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On September 07 2024 02:04 ChristianS wrote: I had a friend in college who was a psych major who talked about this stuff a lot and I’m pretty confident Ryzel is in the right here about the standard terminology. “Positive reinforcement,” “positive punishment,” “negative reinforcement,” and “negative punishment” are the four categories, in which “positive” and “negative” don’t mean good or bad, they just mean whether you’re adding something or taking it away, and “reinforcement” or “punishment” indicate whether a behavior is being encouraged or discouraged. So:
”Positive reinforcement “ is when you add something good to encourage a good behavior (e.g. “You can have a piece of candy because you were so well-behaved at the doctor’s office today”)
”Negative reinforcement” is when you take away something bad to encourage a good behavior (e.g. “you don’t have to do chores this week because you got good grades”)
”Positive punishment” is when you add something bad to discourage a bad behavior (e.g. “I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap because you spoke that way to your mother”)
”Negative punishment” is when you take away something good to discourage a bad behavior (e.g. “You can’t go to your friend’s party this weekend because you got in a fight at school”)
That’s not to endorse any of those methods as effective at behavioral change, or even to endorse that terminology as most clear/elucidating of the underlying dynamics at play. But I am pretty confident, at least, that if you studied psychology in college as recently as 10 years ago (Christ, has it really been that long?) those would be the canonical terms on a slideshow being explained by a professor, and those would be the definitions you’d be expected to know on a test.
“Punishment serves no purpose and is purely retaliatory” might be true in a criminal justice sense of the term (where the justifications for criminal penalties are often divided into retaliatory, deterrent, and rehabilitative, and you might be using “punishment” to refer exclusively to the first one) but that’s not the standard definition used in psychology.
That is how i learned those terms in university, too.
Same here. I'm far from an expert, but Psychology was one of my minors, and we used basic terminology like this all the time, especially in regards to operant conditioning (B.F. Skinner, as Ryzel mentioned earlier).
Another +1 to Ryzel here. The psychiatry module in med school covered those exact same terms and definitions in operant conditioning, so let's try not to argue semantics here.
Psychology sure is fun in trying to determine what drives man, his motivations, and incentives, huh? Maybe all government and law officials should take psych courses? Can you extrapolate them to make good governing policies? Who knows. All I know is this is why I don't take Karl Marx seriously, since he wrote his stuff before psych literature and experimentation really took off. Too bad they now have banned most human psych experiments due to ethical concerns in causing mental stress and trauma to its subjects. But at least we still have the animals and monkeys, as well as the old human experiment results to draw from.
But rather than make good governing policies from the current and past body of psychology knowledge, people rather use it to maximize profits instead (e.g. BF Skinner and slot machines/loot boxes). Funny how things are usually used for evil instead of good. Just like how AI could have potentially decreased the workload of workers in certain sectors, but are now used instead to make child porn deepfakes.
Anyway, people are different, so an overarching law might not cover everybody, but it just needs to cover enough. If you take an extreme case study of a person with a cluster B personality disorder, say Antisocial/Conduct disorder: "Beatrice," a recently adopted child from a foster home, saw her younger baby brother at the top of a flight of stairs. She thought it would be fun to push him down before her parents saw that she was really going to do it and stopped her. Her mom exclaimed, "How could you even think of doing such a thing?! You could've killed him!" Beatrice's reply was, "So?" She was later diagnosed with conduct disorder, having a complete disregard for and violation of the rights of others. A total lack of empathy, if you will. Punishment won't work on these types of people to "get them to care," because they just don't give af. But what does work is if Beatrice prizes her toys and wants to increase her collection, she'll be incentivized not to do bad things anymore if it works towards that goal. Unfortunately, they'll probably never be able to integrate normally into society, and will either have to spend the rest of their days mostly in an institution, or wreak havoc in the lives of others, or somehow eke out an existence that doesn't get them in trouble with the law and others (best-case scenario). Take away from that what you will, I haven't reviewed psychiatry for a while and maybe the methods have changed, even if there's no cure.
Punishment won't work on these types of people to "get them to care," because they just don't give af. But what does work is if Beatrice prizes her toys and wants to increase her collection, she'll be incentivized not to do bad things anymore if it works towards that goal. Unfortunately, they'll probably never be able to integrate normally into society...
. I suppose that depends on what you mean by "normally". Capitalism actually caters to these people by rewarding their lack of empathy with money/power/"toys" they can use to manipulate the reality around them. CEOs, Lawyers, Politicians, Surgeons, Celebrities, some of the most powerful and well compensated jobs that exist in the US are most attractive/accomodating to/fitting for people with ASPD.
