We have the cause and effect of every conflict that ever happened and we know the patterns. Temporary leaders and peaceful transition of power has the most successful record so far.
Temporary leaders and peaceful transitions of power != democracy. Reference exhibit A: China. Semi-benevolent single-party authoritarian oligarchies may very well prove to be a viable alternative. We shall see how China goes at the end of Xi Jingping's second term, as well as Russia's stability whenever Putin retires/dies.
This is why so much effort is spent in trying to spread freedom and democracy. It's a net gain for all.
Be sure to walk into a hospital in Mosul or Aleppo and explain how the US spreading democracy was a "net gain" for them.
Or they become self sufficient peaceful neighbours like Japan.
Germany and Japan had no choice but to comply as they:
1. lost wars they arguably started
2. had their entire countries burnt to the ground
3. were occupied by the US military
4. the alternative was occupation/invasion by the Soviets who were guaranteed to treat them even worse
So like I said before, the Cold War distorts all conclusions that can be drawn regarding democracy on its own merits.
There's no perfect scenario, but funding development has proven time and time again to be the least worse option.
If there's no perfect scenario.....then we might as well maintain a credible and competent military for defense, just in case. Note: I'm not saying the bloat and largess that we have now is necessary, but a robust and well-trained military supported by a technically-proficient domestic defense industry should be mandatory for any nation-state with a decent level of development.
And if you recognize that there are no perfect scenarios, I'm not sure why your comments contain so many shallow and simple platitudes to significantly more nuanced problems.
Educated, free and democratic nations are much, much less likely to engage in war with each other.
1. We have a very limited sample size to support this as a truism. During the Cold War, the world's democracies were too terrified of Communism to risk internecine strife. The First World has had barely 30 years outside the spectre of Warsaw Pact invasion, and much of it has enjoyed an integrated and bountiful economic dividend while plugged into the US's Petrodollar-backed financial system (which essentially taxes the global economy). We will see if the coming decades of stagnating economies, population migrations, and shifts in global financial systems lead to nation state conflicts in Europe rather than just internal upheavals.
2. Notice your caveat of "with each other", because the most powerful democracy of our age has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to engage in totally elective, expeditionary military campaigns racking up a butcher's bill in the hundreds of thousands of "collateral damage" civilian casualties over the past ~70 years.
3. The US has actually already tried this sort of "sell them prosperity to avoid conflict" theory, inadvertently. By outsourcing to China, we've essentially subsidized the education and infrastructure buildup of what will be our greatest adversary of the 21st century. So either we subsidize democracies and they become parasitic wastrels (Southern/Eastern Europe) or we subsidize non-democracies and essentially build up those who are likely to turn on us for religious/social/political reasons, or out of sheer ambition. Great plan.
And I'm not talking straight cash that would only encourage more enemies, but clever application of funding for things like schools and hospitals, things that encourage the people to become educated and prosperous and not fight wars in the first place?
Because the only people who have ever started wars in human history were all poor and ignorant? As if "educated" and prosperous cultures were never home to toxic and close-minded ideologies?
I'm a leftist, dumbass. The DNC organization can go die in a fire. They're right wing hacks like yourself - and I hear they have a position open for an IT worker. You have so much in common!
Speaking of which.....has anyone else noticed there hasn't been a SINGLE article on Slashdot about Imran Awan and his shenanigans as a Congressional IT staffer for some major Democrats? Is it just political bias amongst the/. editorial staff? BeauHD bends over backwards to bring us every negative thing about Trump while skipping over this equally-interesting (from the perspective of IT practices, opsec, and crime) story affecting the opposite party.
Other examples include Iceland and New Zealand, where girls now slightly out-perform boys in maths at school. If it was not a social thing, if it was biological, then it's hard to explain how two different cultures with two different languages on opposite sides of the world and with little migration between them could be that way.
The structure of the educational systems would be a good place to start. I bet that Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and progressive Scandinavian countries like Iceland have FAR more in common regarding how they instruct mathematics than they have differences. It's not like we are comparing a former Soviet state, or an East Asian country with Confucian principles.
https://motherboard.vice.com/e...
Here's the full, original manifesto with all the embedded hyperlinks the original author included. Why did Gizmodo post a version stripped of this information?
Really? In my experience, Japanese women under 30 are probably the flakiest demographic I've ever encountered. Most reliable (outside of US Marines, but I'm biased in this regard): Vietnamese dudes and Thai women.
Or, you could take the word of the intelligence agencies (any, take your pick), who have concluded that nationality is not a reliable threat indicator.
Citation needed. DuckDuckGo is only giving me an article about a draft internal report by the DHS: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ne...
It wastes our country's standing and credibility.
With whom, exactly? Three of the five BRICS have their own Muslim insurgency problems, and two of those three are ruthlessly pragmatic authoritarian regimes who don't really like us anyway. Of the remaining 2 BRICS, Brazil is too occupied with Presidential corruption woes of their own and a shaky economy. Out in Asia, our friends in Korea and Japan are xenophobic assholes, and down in the Philippines Duterte is struggling with his own Muslim insurgency that is flaring up. Duterte, who is busy moving into Russia and China's sphere and has been reducing ties with the US. Yeah, we're really gonna win him over by being nice to Muslims. The Israelis and Saudis have got us by the short hairs regardless. The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, is....also trying to put down a brutal Muslim insurgency (seeing a trend here?) So who are we losing standing with? South Africa, and the Europeans? Those brilliant folks who have opened the floodgates to their own cultural instability and possible demise? The Turks might accomplish with starving civilians (interesting how they don't seem eager to shelter their fellow Muslims) what they couldn't accomplish over hundreds of years of invasions: https://counterjihadreport.com...
