quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Has anyone ever seen him reply to a comment on his article? I'd be interested in seeing Dogbreath post that on the article to see if he would reply.
You mean on the Rhino Times site? No, I've personally never seen that happen.
But he's the owner of this site, so presumably he still browses the forums here. I don't know if he spends his time reading this thread, but I always write under the assumption that he will read what I say.
I would honestly love it if he decided to engage in a discussion about his articles here. I can understand why he doesn't - I think it would end up being more or less a dogpile considering the contrast between his political beliefs and those of most of the posters here - but it would be nice to help clear up some of the factual issues if nothing else. (like how much of an input he had in NOM's boycotts and why he chose to resign)
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quote:But he's the owner of this site, so presumably he still browses the forums here.
I wouldn't make that assumption, necessarily. I know Kristine does, but even then she generally notices things only when BB brings them to her attention.
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posted
In some states, the use of voter ID laws as a poll tax/time barrier to keep liberal demographics (poor, nonwhite, young, etc) from voting is astoundingly transparent in that it is clearly engaged upon as a conservative strategy to keep poor people from voting, especially in areas concentrated with demographics that vote against conservatives. In other states, it is merely just largely transparent that it is a conservative strategy to keep poor people from voting.
In Wisconsin, shortly after passing a voter ID law, Scott Walker shuttered well over one in ten DMV's in the entire state, mostly in areas that were largely democratic, it is told. Other DMV's had their hours expanded.
Conservatives have to assert that this is incidental.
Florida, a state that had largely performed averagely in poll wait times in the past, had its average wait time soar to a 45 minute average in the election directly following a conservative push for voter ID blocks, largely because of catastrophic overload in ... yes, you guessed it: urban centers. Apparently, the republican legislature had also seen it fit to cut early voting times drastically and was not particularly inclined to expand polling capacity.
Conservatives have to assert that this is incidental.
The list of acceptable forms of identification proposed for use in getting a voter ID has often been observed to be oddly skewed in favor of some types of ID, such as a concealed carry license being valid in ways a tribal identification card is not, despite this being profoundly dumb. In some places this was largely shored up by complaints, followed by legal cases against the states in question.
Conservatives have to assert that this is incidental.
There is no scourge of voter fraud — the maximum calculated impact across the country is infinitesimal. Something like maybe 40 confirmed cases since 2000. It is a nonissue. No elections are at risk from voter fraud. The voter ID laws are supposed to prevent voter impersonation, but mail in ballot fraud is responsible for about four times the total amount of (again, infinitesimal) voter fraud. But since mail in ballots are largely mailed in by older white people, you find that these voter ID law pushes will, more often than not, really not touch the issue of mail in ballot security much, or at all.
Conservatives have to assert that this is incidental.
A grand total of five states got voter ID laws passed by conservatives who were reacting immediately to the supreme court gutting a part of the voting rights act, a law passed explicitly to prevent intentional barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. These states' conservatives had been unable to enact their voter ID laws since their states had a legacy of intentional disenfranchisement of African Americans. The ruling against the voting rights act had put their states under extra scrutiny, given their history of intentional disenfranchisement, that prevented them from passing laws that would disenfranchise voters. Once they were freed from this extra scrutiny, they immediately passed laws that disenfranchised voters. Texas didn't even wait more than two hours to get started.
Conservatives are usually just shrugging at this point, or saying that agenda-packing liberals are just trying to make them look bad in a somehow illegitimate way.
Texas would, of course, succeed in rushing its new voter ID, with the state AG announcing its immediate implementation. The exact same AG, Abbott, was simultaneously planning to put in place redistricting maps conservatives drew up in 2011. These redistricting maps had previously been blocked according to a court ruling that showed that the maps were "a deliberate, race-conscious method to manipulate not simply the Democratic vote but, more specifically, the Hispanic vote."
Conservatives have to assert that something something mumble mumble it's the liberals who are the real election riggers mumble.
