Too many of the general public confuse 'conservatives' with 'Republicans.'
In most cases it is a distinction without a difference. Most conservatives self identify as republicans and vice-versa. There are some outliers but they are the exception that proves the rule.
We of the dark side have been generally suspicious of electric cars because of the perception that most purchases are made with cushy tax subsidies, rather than inherent merit, in mind.
Great logic, because obviously gasoline vehicles never get tax money. Gas companies get TONS of tax subsidies and they are strongly supported by the political right. Lots of industries receive tax subsidies including agriculture, oil, gas, ethanol, coal, steel, aviation, construction, manufacturing, and many more. I find great irony when I hear some rural conservative farmer bitching about subsidies for solar power when he's getting subsidies for the crops he is selling. I guess subsidies are only good when it is for something that benefits you.
There is also a cultural bias factor ("University hippies buy these, so they must be bad...") which works both ways.
Are you really trying to justify hatred by saying "other people do it too"?
I had to explain to her that hating environmental activists doesn't have to mean hating the environment itself.
Why would you hate an environmental activist? Or any other kind of activist for that matter? Arguing passionately for a good cause is no reason to hate someone. Sure there are a few real looney-toons out there but most are basically just trying to push for a healthy planet and a nice place to live.
Republicans have won the Presidential popular vote only ONCE since 1988 (Bush v, Kerry, and that was an incumbent).
And the democrats only won it once between 1968 and 1992. What's your point? Most of the elections were fairly close and the losses had less to do with demographics than the candidates who were running. Bush Sr kind of blew it against Clinton but that election could have gone either way. Clinton loses and I'm not sure the democrats had anyone who would obviously have won in 1996. Bush Jr could easily have lost in 2004 and arguably did lose in 2000. Neither of Obama's wins were blowouts either. The only real blowouts I can remember are Reagan's wins, particularly in 1984 against Mondale. It wouldn't be shocking to see a republican in the white house in 2016. Just depends on who's running and how things play out.
The biggest problem the republicans have is that they push for policies that tend to repel anyone who isn't older white and usually male. Women, blacks, hispanics, LBGT, and most other minority groups tend to vote democrat. Some very strongly so. The republicans have also tied their mast to conservative religious groups who tie their hands on social issues. They have gotten away from the idea of sensible fiscal policy in order to wage a futile jihad on taxes and have shut the government down twice over the issue.
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
There are no large "oil companies" any more, they're all "energy companies" now
Exxon-Mobil is not an energy company in the general sense nor are most of their competitors. They make their money in oil and gas. They may call themselves an energy company but you are what you do and what they do is fossil fuels. Calling themselves an energy company is just marketing spin.
Why do movie studios allow Netflix to send out DVDs to their subscribers by mail, but not to allow the same option in the form of "virtual DVDs" that you could "check out" through their website, and stream them while they're checked out to you?
Because the idea of "checking out" an intangible work is a stupid idea. We "check out" books and DVDs because they are physical items of which there is a necessarily limited number. The notion of "loaning" a bit of data with no physical media makes no sense. It's an attempt to map an obsolete business model onto a technology where it does not belong.
The notion of replicating a DVD queue with streaming video is frankly a pointless exercise that misses all the advantages of streaming media.
I don't recall my argument specifying a time frame for when this is going to happen.
Won't be in our lifetime most likely even accounting for the pace of progress that of our great-great-grandchildren. Many jobs are simply not very easy to automate and others that seem simple turn out to be shockingly difficult to do economically even when they are possible at all. I run a manufacturing company and there are a lot of jobs I would love to automate that simply cannot be done economically with any reasonably foreseeable technology. Humans are much more adaptable than any robot you or I are likely to ever see.
Of all the things that humans do, taking orders, and bringing food to a table at a restaurant is probably one of the easier things to automate.
You really think my grandmother is going to want to order food via a robot at a restaurant? I think you badly underestimate the need for a human touch. Hell I'm a geek and *I* don't want to get served food by a robot. (and I want food prepared by a robot even less) Yes it is technologically possible to deliver food via robot. It is NOT so easy economically and it certainly isn't very good at dealing with mistakes. You also are underestimating the capital cost of such devices. Even simple robots are not cheap, not terribly flexible, have all kinds of safety issues. There are some very significant liability issues and costs when you have robots in close proximity to humans.
My argument was that we won't people to do manual labor anymore because automation will do the work more cheaply than any human could.
Not going to happen in our lifetimes most likely and frankly I doubt it ever will happen completely. The percent of the labor force doing some tasks will shrink in places with high labor costs but humans are not going to be out of the equation. Furthermore you are assuming that just because something is technologically possible that it will be permitted. If the existence of robots makes too many problems for enough of the population then guess what will happen to the robots?
A good model for what will happen can be seen in farming. Farming used to employ the majority of the population in the US. Now it is somewhere around 2% largely due to automation. However the automation didn't come cheaply and nowhere did it eliminate humans entirely from the equation. In fact millions of people are still employed in that industry. Rather the population increased and while there was shrinkage of the labor pool in farming, most of the new people simply did something else. Technological, economic, and resource constraints mean that automation will allow fewer people to do more but in no case does it eliminate them entirely.
The notion that we will get to a "post scarcity society" is an absurd myth. This is the real world, not Star Trek.
This will also make the price of many goods and services so cheap that you can sit on your ass all day and watch TV
Won't happen. First off, any time you are dealing in tangible goods there is a resource constraint. There is a finite amount of any element and so the material costs will rise when demand exceeds supply. Second the labor cost issue is more complicated than you think. Even when you can design a robot to do specific tasks better and/or cheaper, they typically aren't especially adaptable. Third, there are energy constraints that limit our ability to automate to the degree you indicate. We quite simply do not have a sufficient supply of clean and portable energy to make such a world possible and there is no reasonably feasible technology we possess that will make it so. If you can develop Tony Stark's arc reactor then we'll talk. Until then it is a dystopian science fiction.
And yes somebody else has to support you. That "somebody" is the generations of people that furthered technology to the point where robots did all the tedious work.
You really think a bunch of smart guys are going to want to work their asses off to support a bunch of able bodied dumbasses while they do nothing? I think you've been watching WALL-E too much.
- It won't ever ask for a raise, and likewise raising the minimum wage rate doesn't affect it.
The person who programs and/or manages the robot might ask for a raise though. The company that made the robot isn't going to give it to you for free or service it for free either.
- It isn't subject to OSHA.
The people that handle it are. There is a lot of expense in safety equipment when you have robots around people. Very very few factories are so-called "lights out" factories.
