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On November 07 2024 04:24 lolfail9001 wrote: People talking about Dems trying to appeal to republicans must be living in a very different echo chamber from my own.
I have spent entire day's off-time reading HN/Reddit and the like busy calling 50% of USA fascists, nazis and mentally impaired. If that's how you guys appeal to Republicans, no wonder Dems thought campaigning with Liz Cheney was a good idea (though i find it funny that in return Tulsi Gabbard went to Reps, talk about actual crossover appeal): they also thought 50% of USA are mentally impaired.
On another hand, in hindsight people already nailed down why this election went down as it did and frankly, it's a little boring, but hey, Dems should have a really good 2026 at this rate. Because economy won't get better for average Joe, tariffs or not, and hence midterms will switch parties as usual
.
Part of the problem is that "trying to appeal to/compromise with Republicans" has always just been rhetorical cover for "doing what our owners donors tell us to".
For a long time they were able to obscure that fact, but it's pretty nakedly apparent Democrats shitty right-wing policy isn't actually aimed at winning over moderate/right-wing voters and even if it was, it doesn't work.
Democrat policy is indeed aimed at winning over moderates, and you are right that it does not work in this day and age because social media will always push people to extremes one way or another. And on that front Democrat general half-measures like choking Ukraine to death or their infamous Israel-Palestine stance just look ugly. Republicans got radicalised and loosened their screws, Dems are next in line, and Lord have mercy on you Muricans. Because you won't.
I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But... Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too.
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
I think this is a too-hard-learned lesson. While I don't think there was anything wrong with building a coalition that incidentally includes prominent Republicans as a show of how repugnant the other side is, going out of your way to court a base that has been highly radicalized and insulated from reality is a fools errand...
Who’s doing this strategising?
I don’t understand how you can have smart, savvy political strategists poring over all the numbers going, funded to the teeth and you do this again.
Something some hobbyist discussors on a StarCraft forum largely (from memory) agreed was a fucking daft strategy? Certainly GH and I I remember, I’m pretty sure quite a few more
The mind fucking boggles, it really does.
It was pretty damn clear from almost the off that this was going to be an election about galvanising your bases and driving out turnout. Argh
WORSE! *sigh* SOOooo much worse... This is net 2020 vs 2024
Independents (or something else): +8 R Conservatives: +9 R Moderates: + 11 R
I can't emphasise enough how much the "we need to be more centrist" Democrats need to just be driven out of the party entirely if they can't shut the fuck up and fall in line behind the people that were shouted down by the people that backed Hillary and Biden to appeal to these mythical people that struggle choosing between Democrats and Trump.
This implies there are people to the left to pick up who are willing to vote.
Which might be right, but boy do they do a good job of hiding because I don't think we ever see them.
Unless Democrats are just going to embrace fascism (which they probably will and still fail like they just did), they don't have any other electoral option.
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
I think this is a too-hard-learned lesson. While I don't think there was anything wrong with building a coalition that incidentally includes prominent Republicans as a show of how repugnant the other side is, going out of your way to court a base that has been highly radicalized and insulated from reality is a fools errand...
Who’s doing this strategising?
I don’t understand how you can have smart, savvy political strategists poring over all the numbers going, funded to the teeth and you do this again.
Something some hobbyist discussors on a StarCraft forum largely (from memory) agreed was a fucking daft strategy? Certainly GH and I I remember, I’m pretty sure quite a few more
The mind fucking boggles, it really does.
It was pretty damn clear from almost the off that this was going to be an election about galvanising your bases and driving out turnout. Argh
WORSE! *sigh* SOOooo much worse... This is net 2020 vs 2024
Independents (or something else): +8 R Conservatives: +9 R Moderates: + 11 R
I can't emphasise enough how much the "we need to be more centrist" Democrats need to just be driven out of the party entirely if they can't shut the fuck up and fall in line behind the people that were shouted down by the people that backed Hillary and Biden to appeal to these mythical people that struggle choosing between Democrats and Trump.
You're a socialist stuck in a fascist country. Might I suggest emigration. Hopefully the nukes stay in their silos and the worst we have to deal with is 3 degrees of global warming.
Yeah, I'm working a line to Norway to live in Drone's closet but also I'm still kind of idealistic enough to want to fight the good fight rather than flee and hope to save myself (most likely only temporarily anyway).
Pretty sure Zam and others (like myself years ago lol) are right that global war is the way we're getting past this global fascist uprising and the factions aren't going to divide nicely along national lines.
On November 07 2024 04:39 Vindicare605 wrote: I'm reading the exit polls right now. It's hard to overstate just how badly the Democrats lost this. This is a complete and total defeat.
Like there's not even a single shred of doubt here for anyone to cry foul on. It's a complete landslide.
I would expect every single ranking member of the DNC to tender their resignations from professional politics, but knowing the Democratic party that will never happen. They'll just try and run it back in another 4 years doing the same shit. They never learn.
Can you imagine the deep breath of relief everyone left of Richard Nixon would be able to take if Democrats showed even this minimal level of contrition.
Of course they won't, give them time, they'll find a way to blame everyone but themselves (who couldn't be more responsible) for this.
On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote: I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Did you ask them why they thought Harris was bad and against their values? How did they respond?
On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote: I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Did you ask them why they thought Harris was bad and against their values? How did they respond?
Didn't get the chance, didn't have time to chat too much (though I might ask later) but I think the fact she and her family are very devout Catholics we could guess. I don't know all her views, but I found her quick and unflinching dislike of Harris surprising at least before thinking about it
On November 07 2024 01:37 Timebon3s wrote: Now that the dust has settled and Trump won by a landslide, why wasn’t there more voters in favor of him here on this forum? Is this a very left-leaning forum, or are people simply afraid of saying they support Trump?
Mabye it won’t be as bad as people think. As far as Europe is concerned, he actually made NATO stronger, which is good for my country at least. He’s also said he will try to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia. If that means Ukraine need to give up territory to Russia, and then get membership in NATO, that sounds like a good long term solution.
And he also managed to get a dialogue going with North Korea.
Let’s hope for a positive future instead of only focusing on the negative.
How is Trump in any way responsible for Norway joining NATO? He gets credited for so much stuff he doesn't have anything to do with or even counteracted against. If he would be have been at the helm when Putin invaded we would be in a very different world. He basically wants to abolish NATO to get better deals i guess?
Dialogue with North Korea? Are you kidding?
He isn’t responsible for Norway joining nato. But he made the members of NATO pay more money to NATO.
Peace begins with dialogue. At least he’s trying.
Making my point. That wasn't him. It was Russia attacking Ukraine causing this.
Why are you so angry? Did you even read that 17 page long rapport you linked? It clearly states every country increased their contributions to NATO after 2016. Don’t you remember the spectacle surrounding Trump and Stoltenberg?
On November 07 2024 01:37 Timebon3s wrote: Now that the dust has settled and Trump won by a landslide, why wasn’t there more voters in favor of him here on this forum? Is this a very left-leaning forum, or are people simply afraid of saying they support Trump?
Mabye it won’t be as bad as people think. As far as Europe is concerned, he actually made NATO stronger, which is good for my country at least. He’s also said he will try to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia. If that means Ukraine need to give up territory to Russia, and then get membership in NATO, that sounds like a good long term solution.
And he also managed to get a dialogue going with North Korea.
Let’s hope for a positive future instead of only focusing on the negative.
How is Trump in any way responsible for Norway joining NATO? He gets credited for so much stuff he doesn't have anything to do with or even counteracted against. If he would be have been at the helm when Putin invaded we would be in a very different world. He basically wants to abolish NATO to get better deals i guess?
Dialogue with North Korea? Are you kidding?
He isn’t responsible for Norway joining nato. But he made the members of NATO pay more money to NATO.
Peace begins with dialogue. At least he’s trying.
Making my point. That wasn't him. It was Russia attacking Ukraine causing this.
