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 July 11 2017 02:19 LegalLord wrote: Eh. At this point it's clear you're just trolling and that there's no point in discussing anything with you. So I'll end it at that.
Why do that when you can insist that trusting an expert to speak with authority about their field of expertise is a religious leap of faith and insist that I'm basically no different from a biblical literalist again? After all, I can't possibly know that the expert isn't just a figment of my imagination, I just have to take it on.... faith.
On July 11 2017 01:43 Nevuk wrote: This is kind of neat. Apparently the wapo accidentally put up Mattis' number for a short while in a picture and one of the people to call him was a high school newspaper writer and he did an interview with them.
An excellent interview, and awesome way to use the opportunity WaPo unwittingly presented. This is something everyone in the thread should read for sure.
Every high school whether it be in Afghanistan or Syria or wherever, would send one boy and one girl for one year to Mercer island or to Topeka, Kansas or wherever.
It wouldn’t cost that much if you had sponsoring families that would take them in. Most American families are very generous, unless they’ve lived in places where they’ve adopted kind of a selfish style. But, that’s only a few pockets of the country that really have that bad.
Great idea, bring in kids from Afghanistan and Syria as exchange students... the only problem he sees is the liberal parts of the country, not the muslim-ban/build-a-wall proponents?
I don’t take that as a shot at liberals at all. I think that is a shot at any place that is afraid to host exchange student because they are from the Middle East or some other area. I think that is a shot at the build the wall people who want to close off the US. Mattis is from the Reagan era school of American greatness, shining city on the hill. That people would love Americans if they lived among us for even a short period of time. And the reverse is also true, that Americas would be more willing to help if they traveled needier section of the world.
On July 11 2017 01:43 Nevuk wrote: This is kind of neat. Apparently the wapo accidentally put up Mattis' number for a short while in a picture and one of the people to call him was a high school newspaper writer and he did an interview with them.
An excellent interview, and awesome way to use the opportunity WaPo unwittingly presented. This is something everyone in the thread should read for sure.
He had a surprising number of good things to say about Clinton and a fair bit of veiled criticism of Trump in there.
Mattis has always been the model of "A-political General" that assess results over politics. A highschool kid calling you up to ask for an interview is the perfect cover for providing honest answers.
you can only get away with being apolitical if you're also politically savvy
Be a general, never provide any political opinions during most of your career. Because when you do drop that political opinion, it will hit like the loudest dub-step beat created.
On July 11 2017 01:43 Nevuk wrote: This is kind of neat. Apparently the wapo accidentally put up Mattis' number for a short while in a picture and one of the people to call him was a high school newspaper writer and he did an interview with them.
An excellent interview, and awesome way to use the opportunity WaPo unwittingly presented. This is something everyone in the thread should read for sure.
Every high school whether it be in Afghanistan or Syria or wherever, would send one boy and one girl for one year to Mercer island or to Topeka, Kansas or wherever.
It wouldn’t cost that much if you had sponsoring families that would take them in. Most American families are very generous, unless they’ve lived in places where they’ve adopted kind of a selfish style. But, that’s only a few pockets of the country that really have that bad.
Great idea, bring in kids from Afghanistan and Syria as exchange students... the only problem he sees is the liberal parts of the country, not the muslim-ban/build-a-wall proponents?
Also, high school is probably the worst possible time to bring these kids. They will get to see the worst side of teenage angst in all its glory... elementary school would be best. kids develop a rose colored view of the west and think back on their time fondly, US instantly becomes associated with that one time those wonderful people gave me all the ice cream i wanted.
Those areas you mention would probably have less issues with a child than a teenager anyway.
Plansix he goes on to say "Although they’re big pockets in terms of population, most of the country is not like that. " - I assumed he was talking about CA and the northeast.
Still, that is generally a good idea. I went to live in the US for a short period at 11-13 and came back a staunch americanophile, reciting the declaration of independence and everything.
