Presup: You are stuck.

Imagine that you and only you have access to the true nature of reality, no one else does, no one else can just you and you alone, and you know it. You know it because you felt it one day. 

*POP*  

Oh I guess I just know now. So I tell everyone, hey look, unless you agree with me, you are wrong! Yah! You are wrong about EVERYTHING unless I'm right. Because I KNOW how reality REALLY works for real! 

Then they do the unexpected. They ask for proof. You laugh.

"Of course I know the true nature of reality, because I know it and you can't know with your view of reality because, in fact, your view of reality is wrong and always was wrong and will always be wrong and I will always be right!"

Okay enough of that, lets step into reality again, because you don't have to imagine it. People act that way. They are know as presuppositionalists and they think there world view is right, and yours is wrong.

They don't need to know your world view by the way, because they have the "right" one.

Do they need proof? Nope. Do they need evidence? No! Tests? Nah! Logic? Screw it! You can only be right if you have the thing that lets you be right... and that is the thing they have! Yay!

Utter nonsense. For whatever reason on top of all that rubbish, and this is just my observation based on limited data, but every single presup I've encountered is a total jerk once they start doing the presup, the behavior changes, they put on an annoying voice sometimes, they ask you the same question over and over. They act arrogant. They are bullies.

I'm done with them. I'm not going to talk to them. If and when I find out someone is a presup, I'm out. I'm not engaging with them. Someone else can deal with it. I'm done. 

Why? Because there is no logic there. There is nothing there. Its a blackhole. Its heads I win, tails you lose and by the way even if we don't play, I won. Its not about reality, its about feeling like you won.

Then they accuse you of doing everything they are doing. Its amazing. Its baffling. Its just not what I'm here for ya know?

Do they think it "works"? I ... don't know but its annoying for sure. Sure its circular. Yep its nonsense. It doesn't matter, its presup, you are stuck. Your script is your god. You can't do anything unique. Just say "your world view is wrong" all the time. That's it. Your not human anymore, your a bot. And not a very good one.

No thanks, I'll pass.

"Spread the hate"

 Oct 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a talk he was giving. He was a rightwing advocate. He talked calmly, wanted free speech, loved his nation, and I thought debated well.

I disagreed with him on things, but saw he seemed to be trying to use logic and reaoson.

I've seen people writing that he "spread hate" by words he was using. Now, I do not know what the bleep this even means. Seriously. What does spreading hate look like?

Can anyone tell me? I would love to know. Examples. Citations. Show me a truth table that outlines when someone is in fact, "spreading hate" by what they say.

Oh asking people to do logic, right this is politics. There goes logic out the window I guess.

But honestly, lets take a big old step back and look at what people might be talking about, because guessing is all I can do at this point, no one says what he said that was hateful, just that he said hateful things. Like what? Oh you know. The things.

You mean the things you disagree with? Those things?

Or perhaps they mean the cherry picked quotes that people have tweeted/x'ed out about him, or what political pundits or others have said or written about him. Yes no research required, your thinking has been done for you, person (Z) said Charly BAD.

Okay, so the only things I can think that he said that people do not like are "What is a woman" and stuff about abortion I guess. Nether of these things seems hateful to me. But then again, I do not believe in "Hate speech" there is no such thing, it is just speech you don't like. 

IDK I guess if you say "I hate (X) people" then sure, that would be hate speech, but when I see or hear "hate speech" its a tool to shut down talk, not engage but to undermine. It is, an attack on the person:

Ad hominem.

So go on tell me what the bleep hate thing is. Because I don't bleeping know but I do know I'm tired of people saying it without any logical underpinning.

Use some logic for the love of humanity!

GAH!

Politics vs Logic, changing words changes narative.

I stumbled onto a short made by someone I have only briefly interacted with on YouTube. The short was named something that implied it was about events that showed fascism in action. The links the uploader provided made me feel compelled to do a live analysis: click.

I wasn't sure about what I had done after the fact, but it did make me think about political discourse that I'm aware of. Even though I dislike politics in general and do not talk about it much, there are still a LOT of things that do deserve the logical treatment.

One such event I've read about is that people who dislike what ICE and other agencies are doing engage in strange changes of words in order to change the narrative—or put another way, to make a story.

Rather than say ICE is arresting people, I've read they are "invading" cities, "capturing" people, or "disappearing" people. It's painted with dark, sinister overtones. Mostly you will see this language in posts or tweets and the like, but still—it's there.

Why? Well, I'm not sure why anyone does anything, of course, but clearly this isn't what the facts are. ICE is not, in fact, "invading" any city. They are not disappearing people. They are arresting them. Now, some people do not like this, think it's overzealous or overblown, etc. etc.… but why change the narrative in such a way?