It was him. He did this before the war.
Hey I can’t remember the timeline, I’ll trust your recollection
Any credit there will be immediately wiped out, and then some if his administration completely cut off support to Ukraine.
Like great, Americans feel a bit better that some of the European members are pumping more in to NATO. It’s not even entirely unreasonable, hey fair enough
If Trump then fucks off US support for NATO at one of those rare occasions where it’s actually needed to do what it was created to do, all of that is moot and it’s an abject foreign policy failure.
Unless there’s some other scenario where he can drag Putin to heel somehow, and negotiate an acceptable peace. I.e. not having Russia incorporate Ukraine.
That would be an impressive foreign policy achievement.
My prediction is Trump’s weaknesses will bite him in the ass now he’s got some genuinely complicated foreign policy waters to negotiate. But, I may be wrong. I like being smug and correct, but I’d much rather be wrong here!
The problem with his foreign policy is pretty much his general approach to anything. Everything is transactional, and because he doesn’t really believe in genuine cooperation, he’s immediately distrustful and disdainful of those who do.
We’re one punch away from a reasonable foreign policy one-two punch. For me.
Step 1 - The US stops trying to be the world’s policeman. I think it’s fair to say he ticks this box. Step 2 - The US maintains alliances with historic allies, or those of aligned values, and empowers them and cooperative institutions. Those can pick up slack, so things don’t have to go to shit and harm US interests, or some greater good, but the US isn’t doing all the heavy lifting.
Foreign policy requires some alacrity and a balance of cracking the whip and handing out carrots.
Look I’m going into future hypotheticals but, let’s assume Trump does go all-in on his trade war with China. That’s going to have nasty knock-on effects all over the world.
What’s the next biggest economic bloc in the world, full of historic American allies? Why it’s the EU/Europe. More neutral but also not gigantic fans of China and Chinese ambitions either. I doubt thrilled with the prospect of a trade war, perhaps amenable to some cooperation on China, perhaps not.
They sure as fuck will be less likely to play ball if in the rough same timespan Trump pulls US support from the biggest national security crisis in mainland Europe in quite some time.
That’s a lot of information and I’ll be honest in saying I don’t know as much as you do about this. I just remember he made the other countries pay up and make NATO stronger, which in my eyes is a good thing.
He also said he wanted to end the war and stop people from dying. We are now at the point of Ukraine running out of young men to send into the meat grinder.. this 3 day operation has been going on for way too long now.
IF he actually can do something to stop this madness, that will make up for a lot of the crazy shit he’s said and done in my eyes. And perhaps people will think twice before calling him Hitler :-)
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
I think this is a too-hard-learned lesson. While I don't think there was anything wrong with building a coalition that incidentally includes prominent Republicans as a show of how repugnant the other side is, going out of your way to court a base that has been highly radicalized and insulated from reality is a fools errand...
Who’s doing this strategising?
I don’t understand how you can have smart, savvy political strategists poring over all the numbers going, funded to the teeth and you do this again.
Something some hobbyist discussors on a StarCraft forum largely (from memory) agreed was a fucking daft strategy? Certainly GH and I I remember, I’m pretty sure quite a few more
The mind fucking boggles, it really does.
It was pretty damn clear from almost the off that this was going to be an election about galvanising your bases and driving out turnout. Argh
WORSE! *sigh* SOOooo much worse... This is net 2020 vs 2024
Independents (or something else): +8 R Conservatives: +9 R Moderates: + 11 R
I can't emphasise enough how much the "we need to be more centrist" Democrats need to just be driven out of the party entirely if they can't shut the fuck up and fall in line behind the people that were shouted down by the people that backed Hillary and Biden to appeal to these mythical people that struggle choosing between Democrats and Trump.
This implies there are people to the left to pick up who are willing to vote.
Which might be right, but boy do they do a good job of hiding because I don't think we ever see them.
How can you expect to see them when Democrats exclusively try to pull Republicans, the people who are diametrically opposed to leftists in basically all ways?
If those 10s of millions of hidden American leftists existed, the 2016 and 2020 primaries would have been the time to come out.
On November 07 2024 01:13 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]The knowledge gap seems to be entirety of the experts knowledge.
As in the average working man has absolutely 0 clue how anything economic works.
And yet it's those working men you need to convince to vote for your economic plan, or else win their vote some other way.
How's the old saying go? The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter?
This is how it works. It doesnt have to make sense. But it's the reality of the system we've chosen for ourselves.
That's why the guy who just lies and shouts bullshit won.
You don't need to explain it to them, in fact explaining it just makes them more confused. Just lie, its easier and you don't get punished for it.
No see this is the part the Democrats don't understand. Republicans already have a lock on the party of liars. They're in bed with the Christian Right. They will NEVER lose that block of voters ever as long as they continue to promise to promote conservative judges. That's the only thing the Christian Right needs to keep voting for them forever.
Democrats need to be the party that explains things, that makes them make sense. If they are just the guys shouting bullshit to counter the Republicans' bullshit then that causes voter turn out among moderates and more educated liberals to crater.
Democrats need to win the game correctly. It's difficult but it's the only way they will ever win. Getting into mud throwing contests with the Republicans benefits them and ONLY them.
On November 07 2024 01:27 NewSunshine wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:17 Gorsameth wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:14 EnDeR_ wrote:
On November 07 2024 00:56 Gorsameth wrote: [quote] I'm sure they will find a way to push that back
But wouldn't that massively increase the deficit? Isn't that supposed to be bad for the economy?
Republicans only care about the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House.
See the deficit under Trump increasing every year.
Democrats need to 1000% embrace the Republican tactic of using whatever you can find to bludgeon the other party over the head at all times, regardless of the hypocrisy or the facts. Don't give them room to breathe. The only reason R's get any airtime when they bang on about hypocrisy is because we let them. Jump down their throats and don't let them breathe in the rhetorical space. Democrats have policy that makes things better and they know it. But people don't give a shit about policy, they respond to charisma and "fight". Democrats have been so scared of looking like they might be fighting back that they left the floor open to Trump. They should be rallying and holding addresses to the nation on a weekly basis. Call Republicans out for the fucking spineless cowards they are and stand up on their own two feet as a party.
But also, they should've been doing this since January 2021. If we forget about January 6th it's because the Democrats decided it wasn't that big of a deal.
Fuck.
I’m with Vindicare here. Trump’s own party can’t replicate his shtick, hence him trouncing primaries, the Dems have even less chance.
As you all know I rarely use analogies, but I’m quite a reserved, deadpan, sarcastic kinda guy. One of my best friends is Mr Extrovert, could arrange a date in the 5 minutes he meets some girl at a bus stop etc etc.
He may have had more luck with the ladies, and a totally different kind than kinda my type, but hey I have a niche and did alright. If I had started emulating him, it would have been a disaster as it’s not my manner, and the kinda girls I like also don’t really like the whole ‘alpha male’ shtick either.
I think you can go on the attack, but in a different style.
We need Bernie Sanders to run again. That’s my plan.
Not Bernard Sandals specifically, I kid but that for me is the vague model.
1) He didn’t pull punches 2) He attacked the problems that many people suffer from, but crucially in a more systemic, non-personal fashion 3) He directly linked his critiques with easy to understand solutions 4) Not 100% effectively, but he largely sidestepped too much ‘culture war’ stuff 5) People liked him, or, at least considered him a decent or principled bloke
You can still maintain a passion, some moral outrage that resonates while not diving headfirst into the same sty as a Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders could not even win the Democratic primary. If the Democratic party wants that type of candidate they're truly out of ideas.
I doubt Harris was anyone's preferred candidate. There really was not much of a choice because Biden dropped out way too late.
On November 07 2024 02:51 WombaT wrote:
On November 07 2024 02:42 RvB wrote:
On November 07 2024 02:02 WombaT wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:23 Vindicare605 wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:18 Gorsameth wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:15 Vindicare605 wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:13 Gorsameth wrote: [quote]The knowledge gap seems to be entirety of the experts knowledge.
