Troy

In this case, it is just fringe without discernable merit that I can see. How do you square that statement with the belief in a flat Earth? I presume you do not believe the Earth is flat. I did not know the was a religious component to the flat earther belief. It makes sense... poor word choice... I mean I can see how that would be the case.

Probably ☹️

Yes, i was agreeing with you :-) I think we are fundamentally on the same page, I'm just trying to emphasize the fact China is much more than a source of low wage labor.

@frankster below I have embedded the video you shared. There are several tells which gives me pause when consuming content online. I would have normally stopped watching 5 seconds into the video, but since you shared it and it was only 5 minutes long, I watched the thing twice (once when you first posted it and again just now). I would have immediately skipped it after 5 seconds because the voice over said Professor Gates Proves the voice over said we live in a virtual reality simulation. This is simply false on it's face. Dr. Tyson was respectful but clearly was not buying into Gates' theory -- again, Gates himself never said he had "proof." Sure, it is a provocative notion and sure to garner some views (34K in 7 years), but you also have to consider the source: Who is "Simulation Secrets" and what is their motivation? Their YouTube presence is marginal, small even when compared to mine only 164K total views on the channel. It is used to promote a self-published book, Simulation Secrets: Don't Be Afraid by Casper Stith. Now the question becomes, who is Casper Stith. and why should we believe him? Again, when an unknown and uncredentialled person makes hyperbolic claims, I am very wary of what they have to say and generally don't invest my time into what they are sharing. There are simply too many vetted and reputable sources generating fascinating content to be dealing with fringe lunacy. @frankster you seem like a reasonable person why do you trust anything Stith is sharing? Did you know that he is also a Flat Earther? Stith also wrote a book entitled, The Earth is Flat: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid. Does this give you pause? I eagerly await your response.

@frankster so you’re going to defend that video as scientific evidence. I wasn’t just slamming the caption which was clearly misleading. I was slamming the content of the video, but I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.

I think American propaganda is causing you to underestimate or marginalized China’s accomplishments. Again, this is the result of propaganda when you’re colonial power, and an empire everyone is an adversary. America needs to be able to flip the switch and turn any adversary into an enemy. We are really very good at doing this history tells us indeed we’ve been on the business end of that type of propaganda for centuries.

No, it’s not just the words is government officials, military personnel, coming with videos that helped change my position. That’s some crack pot on YouTube.

In terms of competition for the world's resources China is way ahead of America. As you know China has always been more willing to go into Black nations and "partner" with the people there. Whether it is Central America, the Caribbean of even the Motherland, China has a global footprint. As a result, China controls and processes 90% the planet's rare earth metals which are used to make all the tech gadgets American's want today. Most telling is that China gives us TicTok, but don't subject their own people to that trash... We all know their students outperform Anerican's in math and reading. I'd be willing to bet Chinese kids perform on par with Americans on reading English. Their EVs are far superior to what Elon has us driving around in here in the US... Viewing China as a cheap labor force is short sighted. We are becoming increasing dependent upon them not just for labor.

I would not have posted that photo of Trump. Obama sanctioned the killing of others including innocent people (by accident or acceptable collateral damage). People would be understandably outraged in that situation... I'm sure the post got a lot of views and I'm sure getting attention was at least part of Mark's motivation -- a motivation fueled by social media.

Over the course of the last year, I have changed my opinion in this matter; while there is no proof of the existence of aliens is this plenty of evidence provided by the federal government. I could understand why government is unwilling to say these UAPs are alien -- maybe they don't know. Maybe they are of Earth origin. I never rejected the possibility of advanced alien civilizations. I was just never willing to take the unsubstantiated statements of some guy in a crop field with a tin hat as evidence -- let alone proof.

Your statements were riddled with examples: Of course not; otherwise there would be nothing to dispute. What I find curious is that conspiracy theorist will believe some random anonymous guy on YouTube over the scientific community. Conspiracy theorists love to spread misinformation as you have done. The professor, a Brother, NEVER made this assertion. Even if he did, proof actually means something. "Proof" is not based upon what someone says. Conspiracy theorist often claim they have proof when they don't. Another typical conspiracy theorist talking point. This is why we have organizations doing the research. Where do you find the time, intellect, skill, tools, funding, and resources to do your own research on covid, WTC collapse, contrails, veracity of the moon landing, etc?

@frankster "Alien" Like Mexicans, the original inhabitants, but not recognized as such 😉 At the end of the day there is so much we don't know, and are unable to comprehend, about the universe. I find it all fascinating. On my bucket list is getting some DMT... seriously.

Did anyone actually hear what Trump said? The website you shared @ProfD won't let you listen to the clip unless you subscribe. I don't know if they are a reputable news source given their use of this tactic... Report the "news" or don't, but don't bait me with scandalous content and fail to deliver. At any rate. they use terms like "appears" and "apparently" when it comes to his use of the word. So I can only assume it was not blatant - still he has to play to his base.. approval rating are down. I guess he'll be hurling the N-bomb soon--that will really rally his supporters. He'll probably hold that card until right before the midterms 😉

Perhaps. My position not new; in the 1950 C.L.R. James wrote a book entitled American Civilization. It is based upon the premise that America is indeed a civilization and he describes why. Since neither one of us will read the entire book; we can only speculate how successful he was in the effort.