As above, when I analyzed the video, it was only because the words suggested it was somehow linked to fascism—although not stated out loud, it was implied by the label of the video and the words on the screen.

Is the panic that some have over the events so high that they are willing to forgo reality in order to make a new narrative story, just so that story compels others to act out of emotion rather than facts?

I... do not know. But it is disturbing that we humans can and will fall into such mental traps. We read something that says "men in masks are harming women" and go into protective mode. BUT, you see, these are ICE agents. Yes, they have on masks (sometimes), and yes, most of them are men (perhaps all), and yes, in some cases, they are arresting women… and they might cause harm if those women resist.

But anyone who resists police can be harmed, as the police must contain you and apply force when you are resisting.

The way forward cannot be to use emotions and the changing of facts to forward your agenda. Otherwise, I will be skeptical of it, and I will point out the falsehood. Use facts and reason to try to compel change, not darkened tones. Poisoning the well might work, but beware—it's your own water supply.

Perhaps reason and logic will be used and prevail in the end… if only we insist upon it.

Will we?

I'm not sure.

Cancel culture.

Ah yes, “cancel culture” is still a thing. What is it? Broadly speaking, it’s when a group of people decides someone said or wrote something BAD and therefore must be canceled. That might mean getting them kicked off a platform (X/YouTube/Facebook/etc.), fired from their job, or disinvited from speaking somewhere: because, goodness forbid, they say something that might offend.

Take Dawkins. He was disinvited from speaking at a university. Why? Because of a tweet: he shared a Sye Ten Atheist video. That’s it. What was he going to speak about? Evolution. But nope, someone decided a video link was just too much, and boom: talk canceled. All the time, effort, and coordination gone.

Now, some people try to justify this by saying “there’s a time and place” to cancel someone. Because, you see, they said a bad thing about a thing, and that might hurt feelings! Or worse: they were racist. They were... fill in the blank. And so, the moral outrage machine kicks in: must. cancel. person. Send them to the shadow realm. That’ll fix everything, right?

Except: hate groups still exist. Racists still exist. People keep saying stuff you don’t like. The world keeps spinning as if none of your moral panic mattered. But hey: justice was served.

I’m against it. In full. Why? Because the ideas must be challenged, not the person. You don't win an argument by silencing someone. You win by beating their argument.

“OMG, you would platform (X) bad person?”
Yes: at least once. I’ll hear what they say.

“But they have bad ideas!”
Exactly why I want to confront them.

“But they’re evil!”
Okay: and?

“You won’t change their mind!”
Don't know if I don't try! and others are listening.

“You’re making their view look legitimate!”
Got any proof of that?

See, this all becomes about virtue signaling and feelings. It feels good to silence someone you disagree with. It feels like the right thing to do. You imagine the bigot won’t say anything ever again. But they still will. Just not here. Not in your realm.

Until, one day, you say something someone doesn’t like. Then it’s your turn. And once you’re canceled: can you ever come back? Nope. Can you be forgiven? No. Why? Because BAD THING. End of story.

Is there a valid, sound argument for canceling someone instead of engaging with their ideas? I honestly don’t know. I haven’t seen one. I’m not expecting one anytime soon.

Will I be canceled for this post? No idea. But if canceling someone is your go-to move: doesn’t that kind of suggest you don’t have a real counterargument?

The world is full of disagreement and drama. I’ll talk to whoever. Say whatever. This isn’t a safe space. You will be challenged. Your ideas will be attacked.

Because that’s reality. You might want to make the world better? Good for you, but this method? 

It doesn’t work. Censorship never does in the end.

People who embrace cancel culture probably believe they hold the moral high ground. Fine. 

They can believe that. My answer:
Block them. Ignore the cancel addicts. Don’t let them run your life. Simple.

Sadly, way too many people don’t have a backbone.

Well... I complained about it. No idea if it matters. But I’m not going to not complain.

