It’s interesting, they used to think that having a big vocabulary or knowing multiple languages delayed having Alzheimer’s. It turns out that family often first become aware that a person is developing Alzheimer’s because the person starts regularly forgetting common words, but people with big vocabularies can come up with alternatives when they can’t remember one, so their family doesn’t recognize it as early. When those people are diagnosed, they end up being further along.

Right, that’s the thing.

I honestly believe part of the problem this country is in today started when the news media felt they had to give equal time to every issue. I remember lots of segments on climate change where they had one person on each side, and I could understand most people coming away believing we just don’t know. And it’s not just climate change, they did that with everything.

So here we are, polarized like never before, with so many believing that every opinion is legitimate. Sure, you can believe what you want, but if you believe the world was created 6000 years ago, you’re just wrong. You’re entitled to believe something wrong, but that doesn’t make it valid. A legitimate news site should reflect that. A climate denier or a creationist shouldn’t get equal time. Same with do many issues.

Lol, “one side of the climate debate.” There isn’t debate among scientists - there’s like less than one percent of climate scientists who don’t believe that humans are putting our climate in a terrible place. So just that part the tells you the bias. It’s just like when they talk about the debate between evolution and creationism: the only debate is with people who reject the data to further their own agenda.

See, this is an example of why he likes Putin. If you publish negative stories about Putin, regardless of truth, you’re going to fall out a window. Trump wants that.

The point is that if the rules aren’t grounded in science, it’s not science fiction. You can have the trappings of science, like space travel or whatever, but if people are moving objects and doing impossible acrobatics by using a magical force, it’s fantasy.

Though not mine, I personally think that definition works better than most. Still, if you pin me down, I’d say that there’s a spectrum, with hard SF (where everything is rigorously anchored to scientific principles) at one end, and pure fantasy (with magic and such) at the other. There are lots of things between those endpoints, with some being closer to one or the other, and some being very much in the middle.

Oh, it’s fantasy

I always liked the distinction (I forget who originated it) that science fiction is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by physics and fantasy is a story set in a world where the rules are defined by the author.

Oh, nice, that’s it!

As other people have said, it would be way worse to have him him assassinated. If it’s looking like he’s going to lose, I could see the people who want the US unstable to prefer assassinating him instead.

Oh, nice, that would make perfect sense. And Trump was in his 20s when Sinatra had his biggest hits in the 60s, so that tracks too.