The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[Guardian]

Yeah. I agree and don’t think anyone was saying evolution has less evidence than creationism. If you want a new thread feel free. I find that people are pretty set in their beliefs on this one and have to search things out themselves.

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, Guardian said:

Darwin even said in that his theory should be supported by the fossil record and that record should be plentiful. So far, not so much.

But the fossil record DOES support evolution. 

So does DNA analysis. 

https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/The-fossil-record

[pawnman]

1 hour ago, Guardian said:

Darwin even said in that his theory should be supported by the fossil record and that record should be plentiful. So far, not so much.

But the fossil record DOES support evolution...

https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/The-fossil-record

[BashiChuni]

2 hours ago, pawnman said:

Your strawman path? Sure. Plenty of evidence for moths changing colors, wolves becoming dogs, fish adapting to fresh or salt water, bacteria and viruses adapting to new hosts...

That’s not what the theory of evolution is about. Nice try

[BashiChuni]

54 minutes ago, pawnman said:

But the fossil record DOES support evolution...

https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/The-fossil-record

No it doesn’t. 
 

“The fossil record is incomplete. Of the small proportion of organisms preserved as fossils, only a tiny fraction have been recovered and studied by paleontologists”

 

there is no link via fossil record for evolution. Mutation sure but not species changing evolution

[Guardian]

That’s not what the theory of evolution is about. Nice try

is it time for a new thread. Because no it doesn’t, yes it does will continue.

[Guardian]

But the fossil record DOES support evolution...
https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/The-fossil-record

There’s not enough time in the day today to disagree with all the points that need it on that article. Agree to disagree.

[Guardian]

If you want to do some on a study about why your opinion may be wrong or why that article isn’t complete you might check out a case for a Creator or Darwins black box. Both have interesting takes on the argument and aren’t based on religion.

[pawnman]

18 minutes ago, Guardian said:

If you want to do some on a study about why your opinion may be wrong or why that article isn’t complete you might check out a case for a Creator or Darwins black box. Both have interesting takes on the argument and aren’t based on religion.

I'll do that, you read "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins. 

[Guardian]

Already done. And the blind watchmaker. And the god delusion. Did you watch his interview with Ben Stein?

[bfargin]

My intent wasn't to start an evolution discussion but just to point out the hypocrisy of stating that creationism is totally faith nonsense when in fact both belief systems have tons of faith. Every "assumption" in science (e.g. the foundations of life/basic matter always existed, we evolved by chance...) is faith. I've had lengthy discussions about the origin of life with some of my professor colleagues in biology and chemistry here at school, and ultimately they have to concede there is indeed lots of faith in their worldview. I don't have enough faith to see what I see around me and conclude, there is no creator (ymmv).

[BashiChuni]

Pawnman you show your immaturity in debates by neg repping posts you don’t agree with. 
 

Has a very “I’m gonna take my ball and go home” feel to it. I find that a lot in evolution/climate change/CRT theory Pumpers. Carey on. 

[Prozac]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:07 AM, lloyd christmas said:

You are seeing the classic deny, deny, counter-accuse tactic used on this thread by some on the left.  They’ve denied CRT exists.  They’ve denied CRT is being taught in schools.   And they’ve followed up with a irrelevant creationism argument.  Teaching creationism or personal finance has absolutely nothing to do with CRT.  It’s all about the pivot when you know you can’t defend your side’s position. 

 

Yep. When I joined the Bill Gates fan club I got my little orphan Annie secret decoder ring and have been receiving messages from the Gates-Clinton-Soros cabal ever since with Marxist talking points attached. SMH.
 

Simply giving my opinion that this is just the latest boogeyman for the right out of a long list of things that have really turned out to be not much. Example: remember ANTIFA? I thought they were taking over and that due to their highly organized and dangerous tactics we’d all be mandarin speaking marxists by now. For such an existential threat to our society they sure seem to have disappeared quickly. What about Hunter’s laptop? I thought there was devastating evidence that was seemingly continually about to be released. The shills on the right seem to have lost interest in that one. The list of right wing phantom threats goes on and on. Somehow all of them seem to be Marxist in origin as well. What’s with that? 

