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.
The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
On December 30 2017 04:49 mozoku wrote: The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
“Divine right” is an interesting way to put it and speaks to the reason why the backlash has overshot the mark. It engenders resentment. The natural process of “fuck these self-entitled assholes” overcorrects to raw distrust of experts in general. Then the counter-backlash is outraged that their authority and motives are questioned and freezes the struggle somewhere close to where it was before, neither side having accomplished an upheaval. I really don’t know where it goes long-term.
Although people are making valid critiques of a subset of intellectuals, I feel the discussion is painting the entire world of higher education with a pretty broad brush.
And in the same vein of thought, we should not discount the how self serving it is for those without PHDs to devalue and discredit the educations of those with PHDs.(full disclosure, I don’t have a PHD).
Edit: The entire "you have to have a Ph.D. to contribute to a topic" came from someone responding to one of my posts saying that doctors don't need to have cancer to advise how to treat cancer. I pointed out that that their degree in treating cancer was the reason why their advice had merit. I made the wild assertion that listening to who study a subject had real merit.
On December 30 2017 04:49 mozoku wrote: The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
As someone that is 1) a "Leftist" and 2) intimately involved in academia and educated circles for the better part of a decade, you seem to be making another boogeyman to argue against in an effort to artificially construct some kind of "crisis" to equivocate the problems that the discourse on the right has by saying, "see? The left is just as bad too!".
When talking about anything politically related, I never see anyone say "you have to have a Ph.D. to contribute to a topic", and there isn't this idea that only Ph.D's should contribute to a conversation. You seem to just be simply making this up. I also rarely, if ever, see anyone say, "educated people believe this, so it must be true". As an aside, there is a qualitative difference between saying, "educated people think X about tax/social/educational policy" and "there is a scientific consensus on climate change", so let's not jump down that rabbit hole.
And no, citing one random tweet doesn't make it so. That's another staple logical fallacy that conservatives like to pull out. Just because random person here or there thinks that only Ph.D's should be able to discuss topics doesn't mean that idea has any kind of influence in progressive discourse.
That certain Trump properties are doing worse and others are doing better as a result of his election is not at all surprising. Trump is a fairly divisive political figure and there are a lot of organizations who just don't want to deal with politics at all, so they've stopped using his properties. But there are also a lot of groups that want to curry favor with the president by using Trump properties now, when they didn't before.
What I am really curious about is how his real estate holdings perform after he leaves office. Trump has made himself such a divisive political figure that I can't see the organizations who abandoned him coming back to use Trump properties again. And once he's out of office, the people who are spending money at Trump properties to sway his opinion won't have any reason to continue doing so.
On December 30 2017 04:49 mozoku wrote: The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
As someone that is 1) a "Leftist" and 2) intimately involved in academia and educated circles for the better part of a decade, you seem to be making another boogeyman to argue against in an effort to artificially construct some kind of "crisis" to equivocate the problems that the discourse on the right has by saying, "see? The left is just as bad too!".
When talking about anything politically related, I never see anyone say "you have to have a Ph.D. to contribute to a topic", and there isn't this idea that only Ph.D's should contribute to a conversation. You seem to just be simply making this up. I also rarely, if ever, see anyone say, "educated people believe this, so it must be true". As an aside, there is a qualitative difference between saying, "educated people think X about tax/social/educational policy" and "there is a scientific consensus on climate change", so let's not jump down that rabbit hole.
And no, citing one random tweet doesn't make it so. That's another staple logical fallacy that conservatives like to pull out. Just because random person here or there thinks that only Ph.D's should be able to discuss topics doesn't mean that idea has any kind of influence in progressive discourse.
This discussion literally started from someone saying along the lines of "if anything here has a PhD on racial injustice, they're free to talk about it. Otherwise the discussion will be doomed" and making a more general statement along those lines. I'm not constructing a boogeyman here, it was literally written several pages back.
Academia and academics are probably the most respected institution and career in left-leaning circles, and several of their most prominent recent politicians have been academics. It's not at all a construction of mine to assert that academia holds an unrivaled place in the leftist hierarchy of institutions.
More importantly, I'm speaking more to a generally misplaced emphasis on formal education on the left than I am to specific points--which you're trying to pigeonhole my post into. To act like there's no educational elitism that occurs on even this (left-leaning) forum is ridiculous--everything rural, religious, and high school educated is bad. It's obvious to the point where it's pretty apparent that your denials are defensive and biased. Especially when you pair it with, of all things, an implied denial of the replication crisis.
