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On February 11 2018 14:27 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 10:12 Simberto wrote:On February 11 2018 09:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 11 2018 09:26 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 06:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 11 2018 05:14 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 04:52 iamthedave wrote:On February 11 2018 03:20 PeTraSoHot wrote:On February 11 2018 03:15 Toadesstern wrote:On February 11 2018 03:12 PeTraSoHot wrote:
[quote]
Pretty clear, imo. I don't think calling someone "kicking and screaming" is rude... is it? You were doing that after all. Telling someone to learn to read on the other hand is clearly an insult. So if I tell you to stop crying about rudeness... that's not rude then? You have been acting like a crybaby after all. It very clearly is rude and I think you're playing dumb, but if you didn't perceive it that way then oh well who cares. But this is why it's silly for everyone to be playing manner police. You're so clearly spoiling for a fight that it's tiresome just reading your posts. Nobody cares. Not all Trump supporters are racist or sexist. But there is no argument to be made that Trump isn't the chosen candidate of racist sexists. Obviously you like Trump, but I'd be very careful with 'you leftist' arguments and generalisations, given your candidate is the guy explicitly supported by neo nazis and the klu klux klan. And you can check twitter for confirmation of that. Or do you see no correlation between the rise of Trump and the massive upswing in confidence of neo nazi groups in the US? And if you don't, what do you think has caused it? Lefts media and academia open anti white propaganda and black racist groups like BLM clearly strengthened neo nazi groups. It is natural that "right" identity politics emerges as a result of "left" identity politics. We conservatives oppose both, your gender and color of skin do not determine who you are. Your actions, and to a lesser extent ideas, do. I don't think you believe what you are saying. I assume you know very well that the point of liberals has nothing to do with an "anti white agenda". The difference between liberal and conservatives is that conservatives pretend that everyone has equal chances and that there is no correction to be made towards minorities (the consequence being that if a minority is doing horribly it's probably because of some inherent flaw of them - maybe that was even the starting point? - but that's not even the point). It's not that your skin colour or gender determine who you are, it's that it affects the opportunities you will have in life. Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman, and that it needs to be rectified. We can disagree on that point but don't insult our intelligence with such a ridiculous strawman of the left wing position, please. Not really. I would say "Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman", while conservatives would agree this is true most times, but not always, and more important, the draw backs of correcting percieved injustices are usually worse than the benefits. On principle, past injustices are not corrected with current injustice, or as someone said so eloquently at some point, "The best way to stop discrimination by race or gender, is by stopping to discriminate by race or gender." Literally no one thinks it's true all the time. No one will tell you wealthy black people have it worse than poor white people. But they'll also tell you that you can clean that poor white guy up and send him to the Forest Lake Club but the wealthy Black guy still isn't welcome. It would be great if we could just flip a switch on discrimination, anyone with any understanding of it knows we can't though. Indeed. The simple solution would be if everyone simply stopped discriminating against people. And everyone would be happy if that happened. But it quite apparently does not happen. So instead of wishing it would, one needs to find more effective ways of doing things. People still have very different views of an otherwise identical person based on the colour of their skin, their sex, or their sexuality. And just hoping that that stops does not make it stop. (If you do not believe that, just observe yourself when a person of an uncommon skin colour (in your location) takes the seat opposite of yours in the tram, and compare that reaction to how you react when a person of your own skin colour takes that seat) The same argument could be used to get rid of any military whatsoever. Because the only point of having a military is to fight other peoples military. So the simple and effective way of saving enormous amounts of resources worldwide would be for everyone to stop having a military. I find it weird that the same people who champion this way of solving things with regards to conflicts based on discrimination within a nation do not want to use it for conflicts between nations. I agree that casual discrimination is part of everyone, uncommon things (or people in this case) are after all foreign and might be frightening. I also agree that we can't all turn the discrimination switch off and suddenly all start being accepting of everyone all the time. But I think positive discrimination widens the perceived difference. Suddenly there's another thing that plays a role that maybe didn't exist before. It creates gaps for people who tried to stay neutral because they suddenly feel discriminated/disregarded and that creates envy and spite. I totally support cracking down on discrimination wherever you find it. But while I am not one of those eco-liberals that believe that a free market is the answer to everything, discrimination is one thing it can actually resolve because racism will hold companies back. So if you create a fair school system and a market where competition can flourish, the less racist companies will win the race and create a change.
