Nobody is entirely unemotional including those labeled as sociopaths. An emotion is nothing more than a form hormonal signaling and even the most primitive drives such as hunger are examples. Without emotion there is no self-drive.
Emotions are a fundamental requirement in order to have self-defined objectives. Even a drive as fundamental as hunger is an emotion.
"Running people down in a tank is hardly the only way to perform rights violations against people."
They also used machine guns when they used that tank. They used them in the slaughter and burning of the people in the brutal occupation of their neighbor Tibet as well. Since China argues Tibet is part of China or that there simply is no Tibet we would have to count those as actions against its own citizens.
That aside it is almost impossible to parse your post.
It may be possible to make the argument the United States has as bad of a human rights record as China on a global scale but domestically there is no question. Even with detention camps for the japanese in WWII and the brief eugenics sterilization of criminals there is little comparison.
"Shit analogy. Everyone in that raid died because of Leroy. Your last sentence was what you think should have been done, but IN REALITY it didn't fucking happen. They wiped."
Exactly, do you want the trade war to go down the same way or do you want to let Leroy cause us to wipe without a fight? Who cares what a shit tank Leroy is we are going to die? If we get our shit together we'll drown in epics which sounds much better than getting wiped.
"The federal government measures the "engagement" of its federal workforce once a year with a massive survey of 1.5 million employees. And what it has found is that most federal workers are very dedicated to their work. Its most recent survey -- the 2018 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey -- asked employees if they are "willing to put in extra effort to get their job done," 96% of the survey takers responded affirmatively. Moreover, 91% agreed with the statement that they "look for ways to do their jobs better," and 90% "believe their work is important.""
Okay, I know we pretend these things are serious in office pc meetings but you know only the absolute dumbest people ever say anything else when given options like "willing to put in extra effort to get their job done," in supposedly anonymous workplace surveys.
"But this job dedication is being tested by the U.S. government shutdown, and most at risk of leaving are Millennial-age workers. Less than 6% of federal employees are under the age of 30 and represent half of all people who leave an agency within the first two years."
If they lack job dedication why should we employ them? This seems to make some sort of odd claim that these could be the "best of employees" having no dedication makes you a shit employee by definition.
"The only way you actually solve a problem is to identify what it is. The problem is one person who decided"
No, the problem is that we are in a trade war and we will get our asses handed to us if we don't stop squabbling over petty partisian bullshit and win it. I don't care what your party is, most people oppose you. That is right, most people don't like EITHER of the major parties. The major parties are like the cockpit created from the average characteristics of all pilots that was so far from what was desirable for any actual individual that several people died trying to fly it. The only people who support the parties aren't even capable of reasoning they are like sports fans.
I personally am not a fan of a trade war at this point, ten to twenty years ago this might have been a good idea. It doesn't matter now, this is where we are and if we are going to have a trade war we'd damn well better win it.
"Also, that border wall? Trump made it a central part of the 2018 elections. And Republicans lost very, very badly. They even lost 2 Senate seats they were supposed to win easily"
Ohhh you mean the big landslide taking it back movement that was supposed to sweep the house and senate in the publics outrage over Trump that had people like yourself scratching their heads and saying "at least we got the house"... barely. I haven't followed along since, I guess your party has been repeating the message that this WAS a landslide ever since then until their fans all got on board.
I guess I've been too busy being pissed about the shame voter report cards your billionaire supporters and party sent to neighborhoods they thought would vote for them alongside encouraging voting of people demographically likely to support the opposition that included an absentee ballot form that would disqualify them from actually being allowed to vote when it would be counted. But hey, at least most of these were money directly funneled into these efforts so that candidates could claim they weren't taking money from PACs and pretend to be grassroots!
There isn't a good definition. What was once AI is now being called strong AI or general AI. What we have is more like a process similar to panning for gold, we've created a logical process whereby we toss chaos into a slurry and agitate it looking for the gold to sift to the bottom. Once that is working we take the concept and scale it up to a sluice. It's no more intelligent than that, but we can keep dumping dirt in and it will take care of separating out the gold for us with some margin of error.
Yes because people literally speak literally all the time and if any detail of what they said literally differs from what they literally said you can literally ignore the substance. Illegal immigrants are a massive drain on the US, blocking them means mexico pays the bill for them, that in turn pays for the wall.