On September 07 2024 00:15 WombaT wrote: There are two separate spheres at play here though
One being the direct victims of some kind of criminally transgressive action, then the wider, more abstracted wider society.
Punishment exists within most criminal justice frameworks to appease the former group just as much as it’s theoretically meant to be a deterrent in the latter.
Rehabilitation and recidivism is the purview of the state, some desire for punishment generally more at the individual level. They’re not always aligned
Granted I may be misreading your posts but is your proposed solution to the age old carrot/stick balancing debate to take the stick off the table? As I said it’s possible/probable I am reading you wrong!
I feel punishment serves a useful part of the tapestry as, no matter how our social structures may not reflect it, us humans tend to place a lot of stock in fairness. And those who transgress being punished in whatever manner, maintains that sense of fairness.
I'll give the example of speeding fines. The negative stimulus is the fine. You speed, you lose money. If you don't speed, you don't lose money. It's very simple and straight forward, so that's all good. After receiving a ticket, the driver has a good incentive to drive more conservatively so they don't lose money again.
You cited prohibition as a proof that punishment doesn’t have a deterrence because a lot of people still drank. So fining someone for speeding is a “negative reinforcement” but fining someone for consuming alcohol is a “punishment.” And they are supposedly completely different things. Are you sure they aren’t the exact same thing and you just don’t want to say so because traffic enforcement is viewed more favorably than prohibition?
It’s the trolley problem all over. You make a similarly bold claim that you would never pull the lever and as soon as people provide hypotheticals you hem and haw and complain that it’s not the same. Then you dig your heels in even further by offering some unique understanding of a word like “infinite” or “punishment” that nobody else agrees with.
To top it all off, every example you gave that punishment was ineffective was demonstrably wrong. It took Eri (Drone) 5 minutes to find a link that showed consuming alcohol did decrease during prohibition. You cited abortion in the US as if there aren’t a plethora of news stories of women having difficulty accessing abortions because abortion providers are afraid of being punished for performing abortions. You cited North Koreans watching South Korean films as if anyone believes there wouldn’t be more of that if not for punishments.
Worst of all in my opinion is you cited transgenderism and said there were always as many transgender people but they were pushed underground due to oppressive cultures and laws. If you believe transgenderism is an innate quality then of course you can’t punish someone out of an innate quality. Nobody said you can punish someone out of innate quality. The argument is that punishment curtails BEHAVIOR. The fact that you yourself said there were just as many transgender people but they weren’t overt about it because of oppressive laws literally tells you they adjusted their behavior to avoid punishment. You’ve laid out the entire argument for yourself and you still can’t see it.
@Serm. Hey big guy. Just want to let you know my last paragraph of this post is not endorsing punishing transgendered people so they will stop being transgendered. I’m just exploring the reasoning behind MPs argument. Anyways, love you.
Punishment won't work on these types of people to "get them to care," because they just don't give af. But what does work is if Beatrice prizes her toys and wants to increase her collection, she'll be incentivized not to do bad things anymore if it works towards that goal. Unfortunately, they'll probably never be able to integrate normally into society...
. I suppose that depends on what you mean by "normally". Capitalism actually caters to these people by rewarding their lack of empathy with money/power/"toys" they can use to manipulate the reality around them. CEOs, Lawyers, Politicians, Surgeons, Celebrities, some of the most powerful and well compensated jobs that exist in the US are most attractive/accomodating to/fitting for people with ASPD.
I doubt that this is different in any other society that is not run on capitalist principles, given that the size of the society is comparable. I'd even argue that the probability of having people with ASPD in positions in powers was higher in for example socialist societies when thinking about the power structures that were present there (the Stasi in DDR and their informal informants as well as the other socialist entities that all had similar power mechanisms to control the population come to mind).
This fact you are speaking of probably can only be explored in democracies based on capitalist values as none of the other non-capitalist regimes would have allowed for such studies to be conducted/see the light of day (Moynihan's Law). Thus, we have an error of non-evaluated data and lack of comparison. Similar to the WW II engineers that only fortified the damage they could see on airplanes and did not think about that the damage that was not seen, which led to the airplanes not returning at all, we don't see or don't have data that shows antisocial behavior in other systems or regimes. We only look at the planes that returned and thus might end up with false conclusions.
Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
On September 07 2024 00:15 WombaT wrote: There are two separate spheres at play here though
One being the direct victims of some kind of criminally transgressive action, then the wider, more abstracted wider society.
Punishment exists within most criminal justice frameworks to appease the former group just as much as it’s theoretically meant to be a deterrent in the latter.