Every single voter ID law has been sponsored by republicans and passed purely by republican representatives. They are a purely conservative effort that have constantly and consistently shown the habit of being intended to prevent specific demographics from voting, because these demographics vote liberal. Courts have certainly observed the habit in practice. Laws have been struck down very clearly. Pennsylvania conservatives' attempt was revoked by the courts because it obviously discriminated against low-income and minority voters. A Commonwealth court judge, McGinley, declared that the entire law was absolutely violative of the constitutional rights of state voters — by preponderance of evidence, it was declared, it was there to place undue burden on hundreds of thousands of already registered voters due to a lack of infrastructure and state support for obtaining required IDs.
Conservatives something something no you.
Another circuit judge, Richard Posner, himself actually a conservative, provided a serious critique of the laws, calling the expressed concern about voter fraud an obvious ruse for laws he saw "appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks." The movement to expand voter ID laws as much as conservatives could get away with was spurred by the understanding that, at present, Republican gerrymandering was going to become eventually insufficient a method of keeping disproportional representation in favor of Republican candidates, and something new was needed to hold off the tide.
Conservatives in the states that can get away with this shit just shrug and go "yeah, but you can't stop us, because we won't let you." Then they saunter off confident in the fact that, at least for now, the strategy has been providing the intended effect for them.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: I can understand why he doesn't - I think it would end up being more or less a dogpile considering the contrast between his political beliefs and those of most of the posters here
I don't think enough people hang around here to have a dogpile. My guess is it would primarily be you, Orincoro, and Rakeesh engaging him with Samp jumping in with somewhat trollish yet insightful commentary. Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: But since mail in ballots are largely mailed in by older white people, you find that these voter ID law pushes will, more often than not, really not touch the issue of mail in ballot security much, or at all.
Military, too. I haven't voted in person since 2008. I finally just registered to vote here in Hawaii (since I technically don't think it's legal for me to vote in Indiana any more (not that anyone would stop me)) and I'm kind of looking forward to actually being able to vote on election day again.
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: I don't think enough people hang around here to have a dogpile. My guess is it would primarily be you, Orincoro, and Rakeesh engaging him with Samp jumping in with somewhat trollish yet insightful commentary.
I am greatly amused that the guy with nearly 10 times as many posts as me is somehow relegated to being the wacky sidekick of this scenario. Take that, Mr. Rimary!
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posted
The internet should require ID. Anyone can claim they're you. It's a crime, and they could go to prison for a year or more, but they can still do it.
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quote: In fact, one of the huge holes in this mental construct is one that every parent recognizes as we watch it form in our children: morality. What does the child internalize as right and wrong, so that they act according to that moral code whether they expect to be caught or not?
You know – the thing that keeps them from playing with knives or matches, or running into the street or hitting their siblings, even when parents aren’t watching. The skills that enable them to get along well in a civilized society.
The children who don’t develop some version of this are what we call “sociopaths” – but most children do. In fact, with our kids the rule-forming function was so strong that we sometimes had to spend more time telling them that something wasn’t a matter of right vs. wrong, and they were free to choose.
This isn't a problem with the movie, I think OSC doesn't get where morals come from.
Morality is not an emotion. It's a value/thing Riley cares about. Hence "Honesty island". Along with Family, Friendship, Goofball and Hockey.
Fear is what keeps kids from playing with knives (and it's shown in the movie show fear takes the driver's seat for toddler Riley). Fear of hurting others or society because people have a "Family island" or a "friendship island". If the person is religious, "God" might be on the list of people to fear hurting, but society and family are totally sufficient.
I imagine if rule-following is internalized very strongly, one might have a "Law" island. There would be core memories of being rewarded when law is upheld, and being hurt when it wasn't that power the island.
One of the most powerful things that a parent can say to hurt a child is "I'm very disappointed in you".
Fear is what sociopaths do not have. I've read a few of the pop books on the subject (the Sociopath Next Door, and the Psychopath test), and one of them mentions an (unethical) experiment done on prisoners which pretty conclusively shows who's a psychopath. Take a prisoner, strap him down, and put stuff on him to measure his vitals. Now count back to 10 and shock him when zero is reached. Now do it again. For non-psychopaths, the vitals go CRAZY as you get closer to zero. The body fears, and anticipates the shock. For psychopaths, nothing. Both groups are in pain and suffer from the electric shock, but only one group fears it the second time.
