Posts by Anony Mous

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

If there was a universal flood and it killed all but 8 people, besides the genetic bottleneck it would’ve created, we would only have 1 flood story. The older flood stories from either other Middle Eastern cultures, let alone indigenous people on different continents would simply not exist.

25

All UK telephone landlines being phased out.....

by BoogerMan in

.....and replaced with voip by 2025. https://www.pmctelecom.co.uk/blog/are-landline-phones-being-phased-out-in-2025/.

just heard this on a radio station's advert..

Anony Mous

Backup of POTS is just a battery bank at your local POP.

You can also have a battery bank/UPS to keep your comms up and running, it’s probably cheaper for you to do it than the government (because after all, that’s who is paying for BT to keep the infrastructure alive), and you get more/cheaper options for your carrier and you can power other essentials such as wireless/cell phone/Internet links.

There are/were installers that used it to provide power to installations as well (like a low power alarm panel) but that’s always been technically illegal. Powering anything more than one handset (20mA or <1W) per line is not what the system was designed for, an alarm system in alarm state can easily draw 10-20x that amount of power and the wiring is already horrendous enough that any load is a fire hazard (there are no fuses on your POTS line, the wire melting is the fuse)

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Anony Mous

@SydBarrett, first of all, what is the yield of those weapons? Almost of them sit on top of a rocket and those carry on average 1KT barely enough to according to one government document:

This magnitude of detonation is not large enough to destroy a city, but large enough to destroy a large building and much of a city block.

And currently the US and Russia keeps about 1000 of these smaller warheads ready for deployment, the rest is stockpiled and could not be used on short order. Some are even referred to as nuclear artillery, with even smaller yields.

Strategic nukes, the largest ones commonly in use destroy, about 4-10 city blocks although the largest ones would require special bombers, such as the ones that destroyed parts of Nagasaki and Hiroshima being strapped UNDER a B52. Even during WW2, the US never thought their missions against Japan would succeed, the B52 bombers were so exposed and had to fly so low due to the weight they thought for sure they would be shot down.

Here’s the effect distances of the largest atomic bomb ever built (Tsar bomba). Note that most strategic nukes are not even 10% of this and 1% for tactical nukes, in which the most common nukes available today we’re measuring damage in feet, not miles.

Effect distances for a 100 megaton surface burst:

Radiation radius: 4.34 mi

500 rem ionizing radiation dose; likely fatal, in about 1 month; 15% of survivors will eventually die of cancer as a result of exposure.

Fireball radius: 4.92 mi

Maximum size of the nuclear fireball; relevance to damage on the ground depends on the height of detonation. If it touches the ground, the amount of radioactive fallout is significantly increased. Anything inside the fireball is effectively vaporized.

Heavy blast damage radius (20 psi): 6.28 mi

At 20 psi overpressure, heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished; fatalities approach 100%. Often used as a benchmark for heavy damage in cities.

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

So this entire discussion quickly went from: we have a ton of evidence that it happened in 607, and when pressed for actual evidence, it turns out “because God says so” as we’ve pointed out that even the Bible does not support the date.

My appeal to actual accepted scholarly evidence from non-WTBTS/JW sources is still unanswered.

Hell, even a clear explanation as to why Daniel and Jeremiah talks about a different set of 70 years even though one references the other directly, or why Daniel had to discern the mystery of the meaning of the number/period even though he supposedly lived it. It seems clear that Daniel tacitly admits the 70 years are not literal.

78

Top AI inventor Geoffrey Hinton reluctantly concluded that AI will probably humanity fairly soon

by slimboyfat in

geoffrey hinton, major inventor of artificial intelligence: .

“if you take the existential risk seriously, as i now do—i used to think it was way off, but now i think it’s serious, and fairly close—it might be quite sensible to just stop developing these things any further, but i think it’s completely naïve to think that would happen.

there’s no way to make that happen.

Anony Mous

@slimboy: we already have classifiers that are 1000x larger than what GPT can currently do.

Nuclear war, far deadlier pandemics than Covid, environmental disaster, technological fascist dystopia, economic collapse, AI oblivion … I tend to think they are all much more likely than we give them credit for.

Nuclear war is overblown, we barely have enough weapons to blow up the top 100 major cities, let alone destroy earth. Nuclear weapons are insanely efficient and clean. The rest is Cold War propaganda.

COVID was one of the deadliest pandemics we know of and it was a flash in the pan, hence why China developed it, but any disease you develop, you have to pick 2, deadly, fast, efficient

Environmental disaster has time and again proven to be false, nature adapts rather quickly, we once thought plastics were going to be the bane of our existence, we found bacteria, algae and worms that eat the stuff and now 1/3 of the ocean plastic is ‘missing’.

Technological fascism or communism has failed, you get stuck on a technology and stop developing, whether that was farming for Mao and Pol Pot or steel and concrete for the Soviets, fascism kills itself against capitalism because against big government, there is no benefit to further invention, so you end up with North Korea or Cuba at best where time basically stood still since they became fascist dictatorships.

Economic collapse is the same problem, communism and attempts at it fail, then capitalism naturally steps in and things flourish.

Everything will be fine, you may not live to see it, but humanity will survive.

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

@Scholar: What is your evidence, other than the Bible. Basically without using the Bible or WTBTS references, using only 'scholarly' accepted references.

Planetary positions should be the simplest to refer, which of the references talks about a very significant portent that would've been notable had ANYTHING coincided in 607, especially the destruction of a major city.

If you say the 70 years is literal, even the Bible wouldn't agree on when the 70 years starts and ends:

And all this land will be reduced to ruins and will become an object of horror, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.”
Jeremiah 25:11 – New World Translation

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, discerned by the books the number of years mentioned in the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah the prophet to fulfill the desolation of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years.
Daniel 9:2 - New World Translation

Based on the verses above, either they are in conflict, given Daniel references Jeremiah, or they aren't referencing an event, but rather a sign.