Saying the construction payments is what pays for it is like saying a hammer built your house. The construction funds just get dumped back where they came from, into the US economy, this is infrastructure spending. Hell a huge chunk of it comes directly back as taxes without any account for stimulus at all just turning around and taxing the money we paid people out of tax funds.
You have that backwards the Constitution was designed to protect us from having a tyranny of the majority. The idea was proportional representation. 51% or a majority was never supposed to be able to force the rest to their will.
"Yet, somehow, it's more relevant that fewer voters selected Trump two years prior?"
It's relevant that a massive number of voters did so and further that those voters put way more money into the budget than the cost of the thing they want. That is the whole point here. This system of representatives was supposed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority and ensure proportional representation IN THE RESULTS via proportional representatives. We've devolved into this system of winner takes all politics. This is being blocked for what? Political grandstanding? Some power play?
That is just an argument for the sake of making one. It doesn't really change anything. There is still more than $5B of our budget worth of taxpaying voters who think this is a problem that needs fixing and want this solution tried today.
It isn't about their stupid wall. If you don't demand our representatives respect the will of the people when it conflicts with your agenda then you lose the moral high ground when it is your turn. You lose your own right to representation when you deny theirs. A democracy isn't supposed to be winner takes all, it is supposed to be proportional representation. And when we have that we get a moderate result which doesn't get you everything you want but leaves no room for the extremes you most fear. Maybe you don't always get the nativity off the courthouse lawn but you do get an end to scarlet letters, witch burnings, and slavery because with proportional representation those extremes get eroded away over time by what starts as a small but represented minority which can show the rest an unpopular idea that turns out to be better.
Don't forget whipping people and putting them in the stocks for celebrating Christmas and hanging people for adultery. There are so many fun practices the early colonials had. I think it would be fair rather than to pick and choose which of religious practices of Europeans and Colonials we want to base our society on we just don't do that at all. How about we go with the spirit of the Christ figures statement when he said "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto the lord that which is the lords." It seems Christ advocated for a separation of church and state. When he turned over the tables in the temple he also advocated for separation of church and commerce. It is odd how many who claim to be his followers center so much of their lives and beliefs around the opposite.
China designed the boss and it's AI and they've been supping it up from the start. The D's have encouraged this saying the stronger we let the caves and bosses get the stronger and better the epic drops. The people elected Trump to nerf the boss mobs because the instances are getting too hard and while some people are getting awesome epics out of it most people can't take the fights and also think the ones who have the current epics are the only ones who can handle the new instances. Trump has screamed "LEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYY JENKINS!!!" and picked a fight with all the biggest bosses at once.
Now we are in the epic boss fight and if we don't all stop bitching about Leroy and coordinate fast we are definitely going to get wiped. So suck it up buttercup and start tossing some heals and res and get out of the goddamn tanks way.
How is that relevant? More than enough voters want this to overwhelmingly justify that level of budget expenditure. Equal representation REQUIRES that they get their agenda regardless of any other opinion about how well it work. This is a democracy and enough people think this will work that in a democracy we try it.
"the Americans who want this pay more than enough in taxes to be entitled to it"
It isn't their money. This is a democracy and more than enough voters want it. It doesn't matter, the people blocking this are their representatives, they work for them and their job isn't to pursue their own priorities.
People love to distract with straw men. For instance the idea that Hillary got more votes rawr. But it doesn't matter, more than enough people DID vote for Trump to be entitled to $5B of our massive budget for their agenda no matter what they want it for or how stupid the others think it is. If they don't get it we have zero credibility in any claim of equal representation. It really is that simple.
"72% of Americans believe illegal immigration is a problem.
Do you have a source for that? I found a study that basically said the opposite of that [people-press.org], where 72% said that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met. That's a long ways from your claim."
Very far in the way, so far one could call it a tangent since you can both think illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met (something trump proposed and both the D and R leadership shot down) and think illegal immigration is a problem.
"If they pay for his wall because he has a tantrum, what's next?"
The slippery slope fallacy? The reason to do it isn't because he is having a tantrum, he is using leverage to win a negotiation, this is the daily bread and butter of politics the only difference is he is doing it publicly where they are normally all smiles publicly and backstabbing and blackmailing behind the scenes. In all probability he is a sociopath like the rest of them and the whole tantrum and obliviousness routine is an effective tactic for getting to act irrationally. Women and the elderly have used the same strategy for centuries. I'd like to hear your protest to that comment but I feel faint with the vapors...I will ignore your rational argument because someone said mouthfeel or I'm just tired and can't do this anymore or I've lost my keys.