On December 30 2017 03:13 Plansix wrote: Shapiro website is a perplexing mystery. It asks if I want to turn off ads, but does not have ads running. I turned off ad block just to see. It also seems to have a trending topics section. But every time I have ventured there, the trends are always "Race, Gender, Abortion and Trump."
I really want to know how these folks fund their media productions. I can assume some ultra rich conservative is bankrolling them, but I want to know the nitty-gritty details.
Breitbart for one is bankrolled by Robert Mercer, a hedge fund guy who has some very interesting connections. The Guardian has written a bunch of great articles on him.
I don't know how the smaller conservative media outlets make money, nor do I know where to even begin investigating that. They aren't publicly traded companies, so they have no obligation to state where their money comes from.
Mozoku - you clearly missed the rest of that exchange I had with Jockmcplop. You should go back and read it, because you missed a lot, including why that statement was made.
On December 30 2017 03:13 Plansix wrote: Shapiro website is a perplexing mystery. It asks if I want to turn off ads, but does not have ads running. I turned off ad block just to see. It also seems to have a trending topics section. But every time I have ventured there, the trends are always "Race, Gender, Abortion and Trump."
I really want to know how these folks fund their media productions. I can assume some ultra rich conservative is bankrolling them, but I want to know the nitty-gritty details.
Breitbart for one is bankrolled by Robert Mercer, a hedge fund guy who has some very interesting connections. The Guardian has written a bunch of great articles on him.
I don't know how the smaller conservative media outlets make money, nor do I know where to even begin investigating that. They aren't publicly traded companies, so they have no obligation to state where their money comes from.
It would take some investigated journalism. People thought Breitbart was a pure, reader and ad driven site for a very long time. That has turned out not to be the case. But with the unlimited money sloshing around in the political media word after Citizens United, I find it hard to take any of these new conservative "publications" at face value without knowing how they stay in business. And the hyper liberal ones too. At least with the Post I know who owns it.
On December 30 2017 04:49 mozoku wrote: The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
As someone that is 1) a "Leftist" and 2) intimately involved in academia and educated circles for the better part of a decade, you seem to be making another boogeyman to argue against in an effort to artificially construct some kind of "crisis" to equivocate the problems that the discourse on the right has by saying, "see? The left is just as bad too!".
When talking about anything politically related, I never see anyone say "you have to have a Ph.D. to contribute to a topic", and there isn't this idea that only Ph.D's should contribute to a conversation. You seem to just be simply making this up. I also rarely, if ever, see anyone say, "educated people believe this, so it must be true". As an aside, there is a qualitative difference between saying, "educated people think X about tax/social/educational policy" and "there is a scientific consensus on climate change", so let's not jump down that rabbit hole.
And no, citing one random tweet doesn't make it so. That's another staple logical fallacy that conservatives like to pull out. Just because random person here or there thinks that only Ph.D's should be able to discuss topics doesn't mean that idea has any kind of influence in progressive discourse.
This discussion literally started from someone saying along the lines of "if anything here has a PhD on racial injustice, they're free to talk about it. Otherwise the discussion will be doomed" and making a more general statement along those lines. I'm not constructing a boogeyman here, it was literally written several pages back.
Academia and academics are probably the most respected institution and career in left-leaning circles, and several of their most prominent recent politicians have been academics. It's not at all a construction of mine to assert that academia holds an unrivaled place in the leftist hierarchy of institutions.
More importantly, I'm speaking more to a generally misplaced emphasis on formal education on the left than I am to specific points--which you're trying to pigeonhole my post into. To act like there's no educational elitism that occurs on even this (left-leaning) forum is ridiculous--everything rural, religious, and high school educated is bad. It's obvious to the point where it's pretty apparent that your denials are defensive and biased. Especially when you pair it with, of all things, an implied denial of the replication crisis.
it's less about the credential than it is about how someone spends their life. a professor who has control of his time and can pursue intellectual inquiry fairly freely (putting aside other job requirements) will have spent more time critically engaging with any particular issue than people who are very bright but have to spend ~40 hours a week (the best, most creative hours at that) thinking about and doing their employers' work. a phd-holder who goes to work for goldman sachs will obviously not, then, have spent much more time thinking about abstract, public issues than any other member of the regular workforce. consider also how much focus is required to do a lot of the most important reading. people working stressful jobs all day rarely have the mental, disciplinary energy to come home and read and synthesize high-level writing. a benefit of getting a phd is simply the benefit of time; time for sustained inquiry and thought
On December 30 2017 04:05 Stratos_speAr wrote: The problem with Shapiro is that he's either 1) incredibly intellectually dishonest, or 2) the bar for a conservative sounding intelligent is so low that he passes it, even though his arguments almost all fall flat on their faces.
