I think this thread and poll is moronic, you should win the captain obvious award for it. I sense the reason for it is so that you can beat your chest as the one person here without a bias and/or agenda. Your opinion contains a lot of arbitraryness, get over it, grownups know better
Mav88, I think YOU have a political bias - while I'm more interested in philosophy, specifically epistemology. I don't see you fun-loving-please-don't-be-too-serious as a "grownup" - but that might just be my personal opinion. Your Barney Frank thread shows how grown up and funny you are. NOT... Also, to demystify and not puzzle you further -- like I've said on various occasions, I like "mental sparring" - provoke or be challenged in thought, and I find it healthy, just like sports... it makes me think, rethink and try to improve. Then my personality is such that I enjoy any topic to any depths - as an ENTJ and ENFJ type. I have fun debating - and do it because I enjoy it - I enjoy thinking. My "bias" is that I have various areas of interest, where I like receiving input as well as think further. This actually is helpful for my work and professional interests - knowledge representation and structuring. Especially for machine based processing - where efficient structure is at least as important as the content. Forums, and the debating process itself - where a consensus is seldom reached - are all interesting as tools. I react to disinformation - and especially politically motivated attempts at deception, corruption of information, because I have an interest in how to preserve a broader freedom of thought, information - and make it representable, not to be suppressed or dominated. That is a challenge, but interesting. I debate to "hone my skills," but also gain better knowledge of the process and how to safeguard fair representation of information, opinions, points of view. Of course, the false information is something that should be identified as such - as should weakly founded information - as they pertain correctly to closed systems or when a broader view is needed to represent correctly the relations and interactions of system entities and processes.
Because instead of finding what needs to be fixed you bitch about the country. Why don't you simply debate which points are right and which are wrong so you don't look so generalist.
NeoRio1, so in your view - my bias is that I am generalizing too much, and I don't propose how to change or improve systems? Also, you don't like that I criticize anything about the US...? Ever tried to understand what "indoctrination" means? You should see my viewpoints on systemic bias and systems science vs logics, and their applicability. I can repeat it for you, if you like...? I guess my calling for better trust models, direct democracy and the "designing out" of corruption; making corruption - human flaws of important processes - impossible - that doesn't count as improvement suggestions?
I think YOU have a political bias - while I'm more interested in philosophy, specifically epistemology. I don't see you fun-loving-please-don't-be-too-serious as a "grownup" - but that might just be my personal opinion. Your Barney Frank thread shows how grown up and funny you are. NOT... I just said I do have a bias, everyone does. I do take the world seriously, just not myself as much. the barney frank thread is serious, it's nuts and bolts politics which is far more relevent than any of the airy 'above-it-all' philosophical crap you put out. You have been seduced by the arrogance of philosophy and take it quite seriously. The trouble is, it's quite capricious and arbitrary, and mostly useless in the real world I inhabit. Also, to demystify and not puzzle you further -- like I've said on various occasions, I like "mental sparring" - provoke or be challenged in thought, and I find it healthy, just like sports... it makes me think, rethink and try to improve. Then my personality is such that I enjoy any topic to any depths - as an ENTJ and ENFJ type. I have fun debating - and do it because I enjoy it - I enjoy thinking. Mental sparring is for sophomores in college, and what kind of 'mentalist' pretends to be surprised that people in a political forum have an agenda? I mean really, is anyone here that stupid? My "bias" is that I have various areas of interest, where I like receiving input as well as think further. This actually is helpful for my work and professional interests - knowledge representation and structuring. Especially for machine based processing - where efficient structure is at least as important as the content. Forums, and the debating process itself - where a consensus is seldom reached - are all interesting as tools. I think you have an ego to feed as well. You have responded before to my posts with nothing useful or insightful, and there was no 'sparring'.
