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Author Topic: old man blogs at cloud
Samprimary
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quote:
Or if not, what bizarre personal transformation occurs to make someone so very different and so contemptuous of nuance and integrity, when speaking of a political rival, in so little time?
well

do we start by assuming that his transformation has been one of his loss of nuance and sane interpretation of political issues rather than one of him simply losing his tact and no longer possessing the sorts of filters that would have prevented him from permanently becoming associated with right wing blatant anti-gay hatred

if i had to bet on it, i would have to say the safest bet is on years of saturation in a warped and demented epistemological bubble common to the media environment most american conservatives stay essentially confined to

it's becoming a more common story. we get to watch what it does to people over decades. it just eats away at people's sanity. you hear stories from a lot of people about how their parents or their friends or their extended family used to be a lot different, a lot less crank and paranoid, but they would start watching fox news or listening to right wing talk radio all the time and they would become observably, measurably more bombastic and deluded and polarized against a bizarrely expanding list of anti-american conspirators that eventually just grows to be everyone who's for the most part not like them, as time goes on. it just makes you weird and paranoid and sincerely just ****ed up and closed off and angry at a disconcertingly large list of Conspirators Against The True America, be it police critics, feminism, hollywood, immigrants, asylum seekers, muslims, black activist groups, atheists, gays, gays especially that dare to destroy marriage by trying to be allowed to be married, transgenders, the science community, 'ebonics speaking thugs' or 'innercity youth' or anyone who dares suggest that it is a historically and legally inaccurate fact to suggest that america is a christian nation founded on christianity)

is it unique to the right wing / nativism / etc? not at all, though i think it is easy to say that osc neither is nor will be able to ascertain when and where the shadows of epistemic closure are actually present in the left because he repeatedly presumes it of the entire left even if sometimes he tries to contort back his words and doublethink that he does not blanket demonize liberals, so don't get him wrong. but for anyone who isn't already so saturated in american conservatism's now almost completely all-encompassing paranoia and sandblasting condemnation of anything non-conservative, i can say i am trying to keep stock of and prevent the same general tendencies from the other side from happening to me, because it's all too easy these days for people to end up subject to the same from the weird, wild far left, and end up taking a dive in headfirst to chambers of bizarre and constant catastrophization and negative filtering and absolutely unipolar acceptance of progressively odder things as unchallengable ideological purity tests

it is hard to do because i do genuinely think american conservatism is now so off the rails that it is imploding the GOP essentially into a white nativist hate group. which sounds extreme, it really sounds like something in language i would have written off as bombastic partisan catatstrophization not too many years ago, like how i would have interpreted it if i was listening to someone rant that gwb was a total fascist/hitler or something. It is hard to square looking at conservatives and saying something like "these conservatives have been so warped by their epistemic bubble that they write off all of liberalism as being intellectually bankrupt and dangerous and terrible! not like myself, which purely through facts and reason know that conservatism is intellectually bankrupt and dangerous and terrible!"

sometimes i worry about that and i try to say 'maybe it's time to step back and really try my best to keep things in perspective and keep what i can best assume to be a measured, non-reactionary assessment of conservative culture and policy and governing ethos'

but then when i step back i'm still looking at LITERALLY THIS, GUYS, SORRY, LOOK AT IT so haha sorry conservatives

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Rakeesh
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When I saw Card had reviewed the new Ghostbusters, I'll admit I was fairly confident I would be mortified. It seemed, to me, to be very fertile soil for angry words about feminism and how men are the victims now, and so on and so forth. But, I was wrong about that, and not only was there not anything about feminism in the review which I expected, there wasn't anything political either, which I would also have expected if I'd thought about it. So, egg on my face there!
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The Black Pearl
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I don't read cards articles often but I've never seen him rag on a film for having feminist influences. I have seen him dismiss feminist grievances irl and I could see him being defensive over feminist criticism over a film but thats not the same thing.
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Rakeesh
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On a film specifically? Or pivot to a remark about the culture based on the film or show into a rant about feminism? Because he's definitely done that.

A movie recently was abruptly about Obama. It's a thing he does.

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The Black Pearl
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I believe you then. as I said I've seen him take jabs at feminism.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
A movie recently was abruptly about Obama.

that one

... was weird

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Rakeesh
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Which one was that, how to train your dragon 2?
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Emreecheek
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So. OSC is no longer a Democrat.

Because we Democrats love killing babies.

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Emreecheek:
So. OSC is no longer a Democrat.

