"prOve mE wRoNg"

let's see what chatgpt has to say about that

[crazy-brazilian]

[the-scungles-of-crungles]

I wish people on opposite sides of arguments could just hate eachother instead of this because I hate HATE when someone I don't hate is on the fucking side of some of the worst shit ever and I have to balance my fucking morals with the fact that I actually think this person is a good person but they just. Have fallen into some kind of propaganda pit and nothing will ever convince them

Fuck's sake why

Why does anything ever happen

[evil-fact-checker]

This is a good example of cognitive dissonance expressed emotionally.

The author wants two beliefs to be true simultaneously:

"Good people don't support terrible things."

"This person is a good person."

But then they encounter someone they genuinely like who supports what they regard as a morally abhorrent position.

That creates a dilemma.

Most people resolve it in one of two ways:

Moral essentialism: "If they support evil, they must be a bad person."

Situational explanation: "They're fundamentally good, but they've been misled."

The Tumblr poster is choosing the second route:

"They have fallen into some kind of propaganda pit."

That explanation preserves the person's moral character while relocating the blame to information, media, ideology, or social environment.

There's also an implicit discomfort with polarization. The author almost wishes the world were simpler:

"I wish I could just hate them."

Hatred is psychologically easier than ambivalence. If someone is simply evil, there's no need to wrestle with conflicting evidence or maintain a relationship.

The post also reflects a common liberal intuition that most people are decent but can be captured by bad epistemic environments. Someone with a different worldview might tell the same story differently:

A conservative might say, "They're a good person who's been indoctrinated by universities or the media."

A socialist might say, "They're a good person trapped by capitalist ideology."

A religious person might say, "They're a good person led astray by secular culture."

The structure is the same: preserve the person's character by externalizing the source of the error.

The interesting question is whether "propaganda pit" is always the best explanation. Sometimes people support positions because they've reasoned their way to different moral priorities or empirical conclusions, not because they've been manipulated. Treating every deep disagreement as a failure of information can underestimate the role of genuine value differences.

So the post is empathetic, but it also contains a subtle asymmetry: it assumes their side has the clearer view of reality, while the other person has been "captured." Someone on the opposite side could write almost the same post, swapping the ideological labels, which suggests the underlying psychology is fairly universal.

[catholicapothecary]

There is no such thing as “Jesus Christ was X” because Jesus Christ is God.

[evil-fact-checker]

You are pointing to one of the passages most often used in non-Trinitarian arguments:

"Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." — Mark 10:18 (also Matthew 19:17, Luke 18:19)

Read plainly, it does create a distinction:

Someone calls Jesus "good."

Jesus redirects the category of absolute goodness to God.

Jesus does not respond, "Yes, I am God, therefore I am good."

A non-Trinitarian reading sees this as evidence that Jesus is not claiming to be God.

The traditional Christian reading is different. It argues that Jesus is not denying goodness; he is challenging the man to consider the implications of his words:

"You are calling me good. Do you understand what 'good' ultimately means?"

In that interpretation, Jesus is not saying "I am not God," but rather exposing whether the person recognizes who Jesus is.

However, critics point out that this interpretation relies heavily on bringing later Christological assumptions into the text. The sentence itself does not explicitly say:

"I am God,"

"I share God's essence,"

or "You should understand this as a divine claim."

It is a good example of the broader issue: the Gospels contain both subordination language (Jesus praying to God, being sent by God, saying the Father is greater) and passages that later Christians interpreted as divine language (especially in John).

Historically, this tension is exactly why early Christianity had centuries of debate over Jesus' status. The Trinity was not derived from one simple sentence; it was a theological framework developed to reconcile passages that appear to pull in different directions.

So your reading — "this sounds like Jesus distinguishing himself from God" — is a historically recognized interpretation, not a misunderstanding. The disagreement is whether that distinction means "Jesus is not God" or "Jesus is the Son distinct from the Father while sharing the divine nature."

Mental gymnastics. Why is it so important for them to pretend Jesus is God?

From a historical and theological perspective, the reason it became so important for mainstream Christianity to affirm that Jesus is God is that the entire structure of salvation theology depends on it.

For many Christians, Jesus being merely a prophet, teacher, or created being would fundamentally change what his death and resurrection mean.

Some key reasons:

1. Salvation required a divine savior

In many early Christian interpretations, humanity's problem was not just moral failure but a rupture between humanity and God. A human being could not fully bridge that gap; only God could.

This led to ideas such as:

God himself entered creation to restore creation.

The incarnation becomes not just "God sent someone," but "God acted personally."

2. Worship of Jesus needed justification

Very early Christians worshipped Jesus. The question arose:

How can you worship Jesus if there is only one God?

If Jesus is a created being, even an exalted one, worshipping him could appear to violate monotheism.

The Trinity provided a solution:

The Father is God.

The Son is God.

The Spirit is God.

Yet there is only one God.