Aliens are apparently real. My money is on them being Earth based and not "alien" at all.

No one is asserting that they are interchangeable--at least I'm not. However, they are also not mutually exclusive as I wrote American is both. The point I was simply making s that many empires (and civilizations has lasted longer the 250 years and to assert this as a paradigm is a function of a myopic western European perspective. The fact that you are seeing references to this perspective making the rounds is not surprising. I presume you saw most of these references online and we know who controls the online space (newsflash it ain't us 😉).

Wow! I need to know what woman can pull not one but TWO of the Jackson Five! The kids' father is also their uncle...

WT Hillbilly F! Where did you learn that piece of gossip so their kids are both siblings and cousins huh?

No, the two are different but, America is both a civilization and empire.

Kindred spirits?

Do you apply the same logic to the religion of Christianity? Obviously, I disagree with you in that particular point all racist are Homo sapiens. This does not mean that the entire species is racist, right? I also disagree with the notion that Black people can’t be racist because they lack the power to exercise it. A racist is simply a person who believes that there are inherent differences to people due to the artificial constructive race, especially when it describes inferiority or superiority.. As I always used to tell @Pioneer1 (hope he is ok) his racist beliefs always led to false conclusions, including a wide variety of stereotypes he believed. Racism is bad, but Christians and conservatives don’t have a monopoly on it.

You have to factor in what available. McDonalds is arguably the worst of the hamburger fast food joints -- but they are everywhere and they spend a ton on marketing. Imagine of 90% of the restaurants were McDonalds: In this imaginary world most people loved McDonalds and extolled their virtues of providing nourishment to the hungry without have to get out the car. Singing the praises of being able to get square pieces of pressed marine biomatter between bread at midnight. This is what the WWW has become today. @aka Contrarian YouTube IS a haven for crackpots and snake oil salesmen. They are also for all practical purposes a monopoly and is the #2 most visited website only beaten Google. I've been a user of YouTube for more than 20 years -- before Google brought. If was great for helping people serve videos when disk space was expensive. Google was allowed quickly allowed, unencumbered, to serve as a platform for music piracy. YouTube quickly amassed a catalogue that eclipsed iTunes. In the past doing this, like Napster, were shut down, yet Google was allowed to rack up Billions. Remind me how musicians make money again? One of my up-coming projects is to pull all my videos off YouTube and serve from my own server. I have already gotten rid of Google Adserver (don't you hate going with websites with all those shitty and intrusive ads? Thank Google for that), Google Ad Manage, Google Analytics. Next is YouTube and I will have the planet's only website completely free of Google. No, FB is in no way shape or form reflective anything real -- that is a trick bag.

@aka Contrarian, did anyone challenge, or even question, the post eviscerating Sowell? Of all the positives you mentioned, FB did not invent any of those things, as they were already available on the 'net. FB just managed to corner the market with disproportionate Black support. The "Free exposure" is not free; indeed, FB has made getting exposure more costly and time consuming. Again, this was not true when FB launched but it is true now. The same goes for Google. The incentives have been perverted on social. What drives engagement is what feeds the algorithm. "Influencers" who produce content that pleases the algorithm do not serve us. The two are in conflict. Though I'm open checking out any contrary examples. Google basically trashed their search engine for profit. If anyone discovers new site through a Google search today it was by accident. A new Black-owned indie site has no chance of being discovered through a Google search unless they pay Google I deleted my FB profile and stopped actively using the platform 10 years ago and am better off as a result. The incidental benefits you described are not worth the tradeoff from a personal, business, or cultural perspective. @ProfD There are profound differences better a dimwitted Trump sycophant, an elderly Stanford emeritus Professor, and precocious 30-year-old.

Do any of y'all make any distinctions between the Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas (funny how both could be called Uncle Tom) and kids like Candice Owens and Coleman Hughes? How do you feel about less controversial republicans like Herman Cain or Condoleezza Rice? I do. I'd venture a guess that I'm the only one reading this who has read more than one book written by Sowell, most of what I read does not address race issues. I have also read--and enjoyed-- Sowell's columns for years especially his "Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene." They were though provoking tidbits that challenged liberal views. For the record I tend to be both fiscally and socially liberal. The article was generally hyperbolic, which Facebook's algorithm loves! So, all Tdka is doing is enriching Mark Z by feeding the algorithm. Everything has a context. "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Audre Lorde Today, we blindly and feverishly use the master's tools to build up his house, the problem is that it comes at the expense of our own.

Yeah, he "seemed' that way. He was probably nutty long before that--The money was just and enabler. Wasn't his Dr. convicted for mis-prescribing his medication or something like that?