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.
On March 13 2017 12:44 KwarK wrote: The objection to TARP baffles me. The response to something being too big to fail isn't to let it fail and see what happens. The bailout was necessary to keep money coming out of ATMs and companies able to do their payroll.
Wasn't there some European country that said "fuck the shitty banks." and did pretty well coming out of it? I think it was Iceland.
Yeah, you'd have to actually lock people up though. I don't think people appreciate how absurd our justice system is when it comes to the difference between white collar and blue collar crime.
Bake some pot brownies in Texas and you could be facing 20-life. Run a nation-wide identity theft and fake account scam, well just pay over a couple hundred million dollars and we'll call it good...
And yet still people won't vote for someone who doesn't take big money for their campaign.
It baffles me how it is not obvious to everyone that campaign donations and lobbying are the main problems in American politics. It's not about economics, it's not about health care, it's not about education, it's not about crime, it's not about trade policy. It can't be about that until you solve the root cause of where the problems regarding these subjects are coming from.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-lobbying-idUSKBN16F26P Banks and other financial companies expecting big benefits from Republican-led deregulation spent record amounts on lobbying in the last election cycle, according to an advocacy group report released on Wednesday.
The financial sector spent $2 billion on political activity from the beginning of 2015 to the end of 2016, including $1.2 billion in campaign contributions – more than twice the amount given by any other business sector, according to the study from Americans for Financial Reform.
That works out to $3.7 million per member of Congress and is the most ever tracked by the group, which analyzed spending data going back to 1990.
Furthermore, the actual amount is probably higher, because it did not include so-called "dark money": funds donated to political advocacy by nonprofit groups.
Among senators not running for president, Democrat Charles Schumer, now the minority leader, received the largest amount, with $5.3 million coming from financial firms. Mike Crapo, the Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and who was also in the top 10 from the Senate, received $2.1 million.
Campaign money doesn't impact political decisions unless they go to Republicans though. Which makes Crapo's (such a glorious name for a politician) $2.1 million much worse than Schumer's $5.3 million. Or at least that's what Democrats taught me in 2016.
If nothing else, this election showed that for all that talk about how Republicans were destroying America with their obtuse legislative behavior from the Democrats, it turned out that all that really mattered was that Democrats wanted to be the winners. They were fully prepared to be the same obstructionists and crybabies that they said their opponents were. Now all we need is a Democrat Ted Cruz-like figure to obtuse her way to a government shutdown.
This is a ridiculously false equivalence. The Democrats aren't even close to the attitude displayed by the GOP over the eight years of Obama's presidency, in particular with regards to his initial actions to address the financial crisis and its fallout.
On March 13 2017 21:56 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: Kellyanne Conway just revealed a new secret CIA technique of turning a microwave into a camera. This must be some top level physics hacks. Deep state really has no limits!
She's either referring to the appliance or completely off her rocker.
Well, yes, but even than, i am pretty sure that is utterly impossible. You can't just turn random stuff into cameras by hacking something. Of course, you could physically place a camera inside the microwave oven. But then, you could do that to anything else.
I am pretty sure that a normal microwave oven has none of the parts necessary to produce an image of its surroundings (optics, a CCD or CMOS sensor). It probably has the necessary electronics to hack it if it had those components, but there is no way you can turn a microwave emitter into a camera without completely disassembling it, adding some parts, and then reassembling it. I base that on the fact that none of the parts necessary for capturing images are necessary or useful for a microwaves main function, which is heating food. Maybe if you have a microwave that automatically sends a photo of your food onto instagram, you might have a point. I am not sure if these currently exist, or why anyone would want one.
There is a new safe space for liberals in the age of President Trump: the television set.
Left-leaning MSNBC, after flailing at the end of the Obama years, has edged CNN in prime time. Stephen Colbert’s openly anti-Trump “Late Show” is beating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” for the first time. Bill Maher’s HBO flock has grown nearly 50 percent since last year’s presidential primaries, and “The Daily Show” has registered its best ratings since Jon Stewart left in 2015.
Traditional television, a medium considered so last century, has watched audiences drift away for the better part of a decade. Now rattled liberals are surging back, seeking catharsis, solidarity and relief.
“When Obama was in office, I felt like things were going O.K.,” Jerry Brumleve, 58, a retiree from Louisville, Ky., said last week as he stood in line for a “Daily Show” taping in Manhattan.
These days, he is a newfound devotee of Rachel Maddow of MSNBC — “She’s always talking about the Russians!” his wife, Yvonne, chimed in — and believes Mr. Stewart’s successor, Trevor Noah, has finally “hit his stride.”
“With Trump in office, I really feel the need to stay more informed,” Mr. Brumleve added. “You just don’t know what the hell this guy is going to do.”
Many others feel the same. Last month, Ms. Maddow was watched by more viewers than at any time in the nine-year run of her show.
On March 13 2017 23:36 LightSpectra wrote: I can only imagine Trump's ire at CNN and the NYT have boosted their ratings/sales significantly.
I wonder if FOX's or Breitbart's ratings/clicks have dropped though.
