US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8608

On August 31 2017 04:55 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Pointing out that X is not Y is attacking a person? Maybe you could explain that concept for the rest of the class?

On August 31 2017 04:55 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Pointing out that X is not Y is attacking a person? Maybe you could explain that concept for the rest of the class?

On August 31 2017 04:54 brian wrote:

though it didn't start this way, i just enjoy discrediting people who can't put together a coherent idea without attacking the people they talk to.

and if you think my asking you to elaborate on what appeared to be a worthless post is my picking a fight, then i'm sorry. but i also think that's on you, not on me.

On August 31 2017 04:55 Plansix wrote:
Alternative solution: we could just infer that the poster admires his father.

On August 31 2017 04:58 Plansix wrote:

Pointing out that X is not Y has the potential to be an attack on a person. It depends on the intent of the poster and why they are point out that X is not Y.

Subjects were asked to evaluate which supplier was doing a better job based on the data provided. When this merely pitted A vs. B, politicians and citizens alike had little trouble identifying the winner in the data. But once question became public vs. private, interpretations were skewed by how people felt about public vs. private suppliers in general.

If the data showed the public school getting better ratings, nearly all those who preferred public suppliers had no problem giving the correct answer, but half or more of the fans of private suppliers claimed the data showed the opposite. The same thing was true (in reverse) if the data leaned toward the private school.

On August 31 2017 05:15 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Yes exactly. It takes a special kind of mind to see what igne wrote as an attack on a person. Afterall, you do not appear to view it as such.

On August 31 2017 05:12 IgnE wrote:


so you WERE just a slow learner after all! you didnt (and still dont??) see what the object of my post was! and here i thought you were just picking a fight.

On August 31 2017 05:18 Lmui wrote:
On a side note - Interesting study about data vs governance.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/role-of-evidence-in-politics-motivated-reasoning-and-persuasion-among-politicians/6813A080C058E1BB4920661FF60BED6F

An article about it is here:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/how-objectively-do-you-suppose-politicians-evaluate-data/




Pretty interesting study of how skewed opinions are by pre-existing notions of what's good/bad.

Doesn't really excuse Ajit Pai and his ilk in my book, but goes to show that we're probably not immune to this about views we hold strongly.

But a recent paper showed that in fact, male STEM faculty assessed the quality of real research that demonstrated bias against women in STEM as being low; instead the male faculty favored fake research, designed for the purposes of the study in question, which purported to demonstrate that no such bias exists.

A Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives issued a veiled threat of lynching to a black former colleague who expressed anti-Confederate memorial sentiments on his Facebook.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia State Rep. Jason Spencer (R) did exactly that on a Facebook post when former state representative LaDawn Jones expressed a distaste for a photo he took with a Confederate monument.

“This is Georgia’s history,” Spencer wrote on a post accompanied by a selfie he took with a South Georgia monument to Confederate president Jefferson Davis.

Jones, who formerly served in the state legislature until last year, questioned whether state tax dollars help pay for the upkeep of the memorial, which includes the house Davis fled to after the Civil War ended. A few comments in, Spencer began making threatening allusions.

“Continue your quixotic journey into South Georgia and it will not be pleasant,” Spencer replied. “The truth. Not a warning. Those folks won’t put up with it like they do in Atlanta.”

“I can guarantee you won’t be met with torches but something a lot more definitive,” he continued, responding to Jones’ comment about the store-bought tiki torches used by the white supremacists at the Charlottesville rally earlier this month.

After another person commented about the differences between Atlanta (a city that has a large African American population) and the rest of Georgia, Spencer agreed.

“They will go missing in the Okefenokee [swamp],” he wrote. “Too many necks they are red around here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about ’em.”

Jones didn’t back down from Spencer’s intimidation.

“Sounds like a threat of physical violence … is that what we are doing now?” she wrote. “Desperate times call for desperate measures huh? Afraid of what is going to happen in southern GA? I saw those white supremacists crying when sh*t really hit the fan.”

On August 31 2017 05:18 Plansix wrote:

It seems like a nitpicky and petty thing to bring up in a discussion. Like if someone says “today is the worst,” and the response is “worse than the holocaust?”

It is also a stupid thing to debate.

On August 31 2017 06:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
In this case it appears that he genuinely views his father was literally the smartest man he have ever known, instead of merely admiring him. Whether he still holds that opinion after flying into rage, seeing a complex issue in black and white and calling a man made document sacred is another question.