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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.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 December 11 2017 00:30 xDaunt wrote:Here is the article that everyone who complains about Trump’s attacks on the media needs to read. One highly relevant excerpt: Show nested quote +Third, this type of recklessness and falsity is now a clear and highly disturbing trend – one could say a constant – when it comes to reporting on Trump, Russia and WikiLeaks. I have spent a good part of the last year documenting the extraordinarily numerous, consequential and reckless stories that have been published – and then corrected, rescinded and retracted – by major media outlets when it comes to this story.
All media outlets, of course, will make mistakes. The Intercept certainly has made our share, as have all outlets. And it’s particularly natural, inevitable, for mistakes to be made on a highly complicated, opaque story like the question of the relationship between Trump and the Russians, and questions relating to how WikiLeaks obtained DNC and Podesta emails. That is all to be expected.
But what one should expect with journalistic “mistakes” is that they sometimes go in one direction, and other times go in the other direction. That’s exactly what has not happened here. Virtually every false story published goes only in one direction: to be as inflammatory and damaging as possible on the Trump/Russia story and about Russia particularly. At some point, once “mistakes” all start going in the same direction, toward advancing the same agenda, they cease looking like mistakes.
this is silly, trump doesn’t attack ‘the media,’ trump attacks the media that doesn’t slob on his knob.
he doesn’t do it because the sources are less reputable or less prone to mistakes. he does it because he likes it when people suck his dick.
his choices of media friends and foes are irrespective to their accuracy, and the rescissions, corrections, and straight up removal of stories run the gamut of all media. so while the article might have a point about journalism as a whole, to single it out as particular medias trump has anything to do with is nonsense.
the article even acknowledges this mid story, but then seems to forget it in favor of some fictional narrative of anti trump silliness. here i thought it was The Left that had to pin everything on Trump..
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On December 11 2017 05:41 kollin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you. I haven't read the article, but the broader idea of race being a social construct is literally what you're saying right now.
That might be true in some sense, but it isn't how the idea has been expressed in academic circles at all, quite the opposite. They use skin colour as the arbitrary base for social constructivism in order to wage a race war. Whiteness isn't a social construct, American whiteness is. There is no 'whiteness' to speak of except an expression of genetic information in skin pigment.
The language behind the theory is all wrong, it always makes huge, incorrect generalizations because it draws the lines between people in completely the wrong places.
Ignoring these cultural differences is literally just a way to propagandize for a race war.
ps the race war I'm talking about was started by white America, I'm not denying that at all.
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U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Sunday she believes any woman who has felt violated or mistreated by a man has every right to speak up, even if it is President Donald Trump they are accusing.
Accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior or misconduct have led to the resignations of three members of Congress this month. The growing wave of women reporting abuse or misconduct has brought down powerful men from Hollywood to Washington, from movie producer Harvey Weinstein to popular television personality Matt Lauer.
More than 10 women have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct before he was president, and Trump, while filming a segment of the television program "Access Hollywood," said he has kissed and groped women. The tape emerged during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Haley, discussing a cultural shift of women coming forward on the CBS "Face the Nation" program, applauded women who have come forward: "I'm proud of their strength. I'm proud of their courage."
Asked how people should assess the accusers of the president, Haley said, it was "the same thing."
www.yahoo.com
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On December 11 2017 05:37 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. I'll reply to Igne's long post later, but the short answer to this is that the article he posted and Murray's work have one massive thing in common. They attribute to skin colour what they should be attributing to culture. They are confusing skin pigment with cultural phenomena. I can't see how it makes sense to assume that whiteness is innately different from blackness instead of assuming that the culture to which white people are more likely to belong is completely different and encourages different attributes to the cultures that POC probably belong to. Using culture as an explanation instead of skin colour works much better, because you don't have to jump through hoops to explain things you just follow the cultural phenomena and they explain the issue for you.
