Ravyne

SiCrane, on 19 Apr 2013 - 17:06, said:
How am I putting words in your mouth? You implied Obama never provided his birth certificate. Your exact words, which I even quoted in my post:

Ravyne, on 19 Apr 2013 - 15:28, said:
The whole hub-bub could have been avoided by simply providing the birth certificate.

 

He implied that Obama never provided his birth certificate until 2011 (or whenever it was), not as part of a conspiracy theory, but saying that it could've been handled better by releasing it earlier. It was pointed out that it was released earlier, and Ravyne admitted that he wasn't aware of that. Or, at least that's how I interpret this sentence:

 

Quote
I couldn't have told you whether it was ever actually provided or not, but...

 

Meaning, he didn't know whether it was actually provided (earlier than 2011 or whenever) or not, but that specific conspiracy theory wasn't the point he was trying to make, nor did he believe Obama was not a citizen, and that it was just an example.

Yes. Thank you.

What people like me? I said plainly that I'm not a Birther, and nothing I said should indicate that having provided a birth certificate isn't perfectly acceptably proof to me. I'm not standing on the street corner demanding it. Frankly I never questioned his place of birth, and I hold little sympathy for the question itself. I didn't follow the whole deal much as a result, I couldn't have told you whether it was ever actually provided or not. But that's besides the point, because I'm not trying to satisfy any Birthers with any of these arguments I'm making.

If you've read any more into my Birther diatribe than "what's wrong with asking" then you are reading too much into it. I'm not here to defend any theory, but I defend absolutely that we should never simply be patted on the head and sent to bed with a glass of warm milk. I did not raise the questions to defend the Birther worldview, I raised them because Blades' previous counterargument seemed to be that the question can, and should, just be ignored. And no, I don't believe there's any need to keep proving ones facts to whatever level is demanded by someone unwilling to accept reasonable proof, but then your response should simply be to redirect to said proof.

I'm trying my damndest here to avoid putting words in other people's mouths, I'd like it if I could be afforded the same courtesy.

Hodgman, you need to read that article more carefully.

Quote: The fact that Al-Qaeda was created by western intelligence and has always been controlled by these interests demonstrates that the Al-Qaeda threat is one of the greatest ongoing hoaxes in world history.

Without bothering to go hunt for articles, infowars is a 9/11 "truth" site, that believes Bin Laden was in fact working as a CIA agent in 2001. He died of kidney failure in 2002 and ever since, the NSA has been just been making fake bin laden tapes.
They're also big on the "vaccines cause mental retardation" thing. And basically any other bat shit crazy thing you can come up with. The U.N. is going to take my guns. Mind control chips and frequencies.

And since we're making accusations of logical fallacies, let me point out that this is essentially ad hominem -- You're attacking infowars itself, rather than the legitimacy of the "facts" they're putting forward in support of their thesis. Even then, the points you use to do so are tangentially-related at best.

You have a serious problem with creating strawmen. Infowars is free to exist. I don't want them shut down. If for no other reason, it's better for them to post about their crazy little fantasies than to live them out like the Boston bombers and Timothy McVeigh.

I do not, however, think government officials should answer any of their questions. The same way I don't think Obama should have fetched the governor of Hawaii to verify his birth certificate was legit, because some crazy racists think Obama was born in Kenya because look how black he is!

I don't think the John Birch Society was a good thing. I am grateful to William Buckley and the conservative establishment at the time for squashing it. Now it has been reborn as the Tea Party and everyone like you stood back and went "Who am I to suggest these people are unhinged"? Now these flakes have taken over a significant portion of government.

Its good that Inforwars exists for no other reason than that it gives nut-jobs someplace non-violent to channel their energies? And I'm the one creating strawmen?

I'm no Birther, but there's something seriously off-kilter with the notion that would-be government officials should be free to ignore a question relating to their basic legitimacy, simply because they decide that the question is indignant. The whole hub-bub could have been avoided by simply providing the birth certificate. Surely it would have been less trouble, and less vulnerable to continued "conspiracies" than recruiting the Hawaiian governor. Last time I checked, being a citizen was a requirement for the job of commander in chief and, at least in theory, the POTUS was accountable to all of the American people. Why have the requirement if there's no need for proof? Whom did he prove it to that alleviates the need to prove it openly? When and how does any candidate prove their citizenship? Why isn't the birth certificate of every presidential candidate a public record as a simple matter of procedure?

I'm no Tea-partier either, I've said time and again that my qualm with today's politics is that you have to choose product A (conservative, but to the point of trampling basic rights, and pretending not to spend too much of your money) or product B (liberal, but to the point of trampling basic rights, and openly spending all your money--because its good for you), but its somehow my fault that the Tea-party grabbed some power, not because I voted for them (I certainly didn't), but because I didn't vociferously decide that they were illegitimate for everyone else who did? Maybe you think this whole voting thing is silly? Perhaps we should just stop and allow officials to appoint their own successors?

I mean, without being personal here, because its not -- I find the very notion that anyone would just throw up their hands and say "Well, this is what they tell me. It passes Occam's Razor. It must be true." is disturbing to say the least. If I ever ended up a defendant in a criminal, or even civil, trial, I certainly wouldn't accept someone like that sitting on my jury. I hope you wouldn't either.

The idea of kick starter was never really to get money up-front for an interesting idea

 

That's not really true. Look at their site: they say it's a way "to fund creative projects", not "to finish creative projects". They talk about projects "brought to life", not "seen to completion". But really, the hint is in the name - a kickstart comes at the start of the journey, taking the vehicle from a complete standstill to motion.

 

The idea was to make projects possible that were previously impossible by providing an alternative source of funding - not to be a glorified pre-sales site or a place for rich companies to apply for an extra top-up of cash.

emphasis mine.

What I meant was that, in general, having an idea alone is not a recipe for successfully running a Kickstarter. We don't see waves of newbies succeeding on Kickstarter with their idea for a great MMORPG, after all.

It is meant, as you said, as a means to fund projects that would not otherwise come to fruition, but it wasn't meant as a funding source for grandiose delusions any more than it was meant to be a glorified pre-order mechanism. Regardless of how loosely their mission statement might be interpreted, it would be poisonous to their business if the bar were so low that nearly any "good idea" got funded. Of course, its ultimately the backers who decide what's worthwhile, so Kickstarter themselves are insulated as long as they've enforced their own guidelines, but their brand would still be diluted.

Mostly my statement is a backlash against unproven, would-be indie devs who see it as a way to profit before they've really committed to doing the hard work, or possibly even without understanding the depth of the work involved. Granted, we don't see a dearth of complete non-starters, and there are many a modest Kickstarter that goes unfunded despite demonstrable progress and polish, so the system seems to be working (in the sense that it's appropriately skeptical, and not just spending like so many drunken sailors), I just mean that those would-be indies shouldn't look at Kickstarter like "If I get funding, *then* I can do my game." -- I say take a run at a Kickstarter when you think you're ready, but pursue that game regardless, and if the first Kickstarter fails, come back and try again when you have more to show.