Because we don't cause conflict in our own country.

The only way this could have been funnier is if Chula wrote it.

Being a condescending know it all isn't critically thinking?

Well, to be fair Frownland is also kind of a condescending know-it-all, but still pretty good at critical thinking.

Touche, but he doesn't build strawmen, put words in your mouth, and only address the things he thinks he has a smart answer for while ignoring the rest.

That's enough ripping on elph for one night for me. I like the guy when he isn't talking down to me.

My kind of dick.

I agree with this - it was surely inevitable the way we were going, but I go back and forth wondering if it is necessary to stoke the change that will surely come out of it. Big changes do typically happen quickly, as history has shown. The only way you can get past the people who fear change is if something blindsides them.

It's been my thought for a long time (well before Trump) that the way we use technology and the internet is incredibly irresponsible. It has been the major factor in the widespread ignorance we see. I don't think our internet freedoms should be curtailed - it still has the potential to enlighten everyone if used correctly - but I do think a sea change in the way we think about it is needed. And I think this election has planted the seeds for that change. We need to stop viewing the internet as an anonymous place where you can feel good about yourself and do whatever you want. With social media and the sheer amount of time we spend on the internet, we need to start seeing it as another real place that real people visit (albeit not physically). People need to be held accountable for their actions and we need to start behaving on the internet the way we would behave in real life. If a bum on the street starting spouting Hillary conspiracies, I wouldn't believe him. The same bare minimum scrutiny should be exercised on the internet.

I think people are now starting to realize all this. We need companies like Facebook to step up and realize that most people get their news from their feed - they are now a news media organization whether they like it or not. They need a way to get people real news. We need internet education for our kids. Like home ec before, a whole class should be dedicated to internet etiquette and utility. We are currently witnessing what happens when an entire generation grows up with an internet with no rules. The best analogy I can think of is the wild west. Kids should be taught from a young age that there are consequences to your actions on the internet.

I feel like the past 20 years of the internet have been like if all of us were 5 year olds waving around our parents' gun. We got shot in the foot with Trump, but hopefully we learn our lesson the next time around.

/rant

I mean, this mindset is fine and all, but it's no longer considered an experiment when the country gets pushed back further than expected. Nothing seriously terrifying has happened because people have fought back, but what happens when we can no longer fight back?

Failed experiments are still experiments. Learn to science.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. The experiment mindset is fine until it starts not being an experiment, and becomes an actual threat. I never said anything about it being a failed experiment.

You have a very experimental approach to logic.

avant-garde think piece

>Frownland misses point
>Brings up irrelevant comparison
>Can't admit to being ignorant

Your strategy in an argument is always the same.

Such inventive logic. If I missed the point, go on and clarify it since communicating is a two way street. Tell me: why do experiments no longer become experiments when you don't like them?

I have problems with this. I don't think you're wrong about how the internet should be approached, but if I understand you correctly you are blaming the internet for the culture where as I think the culture is responsible for the internet. I grew up at a time when the internet first took off and I was involved in some of the earliest MMORPGs and internet social networks and very few people acted the way they do now. Maybe I'm just blinded by my own experiences. Maybe it's because I was a teen in an environment dominated by adults or maybe my experience was in a niche community. It's hard to say.

Hah. The last decade or more was an experiment as well. Pushed back further than expected? Other than the stimulus bill, Obama didn't do anything in his past eight years in office that you'll find too much consensus with people on...especially in regards to foreign policy. I also consider the ACA and the whole "make Wall-Street accountable for what they did" to be failed ventures. He's a smart guy, but to me he dropped the ball on things that would have potentially brought about real change in Washington. You can blame a lot on the GOP, but what I just mentioned? All on him and his cabinet.

As far as I can tell, Trump has pretty much gotten his way in office from start to finish with the exception of a few courts putting a lid on his immigration order. Which is fine, as what he did was too broad in scope and not specific enough to be useful. Which is why he's gone back to the drawing board. Being the CEO of a global empire may have parallels with the POTUS office, but Trump is starting to learn that there are roadblocks that you won't run into in a private enterprise. Maybe he'll grow from the experience.

And thus the experiment continues.

Frown does those things all the time for the sake of trolling Chula.

Are you against the ACA and "make wall-street accountable" ventures or just there implementation?

He said they failed at their purpose.

And for Duga's thing about he internet, I repeat that it's not a false news problem it's a stupid people problem. Bull**** stories and rumors existed long before the internet. If anything the internet provides much easier access to the information you need to make an informed opinion. It's just a lack of critical thinking and the fact that most people don't care about what's true, just what backs up their perspective because I guess being wrong is too big of a blow to some people's egos. You can definitely see a lot of that in these kinds of topics.

Edit: You can definitely see that willful ignorance when Elphlord and Chalupa Vista make AuntEater out to be this greedy business man for attempting to be optimistic about a candidate he doesn't even particularly like. (at least I don't think he likes Trump)

I didn't say anything about me not liking them. I said both times that it no longer stays an experiment when the country is in arms length of a threat to push it back. And it also stops being an experiment when people can't fight for what they believe in. Whether or not I like it has nothing to do with it. How you got that conclusion is beyond me.

So you're implying that the shock of Trump actually running didn't push more people to focus on him and his potential for presidency? I would say it wasn't only him that allowed his presidency to happen. The media and his shocking demeanor helped him along the way. But it also didn't help that this election had two of the most unpopular candidates. People voted Trump so they wouldn't vote Hillary, and vice versa. Trump isn't smart enough to figure out the system all by himself.

Not at all - if it sounded like I was blaming the internet for anything then I didn't word it correctly. The internet is an amazing tool - just like anything that makes lives easier and can inform and educate. It requires responsibility on our part to keep it from turning into the partisan ignorant cess pool we know today. The internet will always be the internet...how we approach it has to change.

