Webdeveloper from Germany, nerd, gamer, atheist, interested in nerd-culture, biology of everything creepy, evolution, history, physics, politics and space.

Progressive. Ally. SocDem. Euro-Federalist.

Political Compass: -7.0, -6.62

  • 3 Posts
  • 328 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 24th, 2024

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  • When France and Germany did not follow the US under G. W. Bush into Iraq in 2003, the language used did not differ significantly from the language about not following the US into the Straight of Hormuz.

    Obama had SOOO MUCH to make up for and wasn’t able to rehabilitate the image of the US… and then everything got EVEN WORSE!

    You’ve been like this AT LEAST since Regan. Trump is not the cause, he is a SYMPTOM of a sickness that has festered for AT LEAST 45 years, not only in your politics but in american society.

    I imagine it’ll take about the same amount of time to change the american people back into a nation that can be respected instead of feared and loathed.

    Trump is nothing, he’s unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The real enemy is the mindset of a majority (republican or democrat) of americans.




  • Surveillance systems are able to differentiate between identical twins. Even if they look the same and have the same genetic code.

    Good surveillance software can recognize you by the folds in your jeans and wear patterns on other clothes. It’s not a good forensic method, but it’s just one of many data-points for a stochastic analysis. And if you try to wear anti-surveillance-fashion (it’s a thing) this is just another data-point on your profile. Anti-surveillance fashion honestly makes you more recognizable to the system, because you are “more different” from other people.

    Disappearing would also mean that you never carry any identifiable electronics, (like a cellphone, not even a google phone or a smartphone, ANY cellphone).

    Also the LACK of identifiable electronics would in and of itself be a VERY identifiable data point. Or, if you gattaca that too, the person you would try to impersonate would have to stop using their devices while you use them.

    Lastly the surveillance system doesn’t even need to connect your profile to your or any real ID, the profile it builds will be build on the things you do, wear, say and how you act. It can be connected to your ID post-factum.

    Gattaca relies heavily on a lack of technology that we do have today and the in-story over-reliance on genetics (for example there are no security cameras in that NASA-building, because they rely completely on genetic identification for everything security related).

    Unsurprisingly, a movie set in a fictional world is not a good guide to today’s very real privacy concerns.



  • I think the biggest difference is that many european states have parliamentary democracies vs. the US’ presidential democracy.

    This, combined with proportional representation voting systems, that more accurately represent the will of the populace in parliament, leads to a need for governmental coalition building, necessitating a more concilliatory and a little more non-partisan politics. While usually allowing for a more effective government, since the head of government represents a legislative majority.

    It does have its own challenges and is far from perfect, but I think the current US government is a fitting contrast of a minority elected, non-concilliatory, highly partisan government that might become completely and utterly unable to do any governing by the midterms.

    The US is also a good example that the age of a democratic system doesn’t mean it’s a good system. In fact I far prefer the very young post-WW2 german system to the very old american or british systems, though it could stand to learn some from the nordics, especially Finlands open list voting system.


  • Just be aware that The Wandering Inn turns into the absolutely longest rambling mess of dozens of viewpount characters.

    It’s often lovely, but sometines it just goes on and on and on… It is roughly three times longer than the entire Wheel of Time series, and its word count surpasses War and Peace, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hunger Games combined and it is still unfinished. Pirateaba writes like a mad person.




  • I’m not talking about evidence, and I’m making no claim about evidence here. I’m talking about logic and reasons to have a specific conviction.

    To believe in anything that I have no evidence for, would leave me believing in a million different and contradicting things. I don’t have any evidence for the cosmic teapot, for the invisible pink unicorn or the flying spaghetti monster (Pesto Be Upon Him). And withholding judgement on the existence of pixies, wall-socket-kobolds, voltage-growing-trees and the Schinamarug is simply removed from practicality, because you cannot prove a negative, but in every day life I HAVE to act like there is NOT an invisible puppy everywhere where I want to step. For all intents and purposes, I KNOW there is no teapot orbiting Saturn and I KNOW there is no invisible pink unicorn. For these reasons it is illogical to withhold judgement on an existence that I have no evidence for AND absolutely no other reason to believe in.

    Hard atheism is (in my opinion) simply the sane and practicable conviction. Because if you tell me “I’m not convinced there is a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, but there might be.” Then I can only tell you that, no, if you think there might be a teapot orbiting Saturn right now, you’re wrong, even without me having any evidence disproving it. And you can’t tell me that my conviction that there definitely is no teapot in an orbit of Saturn right now, is in any shape or form unreasonable.



  • It’s not just about atheism in this, it’s about the gnosticism in combination.

    Gnostic Theism = I am convinced by the claim there is a god. And I know my conviction is correct.

    Agnostic theism = I’m convinced by the claim there is a god, but I don’t know if I’m right about that.

    Agnostic atheism = I’m not convinced by the claim there is a god, and I don’t know if I’m right about that.

    Gnostic atheism = I’m not convinced there is a god. And I know my (negative) conviction is correct.

    Gnostic atheism is often also called positive, strong or hard atheism.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism

    I’m a strong atheist myself, following this reasoning:

    The “no arguments argument” for atheism:

    • (1) The absence of good reasons to believe that God exists is itself a good reason to believe that God does not exist.
    • (2) There is no good reason to believe that God exists.

    It follows from (1) and (2) that

    • (3) There is good reason to believe that God does not exist.