Why? It's a waste of human effort to be working for $10 an hour.
$10/hour is a lot of money in much of the world. Stop thinking about life from your comfy first world perspective.
Sure someone with no skills is willing to do it, but I think it makes more sense as a society to have only jobs that pay $20/hr, have all the other jobs done by robots, and have all those people learning new skills or just watching TV or something.
Your argument is absurdly full of flaws.
First off, there simply are not and will not be robots available to replace most jobs any time soon. I work with factory automation and robotics and as impressive as some of them are, the state of the art is being vastly overstated. Furthermore even if the technology was feasible (it isn't) the near term economics of robotics don't make sense. Replace waitstaff in a restaurant being paid $4/hour+tips with a robot? Not going to happen in my lifetime.
Second, you are forgetting the very important point that wages are relative. There are places where $10/hour will let you live like a king and places where $10/hour will barely allow you to survive. The US is relatively wealthy but there is no assurance it will remain so. What's important is the relative amount $10 lets you buy.
Third, $10/hour for many jobs simply is a competitive requirement. My company competes against firms across the globe. Automation is NOT an option for what we make and in the volumes we make it and automation it isn't going to be an option anytime soon. It either doesn't exist or when it does exist it doesn't make economic sense until you get to much larger production volumes. A lot of our labor gets paid $11/hour and we are barely competitive at that rate because our competition in Mexico, China and elsewhere pays far less. Sometimes as little as $1-2/hour. If we are forced to pay $20/hour we would be immediately out of business because the production would immediately shift elsewhere.
Finally, NOBODY benefits by people sitting on their ass watching TV. Your argument that they are better off being couch potatoes than making $10/hour is complete BS. All that means is that someone else has to support them.
Can you name any other way to wire funds to another person or business instantly and securely for costs of half a penny to free?
No and you can't do that with bitcoin either. NOTHING is free. Half a penny? Not if you are actually considering the rest of the costs including currency exchange cost, opportunity cost, volatility risk and the rest. There also is the non-trivial fact that very few people use bitcoin so the odds of a counterparty being set up and willing to use bitcoin is close to non-existent for most of us. Do you seriously think I'm going to ask someone to waste a considerable amount of their time setting up to use bitcoin so that I can save at best a few cents on a money transfer at considerably higher risk to both of us? I honestly don't know anyone in real life who has done a single transaction in bitcoin.
Is there any other secure system that allows for multisig authentications to remove the need for counter-party trust?
Bitcoin does not eliminate counterparty risk from a transaction. At most it might shift the type of risk to worry about. Furthermore, escrow is nothing new at all in financial transactions.
What about Oracles, DAO's, smart contracts?
What about them? You're confusing the specific technology used with the function it serves. Those all have existing analogs that have nothing to do with bitcoin.
Bitcoin will remain novel as it has first movers advantage
Being a first mover is not necessarily an advantage. Second movers often can simply watch the mistakes of the first mover and act accordingly. Ask MySpace how being a first mover worked for them. Bitcoin isn't going to succeed because of "first mover advantage".
has the benefit of the networking effect
So does the US dollar to a considerably greater degree. I'm not about to use bitcoin simply because it is digital or because it is isn't a dollar. It needs to provide me with a real benefit superior to the alternatives I already have. I am a certified accountant and I honestly cannot think of a single circumstance where bitcoin would provide me any real world advantage over using dollars.
and the hashing power that makes it near impossible for any group or government to launch a successful attack on it.
Which presumes that there is no flaw in the implementation, does not account for future advances in computing power, etc. Just because it is currently secure does not mean it is safe to assume it will remain so. Are you an expert in cryptography? I'm sure as hell not and yet I'm expected to trust the code written by no one I know and certainly no one who is accountable to anyone? Yeah, not going to happen... Hell, someone doesn't have to launch an attach on bitcoin itself to make it not worth using. You think bitcoin is going to remain popular with anyone other than true believers if exchanges keep going belly up?
What is novel about bitcoin is it does what it does without requiring a central authoritiy.
That is how it is designed, not what it does. What bitcoin does is functionally almost identical to money orders. Furthermore it is not at all clear that the lack of a central authority is a beneficial feature or that the design of bitcoin is economically sound. This argument against central control of currencies appears to be more of an ideological argument than an evidence based practical consideration.
People who have tried to make "alternative money" systems with a central authority have found themselves either crushed or subsumed into the regulated system where the government can tell you who you may or may not give money to or order transactions reversed long after the fact.
Naive. Bitcoin does not and never will exist outside the regulatory structure of the government. If the government decides to make trade in bitcoin difficult then government will have little trouble doing so through laws and regulations. It's already illegal in some countries. Want to risk jail time to use bitcoin?
so long as they are able to get a warrant that is in keeping with the 4th amendment.
Oh I saw this and I agree with you but I simply don't think it is going to happen. What we have is a secret agency, conducting secret surveillance, "overseen" by a secret court, with secret findings that are never made public. There is at no step in the process any transparency or accountability to the electorate and I strongly doubt that is going to change in the near future. Congress is too concerned with getting re-elected to be willing to appear "soft on terrorism", the administration has no reason to want to relinquish their new found power and the judiciary has so far been toothless on the matter.
Yet they're already providing the records, so it can't be as hard as you're making it sound.
Granted there is plenty of data there but there are a lot of pieces required that will require meaningful investment. Like I said it's not particularly easy, I definitely don't think it is reasonable, and we cannot determine the effectiveness of the program because there is no public accountability and no likely prospects of getting it anytime soon.
If the NSA has to go through two other entities (a court and a private business) in order to get the information, then it greatly increases the difficulty of abuse.
The court they have to go through has been shown to be a rubber stamp court and there is little evidence that AT&T/Verizon/etc are willing to put themselves on the line to protect their customers. I don't think there is going to be much in the way of practical safeguards. In theory you are right but I'm dubious it will be any different in practice.
However you must also understand that the middle man is, on average, making a handsome profit, or he wouldn't be there.
The amount of profit a middleman makes depends on a lot of factors including size, competition, technology and more. Some make a lot of money, others not so much. However absent specific legislation mandating their use (like car dealerships) middlemen cannot exist for long unless they are providing value. You pay a bank to facilitate transactions because the bank does a LOT of it and they can do it cheaper, faster and with less risk than you or I can on our own. This remains true in most cases even factoring into account the fees they charge. Now some may (and many do) decide to charge excessive fees but that is a separate issue and that is when you start shopping around. Nobody rational will use a middleman when they can do it cheaper and/or better themselves. Bitcoin at first glance appears cheaper in some cases but only until you account for the all of the costs.