As in the average working man has absolutely 0 clue how anything economic works.
And yet it's those working men you need to convince to vote for your economic plan, or else win their vote some other way.
How's the old saying go? The best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter?
This is how it works. It doesnt have to make sense. But it's the reality of the system we've chosen for ourselves.
That's why the guy who just lies and shouts bullshit won.
You don't need to explain it to them, in fact explaining it just makes them more confused. Just lie, its easier and you don't get punished for it.
No see this is the part the Democrats don't understand. Republicans already have a lock on the party of liars. They're in bed with the Christian Right. They will NEVER lose that block of voters ever as long as they continue to promise to promote conservative judges. That's the only thing the Christian Right needs to keep voting for them forever.
Democrats need to be the party that explains things, that makes them make sense. If they are just the guys shouting bullshit to counter the Republicans' bullshit then that causes voter turn out among moderates and more educated liberals to crater.
Democrats need to win the game correctly. It's difficult but it's the only way they will ever win. Getting into mud throwing contests with the Republicans benefits them and ONLY them.
On November 07 2024 01:27 NewSunshine wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:17 Gorsameth wrote:
On November 07 2024 01:14 EnDeR_ wrote:
On November 07 2024 00:56 Gorsameth wrote: [quote] I'm sure they will find a way to push that back
But wouldn't that massively increase the deficit? Isn't that supposed to be bad for the economy?
Republicans only care about the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House.
See the deficit under Trump increasing every year.
Democrats need to 1000% embrace the Republican tactic of using whatever you can find to bludgeon the other party over the head at all times, regardless of the hypocrisy or the facts. Don't give them room to breathe. The only reason R's get any airtime when they bang on about hypocrisy is because we let them. Jump down their throats and don't let them breathe in the rhetorical space. Democrats have policy that makes things better and they know it. But people don't give a shit about policy, they respond to charisma and "fight". Democrats have been so scared of looking like they might be fighting back that they left the floor open to Trump. They should be rallying and holding addresses to the nation on a weekly basis. Call Republicans out for the fucking spineless cowards they are and stand up on their own two feet as a party.
But also, they should've been doing this since January 2021. If we forget about January 6th it's because the Democrats decided it wasn't that big of a deal.
Fuck.
I’m with Vindicare here. Trump’s own party can’t replicate his shtick, hence him trouncing primaries, the Dems have even less chance.
As you all know I rarely use analogies, but I’m quite a reserved, deadpan, sarcastic kinda guy. One of my best friends is Mr Extrovert, could arrange a date in the 5 minutes he meets some girl at a bus stop etc etc.
He may have had more luck with the ladies, and a totally different kind than kinda my type, but hey I have a niche and did alright. If I had started emulating him, it would have been a disaster as it’s not my manner, and the kinda girls I like also don’t really like the whole ‘alpha male’ shtick either.
I think you can go on the attack, but in a different style.
We need Bernie Sanders to run again. That’s my plan.
Not Bernard Sandals specifically, I kid but that for me is the vague model.
1) He didn’t pull punches 2) He attacked the problems that many people suffer from, but crucially in a more systemic, non-personal fashion 3) He directly linked his critiques with easy to understand solutions 4) Not 100% effectively, but he largely sidestepped too much ‘culture war’ stuff 5) People liked him, or, at least considered him a decent or principled bloke
You can still maintain a passion, some moral outrage that resonates while not diving headfirst into the same sty as a Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders could not even win the Democratic primary. If the Democratic party wants that type of candidate they're truly out of ideas.
He could still win…
I did throw the caveat in that I’m not talking Sanders specifically as a person, but his general approach to campaigning being something I’d emulate, versus emulating Trump or the approach of recent Democratic nominees
My preference is also for his politics, but to clarify I’m also not advocating for that kind of platform to be fully adopted either. Would like it, dunno if it’s too much for the US to stomach.
Trump himself overshadows this quite considerably, and for reasonable enough reasons.
I think people forget that Sanders was the most successful, radical non-establishment candidate in the country for quite some time. Probably since Ross Perot maybe?
You can’t learn anything from the guy with a platform I myself would have considered too left to be even competitive, and his grass roots enthusiasm and financial support?
Trump is the most successful radical non establishment candidate in the country in recent times. I'm sure there's things to learn from Sanders campaigning. That does not make him, or someone like him, a good candidate for the presidential election. It's similar to Corbyn in the UK, popular with the grassroots but a poor candidate in the general elections.
To quote myself ‘Trump himself overshadows this quite considerably, and for reasonable enough reasons. Right before I said about Sanders being the most successful radical candidate since Perot
In my original post, and in this follow-up I literally said and clarified that I was not talking about Sanders as a candidate, nor necessarily a similar platform.
To which you’ve twice replied as if I had said that.
In an ideal world people would agree with me all the time, I can live with that not being the case but it’s actively frustrating if people are replying to things I didn’t say, and indeed stressed I was not saying
Okay, I misunderstood then my bad.
Hey happens to me plenty, no worries.
To clarify, one may disagree with Sanders or his platform, but what he did well, and the Dems have done badly for 3 generals in a row
- ‘I am Bernie Sanders, here’s what I believe and I’ll explain why’. Not ‘I’m not Donald Trump’ or not a Republican
- Acknowledge the very real problems of racism, sexism and general bigotry. But as concepts not labelling half the country as such. This subtle distinction enabled him to talk about those problems and enthuse people who care on those issues, but without alienating folks who rather don’t like being labelled as such.
- Bona fides. One might think his ideas are shit, nobody can realistically argue he’s full of shit on what he believes.
- Be reasonably likeable. And perceived as somewhat authentic.
- Take some risks. I don’t think Sanders going on shows like Rogan and talking unscripted for hours, to a more general, diverse audience was a risk, for him being a minority candidate trying to get exposure. But, I think stage-managing and not taking a risk to sell yourself and your ideas in more diverse environments 100% has harmed candidates. Doubly so if part of your strategy is to appeal to independents and wavering Republicans.
Caveats, I’m not saying he never made the same mistakes as subsequent candidates, or never called someone a racist, or whatever, but his overall approach was quite different to what we’ve seen fail multiple times. And I’m in the crowd who think Trump probably wins last time too but for Covid.
The size of the Trump-Sanders pipeline was exaggerated in quarters, but it sure as hell was bigger than the current Trump-Dem pipeline.
The Democrats desperately need somebody who can do at least some of that. This was initially prompted by some suggestions to go ‘fuck it, just copy what works for Trump’. And my belief that you can’t just transplant those tactics to the Democratic Party.
Who that candidate is and what their platform should be? I really don’t know. I mean, the candidate is Barack Obama 2.0. But they don’t as yet seem to have one of those sitting around.
You take Barack Obama’s clone, his particular skillset, round out the ticket with a reasonably but not crazily progressive running mate, I think you crush it. Hell, the running mate being progressive is IMO sensible but not obligatory. I think that hypothetical ticket crushes Trump, all 3 of these past elections if it existed.
Part of me thinks if you even flipped this ticket around, it might have done better. Not because Walz is a white bloke, but in the limited exposure (and I think his limited timeframe there, also a problem) I got, I felt he did a better job at being relatable and articulating his values and worldview. Actually the kind of appeal that Biden kinda had in his peak years.
Harris, I actually thought did OK, what I saw anyway. But I’m quite partial to competent, details-driven technocratic types. Not saying she’s a technocratic robot, but she grew in my estimation the more exposure I got. However I think myself, DPB and some others who actually value these kind of skills maybe aren’t all that representative of general electorate tastes.
Similarly, I don’t like Hillary Clinton particularly. But, in terms of her actual chops, disregarding policy disagreements, I think she’d have been bloody good at the job. But, the job application as it were requires an almost completely different skillset from the job.
