my hometown was constructed with a shaft to place explosives in, to slow down advancing Soviet troops... so yes, I would very much like to bitch-slap all these warmongerers on both sides, but particularly the ones in the US since they are currently the ones racking up the highest death toll.

Edit: I should have made it clearer. Yes, WL is absolutely biased against Clinton and they do seem to act in support of Trump. Assange in particular. Which bums me out to no end, since I actually met the guy in person when they presented WL at the 26C3.

No I am not. Science totally relies on cause & effect.

Science has methods to distinguish correlation from causality. Causality means repeatable results, possibility of practical use and my hypocritical benefit. Correlation means randomness and no reason to invest.

Im not against the notion of global warming or nuclear winter.

As far as nuclear winter is concerned I dont think there is much difference between a frozen planet and one that is merely a "few" degrees colder than normal for a couple of years. In either case humans are done for. So while the hype was overdone, reality is just as frightening.

Global warming is a projection into the future, and the future is one of the hardest things to predict. I am happy to agree that we are f*cking up our planet and need to stop ASAP. There are measurable indicators that are clearly out of bounds, conclusively because of human activity.

The political hype (of climate change) is a big risk - if the climate straightens out because of external factors humans might be tempted to not stop f*cking up their environment.

Lets stick to facts and not overemphasize various projections.

There are many biasing factors that current scientists must deal with. Consider the sad state of such "sciences" as criminal bite analysis, or shoeprint analysis, or even fingerprinting. Poor results come from huge external pressures to come to the "right" conclusions, regardless of the truth.

One boycotts hysteria by refusing to become hysterical, and refusing to parrot hysterical claims, even if it seems socially or professionally advantageous.

The ad-based revenue model fundamentally breaks the concept of relaying information free from external influence.

Everywhere.

I'm glad he made the point that internal causes can't be separated from external causes. If you believe in determinism then you have to realize that before your birth everything that you will do was determined, but none of it was internal. And once you are born, how then do you become culpable for the initial state of the universe?

I agree with compatibilists on the broad point that determinism is largely compatible with holding people responsible for their actions. But I think they're too hung up on the idea of moral responsibility. Even without thinking anyone is the author of their own actions, it's still wise to lock people up who are an immediate threat to others, or use measured punishment as a deterrent, or hope to change future behavior with treatment programs. The only thing you don't get to do is be vindictive and cruel, thinking the perpetrator deserves to suffer. But I've never believed in punishment for the sake revenge anyway.

A lot of the clips of Spitfires in this are actually Hurricanes (the Spitfire is the one with the bubble canopy). Of course, they had the same engine in them with the same problem.

Great film, though, Battle of Britain. I understand a lot of the effects in it were inspirations for Star Wars (particularly the head on shot of a pilot in his cockpit which is starting to explode around him and then cut to the external shot of the model exploding).

ed: You don't actually see a Spitfire until 0:26 and the plane used as an example doing a roll is a Hurricane.

Just got around to reading The Quantum Thief, which you recommended about a hundred years ago in one of the 'what are you reading' threads. Thought I'd send a little note of thanks since I really liked it and don't think I would have come across it on my own.

Constructing a sort of crime novel around the subtle implications of technologies that don't exist yet must be difficult work. When a break in the case comes about because the detective realises that, oh of course, since the thief used the key to his encrypted external memory to steal his identity, that must give him access to recordings of the thief's activities during the few minutes of the impersonation, and what's this, he used a quantum entangling drone to beam only one stolen minute of Time away from the victim, there's only one thing that can mean: to the resurrection house! - well it's a step above bootprints in the flower bed isn't it? And calling time-rich nobles 'millenniaires'...mmm, juicy.

I've largely opted out of this one. I'm not an economist or an expert in european law, so I haven't the knowledge to make an intelligent choice.

I am somewhat naturally inclined toward remaining: there was never a trace of patriotism in my soul, and the european courts at least have done some service toward protecting british freedoms, both from our government and from those corporations who'd like to own it. The common market's a good principle, and I don't have anything but admiration for the idea of a european superpower to oppose the twin fascisms of the US and China.

I never thought I'd grow up to care about immigration, but it turns out I don't like seeing millions of social conservatives marching into western europe from lesser cultures, pushing back against the progress we've made in recent decades.

There's another dimension to that question in the UK, which I don't think is well understood externally: where absolutely anyone with a european passport is allowed permanent residence here, the government keeps the figures down to appease its more xenophobic voters by making it practically impossible for those outside the EU. So, every year we tell thousands of highly skilled, highly intelligent prospective immigrants to just fuck off. Good policy.

In any event, I don't endorse unjust systems like democracy, and wouldn't vote in any referendum.

The game is fucking awesome, but I think you are right that it doesn't really warrant a $60.00 price tag. I feel more convinced of this after paying $25 for the latest Fallout 4 expansion, Far Harbor - DOOM for $60, Overwatch for $40 and Witcher 3's latest expansion Blood and Wine for $19.99.

Blood and Wine is a god damn exemplary piece of video gaming. The amount of content and quality in that *expansion* surpasses most AAA games and all of the aforementioned games - for less.

Anyway, back to DOOM gripes; most of the side missions are fucking way too linear and aggravating. There's nothing special about the multiplayer and the Snapmap thing is basically a level shitter-outer.

That said, the multiplayer was created by an external team but Id software are working on correcting the multiplayer. If they correct the multiplayer and make something interesting out of it, release a real editor to get a decent mod scene going - then I think the game would be worth $60.00 for quite a while and they could go all Blizzard about it and keep it at that price for years.

just to add what @Asmo rightly pointed out,is that addictions are a symptom of internal and external forces.

when we consider the state of our society and it its inherent social structures,and we compare addiction rates and suicide rates,i feel there is sufficient evidence for concern.

just look at americas suicide rates.
http://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/

we can see a steady increase.
when we factor in military suicides,which have been averaging one,to up to 22 a day since 2009.the larger picture becomes incredibly disturbing.

my point,which is right with asmo,is that while one group kills themselves due to hopelessness,emotional stress or an inability to cope or adapt in these trying times.

the addict is doing the same thing,for the exact same reasons.just on a slower and more precipitous path of self-destruction.

when asked as a child what they wanted to be when they grow up.no child ever answered that their desire was to become an addict.

the "war" on drugs,
is a war on people.

and treating this as a legal/criminal problem is missing the point entirely.
this is a social issue,that can be treated by providing social solutions.

dr bruce alexander discovered some amazing results in rats you may find interesting @MilkmanDan:

http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park