And let's not forget that the first version of the ban wasn't a ban on citizens of those countries travelling to the USA: it was a ban on Muslims from those countries travelling to the USA.
If that's the case.....yeah it's kinda stupid. Anyone can claim that they've converted to some other religion and there isn't really any way to verify it with their home country one way or the other. A guy named Achmed the Not-Yet Dead Terrorist could carry a King James Bible and say he found Jesus on the flight and wanted to get baptized. "Oh ok, not a Muslim. Step right through." Security theater.
What remains is a ban on Muslims who don't come from countries where Trump has current or hopes for future business interests.
Ok, I can kinda agree with you on that one. I have a real problem with the US-Saudi Petrodollar relationship. The memes for this pic practically write themselves: ( http://media.philly.com/images... ). But a real-estate guy like Trump should see that KBR-style reconstruction contracts in Libya at least could be a big business opportunity. So maybe he's asleep at the wheel on security AND business?
Honestly the dude is his own worst enemy. He puts his foot in his mouth on a seemingly daily basis and I think his staff spends as much time putting out helmet fires that HE creates as they do fighting with the Deep State shadow government and actually attempting to run the country.
I live in Japan, itself an extremely xenophobic nation. As a non-white immigrant it's annoying but I understand and respect their policies, from the perspective of national cultural preservation and social integrity. Japan's strict stance on assimilation means that it's almost impossible for disgruntled ethnic enclaves to really thrive here, and they have NO tolerance for non-Japanese responding to conformist pressure with violence/protests/etc....
I have close friends here who are Iranian Shia expats, been here for decades. Ya know what's funny? The wife of the family often talks politics with me and says "Why is everyone so mad at Trump? Of course you should ban those people from your country. They're dangerous!" Middle-aged Muslim woman says its not smart to allow Muslim refugees into America. That's a headline you'll never see on CNN. Now besides the obvious irony of someone who fled the Iranian Revolution* complaining about present-day refugees, this married couple is upper class and extremely well-educated (usually a requirement for long-term residence in Japan). Do we have any easy, reliable means for verifying the education, background, or criminal history of refugees from the 6 Travel Ban countries? Highly unlikely. They are practically failed states.
*Some of her uncles were Generals in the Shah's Army....all "disappeared".
The sheer magnitude of innocent people caught in that ginormous net is extremely unjust by any measure. That some Americans are terrified of a tiny minority of people from those countries wearing towels on their heads does not make it any more rational or just.
The United States is not under any international or domestic legal obligation to allow travelers or immigrants from elsewhere. We have that right as a sovereign nation to control our borders. As for "innocent people" and "unjust"......How's that White Man's Burden working out for you? Do we elect our public officials to do what is in the best interests of American citizens, or the best interests of foreigners? The two are often not overlapping on a Venn diagram.
That some Americans are terrified of a tiny minority of people from those countries wearing towels on their heads does not make it any more rational or just.
How tiny is the tiny minority? Is it 1% of Muslims? That's 18 million jihadis. Even if it were 1% of the 6 Travel Ban countries, that's 1.8 million jihadis. If we add those 1.8 million to the US population of ~326 million, they would be about 0.5% of Americans. Would you still shop at Wal-Mart if 1 out of every 200 customers was just waiting for the best time to blow himself up at the checkout line? Are you willing to accept that risk? For what purpose? What do we really lose by saying "You know what, I think we're just NOT going to let you guys come here until you get your shit straight." What are the second- and third-order effects of increasingly frequent terror attacks attributable to radical Islam? Effects on the economy? Effects on overall quality of life from the inevitable security theater?
Thing is, it's NOT a "tiny minority". Check out the data from the Pew Research Center: 2014 study. Look how many are at least kinda-sorta ok with the idea of using suicide bombings against CIVILIANS. Bangladesh? 47%. Turkey? 18%. Egypt? 24%. That means those 3 countries alone have 100 MILLION Muslims who think it's okay to blow up women and children in defense of Islam. Is that your idea of a "tiny minority"? Let's also throw in the 25% of American Muslims who agree with them: http://www.reuters.com/article...
Ya know if we were really smart....we would filter a Muslim ban by allowing women 16-30 a fast track to immigration. Women are usually politically radicalized by th
Yes, thankyou for pointing that out. I should have included a blurb about Saudi Arabia, which, like Israel, has HUGE lobbying power in DC even though the Saudis deserve to be front and center on our shitlist.
The only difference here is that Trump isn't a normal politician and may have some racist or at least anti-Muslim views
According to this CNN link , the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US). These countries are 10% of the world Muslim population. They are also some of the most dangerous and active conflict zones in the world today, and possess training environments for the radicalization of second-generation immigrants in Europe to turn into terrorists.