It is a weird comment, but maybe he knows something about those areas that I don’t. I don’t really think it is a shot at liberals or conservatives. Just a shot a selfish people. Mattis has spent his entire life outside of the political theater of Washington, I don’t think he is going to start taking shots as “the other side” now.
But you are right. Even with in US there are stories about full anti-Muslim bigots becoming their biggest defenders just because a Muslim family moved in next door. Integration combats most divisions between peoples through simple attrition. It is really takes a lot of effort to be bigoted about your nice neighbor and their cute kids.
Recall the Kushner family dropping Jared's name when trying to pitch this property in China. And I believe a deal with a Chinese state company for this property was scrapped due to political pressure.
Not long before a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion-dollar investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation, according to three well-placed sources with knowledge of the near transaction.
Kushner is a senior adviser to President Trump, and also his son-in-law, and also the scion of a New York real estate empire that faces an extreme risk from an investment made by Kushner in the building at 666 Fifth Avenue, where the family is now severely underwater.
Qatar is facing an ongoing blockade led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and joined by Egypt and Bahrain, which President Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner, meanwhile, has reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening the U.S. posture toward the embattled nation.
...
HBJ ultimately agreed to invest at least $500 million through Al Mirqab, on the condition that Kushner Companies could raise the rest of a multibillion refinancing elsewhere. The negotiations continued long after the election, carried out as recently as this spring by Charles Kushner.
Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner all repeatedly sought financing for various investments in recent years from leading figures in Qatar, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meetings.
Those previously unreported overtures have taken on new relevance as a diplomatic crisis aggravated by President Trump has left the small Gulf nation blockaded and isolated by its rivals, with tensions in the Middle East reaching historic highs.
...
The Trump Organization (now under the stewardship of son Donald Jr.) is reportedly in talks with Emirati tycoons to receive several billion dollars of investment in addition to owning two golf courses in Dubai. The New York Times reports that Trump has previously had as many as eight business entities registered in Jeddah alone. In 2015, Trump spoke about his admiration for the Saudis and attributed it to his business dealings with them:
"Saudi Arabia — and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."
Therein lies the source of much consternation among Qataris. Several people interviewed for this piece expressed concern that Trump’s bias against their country might stem from a series of failed business overtures that he (along with his son-in-law Jared Kushner) made seven years ago, which are only now being reported. They did not go as swimmingly as the deals made with the Saudis and Emiratis.
In 2010, as markets were still reeling from the 2008 global economic crisis, Qatar was flush with cash and countless business executives and foreign governments came calling. Some came to get liquidity; others searching for silver linings amidst the global chaos. Trump was in the latter category, then as CEO of the Trump Organization but also as host and star of the hit domestic American reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”
Traveling with his daughter Ivanka, Trump visited Doha in 2010 for separate meetings with Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) executive board member Dr. Hussain Al-Abdullah and as well as Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani (commonly abbreviated as “HBJ”), who was then serving as foreign minister and prime minister.
Now think of how many Trump voters bought into the Crooked Hillary line.
Today I'd like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this upcoming and very important election. People have asked me why I'm running for president. I built an amazing business that I love. And I get to work side by side with my children every single day.
...
Hillary Clinton took $25 million from Saudi Arabia, and much more from others, where being gay is also punishable by death.
Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and the LGBT citizens.
On July 11 2017 01:02 KwarK wrote: You're doing the thing that Bible literalists do when they say that science can't be trusted because nobody is infallible. And sure, experts can be wrong. Just because they're an expert doesn't mean that they are always right. However the process is self regulating, experts are constantly assessing and testing the claims of other experts and an expert whose claims are routinely found to be false ceases to be viewed as an expert.
So yes, if I was trusting an expert purely because they are an expert then that would be wrong, in the same way that trusting a scientist because they're wearing a lab coat would be wrong.
But that's not actually how the process works. You trust an expert because you trust the system that creates experts to not let people who aren't generally right be acclaimed as experts and to rapidly disclaim their expertise should they cease to be right. In the same way you trust a scientist not because they're a scientist but because the scientific method involves screening and verification.
