♫♪ ( ( ◙=◙ ) ) ♫♪ @soundwave@qoto.org

@Diptchip
I do think that the fear is rational. I don't know many statistics and I don't want to play redcoats vs bluecoats, firing statistics at each other. But these few statistics are enough to categorically make up my mind, that if people in the US are afraid of the guns that are everywhere, then that fear is justified.
1. There are more handguns in the USA than people.
2. [This was from pre-2020. I expect the COVID lockdown has changed this:] If you count a 'mass shooting' as more than 4 people shot in a single event (but not necessarily killed), then there is more than one of those events per day.

Those statistics are horrible.

@trinsec @deesapoetra

That would indeed be the goal 😜

@deesapoetra @freemo

Truth

I'm very cool with the idea of humans romantically and sexually partnering with robots. One day they will be AI's and then it will be cool to legally marry each other as well.

Until they are AI's, marriage = no, but life partner: sure, why the hell not?

Bring your talking sex doll to the restaurant for dinner. Half price night out. What the hell's the matter with it.

Thinking seriously of getting a Prince Albert

Should I consult my wife about this or simply surprise her when it is done?

@Diptchip Statistics can be used by both sides of a debate to help prove their point. I have seen statistics which convince me that the USA should definitely have more gun control, and you could find those too if you went looking.

I also find it curious why you think for-profit media is a bad thing. Isn't everything in the US supposed to be for-profit? Are you advocating for an independent, publicly funded broadcaster, and/or are you keen to see some "truth in media" laws to keep ALL media on track with honesty, and to keep the (unavoidable) exaggeration within reasonable degrees of tolerance?

In regards to the possibility of a civil war, and people being fearful that one is imminent: me being an outsider observing from afar (and with my BS Filter set on Maximum to see through the media's agenda) I don't see one being even remotely possible in the near future, so I would say no, I don't think the fear of one is justified ie. rational.

I would like to point back to what I said about Paradigms. You say, and you think, that it is a US citizen's "right" to own guns. I disagree. I don't think it's a Right. I think it's a Law. Yes I know the wording of the law says the word "right" in the sense of bearing arms, but it's still just a law. Laws get changed all the time and if the people don't like it they can lobby their local representative or they can break the law and bear the consequences. Still, your point is valid, if gun-loving US citizens perceive that their government is doing something grossly unfair and they attempt to undo that by using their guns, that could indeed become an insurrection and if it gets big enough it can be called a civil war. But seriously, such a thing could never succeed. The US government, armed forces, National Guard, Police etc. are far better armed and trained than the public, and most disgruntled gun-owners would realise that, would not take real action and would just comply, under protest, with the new laws. In terms of reasons to start a civil war, in terms of reasons to rise up and fight to the death against your own government, the removal of some certain rights are good enough reasons to do that, but removal of some gun-ownership laws are just not a good enough reason, so no, I genuinely don't think a civil war is even remotely possible. I think maybe a few psycho gun owners might shoot up a few shopping malls to publicly vent their frustrations but that's all.

At the demonstration of Thomas Edison's 'perfected' invention ... the Phonograph:

"Dear Mr. Edison,
...
For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiment -- astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same, I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery."

-Arthur Sullivan, 5 October 1888

@Diptchip

You're right of course - fear itself is not a rational argument.

But the detrimental effects that fear has on the human body and the quality of life of the citizens of a country, are good reasons for a country to take steps to minimise the level of fear pervading a society.

Fear is literally bad for your health. It has a physiological effect on the body and it negatively affects the brain. Fear is bad for your physical health and your mental health.

