Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Democracy Now!" channel.

  1. “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov, News Week, 1980.
    281
  2. I'm Australian but went to college in America and I have many American friends here in Oz. The most amazing thing about this is that Americans are among the fastest people to say "You can't trust the government." Americans will give example after example of why you can't trust ANY government as if its almost a core belief. BUT BIZARRELY on this whole Nordstream explosion the number of Americans howling that "It had to be Russia. It had to be Russia. It had to be Russia." is almost insane. On another video thread I said "Why is anyone surprised that it was America?" and people went nuts. If you site things like Iraq they go even more nuts. If site things like Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo they go even more nuts. The craziest part is if you just consider "Who benefits?" then you get Russia - Zero and American gas exporters - Heaps. This was a no brainer from day 1.
    38
  3. YOU'RE RIGHT in these cases we should always look at what the crime to at least check what happened. There's a Wikipedia page on this and it includes details of the crime. SORRY for the length of the reply. The Reverend Charles Sennett Sr. hired Billy Gray Williams who then hired Kenneth Smith and John Forrest Parker to help him kill Elizabeth Sennett the reverend's wife. Williams paid Smith and Parker $1,000 each plus extra money to buy a gun. They opted to NOT buy a gun and spent the money on drugs. On Wikipedia it states "Smith crept up on Elizabeth and decided to beat her. As Elizabeth struggled for her life; a "fireplace set, a walking cane, and a piece of galvanized pipe" were used to beat her. Parker also later joined Smith in beating her. After Elizabeth was beaten, she was then stabbed eight times with the survival knife, which caused her death." If that doesn't meet the details for depraved indifference I don't know what does. THAT SAID HOWEVER I also agree that this method is clearly meets the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment AND YES there's a simple alternative. A number of years ago when the execution debate was being raised in Britain an English documentary maker looked at the methods. I saw this documentary on Fairfax Media's "Melbourne Age" website before they made it a pay for view. The film maker found that Carbon Dioxide is used to stun and kill animals. Its very quick and clean because it can cause unconsciousness in seconds. Most of the time animals are then blead to death without trauma. I remember the 1986 Lake Nyos disaster in northwestern Cameroon when a cloud of CO2 gas killed 1,746. It was so quick that most of the victims just stopped where they were with only a few of them taking anything more than a few steps. The reason why I remember this was because in the documentary the film maker approached the chief medical officer in America (I forget if he was federal or state) and said there's an alternative that's very quick and painless in fact a person might experience a moment of euphoria just before passing out. The response of the medical office still chills me to this day. I can't remember his exact response other than the last words. His reply to the film maker started with (I think) "I'm not interested." but definitely finished with "Its a punishment. Its not meant to be nice." Kenneth Smith is certainly guilty of depraved indifference but I would also contend the people responsible for how he was put to death are also guilty of depraved indifference especially when there is a painless alternative to putting people to sleep painlessly.
    27
  4. I'm Australian and from down here its the perspective is very much along the lines of what he has said. I actually went to college in America (fantastic) and have many American friends. America's greatest problem is that they are drowned in this constant NOISE STORM where's there's just so much noise that none of them can think clearly especially about world affairs. I saw an odd thing happen to a few Americans I befriended here in Oz. After about 12-18 months they'd have brain snaps and realise the world isn't America. Even more shocking is realising the rest of the world does NOT want to be America. Part of that shock is realising that people (in general) like Americans (as in people) but they can't stand America (as in the political entity). The exception are those Americans who preach American exceptionalism in one or more of its various shades.
    19
  5. This says a lot about the world, because this is no longer simply an American issue. In 1944 at Breton Woods 44 allied nations agreed to a new economic system to rebuild after the war that included having the US Dollar ($USD)as the World's reserve currency. Yes that agreement has been superseded by other agreements but the $USD is still the World's reserve currency. Even when nations or companies do transnational business in other currencies the World's currency markets are underpinned by the stability of the $USD. BASICALLY ALL FOREIGN TRADE rellies on the stability of the $USD. Even this crap Russia is playing where it demands payment in Rubles still depends on the currency markets functioning so that people can get Rubles to pay Putin. So if these billionaires continue to destabilise America and with it the $USD how long do you think it will before the rest of the world reacts when its threatening every nation on the planet?