But good try. Maybe pitch that with the "believing in science is just another form of faith" crowd. They'll enjoy it.
A very roundabout way to say "I trust them because I trust them not to make mistakes."
Well, that's your right of course, but blindly trusting a scientist or a group thereof is also problematic if you do it blindly. There is this neat little thing called evidence that you can use to confirm things. And the case for trusting your choice of historians is even more tenuous given the less-than-factual nature of historical "facts" relative to that of hard science.
No, I trust them because I trust the system to filter out those who do make mistakes. I don't think they're infallible, I think the system does a good job of managing and mitigating their fallibility.
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
So you take a religious approach to trusting those you deem to be well policed experts without feeling the need to independently verify their accuracy and/or trustworthiness? Do you take the same approach to the divinely inspired representatives of God?
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
No. I don't take a religious approach to it. You're consistently failing to understand the very simple words I am using here. I say A, you reply "it is of course your right to do B", I repeat A, you go "so you're saying you do B".
Again, A. Not B. A.
At this point you're basically twisting your words to say something but to not have to own up to the implications of what that means. This kind of semantic deflection makes it clear that there is nothing left to discuss.
Your erroneous conflation of belief in a system vs. belief in individuals is the only word twisting going on here.
A system made of people?
Blind trust is blind trust; you still have to trust the people in it regardless of "the system."
A system made of people can be wrong too, but it is far more self-correcting. I suggest reading "The Wisdom of the Crowds" (https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Crowds-James-Surowiecki/dp/0385721706) for a basic primer. That is essentially about lay people, but the basic statistics underlying the self-correction mechanism at work is equally valid for any body of people.
Basically, you don't believe a scientist because he has a PhD from Stanford. You believe him because he is speaking on behalf of a whole load of other scientists who agree on the general points. It's the same way John Oliver found to portray the climate change debate among scientists:
And while it is still possible to be wrong about something (see for instance, geosyncline theory) even if the scientific community thinks so, statistics is simply not on your side if you bet on that.
Now, whether the same holds for the IC, I don't know. Maybe they have a selection process that selects for Russophobes, rather than truth seekers. That would obviously invalidate this argument with regards to what the IC thinks of Russia. But barring evidence for such a bias, I'm more likely to believe them than the statements of a Russian American on the internet...
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
Clinton mishandling classified information helped cost her the presidency, Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility (or what remains).
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
Clinton mishandling classified information helped cost her the presidency, Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility (or what remains).
You're using too broad a brush. Look at the specifics and you will understand why Comey's memos have not caused even the slightest problem for Comey. This isn't some spectacle where you need joe shmoe the walmart worker to trust him. This is a legal case and the people involved aren't going to change their mind because of a Facebook article.
On July 11 2017 01:02 KwarK wrote: You're doing the thing that Bible literalists do when they say that science can't be trusted because nobody is infallible. And sure, experts can be wrong. Just because they're an expert doesn't mean that they are always right. However the process is self regulating, experts are constantly assessing and testing the claims of other experts and an expert whose claims are routinely found to be false ceases to be viewed as an expert.
So yes, if I was trusting an expert purely because they are an expert then that would be wrong, in the same way that trusting a scientist because they're wearing a lab coat would be wrong.
But that's not actually how the process works. You trust an expert because you trust the system that creates experts to not let people who aren't generally right be acclaimed as experts and to rapidly disclaim their expertise should they cease to be right. In the same way you trust a scientist not because they're a scientist but because the scientific method involves screening and verification.
But good try. Maybe pitch that with the "believing in science is just another form of faith" crowd. They'll enjoy it.
A very roundabout way to say "I trust them because I trust them not to make mistakes."
Well, that's your right of course, but blindly trusting a scientist or a group thereof is also problematic if you do it blindly. There is this neat little thing called evidence that you can use to confirm things. And the case for trusting your choice of historians is even more tenuous given the less-than-factual nature of historical "facts" relative to that of hard science.
