Re: Google Groups

I think this is a suitable modus vivendi to be imposed on all politicians, for the duration of their tenure.

I think what is happening in Ukraine fully justifies their existence and use. Because if the other side has them, you are going to be walked all over unless you have them, too.

Unless you have access to the 'weapon shops of Isher' :-)

Well it was only a matter of time after we had built the Internet, that it would become a whole new medium for the propagation of carefully crafted bullshit. And a lot of it outside of governmental control for the first time.

Which is why democratic governments are busy passing laws to limit its use for anything except the carefully crafted state mandated bullshit.

It won't end well, and it will remind people of why there used to be a balance between their Lord's temporal - the judiciary - their Lords Spiritual - the Church, and the actual pragmatic government, which was electable, in charge of keeping the peace and protecting the realm, not of engaging in moral dictatorship.

Clearly he's not perfect, he has faults eg. he's an advocate of netzero nonsense. He has (or twitter did) in my opinion suspended the accounts of people who were not guilty of anything but holding the "wrong opinion". That seems to have diminished of late and many now have their accounts back.

Your evidence comes from a source I have no experience of and it all came from the same source. As I've learnt that pretty much all media lies continuously in order to subvert public opinion I'm sceptical to say the least.

Bob.

Who decides which is misinformation and which is censoring the truth?

During covid we were continuously told this and that were "misinformation" or a conspiracy theory. Someone decided.

Since then, drip by drip so much of that misinformation turns out to be true.

Fancy that.

Bob.

Amen to that.

One has to ruthlessly apply Cicero's question to *anything* one reads or sees or hears:

Cui Bono?

And since everything is monetised (except Usenet, and my websites) it is pretty clear in most cases 'cui' gets the 'bono'.

"Never underestimate the power of carefully crafted bullshit".

Indeed. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

It's just another example of the cat-belling principle*.

In theory practice is the same as theory, in practice it isn't.

Governments world wide were frightened out of their wits by the internet. The race is on to control it to only give the 'on message' narrative.

From Tehran to Beijing, to Moscow, the firewalls are up.

While in the West it is open season for carefully crafted bullshit and conspiracy theories, with as much coming from government as from other interests.

We may yearn for the innocent days when we thought we knew what was the truth, and real, but today anyone who believes in anything without massive critical assessment is a gullible idiot.

As is anyone who still thinks in terms of Boolean logic - Truth or falsity. The better bullshit is a subtle blend of both: Enough truth to get you to believe the bullshit, as well.

Example: Covid was real, and it was and still is a killer. But was lockdown the appropriate reaction? Who made money selling masks whose effect seems mainly symbolic? And just why was the 'free' vaccine deemed ineffective or unsafe and the massively profit making ones deemed de rigeur?

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The way round that is to start encouraging people to have supervised weapons training in a military context. Six months compulsory at age 18, with 4-week refreshers every few years. Or you do the six months as litter picking on the motorways with pocket money and found, your choice.

Or some variation of the above. This is essentially what the Swiss do.

While these are good questions, some can only be answered in hindsight. Lockdown? Not sure. It was damned expensive and who knows whether on the one hand it was necessary or on the other should have been brought in sooner. The masks turned out to be less necessary than was feared, but it took a while to understand the transmission pathways and how long the virus was transmissible on surfaces such as paper and metal.

At least the gumment chose to enable the vaccine makers and then stay out of their way.

Yes that's always the justification - "the bad guys have them", therein lies the problem.

The ideal (almost certainly unreachable) state is that nobody has them. I can't help feeling that there should be a better solution to some people having them than everyone having them - because that's not a solution.

Wherever you can that works. I'm quite happy with the Irish approach - if it delivers more than a joule in a projectile it is a firearm and you need to show good reason when applying for a license (self defence is *not* on the acceptable list). You will also be required to use it only for the declared reasons. There are a lot of limits to what you can get even when you've jumped through the hoops - mainly because it has been decided that there's no acceptable reason for some classes of weapon.

If it keeps the killings down and lets people who actually need a gun get one then I'd say yes.

The good thing about a knife is that if it kills the wrong person it's usually the person who's wielding it and not someone uninvolved, guns are all too good at unintended consequences, often lethal.

It's usually a single bad guy. WW2 only happened because of Adolf, Ukraine only happened because of Putin. If we get trouble in the Pacific, it will be because of Xi.

It only takes one to make war; it takes two to make peace. After 1991, we all thought Russia was on a peaceful/democratic trajectory, and we were encouraged by the Chinese changing leaders every ten years. Thats all gone by the board now, and we have to adapt accordingly, just as we eventually did in the 1930s.

Sure it's a solution. You may not like it, but it's a solution. All you're doing is belling the cat.

Go on - elaborate.

joke

It's demonstrably not a solution to the problem of people getting shot at.

No. That is criminally naive. The reasons why Adolf, Putin and Xi became leaders are rooted in many other economic and geopolitical factors.

They were and are products of their time and place. Just like Donald Trump is.

Putin wont hand in his guns just because you do. That's all I am saying.

And he would regard your viewpoint as that of a useless stupid idiot.

I am not sure whether I have ever had it or not. As an 'at risk' person I have had so many bloody jabs I look like a pincushion. But I live in splendid isolation.

I have never tested positive for it. Can't offhand think of anyone who hasn't had it other than me though.

Well I'm very sure they do not prevent transmission.

Bob.

They reduce the likelihood of onward transmission.