I also regret to inform the GOP that I am no longer a Republican
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Rakeesh
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Card's solution to oversight and overreach questions in our military and security apparatus: they just don't obey illegal orders.

Oh, good. Intrinsic trust is historically a very reliable tool to manage the interaction of civilian government and military/security in a free society.

I also like how he credits European colonization and achievement with an achievement that still hasn't happened yet: we are *still* not able to feed everyone everywhere. People-not just small groups but lots-still starve. Of course the capability exists, but you might as well say cancer is treatable and survivable everywhere as thought that were that.

Let's also gloss over the part where, circa the crusades and such, nowhere that Islamic nations conquered Christian ones was Christianity voluntary. Of course there are degrees of involuntary, but still.

As for the Democratic Party, frankly Card plays so loose with the truth in politics now that I simply won't take him at his word that he felt himself a democrat lately. And while I can certainly understand someone having trouble with applause there, it's simply a lie to say that they were applauding the death of a child. It's fine to think that is what an abortion is, but if someone doesn't believe that, and they applaud, they're applauding something different. Applause is *all about* intent. If someone gets ripped on at a stand up show and it makes them laugh, are they laughing because they agree that they're somehow awful? Or did they laugh because they thought the joke was funny and they came to laugh?

Card used to have integrity and nuance. I remember it so, so vividly in many of his books that were, and are, important to me. It still stings to see the end result of this transformation into deceitful oaf.

[ August 06, 2016, 05:34 AM: Message edited by: Rakeesh ]

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Card's solution to oversight and overreach questions in our military and security apparatus: they just don't obey illegal orders.

his logic is essentially that hillary and trump are both corrupt

but that there's an essentialist difference between how corruption would work between the two.

he described it as follows:

if a corrupt democrat is in government, the liberals will 'unite' and make all her illegal orders happen,

but if a corrupt republican is in government, he won't be able to, because his appointees will be republicans, and that means they will resist his illegal orders and keep him in check - republicans ignore the illegal actions ordered by their own republican presidents.

we actually have proof this is true because we are currently residing in a fantasy universe where things like watergate and iran contra did not happen; the only knowledge of such acts we have come from quantum signals tunneling through from other parallel dimensions where they did happen

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Samprimary
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Heads up guys,

I must announce again that I sadly can no longer consider myself a member of the Republican Party.

As a person who has done nothing but 100% hate the Republican party for years and tell everyone as often as I can that they must vote against republicans at all costs, I remained a committed Republican, always assured that every Republican policy was wrong and the Democrats were way better. But I am all about some obscure Republican values I guess so I am totally a Republican.

Or WAS! Until today when finally the party that I have virulently denounced in every meaningful sense and hatefully criticized to the point of demented obsession did something that meant I couldn't be a part of them anymore.

This is TOO MUCH. Today I say GOODBYE to the republican party.

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Jon Boy
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Wait, he was really still a Democrat until just recently?
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Heisenberg
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What site does he publish his columns on these days?
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Jon Boy
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This was in his latest Uncle Orson Reviews Everything column.
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Rakeesh
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It still boggles my mind. 'I can no longer call myself a democrat* because they don't see that they're killing babies.' It's harshly worded to say the least, but it's valid. If a group's philosophy is so different that they disagree with you on what are, to you, fundamental truths then yeah, you should leave.

But no, instead they're bragging about killing babies. Ugh.

*he can claim to have been a democrat all this time, but at the least he's lying to himself.

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Heisenberg
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Huh. The most interesting part of that to me was that Card is absolutely, positively sure that there will never be sentient AI.

I mean, I guess it's to be expected, the man believes in souls and the special specialness of human beings, but his absolute certainty is a bit strange.

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scifibum
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He was knowledgeable about computers in the 80s. I think it's possible, as a consumer, to view the progress in computing since then as just more code and faster machines.

I doubt he grasps how deep neural networks and machine learning work, as much as I doubt he grasps the things we're learning about how brains work.

So I think he's just applying what he knows about computer programming in assessing how today's AI and any realistic fictional AI might work, in addition to the belief that a person's identity and intelligence are tied up with a spirit instead of a part of physical body function.

