Sorry, that's right. Possibly more people are able to DRIVE to the city now, not GO in the general sense.
I'm not sure how you get "not at all" though. It's still an improvement for the hypothetical person who used to take a bus for 2 hours, versus driving directly now, even with increased traffic, for 1 hour. I mean there is a reason that person is taking a car instead of still taking the bus, right?
and nuclear plants never meet their projected costs
That's actually not that hard to remedy, at least partially. One of the big costs is in delays from nuisance lawsuits. Every delay between project approval and acquisition of funds, and when the plant actually begins producing electricity, is a huge cost. So we could just.. end those lawsuits.
And we have waste just lying around, and you can't calculate the cost until that's been dealt with for once and for all
All the nuclear waste ever produced takes up a very tiny volume. There's actually nothing wrong with letting it just lie around for however long it takes, and absolutely no need to calculate (or collect) the cost up front.
Strictly speaking nuclear power is non-renewable, so it fails on that front.
We don't speak strictly about renewable energy, because nothing is renewable if you're being strict. Solar? Stops renewing in about 5 billion years.
It makes sense in certain circumstances, but all in all, no one has ever actually produced reactors that don't require significant taxpayer subsidies to keep them going.
That's not true, unless you're counting as subsidies things like laws limiting the amount of damages they are liable for. That's the vast bulk of any study of nuclear subsidies, and it makes no sense. It's like saying we're all being subsidized by billions of dollars a year (each!) because the law provides bankruptcy protection.
But one of the big draws of renewables, particularly solar and wind, is that they can be more distributed. It seems very unlikely that you could create a transmission network from Saudi Arabia to Germany for less money than building solar farms in Germany (even accounting for using more panels since there's less daylight).
I think the ME is well and truly fucked. Luckily for the rulers, places like England and Switzerland have no problem giving shelter to rich politicians.
That's ignoring the largest chunk of blame, which gets assigned to the people themselves. Nothing at all prevented Middle Eastern countries from saying "Hey let's just divide up differently and swap some land."
Sudan/South Sudan just did it, and they are pretty far behind e.g. Turkey in terms of wealth and development.
This is actually an area where a little bit more government involvement could be beneficial. It seems like the only way to make it work would be if more facilities were provided to carpoolers, such as free parking lots where riders could connect. It would be kind of like a bus station without the buses.
But gay marriage is never "by itself" in your context, you cannot say, I am pro-gay marriage but I still want them to be looked at as gross people.
It's definitely possible to say that, just like you can be pro-porn and simultaneously find porn stars rather gross. Or is that just me? I wouldn't marry a (former or active) porn star.
But if you "don't care" about gay marriage, you wouldn't think it was gross.
Maybe I wasn't clear because you're not the only person saying that. To me there's a big difference between "don't care at all about xyz" and "don't care about the legality of xyz." There are tons of things I support the legality of, that I don't support the participation in. You want to be gay married? Great. You want to have 3 wives? Go for it. You want to fuck your sheep? Have a great time. You want to drop out of school and be on welfare? Well now that's starting to affect me via taxation, but you know what, I still don't want to arrest people who made bad life choices or cut off their welfare and see them starve in the streets, so who cares, go for it. You want to go do Christian missionary work in Iran or North Korea? Jeeze I think you're really stupid, but still I don't care.
But I don't want any of those things taught to my kids as noble or even normal. Porn stars are gross. Fat people are unhealthy. People who want to cut off their penis because they feel like a girl are mentally ill. And yet I can still say "they're free to do it, just don't expect me to applaud them."
I think raw tomatoes are gross, they make me gag to try to eat one. That doesn't mean tomatoes aren't taught as being a normal thing to eat.
That's a terrible example, actually. The reason your example appears to show that "normalizing food" is a silly concept is because you picked an example that I've literally never heard anybody complain about, and that lots of people do themselves. So that's like the opposite of gay marriage... lots of people complain about gay marriage, and very few people will ever be gay married.