This will be a short but please don't take it that I'm being curt. I just don't have that much time for a full response right now.
1) there's a difference between positive discrimination and equal treatment. Equal treatment is guaranteed by law, and so minorities who are asking for equal treatment are just asking for what the law promises. This isn't positive discrimination. Many minority movements come under this - take the gay marriage point, it's basically premised on gay people asking the courts why don't they have an equal right to get married.
2) insofar as companies are now practicing "positive discrimination", like diversity hires at Google, these are free market commercial profit driven entities who ultimately think that it will be to their competitive advantage to have more women or more black people. This is the free market in practice, and so you'd have to blame the market forces (a more "woke" consumer base) that sets up this situation.
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levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example.
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On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example.
I'm pretty sure they do, even if not openly.
If I'm not mistaken, the point isn't that companies are being compelled by law/government to do any of the positive discrimination many people think they are experiencing/seeing/hearing about, but by profit. If it was more profitable to go full white supremacist, owners/management and shareholders would be largely undisturbed.
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On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example.
I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination.
I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing?
The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic.
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On February 11 2018 14:27 Archeon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 10:12 Simberto wrote:On February 11 2018 09:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 11 2018 09:26 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 06:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 11 2018 05:14 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 04:52 iamthedave wrote:On February 11 2018 03:20 PeTraSoHot wrote:On February 11 2018 03:15 Toadesstern wrote:On February 11 2018 03:12 PeTraSoHot wrote:
[quote]
Pretty clear, imo. I don't think calling someone "kicking and screaming" is rude... is it? You were doing that after all. Telling someone to learn to read on the other hand is clearly an insult. So if I tell you to stop crying about rudeness... that's not rude then? You have been acting like a crybaby after all. It very clearly is rude and I think you're playing dumb, but if you didn't perceive it that way then oh well who cares. But this is why it's silly for everyone to be playing manner police. You're so clearly spoiling for a fight that it's tiresome just reading your posts. Nobody cares. Not all Trump supporters are racist or sexist. But there is no argument to be made that Trump isn't the chosen candidate of racist sexists. Obviously you like Trump, but I'd be very careful with 'you leftist' arguments and generalisations, given your candidate is the guy explicitly supported by neo nazis and the klu klux klan. And you can check twitter for confirmation of that. Or do you see no correlation between the rise of Trump and the massive upswing in confidence of neo nazi groups in the US? And if you don't, what do you think has caused it? Lefts media and academia open anti white propaganda and black racist groups like BLM clearly strengthened neo nazi groups. It is natural that "right" identity politics emerges as a result of "left" identity politics. We conservatives oppose both, your gender and color of skin do not determine who you are. Your actions, and to a lesser extent ideas, do. I don't think you believe what you are saying. I assume you know very well that the point of liberals has nothing to do with an "anti white agenda". The difference between liberal and conservatives is that conservatives pretend that everyone has equal chances and that there is no correction to be made towards minorities (the consequence being that if a minority is doing horribly it's probably because of some inherent flaw of them - maybe that was even the starting point? - but that's not even the point). It's not that your skin colour or gender determine who you are, it's that it affects the opportunities you will have in life. Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman, and that it needs to be rectified. We can disagree on that point but don't insult our intelligence with such a ridiculous strawman of the left wing position, please. Not really. I would say "Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman", while conservatives would agree this is true most times, but not always, and more important, the draw backs of correcting percieved injustices are usually worse than the benefits. On principle, past injustices are not corrected with current injustice, or as someone said so eloquently at some point, "The best way to stop discrimination by race or gender, is by stopping to discriminate by race or gender." Literally no one thinks it's true all the time. No one will tell you wealthy black people have it worse than poor white people. But they'll also tell you that you can clean that poor white guy up and send him to the Forest Lake Club but the wealthy Black guy still isn't welcome. It would be great if we could just flip a switch on discrimination, anyone with any understanding of it knows we can't though. Indeed. The simple solution would be if everyone simply stopped discriminating against people. And everyone would be happy if that happened. But it quite apparently does not happen. So instead of wishing it would, one needs to find more effective ways of doing things. People still have very different views of an otherwise identical person based on the colour of their skin, their sex, or their sexuality. And just hoping that that stops does not make it stop. (If you do not believe that, just observe yourself when a person of an uncommon skin colour (in your location) takes the seat opposite of yours in the tram, and compare that reaction to how you react when a person of your own skin colour takes that seat) The same argument could be used to get rid of any military whatsoever. Because the only point of having a military is to fight other peoples military. So the simple and effective way of saving enormous amounts of resources worldwide would be for everyone to stop having a military. I find it weird that the same people who champion this way of solving things with regards to conflicts based on discrimination within a nation do not want to use it for conflicts between nations. I agree that casual discrimination is part of everyone, uncommon things (or people in this case) are after all foreign and might be frightening. I also agree that we can't all turn the discrimination switch off and suddenly all start being accepting of everyone all the time. But I think positive discrimination widens the perceived difference. Suddenly there's another thing that plays a role that maybe didn't exist before. It creates gaps for people who tried to stay neutral because they suddenly feel discriminated/disregarded and that creates envy and spite. I totally support cracking down on discrimination wherever you find it. But while I am not one of those eco-liberals that believe that a free market is the answer to everything, discrimination is one thing it can actually resolve because racism will hold companies back. So if you create a fair school system and a market where competition can flourish, the less racist companies will win the race and create a change.
I think a very important aspect is missing in that last paragraph:
Companies only make more money by not discriminating if their target demographic agrees with that stance.
Easy example, a barber just a couple decades ago would only serve white people in the US. You can say "well if he opens his store to black people he'll earn more!" all you want but the reality of the situation is that back in those days it would cost you all your white customers because they didn't want to sit next to black people.
The same is still true today. I could totally see a store having a sign that reads "not serving Muslims" get more customers in some parts in the US.
You don't even have to go to extremes and bring up the internet and it's ability to effectively crowdfund a lot of niche things that wouldn't otherwise make enough money. But that can include racist stores etc as well
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On February 11 2018 21:09 levelping wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example. I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination. I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing? The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic.
The free market isn’t a force of nature. It exists on the foundation of the society it functions in. It this was a true meritocracy, no company would have a majority male, white work force and our congress would not look like it does.
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On February 11 2018 18:51 levelping wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 14:27 Archeon wrote:On February 11 2018 10:12 Simberto wrote:On February 11 2018 09:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 11 2018 09:26 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 06:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 11 2018 05:14 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 04:52 iamthedave wrote:On February 11 2018 03:20 PeTraSoHot wrote:On February 11 2018 03:15 Toadesstern wrote:
[quote]
I don't think calling someone "kicking and screaming" is rude... is it? You were doing that after all.
