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Mitt Romney, Robotics, and the Uncanny Valley
Hugh Pickens writes "Brian Fung writes in the Atlantic that one of Romney's electoral problems is that he occupies a kind of uncanny valley for politicians, inexplicably turning voters off despite looking like the textbook image of an American president. Just as people who interact with lifelike robots often develop a strange feeling due to something they can't quite name, something about Romney leaves voters unsettled. As with the robotic version of the uncanny valley, the closer Romney gets to becoming real to a voter, the more his likeability declines. 'The effect is almost involuntary, considering the substantial advantages Romney enjoys from appearance alone,' writes Fung. 'But in person, his polished persona gives way to what appears a surprisingly forced and inauthentic character.' Political commentator Dana Milbanks adds that although Romney is confident and competent, in casual moments his weirdness comes through — equal parts 'Leave It to Beaver' corniness and social awkwardness. 'Romney's task now is to work his way out of the uncanny valley toward a more compelling style of humanity,' concludes Fung. 'But every day he lingers in it, the hill grows steeper.'"
Geez, one of the worst of the Washington Post shill-meisters. And it is Milbank, not Milbanks who has said "that the whole campaign-trail reporting gig is a complete waste of time and borderline fraudulent". How is this /. material?
Speaking of uncanny appearances, Endorse Liberty (a PAC that supports Ron Paul) put out some web ads featuring other politicians, including "Fake Mitt Romney". One of the first things he says is "I'm Fake Mitt Romney, which makes me a lot like the real Mitt Romney". You can see it here.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
He kinda reminds me of the futurama guys:
John Jackson:"It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: I'm against those things that everybody hates."
Jack Johnson:"Now, I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man. But quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said."
John Jackson:"I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far."
Jack Johnson:"And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough."
I had forgotten he was Mormon. Isn't that considerably weirder than your average flavor of Christianity? 99% of what I know of Mormonism is from South Park.
Tough call. Mormons have the reputation of having multiple wives. The sad part is that Newt has had more wives than Mit.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The reason he was impeached wasn't sex. It was because:
1. He lied under oath. We call that perjury and it's a felony.
2. He lied under oath in a trial where he was having to account for unwanted sexual advances on a woman.
3. As a matter of law, we try to make at least a half-assed attempt to protect women from aggressive, unwanted sexual advances.
4. Felonies are actually named as a basis upon which a President can be impeached.
If he had just admitted the truth, there was nothing the system could have done to him because it was a civil trial and Presidents cannot be impeached for purely civil matters.
"Barack Obama is a socialist. He's trying to overhaul this country along the lines of Europe." (pauses while boos fill the hall).
"That's right, my friends. Now, Europe is a nice place to visit - I spent about five years there in France during the Viet Nam War. Bonjour, tout le monde! Comment allez-vous aujourd'hui?" (pauses, but is met by silence)
"And Switzerland is a great place to park your money for tax purposes, but I've found we have a better tax shelter right here in the Cayman Islands!" (pauses again.. scattered nervous applause)
"Not that I ever had much money in those accounts, contrary to what the elite liberal press has suggested. Maybe $30 million or so at the peak. But I am not going to apologize for being a successful businessman, I've created a lot of jobs during my career. There's Everett " (points to the someone in the crowd) "Everett worked for the printer we used at Bain Capital for the private equity contracts." (sustained applause)
"I'm going to repeal Obamacare. I'm going to win the debates - when the President starts in with one of his outrageous Keystone Cops statements I'll turn to him and say, Ten Thousand Dollar bet, Barack?"
"And when November comes, we're going to put Obama's dog on the roof of the car " (cheering starts to build) ".. and we're going to take it for a spin on the highway for a few hours, and then we're going to close down the union plant that built the car!" (wild cheers and cries of "Mitt, Mitt")
Except that Romney is doing it wrong.
Being a "vulture capitalist" who makes millions of dollars by ruining the lives of others, destroying viable companies as part of a firm whose mantra was "strip and sell", is not wholesome.
Dodging taxes and exploiting loopholes is not wholesome.
Supporting a party with racism as a key platform plank is not wholesome.
Supporting a party that wants to go to war with the world and waste lives is not wholesome.
Whether you are pro-choice or not, the LDS Church is not pro-choice, and yet Romney was pro-choice as governor, vehemently so. So that would not make him a "wholesome Mormon modeling good Mormon behavior."
The problem with Romney is he's not wholesome at all. He's a stellar example of what's wrong with the Republican Party today - an amoral, evil asshole who's wearing a Fred Rogers suit.
Here we go. The hard and heavy wheels of destruction are starting to turn. Inevitable I suppose.
:-)
IMO, Romney is, intellectually and experientially, the most qualified candidate for US president that we've seen in the last two centuries. I'm not sure what kind of president he'll end up being, but he is certainly qualified for the role and infinitely more qualified than the current US president.