What do schools teach you about eating cats and dogs? Selling cat and dog meat is actually illegal in some states. In some other countries it's common. Chances are very high that if a student in the US said "I think eating cats and dogs is gross, it's animal cruelty!" they would not really be disagreed with, nobody would consider it disrespectful or bullying, there would be no meeting with the parents about "we're concerned about Johnny's lack of sensitivity to cat and dog meat eaters" etc.
I don't know. Why should any charity be tax exempt? That's not the point, I'm talking about consequences of gay marriage gaining legal recognition. The point is people may really think "sure I think gay people should be able to be married" but then they're like "oh but wait, for whatever reason I DO think churches should be tax exempt, now this whole gay marriage thing is no longer about 2 people in a committed relationship, they're trying to impose their crap on MY church and affect MY life."
Apart from the fact that the "fears" you mention are themselves a form of bigotry
That's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with some light bigotry. Heavy bigotry would be like arresting gay people for being gay. But personal preferences about what your children are taught? What clientele your bakery has to do business with? What sex acts you find gross? Nope, I don't care about that bigotry at all, and I think very few people genuinely do.
your argument can be filed under "slippery slope fallacy"
Not really, because gay marriage proponents have already signaled their stance on those issues. You called it bigotry just now. Well gee, do you want bigotry taught in public schools? Probably not. That's not much of a stretch.
Of course it's a weak reason. The whole issue is based on weak reasoning. It's social preference stuff. Care to share some of the strong reasoning on the pro-gay marriage side? I've never heard any.
Have you checked the marriage vs cohabitation stats lately? I would bet that many more cohabiting straight people are affected by such restrictions than gay people, so if this is such a big deal why isn't it being addressed for everyone who isn't married?
If gay marriage is "no big deal" then why do you care about these other things?
There's a difference between letting people do what they want and forcing everybody to acknowledge it, especially children.
Of course the people against LGBT rights have made such a big stink about the issue for so long that it will probably be covered in history classes, but that's their own fault. We do want to teach children about reality right?
Come on, that is drastically oversimplifying. Do we want to teach about reality? Sure, but whose reality, or rather whose snippets of reality sorted by their own priority level?
You can't consistently argue that you don't care if gay people get married while also arguing for a grand conspiracy to keep children from finding out gay people exist.
I think keeping things simple in school is a good goal, especially when it comes to social issues. School isn't there to replace parents. And btw there's a pretty big difference between "gay people exist" and "gay marriage is a normal, healthy thing."
I guess you don't know what astrology is. Astrology is not a study of stars and constellations in general, but specifically of their effect on our lives. There isn't any meaningful data about that because it isn't real.
Just to recap, because this astrology tangent doesn't seem helpful.. it's a very poor analogy, providing really no reductive power:
1. Calling the application of the 1st amendment to a situation frivolous is not the same as calling the 1st amendment frivolous or calling all applications of the 1st amendment frivolous... is this argument too complex for you? I thought it was pretty obvious.
2. The government itself (let alone commentators on judicial rulings) recognizes some religions and deems others frivolous, and that is apparently legal (I'm not sure why it's legal, maybe the law has never been challenged). Which part is fake/illegitimate/indiscernible?
I guess you have a problem with one of those, but I still don't understand why. Calling it astrology doesn't help. I think perhaps you just don't like being wrong, so you're not really addressing anything I said but handwaving it away as astrology and "playing chess with pigeons" and all that. Very dismissive, very important sounding, etc... but not actually a rebuttal.
Yes you're so smart, that's why you compared real-life IRS tax code with astrology. lol
Maybe everything seems like astrology to you because "it's so stupid here I am playing chess and you idiots are just pigeons"
You're quite a character.
Seriously, if you're not a troll, I have no idea why you were such an ass in reply to me. And if you really think I'm that stupid, that I was doing the equivalent of astrology, guess what... you need to reevaluate your own level of intelligence. Google "dunning krueger effect" for starters. Embrace some humility.
