Your cynicism reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of slavery. The defining feature of slavery is not that the working conditions sucked or that slaves were subject to sexual harassment (some were, others were not), the defining nature of slavery is that people couldn't leave their jobs when they were being abused at work. When you're not a slave, working in a job or being a student is a voluntary choice. If you don't like the conditions, you quit and go somewhere else.
Your cynical remark trivializes slavery, and that is offensive.
Everyone around may acknowledge that some professor is a troglodyte but may not feel able to say anything about it, because it's a senior professor or the like, and it can hurt your career even if it's not your own professor.[...] It is often difficult to speak up.
What your reasoning about professors, careers, and powers reveals is that academia has become a fairly arbitrary playground of power and influence, instead of a meritocracy. In a meritocratic world, professors need good students in order to succeed, so if you are a good student, the biggest cost you can impose on your professor is to leave. But we don't live in that world. The world we live in is, in fact, the world you imagine we live in, namely a world in which professors do wield arbitrary powers and in which the next generation of academics is decided more by personal favors and connections than by merit.
Soooo... you complain if people make specific predictions, and you complain if people don't make specific predictions.
Yes, quite right. I complain when people make specific predictions that aren't backed up by data. And I complain when scientists speculate in their papers ("don't make specific predictions"). Both behaviors are unscientific. Scientists should neither speculate publicly, nor make specific predictions that aren't backed up by data. The only predictions they should make are those that are specific and clearly backed up by data.
So now it's the scientists who are manipulating journalists into sensationalizing the stories, rather than journalists being incentivized by their editorial managers who demand attention grabbing headlines?
Journalists sensationalize things because their companies want to sell newspapers. Some scientists take advantage of it for political or career purposes. There is no "so now" about that (it's been going on for years), nor do all scientists do it. Is that so hard to understand?
Instead of hitting on you, your boss may simply be a jerk, or hate your guts, or be incompetent. There is no rational reason to make more of a big deal out of one of these reasons over the others. And the way you can deal with any of them is the same: you quit.
Suing over it just is an admission that you think your field/company dispenses power arbitrarily and that you want your cut. If you believe that your work and your contributions are valuable, leaving is the best punishment you can hand out.
I've read a lot of papers by climate scientists, and never seen one with "pictures of polar bears in the background."
Yes, climate scientists are great at keeping their message ambiguous and targeting different audiences differently, banking on journalists sensationalizing their message while still not having said anything technically wrong. Something like "There is no evidence that a disaster will happen or is even possible." can be turned into "Well, our scientific results suggest that a disaster is possible, and the only known way to avert it is to take immediate action." Both statements can refer to exactly the same state of the world.
And when it comes to popular messaging, scientists very much engage in fear mongering. Joseph Romm's "Climate Change" book has flooded taxis on the cover. Gavin Schmidt's book has cracked, dried earth in the desert on its cover. James Hansen talks about the "coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity"; he is going so far as to claim that earth will become uninhabitable due to a runaway greenhouse effect.
I also do not understand the panic here at/. about this.
Because it illustrates how people tend to misuse science and fail to take basic science, math, and engineering into account.
It does not mean that lines are unsafe or dangerous. It means that in some cases not having lines will slow down traffic.
If the goal is to "slow down traffic", there are far more effective ways of doing that. A very simple way would be not to pave the road at all, for example. The purpose of roads is to speed up traffic, not to slow it down.
Similar studies on safety are done all over the place.
See, you are doing it too: you are conflating "safety" and "speed". Under some conditions, lower speed correlates slightly with increased safety. But just because A has a positive correlation with B, and B has a positive correlation with C doesn't mean that increasing A will increase C.
This does not mean they will remove all of them. IF they decide to go that road, they will look at it case by case.
"They" are likely making the same kind of basic mistakes that you are making in your reasoning.
Environmental engineering of roads to reduce crashes is the most effective and intelligent action to take.