Rehabilitation and recidivism is the purview of the state, some desire for punishment generally more at the individual level. They’re not always aligned
Granted I may be misreading your posts but is your proposed solution to the age old carrot/stick balancing debate to take the stick off the table? As I said it’s possible/probable I am reading you wrong!
I feel punishment serves a useful part of the tapestry as, no matter how our social structures may not reflect it, us humans tend to place a lot of stock in fairness. And those who transgress being punished in whatever manner, maintains that sense of fairness.
I'll give the example of speeding fines. The negative stimulus is the fine. You speed, you lose money. If you don't speed, you don't lose money. It's very simple and straight forward, so that's all good. After receiving a ticket, the driver has a good incentive to drive more conservatively so they don't lose money again.
You cited prohibition as a proof that punishment doesn’t have a deterrence because a lot of people still drank. So fining someone for speeding is a “negative reinforcement” but fining someone for consuming alcohol is a “punishment.” And they are supposedly completely different things. Are you sure they aren’t the exact same thing and you just don’t want to say so because traffic enforcement is viewed more favorably than prohibition?
It’s the trolley problem all over. You make a similarly bold claim that you would never pull the lever and as soon as people provide hypotheticals you hem and haw and complain that it’s not the same. Then you dig your heels in even further by offering some unique understanding of a word like “infinite” or “punishment” that nobody else agrees with.
To top it all off, every example you gave that punishment was ineffective was demonstrably wrong. It took Eri (Drone) 5 minutes to find a link that showed consuming alcohol did decrease during prohibition. You cited abortion in the US as if there aren’t a plethora of news stories of women having difficulty accessing abortions because abortion providers are afraid of being punished for performing abortions. You cited North Koreans watching South Korean films as if anyone believes there wouldn’t be more of that if not for punishments.
Worst of all in my opinion is you cited transgenderism and said there were always as many transgender people but they were pushed underground due to oppressive cultures and laws. If you believe transgenderism is an innate quality then of course you can’t punish someone out of an innate quality. Nobody said you can punish someone out of innate quality. The argument is that punishment curtails BEHAVIOR. The fact that you yourself said there were just as many transgender people but they weren’t overt about it because of oppressive laws literally tells you they adjusted their behavior to avoid punishment. You’ve laid out the entire argument for yourself and you still can’t see it.
@Serm. Hey big guy. Just want to let you know my last paragraph of this post is not endorsing punishing transgendered people so they will stop being transgendered. I’m just exploring the reasoning behind MPs argument. Anyways, love you.
Prohibition was a ban, not a limit. It drove people to the black market, giving rise to mafia. Speed limits are a limit, people can still drive just fine.
On September 07 2024 00:15 WombaT wrote: There are two separate spheres at play here though
One being the direct victims of some kind of criminally transgressive action, then the wider, more abstracted wider society.
Punishment exists within most criminal justice frameworks to appease the former group just as much as it’s theoretically meant to be a deterrent in the latter.
Rehabilitation and recidivism is the purview of the state, some desire for punishment generally more at the individual level. They’re not always aligned
Granted I may be misreading your posts but is your proposed solution to the age old carrot/stick balancing debate to take the stick off the table? As I said it’s possible/probable I am reading you wrong!
I feel punishment serves a useful part of the tapestry as, no matter how our social structures may not reflect it, us humans tend to place a lot of stock in fairness. And those who transgress being punished in whatever manner, maintains that sense of fairness.
I'll give the example of speeding fines. The negative stimulus is the fine. You speed, you lose money. If you don't speed, you don't lose money. It's very simple and straight forward, so that's all good. After receiving a ticket, the driver has a good incentive to drive more conservatively so they don't lose money again.
You cited prohibition as a proof that punishment doesn’t have a deterrence because a lot of people still drank. So fining someone for speeding is a “negative reinforcement” but fining someone for consuming alcohol is a “punishment.” And they are supposedly completely different things. Are you sure they aren’t the exact same thing and you just don’t want to say so because traffic enforcement is viewed more favorably than prohibition?
It’s the trolley problem all over. You make a similarly bold claim that you would never pull the lever and as soon as people provide hypotheticals you hem and haw and complain that it’s not the same. Then you dig your heels in even further by offering some unique understanding of a word like “infinite” or “punishment” that nobody else agrees with.