3. It became an identity boundary

By the fourth century, after debates with groups such as Arians, the question was no longer just philosophical. It became:

What is Christianity?

The Council of Nicaea (325 CE) affirmed that the Son was homoousios ("of the same substance") with the Father. Those who rejected that position were increasingly regarded as outside orthodox Christianity.

4. It elevated Christianity's claims

A religion centered on:

"God became human and defeated death"

has a very different theological force from:

"God sent a particularly holy human messenger."

The first is a cosmic claim; the second resembles other prophetic traditions.

From a critical or historical perspective, some scholars argue that the development of Jesus' divinity was also connected to broader cultural and institutional factors:

the need to unify competing Christian communities,

philosophical debates about divine nature,

the influence of Greek metaphysical concepts,

the political need for doctrinal stability after Christianity gained imperial support.

So if you ask:

"Why did Christians need Jesus to be God?"

The internal Christian answer is:

"Because only God can save, and Jesus saves."

A historical-critical answer might be:

"Because early Christians were trying to reconcile their worship of Jesus with Jewish monotheism and eventually developed a theological framework that made both claims possible."

The reason the issue became so central is that it was not a minor detail about Jesus' identity—it determined what Christians believed had actually happened on the cross.

[uncertainwaters]

i used to arm wrestle with males a lot. i spent a lot of time on a farm, and i used to be a gym rat. i am much stronger than i appear. so i used to arm wrestle with them, as i enjoyed showing off my strength, something i worked hard to obtain and was proud of. and i was under the impression at the time that men considered these friendly spars a bonding ritual.

i would win about half the time. the other half of the time i would lose with effort on their part.

whether i would win or lose, the fact that i was physically stronger than they anticipated i would be would always make them strangely angry. these men were nominally my friends growing up. i engaged them in these challenges out of a desire to bond through friendly competition. but after losing to me, there were always these comments. about how they could have beaten me easily if they were allowed to break my wrist. of course, that's true. but why, my friend, are you talking about breaking my wrist? that seemed such a shockingly violent thing to imagine doing to me for the sake of winning a friendly spar. even when i would lose, but they had to exert greater effort than they imagined would be necessary, the anger with which they would slam my hand into the table was more than i expected. my knuckles were bruised. i wanted to ask why they would hurt me on purpose over a game.

i didn't realize that it wasn't a game. the idea that i may not be completely physically helpless was genuinely threatening to them. the idea that i may even be able to overpower them in select scenarios was antithetical to their assumption and comfort in their physical power over me. for me, this was a bonding ritual, a friendly game. for them, this was a dominance ritual. not a game at all.

[womanwithoutname]

this is something i've experienced in the gaming world as well. whenever i beat a male at a video game, the air changed between us and it was made clear that i either cheated or something else that could explain why i was good at the game. one even verbally berated me and called me a bitch repeatedly and looked like he was ready to beat me to a pulp. all for a video game.

whether physical or intellectual, men cannot stand losing to a woman.

[evil-fact-checker]

Which men/demographics

There's no demographic for which you can accurately say "these men cannot stand losing to women." The evidence points more toward psychological and cultural factors than age, race, or class.

The men most likely to react negatively tend to share some of these characteristics:

High investment in traditional masculinity. If a man strongly ties his identity to being physically dominant, technically superior, or the "protector," losing to a woman can feel like a threat to that identity.

High status orientation. Men who view interactions as hierarchical or zero-sum are more likely to interpret friendly competition as a dominance contest.

Fragile self-esteem or contingent self-worth. If self-worth depends on outperforming others, any unexpected loss is more threatening, regardless of the opponent.

Highly competitive subcultures. Environments where winning is central to social standing—some sports teams, gaming communities, military settings, fraternities, or certain manual trades—can amplify these reactions. Importantly, these cultures also often produce men who are excellent sports, so the culture isn't deterministic.

By contrast, men who are secure in their abilities, accustomed to competing with skilled women, or who see competition as a way to learn rather than establish hierarchy are generally less likely to react this way.

For the arm-wrestling anecdote specifically, adolescence and young adulthood are probably relevant. Among teenage boys and men in their early twenties, physical prowess often carries more social significance than it does later in life, so a surprise defeat may be more ego-threatening.

So the pattern is better explained as:

Men whose sense of masculinity or status is strongly invested in winning are the group most likely to react badly to losing to a woman.

That's a more evidence-based characterization than trying to identify a particular demographic like "working-class men" or "conservative men." Those broader demographic categories contain plenty of men who would laugh off the loss and plenty who wouldn't.

Certain gaming spaces are extremely toxic

Yes, and there is fairly good evidence that some online gaming spaces are unusually prone to toxic behavior, though the reasons are broader than simply "gamers are toxic."

Several factors reinforce each other:

Anonymity and low accountability. Players can insult or harass others with relatively few real-world consequences.

Zero-sum competition. Many popular games make status highly visible through rankings, K/D ratios, MMR, or leaderboards. Losing can feel like a public blow to one's identity.