You know what else encourages drivers to slow down? Putting a spike in the middle of the steering wheel and getting rid of the safety belts. Flashing bright lights into their eyes. Herding buffalo across the road. In fact, the cheapest way of slowing down drivers is to simply not pave the road. There are lots of ways of making people slow down and making them feel "uncertain", but slowing people down is not the purpose of road building.
(Note that the "studies" didn't actually show any benefits in terms of accidents, just a tiny reduction in speed; accidents may well have increased. In addition, it's an open question whether even that would be maintained if the practice became widespread and people just got used to the lack of road markings.)
And I have a lovely bunch of coconuts! Have you perhaps been indulging in the more potent forms of Kava to extrapolate that from my postings? Even from my other posts on this subject, I've noted that even the southern poverty law center, considers the so called native Hawaiians a racist group.
I read your posting as sarcasm, based on the fact that the link you provide for "Kill Haole Day" basically says that it doesn't exist, and your over-the-top comparison that "Hawaiians [...] as racist as any group of KKK members".
If you say that wasn't intended as sarcasm, I'll take your word for it.
I should say that the no-hassles limit is 200 ft. Above 200 ft, you need to interact with the FAA, but that is a notification requirement, not actually an approval process.
HAW HAW HAW Tell you what. Go forth and give it a shot, and see how it goes — make sure to defend it to the bitter end. You won't have to get back to us to let us know how it went, because you'll be on the news.
Tell you what: before you keep demonstrating your ignorance, I suggest you actually spend a little time in rural America.
In any case, as I was saying, whether there are height limits is irrelevant to the question of whether your neighbors should be able to prevent you from building something on your private property solely based on their religious feelings.
If you believe anybody ought to have that right, you are opposed to a modern liberal society.
You can't just go off half-cocked and do it. There will be meetings, and your community will decide if you can build something that big.
No, sorry, that's not true. "Your community" has no input into whether you build 300 ft structures on your 1000 ac of private property out in unincorporated land. The only thing you have to do is to file an FAA notice, but even that isn't a "permit". In addition. objections to any structure on someone else's property traditionally can only be justified on utilitarian grounds, i.e. that they cause someone else demonstrable harm or risk in some way.
In any case, this b.s. about height and mineral rights is special pleading and straw men; what we were discussing is whether there is any basis for religious objections to what other people do on their property. The idea that "my feelings are hurt" or "it offends my religious feelings" should give you the right to interfere in the liberty of others is incompatible with American values and American legal tradition. It's even worse when those ideas are combined with racist ideas and those newly created rights are only available to members of select races ("native Hawaiians", "native Americans").
And the primary reason for objecting to such racist legal ideas is that they end up hurting the very people they are claimed to help, not that anybody else is hurt by it. It makes little practical difference to anybody else what kind of shithole activists for "native Hawaiians" turn Hawaii into, but this sort of nonsense hurts many innocent people who call that place their home regardless of their "race". This is nothing other than segregation warmed over.
f I wanted to place a 300 foot cross on my property in my neighborhood, I wouldn't be allowed. If I wanted to pan for gold, I wouldn't be allowed.
Generally, you can do both of those things on private property. You are restricted from doing them if you bought your property without mineral rights or if you bought property where there are CC&Rs or zoning restrictions.
Especially, what the hell is scientific racism anyhow?
Scientific racism is the use of scientific and pseudo-scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, racialism, racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races (Wikipedia). Scientific racism is what caused separate-but-equal, eugenics, forced sterilization, and widespread labor discrimination against blacks. It was widely preached by progressives, and still is to this day. No, 20th century racism did not originate with "southern preachers in the 1859" and only has indirectly to do with slavery at all.
What the hell are we arguing about anyhow? We seem to be more or less on the same page, except my attempt at humor upset you.
I frankly can't tell whether you're trying to be sarcastic or humorous. What I can tell is that you don't know anything about the history of racism or discrimination in the US.