Mav88, organized political agenda -- is a bit different than what we normally see of individuals that are simply contributing their personal opinions. When you see organized influencing, you see obvious distortions of otherwise accepted consensus - as well as repeated attempts at diverting, distractions and sabotaging "opposed" topics. Those are typical disinformation tactics. One of the most used tactics is to crash an otherwise sober thread, and start personal attacks. I am not beyond personal attacks myself - when backing them up - i.e proving them - e.g when people are lying to cover their statements or going back on their argumentative structure. Of course we all have our point of view - and some have a better founded basis for their opinions, while others might just copy off from some texts or books without ever understanding what is being said. Also, we all have egoism as a component to any action we perform - even altruistic ones. The difference is between being egocentric and showing egoism - where egoism is healthy - e.g eating and taking brakes from ET to survive... Finally, I am truly sorry if you have found the debate "too light" and not serious enough for your liking --- but feel free to go deeper into the subjects, if you feel you are able to and want to do so, to make you feel that you are truly participating --- instead of feeling that you are merely superficially present in a debate. As for the poll - it seems people are not easily duped, but I think it is important that we identify attempts at organized disinformation ---- especially like that of the user "soliloguy", who obviously was trying to misrepresent who he was --- so that he could make racist attacks under a false flag pretext, as well as try to raise "awareness" of the most outrageous extremist opinions out there... Incidentally it seems like all his posts and thread were deleted -- and I certainly complained about his obviously racist and supremacist agenda. Being perceptive and sceptic is part of becoming an independent adult... thinking and reasoning is a very important for getting into adulthood and being able to carry responsibility -- and ultimately show integrity so that others around you can trust you.
organized political agenda -- is a bit different than what we normally see of individuals that are simply contributing their personal opinions. When you see organized influencing, you see obvious distortions of otherwise accepted consensus - as well as repeated attempts at diverting, distractions and sabotaging "opposed" topics. Those are typical disinformation tactics. It's not unusual, it's part of the environment. One of the most used tactics is to crash an otherwise sober thread, and start personal attacks. I am not beyond personal attacks myself - when backing them up - i.e proving them - e.g when people are lying to cover their statements or going back on their argumentative structure. personal attacks are part of organized effort? lol, you sound like a kid Finally, I am truly sorry if you have found the debate "too light" and not serious enough for your liking --- but feel free to go deeper into the subjects, if you feel you are able to and want to do so, to make you feel that you are truly participating --- instead of feeling that you are merely superficially present in a debate. I never said that. As for the poll - it seems people are not easily duped, but I think it is important that we identify attempts at organized disinformation ---- especially like that of the user "soliloguy", who obviously was trying to misrepresent who he was --- so that he could make racist attacks under a false flag pretext, as well as try to raise "awareness" of the most outrageous extremist opinions out there... Incidentally it seems like all his posts and thread were deleted -- and I certainly complained about his obviously racist and supremacist agenda. Being perceptive and sceptic is part of becoming an independent adult... thinking and reasoning is a very important for getting into adulthood and being able to carry responsibility -- and ultimately show integrity so that others around you can trust you. if soliloguy's crap was obvious, the why the hell do you need to have a poll? you contradicted yourself, complaining about an obvious agenda is not being perceptive.
Mav88, you said: "You have responded before to my posts with nothing useful or insightful, and there was no 'sparring'." I just said, that if you felt it was being only a "superficial debate" - then please, get to the level where you find it meaningful... You also said that "mental sparring" is for college sophomores, so that makes it difficult to understand what you are wanting from participating in debates... Discrediting, smear campaigns, disruptions of group gatherings or discussions - those are well known tactics to sabotage opinion forming debates or exchanges of opposing views - where personal attacks are key. Have you really not noticed anything of Karl Rove's masterpieces of opinion manipulations when he was most active? He had "Jesusland" wrapped around his little pinky... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map
Obama is living the commie dream life really...... a little guy, but well educated, but a street organizer, so he rose nobly above being just another little guy, an elitist little guy sort of...... and probably willing to sacrifice millions of other little guys and big guy, but not elitist little guys though, to transform the state....
a pathetic country like iran has fulltime government employees that sit all day going through forums and blogs and posting anti-american, anti-semitic statements just like the TSA, only they don't go through luggage and drop a copy of "this bag has been inspected by 'Trashy Sick Americans' , if you have any comments or complaints you can send an email to tsahatesyourgayass@tsa.gov, a mailbox we never care to check"