So in the Inside Out metaphor, a psychopath would literally not have the purple fear guy in the brain. And it's likely that there's no island for other people only interests.
The entire movie offers an explanation for people breaking with the fabric of society: emotional upheaval causes a loss of connection from core memories to core values, and that joy is no longer in the driver's seat. People with bad childhoods might never have had those core memories to form those islands to begin with.
The loss of joy (and even the inability to feel sadness) also a great metaphor for depression, as you go through life not feeling things, and the connections to things you care about no longer work.
quote: (Don’t bother looking for ambition, aggression, competitiveness, introversion, trust, show-offery, vanity, self-hatred, or ... you know, the whole range of motivations and emotions.)
It's not an accident Disgust was the most fashionably dressed of the emotions, and was also responsible for Riley fitting in and wanting to be "cool" in addition to not liking broccoli. To be cool, there's a manifestation of "not cool", and a desire for that not to be you, that isn't necessarily fear based, but rather based on disgust.
And, as the movie's moral shows, things can have more than one emotion, but if you break it down, these things are motivated from the five simple ones. Could there be a sixth emotion? Possibly. But none of the things OSC listed are a compelling case for number six.
quote: Now, it’s true that emotions often pop up for reasons of their own, and we invent causes for them after the fact. But even within this story, they don’t actually cause Riley’s decisions, though they influence them.
Whatever it is in Riley that decides what she’s going to do is never dealt with. We only know that when things get discombobulated, and both Joy and Sadness are accidentally sucked out of the control room and lost in the recesses of memory, Riley gets a deadpan expression and rejects any kind of communication with her parents.
Then Anger (for some reason) picks up a screw-in lightbulb that represents “running away,” and that’s when Riley makes up her mind to go back to Minnesota.
Why Anger? Isn’t running away a fear response (as in “fight or flight”)? It made no sense, but what the heck. The kid is smart, and she’s apparently in the safest part of the city, so she can walk to the bus station without problems, and they accept the credit card and let an unaccompanied child on the bus without any question. Maybe that’s a thing that can really happen.
What were the emotions doing at the console then, if not driving Riley? The lightbulb was pulled out of a collection of "ideas" and literally put in there by anger. Anger wanted her to go to Minnesota. The emotions don't have complete control, but yes, they do drive Riley
There's a very good reason why anger, not fear is driving Riley. Riley isn't afraid of her classmates beating her up, and she's already screwed up being called on, so no need to fear that one. She's mad because what she had was taken away from her and she has no control over her own life.
Cities ... are not that dangerous to walk around in. Remember that part where crime is at an all-time global low. Granted, I was an adult, but I have ample experience walking around late at night, and I've never had to dodge a single person in the bushes. Did someone take a credit card? I don't remember, and assume Riley bought her bus ticket on the internet, and the boarding pass probably got sent to her phone. Age 11 bleeds into middle school age. It's quite easy to assume that Riley belonged to the person in front or behind her
quote: You get the idea. Each new religion within the overarching priesthood of psychology comes in with a roar – the new male baboon entering the troop – disrupting everything and struggling to reach the top of the heap. But if there’s anything of value it’s almost an accident, and as for what is true about the human mind ... well, the actual, verifiable science is creeping along, so we know more than we used to. But the science always lags many leagues behind the claims of the newly converted enthusiasts.
Oof. I wonder how much OSC has been listening to Scientologists these days.
On a side note, did anyone else notice that the mother had sadness in the driver's center seat?
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: I don't think enough people hang around here to have a dogpile. My guess is it would primarily be you, Orincoro, and Rakeesh engaging him with Samp jumping in with somewhat trollish yet insightful commentary.