You know what countries AREN'T on Trump's travel ban? Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt. Combined they are home to 56.7% of the world's Muslims, and while some of them have security problems and active jihadi insurgencies, they also have more robust security apparatuses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So is Trump really anti-Muslim, or simply enacting pre-emptive security measures and risk avoidance?
In comparison, his erstwhile opponent in the Presidential race voted in favor of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The collapse of security in Iraq in 2003 is STILL costing Muslim lives to this day due to ISIS, which even a conservative estimate would place in the high hundreds of thousands of fatalities 2003-2017. This is also the same woman who **LAUGHED** about the overthrow and extra-judicial lynching of a Muslim head of state (Qaddafi). https://youtu.be/UtH7iv4ip1U
So I'm just curious if you also consider Hillary Clinton to be a racist anti-Muslim? Or is it just Trump?
Princes of the Yen: About how the founders of modern Japan were basically a bunch of WW2 fascists, and their methods of social engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Century of the Self: About social engineering and propaganda. https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s
The Collapse of the American Dream Explained in Animation: About debt slavery and banking. https://youtu.be/mII9NZ8MMVM?l...
1. Wikileaks offered a $130,000 reward for information regarding Seth Rich's murder. It's unprecedented in their history. Why would they do that? https://twitter.com/wikileaks/...
2. The OANN requested information leading to the doctor who treated Seth Rich. Their website was immediately DDOS'd. Who most stands to gain from such an action? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
3. This former DC Detective/PI says his "insider sources" suggest that Seth Rich was in contact with Wikileaks and that the DCPD was told to stand down on their murder investigation. Why are his sources considered any less reputable than WaPo "sources", which have a VERY well-known and demonstrable political bias and agenda? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
This timeline of significant events leaves out everything associated with Seth Rich. Why? Perhaps because it undermines the "Russia hacked us!" narrative?
The problem is the greatest source of actual threats is the same country that serves as the lynchpin of our whole Petrodollar system: Saudi Arabia. We're joined at the hip with our greatest cultural enemy, all in the name of central bank fiat currency. The post-Soviet era led to a drawdown of US forces in Europe but we needed to match that with disengagement from the MidEast, and planning to move away from OPEC support for our global reserve status. But we couldn't pull that off because:
1. US leaders and bankers addicted to global economic domination
2. Saudi money lobbying in DC
3. Israeli money lobbying in DC (support for Israel is at least #2 on "list of reasons why Muslim terrorists try to kill us)
I'm an introvert. I "recharge" by being alone, often not having face-to-face contact with other humans for days. I find large social engagements exhausting. I realized recently that I'm always tired because I work in an open office with 9 other people and the constant interactions just drains the life outta me. Getting coffee with 2-3 people is usually manageable. Best is 1-to-1 encounters, like going on a date, or meeting a close friend to talk about life and women. If your introversion is so severe that you can't handle time spent with even ONE other human being, well that's got to have a serious deleterious impact on your romantic life and friendships.
But the US is so large and so diverse in its land and environments, I really don't have that much a reason to need to leave the country. I have a lot to explore here.
Then you are really missing out on the true benefit of travel: the people you meet. Mountains and beaches may be the same anywhere, but the relationships you form with new people are what make it all worthwhile. I'm an American service member and in the past 6 years I've spent only 3 months in the US (2 x 1-month exercises and 1 month visiting family), and it's not because of the landscapes out here in Asia.
It's not legal either place for very good reasons because it isn't safe and cannot be made safe.
Then how do you rationalize why it is even legal to purchase such hardware? There are undoubtedly more firearms than 500+hp cars in America. Firearms are regulated extensively regulated for public safety. High-powered street cars are not. If they are such a public safety risk as you assert, why is this the case?
Spend 20 seconds on google if you need actual examples.
I already supplied multi-year traffic accident data for Japan and the US. That's a far larger data set than looking at individual examples on Google.
Considering that automation/robots/AI are making human labor obsolete...
Umm, what kind of bullshit are you talking about now? This has nothing to do with the topic at hand nor is it actually true.
I'm not sure if you are trolling or just plain ignorant, but I'm feeling generous enough to contribute to your enlightenment. Japanese insurance firm replaces 34 staff with AI: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... IBM's Watson edits an entire magazine on its own: https://futurism.com/will-ibms... Automation arrives at restaurants: http://www.computerworld.com/a... "The result of their agitation will be more jobs for machines and fewer for the least skilled workers," it wrote. Foxconn replaces 60,000 factory workers with robots: http://www.bbc.com/news/techno... Chinese factory replaces 90% of humans with robots, production soars: http://www.techrepublic.com/ar...
Now, here's why all of that is relevant. What are we supposed to do with potentially billions of low-skill or even medium-skill human beings whose labor is no longer a cost-effective means of production? They will still consume resources and produce pollution, just by existing. Your posts indicate that protecting the environment is a priority for you, yet you have a myopic focus on high-powered passenger vehicles while ignoring the elephant in the room of unchecked global population growth. Hence why I countered that cutting the population in half would leave us still able to sustain (if not improve) our First-World living standards across the board, AND do the environment a big favor. We can have 800HP cars and pristine national parks if we just had 4 billion fewer people, who we won't need to manufacture said 800HP cars in the near-future anyway, so no loss there......Are you finally picking up what I'm putting down now?
