The Good Post Gallery

[Lief 🗽]

Mikado seems to have a caricature of science advocates and Rationalism in his head that has no bearing on reality. For instance...

In other words, what I oppose isn't atheism, it's Rationalism and the scientific paradigm itself.  It refuses to keep to itself and expands into fields it can't comprehend, intruding on and smashing literature, music, philosophy, history, economics, and others beneath its weighty models.

I don't think I've ever seen science advocates try to apply it to literature and music in any significant fashion. Sure, we might study human reactions to such things and see how their brains light up, but at no point has science ever had something to say about whether a piece of literature is interesting or a piece of music beautiful.

In regards to philosophy, I suppose it might depend on whether or not the philosophy makes statements of fact that are measurable, but human values aren't something science has anything to say about. You might be a hedonist, and while science may be able to in some fashion be able to determine the benefits and consequences of your hedonism it can't and doesn't try to put them on a scale and determine the worth of those things - only humans can assign 'value' to them.

History and economics... well, sorry Mikado, but science has legitimate reason to be in these fields. Archaeology is valuable in determining our history, and it is both a science and a humanity. How can we determine the age of something we've dug up if we don't use the tools we have developed through science? As far as economics goes, businesses use science all the time. They gather data scientifically and make models because they have been proven to work and increase their profits. Still, science can't necessarily say why humans enjoy certain products.

Science advocates push for science because we want to improve the human condition. We want to make people's lives better. We still enjoy literature, music, poetry, and all of those kinds of things just as much as everyone else.

I'll close with a quote that we science advocates quite favor...

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." - Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

You cannot under Danish law base a price difference simply on gender, there needs to be an objective criterion. On average women have longer hair than men, but that's no reason to charge all women a  higher price.
If you don't like the equal treatment principle - or think the government should mind its own business - you can call it a "joke law", but the court was simply doing its job interpreting the law. No other outcome was really possible in this case. So you cant reasonably call it a joke court.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Guys, this is not solely about Ben's views on gay marriage, but his overall moderate hero political views. One would think he is running for President in 2016.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Stop trolling, BRTD.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Stop trolling, BRTD.

It's not trolling to quote someone who is simply speaking the truth. Do you disagree with sbane about the absurd extremes of Ben's Moderate Heroism?

[Napoleon]

Stop trolling, BRTD.

It's not trolling to quote someone who is simply speaking the truth. Do you disagree with sbane about the absurd extremes of Ben's Moderate Heroism?

Its not about agreeing or disagreeing, it belongs in the Comedy Goldmine.

The Good Post Gallery mission statement:

To justify having the less positive post dumps, we ought to have one where we can show off solid, well reasoned posts that are worth having everyone read. I will start us off with a thoughtful post from a hot topic. Informative posts that forumites shouldn't miss go here.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

With the shading system for party margins used for some of the parliamentary maps on this site, here are maps of past elections going back to Jackson's first victory:
...

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Jmfcst's banning is an objective negative mark on our moderators' records.  Other bans upset fanboys and were controversial, but ultimately right IMO. 

Jmfcst is different.  He is the only member who was objectively banned for no good reason other than his political beliefs.  He was an abrasive poster, but we have plenty of abrasive posters.  His crime was being anti-gay.  There's no way you can dispute it, especially now that we have threads started by our mods (afleitch) going back into the archives ridiculing non-supporters of gay marriage.  At the very least, it put him under a microscope for scrutiny.

It was a petty political ban.

[Antonio the Sixth]

@Ben: Couldn't you just put a link?

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

@Ben: Couldn't you just put a link?

He really deserves death points for not doing so.

[opebo]

Jmfcst's banning is an objective negative mark on our moderators' records.  Other bans upset fanboys and were controversial, but ultimately right IMO. 

Jmfcst is different.  He is the only member who was objectively banned for no good reason other than his political beliefs.  He was an abrasive poster, but we have plenty of abrasive posters.  His crime was being anti-gay.  There's no way you can dispute it, especially now that we have threads started by our mods (afleitch) going back into the archives ridiculing non-supporters of gay marriage.  At the very least, it put him under a microscope for scrutiny.

It was a petty political ban.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

RIP Þ thorn and ſ long s, casualties of English's dumbing down.    May you rest by Æ and Œ in peace.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

People are posting me like I'm Scripture now?