To be honest, IgnE’s selection of race as a backdrop that influenced cultures and how people perceive each other still appears as arbitrary as you insisted it was beforehand. You can also say perceptions of aristocracy/underclass or city/country or religious/secular are just these huge constructs that dim all the rest. You can also use identical arguments to protest those that call my choices extremely limited and minor forces in interpersonal interactions. No king has decreed that this specific group trait is foundational in cultural backdrop and every sane person should instinctively oppose calling especial attention to race.
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On December 11 2017 05:19 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 00:43 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 00:30 xDaunt wrote:Here is the article that everyone who complains about Trump’s attacks on the media needs to read. One highly relevant excerpt: Third, this type of recklessness and falsity is now a clear and highly disturbing trend – one could say a constant – when it comes to reporting on Trump, Russia and WikiLeaks. I have spent a good part of the last year documenting the extraordinarily numerous, consequential and reckless stories that have been published – and then corrected, rescinded and retracted – by major media outlets when it comes to this story.
All media outlets, of course, will make mistakes. The Intercept certainly has made our share, as have all outlets. And it’s particularly natural, inevitable, for mistakes to be made on a highly complicated, opaque story like the question of the relationship between Trump and the Russians, and questions relating to how WikiLeaks obtained DNC and Podesta emails. That is all to be expected.
But what one should expect with journalistic “mistakes” is that they sometimes go in one direction, and other times go in the other direction. That’s exactly what has not happened here. Virtually every false story published goes only in one direction: to be as inflammatory and damaging as possible on the Trump/Russia story and about Russia particularly. At some point, once “mistakes” all start going in the same direction, toward advancing the same agenda, they cease looking like mistakes. To be honest, I don't know why people care about Trump's Russia connection. Every politician is bought and paid for, every politician does opposition research, every politician is corrupt. A lot of liberals act like Hillary Clinton being lavishly funded by the Saudi state, and having personal relationships with Egyptian dictators, is perfectly acceptable. But Trump being okay with Russian support for his election is somehow treasonous, even if Trump doesn't actually do anything meaningful to help Russia. This whole scandal is based on a fixation with Russia. Trump can have a paid Turkish agent on his staff, who was literally plotting to kidnap a person under US protection for his Turkish masters, and no one cares because it is not Russia. Trump can make blatant overtures to Saudi-Arabia and Israel and all these #resistance neo-cons like Bill Kristol couldn't care less, but if he even considers not provoking war with Russia by enacting punitive sanctions as retaliation for trivial stuff like Facebook ads or hacking the DNC, then he must be a traitor. Not to mention that the USA constantly meddles in elections (including Russia's), far more than Russia has ever been accused of. Consider that the Trump administration wanted to lift sanctions on Russia, and that Flynn allegedly told close associates that he had a private business venture that was going to profit. And consider whether election assistance from a foreign adversary, in exchange for lifting sanctions, would be an unprecedented act of corruption ( if it were to be proven true). That is why people care.
As far as I know it has not been proven true, which makes this currently just a theory. I think it's bad when opposition to the heinous Trump administration is predicated on 1. a probably false accusation that he made a deal with the Russians, which (in the minds of liberals) is not falsifiable and behaves like a conspiracy theory 2. waiting for intelligence agencies to undermine or arrest Trump. It's just as bad as when people opposed Bush for staging 9/11, it diverted energy away from his multitude of actual crimes.
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On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger.
![[image loading]](https://images.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/humanaccomplishment.jpg)
Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people.
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On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people.
Why wouldn’t you take it seriously?
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On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously?
For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified.
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On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously?
I'm seriously hoping here you aren't being serious.
Seriously.
I know Poe's Law is a bastard but still.
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On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified.
Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used.
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On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used.
You're not even joking are you?
Nothing about that chart leaps out at you as "wow this is disingenuous"?
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On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used.
Haha maybe if you only learn history from reading European history books.
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On December 11 2017 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used. You're not even joking are you? Nothing about that chart leaps out at you as "wow this is disingenuous"?
