You certainly can legislate freedoms. The biggest news of last year was enabling legislating away access to abortion in many states for example.
Internet freedom is harder to legislate, but with enough backing you can legislate things in a way to make it difficult for the common person to access certain websites, which is certainly impactful.
It hasn't happened yet but there is nothing to say it wouldn't happen with enough time and backing of certain politicians.
While I'm not saying most people by far aren't doing it to save money, I have bought switch games and then emulated them just to try the graphics at 4k 60fps that isn't possible on the console.
That's the part I'm sad about - that we won't get emulated games that look and feel better due to faster hardware in the future. Money isn't an issue for me.
"Kate Judson is a lawyer who often deals with crimes that did not occur. As the executive director of the Wisconsin-based Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences (CIFS), her job is to examine ostensible scientific evidence to see whether it backs up prosecutors' claims.
"Some people who died were classified as victims of homicide when they were really the victim of illness, or accident, or suicide, or medical error—that kind of thing," says Judson. "We had a case of a family that lost their child. The caregiver was accused of attacking her. It was later discovered, based on new medical evidence, that the child had been really ill with a disease she was probably born with."
Evidence can't bring a child back, obviously. But it can get an innocent person out of jail. And it can give a grieving family some peace of mind. To learn that your child "was held and comforted in their last moments, instead of attacked," says Judson, "would be important to know."
When the center was founded four years ago, Judson left her job as a public defender to become its first employee. Now a staff of four works to keep bad science out of the courtroom. "
To be fair, it's a definite truth that shows get more chance of funding based on what is popular and how it fits into that perceived potential popularity.
So TBBT is a part of the overall zeitgeist, an example of a show of its type that was very successful.
You bet if a sci-fi show was number 1, than other sci-fi shows would be being made and better funded.
Uk is going through a comedy golden age last decades. I attribute it to bbc doing an excellent job giving chances to younger comedians on gameshows like mock the week, qi, 9 out of 10 cats, im sorry i havent a clue etc... as well as the prominence of edinburgh fringe
I think this sort of talent development really is just about giving chances to new folks, its the risk averse large networks only re-hiring the same older folks that stifles an artistic sector, be it movies, shows, music, games, comedy etc
I don't see anything on Netflix that is trying to compete with TBBT, which is a CBS show firmly targeted at Middle America.
If anything, Netflix comedies are the opposite of TBBT, there's no audience laughter, it's all single-camera like Arrested Development, The Office and other 2000s-era neo-sitcoms.
Doping is probably still common, but the more endurance or speed based the more drugs help.
Soccer values attributes drugs exaggerate - but it has a skill component that is more important vs cycling. Soccer also has breaks and substitutes and ways to slow the game down to close the gap.
I'm not ignorant to the tactics and technique required in cycling, but its a smaller part of the sport vs tactics and skill in football.
So it's not as important to dope. But yes, still happens.
As I understand it, the main benefit of PEDs is improved recovery times. Regardless of the extent to which it affects the first race / game / training session, it permits your body to get back to peak condition more rapidly. The incremental gains from spending more time in the optimal performance window quickly compound.
There is a huge universe of PEDs, legal and otherwise. Some improve recovery times. Some accelerate muscle growth. Some, like EPO, directly boost aerobic capacity.
PEDs aren't just for endurance. Prescription painkillers, stimulants and corticosteroids are easy to get prescriptions for or even TUEs. The typical player in the NHL gets tested 2-3 times a year, and almost never in the off season. Some sports barely test more than once a year. In cycling it's closer to once a month for an average rider but it can get a lot higher if you're successful as most orgs will test their top 3 after every stage or race.
No, the cardio/fitness aspect of soccer absolutely cannot be overlooked, especially at the top levels where players are at the margin and need that edge, and where the amount of competition and pay and global attention is two orders of magnitude higher than cycling. And you got shit like EPO which basically erases recovery time, but you'll never catch unless you test daily.
I don't really see why it would be surprising. He is an influential figure that is greatly impacting tech, culture and politics.
For better or worse is up to the individual opinion, but its not really weird to have a strong view on a polarising figure, especially one with the influence of musk.
I never though so either, but then I worked at a place that had a stale product, product teams powerless and developers rejecting most features/writing random code all the time.
It took me a month to realise that the staff developers very much revelled in and protected their bad code and bizarre domain choices.
