Is it acceptable to talk about politics?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

My conspiracy theory is better than yours!

Oh, I doubt that.

MY conspiracy theories involve lush descriptions of strong but sensitive revolutionaries held captive by aliens-disguised-as-congressmen, who need to be rescued by a daring and intrepid feminist, before being whisked away to a romantic out-of-the-way spot for a long and satisfying bout of very hawt (but of course, very politically correct) sex.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

(but of course, very politically correct) sex.

You had me right up until that last but. As a revolutionary, I NEED politically incorrectness in all things! VIVA Le Revolution!

[Chaser Zaks]

4 hours ago, Phorumities said:

while its a human rights violation to promote hatred against race ethnicity gender religion and a host of other things,  political parties are not a protected group.

so if i wanted to call leftists brain dead morons there is no recourse under human rights legislation.

besides if political parties were protected democrats would have nothing to say about those that oppose them.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/ is what I was referring to. Political parties are not a protected group, so you can call them "brain dead" as much as you want. Personally I am not a fan of left wing extremist, but keep in mind, there are people on the left wing who still believe in democracy and try to work with the right to keep things balanced. (Not going to reveal my political stance because I try to stay neutral in public and don't want people to get upset at me)

However outright harassing them might get you in trouble.

4 hours ago, Phorumities said:

my friend got banned from the firestorm support group for defending Trump against all the Trump haters in the group

Perhaps maybe that is because it is a support group? Granted I don't know the context, but I know politics isn't a subject for the support group and the support team already works quite hard to keep stuff under control while still helping people. Adding fuel to a fire doesn't help and your friend probably got banned for "Not here for support / Ignoring mods / Refusal to drop it".

Edited October 9, 2018 by Chaser Zaks

[LittleMe Jewell]

I personally wish folks from both sides of the aisle would stop with the political commentary here on the forums.  It is incredibly tiresome - and yes, BOTH sides are equally at fault.  I come to SL for some escape from RL.  If I want to listen to political arguments, there are plenty of other places for me to get that.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

You had me right up until that last but. As a revolutionary, I NEED politically incorrectness in all things! VIVA Le Revolution!

"Politically correct" is actually a sort of moving target, though. Now that we're deeply into the era of "pro-sex, third wave" feminism, it can involve all sorts of stuff. The main and compulsory ingredient is, of course, "consent."

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I personally wish folks from both sides of the aisle would stop with the political commentary here on the forums. 

Would it be ok to blame Napoleon?  Or would that sound like politics?

*badum-tshh*

[Syo Emerald]

Is it acceptable? Yes.

Is it a good idea? No.

[Love Zhaoying]

On 10/8/2018 at 5:33 AM, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

I am wondering if it is ok to talk about politics in Second Life?

Why?

[Phorumities]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Phorumities, I think Innula has a great idea...for you to discuss politics over at SLUniverse (now Virtualverse.one). Many there are highly educated in History and other professions, and could better point you to valid links than I can...and they love political discussions there (well at least in the political discussions category).

It's really tiring to see you turn every discussion into something political (most recently you turned a discussion on roleplaying in the 18th century to a rant about how people aren't actually poor in the US in comparison to the 18th century, and how people aren't poor in the U.S. because some of the poor have cell phones, and the leftist are to blame, and they want to turn us into Socialists blah blah blah).

Often I resist responding to you, but when you started disparaging the poor as you did there it was just too much for me to bear because I know significant numbers of people in the U.S. will die because of the coming budget cuts. These are NOT people who could get jobs....they are mostly the elderly, the mentally ill, and children -- THIS is the population that comprises most of the poor. Just google the coming budget cuts and see the despicable portrait of the coming U.S.A.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/17/news/economy/trump-budget-cuts-poor/index.html
 
Add to this the working poor barely scraping by on these 'wonderful' service jobs you tout...losing their health care and dying because even more cuts are coming to Medicaid. And we can't forget the women who will die from botched abortions once Roe vs Wade is overturned. Republican policies in the U.S. today are cruel, and while Democrats are neoliberal now too at least they throw a few bones to the poor.

how many people in america starved to death last year?

im pretty sure the number is zero and that this year the number will still be zero

your post is simply leftist hystrionics

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

LOL, did you actually say "they started it"?

Snowflake conservatives, and their pervasive culture of victimization. Toughen up, buttercup!! This ain't the playground anymore! ?

 

 

Really, though, it's so boring. My corporate stooge is better than your corporate stooge, darn it!

I'll say again: discuss ideas, not the ready-made, focus-group-tested talking point memos of one political party or another. It's ideas that will change the world, not professional politicians or parties.

Ooooh, it must be midterms... and right before the US mid-term elections. It's so nice to see you, Scylla!

You say "toughen up" as if he had the ability. You should know better.

Now, about those ideas...

Edited October 9, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

[Drake1 Nightfire]

15 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

how many people in america starved to death last year?

im pretty sure the number is zero and that this year the number will still be zero

your post is simply leftist hystrionics

I'm pretty sure you have zero facts to back that up.. 

A simple google search shows several pages of answers to that question. Currently, its about 3000 a year in the US.. 

https://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.phphttps://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php
 

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I'm pretty sure you have zero facts to back that up.. 

