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Are you considering the resources it takes to replace that working appliance? Some estimates place one smartphone to consume an average of 1 gigajoule of energy and 13 tons of water to manufacture.

https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Housing costs are up in some markets due to the return to normal interest rates thanks to the thriving economy and very low unemployment rate.

The gig economy is tiny, not a factor at all.

I agree with you about government partisanship, it's always been a mess although it seems to have gotten worse over the last 25 years. But read up on some of the things that happened during the first 50 years of USA history - how about the Vice President shooting one of his political rivals?

Of course there will be a recession at some point in the future, just no signs of one today.

I'm not getting where you think that terrorism is rare in the US. Are you one of these people who ignores terrorism when it's not being done by brown people?

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...
https://www.csis.org/analysis/...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1...

Have you already forgotten about the massacres at the Orlando Yoga studio, the Tree of Life synagogue, Cesar Altieri Sayoc, Jr's attempts to bomb 13 Democratic politicians and CNN, Gregory Bush's murder at a Kroger grocery store of two black men following a failed attempt to shoot up a church, the murder of MeShon Cooper, the terrorist threats against the Jamaat ul Muttaqeen mosque in Pembroke Pines, Florida, the Waffle House restaurant killings, the Parkland shootings, and the murder of Blaze Bernstein (killed by a self-described Nazi because he was gay and Jewish)?

Because those were all LAST YEAR. I didn't even mention anything from this year.

You think America has "near zero" "attempted" terrorism in the US? Really?

Hey Lesbo, check this out: How Subarus Came to Be Seen as Cars for Lesbians.

https://www.theatlantic.com/he...
https://www.independent.co.uk/...

Oh so the system works much worse(on average!) than other countries who use a less capitalistic system because it is not capitalistic enough!
I'm not going to defend my parent post since it lacks all nuance, but I read this https://www.theatlantic.com/ed... and it does point to the capilist mechanisms

Average income after paying for essentials is less than $1000/mo. Even if you look at just the $50k-$70k income range, it's only about $1200/mo. At $7/mo, you're spending ($7/$1200) = 0.6% of that on headphones. Or put another way, you can only afford to own 171 such toys. Even a minimalist owns 1.5x as many things. What you're proposing is not a sustainable lifestyle unless your income is substantially higher.

(Of course the counterargument is that you shouldn't be buying these unless you're making six figures. You should be buying wireless headphones which cost on the order of $25 instead.)

You know nothing of history.

I do, and also that patterns change. The USA hasn't taken over Canada even though it would be fairly easy to do with a military sized to occupy a planet, why? Why did they give up on invading Cuba? Why has no other recent US President considered annexing Venezuela and taking their oil just for shits n' giggles? Why hasn't the US just nuked North Korea? The reason: Diplomacy - that shit works, and the world uses it more these days. I admit it's easy to miss, but we have progressed a bit from being warring tribes of cavemen in areas other than technology.

The cost of that happening is massive "in blood and treasure". No. You deter violence, you don't wait for it to happen to you. Strength is the only way to deter a bully, or a psychopath.

There's a time when presenting strength makes sense, and it comes just before deterring violence. When Russia's fucking with former satellite states on the other side of the planet, participating in arms races but otherwise posing no physical threat to the US? Not a good time. Presenting strength unnecessarily does approximately nothing for a lot of money at best, or causes escalation at worst. You'll also note that military strength did not deter the Nazis from invading Russia.

There are no bullies that pose a physical threat to the US right now. Keep in mind that having the capability to pose a threat is not the same as posing a threat. Russia and China bully the little countries in their back yards, and of course Russia is the world's top information warfare threat, but they're not thinking about invading the US.

Teddy Roosevelt got it right - walk softly and carry a big stick.

They do most decidedly not "collect everything"

Hahaha, the stupid guy thinks himself a privy to the inner workings of the intelligence services.

their collection methods would be far too easy to detect.

LOL, the stupid guy must have missed the stories about NSA having those little taps to all the telecom communications infrastructure, from the warmth of the offices of the telecom companies themselves to the cold of the bottom of the ocean. And we're not even touching their antenna business.

