EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 1141
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On June 29 2014 02:23 oneofthem wrote: because there's interaction between what you think the other guy will do and your own actions, and where you guys will end up. performativity is a linguistic phenomenon. Ok I got your point, yeah it's game theory if you want lol | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
so that scenario is pretty much necssarily one of imperfect world ethics, and within that kind of a set up i'd contend that the more productive approach would be to resolve the root of the imperfect world, i.e. the irrational/badness of either or both of the conflicting parties. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On June 28 2014 21:51 coverpunch wrote: What? My point is that anyone who says "the nature of war has changed" is in danger of learning the hard way that no, the nature of war has not changed. I disagree that landmines do not serve any legitimate military purpose. I think it's worth weighing their relative costs and you might come out that the civilian casualties are not worth it and thus they should be banned, but it's also worth noting that the US has not deployed land mines since the early 90s, when they were only deployed in the Korean DMZ. I think there's a clear distinction between not using them and ratifying a ban, and I would personally lean towards the US simply not using them in the absence of a major war rather than giving them up and destroying the ones in stock. That the US has not needed them because there has been no conflict where they have been necessary is very different from saying the US will never fight a war in which they are necessary. Referencing WWI to make the point that war "has not changed" is an odd one. The great powers very quickly found out that war HAD changed. Gone were the days of Napoleon, to be replaced with trenches and total warfare, aerial bombing, and hundreds of thousands of casualties in the span of a day or week. I thought you were referring to the Hague treaty, bans of chemical weapons, bans of aerial bombardment, and limits on what kinds of targets were legitimate military targets in the decades before war broke out. I thought you were talking about pronoucements about the end of war between great powers, and arguments made by economists that war would be short, precise affairs because there was just too much money to lose for all involved to put a halt to the system of international trade for long. Instead you come in with some hokey argument about how war hasn't changed and never will. Get out of here. Your apparent lack of understanding discredits your flimsy argument for not banning land mines. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13970 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21738 Posts
On June 29 2014 03:18 Sermokala wrote: I'm pretty sure the us hasn't signed the treaty on napalm either. If anything it probably feels hypocritical to talk about land mines from a country. Who has no experience in it's use on its country. wtf? we cant talk about land mines because we don't have children getting their legs blown off on an almost daily basis? what is that for a bullshit position. We don't need to stand in a minefield to discuss it. The statistics are all out there about just how 'efficient' they are. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13970 Posts
On June 29 2014 03:41 Gorsameth wrote: wtf? we cant talk about land mines because we don't have children getting their legs blown off on an almost daily basis? what is that for a bullshit position. We don't need to stand in a minefield to discuss it. The statistics are all out there about just how 'efficient' they are. We stopped having wars around us and having civil wars from shermans march to the sea. The only experience we have about them is their success in Afghanistan firebases and the hostile landings in Normandy and the pacific. Just because people are iresponsible with things doesn't make the thing bad it makes the people bad. Napalm does terrible things as well as white phosphates. The idea that ground laid explosives that people haven't marked off being the explosives problem is preposterous. | ||
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Yoav
United States1874 Posts
On June 29 2014 02:32 oneofthem wrote: eh i don't know if locking up a contested area/turning it into no man's land is a legit function justifying land mines. it's pretty much entrenching the conflict as it were, literally. probably done by the side that doesn't want the situation to change... Are you really saying that defensive warfare is unjustifiable? Isn't that the most obviously justifiable form? Say Hitler had tried to invade Switzerland. A lot of how long Switzerland could have held out for help would be based on mine warfare. It's asymetrical and benefits the defensive party, but there's nothing wrong with that. If a central Asian country faced agression from Russia or China, landmines would help. Hell, if Finland was attacked again landmines would help. South Korea's defense does indeed partly depend on landmines, which could certainly be cleared by the North, but only with difficulty and delay of crucial time for reinforcements to show up. A war involving China/Pakistan v. India would almost certainly involve defensive mines in mountain passes. Local area denial of choke-points (where civilians in a combat situation will generally avoid) with the implicit or explicit promise of later cleanup is a perfectly legitimate use of landmines. If the U.S. were faced with a defensive war protecting an ally from Russian or Chinese aggression, landmines would be extremely helpful. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
A Libyan man accused of involvement in the deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi in 2012 entered a not guilty plea in federal court in Washington, D.C., Saturday. Prosecutors also unveiled a one-count grand jury indictment charging Ahmed Abu Khatallah with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism resulting in death. The crime is punishable by up to life in prison, or death. Source | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72070179/net%20college.PNG) source Also from Brookings on how much people are shelling out to pay back loans: + Show Spoiler + | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On June 29 2014 03:56 Sermokala wrote: Just because people are iresponsible with things doesn't make the thing bad it makes the people bad. That is such a ridiculous argument. Why don't we hand out rocket launchers and heroin to everybody? After all those things aren't bad, it's the people using these things! | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23269 Posts