To top it all off, every example you gave that punishment was ineffective was demonstrably wrong. It took Eri (Drone) 5 minutes to find a link that showed consuming alcohol did decrease during prohibition. You cited abortion in the US as if there aren’t a plethora of news stories of women having difficulty accessing abortions because abortion providers are afraid of being punished for performing abortions. You cited North Koreans watching South Korean films as if anyone believes there wouldn’t be more of that if not for punishments.
Worst of all in my opinion is you cited transgenderism and said there were always as many transgender people but they were pushed underground due to oppressive cultures and laws. If you believe transgenderism is an innate quality then of course you can’t punish someone out of an innate quality. Nobody said you can punish someone out of innate quality. The argument is that punishment curtails BEHAVIOR. The fact that you yourself said there were just as many transgender people but they weren’t overt about it because of oppressive laws literally tells you they adjusted their behavior to avoid punishment. You’ve laid out the entire argument for yourself and you still can’t see it.
@Serm. Hey big guy. Just want to let you know my last paragraph of this post is not endorsing punishing transgendered people so they will stop being transgendered. I’m just exploring the reasoning behind MPs argument. Anyways, love you.
Prohibition was a ban, not a limit. It drove people to the black market, giving rise to mafia. Speed limits are a limit, people can still drive just fine.
This is an absolutely absurd comment. A limit is by definition a prohibition on exceeding the limit. And an absolute prohibition is by definition a limit of 0.
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I agree with you that the debates likely won't give one candidate a huge lead, unless someone has an absolute break down. I don't think that's likely.
Both Harris and Trump are "in trouble", in the sense that neither of them have a significant lead and that they're basically tied in most meaningful battleground states (and that Harris's current, slight lead in the national popular vote is normal and necessary for a Democrat to stand toe-to-toe with the Republican party that benefits from the electoral college). I'd love for Harris's margin to be even larger than it is now, but any person who thinks that Trump is guaranteed a victory is wrong. As I've said many times before, it's continuing to look like a coinflip.
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I agree with you that the debates likely won't give one candidate a huge lead, unless someone has an absolute break down. I don't think that's likely.
Both Harris and Trump are "in trouble", in the sense that neither of them have a significant lead and that they're basically tied in most meaningful battleground states (and that Harris's current, slight lead in the national popular vote is normal and necessary for a Democrat to stand toe-to-toe with the Republican party that benefits from the electoral college). I'd love for Harris's margin to be even larger than it is now, but any person who thinks that Trump is guaranteed a victory is wrong. As I've said many times before, it's continuing to look like a coinflip.
Happy birthday, by the way!
I think Harris currently being in an ostensible coinflip shows how much Biden really wasn't despite Democrats insistence that he was. She's certainly doing better than Biden in 2024, but she's still got work to do to even catch 2016 Hillary (which obviously didn't turn out great).
Trump's definitely less likely to beat Harris than he was Biden, but despite Harris having so much in her favor, I'd still agree with Harris and give the edge to Trump currently.
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I agree with you that the debates likely won't give one candidate a huge lead, unless someone has an absolute break down. I don't think that's likely.
Both Harris and Trump are "in trouble", in the sense that neither of them have a significant lead and that they're basically tied in most meaningful battleground states (and that Harris's current, slight lead in the national popular vote is normal and necessary for a Democrat to stand toe-to-toe with the Republican party that benefits from the electoral college). I'd love for Harris's margin to be even larger than it is now, but any person who thinks that Trump is guaranteed a victory is wrong. As I've said many times before, it's continuing to look like a coinflip.
Happy birthday, by the way!
I think Harris currently being in an ostensible coinflip shows how much Biden really wasn't despite Democrats insistence that he was. She's certainly doing better than Biden in 2024, but she's still got work to do to even catch 2016 Hillary (which obviously didn't turn out great).
Trump's definitely less likely to beat Harris than he was Biden, but despite Harris having so much in her favor, I'd still agree with Harris and give the edge to Trump currently.
Thanks btw
Unlike some of your other predictions, I very much hope you’re wrong on that one man!
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I agree with you that the debates likely won't give one candidate a huge lead, unless someone has an absolute break down. I don't think that's likely.
Both Harris and Trump are "in trouble", in the sense that neither of them have a significant lead and that they're basically tied in most meaningful battleground states (and that Harris's current, slight lead in the national popular vote is normal and necessary for a Democrat to stand toe-to-toe with the Republican party that benefits from the electoral college). I'd love for Harris's margin to be even larger than it is now, but any person who thinks that Trump is guaranteed a victory is wrong. As I've said many times before, it's continuing to look like a coinflip.
Happy birthday, by the way!
