imo, infinity war had the best ending of any marvel movie and they should keep it as the actual ending of the current MCU. the main story telling problem with most superhero movies is there is no real risk or threat to the main characters, only to the people around them. this makes all the action have much less impact as consequences to the violence and action are minimized. ending the series with real deaths from a foe they could not defeat finally gives the series the gravitas that it failed to have up until this point.

also, thanos was by far the most interesting and complex character in the whole MCU. the reframing of his motives vastly improved on his character.

This is what I like about her. The Aziz story is... weird, and I certainly have my opinion on it, but I love the last minute here where she calls out what is really important and let me reframe the way I was approaching the situation. I like being made to think. It is just refreshing to have someone presenting logic and thoughtfulness as opposed to just screaming into the internet.

You, as a devoutly religious person, trying to reframe my flippant attitude as dogmatism is like a child playing at being a police officer talking to a real police officer and going, "Wooooo woooooo woooooo I'm a police officer! I caught a hundred bad guys today! I'm taking you to jail!" You can't expect me to take you seriously. Every paragraph you write shows your lack of scientific understanding and unwillingness to honestly seek truth. If I saw some scientific thinking or efforts on your part to see things from my point of view, I'd gladly continue to make the extra effort, as I did for many months (was it years?). Consider I've spent most of our conversation time trying to understand your point of view, but you have never once inquired about mine. And then you accuse me of being "incurious".

Every paragraph you write to me lately is simply stringing the same three ad homs together in a different order (you are a dogmatist, you dont understand science, you dont engage with critical thinking). This is all that you ever really say to me, and when you're not saying it, you're pointing at something else to make the argument for you. Your point of view is apparently whatever scientists say is true, and that is the essential argument you are presenting; it must be true because scientists couldn't be wrong.

I have inquired about your views; we have had extensive conversations about what you believe and why you believe it. I'm interested in what you think; I'd love to actually have an actual conversation about this but you have already said you're not interested in putting any effort into it. How can it be my deficiency when you don't even understand the basics? It is an intellectual incuriousity; you see it as nonsense without even understanding what the creationist position actually is. You just dismiss it out of hand.
This is the nut of it for me with you. This illustrates your perfect failure to understand science. If you can't see why just from reading it, I don't have the skill to show you.

Yes, this looks good to the empiricist, who doesn't understand the problem of induction. There is no such thing as pure interpretation without bias. You are always bringing certain assumptions to table. What he is really saying when he says to exclude scripture is this: we reject the idea of a global catastrophe in geology, or that the features we see today could have formed quickly. They therefore interpreted all of the data through their uniformitarian assumptions and excluded that hypothesis completely. It wasn't that they had hard evidence, it was that they interpreted the evidence through the predetermined conclusion. I gave you a good example of this but you essentially ignored it.

How can we have a substantive conversation if you're not willing to put in any effort to actually understand the subject matter, either for or against? If you're content with your blind faith in whatever scientists tell you, then you're just as dogmatic as you accuse me of being.

You, as a devoutly religious person, trying to reframe my flippant attitude as dogmatism is like a child playing at being a police officer talking to a real police officer and going, "Wooooo woooooo woooooo I'm a police officer! I caught a hundred bad guys today! I'm taking you to jail!" You can't expect me to take you seriously. Every paragraph you write shows your lack of scientific understanding and unwillingness to honestly seek truth. If I saw some scientific thinking or efforts on your part to see things from my point of view, I'd gladly continue to make the extra effort, as I did for many months (was it years?). Consider I've spent most of our conversation time trying to understand your point of view, but you have never once inquired about mine. And then you accuse me of being "incurious".

As you can plainly see, Charles was scheming to deceive the church into accepting his uniformitarian theories even though he knew they contradicted scripture. He wasn't interested in a scientific investigation of the facts:

"... the physical part of Geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the Scriptures were not in existence"

He had an agenda and his bias is plain to see.

This is the nut of it for me with you. This illustrates your perfect failure to understand science. If you can't see why just from reading it, I don't have the skill to show you.