Ultimately the reason to do it is because the people who want it paid more than enough taxes to pay for it and he got more than enough votes to do it. It's a lot of money but it is also a drop in the bucket on our national budget.
As for Mexico paying for it, you might not follow it all the way through because you don't want to but blocking the immigrants if successful would do exactly that. Illegal immigrants cost us a boatload of money, leaving them in Mexico means mexico pays that money instead of us. The money that is actually spent to construct the thing is a net zero because it is infrastructure spending and just gets dumped back into the US economy.
No, something SOME of the colonies were founded on. Almost everything they came here to be able to do is illegal now because they were psychotic religious cults too extreme at a time when Europe burned people at the stake over religion. Not exactly something we want to bring back.
"The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by US President Donald Trump's refusal to sign any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall he promised during his election campaign."
Is no less accurate as:
The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by the US Congress' refusal to pass any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall promised to voters.
When you have two stubborn groups refusing to compromise THEY ARE BOTH RESPONSIBLE for the consequences. Right now we are a global embarrassment mostly because of partisanship at a time when we have an escalating trade war and need unity. You might point a finger at who put us in that position but I'd point out that isn't productive, it doesn't much matter we have to deal with the situation we are in. The money being requested here is a drop in the bucket relative to the budget and international credibility this costs us, the Americans who want this pay more than enough in taxes to be entitled to it, so my 2 cents is do the stupid thing and move on.
"And what T-Mobile is doing is not blocking spam -- of any kind. They make no such distinction. They are labeling some calls as likely scams because the caller ID data doesn't match their own verifiable caller source data. That's all."
For now in order to get better identification and exploit the new commercial opportunities afforded by net neutrality and if not T-mobile which admittedly is far from the worst along those lines it will be another carrier soon enough.
As for what is spam BY DEFINITION, there is no official and universal definition of this slang term and no amount of foaming at the mouth and asserting otherwise will make it so. I don't own one, you don't own one, and neither does anyone else. Opt-in, out-opt, at what point have you authorized it? Hell, messages from a script you yourself wrote blasting to your screen at annoying frequency is generally referred to as "spam." Pretty much any annoying and unwanted or bulk communication is considered spam. Why do you think everyone typically gets their own individual tagging capabilities for spam and not spam? We have some loose agreement on spam but individually do not agree on the details.
But using my definition available tools will work just fine targeting yours, targeting your definition I will still ultimately end up with a bunch of unwanted spam. Everything under the promotion tab in gmail is authorized spam.
"Authorized by who? For adjudicating spam, the receiver's authorization is what matters."
That is begging the question.
"In your first example, the T-Mobile authorized the business to send the messages, but their authorization doesn't play a role in whether it's spam or not."
Says you, and obviously me since that is the stance I took in the post you are agreeing with and repeating points from while taking a tone that suggests you are arguing. T-Mobile on the other hand would argue that they own the network and that mass and commercial messages THEY don't authorize constitute abusive and possibly a form of unauthorized systems access. T-Mobile could argue that even messages the user does want can be spamming their network.
""Authorized spam" doesn't really make much sense."
It does if other parties can and do have other ideas of spam and "authorized" than you, even if yours is the "right one." The post you originally argued with was using the term to point out and highlight what may well be shady practice by T-Mobile... if you are taking offense to it I'd have to question your motive because not having such a term makes it hard to distinguish between say a person sending a flyer with a roll of stamps and a business paying the USPS to drop everyone in a zip code with a mailer. As a user I want neither of them, the USPS might not want to call the zip code mailer spam.
"the user signed up for messages (he authorized the vendor to send text), so it's not spam"
Disagree, if I don't want to see it, it's spam whether I signed up for it or not. If you make me sign up for your mailing list to get a coupon, still spam. Everyone is trying to strongarm you into signing up for their crap or trick you into doing it accidentally or failing to provide a fine grain option allowing you to refuse advertising from them while still being signed up for business communication. Just because you authorize it, doesn't mean it isn't spam and your provider selling or endorsing it certainly doesn't mean it isn't spam.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody is entirely unemotional including those labeled as sociopaths. An emotion is nothing more than a form hormonal signaling and even the most primitive drives such as hunger are examples. Without emotion there is no self-drive.