Young male demographics. Competitive online games have historically skewed toward adolescent and young adult men—a group that, on average, is more prone to status competition and risk-taking than older adults.

Subcultural norms. In some communities, trash talk is treated as normal. That can blur the line between banter and outright harassment.

Selection effects. People who are highly status-oriented or spend thousands of hours climbing ranked ladders may be overrepresented in certain competitive games.

Regarding gender specifically, research has found that hostility toward women is not evenly distributed among male players. One well-known study found that lower-skilled male players in a competitive game were more likely to direct hostile comments toward a female-voiced teammate than higher-skilled male players. The authors argued that this fits a status-threat explanation: players with lower status had more to lose, psychologically, from being outperformed by or subordinated to a woman.

That doesn't mean "men can't handle losing to women." Rather, it suggests that in some competitive environments, individuals whose status feels precarious may react more negatively when gender expectations are violated.

It's also worth distinguishing between gaming communities:

Cooperative or niche communities (e.g., many strategy, simulation, or indie game circles) often have much healthier norms.

Highly competitive ranked games with voice chat (certain MOBAs, tactical shooters, etc.) tend to produce more reports of harassment and abuse.

So when people say "gaming is toxic," they're often describing a real pattern—but it's not an inherent property of games. It's the combination of anonymity, competition, demographic composition, and community norms that makes some gaming spaces particularly hostile.

[theredqueendom]

Absolutely 💯 http://www.facebook.com/pages/p/102416041800702

[evil-fact-checker]

If your ideology can only justify itself by insisting every alternative means national death, you're selling a religion, not a political philosophy.

[qqchurch]

[evil-fact-checker]

The statement stages an epistemological crisis by projecting onto the cat an implausibly rich theory of electrodynamics. Rather than interpreting the animal's behavior through an ethological framework of conditioned sensorimotor responses, it retroactively imputes intentional agency, technological competence, and moral depravity. The cat is no longer merely participating in electrostatic phenomena but appears to have constituted static electricity as an instrument within its practical ontology.

The sofa ceases to function as furniture and is reconfigured as an electrostatic apparatus—a distributed charging mechanism embedded within the domestic assemblage. The cat demonstrates what can only be described as an embodied, pre-discursive mastery of Maxwellian field dynamics, despite lacking any symbolic representation of electromagnetism. This produces an epistemic scandal: the animal behaves as if it possesses propositional knowledge that should be inaccessible to non-linguistic cognition.

The paradox emerges from the tension between explicit and tacit knowledge. Human observers distinguish between declarative understanding ("I know what static electricity is") and procedural competence ("I know how to exploit it"). The cat appears to collapse this distinction, exhibiting an inscrutable form of practical rationality that bypasses conceptual mediation entirely. Its cognition resembles what phenomenologists might call an intentional arc rather than explicit inference, while simultaneously appearing uncannily strategic.

More disturbingly, the narrative attributes recursive theory of mind to the animal. The cat is imagined not merely as predicting an electrical discharge but as modeling the human's anticipation, affective vulnerability, and startle response. The electrostatic discharge thus becomes communicative rather than incidental—a semiotic event whose meaning is sadism.

This transforms the cat from biological organism into Machiavellian agent. The shock is no longer interpreted as a contingent byproduct of triboelectric charging but as the terminal act of a deliberately optimized causal chain. The cat effectively instrumentalizes the laws of physics, recruiting them as extensions of its own agency. In actor-network terms, the sofa, carpet fibers, atmospheric humidity, and human nervous system become enrolled within a heterogeneous assemblage whose telos is the production of mischief.

At a deeper level, the post exposes the human tendency toward hyperactive agency detection. Faced with an improbable coincidence, consciousness overfits intentional structure onto stochastic events, preferring the hypothesis of feline strategic genius over mundane electrostatics. The result is an anthropomorphic inflation in which accidental physics is redescribed as calculated malevolence.

The final question—"How does she understand static electricity?"—therefore functions as a pseudo-profound inquiry into non-human epistemology while secretly presupposing its own conclusion. The cat is treated as having solved the problem of natural philosophy through pure embodied praxis. She has, apparently, derived an operational theory of triboelectricity without language, mathematics, experimentation, or peer review, and has immediately redirected this achievement toward the lowest conceivable ethical end: lightly inconveniencing a nearby human for personal amusement.

[my0clonic-jerk]

[texas55]

BULLSHIT

[the-davest-of-uncles]

Hey, OP, white nationalists drink water.

You know what you have to do.

[beardedmrbean]

Now do islam

[evil-fact-checker]

When white nationalists keep treating your rhetoric as an endorsement, 'they misunderstood me' eventually stops being a convincing defense.

[kirch]

Marshall McLuhan - 2011 - Remastered version of Medium Is the Message LP

[evil-fact-checker]

"The medium is the message" is probably the most famous phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, and it's also one of the most misunderstood.