No, I trust them because I trust the system to filter out those who do make mistakes. I don't think they're infallible, I think the system does a good job of managing and mitigating their fallibility.
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
So you take a religious approach to trusting those you deem to be well policed experts without feeling the need to independently verify their accuracy and/or trustworthiness? Do you take the same approach to the divinely inspired representatives of God?
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
No. I don't take a religious approach to it. You're consistently failing to understand the very simple words I am using here. I say A, you reply "it is of course your right to do B", I repeat A, you go "so you're saying you do B".
Again, A. Not B. A.
At this point you're basically twisting your words to say something but to not have to own up to the implications of what that means. This kind of semantic deflection makes it clear that there is nothing left to discuss.
Your erroneous conflation of belief in a system vs. belief in individuals is the only word twisting going on here.
A system made of people?
Blind trust is blind trust; you still have to trust the people in it regardless of "the system."
Now, whether the same holds for the IC, I don't know. Maybe they have a selection process that selects for Russophobes, rather than truth seekers. That would obviously invalidate this argument with regards to what the IC thinks of Russia. But barring evidence for such a bias, I'm more likely to believe them than the statements of a Russian American on the internet...
Again, I recommend looking at the results and evidence rather than taking it at face value, especially when we're talking about a field more subjective than science. That's not to say any given expert should be ignored - but there is a good reason we don't generally take any one expert's opinion as fact for a specific issue in that field. The desire to just take one side or the other at face value out of a desire to avoid having to analyze things... well it's fine to "trust the experts" and probably the better choice, but in this context it's a kind of laziness that is akin to the previous religious faith problem.
In this specific case, the IC often makes statements that anyone who isn't a blind idiot who has ever stepped foot into Russia could easily contradict. And you don't have to take my word for it to see that the IC has a lot of people who lack at least one of the two qualifications above.
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
Clinton mishandling classified information helped cost her the presidency, Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility (or what remains).
Intent matters. Clinton’s intent was to set up a private server to avoid using government servers and the record keeping associated with them. Comey’s intent was to create contemporaneous memorandum as evidence to what he clearly felt was obstruction of justice. As he would be a primary witness in that case, classified information would naturally make its way into the memos. The claims he broke the same rules are just speculation.
On July 11 2017 01:02 KwarK wrote: You're doing the thing that Bible literalists do when they say that science can't be trusted because nobody is infallible. And sure, experts can be wrong. Just because they're an expert doesn't mean that they are always right. However the process is self regulating, experts are constantly assessing and testing the claims of other experts and an expert whose claims are routinely found to be false ceases to be viewed as an expert.
So yes, if I was trusting an expert purely because they are an expert then that would be wrong, in the same way that trusting a scientist because they're wearing a lab coat would be wrong.
But that's not actually how the process works. You trust an expert because you trust the system that creates experts to not let people who aren't generally right be acclaimed as experts and to rapidly disclaim their expertise should they cease to be right. In the same way you trust a scientist not because they're a scientist but because the scientific method involves screening and verification.
But good try. Maybe pitch that with the "believing in science is just another form of faith" crowd. They'll enjoy it.
A very roundabout way to say "I trust them because I trust them not to make mistakes."
Well, that's your right of course, but blindly trusting a scientist or a group thereof is also problematic if you do it blindly. There is this neat little thing called evidence that you can use to confirm things. And the case for trusting your choice of historians is even more tenuous given the less-than-factual nature of historical "facts" relative to that of hard science.
No, I trust them because I trust the system to filter out those who do make mistakes. I don't think they're infallible, I think the system does a good job of managing and mitigating their fallibility.
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
So you take a religious approach to trusting those you deem to be well policed experts without feeling the need to independently verify their accuracy and/or trustworthiness? Do you take the same approach to the divinely inspired representatives of God?
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
No. I don't take a religious approach to it. You're consistently failing to understand the very simple words I am using here. I say A, you reply "it is of course your right to do B", I repeat A, you go "so you're saying you do B".
Again, A. Not B. A.