Banks may be annoying and charge more than is fair way too often but I don't really see bitcoin replacing them anytime soon.
I honestly don't have a problem with law enforcement collecting phone records, so long as they are able to get a warrant that is in keeping with the 4th amendment.
I do when they don't have a specific reason to collect them given that the government has proven all too willing to circumvent or even flat ignore the 4th amendment. The reason to collect the records has to come before the collection of the records and that reason should be vetted by a court that is answerable to the electorate rather than some secret court with no accountability whatsoever. If they want to provide some evidence that what they are doing is helpful to national security then they can release that information and we can let the electorate debate the issue. Otherwise the default answer should be "no you can't have it".
Assuming it's easy, reasonable, and effective for phone carriers to do that, I don't really have a problem with the idea.
It isn't as easy for the phone companies as one might think. My father used to work in engineering for AT&T so I've been in a bunch of central offices with him. Not all the phone companies equipment is digital and some is positively antiquated. Ever wonder why you still need to dial a 1 before a lot of long distance numbers? That's a hold over from obsolete technology (it connects you to an outside circuit) but isn't actually necessary with digital switches. The reason we still do it is because central offices often still have a lot of old gear that has not yet been replaced because it works fine. It's slowly being replaced but the key word is slowly. Plus collecting this data isn't cheap and having the staff to respond to the inevitable flood of inquiries isn't cheap either.
Basically it's not easy, I'm not convinced it's reasonable and we have no way to determine if it is effective.
And I do think there's a huge difference between that and the NSA collecting the data themselves
I think it is going to be a distinction with little practical difference. The phone companies have been nothing if not pliable on this issue, the FISA court appears to only possess a stamp made of rubber, and practically speaking with the 2 hops rule they can get to almost anyone thanks to commonly called numbers. So they get a "warrant" and call AT&T and say "give me every bit of data within 2 hops of Joe Schmoe". Unless Joe Schmoe is a hermit, odds are that is going to be a huge amount of data because in most cases Joe will have called utilities, customer service numbers, pizza shops, etc, all of which will get you to a very large number of people.
I knew there would be some sort of loop hole. I never stoppped to think about a large corporation being counted in these hops.
Yeah, I didn't think of it either. Someone on NPR pointed this out the other day. Used to be they were allowed to go 3 hops but even without commonly called numbers 3 hops will get you to a HUGE number of people. (potentially 390,625 if my math is right) Now it is just 2 hops but when you include commonly called numbers like big corporations or government agencies like the IRS will get you pretty much to anyone. Hell, think about even something like your local pizza shop and how many people call them.
Most of the time, economics is a marketing campaign trying to sell a particular product (like a mortgage)...
Your assertion is every bit as absurd as claiming that medicine is a marketing campaign because some people try to sell pills. Economics is the study of behavior with regard to scarce resources. Economists don't have anything to do with selling mortgages or any other specific financial product, nor does the field of economics. Economics most certainly is a science and is conducted using the scientific method. Economists develop a hypothesis, build a model to predict a behavior and then try to test that model. The fact that we cannot in many cases conduct double-blind experiments due to practical constraints does not make it any less of a science. The fact that our understanding of economics is imperfect likewise does not make it any less of a science.
When people get into trouble with using economic research is when they use it beyond the limits of the models. For instance the Black-Scholes equation is incredibly predictive *provided* that you stay within the constraints on the model, which are numerous. Go beyond the assumptions of the model and you do so at your own risk.
Economists are as much scientists as used car salesmen are, and far less trustworthy.
Perhaps you should actually find out what economics actually is and how it really works publicly proclaiming your ignorance to the world.
One of the premises of bitcoin was that we would no longer have to pay the middle man in a transaction
Which is largely a false premise. Virtually all bitcoin transactions will require exchanging bitcoins for other currency. This means you have to find a middle man to exchange the money and that is never free. Furthermore by taking out the bank from the transaction you have instead incurred a lot of additional risk (exchange rate risk, counterparty risk, volatility, opportunity cost, market risk, etc) which under any sane accounting carries a cost. You have essentially taken on the costs that would normally be borne by the middle man on to yourself when you use bitcoin.
We all "just" need to take your word for it, or did you have anything to substantiate this claim?
Seriously, it *might* be that bitcoin is legit but frankly it is absurdly easy to paint the picture that bitcoin is a Pump-and-Dump scheme. If I were to describe a hypothetical pump and dump scheme using a hypothetical digital currency, it would sound an awful lot like bitcoin. Doesn't necessarily mean that bitcoin is such a scheme but anyone who uses it without strongly considering the possibility is a fool.
Bitcoin is just a mechanism to transfer tokens ("coins") securely from one wallet to another, and gradually add tokens to the available pool by letting anyone who wants to mine them.
No it is NOT just what you describe any more than dollars are just printed pieces of paper we can hand to one another to buy things. It is a type of currency and as a result it is much more than just a mechanism of transfer. Bitcoin is the entire system it creates including the exchanges, the software, the transaction infrastructure, the rules and the rest. The ability to transfer bitcoins between digital wallets is pretty much useless without the rest of it so saying it is just a transfer mechanism really isn't correct.
What's curious about bitcoin is that functionally it's pretty much a digital money order. It seems to have some geek appeal but there isn't anything functionally novel about what it does. I think it is an intellectual curiosity that will be studied closely by economic researchers but practically speaking I don't really see much point in it. It carries a huge amount of risk and externalized cost for something that I can already do with a lot less bother.
The New York Times reported last night that the White House is planning to introduce a legislative package that would mostly end the NSA's bulk collection of phone records.
They have no intention of ending it, they just are forcing others to do it for them. Basically instead of you and I paying for the NSA to spy on us with tax dollars were going to pay the NSA to spy on us with our phone bills instead. Just because they privatize the burden of data collection doesn't mean they are ending anything.
Instead, phone companies would be required to hand over records up to "two hops" from a target number.
What this means in practice is that if you and I both call FedEx that is considered a "hop" and now our numbers are linked. They essentially can use any commonly called number to get to anyone else and you can cover a HUGE percentage of the population with a few common phone numbers. This is a "limitation" that really isn't a limitation.
There are plenty of people in the nation for whom they can't buy food that was farm raised and slaughtered, and the government doesn't provide enough help for them to do anything other than hunt.