Which point of mine did you actually respond to? Isn't turnabout fair play?

Look at that picture of MLK getting arrested and tell me, what's the bigger injustice? That such a thing ever happened, or that we let that guy convince us to stop doing it?

Ron Paul is solidly in the latter camp. Are you?

You tried to reframe the issue so the latter camp sounds justified, but I don't think you've really accepted what that entails. It means you condone, defend, and synonymize with "liberty" the practice of arresting people whose only crime was being black in a public place owned by a bigot.

Those are your choices -- stand up and directly defend the righteousness of arresting MLK for being black in public, or stay in that small, inflexible box you've climbed into, and avoid having a real conversation with me.

Well, there is another option, you can actually change your mind, and stop eating the Soylent Green.
>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

You're as inflexible as Quantumushroom.
...
Also, thanks for ignoring every the point I made

Wow, was that pathetic. Here's a tip to the Obama campaign trying to reframe his failure... CUE CARDS GO UNDER THE CAMERA SO HE ISN'T STARING OFF THE SCREEN WHEN HE READS YOUR TALKING POINTS.

So, this video pretty much says the only thing Obama has done is a stupid Health Insurance reform that benefits no one but Insurance companies (his campaign contributors) and a few million people not currently covered, and it might kick in around three years from now. Bravo.

Appointed someone to Supreme Court, OMG!!!! Let's make a statue.

Actually let Congress do something about DADT since he failed to act. Wow, he didn't veto it. Bravo. (We'll pretend we don't realize he could have ended it any any time immediately with Executive Order)


In the end his only argument for Obama is that he doesn't like Nader (who would enact a semblance of Progressive change) and GOP candidates are bad. Wow, GLOWING RECOMMENDATION!!

Even Obama's re-election campaign can only muster this lame attempt at viral endorsements. The guy sounds like he is defending a creepy uncle with the enthusiasm of a funeral director.

Nothing. Nothing at all was bad, except the fact that he failed to instantly condemn the first supportive, ordinary, non-politician speaker at a townhall meeting for expressing his anger and frustration in a non politically-correct way. He dodged the inappropriate literal question, and instead answered the real question behind the nervous joke, which was, "How can we get rid of Obama?" His answer: through the electoral process.>> ^Psychologic:

What's so bad about Broun's response? He removed any reference to violence and reframed the discussion to a political solution. I'm glad people laughed instead of applauding at least (though I haven't heard the audio, so maybe it was both).

What's so bad about Broun's response? He removed any reference to violence and reframed the discussion to a political solution. I'm glad people laughed instead of applauding at least (though I haven't heard the audio, so maybe it was both).

A brief analysis of anarcho capitalist rhetoric:

Anarcho Capitalists oppose both democracy and taxes, which is a tough position to take, because democracy has vast, widespread support, and because taxes, though unpopular, are an accepted and commonplace part of modern civilization. In order for the anarcho capitalist to proceed, he needs to reframe the debate with emotional and fear inducing terminology. 'Democracy' is transformed into the scary sounding 'statism'. 'Taxation' is transformed into the scary sounding 'coercion under the threat of violence'. No one wants to argue in favor of violence, which forces smart sifters like psychologic to say things like "That's far too broad of a question for me to give a single answer." In my opinion, I'd score that response as 1 point to blankfist, just like I give myself 1 point every time an ancapper can't answer one of my questions. It really isn't that broad of a question, it's just framed in a way that is purposely designed to fuck you up.

Now let's break down the 'coercion under threat of violence' a bit more. You will not be shot for tax evasion. You might get fined, or in extreme circumstances jailtime, but you will not be shot. Not even Al Capone was shot for tax evasion. There is no threat of violence until you initiate it, by, say, pointing a gun at a police officer. Anarcho capitalists would sound pretty silly if they said 'We are coerced into not pointing guns at police officers under threat of violence' directly, but in essence, this is exactly what they are saying.

It's all in the delivery.