I only had time to watch the first few minutes of that debate video, but right off the bat Shapiro completely whiffs on the healthcare argument. First off, he states as an assumed fact that you can only have 2 of quality-affordability-accessibility, which he doesn't support with any kind of evidence or logical thinking whatsoever. Second, he makes some arbitrary statements about what a right is and what the effect on healthcare is if you call it a right. Third, he uses the time-tested tactic of picking only the worst possible examples to argue against, which no one in a true intellectual circle would take seriously. He uses the example of South Africa as treating healthcare as a right, yet doesn't mention the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, or any Scandinavian country (let alone another dozen countries that have objectively better healthcare systems while also being universal), which all have universal healthcare systems and completely embarrass the U.S. in terms of healthcare quality, accessibility, and affordability.
He had the same problem in that stupid video that was circulating of him browbeating some student at a college about being transgender. Not only does he brutally abuse the field of psychology by erroneously citing clinical psychology when talking about being transgender, he completely ignored the difference between sex and gender, talking as if there wasn't one and offering absolutely zero argument for why the distinction shouldn't be made.
His arguments are lazy and self-serving and the only thing they accomplish is sounding reasonably eloquent while riling up his base. He's only marginally better than Milo - both are complete hacks that are all flash, no substance.
Also, SA has a few unique 'structural' issues which messes with their healthcare system. The nation has the highest prevalence of AIDS out of any country - 5m, or about 1/5 of their adult population. This was made worse by a government which basically denied AIDS was a problem and resisted efforts to combat the disease.
Using them as an example of universal healthcare not working is like saying our firefighting system doesn't work when a house burned down because the owner set it on fire.
I saw that this morning. I remember when voip phones/numbers first arrived and I was 100% sure they were going to be regulated because of how easy it would be to abuse a system like that. I guess we need real harmful abuse like this before state and federal government catch on.
On December 30 2017 04:49 mozoku wrote: The bigger issue I have is that this assumption that more educated people are somehow almost always right and people should just listen then to rather than engaging in a discussion themselves.
I certainly think that education is beneficial, and I surely find myself closer to agreement with educated people more often than uneducated ones. But, among modern society's most academically and professionally successful, formal education makes up a tiny fraction of their knowledge base--even for PhDs in their own field. The reason is that formal education is designed for the masses, and is terribly inefficient as a result. Nearly anyone intellectually capable of getting a PhD (a group almost certainly at least 5-10x as large as actual PhD holders) can self-learn much faster than they learn in classroom (especially in the age of the Internet). This is probably a factor (among others) why obtaining a PhD is largely a self-directed process.
Given this, the requirement that one ought to have a PhD on a topic to contribute is sort of idiotic, especially given the factors that I discussed in my last post. Also idiotic is the left's reverence for academic intellectuals as if their being "an academic" or "having a PhD" gives them sort of magical powers or divine right to speak on a subject.
Obtaining a PhD is useful for obtaining knowledge on a specific topic, and is certainly one way to develop one's critical thinking skills. The problem is that obtaining a PhD is neither necessary nor sufficient for obtaining either (although it can definitely be a useful indicator given a lack of other information), so treating them as qualitatively different from anyone else is senseless. And just like everyone else, they need to treated with appropriate skepticism surrounding motivations, selection/survivorship bias, effort level in a discussion, etc.
More broadly, most educated people (PhD or otherwise) have questionable critical thinking skills and are ignorant on most topics. Obviously the same is true and moreso for uneducated people. Consequently, the fact that a majority of "educated people" believe anything (a common rejoinder of the left) provides little evidence that it's actually correct. This isn't to say that a panel of actual experts on their topic of expertise shouldn't be listened to though (e.g. global warming).
As someone that is 1) a "Leftist" and 2) intimately involved in academia and educated circles for the better part of a decade, you seem to be making another boogeyman to argue against in an effort to artificially construct some kind of "crisis" to equivocate the problems that the discourse on the right has by saying, "see? The left is just as bad too!".