    9
  6.  @davidoran123  It was actually put up by someone else on another thread about 2 years ago. Asimov's one of my favorite authors so I use it a lot and I have seen many others in recent months use it a lot. I think it would be pretty easy to swap out America and sub in almost any country on the planet. The levels of ignorance might change but its there in every country to see.
    9
  7. The 1st Amendment - arguably one of the greatest gifts any nation was ever granted and by just as arguably one of the most abused gifts in history.
    8
  8.  @jamesmurphy9426  Please go and see a doctor, you need help.
    7
  9.  @maxheadrom3088  There's a bunch of people including Jeffrey Sachs who have explained it. The only person I saw who tried to make any logical claim that Russia might have done it was Peter Zeihan and even he's pointed out at times that in terms of who had underwater demolition CAPABILITY at those depths it goes back to the Americans, while all the Russians ever had to do was simply turn off the spigot. I work in industrial controls systems (the computers & sensor systems that run stuff). I have done some work in Australian gas industry. All it takes is a few mouse clicks and you can shut down a system like that. You can also press the big red button labelled "Emergency Stop" and it goes away in a blink. Plus there are some reports the Russians are already at work trying to repair the pipes. Because if they are left for to long full of salt water they will be permanently damaged and unrecoverable.
    7
  10. Yeah I am stunned to. Its 28th of May 2023, 4 months after you posted your comment. As I just said in another comment YES - we have a collective issue with memory. Maybe 20+ years of the war on Terror has numbed us so much that another pile of bodies just doesn't matter. I think we lost something on 9/11. Bin Laden's maniacs didn't just kill 3,000 people they killed a our social conscience of right and wrong as well AND we have NOT recovered.
    7
  11. Its 28th of May 2023, 6 months after you posted your comment. YES - we have a collective issue with memory. Maybe 20+ years of the war on Terror has numbed us so much that another pile of bodies just doesn't matter. I think we lost something on 9/11. Bin Laden's maniacs didn't just kill 3,000 people they killed a our social conscience of right and wrong as well AND we have NOT recovered.
    7
  12. Very sensible comment. As a man I can't understand what you went through because it simply isn't in my experience and never can be. But it did happen to a very good friend of mine. It also happened to the sister of another friend. I don't know what it feels like to go through what you went through, but I ABSOLUTELY know that this is something NO MAN has any right to tell any woman what she can and can't do on this subject.
    6
  13.  @storksforever2000  Your right, every country has them and I have been trying to get people to see that. I'm Australian and we have a guy named Clive Palmer who has his own party. Their latest adds claim they are a follow on from a party from the 1930s & 40s. Its total BS and most Australians know its BS, but there not chasing after the majority. They're after the disaffected, less educated, and frustrated people who have been left out by globalization. sound familiar Same game plan just a variation in degree.
    6
  14.  @robynmarx7000  If by intellectual you mean, can I read, write and think - sort of. I absolutely agree that the moniker is overutilized and would add that its also insanely overrated as well. I have a degree in aerospace engineering - so what. I work in automation, robotics and control systems - so what. When I walk into rooms of engineers I'm usually the smartest or one of the smartest ones there - so what. I've learned to assume that every person in a meeting knows something of value that I don't. How I see Asimov's quote is that it highlights how societies elevate opinion or status over reason and common sense. The word ignorance doesn't necessarily mean uneducated or unknowledgeable. It comes from the verb "ignore." Ignorant is a descriptive word of a person who ignores factual information. Trump, Cruz and many others on both the political left and right went to decent colleges and got decent degrees. Go look at Cruz he really is a highly intelligent person and YET he ignores clear sound scientific evidence for political reasons. I do think Asimov's quote like any can be misapplied, but then its only 2 sentences. Its not an in depth paper or book. Its a comparison between what people accept as fact and what they chose to ignore. And right now a lot of people are ignoring obvious basic facts. If you consider what Chomsky is talking about it includes a lot of people who are ignoring some basic obvious facts. For a different example away from politics. Could NASA have faked the Apollo landing? Absolutely yes, but would they have got away with it considering 600million people watched the moon walk live and how that took 1000s and 1000s of people to make happen? It would have been obvious to everyone something was wrong. Look at the 2020 election. Could somebody have tried to swap, cheat or tamper with several million votes? Absolutely yes, but would they have gotten away with it considering the systems, technologies and observers present? Look at all the people who think Elon Musk is going to whisk them off to Mars and escape this madhouse. Are they ignoring some basic facts while at the same time claiming to be the intellectuals? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️
    6
  15.  @georgeneuhauser4752  But that's part of the problem when you give people too many options in referendums or vague options in referendums or options designed to SCARE people in referendums. When you have people who DO NOT want change they word referendums TO FAIL. Its a well trod path in many countries. Its why the Londoners expected Brexit to fail. Its why the Australian Republican referendum failed. Its why so many other referendums have failed despite what seemed like obvious outcomes.