Holy off topic batman. I think we are done here.
Well, I've laid out my thoughts in a clear manner with numerous references, and you've only contributed vapid one-liners, so I have no qualms about accepting your concession in this debate.
You also miss out on rewarding life experiences like pulling over in a dark parking lot to get a quick fuck in, then drop the girl off to go drifting and make your tires squeal until dawn. Especially in a vehicle that has a touch of your own craftsmanship to it, because you turn wrenches and installed all the performance mods yourself.
Nobody ever claimed they were. But you also cannot credibly argue that you can safely utilize those 800HP on normal roads or that you aren't needlessly polluting. You might have the legal right to do it but don't pretend you aren't taking a big old shit on the environment.
I know people here in Japan with 800+HP cars who have drag raced on public roads. Late nights, low traffic, straight roads, experience from drag racing closed tracks AND the street, roll cages, etc....yeah, it can be reasonably safe. Should be even easier in the States, where there are straighter, longer highways and lower population densities.
Also, newsflash: EVERYONE who is even born in an industrialized country is taking a Cleveland Steamer on the chest of the environment, just by existing. The best way to establish some balance with nature would be a population decline. Considering that automation/robots/AI are making human labor obsolete, we don't have as much need for ever-increasing numbers of negligibly-useful meatsacks. Get the population down to ~2-3 billion and we would have no problem having enough resources to go around, so we could all drive 800HP gas guzzlers with impunity, for centuries. I'm not advocating genocide, I'm advocating reduced birthrates, globally.
If you want to drive a 12 MPG Maybach, go ahead, but you then pay a mileage excise tax that goes to offset the costs. It's the same hedonic calculus -- how much do I want to pay for the performance? But with more realistic cost numbers.
As an automotive hobbyist, I'm pretty much ok with this sort of tax structure, in theory. It's largely what we have here in Japan. Physically larger cars and higher displacements both pay higher taxes. If you drive a 660cc Kei car, your annual road tax is ~$75 or something. My medium-sized sedan with a 2.5L engine is ~$450/year.
What I don't like about Japan's system is the bulk of your road taxes are based on engine displacement, rather than horsepower, weight (which affects road longevity IMO), or fuel efficiency. A 2017 Corvette is lighter and more fuel efficient than a 2008 Mitsubishi Evo X (used to own one in the US, and had a 1997 Evo IV here in Japan)......but the Corvette incurs ~$1,000/yr in taxes because its engine displacement is over 6.0L, whereas the Evo X or Evo IV would be ~$350 or so because they only have 2.0L engines.
i jsut have no tolerance for people like you who think that driving is anything less than a serious responsibility. The sooner we get people like you out from behind the wheel, the better.
I've lived in Japan for the past 6 years, and when I first got here I was amazed that they have these long-established taxi services called "daiko", to prevent drunk driving. ( https://japan365.wordpress.com... ) If we are serious about preventing road fatalities, why aren't these services prolific in the states? Why don't we have stiffer penalties for DUIs, and lower BAC limits?
I know a LOT of "recreational drivers". NONE of them go joyriding under the influence. So if anything they take the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle more seriously than the general population.
Japan is where drifting was invented, and to this day there remains a large subculture of late-night street racing. Yet the country has significantly lower fatality rates than the US: ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ). Also note that, unlike the US, Japan has almost no fatalities due to intoxicated drivers ( http://www.stat.go.jp/english/... ), despite the fact that BAC limit in Japan is 0.03 instead of the US's 0.08.
Insurance rates are all about numbers, and the instant the autonomous cars surpass human safety numbers, human-driving will be over.
If that's the case, and it's all about insurance liability, why aren't motorcycles illegal or otherwise priced out of the market? Hell, why aren't sports cars ALREADY so stupid-expensive to insure that no one could afford them?
Full disclosure: I used to drift here in Japan, until I wrecked my Toyota Chaser and parted it out (a single-vehicle, low-speed accident at ~2am, on a public road only used to access a fenced-off area on rare occasions). I still own a sports coupe (Toyota Supra) that is getting upgraded to ~600hp for non-drifting fun on the streets. Last year I got a motorcycle license and bought a 250cc naked bike. I ride ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). Outside of computers and women, automotive hobbies are the biggest allocation of my time, and by far biggest allocation of recreational funds. Yet my insurance is CHEAP compared to what people pay in America (No argument for Liberty can silence the 30,00 dead every year from auto collisions.
What is your objective? What number of auto fatalities is acceptable? 10,000? zero?
Enjoy it while you can, we are coming for exactly people like you
Are you this vitriolic in your efforts to prevent other sources of mortality, such as suicide (42,000+ in 2014)? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...
Your post is a perfect example of why the Nanny State is so despised. You exaggerate the risk posed by some activity that you don't like (usually a position borne out of gross ignorance), and then go on a crusade to undermine people's ability to enjoy themselves by leveraging the government and other institutions to stuff other individuals back into the box of what your erroneous ideals tell you is the "approved" way of living. The sort of busybody that is active in Homeowner Associations, making everyone else miserable.