At this point you're basically twisting your words to say something but to not have to own up to the implications of what that means. This kind of semantic deflection makes it clear that there is nothing left to discuss.
Your erroneous conflation of belief in a system vs. belief in individuals is the only word twisting going on here.
A system made of people?
Blind trust is blind trust; you still have to trust the people in it regardless of "the system."
Now, whether the same holds for the IC, I don't know. Maybe they have a selection process that selects for Russophobes, rather than truth seekers. That would obviously invalidate this argument with regards to what the IC thinks of Russia. But barring evidence for such a bias, I'm more likely to believe them than the statements of a Russian American on the internet...
Again, I recommend looking at the results and evidence rather than taking it at face value, especially when we're talking about a field more subjective than science. That's not to say any given expert should be ignored - but there is a good reason we don't generally take any one expert's opinion as fact for a specific issue in that field. The desire to just take one side or the other at face value out of a desire to avoid having to analyze things... well it's fine to "trust the experts" and probably the better choice, but in this context it's a kind of laziness that is akin to the previous religious faith problem.
In this specific case, the IC often makes statements that anyone who isn't a blind idiot who has ever stepped foot into Russia could easily contradict. And you don't have to take my word for it to see that the IC has a lot of people who lack at least one of the two qualifications above.
The main issue I have with IC skepticism is that we don't have a better source of information. The IC, by design, is capable of knowing things we simply have no other access to. In a way, you are asking people to prove a negative.
On July 11 2017 01:18 LegalLord wrote: [quote] A very roundabout way to say "I trust them because I trust them not to make mistakes."
Well, that's your right of course, but blindly trusting a scientist or a group thereof is also problematic if you do it blindly. There is this neat little thing called evidence that you can use to confirm things. And the case for trusting your choice of historians is even more tenuous given the less-than-factual nature of historical "facts" relative to that of hard science.
No, I trust them because I trust the system to filter out those who do make mistakes. I don't think they're infallible, I think the system does a good job of managing and mitigating their fallibility.
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
So you take a religious approach to trusting those you deem to be well policed experts without feeling the need to independently verify their accuracy and/or trustworthiness? Do you take the same approach to the divinely inspired representatives of God?
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
No. I don't take a religious approach to it. You're consistently failing to understand the very simple words I am using here. I say A, you reply "it is of course your right to do B", I repeat A, you go "so you're saying you do B".
Again, A. Not B. A.
At this point you're basically twisting your words to say something but to not have to own up to the implications of what that means. This kind of semantic deflection makes it clear that there is nothing left to discuss.
Your erroneous conflation of belief in a system vs. belief in individuals is the only word twisting going on here.
A system made of people?
Blind trust is blind trust; you still have to trust the people in it regardless of "the system."
Now, whether the same holds for the IC, I don't know. Maybe they have a selection process that selects for Russophobes, rather than truth seekers. That would obviously invalidate this argument with regards to what the IC thinks of Russia. But barring evidence for such a bias, I'm more likely to believe them than the statements of a Russian American on the internet...
Again, I recommend looking at the results and evidence rather than taking it at face value, especially when we're talking about a field more subjective than science. That's not to say any given expert should be ignored - but there is a good reason we don't generally take any one expert's opinion as fact for a specific issue in that field. The desire to just take one side or the other at face value out of a desire to avoid having to analyze things... well it's fine to "trust the experts" and probably the better choice, but in this context it's a kind of laziness that is akin to the previous religious faith problem.
In this specific case, the IC often makes statements that anyone who isn't a blind idiot who has ever stepped foot into Russia could easily contradict. And you don't have to take my word for it to see that the IC has a lot of people who lack at least one of the two qualifications above.
The main issue I have with IC skepticism is that we don't have a better source of information. The IC, by design, is capable of knowing things we simply have no other access to. In a way, you are asking people to prove a negative.
He's also requiring belief that a community built around offering rivaling informed assessments where accuracy is extremely well compensated has managed to fill itself with only the incompetent and the ignorant to the point that their failures go unchallenged. It's certainly a stretch. A greater stretch than the initial claim that the system works.