Yeah, Americans seem to be underrepresented early on.
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On December 11 2017 06:52 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used. Haha maybe if you only learn history from reading European history books.
Last I checked, western powers owned the world during the 18th-20th centuries and were dominant in arts and science. This isn’t even debatable in my mind.
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On December 11 2017 06:03 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 05:19 Doodsmack wrote:On December 11 2017 00:43 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 00:30 xDaunt wrote:Here is the article that everyone who complains about Trump’s attacks on the media needs to read. One highly relevant excerpt: Third, this type of recklessness and falsity is now a clear and highly disturbing trend – one could say a constant – when it comes to reporting on Trump, Russia and WikiLeaks. I have spent a good part of the last year documenting the extraordinarily numerous, consequential and reckless stories that have been published – and then corrected, rescinded and retracted – by major media outlets when it comes to this story.
All media outlets, of course, will make mistakes. The Intercept certainly has made our share, as have all outlets. And it’s particularly natural, inevitable, for mistakes to be made on a highly complicated, opaque story like the question of the relationship between Trump and the Russians, and questions relating to how WikiLeaks obtained DNC and Podesta emails. That is all to be expected.
But what one should expect with journalistic “mistakes” is that they sometimes go in one direction, and other times go in the other direction. That’s exactly what has not happened here. Virtually every false story published goes only in one direction: to be as inflammatory and damaging as possible on the Trump/Russia story and about Russia particularly. At some point, once “mistakes” all start going in the same direction, toward advancing the same agenda, they cease looking like mistakes. To be honest, I don't know why people care about Trump's Russia connection. Every politician is bought and paid for, every politician does opposition research, every politician is corrupt. A lot of liberals act like Hillary Clinton being lavishly funded by the Saudi state, and having personal relationships with Egyptian dictators, is perfectly acceptable. But Trump being okay with Russian support for his election is somehow treasonous, even if Trump doesn't actually do anything meaningful to help Russia. This whole scandal is based on a fixation with Russia. Trump can have a paid Turkish agent on his staff, who was literally plotting to kidnap a person under US protection for his Turkish masters, and no one cares because it is not Russia. Trump can make blatant overtures to Saudi-Arabia and Israel and all these #resistance neo-cons like Bill Kristol couldn't care less, but if he even considers not provoking war with Russia by enacting punitive sanctions as retaliation for trivial stuff like Facebook ads or hacking the DNC, then he must be a traitor. Not to mention that the USA constantly meddles in elections (including Russia's), far more than Russia has ever been accused of. Consider that the Trump administration wanted to lift sanctions on Russia, and that Flynn allegedly told close associates that he had a private business venture that was going to profit. And consider whether election assistance from a foreign adversary, in exchange for lifting sanctions, would be an unprecedented act of corruption ( if it were to be proven true). That is why people care. As far as I know it has not been proven true, which makes this currently just a theory. I think it's bad when opposition to the heinous Trump administration is predicated on 1. a probably false accusation that he made a deal with the Russians, which is not falsifiable and behaves like a conspiracy theory 2. waiting for intelligence agencies to undermine or arrest Trump. It's just as bad as when people opposed Bush for staging 9/11, it diverted energy away from his multitude of actual crimes.
opposition to it is predicated on a very long list of objections, of which that is merely one of many.
also, while unlikely that trump himself personally made a deal with the russians, it is true that trump's entourage DID make improper deals with the russians, and trump himself didn't bother to vet his people properly to prevent that from happening. so trump did in fact recklessly ignore espionage risks, and went along with stuff that was suggested by those who were workin for the russians. (up until the revelations forced those people to finally be kicked out)
it's not just as bad as that 9/11 bush staging; because the evidence here is far stronger for there being/having been a connection. it's nowhere remotely near as bad.
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On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used.