You must be really, really stupid to think that someone will go to these lengths to collect data and then don't collect and keep all of it. In an age when even a private company keeps all they can, even after a user asks for it to be "deleted"?

You're not just stupid, you're a certified idiot with less than amoeba intelligence and zero critical skills.

The ethos of "coding" is one of the reasons why IT is such a mess: https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

Like weather predictions of 30% chance of rain at 2 pm, did it actually rain 30% of the time?

That sort of research is done all the time. Usually it's on far more specific parts of weather models than the overall model. Weather models are ridiculously complicated, and scientists spend a lot of time on minor components of them like modeling aerosols better since they form the nuclei of clouds and thus rain, or the vertical humidity profile, or boundary layer dynamics. There are so many minor processes that make up weather that most of the research effort goes into things that 99.9% of the population never will even know even exist. In conjunction, all of these things will be what predict rain or temperature at a certain time.

However, once in awhile someone revisits the models as a whole, and you get something like this: http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~pu/...

For hurricanes in particular: http://science.sciencemag.org/...
(If you want the pop journalism coverage of that article: https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ma...

Yeah...

Just like bacteria that were found to be penicillin resistant decades BEFORE we started using penicillin...

like this article says:

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

Penicillin is use by bacteria to defend themselves. Of course there are other bacteria that are resistant to it! That's how bactiera A can eat bactiera B! Bacteria A are resistant to the effects of bacteria B's defenses, penicillin.

We "discovered" it thousands of years after bacteria had. So obviously there are many bacteria out there in the world who know how to defend against penicillin, it's not a cure-all, it's a defense.

Though I think I'm missing an article that I read a few days ago and... can't be found. Pffft.

I should mention that the discoverer did say that we shouldn't over-prescribe penicillin due to the likelyhood of transferred immunity, but... seems that a number of greedy nations paid no attention that, and went for the money instead of life.

I said that I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I'm talking about my own feelings on the matter. I could have said that I genuinely wouldn't be surprised just as easily. I'm quite sure I can gauge my own feelings accurately enough. What's the alternative, that it would come as a great shock to me if this author were writing stories based on payment received? If you think that I'm claiming that the author is honestly or truly corrupt, then it would be you who is confused by words or being deliberately obtuse. The only claim I make is on my own feelings about this content.

Do I have any evidence to believe that this particular author is guilty of anything? No, and frankly it's not really worth my time to do additional research. I just merely suspect that it's possible based on the titles of some other articles that he's written. Why do I believe that such is possible. The answer is because it wouldn't be the first time it's happened. There was a scandal just last year over a large number of YouTube creators being paid shills for a company and promoting a service in dishonest ways. I think there's a good deal of difference between popular YouTubers and professional journalists, but simply being trained to act in an ethically responsible manner is no guarantee of it. Plenty of

Best case scenario, this guy is an idiot for creating an obvious marketing piece for free which just encourages more companies to engage in this type of otherwise useless attention seeking. In a worse case, he's a corrupt idiot that abuses the trust of his audience by creating paid promotions. A cursory glance at the titles of other articles by this author suggests to me that he writes a fair number of pieces that are little more than advertisements. If he wanted a more honest experience, why not spend a week (or even just several days if that's all he can spare) in VR for himself, or speak with and interview researchers who may have studied the effects of prolonged VR exposure and use? You know, something that might be more informative and not look like an advertisement.

You must have your own reality distortion field and in your fluffy bunny world it was Google who invented the modern smart phone and touch UI?
Oh dear...
The Day Google had to start over on Android
I love reminding you sad, deluded Fandroids that it was Google, and it always will be, who were the original copycats of Apples genius and design.
From the article:

"Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”"

For this reason most well-designed social science experiments have moderate sample sizes. Experiments with a moderate number of subjects are affordable, practical, and are biased to false negatives; that means you are less likely to get statistically significant but practically insignificant results. Typical sample sizes (when they can be gotten) are in the 20-50 range. 80 is on the high end, but a *negative* result from a largish sample size is actually pretty robust. Either the differences between fans is non-existent, or it's very small, which is practically speaking the same thing.