FWIW, I had the opportunity to work in fairly close proximity to the man back in 1994. Back then I got the distinct impression that he was generally the smartest guy in the room. But what really stands out in my memory was a meeting where various topics of quantitative finance were discussed...in detail. He was very comfortable with partial differential equations.
Even before Iowa, people were claiming Romney was "electable". WTF? Why is a guy who couldn't beat a 100 year old loser in 2008 "electable"? More important, when has the "electable" candidate actually WON?? McCain was electable, and so was Bob Dole. On the other side, John Kerry was electable, and I'm pretty sure Hilary was more electable than an unknown 2 year Senator with a foriegn name.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
No, standard Christianity is every bit as weird as Mormonism. People have just grown up around it, so it gets a pass.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
BZZZT!!! Bullshit.
We don't call lying under oath "perjury." We call lying under oath about something material to the case at hand "perjury." Clinton did lie under oath in a deposition about Whitewater to questions that had not a damn thing to do with the case, therefore not perjury. If you go back and check, he was completely acquitted of that charge--even by several Republicans.
Also, even if he were eventually found guilty, felonies are not named as a basis upon which a President can be impeached. "High crimes and misdemeanors" is the basis. Clinton had an affair. Stop trying to conflate that with giving away our nuclear codes to China.
By the way, you might want to know that as a matter of law, we do not prosecute people because of consensual sex.
And by the way, he WAS impeached because of sex. You can try to dress it up any way you want, but that's it, period. They tried to get him on Whitewater, and they couldn't. He was completely acquitted of all of those charges, too. Maybe you don't remember so well what happened during those days, but I sure as hell do. The Republicans made some shit up and hauled him in to give a sworn deposition under oath about Whitewater. Once he got in the room, they started asking him all sorts of sordid, slimy questions that didn't have a damn thing to do with the case at hand. Everyone in that room--especially Bill Clinton--knew that the testimony would be leaked and that it had zero to do with any actual crime. It was character assassination, pure and simple. Hell, they knew they didn't have the votes to actually find him guilty, so the end goal wasn't really to remove him from office, either. The point was to get Ken Starr's report out to the public and put all of the salacious details on people's televisions; to distract the public from REAL issues.
Clinton was by far one of the best presidents we've ever had. Eight straight years of relative peace, no messy expensive international entanglements, budget surpluses, record low unemployment, booming economy with little inflation, etc. Had the Republicans not conducted their little smear campaign, there's no way come hell or high water Al Gore could lose in 2000, it would have been a Reaganesque landslide. They were desperate, and as a result, Clinton for a couple of years had a very hard time carrying out his duties as President. I kinda wish he had been able to focus on things like, I dunno, say, Osama bin Laden, instead of having to testify about where someone consented for him to put a cigar.
So stop being such a tool and persisting with this bogus "but he lied under oath, waaaah!" bullshit. He was impeached due to sex, and it was nothing but a Republican ploy to take the White House in 2000, end of story.
...when he said Romney looks like "the guy who plays the American president in a Canadian movie."
Of course, many Catholics claim that Protestants are "not really Christianity", either (and vice-versa).
I will say one thing about Mormons... of all the people I've met of different religions, Mormons were by far the nicest and most genuine people. They actually try and live the tenants of their religion. I'm an atheist, but if I had to pick a religion to follow because I wanted the culture, I'd pick being a Mormon. I hate alcohol anyway. :)
They're not perfect of course (their support of California's Prop 8 is particularly troubling), but overall having Romney be a Mormon is a positive in my book, compared to, say, Santorum who is a full-blown religious wack job.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The deposition that Clinton lied about having sex with Monica Lewinski was for the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. I would think having sex with an intern would be material to this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones
As with Nixon it was not the crime but the cover up. Only Nixon is synonymous with being a crook and Clinton is not.
Then you know all you need to know.
Theologically, Mormons are the Muslims of the West. They're like every other religion, except with a double-extra draught of crazy. But then they became this country club for rich extra-white people with secret stuff that outsiders must not know. They begrudgingly gave up their extra wives around 1900 and begrudgingly allowed black people to have souls more than half a century later. They have wonderful teeth and if you find a mormon girl who has strayed they will do very dirty stuff. This last bit I found out when I was a postdoc at land grant school out West. [note to wife in case she's reading this: this was more than a decade before we met]
Most of the above is gleaned from rumors and South Park (except the bit about the lapsed-LDS girl and dirty stuff) because I've only met like two Mormons in my life. I have so little in common with Mormons that I seem to have existed in a separate plane of reality from them. Perhaps I just avoid crazy people. Or maybe Mormons avoid crazy people. I was going to say that perhaps I avoid people who wear magic underwear, but I know that's not true, since I've still got a pair of drawers that I've had since college because I think they're lucky. So maybe Mormons are not that crazy.