Great post. Another example that really stuck out in my mind was back in the Bush era. Some researchers decided that major news organizations in the US are ALL right wing or center right. Even blatantly left leaning organizations like NPR were labeled as right wing. I read their methodology and found that they categorized it by the number of times certain people's names were mentioned. "Bush" mentions were attributed to the right wing column. So they were counting stories like "Bush is a war criminal" as "leaning right."
A lot of people feel like the simple request for "marriage equality" is a trojan horse that ends up with priests being sued for not performing gay marriages, or churches losing tax exemption status if they don't perform/recognize gay marriages. A lot of people feel like gay marriage is gross, but maybe should be legal, but again are scared of the trojan horse implications... suddenly gay marriage is going to be taught in schools, children will be taught that it's normal, etc.
So there are reasons to be against it even if you think gay marriage BY ITSELF is no big deal and should be legal.
YOUR first ammendment rights are under assault (because private citizens dare excercise their free speech in conflict with yours) - yet when the court protects first ammendment rights you call it 'frivolous grounds'.
It does not mean that one thinks the 1st amendment is frivolous, it means the APPLICATION of a 1st amendment argument in this situation is frivolous.
Does it become 'frivolous' based on whose freedom of religion is being assaulted ?
Yes, actually, and discriminating between religions is really how it works. Check out the instructions for IRS form 4029 for a great example of how religious discrimination works, outlining which religious groups get the benefit of not having to pay payroll taxes. I'll quote it:
Recognized religious group. A recognized religious group must meet all the following requirements: * It is conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any private or public insurance that makes payments in the event of death, disability, old age, or retirement; makes payments for the cost of medical care; or provides services for medical care (including social security and Medicare benefits). * It has provided a reasonable level of living for its dependent members. * It has existed continuously since December 31, 1950.
The point of it is to prevent people from saying "Tada, my new religion says I can't pay taxes, but without all the other stuff the Amish believe in that would make my life inconvenient."
As for the specific issue at hand, I don't see any problem with treating religions differently when they have different effects on the world. Seems like a similar argument to how some weapons are more restricted than others even though the 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about what type of arms we're free to have.
As you said, most victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslim, and most of them are in Muslim countries. Banning Islam in the West would not affect those victims of Islamic terrorism.
Come on, don't be so ignorant. It's a guarantee? Remind me when my family was taken away because of the Patriot Act. Oh yeah that didn't happen.
Mao's China was the result of a revolution, not a slippery slope. East Germany was a result of the Soviet's share of spoils over Germany. How is that slippery slope?
It's too hard to separate out interest expense for a bank. A lot of it goes to the government, a lot to depositors, a lot to bond holders, a lot to other banks. I guess I could have picked another company that doesn't have so much interest expense. You'd find the same thing except for certain specialty businesses like REITs and mlps who are basically passthrough entities to convert "productive" money (eg pipeline transit fees) into dividends and have very few employees themselves. Do the same exercise for Walmart and feel free to include interest expense however you see fit. I'd do it but I'm on vacation and usingâ a cell phone only.
As.for bufgett i didn't say he's compensated only for productive work, I was responding to your statement that people who get most of their money from dividends and interest are "lumps" just sitting around. Buffett is very productive and even with your low ball estimate that makes him many times more productive than the average person.
Slippery slope is almost universally a bullshit argument. Yes it's theoretically possible that this could evolve into a horrible police state that disappears innocent people. But realistically if they use it to lock up jihadis, it'll be a good thing. If the kind of people who would start using it on regular people get elected, it seems like you're kind of screwed anyway because wouldn't they just do the same stuff secretly?
Where did this thought come from? More funding for the police could have stopped this attack how exactly? Their response time was pretty good. But "stopped the attackers" to me actually implies you think they could have prevented the attack.
You do realize that they knew about these guys right? May is absolutely right that they need to tone down some of the more retarded human rights protections that are getting in the way of deporting or at least jailing jihadis.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, that's right. Possibly more people are able to DRIVE to the city now, not GO in the general sense.