From my perspective nobody seems to be able to define CRT. Many of the people advocating for it appear to be arguing for nothing more than adding a dose of realism to the history that is taught in our country. The right seems to be very good at defining and demonizing many of these movements. BLM: A simple idea that Black Lives Matter as much as white ones? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. ANTIFA: A bunch of hippies who don’t like neo nazis? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. Democrats: A sometimes overly sensitive group of heavy spenders who nevertheless want to see The United States improve and succeed? Nope. A Marxist plot….well you get the picture. CRT is just the latest leap the right is making in order to keep its base energized. It’s all getting a bit stale for those of us non-Tucker, non Alex Jones consumers. 

[kaputt]

10 minutes ago, Prozac said:

Example: remember ANTIFA? I thought they were taking over and that due to their highly organized and dangerous tactics we’d all be mandarin speaking marxists by now. For such an existential threat to our society they sure seem to have disappeared quickly. What about Hunter’s laptop? I thought there was devastating evidence that was seemingly continually about to be released. The shills on the right seem to have lost interest in that one. 

....

BLM: A simple idea that Black Lives Matter as much as white ones? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. ANTIFA: A bunch of hippies who don’t like neo nazis? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. 

Holy smokes dude, if anyone is chugging down propaganda from media shills, its you.

Antifa has gone more quiet because a leftist administration that has worked to advance many of the things they demanded is now the regime in power. The notion that they are just hippies that don't like neo-nazis is f*cking laughable and makes me wonder if you aren't just trolling. Or maybe you really believed that the shit that went down over the summer of 2020 was just a "summer of love".

Hunter's laptop story was effectively silenced by big tech. And the whole Hunter Biden story only continues to get richer (just like Hunter Biden) as anonymous buyers pay massive sums for his garbage art, sums that not even established artists could pull down for their works. Wonder where that money is coming from?

BLM as an organization that simply wants black lives to matter as much as white ones is a flat out lie and a quick scroll through their own website will tell you as much. 

Quote

From my perspective nobody seems to be able to define CRT.

It has literally been defined, linked to, etc.. multiple times in this very thread. 

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Yep. When I joined the Bill Gates fan club I got my little orphan Annie secret decoder ring and have been receiving messages from the Gates-Clinton-Soros cabal ever since with Marxist talking points attached. SMH.
 

Simply giving my opinion that this is just the latest boogeyman for the right out of a long list of things that have really turned out to be not much. Example: remember ANTIFA? I thought they were taking over and that due to their highly organized and dangerous tactics we’d all be mandarin speaking marxists by now. For such an existential threat to our society they sure seem to have disappeared quickly. What about Hunter’s laptop? I thought there was devastating evidence that was seemingly continually about to be released. The shills on the right seem to have lost interest in that one. The list of right wing phantom threats goes on and on. Somehow all of them seem to be Marxist in origin as well. What’s with that? 

From my perspective nobody seems to be able to define CRT. Many of the people advocating for it appear to be arguing for nothing more than adding a dose of realism to the history that is taught in our country. The right seems to be very good at defining and demonizing many of these movements. BLM: A simple idea that Black Lives Matter as much as white ones? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. ANTIFA: A bunch of hippies who don’t like neo nazis? Nope. It’s a Marxist plot to overthrow the American way. Democrats: A sometimes overly sensitive group of heavy spenders who nevertheless want to see The United States improve and succeed? Nope. A Marxist plot….well you get the picture. CRT is just the latest leap the right is making in order to keep its base energized. It’s all getting a bit stale for those of us non-Tucker, non Alex Jones consumers. 

Can you define CRT? I ask because I find that the people quickest to defend it are either A) the propagators or B) liberals who have no idea what it is. You are the latter.

 

A Marxist plot... Yes. Yes that's correct, because the people who created it, as well as the biggest propagators (e.g., BLM) are open Marxists. 