I suppose it's not surprising that someone who believes in scientific racism (as you obviously do) also would think that a religious symbol on your neighbor's property is the equivalent of an unshielded nuclear reactor.
Which part of The only time it's worth for businesses to actually fight for such a project is if it's really big and if it has massive support from politicians. did you not understand?
So sorry Hawaiians, I consider you to be just as racist
Well, before you get all pushed out of shape, you might start telling us who you define as "Hawaiian". How many "drops of blood" should a "Hawaiian" have according to Ol Olsoc to be legally considered a member of the "Hawaiian race"?
As I said, personally, I don't consider Hawaiians anything at all, since I don't believe there is such a thing as a "Hawaiian".
What there is is "native Hawaiian groups", which seem pretty similar to something like the Thule Society.
I am not really sure what exactly the "entry-level jobs" would actually be in our economy... there is only so much need for burger-flippers.
There are many jobs for unskilled labor if it is cheap and flexible enough. They have been largely eliminated in Europe, but they still can be found in the US (albeit rapidly disappearing with new minimum wage and employment "protection" laws). Nannies, porters, drivers, delivery, pet and child sitting, cleaning, etc. But when you have to pay minimum wage, benefits, taxes, and have restrictions on ending employment, then people aren't going to hire anymore. In fact, pretty much all these low-skil jobs are now being replaced by automation: drone deliveries, self-driving cars, petcams, child cams, Roombas, self-checkout, etc.
If we have issues with nonskilled youngsters of our own,
The only "issue" with unskilled young workers is that government regulations prevent them from getting jobs.
I'd suggest any indigenous person wanting a bribe from the US Government isn't so much taking advantage of the situation so much as they're just students of history and are tired of getting the shaft.
"Getting the shaft"? The per capita GDP of Hawaii is slightly above US average at almost $50000. That's ten times that of other Pacific Islanders. In addition, Hawaiians have free access to labor markets across the US, receive US passports, and receive a massive net influx of federal money. Hawaiians should thank their lucky stars that they are part of the US. However, if they want to leave the US, they are free to campaign for it. Of course, individuals are always free to vote with their feet and give up their US citizenship.
A group of native Hawaiians object on the grounds that the land has historic and spiritual significance. IMHO, both sides have standing, and I hope they work something out that preserves both of their interests.
There are two possibilities. Either these lands are public or they are private (or could be sold to a private group). If I build a telescope on my private land, you have no right to interfere with that even if it offends your religious beliefs. If the lands are public, then trying to maintain them in a way that caters to the religious feelings of any group amounts to an establishment of religion; that's unacceptable as well.
And, of course, "native Hawaiian" is an ill-defined and corrupt concept to begin with, so "native Hawaiians" ought not to have any legal standing as a group at all. That isn't just a question of justice; if you let people retroactively interfere with property and ownership rights based on their membership in some racial group, you create so much risk and uncertainty that you scare away investments and business. Any sane businessman and investor is going to ask: if we build a new power plant or factory or dock or shopping center, how much risk do we face that some "native Hawaiian group" is going to claim that we are treading on their sacred ground and kill the project halfway through, or demand pay-offs?
You'd be wrong. The reason you don't hear about private companies having such fights with activists is because most of them are too risk averse to even engage in them. That is, given the choice of investing your money where you may run into issues with activists and somewhere else where you don't, companies are going to invest where they are no activists. The only time it's worth for businesses to actually fight for such a project is if it's really big and if it has massive support from politicians.
That's why Native American communities are so poor and have so little industry or businesses investing in them: there is too much legal uncertainty, and Hawaii risks the same fate if it keeps going down this road. The more Hawaii pushes for "native Hawaiian rights", the less inclined people will be to invest their money there as well.
Actually, being a Finn, I see the problem more like being that people hang out at the university at their discretion until they're 30, and they might either get a Ph.D. or not... some cuts may be in order.
