“We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities.” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Probably made for a good day at work. I know I wouldn’t mind if I knew it was a neo-nazi

Probably made for a good day at work. I know I wouldn’t mind if I knew it was a neo-nazi

Evolutionarily speaking: If cooperation did not give advantages, why the fuck did we become a social species? Going for anti-cooperative strategies only ever makes sense in zero-sum games and practically nothing in life is.

In game theory cooperation does give advantages.

Both co-op: +1/+1 Both defect: 0/0 Defect/co-op: +3/0

That’s just one interaction. When you expand the experiment, predictability becomes a positive trait and risk is avoided. So by more often choosing cooperation, you become more predictable, avoid the risk of not gaining any points through mutual defection, and more people are likely to interact with you. More interactions=higher potential for points. When you adjust the rules of the game to not define a set number of interactions with each player and you can choose the frequency of interactions with bad reputation players, cooperating is naturally selected for. Conversely, as the pool gets collectively nicer, defection will net more benefits and the pendulum will start to slowly swing the other way.

I’ll ignore the first half of this reply because we won’t agree. Not every choice is a conscious decision in my eyes, but the vast majority are.

As for the second half, believing that bad actors would be weeded out based on the principle of free will is naive. Consider game theory. Two people have something to gain from cooperation, but more to gain from defecting. Meanwhile, the other gains nothing or very little. That simple thought experiment incentivizes bad actions from time to time. You have more to gain by acting selfishly.

Now blow up the experiment. You vs the world and reputation is introduced. Someone with a perfect cooperation rate is flawed. They offer nothing but blind trust and can be taken advantage of. The opposite also displayed. Someone who makes selfish decisions all the time offers nothing but blind distrust. You’re left to choose which people to interact with that are somewhere along the middle of the reputation gradient. Those that are 70% or lower seem unpredictable or untrustworthy so many choose to interact with people on the higher end of the reputation spectrum when available and reflect that in their own decision making. You can’t always choose who to interact with, so eventually you’ll have to interact with a bad actor. You’ll get burned by making a cooperative choice and they will benefit from it. In turn, ensuring that they will survive natural selection.

I can only speak for my own beliefs. I don’t believe in an omnipotent god. I believe that god holds dominion over the heavenly afterlife and that is all. The universe was created by pushing over the first domino, two atoms collided, and now life exists. It’s up to us to use the gift of life as fully and morally as possible. To leave the world a better place than when you first arrived. I don’t think that we are some pet project for a God that can change everything on a whim.

Catholicism teaches that God is all forgiving and loves unconditionally. For as many flaws as the Catholic Church has or has had, they’ve generally been the Christian denomination that’s preached forgiveness the most to my knowledge. Maybe I’m wrong.

And I was talking about my beliefs growing up in the Catholic Church not Catholicism as a whole.

I don’t believe in a spiteful god, but sure man, go off I guess.

Can’t speak for everyone. But for myself, the world and humanity was created with free will and it’s up to us to choose good vs evil. God only has dominion over the heavenly afterlife and the hellish afterlife is forced to exist on the principle of yin and yang. There can be no good without evil.

For context I consider myself agnostic but was born roman Catholic and base my morals on the teachings that everyone was created equal and forgiveness should be shown to those that can be helped. Forgiveness isn’t a requirement in the cases that someone willingly chooses evil in the face of morality over and over. (Putin, Hitler, Trump, Netanyahu, serial violent criminals, etc.)

Lawnmowers only take about 16oz of oil and you can buy 5qts(160oz) for $23 here in the states. So that $23 would last 10 years of oil changes if you replace it once per season like I did.

Not sure what that would cost you in Europe. So maybe that’s where the disconnect is.

How often were you changing the oil in your mower? I own an electric lawnmower now, but before that I just changed the oil once at the beginning of each mowing season.

Ortberg had on Wednesday urged workers to vote against a strike, warning it would, “put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together.”

This is the exact same thing that brought them to where they are. I trust the direction of the company more now that they’re striking than I would if they had agreed to a temporary deal so they can kick the proverbial can down the road till some arbitrary future date.

Because Tyreek Hill isn’t going to shoot a police officer during a traffic stop on the day of a game?

But also very ironic since the man doesn’t know the word ‘hallowed’ is different than ‘hollowed’

You’re not wrong but it doesn’t even matter what the shareholders want. Company executives are legally obligated to secure profits if they’re publicly traded.

What an absolutely tremendous waste of your time. I love that about you. Thanks for teaching me about etymology of a 8th century settlement for almost no reason whatsoever.

Nah. Downvotes should exist to show how unpopular radical or extremist views really are. It doesn’t apply here obviously, but I think the reason Meta and Twitter etc. are so negative/toxic is because you can’t discourage that content on popular posts. It just looks like there’s fewer likes.

Fucking liar. No one washes their car before driving on 44. Now if you said you were going to get a ball peen hammer and put a few cracks in the windshield of your Nissan Altima, some heavy dents in the body, remove the quarter panel on the passenger side, and smash in one of the two headlights…then I would believe you. But you would also need to be driving with a temp tag and merge without looking while going 87 in a 55.

What is there to really dislike about Pokemon? I didn’t realize that it was intrusive enough on those that don’t play or watch it to trigger such strong feelings.

It seems like we mostly agree then. I only disagree with the term “murder” when it’s applied to Obama’s authorization of the strike that killed Anwar Al Awlaqi. That carries with it the presumption of unjust killing that was being pushed by Republicans in the run-up to a 2016 election. It ended up being one of the few criticisms of Obama’s time in office(in my opinion). Would I have liked him to take a more hardline stance on his Supreme Court appointment in 2016 and pressured RBG to step down prior to 2016? Yes. And would I have wanted him to put the nails to Republicans to get ACA though with minimal changes? Yes. But overall I felt that in the 8 years he was president we moved forward as a society.

Its not a perfect system, I’m aware. I actually wish that the SC would have taken up the case so we could have a ruling, but I do believe that this particular closed-door meeting constitutes due process. I think its an unfortunate concession to feel more protected from terroristic action, but necessary. I would feel way more comfortable if the term “public danger” could only be applied to specific individuals rather than broad descriptions(like the one you referenced from Trump). And could only be applied by a committee of legacy members of the federal government shielded from presidential or political appointments. Then any killing carried out should be subject to increased investigation and review to confirm the justification. Any deaths or casualties deemed unnecessary can then trigger criminal actions against those that authorized them.