Emotions are a fundamental requirement in order to have self-defined objectives. Even a drive as fundamental as hunger is an emotion.
"Running people down in a tank is hardly the only way to perform rights violations against people."
They also used machine guns when they used that tank. They used them in the slaughter and burning of the people in the brutal occupation of their neighbor Tibet as well. Since China argues Tibet is part of China or that there simply is no Tibet we would have to count those as actions against its own citizens.
That aside it is almost impossible to parse your post.
It may be possible to make the argument the United States has as bad of a human rights record as China on a global scale but domestically there is no question. Even with detention camps for the japanese in WWII and the brief eugenics sterilization of criminals there is little comparison.
How does this research impact marijuana growth?
Of course, you'd have to say the same of the animals we eat.
"Shit analogy. Everyone in that raid died because of Leroy. Your last sentence was what you think should have been done, but IN REALITY it didn't fucking happen. They wiped."
Exactly, do you want the trade war to go down the same way or do you want to let Leroy cause us to wipe without a fight? Who cares what a shit tank Leroy is we are going to die? If we get our shit together we'll drown in epics which sounds much better than getting wiped.
"The federal government measures the "engagement" of its federal workforce once a year with a massive survey of 1.5 million employees. And what it has found is that most federal workers are very dedicated to their work. Its most recent survey -- the 2018 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey -- asked employees if they are "willing to put in extra effort to get their job done," 96% of the survey takers responded affirmatively. Moreover, 91% agreed with the statement that they "look for ways to do their jobs better," and 90% "believe their work is important.""
Okay, I know we pretend these things are serious in office pc meetings but you know only the absolute dumbest people ever say anything else when given options like "willing to put in extra effort to get their job done," in supposedly anonymous workplace surveys.
"But this job dedication is being tested by the U.S. government shutdown, and most at risk of leaving are Millennial-age workers. Less than 6% of federal employees are under the age of 30 and represent half of all people who leave an agency within the first two years."
If they lack job dedication why should we employ them? This seems to make some sort of odd claim that these could be the "best of employees" having no dedication makes you a shit employee by definition.
"The only way you actually solve a problem is to identify what it is. The problem is one person who decided"
No, the problem is that we are in a trade war and we will get our asses handed to us if we don't stop squabbling over petty partisian bullshit and win it. I don't care what your party is, most people oppose you. That is right, most people don't like EITHER of the major parties. The major parties are like the cockpit created from the average characteristics of all pilots that was so far from what was desirable for any actual individual that several people died trying to fly it. The only people who support the parties aren't even capable of reasoning they are like sports fans.
I personally am not a fan of a trade war at this point, ten to twenty years ago this might have been a good idea. It doesn't matter now, this is where we are and if we are going to have a trade war we'd damn well better win it.
"Also, that border wall? Trump made it a central part of the 2018 elections. And Republicans lost very, very badly. They even lost 2 Senate seats they were supposed to win easily"
Ohhh you mean the big landslide taking it back movement that was supposed to sweep the house and senate in the publics outrage over Trump that had people like yourself scratching their heads and saying "at least we got the house"... barely. I haven't followed along since, I guess your party has been repeating the message that this WAS a landslide ever since then until their fans all got on board.
I guess I've been too busy being pissed about the shame voter report cards your billionaire supporters and party sent to neighborhoods they thought would vote for them alongside encouraging voting of people demographically likely to support the opposition that included an absentee ballot form that would disqualify them from actually being allowed to vote when it would be counted. But hey, at least most of these were money directly funneled into these efforts so that candidates could claim they weren't taking money from PACs and pretend to be grassroots!
Are you off your rocker? I'm nearly as opposed to Trump as I am to Hillary.
There isn't a good definition. What was once AI is now being called strong AI or general AI. What we have is more like a process similar to panning for gold, we've created a logical process whereby we toss chaos into a slurry and agitate it looking for the gold to sift to the bottom. Once that is working we take the concept and scale it up to a sluice. It's no more intelligent than that, but we can keep dumping dirt in and it will take care of separating out the gold for us with some margin of error.
Yes because people literally speak literally all the time and if any detail of what they said literally differs from what they literally said you can literally ignore the substance. Illegal immigrants are a massive drain on the US, blocking them means mexico pays the bill for them, that in turn pays for the wall.