    6
  16. You know there still are people who can and should be prosecuted. Among them my #1 pick who needs to be dealt with is John Yoo the Lawyer who wrote the infamous "torture memo" that gave Rumsfeld and others the greenlight to do what they did at places like Abu Ghraib, Bagram AFB and Guantanamo. There's a great line in the Tom Cruise film "The Firm" when he tells the FBI agent at the end that the way to get the mobsters is to start with their lawyers. Go look at John Yoo's Wikipedia page it has some extraordinary statements by American officials. One of those comments basically says he (and others) can NEVER leave America where they are protected because they would be headed for the Hague. What I find most egregious about John Yoo is these days he has a very cosy life TEACHING LAW at UC Berkley. Yes the lawyer who said its ok to torture and is regarded as a war criminal is now teaching law.
    6
  17.  @johncarlson5611  Except he said that 3 years ago and where are they????? He also said the same about electric trucks, hyperloop, solar roof tiles,... AND WHERE ARE THEY??????????
    6
  18.  @proudchamp9865  Yeah - I'd sadly agree with that. It was certainly the case with the invasion of Iraq. Its less obvious with Afghanistan but they have some quite valuable minerals and semi precious gem stones. I've heard they have one of the richest iron ore bodies ever found and its large, making it worth billions. Being Australian and having worked in our iron ore industry I can tell you that high quality iron ore is better than gold because it requires so little processing to make money out of and the profit margins are insane when the market is humming. Its utterly crushes other minerals and oil and gas on that front.
    5
  19. From the film Lord of War: "Yuri Orlov: There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?"
    4
  20. That's a bit hard to claim without any evidence, but the circumstances seem to indicate an incredible series of injustices. I'd bet more along the lines of social and or business connections. The prosecutor seems to have gone insanely soft and the fact she is NOT answering phone calls and dealing with claims of violations. The other charges against his mother seem to be very strange in that they have not been heard in a court. Overall there is something that needs to be investigated.
    4
  21.  @ms9771  You right on all but the deficit. Government deficit is nowhere near the issue its made out to be anywhere. The issues of inequality of wealth and who the debt is owed to are far bigger issues. I spent a chunk of my COVID downtime looking into economics and how it all works. Government deficit is an issue but its mostly a misdirection away from wealth inequality.
    4
  22. My first thought too. Come on, what were their shareholders meant to do after they pulled out of Iraq & Afghanistan?
    3
  23.  @franklinwilkerson2061  On first read that was about the craziest thing I've heard in weeks. ON SECOND read its the scariest, because in the world right now it might just be true. Because why fight a war you can't ever win and instead fight one you can make someone you don't like lose badly or at least suffer badly.
    3
  24.  @HeavyDanger  Go back and check there was a time on the 90s when they hoped Russia would be come part of NATO. Just remember that the reason why Russia has 4 year terms for president is because their post Soviet constitution was based in part on America. Don't forget that one of the reasons Russians like Putin and hate America is because of the economic situation Russia went through in the 90s. FOR SOME Russians the 90s was a gold rush but for most it was worse than the Soviet era. They went from being assured of a job to nothing. Yeah sure those jobs weren't great and every factory had political officers to watch over everything but at least they had jobs.