On June 29 2014 06:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote: NPR reran a story the other day on the price of college education. Apparently prices haven't grown nearly as much as people think, because of a growing disconnect between the costs that schools publish and what people actually pay. source Also from Brookings on how much people are shelling out to pay back loans: + Show Spoiler + That shows that the increases are less than what? Seems to me everything there confirms that costs are going up. I suppose it does show that less of that cost is payed up front by some estimates of some students but doesn't really say much about actual cost going down or not going up at a scary rate. I actually don't get the point of the information? I guess to show that educating our public is increasingly being paid for by those who succeed as a result of it? But that while the up front cost for students may not be as large as some have estimated we are doing a piss poor job of managing the cost overall? The graph would be a little less misleading if it went ahead and showed how much of that published cost gets paid by anyone. Probably wouldn't hurt to factor the average final sum paid instead of just the amount students probably got loans for too. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On June 29 2014 02:03 Sermokala wrote: Mercs being hired for services rendered shouldn't be the problem its whos hireing them is the problem. The last thing we need is to piss off both sides of a petty religious war. I would wonder where the drones and recon flights are being run out of. What the region could really use is some good ol fashioned victorian partioning. With the turks support of a kurdish state a solid intervention followed up by redrawing the map to split syria and iraq up between the 3 sides. Shitty straight British lines be dammed. land mines arnt any worse then the dozens of other things that war leaves in a country. War needs to be as terrible as possible to promote peace. The article says the drones are being run out of Kuwait. Interestingly, I'm not sure if the misleading nature of drones might run the other way too, so that neither the Iraqis nor ISIS would blame Kuwait for allowing the US to run drones out of their territory because they also don't really consider that a military commitment. And I think the world is mostly done with partitioning. Between India-Pakistan, the Balkans, and all the problems cropping up in South Sudan, it really isn't a good alternative because it doesn't end the violence. It might become the best of an ugly set of choices if the war gets any worse... | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On June 29 2014 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote: That shows that the increases are less than what? Seems to me everything there confirms that costs are going up. I suppose it does show that less of that cost is payed up front by some estimates of some students but doesn't really say much about actual cost going down or not going up at a scary rate. I actually don't get the point of the information? I guess to show that educating our public is increasingly being paid for by those who succeed as a result of it? But that while the up front cost for students may not be as large as some have estimated we are doing a piss poor job of managing the cost overall? The graph would be a little less misleading if it went ahead and showed how much of that published cost gets paid by anyone. Probably wouldn't hurt to factor the average final sum paid instead of just the amount students probably got loans for too. You seem to be misreading the data. The net cost, or cost actually paid, is flat since '03-'04. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On June 29 2014 02:58 IgnE wrote: Referencing WWI to make the point that war "has not changed" is an odd one. The great powers very quickly found out that war HAD changed. Gone were the days of Napoleon, to be replaced with trenches and total warfare, aerial bombing, and hundreds of thousands of casualties in the span of a day or week. I thought you were referring to the Hague treaty, bans of chemical weapons, bans of aerial bombardment, and limits on what kinds of targets were legitimate military targets in the decades before war broke out. I thought you were talking about pronoucements about the end of war between great powers, and arguments made by economists that war would be short, precise affairs because there was just too much money to lose for all involved to put a halt to the system of international trade for long. Instead you come in with some hokey argument about how war hasn't changed and never will. Get out of here. Your apparent lack of understanding discredits your flimsy argument for not banning land mines. Uh, no, you didn't think I was referring to those things in a one-liner. But it doesn't really matter because they're all red herrings that do not change the nature of war, they only change the methodology. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On June 29 2014 06:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote: NPR reran a story the other day on the price of college education. Apparently prices haven't grown nearly as much as people think, because of a growing disconnect between the costs that schools publish and what people actually pay. source Also from Brookings on how much people are shelling out to pay back loans: + Show Spoiler + Why do you think there is such a growing gap between the sticker price and what people actually pay? It's bizarre that the US is becoming a country that has such misleading statistics. It looks very much like taxes, where the US also has this huge gap between what people are nominally supposed to pay and what they actually end up paying. But I guess that's part of the medium-term trend of blurring the lines between developed and emerging economies. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On June 29 2014 07:38 coverpunch wrote: Why do you think there is such a growing gap between the sticker price and what people actually pay? It's bizarre that the US is becoming a country that has such misleading statistics. It looks very much like taxes, where the US also has this huge gap between what people are nominally supposed to pay and what they actually end up paying. But I guess that's part of the medium-term trend of blurring the lines between developed and emerging economies. According to the NPR story, colleges publish a high sticker price to demonstrate their quality (some are willing and able to pay it) and bring in revenue. They then offer discounts (financial aid/scholarships) to attract the students they want (diversity, achievement, etc.). I don't see it as statistics being bad so much as you need to know which numbers matter which, frankly, has always been true. | ||
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Jormundr
United States1678 Posts
On June 29 2014 06:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote: NPR reran a story the other day on the price of college education. Apparently prices haven't grown nearly as much as people think, because of a growing disconnect between the costs that schools publish and what people actually pay. source Also from Brookings on how much people are shelling out to pay back loans: + Show Spoiler + Going to go out on a limb here and say that collegeboard has a whole lot of bias when it comes to telling people "Hey college is secretly not that expensive, come pay to take our tests that we've made mandatory for college admittance because we have a monopoly!" Edit: Correction: duopoly | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On June 29 2014 08:06 Jormundr wrote: Going to go out on a limb here and say that collegeboard has a whole lot of bias when it comes to telling people "Hey college is secretly not that expensive, come pay to take our tests that we've made mandatory for college admittance because we have a monopoly!" Edit: Correction: duopoly NPR did check with at least some universities to verify the data and try to figure out why it was happening. College Board also does show that public university net price has been trending upward, albeit from a much lower price than private universities. | ||
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Livelovedie
United States492 Posts
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![[image loading]](http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Reports/2014/06/24%20student%20loan%20crisis%20akers%20chingos/figure%206%20w%20logo.JPG)
