Best posts made by pe7erpark3r

@OliveOlivia said in Olivia's Thoughts #06:

@petrapark3r said in Olivia's Thoughts #06:

why does it matter, that there are people who don't care about what you write?

If no one cares [...]

No one cares is obviously not true. Here we are, caring, even argueing... caring too much :shrug:... I still think it does not matter that there are (some / many) people who do not care. Because there are enough people who do. :triumph:

Second disagreement: I am perfectly convinced that shakespeare's words are of much higher importance than the words of say Donald Trump. For a simple reason: they contain more truth, and are waaay deeper. Thus: what some people say is in fact more important than what other people say. It is not because of who they are, but because of what they say.

You can not declare what is and isn't important. It may be more important to you, but there are many many many US citizen that are Trump supporters and they would disagree completely. Neither of you would be wrong or right, importance is just subjective.

Look, some people are wrong and some are right. But since I agree with you, that our subjectivity cannot completely separated from our views, we can never fully grasp the truth. But some things are true_er_ than others. And some things are false. And that does not depend on who says it and it is not entirely subjective either. If you think you can fly you will still die when you step off a building. So what you believed was not some relative subjective truth, it was objectvely false...

So are your words more important than other people's words? Maybe. Who could tell today? But they seem to be more important to some people. Why is that not enough?

Well as I mentioned importance is subjective. I don't know anyone who thinks what I have to say is important and if they do feel that way I would be surprised.

me. silly. :P

@Donald-Huebner said in Even at 32, I've never been able to observe that I could consider a girl/woman as someone who does deserve me. I'm feel more proud of this than desirous of condescending; yet I continue to think on it more and more whenever I'm not concentrating on one of my theoretical research problems. Am I wrong anywhere? Any suggestions/recommendations/prescriptions???:

@NathanOnFire said

@vnair4u you refuse to provide your ID

Are you trying to say that something very wise, which will clear all confusions if it gets spoken at a forum of world-class intellectuals by someone of the likes of Einstein or Newton or Gauss or Hilbert, is supposed to get transformed into something invalid at the moment when this same very wise thing is spoken by an ordinary average mind at a forum of ordinary physics professors or internet surfing weirdos who look or woof with equal respect at both the wise stuff and the misleading stuff?

Or are you expecting that an Einstein-level scientist will “provide his ID” at web pages where relationship-related things are discussed?

Any philosophical assertion gets accredited as valid or invalid by means of discourses; and not on the basis of IDs.

I agree with @NathanOnFire, in a sense, that you are claiming to be Einstein level and cannot expect to be simply believed.

But I agree with you, that an ID certainly is the wrong way to go. People should be judged by what they say and do, not by their name, their appearance, their skin color (including white people of course) or any group membership. Or their wealth for that matter.

@steelfirehawk said in Mutualism Schism:

@petrapark3r np

alright here it is, sorry for taking a day longer.

Jesus said He wouldnt bring peace but the sword. mother against daughter, etc. when your father drags you down, you have to go, and not help him continue to do wrong. you need to take up your cross and follow jesus, on the uncomfortable road that leads to heaven.

yes, many profets and the disciples were called to give up all their worldly goods and follow jesus in this way. but this is not for everybody. only those who are called directly by the Lord to proclaim His word in this way. Actually, if He had called you you would not have nothing. People would be giving you things all the time, and exactly in the right moment. Heavenly providence is real, and I've seen exactly this happen countless time to somone who is actually called.

But if you are not called to this kind of life, then things like this won't happen to you. And then for you taking up your cross means working and providing for your family. And if you do that you'll see another kind of providence. You'll also see that He takes care of you through the work of your hands and thus helps you, your family and those with whom you share to live a good life.

@OliveOlivia said in Olivia's Thoughts #07:

I think animals are far more smart than we know. They haven't created their own vaccinations or came up with inventions, but they're smart. Possibly smart enough to know not to do those things. I might sound crazy, I can barely even explain this properly, but I think animals are just more.

They clearly are capable of things we aren't. I think it's because they are more connected to their own nature than we often are – caught up by worldly affairs...

Like climate change, they know it is happening since they are affected by it, and if they are able to they will adapt. Some people don't know climate change is real. How are we the smart ones?