Demonstrably nonsense. They may not know how to get help but help is out there. Not just from the government either. There are food banks, there are shelters, there are non-profits, there are huge amounts of resources. And frankly if there are a few people remaining who actually do need to hunt then I have NO PROBLEM with them hunting. What I DO have a problem with is arrogant asshole hunters using those very very few people as a justification for their own hunting which has nothing whatsoever to do with food. The vast majority of hunters hunt because it amuses them, not because of economic need. At least most of them have the decency to actually eat what they kill so that's something...
I've been there. I stood in line for the government cheese... and then was fucked when it ran out before the line got to me.
And I've both gotten government assistance AND helped hand out that very same cheese later on down the line.
You have no idea what being poor is actually like...
Really? You know my life story? You know how much money my family had when I was a child? Fact is I know perfectly well first hand what it is like to be poor. Very poor. Most of my family comes from parts of Tennessee that are known for crushing poverty in years gone by. I also know what it is like to have crushing debt and I also know what it is like to depend on others for help. I'm not poor now but that doesn't mean I don't understand. And what I understand is that virtually no one in the US has to hunt to feed themselves.
I doubt there are very many states that don't have people who MUST HUNT TO EAT or die.
Ok, point out some evidence of their existence. I have no problem with someone hunting to survive but there simply are not very many of those people out there in the USA. Fact is that most people who get significant amounts of the diet from hunting do so because they chose to, not because they have to.
Look, dink, just because you can easily go to the grocery store
Look twat. I raise my own livestock and I'm pretty sure you don't. But you've clearly shown your desire to justify your urges to kill creatures for your amuse yourself and pretend it is for feeding your family. Worse you feel the need to argue about your killing urges because you are afraid someone might point out that hunting for amusement is barbaric and unnecessary. Go right ahead and keep lying to yourself about why you hunt. I might actually give a shit what you have to say if you would actually come out and admit that you and most other hunters go hunting purely for amusement.
Exactly what do you call the dead animal that results from hunting?
Meat. I sure as hell wouldn't try to affix human characteristics to goddamn livestock, I can tell you that - only a PETA terrorist or one of their supporters would do something so nonsensical.
Ahh so animals are no more than pixels on a video game to you, put here for not reason other than for you to shoot them? It's not human so it's nothing more than meat for you to "harvest". Wow. That is an astonishing lack of empathy you've got there. If the animals are nothing more than ambulatory meat then why are you having such a hard time admitting that you shoot them for amusement. After all, it's just meat so where is the ethical dilemma? Why the need for all the excuses and lies and justifications about why you do it? Why do you need to pretend that animals don't feel pain and that they somehow magically die instantly when you shoot them? Why justify hunting pretending it is somehow more humane that farming when according to you the animals are just meat? Just own the fact that you kill for fun and it all becomes a lot simpler. I'm not even trying to stop you from hunting, I just think it is pointless and barbaric and unnecessary.
I'll agree with the general point you are trying to make in your post but, there certainly are populations in very rural parts of this country, think Alaska (some cities are not even connected by roads to this day) and northern Maine, parts of Montana, some Indian reservations, etc were some people certainly do obtain all or at least the vast majority of the meat they consume from hunting and fishing.
Out of choice, not out of necessity. I don't actually have a problem with someone hunting for a meal but the fact remains that hunting in this country is a choice, not an economic necessity. People don't live in those sorts of areas because they landed there by accident. They made a conscious choice to live in a location away from society.
Hell, get a bunch of chickens and raise them. I have chickens myself and you can get chickens for about $1 each and feed them with scraps and a little grain. Hunting simply is NOT a necessity and hasn't been for a long time.
Your comment is beyond false, and you have no way to prove your point.
Sure I do. I simply have to point out the fact that there is essentially no one in the US that cannot get food without hunting which is a demonstrably true fact. Even the most poor among us have alternatives to hunting unless they choose not to take advantage of them. I don't have a problem with someone hunting for food out of economic need but that describes a vanishingly small percentage of our population.
I can truthfully state that there are many people that only survive off of the food they grow and/or kill, and not because "it's fun"
No there are not and I defy you to point out someone in the US that has no other alternatives. (Farmers don't count) Seriously, where is your evidence? We have vast food assistance programs in the US and a huge obesity epidemic. Explain to me how we have companies like Bass Shop Pro and Gander Mountain based on economic need to hunt. Exactly who needs to hunt and cannot get food any other way? If these people exist there should be some evidence of their existence. Prove your case.
Fact is that very little hunting in the US occurs due to economic need. It is primarily a form of amusement and any other benefits from it are second order effects. All I'm asking is for hunters to own up to that fact and not waste everyone's time with these lies that it is about food or the environment or anything other than their own amusement.
I would be interested to see you survive in the world that others live in for one week, or even for a few days.
Buddy, you have no idea what my background is. I have hunted and fished until I realized what I was doing was pointless and cruel. My family was poor as church mice when I was a child. I raise livestock and understand better than most what it means to kill the meat you are eating. I have a large family many of who are very rural and some were/are very poor. But you know what? Not one of them ever had to hunt to survive. Some do and that's fine but none of them pretend to do it for any reason other than they enjoy it.
See, this is the other reason* why the hunting community ignores you "environmentalists
The hunting community actually tries to fancy themselves as environmentalists. (see Ducks Unlimited) They like to pretend that the money they spend on hunting licenses actually is something more than subsidizing stocking populations of prey species so they can hunt and fish the following year. Furthermore you are confusing environmentalists with animal rights activists. Some people are both but they are not the same thing. Since hunters (like I'm guessing yourself) apparently cannot comprehend why what they are doing is cruel it's not really surprising that they ignore someone who rightly points out that their chosen form of amusement is both a barbaric form of amusement and unnecessary.
I mean, really, calling a person a 'psychopath' because they hunt for food, rather than wait for someone else to kill it for them?
Nobody in the US hunts because they are doing so for food. They have all the food they need from other sources. They are hunting almost exclusively for entertainment. If you want to kill animals for food, go work on a farm. Work in a slaughterhouse. I raise chickens myself. The "we're hunting for food" explanation is nothing more than a disingenuous justification. If you like to kill animals because it gives you a thrill then own that opinion. Don't think for a moment that the rest of us are so stupid that we cannot understand what is going on. There are several perfectly legitimate reasons to hunt but most of it is done purely for amusement.
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Too many of the general public confuse 'conservatives' with 'Republicans.'
In most cases it is a distinction without a difference. Most conservatives self identify as republicans and vice-versa. There are some outliers but they are the exception that proves the rule.
