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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 1st, 2023

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  • I appreciate your skepticism, but if that’s your burden of proof, then I’m unsure how you would ever form a political opinion. Its conjecture and propaganda all the way down, mate.

    The most scientific approach one can take is look at all the evidence, form hypothesis and alternate hypothesis, and determine the likelihood of each.

    I do not trust Trump, and I certainly do not believe he cares about Palestinians. But the only hypothesis that seems to fit the facts is “Trump envoy applied pressure, Bibi capitulated”. But if anyone has an alternate theory I would be interested to hear it.










  • I think the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” idea is overstated, most people I interact with have a somewhat negative outlook on the economy and their future wealth.

    I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.

    The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.






  • Saying “maybe people are the problem” is reductive and unhelpful. But I agree with you broadly, religion is just a system or a tool, it can be used for good or evil.

    To judge if religion is a good system or a bad one, we can use a cost benefit analysis. This is what we have been attempting to do in this thread.

    But when it comes to sensitive subjects like religion, many people have a tendency to avoid, overlook, and deny the associated costs.


  • Anti-science, misogyny, etc may be bad independently of religion, but they aren’t independent of religion. Religion is a source of these problems.

    You can imagine a hypothetical religion that is simply a “social club” or whatever, but here in the real world religion comes with baggage.

    Religion is why my cousin’s children have never seen a doctor in their life. Religion is why my gay friend in high school tried to kill himself. Religious indoctrination has led to lifelong shame and trauma in many of my friends.

    And this was just from a “moderate” sect of Christianity- the millions living under fundamentalist religion have it even worse.