Trump

[venusian]

Fair comment, but two counterpoints:

- Arguably they only got to the EU parliament in significant numbers because they built up an "ignored-majority" image at home and nobody took those elections seriously anyway. Had it been possible to vote for Farrage&co and see them in a wider context perhaps they wouldn't have done so well at the at the euros. National parties often field MPs without a background in local politics for the same reason.

and

- It's not their presence in the EU political process that precipitated Brexit. That was entirely domestic.

[tufty]

Here's an unusually balanced view of Trump's achievements, to be watched with your local Trump fan. If you don't have one of those, it's worth watching anyway to understand how the other side think.

[SuperMappy]

And it's over Ladies and Gentlemen!

[WiteWulf]

Has he fucked off yet?

About bloody time...

[PFVA]

Nice to see the US going back to normal. I was tired of seing that man throwing fits about everything.

Nice to see too a simple ceremony in times of pandemic with everybody giving the example and wearing masks besides being done outdoors.

[F-ZeroOne]

John Scalzi sums up beautifully:

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/01/20/ ... ented-man/

Wil Wheaton also mentions that it suddenly feels like a tension has been released; I know how he feels.

[gilesgoat]

Despite ANYTHING is better than Trump this Biden .. "gives me a strange feeling" ... "there's something that does not give me trust in that man" .. I suspect he has "a lot" more to see that we haven't seen yet ...

[Harlequin]

Despite ANYTHING is better than Trump this Biden .. "gives me a strange feeling" ... "there's something that does not give me trust in that man" .. I suspect he has "a lot" more to see that we haven't seen yet ...

Just like a standard U.S. President, then.

[Deckard]

Well I’ve learnt something new -

“ QAnon has always been a crystal clear example of Poe’s Law, the adage that any sufficiently extreme position reaches a state where it is indistinguishable from parody without knowledge of the author’s intent. (By this point, some of the derision may have been coming from pro-Q posters who finally realized they’d been duped.) Examples at this point included messages informing federal agents that “EVERY POST I HAVE EVER MADE ON THIS WEBSITE IS SATIRE,””

Never heard of Poe’s Law.

[KlaxonCow]

Never heard of Poe’s Law.

I have, as it very often applies with "Young Earth Creationists" and "Flat Earthers".

(Who are sometimes one and the same thing, as one source for belief in a flat Earth - though not the only reason people believe in it, as you do have the odd irreligious / secular Flat Earther too - is from Biblical literalists, as the Bible is the origin of the "four corners of the world" phrase and there's a bit where the Earth is described as being held up on pillars. Notions which, of course, make no sense for a spherical Earth, as oblate spheroids don't have corners, and the pillars are meant to hold up the Earth from "underneath", so the geometry of the description of the pillars is clearly thinking of a flat thing sitting on supports. So though not all Flat Earthers are religious, a lot of it does have origins in Biblical literalism and an insistence that the world must be flat, because God says so in the Bible and, thus, any evidence to the contrary must be "Satan spreading his ungodly lies" and so forth.)

And you do have Young Earth Creationist / Flat Earther parodies - I mean, with beliefs so bat-shit and desperate to explain away obvious things (e.g. timezones - how do you explain away that you can have a live video call to someone in Australia, where it's night for you, but it's clearly daylight where they are? How does that work on a Flat Earth, eh? Though, don't worry, they do have overly-complicated ways to try and get around that) then the temptation to mock those beliefs is very high - that are, indeed, completely indistinguishable from the real thing.

Like folks showing up on YouTube claiming that dinosaur fossils were put there by Satan to trick us into thinking the Earth is older than 6,000 years old. And, like, it is kind of impossible to tell if that's a genuine "true believer" or someone doing a satirical mockery of such people.

When beliefs get that nuts and totally irrational, how do you tell the difference?

Well, "Poe's Law" - which, by the way, is named after Edgar Allan Poe - suggests that, basically, there is no way to be 100% sure. Maybe every Flat Earther out there is just someone taking the piss and are just trolling. How could you tell?

(Oh, and when someone is just mocking such beliefs for the comedy, they are termed "a Poe".)

I mean, if you think about it, that's kind of how Sasha Baron Cohen is able to do Ali G and Borat and those other characters.

His act is basically being "a Poe" convincingly enough to make the "true believers" show their stripes - as they can't tell he's a comedy character that's actually mocking their beliefs, so they drop their guard, thinking that they're with a fellow racist / homophobe / anti-Semite / et cetera - and we, the viewing audience, know this is just a comedy character (so "dramatic irony" on our part) and can uncomfortably laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Cohen's act is basically "being a Poe" and the comedy comes from the fact that no matter how ridiculous the things his characters say and do, people still believe it's a real person 100% because, yes, some people believe things so absurd that it does become impossible to distinguish the "true believer" from the comedy character mocking it all.

Though, when the audience is in on the joke, it's, of course, perfectly hilarious to watch the reactions:

[Harlequin]

… "Poe's Law" - which, by the way, is named after Edgar Allan Poe …

I thought it was named after Nathan Poe, from his post on christianforums.com in 2005.

[phattslagg]

… "Poe's Law" - which, by the way, is named after Edgar Allan Poe …

I thought it was named after Nathan Poe, from his post on christianforums.com in 2005.

It is. Come on @KlaxonCow - a 5s google search could’ve told you that.

[Rubisco]

Here's an unusually balanced view of Trump's achievements, to be watched with your local Trump fan. If you don't have one of those, it's worth watching anyway to understand how the other side think.

Quoting as fact a list of characteristics constructed by a nobody in 2003 in order to criticise the Bush regime is balanced?

https://medium.com/@danielmalmer/the-lo ... 366412932f

[KlaxonCow]

Come on @KlaxonCow - a 5s google search could’ve told you that.

Indeed. But you don't look up that which you've always thought was right. I heard this somewhere, but it was clearly "fake news".

Apologies for the mistake. I'll take the rebuke, as I should know better.

[merman]

Iran’s media posting a image of Trump playing golf - with the shadow of a plane/drone flying over him.

Hints at what could happen next?

The fact that Joe Biden immediately sat down in the Oval Office and
- rejoined the Paris Agreement* on climate change
- extended the moratorium on evicting renters
- and started work to reunite children separated at the border with their families

Proves how serious and hardworking he is. And when Dr Fauci says, “with the new administration you don’t have to guess, you can say you just don’t know the answer” is important too. Biden will listen to expert advice and act on it.

*Ted Cruz posted on Twitter that “he doesn’t work for the citizens of Paris” - does he really believe that’s why the deal was called that? It’s almost as bad as the right-wingers who confused Biden’s portrait of Cesar Chavez (union leader) with Hugo Chavez...