A great example of Tu quoque

 From (click) video's comment section comes this gem:

@Jeremiah_James_G

I appreciate the discussion, and I think we’ve reached the real heart of the issue—our fundamental assumptions. You trust in scientific models to explain causality, which is reasonable, but those models are limited to describing what happens within the universe, not what—if anything—brought it into being. Science itself doesn’t claim to answer that question, yet you hold to the belief that a natural explanation must exist, even when the current models don’t provide one. That’s still faith—faith in the sufficiency of natural causes. I freely admit my faith—I believe the universe has a cause beyond itself because that aligns with both reason and evidence. You place your faith in a naturalistic framework, trusting that given enough time, science will close the gaps. We both work from assumptions, but only one of us acknowledges it. At the end of the day, the question isn't just what we believe, but why we believe it, and which framework makes the most sense of reality as a whole. Thanks for the conversation.

~~~~~~

SIGH.

When I think about someone else, in my head, it is said I'm trying to put myself in there shoes, to try to understand them, I pretend to be them. I know what it is to feel what they felt, even though I'm not experiencing it myself, this is called empathy. However, something strange happens when the other person does not hold a view I myself hold, I can experience cognitive dissonance - trying to hold two opposing ideas in my head at the same time.

For example, Mr. Notreal might believe that some celebrity is of high moral regard, but finds out on the news that they are accused of doing something wrong - this person might think the person making the claims against that celebrity is lying, and is doing so because they want money. This rationalization protects the belief that Mr. Notreal holds.

His brain is used to holding the idea that celebrity is of a high moral regard, he is quite used to that notion and changing it will cause him anxiety, distress, sadness, and other emotions he wishes to avoid, thus he will automatically make excuses in his brain for why it can not be that he is wrong about the belief he holds.

Here we have Jeremiah who projects his beliefs that everyone has faith out into the world itself, everyone must be like him in this regard - that is, everyone MUST have faith like he does, just its a faith of a different flavor.

Jeremiah has faith, and he doesn't mind admitting to this fact, as long as everyone else admits to "this fact" that they ALSO share faith... even if they don't call it faith because, well, everyone "must" have faith. Because he believes this is true.

The belief is "Everyone has faith" this BELIEF of Jeremiah is protected by his reuse of the statement, with a number of rationalizations.

Jeremiah writes "hold to the belief" - a projection that the people reading HAVE a belief in the first place, rather then know a fact about reality. There is a big difference here in regards to what is a belief vs a fact, can we know facts?

Well I think we can - but perhaps Jeremiah does not think we can, in his mind, we can only hold belief ideas, and never fact ideas.

I can't say for sure that is what Jeremiah holds in his head of course, thus why I write "perhaps" above. The paragraph he wrote does expose many of his beliefs about what other people believe.

He writes "yet you hold to the belief that a natural explanation must exist" there again, he projects the reader is holding a belief they might not hold.

Jeremiah does not seem to realize here that someone might not hold any belief about an explanation at all!

Example:

Mr. Notreal: "(X) happened what caused it? It was Magic or Time Travelers!"

Skeptic: "I don't believe in Magic."

Mr. Notreal: "Ah ha! You must belief it was (A) or (B)! If you reject That it was Magic, then you MUST think it was Time Travelers!"

Skeptic: "Not at all. I do not know if it was either of the two options, or perhaps an unknown third option. I do not hold a belief regarding what caused event (X) in fact, I'm not even sure there WAS a cause."

~End example~

The problem is the many beliefs Jeremiah holds about reality, one stacked upon the other that he assumes everyone must hold. He does this to protect his own beliefs, leading to a giant circle of ideas in his mind.

The fact to pull from this example of the fallacy of Tu quoque is to look at what we think, what we say, and to be ever watchful for when we Tu quoque others, because it might be our own beliefs we are seeking to protect.

"I'd rather die and be wrong"

Someone very near and dear to me said the phrase "I'd rather die and be wrong about God, then die without belief and be wrong." 

As a skeptic, that phrase stuns me, and I do not even know what to say, the illogic of it is plain to me, but not to the person that said it. For it is the belief they hold. In fact, they believe several things.

1: God exists.

2: There is an afterlife.

3: God cares that you believe in it, and will reward you with the afterlife only if you do believe in it.

There are about 8 billion people in this world, and out of them about 3 billion are Christian, so that means that about 5 billion people will all not get this reward because they picked the wrong belief (if one can even pick a belief) why? Well I asked them, and they said that is simply the rules they picked.

That's all. Just how the maker of the universe made the rules. God makes no sense.

Why? Because. But WHY? Just... because.

I do not believe in an afterlife, that doesn't mean I believe there is one, although I doubt there is, my belief is not relevant to whatever happens to be the truth, but my word I don't like the idea of death for sure, I mean, I'm used to existing, so I'd like to do it for awhile. How long? No idea. Depends!

But, the idea that a God would make it so only a limited amount of people would get "in" - is absurd to me, the idea of God - sure I can understand that perhaps, but something that made a ruleset that limited the number of people based on belief? Nah.