 

Critical Race Theory is a race-based evolution of Critical Theory. Critical Theory is literally Marxist. From Wiki: "it argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors."

Conversely, "CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.”

 

Sound familiar? So yeah. It's a real thing, with a real definition, with real proponents pushing it in real life. Your ignorance, which is evidently substantial, does not change that. 

 

Take a step back from your bubble, which *exactly* like the republican bubble has trained you to reflexively dismiss anything you hear from the other side, and realize that just like there are factions within the conservative side of America, there are factions within liberal America. One of those factions is very powerful in politics, media, and academia despite having nearly zero presence in middle America. Yet they are whispering in the President's ear, and he is dutifully repeating their garbage.

[brickhistory]

3 hours ago, Prozac said:

 It’s all getting a bit stale for those of us non-Tucker, non Alex Jones consumers. 

This was what my brain translated...

[pawnman]

The level of scientific illiteracy in this thread is explaining a lot about why some of you have so much resistance to getting vaccinated...

[brickhistory]

[Prozac]

2 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Can you define CRT? I ask because I find that the people quickest to defend it are either A) the propagators or B) liberals who have no idea what it is. You are the latter.

 

A Marxist plot... Yes. Yes that's correct, because the people who created it, as well as the biggest propagators (e.g., BLM) are open Marxists. 

 

Critical Race Theory is a race-based evolution of Critical Theory. Critical Theory is literally Marxist. From Wiki: "it argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors."

Conversely, "CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.”

 

Sound familiar? So yeah. It's a real thing, with a real definition, with real proponents pushing it in real life. Your ignorance, which is evidently substantial, does not change that. 

 

Take a step back from your bubble, which *exactly* like the republican bubble has trained you to reflexively dismiss anything you hear from the other side, and realize that just like there are factions within the conservative side of America, there are factions within liberal America. One of those factions is very powerful in politics, media, and academia despite having nearly zero presence in middle America. Yet they are whispering in the President's ear, and he is dutifully repeating their garbage.

Point 1: Here is a good, somewhat in depth discussion of what CRT is and is not: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05 I think it’s a bit of a leap from what’s described here to cry MARXISM! I also think there is a spectrum presented here and many districts may wishing to present a more accurate view of American history are being conflated with radical actors. Like most things, this isn’t a black and white issue. 
 

Point 2: Speaking of black and white, the argument that BLM is a Marxist movement isn’t so cut and dry either. One of the founding members did, in fact identify as a “trained Marxist” Trained by whom exactly? I do believe this movement is a bit young to have founders who defected to the Soviet Union to be indoctrinated with Marxist dogma and return to the US in order to start glorious communist revolution in America. I could be wrong though. So one of the founders says they’re a trained Marxist. Does that make BLM  a Marxist movement? Here’s another good discussion: https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/21/black-lives-matter-marxist-movement/

A pertinent quote from that article: 

“I am fairly convinced these are mostly attempts to smear anti-racist activists. I think in some media, ‘Marxist’ is dog-whistle for something horrible, like ‘Nazi’, and thus enables to delegitimize/dehumanize them," Miriyam Aouragh, a lecturer at the London-based Westminster School of Media and Communication, told PolitiFact. 

Black Lives Matter "is not an organization, but a fluid movement; it doesn’t actually matter if one of its founders was a liberal, Marxist, socialist or capitalist.”

I don’t necessarily agree that it doesn’t matter at all whether one of the founders was Marxist, but for the millions of Americans who actually make up the movement, the guiding principle seems to be anti racism, not Marxism. Once again, things are a bit more nuanced than MARXIST PLOT!

