Posts by Simon

6

I want to help

by Debra in

jw
friends

my name is debra i have been out of this cult for a number of years now but i know how difficult it is for people to have the courage to leave especially if they have family still trapped inside i'd like to help people who may be struggling by offering them a listening ear and some support /friendship via email .

Simon

Just a heads up - while it's always great whenever anyone wants to help others everyone needs to be aware that not everyone offering help might really want to help them.

There is a risk in giving your email address and also confiding personal information to someone you don't really know. Some people are looking for victims, some are looking for someone to listen to their own preaching, and of course some are genuine ... but how do you know who is who?

A safer option for most people is to start with getting anonymous support publicly OR to pay for professional help locally. Everyone else is free to provide the former.

If someone is offering support then you should a) know who they really are and b) be able to see their public contact information.

30

$15.00 minimum wage

by hoser in

jw
friends

while we are talking about economic stimulus i thought i’d bring up the $15 minimum wage.

pros and cons?.

Simon

BTW: If anyone thinks that a $15 minimum wage won't cause unemployment and inflation, please explain why it shouldn't be $100 instead.

Surely if it's a free benefit with no drawbacks, then 'more' must be even better still?

So why not $100, heck why not $1,000 and then everyone will be rich and all our problems will be solved!

Just need to print the money ...

30

$15.00 minimum wage

by hoser in

jw
friends

while we are talking about economic stimulus i thought i’d bring up the $15 minimum wage.

pros and cons?.

Simon

On the other hand I don’t think anyone earning minimum wage should pay a dime in income taxes.

Everyone should pay something in taxes, otherwise you get the situations where people don't want to work or earn more in order to avoid them.

They should always be progressive - if you earn more you will get more, even if the marginal tax rate you pay increases along the way.

Unless people have a stake in society, some investment in it, many don't seem willing to take part in society in the way they should.

People don't value things if everything is free to them. If they contribute, then they will feel differently about seeing things vandalized etc... and have more of an interest in what happens to their tax money.

The reason politicians don't want this is obvious - they would rather have the votes of the peasant and stupid class willing to give them up in exchange for free crumbs.

"take from the rich" really is a dated and failed financial policy although there needs to be greater controls to prevent the ultra-wealthy controlling the playing field to keep their wealth. For those who don't keep up with things, when you see a billionaire saying the wealthy should pay more taxes, that is their way of controlling the game and protecting their position.

23

Is There Life On Mars?

by LoveUniHateExams in

no, i'm not talking about the david bowie song, i'm asking does life exist on mars?.

opportunity rover (the one before the present one) took photos of strange, puffball-like sphericals seemingly sprouting on the martian surface.. these photos aren't conclusive evidence but it is an exciting area to investigate.. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9546225/scientists-claim-evidence-fungi-red-planet.html .

Simon

It's a strong possibility as Mars was hit with the same space debris as earth over millions of years

Ah, the old "it must have come from outer space" theory.

... which never explains where that life originated, or how it came to be hurtling through space or manage to survive the impact with a planet.

30

$15.00 minimum wage

by hoser in

jw
friends

while we are talking about economic stimulus i thought i’d bring up the $15 minimum wage.

pros and cons?.

Simon

It's not the role of government to tell companies how much someone is worth, that is the job of the market.

The real minimum wage is $0 - if you try to force companies to pay someone who is only worth $10 to them, $15 instead, they will be fired and / or replaced by robots.

Raising the minimum wage raises inflation and prices - the poor will never earn more in real terms even if the numeric value of their pay denomination goes up, as all the things they want and need to spend that money on (assuming they keep their job) will also go up.

At a time when stimulation the economy and improving employment is most needed, putting further limits on employers and making it harder for them to keep staff is simply idiotic.

It also doesn't factor in location - $15 per hour in NY could be nothing, but significant in some small town in the middle of nowhere. Why have one-size-fits-all when it clearly doesn't?

31

What Do You Want To Talk About Regarding Jehovah’s Witnesses?

by minimus in

jw
friends

we do talk a lot about how this site doesn’t center on all things jw.

so what would you like to discuss?.

the floor is yours..

Simon

How about whether JWs think that Biden is the worse president ever and ...

Am I helping?

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

Simon

Zerah the Ethiopian would have wiped the field with him!

Later Zeʹrah the E·thi·oʹpi·an came against them with an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots

You might want to brush up on your real history - Alexanders 35,000 men beat an army estimated to be 1,000,000 in one of the most impressive victories against overwhelming odds in history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaugamela

Of course ancient sources always overestimated the size of armies back in those days, the bible writers were no exception.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

Simon

If you read about the logistics for large armies in history, before oil-powered transportation was available, it was often an incredible challenge to keep them supplied and fed.

And "large" is not as large as you may imagine, Alexander the Great for instance had maybe 35-40,000 men ... roughly a mid-size sports stadium full of people, but then they would have extra support staff. Every person was a mouth to feed.

Past a certain size and you need more and more people to gather and supply food, so there was a limit to how large of a group of people could be maintained. Add horses or camels and that's yet more mouths to feed.

And they could only be fed by taking from the tows and cities they conquered and travelled through. A very different scenario to travelling through a desert with no supplies.

The bible stories really are fancifully outlandish in their claims.

70

Watch this, and don’t shoot the messenger...

by DATA-DOG in

hopefully i’m doing this right and it will display for you.

this is an interview with michael yeadon, former vice president and chief science officer of pfizer.

of course he has been attacked, slandered, shunned, ect, and this will never be allowed on social media, but he has taken the time to appear in an unpaid interview.

Simon

I dont think the 579,000 deaths in the US alone were faking it.

What about if a lot of those deaths weren't because of it?

37

Will You Get Back To Normal After Covid Subsides?

by minimus in

jw
friends

some say we will never get back to pre-pandemic days.

others say we should expect to live with masks and social distancing as the “new normal “.

still others are hopeful that we can live life realizing there might never be an end to covid or cancer or influenza but our lives must continue to go on.

Simon

Science simply isn't independent. It relies on funding, which means the scientist are beholden to the politicians who grant it to them.

The real scientists throughout history were the independent rebels, never the establishment preaching the orthodoxy.