Yeah, about that. Animals and plants brought about at least 2 climate catastrophes, that killed almost all of them. Like plants who produced oxygen. That literally killed off billions of organisms, who need an oxygen free environment to survive.

Sometimes I feel like they might know more than we do. Maybe animals aren't dumb, maybe they just know that building shopping malls and driving cars will do more damage than any benefit. Maybe they know Earth is their home and they know better than to destroy it.

Animals never take more than they need. I'm not so sure that's because they know they shouldn't. But I do know, that we should actually be doing the same and are too stupid to do it :shrug:

I might be dumb to think animals aren't dumb, but there are rainforests that produce poisonous plants and when an animal eats it, they know just where to go to find the antidote, which is a special clay only found in certain places. No one knows how they figured this out, but they did.
Clearly they are primitive to us, so they cant be 'smarter'.

Same goes for the indians who discovered iowasca. How the heck did those people know that exactly this combination of plants would result in the most halucigenic drug ever known to man?

But I think they are smart enough to know not to bite the hand that feeds them. And I think we are dumb enough to cut the whole arm off, turn it into a robot arm, and then be surprised when it malfunctions and we starve.

We are definitely dumb enough, that's for sure :joy:

Since Mr. Gates was mentioned, I want to pronounce my agreement with him about what he does for his son. Did you know that when he dies all his wealth goes to charity? His son "only" get's 10 million. He wants his son, to make his own life, to become a strong individual, who doesn't live of his father's pockets.

So yes, I do agree with this thinking. Let me draw up an image for you: Imagine two beautiful women, who have all the characteristics you would desire in your partner. Now both are thrown into poverty by life. It happens, revolutions do tend to happen every 100 years, and in every revolution, the truly rich loose almost all their wealth. In fact I've once met the Baroness in whose palace Putin lives today. She lives in exile and her daughter has an absolutely normal job. So take these two beautiful women from before. And tell me which one would you admire more: The one who falls apart in front of now being unable to live her former lifestyle, or the one who does not loose her smile or her aura? True strength shines in poverty, even brighter than before. While the true materialist might even kill herself. How would you answer the question: what would I do if I lost all my wealth and my ability to achieve (maybe through a stroke, a fire in the house, or a car crash...)?

As I said before, true thinking is offensive, it challenges you. Of course I do not have all the answers to all the problems. But as you can see I have the courage of challenging you. And I do not regret doing this, for I know, that a true man, will grow from a challenge. I've presented you some very deep ideas and I can only hope you won't just push them away, but actually grapple with them. But that's obviously your choice.

Could you explain to us a bit the japanese star signs? Or do you guys have the european "system" too? And what do your star signs say?

@OliveOlivia said in Olivia's Thoughts #08:

@petrapark3r said in Olivia's Thoughts #08:

@OliveOlivia said in Olivia's Thoughts #08:

Sometimes I get these feelings like I am supposed to do something. Like my life has an actual purpose that I need to fulfill and its big. I know it's not true and I am not in any position to think that it is, but every time I try to shake the feeling it comes back.

Cause it's true. And it's big. Huge actually.

That's what she said 😏😂

Usually that's what he says :yum:

@cjko said in Why do women make excuses?:

SOME girls are just testing you..

I get that girls are testing... what I don't get is where the test is in that?

But for me, if I don't like it.. I will try to explain it with that person in a kind way. :)

That's admirable of you.

@Hyde said in Starsigns and their meanings:

@pe7erpark3r we use the chinese / asian system i am monkey in it but aquarius and monkey have different expalinings :

https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/monkey/

https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/aquarius/

@Hyde said in Starsigns and their meanings:

@pe7erpark3r we use the chinese / asian system i am monkey in it but aquarius and monkey have different expalinings :

https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/monkey/

https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/aquarius/

A monkey, that fits :yum:. But I do know that the monkey god is one of the highest god's in the chinese hierarchy.

@no-u said in Olivia's Thoughts #09:

@OliveOlivia never think like this. yeah mean ikr we r so tiny n live in a tiny planet in this massive universe still couldn't explored half of this tiny planet. that's how tiny we r. I saw an show on a informational tv channel just like discovery but not discovery (I forgot it's name) but remember that they were talking about cosmos n said an situation like suppose u were on a moon n looking at earth. entire earth at once . u knew that history of that planet . where happen so many things like world wars , born n died some many intellectual person who did great discoveries in past n not just a put thumb in way that tiny planet is hide in ur thumb that's how tiny it is and now u can see unknown universe . u don't what happen there n still have doubt is there other planets who r like to earth? maybe.