We of the dark side have been generally suspicious of electric cars because of the perception that most purchases are made with cushy tax subsidies, rather than inherent merit, in mind.
Great logic, because obviously gasoline vehicles never get tax money. Gas companies get TONS of tax subsidies and they are strongly supported by the political right. Lots of industries receive tax subsidies including agriculture, oil, gas, ethanol, coal, steel, aviation, construction, manufacturing, and many more. I find great irony when I hear some rural conservative farmer bitching about subsidies for solar power when he's getting subsidies for the crops he is selling. I guess subsidies are only good when it is for something that benefits you.
There is also a cultural bias factor ("University hippies buy these, so they must be bad...") which works both ways.
Are you really trying to justify hatred by saying "other people do it too"?
I had to explain to her that hating environmental activists doesn't have to mean hating the environment itself.
Why would you hate an environmental activist? Or any other kind of activist for that matter? Arguing passionately for a good cause is no reason to hate someone. Sure there are a few real looney-toons out there but most are basically just trying to push for a healthy planet and a nice place to live.
Republicans have won the Presidential popular vote only ONCE since 1988 (Bush v, Kerry, and that was an incumbent).
And the democrats only won it once between 1968 and 1992. What's your point? Most of the elections were fairly close and the losses had less to do with demographics than the candidates who were running. Bush Sr kind of blew it against Clinton but that election could have gone either way. Clinton loses and I'm not sure the democrats had anyone who would obviously have won in 1996. Bush Jr could easily have lost in 2004 and arguably did lose in 2000. Neither of Obama's wins were blowouts either. The only real blowouts I can remember are Reagan's wins, particularly in 1984 against Mondale. It wouldn't be shocking to see a republican in the white house in 2016. Just depends on who's running and how things play out.
The biggest problem the republicans have is that they push for policies that tend to repel anyone who isn't older white and usually male. Women, blacks, hispanics, LBGT, and most other minority groups tend to vote democrat. Some very strongly so. The republicans have also tied their mast to conservative religious groups who tie their hands on social issues. They have gotten away from the idea of sensible fiscal policy in order to wage a futile jihad on taxes and have shut the government down twice over the issue.
people in NJ hate Christie
Clearly, because we only elect people who are universally hated. [/sarcasm]
and no President has ever lost his home state
Would you care you try again using actual facts?
From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Thanks for the insight Yoda
There are no large "oil companies" any more, they're all "energy companies" now
Exxon-Mobil is not an energy company in the general sense nor are most of their competitors. They make their money in oil and gas. They may call themselves an energy company but you are what you do and what they do is fossil fuels. Calling themselves an energy company is just marketing spin.
Why do movie studios allow Netflix to send out DVDs to their subscribers by mail, but not to allow the same option in the form of "virtual DVDs" that you could "check out" through their website, and stream them while they're checked out to you?
Because the idea of "checking out" an intangible work is a stupid idea. We "check out" books and DVDs because they are physical items of which there is a necessarily limited number. The notion of "loaning" a bit of data with no physical media makes no sense. It's an attempt to map an obsolete business model onto a technology where it does not belong.
The notion of replicating a DVD queue with streaming video is frankly a pointless exercise that misses all the advantages of streaming media.
I don't recall my argument specifying a time frame for when this is going to happen.
Won't be in our lifetime most likely even accounting for the pace of progress that of our great-great-grandchildren. Many jobs are simply not very easy to automate and others that seem simple turn out to be shockingly difficult to do economically even when they are possible at all. I run a manufacturing company and there are a lot of jobs I would love to automate that simply cannot be done economically with any reasonably foreseeable technology. Humans are much more adaptable than any robot you or I are likely to ever see.
Of all the things that humans do, taking orders, and bringing food to a table at a restaurant is probably one of the easier things to automate.
You really think my grandmother is going to want to order food via a robot at a restaurant? I think you badly underestimate the need for a human touch. Hell I'm a geek and *I* don't want to get served food by a robot. (and I want food prepared by a robot even less) Yes it is technologically possible to deliver food via robot. It is NOT so easy economically and it certainly isn't very good at dealing with mistakes. You also are underestimating the capital cost of such devices. Even simple robots are not cheap, not terribly flexible, have all kinds of safety issues. There are some very significant liability issues and costs when you have robots in close proximity to humans.
My argument was that we won't people to do manual labor anymore because automation will do the work more cheaply than any human could.
Not going to happen in our lifetimes most likely and frankly I doubt it ever will happen completely. The percent of the labor force doing some tasks will shrink in places with high labor costs but humans are not going to be out of the equation. Furthermore you are assuming that just because something is technologically possible that it will be permitted. If the existence of robots makes too many problems for enough of the population then guess what will happen to the robots?
A good model for what will happen can be seen in farming. Farming used to employ the majority of the population in the US. Now it is somewhere around 2% largely due to automation. However the automation didn't come cheaply and nowhere did it eliminate humans entirely from the equation. In fact millions of people are still employed in that industry. Rather the population increased and while there was shrinkage of the labor pool in farming, most of the new people simply did something else. Technological, economic, and resource constraints mean that automation will allow fewer people to do more but in no case does it eliminate them entirely.
The notion that we will get to a "post scarcity society" is an absurd myth. This is the real world, not Star Trek.
This will also make the price of many goods and services so cheap that you can sit on your ass all day and watch TV
Won't happen. First off, any time you are dealing in tangible goods there is a resource constraint. There is a finite amount of any element and so the material costs will rise when demand exceeds supply. Second the labor cost issue is more complicated than you think. Even when you can design a robot to do specific tasks better and/or cheaper, they typically aren't especially adaptable. Third, there are energy constraints that limit our ability to automate to the degree you indicate. We quite simply do not have a sufficient supply of clean and portable energy to make such a world possible and there is no reasonably feasible technology we possess that will make it so. If you can develop Tony Stark's arc reactor then we'll talk. Until then it is a dystopian science fiction.
And yes somebody else has to support you. That "somebody" is the generations of people that furthered technology to the point where robots did all the tedious work.
You really think a bunch of smart guys are going to want to work their asses off to support a bunch of able bodied dumbasses while they do nothing? I think you've been watching WALL-E too much.
- It won't ever ask for a raise, and likewise raising the minimum wage rate doesn't affect it.
The person who programs and/or manages the robot might ask for a raise though. The company that made the robot isn't going to give it to you for free or service it for free either.
- It isn't subject to OSHA.
The people that handle it are. There is a lot of expense in safety equipment when you have robots around people. Very very few factories are so-called "lights out" factories.
- It doesn't ever call in sick.