It was so far gone that there was no way to get rid of them and the product was just slowly dying and burning the remaining cash.
Then the mergers happened and they all got let go, only retaining the name for brand power and the entire stack was quietly moved over to another similar product which was rebranded.
Separately, there were absolutely very large consultancies that had a programming style/rules based on making their implementations difficult to read/modify, needing to call their COE back in to fix their code or add features - with it being very hard to modify. Talking entire codebase structured with ridiculous levels of abstraction and annoying code style. Bad integrations requiring their tooling to work and make sense of etc.
They target traditional orgs where the management just wants to get a project through and then bleed them over years.
>It took me a month to realize that the staff developers very much reveled in and protected their bad code and bizarre domain choices.
I think personality can account for this without any reference to incentives, which come in to explain how this personality problem can be so common among successful engineers.
I think the analogy would be that Jesus really was magic, but Judas was blind to it and living in a material state of mind where taking the 30 pieces of silver made more sense than continuing to follow some weirdo. If Judas was a true believer he would have realized that the wine and hookers he could buy with that would be less than useless compared to what he would get in heaven.
My reading of it is that Judas was a "true believer" in the sense that he came to doubt that Jesus was actually the Messiah, because so much of what Jesus did contradicted the popular ideal of what the Messiah represented. From Judas' point of view he was sending a heretic and cult leader to their justly deserved end.
But the whole narrative was written after the fact to justify Christian claims of being the legitimate heirs to God's covenant and condemn the Jews as a people for "betraying Jesus" so expecting any degree of nuance beyond "Satan made him do it because Jews are greedy" is likely expecting too much.
This doesn’t explain him becoming overcome with guilt, returning the money, and hanging himself after the fact.
And the entire message of the New Testament is to offer the Jews salvation and explain how their old ways were wrong. The New Testament explicitly condemns absolutely nobody, instead offers salvation to absolutely everybody, which the only condition being that they ask for it. This is in stark contrast to the old testament, in which only the Jews would be saved and all else are condemned.
Not to mention the New Testament explicitly states there is no Jew or Gentile in the body of Christ. The distinction is entirely abolished. And Jesus calls Judas a friend, and says he could avoid this all if he wanted to but he must do it to fulfill the scriptures.
All in all it seems like you are reaching for a reason to say the New Testament is anti-Jew, when it is truly not against anyone (except perhaps those unwilling to love God and their neighbor).
This isn't something I made up, nor is it even controversial[0]. Antisemitism was a common cultural and political element of the early Church and its establishment of self-identity as separate from Judaism, and the belief (sometimes codified into Church doctrine) that the Jews were cursed by God for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, and the villification of Judas as the symbol of that curse is almost as old as the Church itself[1].
Certainly you will be able to find people saying anything if you look. But you can't present a wiki page where some guy "asserted" something was true and use that to justify your claim that it "isn't even controversial".
People will use anything to find a reason to dislike other people. You can be a part of perpetuating those malcontentments, or you can look at the entire rest of the New Testament which at every turn denounces condemnation and emphasizes love above all else.
If what Solzhenitsyn said about the line between good and evil is true, then it’s fully plausible that Judas could be a true believer but still betray Jesus. Same with Peter’s denial.
>Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing.
Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , like you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts that the person was a God and at the same time this Gods would want me to believe based only on that old,censored book that contradicts itself with reality and morality 100 times. I would have censored this story too if I was there.
> you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts
The COVID years have inoculated me against that line of thinking (pun intended). If people would deny that the bodies piling up in hospitals are conclusive evidence of something more than "just a flu" then I can totally imagine an individual seeing a miracle and arguing "dunno, maybe he was just a little dead". And I've definitely seen people take money to argue in favor of policies they know to be false, harmful, or both.
I'm also atheist, but I don't have a problem with the Judas story. Firstly, I don't think that the miracles happened as depicted, so a real-life Judas may have thought "I bet he switched the wine and water flasks" or "I know there's just submerged rocks under that water".
Alternatively, if he truly believed in Jesus as a god, then he might think "how could they kill a god?" and would want the silver as he'd expect it to be funny when the Romans couldn't kill him.
It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.
I can imagine Judas hearing someone recounting a miracle and he'd be shaking his head and thinking "I was there, that's not what happened at all".
> It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.