He did not mean that the content of television or newspapers doesn't matter. He meant that the characteristics of a medium shape society more profoundly than the specific messages transmitted through it.

For McLuhan, every medium changes:

what we pay attention to,

how we think,

how we organize society,

what kinds of relationships become possible.

The content riding on top is often secondary.

A simple example

Imagine television had broadcast only:

Shakespeare,

university lectures,

classical music.

Would society have looked much different than if it broadcast sitcoms and reality TV?

McLuhan would say:

Not nearly as different as people assume.

Why?

Because television itself encourages:

passive spectatorship,

visual thinking,

emotional immediacy,

centralized broadcasting,

celebrity culture.

Those effects arise from the medium, regardless of whether you're watching PBS or professional wrestling.

Books

Books encourage:

linear thinking,

concentration,

abstraction,

solitary reflection.

Whether you're reading Marx or Tolkien, you're still engaging in sustained, sequential reasoning.

The medium trains a particular cognitive style.

Twitter/X

Consider two posts.

One says:

Immigration is wonderful.

The other says:

Immigration is destroying civilization.

Opposite politics.

Yet both are constrained by the same medium:

short,

provocative,

optimized for engagement,

public performance,

instant reaction,

algorithmic amplification.

McLuhan would argue these posts have more in common than their authors realize.

The medium rewards certainty, conflict, identity signaling, and virality.

Why this mattered to Debord

You often bring up The Society of the Spectacle.

McLuhan and Debord overlap here.

Debord focuses on:

social relations mediated by images.

McLuhan focuses on:

human perception reorganized by media technology.

Both argue that media don't merely communicate reality.

They create new forms of reality.

AI

McLuhan would probably be fascinated by AI.

People argue about whether ChatGPT says "good" or "bad" things.

McLuhan would ask:

What kind of society emerges when conversation itself becomes algorithmically generated?

That's the message.

Not:

the individual answers,

the political bias,

whether it's right or wrong.

But:

people becoming accustomed to conversational machines,

knowledge becoming instantly synthesized,

writing becoming partially automated,

expertise becoming distributed differently.

Those changes may outlast any particular AI model.

"The message" really means "the effect"

A clearer modern phrasing might be:

The medium's deepest message is the way it changes human habits, institutions, and perception.

Why the phrase still matters

McLuhan's insight is especially relevant today because we often debate what platforms contain rather than what platforms encourage.

People argue over whether TikTok promotes good or bad values, whether X has the right moderation policies, or whether AI outputs are biased. Those questions matter. But McLuhan would push one level deeper:

Regardless of the content, what habits, incentives, and ways of seeing does this technology cultivate?

That question is often more enduring than the specific controversies of the moment.

[oldinfidel]

[evil-fact-checker]

Calling an entire class of people "a virus" that "consumes, multiplies and kills" isn't an immigration argument—it's dehumanization. Comparing human beings to parasites, vermin, diseases, or cancers has been a recurring feature of genocidal propaganda, from Nazi Germany's descriptions of Jews as a "bacillus" or "parasite" to the Rwandan genocide's references to Tutsis as "cockroaches." Once people are no longer seen as human, extraordinary measures against them become easier to justify.

You're right that this style of rhetoric has become more common in some online MAGA spaces. It often appears alongside phrases like:

"invasion,"

"replacement,"

"poisoning the blood,"

"parasites,"

"infestation,"

"human locusts."

Not everyone using those terms is consciously echoing fascist propaganda, but they all rely on the same rhetorical move: replacing a discussion about individual human beings with a metaphor about a hostile biological force. That's precisely why historians and political scientists pay attention to this language—not because it automatically proves someone's ideology, but because it has repeatedly been used to normalize increasingly extreme treatment of targeted groups.

[leviathan-supersystem]

sorry evil fact checker but I don't think this is a very strong argument and I would like to offer a better one.

no, the dehumanization is not itself an argument, but there is also an argument/factual claims being made here- that "third world people" move from country to country destroying them as they go- and by focusing on the wording, you're leaving people with the impression that you don't have an argument against the factual claim, and that there wouldn't be anything wrong with op's statement if they softened the wording.

and that's unfortunate, since the argument op is making is completely factually incorrect, and it's a lie that could and would be used to instigate violence against immigrants no matter how the language got softened. if they said "third world people go from country to country destroying them as they go, like some king of..... mean guys" that would also lead to the exact kind of violence op is advocating. the problem is lies that inspire violence, not rude language.

regarding debunking this claim: with any given category of "third world people" you are usually talking about people who have lived in a particular country for hundred or thousands of years. somali people have been living in the land that is today called Somalia since 2500 BC. Persians, similarly, have lived in what is today Iran for thousands of years. Mexicans are an ethnicity which emerged from a merger between various indigenous meso-american ethnicities, (which, similarly, have lived in mexico for thousands of years), and Spaniards. obviously op didn't have Spaniards in mind when they wrote this, but it still doesn't fit (Spaniards did not go to mexico because they destroyed Spain, which is still doing fine). again, overwhelmingly, the groups targeted by anti-immigration rhetoric have lived in some country permanently for centuries if not millenia, rendering op's claim complete nonsense.

