US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8462

On August 18 2017 00:32 ticklishmusic wrote:
honestly, i'm kind of okay with it. 1 TB is a pretty generous amount of data- i mean, that much would be downloading the equivalent of my full hard drive every month. like 99%+ of people don't go that high.

though i guess it would be fair if you went over one month, then the extra bit you paid rolled over to the following months.

On August 18 2017 00:55 Mohdoo wrote:


Yeah, 12 TB per year. But that doesn't account for things like increase in video quality, increase in resolution, big data, etc. Compare total data usage today to 5 years ago. Enormous increase. Think about how many technologies and services were only possible once computing and internet speeds were high enough. There isn't really a point of "this is good enough" when it comes to technology. We shouldn't be comfortable putting up boundary conditions around technological advancement.



What? Source? What happened?

On August 17 2017 12:24 xDaunt wrote:
So let me start by addressing why Vox Day's 14th Point ("The Alt Right believes we must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children.") is not about white supremacy. And let me preface this by saying now that some of you are going to feel really retarded by the time that I'm done, because everything that I'm about to say is right in the 16 Points. Point 15 is the first big hint:



Just in case there's any ambiguity here, let's look at Points 10 and 16, respectively:



Here, Vox Day is clearly advocating for peaceful coexistence among peoples and advocating directly against the supremacy/imperialism of one people over another. Not exactly the typical skinhead dribble, right? So now let's talk about his reasoning for ethnostates. We see it stated right in Point 11:



Now, unlike the previous points, I am willing to cut people a little bit of slack for not fully understanding the significance of what Vox Day is communicating here given the terseness of the statement and the fact that most probably have not had the opportunity to read or hear Vox Day elaborate on this point. But his argument is basically as follows: history shows that conflict -- often violent conflict -- occurs when different cultures either a) exist in close proximity to each other, or b) find themselves in a situation whether they otherwise have to compete with each other over the same resources. Stated another way, multiculturalism breeds strife that is not easily repressed and eliminated until there is some degree of convergence between the cultures because people tend to be assholes to "the other." It's just who we are and what we do. Vox Day's solution to this human condition is to keep everyone separated and allow each people the right to national self-determination. This is stated in Point 5:



Accordingly, securing the future of white people is merely the logical extension of this principle. The goal, is the preservation of Western Culture, of which Vox Day writes in Point 4:



For the numerous posters who struggle with reading, let me make the following abundantly clear: All of what I have said so far is what Vox Day thinks. Not necessarily what I think.

Like I have said many times before, my primary disagreement with the Alt Right lies in its preoccupation with race. And this is where I deviate from Vox Day as well. Here is what he writes in the summary section of his 16 Points:



While I am willing to entertain the idea that there is some genetic variation between races, I do not accept the idea that this variation is significant enough to affect the ability of members of a given race to be able to embrace, or assimilate into, a certain culture, particularly if we are to assume tabula rasa immersion into that culture (ie taking a baby from one race/culture and raising it in another race/culture). Stated another way, Vox Day thinks that race and culture are largely inseparable. I don't. Now, for practical purposes, I can see why race might be a useful proxy for culture given that every culture is the product of predominantly one race, but it doesn't change the basic point that a member of any race can, in theory, adopt any culture.

So let's turn to IgnE's post:



First, I mentioned that "political pluralism" is a pillar of western civilization, referring mostly to the idea that we value truly democratic and representative rule, as opposed to some form of autocratic or even single party rule. As for cultural pluralism, it really boils down to a matter of degree. While I reject outright multiculturalism, I do think that there is some room for variation within a culture. Or using IgnE's terminology, the xDaunt brand of fascism does require a certain level of cultural homogeneity within the nation. I'll just say right now that I don't know exactly where the line is as it pertains to the US. However, and per my previous posts addressing this matter, I do think it critical that everyone within the US, at a minimum, accept and embrace the most important traditions of Western culture: individual liberty, inalienable rights, political plurality, rationalism, and the rule of law. And I will be first to say that we have not done a good job of imprinting these values upon our own people (as is amply evidenced by some of the posters around here), thus this isn't even strictly an issue of insider vs outsider.

We can see a nice little microcosm as to why cultural homogeneity matters just by looking at what has been going on over at Google. How was the internal reaction to Damore's memo any different than a cultural conflict? As with cultural conflicts between nations or peoples, conflicting values were the issue. And as we with so many cultural conflicts, one side is clearly working to eliminate the other. As Vox Day says, diversity + proximity = war.

On August 18 2017 01:20 ticklishmusic wrote:


Right, I would expect those limits to increase as well as video quality, etc. increased as well. Also I hadn't thought about Lmui's point about having lots of people running off internet and how that rubs against his ISP's soft cap, but I'd argue that it's reasonable that a guy living alone or with one or two roommates shouldn't necessarily have to pay the same as 6 people.

On August 17 2017 23:55 Plansix wrote:
Intent to be racist does not matter when determining if something is racist. If an action/policy disproportionally impacts a specific race in a negative matter, it is racist. Impact matters, not intent. Intent matters when determining if the person did it on purpose, like the NC voter ID law. People are to hyper focused on intent in an effort to absolve themselves of potential racism. But in reality, it is easy to apologize. Accepting that it isn’t relevant to determining the impact and an incitement of you really helps move the discussion forward.

On August 18 2017 00:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

Source
So if they get rid of net neutrality, where does that lead ISPs and services? Especially the smaller ISPs? This reminds me of the Verizon v Sprint v T-Mo vs ATT commercials.