Most social science experiments, well actually probably the overwhelming majority, are not well-designed. Have you heard of the replication crisis?

The problem is that most social scientists do not understand mathematics, let alone statistics (a complicated subject with many caveats and nuances) very well. They rote-learn the equations and methods without fully understanding them (or understanding them at all) - I've seen in this practice.

Therefore, whenever you see a study with a sample of 80 (or a few hundred) claiming this or that, the default reaction should be extreme doubt in the results.

It's a little more complicated than that. I don't get people who don't get nuance. https://www.theatlantic.com/ma...

Agreed, that is a dangerous slipperly slope. Today's justification for censorship is that it for health reasons but who knows if tomorrow it will be for political reasons? One only needs to look at China and how the number 64 is banned since it is a reference to the Tiananmen Square protests. Yes, a fucking number is banned in China. That's where this stupidity ends.

What's that quote by Martin Niemoller ?

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

Maybe it needs to be updated for the modern times?

First, they came for Alex Jones and I did not speak out -- because I didn't believe in stupid Conspiracy Theories
Then they came for the Anti-vaxxers and I did not speak out -- because I didn't believe in anti medicine.
Then they came for "Hate Speech" and I did not speak out -- because anyone with a brain knows speech has no feelings.
Then they came for the ____
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me because everyone else had been silenced and afraid to state their opinion for fear of being fired or ostracized.

How is the rest of the narrative going to be written over the next decade?

or about men falling behind in higher education

In US, boys are behind at all stages. And for decades.

Stop using the "Fire in a Crowded Theater" argument

It is interesting. If this is a common pattern (and I think it is), that means Facebook is the best place for an education campaign. This is a democracy with free speech (more or less) and we're not meant to solve problems of ignorance through government force or corporate censorship, but by winning in the marketplace of ideas.

Actually being right is a huge advantage in convincing people that you're right. The budget needed to drown Facebook in pro-Vax truth is tiny by government standards, especially if Facebook decides to give some free "air time" to the cause.

That' a nice idea but there is a body of research that shows exposing people to counter arguments, however factual, just hardens their viewpoint rather than changing it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

https://www.scientificamerican...

They also tend to change the argument to avoid facing inconvenient facts.

https://www.scientificamerican...

Yet another person who fails to understand the First Amendment. It protects you and me from the government. It does not protect you and me from each other -- or in this case, Amazon.

Yeah, that's right! Because Amazon is a private corporation, not some clandestine government front for unconstitutional activities.

But if we're talking about 2nd-tier superpowers like Russia destroying satellites they don't own, (destroying ones you do is bad enough...) that's Defcon 1+x.

I think they'd prefer to be less directly attributable in such attacks. Of course, they aren't exactly subtle.

LEO mostly clears itself in a few dozen years just from drag. If we really blew it we could use nuclear weapons to clear it out, or less ultimate measures. It would cost a shit tonne of money and set the world back decades.

But if we're at this point, yes, these are the stakes, and a traitor is in charge! Literally.

The problem with capitalism today, is it is in a feedback loop where the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. The richer you are the lower your interest rates are on a loan because you are considered a safer investment. The poorer you are the higher your interest rates, because you are a high risk. It is more expensive to be poor, so you have less money to save and use to get out the cycle. While when one is rich they have excess capital, which they just can reinvest and use to increase their profits.

True, the rich are getting richer, but not at the expense of the poor.

If the poor were getting poorer, it would be better to be poor 50 years ago than to be poor today, right? But -- speaking for myself -- I'd much prefer to be poor today. The capitalist system has enabled the number of millionaires and billionaires to grow... but has also benefited the poor. Clothing, and food are all more affordable now than they used to be. Affordability of essentials is important to the poor. In 1950, food expense took up 1/3 of a household budget; now it's less than half that. And technology is now widely available to members of all social classes. Last year's billionaire smartphone (iPhone 6) is today's a middle class device.