Anyway, the point I was trying to make in that post was that I fundamentally reject the entire "Rationalist" ethos of the supremacy of, superiority of, and triumph of science.  Scientific thought, like any other school of knowledge, is fundamentally ideological, but science's advocates make claims to objectivity.  There is far more complexity and emotional depth to the human experience than Reason and Logic can ever plumb, wild waves of profoundly irrational emotions, forbidden desires, dark lusts, and crazed cravings that torment and madden us.  The Romanticists knew it and the ancients knew it, but modernity tries to reject it and compartmentalize and explain everything about us and the world we live in. 

Mystery, grandeur, the graceful, moral highs and the wicked, murderous lows of the human condition reduced to diagrams and technical terms in an attempt to crush the colorful fables and fascinating origin stories of yore.  I don't agree with "Christianity" on too terribly much, but on a sentimental level, its recognition of human wickedness and human divinty, of the chaotic, dark mess of the human spirit, is far more compelling than the vision of crushing us into mechanistic contraptions  of pumps and joints and electric signals and chemical triggers.

[Zanas]

Well, it's official: speaking as a casual MLP fan, I have officially found the worst brony in the entire fandom.

That is saying a lot.

I actually know a guy who's attracted to it.

As in, he's even drawn pornography of it.

That's about 20% of the fanbase, from what I've read.

And, you know, while weird that is perfectly fine. Just as watching that thing is fine (or as near to fine as watching anything on commercial tv regularly is fine, which is to say not really, not entirely.) Mentioning your like for some silly show occasionally, putting it in your sig - fine.

Time to draw a line:


There she is.

Pretending this sh!t is relevant, or serious, or that other people's dislike is not fine: sick.

One of the few reasonable posts in the raging insane-brony-vs-hateful-everyone-else war going on in the Deluge. Thanks for that Lewis.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

@Ben: Couldn't you just put a link?

Um, it didn't occur to me   It's been edited.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This is an excellent post, insofar as the question of historical accuracy is relevant. This entire thread had been irritating me. Including my own posts in it, actually.

A prof. at Liberty University thinks there is incontestable proof that Jesus rose from the dead?  Imagine that.  Are we sure this piece wasn't the writing sample he submitted when he applied for the job in the first place?

In any case, for a philosophy professor, Habermas sure likes to slip subtle equivocations underneath the door.  He constantly makes reference to the Gospels as "texts that are accepted by virtually all scholars" in the field, and sometimes adds the rider that the texts are accepted by all scholars "as historical."  Of course the texts are accepted as legitimate first century documents produced by followers of the Christian movement, and of course they obviously make historical claims.  But that is far from saying that "virtually all" scholars in the field accept these texts as true and as making otherwise legitimate and corroborated historical claims.  There has been considerable skepticism about these latter possibilities for a very long time.  Those five points will only seem compelling if one accepts the texts as historically accurate in the first place, but that's the very point many scholars vigorously dispute.     

[Antonio the Sixth]

Again, if I were to introduce a female speaker at a professional conference in my field, and in the course of listing her accomplishments, said she was the hottest woman in the field, people would think it was pretty inappropriate.  Doesn't actually matter whether I'm her boss or not.  It's just inappropriate and unprofessional, because it reinforces the idea that women should be judged on their looks in the professional world, and that her looks are part of the reason why we should value her.

And of course whether Harris says she was offended or not has no bearing on whether Obama should have said it in the first place.  At the time Obama said it, he had no way of knowing what Harris's reaction was going to be!  (And in the very public context in which this occurred, it's possible that Harris didn't like it, but didn't say so because she didn't want to feed the political storm over a relatively minor transgression on Obama's part.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Old, but it deserves to be there:

Dangerous, corrupt, reactionary, hypocritical, pathological liar

Let's have a look in detail.
Accountability. If you remember, Harper came in on a platform of 'good governance' and his government passed the FAA. Now, Harper is the first PM to be brought down for contempt of Parliament related to corruption and lies. He has refused to disclose to Parliament the cost for his programs. His minister(s) have lied to Parliamentary committees. Furthermore, Harper shut down Parliament rather than face scrutiny over the Afghan detainees scandal. In 2005, Harper and his acolytes - then in opposition - offered dying MP Chuck Cadman a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for his vote to bring down the Liberal government. Bribery. The Conservatives broke Elections Canada rules in the 2006 campaign. Nice job on accountability, Harpo.

Fiscal prudence. My friend always tells me how Harper is good for the economy. Let's take a trip down memory lane, Tory friends. We have a $55+ billion deficit, when we had a $16 billion surplus in 2006 and a $38 billion deficit in 1993. Good job on that one. Let's also take a look at the G20. It cost us more than a billion, part of which went to build an artificial lake - next to a real lake, cottages and a bunch of very useful things in middle-of-nowhere Ontario. The G20 also saw, btw, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history and serious allegations of police brutality, lack of serious care for injuries, denial of access to counsel and arrest without warrant.