Slashdot Mirror
We have the cause and effect of every conflict that ever happened and we know the patterns. Temporary leaders and peaceful transition of power has the most successful record so far.
Temporary leaders and peaceful transitions of power != democracy. Reference exhibit A: China. Semi-benevolent single-party authoritarian oligarchies may very well prove to be a viable alternative. We shall see how China goes at the end of Xi Jingping's second term, as well as Russia's stability whenever Putin retires/dies.
This is why so much effort is spent in trying to spread freedom and democracy. It's a net gain for all.
Be sure to walk into a hospital in Mosul or Aleppo and explain how the US spreading democracy was a "net gain" for them.
Or they become self sufficient peaceful neighbours like Japan.
Germany and Japan had no choice but to comply as they:
1. lost wars they arguably started
2. had their entire countries burnt to the ground
3. were occupied by the US military
4. the alternative was occupation/invasion by the Soviets who were guaranteed to treat them even worse
So like I said before, the Cold War distorts all conclusions that can be drawn regarding democracy on its own merits.
There's no perfect scenario, but funding development has proven time and time again to be the least worse option.
If there's no perfect scenario.....then we might as well maintain a credible and competent military for defense, just in case. Note: I'm not saying the bloat and largess that we have now is necessary, but a robust and well-trained military supported by a technically-proficient domestic defense industry should be mandatory for any nation-state with a decent level of development.
And if you recognize that there are no perfect scenarios, I'm not sure why your comments contain so many shallow and simple platitudes to significantly more nuanced problems.
Educated, free and democratic nations are much, much less likely to engage in war with each other.
1. We have a very limited sample size to support this as a truism. During the Cold War, the world's democracies were too terrified of Communism to risk internecine strife. The First World has had barely 30 years outside the spectre of Warsaw Pact invasion, and much of it has enjoyed an integrated and bountiful economic dividend while plugged into the US's Petrodollar-backed financial system (which essentially taxes the global economy). We will see if the coming decades of stagnating economies, population migrations, and shifts in global financial systems lead to nation state conflicts in Europe rather than just internal upheavals.
2. Notice your caveat of "with each other", because the most powerful democracy of our age has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to engage in totally elective, expeditionary military campaigns racking up a butcher's bill in the hundreds of thousands of "collateral damage" civilian casualties over the past ~70 years.
3. The US has actually already tried this sort of "sell them prosperity to avoid conflict" theory, inadvertently. By outsourcing to China, we've essentially subsidized the education and infrastructure buildup of what will be our greatest adversary of the 21st century. So either we subsidize democracies and they become parasitic wastrels (Southern/Eastern Europe) or we subsidize non-democracies and essentially build up those who are likely to turn on us for religious/social/political reasons, or out of sheer ambition. Great plan.
And I'm not talking straight cash that would only encourage more enemies, but clever application of funding for things like schools and hospitals, things that encourage the people to become educated and prosperous and not fight wars in the first place?
Because the only people who have ever started wars in human history were all poor and ignorant? As if "educated" and prosperous cultures were never home to toxic and close-minded ideologies?
I'm a leftist, dumbass. The DNC organization can go die in a fire. They're right wing hacks like yourself - and I hear they have a position open for an IT worker. You have so much in common!
Speaking of which.....has anyone else noticed there hasn't been a SINGLE article on Slashdot about Imran Awan and his shenanigans as a Congressional IT staffer for some major Democrats? Is it just political bias amongst the /. editorial staff? BeauHD bends over backwards to bring us every negative thing about Trump while skipping over this equally-interesting (from the perspective of IT practices, opsec, and crime) story affecting the opposite party.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...
Other examples include Iceland and New Zealand, where girls now slightly out-perform boys in maths at school. If it was not a social thing, if it was biological, then it's hard to explain how two different cultures with two different languages on opposite sides of the world and with little migration between them could be that way.
The structure of the educational systems would be a good place to start. I bet that Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and progressive Scandinavian countries like Iceland have FAR more in common regarding how they instruct mathematics than they have differences. It's not like we are comparing a former Soviet state, or an East Asian country with Confucian principles.
https://motherboard.vice.com/e... Here's the full, original manifesto with all the embedded hyperlinks the original author included. Why did Gizmodo post a version stripped of this information?
Really? In my experience, Japanese women under 30 are probably the flakiest demographic I've ever encountered. Most reliable (outside of US Marines, but I'm biased in this regard): Vietnamese dudes and Thai women.
Or, you could take the word of the intelligence agencies (any, take your pick), who have concluded that nationality is not a reliable threat indicator.
Citation needed. DuckDuckGo is only giving me an article about a draft internal report by the DHS: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ne...
It wastes our country's standing and credibility.
With whom, exactly? Three of the five BRICS have their own Muslim insurgency problems, and two of those three are ruthlessly pragmatic authoritarian regimes who don't really like us anyway. Of the remaining 2 BRICS, Brazil is too occupied with Presidential corruption woes of their own and a shaky economy. Out in Asia, our friends in Korea and Japan are xenophobic assholes, and down in the Philippines Duterte is struggling with his own Muslim insurgency that is flaring up. Duterte, who is busy moving into Russia and China's sphere and has been reducing ties with the US. Yeah, we're really gonna win him over by being nice to Muslims. The Israelis and Saudis have got us by the short hairs regardless. The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, is....also trying to put down a brutal Muslim insurgency (seeing a trend here?) So who are we losing standing with? South Africa, and the Europeans? Those brilliant folks who have opened the floodgates to their own cultural instability and possible demise? The Turks might accomplish with starving civilians (interesting how they don't seem eager to shelter their fellow Muslims) what they couldn't accomplish over hundreds of years of invasions: https://counterjihadreport.com...