People hang out at university until they're 30 because they don't have a lot of other options when governments raise labor costs too high. "At the discretion of the state" doesn't just mean that they tell you you can't go if you want to, it also means giving people "free" university education after policies destroy their entry-level jobs.
Well, it is obviously bad from the point of view of a global, interconnected economy. It is hurting us, and it will get worse. But Europe crumbling is not something we have any control over; the European model simply isn't sustainable. So, the question at this point amounts to: will the US adopt the same kind of policies that are destroying Europe or will we turn back. If Europe hurries up and falls apart quickly enough, that may prevent Americans from foolishly walking down the same path. We still pay the price for Europe's follies, but at least our own economy and society will be able to muddle through intact.
The situation isn't all that different from a century ago, when Europe also self-destructed while the US avoided both fascism and socialism and managed to help the West get back on its feet again after WWII.
That's another part of the Nordic Model: when the state demands stuff from you, you comply; budgets get balanced; union power and concerns are secondary to social and budgetary concerns; you go to university and get a Ph.D. at the discretion of the state. It also means that you accept this conformity willingly and impose it onto your fellow citizens.
If you want to read more about the flipside of the Nordic Model, read "The Almost Nearly Perfect People" by Booth. Then think about whether you really want to live in a society like that.
Why would you want to buy something online or overseas without a credit card? That 2-3% insurance (credit card fees) is well worth it to me.
A lot of stuff people buy online is virtual: software, books, movies, games, in-game resources, where "insurance" isn't that important. Also, while buying overseas may seem wild and risky to you, to people who have lived there (or even grown up there), it's just routine.
It's nice that people could make money by "investing" in Bitcoin in the past, but that's not what it's for. Currency speculation is not a good idea for most people, and that includes speculation in Bitcoin.
Money is for economic transactions. Do you want to buy stuff overseas or online without using a credit card? Then consider Bitcoin. If you don't need Bitcoin for any transactions, don't bother.
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Your cynical remark trivializes slavery, and that is offensive.
What your reasoning about professors, careers, and powers reveals is that academia has become a fairly arbitrary playground of power and influence, instead of a meritocracy. In a meritocratic world, professors need good students in order to succeed, so if you are a good student, the biggest cost you can impose on your professor is to leave. But we don't live in that world. The world we live in is, in fact, the world you imagine we live in, namely a world in which professors do wield arbitrary powers and in which the next generation of academics is decided more by personal favors and connections than by merit.
Yes, quite right. I complain when people make specific predictions that aren't backed up by data. And I complain when scientists speculate in their papers ("don't make specific predictions"). Both behaviors are unscientific. Scientists should neither speculate publicly, nor make specific predictions that aren't backed up by data. The only predictions they should make are those that are specific and clearly backed up by data.
Journalists sensationalize things because their companies want to sell newspapers. Some scientists take advantage of it for political or career purposes. There is no "so now" about that (it's been going on for years), nor do all scientists do it. Is that so hard to understand?
Suing over it just is an admission that you think your field/company dispenses power arbitrarily and that you want your cut. If you believe that your work and your contributions are valuable, leaving is the best punishment you can hand out.
Yes, climate scientists are great at keeping their message ambiguous and targeting different audiences differently, banking on journalists sensationalizing their message while still not having said anything technically wrong. Something like "There is no evidence that a disaster will happen or is even possible." can be turned into "Well, our scientific results suggest that a disaster is possible, and the only known way to avert it is to take immediate action." Both statements can refer to exactly the same state of the world.
And when it comes to popular messaging, scientists very much engage in fear mongering. Joseph Romm's "Climate Change" book has flooded taxis on the cover. Gavin Schmidt's book has cracked, dried earth in the desert on its cover. James Hansen talks about the "coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity"; he is going so far as to claim that earth will become uninhabitable due to a runaway greenhouse effect.
Because it illustrates how people tend to misuse science and fail to take basic science, math, and engineering into account.
