https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new-details-emerge-about-coronavirus-research-at-chinese-lab/

American bureaucrats sure do look foolish when they send money over to China and pretend to be shocked that a virus could have potentially escaped from a laboratory of poor hygienic practices, controlled by a communist government. I am more inclined to believe that the virus originated from the lab, because that is the most plausible explanation. Although, the US also has to explain what their goal was here issuing funds for viral research, the same viral research that might have given the world SARS-COV-2.

That's not true, a sperm or egg cell can't on it's own differentiate into an entire human, only a zygote can do that. And so human life begins at conception, so there isn't any arbitrary cut off. That is what the science says - human life begins when a sperm cell attaches to an egg. This isn't about data, the biology is clear on when human life begins.

If you don't think abortion is okay at 8.5 months, then viability is arbitrary too because consciousness is fairly subjective. The brain at viability in the womb is no where near advance enough to experience any level of lucidity or awareness.


I didn't say you were arguing this - only pointing out that human life does not magically become something else only because the brain isn't fully developed yet. Consciousness isn't what defines a human.


And again, viability isn't anything objective, because you cannot define human consciousness at any specific point during development to any degree of accuracy. Even post birth, the brain is so under developed that "consciousness" is hardly achieved, if achieved at all. Science isn't even sure how consciousness works, so to pinpoint it through development in the womb is just pseudo science.

Can a sperm or egg differentiate into a human being? No. A zygote is the only thing that can differentiate into a human being. And if you are pro-abortion, again, that means there is no difference between a zygote, embryo, and fetus.

Let's make it simple - is a fetus human life? What separates a fetus at 8.5 months of a development and a baby that is post birth by 1 day? What makes it okay to end the life at 8.5 months, but not post birth by 1 day.

Being born is not the difference, the life inside the womb and outside the womb is the same. At 8.5 months, almost all development has been completed. So it would be the pro-abortionists with arbitrary limits as to what they constitute as human life.

Abortion becomes more unethical as the baby is further developed in the womb. I don't care if a zygote is aborted. It just becomes more cruel as you go on.


So your limit for abortion would be the ability to respond to stimuli, then?

A plant can respond to stimuli, so can insects. That does not mean they are "conscious". Babies are not aware of what's going going on, they are essentially floating balls of cells merely existing. I consider consciousness to be a condition at which you are aware of what is going on, and surely babies that are 1 or 2 days do not possess any ability to recognize or understand their environment at any deep level. By baby, I mean one that is under 1 week old. When you are an infant, your brain develops rapidly.


Exactly, this is my point, similarly, a zygote, embryo, and fetus have the capability for consciousness, which is why it is a tragedy to abort them.

4th shot, what happened to the 3rd? Israel's sanctimonious display of vaccine supremacy is great - 4 shots, while some countries have none.

The evidence of waning immunity is so little that even the most rabid pro-vaxxers are not suggesting that you need boosters, let alone 4 shots. You could've even gotten by on 1 if the resources were scarce.

I'm thinking another 6 months and the conversation of boosters will have propelled, but most people will have had enough by that point and politely decline. Israel's ahead of schedule.

Because it goes in circles and was already refuted in my earlier comment.

A fetus does not have a 0 percent chance of survival, inaccurate. A fetus will survive as it continues development in the womb and then post birth.

A skin cell does not differentiae into a full human being, a zygote does. And as I've mentioned, it is less cruel to abort a zygote than it is a 9 month old fetus in the womb.

Consciousness doesn't even exist for babies post birth. No one remembers being a one month old. No one remembers any feelings or emotions as one month old. The brain is so under developed, with so little neurons, there is no complex thoughts. A baby at one month old could die without knowing it, or being aware of it. Do you begin abortions post birth because the baby is so young and would not remember or even comprehend being killed? Consciousness isn't any good metric to determine when human life becomes valuable. Human life is human life with or without consciousness.

If it were, why would it be a tragedy if someone passed away in their sleep? Why would it be a tragedy if everyone in this world passed away in their sleep tonight? No pain, you won't be aware of it, and you were consciousness for it either. For the same reason why abortion is unethical. You deprive someone the privilege and experience of human life.

Generally, yes. Although, there are videos circulating around with the Taliban with stacks of USD filling up entire rooms because the military left it all behind. Think the Taliban is going to be using that instead of Bitcoin. So fiat currencies and traditional banking institutions can help terrorist networks too, but there is never really too much talk about that. Bad actors will and can take advantage of decentralization, that doesn't negative crypto because it literally applies to any fiat based currency.

Nope, it can't. That region of the world has always been primitive with technology, so there won't be any sort of mass adoption. With China announcing partnership with the Taliban, Afghan currency will still survive for local Afghans to use, of course it's not a currency that would be recognized as valuable on the global stage. Afghanistan's economy is going to be propped up by China's intervention.

I think the potential would be great, surely people in a destabilized environment would be better off using Bitcoin, but again, it won't replace the currency.

I just gave you the logic. I don't want abortion outlawed, so it's myself that doesn't care, along with plenty others. Celebrating abortion becomes the slippery slope, it didn't used be like that, but radical activists have a profound ability of taking moderate concepts and shifting them into radical philosophy. And who says it's a "human right," exactly? Who says it's nonviable? A fetus is viable, it (he/she?) will eventually turn into a born human being that functions. You still have your abortions, nothing stopping anyone.