Saying the construction payments is what pays for it is like saying a hammer built your house. The construction funds just get dumped back where they came from, into the US economy, this is infrastructure spending. Hell a huge chunk of it comes directly back as taxes without any account for stimulus at all just turning around and taxing the money we paid people out of tax funds.
You have that backwards the Constitution was designed to protect us from having a tyranny of the majority. The idea was proportional representation. 51% or a majority was never supposed to be able to force the rest to their will.
"Yet, somehow, it's more relevant that fewer voters selected Trump two years prior?"
It's relevant that a massive number of voters did so and further that those voters put way more money into the budget than the cost of the thing they want. That is the whole point here. This system of representatives was supposed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority and ensure proportional representation IN THE RESULTS via proportional representatives. We've devolved into this system of winner takes all politics. This is being blocked for what? Political grandstanding? Some power play?
That is just an argument for the sake of making one. It doesn't really change anything. There is still more than $5B of our budget worth of taxpaying voters who think this is a problem that needs fixing and want this solution tried today.
It isn't about their stupid wall. If you don't demand our representatives respect the will of the people when it conflicts with your agenda then you lose the moral high ground when it is your turn. You lose your own right to representation when you deny theirs. A democracy isn't supposed to be winner takes all, it is supposed to be proportional representation. And when we have that we get a moderate result which doesn't get you everything you want but leaves no room for the extremes you most fear. Maybe you don't always get the nativity off the courthouse lawn but you do get an end to scarlet letters, witch burnings, and slavery because with proportional representation those extremes get eroded away over time by what starts as a small but represented minority which can show the rest an unpopular idea that turns out to be better.
Which tangibly counters nothing I said.
I can do it too. Republicans are represented with red and their wall would be grey!
Don't forget whipping people and putting them in the stocks for celebrating Christmas and hanging people for adultery. There are so many fun practices the early colonials had. I think it would be fair rather than to pick and choose which of religious practices of Europeans and Colonials we want to base our society on we just don't do that at all. How about we go with the spirit of the Christ figures statement when he said "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto the lord that which is the lords." It seems Christ advocated for a separation of church and state. When he turned over the tables in the temple he also advocated for separation of church and commerce. It is odd how many who claim to be his followers center so much of their lives and beliefs around the opposite.
I'll explain this like it was world of warcraft.
China designed the boss and it's AI and they've been supping it up from the start. The D's have encouraged this saying the stronger we let the caves and bosses get the stronger and better the epic drops. The people elected Trump to nerf the boss mobs because the instances are getting too hard and while some people are getting awesome epics out of it most people can't take the fights and also think the ones who have the current epics are the only ones who can handle the new instances. Trump has screamed "LEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYY JENKINS!!!" and picked a fight with all the biggest bosses at once.
Now we are in the epic boss fight and if we don't all stop bitching about Leroy and coordinate fast we are definitely going to get wiped. So suck it up buttercup and start tossing some heals and res and get out of the goddamn tanks way.
How is that relevant? More than enough voters want this to overwhelmingly justify that level of budget expenditure. Equal representation REQUIRES that they get their agenda regardless of any other opinion about how well it work. This is a democracy and enough people think this will work that in a democracy we try it.
"the Americans who want this pay more than enough in taxes to be entitled to it"
It isn't their money. This is a democracy and more than enough voters want it. It doesn't matter, the people blocking this are their representatives, they work for them and their job isn't to pursue their own priorities.
People love to distract with straw men. For instance the idea that Hillary got more votes rawr. But it doesn't matter, more than enough people DID vote for Trump to be entitled to $5B of our massive budget for their agenda no matter what they want it for or how stupid the others think it is. If they don't get it we have zero credibility in any claim of equal representation. It really is that simple.
What part of "it doesn't matter" compels you start a debate about the thing that doesn't matter?
"72% of Americans believe illegal immigration is a problem.
Do you have a source for that? I found a study that basically said the opposite of that [people-press.org], where 72% said that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met. That's a long ways from your claim."
Very far in the way, so far one could call it a tangent since you can both think illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met (something trump proposed and both the D and R leadership shot down) and think illegal immigration is a problem.
"If they pay for his wall because he has a tantrum, what's next?"