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GaalDornick
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What applause is Card referring to?
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scifibum
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During the DNC, a woman giving a speech mentioned that she had an abortion. There was applause, but I prefer to assume it was for her freedom of choice and bodily autonomy - or her reference to the availability of a clinic - not for the death of a fetus. It's a good illustration of how a different set of facts and assumptions can really change the meaning of the same event for different audiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46UqUrx0wn4

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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
*he can claim to have been a democrat all this time, but at the least he's lying to himself.

there was no subtlety to it. he would in all or almost all cases bring up his being a democrat for only two reasons

1. to weaponize his self-affiliation against democrats, in a way i guess he thought enhanced the credibility of his criticisms or rejections of democrats. like he would be asserting 'as a democrat' that the democratic candidates and policies are overwhelmingly terrible and that the democrats absolutely had to lose and must be fought at all costs in the upcoming election

2. try to use it as a trump card to deflect criticism, in a "it shows you how little these jackbooted Political Correctness leftaliban thugs care about the truth when they assail me so haughtily with slander. they're so desperate to tear me down they conveniently ignore i'm a democrat!" way

he literally never supported the democratic party, its proposals, its policies, or its candidates over the course of the entire time he farcically maintained that he was a democrat. he only ever made the claim as part of his ceaseless condemnation of the democratic party and 100% consistent calls to support the republican party, which "as a democrat" he did each single election

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JanitorBlade
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I mean, I would think y'all would be glad he formally acknowledge what y'all thought has been a fact a long time.

Also I'm pretty sure Mr. Card has consistently supported the Democrats on immigration, and have heavily criticized the GOP for their stance on it.

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scifibum
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To be fair, I would assume he supports Democrats in local and state elections sometimes.
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zlogdanbr
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quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
He was knowledgeable about computers in the 80s. I think it's possible, as a consumer, to view the progress in computing since then as just more code and faster machines.

I doubt he grasps how deep neural networks and machine learning work, as much as I doubt he grasps the things we're learning about how brains work.

So I think he's just applying what he knows about computer programming in assessing how today's AI and any realistic fictional AI might work, in addition to the belief that a person's identity and intelligence are tied up with a spirit instead of a part of physical body function.

I was initially puzzled at this too but I believe Card is referring to a Jane ( non deterministic ) type of AI rather than a Oversoul type ( which bases its behavior on accumulated data and programming routines ) which is basically the kind of AI that we eventually will see in my opinion as a professional programmer.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
To be fair, I would assume he supports Democrats in local and state elections sometimes.

maybe like less than one tenth of the time, and doubtfully but not assuredly ever for a congressional seat in the last decade
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scifibum
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Well, I can agree with him if his point is that Jane is unrealistic.
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Elison R. Salazar
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Jane is a kinda supernatural element in the fiction, I don't think Humans could create another Jane if they tried until they at least really understood the physics behind philotes and even then I think the point of philotes was it blended physics with metaphysics.

I think Card was probably conventionally a Democrat pre-2000. He certainly doesn't like overt racism and probably recognizes what the southern strategy is?

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JanitorBlade
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Evan McMullin is a far far saner choice to me than Trump. I was pleased to hear Mr. Card say so.

I also agree voting for a third party so as to keep either of the two major party candidates from getting the requisite number of electoral votes is a great idea in theory. But who on Earth would the republican-controlled House vote for?

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Elison R. Salazar
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Cruz, or Romney, whoever they can get who would agree to it. It's kind of terrible in theory because it just hands the Presidency to the Republicans.
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Dogbreath
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Evan McMullin is a far far saner choice to me than Trump. I was pleased to hear Mr. Card say so.

I also agree voting for a third party so as to keep either of the two major party candidates from getting the requisite number of electoral votes is a great idea in theory. But who on Earth would the republican-controlled House vote for?

OSC for the past few months: "I don't like either of them, but I'm probably going to vote for Trump because he'll appoint conservative SCOTUS judges. Don't talk to me about voting 3rd party, either, that's a fool's game."

OSC today: "Hey guys I'm going to vote for a 3rd party candidate!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased he (and other conservatives who still have a conscience) is choosing not to vote for Trump, and there's nothing wrong with changing your mind, but I wonder what prompted his sudden change of mind?

ETA: If it isn't clear, I mean "having a conscience" is driving factor for these folks choosing not to vote for Trump, not "people who will vote for Trump don't have a conscience." (Since certain folks have a tendency of, rather illogically IMO, assuming that I must also believe the inverse of any statement I make. [Razz] Which makes about as much sense as accusing someone who says "if you were born in Illinois, you are an American citizen" of saying "people born outside of Illinois are not American citizens", but it seems to happen here quite regularly so I figured I'd make a preemptive strike...)

