US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3195

On March 06 2016 11:44 kwizach wrote:
Man, a Cruz vs Trump battle for the nomination until August would be the Democrats' wet dream.

On March 06 2016 11:33 oBlade wrote:

Trump and Kasich, for different reasons, I believe both have a wider appeal they can bring to the general election. And they can in general shift the focus and goals of the party. Cruz might be a strong candidate in terms of how he's doing, including among the Christian demographics, but that's not enough for the rest of the country.


I am not the one who has misunderstood what a caliphate is. Take it up with ISIS, the caliphate is their goal, not mine. Is Al-Baghdadi not called a caliph? And ISIS is decidedly nihilistic. An ideology that denounces music, literature, culture, philosophy, science, education, and adopts torture, rape, murder, and genocide as standard operating procedure - if this isn't nihilism, then pray tell, what would qualify...? It's like saying the Khmer Rouge was misunderstood, all they wanted to do was convert everyone in Cambodia to uneducated ignorance, by force if necessary, or by killing them (which they did - kill all the educated people, that is), and then have an agrarian utopia. Or Charles Manson just wanted to live in harmony with Helter-Skelter.

It's ISIS. It's not a revolutionary movement fighting for a better future. It's psychopathic nihilism. Have you been reading their tourist magazine or something? What point did you think you were going to convince me of by posting "Not All ISIS Fighters?" If you're trying to say that ISIS uses terror and force to compel obedience - to compel people to commit further terror - then yes. That's true. Not everyone who gets caught up in a terrible circumstance seeing no way out necessarily wants to perpetuate that circumstance. And Hemingway told us as much:



But the organism (it's not simply an intangible ideology, it's something that's very real) that is ISIS is fundamentally incompatible with civilization.

On March 06 2016 11:52 oneofthem wrote:

the implication is that race is being used as a selector if it is in a pool of potential selectors, due to superior performance.

this does not make race an objective selector, it rather biases the algorithm against some groups even holding other conditions the same. this is analogous to the 'black name on same resume' experiment.

further it reflects the reality that blacks are under-developed. it's like a different country within the u.s. with some need for developmental intervention.

On March 06 2016 11:40 oneofthem wrote:
this is not being pedantic but important. this discussion about institutional racism is not a case of different definitions, both right. it's rather one guy is using lack of legal discrimination as substitute for institutional racism, which covers social institutions and deep seated dynamics.

one example of such a deep seated discrimination is the ongoing trend towards automation and algorithm in everything from credit evaluation in loans to job candidate evaluation. race turns up high on the list of impactful indicators of fitness. there is no regulation for this so far.

On March 06 2016 12:01 wei2coolman wrote:

You mean statistical analysis by actuaries have determined that certain races have different lending results and therefore that's racist?

On March 06 2016 11:56 Slaughter wrote:


Depends on how much participation there is. So far it seems like Republican voters are getting out in much larger numbers. Demo could be sandbagging it till general but the GOP seems to have more enthusiasm surrounding it (I guess the reality show approach works)

On March 06 2016 12:18 Nyxisto wrote:


yes, nobody said that racists are necessarily bad at statistics

On March 06 2016 13:01 GoTuNk! wrote:


so reality is racist?

Jewish people have higher IQ on average than the rest of the population. And black people on average have better 100m sprint times; such is life.

On March 06 2016 13:01 GoTuNk! wrote:


so reality is racist?

Jewish people have higher IQ on average than the rest of the population. And black people on average have better 100m sprint times; such is life.

On March 06 2016 13:13 Acrofales wrote:

you arguing that credit rating is genetic?!

On March 06 2016 13:15 Nyxisto wrote:


It's a social reality that some demographics have a lower credit rating, higher crime rates and so on. The racist part is re-inforcing this by creating cultural and social institutions that perpetuate the problem, because that's what using "science" or "statistics" in this case does. If you look at historical racism you will notice that it was almost always accompanied by some kind of scientific or technocratic methodology to justify it, ranging from silly pseudo science like craniology to people using IQ tests to justify mistreatment of minorities.

Sanders won Kansas and Nebraska. That’s the good news for him. The bad news is he’s even further from the nomination than he was before the day started: He lost Louisiana, and, in doing so, fell even further behind in the delegate hunt.

Let’s take a look at the math. Sanders won 23 delegates in Kansas to Clinton’s 10. He won — preliminarily — 14 delegates in Nebraska to Clinton’s 11. That’s a margin of 16 delegates.

In losing Louisiana, however, Sanders only claimed 12 delegates to Clinton’s 39.

Combine the three states, and Clinton gained 11 delegates on Sanders.

Now you might be saying, but didn’t we expect Sanders to do poorly in Louisiana? Yes, that’s true. But according to our delegate targets, which takes that into account, Sanders is now 3 delegates further behind the pace he needs to win a majority of pledged delegate than he was at the beginning of the day. Considering he was already running 82 delegates behind his delegate goals, he needs to be exceeding his delegate targets.

On March 06 2016 11:29 Yoav wrote:


I do get what you're going, for, but let's be accurate; it's by no means true that sacred texts are the basis of every religion. Or that a religion is defined by its adherence to one particular sacred text. There are plenty of counterexamples, or examples of religion where tradition, jurisprudence, wisdom of elders etc. are of greater importance than texts. Sola scriptura is a minority viewpoint.

We don't ignore it; we think that it was a part of God's plan to bring truth to a humanity that wasn't ready for the big picture yet. The New Testament invalidates it as a continuing obligation on several occasions ("what defiles" "Council of Jerusalem," "the Law was until John" and the entire book of Galatians).

On March 06 2016 13:22 GoTuNk! wrote:


Using lower average IQ to mistreat minorities, or discriminate 1 person because of an average, is indeed racist. Stating that Jews have on average higher IQ or that black people are taller than asians is not.

Would you disagree?

Is making seat buses in China smaller than in the US racist or acknowledging reality? (I know there is not an US or China race, but just for average sakes)

On March 06 2016 13:01 GoTuNk! wrote:


so reality is racist?

Jewish people have higher IQ on average than the rest of the population. And black people on average have better 100m sprint times; such is life.