Telling someone to learn to read on the other hand is clearly an insult. So if I tell you to stop crying about rudeness... that's not rude then? You have been acting like a crybaby after all. It very clearly is rude and I think you're playing dumb, but if you didn't perceive it that way then oh well who cares. But this is why it's silly for everyone to be playing manner police. You're so clearly spoiling for a fight that it's tiresome just reading your posts. Nobody cares. Not all Trump supporters are racist or sexist. But there is no argument to be made that Trump isn't the chosen candidate of racist sexists. Obviously you like Trump, but I'd be very careful with 'you leftist' arguments and generalisations, given your candidate is the guy explicitly supported by neo nazis and the klu klux klan. And you can check twitter for confirmation of that. Or do you see no correlation between the rise of Trump and the massive upswing in confidence of neo nazi groups in the US? And if you don't, what do you think has caused it? Lefts media and academia open anti white propaganda and black racist groups like BLM clearly strengthened neo nazi groups. It is natural that "right" identity politics emerges as a result of "left" identity politics. We conservatives oppose both, your gender and color of skin do not determine who you are. Your actions, and to a lesser extent ideas, do. I don't think you believe what you are saying. I assume you know very well that the point of liberals has nothing to do with an "anti white agenda". The difference between liberal and conservatives is that conservatives pretend that everyone has equal chances and that there is no correction to be made towards minorities (the consequence being that if a minority is doing horribly it's probably because of some inherent flaw of them - maybe that was even the starting point? - but that's not even the point). It's not that your skin colour or gender determine who you are, it's that it affects the opportunities you will have in life. Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman, and that it needs to be rectified. We can disagree on that point but don't insult our intelligence with such a ridiculous strawman of the left wing position, please. Not really. I would say "Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman", while conservatives would agree this is true most times, but not always, and more important, the draw backs of correcting percieved injustices are usually worse than the benefits. On principle, past injustices are not corrected with current injustice, or as someone said so eloquently at some point, "The best way to stop discrimination by race or gender, is by stopping to discriminate by race or gender." Literally no one thinks it's true all the time. No one will tell you wealthy black people have it worse than poor white people. But they'll also tell you that you can clean that poor white guy up and send him to the Forest Lake Club but the wealthy Black guy still isn't welcome. It would be great if we could just flip a switch on discrimination, anyone with any understanding of it knows we can't though. Indeed. The simple solution would be if everyone simply stopped discriminating against people. And everyone would be happy if that happened. But it quite apparently does not happen. So instead of wishing it would, one needs to find more effective ways of doing things. People still have very different views of an otherwise identical person based on the colour of their skin, their sex, or their sexuality. And just hoping that that stops does not make it stop. (If you do not believe that, just observe yourself when a person of an uncommon skin colour (in your location) takes the seat opposite of yours in the tram, and compare that reaction to how you react when a person of your own skin colour takes that seat) The same argument could be used to get rid of any military whatsoever. Because the only point of having a military is to fight other peoples military. So the simple and effective way of saving enormous amounts of resources worldwide would be for everyone to stop having a military. I find it weird that the same people who champion this way of solving things with regards to conflicts based on discrimination within a nation do not want to use it for conflicts between nations. I agree that casual discrimination is part of everyone, uncommon things (or people in this case) are after all foreign and might be frightening. I also agree that we can't all turn the discrimination switch off and suddenly all start being accepting of everyone all the time. But I think positive discrimination widens the perceived difference. Suddenly there's another thing that plays a role that maybe didn't exist before. It creates gaps for people who tried to stay neutral because they suddenly feel discriminated/disregarded and that creates envy and spite. I totally support cracking down on discrimination wherever you find it. But while I am not one of those eco-liberals that believe that a free market is the answer to everything, discrimination is one thing it can actually resolve because racism will hold companies back. So if you create a fair school system and a market where competition can flourish, the less racist companies will win the race and create a change. This will be a short but please don't take it that I'm being curt. I just don't have that much time for a full response right now. 1) there's a difference between positive discrimination and equal treatment. Equal treatment is guaranteed by law, and so minorities who are asking for equal treatment are just asking for what the law promises. This isn't positive discrimination. Many minority movements come under this - take the gay marriage point, it's basically premised on gay people asking the courts why don't they have an equal right to get married. 2) insofar as companies are now practicing "positive discrimination", like diversity hires at Google, these are free market commercial profit driven entities who ultimately think that it will be to their competitive advantage to have more women or more black people. This is the free market in practice, and so you'd have to blame the market forces (a more "woke" consumer base) that sets up this situation.
I agree to both points.
I don't see gay marriage as a case of positive discrimination but a case of non-equal treatment where the base case isn't different enough to justify the difference in treatment. I assume that most courts saw it the same way.
If a company wants to discriminate positively or negatively (as long as it isn't outside the law) it has to deal with the financial problems that come with it.
On February 11 2018 22:03 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 14:27 Archeon wrote:On February 11 2018 10:12 Simberto wrote:On February 11 2018 09:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 11 2018 09:26 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 06:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 11 2018 05:14 GoTuNk! wrote:On February 11 2018 04:52 iamthedave wrote:On February 11 2018 03:20 PeTraSoHot wrote:On February 11 2018 03:15 Toadesstern wrote:
[quote]
I don't think calling someone "kicking and screaming" is rude... is it? You were doing that after all.