Why would you not think like this? This experience is simply beautiful and amazing. We don't know what is, the only thing we know for sure is that we experience, we are. Gives me goosebumps...

@Durwin said in Why do women make excuses?:

@pe7erpark3r
An excuse like "I'm washing my hair!" and they chose to have the Sigourney Weaver look from Alien 3 :O

No that I would get :joy:

@Thales_BG said in An Open letter to TWS Religious Zealots (especially those who are more "active" around here and are extremely vocal about their beliefs):

Hello there fellow humans. Yes... I am talking to you all there, being called out from the shadow of your savior cross, cube or whatever upon which you pledges eternal devotion and a somewhat unreasonable vow of self-sacrifice.

I Used to be just like you all. A mindless (or extremely confused) human that had strong beliefs based upon a sacred text.

I accept that you feel like you were mindless, after an experience of your eyes being opened. And I cannot judge wether you were actually mindless, for there are certainly mindless believers. And I would certainly agree with you, that just because a text is presented as "sacred" it would be mindless to put strong beliefs in it. Somebody once asked christians on TWS wether they were just going to church (and believe in sacred texts) or had actually tested the waters themselves. If you belonged to the first group, well yeah, you were probably not really a christian :shrug:

I wasn't combative because I was really a christian (or so I thought) and being a christian, as far as I know and as far as pretty much 90% the gospel preach is all about "presenting the other face" and "reaching out to people with a child's heart".

Yup. Love the sinner. It's all Jesus does. Actually dies for the whicked in the end, instead of fighting them.

I am pretty sure yall (zealot warriors of Christ) been reading some other type of bible... or maybe yall just focusing on the Old testament, which is.... called old for a reason and if you had taken the time to read the gospel (which most of the time seems like a negative) you would know why...

Here is an interesting thought: The old testament is a set of stories, of God interacting with His people. That's how the faith was transmitted in israel: telling of God's actions, and people's actions. And people did a lot of horrible things.

One might also note the nature of the law of moses. The mosaic law was given by mose, not god. This is basically what Jesus says when he talks about divorce, and he tells them, that God sees it differently than moses allowed. So yeah, if you don't take the bible as a whole, including the gospels and John's, Jacob's and Peter's letters, you will not understand. Period.

But then one day, the discrepancies between the texts and the dogma, the teachings and the actions, the words and the churches began to pile up and, even though I was not particularly bright or wise, it started to sound some sort of red alert inside my "Jesus-loving Heart" to a point I started, at first, questioning the "Clergy" of pretty much every temple I would go to worship.

Yap. Poor clergy. Split itself. Does not act on Jesus words. Teaches nonsense. Causes millions to loose faith. Don't want to be in their skin. There always were saints too though...

Is your judgement right though? Is everything you call wrong actually wrong? While being sure that many of the things you call wrong, certainly are...

First, they've tried to convince me of a bunch of horseshit, like "this is how we interpret the scriptures", which to my now skeptical mind sounded like " Hey, trust me here"

You should never believe anything without a reason. People who want to be believed without a reason, should not be teaching. However, there are reasons that people today don't understand. At all. And yet they are perfectly rational and make sense...

, even though their beloved old testment clearly says "Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord - Jeremiah 17:5"

And this is why I've been writing such a long introduction. This one actually makes perfect sense. The man who trusts in man, and who's strength is human strength and departs from the Lord, actually calls curse upon himself. This is very factual. You can look at society today. People want to be like Gods, declaring what is good and what is bad. They declare themselves godless just so they can do whatever they want, any kind of immorality. (I mean the green party in the 60s in germany actually tried to make pedophily mass acceptable...). And society dies of it.

Then, they started with their veilled threats like "hey, you talking the devil talk, REPENT", not literally of course, because the clergy is lacking in many virtues for the most part, but damn they are good with words.

He. Yes they are. But many of them actually lack faith themselves...

Lastly, I was expelled from the little "egostistical and heretic club of dimwits" I used to be part of. Took me sometime to start questiong the validity of everything I was told and used to read in the scriptures, granted I never really read the scriptures by myself, but always acompanied by a tome of ultra-biased teological analyses taking my hand through it all. But once it started happening, it was a One way road away from conventional religion, which I know see as a mean to an end so to speak. it is a necessary path everyone (at least in the western society) must take to start their jorney of self-discovery and true apreciation of the divine.