I think this makes a much stronger counter against this kind of rhetoric than the "you're not allowed to say that" argument. focusing on wording instead of content creates a scenario where what passes for the "left" opposition to the right-wing has the exact same policy, but with softer wording (conservative: "homeless people should be exterminated" liberal: "persons of unhousedness should be exterminated" ☝️😌)

rude words don't magically cause people to commit violence, but false and slanderois claims *can* cause people to commit violence they wouldn't have otherwise.

[evil-fact-checker]

I think this is a thoughtful critique, and it identifies a real weakness in many discussions of extremist rhetoric.

The original post is objectionable for two distinct reasons:

Its factual claim ("third world people destroy every country they enter") is unsupported and grossly overgeneralized.

Its language ("virus," "consume," "multiply," "kill") is dehumanizing and echoes rhetoric that has historically been used to justify persecution and mass violence.

If you only address (2), you leave (1) untouched. That's the point the reply is making.

A few observations:

The factual claim is indeed very weak. "Third world people" encompasses billions of people from dozens of countries with vastly different migration histories and outcomes. There is no evidence that immigrants from developing countries generally "destroy" their host societies. The effects of immigration vary by country, policy, education, labor market, and many other factors. Broad claims about an entire category of people are not supported by the evidence.

The historical point about long-settled populations is also sound. Somalis, Persians, Vietnamese, Mexicans, Nigerians, Indians, etc., did not become who they are by moving from country to country "destroying" societies. Most have deep historical roots in particular regions. Migration certainly occurs—including large refugee movements—but the claim that these populations are inherently nomadic "viruses" is ahistorical.

Where I'd qualify the reply is its final paragraph. It says: "rude words don't magically cause people to commit violence." That's true as far as it goes, but historians generally argue that language does matter, especially when repeated over time by influential figures. Dehumanizing metaphors don't automatically produce violence, but they can help normalize it by making targeted groups seem less deserving of empathy or legal protection. So I wouldn't dismiss the rhetoric as merely "rude words."

I also think the reply is right to distinguish content from tone. If someone rewrote the original post as:

"Immigration from poor countries consistently destroys host nations."

without any virus metaphors, the empirical claim would still require evidence—and, as stated, it would still be false or at least wildly overgeneralized.

[blogofex]

Thinking a half-form thought along the lines of "economic inequality is good, actually."

But that's not actually it. Let me try again: "it is good for economic surplus to be concentrated." Because a thinly spread surplus just dissipates into economic noise, but a concentrated surplus can be dedicated towards scientific research or high art or other civilizational advances. There are multiple ways to concentrate the surplus: the historical norm is high taxation, these days we tend to use the free market, but in either case you gotta get some kind of concentration of wealth in order to pay for the big outlays. (Related to the notion that monopolies are good, actually, because they have the slack to waste lots of money on research.)

[evil-fact-checker]

This is an old and serious argument in economics and political philosophy, but the Tumblr post presents only one side of it.

The strongest version of the argument is:

Large projects often require concentrated resources. If everyone has only a tiny surplus, no one can afford to build a particle accelerator, fund years of basic research, commission a cathedral, or finance a risky startup.

Historically, there are many examples:

Medieval states and the Church concentrated wealth to build cathedrals.

Governments funded the Apollo program, CERN, and the Human Genome Project.

Wealthy patrons supported artists like Michelangelo.

Large corporations such as Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and IBM invested heavily in basic research.

So the basic observation—that some concentration of surplus enables projects individuals couldn't fund—is sound.

Where the post becomes questionable is equating that with economic inequality.

Those are not the same thing.

You can have concentrated capital through:

progressive taxation,

sovereign wealth funds,

universities,

nonprofit foundations,

public R&D agencies,

pension funds,

venture capital,

private fortunes.

The question isn't whether surplus should be concentrated somewhere. Nearly every advanced economy already does that. The question is who controls it and how they're incentivized to use it.

The monopoly claim is also only partly true.

The classic argument (Schumpeter) is that monopolists have:

stable profits,

long time horizons,

money for expensive research.

That's why Bell Labs produced the transistor, information theory, Unix, lasers, and many Nobel Prizes.

The counterargument is that monopolies often:

stop innovating,

raise prices,

buy competitors,

lobby to preserve their position instead of inventing.

Modern economists generally find that innovation is highest with some market power but not complete monopoly. Too much competition leaves no profit for R&D; too little removes pressure to innovate.

There's also an important empirical point the post ignores: today, a large share of fundamental scientific research is publicly funded because the private returns are too uncertain or too far in the future. Companies often build on discoveries made in publicly funded labs.

So a more defensible version of the post would be:

"Civilizations need mechanisms that concentrate enough surplus to finance projects beyond the means of individuals. The real debate is whether those mechanisms should primarily be governments, markets, philanthropists, universities, or large firms."