Look, one of the cornerstones of my upbringing was to beware of extremists and/or people that would have you believe every argument is black and white. I seem to be seeing a lot of both recently. I bring up problems on the right here because I feel like their arguments are fairly well represented on this forum but believe me, there are plenty on the left who fall into the same pitfall. What’s tiresome is that there seems to be less and less room for middle ground. Take CRT as an example. Are there some good things that we can all agree on here? Probably. I’d honestly never heard of Juneteenth until a couple years ago. I learned in grade school that the founding fathers were basically beyond reproach. Manifest Destiny was covered with very little regard to the plight of native peoples. That seems more like indoctrination than teaching to me. We should be able to say in the same breath that we are the greatest nation in the world, AND that our history is deeply flawed. Those are not mutually exclusive things. Conversely, are there things about CRT that we should discard. Probably yes. But we can’t even seem to have a conversation without the MARXIST PLOT! red herring thrown around continuously. 

[SurelySerious]

Both sides think that anything the other side claims is a “dog whistle,” so much so that it’s a boy-who-cried-wolf phrase anymore, and it’s essentially surely a sign that there is no substance to the claim.

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, Prozac said:

Point 1: Here is a good, somewhat in depth discussion of what CRT is and is not: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05 I think it’s a bit of a leap from what’s described here to cry MARXISM! I also think there is a spectrum presented here and many districts may wishing to present a more accurate view of American history are being conflated with radical actors. Like most things, this isn’t a black and white issue. 
 

Point 2: Speaking of black and white, the argument that BLM is a Marxist movement isn’t so cut and dry either. One of the founding members did, in fact identify as a “trained Marxist” Trained by whom exactly? I do believe this movement is a bit young to have founders who defected to the Soviet Union to be indoctrinated with Marxist dogma and return to the US in order to start glorious communist revolution in America. I could be wrong though. So one of the founders says they’re a trained Marxist. Does that make BLM  a Marxist movement? Here’s another good discussion: https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/21/black-lives-matter-marxist-movement/

A pertinent quote from that article: 

“I am fairly convinced these are mostly attempts to smear anti-racist activists. I think in some media, ‘Marxist’ is dog-whistle for something horrible, like ‘Nazi’, and thus enables to delegitimize/dehumanize them," Miriyam Aouragh, a lecturer at the London-based Westminster School of Media and Communication, told PolitiFact. 

Black Lives Matter "is not an organization, but a fluid movement; it doesn’t actually matter if one of its founders was a liberal, Marxist, socialist or capitalist.”

I don’t necessarily agree that it doesn’t matter at all whether one of the founders was Marxist, but for the millions of Americans who actually make up the movement, the guiding principle seems to be anti racism, not Marxism. Once again, things are a bit more nuanced than MARXIST PLOT!

Look, one of the cornerstones of my upbringing was to beware of extremists and/or people that would have you believe every argument is black and white. I seem to be seeing a lot of both recently. I bring up problems on the right here because I feel like their arguments are fairly well represented on this forum but believe me, there are plenty on the left who fall into the same pitfall. What’s tiresome is that there seems to be less and less room for middle ground. Take CRT as an example. Are there some good things that we can all agree on here? Probably. I’d honestly never heard of Juneteenth until a couple years ago. I learned in grade school that the founding fathers were basically beyond reproach. Manifest Destiny was covered with very little regard to the plight of native peoples. That seems more like indoctrination than teaching to me. We should be able to say in the same breath that we are the greatest nation in the world, AND that our history is deeply flawed. Those are not mutually exclusive things. Conversely, are there things about CRT that we should discard. Probably yes. But we can’t even seem to have a conversation without the MARXIST PLOT! red herring thrown around continuously. 

Every one of your arguments is founded on reinterpreting concepts and quotes from the literal authors of the source material. A link to an article explaining CRT is not compelling when compared to the authors of CRT. Remember way back when I posted the article from the second largest teachers union in the country supporting Critical Race Theory? Your retort to that was to post something else from secondary sources and surveys. Why on Earth would you take that over the literal stated position of the teachers' union? Because it doesn't fit your narrative.

 

An organization run by Marxists with Marxist principals on their website (until they became headlines) is somehow not actually Marxist. Lol. That's mental gymnastics. I also love the idea that you have to go to communist Russia for some reason to learn about a German ideology... Seriously do you know anything at all about the topics on which you opine?

