Aren’t you assuming the up votes are organic? I personally assume 90% of everything online is just computers and call centres talking to each other.

I was purposely terse with my religious response, I was not attacking anyone or their use of the term. I’m simply stating that I’m not an atheist.

Well, the science is what’s at issue. Climate science isn’t really a hard science. They have some data and it looks like some big increases. But I think there may be far too many variables for us to be certain about the conclusions. That doesn’t mean I think we should do nothing. I do what I can but I think the place to be looking is at the companies. It really doesn’t matter what a few countries in western europe (where I live) do: USA, China and India will produce far more than we could ever undo by being carbon neutral or even negative. And we can’t force those countries to change via threats or complaining. The way to get them to change is change how business works. And since no one is, and all we actually do are mostly useless virtue signalling, I hope the climate scientists are wrong because otherwise we’re screwed.

1* Absolutely agree. I mean, honestly, I wouldn’t generally be an ally of Rowling. But she’s been a feminist her whole life AFAIK and now, from her perspective suddenly men dress up as women and are back in control. It must be maddening. Somewhere down thread someone said “trans is not a mental illness”. Well, the medical community punked out and called it a “medical issue” or some such noncommittal language but it’s clearly a disorder. There are lots of different dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is the only one where the rest of the planet is expected to participate in the delusion. And before someone says I’m full of hate or something, I’m not. To assume that is to assume the mainstream “solution” is the correct one. I feel like instead of helping people we’re telling them they’re perfect as they are… while they go on killing themselves because they’re not. And no, science most definitely has not proven or even suggested that doing the surgery helps with this.

2* Not an atheist.

3* The climate moves around a bit. Is it getting warmer right now? Seems to be. Are we responsible? Maybe. I have 2 issues though: one, the main people bringing it are not trust worthy. They depend on grants to not have to get another job so they’re vested in drama. And their predictions are literally never right. In the past they made absolutely outrageous claims that didn’t come anywhere close to true so I’m skeptical. The second reason is: if it’s really as bad as some claim, why doesn’t the government actually do anything? Making me drink my soft drink via cardboard isn’t going to “save the planet”. Making companies stop producing trash that has to be thrown away and repurchased every couple of years would do a much better job but no one anywhere talks about that. If it’s really going on and we’re really interested in stopping it, why do all the “solutions” just make the middle class poorer but don’t actually address the problem or cost the rich anything (in fact they generally get richer from it).

4* There may be aliens or may not, it doesn’t matter either way. The universe is too large and we’ve never managed to get a signal out of our own solar system. If there is anything out there it would never find us and even if it could, their solar system could be moving away from ours faster than the speed of light anyway. We may not be along but we may as well be.

5* Agree on free speech. I find the current desire for censorship very bizarre. How many times must we learn that having “taboo” things you can’t talk about is a bad road to go down? Does anyone have any examples of anything made better from censorship (and here I don’t mean over 5 minutes, I’d prefer at least a century if not more to prove it)? Because I have plenty of examples of things catastrophically damaged because of it.

6* I’m against pedophilia in any form.