OpenStars

The goal of academic research is to inform the best and brightest of the real information. For e.g. academic extensions to how nuclear power works, or for engineers to have a working basis to build a viable power plant, and so on.

The goal of an encyclopedia though is arguably different: to make people "feel" informed, without necessarily being so? Or at least to serve as a starting point for further studies, maybe?

Science marches ever onwards, and eventually that gets collected into textbooks, and even later into encyclopedias. Or maybe now we're working from a new model where it could skip that middle step? But science still seems leagues ahead of explanations to the masses, and whereas in science the infighting is purposeful and helpful (to a degree), the infighting of making something explainable in a clearer manner to more people is also purposeful and helpful, though federating seems to me to be giving up on making a centralized repository of knowledge, i.e. the very purpose of an "encyclopedia"?

Science reporting must be decentralized, but encyclopedias have a different purpose and so should not be, maybe? At least not at the level of Wikipedia.

"Well-regulated militia" - oh wait no, forget that part, it's impossible to allow any kind of regulation at all.

"You can impeach someone for criminal offenses" - oh wait no let's ditch that one too...

No wait, I want it back again!

I also want back the 3/5ths of a person thing, but let's expand that to also include anyone with a college degree or lives in a city, suburb, or even those in rural areas who don't support their local ~~Republican~~ church strongly enough.

"One rule for me, while the polar opposite rule for thee" - it's not hard to understand in the slightest. We all played these games as toddlers, the difference being that some of us allowed ourselves to grow up. :-|

It goes much deeper than that, imho: "every accusation is a confession". It bespeaks how they make fun of the ones that they do not agree with - and therefore imagine that the "other side" simply MUST be doing that to them (regardless of any evidence yay or nay to that effect).

But to answer your question: yes there are a lot of "city folk" inside of Texas - mostly Austin and Dallas - but since they are concentrated into those areas, the state overall votes along with the rural base. Except that they fear that their children even in the rural areas are leaving Christianity in droves, so that too.

Mostly though, it is a "truthiness" statement - not meant to be factually correct so much as to evoke an emotional response. e.g. the Holy Bible, which they claim to revere, says things like "judge not, let you be judged in return" applied to non-Christians but also has enormous punishments for Christian LEADERS who are caught in things like infidelity especially with under-age children, both of which need to be swapped 100% in reverse in order to match their actions as depicted in this meme. As in, maybe people aren't making fun of you b/c you follow the Bible, but b/c you claim to but then don't?

It's got a lot of good stuff. Like, "the worker deserves their wages", no wait let's throw that out, and "take care of the poor & needy", no let's ditch that too, and "your breasts are fiiiiine gurl", no wait let's never read that out loud ever, anywhere.

My favorite is "be skeptical - test everything", oh no wait no let's redact that too... (I just realized how that doesn't mesh with the most important verse of all: "just do whatever we tell you, no questions asked, capiche?")

The hilarious part is not that they are reading the Bible - it is that they are not! Likewise for the Constitution that they showed up on January 6th to "defend".

This goes beyond riders. "Bought" politicians are SO bought that when lobbyists ask politicians to do stuff, they do it unquestioningly. And I mean: THE WHOLE BILL - not just one sentence within it.

But, you may ask, aren't they also incredibly lazy too? And the answer is yes! So the lobbyists have to do all the work to write out the bills... and then the congressperson simply signs it, easy peasy. "I, insert name here, from state, insert state name here, do solemnly swear that..." - AND I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING, the bill was passed while STILL saying both "insert name here" and also "insert state name here"!!!!!!

So while I am shocked and sickened afresh to hear of plagiarism within academic circles, which I had hoped would be one of the last hold-outs, literal beacons and bastions of Freedom and Truth and all that rizz, politics was the opposite of that and has allowed plagiarism for a LONG time.

I mean, I would not say that it is reality, just that they act like it is - except even that much is not true, b/c when they get REALLY sick, they finally show up at a hospital begging to be saved. So even they know, deep down, where the medicine is at. Cognitive dissonance is a horrific, terrible thing:-(.

I bet all sorts of things could be photoshopped in there... :-O

Insert name here: John E. Doe

I recall hearing of at least two bills passed that had this... and were not even filled in yet, yeesh:-(.

Someone should really try to poison the well here, and put in a line that says: Insert social security number and a valid credit card number here... Except like the above people probably wouldn't even read that much, yeesh:-(.

Security through ~~obfuscation~~ stupidity! :-) - it can be adaptive under just the right circumstances!:-)

All good points, except the existing software does not have that developers name attached to it.

Good points! Fwiw, though I've never met a roma person, I thought that one was more "cultural" than "ethnic", and also that it was a part of the culture (literally) to steal. That said, one should keep a solid eye on their belongings regardless of who else is around, so the "clutch" seems entirely unnecessary. Being aware is just good advice, though not making an obvious clutch is an "anti-racist" pattern that considers the feelings of the person that just stepped onto the bus, and I would strongly advocate for doing both actually.

One thing to add to your story though: you were willing to learn - but not everybody is. And if your racist parents, just to give an example, were to vote against women's healthcare, then their choices will lead to literal deaths, possibly even of your very girlfriend, like if a period went wrong one day but then doctors did not know what they were allowed vs. not allowed to do and she died as a result. At least, this is happening in America. This is not theoretical - this is ACTUALLY happening.

Russia may be feeding into the existing prejudices in the Western World - by making memes, making TV shows (like Tucker Carlson's, before he got booted out as a result of going too far), bribing politicians; and overall causing or at least inflaming or taking advantage of things like Brexit - but the people who make themselves into sheep and enact those wills... they bear some of the responsibility as well. As in, if they ever were fortunate to have your own experiences, then they would look back at how they voted decades ago and feel guilt. Assuming that they were still alive - which many of the anti-vaxxers are already not anymore. And they did not go down quietly: they took MANY others along with them too. They also prevented us from even so much as counting precisely how many there were, but from the excess death stats it was A LOT - in the USA we lost more people to covid than all the wars we've ever had combined (with the one exception of the immensely bloody civil war on our own soil, and even that number we've probably blown past by now?).

Yes this is very true. IQ is not the same as EQ, and neither are quite the same as "wisdom". The latter comes from evaluated experiences - as in, if you fail to learn from your own mistakes then you will simply get dumber as you age, whereas if you seek out knowledge & learning & evaluate the mistakes of others, then the trajectory of your life will make you SMARTER as you age (up to a point ofc).

Truthfully, the only way to spot a counterfeit is to know the real thing so extremely well that nobody can pull a fast one on you.

Speaking of, don't forget: GWB (the 2nd Bush president) only graduated Yale b/c his father donated a massive amount of $$$$ to the school - his grades (that he had sealed but at some point got leaked) reveal that he flunked out on his own merits. So even "educated" does not mean "educated" if you catch my drift.

As far as a "guarantee" though... nothing is every truly guaranteed, so that might be asking too much. Still, it's a good reminder to look at someone's character - did someone get rich merely b/c of accidents, or b/c they truly deserved it. Though, do any of the recently rich truly deserve it? Bezos who won't let workers pee (even pregnant mothers), Musk for taking a truly fantastic idea and turning into something that literally kills people, and Zuckerberg who... (shudder), just not even going to go there.

You are truly evil... and this story was glorious, thanks for sharing it!:-P