Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

He's way, way more than that. There are pathologies in that man's head that are beyond comprehension to rational thinkers.

By way of merely one of many examples, Why would any person in his position seek to keep those records in defiance of a subpoena? There was nothing to gain and everything to lose, and yet he did it. Inexplicable. A mere narcissist would seek to save his ass, act in self-preservation.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm not. It should be trumpeted as far and wide as those who like it want to spread it.

But to Hank's last point, those who seek to criticize it, or simply make fun of it, should also have a voice. Neither DEI, ESG, climate change, LGBTQ issues, or any other idea should be deemed sacred and beyond reproach.

Nothing is beyond fair skepticism.

But that isn't the rule. The rule is, certain views are right, and we can't have dissenting voices.

I think RFK is nuts. But a lot of people don't. The man fills the venues where he speaks. But there is a social media blackout on most of his stuff, on the basis it is misinformation. And when he is covered by traditional media, the slant is endlessly negative.

The mindset is, We Who Know Best Are Putting Our Thumbs on the Scale in Terms of Public Discourse. You will get in line. Hell, here's Larry Fink admitting he is going to "force behaviors."

Your definition of authoritarian is so narrow its useless. It misses the real authoritarians out there.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I am talking about most of academia, most of the media, and millions of corporate sorts going along with bullshit to get along.

Huh? ESG lost so many people so much money, corporations have had to walk away from it. But then, what's a few hundred billion here and there?

The Post had the laptop, and it was legit. A pack of ex-intel folks wrote a letter stating that the laptop was likely created by Russians. They knew when they wrote the letter that this was false. This gave cover to Twitter to shut down the Post's account.

Musk has since bought Twitter and dug up a ton of emails showing that FBI, CIA, and NSA folks were working with twitter for years not to avoid misinformation, but to massage narratives by blocking or shadow banning stories or facts that went against favored goals or messaging of govt officials. At the time, these officials feared (wrongly, I think) that the laptop story could cost Biden the election.

Right. But the cure for those pieties is mockery, abuse of them. By making them off limits, sacred, we've just created new secular religions for the credulous and the authoritarians that would those the credulous as useful idiots.

Nope. May they make more money than they could ever spend. My sole gripe is with the effort to place bullshit beyond critique. If I hear a MAGA nut tell me the election was stolen, I can tell him to fuck off. If I have to listen to some garbage about inclusiveness that's intellectually vacant and a waste of my time as a prerequisite for making money or being an employee (I have had to do so), I can't tell this person to fuck off. I must pretend their silly shit is real and important.

Quite literally the entire progressive side of the party.

Joe Biden doesn't know what day it is. He's a doddering old man in a centrist pose with a pack of progressives behind the scenes driving granular policy. A lot like Trump's administration in reverse. Trump blathered and grabbed headlines while Leonard Leo packed the Courts.

What they did was a uniquely lurid example of what tantrum throwers do all over this country. Yes, Trump enabled a lot of it. His fucking inauguration speech was a tantrum. I'd prefer all of it, from both sides, go back in the bottle.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That wasn't my point

My post was quite long, now it is just a joke about lawyers and noxious emissions.

We struggled for years to recruit black clerks, and were frustrated. But understand we were very driven to get diverse. It strengthens the firm, besides being the right thing.

Then we came up with an explanation of what the challenge was and we addressed it and had great success. A client's DEI person sent out a detailed survey and when em heard what we had done had a long talk with me to compliment our approach. Em asked if em could share our approach with other affiliated firms (we said yes). Then the head of my little practice area at that client called me to talk about DEI efforts. The guy had not heard of the survey sitting on the DEI person's desk, not 50 yards away from his. Rather than talking to that person, instead he said he looked at our webpage and assumed no black people from that. We didn't put law clerks' pictures up until graduation. Looking at webpages and not asking for explanations is a very common compliant among people I know who are actually making the efforts.

Then the guy told me about an association that tries to match black law students with summer jobs at firms. I explained we were a small firm and if we brought a summer in we would be harming the 2 year round black law students we already had. He still urged me to check it out. I didn't.

But that type of experience from someone who is just blindly mouthing slogans without seeing subtle facts does cause eye rolling even among those of us who are actually making strides and progress.

Seriously, no one read it before I deleted it?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I read it. I was referring to your subsequent post about deleting it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think so but am not positive. I haven't used the open one I have for quite a while but already has thousands of songs on it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Many people break that law because they do not think they will be caught. Trump has learned, over decades, that even if he is caught, he is not held accountable. (Or that he can pay some money.) He ran a risk/reward calculation, and got it wrong. That doesn't mean he has a mental illness, any more than it does for any other criminal.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's not a rule. You are criticizing DEI right now. No one has silenced you. You are absolutely free to be a dissenting voice.

I see plenty of information about RFK on social media. If social media isn't repeating some of what he says, it's likely because social media doesn't want to repeat untruths about vaccines that will get people killed. That is, of course, the free speech right of the people running social media, and if you have a commitment to the First Amendment you should be glad that social media companies get to decide on their own what content they want to share.

