/townhall/ - Townhall

1) All posts in a given thread must contribute constructively to the conversation, whether agreeing or disagreeing. Off-topic, contentless, inflammatory, or hostile posts will be deleted and result in a ban.

1a) Derails that occur as a natural result of discussion progressing from the original subject will generally not be interfered with; however, if these hinder discussion of the original topic, making a new thread is preferred.

1b) Part of contributing constructively is understanding and addressing the reasoning behind an opposing view. While this can be a tedious task and will generally not be officially enforced, please make an effort to at the very least avoid "talking past" someone when presented with a counterargument. Simply doubling down on your initial point does not advance a discussion.

1c) Be as willing to "lose" as you are to "win", and above all else, be willing to learn and understand. You will not get the most out of this board if your only goal is to persuade, and you will not even be effective at that unless you understand what you are arguing against.

2) Ad hominems and other uncivil behavior will not be tolerated. You may have a significant personal stake in some subjects discussed here, and it is normal to be frustrated when someone cannot relate; however, lashing out is not an effective way to engender sympathy for your position, and will not advance the conversation in a constructive way. Even if you find someone's argument morally abhorrent, there are constructive ways to express this.

2a) Attempting to deliberately provoke an uncivil reaction is prohibited, even if it is done within the letter of the law.

2b) Snark and other forms of mockery are strongly discouraged and may result in warnings or bans.

2c) "Strawmanning" an "opponent" deliberately will be regarded as uncivil conduct and will be dealt with accordingly. This will not apply to genuine misunderstandings.

3) While we do not claim to be arbiters of absolute moral or empirical truth and aim to moderate this board in a fair and even-handed, politically agnostic manner, the following extreme positions are considered "off-limits" regardless of how they are put forward, including attempts to "hint" or dogwhistle:

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>15262
The America that Gates wrote that letter to is different than the America that currently exists to a degree that's gigantic, though.

>>15264
GPUs and datacenters must be paid for, but software ends up being mercilessly shared for nothing.

>>15266
This is true. However, building physical infrastructure to store data and perform other functions has evolved significantly when one compares, say, the 2020s to the 1990s. The difficulty of copying and saving 1GB of information in 1995 versus 2025 reflects major changes in things such as microchip manufacturing.

>>15263
It is a rather tight schedule if they try to do all development in-house.  Maybe the US or Israel will sell nukes to them.

>>15254
From Grok:
"""
The drones over New Jersey stirred up a lot of buzz late last year, especially in November and December 2024, when people started spotting them across the state and beyond. It was a big deal—thousands of sightings reported, some near sensitive spots like military bases, and folks were freaking out, speculating everything from government ops to foreign spies. Then, just as you noticed, it all seemed to quiet down.

Here’s what went down: On January 28, 2025, the White House, via Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, said the drones were mostly authorized by the FAA for "research and various other reasons," with a chunk being hobbyists jumping on the bandwagon. They framed it as no big threat—“not the enemy,” as Leavitt put it. This echoed what the Biden administration had hinted at earlier, suggesting many sightings were just planes or helicopters misidentified in the hype.

But that explanation didn’t sit right with everyone. Local leaders, like New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer, called it vague and confusing—what research? Whose drones? The FAA had slapped flight restrictions over dozens of towns in December, which only fueled the mystery, and then let them lapse in January. Meanwhile, posts on X and some news outlets pointed out contradictions: the FAA had told Congress they didn’t know what was up, and military brass, like the Joint Chiefs, admitted they couldn’t pin down the operators or origins. So, the "it’s all fine" line felt like a dodge to some.

Why the sudden silence? Could be a few things. The official story might’ve calmed the public enough to move on, or maybe media attention just shifted—Trump’s inauguration and other headlines took over. On X, skeptics still call it a cover-up, suggesting the government’s hiding something bigger, like a tech test or a security lapse they don’t want to admit. Without hard proof, though, it’s all guesswork. The drones didn’t vanish; the chatter did.
"""

I worry it might be Chinese spies.  Or maybe extraterrestrial aliens!

>>15247
My God, the irony of this post is amazing.

