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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • From what I understand, those who research religion prefer the term “high-control group” to describe what are colloquially known as “cults.” That’s partly due to people calling anything they don’t like a cult.

    Picture two Christian denominations. One only asks its members to show up to church when they like, donate to keep the place running, and express Christ’s love to each other in whatever way they see fit without placing unnecessary burdens on them. The other demands, under pain of exile, that all members spend 40 hours per month on door-to-door evangelization regardless of social disposition, only receive theology that is dictated by one specific organization, tithe 20% of their income to that organization, only allows members to be friends with others in that particular denomination, and does not allow them to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, use any “hard” drugs, get tattoos, or receive blood transfusions.

    Most people would probably agree that the second denomination is a cult/high-control group, but using that descriptor for the first denomination would dilute the term so much that it would basically become meaningless.












  • Political stances are relative across the globe. You can’t just draw a line in the middle of American political talking points and then apply that generalization to the rest of the world. It’s more useful to describe specific ideologies (although even that gets pretty muddy fast), but that wouldn’t be very practical for a bit either. Imagine if it somehow concluded that Mother Jones has a “minarchist-capitalist” bias. Still, I question the use of this bot, which is probably based on US terms, running this analysis on a site called “lemmy.world”.





  • I have an idea for a debate. These two go to a golf course determined by a neutral third party (like, I dunno, make the Libertarian party agree on something for once in their lives) for a 9 hole game (18 holes probably wouldn’t work in the TikTok world). Eight topics, and then a concluding statement. On the first hole, they make their introductory statements between shots. They start with the same amount of time, but after that, they get more time to articulate their points based on how well they did on the last hole. After all the golfing is done, that’s when they deliver their concluding statements, again getting time based on how well they did.

    Let’s settle the question of who the better golfer is once and for all.