If the goal is to "slow down traffic", there are far more effective ways of doing that. A very simple way would be not to pave the road at all, for example. The purpose of roads is to speed up traffic, not to slow it down.
See, you are doing it too: you are conflating "safety" and "speed". Under some conditions, lower speed correlates slightly with increased safety. But just because A has a positive correlation with B, and B has a positive correlation with C doesn't mean that increasing A will increase C.
"They" are likely making the same kind of basic mistakes that you are making in your reasoning.
You know what else encourages drivers to slow down? Putting a spike in the middle of the steering wheel and getting rid of the safety belts. Flashing bright lights into their eyes. Herding buffalo across the road. In fact, the cheapest way of slowing down drivers is to simply not pave the road. There are lots of ways of making people slow down and making them feel "uncertain", but slowing people down is not the purpose of road building.
(Note that the "studies" didn't actually show any benefits in terms of accidents, just a tiny reduction in speed; accidents may well have increased. In addition, it's an open question whether even that would be maintained if the practice became widespread and people just got used to the lack of road markings.)
I read your posting as sarcasm, based on the fact that the link you provide for "Kill Haole Day" basically says that it doesn't exist, and your over-the-top comparison that "Hawaiians [...] as racist as any group of KKK members".
If you say that wasn't intended as sarcasm, I'll take your word for it.
I should say that the no-hassles limit is 200 ft. Above 200 ft, you need to interact with the FAA, but that is a notification requirement, not actually an approval process.
Tell you what: before you keep demonstrating your ignorance, I suggest you actually spend a little time in rural America.
In any case, as I was saying, whether there are height limits is irrelevant to the question of whether your neighbors should be able to prevent you from building something on your private property solely based on their religious feelings.
If you believe anybody ought to have that right, you are opposed to a modern liberal society.
No, sorry, that's not true. "Your community" has no input into whether you build 300 ft structures on your 1000 ac of private property out in unincorporated land. The only thing you have to do is to file an FAA notice, but even that isn't a "permit". In addition. objections to any structure on someone else's property traditionally can only be justified on utilitarian grounds, i.e. that they cause someone else demonstrable harm or risk in some way.
In any case, this b.s. about height and mineral rights is special pleading and straw men; what we were discussing is whether there is any basis for religious objections to what other people do on their property. The idea that "my feelings are hurt" or "it offends my religious feelings" should give you the right to interfere in the liberty of others is incompatible with American values and American legal tradition. It's even worse when those ideas are combined with racist ideas and those newly created rights are only available to members of select races ("native Hawaiians", "native Americans").
And the primary reason for objecting to such racist legal ideas is that they end up hurting the very people they are claimed to help, not that anybody else is hurt by it. It makes little practical difference to anybody else what kind of shithole activists for "native Hawaiians" turn Hawaii into, but this sort of nonsense hurts many innocent people who call that place their home regardless of their "race". This is nothing other than segregation warmed over.
Generally, you can do both of those things on private property. You are restricted from doing them if you bought your property without mineral rights or if you bought property where there are CC&Rs or zoning restrictions.
Scientific racism is the use of scientific and pseudo-scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, racialism, racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races (Wikipedia). Scientific racism is what caused separate-but-equal, eugenics, forced sterilization, and widespread labor discrimination against blacks. It was widely preached by progressives, and still is to this day. No, 20th century racism did not originate with "southern preachers in the 1859" and only has indirectly to do with slavery at all.
I frankly can't tell whether you're trying to be sarcastic or humorous. What I can tell is that you don't know anything about the history of racism or discrimination in the US.
I suppose it's not surprising that someone who believes in scientific racism (as you obviously do) also would think that a religious symbol on your neighbor's property is the equivalent of an unshielded nuclear reactor.
Which part of The only time it's worth for businesses to actually fight for such a project is if it's really big and if it has massive support from politicians. did you not understand?
Well, before you get all pushed out of shape, you might start telling us who you define as "Hawaiian". How many "drops of blood" should a "Hawaiian" have according to Ol Olsoc to be legally considered a member of the "Hawaiian race"?