And let's not forget that the first version of the ban wasn't a ban on citizens of those countries travelling to the USA: it was a ban on Muslims from those countries travelling to the USA.
If that's the case.....yeah it's kinda stupid. Anyone can claim that they've converted to some other religion and there isn't really any way to verify it with their home country one way or the other. A guy named Achmed the Not-Yet Dead Terrorist could carry a King James Bible and say he found Jesus on the flight and wanted to get baptized. "Oh ok, not a Muslim. Step right through." Security theater.
What remains is a ban on Muslims who don't come from countries where Trump has current or hopes for future business interests.
Ok, I can kinda agree with you on that one. I have a real problem with the US-Saudi Petrodollar relationship. The memes for this pic practically write themselves: ( http://media.philly.com/images... ). But a real-estate guy like Trump should see that KBR-style reconstruction contracts in Libya at least could be a big business opportunity. So maybe he's asleep at the wheel on security AND business?
Honestly the dude is his own worst enemy. He puts his foot in his mouth on a seemingly daily basis and I think his staff spends as much time putting out helmet fires that HE creates as they do fighting with the Deep State shadow government and actually attempting to run the country.
I have close friends here who are Iranian Shia expats, been here for decades. Ya know what's funny? The wife of the family often talks politics with me and says "Why is everyone so mad at Trump? Of course you should ban those people from your country. They're dangerous!" Middle-aged Muslim woman says its not smart to allow Muslim refugees into America. That's a headline you'll never see on CNN. Now besides the obvious irony of someone who fled the Iranian Revolution* complaining about present-day refugees, this married couple is upper class and extremely well-educated (usually a requirement for long-term residence in Japan). Do we have any easy, reliable means for verifying the education, background, or criminal history of refugees from the 6 Travel Ban countries? Highly unlikely. They are practically failed states.
*Some of her uncles were Generals in the Shah's Army....all "disappeared".
The sheer magnitude of innocent people caught in that ginormous net is extremely unjust by any measure. That some Americans are terrified of a tiny minority of people from those countries wearing towels on their heads does not make it any more rational or just.
The United States is not under any international or domestic legal obligation to allow travelers or immigrants from elsewhere. We have that right as a sovereign nation to control our borders. As for "innocent people" and "unjust"......How's that White Man's Burden working out for you? Do we elect our public officials to do what is in the best interests of American citizens, or the best interests of foreigners? The two are often not overlapping on a Venn diagram.
That some Americans are terrified of a tiny minority of people from those countries wearing towels on their heads does not make it any more rational or just.
How tiny is the tiny minority? Is it 1% of Muslims? That's 18 million jihadis. Even if it were 1% of the 6 Travel Ban countries, that's 1.8 million jihadis. If we add those 1.8 million to the US population of ~326 million, they would be about 0.5% of Americans. Would you still shop at Wal-Mart if 1 out of every 200 customers was just waiting for the best time to blow himself up at the checkout line? Are you willing to accept that risk? For what purpose? What do we really lose by saying "You know what, I think we're just NOT going to let you guys come here until you get your shit straight." What are the second- and third-order effects of increasingly frequent terror attacks attributable to radical Islam? Effects on the economy? Effects on overall quality of life from the inevitable security theater?
Thing is, it's NOT a "tiny minority". Check out the data from the Pew Research Center: 2014 study. Look how many are at least kinda-sorta ok with the idea of using suicide bombings against CIVILIANS. Bangladesh? 47%. Turkey? 18%. Egypt? 24%. That means those 3 countries alone have 100 MILLION Muslims who think it's okay to blow up women and children in defense of Islam. Is that your idea of a "tiny minority"? Let's also throw in the 25% of American Muslims who agree with them: http://www.reuters.com/article...
Ya know if we were really smart....we would filter a Muslim ban by allowing women 16-30 a fast track to immigration. Women are usually politically radicalized by th
Yes, thankyou for pointing that out. I should have included a blurb about Saudi Arabia, which, like Israel, has HUGE lobbying power in DC even though the Saudis deserve to be front and center on our shitlist.
The only difference here is that Trump isn't a normal politician and may have some racist or at least anti-Muslim views
According to this CNN link , the six countries on the travel ban were Sudan, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria. All of them have either extremely poor security situations with rampant domestic terrorism and active insurgencies, or in Iran's case an extremely antagonistic relationship with the US government and Israel (which has major lobbying power in the US). These countries are 10% of the world Muslim population. They are also some of the most dangerous and active conflict zones in the world today, and possess training environments for the radicalization of second-generation immigrants in Europe to turn into terrorists.
