Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by Stavros

This is the kind of thinking that puzzles me, along with the claims made by those currently enforcing the 'Siege of Ottawa' against the wishes of the people who live there.

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We have our own version as well, though so far on a smaller scale and less disruptive.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-...rans/100809408

I've always thought that the thing that would stop countries like Canada and Australia from going down the US route is that we have better political institutions, so mainstream parties would be less likely to pander to extremists because they need to win over the majority of people. But it looks like the Canadian opposition Conservative party is tempted to pander to the protestors. It will be interesting to see how public opinion plays out.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...sters-00007272

Looks like Canada and the US may need a new bridge...how easy it has been to strangle production...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-canada-bridge

Americans terrified, soup sales collapse...

https://www.acozykitchen.com/wp-cont...-1-600x730.jpg

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/02...4455214503.jpg

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Originally Posted by filghy2

This is the key point. His defenders would say that he is just questioning accepted wisdom and that's healthy because accepted wisdom is sometimes wrong. The problem is that it's a meaningless exercise without some criteria for determining truth. Rejecting all accepted wisdom because it comes from "the establishment" is not scepticism; it is nihilism. When people like Galileo challenged the accepted wisdom of their time they didn't do so by rejecting science, but by demonstrating that their alternative views were better science.

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Well said. There are bright people who can hold views with internal contradictions but they are aware of it. What is that Whitman line: to paraphrase.. very well I contradict myself. I contain multitudes. Some people contain multitudes of bullshit though. They are sucked in by the last thing they hear.

I agree it is the instinct to think the established wisdom is wrong. Believing in conspiracy theories is how a simpleton feels like they have an information edge. They don't "do their own research" which is painstaking. They arrive at their viewpoint by rejecting voluminous evidence they don't really understand. They always take a snippet of information and then claim it suggests something it plainly doesn't.

Like "Hey did you know the melting point of steel is yada yada and jet fuel burns at less than yada yada." And everyone's like "hey fella, did you know nobody claimed the world trade center actually melted into a molten blob." Did they think the building could only lose structural integrity if it was liquefied?

I want to point out how mind-boggling Rogan's view is. Paxlovid, the pfizer drug that was designed to treat rna viruses, reduced severe disease by about 88% in a clinical trial. He's promoting Ivermectin, an antiparasitic that would be repurposed and it's unclear whether it's better than placebo. Vaccines-more than 90% effective in preventing death. They don't simply fail to be bright. They're not even competent.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

We have our own version as well, though so far on a smaller scale and less disruptive.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-...rans/100809408

I've always thought that the thing that would stop countries like Canada and Australia from going down the US route is that we have better political institutions, so mainstream parties would be less likely to pander to extremists because they need to win over the majority of people. But it looks like the Canadian opposition Conservative party is tempted to pander to the protestors. It will be interesting to see how public opinion plays out.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/0...sters-00007272

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Misinformation and extremism is crossing borders faster than ever. I don't understand what they are protesting against. I go to work every day. I go to the store. I eat outside at restaurants by choice but they have indoor seating. I don't even understand what's so difficult about wearing a fucking mask. I'm going through your politico article as I write this though. It's upsetting how nuts people have gotten. Oh okay workplace mandates are the sticking point. They don't have a point.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

What is that Whitman line: to paraphrase.. very well I contradict myself. I contain multitudes.

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Are you thinking of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"?

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Are you thinking of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"?

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That's a good one from Emerson. I found the quote although I hope I got Whitman's intended meaning right.
https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-51

In the covid thread I made a dumb joke about Eliot Spitzer's 2008 sex scandal. I then looked it up to jog my memory about it and it turns out what he did and has done since is a lot worse than I remembered so I regret that a bit. It seems he doesn't just see escorts, which I don't have a problem with morally, but that he is also an abusive person.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

In the covid thread I made a dumb joke about Eliot Spitzer's 2008 sex scandal. I then looked it up to jog my memory about it and it turns out what he did and has done since is a lot worse than I remembered so I regret that a bit. It seems he doesn't just see escorts, which I don't have a problem with morally, but that he is also an abusive person.

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Don't worry, Broncofan, I have never heard of Spitzer.

Is it just me, or do Republicans have an abnormal obsession with the Clintons? The extent of Trump's obsession with Hillary is approaching a form of psycho-social stalking, but it occurs to me that the wider Republican loathing of the Clintons goes all the way back to the 1990s. I am not defending the Clintons, but there seems to me to be something pathological about the campaigns against them, from Newton Gingrich to today. Am I missing something, or are the Clintons cursed?