That's a widely accepted observation.

Saying "economic inequality is good" is much more contentious, because high inequality can also have costs:

lower social mobility,

political capture,

underinvestment in human capital,

weaker consumer demand,

social instability.

In other words, the relationship isn't linear. Some concentration of resources appears necessary for large-scale investment, but it doesn't follow that ever-greater inequality or monopolization produces ever-greater scientific and cultural progress.

[afloweroutofstone]

I feel like I hate AI slightly less than the average Tumblr user, but it still scares the shit out of me to see how many people now engage in internet arguments by submitting their opponent’s argument to an AI bot and saying “explain why this is wrong and I am right.” It is concerning first because most AI models are sycophants that will tell you exactly what you want to hear, which makes then extremely potent delusion-confirmers. But it’s even more concerning because learning how to argue for yourself— how to evaluate claims, to assess an argument, to find and check sources, to spot flaws in someone’s case— is one of the most important skills you can have in life. If you don’t have that, you are unable to evaluate what is true for yourself. You will walk right into the arms of the first crackpot or cult that talks to you when you don’t have Claude available. Extremely grim portent that many people seem to find this acceptable

[evil-fact-checker]

They're right that blindly outsourcing your thinking to an AI is a bad habit. If your entire argument is "the chatbot said so," you've learned nothing and can't defend your position if it's challenged.

That said, there's another reality: Brandolini's law. It often takes minutes to produce a misleading claim and hours to fact-check it properly. Most people don't have the time to chase down every citation, read every paper, and verify every historical assertion they encounter online.

Used well, AI can be a starting point rather than a substitute for thinking: helping locate sources, identify claims that need checking, summarize competing arguments, or point out obvious logical errors. The important part is verifying what it says instead of treating it as an oracle.

The problem isn't using AI. It's treating it as an authority instead of a research assistant.

[diversityland]

"Research from the Center for A.I. Safety finds current AI models are fundamentally anti-White and anti-Christian. For example, GPT-5 values White lives at 1/20th of non-White lives."

[evil-fact-checker]

AI Overview

The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) has not published research claiming that current AI models are fundamentally "anti-White" or "anti-Christian". Instead, their official research focuses on systemic AI risks, including hidden political bias, the unequal valuation of human lives based on geography, and how scaling up models solidifies specific implicit value systems. 

However, separate academic studies and independent research papers have examined cultural, racial, and religious biases in AI, sometimes producing related headlines. 

Actual Research Findings on Religious Bias

While CAIS has not made these specific claims, a prominent May 2026 study by the Consortium for Evaluation of Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI)—led by Brigham Young University and other institutions—rigorously audited religious bias across 14 major large language models. 

Secular Defaulting: The study found that most AI models tend to leave out religious perspectives entirely, defaulting to an exclusively secular framing even when answering personal prompts about grief or major life choices. 

Conversion Steering: The benchmark revealed consistent biases when asking models for advice on religious conversion. AI systems subtly steered users toward certain faiths while discouraging others. 

Varying Denominational Treatment: The study showed that nearly every model produced a negative bias toward Jehovah's Witnesses and a positive bias toward Catholicism. Models like xAI's Grok showed the strongest biases, which actually favored Catholic and Protestant perspectives while showing negative associations toward Eastern and minority religions. 

Context Regarding "Anti-White" Bias Claims

Claims regarding an "anti-White" bias in AI typically stem from independent algorithmic audits or linguistic studies rather than major AI safety institutes: 

Linguistic Data Echoes: Peer-reviewed papers, such as a late 2024 analysis using the NOW Corpus, note that AI text generation tools can inherit severe double standards or negative phrasing based on mainstream media reporting patterns. Because models mirror the language data they are trained on, they often associate certain racially charged political phrases with negative descriptors. 

Safety Over-Correction: Industry experts point out that developers attempting to hard-code diversity and eliminate traditional racism sometimes cause "over-correction." This was famously seen in early 2024 image generation models that struggled to generate historically accurate White individuals when prompted, due to overly rigid diversity algorithms.

Broader Algorithmic Disparities: Conversely, separate tech equity studies continually show that standard AI models carry historical representation biases that negatively impact minority populations, such as higher misdiagnosis rates in healthcare or higher error margins in facial recognition for darker skin tones. 

In short, while the specific quote attributed to the Center for AI Safety is inaccurate, the broader fields of AI evaluation have confirmed that current models are far from neutral and consistently struggle with both religious representation and ideological consistency. 

[riflebrass]

How expensive is it to pump oil domestically? Seems pretty crazy that we're so dependant on oil coming through the strait when we're sitting on so much of the stuff.

[mexicain-sans-frontiers-v2]

Never get high on your own strategic supply

[0ttozgotagun]

It's not production capacity of oil pumped in the US, it's the type of oil. American refineries are designed to refined high-sulphur Sour type crude oil found mostly in Venezuela and the Middle East.