Telling someone to learn to read on the other hand is clearly an insult. So if I tell you to stop crying about rudeness... that's not rude then? You have been acting like a crybaby after all. It very clearly is rude and I think you're playing dumb, but if you didn't perceive it that way then oh well who cares. But this is why it's silly for everyone to be playing manner police. You're so clearly spoiling for a fight that it's tiresome just reading your posts. Nobody cares. Not all Trump supporters are racist or sexist. But there is no argument to be made that Trump isn't the chosen candidate of racist sexists. Obviously you like Trump, but I'd be very careful with 'you leftist' arguments and generalisations, given your candidate is the guy explicitly supported by neo nazis and the klu klux klan. And you can check twitter for confirmation of that. Or do you see no correlation between the rise of Trump and the massive upswing in confidence of neo nazi groups in the US? And if you don't, what do you think has caused it? Lefts media and academia open anti white propaganda and black racist groups like BLM clearly strengthened neo nazi groups. It is natural that "right" identity politics emerges as a result of "left" identity politics. We conservatives oppose both, your gender and color of skin do not determine who you are. Your actions, and to a lesser extent ideas, do. I don't think you believe what you are saying. I assume you know very well that the point of liberals has nothing to do with an "anti white agenda". The difference between liberal and conservatives is that conservatives pretend that everyone has equal chances and that there is no correction to be made towards minorities (the consequence being that if a minority is doing horribly it's probably because of some inherent flaw of them - maybe that was even the starting point? - but that's not even the point). It's not that your skin colour or gender determine who you are, it's that it affects the opportunities you will have in life. Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman, and that it needs to be rectified. We can disagree on that point but don't insult our intelligence with such a ridiculous strawman of the left wing position, please. Not really. I would say "Liberals consider that the our society is still unfair, that you still have it harder if you are black, or gay, or a woman", while conservatives would agree this is true most times, but not always, and more important, the draw backs of correcting percieved injustices are usually worse than the benefits. On principle, past injustices are not corrected with current injustice, or as someone said so eloquently at some point, "The best way to stop discrimination by race or gender, is by stopping to discriminate by race or gender." Literally no one thinks it's true all the time. No one will tell you wealthy black people have it worse than poor white people. But they'll also tell you that you can clean that poor white guy up and send him to the Forest Lake Club but the wealthy Black guy still isn't welcome. It would be great if we could just flip a switch on discrimination, anyone with any understanding of it knows we can't though. Indeed. The simple solution would be if everyone simply stopped discriminating against people. And everyone would be happy if that happened. But it quite apparently does not happen. So instead of wishing it would, one needs to find more effective ways of doing things. People still have very different views of an otherwise identical person based on the colour of their skin, their sex, or their sexuality. And just hoping that that stops does not make it stop. (If you do not believe that, just observe yourself when a person of an uncommon skin colour (in your location) takes the seat opposite of yours in the tram, and compare that reaction to how you react when a person of your own skin colour takes that seat) The same argument could be used to get rid of any military whatsoever. Because the only point of having a military is to fight other peoples military. So the simple and effective way of saving enormous amounts of resources worldwide would be for everyone to stop having a military. I find it weird that the same people who champion this way of solving things with regards to conflicts based on discrimination within a nation do not want to use it for conflicts between nations. I agree that casual discrimination is part of everyone, uncommon things (or people in this case) are after all foreign and might be frightening. I also agree that we can't all turn the discrimination switch off and suddenly all start being accepting of everyone all the time. But I think positive discrimination widens the perceived difference. Suddenly there's another thing that plays a role that maybe didn't exist before. It creates gaps for people who tried to stay neutral because they suddenly feel discriminated/disregarded and that creates envy and spite. I totally support cracking down on discrimination wherever you find it. But while I am not one of those eco-liberals that believe that a free market is the answer to everything, discrimination is one thing it can actually resolve because racism will hold companies back. So if you create a fair school system and a market where competition can flourish, the less racist companies will win the race and create a change. I think a very important aspect is missing in that last paragraph: Companies only make more money by not discriminating if their target demographic agrees with that stance. Easy example, a barber just a couple decades ago would only serve white people in the US. You can say "well if he opens his store to black people he'll earn more!" all you want but the reality of the situation is that back in those days it would cost you all your white customers because they didn't want to sit next to black people. The same is still true today. I could totally see a store having a sign that reads "not serving Muslims" get more customers in some parts in the US. You don't even have to go to extremes and bring up the internet and it's ability to effectively crowdfund a lot of niche things that wouldn't otherwise make enough money. But that can include racist stores etc as well
Fair point. But on the other hand you'll have shops in progressive areas that will sell better because they can advertise that they have more black people in work f.e..