I think Harris currently being in an ostensible coinflip shows how much Biden really wasn't despite Democrats insistence that he was. She's certainly doing better than Biden in 2024, but she's still got work to do to even catch 2016 Hillary (which obviously didn't turn out great).
Trump's definitely less likely to beat Harris than he was Biden, but despite Harris having so much in her favor, I'd still agree with Harris and give the edge to Trump currently.
Thanks btw
Unlike some of your other predictions, I very much hope you’re wrong on that one man!
Happy cake day sir
I don't have a lot of optimistic predictions, but yeah, me too. it's more of a "current state of the race" assessment though
I get why some people see it as good news, but I'm not so sure Dick Cheney and Democrats supporting the same person for president is the good harbinger Democrats seem to think it is.
On September 04 2024 08:40 Sermokala wrote: Cruelty for the sake of Cruelty isn't the answer in any circumstance. If you look at the crime rate in America and then look at the amount of people we jail you wouldn't need some silly concept like empathy to question punishments effectiveness at curtailing crime.
If you're serious about considering scientific rigor you would look at examples of successful reductions in crime like camden and bogota and consider them. Sometimes giving a shit about people and looking at why they're exhibiting "anti-social behavior" is a good thing. Giving kids breakfast and lunch for free so they have some sort of nutrition and aren't hungry has shown success in combating behavior issues in school but that would be communism somehow.
Eh, look at Singapore. There’s only so many times someone can be caned before they work out which rules aren’t worth breaking. If it’s not capricious and is part of a larger social rules based system then people can and do buy into it.
The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.
Yes, this is exactly how a rational person forms an opinion.
Does it work? Yes/no If it works, is it worth the cruelty? Yes/no
Instead some people prefer to work backwards
Is this cruel? Yes/no If it it's cruel then it's bad and it doesn't work.
Notice how you end your post talking about cruelty whereas Serm starts his post talking about cruelty. That's a major tell to how each of you apply your reasoning, imo.
It’s a major tell how you don't find the cruelty is an issue, your gotcha is the priority list people have when discussing cruelty in their post. You're so blinded by your love for cruelty that you missed the part where Kwark agrees with me that punishment doesn't work.You would be able to know this contradiction if you bother to read the posts you disagree with and the logical arguments I make. Instead you would rather just ignore the things that make your argument uncomfortable and just misconstrude what people say for the sake of internet points. My position is based in Christian morals and logical values like "does thing work" while you provide nothing for your argument other than "man these people giving a shit about other people are wrong because they give a shit about other people".
Ah jeez you really got me that I have a problem with cruelty and I prioritize solving issues by taking into consideration why people do things and not just jump to hurting them and just hopecasting that it solves problems.
You think Kwark agrees with you that punishment doesn’t work?
He said “The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.”
Do I have to explain double negatives to you? He’s literally saying that it works but it’s not worth the cruelty.
Setting aside the debate of whether it’s “cruel” to give someone a small fine for not obeying the transit rules, the point is irrelevant. The debate is whether punishments curtail the unwanted behavior. It’s like if I say “shooting someone between the eyes with a Glock for smoking in public will reduce people smoking in public” and you start ranting about how it’s cruel. Whether it’s cruel is irrelevant. I’ve already tried explaining this to you but there’s no evidence you’re capable of understanding. In fact the only thing I think you will take away from this post is “BJ wants to shoot people between the eyes for smoking in public. Look how evil he is.”
Maybe try having a conversation without idiotic hyperboles for once. Like, 'if we shoot people with a glock for smoking that would definitely reduce the number of smokers, ergo punishment works as a deterrent!!!' is an idiotic thing to say in an argument about efficacy of justice systems and what makes an effective deterrent against crime in a society.
My hyperbole has nothing to do with arguing about the efficacy of justice systems and deterrents. The hyperbole was to point out the absurdity of Serm's position. Him being an empathetic virtuous person and me being a cruel sadistic person is also a stupid point to make on the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent. But of course you're going to gloss right over that and blame me for the breakdown in conversation.
The possion you assigned to me is absurd because you constructed it out of fluff. I brought real examples of how cruelty is bad for the sake of cruelty and empathy is good because it allows you to understand the problem. You're not engaging in reality you're trying to construct sand castles that don't exist. Your position was that things are getting bad because they prioritize empathy and that we should be getting back to punishment as a focus. I pointed to an example where punishments weren't working for the sake of punishments and you ignored that because it is inconvenient to you to acknowledge reality. You think its a stupid point to make the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent because why? Do you want to go into the effectiveness of the severity of punishments vs the certainty of punishments for crimes? You're responsible for the breakdown in conversation because you refuse to play any sort of defense or elaborate on anything you say. Instead you resort to hyperbole and making inane statements chasing a gotcha argument against positions no one is taking.