 

Honestly, the most amusing part of arguing with someone like you is that you capitalize MARXISM as though anyone is treating it as a boogie man. It's not. It's a fairly old, fairly persistent, and fairly dangerous ideology that rears its head repeatedly over the years. It's not fuzzy, the concepts are very well understood by both sides. But because you can't fathom a situation where your political opponents aren't just a bunch of backwards hick redneck religious nuts, you have to caricature their argument into something it's not.

 

You go ahead and Google a bunch of sources that try to make CRT something that it's not. Pretend like anti-racism isn't what it is. I'll just continue to cite the authors of these doctrines when speaking about their ideas, rather than relying on a completely fabricated alternative explanation that better fits my ideology.

 

Imagine the chaos that would ensue if Republicans started espousing the merits of Nazism, but every time you referenced Hitler or the Holocaust, the republican explained how Nazism is more of a nebulous concept that covers lots of things, and did that "trained Nazi" actually go to Germany to learn about being a Nazi? 

 

Your posts have become almost as audacious as the press secretary getting on national TV and claiming that um, actually, it's the Republicans who are the party of defund the police! Why are you blaming democrats?! 

 

I could be wrong, but your posts read as a well-meaning but completely ignorant liberal who's just caught up in the mythos that is being told to you about the other side. Pretty much the same thing that's happened in the Republican party in a lot of ways. But it's a pretty solid strategy, because it stops you from thinking critically about anything that "your side" is doing. And right now, the democrats are doing some amazing stuff.

 

Conversely, your almost deliberate refusal to use the source material when defining these concepts seems like a little bit more than casual ignorance.

 

It's incredible that not a single Republican politician has met with white supremacists, read from their books publicly, or donated to their causes, yet we're still fed the bullshit line that the conservative movement is aligned with white nationalism. But even the most casual link is distorted and misrepresented as some sort of full-throated endorsement of a hateful and racist ideology.

 

Democrats however jump fully in bed with people espousing the most fatal ideology in the history of humanity (yes, your favorite bogey man, Marxism), quote them publicly, join them in protests, and defend them fiercely from any sort of criticism, but don't you dare call the Democratic party Marxist. And don't you dare call them racist either, because only white people can be racist in America (another real claim by White Fragility author and leftist darling Robin DiAngelo).

Edited July 9, 2021 by Lord Ratner

[Prozac]

Cool man. If the Marxists have taken over by this time next year, beers on me! 🍻 Meanwhile, I’m going to go on enjoying the fruits of our capitalist society like along with most other Americans and not worry too much about the imminent revolution. 

[Pooter]

21 hours ago, bfargin said:

So it's definitely more intellectually honest and not nonsense to believe in a creator of some kind (even the made believe flying-spaghetti-monster is more intellectually honest than self initiated big bang ).

No it isn't. It's intellectually honest to follow the science and science points to the Big Bang. Scientists are also perfectly happy admitting to you that they don't know what caused the Big Bang, or what if anything existed before it.
 

Intellectual honesty is admitting you don't know rather than making shit up when you reach the limits of your understanding. 

[bfargin]

2 hours ago, Pooter said:

No it isn't. It's intellectually honest to follow the science and science points to the Big Bang. Scientists are also perfectly happy admitting to you that they don't know what caused the Big Bang, or what if anything existed before it.
 

Intellectual honesty is admitting you don't know rather than making shit up when you reach the limits of your understanding. 

Except that's exactly what scientists do when they claim a big bang (not many don't believe in a "big bang" type event and an expanding universe,  we just disagree on how and who caused it)). Most of my colleagues anyway, argue for one that happened from space matter that miraculously existed before the bang. Go to any college campus and speak with researchers in the sciences (biology, physics, chemistry, etc) and they'll all dodge the question or simply tell you it's an assumption that matter was there somehow before the big bang happened. No explanation on why and how it was there, just that they assume it was there. "Faith" as I said, but we call it "scientific assumptions" and that makes it OK since no God/god required.

[di1630]

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