Daniel talks about "discerned by the books the number of years" which given he supposedly LIVED at the time, he would've "KNOWN", not needed to discern. This clearly shows 70 years wasn't literal, since he had to 'discern' the number.

So are you talking about the "desolation of Jerusalem" or "serving the king of Babylon"? Those are two different events, one came before the other, when did King Jehoiakim started sending tribute, why is the Bible even unclear about the event, even though they supposedly reference each other directly.

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

However, not one of those 2000 tablets mentions or refers to the biblical 70 years.
scholar JW

No duh, because the modern translation is wrong. The Bible is not a historical document, it talks in the language of signs and portents.

According to the Jews, "70 years" is a complete period of judgment from G-d, 7 being the natural order of things and 10 the number of completeness. So they were exiled "until the completion of the natural order of things" or "complete judgment", it's not literal.

Jews today accept that their leadership was exiled, but Jerusalem was historically never really abandoned, although scripture says it was a wasteland, they accept the historicity of ~50 years, they still call it '70 years' because it's a sign, not a fact. They accept that the place was never really abandoned and that at no point has anyone literally removed or torn down every stone from either the temple or the city walls as the Bible also predicts. Jews have lived in Jerusalem and the surrounding land for thousands of years continuously, even today, there are millions of people in the area, however they still call it spiritually 'abandoned' from the viewpoint of G-d no longer being present (with the holiest places currently being held by a terrorist state).

Literal interpretations of the text only started with late 19th century evangelicals looking for mystical connections and numerology, CT Russell and co being a big proponent of them, copying them from others such as Miller and giving it his own spin. The late 1800s and early 1900s were full of cults reinterpreting and giving several dates for apocalyptic events. Interestingly enough, all of these, take part of the text literally and part of the text to be figuratively, depending on what suits their current eschatology better. The WTBTS had predicted the end of the world based on the actually correct date of 587, only inventing 607 numerology when the promised end didn't happen and retroactively applying it to some other random event.

Also note that MOST of the texts (Daniel and Jeremiah) were written and edited long AFTER the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, again, something most modern Jews will accept and they say it is a "warning" to future generations, not a numerological prophecy involving advanced math. No Jew is waiting for the rebuilding of the temple to happen in 1914, you'd think they come to the same conclusion if it were so simple.

As far as the texts you don't take literal is these components of the same verses in Daniel that describe 70 years: to put an end to sin, to bring in everlasting righteousness, the description of four beasts and everything ELSE in Daniel, yet somehow you think the number 70 is relevant and literal and then only when it suits you, again, sometimes the WTBTS says that days and weeks are actually years, other times it does not, no explanation as to why other than to shoehorn in a falsified prophecy. Even Daniel said prophecy would END after the 70 years, yet WTBTS continues prophesying, Jesus supposedly prophesied after the Jews returned. I don't see an end to sin or everlasting righteousness anywhere happened literally.

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

Before you say the scientific evidence is arguable, there are over 2000 documents from the time that set the dates for the first and second siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, including the destruction of the temple in the second siege. It sets this from both contemporary dating methods as well as astronomical evidence. One thing the Babylonians were good at was keeping track of things, basically a bunch of bureaucrats. If you follow the WTBTS calculations, the sieges and mobilizations of troops from Babylon would’ve had to start before Nebuchadnezzar even started ruling.

Note the WTBTS often use the same sources to prove a point but then inexplicably dismiss the same source for the remainder of the dates they set.

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

Well, then, here is an argument from the WTBTS own publications:

Babylon fell	"Babylon fell in 539 B.C." Babylon the Great Has Fallen - God's Kingdom Rules p.184	539 B.C.
Plus Nabonidus	"On the basis of cuneiform texts he is believed to have ruled some seventeen years(556-539 B.C.E.)." Aid to Bible Understanding - Nabonidus p.1195	17 years
Plus Labashi-Marduk	"Labashi-Marduk ... was a vicious boy, and within nine months he had his throat cut by an assassin." Babylon the Great Has Fallen - God's Kingdom Rules p.184	1 year
Plus Neriglissar	Neriglissar ... reigned four years Babylon the Great Has Fallen - God's Kingdom Rules p.184	4 years
Plus Evil-Merodach	"After reigning but two years King Evil-Merodach was murdered" Babylon the Great Has Fallen - God's Kingdom Rules p.184	2 years
PlusNebuchadnezzar	"Nebuchadnezzar ruled as king for 43 years" Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 2 p.480	43 years
Equals start of Nebuchadnezzar's reign	Calculated by adding above figures	606 B.C.
MinusNebuchadnezzar's 19th year	2 Kings 25:8-9 "And in the ... nineteenth year of King Neb·u·chad·nez´zar ... the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. And he proceeded to burn the house of Jehovah"	19th year
Date for Destruction	Therefore calculated as: 587BCE

207

Scholar and Fisherman

by Jorden in

scholar and fisherman, i started this thread because i didn't want to highjack the one in regard to 588/568.. i just wanted to ask if you were both current active jw's that believe the jw's beliefs?.

do y'all believe the gb are the f&ds?

if the answers are no, then why do y'all defend so passionately the date 607?

Anony Mous

I don’t think the debate between the dates is pointless, one is clearly wrong and one is clearly right. The JWs NEED 607 otherwise 1914 is incorrect, so they say 607 is correct because otherwise 1914 is incorrect and we know 1914 is correct because if you calculate forward from 607, you get 1914. That’s literally the reasoning in the WTBTS publications, circular logic.

Archeological and plenty of other evidence has debunked 607, if you still want to believe in it, you’re only deluding yourself.