    3
  25.  @zachgates7491  Applications to what? Zach and JDs school of self taught ignorance and arrogance. Did I get it right that you guys are calling it the Superior Hegemonic Institute of Trolling? You could have football games against PragerU. in the Poison Ivy League 😂🤣😂🤣
    3
  26.  @MexicanMarxist-Leninist-Maoist  Sadly true. Not long after 9/11 I saw a documentary on where Al Qaeda came from. the interesting thing was that one of its core philosophies was that Western Democracies would eventually fail because all that people voted for was there own selfish desires. Around the same time there were groups of American scholars also formulating an idea that they needed to limit and control what people were democratically doing because they thought Western Democracies would eventually fail because all that people voted for was there own selfish desires. Those Americans eventually became the neo-cons and they (just like the founders of Al Qaeda) had at their core the same basic belief and that to save their societies they had to be in control. Nobody else, no dissent, just them in absolute control saving us from ourselves.
    3
  27.  @pe4153  Yeah and WE are called Australia and yeah a sizeable chunk of OUR population is very, very proud of their ignorance. And they live on both the left and right of out politics. Asimov's quote works just as well for US Australians as it does FOR ANY OTHER COUNTRY. In fact Asimov could or should have said. There is a cult of ignorance in human society, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural lives, nurtured by the false notion that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
    3
  28. Correct except its DU not PU (Pu is plutonium), but uranium's toxicity is something most people do not realise. On the Wikipedia page for DU it says DU is is about a million times worse than the radiation it might give off because it attacks things like the kidneys. Phil Miller is NOT entirely correct about a couple of things and most people get this wrong anyway. Depleted uranium DOES NOT come from spent fuel it comes from the enrichment process. I have worked in Australia's Uranium mining industry and part of that included a training course covering the basics of the Uranium fuel cycle from in the ground to back in the ground. Sorry for the math below but this the basics of what happens. Uranium has a number of isotopes the main 2 being U238 and U235. Its the U235 that is good for power stations and bombs. The problem is naturally occurring Uranium is about 99.3% U238 and only about 0.7% U235. To be useful you need to enrich the uranium. Its incredibly difficult to completely split the U235 from the U238 but its practical to divide any quantity of uranium where the U235 is in one of the divisions. Here's some math. If you start with 1,000kgs (1 metric ton) of Uranium its going to be roughly 993 kgs of U238 and 7kgs of U235 with a few grams of other things like plutonium. If you separate that 100kgs into 2 piles one with 100kgs but all 7kgs of the U235 and the other pile with 900kgs of U238. What you now have is 1 pile that has in now richer in U235 one one that's depleted of U235. What's more that enriched 100kgs is at 7% U235 which is suitable for use in a power station. Its reasonably easy to calculate how much depleted Uranium you get for various levels of enrichment. If you made 7kgs of pure 100% U235 its pretty easy to see you'd have 993kgs of DU. Depending on the grade you want also decides how much DU you are left with, but at 7% its pretty easy to see that every 1kg produces 9kg of DU. America has about 80,000 tons of spent fuel sitting in large pools of water underneath its reactors which sounds like an awful lot of nasty stuff to have AND IT IS. Its also means there's a lot of DU that was created in making that 80,000t. If all that 80,000t of spent fuel had been 7% then that would have created 720,000t of DU. For the 20% enriched uranium (EU) they commonly use in military reactors it creates almost 28kg DU for each 1kg of EU. For weapons wanting enriched grades over 70% U235 its over 100x. Once you understand that its pretty easy to see why Wikipedia says America has 460,000 tons DU in its stockpile and other nations also have substantial amounts of DU stockpiled. DU does have a couple of practical uses the most notable being as radiation shielding and if the future does include Small Modular Reactors then I would expect them to utilise a lot of that DU in their shielding. If nuclear Fusion ever works it will also need massive shielding. The most important thing is that we stop using it for bullets.
    3
  29.  @sylvialedwig6964  Why TF are you asking about my family? What does that have to do with this subject or my comment? Because is some cultures that sort of question can be taken as a threat. So you need to be clear in what you mean.
    3
  30. If it was a sniper then there's even less of an excuse. They have look through a scope and can see their target clearly. I know it sounds cold, but she was shot in the face which means it was a head shot. Its rare for military snipers to target the head unless they have a clear shot. In general they target the chest because its a bigger target. Since she was wearing a vest (the thick blue jacket) the sniper would have first looked at the chest area where the word "PRESS" is. That's why the media do put the word "PRESS" across their chest and back in big bold letters its so anybody looking down a scope will see it. We don't know all the details yet, but those we do are damning.
