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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: deficiT | tryptakid | Foreigner

Terror attack in NYC involving truck.

No, he's a criminal and a danger to humanity.
I can see you don't care, but that's about all the meaning i can draw from your posts
 
Trump has involved himself in this issue making a public statement for the accused to be executed.

I care very much for "Serious discussion of current social, political and cultural issues and events" as per the CE&P forum description.
I'm not posting off-topic, i'm merely pointing out that this is another reason trump is a disgrace and an embarassment.
 
Im still working out some bugs in my reasoning and .....you really need a pc to bluelight...this tablet makes me forget what thread im in.
 
Im still working out some bugs in my reasoning and .....you really need a pc to bluelight...this tablet makes me forget what thread im in.

After I decided to try and stop living like a junkie every day. I decided to live with my mom for a while till I got used to not living my whole life around heroin, and getting used to being on methadone and such. Anyways, I decided that about a month ago hence my return to posting actively on bluelight since then. By that point I'd pawned every possession I had. So I no longer own, wel, anything.

So all my posts are written on my moms old iPad and iPhone that she doesn't use anymore. So that's what I wrote every post of mine on. It's frustrating sometimes but it works ok. My main complain is the iPads shitty autocorrect and bad text selection ability.

Also I've never figured out how to get a list of replies to threads I've posted in on the desktop version of the site. On the mobile version the links right at the top, the desktop version I've never found a link for though.

Anyway, point is I actually find using a tablet and phone for all most posting pretty easy. Took a little getting used to but I can write some crazy long posts on it without much trouble. Works ok. :) took a while before I worked out the multi-quote checkbox thing.


We should amend the forum to allow for pleasant respectful playful banter. Too much serious politics seems awfully stiff in nature.

Indeed, all the serious arguing with spacejunk about socialism vs capitalism and America vs... Not America. Sometimes it's nice to just talk about hotdogs or share in a mutual hatered of trump. Arguing and being serious and heated ALL the time gets exhausting.
 
We should amend the forum to allow for pleasant respectful playful banter. Too much serious politics seems awfully stiff in nature.

Isn't that what The Lounge and the CEP social thread are for? I would lament any attempt to take this forum in a direction where there was less serious discussion and more inane 'banter'. I just don't see the value in trying to encourage jokes in a forum that is supposed to be about serious discussion. I can't speak for anyone else but I would be seriously disinclined to post here if you decided to take things in that direction.
 
Isn't that what The Lounge is for? I would lament any attempt to take this forum in a direction where there was less serious discussion and more inane 'banter'. I just don't see the value in trying to encourage jokes in a forum that is supposed to be about serious discussion. I can't speak for anyone else but I would be seriously disinclined to post here if you decided to take things in that direction.

I don't think anyone is suggesting a serious change in direction or any reduction is the quantity of serious posts. Just having a little room to not be so serious ALL the time.

A short breather here and there could be a very good thing. A lot of the problem in serious political discussion is seeing each other as us and them, refusing to be wrong, etc. By having a little more human and a break here and there, might serve to humanize the people involved.

I have a couple good friends who I love debating with. We often do agree but when we don't, we can have a long and serious discussion about it but there is actually the possibility of someone's minds being changed. Something that virtually never happens in a more impersonal setting like here. It's only possible for us cause we are close friends and we both know we greatly respect each other and we WANT to understand the others point of view and really consider it. We aren't trying to win, we are trying to work out who's right in a completely genuine and friendly way.

Who knows, maybe having a bit more levity and not being so serious all the time could be constructive to the serious parts rather than getting rid of them. Which I don't think anyone intends to do.

There's nothing wrong with occasionally taking a moment away from talking about how the sky is falling and the world is ending and trump will kill us all to talk about how hotdogs are made asses and yet they are DELICIOUS. :) Unless of course you're a commie vegetarian like spacejunk and probably see the hotdog as a symbol for the oppression of the proletariat or something i dunno. <3 ;)
 
I don't think anyone is suggesting a serious change in direction or any reduction is the quantity of serious posts. Just having a little room to not be so serious ALL the time.

A short breather here and there could be a very good thing. A lot of the problem in serious political discussion is seeing each other as us and them, refusing to be wrong, etc. By having a little more human and a break here and there, might serve to humanize the people involved.

I have a couple good friends who I love debating with. We often do agree but when we don't, we can have a long and serious discussion about it but there is actually the possibility of someone's minds being changed. Something that virtually never happens in a more impersonal setting like here. It's only possible for us cause we are close friends and we both know we greatly respect each other and we WANT to understand the others point of view and really consider it. We aren't trying to win, we are trying to work out who's right in a completely genuine and friendly way.