I'm not sure how you get "not at all" though. It's still an improvement for the hypothetical person who used to take a bus for 2 hours, versus driving directly now, even with increased traffic, for 1 hour. I mean there is a reason that person is taking a car instead of still taking the bus, right?
and nuclear plants never meet their projected costs
That's actually not that hard to remedy, at least partially. One of the big costs is in delays from nuisance lawsuits. Every delay between project approval and acquisition of funds, and when the plant actually begins producing electricity, is a huge cost. So we could just.. end those lawsuits.
And we have waste just lying around, and you can't calculate the cost until that's been dealt with for once and for all
All the nuclear waste ever produced takes up a very tiny volume. There's actually nothing wrong with letting it just lie around for however long it takes, and absolutely no need to calculate (or collect) the cost up front.
Strictly speaking nuclear power is non-renewable, so it fails on that front.
We don't speak strictly about renewable energy, because nothing is renewable if you're being strict. Solar? Stops renewing in about 5 billion years.
It makes sense in certain circumstances, but all in all, no one has ever actually produced reactors that don't require significant taxpayer subsidies to keep them going.
That's not true, unless you're counting as subsidies things like laws limiting the amount of damages they are liable for. That's the vast bulk of any study of nuclear subsidies, and it makes no sense. It's like saying we're all being subsidized by billions of dollars a year (each!) because the law provides bankruptcy protection.
But one of the big draws of renewables, particularly solar and wind, is that they can be more distributed. It seems very unlikely that you could create a transmission network from Saudi Arabia to Germany for less money than building solar farms in Germany (even accounting for using more panels since there's less daylight).
I think the ME is well and truly fucked. Luckily for the rulers, places like England and Switzerland have no problem giving shelter to rich politicians.
That's ignoring the largest chunk of blame, which gets assigned to the people themselves. Nothing at all prevented Middle Eastern countries from saying "Hey let's just divide up differently and swap some land."
Sudan/South Sudan just did it, and they are pretty far behind e.g. Turkey in terms of wealth and development.
This is actually an area where a little bit more government involvement could be beneficial. It seems like the only way to make it work would be if more facilities were provided to carpoolers, such as free parking lots where riders could connect. It would be kind of like a bus station without the buses.
It's not necessarily worse for everyone. In the article, the author speculates that more people are able to go to the city now.
But gay marriage is never "by itself" in your context, you cannot say, I am pro-gay marriage but I still want them to be looked at as gross people.
It's definitely possible to say that, just like you can be pro-porn and simultaneously find porn stars rather gross. Or is that just me? I wouldn't marry a (former or active) porn star.
But if you "don't care" about gay marriage, you wouldn't think it was gross.
Maybe I wasn't clear because you're not the only person saying that. To me there's a big difference between "don't care at all about xyz" and "don't care about the legality of xyz." There are tons of things I support the legality of, that I don't support the participation in. You want to be gay married? Great. You want to have 3 wives? Go for it. You want to fuck your sheep? Have a great time. You want to drop out of school and be on welfare? Well now that's starting to affect me via taxation, but you know what, I still don't want to arrest people who made bad life choices or cut off their welfare and see them starve in the streets, so who cares, go for it. You want to go do Christian missionary work in Iran or North Korea? Jeeze I think you're really stupid, but still I don't care.
But I don't want any of those things taught to my kids as noble or even normal. Porn stars are gross. Fat people are unhealthy. People who want to cut off their penis because they feel like a girl are mentally ill. And yet I can still say "they're free to do it, just don't expect me to applaud them."
I think raw tomatoes are gross, they make me gag to try to eat one. That doesn't mean tomatoes aren't taught as being a normal thing to eat.
That's a terrible example, actually. The reason your example appears to show that "normalizing food" is a silly concept is because you picked an example that I've literally never heard anybody complain about, and that lots of people do themselves. So that's like the opposite of gay marriage... lots of people complain about gay marriage, and very few people will ever be gay married.