Well my friend, you don't sound like you had a catholic past. But the clergy you depict could just as well be catholic. Most of them don't know the reasons behind their dogma either. Most of them actually don't believe in most dogma lol. However, I would like you to note, that before there were those final formulated statements, there was a centuries long rational debate. Their is logic in all of the catholic chuch's official teachings, and, it is all quite biblical. Just that most people don't actually know, nor put in practice as you have clearly recognized.

So... now that i got my background out of the way while delivering some jabs at the whole religion-cult-thingy, I come here to propose a series of questions towards those self-entitled or deemed by their heretic and
contradictory clergy "worshippers of the true god", whatever that may be.

especially @Silhouette. I've seen some of your most recent post about Homosexuality and I have some questions to bounce off of your thick, mostly empty and prejudicious skull (yeah buddy, you really pissed me off that's why I've thrown all courtesy out the window, since you dont seem to mind other peoples emotions and feelings anyway), but everyone is welcomed. Fill this post with your unreasonable garbage and dumbfounding dumb arguments. Reasonable people are welcomed to chime in, but I expect very few of this rare breed to be around this dark, troll infested, stupidity seething corners of the internet.

Hehe, you didn't count me in :muahahaha:. Well any catholic really should take the church's teachings to heart: because indeed the first and foremost commandments are "love God" and "love your neighbour as (you should) love yourself". Which quite obviously does not contain the subordinate clause "as long as your neighbour is a saint".

TDLR: I am a former christian zealot and could simply point out most of other christian zealots contradictions, especially regarding dogmatic aspect of their "warrior-like mentality". Also, I really dont like how @Silhouette act around this parts and this is kinda like a challenge.

Point them out. However if you want to be better than the christian zealots I challenge you to do it with love instead of arrogance :yum:

I really dont feel like being around this post all day, so I ask @Global-Moderators to give me a hand here by deleting especially racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic and other untasteful extreme ideologic prejudicious and unreasonable posts. I thank you all in advance.

I really don't expect you'll get that kind of response, but we'll see. I'm excited to see the results.

@Matt_Aranha said in New, odd, scam? I'd love some insight...:

@kh1123 said in New, odd, scam? I'd love some insight...:

@mikeJB Sounds like a very intelligent and fun bot. Would this be like Cherry 2000 or Her variety?

Ooooh tell me more? I've been very entertained by the idea that this could be a sophisticated bot, but I'm not familiar with Cherry 2000/Her.

Certainly the technology for this sort of AI must exist; it seems to me to be quite wasteful to fritter it in this manner.

Nope, bots are not that far yet. if somebody as critically minded as you felt you were talking to a real person, than you were talking to a real person.

It might either be legit interest, combined with a personality that just is quite a bit too engaged and hopeful (people like that definitely exist, and they tend to lose interest after a while, you know borderline?), or

there are lots of women in eastern europe/asia, who actually hope to marry a western man, maybe even without any ill intent... And that is something that happened often even before the internet. I'd put my bets on this last option.

I wish you the best :heart:

Something new, every few days :) https://chatrooms.talkwithstranger.com/tags/fact check with pet

@Thales_BG said in An Open letter to TWS Religious Zealots (especially those who are more "active" around here and are extremely vocal about their beliefs):

@Codius well... if by dropping to his level I managed to get him out of here, I'm fine with lowering my reputation around and being considered not as wise. I really dispise him so much I wouldn't mind losing some respect over it. He really made some good people around here miserable with his nonsense, and Banning him didn't work out, so I had to take things in my own hands.

It is not a good thing to get others out of here. Because this means they are out of the discussion. They will not learn. They will not change. People learn slowly. He might have learned a thing or two. He might not have been changed as a man, but he might have gotten a glimpse of some of his errors.

And I'm a bit confused now. On the one hand you know about russian bots driving people into the corners and creating a draft between them, keeping them from talking to each other. On the other hand you do the same thing, by getting rid of those on the other end of the thinking sphere. Free speech requires them to be in on it. For also they have things they are right about. If you isolate them, drive them out, what will come of it?