As I said, personally, I don't consider Hawaiians anything at all, since I don't believe there is such a thing as a "Hawaiian".
What there is is "native Hawaiian groups", which seem pretty similar to something like the Thule Society.
There are many jobs for unskilled labor if it is cheap and flexible enough. They have been largely eliminated in Europe, but they still can be found in the US (albeit rapidly disappearing with new minimum wage and employment "protection" laws). Nannies, porters, drivers, delivery, pet and child sitting, cleaning, etc. But when you have to pay minimum wage, benefits, taxes, and have restrictions on ending employment, then people aren't going to hire anymore. In fact, pretty much all these low-skil jobs are now being replaced by automation: drone deliveries, self-driving cars, petcams, child cams, Roombas, self-checkout, etc.
The only "issue" with unskilled young workers is that government regulations prevent them from getting jobs.
"Getting the shaft"? The per capita GDP of Hawaii is slightly above US average at almost $50000. That's ten times that of other Pacific Islanders. In addition, Hawaiians have free access to labor markets across the US, receive US passports, and receive a massive net influx of federal money. Hawaiians should thank their lucky stars that they are part of the US. However, if they want to leave the US, they are free to campaign for it. Of course, individuals are always free to vote with their feet and give up their US citizenship.
There are two possibilities. Either these lands are public or they are private (or could be sold to a private group). If I build a telescope on my private land, you have no right to interfere with that even if it offends your religious beliefs. If the lands are public, then trying to maintain them in a way that caters to the religious feelings of any group amounts to an establishment of religion; that's unacceptable as well.
And, of course, "native Hawaiian" is an ill-defined and corrupt concept to begin with, so "native Hawaiians" ought not to have any legal standing as a group at all. That isn't just a question of justice; if you let people retroactively interfere with property and ownership rights based on their membership in some racial group, you create so much risk and uncertainty that you scare away investments and business. Any sane businessman and investor is going to ask: if we build a new power plant or factory or dock or shopping center, how much risk do we face that some "native Hawaiian group" is going to claim that we are treading on their sacred ground and kill the project halfway through, or demand pay-offs?
That's why Native American communities are so poor and have so little industry or businesses investing in them: there is too much legal uncertainty, and Hawaii risks the same fate if it keeps going down this road. The more Hawaii pushes for "native Hawaiian rights", the less inclined people will be to invest their money there as well.
People hang out at university until they're 30 because they don't have a lot of other options when governments raise labor costs too high. "At the discretion of the state" doesn't just mean that they tell you you can't go if you want to, it also means giving people "free" university education after policies destroy their entry-level jobs.
Youth unemployment in Finland and the Eurozone is 22% (and that is with railroading out of work students into universities); in the US, it is 11%.
Well, it is obviously bad from the point of view of a global, interconnected economy. It is hurting us, and it will get worse. But Europe crumbling is not something we have any control over; the European model simply isn't sustainable. So, the question at this point amounts to: will the US adopt the same kind of policies that are destroying Europe or will we turn back. If Europe hurries up and falls apart quickly enough, that may prevent Americans from foolishly walking down the same path. We still pay the price for Europe's follies, but at least our own economy and society will be able to muddle through intact.
The situation isn't all that different from a century ago, when Europe also self-destructed while the US avoided both fascism and socialism and managed to help the West get back on its feet again after WWII.
If you want to read more about the flipside of the Nordic Model, read "The Almost Nearly Perfect People" by Booth. Then think about whether you really want to live in a society like that.
A lot of stuff people buy online is virtual: software, books, movies, games, in-game resources, where "insurance" isn't that important. Also, while buying overseas may seem wild and risky to you, to people who have lived there (or even grown up there), it's just routine.
Money is for economic transactions. Do you want to buy stuff overseas or online without using a credit card? Then consider Bitcoin. If you don't need Bitcoin for any transactions, don't bother.