What do schools teach you about eating cats and dogs? Selling cat and dog meat is actually illegal in some states. In some other countries it's common. Chances are very high that if a student in the US said "I think eating cats and dogs is gross, it's animal cruelty!" they would not really be disagreed with, nobody would consider it disrespectful or bullying, there would be no meeting with the parents about "we're concerned about Johnny's lack of sensitivity to cat and dog meat eaters" etc.
I don't know. Why should any charity be tax exempt? That's not the point, I'm talking about consequences of gay marriage gaining legal recognition. The point is people may really think "sure I think gay people should be able to be married" but then they're like "oh but wait, for whatever reason I DO think churches should be tax exempt, now this whole gay marriage thing is no longer about 2 people in a committed relationship, they're trying to impose their crap on MY church and affect MY life."
That's the point.
Apart from the fact that the "fears" you mention are themselves a form of bigotry
That's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with some light bigotry. Heavy bigotry would be like arresting gay people for being gay. But personal preferences about what your children are taught? What clientele your bakery has to do business with? What sex acts you find gross? Nope, I don't care about that bigotry at all, and I think very few people genuinely do.
your argument can be filed under "slippery slope fallacy"
Not really, because gay marriage proponents have already signaled their stance on those issues. You called it bigotry just now. Well gee, do you want bigotry taught in public schools? Probably not. That's not much of a stretch.
Of course it's a weak reason. The whole issue is based on weak reasoning. It's social preference stuff. Care to share some of the strong reasoning on the pro-gay marriage side? I've never heard any.
Have you checked the marriage vs cohabitation stats lately? I would bet that many more cohabiting straight people are affected by such restrictions than gay people, so if this is such a big deal why isn't it being addressed for everyone who isn't married?
If gay marriage is "no big deal" then why do you care about these other things?
There's a difference between letting people do what they want and forcing everybody to acknowledge it, especially children.
Of course the people against LGBT rights have made such a big stink about the issue for so long that it will probably be covered in history classes, but that's their own fault. We do want to teach children about reality right?
Come on, that is drastically oversimplifying. Do we want to teach about reality? Sure, but whose reality, or rather whose snippets of reality sorted by their own priority level?
You can't consistently argue that you don't care if gay people get married while also arguing for a grand conspiracy to keep children from finding out gay people exist.
I think keeping things simple in school is a good goal, especially when it comes to social issues. School isn't there to replace parents. And btw there's a pretty big difference between "gay people exist" and "gay marriage is a normal, healthy thing."
I guess you don't know what astrology is. Astrology is not a study of stars and constellations in general, but specifically of their effect on our lives. There isn't any meaningful data about that because it isn't real.
Just to recap, because this astrology tangent doesn't seem helpful.. it's a very poor analogy, providing really no reductive power:
1. Calling the application of the 1st amendment to a situation frivolous is not the same as calling the 1st amendment frivolous or calling all applications of the 1st amendment frivolous... is this argument too complex for you? I thought it was pretty obvious.
2. The government itself (let alone commentators on judicial rulings) recognizes some religions and deems others frivolous, and that is apparently legal (I'm not sure why it's legal, maybe the law has never been challenged). Which part is fake/illegitimate/indiscernible?
I guess you have a problem with one of those, but I still don't understand why. Calling it astrology doesn't help. I think perhaps you just don't like being wrong, so you're not really addressing anything I said but handwaving it away as astrology and "playing chess with pigeons" and all that. Very dismissive, very important sounding, etc... but not actually a rebuttal.
Yes you're so smart, that's why you compared real-life IRS tax code with astrology. lol
Maybe everything seems like astrology to you because "it's so stupid here I am playing chess and you idiots are just pigeons"
You're quite a character.
Seriously, if you're not a troll, I have no idea why you were such an ass in reply to me. And if you really think I'm that stupid, that I was doing the equivalent of astrology, guess what... you need to reevaluate your own level of intelligence. Google "dunning krueger effect" for starters. Embrace some humility.
Huh? Okay didn't realize you were just a troll.