I am greatly amused that the guy with nearly 10 times as many posts as me is somehow relegated to being the wacky sidekick of this scenario. Take that, Mr. Rimary!
apparently my primary contribution is my own patented blend of Edutrolling™
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quote:In fact, this movie will be practically a remake of Gravity, only this time with plausible science and intelligent writing.
quote:So when Gravity came along, it marked an attempt to follow the pattern of competent-man sci-fi. Even though the science was bad to the point of weeping,
Gravity was not that bad. Really.
quote: Let me point to a couple of very good movies. In Deep Impact, the sacrifice of the astronauts breaks up the asteroid enough that when it collides with Earth, it doesn’t end all life. There are people around to pick up the pieces.
However, when real planetary scientists are looking for a Hollywood movie to watch drunk and giggle at the bad science, they turn to ... Deep Impact (or The Core if they are feeling really masochistic).
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posted
I'm wondering if Card will, in his now usual Obama fixation and vitriol along with his GOP apologism, take a swing at Trump's remarks on Mexicans and try to tell us how it's the fault of gays or Obama or gay Obamas.
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posted
I would say that Trump isn't *anybody's* type, except that he's now the most popular Republican candidate in the race, so clearly quite a few people like him. I genuinely don't understand why. (and I can understand why people like guys like Huckabee, Perry, or even Cruz)
I imagine Card will ignore him during the primaries and, if he wins and it comes down to Clinton or Sanders or whoever vs. Trump, he'll start supporting him and brush off the anti-immigrant remarks as a "gee, funny how the librul media keeps bringing that up...." type rant.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: I would say that Trump isn't *anybody's* type, except that he's now the most popular Republican candidate in the race, so clearly quite a few people like him. I genuinely don't understand why. (and I can understand why people like guys like Huckabee, Perry, or even Cruz)
I imagine Card will ignore him during the primaries and, if he wins and it comes down to Clinton or Sanders or whoever vs. Trump, he'll start supporting him and brush off the anti-immigrant remarks as a "gee, funny how the librul media keeps bringing that up...." type rant.
Well, four years ago, my mom made an offhand remark about Trump being a good president because he was a good business man, etc. etc. With his TV persona, I think most people don't know that Trump isn't that great at business. I suspect that's the case with most people.
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posted
I don't know much about Trump past his branding, pop culture status, and his boneheaded political comments. Why do you say that he's not that great at business?
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quote:Mr Trump was touting his first place in an average of 105 polls. Of the 14 candidates who have declared, Trump topped the field with 13.6 per cent support to 13.3 per cent for Jeb Bush
If he keeps making racist and xenophobic speeches he'll win the Republican primary in a landslide. They love him.
Elison: Who/what are you talking about?
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: I don't know much about Trump past his branding, pop culture status, and his boneheaded political comments. Why do you say that he's not that great at business?
Trump is a cautionary tale. If what he does works, there's something wrong with how you can practice capitalism in your society, and you need to have as few of him happening in your markets as you can possibly manage, because he's poison with a net negative effect. If enough people practiced "successful capitalism" the way Trump has made it work for him, the economy would implode under debt-manipulated fleecing.
He's 'great at business' in the same way that a confessions-of-an-economic-hitman style vulture capitalist is 'great,' based solely on the post-hoc rationalization that they got away with it and are very rich now, even if their methods resulted in a net loss of people's livelihoods and screwed other people over really super hard.
If bankruptcy law hadn't been as excruciatingly oligarch-friendly, he would have been a footnote — a narcissistic comedy routine who inherited his father's business empire, then plunged himself into billions of dollars of debt and had to call it quits. Instead, he just made sure he had enough clever accounting to leave other people footing the bill no matter how spectacularly he failed.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'm wondering if Card will, in his now usual Obama fixation and vitriol along with his GOP apologism, take a swing at Trump's remarks on Mexicans and try to tell us how it's the fault of gays or Obama or gay Obamas.
Card has never been a hard-liner on immigration. It's just not compatible with his religious views, I think.
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quote:Mr Trump was touting his first place in an average of 105 polls. Of the 14 candidates who have declared, Trump topped the field with 13.6 per cent support to 13.3 per cent for Jeb Bush
If he keeps making racist and xenophobic speeches he'll win the Republican primary in a landslide. They love him.
posted
Yeah, I finished the article thinking, "Man, every so often OSC writes an article where I remember why I read these every week for the last 10 years".