It depends on what you mean by "accurate." Using a term as generic as "significant figures" makes this data very vulnerable to being skewed by personal opinion. Perhaps if another person compiled the same data to make this graph, the gap between Europe and the rest of the world from 1500 to 1900 would be much smaller. Perhaps the data used to form this graph is collected from a source that is skewed toward European history (very likely btw). And perhaps there is an effect of one culture, once passing a certain threshold, dominating other cultures and suppressing their history.
Those are just a few of the considerable flaws in considering this data to be "accurate" from a "cursory glance." Honestly, I think a cursory glance is the only way someone could realistically consider this to be accurate. To be clear, it's probably accurate qualitatively (i.e. Europe > the rest of the world from 1500 to 1900), but not quantitatively (for example, 50 vs 2 in the year 1600 is completely subjective and shouldn't be accepted as accurate without further review of the data, due to the numerous gaping holes mentioned above).
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On December 11 2017 06:54 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used. You're not even joking are you? Nothing about that chart leaps out at you as "wow this is disingenuous"? Yeah, Americans seem to be underrepresented early on.
lol, how about the massively significant people prior to 800BC, think they are even more underrepresented?
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On December 11 2017 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:54 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used. You're not even joking are you? Nothing about that chart leaps out at you as "wow this is disingenuous"? Yeah, Americans seem to be underrepresented early on. lol, how about the massively significant people prior to 800BC, think they are even more underrepresented?
Not really given the scaling of the y-axis on the graph. The numbers seem about right. Regardless, if you really want to argue that Bronze Age societies were culturally superior to post-industrial societies, I don’t think I have a big enough ROFL to drop on you.
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The entire Middle East, from Palestine to Yemen, appears set to burst into flames after this week. The region was already teetering on the edge, but recent events have only made things worse. And while the mayhem should be apparent to any casual observer, what’s less obvious is Jared Kushner’s role in the chaos.
Kushner is, of course, the US president’s senior advisor and son-in-law. The 36-year-old is a Harvard graduate who seems to have a hard time filling in forms correctly.
He repeatedly failed to mention his meetings with foreign officials on his security clearance and neglected to report to US government officials that he was co-director of a foundation that raised money for Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. (He is also said to have told Michael Flynn last December to call UN security council members to get a resolution condemning Israeli settlements quashed. Flynn called Russia.)
In his role as the president’s special advisor, Kushner seems to have decided he can remake the entire Middle East, and he is wreaking his havoc with his new best friend, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old who burst on to the international scene by jailing many members of his country’s ruling elite, including from his own family, on corruption charges.
Days before Salman’s unprecedented move, Kushner was with the crown prince in Riyadh on an unannounced trip. The men are reported to have stayed up late, planning strategy while swapping stories. We don’t know what exactly the two were plotting, but Donald Trump later tweeted his “great confidence” in Salman.
But the Kushner-Salman alliance moves far beyond Riyadh. The Saudis and Americans are now privately pushing a new “peace” deal to various Palestinian and Arab leaders that is more lop-sided toward Israel than ever before.
Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian parliamentarian in the Israeli Knesset, explained the basic contours of the deal to the New York Times: no full statehood for Palestinians, only “moral sovereignty.” Control over disconnected segments of the occupied territories only. No capital in East Jerusalem. No right of return for Palestinian refugees.
This is, of course, not a deal at all. It’s an insult to the Palestinian people. Another Arab official cited in the Times story explained that the proposal came from someone lacking experience but attempting to flatter the family of the American president. In other words, it’s as if Mohammed bin Salman is trying to gift Palestine to Jared Kushner, Palestinians be damned.
Next came Donald Trump throwing both caution and international law to the wind by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
But it’s not just Israel, either. Yemen is on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster largely because the country is being blockaded by Saudi Arabia. Trump finally spoke out against the Saudi measure this week, but both the state department and the Pentagon are said to have been privately urging Saudi Arabia and the UAE to ease their campaign against Yemen (and Lebanon and Qatar) for some time and to little impact. Why? Because Saudi and Emirati officials believe they “have tacit approval from the White House for their hardline actions, in particular from Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner,” journalist Laura Rozen reported.