I used to not care about Mitt Romney, until I heard a serious biographer of his say in an interview that Romney will occasionally cut up for his family or friends by doing a spot-on impersonation of Michael Jackson singing Billie Jean. Apparently Mitt knows all the lyrics and can do a great moon-walk. Does the One Glove thing. Ever since I heard that, I am scared to death of the man. Whenever I see him on TV I start to hyperventilate and have to run out of the room.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No. Every election cycle, I take a look at the candidates and think "Are these the best of the best? Can't we do better?" The answer to both is a big NO.
These guys are the survivors of a weird winnowing process. Egotistical enough to believe they should be president, connected enough to get support, organized enough to run, stubborn enough to stick with it, and with not too many skeletons in the closet. Can speak well and doesn't appear overtly crazy or hideously ugly.
A couple of those talents are useful as president, but there isn't a 1:1 correlation.
Makes you sort of wonder if the way candidates were chosen in a smoke filled back room wasn't an improvement. I almost wish we could elect a couple committees to go and recruit a presidential candidate each for the whole population to then vote on. Call them the hypothetical R and D committees.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Yeah, but we're a rather cynical nation and have trouble believing anyone actually is that nice and genuine. It creeps us out. When someone is nice to me, they're usually looking to either sell me something or screw me over. Did you see how Romney did better in Florida when he started being a dick to Gingritch? That's familiar territory for us. That's our comfort zone. If Romney can manage to be a huge asshole for the next 46 states, he should have no problem taking the nomination.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Mitt cannot harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to be harmed.
Putting quotes around stuff doesn't make it true.
The companies that Romney was said to "strip and sell" were companies that were on the verge of collapse. So they buy the companies, make them profitable and then sell them. A big reason why a lot of companies get in the verge of collapse status is because they got too ambitious in their growth, or have reached their peak and they kept trying to grow, while other forces are making such companies business model not as successful. The current owners do not know what to do, or are afraid of making the tough decision to unfortunately lay off people in areas where growth isn't feasible. Also part of the process is to hire people in the right areas. Then when they get the company back on their feet they will sell it. That is their job. If there weren't companies doing this a lot more companies will just close down and all the employees will loose their job.
Dodging taxes and exploiting loopholes... He is not dodging taxes or exploiting anything, his primary source of income has a 15% limit on it. The tax form with the paper will have that number and if you had most of your money coming from you will probably be paying similar tax rates. Blame the Tax law for this not the man.
Racism as a key platform? The republican party is not racists however they are #1 with racists (to paraphrase The Simpsons). The Republicans are not racist as part of their platform. However their goal of smaller government does clash with with equal rights groups who feels that government needs to be more involved.
During the republican primaries I am not hearing much War Hawking going on. They do want to keep the military of the US strong.
Romney was a Governor of Massachusetts a strong pro-life stance would get him nowhere, besides the Abortion issues is political smoke anyways...
You have a problem with facts, you want to vilify the republicans you are just as bad as the republicans are to the democrats. You come up with lies and you back them up with more lies from other sources so your lies seem like the truth.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Consequences can only be "unintended" for so long. We've known for decades, arguably centuries, that creating a large/popular black market will divert economic strength away from the general populace toward criminals. When you see it as it's happening, and maintain (rather than repeal) the laws that make that market remain black, it's no longer an unintended consequence. At the very best, it's a regretfully accepted/planned consequence.
You can't say "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet" and then call the breaking of eggs unintended. Oh you intended it, you just weren't completely happy about it.
Similarly, we shouldn't allow politicians a free pass on the known and anticipated consequences of the drug war. They can still support the drug war with honor, but only if they own those consequences. The authoritarian parties need to come out and say
and then finish that sentence with whatever amazing fact or political theory it is, that has been so preciously held from the public for so long. But don't fucking say, "We didn't intend to usurp your local government, overrule your doctor, disrepect people, and send money to Mexico.. we had no idea prohibition would necesitate all that," because that is just insultingly unbelievable.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I encourage you to take a latino friend to a Tea Party rally to see firsthand the things those racist fucking retards do and say to him.
Now, that there is downright uncalled-for. Going and assuming that jellomizer has a latino friend, like that.
No, standard Christianity is every bit as weird as Mormonism. People have just grown up around it, so it gets a pass.
Which one is standard Christianity exactly?
The six Oriental Orthodox churches* have the best claim to being standard Christianity, in terms of not introducing new innovations not found in the early Christian church. The "ISO standard" of Christianity was formulated with the first three ecumenical councils in AD 325 (or 325 CE), 381, and 431. These three councils essentially define the universal core of Christianity. The Oriental Orthodox churches reject nearly all innovations since that time (including ones accepted by other Eastern Orthodox churches).
*The Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Syriac, Malankara Orthodox Syrian (India) and the Armenian Orthodox churches.
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