I still don’t see how any of this takes away from my point. Are you just saying that other countries have a vested interest in the continued existence of Ukraine as we know it? Because I know that, that’s why they started funding the war in the first place.

Let’s say that when Trump takes office he negotiates new terms with Putin. Zelensky will agree to those terms because he knows things will only be worse for his country if he continues fighting without US support.

Are you just trying to say that the us or other countries would never threaten to pull support because it would be foolish? If so, then you don’t know how common fools are. What is it you think Trump means when he says he will end the war immediately after taking power?

I don’t see how any of this takes away from what I said. Ukraine can’t continue the war themselves, so they have no choice but to do what their benefactors wish.

In principle I agree, but he doesn’t really have a choice. Other world leaders are providing the funds to continue the war in the first place. If Zelensky does something they don’t like, they can just stop the funding and end the war on Russian terms.

I am indifferent. That guy wasn’t the problem, its the system that allows him to exist. This sends a message but all I see it doing is convincing wealthy capitalists to invest more in their protection.

Trusting that guy is a terrible idea. A random person is much more credible.

If I buy a product, it should work properly regardless of what day I bought it.

Not really technically. One is a physical attribute, and the other is a measure of wealth. Those aren’t even remotely close to being hobbies. You just brought them up because you think women are shallow, which is probably the real reason they don’t like you.

Because people receiving the death penalty theoretically did something wrong, and fetuses did not. I’m neither against abortion nor pro death penalty, and I don’t really see a contradiction there.

I did more research and I found out it actually isn’t standard where I live now, I am misremembering probably because I haven’t had many interactions with police here. This is a somewhat standard practice in major cities though which would explain why I was familiar with it. I will admit copaganda probably reinforced that though, most media I’ve seen does depict 2 officers. But whatever, I’m always happy to learn a new reason to hate cops.

No, I am thinking of what I have seen in real life. In my area there is almost always 2 cops per vehicle. I was unaware this was not standard.

I haven’t seen that before. I guess they really are just using a laptop and driving at the same time.

I don’t want to be the guy defending cops, but there is usually more than one officer in a squad car. There is no rule against a passenger being distracted.

I use pomade and it surprised me how often its branded like that. I have seen at least three brands that unironically use flaming skeletons. Also I have to say dapper dan is not great (at least the modern kind).

Edit: Apparently the modern kind is the only kind. O Brother just made it up, and someone took the design and made it real in 2011.

If Nintendo can show that you knowingly promoted piracy, you are still screwed. If I recall correctly they were able to do this with yuzu because they were adding support for games that were only available through piracy, as they weren’t even publicly released yet. Dolphin obviously doesn’t have to worry about that specifically though.

I don’t have a strongly held belief regarding the existence of any gods.

The strongly held belief I’m referring to isn’t a belief in a god or lack thereof, its a belief that religion is a net negative for society.

I’m surprised you’re not aware of this.

To say I’m not aware of this is again to argue in bad faith. I have mentioned myself that religious indoctrination of course still exists, and is a problem.

As for the assessment of benefits, there’s a great deal of research into what people do with their lives and why.

Yes there is research into how religion affects society, but it isn’t very useful for this purpose for multiple reasons. There is no instance of a society without religion, so the difference between a religious and non-religious society can’t be studied. There can be no consensus on what is beneficial and what isn’t, as morality itself isn’t objective.

There is not and there never will be definitive evidence as to whether or not religion is beneficial for society.

There is nothing to suggest we need religion for any of the benefits that religious people say they obtain from it,

There is also nothing to suggest the opposite, because this can’t really be determined. You would have to so create a set of all the benefits religious people claim to get, which in and of itself would be a monumental task. Then, you would have to demonstrate that nonreligious people can achieve all of the exact same benefits.

This is why I’ve come to the conclusion that this argument is pointless, and neither of us know anything beyond our personal experience.

I stand by what I said and painting it as absolutes is arguing in bad faith.

This I agree with. Looking back, you were more careful than I thought you were to specify you were not talking in absolutes.

I will however double down that you are still making a fundamental assumption that your option is the correct one, and you make it more clear by arguing that all benefits of religion are possible without religion. If all benefits of religion can be attained without risking the detriment, then religion is the worse option by far.

However, thinking of this made me realize I’m just making the opposite assumption. Just like you, I’ve constructed a strongly held belief about religion based on my life experiences, which are entirely anecdotal and effectively meaningless.

How would you even get evidence that most people are manipulated into becoming religious? How would you get evidence that most people don’t? How would you get evidence that religion does or doesn’t benefit people? How would you even define benefit in the first place?

This argument is meaningless.

That makes more sense to me. Although, I would contend that people in real life can also just put on a role to varying degrees of success depending on the exact circumstances. Presumably when you said “personally” though, you meant people you already knew well enough to verify their claims to some extent.

Maybe you’re right, that sounds possible. I would think if that’s their intention they wouldn’t have written that “everyone” is everything, and would instead say “someone” or something to that effect. At that point I’m probably just overanalyzing though.

They are drawing that distinction for a reason. They literally said everyone is everything on the internet. I don’t how else you could possibly read that.

What about the internet makes this easier to lie about? I could tell you the same thing to your face and you still couldn’t fact check it.