>>15248
You're right.

Gonna go kiss a shotgun now.

>>15240
>>15244
Looks like my info was out of date.  The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) started supporting nuclear power in Oct 2024.  So AfD isn't the only hope for Germany to restart nuclear power plants.

>>15235
You're committing this fallacy:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreyAndGrayInsanity

To bring up religion is a great way to highlight the issue.

There are fundamental differences in Europe between something like Christianity as a whole and something like occultist neo-Nazi neo-paganism as a whole. They may both be "religions" in the dictionary definition of the term, but the actual specifics of what both faith traditions have said and done, especially when it comes to mass movement leaders, contrasts drastically. European Christians have included a number of those in spiritual authortiy including many different racial backgrounds. The neo-Nazis, on the other hand, preach exclusivity and racist hatred to the point of violence.

And within Christianity, meaningful differences still exist. Peace churches are known for their embrace of total pacifism. Socialist activists have often used Christian language. There also exist a great many apolitical moderates of a sincere Christian faith.

Were I to be an atheist, for the sake of argument, I'd have to be quite the blinded fanatic without an understanding of detailed probabilities and other facts about life if I claim "everybody of every religious tradition is equally a violent fool". A monk in France who feeds wayward birds is far, far less to enact evil than a skinhead with WWII tattoos living in Germany.

This lesson also applies to politics. And the arts. And any other emotional topic with a lot of arguing. Life exists in a spectrum such that being somewhat wrong is different than being completely wrong and both are still different than believing that truth as an inherent concept doesn't exist.

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>15236

>You're committing this fallacy

Eh, not so sure about that. I think that if one were to view what happens on the internet, their smartphone, and on social media to be indistinguishable from offline reality, then maybe -- or, perhaps if I were Gen Z and the line was more blurred. But being Gen Y and having virtually no real-life experience with anything I see in the news, on social media, etc., then I would tend to disagree. I don't think most MAGA people, or most people of any movement are as extreme as the media likes to portray. Usually, the extremists of any group will get all of the media attention, and this will be generalized to everyone in the group. Once generalized, people in power can then marginalize groups based off of people's wrong perceptions about them.

I would agree that some religions appear more helpful than others and that tradition and precedence must be taken into consideration. I believe even Richard Dawkins said he would prefer to be Christian as opposed to Muslim, if he had to be religious. Some cultures are preferable to others.

>The MAGA movement, which opposes truth itself as a concept

Interesting idea, and I think it probably goes back to fundamentalist Christianity when it first emerged in the early 1900s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals). As new discoveries and evidence appeared which called into question the truth of scripture, a large group of Christians rallied together, rejecting anything but a literal interpretation of the Bible. I suppose the MAGA movement in general could be seen as the modern incarnation and extension of that.

>>15236
>The MAGA movement, which opposes truth itself as a concept, is uniquely negative in a way that sets it apart from the regular marketplace of ideas. The same way that you would be inherently separate from me if you believed that your AI generated pony must exist in reality such that you would enact violence against me and others to make her thus real.

And here I thought the individuals who believe they were born in the wrong body and who enact violence upon those who refuse to share in their insane delusion, were the ones who "oppose truth itself as a concept."  Thankfully the MAGA movement is stamping this lunacy out of government.  Welcome to the new Age of Reason.(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

>>15201
>Sure they exist, but the folk preeching this kind of shit never are actual Christians.

That's a no true scotsman fallacy right there. And quite a delusional one

>>15201
>Moneylenders, shady dealers, and general dishonest crooks?
>I really don't see your point in the slightest.

Yeah, cause you're a fucking hypocrite. Jesus also said it's easier for a camel to move through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. He didn't turn his whip against the people you personally hate, he didn't turn his whip against people for being queer, foreigners or adulterers (he actually defended them from hypocritical Pharisees). Calling  them just 'those who were perverting that temple.' Is really fucking disengenuous giving yourself a floating signifier to include whomever you want in that category.