    3
  31. Famous saying "The first casualty of war is the truth!" Another famous saying "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms!" And lets not forget the Neo-cons, who's goal is to change every country in the world into a copy of the "America Liberal Democratic Fantasy" also gave us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe they think it'll be 3rd Time Lucky
    2
  32.  @ralphbernhard1757  First statement about billionaires is fine but your are utterly ignorant of how international money works so don't waste anyone's time with stupid statements. Plenty of people are claiming things about the worlds reserve currency but most are so brainlessly wrong is sad because its so easy to find out how it works.
    2
  33.  @franklinwilkerson2061  That's actually a damn good way to put it. When the cold war ended so did a lot of American military spending. I'm Australian but did aerospace engineering in America. I finished late 87 went back to Oz did some post grad and then wanted to go back to America. I called up my old professor who I'd worked for in his consultancy my last year. It was circa 89/90 and he told me to forget it as every contract that had been in place for Reagans Star wars had been cancelled. On top of that many other government programs were cancelled. What few people understand is that key to breaking Soviet Russia was Reagans Star Wars. It scared the Russians into spending more than they could afford and it broke them. On the flip side of that it almost broke America too. Reagan spent around 20 years of R&D money in 5 at the same time he lowered taxes to the rich. It was why America's debt blew out and Bush was forced to go back on his word and raise taxes. Gulf War 1 actually saved the American economy because the Saudis spent huge with REAL cash through the 90s. It also gave America a new boogey man in Saddam. Now that he's gone and America is out of Iraq & Afghanistan they need a new boogey man. Look at how much money the US arms industry is making already from Ukraine. When Biden says here's a $ Billion in aid what he means is we'll spend a $ Billion in our own economy, on our own manufacturers and send you the products they make. Here in Australia we're sending them our Bushmaster vehicles. Its boom time for the company that makes them. Your dead right Putin is the next cash cow for America's main industry.
    2
  34.  @bessieking3797  What are you trying to claim? If you are trying to claim that a prosecutor or judge in one case is guilty of corruption because another prosecutor in another state on a completely unrelated case did something. That's an absurd argument. Have you ever heard of EVIDENCE?
    2
  35. He's actually pointed out on of the real problems "the Radical Right." We hear about "the Radical Left" endlessly and how they interfere with everything like education. But we don't here about "the Radical Right" and how they interfere with politics, the media AND education. I think the criticisms of "the Radical Left" are fare. They do have too much to say in education, particularly social sciences but then so does "the Radical Right" who have ridiculous influence over business and legal education. I do think that "the radical Left" are borderline insane with their approach to climate and energy (I am an engineer) but then "the Radical Right" ARE WELL OVER THE BORDER INSANE when it comes to climate and energy. Between the Radical Left and Radical Right the rest of us are screwed.
    2
  36. MAJOR CORRECTION to one of Amy's comments and a statement in the video description. At 7:23 she implies that Watchtower is part of these political programs. In the video description there's the remark "...Watchtower, which aims to rally voters around opposition to transgender rights." I can tell you all from my involvement with JWs that BOTH her implication and the comment in the video description are 100% WRONG. Please note Andy Kroll makes no mention of them during the interview. The only person who mentions them is Amy along with the claim in the comments. BACKGROUND: The Watchtower is the corporate & legal arm of Jehovah's Witnesses that was first setup by their founder Charles Taze Russell. It and its branches only exist for legal purposes of doing things like owning property. They own properties for their offices and facilities all over the world and to own those properties a legal entity has to exist. This is no different to all sorts of organisations. For example Greenpeace owns boats like the Greenpeace Warrior and those boats have to be registered and for that a legal entity has to exist. The same goes for many sporting clubs and organisations and the properties they own. There has to be a legal entity to won the property. So there's nothing nefarious in the existence of the Watchtower. As to the claims of political activity and funding of campaigns. HERE'S SOME FACTS JWs do NOT participate in politics anywhere in the world. They do not shun governments or see them as illegitimate as some claim. In fact they believe all governments are legitimate and been ALLOWED by God. For example: When Jesus was asked about paying tax to Rome he gave the famous "Pay Caesar's things to Caesar" remark. So in general they pay their taxes and obey the laws as best they can, because there's a clear direction from Jesus to do so. HOWEVER they also follow another direction of Jesus which is to be "No part of the World." In that context of that comment other passages its a reference to politics. This is why JWs DO NOT vote in elections or run for political office. However, so long as it does not conflict with their beliefs they will accept government appointments. So the implication they are working with these other Christian Nationalist groups in political activities is 100% WRONG. The claim that they are trying to sway voters on transgender rights is also 100% WRONG because that means breaking their political involvement beliefs. HOWEVER there may be individuals engaging in these activities BUT they would be acting on their own behalf and those people would be 100% responsible for their own actions just as I am for my comments here. YES I have checked and there are various claims by people regarding transgender issues and how JWs see them. Those are social and belief discussions rather than political and any discussion here distracts from the political implications Amy has made. My comments here are to correct the implications made by Amy which I know are 100% WRONG.