Great post. Another example that really stuck out in my mind was back in the Bush era. Some researchers decided that major news organizations in the US are ALL right wing or center right. Even blatantly left leaning organizations like NPR were labeled as right wing. I read their methodology and found that they categorized it by the number of times certain people's names were mentioned. "Bush" mentions were attributed to the right wing column. So they were counting stories like "Bush is a war criminal" as "leaning right."
A lot of people feel like the simple request for "marriage equality" is a trojan horse that ends up with priests being sued for not performing gay marriages, or churches losing tax exemption status if they don't perform/recognize gay marriages. A lot of people feel like gay marriage is gross, but maybe should be legal, but again are scared of the trojan horse implications... suddenly gay marriage is going to be taught in schools, children will be taught that it's normal, etc.
So there are reasons to be against it even if you think gay marriage BY ITSELF is no big deal and should be legal.
YOUR first ammendment rights are under assault (because private citizens dare excercise their free speech in conflict with yours) - yet when the court protects first ammendment rights you call it 'frivolous grounds'.
It does not mean that one thinks the 1st amendment is frivolous, it means the APPLICATION of a 1st amendment argument in this situation is frivolous.
Does it become 'frivolous' based on whose freedom of religion is being assaulted ?
Yes, actually, and discriminating between religions is really how it works. Check out the instructions for IRS form 4029 for a great example of how religious discrimination works, outlining which religious groups get the benefit of not having to pay payroll taxes. I'll quote it:
Recognized religious group. A recognized religious group must meet all the
following requirements:
* It is conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any private or public
insurance that makes payments in the event of death, disability, old age, or
retirement; makes payments for the cost of medical care; or provides
services for medical care (including social security and Medicare benefits).
* It has provided a reasonable level of living for its dependent members.
* It has existed continuously since December 31, 1950.
The point of it is to prevent people from saying "Tada, my new religion says I can't pay taxes, but without all the other stuff the Amish believe in that would make my life inconvenient."
As for the specific issue at hand, I don't see any problem with treating religions differently when they have different effects on the world. Seems like a similar argument to how some weapons are more restricted than others even though the 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about what type of arms we're free to have.
As you said, most victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslim, and most of them are in Muslim countries. Banning Islam in the West would not affect those victims of Islamic terrorism.
Come on, don't be so ignorant. It's a guarantee? Remind me when my family was taken away because of the Patriot Act. Oh yeah that didn't happen.
Mao's China was the result of a revolution, not a slippery slope. East Germany was a result of the Soviet's share of spoils over Germany. How is that slippery slope?
And?
It's too hard to separate out interest expense for a bank. A lot of it goes to the government, a lot to depositors, a lot to bond holders, a lot to other banks. I guess I could have picked another company that doesn't have so much interest expense. You'd find the same thing except for certain specialty businesses like REITs and mlps who are basically passthrough entities to convert "productive" money (eg pipeline transit fees) into dividends and have very few employees themselves. Do the same exercise for Walmart and feel free to include interest expense however you see fit. I'd do it but I'm on vacation and usingâ a cell phone only.
As.for bufgett i didn't say he's compensated only for productive work, I was responding to your statement that people who get most of their money from dividends and interest are "lumps" just sitting around. Buffett is very productive and even with your low ball estimate that makes him many times more productive than the average person.
Slippery slope is almost universally a bullshit argument. Yes it's theoretically possible that this could evolve into a horrible police state that disappears innocent people. But realistically if they use it to lock up jihadis, it'll be a good thing. If the kind of people who would start using it on regular people get elected, it seems like you're kind of screwed anyway because wouldn't they just do the same stuff secretly?
Where did this thought come from? More funding for the police could have stopped this attack how exactly? Their response time was pretty good. But "stopped the attackers" to me actually implies you think they could have prevented the attack.
You do realize that they knew about these guys right? May is absolutely right that they need to tone down some of the more retarded human rights protections that are getting in the way of deporting or at least jailing jihadis.