I had some quibbles:
Less than half of Ashley Madison's users were inside the United States, so that skews up a little bit of the math.
While I agree entirely that people on that site created their own problems, there are also some more forgivable reasons for being on it.
1. I read something on Reddit about a gay man from Saudi Arabia who could very well be executed since his name is public, and he's trying to seek asylum (I don't expect OSC to be sympathetic to that one).
2. Swingers and people who have joined who are in open marriages, but would like to keep their privacy.
As for social security, I thought it was entirely paid for by the current population, so while not taking it helps other current boomers, it doesn't do anything for the problems that might arise in 30 years or so.
Also, the rate you get paid is fixed on the year you start taking it, so if you start at 62, you get less per month than if you start at 70. If you live long enough, you make up for starting later.
Publicly vowing to refuse it entirely, seems silly,
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quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: As for social security, I thought it was entirely paid for by the current population, so while not taking it helps other current boomers, it doesn't do anything for the problems that might arise in 30 years or so.
Not exactly. There are just too many boomers to make it possible for the current generation to support them. But by some freak miracle of political foresight, we saw this coming in the 80's and made sure to start collecting a bit MORE than immediately necessary. The excess is stored in a trust fund* which can be tapped to cover deficits when there are more retirees than can be supported by the younger generation (expected to happen in 2022). At the rate things are going, the trust fund is projected to be tapped out in 2033, at which point benefits will have to be reduced or taxes increased.
* IIRC the trust fund puts the money (over $2 trillion now) in the safest investment possible: US Treasury bonds. This leads to some idiots saying "the government just loans the money to itself and then spends it! It doesn't really exist anymore and we are screwed!!" When in fact the bonds will be reliably paid back just like all are.
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posted
"at which point benefits will have to be reduced or taxes increased."
Or the government just issues the money anyway. Which I am mostly persuaded is a fine option. See modern monetary theory.
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posted
It's fine in the sense that it is not substantially different from what the government already does, which is issue bonds which it then buys from itself.
It's only bad in the sense that if the markets somehow feel that the government is giving itself too much money, and relying too much on inflation to cover the long term costs of financing its debt to itself, then the markets can also decide those bonds are worthless. Ultimately the bond market still has to be a market, or it doesn't work out in the end.
Which is why, to back up the issuance of new bonds during a financial boom, you have to raise taxes. This gives government debt more legitimacy- it is assurance that the debt will be paid back.
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posted
Also the entire current world order is structured around the supremacy of the US dollar and the invulnerability of the US economy. I don't think there's honestly a point where the bonds would lose their value short of the US no longer being hegemon.
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posted
Heh. Where were you in 2010? The bonds "losing their value," is an armageddon scenario. US bonds losing a scintilla of credibility results in financial chaos on a global scale.
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posted
Yeah that's why the GOP threatening to default the US is borderline treason because it'll do more damage to the US's global position than any Iran deal.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Heh. Where were you in 2010? The bonds "losing their value," is an armageddon scenario. US bonds losing a scintilla of credibility results in financial chaos on a global scale.
Can you elaborate on that? When you say "losing their value is an armageddon scenario", don't bonds lose their value all the time when rates go up, or do you mean specifically U.S. bonds losing their risk-free status?
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Heh. Where were you in 2010? The bonds "losing their value," is an armageddon scenario. US bonds losing a scintilla of credibility results in financial chaos on a global scale.
Can you elaborate on that? When you say "losing their value is an armageddon scenario", don't bonds lose their value all the time when rates go up, or do you mean specifically U.S. bonds losing their risk-free status?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Heh. Where were you in 2010? The bonds "losing their value," is an armageddon scenario. US bonds losing a scintilla of credibility results in financial chaos on a global scale.
Can you elaborate on that? When you say "losing their value is an armageddon scenario", don't bonds lose their value all the time when rates go up, or do you mean specifically U.S. bonds losing their risk-free status?
Bonds don't lose face value- they just can't be bought at the same rate. Bond value pretty much always goes up. If they go down, the conerstone of international finance goes with them.