There’s a world I’d like to see, and a world I observe and they can be pretty radically different. I like to think I’m a realist and back some of my observation.
As you mentioned Corbyn, I liked the guy and what he stood for. Unlike real Corbynistas I could observe he also made big mistakes, and had some quite notable flaws.
My entire issue was folks from the centre left frequently sandbagging the guy. There’s an element of ‘look come on he’s won the candidacy, he may lose but give it a fair shot.’
Not just purely out of cosmic fairness, it’s a pragmatic call as well. You’ll need those people, or some of them when your preferred candidate gets in. So, it’s probably wise not piss on their parade.
Labour got away with it this time around, partly because of long-term Tory fatigue, partly because the Truss Premiership was staggeringly, unrecoverably bad. I’m also not saying a centre-pivoting Labour can’t win in another timeframe, but their numbers despite all that really aren’t much better than the unelectable Corbyn first time against May.
Slight similar parallels to Sanders and the perception that there was fuckery from the party machine. Maybe you don’t swing Clinton versus Trump, but I believe a parallel reality where Sanders was let do his thing, lost without that perception existing, you have potentially more people going ‘Hey ok we had our crack, didn’t work
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
I think this is a too-hard-learned lesson. While I don't think there was anything wrong with building a coalition that incidentally includes prominent Republicans as a show of how repugnant the other side is, going out of your way to court a base that has been highly radicalized and insulated from reality is a fools errand...
Who’s doing this strategising?
I don’t understand how you can have smart, savvy political strategists poring over all the numbers going, funded to the teeth and you do this again.
Something some hobbyist discussors on a StarCraft forum largely (from memory) agreed was a fucking daft strategy? Certainly GH and I I remember, I’m pretty sure quite a few more
The mind fucking boggles, it really does.
It was pretty damn clear from almost the off that this was going to be an election about galvanising your bases and driving out turnout. Argh
WORSE! *sigh* SOOooo much worse... This is net 2020 vs 2024
Independents (or something else): +8 R Conservatives: +9 R Moderates: + 11 R
I can't emphasise enough how much the "we need to be more centrist" Democrats need to just be driven out of the party entirely if they can't shut the fuck up and fall in line behind the people that were shouted down by the people that backed Hillary and Biden to appeal to these mythical people that struggle choosing between Democrats and Trump.
This implies there are people to the left to pick up who are willing to vote.
Which might be right, but boy do they do a good job of hiding because I don't think we ever see them.
How can you expect to see them when Democrats exclusively try to pull Republicans, the people who are diametrically opposed to leftists in basically all ways?
If those 10s of millions of hidden American leftists existed, the 2016 and 2020 primaries would have been the time to come out.
They did in 2016 and 2020 and right-wing Democrats conspired to snuff them out.
A lot of the people that generally agree with Democrat's ostensible left oriented values aren't Democrats, especially those that don't typically vote. The US primary system isn't for them anyway.
We'll never know exactly what caused Harris to lose (or at least how to distribute credit among various items on the long list of obvious reasons) but there are certainly indications that Democrat's support for Israel's genocidal campaign was NOT for the votes. Here we see several times more people would have been more likely to vote Democrat had they to vowed to cut off weapons to Israel than less.
On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote: I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But... Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too.
Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country?
Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else?
And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man.
On November 07 2024 05:35 GreenHorizons wrote: We'll never know exactly what caused Harris to lose (or at least how to distribute credit among various items on the long list of obvious reasons) but there are certainly indications that Democrat's support for Israel's genocidal campaign was NOT for the votes. Here we see several times more people would have been more likely to vote Democrat had they to vowed to cut off weapons to Israel than less.
Thanks for posting this. I was curious about the potential trade-off of support based on if Harris was perceived to be going too easy (or too hard... lol) on Israel. It seems that her message was indeed too light for most people's taste.
On November 06 2024 18:36 Uldridge wrote: A surprising amount of things are based on how people feel about a thing. Weird how that works. Even science.
Could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you talking about the scientific process or how non-scientists feel about science?
I'm talking about the process of how we, as humans - organisms that filter a highly selective part of reality - try to understand reality. Don't get me wrong, we understand a vast amount already, but it's possible we're limited in understanding only a fraction of it due to our limitations of the brain. Now, science is a framework that hinges upon the actors being, so to speak, completely objective and truth and reality, or our understanding of that at least, kind of depends on that. Time and time again it has been shown that history, personal and institutional biases, funding etc. get in the way of accurately finding out how things work. People abuse statistics to get more interesting results, replication crisis remains an issue, people try to get funding for potentially futile endeavors because it's trending right now, when other theories that could be as challenging get less because that's how hype and momentum works and humans are not devoid of that.
We can agree on basic facts. We can observe things on our world and we can describe them pretty rigorously. Often times, though, a narrative of reality is created that we adhere to because that's the current hype or does a particular thing in that point in time pretty well, but will then be torn to shreds because it was incomplete or because it was simply wrong. And none of it matters really because at the end of the day all you do as a human is sleep, eat, drink, shit, piss, socialize and if you're lucky fuck. It's a feelings based reality we live in. How much energy do you have today? How hungry are you? Our scientifically based jnfrastructure we have is nice, but... completely unnecessary. I'm starting to ramble now so I'll see myself out.
Thank you for the clarification, I get what you're saying.
The beauty of science is that it is a self-correcting system. If you have bad scientists or bad system implementation (which is what you're describing in the majority of your post), this leads to results that will not be replicated and research that will not lead to new breakthroughs. If you expect scientists to be accurate and correct 100% of the time, that's unfeasible. Mistakes in methodology happen. Data is misinterpreted all the time. It can derail the field in the short term, sure, but in the long-term, no scientist clings to an approach that doesn't work, flawed methodology leads to results that simply do not match reality and are eventually discarded. Scientific consensus emerges and we make progress -- it is designed to be an iterative process after all.
I agree with all of that.
But if the incentives are bad enough, it can lead to all kinds of bodies of horrible research, founded and built upon more horrible research, that people try to shoehorn into ever more aggressively.
Evolution wise, even if a civilization stuck to that, it's likely it would be outcompeted by a civilization that did better science in due course.
At it's worst, you're talking about essentially the next scientific dark age. (No, I don't think this is happening or will happen)
But it can easily set progress back a decade or three.
And cause tremendous pain and wasted energy and resources trying solutions based on science built on a house of cards. Not to mention the issues with creativity and the fact that funding very strongly rewards immediate results doing in paradigm science and shows less interest in studies that accept the null.
I believe we're in the dark ages of scientific research because it's all to do with funding and clout and unwillingness to reflect on biases.
Replication crisis, predatory journals, actual fraudulence in papers (made up data etc), peer reviews being shit at times because reviewers don't like the research due to it clashing with their work or they want to publish that type of research first. It's crazy. People lose faith in the framework because people abuse everything that's built on the solid foundations. In this aspect I don't think science a self correcting thing any longer.
More fundamentally I think it's one of the narratives on how we can shape society, just like religion. It's important becuase it's useful. Make science useless and it's existence stops.
As far as reality goes, a thing I wanted to mention that is very apt right now: no matter the facts, if people feel a certain way, you won't change that by flaunting numbers in their faces. Example: people feel unsafe in public spaces, even though empirically speaking, the crime rate has gone down. Saying this won't make a difference. "Reality" in this case is that people, through a variety of paramaters, feel less safe than it actually is. The idea is the find out why that is, not saying that they're wrong.
I will direct the same question to yourself as I did to L_master. Do you have any evidence that modern science is being misled by these perverse incentives and that the self-correcting nature of the scientific consensus is not working? I would genuinely like to look at this.
On November 06 2024 18:36 Uldridge wrote: A surprising amount of things are based on how people feel about a thing. Weird how that works. Even science.