I don't think that does justice to the historical weight of the New Testament accounts. We have multiple eye witness accounts of the events surrounding Jesus' life, recorded within a few decades of the events themselves and emerging from an oral tradition that placed a premium on verifiable accuracy. The early Church writings we have (for example Eusebius) make it clear how concerned the first Christians were to ensure the historical reliability of their teaching, and how strongly they opposed the spreading of stories that were of doubtful veracity. In fact, the New Testament itself repeatedly tells its original readers to verify its accounts by asking other eye witnesses (e.g. Luke 1, 1 Corinthians 15).
Of course He did, it's recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels the He exorcised demons quite frequently, and He even empowered others to exorcise demons. Indeed people exorcise demons in His name to this day. Just because the gospel of John doesn't mention Him exorcising demons doesn't mean there's any sort of discrepancy - he simply didn't feel a need to include it because he was more focused on the nature of Jesus than His specific actions.
As far as I am aware there are no contradictions on the Bible. People often point to the sorts of cases claiming a contradiction, when really it is two authors describing different aspects of a thing that are all simultaneously true.
More apropos would be the accounting of Judas's death: Matthew describes him as hanging himself, whereas Acts says he burst open in a field. However this isn't a contradiction either: it may simply be the case that he hung himself in a field, then over time grew bloated and burst open.
My point is that out of all the inconsistencies and bizarreness of various bits of the bible, I find the Judas story itself to be plausible and I don't have a problem with it. I don't think the miracles happened as described and most likely have mundane explanations for them (c.f. magic tricks where many audience members can believe in disappearing elephants), but it's likely that Jesus did exist as there's good evidence that he existed as a historical figure (e.g. evidence of his brother's grave).
I think that was the point of the person you're replying to. Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.
I have heard a story that Judas didn't actually betray Jesus willingly. It had to happen this way and Judas just played his role. Makes the story more tragic and less black and white.
> Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.
The assumption here is that people will unconditionally believe and follow a person who performs miracles. But human beliefs and actions are more complex than that. People regularly refuse the evidence of their own senses, or that of knowledgeable authorities, if it contradicts their prior world view. They also regularly act contrary to better knowledge if they think it's in their interest.
So I think it's perfectly plausible that Judas experienced all of Jesus' miracles, but out of a mix of personal disappointment (Jesus not living up to Judas' expectations) and greed decided to betray him nevertheless.
If the Jesus miracles happened as described, then it's possible that Judas may have considered Jesus to be unkillable (who can kill a god?) and thus would accept the silver as he could then laugh at the romans' attempts to kill the unkillable - that would certainly explain his regret when Jesus does die for a while. Alternatively, maybe Judas was told to play along with his betrayer role by Jesus as it was part of the divine plan.
There's too many alternative explanations to say that either the miracles were false xor the Judas story was false - I don't see that they're necessarily connected.
> I mean miracles like reviving a person that was dead for days, curing blind people, extremely ill people
I would consider those miracles to have the most plausible explanations. There's any number of medical conditions that can make a person appear to be dead for days and that's the reason that coffins were sometimes fitted with a bell that could be operated by the "dead body" in case they'd been buried alive after being mistaken for dead.
Blindness can be caused by neurological conditions and presumably be cured by a person encountering someone that they believe to be a representation of their god. The problem is that medical knowledge at that time was limited to say the least, so even assuming that the reports are 100% accurate, there's still a lot of uncertainty as to the conditions that were cured and indeed if they were permanent cures.
Personally, I don't think it likely that we have accurate representations of the miracles described in the bible, so it's somewhat meaningless to dissect the stories that were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down (biblical scholars may be able to show that modern bible descriptions have been changed from the original source documents during translation etc. as well).
Have you read the Bible? The walk on water is explicitly described as being very far from the shore on a lake they were all very familiar with, and further it is written that Peter walked on water as well when he had faith, but when his faith faltered he began to sink. That is not how rocks work.
I'm sure I read a theory somewhere that Judas was actually the true savior. We are told Jesus suffered for our sins, but his suffering was momentary, whereas Judas's suffering in hell is infinite, without being compensated by any posthumous veneration (quite the opposite - eternal vilification). Jesus's execution was just a sideshow by comparison - a distraction from the true sacrifice.
One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
After all we have doubters and people who betray for money today in all walks of life.
What's even more noteworthy about miracles is the report that some of those who had the miracle applied to, who were healed even some of them didn't believe or even say thanks! The point of the miracle maybe was not really to make people believe... it's a mystery to me.
>> Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism ,
> One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
The story? Certainly!
Evidence of that specific god? Not at all (it's actually the opposite).
Let me put it this way:
You get told a story about how someone, $LEADER, had millions of people following his proposal to get rich, hanging on his every word, believing his every utterance, because he claimed to have the people's interest at heart.
Believable? Maybe.
Then you get told that one guy from $LEADER's inner circle, who saw every thing that $LEADER did, and heard everything that $LEADER said, stopped believing that $LEADER was, in actual fact, capable of doing what he said he could do.
Believable? Sure, much more than before.
But .. that still doesn't provide any evidence that $LEADER was, in fact, who he claimed to be, nor that what he claimed was true, nor that he believed what he claimed to be true.
In fact, it's just the opposite - we now have more reason to believe the story, but disbelieve the claims of $LEADER.
Replace $LEADER with SBF and the context with cryptocurrencies.
>One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
Not for me, if someone that was in the inner circle and witness so much did not believe then expecting me to believe this stories is too much. Anyway other issue I have are the contradictions with the reality and that the God morality is incompatible with my morality so even if he existed 100% I would not worship him.
>In his imaginary conversation with God, Fry says he would tell him: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right.
>“It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
>Pressed by Byrne over how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, Fry says: “I would say: ‘bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’
>“Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?! What kind of god would do that?”
If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
> The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
Isn't one of the main points in Christianity that people have free will and so Satan wouldn't be entering and controlling Judas, but would more likely be telling him falsehoods and persuading him to sell Jesus out? i.e. a normal man can always overcome Satan by choosing God, even if it's just right at the end of their life.
You're supposed to have free will, but nobody is immune to the temptations of sin and at some point even the holiest men fail. Jesus forgives all if you ask.
The abolition of slavery was almost entirely a Christian effort. So yes civilization my right be "more advanced" without Christianity, but it wouldn't be a civilization I'd want to be in.
>If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?
I also hate the story where God allows Satan to kill some extremly good person children to test him and later to reward him the "good" God gives the man other children( f that God, he kills your children, you pass the test and he is so heartless or impotent to restore your children - an average human would not be such cruel)
It's almost as if the whole thing is just stories based on the knowledge and values of the vocal population at the time - women and children being property, mixing crops or fabric being an offense, pigs being off-limits because the parasites killed (depending on your local variation of abrahamism), etc.
My "favorite" part of this is the section of the Old Testament/Torah about "sexual immorality" - if a man violates an unbetrothed woman, the punishment is a fee to the father and marriage to the poor girl. If betrothed, both man and woman is stoned to death (unless it was outside the city), as the woman being guilty for not screaming loud enough to get others to stop the act. Oh, and the reason you shouldn't take your fathers wife is to not "uncover your fathers nakedness" - nothing to do with the woman itself. (Deutoronomy)
The Judas story marks the biblical transition from the Bad Drunk god that was violent, arbitrary, and demanding of human sacrifice (eg. Isaac, Jesus) into the Feudal Manor Lord god that bestowed the divine right of kings. Many a Roman empoeror or medieval European king gained a throne through the betrayal and sacrifice of others following that model and it was justifiable because it had divine precedent.
>So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?
Yes. My theology is rusty, but that is supposed to be what sin is. Nobody is free from it, everybody is tempted and fails.
Judas' great crime wasn't selling Jesus for forty silver, Peter is supposed to have committed the same crime by thrice denying Jesus (that never made sense to me, but it's what I was told). Peter realized what he had done, repented, and returned to Jesus while Judas realized what he had done and let his guilt drive him to suicide. He "betrayed" Jesus' forgiveness.
Like many distinctive parts of the Gospels, the Judas betrayal is included in the story because it lends credence to the idea that Jesus is fulfilling the Hebrew Messianic prophecies from David et al.
The New Testament is pretty open about the fact that what Jesus claimed can be pretty hard to believe. The other disciples doubted Jesus too for a very long time. Yet eventually, what they heard and experienced convinced them enough that they preferred to be put to death rather than deny its truth. What makes you think Judas is more trustworthy than them?
(In fact, the Bible's willingness to talk about the weaknesses of its protagonists makes it all the more believable to me. If the early church leaders had "censored" the story to fit their own interests, why did they leave in all that embarrassing stuff about themselves?)