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posted
Wherein Noblehunter pretends he understand money:
The credit rating downgrade was an implication that it had become less likely the US would be able to pay off its debts. I don't think the market put much credibility in that particular judgement.
If I understand things right, the only time bonds would trade at less than their face value (ie. the debt holder losing money on the deal) would be if a potential default were imminent. Sellers would be hedging their risk against getting paid back less than they lent (sell for 90% of the face value to avoid the risk of getting 0%) whereas buyers would be trying to get bonds for less than what will eventually be paid (buying for 90% of the face and getting paid 95% from the original borrower). I would expect bonds are normally traded at above face value, starting at the value at maturity agreed to by the borrower and trending towards 100% as people cash out or hedge against risk.
At one point (2008 or 2010), the rest of the system was so screwy that people were buying US bonds close enough to the face value (the money the US gov't got) that inflation meant the bonds would be worth less at maturity than what the buyers paid for them. Traders were willing to accept a known loss to avoid to risk of a much greater loss trying to hold some other asset.
As the above illustrates, the US must always pay its debts. As the major reserve currency, it's where investors go when everything else looks like a bad bet. Other currencies are too instable or vulnerable (Yuan, Yen[?], Euro) or there aren't enough reserves (Pound, Swiss Franc, CDN[which is also somewhat unstable]). Gold works well only if the price is stable, which tends not to be the case when there's a shortage of other investment options.
If the US defaults, there would literally be nowhere safe for money to go. Our economic models aren't set up for that eventuality. Just like many weren't set up to for a decline in housing prices in 2008.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Heh. Where were you in 2010? The bonds "losing their value," is an armageddon scenario. US bonds losing a scintilla of credibility results in financial chaos on a global scale.
Can you elaborate on that? When you say "losing their value is an armageddon scenario", don't bonds lose their value all the time when rates go up, or do you mean specifically U.S. bonds losing their risk-free status?
Bonds don't lose face value- they just can't be bought at the same rate. Bond value pretty much always goes up. If they go down, the conerstone of international finance goes with them.
Bond *funds* do go down when interest rates go up. The though being just getting a new bond is a better deal than sharing these lousy old bond profits.
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posted
Bond prices go down when interest rates go up. That's what I meant by value, their price on the open market. I didn't mean that the amount they pay on maturity.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by NobleHunter: At one point (2008 or 2010), the rest of the system was so screwy that people were buying US bonds close enough to the face value (the money the US gov't got) that inflation meant the bonds would be worth less at maturity than what the buyers paid for them. Traders were willing to accept a known loss to avoid to risk of a much greater loss trying to hold some other asset.
In fact, bond yields at one point reached 0%, meaning that it was guaranteed that the buyer would receive less than the face value of the bond when accounting for inflation.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:The result is that the best candidate to run for the Republican nomination in many years, Scott Walker, became a victim of his own diffident, noncombative personality. Being “above the fray” made him invisible, even though he was the only candidate to have governed a state where he faced the gut-check issues.
His enemies try to portray him as anti-union, but that is false. He was against monopoly unions that use their power to steal from the pockets of taxpayers.
For many years in Wisconsin, where (as in most states) the state Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Education Association, Democratic Party officials supposedly represented the people when negotiating pay and benefits with the leftist ideologues of the NEA, who supposedly represented the teachers.
That meant that the teachers’ compensation packages had been “negotiated” with the NEA’s people sitting on both sides of the table. Nobody spoke for the taxpayers, and nobody spoke for non-radical-leftist teachers.
Walker’s changes were modest indeed, but you’d have thought he was beheading teachers in the public square. Teachers’ unions always claim that anyone who opposes them is “against education.” But when Walker faced a recall election and won, it became clear that a majority of Wisconsin voters knew that the NEA had been stealing from them, and wanted a slightly fairer sharing-out of taxpayer funds.
quote:And Sanders seems to be that rare thing among politicians: A decent human being who refuses to engage in personal attacks while trusting the people to listen to actual ideas and programs as they decide whom to vote for.
If I had to choose between Sanders and Trump, I’d choose Sanders.
Sanders really does seem to appeal to a lot of people across a broad political spectrum. He's pretty difficult to hate.
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