The vigilante angle "Help identify this sexist asshole' might have worked. Mocking the French 'Peppy la Pew can't take rejection' might work well with Americans. The concerned pro-feminest male angle '*Sigh* Misogyny Alive and well in 2010' would probably do well too.

Reframe and resubmit.

There's a difference between arguing semantics in order to find out the truth of the matter, and arguing semantics in order to "reframe" something to make it appear as something that it is not.

Frankly, I think that the reason the word "progressive" gained so much use in the 2000's was due to the diabolically successful efforts of the right-wing noise machine to turn the word "liberal" into an almost universal pejorative.

I'm a word guy, too, but like it or not, there's often a difference between what a word means originally and what it means in the vernacular.

On a side note I do remember, in the run-up to the election of 2000, the Greens and the Libertarians were in agreement on...probably 75% of the issues...and that's another reason I'd like to see the end of our two-party system. I think we'd make more progress if Greens and Libertarians were represented.

And lastly, the reason that the Dems and the liberal left aren't making more progress is because we're more reactive than active. It's like playing a chess game where you can never seem to get into a position to launch your attack.



(Cut! Where's my fluffer!)

Hehehe, I love how the actual YouTube video is framed as Barney Frank being a "big retarded baby," but the intelligence of the videosift community is able to take that video and reframe it appropriately.

^The situations you suggest are created by Brown. I should have mentioned in my previous post that he is a showman, and a former conman. All of the "this is a unique situation" and (if you've seen it) the Russian Roulette bit is set up. The participants are screened without their knowledge, and often groomed for weeks. What's great is that Brown is upfront about these fact. But the setup is only what creates the drama, and not what seals the deal itself--that's the NLP.

I understand the skepticism, but if you read some actual NLP literature (eg. rapport, anchoring and reframing) and try some of it for yourself, you'll get the idea pretty quickly that theses techniques are responsible for the effects you see in Brown's performance.

I do think this was a hate crime against liberals, as the shooter himself described it as such. I also think this was an isolated incident, and not indicative of conservatives as a whole. I don't think it's any indication of the deep political divide in our country either. What my mind kept returning to was not his self-proclaimed conservative bent, but the police report stating he was unable to hold down a job.

Details from the linked story paint the picture of a proud man who once served his country and commanded some measure of respect back in the day, and who is now struggling to provide for himself and loved ones through a deepening recession and his own difficulties in finding employment. His attempted mass murder could have been sparked by increasing isolation from society and frustration at his powerlessness, causing him to turn to the last avenue he felt he had available to him. Perhaps this portrait is inaccurate, but creating it is essential; reframing the incident in broader terms risks obscuring the reality of what actually happened.

Regardless, my heart goes out to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church parish as a whole, and specifically to those who were injured in this shooting along with the families of those injured or killed. I pray for their personal health and the wellbeing of the community.

MycroftHomlz sez:

"You remind me of Dale Harding.

I think you have completely missed his point; either you are too entrenched in your own ideals or you weren't paying attention. First, it is irrelevant whether or not man is the cause of global warming. Global Warming is happening, deal with it."

I take exception to your "Dale Harding" reference. =P

I think you have completely missed MY point here. My point was not to argue whom is to blame but instead to point out the hole in his otherwise solid argument.

His point, unlike YOUR own point, was not to argue that Global Warming was a given (he concedes that there may still be a valid debate). Instead, he circumvents that issue and reframes the arguement as a matter of Risk Assesment, which are known/agreed-upon matters.

The flaw I point out is his oversimplification of those risks into black/white conclusions. He assumes that if we act, we can make a difference. He agrees that acting on preventative/reconstructive measures will cost us to some degree, but does not account for the effectiveness of the investment.

This means that his paradigm of "Act equals =( or =| " versus "No Act equals =) or The End Of The World" is flawed, becuase "the End Of The World" is still a factor in the "Act" column and we are still quantumly screwed.

In conclusion, His Devil's Advocate lacks the proper measure of cynicism for this arguement. Damn short-sighted optimists.