Could you clarify what you mean by that? Are you talking about the scientific process or how non-scientists feel about science?
I'm talking about the process of how we, as humans - organisms that filter a highly selective part of reality - try to understand reality. Don't get me wrong, we understand a vast amount already, but it's possible we're limited in understanding only a fraction of it due to our limitations of the brain. Now, science is a framework that hinges upon the actors being, so to speak, completely objective and truth and reality, or our understanding of that at least, kind of depends on that. Time and time again it has been shown that history, personal and institutional biases, funding etc. get in the way of accurately finding out how things work. People abuse statistics to get more interesting results, replication crisis remains an issue, people try to get funding for potentially futile endeavors because it's trending right now, when other theories that could be as challenging get less because that's how hype and momentum works and humans are not devoid of that.
We can agree on basic facts. We can observe things on our world and we can describe them pretty rigorously. Often times, though, a narrative of reality is created that we adhere to because that's the current hype or does a particular thing in that point in time pretty well, but will then be torn to shreds because it was incomplete or because it was simply wrong. And none of it matters really because at the end of the day all you do as a human is sleep, eat, drink, shit, piss, socialize and if you're lucky fuck. It's a feelings based reality we live in. How much energy do you have today? How hungry are you? Our scientifically based jnfrastructure we have is nice, but... completely unnecessary. I'm starting to ramble now so I'll see myself out.
Thank you for the clarification, I get what you're saying.
The beauty of science is that it is a self-correcting system. If you have bad scientists or bad system implementation (which is what you're describing in the majority of your post), this leads to results that will not be replicated and research that will not lead to new breakthroughs. If you expect scientists to be accurate and correct 100% of the time, that's unfeasible. Mistakes in methodology happen. Data is misinterpreted all the time. It can derail the field in the short term, sure, but in the long-term, no scientist clings to an approach that doesn't work, flawed methodology leads to results that simply do not match reality and are eventually discarded. Scientific consensus emerges and we make progress -- it is designed to be an iterative process after all.
I agree with all of that.
But if the incentives are bad enough, it can lead to all kinds of bodies of horrible research, founded and built upon more horrible research, that people try to shoehorn into ever more aggressively.
Evolution wise, even if a civilization stuck to that, it's likely it would be outcompeted by a civilization that did better science in due course.
At it's worst, you're talking about essentially the next scientific dark age. (No, I don't think this is happening or will happen)
But it can easily set progress back a decade or three.
And cause tremendous pain and wasted energy and resources trying solutions based on science built on a house of cards. Not to mention the issues with creativity and the fact that funding very strongly rewards immediate results doing in paradigm science and shows less interest in studies that accept the null.
I believe we're in the dark ages of scientific research because it's all to do with funding and clout and unwillingness to reflect on biases.
Replication crisis, predatory journals, actual fraudulence in papers (made up data etc), peer reviews being shit at times because reviewers don't like the research due to it clashing with their work or they want to publish that type of research first. It's crazy. People lose faith in the framework because people abuse everything that's built on the solid foundations. In this aspect I don't think science a self correcting thing any longer.
More fundamentally I think it's one of the narratives on how we can shape society, just like religion. It's important becuase it's useful. Make science useless and it's existence stops.
As far as reality goes, a thing I wanted to mention that is very apt right now: no matter the facts, if people feel a certain way, you won't change that by flaunting numbers in their faces. Example: people feel unsafe in public spaces, even though empirically speaking, the crime rate has gone down. Saying this won't make a difference. "Reality" in this case is that people, through a variety of paramaters, feel less safe than it actually is. The idea is the find out why that is, not saying that they're wrong.
Disclaimer: This is going to be a big block of text and it's barely relevant to the topic at hand (election), so if you're not interested in following this line of discussion, just scroll down now.
A lot of what I'm going to be writing about in this post is based on my experience in the field of psychology. While I absolutely think that research in psychology is usually a science (as in, adhering to the scientific method), there are also situations where I believe it is not a science so it may not be the best fit for this line of discussion opened by @Ender. However, enough people believe in the validity of the field without digging into whether a "consensus" is reached through scientific or unscientific means, and I will be providing some examples which apply to the sciences at large.
I would also like to disclose that I absolutely have a chip on my shoulder about how research is conducted in certain areas of psychology and how conclusions within those fields are arrived at, but I will try to present my position as objectively as possible.
Taking place over 2017 and 2018, their project entailed submitting bogus papers to academic journals on topics from the field of critical social theory such as cultural, queer, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies to determine whether they would pass through peer review and be accepted for publication. Several of these papers were subsequently published, which the authors cited in support of their contention.
The Sokal affair, additionally known as the Sokal hoax,[1] was a demonstrative scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor, specifically to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies—whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross—[would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."[2]
“I had no choice but to commit [research] misconduct,” admits a researcher at an elite Chinese university. The shocking revelation is documented in a collection of several dozen anonymous, in-depth interviews offering rare, first-hand accounts of researchers who engaged in unethical behaviour — and describing what tipped them over the edge. An article based on the interviews was published in April in the journal Research Ethics1.
Based on my personal experience, this issue is definitely not exclusive to China or Chinese researchers. I could speak about this topic at length but the TL;DR here is that there are situations where social, societal, hierarchical, professional, and financial pressures all lead to "bad" science. "Bad" science here being research done in bad faith, more specifically methods which reject data that goes against a hypothesis that is socially beneficial to espouse.
A US-based biophysicist who is one of the world’s most highly cited researchers has been removed from the editorial board of one journal and barred as a reviewer for another, after repeatedly manipulating the peer-review process to amass citations to his own work.
As mentioned above, there is a lot of politics and ego involved in science, because science is conducted by humans who are often bound by politics and ego. This isn't as egregious as submitting entirely fake research and having it published, but it is still a factor in terms of what gets published, who gets published, etc.
5. As Uldridge mentioned, there is also the Replication crisis, which basically infers that a lot of the research we have been relying on for decades has been tainted by the aforementioned "bad" science.
The replication crisis[a] is an ongoing methodological crisis in which the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce. Because the reproducibility of empirical results is an essential part of the scientific method,[2] such failures undermine the credibility of theories building on them and potentially call into question substantial parts of scientific knowledge.
6. At this point I'll go into one of the areas of psychology/psychological research which I was most familiar with due to my work as a research assistant within it. It is also what exposed me to the aforementioned elements of politics, ego, personal sentiment, social pressures, etc. being involved in science.
This was shortly after the reclassification of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) into Gender Dysphoria (GD). I was conducting literature analysis on the presentation of GID and GD in new editions of textbooks in order to determine whether they have changed structurally in order to accommodate this reclassification. In short, my research was inspired by what I would consider to be a "pro"-trans position held by the head researcher, as it sought to evaluate whether the stigma of their condition being a "disorder" was appropriately being mitigated. This is something that I was on board with, because I believe that textbooks should present the most accurate and up-to-date information. For example, if one textbook simply changed the title and text of the subchapter GD without moving it out of the "Disorders" chapter, or if GD was squished firmly between the topics of drug addiction and gambling, then perhaps that publisher is not doing their best in understanding and presenting this change from GID to GD.
At some point, a question arose in my mind: "Why was this change made in the first place?" While the explanation offered by one of the people who was allegedly on the board* which made this decision does a great job of outlining the logic behind it, the under reason is even more simple reason: it offended people.
*I did some cursory research to try to see if I can conclusively place this person on the DSM panel which made this decision, but was unable to do so. However, this is because I'm not finding any comprehensive list anywhere. As it stands, I am inclined to believe that this person was indeed on this panel.
It should be noted that the person who posted this is transgender, which may present a conflict of interest, but it's not a claim I will try to argue here. For example, I'm not sure that we should bar people who have an anxiety disorder from doing research on anxiety disorders. However, when it comes to classification and the writing of definitions, I think that there may be a greater possibility of bias seeping in.