You are putting your thumb on the scale of public discourse right now. You're just complaining that other people say things you don't like. In the annals of human history, it has never been easier or cheaper for people to participate in the public discourse by saying what they want to say. Any jackass can post on social media, put up a blog, or say what they want to say in a myriad of ways. I don't understand your grievance. "There isn't enough vaccine information out there!" "Other people should stop disagreeing with stuff I agree with!"


Ha. I didn't offer a definition. I am just using the word the way everyone besides you uses it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You don't know what you're talking about -- it just keeps changing from post to post.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You are not understanding what I'm saying.

I do not believe that a single fact in the prior two facts is accurate, except that it is true that Musk bought Twitter. But the great thing is that the government has not suppressed any of this speech, as actual authoritarians would. You have read it all, in all its bogus glory, because our country's laws and culture often make it very possible, even lucrative, to publish misinformation.

For reasons that are hard to fathom, you saying that the people who published all this crap which you read and now believe were not allowed to publish all this crap. A sharper mind mind wonder how you were able to read it.

The grievance you are struggling to articulate is that you believe a lot of crap, and that too many other people don't, and don't want to share it. For example, Twitter decided that the Post's story about the Biden laptop violated a company policy about sharing hacked information. They did not stop the Post from writing the story, printing many copies of it, and sharing them with many, many people. Yet you're upset that Twitter had different editorial judgment than you would.

You're not mocking them. Try that instead.

But they're not off limits, sacred. No one actually thinks that at all. They just don't share your views.

You can absolutely tell that person to fuck off. You just have to live with the consequences, that they'll think you're an asshole. You're just complaining that you think things that other people disagree with.

Name one. You are so full of shit here that it's coming out your ears. You want to pretend that you are in the center, so you pretend Democrats are something they are not.

Here's what you said a few days ago about the US Open protesters:

It wasn't the tantrum that you objected to -- it was that they did it in the match. I pointed out that disrupting the US Open is something Trump would never do. And we all know he wouldn't.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Can you run to your songs or are you too critical that it would break the zoning?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

1. You’re not saying anything. You’re reframing. As is your move. It’s been more than 20 years.

2. Of course you don’t believe anything about the laptop. You want to appear above it all, but you’re ultimately emotional.

3. I don’t need to mock you here. You’re emotionally on one side. Hence the hysteria on “both sides-ism.”

4. They’re absolutely off limits. You can’t poke fun at DEI and collect a check in any large corp or agency.

5. You’ve a position. You just want to seem above it all. We both know that. Your issue is my issue. You can’t admit it. The difference is, I now realize I’ve never really had a position. I’m actually what I am, which I’ll have to deal with. You’re playing rationalist. Nobody likes a pose.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You’re not a simpleton.

Framing isn’t genius. It’s like playing semantics. We’ve been here two decades, and you’re not William Safire. Stop.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You were calling DEI a form of authoritarianism, and I was saying it was exactly the opposite, in that it is not really changing anyone's behavior much at all. Saying that companies spend money on DEI consultants or lose money with ESG is missing the point.

I believe all sorts of things about the laptop. I believe Hunter Biden has done things I disapprove of, and I wouldn't vote for him. I didn't vote for him. I voted for his father, and he is being dragged through the mud in an effort to harm his father, as we all know. If he were a Republican, you would be full of sympathy for the way he is being abused, but since he is a Democrat, it doesn't bother you -- you think his dick pics should be on the news.

I'm not defending the pieties you want to mock (but aren't mocking). I'm saying they don't exist. You carp and carp and carp about how you can't say the things that you and many other people are saying.

Your both-sidesism is apologism for authoritarianism. Left-wing authoritarianism exists -- it's called Communism. It is a real problem in some parts of the world, like China. But not in the US. Here, the authoritarian threat is from the right. And your both-sidesism is a myopic effort to deny reality, to invent a non-existent left-wing counterpart to MAGA.

There are all sorts of things you can't say at many large organizations, because saying them reveals that you are a little dim, with poor judgment, someone who doesn't know how to fit in. You can poke fun at DEI just like you can poke fun at Finance. (But if you go after either in the wrong way, you are demonstrating that you don't know how to play.)

Of course I have a position. I have never pretended otherwise. I'm not "playing rationalist," whatever that is. Are you copping to being irrational?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You said, "what I see at the extreme poles is delusion, religion. MAGA thinks they're in a fight for the soul of America. Their counterparts on the extreme left believe that the country must be reinvented down to its plankings."

MAGA elected the last President, and it's about to try again. It has almost half the Senators doing its bidding. "Their counterparts on the extreme left" are a couple of guys at Oberlin annoying you with their tweets. When they're done, they go outside and play Spikeball. Your "extreme left" is a chimera, and all your nonsense about the extreme left is a way to avoid acknowledging that the real authoritarian threat in this country is MAGA and the Republican Party.