Can’t say I blame Trump for avoiding Vietnam. It was a stupid war from the start and getting out was the smart thing to do. Blame the people in charge at the time who started and prolonged it. From Truman to Nixon.

A ladder is a bit heavy to carry, I’d go for rope&hook. Takes a bit more agility to climb, but you can carry it wrapped around you on the way to the wall so you don’t alert any suspicion.

The aliens will get a totally wrong picture of our society, assuming people travel in groups of four or five people rather than reality that there is usually just one person in that huge lump of steel.

A civilization perfectly willing to pollute our atmosphere for convenience.

If we’re dreaming, what about having him deported to ICC fir trial and spending the rest of his days in a cell? Maybe even see him cry when the verdict is read, although I’m not sure if he is capable of such an act. Too human.

It’s definitely easier to be a candidate for the more authoritarian voters who support the leader just because he is the leader, never mind what he does.

“And if you try to offer the phone number to them, they won’t accept it.”

It would make some kind of sense in a totalitarian sense to have a law that require you to swear that kind of fealty to your own country, but what fucked up country force you to swear loyalty to another country?

Available evidence suggest pyramids were built by free men who led a pretty decent life. It was probably paid for by taxes making life a bit harder for everyone, but much of the work took place while the Nile was flooded and you couldn’t work on the fields anyway. The whole slavery thing is a myth from the Bible.

The conquistadors weren’t priests. The land was conquered not to convert souls but to plunder gold and silver, and this would have happened even if the Catholic church hadn’t existed. The church certainly isn’t blameless, but its role is complex. Some times it really tried to save the natives from conquistadors who…

You may as well call Christianity Judaism that appropriated a bunch of ideas from Hellenistic cultures. God impregnating a woman to get a son, that’s more Zeus than the Jewish God. Turning water into wine is from Bacchus and so on.

The Catholic church organization has always been about power, individuals within it have often been a lot more progressive, as witnessed by all priests tortured and murdered in Latin America for opposing military juntas.

Maybe he thinks he is in the British parliament, where you may say lots of things, but never call someone a liar.

What about two women getting fired, leaving a farewell card by erasing all records of debts?

He’d just imagine that she was a prisoner too.

“the unexamined assumption being that we must have a ruling class.”

Why do you determine ethical value based on species rather than as individuals? If someone managed to produce one pig that was smart enough to argue convincingly with you, would that really make you stop eating any pig, or would you just write it off as an exception?

What about mentally disabled people? Do they get a pass because they belong to the species Homo Sapiens that have more intelligent members even if they are unable to come up with any compelling arguments? Is it even obvious that intelligence is all that counts for ethical purposes?

Any special reason why you think they should ignore the by far largest source of animal abuse, or was it just a mistake that you forgot to mention the meat industry?

The money is insignificant. It’s about being able to throw out poor people without even having to listen to them.