patrick.net

Female reproduction definitely goes down as IQ goes up, but it's the opposite for men IIRC.

rando says

Female reproduction definitely goes down as IQ goes up, but it's the opposite for men IIRC.

No, women prefer bad boys, not smart boys. Women used to prefer smart men because there was a high correlation to the intelligence of the man of the house and the survivability of the children as well as with income. Today that is not true. Ultimately, this is a bad thing for the species.

rando says

Maybe there should be a part where posts are structured as propositions, with one person taking the pro stance, and one taking con, and points awarded by everyone else for:

1. providing good evidence and reasoning

2. answering the question

3. being civil

This would not work. Assholes will simply award points to their butt buddies and assign penalties to those they hate regardless of the content.

You have two choices to make this work.
1. Hire professional judges (expensive).
2. Use an A.I. to judge debates.

The later is much more fun, but would take a lot of time to develop, multiple person-years. It would be a very interesting project though.

Dan8267 says

rando says

Maybe there should be a part where posts are structured as propositions, with one person taking the pro stance, and one taking con, and points awarded by everyone else for:

1. providing good evidence and reasoning


2. answering the question


3. being civil

This would not work. Assholes will simply award points to their butt buddies and assign penalties to those they hate regardless of the content.

Ha ha ha. Look who's talking.

https://notthebee.com/takes/Dawkins%20Sqawkins

Richard Dawkins has spent a significant part of his career as an antagonist against Christianity, working hard to make Christians look like fools, uneducated rubes, believers in an ancient dead mythology.

As he has observed Islam beginning to take cultural hegemony over Britain, he has found himself increasingly worried at the results.

Oopsie.

I wonder if he has considered what Islamic Law says about atheists?

That's right — 'misbelievers' — non-Muslim religious people and atheists are lumped together and are at risk of life imprisonment (for women) and death (for men) in some Muslim countries.

Poor Richard.

Dawkins is kinda late to realize that Christianity is our best defense against Islam.

I'm always delighted to hear how Dawkins thoughts have 'evolved', LOL! Survival of the preferable outcomes?

"I must say I'm slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted. I feel that we are a Christian country. It's true that statistically, the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down and I'm happy with that, but I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches. So, I count myself a cultural Christian. I think it would matter if we... substituted any alternative religion, that would be truly dreadful. If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I would choose Christianity "every single time." It seems to me to be a fundamentally decent religion in a way that I think Islam is not. Christianity is "not great" about the way women are viewed in terms of female vicars and bishops, "holy books of Islam" promote "active hostility to women". I'm not talking about individual Muslims, who, of course, are all quite different, but the doctrines of Islam, the Hadith and the Quran, it's fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays and, I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith. - Richard Dawkins

Patrick says

Dawkins is kinda late to realize that Christianity is our best defense against Islam.

Our best defense is to get out of the Middle East and to stop escalating.

We wouldn't have to worry about them if we just didn't get involved at all. Everytime we do, we make it worse

Yes, America should not be fucking around in the Middle East at all.

I mean that with a large secular population, Islam is more likely to be adopted by the majority in America, but when most people are Christian, they are immunized against Islam in a way.

gabbar says

it's fundamentally hostile to women, hostile to gays and, I find that I like to live in a culturally Christian country, although I do not believe a single word of the Christian faith

Gays for Palestine!!!

richwicks says

Our best defense is to get out of the Middle East and to stop escalating.

Little too late for that

The big Internalized Leftism myth is that all trouble in the Middle East is caused by American Intervention.

There were tons of revolts, terrorist acts, etc. in Middle East long before the US or the UK showed up. The British for the most part maintained some coaling and trading stations and only intervened to keep whatever Sheikh or King 'sweet' to their presence, allowing Arab Muslims to do as they damned well pleased with their own civil, religious, and criminal law so long as the HMS Pinafore could take on coal or trade silks and tea in Bandar Abbas.

Without any US Meddling, not so much as preferring a certain Sultan or Sheikh for trading rights, Arabs attacked US shipping. Our first wars were abroad to defend US shipping against North African State Sponsored piracy.

Before Europeans were around, the Arabs had a big chip on their shoulder against the Mongols and Ottomans and Byzantines, too, when it wasn't between Schools of Fiqh, Sunni-Shi'a, Arab and Kurd and Persian and Turkomen and Copt and Berber.

The briefest overview of the MENA 600-1900 will show this to be the case.

Great recent example is the Waterways of the Tigris and Euphrates in Southern Iraq.

Persians/Medes and Babylonians/Assyrians have been fighting over this area between them since long before Islam or Romans or so far back King Cyrus/Xerxes.

The Assyrians were replaced by the Guti of the lower slopes and valleys of the Zagros mountains, for example, before the Bronze Age collapse, FFS.

And so in the 1980s, the Iran-Iraq War was War #477 stretching back into the 2000s BC over this area.

No different than the western terminus of Steppe Highway in Ukraine and North Caspian areas has seen constant wars and peoples in and out of it since the domestication of the Horse, long before any Czars, Turks, or Vikings, much less Communists and Capitalists.

RedStar says

Little too late for that

It's literally our only chance. If we don't stop these foreign wars this nation will never recover.

Every war we get involved ends up with massive population displacement and no advantage to the United States, just more harm.

AmericanKulak says

The big Internalized Leftism myth is that all trouble in the Middle East is caused by American Intervention.

All the problems of the US is caused by US foreign policy, from the surveillance state to a media that does nothing but lie to Congress waving Ukrainian flags when they waste another 100 billion dollars

700 bucks per family for citizens in Maui after they blocked exit routes and turned off water.

How can you forget? The ONLY thing they actively work on is more war, nothing else. We can't even control our own border.

It's never been so obvious. The only thing the US makes now is conflict. For 20 years that's it.

Hegelian Hellscape. Easily divided, easily disempowered by organized outside forces. The British were able to create a bunch of artificial countries with artificial boundaries after WWI for convenience of domination.
Downside is never quelled, never really conquered, always recongregating for opposition. Bomb them and keep them licking their wounds while stealing the resources.

Somebody has probably done cost analysis about the black line/red line of bombing vs. profit. "X number of bombs will create Y amount of profit."

AmericanKulak says

The Assyrians were replaced by the Guti of the lower slopes and valleys of the Zagros mountains, for example, before the Bronze Age collapse, FFS.

And so in the 1980s, the Iran-Iraq War was War #477 stretching back into the 2000s BC over this area.

Thanks, had never heard of the Guti before:

https://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Guti.html

Very little is known about the Guti, who appear to have been barbarian raiders from the Zagros [Mountains] who brought to an end the Dynasty of Akkad and destroyed its capital circa 2200 BC. Gutium, a mountainous area in south-west Iran, was a troublesome part of the Akkadian Empire and the year names of the kings of Akkad record campaigns against the region. ...

The Guti were finally expelled by Uthegal, King of Uruk circa 2100 BC.

Patrick says

Thanks, had never heard of the Guti before:

They make very expensive handbags.