A simple google search shows several pages of answers to that question. Currently, its about 3000 a year in the US.. 

https://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.phphttps://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php
 

Careful with that "zero", Drake. It's a hard number to prove.

That said, your zero seems more likely than his.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Drake1 Nightfire said:

I'm pretty sure you have zero facts to back that up.. 

A simple google search shows several pages of answers to that question. Currently, its about 3000 a year in the US.. 

https://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.phphttps://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php
 

I doubt P knows that “death by malnutrition” is the same as “starvation”.

[Innula Zenovka]

12 minutes ago, Phorumities said:

how many people in america starved to death last year?

im pretty sure the number is zero and that this year the number will still be zero

your post is simply leftist hystrionics

Not sure where they get the figures from, but according to https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ the death rate for death by malnutrition in the USA is 0.64 per 100,000.   That's about the same as Egypt, but considerably higher than most European countries.

However, Luna didn't say anything about people dying from malnutrition.   She referred to people dying as a result of budget cuts, which would include many other causes (e.g. lack of adequate medical care).    Also, deaths caused by poor diet are likely to be diagnosed as many things besides malnutrition -- heart or liver disease may well be caused by poor diet, too, I think. 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Careful with that "zero", Drake. It's a hard number to prove.

Naw, just divide by it!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Ooooh, it must be midterms... and right before the US mid-term elections. It's so nice to see you, Scylla!

You say "toughen up" as if he had the ability. You should know better.

Now, about those ideas...

Maddy, you are unerring in your analysis (and knowledge of the academic calendar). As always!

And yes, I do know better. Here, universities are being inundated at the moment by a sort of storm of whining by a certain kind of conservative, upset that we aren't tripping over ourselves to provide a public soapbox for every right-wing YouTube celebrity with a nasty point to make.

Ideas are free, Maddy! Let them go forth and multiply.

[Madelaine McMasters]

12 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Not sure where they get the figures from, but according to https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ the death rate for death by malnutrition in the USA is 0.64 per 100,000.   That's about the same as Egypt, but considerably higher than most European countries.

However, Luna didn't say anything about people dying from malnutrition.   She referred to people dying as a result of budget cuts, which would include many other causes (e.g. lack of adequate medical care).    Also, deaths caused by poor diet are likely to be diagnosed as many things besides malnutrition -- heart or liver disease may well be caused by poor diet, too, I think. 

Yep. I don't have the time to go looking for the numbers, but the Congressional Budget Office puts the total cost of prosecuting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at (I'm working from memory of several news stories) between four and seven trillion dollars... and rising.

It's not possible to extract that kind of wealth from a society without having an impact at home. Unfortunately, the public doesn't think about this because there's no news report of people being killed by trillion dollar bills falling on them. The "death toll" from misdirection of national resources is silent, unseen, hard to quantify. We can misdirect resources in any number of ways, through warfare, misdirected educational policy, regressive taxation, I could go on and on and on.

It's terribly difficult to tease apart the endless dimensions of complexity in large problems. Worse yet, voters want easy answers, even if they're wrong. Polarization makes solving problems difficult, because the answers lie in thoughtful gathering and analysis of as much information as possible. The moment I hear "every", "zero", "all", "none", etc, I get the sense that discussion isn't possible. And I've been around the block enough times with people who possess such certainty to think that there's no progress to be made with them. I've also been around the block enough times to know there's a chance I am one of them. Do I get credit for that?

Edited October 9, 2018 by Madelaine McMasters

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

My conspiracy theory is better than yours!

...aspires to conspire.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

aliens-disguised-as-congressmen

...imagines an alien civilization abducting a few congressmen for experimental cross-insemination before discovering C-SPAN, then recoiling in horror and vaporizing the entire mission.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

...imagines an alien civilization abducting a few congressmen for experimental cross-insemination before discovering C-SPAN, then recoiling in horror and vaporizing the entire mission.

I am reminded of the first episode of South Park, in which an alien probe..oops, satellite..

Edited October 9, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[ChinRey]

 

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

 

I remember the lyrics without watching! 

[Garnet Psaltery]

Where's the button to ignore this topic?

 

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

Where's the button to ignore this topic?

 

When I get to that point, sometimes I “mark site as read”.

[Qie Niangao]

32 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Yep. I don't have the time to go looking for the numbers, but the Congressional Budget Office puts the total cost of prosecuting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at (I'm working from memory of several news stories) between four and seven trillion dollars... and rising.

It's not possible to extract that kind of wealth from a society without having an impact at home. [...]

War is a jobs program.

It's an incredibly expensive jobs program, but like the space program it spins off all kinds of stuff. Impossible to know what fantastic innovations are emerging at the cost of a few trillion dollars and a few hundred thousand lives. (Okay, maybe millions of lives, given the knock-on refugee tragedies.)

As to "ideas", I don't see much evidence that they're really at play in current events. Fantastically ill-advised Keynesian goosing of an already prosperous economy, and confiscatory regressive taxation to benefit the most wealthy by borrowing from the general public's grandchildren... not sure those really qualify as "ideas".