It's probably been a boost for Breitbart. Maybe it's just a symptom of the bubble, but I never heard of it until this election and I'm sure they've gotten a decent amount of traffic from "Look at the dumb shit they're posting now." messages.
What I find crazy is that Trump talks about Sweden being attacked, then Breitbart comes out with an article on March10th about a "suspected" car bombing in Stockholm Sweden... Not going to link cause breit, but you can google search stockholm sweden and click news, you'll see...
On March 13 2017 15:28 Slaughter wrote: Education isn't a solve all, since many people end up voting on their feelings that override their reason. Trump capitalized on feelings, Newt's interview at the convention basically showed that with the whole facts vs feelings thing. Trump picked feeling about economics, which everyone has a vested interest in. Clinton played on feelings as well, but her chosen path applied to a broader issues where a lot of them don't necessary apply to everyone as a personal vested interest. Women's issues? Men may support them but they don't directly impact them so it might get lower priority and aren't a make or break issue. Trump's shtick was to go after basic fears and discontent that apply to basically everyone. He may have been conning them but but again feelings over facts.
I also think a huge factor was ignorance... I know education doesn't solve ignorance, but it does help form critical thinking skills, which helps when trying to make decisions, rather than going off feelings.
Education doesn't solve ignorance if you still trust FOX, Breitbart, and shared Facebook images as your news sources.
You might respond "education would lead one to question those news sources and eventually stop trusting them," but I'm highly doubtful of that. Some programmers/engineers I know in real life are still steadfastly convinced of fearmongered bullshit, such as Islamic terrorism being a bigger threat to America than lack of healthcare.
If anybody knows how to de-brainwash somebody that's convinced that all news sources except the Mouth of Sauron are biased, I'm all ears.
So are there any good parts in Trumpcare? I have heard roughly 10 extremely negative things about it combined with Medicaid going to states but nothing positive, so curious about it.
On March 14 2017 00:03 Yurie wrote: So are there any good parts in Trumpcare? I have heard roughly 10 extremely negative things about it combined with Medicaid going to states but nothing positive, so curious about it.
On March 14 2017 00:03 Yurie wrote: So are there any good parts in Trumpcare? I have heard roughly 10 extremely negative things about it combined with Medicaid going to states but nothing positive, so curious about it.
On March 13 2017 23:50 ShoCkeyy wrote: What I find crazy is that Trump talks about Sweden being attacked, then Breitbart comes out with an article on March10th about a "suspected" car bombing in Stockholm Sweden... Not going to link cause breit, but you can google search stockholm sweden and click news, you'll see...
On March 13 2017 15:28 Slaughter wrote: Education isn't a solve all, since many people end up voting on their feelings that override their reason. Trump capitalized on feelings, Newt's interview at the convention basically showed that with the whole facts vs feelings thing. Trump picked feeling about economics, which everyone has a vested interest in. Clinton played on feelings as well, but her chosen path applied to a broader issues where a lot of them don't necessary apply to everyone as a personal vested interest. Women's issues? Men may support them but they don't directly impact them so it might get lower priority and aren't a make or break issue. Trump's shtick was to go after basic fears and discontent that apply to basically everyone. He may have been conning them but but again feelings over facts.
I also think a huge factor was ignorance... I know education doesn't solve ignorance, but it does help form critical thinking skills, which helps when trying to make decisions, rather than going off feelings.
It would if there hasn't been a low key crusade in public education against teaching critical thinking.
More critical thinking and wisdom teaching would be good for the public school system. Also more financial literacy. I figure we can cut some math to replace with financial literacy; not sure what we'd cut to make room for more critical thinking.
spectra -> on de-brainwashing; I read some stuff awhile ago, don't remember it that well. there is some good literature that covers it. iirc the gist of it was something like ask non-loaded questions and seek clarification until they find their own system doesn't adequately answer things. never attack it directly.
Critical thinking is not a catch-all solution. How is some person tabula rasa supposed to determine that FOX and Breitbart are liars but the BBC and Reuters are comparatively trustworthy?
On March 14 2017 00:25 LightSpectra wrote: Critical thinking is not a catch-all solution. How is some person tabula rasa supposed to determine that FOX and Breitbart are liars but the BBC and Reuters are comparatively trustworthy?
Read the stories from those sites, read those stories from different sites, and read the primary material of those stories then draw conclusions?
It's not hard to see something like the fact that Breitbart stopped covering the Canadian mosque shooting the second the shooter was a white right-leaning guy (after something like 8-12 stories about the shooting in the time between the event and the guy being caught).
It's really not that simple. Let me show you. I'm going to play the part of John Smith: a man with a M.A. in CompSci. An (otherwise) very smart guy that writes and maintains mission-critical software, until he was laid off due to outsourcing. Votes Republican every election. Devout reader of FOX and Breitbart.
On March 14 2017 00:55 Logo wrote: It's not hard to see something like the fact that Breitbart stopped covering the Canadian mosque shooting the second the shooter was a white right-leaning guy (after something like 8-12 stories about the shooting in the time between the event and the guy being caught).
"Those SJW fake news sources always cover up Islamic terrorists, fair's fair right? How come BBC and NYT aren't reporting that there was a Muslim car bomb in Sweden last night?"