But it can (and probably will) break down.
Why? It's a waste of human effort to be working for $10 an hour.
$10/hour is a lot of money in much of the world. Stop thinking about life from your comfy first world perspective.
Sure someone with no skills is willing to do it, but I think it makes more sense as a society to have only jobs that pay $20/hr, have all the other jobs done by robots, and have all those people learning new skills or just watching TV or something.
Your argument is absurdly full of flaws.
First off, there simply are not and will not be robots available to replace most jobs any time soon. I work with factory automation and robotics and as impressive as some of them are, the state of the art is being vastly overstated. Furthermore even if the technology was feasible (it isn't) the near term economics of robotics don't make sense. Replace waitstaff in a restaurant being paid $4/hour+tips with a robot? Not going to happen in my lifetime.
Second, you are forgetting the very important point that wages are relative. There are places where $10/hour will let you live like a king and places where $10/hour will barely allow you to survive. The US is relatively wealthy but there is no assurance it will remain so. What's important is the relative amount $10 lets you buy.
Third, $10/hour for many jobs simply is a competitive requirement. My company competes against firms across the globe. Automation is NOT an option for what we make and in the volumes we make it and automation it isn't going to be an option anytime soon. It either doesn't exist or when it does exist it doesn't make economic sense until you get to much larger production volumes. A lot of our labor gets paid $11/hour and we are barely competitive at that rate because our competition in Mexico, China and elsewhere pays far less. Sometimes as little as $1-2/hour. If we are forced to pay $20/hour we would be immediately out of business because the production would immediately shift elsewhere.
Finally, NOBODY benefits by people sitting on their ass watching TV. Your argument that they are better off being couch potatoes than making $10/hour is complete BS. All that means is that someone else has to support them.
Can you name any other way to wire funds to another person or business instantly and securely for costs of half a penny to free?
No and you can't do that with bitcoin either. NOTHING is free. Half a penny? Not if you are actually considering the rest of the costs including currency exchange cost, opportunity cost, volatility risk and the rest. There also is the non-trivial fact that very few people use bitcoin so the odds of a counterparty being set up and willing to use bitcoin is close to non-existent for most of us. Do you seriously think I'm going to ask someone to waste a considerable amount of their time setting up to use bitcoin so that I can save at best a few cents on a money transfer at considerably higher risk to both of us? I honestly don't know anyone in real life who has done a single transaction in bitcoin.
Is there any other secure system that allows for multisig authentications to remove the need for counter-party trust?
Bitcoin does not eliminate counterparty risk from a transaction. At most it might shift the type of risk to worry about. Furthermore, escrow is nothing new at all in financial transactions.
What about Oracles, DAO's, smart contracts?
What about them? You're confusing the specific technology used with the function it serves. Those all have existing analogs that have nothing to do with bitcoin.
Bitcoin will remain novel as it has first movers advantage
Being a first mover is not necessarily an advantage. Second movers often can simply watch the mistakes of the first mover and act accordingly. Ask MySpace how being a first mover worked for them. Bitcoin isn't going to succeed because of "first mover advantage".
has the benefit of the networking effect
So does the US dollar to a considerably greater degree. I'm not about to use bitcoin simply because it is digital or because it is isn't a dollar. It needs to provide me with a real benefit superior to the alternatives I already have. I am a certified accountant and I honestly cannot think of a single circumstance where bitcoin would provide me any real world advantage over using dollars.
and the hashing power that makes it near impossible for any group or government to launch a successful attack on it.
Which presumes that there is no flaw in the implementation, does not account for future advances in computing power, etc. Just because it is currently secure does not mean it is safe to assume it will remain so. Are you an expert in cryptography? I'm sure as hell not and yet I'm expected to trust the code written by no one I know and certainly no one who is accountable to anyone? Yeah, not going to happen... Hell, someone doesn't have to launch an attach on bitcoin itself to make it not worth using. You think bitcoin is going to remain popular with anyone other than true believers if exchanges keep going belly up?
What is novel about bitcoin is it does what it does without requiring a central authoritiy.
That is how it is designed, not what it does. What bitcoin does is functionally almost identical to money orders. Furthermore it is not at all clear that the lack of a central authority is a beneficial feature or that the design of bitcoin is economically sound. This argument against central control of currencies appears to be more of an ideological argument than an evidence based practical consideration.
People who have tried to make "alternative money" systems with a central authority have found themselves either crushed or subsumed into the regulated system where the government can tell you who you may or may not give money to or order transactions reversed long after the fact.
Naive. Bitcoin does not and never will exist outside the regulatory structure of the government. If the government decides to make trade in bitcoin difficult then government will have little trouble doing so through laws and regulations. It's already illegal in some countries. Want to risk jail time to use bitcoin?
bitcoin is to e-gold as gnutella is to napster.
Without meaning to seem snide, who cares?
so long as they are able to get a warrant that is in keeping with the 4th amendment.
Oh I saw this and I agree with you but I simply don't think it is going to happen. What we have is a secret agency, conducting secret surveillance, "overseen" by a secret court, with secret findings that are never made public. There is at no step in the process any transparency or accountability to the electorate and I strongly doubt that is going to change in the near future. Congress is too concerned with getting re-elected to be willing to appear "soft on terrorism", the administration has no reason to want to relinquish their new found power and the judiciary has so far been toothless on the matter.
Yet they're already providing the records, so it can't be as hard as you're making it sound.
Granted there is plenty of data there but there are a lot of pieces required that will require meaningful investment. Like I said it's not particularly easy, I definitely don't think it is reasonable, and we cannot determine the effectiveness of the program because there is no public accountability and no likely prospects of getting it anytime soon.
If the NSA has to go through two other entities (a court and a private business) in order to get the information, then it greatly increases the difficulty of abuse.
The court they have to go through has been shown to be a rubber stamp court and there is little evidence that AT&T/Verizon/etc are willing to put themselves on the line to protect their customers. I don't think there is going to be much in the way of practical safeguards. In theory you are right but I'm dubious it will be any different in practice.
How many people do telemarketers connect?
Outstanding question. My guess is a huge number.
However you must also understand that the middle man is, on average, making a handsome profit, or he wouldn't be there.
The amount of profit a middleman makes depends on a lot of factors including size, competition, technology and more. Some make a lot of money, others not so much. However absent specific legislation mandating their use (like car dealerships) middlemen cannot exist for long unless they are providing value. You pay a bank to facilitate transactions because the bank does a LOT of it and they can do it cheaper, faster and with less risk than you or I can on our own. This remains true in most cases even factoring into account the fees they charge. Now some may (and many do) decide to charge excessive fees but that is a separate issue and that is when you start shopping around. Nobody rational will use a middleman when they can do it cheaper and/or better themselves. Bitcoin at first glance appears cheaper in some cases but only until you account for the all of the costs.