Source
This is why we need the FDA.

On August 18 2017 01:00 Lmui wrote:
https://www.reddit.com/live/zgbfbqqsl4h4

2 dead, from a van ramming into a crowd and two gunmen in a restaurant.

On August 17 2017 23:39 mozoku wrote:

One of the issues I'm having with what you keep doing is that you never actually attempt to outline what "racism" is. I'm assuming you're of the opinion that the Mahjong scenario is not racist, but the train scenario is. But what is the difference between the train scenario and the Mahjong scenario? If you don't want the term "racist" to be diluted, you need a commonly understood definition for "racism" and only use the term when it meets that definition. Instead, we have a status quo where racism is functionally defined as a "you know it when you see it" thing, which, of course, is a total mess in practice.

Earlier in this discussion, I was accused of having a racist analysis for having allegedly incorrect facts (I disagreed, but that's irrelevant)--when I think it was clear to all sides that there was no intent to be racist. In that case, "you know it when you see it" led to "alleged factual inaccuracy = racist." Now in this discussion, you're asserting (see bold) that using a stereotype as a prior is racist (i.e. having stereotypes = racist). Even though, using a stereotype in the Mahjong scenario was not racist.

If this happens in a discussion literally about the dilution of the word "racist" (where you'd expect people to be particularly careful), how can you assert that people are more careful in conversations where they have political motives to slander their opponents as a racist and no incentive to be careful about how they use the term?


You're muddling definitions again. If a stereotype is a prior, then it only swamps all other sensory datapoints when the prior is extremely strong. I've already said that having an irrationally strong prior based on skin color and not conditioning on new data effectively is arguably what defines a racist. You're going back to the classic Frequentist point that "priors are sometimes misapplied, therefore they shouldn't be used." Which I disagree with. If priors are sometimes misapplied, the solution is to be aware, disciplined, and critical of your priors (i.e. be informed and challenge your beliefs). It isn't to stick your head in the sand and apply a flat prior to everything (i.e. assigning equal probability of winning to both players in the Mahjong scenario).

On August 18 2017 01:35 OtherWorld wrote:
^Well I mean, technically, racism is nothing else than an ideology (-ism) that's based on race (rac-). Thus, yes, a "racist policy" should be a policy that's made according to an ideology based on race. Which includes race-based affirmative action in racist policies, since you first have to believe that there are different races to implement them.

On August 18 2017 01:45 Plansix wrote:
If the discussion is going to relying the google definition of racism, my comment need not be applied. The discussions of intent and systematic racism require a less simplistic definition that does not revolve an expressed belief of racial superiority.

mozoku wrote
One of the issues I'm having with what you keep doing is that you never actually attempt to outline what "racism" is. I'm assuming you're of the opinion that the Mahjong scenario is not racist, but the train scenario is. But what is the difference between the train scenario and the Mahjong scenario? If you don't want the term "racist" to be diluted, you need a commonly understood definition for "racism" and only use the term when it meets that definition. Instead, we have a status quo where racism is functionally defined as a "you know it when you see it" thing, which, of course, is a total mess in practice.

Earlier in this discussion, I was accused of having a racist analysis for having allegedly incorrect facts (I disagreed, but that's irrelevant)--when I think it was clear to all sides that there was no intent to be racist. In that case, "you know it when you see it" led to "alleged factual inaccuracy = racist." Now in this discussion, you're asserting (see bold) that using a stereotype as a prior is racist (i.e. having stereotypes = racist). Even though, using a stereotype in the Mahjong scenario was not racist.

If this happens in a discussion literally about the dilution of the word "racist" (where you'd expect people to be particularly careful), how can you assert that people are more careful in conversations where they have political motives to slander their opponents as a racist and no incentive to be careful about how they use the term?

On August 18 2017 01:47 IgnE wrote:


or the solution is to use non-racist priors. if you come up to me in tattered clothes without shoes and without having showered for several days there are several priors there, none of them race-based, that condition my response. as ive said repeatedly, how you decide which information to condition your prior is always unjustifiable and faith-based. choosing to use race to condition your prior is racist. i expect you'll say something like "ideally you include all the data," at which point i say, get real, thats not how stereotypes work, the whole premise here was that it's an efficiency shortcut, and then you waffle around a bit with more abstractions while accusing me of conflating definitions etc.

luckily i am not a proponent of thought crime so in your mahjong scenario its not a big deal to keep your thoughts on the likelihood of who is a better mahjong player to yourself. but if you went up and said, "hey i bet you could beat this white person here at mahjong," you'd be doing something racist. likewise if you got on the train in chicago and treated a bunch of black people going about their business like potential criminals you'd be doing something racist (and irrational).

On August 18 2017 01:52 xDaunt wrote:

Yeah? And how many of those are left in the wake of the ever-expanding definition of racism?

On August 18 2017 01:58 Plansix wrote:
When compared to the right's definition:

"We solved, it move on,"

It can only expand.

On August 18 2017 01:45 Plansix wrote:
If the discussion is going to relying the google definition of racism, my comment need not be applied. The discussions of intent and systematic racism require a less simplistic definition that does not revolve an expressed belief of racial superiority.

On August 18 2017 01:47 mozoku wrote:

Don't you need stereotypes (i.e. empirical distributions or priors) to decide that "racist" affirmative actions result in the greatest utility for society though? Supporters of affirmative action are implicitly acknowledging that there exists a tradeoff between employing stereotypes (which they contradictorily deem universally bad) and maximizing utility.