The physiological effect of fear that I'm talking about is stress. Stress affects people's bodies and their minds. The business world knows this. There is a well-known Stress vs. Productivity curve which shows that people need a little bit of stress in order to maximise their productivity, but that too much or too little stress reduces productivity. Too much stress puts your mind and your body in flight-or-fight mode, which reduces the activity in the brain's temporal lobe and causes more activity in the ancient, reptilian part of the brain which deals with instinct and basic survival. This mental state means that the creative, clever, problem-solving and imaginative parts of your brain are relegated to working in low-power mode. This is why too much stress makes workers' productivity - particularly white-collar workers' productivity - sharply drop. In a nutshell, it's hard to think clearly when you are in a state of anxiety. It's extremely hard to think imaginatively, think freely, think original, new thoughts - when your brain is in "scared & nervous" mode. It's also hard to learn new things while you are stressed and/or anxious. So students' learning effectiveness is reduced when they are stressed or scared. If a company's staff are too stressed, it reduces company's overall performance. This is true for a country's economy as well. If the citizens of a country are stressed, it reduces the entire country's overall wealth. It's literally bad for a country's economy to have the population too stressed. A country's economic ups and downs follow similar cause-effect relationships as the stock market. When consumer confidence and investor confidence rises and falls, the stock market rises and falls. The market responds quickly to the smell of fear, and so do countries' economies. So, fear pervading the population of a country is literally bad for that country's economy.

My reasons for thinking that fear is a 'bad thing' are that I want people to live in peace and to be happy and I want countries to be prosperous and progressive, constantly increasing the quality of life for all citizens. In order for the overall quality of life to continually improve, the country and the individual citizens of the country need to continually invest in the future. And this, in turn, requires that society provides people with a feeling of confidence that life is safe, and will continue to be safe. People need to have a feeling of confidence that life is safe, in order to take the risks that are necessary to invest in the future. People know that to be able to look forward to a better tomorrow, they need to work hard toward *making* a better tomorrow. People will not put in the work that creates a better tomorrow unless they are very sure there will very probably be a return on that investment. A pre-requisite to have that sense of confidence, is that people firstly need to feel safe. In order to be comfortable with delayed gratification, people need to feel that patience is rewarded - which requires an underlying scaffolding of peace and safety.

So, my case is that from a social and economic point of view, I believe it is important for people to feel safe and secure in their lives, in order to be able to do the things that are required to maintain a healthy economy with the aim of constantly improving life for everyone. The more fear we have in the structure of our society, the weaker is the scaffolding of confidence that the population needs for inventiveness, investment and innovation.

The USA is ostensibly largely focussed on ongoing, continuing investment in order to improve the overall wealth and power of the country, a goal which the population supports because it will naturally result in improved quality of its citizens' lives.

But this is incongruous with the idea that people can work at their best while they have fear in their thoughts and feelings 24/7.

Fear is literally bad for your mental health. It shuts down creativity and keeps the brain and mind in survival mode. It affects all of your thoughts, all of your decisions, all of your plans, actions and reactions.

With that affecting everyone, constantly, whether you are aware of it or not, it is definitely harming your country's economy.

The question then, is, how much is USA's gun culture affecting the wealth and status of the USA on the world stage? I don't know. I don't know how anyone could estimate it. If say USA's citizens are eg. 5% more scared of their countrymen than the citizens of other civilised countries' feel, does that affect the USA's GDP by 5%, or by more or less than 5%? I don't know. But I do know that it will definitely not be zero.

The problem with paradigms is that the people who are inside them literally cannot see what's in their own paradigm because they cannot imagine what their paradigm looks like from outside of it. They cannot see the pro's and con's of their own paradigm because they can't "switch off" their paradigm in order to step outside of it for a moment, turn around and look back at it.

The rest of the civilised world looks at the USA's gun culture and sees that it is full-on, bat-shit insane. But the people who are inside the USA and inside the gun culture, can't see what the rest of the world so clearly sees - that the way you are living is literally bad for you, and we wish that you could just see for a minute that there is another way of living and it might - just might - be better than yours.

@Diptchip

I'm not offended. I am glad someone has chosen to engage with me on this, which is exactly why I posted such an inflammatory unpopular opinion where I knew it would be read. Thanks for being the one to debate with me rationally.

My main reason for wanting USA's citizens to fall out of love with guns is that citizens of civilised countries should not feel the need to be armed. With any type of weapon. Having any weapons in the house should be purely a personal choice, whether it be for martial arts skills training, hunting, or sport.