The Kushner-Salman alliance has particularly irked secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Kushner reportedly leaves the state department completely out of his Middle Eastern plans. Of special concern to Tillerson, according to Bloomberg News, is Kushner’s talks with Salman regarding military action by Saudi Arabia against Qatar. The state department is worried of all the unforeseen consequences such a radical course of action would bring, including heightened conflict with Turkey and Russia and perhaps even a military response from Iran or an attack on Israel by Hezbollah.
Here’s where state department diplomacy should kick in. The US ambassador to Qatar could relay messages between the feuding parties to find a solution to the stand-off. So what does the ambassador to Qatar have to say about the Kushner-Salman alliance? Nothing, since there still is no confirmed ambassador to Qatar.
What about the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia? That seat’s also vacant. And the US ambassador to Jordan, Morocco, Egypt? Vacant, vacant, and vacant. What about assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, a chief strategic post to establish US policy in the region? No one’s been nominated. Deputy assistant secretary for press and public diplomacy? Vacant.
It’s partly this vacuum of leadership by Tillerson that has enabled Kushner to forge his powerful alliance with Salman, much to the detriment of the region. And in their zeal to isolate Iran, Kushner and Salman are leaving a wake of destruction around them.
The war in Yemen is only intensifying. Qatar is closer to Iran than ever. A final status deal between Israel and the Palestinians seems all but impossible now. The Lebanese prime minister went back on his resignation. And the Saudi state must be paying the Ritz-Carlton a small fortune to jail key members of the ruling family over allegations of corruption.
There’s a long history of American politicians deciding they know what’s best for the Middle East while buttressing their autocratic allies and at the expense of the region’s ordinary people. (The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has traditionally provided the rationale for America and its allies in the region, and his recent sycophantic portrayal of Salman certainly didn’t disappoint!)
But the Kushner-Salman alliance also represents something else. Both the US and Saudi Arabia are concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands. And with fewer people in the room, who will be around to tell these men that their ideas are so damaging? Who will dare explain to them how they already have failed?
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On December 11 2017 07:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2017 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 11 2017 06:54 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 11 2017 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:32 Mercy13 wrote:On December 11 2017 06:17 xDaunt wrote:On December 11 2017 06:07 Grumbels wrote:On December 11 2017 05:22 Nebuchad wrote:On December 11 2017 05:14 Schmobutzen wrote:
I was nodding to jockmcplops answer along, up top the point of Charles Murray. Murray is anything but a racist or a right winger. I've read The Bell Curve and was baffled that this book produced that outcry. If you read or hear his interviews, you will quickly see that grew is a very decent guy, that stumbled into an angry hornets nest, which he and his fellow colleague thought that they were circling, because of their carefullness, but never imagined that those were stimmed hornets nests. You're going to need a little more research on Murray if you don't even think that he's a rightwinger. Charles Murray literally took this graph seriously as a sign of the objective cultural superiority of white people. Why wouldn’t you take it seriously? For starters “significant figures” is far too subjective to be meaningfully quantified. Even a cursory understanding of history would tell you that the figures are accurate, regardless of the precise metric used. You're not even joking are you? Nothing about that chart leaps out at you as "wow this is disingenuous"? Yeah, Americans seem to be underrepresented early on. lol, how about the massively significant people prior to 800BC, think they are even more underrepresented? Not really given the scaling of the y-axis on the graph. The numbers seem about right. Regardless, if you really want to argue that Bronze Age societies were culturally superior to post-industrial societies, I don’t think I have a big enough ROFL to drop on you.
I think there's enough in there to explain why the word "significant" is far too unclear for this chart to be of any value.
EDIT: it also speaks to the inadequacy of the scale to compare a global population of ~220 million to ~1-7 billion.
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