You know what countries AREN'T on Trump's travel ban? Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt. Combined they are home to 56.7% of the world's Muslims, and while some of them have security problems and active jihadi insurgencies, they also have more robust security apparatuses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So is Trump really anti-Muslim, or simply enacting pre-emptive security measures and risk avoidance?
In comparison, his erstwhile opponent in the Presidential race voted in favor of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The collapse of security in Iraq in 2003 is STILL costing Muslim lives to this day due to ISIS, which even a conservative estimate would place in the high hundreds of thousands of fatalities 2003-2017. This is also the same woman who **LAUGHED** about the overthrow and extra-judicial lynching of a Muslim head of state (Qaddafi). https://youtu.be/UtH7iv4ip1U
So I'm just curious if you also consider Hillary Clinton to be a racist anti-Muslim? Or is it just Trump?
Princes of the Yen: About how the founders of modern Japan were basically a bunch of WW2 fascists, and their methods of social engineering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Century of the Self: About social engineering and propaganda.
https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s
The Collapse of the American Dream Explained in Animation: About debt slavery and banking.
https://youtu.be/mII9NZ8MMVM?l...
1. Wikileaks offered a $130,000 reward for information regarding Seth Rich's murder. It's unprecedented in their history. Why would they do that? https://twitter.com/wikileaks/...
2. The OANN requested information leading to the doctor who treated Seth Rich. Their website was immediately DDOS'd. Who most stands to gain from such an action? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
3. This former DC Detective/PI says his "insider sources" suggest that Seth Rich was in contact with Wikileaks and that the DCPD was told to stand down on their murder investigation. Why are his sources considered any less reputable than WaPo "sources", which have a VERY well-known and demonstrable political bias and agenda? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
This timeline of significant events leaves out everything associated with Seth Rich. Why? Perhaps because it undermines the "Russia hacked us!" narrative?
The problem is the greatest source of actual threats is the same country that serves as the lynchpin of our whole Petrodollar system: Saudi Arabia. We're joined at the hip with our greatest cultural enemy, all in the name of central bank fiat currency. The post-Soviet era led to a drawdown of US forces in Europe but we needed to match that with disengagement from the MidEast, and planning to move away from OPEC support for our global reserve status. But we couldn't pull that off because:
1. US leaders and bankers addicted to global economic domination
2. Saudi money lobbying in DC
3. Israeli money lobbying in DC (support for Israel is at least #2 on "list of reasons why Muslim terrorists try to kill us)
I'm an introvert. I "recharge" by being alone, often not having face-to-face contact with other humans for days. I find large social engagements exhausting. I realized recently that I'm always tired because I work in an open office with 9 other people and the constant interactions just drains the life outta me. Getting coffee with 2-3 people is usually manageable. Best is 1-to-1 encounters, like going on a date, or meeting a close friend to talk about life and women. If your introversion is so severe that you can't handle time spent with even ONE other human being, well that's got to have a serious deleterious impact on your romantic life and friendships.
But the US is so large and so diverse in its land and environments, I really don't have that much a reason to need to leave the country. I have a lot to explore here.
Then you are really missing out on the true benefit of travel: the people you meet. Mountains and beaches may be the same anywhere, but the relationships you form with new people are what make it all worthwhile. I'm an American service member and in the past 6 years I've spent only 3 months in the US (2 x 1-month exercises and 1 month visiting family), and it's not because of the landscapes out here in Asia.
It's not legal either place for very good reasons because it isn't safe and cannot be made safe.
Then how do you rationalize why it is even legal to purchase such hardware? There are undoubtedly more firearms than 500+hp cars in America. Firearms are regulated extensively regulated for public safety. High-powered street cars are not. If they are such a public safety risk as you assert, why is this the case?
Spend 20 seconds on google if you need actual examples.
I already supplied multi-year traffic accident data for Japan and the US. That's a far larger data set than looking at individual examples on Google.
Considering that automation/robots/AI are making human labor obsolete...
Umm, what kind of bullshit are you talking about now? This has nothing to do with the topic at hand nor is it actually true.
I'm not sure if you are trolling or just plain ignorant, but I'm feeling generous enough to contribute to your enlightenment.
Japanese insurance firm replaces 34 staff with AI: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
IBM's Watson edits an entire magazine on its own: https://futurism.com/will-ibms...
Automation arrives at restaurants: http://www.computerworld.com/a...
"The result of their agitation will be more jobs for machines and fewer for the least skilled workers," it wrote.
Foxconn replaces 60,000 factory workers with robots: http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
Chinese factory replaces 90% of humans with robots, production soars: http://www.techrepublic.com/ar...
Now, here's why all of that is relevant. What are we supposed to do with potentially billions of low-skill or even medium-skill human beings whose labor is no longer a cost-effective means of production? They will still consume resources and produce pollution, just by existing. Your posts indicate that protecting the environment is a priority for you, yet you have a myopic focus on high-powered passenger vehicles while ignoring the elephant in the room of unchecked global population growth. Hence why I countered that cutting the population in half would leave us still able to sustain (if not improve) our First-World living standards across the board, AND do the environment a big favor. We can have 800HP cars and pristine national parks if we just had 4 billion fewer people, who we won't need to manufacture said 800HP cars in the near-future anyway, so no loss there......Are you finally picking up what I'm putting down now?