Banks may be annoying and charge more than is fair way too often but I don't really see bitcoin replacing them anytime soon.
I honestly don't have a problem with law enforcement collecting phone records, so long as they are able to get a warrant that is in keeping with the 4th amendment.
I do when they don't have a specific reason to collect them given that the government has proven all too willing to circumvent or even flat ignore the 4th amendment. The reason to collect the records has to come before the collection of the records and that reason should be vetted by a court that is answerable to the electorate rather than some secret court with no accountability whatsoever. If they want to provide some evidence that what they are doing is helpful to national security then they can release that information and we can let the electorate debate the issue. Otherwise the default answer should be "no you can't have it".
Assuming it's easy, reasonable, and effective for phone carriers to do that, I don't really have a problem with the idea.
It isn't as easy for the phone companies as one might think. My father used to work in engineering for AT&T so I've been in a bunch of central offices with him. Not all the phone companies equipment is digital and some is positively antiquated. Ever wonder why you still need to dial a 1 before a lot of long distance numbers? That's a hold over from obsolete technology (it connects you to an outside circuit) but isn't actually necessary with digital switches. The reason we still do it is because central offices often still have a lot of old gear that has not yet been replaced because it works fine. It's slowly being replaced but the key word is slowly. Plus collecting this data isn't cheap and having the staff to respond to the inevitable flood of inquiries isn't cheap either.
Basically it's not easy, I'm not convinced it's reasonable and we have no way to determine if it is effective.
And I do think there's a huge difference between that and the NSA collecting the data themselves
I think it is going to be a distinction with little practical difference. The phone companies have been nothing if not pliable on this issue, the FISA court appears to only possess a stamp made of rubber, and practically speaking with the 2 hops rule they can get to almost anyone thanks to commonly called numbers. So they get a "warrant" and call AT&T and say "give me every bit of data within 2 hops of Joe Schmoe". Unless Joe Schmoe is a hermit, odds are that is going to be a huge amount of data because in most cases Joe will have called utilities, customer service numbers, pizza shops, etc, all of which will get you to a very large number of people.
I knew there would be some sort of loop hole. I never stoppped to think about a large corporation being counted in these hops.
Yeah, I didn't think of it either. Someone on NPR pointed this out the other day. Used to be they were allowed to go 3 hops but even without commonly called numbers 3 hops will get you to a HUGE number of people. (potentially 390,625 if my math is right) Now it is just 2 hops but when you include commonly called numbers like big corporations or government agencies like the IRS will get you pretty much to anyone. Hell, think about even something like your local pizza shop and how many people call them.
Most of the time, economics is a marketing campaign trying to sell a particular product (like a mortgage)...
Your assertion is every bit as absurd as claiming that medicine is a marketing campaign because some people try to sell pills. Economics is the study of behavior with regard to scarce resources. Economists don't have anything to do with selling mortgages or any other specific financial product, nor does the field of economics. Economics most certainly is a science and is conducted using the scientific method. Economists develop a hypothesis, build a model to predict a behavior and then try to test that model. The fact that we cannot in many cases conduct double-blind experiments due to practical constraints does not make it any less of a science. The fact that our understanding of economics is imperfect likewise does not make it any less of a science.
When people get into trouble with using economic research is when they use it beyond the limits of the models. For instance the Black-Scholes equation is incredibly predictive *provided* that you stay within the constraints on the model, which are numerous. Go beyond the assumptions of the model and you do so at your own risk.
Economists are as much scientists as used car salesmen are, and far less trustworthy.
Perhaps you should actually find out what economics actually is and how it really works publicly proclaiming your ignorance to the world.
One of the premises of bitcoin was that we would no longer have to pay the middle man in a transaction
Which is largely a false premise. Virtually all bitcoin transactions will require exchanging bitcoins for other currency. This means you have to find a middle man to exchange the money and that is never free. Furthermore by taking out the bank from the transaction you have instead incurred a lot of additional risk (exchange rate risk, counterparty risk, volatility, opportunity cost, market risk, etc) which under any sane accounting carries a cost. You have essentially taken on the costs that would normally be borne by the middle man on to yourself when you use bitcoin.
We all "just" need to take your word for it, or did you have anything to substantiate this claim?
Seriously, it *might* be that bitcoin is legit but frankly it is absurdly easy to paint the picture that bitcoin is a Pump-and-Dump scheme. If I were to describe a hypothetical pump and dump scheme using a hypothetical digital currency, it would sound an awful lot like bitcoin. Doesn't necessarily mean that bitcoin is such a scheme but anyone who uses it without strongly considering the possibility is a fool.
Bitcoin is just a mechanism to transfer tokens ("coins") securely from one wallet to another, and gradually add tokens to the available pool by letting anyone who wants to mine them.
No it is NOT just what you describe any more than dollars are just printed pieces of paper we can hand to one another to buy things. It is a type of currency and as a result it is much more than just a mechanism of transfer. Bitcoin is the entire system it creates including the exchanges, the software, the transaction infrastructure, the rules and the rest. The ability to transfer bitcoins between digital wallets is pretty much useless without the rest of it so saying it is just a transfer mechanism really isn't correct.
What's curious about bitcoin is that functionally it's pretty much a digital money order. It seems to have some geek appeal but there isn't anything functionally novel about what it does. I think it is an intellectual curiosity that will be studied closely by economic researchers but practically speaking I don't really see much point in it. It carries a huge amount of risk and externalized cost for something that I can already do with a lot less bother.
The New York Times reported last night that the White House is planning to introduce a legislative package that would mostly end the NSA's bulk collection of phone records.
They have no intention of ending it, they just are forcing others to do it for them. Basically instead of you and I paying for the NSA to spy on us with tax dollars were going to pay the NSA to spy on us with our phone bills instead. Just because they privatize the burden of data collection doesn't mean they are ending anything.
Instead, phone companies would be required to hand over records up to "two hops" from a target number.
What this means in practice is that if you and I both call FedEx that is considered a "hop" and now our numbers are linked. They essentially can use any commonly called number to get to anyone else and you can cover a HUGE percentage of the population with a few common phone numbers. This is a "limitation" that really isn't a limitation.
There are plenty of people in the nation for whom they can't buy food that was farm raised and slaughtered, and the government doesn't provide enough help for them to do anything other than hunt.