My guess is he has been caught in the same wave, the demonizing of the other side wave, the draft creating wave. And here it has swept him of the page. And you yourself have been swept away by the same kinda wave, just on the other side of things. You've both left the site, because you invested so much energy into defeating the other...

@Sabo-go-thud said in Teach me something:

Is Time real, or a human construct?

Good question. However as for the second option I wouldn't call it a construct. It could be an entity of human experience...

@Thales_BG said in An Open letter to TWS Religious Zealots (especially those who are more "active" around here and are extremely vocal about their beliefs):

@pe7erpark3r, you seem to be looking at this as some sort of big picture situation. I approached this as a way smaller picture. I will tell my line of thought here through an analogy. Maybe it will help in clearing out why a did what I did.

Imagine we are on a restaurant with a bunch of friends chatting and having a great time. The place is super busy and filled with all sort of different people. Then comes stomping in mister polish Nazi over there, and starts harassing everybody who is not a white christian in the joint. Then he comes to our table and start harassing our friends. Some call the staff of the place and hear things like "I am sorry but free speech and you could simply ignore him as well". Then they proceed to leave the place. We could spend the rest of the night debating him over why he is a fucking obnoxious moron, or a misguided young man. But that doesn't change the fact we are now alone, wasting our saliva on a guy that is clearly unwilling to talk. Then, we, tired from this whole pointlessly endeavors decide to leave the place as well. But then, something happens... Among the multitude of patrons of the restaurants, there were some that were also bothered by our mixed group of friends, but we're too insecure to say something... Now they start congratulating and talking to mister "Polish fascist" who got rid of the "scum" that were bothering them as well. When we all go back there, instead of one obnoxious scumbag, now we have three. We decide never to go there again. But then they start going on the same new place we choose to hang. We like diversity, so we choose a place filled with mixed people from different backgrounds, and that's the perfect recruiting ground for them, and they always end up recruiting one or two more sympathizer whenever we leave to avoid lowering to their level and keeping our moral high ground. Soon, they are outnumbering us and our mixed group of friends simply by the fact that most of our friends stopped going out for fear of running into them.

Now... If we, on the first time "Polish Himler" insulted our friends and the other patrons would have been decisive, firm, equally as harsh and aggressive as him, and gathered support from the other, non vocal patrons of the restaurant against him, and kicked him out of the place, we would still have a place to hang, friends to chat with on boring Wednesday's evening, and one less "radical" to deal with on our little favorite joint, as well as three or four "sympathizers of the polish extremist" rethinking if they are right simply by the fact that since they are too shy and insecure to expose their beliefs it means there is still room for a doubt, unlike our friend, mister "SS camp guard in the making" who were and probably will be for a very long time, completely possessed by his distorted world view.

I think, if you replace the group of friends with family members, the right choice becomes more easy to identify. Free speech is a two way street. Also, fire can burn both ways and he was a big proponent of "purifying" this place, so I am glad he was the one purged. And I didn't even said anything about he leaving this place prior to his pathetic attempt of leaving with the higher moral ground. I challenged him to a discussion, he left because he doesn't want to be opposed, he wants to be obeyed.

So, yeah, I am not a big proponent of pacifism to be honest, as I think the world would be a better place if instead of being patient and indirectly compliant to most of what we all can agree are bad individuals, we would simply give them a taste of their own medicine, or go even further a little bit and show him that difference between being good and being just.

Now I'm beginning to actually worry for you. You sound just as hateful and vengeful as you make him out to be. But he wasn't even that aggressive... Basically I have the feeling you managed to bring out the worst in him. And yet what you write sounds worse yet. He was never talking about actual violence. He wasn't even actually pronouncing Nazi ideas. You compare him to hitler... And yet he even said things like this:

Now, let me be clear: entering a foreign country as a temporary migrant is perfectly fine. Cultural exchanges are always very illuminating for everyone involved. Of course, one cannot also refuse offering asylum to women and children escaping from warfare.

The worst thing he said really is that homosexuality is bad. He didn't say that homosexuals should be killed, or beaten physically. I honestly don't think he's much of a Nazi. Are you sure its not just your emotions getting the best of you?

Free speech is not a two way street in the sense you make it out to be. Free speech does not give the unreasonable a platform. Quite in contrast it favors the reasonble, for only if you are reasonable yourself will you even be able to participate in the discussion. In a free discussion people will only listen to those who actually make sense.