You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy. Having empathy and understanding why people commit crimes doesn't mean that you stop enforcing crimes. It means that you stop the crimes from happening in the first place by understanding why those crimes were commited and preventing those circumstances.
A great example is MADD's crusade against drunk driving. Punishments went way up and enforcement went way up but people didn't get jailed en mass were people had their ability to live a life after drunk driving taken away. There was a massive campaign to educate the populace and change the public perception of drunk driving that worked. That required a group to have empathy for the people who drunk drove and understand why it was culturally acceptable to drive drunk.
Jesus... it's not a binary... It's carrots AND sticks. Reward AND punishment. Positive reinforcement AND negative reinforcement. It's incredibly dense to think you can only do one or the other. It's incredibly dense to think only one works and the other doesn't. It's incredibly dense to think any punishment is simply "cruelty for the sake of cruelty."
"You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy."
I said if you believe that punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior then there is zero reason to enforce any laws (aka punish people).
Tell me your reason why you would still give someone a speeding ticket if punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior
a) Raise money for the city b) Be a dick c) curtail people from speeding
For your convenience I've removed the option you said doesn't work. Do you want to fine people just so the city can raise money off some poor sap living paycheck to paycheck? Or is it just to be a dick?
I agree with your first paragraph and its my postion. Its very werid that you decide to argue aginst it with everything else you've posted recetnly and what you go onto post just after that. I don't agree that having empathy means you don't agree with punishment. I believe that deprioritizeing empathy because you think its the cause of societal ills is an advocation for an increase in cruelty and doesn't prioritize any actual solution. Dictating peoples opinions to them is just pathetic hyperbolism that doesn't help anyone. Nothing about what I've posted would lead a rational person to believe I don't want any punishment at all.
I think you should enforce speeding laws to save lives. Resources are limited (we know how bad the rate of solving murders are as it is) so you need a system to prioritize how to use your resources. This is a positon that is consistent with having empathy based solutions to problems.
How do you want to lower traffic deaths in a way that deprioritizes empathy and increases punishements? People notice you don't like to discuss what you believe in and that your only tactic is to try and score points by attacking others.
I love how you recognize punishing transgender people to stop being transgender is a bad thing. It shows that there is a person under there that has a moral system, I wish you would let that person make more choices for you. You felt the need to add in a little extra blurb at the end there to me because you recognize how its contrary to what you've said and how you need to nip it in the bud by simply saying "yeah this is different because its different don't come at me for it". You recognize a situation where punishment was ineffective in changing behavior but don't recognize it would take empathy to recognize this. I can't believe I'm telling this to BJ but you should apply your position on transgender people to the rest of the population.
A good basic example of logical empethetic deicsion making is the Kudzu situation in america but mostly the south. Its an invasive vine that grows like nothing else in nature and is proving almost impossible to fight the spread of. A solution to it is to use heavy pesticides constantly until it dies off. This is undeniably an effective situation that we could use to solve the kudzu problem. But what is the point of poisoning the entire south? People tried doing that and it was bad so they stoped because it was hurting people and ruining the land for any other use. You can solve that problem through a massive ammount of labor where we poison the soil to kill the kudzu and then have people turn over and treat the soil until its fertile again. You would need a massive population to work a dangerous and heavy labor job for long stretches of time.
And where in the south could you possibly find such a large labor pool that can do it cost effectivly?
On September 04 2024 08:40 Sermokala wrote: Cruelty for the sake of Cruelty isn't the answer in any circumstance. If you look at the crime rate in America and then look at the amount of people we jail you wouldn't need some silly concept like empathy to question punishments effectiveness at curtailing crime.
If you're serious about considering scientific rigor you would look at examples of successful reductions in crime like camden and bogota and consider them. Sometimes giving a shit about people and looking at why they're exhibiting "anti-social behavior" is a good thing. Giving kids breakfast and lunch for free so they have some sort of nutrition and aren't hungry has shown success in combating behavior issues in school but that would be communism somehow.
Eh, look at Singapore. There’s only so many times someone can be caned before they work out which rules aren’t worth breaking. If it’s not capricious and is part of a larger social rules based system then people can and do buy into it.
The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.
Yes, this is exactly how a rational person forms an opinion.
Does it work? Yes/no If it works, is it worth the cruelty? Yes/no
Instead some people prefer to work backwards
Is this cruel? Yes/no If it it's cruel then it's bad and it doesn't work.