[ August 25, 2016, 03:54 AM: Message edited by: Dogbreath ]

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FlyingCow
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quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
Cruz, or Romney, whoever they can get who would agree to it. It's kind of terrible in theory because it just hands the Presidency to the Republicans.

Well, if Clinton or Trump fails to get 270 votes (because of a third party candidate), the House can only choose among 3 candidates with the most electoral votes.

So, Romney and Cruz wouldn't be options.

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theamazeeaz
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The presidential election? Is that what bothers us from this week's essay.

As someone who does use math above algebra in her job, I was extremely pained by the part where OSC stopped reading the book about math when it got to trig because it was "useless". And asserted that you can get a great math education learning what disciplines *do* without doing any actual problems smh.

[Wall Bash] [Wall Bash] [Wall Bash]

Hint: if your job involves outer space, trig is important.

It's also interesting that this book is 1. out of print, 2. has few reviews on amazon and 3. the reviewers note the book is riddled with errors. Not sure how OSC got his hands on it.

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FlyingCow
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Those might go hand in hand.... admitting that he's not "math smart" and placing some sort of value on a write in vote in NC.
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Elison R. Salazar
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Doesn't Ender/Bean use trig all the time in Battle School?
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theamazeeaz
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If they are doing any kind of math that involves 1. orbits, 2. motion and position in space beyond 1 dimension or 3. things spinning, yes, yes they do.
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Sean Monahan
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Also, computer animation relies heavily on trig (in addition to other math disciplines).

A sine wave is the atom of motion.

ETA: ...as well as sound.

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Dogbreath
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Hell, I used trig all the time in the Marines. It was pretty essential to understanding RF propagation theory and building field expedient antennas, as well as making sense of our SATCOM modems and QPSK constellations. Phase-shift keying is a modulation form that encodes data by modifying the phase of the radio wave, being able to look at a circular constellation diagram and understand that a radio wave is actually a sine function and mapping those points, as well as using a spectrum analyzer to tune our antenna onto a beacon frequency and adjust polarization to begin broadcasting... all require at least a fundamental understanding Trigonometry. Beyond that, though, we also had to use it for Land Nav, parallax is a big part of range finding, mortarmen used trig all the time, you need it to set up fields of fire when planning out machine gun placements... Without high school trig classes, a lot of the dopey Jarheads I served with would have been screwed.

That's actually something that really bothers me about the "most people don't really need to learn anything beyond Algebra" argument (which Card has used multiple times now), it's not really true and is becoming increasingly less true as more and more people get jobs in technology or engineering. By downplaying the importance of math, or making those classes optional in high school, you're closing kids off to a huge number of job fields that they may not at the time even realize they need those skills for. Not everyone can be a writer.

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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by Dogbreath:
That's actually something that really bothers me about the "most people don't really need to learn anything beyond Algebra" argument (which Card has used multiple times now), it's not really true and is becoming increasingly less true as more and more people get jobs in technology or engineering. By downplaying the importance of math, or making those classes optional in high school, you're closing kids off to a huge number of job fields that they may not at the time even realize they need those skills for. Not everyone can be a writer.

This is what bothers me as well. I suspect Card's audience for these articles comprise two groups 1. people in Greensboro who read the Rhino Times and 2. OSC fans. I assume most all of us are adults who are settled in a career (especially because the board now seems to be made up of people who have been here for years and spammers), but Ender's Game resonates the most with high schoolers. For those folks, the advice is dangerous and wrong, especially if they respect OSC's opinions about stuff.
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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by FlyingCow:
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
Cruz, or Romney, whoever they can get who would agree to it. It's kind of terrible in theory because it just hands the Presidency to the Republicans.

Well, if Clinton or Trump fails to get 270 votes (because of a third party candidate), the House can only choose among 3 candidates with the most electoral votes.

So, Romney and Cruz wouldn't be options.

AFAIK, electors in each state are allocated to the person who wins a simple majority. Unless polling changes in Johnson's favor (or Stein's) so that he actually takes some percentage of the vote, the only way the election will be decided by the house is by some stroke of luck that gets an election at 269-269.

Right now, polling at 538.com just doesn't support a third party candidate having any kind of numbers to win a state or come close to it. According to wikipedia, Ross Perot had a plurality of votes by June, and it was the fact that he dropped out and undropped out that cost him so much of his still unusually large 20% share (I was 6 when all of this went down, I just remember people making fun of his ears).