Who knows, maybe having a bit more levity and not being so serious all the time could be constructive to the serious parts rather than getting rid of them. Which I don't think anyone intends to do.

There's nothing wrong with occasionally taking a moment away from talking about how the sky is falling and the world is ending and trump will kill us all to talk about how hotdogs are made asses and yet they are DELICIOUS. :) Unless of course you're a commie vegetarian like spacejunk and probably see the hotdog as a symbol for the oppression of the proletariat or something i dunno. <3 ;)

I have no problem with the light-hearted banter that currently takes place in the forum, and from what I can tell the mods aren't exactly cracking down on that. What I would object to is a conscious decision to try and facilitate more of this by amending the forum description. My personal view is that serious discussion should take strong priority over jokes and the like, there are other places on bluelight to joke around, there is one forum for serious political discussion.

I understand the proposal was not to reduce the quantity of serious posts. However, an increase in the number of non-serious posts would still mean readers have to comb through more of that in order to get to the substantive, serious posts - even if there was no reduction in the number of serious posts. I don't personally think that would be a good thing, and I would be considerably less likely to participate here if a conscious effort was made to take the forum in that direction.

If certain people can't have a civil debate the problem lies with those people, not the forum structure. I know you have a rather pessimistic view of people's ability to engage in rational thought and discourse, I can't say that I share your pessimism, and I am not sure that allowing more jokes here would do anything to mitigate the issues that some people have engaging in intellectually honest political discussion.
 
Maybe not, it's just a thought. I don't really have much of an opinion either way.

But yes, I am very pessimistic and I'd say the number of discussions I see here where I think there is any realistic chance of anyone changing their view at all would be approximately... none.
 
You know, I changed my views on 911 conspiracy theories after a discussion I had in this forum. Admittedly, I was not immediately persuaded. But, several posters convinced me the matter was not as obvious as I took it to be, so I reviewed the evidence with an open mind and changed my view. That might not have happened if my interlocutors had assumed the matter was pointless from the outset and never bothered to point out the flaws in my position.

Of course, political beliefs are things which people take quite seriously, and it is true that most debates are not going to change most people's views on an issue. But, it does happen from time to time, and the a priori assumption that it doesn't is self-defeating.
 
the seed said:
Im just trying to stay on topic. I figured some muslim hater could call him an arab and we could berate him or something.


I'll save you the trouble and say our truck driver is one of the "brown people". Consider me mocking Trump supporters as racist and say they hate brown people.

So you spring your trap, tell me where Uzbekistan is, how the people there are, in fact literal Caucasians. Not particularly "brown".

Ok I have been pwned. Trump supporters can't be racist because of that.
 
I just can't believe Trump is going to legitimize Duterte with a visit.

On the other hand, my wife went to a convenience store run by muslims yesterday. A young girl was learning to drive with her friend next to my wife who was parked in our car. This girl didn't know what she was doing and my wife was certain a collision was imminent. My wife asked why can't they practice a few spaces down instead of next to our car? My insurance is high enough already. So this big younger muslim store worker comes out and starts berating my wife and calling her a racist. My wife felt threatened and was really shaken up. How does not wanting to get run into make her a racist? Do we have to apologize for being white? We, especially my wife has worked hard to support progressive causes for about 20 years. I don't know if maybe this guy was spun up by what happened in NYC the other day?

We are older now but when we were in our 20's and 30's we would never think of disrespecting older people. If civility towards others breaks down like this I don't know where we are headed as a society. I will defend me and my wife if it comes down to that.
 
Im not sure how to answer that to be fair due to lack of executive signatures on bills. I can answer using the last guy....knew aca was a loser, liked arab spring back in my more hawkish years but he made me sick when he let assad stay.....seeing syrians shot in the jaw affected me in 2011. I got sick to my stomach upon his reelection. With the whole nsa stuff in that period...I turned then.

I cannot compare Trump to that. His manor isms and speech have always annoyed me....I just hate the way east coasters speak but I cant dislike the man for that.
i'm sure that's an answer to some question. just not the one i asked :\

alasdair
 
We are older now but when we were in our 20's and 30's we would never think of disrespecting older people. If civility towards others breaks down like this I don't know where we are headed as a society. I will defend me and my wife if it comes down to that.

I have a feeling you were just as rude to your elders when you were in your 20s and 30s.

As for the young guy who had a T-shirt on that said "I am Muslim", if he was, I wonder why he'd be quick on the offense? That's one of those things people who talk about white privilege refer to. Being taken aback and offended when someone wrongly mischaracterizes you based on your race.

This guy sees white people berating him and calling him a terrorist day in day out for the last 17 years. It's made him overly defensive. Don't take it personal.
 
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