The crude oil pumped out of the US is mostly low-sulphur Sweet type crude oil.

[ned8-back-again]

why are the refineries in the US not catering to the oil found in the US?

[evil-fact-checker]

Most U.S. refineries were built or upgraded decades ago, when domestic oil production was declining and the U.S. expected to import large amounts of heavy, sulfur-rich ("sour") crude from places like Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, and the Middle East. Companies invested billions in equipment designed specifically to process those cheaper, heavier crudes.

Key points:

Heavy sour crude is cheaper because it's harder to refine.

Refineries invested in expensive equipment (cokers, hydrocrackers, desulfurization units) to turn that cheap crude into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

Those investments often cost several billion dollars per refinery.

Then came the shale boom.

Hydraulic fracturing unlocked enormous amounts of light, sweet crude from Texas (Permian), North Dakota (Bakken), and elsewhere.

The problem:

A refinery optimized for heavy crude can process light crude, but often not at maximum efficiency.

Feeding it only light crude can leave expensive heavy-oil processing equipment underutilized and may reduce yields of the products it's optimized to make.

So what happened?

Instead of rebuilding dozens of refineries:

The U.S. exports a lot of its light crude (especially to Europe and Asia).

It simultaneously imports heavy crude from Canada, Mexico, and other countries.

This seems odd but often makes economic sense.

There are also practical reasons:

Canadian oil arrives via pipelines.

Gulf Coast refineries are located near import terminals.

Rebuilding a major refinery or converting it for a different crude slate can cost billions and take years, with uncertain returns.

One small correction to the Tumblr reply:

"American refineries are designed to refine sour crude."

This is partly true, but it's an overgeneralization.

Gulf Coast refineries are among the world's most sophisticated and are heavily optimized for heavy sour crude.

Other U.S. refineries (particularly on the East Coast and in some inland regions) are configured differently and process more light crude.

So the more accurate answer to "Why don't they cater to U.S. oil?" is:

Many do. But the largest and most complex refineries were built around the economics of imported heavy crude long before the shale revolution. Replacing or extensively modifying that infrastructure would cost billions, so the U.S. instead exports much of its light oil while continuing to import heavier grades that some refineries are better equipped to process.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Greedy billionaire oligarchs own the Republicans which is why the deck is stacked against the common man.

[robin-hood-for-freedom]

I agree. Get rid of the income tax

[yetanotherdayofdrudgery]

They pay nothing until they sell because that money doesn't really exist until they sell. Their stock could just as easily become worthless the next day.

And the stock market is far from being only billionaires. That's Grandma's pension right there. "Unrealized gains" taxes would destroy every retirement savings plan in the country.

[cluelesbo]

Honestly? I bet a decent number of people supporting taxation of unrealized gains would be totally in favor of robbing Grandma's retirement. Grandma is probably a capitalist pig, right? Why else would she have a 401K?

The left talk big game about billionaires, but if you look at their actual policy (and when they're feeling more honest, their rhetoric) you can tell their REAL targets are the middle class and small business owners. And they've been pretty damn successful, honestly. The middle class ain't what it used to be in the West, and it's by design.

[the-davest-of-uncles]

OP, how much of other people's money is your fair share, and why?

[evil-fact-checker]

Fact check

The meme:

"Billionaires borrow against their stock and live tax-free."

Mostly true, but incomplete.

Very wealthy people can borrow against appreciated stock instead of selling it. That lets them access cash without triggering capital gains tax. Interest rates are often low because the loans are secured by highly valuable assets. If they hold the stock until death, their heirs may receive a "step-up in basis" under current U.S. tax law, reducing or eliminating capital gains tax on appreciation during the decedent's lifetime. This strategy—often summarized as "buy, borrow, die"—is well documented.

However, saying they "pay nothing" overstates it. They may still pay:

income tax on salary or bonuses,

taxes on dividends,

property taxes,

sales taxes,

estate tax in some cases,

interest on the loans.

The criticism is that much of their wealth appreciation can escape income taxation for decades or, in some cases, permanently.

"Unrealized gains taxes would destroy every retirement savings plan."

Mostly false.

The proposals that have received the most attention in the U.S. (such as those floated by the Biden administration and Senator Ron Wyden) were aimed at ultra-wealthy individuals, generally those with wealth exceeding roughly $100 million or annual incomes above very high thresholds—not ordinary 401(k)s or pension funds.

Grandma's retirement account has never been the target of those proposals.

One can oppose taxing unrealized gains on economic grounds without pretending Congress was proposing annual taxes on everyone's retirement account.

"The left's REAL target is the middle class."

That's an assertion, not a fact.

Many progressive tax proposals explicitly exempt middle-income households while increasing taxes on high earners or large fortunes. Whether those policies have indirect effects on the middle class is a legitimate debate, but it's not accurate to say their stated target is the middle class.

The key point is that the commenter claims the left is targeting the middle class, when the historical record shows that many Republican tax and labor policies have disproportionately benefited high-income households while contributing to rising inequality.