I feel this is somewhat comparable to the people insisting upon skepticism of global warming/vaccines and so forth who accept the alternative of a global conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of independent experts collectively covering up results without hesitation. Distrust in the system requires a far greater leap of faith than trust.
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
Clinton mishandling classified information helped cost her the presidency, Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility (or what remains).
Intent matters. Clinton’s intent was to set up a private server to avoid using government servers and the record keeping associated with them. Comey’s intent was to create contemporaneous memorandum as evidence to what he clearly felt was obstruction of justice. As he would be a primary witness in that case, classified information would naturally make its way into the memos. The claims he broke the same rules are just speculation.
Also if the report is saying some of Comey's memos contained classified information, but the information Comey publicly divulged/provided to the media was not classified, it's a non issue.
Meanwhile Trump held an open air national security meeting with a foreign power at his restaurant, which was instagrammed by random people. But his credibility is intact I guess.
I feel like this thread sounds like this video at times.
That was creepy. "More than Obama in his entire presidency" and he said it with such conviction and did not have a single thing to say other than a supreme court nominee. That is weird.
Also, seeing Trump go after Comey and his memos again is extremely encouraging.
Clinton mishandling classified information helped cost her the presidency, Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility (or what remains).
How about you show your work when you say "Comey doing the same may cost him his credibility". Show me exactly how you know he foolishly leaked one of the memos with the secret material. Comey specifically testified that he knew some of the memos had secret marks and specifically testified that he gave one of the memos that did NOT have the secret mark. This graphic from this thorough debunking of this new Hannity/Trump talking point makes the points very clear. Until you have something that can push back against this report, you are just repeating Hannity/Cultist babble.
On July 11 2017 01:18 LegalLord wrote: [quote] A very roundabout way to say "I trust them because I trust them not to make mistakes."
Well, that's your right of course, but blindly trusting a scientist or a group thereof is also problematic if you do it blindly. There is this neat little thing called evidence that you can use to confirm things. And the case for trusting your choice of historians is even more tenuous given the less-than-factual nature of historical "facts" relative to that of hard science.
No, I trust them because I trust the system to filter out those who do make mistakes. I don't think they're infallible, I think the system does a good job of managing and mitigating their fallibility.
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
So you take a religious approach to trusting those you deem to be well policed experts without feeling the need to independently verify their accuracy and/or trustworthiness? Do you take the same approach to the divinely inspired representatives of God?
This isn't complicated, you really ought to understand it.
No. I don't take a religious approach to it. You're consistently failing to understand the very simple words I am using here. I say A, you reply "it is of course your right to do B", I repeat A, you go "so you're saying you do B".
Again, A. Not B. A.
At this point you're basically twisting your words to say something but to not have to own up to the implications of what that means. This kind of semantic deflection makes it clear that there is nothing left to discuss.
Your erroneous conflation of belief in a system vs. belief in individuals is the only word twisting going on here.
A system made of people?
Blind trust is blind trust; you still have to trust the people in it regardless of "the system."
Now, whether the same holds for the IC, I don't know. Maybe they have a selection process that selects for Russophobes, rather than truth seekers. That would obviously invalidate this argument with regards to what the IC thinks of Russia. But barring evidence for such a bias, I'm more likely to believe them than the statements of a Russian American on the internet...
Again, I recommend looking at the results and evidence rather than taking it at face value, especially when we're talking about a field more subjective than science. That's not to say any given expert should be ignored - but there is a good reason we don't generally take any one expert's opinion as fact for a specific issue in that field. The desire to just take one side or the other at face value out of a desire to avoid having to analyze things... well it's fine to "trust the experts" and probably the better choice, but in this context it's a kind of laziness that is akin to the previous religious faith problem.
In this specific case, the IC often makes statements that anyone who isn't a blind idiot who has ever stepped foot into Russia could easily contradict. And you don't have to take my word for it to see that the IC has a lot of people who lack at least one of the two qualifications above.