Who do you think beat up the Nazi in the pic you posted? 99% chance it was an antifa member, e.g. the guys that want to bring about the same kinda hell on the left side. Stop falling for their tricks. This is evil. Evil breeds evil. Always.

And if there is no discussion, there will only be violence. And no matter the winner, the result will be hell, wether they are on the right side or the left. The only people who ever brought freedom and prosperity were the ones in the center, the advocates of free speech.

PS: His last message showed clearly, at least to me, that he has some unresolved trauma regarding being cucked by a immigrant from a third world country because I think he is projecting so much it is undeniable he should seek some therapy. Shadow possession is not a funny business and has been shown to be one of the most dangerous psychological process ever, resulting in things like, you name it, Hitler, Stalin and Mao. So... If you are reading this mister "polish cuckhold", not every woman is like your last one, and not every third world country peasant will steal you girlfriend. This fetish can be cured by therapy, so does your complex. Seek help and live a better life, instead of being the first to die holding a fascist banner in the coming war.

Stop speculating. I hate speculation. He was hurt in his pride, felt abandoned, especially by me I suppose. Which is his own fault for not reading my words carefully enough...

And last but not least, to take up your example: What do you think will happen to the people you drove out of that nice joint? They will meet in another place. They will connect themselves. And they will feel excluded, silenced. They will want to fight back, instead of being in the discussion, and making a new experience.

You know... evil needs to be fought. Early. And yet you simply force your opponent underground. You do not challenge evil, you make it regroup somewhere else. You do not talk to the guy, you do not show him that his ideas are evil. You do not pull those guys who were undecided on your side, which you would do, if you had actual arguments, and used your own free speech. Because a strong character is admired. Even by evil people.

I know it can be frustrating, and it can be hard. But if you don't fight it, if you don't actually challenge it, it will win. It will win in the form of left or right, whoever is stronger at this point. But it will win. Winning is losing, for the result will be hell.

What you want is to grow, you want to become somebody able of bringing people away from evil, of convincing them. You want to become somebody who is admired by people, somebody they will listen to.

I mean if you take the psychological example to its end, simply for yourself, this is who you want to be... you know it! You want to be a good person. You want to constantly fight the evil inside you and you want to win. And you should.

Mother Therese once answered to the question what she would change to make the world a better place... She said, "I would change you and me". People like that make the world a better place. We need this kind of people. And anybody can become like that, really anybody.

@Thales_BG said in An Open letter to TWS Religious Zealots (especially those who are more "active" around here and are extremely vocal about their beliefs):

@pe7erpark3r BUT, one last thing before my break. Yes, My emotions where getting the best of me for sure, but one thing I think he made quite clear throughout most of his discourse around here, which is... in a way, some sort of reason for my association of him with Nazism. He is a White supremacist. He makes sure to make that one pretty clear. He does believe black and brown people are inferior (especially if they are female). You can clearly see that in some instances where he interacted with these people, thus leading me to believe he is indeed that, a white supremacist.

I cannot judge that, so I will not.

Not sure how he thinks it would be the appropriated way to deal with inferior people, but I cant really picture him, at this moment, giving them a fair chance.

Well let's not assume things. And certainly not judge before the crime. There is no objectivity to these things... We are all on the way, him of course too. If he wants to see himself as somebody who's illuminated by cultural exchanges, then one could show inconsistent actions of his. As long as he wants to be good there is hope you know? And as long as he doesn't propagate violence we should not assume that that is what he would want even for those he looks down on... And if he isn't even aware that he's looking down on them, then I think the right action is not to judge him, but to help him see the world from another one's point of view. And tws actually is a good place to do just that.

Free speech is not a two way street in the sense you make it out to be. Free speech does not give the unreasonable a platform. Quite in contrast it favors the reasonble, for only if you are reasonable yourself will you even be able to participate in the discussion. In a free discussion people will only listen to those who actually make sense.

This tho, I cant really say I agree 100%. once again, in an Ideal world where reason was a Common thing, that would be true. This world isnt really filled with people like you. Dude, I am not even half as reasonable as you and I still sound pretty reasonable most of the time compared with most people. It is most about the crowd then it is about the Preacher. Look around, and tell me if it doesnt look like there is a clear divide? Like, of course Reasonable people can spot and refute most of the Unreasonable people's speech, but does it seems like people are listening to reason?