    2
  37. Peter Zeihan was asked in one of his interviews about what John Mearsheimer had said about giving Putin what he had asked for. Peter Zeihan pointed out that Putin wanted to be able to write the security policy for almost 20 sovereign nations with a combined population of over 270 million people and they would not have a say about that. Has America mishandled the the Ukraine situation over the last 20 years? ABSOLUTELY Has America mishandled the expansion of NATO? ABSOLUTELY Does Putin get that most of the people in those surrounding nations hate his guts and want nothing to do with Russia because of the 40+ yard of Soviet rule? NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. And there's the real problem. Between the leaders of 2 belligerent superpowers 270 million people are cannon fodder in their shitty games.
    2
  38.  @jonathanstein5049  This is what people like John Mearsheimer don't talk about. They're highly critical of what is being done but their alternative is a nightmare for almost 20 sovereign nations that share a border with Russia or that the Russians want to control again. Its just back to the same crap fest of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s. I lived through some of that crap and now we know just how close it came a couple of times. Yes this war must end but in no damn way to we let a psychopath like Putin get his way. And at the same time the insanity of the American hegemony needs to be told to FK-OFF as well.
    2
  39.  @rolandgirouard5914  So basically its a collage of memes. I heard there are people who want to change the last line of the anthem from "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave" to "O'er the land of the slave and the home of the corporation" But the rhyming just didn't work with the rhythm of the music.
    2
  40.  @zachgates7491  Subjects like what? If you want to make claims like that against 2 RESPECTED intellectual giants you need to back it up or FK-OFF. The world has an over supply of ignorant clowns these days.
    2
  41.  @ebrennie  I agree with everything you said except for 1 point. In the first paragraph you said "They didn’t have degrees or research experience in all the things they were invited to lecture on. That suggests some of their knowledge was attained in an echo chamber" First part true, second part false assumption. I don't think either of them ever spent anytime in echo chambers. Bothe were smart enough to know where there expertise was and wasn't. So the safer assumption is they at least checked or researched a topic before commenting. One thing you'll tend to find with smart people is they tend to stick to topics they have at least researched or spent some time trying to understand. You are quite wrong on them being autodidacts. Asimov BSc, MSc, PHd all in Chemistry all at Columbia. Chomsky BA, MA at U. Penn. and a PhD at Harvard. I don't know who told you they were self taught but both were highly educated. Very few people realise that what you do when you are doing postgrad is that you "practice learning". You do incredible amounts of reading, absorbing information, dissecting it into useful, less useful and worthless. AND ITS NOT DONE IN A VACUUM.
    2
  42.  @JD-gw3fp  Moron - I never said anything regarding if people could or could not self-educate. I responded to claim that Chomsky and Asimov were self-educated WHICH THEY WEREN'T. I put in some of my course to highlight that when you do a degree you don't just study a single set of subjects. Its apart the requirements of all college degrees across the world - to do other stuff in fields outside of your own. For instance Engineers have to take some humanities and some other technical electives. But if you and the other clown were college educated you'd know these things.
    2
  43.  @JD-gw3fp  Debating what's there to debate. You make statements with no foundation. And when you are cornered on those claims you make claims about other people that you yourself do REPEATEDLY. SO WHAT IS YOUR EDUCATION All I have said is I don't think you went to college because you don't seem to know what people do at college. I didn't say being self educated is worthless - it was Zach who put that forward. It was Zach who said we shouldn't listen to Chomsky or Asimov about topics they were not formally educated or qualified in. If you want to debate then start with getting your facts right.