I do not know what words to say to negate this belief. I do not want to die, but it will happen one day, and I'd rather have the truth whatever it is, then a belief without evidence, and god simply has no evidence for it.

A god that requires you to believe in it to get "in" - is not a good god.

Perhaps god isn't god... but then why say it is?

Faith has its hooks into this dear person I love, and sadly logic can not make it past this idea... at least, not for now.

Politics boggles the mind!

I found myself in the middle of a political conversation. It was wild.

I went back and forth within my own mind on doing a video about this, I had one up for a bit then took it down... I'd have to dance around who I am talking about to talk about what went down and try to avoid the drama... but here, not so much. I'm still not naming names mind you... but this blog is only known or read by a few people at best... so I'm pretty safe to say whatever here. If ya know, ya know.

So the otherwise scientific person said that all Trump supporters/defenders are assholes.

Wow. Really? Like... all of them? Yep. Also that Trump is a fascist. He liked posts that seem to be "on his side" and made fun of anyone/everyone who he thought was on the "wrong side". Yikes.

Yet, in the video he simply said a few things about Harris, that's it. What he wrote in his description was rather nasty towards Trump, but he didn't say such things in the video. He just gave positive reasons to vote Harris. 

So... what's up with the disconnect between that and the comment section? In the comments he was all to happy to insult anyone who he thought was an "asshole" and thought that they didn't deserve facts or that they didn't care about them. He was being very inconsistent. I pointed this out. He didn't seem to like that much.

So I showcased how to respond to claims made, at least from my view. Someone made a claim that Trump was more in favor with the population then Harris, I asked how they knew this and where that info came from, the otherwise science minded person who made the video simply said they were in a bubble and didn't know what was going on. They assumed that person was a Trump supporter and thus, not worth his time or energy to debate, educate, give facts to. He said that facts don't matter in this case feelings do - yet the video does not reflect that.

What is going on? Super mega cognitive dissonance between my video says things that (might) be facts about (X) person so you will vote for them... however my comment section I'm going to go full dumpster fire mode and just insult anyone who I think is on the "wrong side".

Madness. But one person stepped into the light, as it were, to say that they realized they were in fact, being a bit loose with language and asked me some questions that were insightful and thanked me for the civil exchange. So, logic can work, does work and so does reason.

I dove into looking for if insults work at all (click) and why political beliefs are hard to challenge (click) as well as the claim that the "truth does not matter to them" (that turns out to be slightly true it seems) (click)

My assumption before looking at any of that was that politics can act like religion does, infecting our minds with the ideas of the party we are part of, there are the symbols, traditions, the in-group, the parallax between politics and religion is very close I think.

Although the last two links are articles they seem to be supported by some science. As far as not liking or caring about truth - if you identify as a single person, rather then a group, its seems to be easier to speak up. (So thus identity politics would consume much of if not all of your ability to speak up perhaps)

But, in short, his ideas that we should insult - are not supported by these things - maybe there is something out there that shows that insults "work" - that is, they do change minds. Or they do convince people. However, given that the reason some people care so much about politics is that they make it part of who they are, then insulting them (or the politics) will not, and can not change the view they hold. At least if you present the truth and do so with good intent - maybe you have a better chance. Clearly insults do not forward anything at all and only act to make it more of a battlefield of words.

In fact, a few people commented on how the "liberal" was having "TDS". 

Does it do anyone any good if you or other people of "your party" call names of the others?

What harm is there in taking the high road?

Well Trump = EVIL OMG END OF WORLD THIS TIME FOR SURE. Oh. Well, then that super mega justifies using tactics that have no support to show they work?

... I guess so, perhaps the scientific minded person should have looked into what convinces people to change ideas and proceeded to do those things, rather then use his feelings to justify more feelings he had.

I do not know, and can not know if my comments changed anything. I encoraged logic and reason to be used in a space that seemed to not be using it. It effected perhaps a single person. So...well, that's not nothing. 

Maybe once the science guy's head cools down he can go back to doing science stuff. If not, then I guess I'll have to watch other peoples stuff to learn science stuff. If I want politics - there are plenty of channels out there.

IDK. Its just... weird and wild. Reminding me, once again - we are all human and subject to falling for beliefs, be they religious or politic, we are all subject to black/white ingroup think - we are not above that, we are in it. In full. Whatever it is you will not question - that is the thing that is the thing you must question the most. "Trump = evil" if that is your key belief, then that is the one you must challenge the most.

We must, I suggest always use reason and logic in our conversations. Yes, you can be emotional, but temper that with logic and reason. Else, madness.

Anyway... I'm going back to religion where I can make sense of things.

Oh also if you want to know who I'm voting for... well come on you should know the answer by now.

....

Lobsters!