The main issue I have with IC skepticism is that we don't have a better source of information. The IC, by design, is capable of knowing things we simply have no other access to. In a way, you are asking people to prove a negative.
Of you would like more information, perhaps asking for it would be reasonable?
In this case, talking about an assertion that paints all Russians with a broad brush ("predisposed genetically to spread propaganda")... well you have to have a Kwark-caliber faith in the system to believe that without seeking to confirm it. Given their spotty track record on the matter, that isn't justified.
I do sympathize with the "lack of alternative information to the contrary" problem... if there genuinely isn't any available. Refusing to consider it though? That's pretty much the definition of lapping up propaganda.
On July 10 2017 22:01 farvacola wrote: Decrying hyperbole alongside use of it in service of establishing that America at large operates under anti-Russian delusions isn't exactly convincing. Yes, a fair number of Americans act as though the Cold War never ended, but letting the tactics of CNN outline the figure of American attitudes is like doing the same with RT and Russia. Don't do it.
The problem is that the tactics are effective into making people believe things that didn't actually happen. Fifty percent of Democrats believe that the Russians changed votes in the election (admittedly it may have changed by now, but somehow I doubt it's actually gotten any better). That's not me using the tactics of CNN to outline American attitudes. That's me using this data.
Yes, that's you using a single kind of data (polling) to try and prove endemicity, all the while polling gets shit on by the actual results of elections and what not throughout the world. One can find a poll that supports one's view of a group without much hassle, and yes, 50% in some yougov poll is troubling, but so is pretending that those results actually speak to 50% of Democrats.
Since it wouldn't be much hassle, perhaps could you help alleviate my fears about how easily people are manipulated into a hateful doctrine by mass media and show me the polls that indicate less than 20% of Democrats believe that the Russians tampered with the vote tallies?
But even if you did find a poll that suited your particular ideas, it's not as if I'm basing my own perceptions regarding this whole thing entirely on that one poll. It's the only bit of actual data that I have, sure, and that's certainly not scientifically responsible, but I'm not a scientist and I don't need to be a scientist to see there's a lot of hatred for Muslims out there in social media to be alarmed about the potential political consequences. I'm now seeing that same rhetoric aimed towards Russians, and it's based on the kind of hyperbole used for hatred towards Muslims. That hate is fuelled in mainstream media by their generic sensationalism about issues, but also by people such as Mr Clapper and Mr Brenner who should be more responsible in choosing their words.
Yes, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Muslims in association with terrorists (specifically, the vulnerability to propaganda meant to radicalise through an ideological and religious link). There's also various legitimate reasons to be concerned about Russia in international politics. But there is a certain lack of responsible behaviour by the media in covering both of these issues. From interviewers not calling out such horrible statements with "What?! You think it's genetics ?! Kindly explain yourself, sir!" all the way through to what you referred to as CNN tactics. Social media then follows up to add another level of hyperbole to this, just as it did with Islamic terrorism.
You can at least agree that the MSM coverage of Islamic terrorism has contributed towards Islamophobia, right? Can you not see that the same kind of MSM coverage with regards to any potential level of Russian election interference is now shaping the minds of people towards some level of Russophobia?
I suspect that even the mere mention of the word "Russophobia" will make some Democrats in this thread think the same kind of thing as right-wing people think when they hear "Islamophobia": it's not an unreasonable fearin my case. Honestly... genetically predisposed... Yeah, that sure sounds reasonable!
Of course Trump Clapper and Brenner didn't literally mean what he they said. But the people that are listening to him them know how to interpret him them. He doesn't mean a wall in the literal sense of the word They don't actually think that Russians are genetically predisposed to manipulation and deception. We all see what they actually mean, right, Plansix? It's just that some of them are rapists hackers!
Yup, but lucky for Russians they are white, so they have to have an accent to be noticed, downside, we don't know the difference between Russians, or any of the surrounding countries accents so there's likely some collateral damage (like Sheikhs for Muslims)
EPT
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