Anyway, from Natalie Walker's explanation, emphasis mine:
The reclassification from an identity issue to a dysphoric issue was a direct result of the stigma and psychological distress of the idea that being transgender was a type of psychiatric disorder, and it absolutely is not.
On the surface, this seems very much in line with the removal of homosexuality from the DSM back in 1973. I could discuss the differences between these two decisions, but this is not the crux of the issue for me. The crux of the issue for me is that because the old classifications offend people, they are changed. What were the studies conducted to support this outcome? I can't imagine that there were any real experiments being conducted (due to obvious ethical restraints). As such, I find this to be - within the context of this discussion - not scientific.
Yet, research within this field seems to be at least somewhat curated by the governing bodies that be. In other words, if your research goes against the grain of the consensus, that research might not be supported by your university, funded, or published. Even if it is published, it may then be removed or censored. In my personal experience, even broaching the topic of conducting research on what may be a sensitive topic for the transgender community can at the very least be heavily discouraged by your research advisors.
For an example beyond my own experience, this article was written by a researcher whose research was allegedly censored because it went against the narrative. Naturally, this is a first-hand source and is thus almost assuredly biased, but I wanted to provide one concrete example within this specific field of research.
I'm not saying that research on these topics doesn't happen. After all, there have been some incendiary studies published which report on the prevalent comorbidity of narcissism and GID, as well as some research looking into the hypothesis that there is a prevalent comorbidity with autism (and thus that autism may be a contributing factor to GID). My point is that this type of research is difficult to get off the ground, raises eyebrows, and can receive significant negative backlash. I believe it was Uldridge that mentioned that publishing certain kinds of research can end a person's career. There are many self-reported cases of "blackballing" in various fields of academia for this very reason.
I want to be clear that this is not exclusive to the hot button issue of GID and transgender rights. For example, studies on the performance of women vs. men in various disciplines are also affected. I can't find the article now, but one researcher had their research approved for publishing but then the governing body retracted it before publication, meaning that the researcher cannot publish it in a different journal and that no one can read it, either. The were then fired from their position at a western university, which they alleged was because female researchers at their university went on a warpath against them. Why? Because they went against the currently established narrative that women are equal to men in all ways, and thus any findings which purport that women might perform worse in math-related subjects is seen as actively harmful to women, and thus the research has effectively been sealed. I wish I could find this article but I have to head out soon and am running out of time; I'm sure I have it saved somewhere, so if I run into it later I will add it here.
Now, I'm not saying that I believe that men are superior to women in math. I just find it unscientific that research which supports this position doesn't see the light of day due to politics and individual feelings, while research supporting absolute equality is incredibly well-represented. Science, in my opinion, should not be constrained by optics.
Anyway, I'll circle back to ask: why is GID present in the most up-to-date DSM while something like Body Identity Dysphoria/body integrity identity disorder - roughly, the desire to have a limb amputated - is not? Why do we perform gender-affirming surgeries on people and give them hormone treatments, while the idea of operating on someone with BID/BIID generally dismissed? Representation, politics, and bias are almost certainly contributing factors - and this is almost assuredly the case in other areas of academia as well.
Definitely some disciplines are more vulnerable to bad actors than others, with psychology being a prime candidate. Likewise with high impact fields such as anything to do with medicine, where success leads to lots of research funding and even possibly fame, creating an environment where lying to succeed becomes, if not commonplace, uncomfortably common as was pointed out in the study that Uldridge linked and the more recent one I found. Nevertheless, you're still talking about less than 3% of total scientists, or, in other words, 97% of scientists are honest. That's a pretty big number.
I would argue that the fact that stuff like the reproducibility project has sprung up as a result of the 'reproducibility crisis' is the self-correcting nature of Science taking direct action. A bunch of researchers realised that a lot of the stuff couldn't be reproduced and was built on very shaky foundations, so they came up with new publishing standards and methodology to ensure that future publications are proofed against this. Again, it's an iterative process. It does not require everyone to get everything right all of the time.
Regarding the discussion about research into hot-button topics like "are men better than women" and "should trans people be classified as having a mental disorder": If you actually look at the literature, it is absolutely chock full of articles comparing men vs women in every imaginable combination of tasks, etc. with many finding differences. What is your contention?
I was mostly addressing the first half of your initial queation ("Do you have any evidence that modern science is being misled by these perverse incentives") more so than the latter (self-correction working). I agree with basically everything you've written here.
The only thing I'd reiterate is that even if there is published research which finds a hypothesis to be true (A) and there is research which finds the same hypothesis to not be true (B), that doesn't mean that they both had the same journey toward publication. A may have received generous funding, tons of support from the university, and was welcomed with open arms by a publisher. Meanwhile the researcher behind B lost support when it became evident that their research was going against the established belief, they were ridiculed by their colleagues and superiors, they had to apply to a different university to conduct research there instead, then they were stonewalled by the top journals and could only get published in a minor journal with little recognition and reach. In fact, the researcher behind B wasn't the first one to try, there were many others before them who for one reason or another didn't manage to or didn't want to overcome all of these obstacles. That in itself is the evidence of politics and bad actors in academic research, though I do agree with you that some fields are naturally more susceptible to this than others.
I'd also like to posit that improvement/revision in one field or on one topic does not necessarily imply that it happens everywhere and always, again due to the potential difficulty of even getting approval for research which goes against the grain, much less have it be objectively peer-reviewed and published.
This is very vague. You only get in high impact journals if the result is surprising or explains some major mechanism, I.e. you've contributed a major insight. Researcher B that you're describing has a better chance of getting into a high impact publication than researcher A to be perfectly honest, assuming the methodology is solid. The funding system is designed so the cost is paid upfront, so if you got the funding, you get to do the research. To do more research, you need to apply for more funding. You don't always get that funding.
On November 07 2024 01:37 Timebon3s wrote: Now that the dust has settled and Trump won by a landslide, why wasn’t there more voters in favor of him here on this forum? Is this a very left-leaning forum, or are people simply afraid of saying they support Trump?
Mabye it won’t be as bad as people think. As far as Europe is concerned, he actually made NATO stronger, which is good for my country at least. He’s also said he will try to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia. If that means Ukraine need to give up territory to Russia, and then get membership in NATO, that sounds like a good long term solution.
And he also managed to get a dialogue going with North Korea.
Let’s hope for a positive future instead of only focusing on the negative.
How is Trump in any way responsible for Norway joining NATO? He gets credited for so much stuff he doesn't have anything to do with or even counteracted against. If he would be have been at the helm when Putin invaded we would be in a very different world. He basically wants to abolish NATO to get better deals i guess?
Dialogue with North Korea? Are you kidding?
He isn’t responsible for Norway joining nato. But he made the members of NATO pay more money to NATO.
Peace begins with dialogue. At least he’s trying.
Making my point. That wasn't him. It was Russia attacking Ukraine causing this.
It was him. He did this before the war.
Hey I can’t remember the timeline, I’ll trust your recollection
Any credit there will be immediately wiped out, and then some if his administration completely cut off support to Ukraine.
Like great, Americans feel a bit better that some of the European members are pumping more in to NATO. It’s not even entirely unreasonable, hey fair enough
If Trump then fucks off US support for NATO at one of those rare occasions where it’s actually needed to do what it was created to do, all of that is moot and it’s an abject foreign policy failure.
Unless there’s some other scenario where he can drag Putin to heel somehow, and negotiate an acceptable peace. I.e. not having Russia incorporate Ukraine.
That would be an impressive foreign policy achievement.
My prediction is Trump’s weaknesses will bite him in the ass now he’s got some genuinely complicated foreign policy waters to negotiate. But, I may be wrong. I like being smug and correct, but I’d much rather be wrong here!
The problem with his foreign policy is pretty much his general approach to anything. Everything is transactional, and because he doesn’t really believe in genuine cooperation, he’s immediately distrustful and disdainful of those who do.