When talking about anything politically related, I never see anyone say "you have to have a Ph.D. to contribute to a topic", and there isn't this idea that only Ph.D's should contribute to a conversation. You seem to just be simply making this up. I also rarely, if ever, see anyone say, "educated people believe this, so it must be true". As an aside, there is a qualitative difference between saying, "educated people think X about tax/social/educational policy" and "there is a scientific consensus on climate change", so let's not jump down that rabbit hole.
And no, citing one random tweet doesn't make it so. That's another staple logical fallacy that conservatives like to pull out. Just because random person here or there thinks that only Ph.D's should be able to discuss topics doesn't mean that idea has any kind of influence in progressive discourse.
This discussion literally started from someone saying along the lines of "if anything here has a PhD on racial injustice, they're free to talk about it. Otherwise the discussion will be doomed" and making a more general statement along those lines. I'm not constructing a boogeyman here, it was literally written several pages back.
Academia and academics are probably the most respected institution and career in left-leaning circles, and several of their most prominent recent politicians have been academics. It's not at all a construction of mine to assert that academia holds an unrivaled place in the leftist hierarchy of institutions.
More importantly, I'm speaking more to a generally misplaced emphasis on formal education on the left than I am to specific points--which you're trying to pigeonhole my post into. To act like there's no educational elitism that occurs on even this (left-leaning) forum is ridiculous--everything rural, religious, and high school educated is bad. It's obvious to the point where it's pretty apparent that your denials are defensive and biased. Especially when you pair it with, of all things, an implied denial of the replication crisis.
it's less about the credential than it is about how someone spends their life. a professor who has control of his time and can pursue intellectual inquiry fairly freely (putting aside other job requirements) will have spent more time critically engaging with any particular issue than people who are very bright but have to spend ~40 hours a week (the best, most creative hours at that) thinking about and doing their employers' work. a phd-holder who goes to work for goldman sachs will obviously not, then, have spent much more time thinking about abstract, public issues than any other member of the regular workforce. consider also how much focus is required to do a lot of the most important reading. people working stressful jobs all day rarely have the mental, disciplinary energy to come home and read and synthesize high-level writing. a benefit of getting a phd is simply the benefit of time; time for sustained inquiry and thought
Yes I actually very much agree with this, and it's why I've been careful to never make the claim that, assuming freedom from overt biases, ulterior motives, etc., someone in their spare time is likely to be as knowledgeable as a professor or PhD in their area of expertise. I've never tried to argue that academia is useless or worthless. My point is that some level skepticism of academics is justified, just as it is with everyone else. There's nothing mystical about academics that means their opinions are definitive, which is the impression I sometimes get when these "lol there's no conservative intellectuals" discussions come up here. The implication is usually that this is some indicator that leftist positions are objectively more correct. Which is a terribly flawed argument.
Two asshats had an argument in CoD. One gave a false address to bait the other guy The other guy called in a hostage situation
Police came, and shot the guy at the address. Just like that, two kids lost a dad who just opened the door to check on what was happening.
It's the first deadly swatting that I'm aware of.
Guns + poorly trained police + spoofable voip phones/numbers is a recipe for disaster
This reminds me of LoL in that somehow no one thinks any of this is their fault or that they did anything wrong. Feel like there's a better chance of both gamers catching manslaughter charges than there is of the police facing any consequences though.
Two asshats had an argument in CoD. One gave a false address to bait the other guy The other guy called in a hostage situation
Police came, and shot the guy at the address. Just like that, two kids lost a dad who just opened the door to check on what was happening.
It's the first deadly swatting that I'm aware of.
Guns + poorly trained police + spoofable voip phones/numbers is a recipe for disaster
This reminds me of LoL in that somehow no one thinks any of this is their fault or that they did anything wrong. Feel like there's a better chance of both gamers catching manslaughter charges than there is of the police facing any consequences though.
The worst part is, to call shooting an unarmed person answering the door "manslaughter" is already more than the gun-wielding idiots deserve. If you shoot the first person to come open the door on sight, that is murder. "On call and fearing for my life" doesn't ---- cut it. Even if you think it's a hostage situation, how the ---- do you know it's not a hostage being sent out? How do you just jump in with no further information other than the single call ready to shoot?
But you are right, time and again this year there's a thin blue line over which the law will not step (and long prior, but this year has had some beyond ridiculous cases). Government funded murder right there.
EDIT: Officer who fired the shot was apparently a seven year veteran on the force. Which is just... how... seven years and you just shoot the first person to open the door?