Considering that the progressive areas are usually the urban ones and most industrial countries have most of their populace in urban areas I think you'll find on average more reason to positively discriminate minorities than the other way round from the populace.
I agree that it isn't ideal though. But considering that many western societies seem to drift apart in the recent decade I think people need to find a middle ground that most people can live with.
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On February 11 2018 15:16 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 09:20 OuchyDathurts wrote:On February 11 2018 09:16 sc-darkness wrote:
Good news that two Koreas talk to each other, but why don't US approve that? Is it because they don't want unified Korea? Is it skepticism that talks will help? The country is run by children is the answer. Odds are this goes nowhere, but there's no reason to not be encouraging and helpful to the situation other than being a petty child. Agreed, as long as you acknowledge that this attitude towards peace on the Korean peninsula has not been substantially different under Obama, Bush or Clinton. The US only wants peace on their non-negotiable conditions, or else. Kind of like with Japan in '45. Meanwhile, this should give the conservatives some fodder against the intelligence community: Show nested quote +The United States intelligence community has been conducting a top-secret operation to recover stolen classified U.S. government documents from Russian operatives, according to sources familiar with the matter. The operation has also inadvertently yielded a cache of documents purporting to relate to Donald Trump and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Over the past year, American intelligence officials have opened a secret communications channel with the Russian operatives, who have been seeking to sell both Trump-related materials and documents stolen from the National Security Agency and obtained by Russian intelligence, according to people involved with the matter and other documentary evidence. The channel started developing in early 2017, when American and Russian intermediaries began meeting in Germany. Eventually, a Russian intermediary, apparently representing some elements of the Russian intelligence community, agreed to a deal to sell stolen NSA documents back to the U.S. while also seeking to include Trump-related materials in the package.
The CIA declined to comment on the operation. The NSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The secret U.S. intelligence channel with the Russians is separate from efforts by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to obtain information about Trump and his ties with Russia. Steele worked with Fusion GPS, an American private investigations firm that was first hired by Republican and later Democratic opponents of Trump to dig up information on him during the 2016 campaign.
By contrast, the more recent secret negotiations began after Trump’s election and have been conducted by U.S. intelligence officials working with intermediaries who mainly operate in Europe. When American intelligence officials initiated efforts to broker a communications channel in 2017, however, their primary objective was to recover stolen NSA documents, not to obtain material about Trump.
At the time, the NSA was desperate to recover documents that intelligence officials believed Russia had obtained through a mysterious group known as the Shadow Brokers. The group stole highly secret NSA hacking tools and began releasing them on the internet in the summer of 2016. The Shadow Brokers theft of the hacking tools devastated morale at the NSA, putting its custom-built offensive cyber weapons out in the open. It was as if a bioweapons laboratory had lost some of its most deadly and dangerous viruses. U.S. officials wanted to identify which NSA documents the Shadow Brokers had stolen, so they could determine how badly the agency had been damaged by the theft.
But once the communications channel opened, the Russians on the other side offered to sell documents related to Trump along with the stolen NSA documents.
A Russian who has been acting as a go-between for other Russians with access to Russian government materials has sought payment for the materials he is offering. In an extensive interview with The Intercept in Germany, the Russian intermediary provided detailed information about the channel. When contacted by The Intercept for this story, the American intermediary declined to comment. Source
Nice story and all, but do you have an actual non shitty source for it? AFAIK the intercept is about as trustworthy as breitbart and some of the other right wing sources some of you like to post in here, which is to say, the onion is often closer to the truth than those sources.