And technology has enabled new businesses to form. That excess capital that funded eBay has allowed for thousands of small businesses to launch. That's a good thing for the lower class. On top of that, one of the billionaires created by eBay is giving it all away.

Yes, just like the piles of abandoned rental bikes in China. Well it will be a convenient source of metals for future generations, unless they get classified as historical artifacts.

Innocent people don't regularly accept Plea Bargains.

Yes they do:

Plea bargaining and the innocent

Innocent people are pleading guilty

Innocence is irrelevant

Why innocent people plead guilty

How to convince an innocent client to plead guilty

Moose calves die if they have too many ticks.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

I don't know much about horse flies though.

Since you did not provide a source, I found an article on Politifact's site which contained a few of these numbers here. It seems to ramble, and appears to be an opinion piece.

There are some better statistics that you can examine from the Associated Press, The Atlantic, and WalletHub, and The Tax Foundation

The Tax Foundation tracks the numbers back to 1981.

https://people.howstuffworks.com/which-states-give-the-most-the-federal-government-which-get-the-most.htm

After reading all of these, I am inclined to believe that you were fishing for something that would reinforce your opinion.

You can't fool all the people, all the time.

To me personally the golden age of air travel was the early Seventies. Everyday passengers could enjoy the mass comfort of three competing widebodies, while wealthy early adopters could go supersonic on the Concorde.

You mean back in the 1970's when the government mandated that flights costs three to five times more in inflation adjusted dollars. You can still get that service, just fly first class which provides those same amenities at those 1970's prices. Also, those supersonic flights weren't really that comfortable - the seats were cramped, and it was super noisy - the only redeeming grace was that you saved an hour or two on your flight, and you could brag that you had the money to blow on such a "luxury."

Well some medically uninsurable people used the government funded jail / prison system for medically needs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/he...

Yeah, the linked article can't even manage to be factually accurate at the most basic level. For example, Men are a majority now? Nope.

There is no institutional bias against men? The author of the article has apparently never heard of schools, or universities, who literally advertise that they don't accept men for everything from scholarships to groups and centers paid for by male student fees.

Oh man, and is this ever causing a problem. Males are a marked minority among college students https://www.theatlantic.com/ed... and getting worse.

Very little attention ois being paid to this at the college level, I suspect that it is considered a little less of a problem for the victims - but it is the beginnings of a real problem. The path chosen for modern women is to get a degree, then work until your mid 30's early 40's, then find a husband and immediately start fertility treatments in order to have a child.

But these ladies are having a problem finding a male that meets their expectation. To Google "where have all the good men gone brings up a plethora of results. Most often posed by women, discussed by women, and solutions proposed by women. And usually with a fine smattering of misandry.

When in fact, the qualifications for a "good man" means a college education, having their own place, making more than her, and then there are the physical qualifications. Tall, handsome, ripped. Then there are the life choice demands, which are to be ready to immediately start fertility treatments in a race against the clock.

Oh-ohhh, that college education demand. As we are nearing a 75 to 25 Percent female versus male degree status, right away we have a severe problem.

Coupled with the other demands, these women are going to have a real problem finding mates. A male that fits their demands is probably not looking for a woman of that age and is not looking to become a father at such a late age.

Probably the best article about the problem is https://www.dailymail.co.uk/fe...

Even then, the article starts out: "Where have all the good men gone? These sassy, sophisticated, solvent women say they are struggling to find other halves that can measure up.

No shit.

When idiots and people with bad intent are given as loud a voice as people with expertise and good intention

That's kind of the point of democracy though, isn't it? "One man, one vote", remember? Else, deciding who should get the loud voice, and whose voices should be stifled is a straight way to authoritarianism. Over the years, there were lots of people who thought like you (and there still are) - except maybe, replacing "expertise and good intention" with "good breeding", "wealth", "religion", "sex", "race" or others.

, the result is anarchy, schemes like Bitcoin, and unqualified people getting elected to public office.

A very similar argument (BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur.) was brought up against women's suffrage.

The only ways to combat it are to teach critical thinking skills and start requiring some basic qualifications other than having access to a computer, to gain access to platforms that amplify a person's influence.