Notice how you end your post talking about cruelty whereas Serm starts his post talking about cruelty. That's a major tell to how each of you apply your reasoning, imo.
It’s a major tell how you don't find the cruelty is an issue, your gotcha is the priority list people have when discussing cruelty in their post. You're so blinded by your love for cruelty that you missed the part where Kwark agrees with me that punishment doesn't work.You would be able to know this contradiction if you bother to read the posts you disagree with and the logical arguments I make. Instead you would rather just ignore the things that make your argument uncomfortable and just misconstrude what people say for the sake of internet points. My position is based in Christian morals and logical values like "does thing work" while you provide nothing for your argument other than "man these people giving a shit about other people are wrong because they give a shit about other people".
Ah jeez you really got me that I have a problem with cruelty and I prioritize solving issues by taking into consideration why people do things and not just jump to hurting them and just hopecasting that it solves problems.
You think Kwark agrees with you that punishment doesn’t work?
He said “The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.”
Do I have to explain double negatives to you? He’s literally saying that it works but it’s not worth the cruelty.
Setting aside the debate of whether it’s “cruel” to give someone a small fine for not obeying the transit rules, the point is irrelevant. The debate is whether punishments curtail the unwanted behavior. It’s like if I say “shooting someone between the eyes with a Glock for smoking in public will reduce people smoking in public” and you start ranting about how it’s cruel. Whether it’s cruel is irrelevant. I’ve already tried explaining this to you but there’s no evidence you’re capable of understanding. In fact the only thing I think you will take away from this post is “BJ wants to shoot people between the eyes for smoking in public. Look how evil he is.”
Maybe try having a conversation without idiotic hyperboles for once. Like, 'if we shoot people with a glock for smoking that would definitely reduce the number of smokers, ergo punishment works as a deterrent!!!' is an idiotic thing to say in an argument about efficacy of justice systems and what makes an effective deterrent against crime in a society.
My hyperbole has nothing to do with arguing about the efficacy of justice systems and deterrents. The hyperbole was to point out the absurdity of Serm's position. Him being an empathetic virtuous person and me being a cruel sadistic person is also a stupid point to make on the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent. But of course you're going to gloss right over that and blame me for the breakdown in conversation.
The possion you assigned to me is absurd because you constructed it out of fluff. I brought real examples of how cruelty is bad for the sake of cruelty and empathy is good because it allows you to understand the problem. You're not engaging in reality you're trying to construct sand castles that don't exist. Your position was that things are getting bad because they prioritize empathy and that we should be getting back to punishment as a focus. I pointed to an example where punishments weren't working for the sake of punishments and you ignored that because it is inconvenient to you to acknowledge reality. You think its a stupid point to make the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent because why? Do you want to go into the effectiveness of the severity of punishments vs the certainty of punishments for crimes? You're responsible for the breakdown in conversation because you refuse to play any sort of defense or elaborate on anything you say. Instead you resort to hyperbole and making inane statements chasing a gotcha argument against positions no one is taking.
You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy. Having empathy and understanding why people commit crimes doesn't mean that you stop enforcing crimes. It means that you stop the crimes from happening in the first place by understanding why those crimes were commited and preventing those circumstances.
A great example is MADD's crusade against drunk driving. Punishments went way up and enforcement went way up but people didn't get jailed en mass were people had their ability to live a life after drunk driving taken away. There was a massive campaign to educate the populace and change the public perception of drunk driving that worked. That required a group to have empathy for the people who drunk drove and understand why it was culturally acceptable to drive drunk.
Jesus... it's not a binary... It's carrots AND sticks. Reward AND punishment. Positive reinforcement AND negative reinforcement. It's incredibly dense to think you can only do one or the other. It's incredibly dense to think only one works and the other doesn't. It's incredibly dense to think any punishment is simply "cruelty for the sake of cruelty."
"You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy."
I said if you believe that punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior then there is zero reason to enforce any laws (aka punish people).
Tell me your reason why you would still give someone a speeding ticket if punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior
a) Raise money for the city b) Be a dick c) curtail people from speeding
For your convenience I've removed the option you said doesn't work. Do you want to fine people just so the city can raise money off some poor sap living paycheck to paycheck? Or is it just to be a dick?
I agree with your first paragraph and its my postion. Its very werid that you decide to argue aginst it with everything else you've posted recetnly and what you go onto post just after that. I don't agree that having empathy means you don't agree with punishment. I believe that deprioritizeing empathy because you think its the cause of societal ills is an advocation for an increase in cruelty and doesn't prioritize any actual solution. Dictating peoples opinions to them is just pathetic hyperbolism that doesn't help anyone. Nothing about what I've posted would lead a rational person to believe I don't want any punishment at all.