The slippery slope fallacy? The reason to do it isn't because he is having a tantrum, he is using leverage to win a negotiation, this is the daily bread and butter of politics the only difference is he is doing it publicly where they are normally all smiles publicly and backstabbing and blackmailing behind the scenes. In all probability he is a sociopath like the rest of them and the whole tantrum and obliviousness routine is an effective tactic for getting to act irrationally. Women and the elderly have used the same strategy for centuries. I'd like to hear your protest to that comment but I feel faint with the vapors...I will ignore your rational argument because someone said mouthfeel or I'm just tired and can't do this anymore or I've lost my keys.
Ultimately the reason to do it is because the people who want it paid more than enough taxes to pay for it and he got more than enough votes to do it. It's a lot of money but it is also a drop in the bucket on our national budget.
As for Mexico paying for it, you might not follow it all the way through because you don't want to but blocking the immigrants if successful would do exactly that. Illegal immigrants cost us a boatload of money, leaving them in Mexico means mexico pays that money instead of us. The money that is actually spent to construct the thing is a net zero because it is infrastructure spending and just gets dumped back into the US economy.
No, something SOME of the colonies were founded on. Almost everything they came here to be able to do is illegal now because they were psychotic religious cults too extreme at a time when Europe burned people at the stake over religion. Not exactly something we want to bring back.
"The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by US President Donald Trump's refusal to sign any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall he promised during his election campaign."
Is no less accurate as:
The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by the US Congress' refusal to pass any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall promised to voters.
When you have two stubborn groups refusing to compromise THEY ARE BOTH RESPONSIBLE for the consequences. Right now we are a global embarrassment mostly because of partisanship at a time when we have an escalating trade war and need unity. You might point a finger at who put us in that position but I'd point out that isn't productive, it doesn't much matter we have to deal with the situation we are in. The money being requested here is a drop in the bucket relative to the budget and international credibility this costs us, the Americans who want this pay more than enough in taxes to be entitled to it, so my 2 cents is do the stupid thing and move on.
"And what T-Mobile is doing is not blocking spam -- of any kind. They make no such distinction. They are labeling some calls as likely scams because the caller ID data doesn't match their own verifiable caller source data. That's all."
For now in order to get better identification and exploit the new commercial opportunities afforded by net neutrality and if not T-mobile which admittedly is far from the worst along those lines it will be another carrier soon enough.
As for what is spam BY DEFINITION, there is no official and universal definition of this slang term and no amount of foaming at the mouth and asserting otherwise will make it so. I don't own one, you don't own one, and neither does anyone else. Opt-in, out-opt, at what point have you authorized it? Hell, messages from a script you yourself wrote blasting to your screen at annoying frequency is generally referred to as "spam." Pretty much any annoying and unwanted or bulk communication is considered spam. Why do you think everyone typically gets their own individual tagging capabilities for spam and not spam? We have some loose agreement on spam but individually do not agree on the details.
But using my definition available tools will work just fine targeting yours, targeting your definition I will still ultimately end up with a bunch of unwanted spam. Everything under the promotion tab in gmail is authorized spam.
"Authorized by who? For adjudicating spam, the receiver's authorization is what matters."
That is begging the question.
"In your first example, the T-Mobile authorized the business to send the messages, but their authorization doesn't play a role in whether it's spam or not."
Says you, and obviously me since that is the stance I took in the post you are agreeing with and repeating points from while taking a tone that suggests you are arguing. T-Mobile on the other hand would argue that they own the network and that mass and commercial messages THEY don't authorize constitute abusive and possibly a form of unauthorized systems access. T-Mobile could argue that even messages the user does want can be spamming their network.
""Authorized spam" doesn't really make much sense."
It does if other parties can and do have other ideas of spam and "authorized" than you, even if yours is the "right one." The post you originally argued with was using the term to point out and highlight what may well be shady practice by T-Mobile... if you are taking offense to it I'd have to question your motive because not having such a term makes it hard to distinguish between say a person sending a flyer with a roll of stamps and a business paying the USPS to drop everyone in a zip code with a mailer. As a user I want neither of them, the USPS might not want to call the zip code mailer spam.
"the user signed up for messages (he authorized the vendor to send text), so it's not spam"
Disagree, if I don't want to see it, it's spam whether I signed up for it or not. If you make me sign up for your mailing list to get a coupon, still spam. Everyone is trying to strongarm you into signing up for their crap or trick you into doing it accidentally or failing to provide a fine grain option allowing you to refuse advertising from them while still being signed up for business communication. Just because you authorize it, doesn't mean it isn't spam and your provider selling or endorsing it certainly doesn't mean it isn't spam.