I saw an idea being discussed at some point: the ballot would have a couple a questions related to the item being voted, and the vote would be weighted against the number of correct answers in the quiz. That seems to be a proper balance, favoring the votes of better informed voters, and at the same time not discriminating against people on base of things they don't have a choice on, like their race.

About that "fire in a crowded theatre" .....
https://www.theatlantic.com/na...

This case seems to be a huge over response to what should be protected speech. There doesn't appear to be a direct threat.

[...] is absolutely outside of the free speech modifiers in the constitution (see shouting fire in a crowded theater, if that is still taught in civics classes as opposed to weird gender things)

To be pedantic, shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is probably protected by the First Amendment, because it's not directed, nor likely, to incite or produce imminent lawless action. Though shouting "Fire! Trample the people around you to survive!" may be illegal.

Holy shit, did you just cite convicted defamers and political activist group SPLC in a "citation needed" link?

Nope. They settled that case. And there's nothing even slightly illogical about citing a political activism group in such a case, either.

Silly NASA still messing around with obsolete rovers. Why aren't they building space factories and Mars colonies and mining asteroids? They obviously don't read Slashdot comments. If they did we would be living on Mars by now.

Sounds familiar:

[The President] asked the then-acting administrator of NASA whether the space agency could send American astronauts to Mars by the end of his first term, and even offered him "all the money you could ever need" to make it happen. The NASA official politely turned him down, explaining that such a fast turnaround to a distant planet wasn't possible.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

Just get the Martians to pay for it. If there are none, plant some.

Authoritarianism is actually a problem now at the ACLU:

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...

Errm, that article starts with a lie: "Last week, the NRA kept defending gun rights" - not if you aren't white. Or more to the point: not if you aren't a gun maker.

In the 20th century alone global temperatures rose and fell multiple times. Since 2000 contrary to warmists' dire predictions there has been virtually no rise, despite a period of record CO2 output.

Not true.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/did-global-warming-really-pause-during-the-2000s/525645/

Authoritarianism is actually a problem now at the ACLU:

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...

As one example. Hopefully he'll be able to impact the organization from within. It's a shame, because at one time they seemed like a principled civil rights defender:

https://www.aclu.org/other/acl...

Now, they're willing to throw due-process under the bus for college-aged men while spewing vile looney left-wing talking points.

"A People's History of the United States"? Yeah, that made it to what, #2 on the list of least credible history books in print for the History News Network?

A book so bad that the President of Purdue University issued a statement which said he “wanted to make certain that Howard Zinn's textbook, which represents a falsified version of history, was not being foisted upon our young people" and "No one need take my word that my concerns were well-founded. Respected scholars and communicators of all ideologies agree that the work of Howard Zinn was irredeemably slanted and unsuited for teaching to schoolchildren.”

Try getting your history from real history books based on primary sources, not left-wing nonsense designed to push an agenda by misciting secondary sources.

Ah, the old "He's not a moron, he's just doing a really good job of pretending to be one for strategic reasons" argument. Well if he's pretending, he's really doing an amazing job:

https://www.apnews.com/a3309c4...

Although I don't see any positive results from doing so. He may have come close to bringing NK to the table but instead he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory:

https://nationalpost.com/opini...

If you think that North Korea has changed course at all since Trump took power, then they've pulled the wool over your eyes just like Trump's:

https://www.theatlantic.com/in...

Also while pulling out of Syria was not a bad idea, the way he chose to announce it, as a surprise to everyone except himself, was idiotic:

https://www.theguardian.com/us...

The president’s endorsement of the U.S.S.R.’s invasion of Afghanistan echoes a narrative promoted by Vladimir Putin.

I'd be interested in a citation for:

https://www.theatlantic.com/po...
The analysis in the article is shit, but the offer it covers was made.

GOP Senators have gone so far as to introduce a bill do wall funding plus DACA [thehill.com], but the Democratic leadership currently refuses to even discuss a compromise like that

Elections have consequences. Even the elections Republicans lose.