On December 29 2017 22:08 iamthedave wrote: On the right wing intellectual front, I've frequently had people point me toward Milo as a conservative intellectual, especially on issues of gender. Just because we see through his bullshit doesn't mean everybody else does. Tomi Lahren seems to get a lot of credit, though I don't see it from listening to her. Ben Shapiro seems to be the real go-to guy, and he's alright. He seems to engage in a little bad faith from time to time and a rigorous addiction to unexamined statistics (here's the number, let's not talk about the reasons those numbers are that way), but I agree with him sometimes.
There's Peter Hitchens as well, I'd say, though he's UK-based.
But to throw another log on the fire, the GOP is constantly sneering at educated people. Part of Trump's actual appeal is that he sounds like a moron when he talks. Some right wing folk in America seem to have a bizarre fear of edumacated people and their fancy words and concepts.
As for the rise of White Identity Politics; can't we quite clearly look at President Obama as a big trigger? Dem uppity black folk dun got in the white house! They're comin' for us!!!!! /s
Ask Ben Shapiro what the cause of any problem is and he will say 'The Left'. The guy is clueless and one note, as well as being a pretty awful racist. He speaks eloquently enough (nothing special) and I think some people confuse this with intelligence. His arguments and sticking points in debate are usually pretty uninteresting and lame.
I've heard some people talk about Ben Shapiro in elegaic terms. He's a constant rejoinder when an eloquent left-wing speaker is talking. 'Five minutes in a debate with Ben Shapiro and they'd be squealing' and the like (admittedly they often say the same about Milo). I'm not sure I agree, but I don't know how many actual debates Ben has ever engaged in. He doesn't strike me as the rebirth of Christopher Hitchens or anything, that's for sure.
Now there's a guy who could debate.
He both plays to his base with one-liners and also engages in spirited debate. I don’t really like his style, so he’s not really for me. But I see a lot of his counterparts on the left get more favorable impressions with leftists, because they agree on a list of Republican ideals and traits worthy of ridicule. When Ben does a zing, of course that’s a cheap shot and factually unsound, but when this leftist personality does one... well we all accept his target is objectively stupid and deserves it! I really do think it boils down to the supposition that the left is largely right and the right is largely wrong. The linked video has a lot of straight conservative canon mixed in with the jabs and ridicule that provokes the same thoughts why most conservatives oppose the ACÁ and campaign finance reform.
Two asshats had an argument in CoD. One gave a false address to bait the other guy The other guy called in a hostage situation
Police came, and shot the guy at the address. Just like that, two kids lost a dad who just opened the door to check on what was happening.
It's the first deadly swatting that I'm aware of.
Guns + poorly trained police + spoofable voip phones/numbers is a recipe for disaster
This reminds me of LoL in that somehow no one thinks any of this is their fault or that they did anything wrong. Feel like there's a better chance of both gamers catching manslaughter charges than there is of the police facing any consequences though.
The worst part is, to call shooting an unarmed person answering the door "manslaughter" is already more than the gun-wielding idiots deserve. If you shoot the first person to come open the door on sight, that is murder. "On call and fearing for my life" doesn't ---- cut it. Even if you think it's a hostage situation, how the ---- do you know it's not a hostage being sent out? How do you just jump in with no further information other than the single call ready to shoot?
But you are right, time and again this year there's a thin blue line over which the law will not step (and long prior, but this year has had some beyond ridiculous cases). Government funded murder right there.
Everything's about money. Police are paid like shit, so you get a lot of bullies with no other options signing up and that's what we get (the issue doesn't need to be looked at through a racial lens even). People aren't willing to pay more taxes to pay police more, get more quality candidates and more rigorous training. I don't have an answer to this or any faith that any answer will ever even be seriously searched for, unfortunately.
EDIT: Also there just has to be 3rd party oversight on things like this...depending on what the body cam footage shows if the officer just straight up murdered whoever opened the door he should go to jail for life. With public enforcement of officers committing crimes maybe the next batch won't feel so safe pulling the trigger first and getting acquitted by a jury later.
That's like saying if I created a backdoor in my company's firewall to allow PHI to be accessed, I should be put on "administrative leave." The whole system is a joke that's so bad, it passes the point where it becomes so bad it's funny and back to just plain bad.
Police unions in the US will never agree to having a third party agency oversee them. Mostly because that would handle a lot of these problems and lead to real reforms. And it would need to be a federal agency to avoid being completely toothless. It is frustrating to see how lack luster, dangerous and completely protectionist so many of our police forces are.
EPT