On March 14 2017 01:02 LightSpectra wrote: It's really not that simple. Let me show you. I'm going to play the part of John Smith: a man with a M.A. in CompSci. An (otherwise) very smart guy that writes and maintains mission-critical software, until he was laid off due to outsourcing. Votes Republican every election. Devout reader of FOX and Breitbart.
On March 14 2017 00:55 Logo wrote: It's not hard to see something like the fact that Breitbart stopped covering the Canadian mosque shooting the second the shooter was a white right-leaning guy (after something like 8-12 stories about the shooting in the time between the event and the guy being caught).
"Those SJW fake news sources always cover up Islamic terrorists, fair's fair right? How come BBC and NYT aren't reporting that there was a Muslim car bomb in Sweden last night?"
That's still simple?
There's a clear difference between hastily covering something, then dropping it when something comes out that doesn't fit the tone of the previous coverage and not covering it at all.
Pointing out a flaw in another news sources doesn't increase your own source's credibility.
Asking why a news source doesn't cover something is a perfectly reasonable question, you could critically look for things like how big the event was, where it happened, etc. Draw your own conclusions appropriately and a lot of it may be valid criticism. Then seek out a set of news sources that you feel comfortably covers the spectrum of relevant stories.
Like it's not hard to understand that credible news sources may not be giving you a complete picture of the whole world because of how they chose to cover and not cover certain stories. But that's not really the same as credibility and evaluating how credible the stories that are published are?
On March 14 2017 01:02 LightSpectra wrote: It's really not that simple. Let me show you. I'm going to play the part of John Smith: a man with a M.A. in CompSci. An (otherwise) very smart guy that writes and maintains mission-critical software, until he was laid off due to outsourcing. Votes Republican every election. Devout reader of FOX and Breitbart.
On March 14 2017 00:55 Logo wrote: It's not hard to see something like the fact that Breitbart stopped covering the Canadian mosque shooting the second the shooter was a white right-leaning guy (after something like 8-12 stories about the shooting in the time between the event and the guy being caught).
"Those SJW fake news sources always cover up Islamic terrorists, fair's fair right? How come BBC and NYT aren't reporting that there was a Muslim car bomb in Sweden last night?"
That's still simple?
There's a clear difference between hastily covering something, then dropping it when something comes out that doesn't fit the tone of the previous coverage and not covering it at all.
Pointing out a flaw in another news sources doesn't increase your own source's credibility.
"Exactly, so some problem with Breitbart's reporting isn't proof that whatever news sources you use are trustworthy. But Breitbart/FOX actually has the cajones to call out Muslim terrorists whereas your news sources are politically-correct cowards."
... you see how this can go on.
I have a relative who's a nuclear scientist. His career DEPENDS on chemistry and physics. Yet he's 100% on board with the "climate change is a Chinese hoax to shut down capitalism" conspiracy theory. Critical thinking clearly didn't save him. That's just what happens when you're in a closed circuit of media sources that radically affirm your own beliefs despite what any other news source says.
There's a reason I called it "brainwashing." If you have any success stories for how you de-brainwashed somebody, I'd love to hear it. Half my family are FOX enthusiasts.
On March 14 2017 01:02 LightSpectra wrote: It's really not that simple. Let me show you. I'm going to play the part of John Smith: a man with a M.A. in CompSci. An (otherwise) very smart guy that writes and maintains mission-critical software, until he was laid off due to outsourcing. Votes Republican every election. Devout reader of FOX and Breitbart.
On March 14 2017 00:55 Logo wrote: It's not hard to see something like the fact that Breitbart stopped covering the Canadian mosque shooting the second the shooter was a white right-leaning guy (after something like 8-12 stories about the shooting in the time between the event and the guy being caught).
"Those SJW fake news sources always cover up Islamic terrorists, fair's fair right? How come BBC and NYT aren't reporting that there was a Muslim car bomb in Sweden last night?"
That's still simple?
There's a clear difference between hastily covering something, then dropping it when something comes out that doesn't fit the tone of the previous coverage and not covering it at all.
Pointing out a flaw in another news sources doesn't increase your own source's credibility.
"Exactly, so some problem with Breitbart's reporting isn't proof that whatever news sources you use are trustworthy. But Breitbart/FOX actually has the cajones to call out Muslim terrorists whereas your news sources are politically-correct cowards."
... you see how this can go on.
I have a relative who's a nuclear scientist. His career DEPENDS on chemistry and physics. Yet he's 100% on board with the "climate change is a Chinese hoax to shut down capitalism" conspiracy theory. Critical thinking clearly didn't save him. That's just what happens when you're in a closed circuit of media sources that radically affirm your own beliefs despite what any other news source says.
There's a reason I called it "brainwashing." If you have any success stories for how you de-brainwashed somebody, I'd love to hear it. Half my family are FOX enthusiasts.
Yeah I mean when you're talking about convincing someone or engaging in a debate things are different, people can stonewall a defense of any bad idea as long as they want if they want to.
But that's not really the same as the tabula rasa you were starting with a few posts back.
EPT