Since the 2018 election happened, deals that were on the table in 2017 are no longer on the table. That's why people who are actually good at negotiation take such deals before events overtake them.

Graham was referring to a White House offer last January

That offer was not made by Trump, and immediately condemned by Trump. Turns out the Trump White House is a tad inconsistent.

There's an old saying: good fences make good neighbors, and good neighbors build good fences.

You are misinterpreting the "old saying". It is from Mending Wall, a poem by Robert Frost. His neighbor says "Good fences make good neighbors." But the point of the poem is that the fence actually serves no real purpose at all, and is a barrier between two people who would likely be better friends without the fence.

But don't worry, you are in good company. Sarah Palin also completely missed the point.

The problem is that in most jurisdictions the fines are really only punitive to the poor and normally there aren't any points added to your license either. In at least one country I've heard of traffic fines are proportional to the offenders income, which has resulted in some hilariously large fines. I'd be all for a system like that in the USA and for far more things than just traffic infractions.

https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...

Wut?

Given the rather low rate of autism among women compared to men, why then did this feminist conference do so, citing 'anxiety', not autism: https://www.washingtontimes.co...

Perhaps they were being super inclusive of their trans members, as there does seem to be an overlap between the populations: https://www.theatlantic.com/he...

Oops, did I just do what you failed to do... and provide citations? Yes, yes I did.

If it is cross cultural how do you explain places like Iran where more than half the STEM graduates are female? How about China

Less gender equality and personal freedom in those countries. More equality and freedom means men and women are more able to make choices and express their differences.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

But: Gender disparities in science and engineering in Chinese universities:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

Roots grow towards water. Flowers face the sun. Tensile leaves shunt water when touched.

These aren't conscious efforts. Sentience is a form of specialized nerve awareness, meant to allow your immediate-response MUSCULATURE (a calorie/nutritionally expensive feature we pay to enable mobility) to react to environmental conditions second-by-second.

Plants lacking motion have no use for super-precise environmental awareness. Their adaptations aren't conscious. Even slow, chemical hormones are more communication than tissue-based mechanisms. Plants are "aware" of trauma, but have no use for pain. Even your body dials back the notices when a bruise is quietly being treated, only speaking up if you disturb it.

Alturism is an evolutionary mandate, not a Hollywood feelgood. Exceptions don't overturn this fact of biology. Altruistic tissue properties are even less worthy of sensationalism. This isn't a wholesome facebook post, it's good optimization of a species.

Genetics will shape an animal brain so it knows sacrificing uncles for nephews is good strategy. The "news" here is that it will do it to tissues too. "Awareness of other [same species] plants" being too trivial a mechanism to mention.

It was a genuine bit of science. Drummed up to clickbait 11.

An hour long train ride is not a good substitute for building housing where people actually want to live. I live in Silicon Valley, and we have mile after mile of low-rise sprawl. There is plenty of space to build high density housing in the core area where the jobs are.

Liberals love to criticize Republican tax cuts for the rich, but coastal city zoning regulations contribute as much to income inequality by keeping people of modest means away from the best job opportunities.

Zoning laws and the rise of inequality

Fighting inequality through zoning

The left is waking up to inequality cause by zoning

When it comes to inequality, liberals need to stop asking "Who can we blame for this problem" and start asking "What can we do to fix this problem."

https://www.theatlantic.com/id...

When someone stands accused of sexual assault in criminal court, does the ACLU believe in the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard merely because that is what the Constitution requires, or because it is better to leave some guilty people unpunished than to punish many innocents? “The old-school ACLU knew there was no contradiction between defending due process and ‘supporting survivors,’” David French writes. “Indeed, it was through healthy processes that we not only determined whether a person had been victimized, but also prevented the accused from becoming a ‘survivor’ of a profound injustice.”

Says the criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield:

The ACLU cannot love constitutional rights only when it serves to further a cause on behalf of their favored marginalized group, then hate it when it doesn’t, and still be given credit as a voice for civil liberties Remember, due process “inappropriately favors the accused.”

Those four words are the ACLU’s epitaph.