Demonstrably nonsense. They may not know how to get help but help is out there. Not just from the government either. There are food banks, there are shelters, there are non-profits, there are huge amounts of resources. And frankly if there are a few people remaining who actually do need to hunt then I have NO PROBLEM with them hunting. What I DO have a problem with is arrogant asshole hunters using those very very few people as a justification for their own hunting which has nothing whatsoever to do with food. The vast majority of hunters hunt because it amuses them, not because of economic need. At least most of them have the decency to actually eat what they kill so that's something...
I've been there. I stood in line for the government cheese ... and then was fucked when it ran out before the line got to me.
And I've both gotten government assistance AND helped hand out that very same cheese later on down the line.
You have no idea what being poor is actually like...
Really? You know my life story? You know how much money my family had when I was a child? Fact is I know perfectly well first hand what it is like to be poor. Very poor. Most of my family comes from parts of Tennessee that are known for crushing poverty in years gone by. I also know what it is like to have crushing debt and I also know what it is like to depend on others for help. I'm not poor now but that doesn't mean I don't understand. And what I understand is that virtually no one in the US has to hunt to feed themselves.
I doubt there are very many states that don't have people who MUST HUNT TO EAT or die.
Ok, point out some evidence of their existence. I have no problem with someone hunting to survive but there simply are not very many of those people out there in the USA. Fact is that most people who get significant amounts of the diet from hunting do so because they chose to, not because they have to.
Look, dink, just because you can easily go to the grocery store
Look twat. I raise my own livestock and I'm pretty sure you don't. But you've clearly shown your desire to justify your urges to kill creatures for your amuse yourself and pretend it is for feeding your family. Worse you feel the need to argue about your killing urges because you are afraid someone might point out that hunting for amusement is barbaric and unnecessary. Go right ahead and keep lying to yourself about why you hunt. I might actually give a shit what you have to say if you would actually come out and admit that you and most other hunters go hunting purely for amusement.
Exactly what do you call the dead animal that results from hunting?
Meat. I sure as hell wouldn't try to affix human characteristics to goddamn livestock, I can tell you that - only a PETA terrorist or one of their supporters would do something so nonsensical.
Ahh so animals are no more than pixels on a video game to you, put here for not reason other than for you to shoot them? It's not human so it's nothing more than meat for you to "harvest". Wow. That is an astonishing lack of empathy you've got there. If the animals are nothing more than ambulatory meat then why are you having such a hard time admitting that you shoot them for amusement. After all, it's just meat so where is the ethical dilemma? Why the need for all the excuses and lies and justifications about why you do it? Why do you need to pretend that animals don't feel pain and that they somehow magically die instantly when you shoot them? Why justify hunting pretending it is somehow more humane that farming when according to you the animals are just meat? Just own the fact that you kill for fun and it all becomes a lot simpler. I'm not even trying to stop you from hunting, I just think it is pointless and barbaric and unnecessary.
Oh, shit, you are a PETA terrorist, aren't you?
Cute troll. I think we're done here.
I'll agree with the general point you are trying to make in your post but, there certainly are populations in very rural parts of this country, think Alaska (some cities are not even connected by roads to this day) and northern Maine, parts of Montana, some Indian reservations, etc were some people certainly do obtain all or at least the vast majority of the meat they consume from hunting and fishing.
Out of choice, not out of necessity. I don't actually have a problem with someone hunting for a meal but the fact remains that hunting in this country is a choice, not an economic necessity. People don't live in those sorts of areas because they landed there by accident. They made a conscious choice to live in a location away from society.
Hell, get a bunch of chickens and raise them. I have chickens myself and you can get chickens for about $1 each and feed them with scraps and a little grain. Hunting simply is NOT a necessity and hasn't been for a long time.
Your comment is beyond false, and you have no way to prove your point.
Sure I do. I simply have to point out the fact that there is essentially no one in the US that cannot get food without hunting which is a demonstrably true fact. Even the most poor among us have alternatives to hunting unless they choose not to take advantage of them. I don't have a problem with someone hunting for food out of economic need but that describes a vanishingly small percentage of our population.
I can truthfully state that there are many people that only survive off of the food they grow and/or kill, and not because "it's fun"
No there are not and I defy you to point out someone in the US that has no other alternatives. (Farmers don't count) Seriously, where is your evidence? We have vast food assistance programs in the US and a huge obesity epidemic. Explain to me how we have companies like Bass Shop Pro and Gander Mountain based on economic need to hunt. Exactly who needs to hunt and cannot get food any other way? If these people exist there should be some evidence of their existence. Prove your case.
Fact is that very little hunting in the US occurs due to economic need. It is primarily a form of amusement and any other benefits from it are second order effects. All I'm asking is for hunters to own up to that fact and not waste everyone's time with these lies that it is about food or the environment or anything other than their own amusement.
I would be interested to see you survive in the world that others live in for one week, or even for a few days.
Buddy, you have no idea what my background is. I have hunted and fished until I realized what I was doing was pointless and cruel. My family was poor as church mice when I was a child. I raise livestock and understand better than most what it means to kill the meat you are eating. I have a large family many of who are very rural and some were/are very poor. But you know what? Not one of them ever had to hunt to survive. Some do and that's fine but none of them pretend to do it for any reason other than they enjoy it.
See, this is the other reason* why the hunting community ignores you "environmentalists
The hunting community actually tries to fancy themselves as environmentalists. (see Ducks Unlimited) They like to pretend that the money they spend on hunting licenses actually is something more than subsidizing stocking populations of prey species so they can hunt and fish the following year. Furthermore you are confusing environmentalists with animal rights activists. Some people are both but they are not the same thing. Since hunters (like I'm guessing yourself) apparently cannot comprehend why what they are doing is cruel it's not really surprising that they ignore someone who rightly points out that their chosen form of amusement is both a barbaric form of amusement and unnecessary.
I mean, really, calling a person a 'psychopath' because they hunt for food, rather than wait for someone else to kill it for them?
Nobody in the US hunts because they are doing so for food. They have all the food they need from other sources. They are hunting almost exclusively for entertainment. If you want to kill animals for food, go work on a farm. Work in a slaughterhouse. I raise chickens myself. The "we're hunting for food" explanation is nothing more than a disingenuous justification. If you like to kill animals because it gives you a thrill then own that opinion. Don't think for a moment that the rest of us are so stupid that we cannot understand what is going on. There are several perfectly legitimate reasons to hunt but most of it is done purely for amusement.