Holy off topic batman. I think we are done here.
Well, I've laid out my thoughts in a clear manner with numerous references, and you've only contributed vapid one-liners, so I have no qualms about accepting your concession in this debate.
You also miss out on rewarding life experiences like pulling over in a dark parking lot to get a quick fuck in, then drop the girl off to go drifting and make your tires squeal until dawn. Especially in a vehicle that has a touch of your own craftsmanship to it, because you turn wrenches and installed all the performance mods yourself.
But hey, to each his own, I guess....
Nobody ever claimed they were. But you also cannot credibly argue that you can safely utilize those 800HP on normal roads or that you aren't needlessly polluting. You might have the legal right to do it but don't pretend you aren't taking a big old shit on the environment.
I know people here in Japan with 800+HP cars who have drag raced on public roads. Late nights, low traffic, straight roads, experience from drag racing closed tracks AND the street, roll cages, etc....yeah, it can be reasonably safe. Should be even easier in the States, where there are straighter, longer highways and lower population densities.
Also, newsflash: EVERYONE who is even born in an industrialized country is taking a Cleveland Steamer on the chest of the environment, just by existing. The best way to establish some balance with nature would be a population decline. Considering that automation/robots/AI are making human labor obsolete, we don't have as much need for ever-increasing numbers of negligibly-useful meatsacks. Get the population down to ~2-3 billion and we would have no problem having enough resources to go around, so we could all drive 800HP gas guzzlers with impunity, for centuries. I'm not advocating genocide, I'm advocating reduced birthrates, globally.
If you want to drive a 12 MPG Maybach, go ahead, but you then pay a mileage excise tax that goes to offset the costs. It's the same hedonic calculus -- how much do I want to pay for the performance? But with more realistic cost numbers.
As an automotive hobbyist, I'm pretty much ok with this sort of tax structure, in theory. It's largely what we have here in Japan. Physically larger cars and higher displacements both pay higher taxes. If you drive a 660cc Kei car, your annual road tax is ~$75 or something. My medium-sized sedan with a 2.5L engine is ~$450/year.
What I don't like about Japan's system is the bulk of your road taxes are based on engine displacement, rather than horsepower, weight (which affects road longevity IMO), or fuel efficiency. A 2017 Corvette is lighter and more fuel efficient than a 2008 Mitsubishi Evo X (used to own one in the US, and had a 1997 Evo IV here in Japan)......but the Corvette incurs ~$1,000/yr in taxes because its engine displacement is over 6.0L, whereas the Evo X or Evo IV would be ~$350 or so because they only have 2.0L engines.
i jsut have no tolerance for people like you who think that driving is anything less than a serious responsibility. The sooner we get people like you out from behind the wheel, the better.
Nationwide in the US, ~30% of driver fatalities involve alcohol: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...
I've lived in Japan for the past 6 years, and when I first got here I was amazed that they have these long-established taxi services called "daiko", to prevent drunk driving. ( https://japan365.wordpress.com... ) If we are serious about preventing road fatalities, why aren't these services prolific in the states? Why don't we have stiffer penalties for DUIs, and lower BAC limits?
I know a LOT of "recreational drivers". NONE of them go joyriding under the influence. So if anything they take the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle more seriously than the general population. Japan is where drifting was invented, and to this day there remains a large subculture of late-night street racing. Yet the country has significantly lower fatality rates than the US: ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ). Also note that, unlike the US, Japan has almost no fatalities due to intoxicated drivers ( http://www.stat.go.jp/english/... ), despite the fact that BAC limit in Japan is 0.03 instead of the US's 0.08.
Insurance rates are all about numbers, and the instant the autonomous cars surpass human safety numbers, human-driving will be over.
If that's the case, and it's all about insurance liability, why aren't motorcycles illegal or otherwise priced out of the market? Hell, why aren't sports cars ALREADY so stupid-expensive to insure that no one could afford them?
Full disclosure: I used to drift here in Japan, until I wrecked my Toyota Chaser and parted it out (a single-vehicle, low-speed accident at ~2am, on a public road only used to access a fenced-off area on rare occasions). I still own a sports coupe (Toyota Supra) that is getting upgraded to ~600hp for non-drifting fun on the streets. Last year I got a motorcycle license and bought a 250cc naked bike. I ride ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). Outside of computers and women, automotive hobbies are the biggest allocation of my time, and by far biggest allocation of recreational funds. Yet my insurance is CHEAP compared to what people pay in America (No argument for Liberty can silence the 30,00 dead every year from auto collisions.
What is your objective? What number of auto fatalities is acceptable? 10,000? zero?
Enjoy it while you can, we are coming for exactly people like you
Are you this vitriolic in your efforts to prevent other sources of mortality, such as suicide (42,000+ in 2014)? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...
Your post is a perfect example of why the Nanny State is so despised. You exaggerate the risk posed by some activity that you don't like (usually a position borne out of gross ignorance), and then go on a crusade to undermine people's ability to enjoy themselves by leveraging the government and other institutions to stuff other individuals back into the box of what your erroneous ideals tell you is the "approved" way of living. The sort of busybody that is active in Homeowner Associations, making everyone else miserable.
This guy gets it: ( https://books.google.com.vn/bo...)