One could say à la cardagainsthumanity that people should skip the middleman and just vote for Trump , but in OSC's case, he has been only pretending to be a democrat since the first two Clinton administration, he was never going to pull that dem lever, so he's taking away the vote from Trump, not Hillary.

The thing that scares me is that Stein isn't mentioned in the major 538 page (an August 21 article has her at 3-4%) and it's noted that many of the polls Silver uses only have the two options. Thus, it's hard to see at the state level, which is being spoiled and by how much.

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FlyingCow
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quote:
Originally posted by theamazeeaz:
quote:
Originally posted by FlyingCow:
quote:
Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
Cruz, or Romney, whoever they can get who would agree to it. It's kind of terrible in theory because it just hands the Presidency to the Republicans.

Well, if Clinton or Trump fails to get 270 votes (because of a third party candidate), the House can only choose among 3 candidates with the most electoral votes.

Regardless, to the earlier point, there's no way for Romney, Cruz, Paul, or Rubio to jump in at that point. They have to choose among the 3 highest electoral vote getters.

So, Romney and Cruz wouldn't be options.

AFAIK, electors in each state are allocated to the person who wins a simple majority. Unless polling changes in Johnson's favor (or Stein's) so that he actually takes some percentage of the vote, the only way the election will be decided by the house is by some stroke of luck that gets an election at 269-269.

Right now, polling at 538.com just doesn't support a third party candidate having any kind of numbers to win a state or come close to it. According to wikipedia, Ross Perot had a plurality of votes by June, and it was the fact that he dropped out and undropped out that cost him so much of his still unusually large 20% share (I was 6 when all of this went down, I just remember people making fun of his ears).

One could say à la cardagainsthumanity that people should skip the middleman and just vote for Trump , but in OSC's case, he has been only pretending to be a democrat since the first two Clinton administration, he was never going to pull that dem lever, so he's taking away the vote from Trump, not Hillary.

The thing that scares me is that Stein isn't mentioned in the major 538 page (an August 21 article has her at 3-4%) and it's noted that many of the polls Silver uses only have the two options. Thus, it's hard to see at the state level, which is being spoiled and by how much.

Yes. A third party has a snowball's chance in hell of getting electoral votes this election.

But let's say Gary Johnson managed to win New Mexico (his home state), plus a few states like Utah and the Dakotas. That's 17 electoral votes. If Trump manages to pull out of his nose dive and win some swing states, that might be enough to keep Clinton from hitting 270.

Even if this were to happen, the decision would go to the House, with a delegation from each state deciding between Clinton, Trump, and Johnson. (And the Senate deciding between Kaine and Pence). Johnson probably has an even worse shot of winning that decision than pulling in the 3-4 states that he'd need to keep Clinton or Trump away from 270.

Regardless, though, there would be no way for another Republican (like Romney, Cruz, or Paul) to jump in at that point.

[ August 26, 2016, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: FlyingCow ]

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theamazeeaz
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Oooh! I found some good polls that show the Clinton/Trump vs Clinton/Trump/Johnson/Stein.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/president/

Looks like NC is the state that might change due to a third party (see Aug 24).

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Evan McMullin is a far far saner choice to me than Trump. I was pleased to hear Mr. Card say so.

I also agree voting for a third party so as to keep either of the two major party candidates from getting the requisite number of electoral votes is a great idea in theory. But who on Earth would the republican-controlled House vote for?

I must be missing something. How would that work exactly? Wouldn't you have to get whole states to go third party in order to assign their electoral college votes to a third party? (Except for Nebraska and Maine.)
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Samprimary
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if the presidential election EC split took the election to the (massively gerrymandered) house and thus got trump elected despite losing the popular vote and EC vote

well i mean

i would hope i did not live in a riot-prone area. i would also assume the EC was for sure dead in a generation.

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Samprimary
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quote:
Voting for a third-party candidate is not a wasted vote. No one can know which candidate a third-party candidate will hurt more.
so if bernie sanders was running as a third party candidate this election, would osc just throw his hands up and say 'the question of whether one of the only scenarios that would allow trump to win will hurt hillary or trump more is an unsolvable mystery!"
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theamazeeaz
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Probably not. It's not immediately obvious when both candidates are losing votes in the way it would be with Sanders. That doesn't mean statistics can't sort it out. But if you don't understand math, statistics seem like a black box that makes no sense whatsoever.*

In general, when something doesn't make sense, it's an indicator that it's probably wrong. However, science and math contain plenty subtleties and things that are just plain counter intuitive. People assume their lack of understanding as an indication something is wrong, rather than a product of not being properly educated.

