God, what an unintuitive trick they’ve come up with for that locking mechanism. Thanks for taking one for the team!

The problem with bringing an actual scientist to the discussion is that they work with facts and theory, which doesn’t always translate to easily digestible bites (especially on-the-fly), whereas the WT are free to mould their neat, naive packages of misinformation and misquotes with little regard to science and actual facts (and the believing readers probably also won’t come across the facts on their own). A certain disparaging analogy with pigeons and chess comes to mind.

On the flip side, showing an actual scientist’s confidence and their reaction to creationist BS should help to dismantle the narrative of ”evolutionists” being confused or unsure in the slightest about the fact of evolution.

This. Good business or bad, that’s all that it is: business. Companies aren’t people, grievances and forgivances don’t apply.

Thanks for the explanation, I was looking at North Europe thinking: Norway, what’s wrong with you?!

*Porofessional

In Finnish a bat is ”lepakko”, which means ”a bat”.

JK, actually the meaning is something like ”the flutterer”. But no rodents in the name.

Great point about the lack of pride in shunning, it really is quite striking now that you’ve articulated it. It stands in contrast to how they do seem to take pride in, say, the blood policy (from an outsider’s POV at least). Both are destructive, yet one is flaunted, while the other is treated like the shameful half-secret that it is.

There’s a sort of a reverse Thatcher effect also: have your friend lie down, with the lower part of their face (everything below the eyes) obscured with a piece of paper or something. You then make eye contact with them from above their head so that their face is upside down in your field of view. After a while, your brains starts to think you are face to face with someone without a nose or a mouth, but with a bushy beard (assuming they have hair).

(Discovered this with friends back when we were kids, don’t know if has a designated name.)

Martin Hall feat. Dinah Smith: Not Forever. The version in this one sounds like ”Tribute Version 2” by Daniel Gunnarsson feat. Staffan Carlén.

One thing to weigh when considering signing is that no matter how vague they make wording, they can not have you waive all your rights simply by consenting. If they could, no organisation would be wasting time and money to comply with GDPR; they would all just change their consent forms to be as vague as possible like this to cover their butts. That would obviously defeat the whole purpose behind the new law, and the fact that we don’t see that indicates to me that no organisations (apart from Watchtower, apparently) believe that they could get away with it.

That is not to say that you should just sign the thing without a thought, but just to ease the concern someone might have that if you are forced to sign, you’ll lose any and all privacy rights you have for good.

(Disclaimer: Just my 2 cents, I’m no expert either.)