To address your statement about the early days of the internet. I saw them, too. I can remember a time with no internet. I value being a part of the generation that saw its rise. My thoughts on your statement, though, are that back then only fairly tech-savvy people really got into the internet. As it has been placed more easily in the hands of your average joe shmoe...that's when we've seen the rise of trolls, fake news, yadda yadda. As with anything that changes the way we perceive the world (and the internet has no doubt done that), there are growing pains associated with it. We are still in the connected world's infancy and we have to relearn different types of social etiquette.

I know.. That's not what I asked though. I don't know much about Anteater's views, so I was just curious.

Edit: Thanks Duga.

Mods, can this be made official? :tramp:

I don't think Ant is some evil business purpose. I just don't agree him on a number of issues.

In summation: I won't call it an experiment if I don't like its outcomes. Because that is the only point I've seen you make.

Do you need to get your head checked? Literally nothing you're saying has any indication of you understanding the point I'm trying to make. But oh wait, it's Frownland, so obviously I can't have a point. Surprise.

Can you clarify then? Because that's all I'm reading from your posts as well.

When an experiment is harmful it's not an experiment anymore?

I don't understand your point. Please make it clearer for me so that I can. Or you can just get mad that I'm trying to have a discussion with you on a discussion forum.

Unsurprisingly, I have to explain my point since it evidently doesn't seem to mesh well with people that want to argue more than actually read the posts.

I'm not making the argument that if I don't agree with something, it no longer counts as an experiment. My entire point is based on the fact that an experiment stops being an experiment when said experiment succeeds in doing what it was meant to achieve. More specifically, the experiment in question is how long will it take until Trump really does something so ridiculous that the country can no longer fight for what they believe in. If Trump succeeds in doing what he wants, it no longer counts as an experiment since the main goal of the experiment is to see if Trump succeeds. I don't really see how you can pull out of that point that if I don't like it, it stops being an experiment. Each time I've made this point, I've not made any indication to that.

So stop being stupid and actually read the posts before you make assumptions that make no sense.

The experiment is not "how long will it take until Trump really does something so ridiculous that the country can no longer fight for what they believe in?"...that is just a question. The experiment is electing him president to find that out. And I don't think we've quite gotten to the point where we've answered that question or we can't fight for what we believe in...unanimously upheld stay on "travel ban" as an example.

You should always explain your point for the sake of clarity. It's nothing to get mad over, you haven't said prior to this post that you thought the experiment was over because it reached a conclusion..

Not long ago Chula and I disagreed about something because the way he was using the word empower and the way I thought about it were different. Once the word was defined we continued on. Don't get upset or aggressive over it.

Are you f*cking kidding me? It's Kiiii.

Oh okay, so you're just super wrong then and I'm not misunderstanding anything. Gotcha. Sorry I'm not smart enough to agree with your partisan ass.

Ki's new avatar is HFW he's getting trolled by Frownland.

That's my point. Jesus christ. I didn't say we were at the point where we can't fight. My point was that it stops being an experiment when what the experiment is attempting to do has to stop attempting to do it. Which I used the example I did to prove that. If Trump starts getting away with what he wants to do, we no longer can treat it like an experiment and consider it something that needs to stop.

What you're saying is basically the same as "murder is an experiment into whether or not the person will kill someone" but when they kill someone, it no longer counts as an experiment.

My point was really easy to understand without clarity. I was as clear as I could have been. Unsurprising that Frown couldn't understand it.

I have mixed feelings about the government getting involved in the insurance business. It's like anything else: some people benefit, others get shafted because they have to bear the cost. There are lots of people in their early twenties paying hundreds of dollars a month even as single payers, but their deductibles are so high that they would have been better off with a wider pool of choices pre-ACA. Or, if you asked them straight out, most of them would rather not get health insurance at all because it's such a financial liability. The bar is way higher now for your average business if they want to provide specific types of coverage for their employees cost-effectively.

As for Wall-Street...I think Obama and Eric Holder needed to penalize executives and companies like Goldman Sachs but at the end of the day they didn't have the balls to do it. Thus you have stories that came out later about
these guys getting big bonuses in 2010 and laughing all the way to Bank Of America.

I'm Libertarian and centrist in regards to most issues, but I lean conservative in regards to my views on excessive bureaucracy in government. I'd also love to see the incompetent IRS replaced by a more efficient tax code. :D

Someone told me at an event yesterday that they thought Mark Cuban would run in 2020. If I were going to put a billionaire in the POTUS seat, I think Cuban would have been a bit higher on my list than Trump.

Isn't the idea of putting Trump in office to see how far he will limit our rights about as dumb of an experiment as sticking your dick in the light socket? You might not like the result.

On this we agree. Although he'd be more than a bit higher on my list. Cuban has been a dick at times but the man is very smart and worked his way up from scratch, as opposed to Trump who was gifted a gold plated set of silverware.

I don't think that's the scenario we are dealing with though. It's just media hysteria. What has Trump really done to limit citizens' rights so far? Intentionally I mean. Him saying whatever he wants on Twitter and his feuding with the press don't really qualify. He upheld Obama's initiative to protecting LGBTQ people in the workplace after all, which doesn't fit the profile of someone looking to dismantle the rights of anyone who isn't white or rich.

I'm not saying he isn't unfit for office by the way. I'm just saying his fundamental motivations seem to be monetary as opposed to hatred for other people. That's the distinction that needs to be analyzed if you want to predict what he will or won't do.

So his muslim ban isn't a direct correlation to his hatred for muslims? interesting.

He's done nothing yet. It's just a stupid experiment is my point. Put your dick in a light socket you might just look silly if the switch is off.