    2
  44.  @BellicoseNation  The answer to the first point is EVERYWHERE. EVERY nation, tribe, village, state, commune, principality that has exist and or still exists has people who value their ignorance over knowledge. Political leaders (of every type ) rely on it to stay in power. As for Intellectuals being disconnected. I'd agree that their disconnection is a massive problem. In fact its the same problem from a different view. When intellectuals IGNORE other people who they think can't have relevant knowledge WHICH THEY DO. Then in that moment they are the ones valuing ignorance over knowledge.
    2
  45.  @dontworrybehappy4569  Well that all depends on your idea of what "liberalizing" means. There’re 2 main schools of ideology battling it out in America right now (and by extension most of the developed world) - Liberalism and Libertarianism. Both those words come from the root word liberty and both those groups want liberty they just want it for different reasons in different ways. Libertarians want no government with no rules, so they have the LIBERTY to force themselves on society. Liberals want a government with laws in place protecting LIBERTY so people can think and do freely (so long as it harms no one else) from those who would force themselves on society. Liberalism requires consideration of others and thinking ahead of the consequences caused by the side effects of their choices and it's their under and over considering side effects and consequences coupled with doing everything by committee where they get lost and confused. They fail to deliver beneficial outcomes irrespective of intentions and as a result they are seen as unreliable. Libertarianism requires no consideration of others, other than "are they obeying the instructions fed to them by what they perceive as their benevolent overlords." Because their decisions are consistent, they are seen as reliable even when society knows they don't care. People follow libertarians because even though they will be enslaved they at least know they will be fed even though they know one day the food will run out, but that day isn't today or tomorrow. With liberals who knows what will happen today and we might all starve tomorrow. That's why Libertarians win elections and Liberals never learn from their mistakes to get things done.
    2
  46.  @alexbaxter2267  I didn't Isaac did. The crazier thing about that quote is you can almost substitute any country into it these days. I'm Australian and it describes us, we just don't make it as obvious as America does.
    2
  47.  @sebraven  Its the wonderful vagueness between reality and the law.
    2
  48.  @MissJensk1  Yeah, I'll never forget the attitude of that doctor or the way he threw it back at that film maker "Its a punishment. Its not meant to be nice." I remember another documentary and they estimated how many people had been formally executed by "a state" under the laws or government of that state during the 20th century or at least up until about 1990. It was a number in the millions but that wasn't the craziest part. Less than 10% of those people had been charged with a crime.
    2
  49. 5 Reasons why the BRICS currency will fail. B) Nobody trusts Brasil economically because they keep flipping from radical Left to radical Right presidents. Despite some fairly decent development and technological advancements their main industries are soccer players and ripping down the Amazon rainforest for cattle to make McDonalds hamburgers. R) Nobody trusts Russia to do anything economically or much else. There main industries are resources and selling the worlds most popular form of population control - the AK47. I) Nobody trusts India economically because they are a giant basket case of corruption. C) Nobody trusts China and their economy is a bigger basket case that anyone else's and the environmental damage is disastrous. They have damaged or destroyed over around 30,000 rivers, creeks and waterways. S) Nobody trusts South Africa because they are so hopelessly corrupt. BONUS REASON - The Bank of International Settlements which is the bank where all of our central banks settle out all the foreign currencies they hold reported in December 2022 that there are now over $100 Trillion in Foreign Exchange swaps being held by various banks and non-banking entities. A massive amount of that is not only in US$ but those US$ are held by NON-Americans who trade internationally in US$. Does anyone actually think that all those people who have relied on the US$ for international trade for 70+ years are just going to swap 10s of Trillions into a currency run by the Brazilians, Russians, Indians, Chinese or South Africans when those countries have the issues they have?
    2
  50. TO ALL: That Goldstone report can be found by googling "goldstone report 2009" It came up first link for me. It looks like and odd link because Google says it has no information on the web page, but that's because the link is to the report which is a 452 page pdf document. For reference the report number is A/HRC/12/48 dated 25 September 2009. The file is a-hrc-12-48(dot)pdf
    2