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I saw it on NYT last night. Bing it yourself if you need, but the story is definitely legit.
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It's a legit story, but it's being spun like a bottle in a group of drunk high school students. What's being left out is that the NSA didn't want Trump information, and when they got Trump information and not the cyber warfare stuff they were looking for, they cut ties with the Russian involved.
Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian, who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia. Instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Mr. Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data.
The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president.
The Times obtained four of the documents that the Russian in Germany tried to pass to American intelligence (The Times did not pay for the material). All are purported to be Russian intelligence reports, and each focuses on associates of Mr. Trump. Carter Page, the former campaign adviser who has been the focus of F.B.I. investigators, features in one; Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire Republican donors, in another.
Yet all four appear to be drawn almost entirely from news reports, not secret intelligence. They all also contain stylistic and grammatical usages not typically seen in Russian intelligence reports, said Yuri Shvets, a former K.G.B. officer who spent years as a spy in Washington before immigrating to the United States after the end of the Cold War.
www.nytimes.com
The Intercept was clearly inspired by Intelligence Committee Republicans' approach to informing readers. Lies of omission are still lies.
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United States44415 Posts
On February 12 2018 01:46 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2018 21:09 levelping wrote:On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example. I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination. I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing? The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic. The free market isn’t a force of nature. It exists on the foundation of the society it functions in. It this was a true meritocracy, no company would have a majority male, white work force and our congress would not look like it does.
I don't know that that's true. If there are systematic problems that are grandfathered in by the time that people join the workforce a meritocracy could very easily result in one group being favoured. It's no good having a business make a special effort to hire qualified minority applicants if the schools haven't produced any. The symptom should not be confused with the disease.
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On February 12 2018 04:18 Kyadytim wrote:It's a legit story, but it's being spun like a bottle in a group of drunk high school students. What's being left out is that the NSA didn't want Trump information, and when they got Trump information and not the cyber warfare stuff they were looking for, they cut ties with the Russian involved. Show nested quote +Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian, who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia. Instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Mr. Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data.
The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president. Show nested quote +The Times obtained four of the documents that the Russian in Germany tried to pass to American intelligence (The Times did not pay for the material). All are purported to be Russian intelligence reports, and each focuses on associates of Mr. Trump. Carter Page, the former campaign adviser who has been the focus of F.B.I. investigators, features in one; Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire Republican donors, in another.
Yet all four appear to be drawn almost entirely from news reports, not secret intelligence. They all also contain stylistic and grammatical usages not typically seen in Russian intelligence reports, said Yuri Shvets, a former K.G.B. officer who spent years as a spy in Washington before immigrating to the United States after the end of the Cold War. www.nytimes.comThe Intercept was clearly inspired by Intelligence Committee Republicans' approach to informing readers. Lies of omission are still lies.
Thanks, I was just trying to look up the NYT article for it. looks like the reason he didn't post that one is like you said, the intercept spins it so hard they're only technically telling the truth.
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On February 12 2018 04:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2018 01:46 Plansix wrote:On February 11 2018 21:09 levelping wrote:On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example. I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination. I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing? The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic. The free market isn’t a force of nature. It exists on the foundation of the society it functions in. It this was a true meritocracy, no company would have a majority male, white work force and our congress would not look like it does. I don't know that that's true. If there are systematic problems that are grandfathered in by the time that people join the workforce a meritocracy could very easily result in one group being favoured. It's no good having a business make a special effort to hire qualified minority applicants if the schools haven't produced any. The symptom should not be confused with the disease.
Which would be kind of the point. It's not a meritocracy. And it never will be as long as you're ignoring the first 18-24 years of someone's life before saying "okay, we're going to assume everything is a level playing field now", or the last several millennia.
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On February 12 2018 04:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2018 01:46 Plansix wrote:On February 11 2018 21:09 levelping wrote:On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example. I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination. I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing? The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic. The free market isn’t a force of nature. It exists on the foundation of the society it functions in. It this was a true meritocracy, no company would have a majority male, white work force and our congress would not look like it does. I don't know that that's true. If there are systematic problems that are grandfathered in by the time that people join the workforce a meritocracy could very easily result in one group being favoured. It's no good having a business make a special effort to hire qualified minority applicants if the schools haven't produced any. The symptom should not be confused with the disease.