Again on fiscal stuff, Harper bought a whole slew of F-35s without a competitive bid. Saying that they'll cost $75 million each. A report from the US Government Accountability Office said the price doubled from $81-million (U.S.) to $156 million per plane.

Low taxes. The old creed of the right. 2007-2009 the share of federal revenue from personal income tax went from 55.5% to 60.6%. The richest 1% are taxed less than the poorest 10%. Corporate taxes went from 20% to 15.4% (+ another $5.6 billion in corporate tax cuts in the 2011/2012 budget). Corporate taxes are lower in Canada than in practically every other country: the UK is 21-28%, NZ is 28%, Germany is 29.8%, Australia is 30%, France is 33%.¹ The argument for low corporate taxes is that it encourages business growth. Sidelining the fact that this isn't a proven fact, I don't think that Germany or Australia with their high corporate taxes are third-world countries with no business. My Tory MP tells me his priority is to "keep taxes low". For who? Harpo's friends in the tar sands business or Canadians?

Fiscal stimulus! Good for the economy! More like 'pork and barrel spending'. I could attack this from Harper's 1997 or so point of view of neoliberalism and low spending, but I'll look from another angle. 60% of cash went to Tory constituencies, which make up 46% of Canada. Funding didn't go to green jobs, because Ecoenergy, Canada's successful green initiative, was terminated.

The environment. Dear Lord. Harper's government looks like the board of directors of some Calgary oil sands corporation. $1.4 billion in federal subsidies go to the very profitable as they are tar sands oil/gas corporations. Environment Canada's budget is less than that (1% of revenue). Environment ministers, all 5 in 5 years, have been failures. Rona Ambrose, John Baird, Jim Prentice, John Baird again and now some TV journalist. Harper broke the Kyoto Agreement, which we signed, pledging to go 6% below 1990 emissions. We went 35% above. Harper's -17% from 2005 would be +2.5% over 1990 levels - the weakest target in the west. Harper appointed Chris Essex, a climate change denier, to a prominent science/innovation position. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences had no funding in 2011. Our icebreaker Amundsen, outfitted for climate research... was leased to BP for oil exploration in the Arctic. At environmental conferences, Canada obstructed progress more than anybody else. Our role in the world as a leader for environmental progress and green policies has been squandered entirely. We won the Fossil of the Day in 2010 for the fourth day in a row. Harper's governments works with oil companies to lobby against climate legislation and promote dirty energy.

The West always throws hissy fits over the Senate. Harper supported triple-E senate reform and called it illegitimate and crony. Harper appointed a whole slew of Senators - including the likes of fat useless TV hack Mike Duffy or illiterate hockey coach Jacques Demers. Harper said an unelected Senate shouldn't block legislation. When the NDP's C-311 on climate change passed... the Senate killed it without debate.

Foreign policy. Canada has drawn sharp rebuke for its human rights policy. It cost us a seat on the UNSC. We voted against the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights (with the US, Australia and NZ).

In other stuff...
-child mortality have risen from 6th lowest to 24th lowest.
-one in seven Canadians live in poverty, and that number is increasing.
-Harper wants to change the name "Government of Canada" to the "Harper Government"
-Harper's government breaks all record for ultra-centralization of power and decision making.
-Canadian forces transferred Afghan prisoners to Afghan authorities, who systematically tortured them. Transferring prisoners to someone who you know will torture them is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. When a diplomat blew the whistle, Harpo derided him. Prorogued Parliament. Refused and still refuses to release uncensored documents. Accountability!
-Harper's government wants to eliminate the long form census - against the advice of every respected analyst, statistician and politician. The long form census provides municipalities, provinces with useful information for transit planning, urban development, housing policies, health policies and so forth.
-Harper practically fired the nuclear watchdog when she highlighted serious issues at a nuclear reactor
-Crime is down, but Harper wants to build super prisons rather than support rehabilitation - research shows such policies make criminals more likely to reoffend. Rehabilitation programs, victim aid initiatives have had budgets cut.
-Harper attempted to repeal gay marriage in 2006
-Harper broke his own legislation on fixed election dates
-Harper wants to eliminate tax subsidies to political parties, so that big corporations could fund his party as much as they wish while cutting revenue for smaller parties.
-Harper's government spent taxpayers money on useless TV ads boasting the stimulus just weeks before an "unwanted election" (quote from every Tory)

He's also a liar.
In 1997, he publicly supported coalitions of opposition parties including the Bloc. In 2004, he attempted to bring down the Liberal government and form a coalition including the NDP with Bloc support. Now he say's their illegitimate. Losers can't form coalitions. I'm sure that Baden-Wurttemberg will be pleased to hear that their government is illegitimate.