But hey, you can stop taking math after trig. Nobody needs it, except engineers. Certainly not armchair political commentators who want to understand polling.

*Speaking of statistics, right now, Trump has a ~30% chance of winning according to 538, which it was around 20% a couple of weeks ago. It's worth noting that a Trump victory is entirely consistent with him having even a 5% chance of winning. As in, he could win and the modeling was not broken. In science, we don't consider something a result unless we are looking at 99.7%+.

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theamazeeaz
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quote:
Originally posted by JanitorBlade:
Evan McMullin is a far far saner choice to me than Trump. I was pleased to hear Mr. Card say so.

I also agree voting for a third party so as to keep either of the two major party candidates from getting the requisite number of electoral votes is a great idea in theory. But who on Earth would the republican-controlled House vote for?

Two months ago, we were all like "Egg McMuffin who?". Now we're wondering if he actually might win Utah.
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Lyrhawn
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He's in the hunt.

The only thing I'm sure if in that crazy "House gets to choose the next president" scenario is that I won't like the results.

Let's say Hillary wins the popular vote. Do they deny the will of the people, that thing they so often proclaim is paramount, to put anoint Trump, and therefore sacrifice all ability to pretend to distance themselves from him?

Or do they actually put McMullin in the White House? A guy only a tiny fraction of the population was even able to vote for or who have even heard of him, for actually being the more reliable conservative choice?

Or do they vote Hillary, their own personal Satan, into the White House after decades (and most especially the last few months) of vilifying her to the point where a large portion of the country wants her jailed without trial?

I think the odds of that scenario happening are low, but I'm 100% sure I wouldn't like the results. And I think all politicians, but the current House Republicans in particular, are so craven that they wouldn't give a crap about the actual results of the election when they're handed the power to choose the next president. They'll choose whoever they think will benefit them personally the most.

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Samprimary
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i just noticed this part here

quote:
Many Americans will not be able to vote for McMullin, or even write him in. But he seems poised to be able to carry at least one state, Utah, with a serious chance at several more, mostly in the American west.
i honestly wonder where he gets fed an image of the election at this moment that makes him think this isn't essentially pure fiction. mcmullin stands a long-shot chance of possibly winning utah, and will not win any other state, period. there is no serious chance at any other state.

quote:
So they're going to vote for a person who really is prepared -- in training, in temperament, in character -- to govern the United States of America in a way that most of us could be proud of and happy with.
mcmullin is a straightforwardly strict cultural conservative, a supply-sided follower of Hayak and Friedman and an ossified retro paleocon, with policies overtly in the camp of people who want to do away with the separation of church and state and make america a soft theocracy based on christianity, complete with a strong anti-abortion component. pretty much nobody would like him except old white christian american males who want the country back the way they feel it was in the Good Old Days.

nearly nobody else would like him.

you basically almost have to be an old white christian with little real understanding about why other groups of people aren't conservative to be able to think this way.

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JanitorBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
i just noticed this part here

quote:
Many Americans will not be able to vote for McMullin, or even write him in. But he seems poised to be able to carry at least one state, Utah, with a serious chance at several more, mostly in the American west.
i honestly wonder where he gets fed an image of the election at this moment that makes him think this isn't essentially pure fiction. mcmullin stands a long-shot chance of possibly winning utah, and will not win any other state, period. there is no serious chance at any other state.

quote:
So they're going to vote for a person who really is prepared -- in training, in temperament, in character -- to govern the United States of America in a way that most of us could be proud of and happy with.
mcmullin is a straightforwardly strict cultural conservative, a supply-sided follower of Hayak and Friedman and an ossified retro paleocon, with policies overtly in the camp of people who want to do away with the separation of church and state and make america a soft theocracy based on christianity, complete with a strong anti-abortion component. pretty much nobody would like him except old white christian american males who want the country back the way they feel it was in the Good Old Days.

nearly nobody else would like him.

you basically almost have to be an old white christian with little real understanding about why other groups of people aren't conservative to be able to think this way.

I don't know that you've pegged him down quite right. He hass said he has no intention of revisiting Proposition 8 or the Supreme Court decision on the matter, which is very much not in line with the official GOP party line on same-sex marriage.
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FlyingCow
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Yeah, but he'd almost certainly nominated SC justices who would oppose same sex marriage and Roe v. Wade - so, saying he has no intention of personally revisiting something would really be moot.
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