Demorat Omar comments on US war criminals

[ex-khobar Andy]

A joke which is based on a false (or unfounded) belief isn't funny.

Now that's funny!

[Lord Jim]

A joke which is based on a false (or unfounded) belief isn't funny.

So using that criteria, a joke involving talking animals, or mythical creatures, or group stereotypes could never be funny...

On the other hand, a joke about rubato being denser than a teaspoonful of neutron star material would be absolutely hilarious...

[Crackpot]

No that’s just sad.

[ex-khobar Andy]

A horse walks into a bar in Santa Cruz. He says to the bartender "Give me a couple of beers, please."

The bartender says "One at a time, Bud."

The horse says "I'm meeting up with some friends, they'll share."

The barman says, as he pours the beers "How many friends are coming? You've only bought two beers!"

"Seven" says the horse.

"Seven friends?? How are you going to share two beers?"

"It's OK. We're quarter horses."

The barman is speechless. The horse turns to the bar interior and notices an old man, huddled in the corner over a glass, looking morose and angry and clearly at odds with the world. Being a friendly horse he goes over to the old man, thinking to cheer him up.

"Why the long face?" he enquires.

Rubato (for it is he) roars back: "That's not funny!"

[rubato]

Whimsical distortions of reality are different from repeating a common but unfounded belief. And while Neanderthal are no longer here it is a distortion which is racist in form. People assume without any knowledge that neanderthal is bad or primitive and hence neanderthal genes are harmful or indicative of weakness. If that belief were true then Africans, who have little or no Neanderthal DNA, would be inherently genetically superior to Europeans as would Amerindians who afaik have none at all.

LJ tried to make a not very good joke and missed the mark. Then he got all pissy when a weak attempt at humor was not universally appreciated.

ex-khobar Andy :

I'm surprised at you. I had thought you more resistant to the groupthink (hate rubato) meme. I had thought you more perceptive and thoughtful than that. I was wrong.

Most of the others illustrate clearly the truth of this statement:

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Bertrand Russell

The future can always be different from the past so I will maintain hope that this was a cognitive lapse. You were tired perhaps, or drunk.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Rube, it's so easy to understand that you're full of shit that even a caveman can do it...

[ex-khobar Andy]

ex-khobar Andy :

I'm surprised at you. I had thought you more resistant to the groupthink (hate rubato) meme. I had thought you more perceptive and thoughtful than that. I was wrong.

Most of the others illustrate clearly the truth of this statement:

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Bertrand Russell

The future can always be different from the past so I will maintain hope that this was a cognitive lapse. You were tired perhaps, or drunk.


yrs,
rubato

Rube - I made you the butt of a little joke worth maybe a moment's giggle. Please don't interpret that into my hating you because I don't. And I was neither tired nor drunk when I posted it.

I've read a bit of Bertrand Russell (my wife is a philosophy major and I'm a scientist, so I suppose it's natural) but I wasn't familiar with that quote. It really doesn't sound like Russell to me and of course I don't believe it's true. I never met Russell but I was present at a meeting of around 300 scientists in London in 1969 which he also attended. He didn't speak. I know quite a few people I consider happy: and usually it's the unhappy ones who are filled with hate for others. I see that Wikiquote labels it as disputed. (See extract below.) Of course just because I haven't read that quote (or more precisely I don't recall it) doesn't mean that he didn't say it; but if Prochnow attributed it to him and quoted a source, someone would have cited that source by now and removed it from the 'Disputed' section..

Disputed

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Attributed to Russell in Prochnow's Speakers Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms (1955), p. 132

[rubato]

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/86223- ... some-other

This gives a source but I am unfamiliar with Des McHale or that book:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk ... ssell.html
Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation or creed.
Quoted in Des MacHale, Wisdom (London, 2002).

There are a lot of references to it online but that is not definite. But as one who has read many of his books and biographies by and about him I would say it is authentic. And dead on accurate. It is the way demagogues of the left and right both most effectively recruit. And look at how popular vengeance-based justice is when more compassionate systems have been proven more effective at reducing crime.

yrs,
rubato

[ex-khobar Andy]

And dead on accurate.

No it's not. Russell was a logician, among other things. If he had said that some people cannot be happy unless they hate someone - I wouldn't disagree. I doubt that he would have said 'few people' without some sort of evidence for the assertion. But I could be wrong.

[liberty]

Rub is right we have no reason to believe that the Neanderthals were any more brutish than any other people of the time. This notion was based solely on the appearance of Neanderthal skeletons. Wouldn’t that be racist?

[Scooter]

[MajGenl.Meade]

Rub is right we have no reason to believe that the Neanderthals were any more brutish than any other people of the time. This notion was based solely on the appearance of Neanderthal skeletons. Wouldn’t that be racist?

Only a long-distance one. For others, it would be speciesism.

Raichlen then turned to Neanderthal skeletons, and found that our distant cousins’ heel bones were consistently longer than ours. Neanderthals, he concludes, would have lost a race against Homo sapiens (Journal of Human Evolution, DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.11.002).

As indeed they did.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... in-a-race/