We’re one punch away from a reasonable foreign policy one-two punch. For me.
Step 1 - The US stops trying to be the world’s policeman. I think it’s fair to say he ticks this box. Step 2 - The US maintains alliances with historic allies, or those of aligned values, and empowers them and cooperative institutions. Those can pick up slack, so things don’t have to go to shit and harm US interests, or some greater good, but the US isn’t doing all the heavy lifting.
Foreign policy requires some alacrity and a balance of cracking the whip and handing out carrots.
Look I’m going into future hypotheticals but, let’s assume Trump does go all-in on his trade war with China. That’s going to have nasty knock-on effects all over the world.
What’s the next biggest economic bloc in the world, full of historic American allies? Why it’s the EU/Europe. More neutral but also not gigantic fans of China and Chinese ambitions either. I doubt thrilled with the prospect of a trade war, perhaps amenable to some cooperation on China, perhaps not.
They sure as fuck will be less likely to play ball if in the rough same timespan Trump pulls US support from the biggest national security crisis in mainland Europe in quite some time.
That’s a lot of information and I’ll be honest in saying I don’t know as much as you do about this. I just remember he made the other countries pay up and make NATO stronger, which in my eyes is a good thing.
He also said he wanted to end the war and stop people from dying. We are now at the point of Ukraine running out of young men to send into the meat grinder.. this 3 day operation has been going on for way too long now.
IF he actually can do something to stop this madness, that will make up for a lot of the crazy shit he’s said and done in my eyes. And perhaps people will think twice before calling him Hitler :-)
I’m in a wall of text mood, so apologies for that but I would give it a re-read.
To summarise a little quicker.
Getting NATO’s other members to pay a bit more, I can’t really disagree with that. But (if) you pull out of helping the Ukrainian conflict, it’s pointless because you have power that even with a giant European commitment they can’t easily compensate for.
Let’s say I’ve been drinking with my buddies for 30 years every week. I’m a little more flush than them, so I’m picking up the majority of the tab. This is maybe a bit unfair and annoys me, so eventually I persuade them to chip in a bit more. But then I just stop going to the bar and hanging out with them, so I’ve pissed money away for 30 years anyway, but I reap none of the benefits from my buddies finally throwing in a bit more cash.
The real central problem with Trump’s foreign policy is that it purports to be isolationist, but isn’t really. It’s a have your cake and eat it too scenario. It still wants to be King of the Castle, but without paying for the upkeep.
And it offers simple solutions, to rather complex problems.
Why it appeals to some, entirely understandable. War is bad, people don’t like funding wars, especially foreign ones.
I can totally empathise with the appeal, but there are consequences. Peace and Ukrainians and Russians no longer going home in body bags is a rather desirous outcome. But at what tradeoff? A reasonable negotiated peace, or Russia controlling Ukraine and edging ever further in Europe?
Many Americans don’t like the prospect of China outstripping them. OK but talk of a trade war isn’t isolationist foreign policy. And not good economic policy.
It’s effectively motivated by the US starting to experience what the rest of the world has had 70 years to adjust to, in terms of the status of the US
Hey I’m only going off Trump’s stated platforms, it remains to be seen what actually is done.
On November 07 2024 05:35 GreenHorizons wrote: We'll never know exactly what caused Harris to lose (or at least how to distribute credit among various items on the long list of obvious reasons) but there are certainly indications that Democrat's support for Israel's genocidal campaign was NOT for the votes. Here we see several times more people would have been more likely to vote Democrat had they to vowed to cut off weapons to Israel than less.
Thanks for posting this. I was curious about the potential trade-off of support based on if Harris was perceived to be going too easy (or too hard... lol) on Israel. It seems that her message was indeed too light for most people's taste.
I like Kevin O'leary's perspective on the US economy. I am optimistic for the future of the US.
@3:00 "lower input costs of energy".... bang on! This is also killing the Canadian economy. This will force Canada to burn coal and bring down its energy prices as well. Like Mr. O'leary i am excited about the possibilities.
On November 07 2024 05:12 Timebon3s wrote: He also said he wanted to end the war and stop people from dying. We are now at the point of Ukraine running out of young men to send into the meat grinder.. this 3 day operation has been going on for way too long now.
This is where South Korea's low birth rate is having an impact. South Korea has a shortage of young men they can stick on the border of North Korea. This allows North Korea to send troops into the Ukraine to help Russia without any fears of South Korea doing anything.
If South Korea goes another 20 years with its current birth rate this decreases their viability as an independent nation. I wonder if Russia with return the favour to North Korea and send troops to the Korean border once the Ukraine conflict settles down?
On November 07 2024 01:37 Timebon3s wrote: Now that the dust has settled and Trump won by a landslide, why wasn’t there more voters in favor of him here on this forum? Is this a very left-leaning forum, or are people simply afraid of saying they support Trump?
Mabye it won’t be as bad as people think. As far as Europe is concerned, he actually made NATO stronger, which is good for my country at least. He’s also said he will try to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia. If that means Ukraine need to give up territory to Russia, and then get membership in NATO, that sounds like a good long term solution.
And he also managed to get a dialogue going with North Korea.
Let’s hope for a positive future instead of only focusing on the negative.
How is Trump in any way responsible for Norway joining NATO? He gets credited for so much stuff he doesn't have anything to do with or even counteracted against. If he would be have been at the helm when Putin invaded we would be in a very different world. He basically wants to abolish NATO to get better deals i guess?
Dialogue with North Korea? Are you kidding?
He isn’t responsible for Norway joining nato. But he made the members of NATO pay more money to NATO.
Peace begins with dialogue. At least he’s trying.
Making my point. That wasn't him. It was Russia attacking Ukraine causing this.
It was him. He did this before the war.
Hey I can’t remember the timeline, I’ll trust your recollection
Any credit there will be immediately wiped out, and then some if his administration completely cut off support to Ukraine.
Like great, Americans feel a bit better that some of the European members are pumping more in to NATO. It’s not even entirely unreasonable, hey fair enough
If Trump then fucks off US support for NATO at one of those rare occasions where it’s actually needed to do what it was created to do, all of that is moot and it’s an abject foreign policy failure.
Unless there’s some other scenario where he can drag Putin to heel somehow, and negotiate an acceptable peace. I.e. not having Russia incorporate Ukraine.
That would be an impressive foreign policy achievement.
My prediction is Trump’s weaknesses will bite him in the ass now he’s got some genuinely complicated foreign policy waters to negotiate. But, I may be wrong. I like being smug and correct, but I’d much rather be wrong here!
The problem with his foreign policy is pretty much his general approach to anything. Everything is transactional, and because he doesn’t really believe in genuine cooperation, he’s immediately distrustful and disdainful of those who do.
We’re one punch away from a reasonable foreign policy one-two punch. For me.
Step 1 - The US stops trying to be the world’s policeman. I think it’s fair to say he ticks this box. Step 2 - The US maintains alliances with historic allies, or those of aligned values, and empowers them and cooperative institutions. Those can pick up slack, so things don’t have to go to shit and harm US interests, or some greater good, but the US isn’t doing all the heavy lifting.
Foreign policy requires some alacrity and a balance of cracking the whip and handing out carrots.
Look I’m going into future hypotheticals but, let’s assume Trump does go all-in on his trade war with China. That’s going to have nasty knock-on effects all over the world.
What’s the next biggest economic bloc in the world, full of historic American allies? Why it’s the EU/Europe. More neutral but also not gigantic fans of China and Chinese ambitions either. I doubt thrilled with the prospect of a trade war, perhaps amenable to some cooperation on China, perhaps not.
They sure as fuck will be less likely to play ball if in the rough same timespan Trump pulls US support from the biggest national security crisis in mainland Europe in quite some time.
That’s a lot of information and I’ll be honest in saying I don’t know as much as you do about this. I just remember he made the other countries pay up and make NATO stronger, which in my eyes is a good thing.