In this campaign, his security team expelled people from rallies for having Facebook links to the opposition. He refuses to take over 5 questions. He dodges serious questions, and derides the motion of contempt as a mere parliamentary shenanigan. Harpo, this is a parliamentary democracy. You rule as long as Parliament has confidence in you. This isn't a Consultative Assembly. The CPC attempted to prevent students from voting at Guelph.

Conservative MPs are basically forbidden from speaking. They rarely show up at all-candidates debates (ex: Julian Fantino avoided the media in the Vaughan by-election). The PMO must basically screen what they say. My own Tory MP hasn't proposed one private members bill since 2006. My Tory MP hasn't brought any jobs to his constituency - in fact, a defense facility moved out of this constituency.

So, yeah. Vote Conservative.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Margaret Thatcher was not a monster. Monsters are made and created by people to create a crude caricature of their own fears, angers and vices and that was true of Margaret Thatcher. You can disagree with her and you can disagree with the direction in which she took this country but for many she was a person on to which they could direct their own anger. People had a very tough time in the 1980’s because of what her government did, people suffered, people lost and had to pick themselves up my own family included, but many people had a tough existence because they didn’t strive to better themselves when opportunities arose. I came from a family and a town of miners and steelworkers. But come the end of the 20th Century the mining stopped and the steel working stopped and for some their whole world ended. I fully understand it. It must have felt the same for my family and my town at end of the 19th Century when the cotton mills stopped because that was all they knew or for my family at the end of the 18th Century when they were thrown out of their farmland. But you pick yourselves up and you move on and adjust to the new economy because it will always change; that is the capitalist system. And workers have always responded to those demands; they’ve been smart enough to do that. My family did that and had that same spirit, yet some of my neighbours did not. You cannot blame that one woman thirty years later if you still have not adjusted and re-skilled to meet the demands of the economy and missed the opportunities because you pine for a past that really wasn’t as idealistic and as community spirited as you feel it was. That is my address to those who are of a certain age but it’s not really appropriate on this board.

For those on this board who are not of that age, then you don’t really have the right to ‘claim’ her, either as a great woman or as a monster. It wasn’t your life or your existence.

[Mechaman]

People who don't think it's all about money are kidding themselves. I suppose a Starbucks barista with a Masters in Early Modern English Literature may like to think of herself as better than a plumber.  Whatever gets you through the night.

[© tweed]

Margaret Thatcher was not a monster. Monsters are made and created by people to create a crude caricature of their own fears, angers and vices and that was true of Margaret Thatcher. You can disagree with her and you can disagree with the direction in which she took this country but for many she was a person on to which they could direct their own anger. People had a very tough time in the 1980’s because of what her government did, people suffered, people lost and had to pick themselves up my own family included, but many people had a tough existence because they didn’t strive to better themselves when opportunities arose. I came from a family and a town of miners and steelworkers. But come the end of the 20th Century the mining stopped and the steel working stopped and for some their whole world ended. I fully understand it. It must have felt the same for my family and my town at end of the 19th Century when the cotton mills stopped because that was all they knew or for my family at the end of the 18th Century when they were thrown out of their farmland. But you pick yourselves up and you move on and adjust to the new economy because it will always change; that is the capitalist system. And workers have always responded to those demands; they’ve been smart enough to do that. My family did that and had that same spirit, yet some of my neighbours did not. You cannot blame that one woman thirty years later if you still have not adjusted and re-skilled to meet the demands of the economy and missed the opportunities because you pine for a past that really wasn’t as idealistic and as community spirited as you feel it was. That is my address to those who are of a certain age but it’s not really appropriate on this board.

For those on this board who are not of that age, then you don’t really have the right to ‘claim’ her, either as a great woman or as a monster. It wasn’t your life or your existence.

what meaningless, middling tripe.  why comment on anything at all.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

what meaningless

It was not your post, Tweed.

[© tweed]

I'm glad I bug you enough for you to trail me around here and make one-offs.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I'm glad I bug you enough for you to trail me around here and make one-offs.

Sorry, you're not that significant

[© tweed]

I've counted four or five more or less non sequiturs in the past four days.