You are right. There is a clear divide. It is growing. This is bad, really bad. It'll destroy us.

The question is why the divide is growing. You are right about some of the reasons of course too, which include russian bots too. I also like to point out, that google, facebook & Co. are a lot more powerful at manipulating their content, than any group of state funded russian hackers could ever be, simply because they have full control over the algorithms and they are proprietary, and highly classified too. Silicon Valley can do things the russians can never dream of, and without anybody ever noticing, for that's how IT works. You basically only need one genius to make those algorithms and to keep them working and tune them into whichever direction you like.... But alas, I'm lamenting :joy:

The divide is growing. And reasonable people are being silenced by unreasonable people. The more corrupt a system is, the easier this happens. Brazil sounds quite corrupt judging from your words. And in the US and europe the fourth pillar of democracy has also been eroded highly by corruption: the media. Since they have realized in the 80s that you can make money with news, it has been going downhill. Nowadays people are paid to lie... This is horrible, it really is. And they lie on both sides of course, and being in their own bubble through social media or the specific TV channel of choice, people are being drawn away from the reasonable people who are always in the center and always disagree with being part of just one bubble completely and reject the other. Well. We do need solutions. I wish I had some.

I just know that freedom of speech is being eroded in this way. So yes, you are right. It's not that people will listen to reason automatically. Certainly not if they are entrapped by ideologues. But how do you fight ideologues? Through challenging them, showing the problems with their ideas, through using free speech. That's why Peterson has become such a phenomenon. He speaks reasonable and he challenges the mainstream. Well, I just hope we'll get through this. I hope the reasonable will gain more and more traction, and that the bubbles eventually pop.

I really think we have opposing view on that simply by the fact of our different background. I will not speculate about yours (I dont like speculation either but I am prone to doing it because I am a work in progress towards being truly reasonable), But i will tell you about mine. Being a Brazilian and being around people from very different walks of life in a fairly mixed community, I can tell you one thing for sure: no matter who we are talking about, chances are they are looking the other way or simply too guillible to discern flaws in the logic of whoever they agree with. We are a brown country with a tradition of miscegenation, still we managed to elect a president with very worrying ties and discourses. I will provide a link with the most recent debacle and a good glimpse on the state my country is in Right now, so you understand why I said what I said about free-speech (which is not a real thing in here BTW)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51149224

:joy: apparently you didn't have the smartest minister of culture. I wonder if those advisers got him sacked on purpose?

Well nationalist ideas are gaining power in many places of the world. And quite honestly I don't think there is much wrong with putting your own nation first in an economical and a cultural way. Without of course thinking that other's are inferior.

Think about it. A non corrupt nation will create wealth. Non-corruption means order. This is the currency of the west really: trust. You can trust, that the other party will hold up their side of the deal. Or the system will put consequences on them. And then, this wealth gets distributed. In the sense of ideas and in the sense of money too. Take the human rights / human dignity for example. They are derived from the idea that humans are created in the image of God, thus every human has the same dignity as every other. This idea has spread around the world, many have adapted it. And progress of science in the west has almost eradicated child hunger in india for example. Progress is happening...

But yeah. Corruption takes hold, more and more. Free speech is being fought. And yet, I think it is the only solution to the problem. The people who are too gullible to recognize the faults of those they are following need to hear the reasonable more. Since they cannot differentiate they need others who do. We need speakers, preachers, who use their minds, who think themselves, and are courageous enough to stand up. I don't know how it is in brazil, but in germany the reasons to be killed are yet miniscule. We should stand up now, while this is still the case. Now reason still has a chance to win.

I mean people are fed up with political correctness. They want to see and hear politicians agains that have edges and mistakes, but are actually willing to think for themselves and move something. Let's just hope and do our best so that the right people win.

Because in the end, I still think above all stands morality. If people choose to be bought, if they choose evil, there will also be an evil leader. If they choose good – and they need prophets and reasonable thinkers to be beacons of light to orient themselves toward them – then and only then will the results also be good. And... it doesn't matter wether you are smart or not: if you are smarter you are just capable of more sophisticated evil and more sophisticated good. The results will be the same: evil breeds evil, good breeds good. We need to do good, we need to bring reason, we need to bring true free speech back to the place at the top, where it never was ;-P