I think you should enforce speeding laws to save lives. Resources are limited (we know how bad the rate of solving murders are as it is) so you need a system to prioritize how to use your resources. This is a positon that is consistent with having empathy based solutions to problems.
How do you want to lower traffic deaths in a way that deprioritizes empathy and increases punishements? People notice you don't like to discuss what you believe in and that your only tactic is to try and score points by attacking others.
I love how you recognize punishing transgender people to stop being transgender is a bad thing. It shows that there is a person under there that has a moral system, I wish you would let that person make more choices for you. You felt the need to add in a little extra blurb at the end there to me because you recognize how its contrary to what you've said and how you need to nip it in the bud by simply saying "yeah this is different because its different don't come at me for it". You recognize a situation where punishment was ineffective in changing behavior but don't recognize it would take empathy to recognize this. I can't believe I'm telling this to BJ but you should apply your position on transgender people to the rest of the population.
I felt the need to add that blurb at the end because you more than anyone here are chronically incapable of understanding what other people have written. I have no doubt if I didn't include that blurb you would be flaming me for saying we should punish transgender people. I used to take it personally but you even thought Kwark was agreeing with you when he was saying the exact opposite in the most clear and concise manner possible. I really just think you hear what you want.
Case in point, this entire post is about how you think I am war with "empathy" for causing all of society's problems when really my complaint was about well-intentioned people driven by empathy holding irrational beliefs that make problems worse. If you had a so-called "empathetic solution" that works I'm all for it. The problem is you seem to think that the solution being empathetic is somehow evidence in itself that it works. I care about what's effective and you care about what looks good on the surface so you can present yourself as a kind person.
On September 08 2024 06:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: An HBO Max documentary on Trump and his attempt at stealing the 2020 election is premiering September 17th.
That looks very well done, my only complaint is that it plays off like Trump as this master player orchestrating things behind the scenes, when in reality he was just flailing around like an idiot for weeks, alienating all his allies and embracing lunatics more idiotic than he is
On September 07 2024 20:13 Yurie wrote: Looks like things are trending towards another Trump presidency since he is currently up in Pennsylvania, the state that decides the presidential election. I assume the US will lose a lot of its global soft power since it will no longer be seen as a reliable partner. Where it will instead have to find itself with expensive trade deals to impact decisions or even more expensive military action.
US soft power and threats has been a major part of cheaply neutering Russian military sales on the global market as an example of why it matters to the US. Driving customers to the US military industry instead.
Another way it was used during Obama presidency was to push the anti nuclear proliferation agreements (though that died on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine pyre).
PA will likely be a coinflip. Maybe the upcoming debates will change things a bit. There are also some other paths to a Harris victory that don't include PA, if she can lock in enough other swing states that Biden won.
I agree with you that if Trump wins again, the U.S. will go back to being seen as unreliable partners/allies, just like during Trump's first presidency.
I would say the debate is unlikely to move polling much, since even Biden's catastrophic performance didn't.
Granted Harris isn't Biden or Clinton, she's still polling well behind them at this point in the race, which ironically gives credence to her talking point that she's still the underdog.
Harris needed to get comfortably above the MoE just to be about where Biden or Clinton were, where the race was decided by a relative handful of votes. She hasn't. So while I understand the elation at her not being Biden, she's still in trouble, polling poorly relative to Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
I actually think the opposite. Biden's performance did shit all because cable news spent the majority of the last year or so talking about nothing but Biden's age. The bad debate performance just gave a lot of political operatives to get their knives out so to speak, not unlike political parties in Westminster system countries knifing their Prime Ministers. Everyone already knew Biden was old as heck.
One notable comment noted in a lot of polling results is that the public feels that they don't really know what much about her. She's doing a lot of campaigning but she hasn't exactly been visible.
Either way, I don't think there's a way to halt the decline. If Trump wins, it'd just be filled with the most opportunistic parasites like Elon Musk who will abuse their power in government to break government agencies just to self-deal even harder than they currently are. If Harris wins, she's not going to have to will or legislative control required to push back against these self-dealing assholes from grasping the reigns of power after 4 years.
We're at such a bad point that 3/4 of the country basically shurgged at the fact we've just had another school shooting and some random person sniping at people in just the last week. Most countries would be rushing to do something whether that be banning guns, instituting mental health studies/policies, or questioning why countries with high access to guns like Switzerland do not have remotely close to the same issues as we do.
EPT