And this is what almost all civilised countries enjoy. The citizens never assume that any one particular house they walk/drive by will have a lethal weapon inside. (Of course, sharp kitchen knives do not count). The default mindset is that their neighbourhood, their city, their state and country is largely a safe place to be, because it is a reasonable assumption that the number of deadly weapons in any zone is much smaller than the number of people in that zone - no matter how big or small a zone you consider.

But in the USA, the paradigm is that everyone assumes that everyone else will have one or more deadly weapon, either on their person, or at home, or both. It is so very common, that if one finds someone who has zero weapons, that person is regarded as a rarity.

This *must* inevitably lead to a default state of being, that every single person is constantly aware, to a greater or lesser degree, that at any moment, someone might kill them.

So whether you admit it or not, you are all literally in fear for your lives every second of every day. It's always there, like a benign tumour in your insides that you know about but is inoperable, it may turn malignant and kill you at any random time.

You are jogging alone. You cannot help but have in the back of your mind, an alert signal that means be afraid ... death is near.

You are on the train or the bus. Anyone around you might suddenly open fire.

You are an 8 year old child in school. You have been drilled, trained, that any moment a terrifying monster might burst through your classroom door and kill everyone in the room.

And the monster might be your teenage brother.

This is not right.

This is sick.

A country's population should not have to live in fear.

Oh, but some will respond with a quip about how every innocent, peaceful person should ALSO have a gun, so that they can defend themselves.

To that I say - no citizen of a civilised country should have to be prepared to defend their life and loved ones by fighting to the death at a moment's notice.

This is incompatible with the basic human right - that everyone has the right to live in peace.

I know that 'Peace' is hard-won and must be defended - but that is what the armed forces are for. Their purpose for existing is to defend against outside threats. Citizens can definitely claim the right to have their country take care of them by having a strong defence force.

But citizens should not have to feel that they should also be able to personally defend themselves from enemies that could attack them from within (the country), at any time.

One's own country should be one's "safe space" where one can live in peace, and raise children who can live in innocence and wonder and joy and curiosity and play and creativity, ... instead of learn how to throw their colouring-in books at the urban Guerilla in their classroom doorway.

@Diptchip
Then, as I said, you are the problem. That attitude is shared by many USA citizens, and just because many of you think alike doesn't mean that you are all correct.

@Diptchip Of course I cannot disagree that criminals will always have guns, no matter how illegal they are, no matter how hard they are to get. But it's not criminals who are shooting up schools, universities, and entire families, it's mentally ill people. Like criminals, mentally ill people also cannot be controlled with laws. But if the weapons are not in easy reach, they will not have them, therefore will not be able to use them.

@mur2501

Now I have to update my list:

People who think that the rules don't apply to them:
1. Rich people
2. Religious people
3. Criminals

Conservative Party Voters:
1. Rich people
2. Wannabe-Rich people
3. Religious people
4. Stupid people
5. Bigoted people

Conservative Party Members:
1. Rich people
2. Religious people
3. Criminals

If you are upset because Joe Biden has started taking steps toward getting the USA's gun violence under control, you are the problem.

@freemo
Appa the Sky Bison from "Avatar: The Last Airbender"

I definitely couldn't eat a whole one.

Some famous scientists

@trinsec

Oh. Has science said that cannibal food is not healthy? I didn't know that. But then I wonder what they really meant, because eg. many vegetarians often say that eating any meat is unhealthy, and in fact they are more or less right, so .....

I know a carnivorous diet is *definitely* bad for us

So maybe they meant that carnivorous cannibalism is unhealthy

but maybe it's a fine source of protein as part of a balanced diet

in which case, I would eat meat made from a culture of my own cells, if it was healthy

I just wonder how many other people would do that too

@trinsec
Right. Yes I think everyone would be assuming that whatever they're growing right now in labs is not human cells.

I'm just saying ... hypothetically ... eg. if it turns out that the most nutritious meat was human meat

and to avoid the whole cannibalism philosophical quandry

would you allow a lab to grow some of your own cells

and eat that as your primary source of protein?