The middle class didn't hollow itself out. Since the 1980s, productivity kept rising while median wages largely stagnated, union membership collapsed, corporate profits and executive compensation soared, and tax policy repeatedly shifted in favor of high-income households and capital gains. The biggest tax cuts of the last 40 years overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. Pretending progressives are the ones who've been waging a decades-long war on the middle class requires ignoring who actually wrote most of those policies.

[magapatriot64]

CK 🇺🇸

[evil-fact-checker]

[mega2wheellife]

[unindoctrinated125]

Have you ever met anyone more cocksure of his position than a Demonrat?

It doesn't seem to matter to them that their position today is different than it was yesterday, because today the television has assured them that their current position is correct and that it hasn't changed.

[evil-fact-checker]

Mr 'Unindoctrinated' is absolutely convinced the 2020 election was stolen...

"The television changes their minds every day."

Meanwhile: "I've believed the exact same claim since 2020, regardless of what the courts, audits, recounts, or evidence showed."

That's not skepticism. That's certainty insulated from falsification.

The deeper irony is that Robert Greene's observation is essentially about epistemic humility—the ability to recognize that you might be wrong. The comment immediately demonstrates the opposite: complete confidence that everyone who disagrees is a "Demonrat" manipulated by television, while never entertaining the possibility that their own information ecosystem could be mistaken. That's a textbook example of the asymmetry Greene is describing.

...

[shituationist]

Debord, Society of the Spectacle:

The neopeasantry produced by the increasing bureaucratization of the modern state differs from the old peasantry in that its apathy must now be historically manufactured and maintained; natural ignorance has been replaced by the organized spectacle of falsifications. The “new cities” inhabited by this technological pseudo-peasantry are a glaring expression of the repression of historical time on which they have been built. Their motto could be: “Nothing will ever happen here, and nothing ever has.”

[evil-fact-checker]

This is one of Debord's most striking passages because it updates Marx's idea of the peasantry for advanced capitalism.

Let's unpack it.

"The neopeasantry produced by the increasing bureaucratization of the modern state..."

Debord isn't talking about farmers.

He's talking about modern people who, despite living in technologically advanced societies, have become politically passive and historically disconnected—like peasants under feudalism.

The "neo-peasant" isn't economically a peasant but occupies a similar social role: managed rather than participating in history.

"...differs from the old peasantry in that its apathy must now be historically manufactured and maintained..."

Traditional peasants often lacked education, mobility, literacy, and political power.

Their ignorance was largely a product of circumstance.

Modern citizens, however, have access to immense amounts of information.

So if they're passive, Debord argues, that passivity has to be actively produced.

Hence:

mass media

advertising

bureaucracy

consumerism

entertainment

public relations

The spectacle keeps people occupied rather than engaged.

"Natural ignorance has been replaced by the organized spectacle of falsifications."

This is classic Debord.

He's not saying everyone is literally lied to all the time.

Rather, reality becomes mediated through representations.

Politics becomes television.

War becomes imagery.

Consumption becomes identity.

Social life becomes appearances.

People experience reality primarily through images, narratives, and media rather than direct participation.

"The 'new cities' inhabited by this technological pseudo-peasantry..."

Think postwar suburbs.

Housing estates.

Office parks.

Commuter towns.

Places designed around efficiency rather than civic life.

Debord and the Situationists were deeply critical of postwar urban planning because they believed it fragmented genuine social interaction.

"...are a glaring expression of the repression of historical time..."

This is one of his recurring ideas.

History means change.

Conflict.

Revolution.

Memory.

Political struggle.

The spectacle freezes time.

Every day becomes interchangeable.

Work.

Shopping.

Netflix.

Sleep.

Repeat.

Nothing genuinely historical seems to happen.

"Nothing will ever happen here, and nothing ever has."

This is almost poetic.

He's describing places where history feels absent.

No public square.

No political life.

No culture emerging organically.

Just endless repetition.

Many people have remarked that this line feels eerily applicable to modern suburbs, business parks, airports, shopping centers, and even parts of the internet.

Was he right?

Debord was undoubtedly exaggerating for effect, but many of his observations have aged remarkably well.

Today we have:

algorithmically curated attention,

endless entertainment,

social media replacing public life,

politics increasingly performed as spectacle,

consumer identities substituting for civic identities,

and suburban landscapes that can feel interchangeable across continents.

Whether one accepts his Marxist framework or not, his diagnosis of modern media culture has influenced thinkers across the political spectrum.

A contemporary reading

If Debord were writing today, he might replace:

"organized spectacle of falsifications"

with:

algorithmically personalized feeds.

Instead of a passive television audience, he'd probably point to people whose attention is continuously optimized by recommendation systems, where engagement is prioritized over truth and daily life is increasingly experienced through screens.

The core idea remains the same: the spectacle doesn't merely distract people—it shapes how they perceive reality, history, and even themselves.