He also said he wanted to end the war and stop people from dying. We are now at the point of Ukraine running out of young men to send into the meat grinder.. this 3 day operation has been going on for way too long now.
IF he actually can do something to stop this madness, that will make up for a lot of the crazy shit he’s said and done in my eyes. And perhaps people will think twice before calling him Hitler :-)
I’m in a wall of text mood, so apologies for that but I would give it a re-read.
To summarise a little quicker.
Getting NATO’s other members to pay a bit more, I can’t really disagree with that. But (if) you pull out of helping the Ukrainian conflict, it’s pointless because you have power that even with a giant European commitment they can’t easily compensate for.
Let’s say I’ve been drinking with my buddies for 30 years every week. I’m a little more flush than them, so I’m picking up the majority of the tab. This is maybe a bit unfair and annoys me, so eventually I persuade them to chip in a bit more. But then I just stop going to the bar and hanging out with them, so I’ve pissed money away for 30 years anyway, but I reap none of the benefits from my buddies finally throwing in a bit more cash.
The real central problem with Trump’s foreign policy is that it purports to be isolationist, but isn’t really. It’s a have your cake and eat it too scenario. It still wants to be King of the Castle, but without paying for the upkeep.
And it offers simple solutions, to rather complex problems.
Why it appeals to some, entirely understandable. War is bad, people don’t like funding wars, especially foreign ones.
I can totally empathise with the appeal, but there are consequences. Peace and Ukrainians and Russians no longer going home in body bags is a rather desirous outcome. But at what tradeoff? A reasonable negotiated peace, or Russia controlling Ukraine and edging ever further in Europe?
Many Americans don’t like the prospect of China outstripping them. OK but talk of a trade war isn’t isolationist foreign policy. And not good economic policy.
It’s effectively motivated by the US starting to experience what the rest of the world has had 70 years to adjust to, in terms of the status of the US
Hey I’m only going off Trump’s stated platforms, it remains to be seen what actually is done.
There's a factor here you're not accounting for.
Pettiness.
Americans, especially American Conservatives are REALLY sick and tired of hearing about how wonderful Europe's social programs are. How everyone gets to go to college for free, and everyone gets amazing health care for free.
It is a serious point of annoyance among more conservative American voters that Europe basically gets to live smug and happy under the protective blanket of the American Military.
So when Trump goes and destabilzes all of that, he's doing to the Europeans exactly what he's doing to the American left. He's just going in and making a mess of everything and that makes the American Conservative happy who is happy to see the smug Europeans take a big cold shower.
The fact that it helps out Russia and that Russia IS our geopolitical enemy isn't as important to them.
On November 07 2024 04:53 Introvert wrote: I have a bit of anecdata... at work taking to a 30 yr old, devout Catholic Mexican-American woman. She didn't vote, but when I brought it up she said after asking me who I wanted to win, before I even finished volunteered that Kamala was "terrible, like really bad." Said her brother voted Trump because of the economy, one sister and brother in law voted Trump also, and another sister and brother in law were also (?) Dems but undecided. "I asked why were they thinking about voting for her, she is against everything you believe."
Atm, Trump is doing far, far better with Hispanics and Catholics ever before. Sure, much of that is the economy (her brother's vote).
But... Devout Christians knew she wasn't on their side, knew she'd use the power of the state to coerce their schools and hospitals. It might be why Trump is getting 40% in CA rn.
This actually gives me hope, nit only might we finally witness the end of the "coalition of the ascendant" thst dems have been trying to make happen for two decades now, but it seems like the categorical rejection of Harris really is a blow against Dems lurch to the left on so many social and cultural issues. Some dem senate candidates will win or almost win where Trump won, but they stayed away from Harris like the plague (Rosen in NV and Baldwin in WI). They have to at least appear more moderate. Iirc Casey in PA was running ads about working with Trump. There is no silver lining in the presidential race, she and what people thought she stood for was rejected by the most diverse Republican vote in modern history.
And finally, Trump outran the rest of the GOP everywhere. This again is giving vibes to the last century, the FDR coalition didn't crack all at once (you could argue it's still cracking) but Republicans started winning the South with the presidency before it trickled down. There is a change happening here, and it's fascinating to watch. He is not an anchor, at least not this year.
Of course we have to remember thet much of this is because Kamala Harris sucks, too.
Do you believe in the separation of church and state? that the US should be a secular country?
Do you think that perhaps these devout Christians actually want a Christian nationalist state that imposes their Christian values on everyone else?
And also, Trump is the living embodiment of the 7 deadly sins, he fills every single one of them. lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I question any devout Christian that would vote for such a man.
The US is curious in from its nascency being avowedly secular, but the culture really not reflecting that.
I know many a devout religious person over here, those I’m friendly with are absolutely down with secularism, provided there’s not some very specific targeting of their religion.
France’s bans of various Islamic garb I think is probably a better example of a very proudly secular nation actively going against those principles.
However I have also known many a devoutly religious person who wants the state to impose it, and the US sure as fuck seems to have a lot of those.
Some folks are earnest in beliefs I may not share, some people are just full of shit and disingenuous framing. The US is also bloody full of the latter.
Atypically so, compared to other similar nations.
I’m not going Euro supremacy here, it’s not orders of magnitudes of difference. We’ve the same problems, but they’re less extreme by 5, 10% or whatever. Just pick an arbitrary number, I’m not claiming it’s empirical.
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
On November 07 2024 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote: This should end Democrats insistence on trying to appeal to Republicans rather than motivating/engaging the 10's of millions of people that mostly agree with them (at least their ostensible views) but don't typically vote for a variety of reasons.
For all their appeals to Republicans, supporting a immigration crackdown, backing genocide, and palling around with Cheney on stage, they made negative progress
I think this is a too-hard-learned lesson. While I don't think there was anything wrong with building a coalition that incidentally includes prominent Republicans as a show of how repugnant the other side is, going out of your way to court a base that has been highly radicalized and insulated from reality is a fools errand...
Who’s doing this strategising?
I don’t understand how you can have smart, savvy political strategists poring over all the numbers going, funded to the teeth and you do this again.
Something some hobbyist discussors on a StarCraft forum largely (from memory) agreed was a fucking daft strategy? Certainly GH and I I remember, I’m pretty sure quite a few more
The mind fucking boggles, it really does.
It was pretty damn clear from almost the off that this was going to be an election about galvanising your bases and driving out turnout. Argh
WORSE! *sigh* SOOooo much worse... This is net 2020 vs 2024
Independents (or something else): +8 R Conservatives: +9 R Moderates: + 11 R
I can't emphasise enough how much the "we need to be more centrist" Democrats need to just be driven out of the party entirely if they can't shut the fuck up and fall in line behind the people that were shouted down by the people that backed Hillary and Biden to appeal to these mythical people that struggle choosing between Democrats and Trump.
This implies there are people to the left to pick up who are willing to vote.
Which might be right, but boy do they do a good job of hiding because I don't think we ever see them.
How can you expect to see them when Democrats exclusively try to pull Republicans, the people who are diametrically opposed to leftists in basically all ways?
If those 10s of millions of hidden American leftists existed, the 2016 and 2020 primaries would have been the time to come out.
They did in 2016 and 2020 and right-wing Democrats conspired to snuff them out.
A lot of the people that generally agree with Democrat's ostensible left oriented values aren't Democrats, especially those that don't typically vote. The US primary system isn't for them anyway.
They were outnumbered. The effort required to participate is minimal, that's exactly how Corbyn was voted in charge of Labour. A lot of people signed up specifically to elect him, membership increased by 50% leading up to the vote. Though we're talking much smaller party membership numbers overall there.
I don't think that bloc is as large as you want to believe it is, but I do think Bernie would have done better nationally. Not because of any left-right calculus, rather because he doesn't make stupid people feel stupid.
EPT