Kwark i think you also forget that the market is operated by actors who are not completely rational and have other considerations than profit, sometimes without even realizing it.
If a significant part of the population is uncomfortable with lgbt people so will be a portion of the human ressource workers and managers and that will result in non optimal and discriminatory practices. The market needs agents to exist (as P6 says it’s not a force of nature) and those agents are human, with all the inherent flaws it implies.
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United States44415 Posts
On February 12 2018 05:08 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2018 04:23 KwarK wrote:On February 12 2018 01:46 Plansix wrote:On February 11 2018 21:09 levelping wrote:On February 11 2018 19:03 Simberto wrote:
levelping, your second argument is really problematic. One could use the same argument to justify a company not hiring any black people whatsoever, for example. I'm specifically addressing the argument that we should let free market forces decide these issues and not impose positive discrimination. I'm saying that well if you want to raise the free market argument, then what is Google, apple, amazon and most of the biggest capitalist icons doing? The argument does not even seem to pass its own logic. The free market isn’t a force of nature. It exists on the foundation of the society it functions in. It this was a true meritocracy, no company would have a majority male, white work force and our congress would not look like it does. I don't know that that's true. If there are systematic problems that are grandfathered in by the time that people join the workforce a meritocracy could very easily result in one group being favoured. It's no good having a business make a special effort to hire qualified minority applicants if the schools haven't produced any. The symptom should not be confused with the disease. Kwark i think you also forget that the market is operated by actors who are not completely rational and have other considerations than profit, sometimes without even realizing it. If a significant part of the population is uncomfortable with lgbt people so will be a portion of the human ressource workers and managers and that will result in non optimal and discriminatory practices. The market needs agents to exist (as P6 says it’s not a force of nature) and those agents are human, with all the inherent flaws it implies.
Sure, I don't deny that at all. My point is that even a perfectly unbiased and rational market would still underrepresent those who are discriminated against by society. Decades of red lining created a world in which the schools African Americans send their children to have far fewer resources than those the children of middle class white America go to. An unbiased meritocracy will favour the groups that society favoured.
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Republicans of course are duly outraged by the lack of security clearances in the west wing.
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And remember that they still want to investigate Clinton for.... something bad.....
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Graaaaaaaaaaft.
I don't know what, if anything, being President is costing Trump financially, but his businesses are making a killing off of it.
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On February 12 2018 04:25 hunts wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2018 04:18 Kyadytim wrote:It's a legit story, but it's being spun like a bottle in a group of drunk high school students. What's being left out is that the NSA didn't want Trump information, and when they got Trump information and not the cyber warfare stuff they were looking for, they cut ties with the Russian involved. Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian, who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia. Instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Mr. Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data.
The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president. The Times obtained four of the documents that the Russian in Germany tried to pass to American intelligence (The Times did not pay for the material). All are purported to be Russian intelligence reports, and each focuses on associates of Mr. Trump. Carter Page, the former campaign adviser who has been the focus of F.B.I. investigators, features in one; Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire Republican donors, in another.
Yet all four appear to be drawn almost entirely from news reports, not secret intelligence. They all also contain stylistic and grammatical usages not typically seen in Russian intelligence reports, said Yuri Shvets, a former K.G.B. officer who spent years as a spy in Washington before immigrating to the United States after the end of the Cold War. www.nytimes.comThe Intercept was clearly inspired by Intelligence Committee Republicans' approach to informing readers. Lies of omission are still lies. Thanks, I was just trying to look up the NYT article for it. looks like the reason he didn't post that one is like you said, the intercept spins it so hard they're only technically telling the truth.
Wow, pasting motivation on me as if I am a clipboard. Thanks a lot. I was merely commenting that conservative meme factories would omit certain information and use the rest to continue their attack on the credibility of the intelligence community.
Also, skimming through both, I didn't see anything of note in the NYT report that wasn't also in The Intercept. I don't know what the hell you're talking about regarding your comments on The Intercept.
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EPT
