I only partially agree. Yes, with the recent debates featuring Trump frothing at the mouth and saying completely insane and hateful stuff, if a debate doesn’t have that it’s worth connecting on. But people do care about content.

With this debate as an example, lots of people commented on the “sanewashing” that Vance was doing - trying to give plausible explanations for things Trump has said or done - but it’s just not as outrageous as what we’re used to. And the Republican base was largely happy with that he said, even when it was demonstratively false.

I think people care, but it’s twigs being added to a pile of logs.

Seems hard to believe that this debate moved the needle much on either side. They both performed well, there were no big gotcha moments, and each said the stuff that their base would want them to say. Neither seemed unhinged, both were well spoken.

Vance said some stuff that was total crap, but that’s not a problem for anyone considering voting for Trump. I just don’t see that there’s any way anyone’s mind was changed.

You know, it was very different than I expected. There were quite a number of times when one of them said “Well I agree with most of that he just said.” Vance is pretty smooth, too. Much of what he said was total crap, but it wasn’t the Trump-style hateful vomit. It was the most cordial debate I’ve seen in a while, though there were some strong disagreements.

It’s interesting, they used to think that having a big vocabulary or knowing multiple languages delayed having Alzheimer’s. It turns out that family often first become aware that a person is developing Alzheimer’s because the person starts regularly forgetting common words, but people with big vocabularies can come up with alternatives when they can’t remember one, so their family doesn’t recognize it as early. When those people are diagnosed, they end up being further along.

Right, that’s the thing.

I honestly believe part of the problem this country is in today started when the news media felt they had to give equal time to every issue. I remember lots of segments on climate change where they had one person on each side, and I could understand most people coming away believing we just don’t know. And it’s not just climate change, they did that with everything.

So here we are, polarized like never before, with so many believing that every opinion is legitimate. Sure, you can believe what you want, but if you believe the world was created 6000 years ago, you’re just wrong. You’re entitled to believe something wrong, but that doesn’t make it valid. A legitimate news site should reflect that. A climate denier or a creationist shouldn’t get equal time. Same with do many issues.

Lol, “one side of the climate debate.” There isn’t debate among scientists - there’s like less than one percent of climate scientists who don’t believe that humans are putting our climate in a terrible place. So just that part the tells you the bias. It’s just like when they talk about the debate between evolution and creationism: the only debate is with people who reject the data to further their own agenda.

The point is that if the rules aren’t grounded in science, it’s not science fiction. You can have the trappings of science, like space travel or whatever, but if people are moving objects and doing impossible acrobatics by using a magical force, it’s fantasy.

Though not mine, I personally think that definition works better than most. Still, if you pin me down, I’d say that there’s a spectrum, with hard SF (where everything is rigorously anchored to scientific principles) at one end, and pure fantasy (with magic and such) at the other. There are lots of things between those endpoints, with some being closer to one or the other, and some being very much in the middle.

Oh, it’s fantasy

I always liked the distinction (I forget who originated it) that science fiction is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by physics and fantasy is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by the author.

Oh, nice, that’s it!

As other people have said, it would be way worse to have him him assassinated. If it’s looking like he’s going to lose, I could see the people who want the US unstable to prefer assassinating him instead.

Oh, nice, that would make perfect sense. And Trump was in his 20s when Sinatra had his biggest hits in the 60s, so that tracks too.

Anyone know what that actually is? Looks like a picture of Frank Sinatra on the left.

It’s not like wasp nests are much less organized on the inside. Here’s an example.

It’s a valid point, but it’s kind of like saying it’s great that the restaurant you’ve started going to has such a small menu compared to the old one because you’re not eating as much.

I wish more thought had gone into the legend and the categories were either mutually exclusive or they used multiple dots. For instance, the very first item on the list -an Obama birtherism - is a blue dot for a public statement, but it also should have been a black dot for racism.

There seems to be this disinformation campaign trying to spin it that the reason the US government has an issue with TikTok is because they don’t want the free expression of ideas. What’s going out on TikTok isn’t what the government cares about. It’s that the company is controlled by the Chinese government and the potential use of it for spying and major privacy violations is significant.

He’s so disingenuous. He says “I’m just a dumb guy asking questions,” but his show is clearly slanted and he gives sure time to people who wouldn’t and shouldn’t reach that kind of audience without him.

Yep, exactly. And Republican talking points encourage that kind of ignorance.