Perhaps, but Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism have also experienced modernization, and most major societies that practice these religions have experienced secularization already. That does not apply to Islamic theocracies, and that especially does not apply to the Taliban. So, you can expect the most egregious and reprehensible practices to still originate from heavy Islamic regions. The moderate muslims do not live in Afghanistan, they already live in westernized societies.

https://twitter.com/CortesSteve/status/1433871654455816192

This is why nobody wants to take in Afghan refuges. Different value systems, no screening mechanisms involved, and the antithesis of westernized law.

According to the Quran, children marrying older man is not forbidden, and the Taliban's interpretation of the Quran is extreme and literal, meaning you can expect women to have their rights erased completely, LGBT members to be stoned to death, and small children being married off or sex trafficked.

Again, viability does not define human life. Viability refers to chance of survival.

The start of human life begins at the formation of a zygote.

What you might define as "living" begins a philosophical discussion, not a scientific one, so there are reasonable disagreements and subjective interpretation.

Do we consider living to be sentient or conscious? If that were the case, that means we are are no longer alive while sleeping?

A human life is still human life even if it is not sustainable without the mother's womb. Abortion is ending human life.

Well if Google says so, it must be true! You have holes in your logic - viability does not define a human, that's the point.

Is someone on a ventilator not human because they are not viable with advanced medical equipment? Why bother saving anyone's life in the hospital if their life is dependent on medical equipment to bring them back to viability? Why would it be a tragedy if someone were to die in their sleep, not knowing they would have ever lived. It's because they would have missed out on the experiences of life.

Life starts at conception, not at viability. Abortion after the fetus is developed is cruel. I am not against outlawing abortion, it's celebration in modern times though is disgusting.

So you should kill unborn children for the environment, then? Surely there is a better way than murdering the human population in order to be more greener.

And define "viability". At what exact point does a fetus become viable? The line is blurry. And why viability? What about when the fetus can detect pain, or has a heart beat?

Say the pro-abortion crowd defines an unborn child as just a clump of cells (they do, but for the sake of argument, suppose). At 9 months post conception, the moment before birth where abortion is apparently okay, what exactly is that "thing" that originates from the uterus? Is it still just a clump of cells? If it is considering a human being, then why should other human beings (aka men) not have a say in the matter?

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/coronavirus/covid-19-new-mu-variant-from-colombia-could-be-vaccine-resistant-who-678428

Mu variant has numerous key mutations that might cause it to be vaccine resistant. Began propagating in the SA region, no evidence as of now of higher transmissibility, and it only makes up 0.1 percent of world wide cases, for now. Death rate obviously has not been calculated, but if it turns out it is vaccine resistant, it will end up killing more people than the delta variant granted it spreads to enough people.

Friendly reminder that Coronavirus will be with us for the rest of humanity. Fine folks will beat the drum for lockdowns, masking, vaccine mandates but this will never go away, there will be seasonal spikes, don't let the lockdown nut cases that don't leave their doors without quadrable masking dictating public policy over seasonal spikes.

Man has heart attack during arrest for refusal to mask outside - https://nypost.com/2021/08/04/man-has-heart-attack-while-cuffed-for-not-wearing-mask-report

The chance of catching coronavirus through outdoor transmission is virtually nonexistant. Is outdoor masking rooted in science? No, but they'll throw you in jail anyways.

And how many times have we heard this excuse before? Surely government are incapable of imposing unnecessary regulatory burden on consumers to support their own ventures? As I have long said - the only way for government to truly "ban" Bitcoin is to tamp down on its usage through regulation, which will also promote usage of its own fiat currency. Japan's economy isn't large enough for this to have too large of an effect but the incremental regulations aren't something that's going to stop.

Donald Trump will not be the 2024 candidate nor will he be President.

And yeah, you're right, Republicans are not pro-Bitcoin.

Most American politicians don't care about Bitcoin because they are in the corporate wallet of the big banking institutions. Keep in mind, their congress just passed an infrastructure bill which included a provision on miners and some intermediaries to fill out tax information with the IRS in an effort to generate more revenue off the crypto markets - safe to say no American politician will ever be pro-Bitcoin. You need that corporate funding somehow, and it isn't going to come being pro-decentralization of the big banks.

Also, USD is quite literally on the verge of collapse depending on how the next few years go with inflation, and it's in the best interest of the American government to prop up USD as long as they can.

Andrew Yang was another candidate for New York mayor, he also supported crypto and was blown out of the water, and that was a democratic candidate with some name recognition. This guy is a republican and has precisely a zero chance of going anywhere. Voters don't understand nor care about crypto, they probably never will. Politics is a game of pandering.

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1433446457491742724

We knew this was coming. China taking every opportunity possible to implant their power in Afghanistan, and that includes partnering with terrorists. Chinese aggression means they'll be taking Taiwan very soon, so any hopes of their own autonomy are thrown out the window. Also means China's economy grows stronger adding another trading partner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/world/eu-covid-vaccinations-70-percent.html

70 percent of adults in EU are vaccinated. Also, the delta variant has mostly already covered ground in Europe.

You can use them as a model for herd immunity. The more insane estimates of herd immunity are at over 90 to 95 percent vaccinated, which seems unrealistic. You cannot inoculate that many people in a short enough time, you'll eventually get someone who isn't vaccinated that ends up spreading a mutated version around, precisely what happened with the delta variant out of India.

But, combine those vaccinated + those with natural immunity from previous infection (with some research to suggest that immunity from previous infection results in a higher antibody serum levels than someone vaccinated), herd immunity is all but there.

You can still be pro-centralization for government and anti-centralization for the economy.

Think of it as laissez faire economics but to an extreme level.

Sure, many Bitcoiners are pro-decentralization, limited to an economic perspective.

While intertwined, there serves some purpose for government centralization. That is, when looking at traditional governments. Cronyism is what you might be referring to.