Ok, so in this particular instance, they’re not having their strings pulled by the puppet masters? Is that what you’re saying? They are acting on their own now? You said they are puppets. WHO IS PULLING THE STRINGS TO FORCE THEM TO ISSUE ARREST WARRANTS?

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Oh ok. Right, so the west (Europe, UK, US) are PRO-Israel, meaning they are AGAINST the arrest warrants for Netenyahu et.al. If the west we’re pulling the strings of the ICC, then it wouldn’t have issued the warrants in the first place.

But then the west would be pulling the strings in a conspiracy against itself! That’s nonsense sorry

Puppets of whom? Usually conspiracy theorists like yourself tend to point at Jews/Zionists/globalists when inventing some shady cabal that controls the police. But in this case that wouldn’t make sense. So are you positing a pro-Palestine cabal, which has the power to control the ICC and the ICJ, but doesn’t have the power to stop its people being massacred every day for over a year? Who? Who is pulling the strings in your puppet show?

I still fail to understand what your issue is with the paradox? I can’t see why it would be easier or more effective to explain a social contract than a paradox. It differs from other reciprocal social contracts, such as trust for example, because a) it’s the lack of the commodity itself (tolerance) which dictates whether it should be granted and b) it’s not global, i.e. you can remain tolerant of a bigot’s queerness while not tolerating their hatred. I think a) makes it a paradox, which sets it apart from other social contracts. So why not call it a paradox? I’m still not getting it.

“those who make monopolistic fortunes off the sick while also dictating refusal of care to the sick” is hardly arbitrary, though, is it. It’s quite a high bar to clear, that. It’s rational too, since they do many orders of magnitude more harm than e.g. a death row inmate, whom society is content to destroy.

Ohhhh, sorry! A patsy (watch the spelling!) is someone who takes the fall for, or is otherwise manipulated by someone else.

“Dr. Blakeley is not a patsy for the previous government, according to that report”, would be my guess?

Well there is no way to settle that bet, otherwise I would absolutely take it.

What? You think every single teenager universally disobeys their parents? I know for a fact this isn’t true. There exist responsible teenagers. Brides, even if a teenager is disobedient, the placement of boundaries changes their behaviour.

Peer pressure is real. Kids get social media accounts way too early because it’s difficult to justify holding off when all of their classmates have them. It causes actual social issues for kids when they are the only one without something. They get bullied etc, so parents are effectively forced to accede. Making it illegal gives parents a reason to say no, which might slow down the uptake.

Two things. First, I’m not pro-communist. I’m anti capitalist. There’s a subtle but really important difference. I can be against one system without being for another.

Secondly, I am able to apply the failings of capitalism to the system as a whole, by looking at its roots. I’m not from the USA and I’m not only looking at US capitalism. Capitalism is inherently exploitative, favouring people who own interest-accruing property over people who work. It favours the amassing of wealth, which necessarily comes at the cost of other people’s well-being and success. We see the outcome of this is that the people who are most rewarded by the system are the most inhumane, to the point where the top earners are outright sociopaths. The people who suffer are those who just try to get along. All of this is universal across all countries and interpretations of capitalism. The system rewards greed and unscrupulousness, and punishes compassion. It’s destructive at this stage because it is being allowed to run rampant, unchecked by any common sense. It’s ok in small doses, but the neoliberal consensus is global.

Lol, right. So let’s break down this down since Communism has miserably failed every test and attempt it’s attempt at being used …

Interesting you should bring this up, because capitalism has failed every time, too. Communism has been tried, what three times? And capitalism about 300. So communism is winning on this front, in fact it’s 100 times more successful by comparison.

Yes, because capitalism is the dominant power structure in the world, and communism is one of its anathemas, communism has been suppressed and demonised at every opportunity. This is a historical fact. I don’t know if communism would work under different circumstances, but I’m certain it can’t work under the circumstances in which we have found ourselves since the second world war, circumstances which are hostile to communism. There’s a good chance that had it gone the other way, I would be here claiming communism is the root cause of most societal problems.
Capitalism is not intrinsically better than communism when you count oppression and unnecessary suffering and death as the metric.
Stanning for the status quo while we descend into late stage capitalism and people are being stripped of their economic and social freedoms like never before is a pretty awful stance. Look around you, the world is fucked. And the world is capitalist. The system does not work. Unless you’re a billionaire, you should have quite a lot to complain about.

Capitalism is the root cause of a whole heap of major problems. Almost all of them in fact. I suppose you could go one further and settle on greed as the cause. But since capitalism is institutionalised greed, it still wouldn’t excuse capitalism even if you did.

Liberal tears are already known to be the most expensive commodity in the known universe, cf. Brexit.

Yes we should, and I hope we will. I would love to be able to imagine some kind of smooth, consensual, non violent transition to a society where we keep doing the same stuff but are fairly treated, but I have difficulty with that. And I think space would be the hardest industry to revolutionise because of the above. Not saying it’s impossible and I’m definitely not saying it’s not preferable!

Space travel is exceptional in that you need an incredible amount of cooperation to get a project into space. The supply chains are insane, the component parts highly specialized and hugely expensive, and the range of expertise and knowledge required is simultaneously focused and intense and broad and varied. If human society ever does manage to transition to a genuine people power, space flight will be, to my knowledge, the very last thing we achieve, because it takes so many people working together to get it done. The scope of these projects makes you realise how easy it must have been to build the pyramids. Two brothers can build a plane that just about works, but to get a vehicle to orbit needs a city of people working together.

Jesus. That’s worrying.

They raided journalists’ homes? I am not as wired in to the news as I have been so I must’ve missed this, what happened?