And no, jesus wasn't some entirely peace loving hippie, but the only people he was violent towards were the greedy in the temple. Otherwise he did say the most important of God's laws was to love they neighbor as theyselves and when asked who was one's neighbor, gave the parable of the good Samaritan to make the point that everyone god created is one's neighbor.

But you fucking hypocrites twist that shit aroubd to try and justify fucking fascism by completely ignoring the most important details about the only people jesus was violent against.

Jesus's whole point in his opposition to and criticisms of the Pharisees was that the spirit of the law was more important than the precise letter of it. People who twist the imperfect language of that law to justify doing things against the spirit of the law that the rest of the stories make clear are best described as Pharisees, which includes a good chunk of hate-addicted evangelicals who are ultimately worshiping themselves for being native born Americans and who label themselves Christian as a 'get out of jail free' card with a really fucking convenient 'faith alone theology'.

>>15171
One has to ask whether or not Jesus Christ was a completely failed prophet and preacher given that the central point of his ministry was to die on the cross in order to atone for the sins of humanity such that all can live in unconditional peace and grace having been saved by Him.

And then 99.9999% of the Christians throughout history have supported war, torture, slavery, genocide, the death penalty, and every conceivable form of violence that mankind can do to mankind.

I mentally and emotionally cannot understand divorcing Jesus as Savior from Jesus as God, only believing the latter to be true, when Jesus crying out to turn the other cheek and create a Planet without hurting and killing between peoples is exactly in tandem with why He died on the cross in the first place: out of love.

If history looks at Jesus Christ as anything, an objective take is that He was somebody who believed wrongly about the core of human nature: that we're basically evolutionary bred murderers and rapists conditioned to compete and struggle. Calling for us to view all men and women as our spiritual brothers and sisters, loving them, is pure stupidity. Alas.

Hitler and Stalin both perfectly personify the biological nature of the human race. People like Jesus are abnormal freaks. That's a fact. Sadly.

>>15226
>If history looks at Jesus Christ as anything, an objective take is that He was somebody who believed wrongly about the core of human nature: that we're basically evolutionary bred murderers and rapists conditioned to compete and struggle. Calling for us to view all men and women as our spiritual brothers and sisters, loving them, is pure stupidity. Alas.
>Hitler and Stalin both perfectly personify the biological nature of the human race. People like Jesus are abnormal freaks. That's a fact. Sadly.

That's a false dichotomy fallacy and oversimplies human nature.

Humans are by nature conflicted between personal individuals needs and interest and love for other humans, both a product of evolution, niether side is the 'default'.

Humans are born entirely dependent on other humans to get them to adulthood, and it's generally very difficult for any individual to support a newborn human alone for quite a few years. Historically the nuclear families of western 19th and 20th century cultures are an anomoly, most children had Historically been raised in multi-generational households and in addition depended on local community support as well.

Humans are not hyper individualistic or hyper collectivist, they're in between: they're tribal, but they can control their tribal tendencies through how they think about other people.

Jesus's values are not unique in history, he wasn't the last to preach and command people to strive for universal human compassion and he certainly wasn't the first. I don't personally believe Jesus was a specially anointed messiah or god as Christians do but I see him as one of many people throughout history that reflects the compassionate side of that internal and eternal conflict that is human nature

Have you stopped beating your kids today?

>>15220
The problem is that parents no longer beat their children.

>am finished with politics in every form

This is what the government truly fears..

"You look like a bot."

Oh, okaay.

Ask a Republican and he'll say he's playing 4D chess and joking and trolling the libs and it's hillarious

Ask a Democrat and they will say that he's Hitler reborn who is planning to rip up the constitution and elect himself a dictator god emperor for life

Ask a based centrist and they will tell you that they don't care, nothing ever happens and that they just want to grill

Take your pick

>>15223

> Ask a based centrist and they will tell you that they don't care, nothing ever happens and that they just want to grill

If tomorrow an asteroid hits the surface and wipes out all of humankind in an instant, on a cosmis scale nothing really happened either

The first Fallout predicted it.

People called Fallout 3's plot dogshit. But who's going to be laughing when they install an AI as president and someone convinces it to blow itself up?

That's right. Todd. Todd always laughs last.