FaceDeer

Not only do some conspiracy theorists not believe in the Moon, there are so many of them that there’s a variety of these beliefs.

• Lunar Hologram Theory: The most popular term. It suggests the Moon is a projection onto the “firmament” or a cloaking device used by advanced civilizations or governments.
• The Hollow Moon / Spaceship Moon: While these versions allow for a physical object, they argue the Moon is an artificial structure (essentially a giant satellite or base) rather than a natural celestial body.
• Plasma Moon: A subset of the Flat Earth community often argues the Moon is a localized “cold light” or a plasma phenomenon, rather than a solid mass reflecting the Sun.

So yeah. Poe’s Law, there’s nothing so dumb that you won’t find someone actually believing it.

To be fair (basically the only time I’ll say that in reference to Moon landing deniers) there are also retroreflectors like those mounted on some of the unmanned landers and rovers that have been sent to the Moon as well. So this alone isn’t going to “convince” him. It does indicate that the Americans were able to launch something to the Moon and land it at the same time that the Apollo missions were underway, so if you were dealing with a rational person who could be convinced by reason this would still count for something.

Unfortunately, I doubt that’s what’s going on here.

That’s how you guys ended up with a senile pedo after Trump’s first term

You may not believe it, but Trump didn’t actually win the 2020 election.

During the primaries, yes. By all means yes, use the primaries to get as good a set of Democratic candidates as possible.

In the actual ballot box? Hell no. Hold your nose and vote lesser evil. Those are literally your only options at that point. The game theory explaining why this is the case is quite simple, I recommend taking a look a this video. It’s only 6 minutes long and will tell you why there’s a two-party system in the US and why there will always be a two-party system.

If you vote for anything other than Democrat in the actual election then you’re throwing your vote away. Kang and Kodos are unfortunately correct, you have to pick one of those two or you’re throwing your vote away. Wishing it was otherwise is not going to change reality even if you wish really hard. Only changing the US away from a first-past-the-post voting system will do that, and you’re not going to get that done in 8 months.

People will tell you otherwise. Those people are either liars, ignorant, or fools. I wish I could sugar-coat this, but this shit is too important for you guys right now. First put the fire out, then try to deal with the arsonist at large.

You must get the Republicans out of power. Only the Democrats can do that in this upcoming election, as lame and uninspiring an option as that might be.

The only plausible scenario in which he isn’t, IMO, is if his brain has degraded to the point where he’s forgotten about this or has decided it’s “woke” or something equally insane. And that would require his maximize-benefit-to-me-personally center to have lost influence over the rest of his brain so I consider that highly unlikely, that’s going to be the last bit to melt into pudding.

Yes. I addressed that. Fasten it to flat pieces of stiff material, not to the floor. The stiff material keeps it from curling but can be moved.

I addressed that. I’m not proposing fastening it to the floor.

Use carpet tape (double-sided tape that’s meant for sticking rugs to the floor) to fasten stiff squares of material to the undersides of the corners. The stiff material will keep it from curling, but it won’t be stuck down to the floor so you can still move it.

Would make a good premise for a Fallout-style post-apocalyptic RPG. The quest is to reach the Doomsday clock and set it to 00:00.

I’d consider that a “lose” condition.

It’s possible for everyone to lose a war.

Most Fediverse clients (probably including whichever app you’re using) have a block feature, you can use that on me if you prefer not to see my comments.

I’m not “minimizing” nukes. I’m describing them as they are. I provided sources.

You may not be aware, but many people survived Hiroshima and the city is populated to this day.

1.a: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

This is ridiculously binary thinking. I’m saying it’s not as bad as the person I was responding to thinks it would be, and you’re interpreting that as “it’s fine, there’s no downside”?

Being punched in the face is less bad than being shot. Would you interpret that as “it’s fine to be punched in the face”?

If they’re well programmed there’s no way to know at this point. AI is able to pass the Turing Test without even needing particularly hefty resources, I’ve been doing a bunch of fiddling with local LLMs and I could probably write something up that could do it. I don’t personally see a point because I comment here for my own enjoyment rather than to push an agenda, but if I was trying to push an agenda it’d be reasonably straightforward to whip up a population of AI characters who agreed with it in various ways.

Wouldn’t be the first time in history that a major power started a war and then promptly proceeded to decisively lose it.

Currently there are 12,331. These weapons are divided up among many nations, and only a fraction of them are actually “ready to launch” at any given time. If launched most of them will be targeted at military targets, which are often located in remote places - silos in the middle of nowhere, carrier groups out in the ocean, forward military bases or stockpiles, and so forth. They wouldn’t be fired with intent to “wipe out” humanity. There would be entire continents that nobody bothers firing at - why waste precious nukes on countries that are uninvolved in the conflict?

Nuclear winter is no longer thought to be as bad as the most extreme predictions from back in the 1960s. And even with those extreme predictions it still wouldn’t lead to human extinction. Humans are an incredibly robust species. We don’t need infrastructure to survive in harsh conditions. Inuit survived in the arctic for thousands of years without anything fancy, and you’re not going to see conditions that harsh everywhere on Earth regardless.

By some standards WWIII is already in progress. And no, America isn’t winning. Its power and influence are contracting rapidly.

I assume you’re worried about nuclear war? It’ll be bad, but there simply aren’t enough nukes in existence to pose a threat to humanity as a species.

Because America is a democracy and enough of the voters wanted this.