In California, the night before the primary election, there was an announcement on the news that Clinton had won. Guess what, turnout of Democratic electors was lower than expected. And the claim that Clinton had already won: false. Was that false claim an accident? I don't think so.
Maybe that was the Russians too. Man those guys are everywhere.
I've never owned, much less flown a drone. But I get the impression they just might be able to carry 2 lbs payload. So, say 1 lb low energy explosive (cuz they can't get C4 and such), and 1 lb bbs. Not seeing how that can do much damage, out side of the fear factor.
The whole point of terrorism *is* the fear factor. All someone has to do is pull this stunt on a large mass of people, say a stadium during a sports event, and you will see the US go collectively crazy. If we really had terrorism (hint, we don't) then this would have been done already.
Regarding how little real damage is done, recall that every month cars kill as many people as 9/11 did. Moreover every year illegals kill that many US citizens between murders and alcohol related car crashes. In the US we don't do a good job of evaluating absolute damage or risk. The absolute damage isn't important, just the novelty of it. Bonus points if it shows well on TV.
The groupthink is to support a set of universal "human rights", with an emphasis on groups at the most disadvantaged end of the scale. This emphasis on universalism has removed any emphasis on the rights of local populations if their rights status is judged "higher" than other groups.
And the calculus of judging rights status of groups is kind of weighted, which is why you see groups who at face seem oppressed (ie, white poor, unemployed Appalachian coal miners) judged as "privileged" by universalists who weight some criteria (like race) as privilege status above others (economic power).
Regional disadvantages are disregarded because privilege and power are aggregated and its presumed that all regional members share these. If the US is a rich country, then all US citizens are presumed to actually possess these privileges, even if specific members of the US don't share any of these.
My observation is that people who don't care about borders or the impact of mass immigration don't care because it will never affect them. Their kids, if they have any, go to private school. They don't live near illegals instead being in very nice, likely gated, communities. Since they are removed from the downsides they then come in on a moral high horse say that we should all be happy to do our part. However they can be so cavalier about it because they have no skin in the game. It's no different from a general telling the privates about to die to be brave and do their duty.
Comparing the US to the Swiss is a false equivalency. IMHO, the biggest is that many of the Swiss are distantly related to each other, unlike the US. When half the country is part of your extended biological family, you feel far different towards them than the "melting pot" situation here in the US. I'm not condoning the US's attitude, but it's just a very basic and probably pre-human part of our evolution. All animals are more helpful to fellow family / tribe members.
Add to that the media doing its level best to stir up trouble. My personal theory is that "we are the 99%" scared the powers that be. Their solution was to fragment the 99%, thus BLM got more media attention than Trump. Add to that a steady stream of white privilege crap, throw in some incendiary stories on illegals and you have very successfully fragmented the 99%. Now the 99% squabbles among itself and the 1% continues on unopposed. All the while the middle class continues its steady decline but who cares because we have big issues to discuss, like what a football player does during the national anthem. Ugh...
Why would it be any different than with e.g. a robot that replaces workers. If you have 10 people working at 40 hours, replacing 5 workers by a machines does not mean that they now work each 20 hours at the same pay (minus the cost of the machine).
I think they were talking about government workers, so the math is more like 10 people present for 40 hours but working about 5-10. The goal is to change this to 20 people present for 40 hours but working about 15 min. And they all want to retire at age 40 with full benefits. They never want nor plan on savings.
Actually there is a migration out of California among US citizens. While the overall population is growing due to immigration , both illegal and legal, this is a case of losing people that you want and not getting a replacement of equal value. The business climate overall is down for most things. The hubris of California and large cities there like SF, LA, etc is amazing. I look forward to the fall.
I never meant to imply that there couldn't be racism. My point was that these numbers showing racial outcome of a test do not alone do not prove any racism. You actually have to do the work of controlling for competence, rather than simply assuming every population is equally competent.
You assume they are looking for actual answers to real problems. People who cry racism generally to anything they can to avoid an actual discussion with facts and dispassionate analysis. Logic and consistent thinking is not the strong suit of this crowd. On the one hand they want to complain about discrimination but their solution is always more discrimination. The "racism" was predetermined and anything you say contrary just proves how racist you are. It's a modern version of a witch hunt.
Obviously nothing about being American is genetic - we're a genetic soup, but we have our own culture. Less so now than 40, 60, or 100 years ago
Not only less so than 46, 60, or 100 years ago but diminishing rapidly. Culturally my grandfather would probably not have recognized the US and my dad might not have. There are numerous times I hardly recognize the place. With regards to the topic, it's just the usual blame the white guy. I've seen *far* too many cases of all Asian companies to give much weight to this. When they get some pressure to change then I'll take this complaint seriously. Until then it fits in the bucket of "it's only wrong when a white male does it".
Let me guess, you also will be first in line to say that more white people use welfare too right? On a per capita basis white people both use welfare far less as well as have far less drunk driving. In absolute numbers since white people as a group outnumber other groups they commit more incidents of these despite a lower per capita rate. Consider reading up on statistics. After you learn how to write your name of course.
This notion couldn't be more incorrect. Illegal immigrant supporters are like gamblers who only tell you about how much they won, not their losses. To be honest if a person has half a brain they could reason that the costs *have* to exceed what minimal sales tax and fake social security number taxes illegals pay. Pro immigrant people ignore the costs of immigrant children, both those born here as "citizens" as well as those who are not citizens. Here is a great paper that lays out the costs as well as the receipts. For California alone we're in the hole by $8.8 Billion (citation below). Texas lost around $10.8 Billion (citation below). Add in the other states and we're probably over $40 billion. Note that both papers show that some taxes were received but they were woefully short of the costs. This doesn't count the human toll as illegal immigrant drunk drivers kill more people than the 9/11 terrorists *every year* (citation below). 9/11 killed 2,996 but illegals kill around 3,000 a year with car drunk/careless driving and another 2,000 by crime.
Citations:
California costs:
http://www.fairus.org/site/doc...
Texas costs:
http://www.fairus.org/DocServe...
Illegal immigrant caused deaths:
http://unlicensedtokill.org/
Is it just me or are we moving towards the movie "In Time"? Now we get paid daily for our daily bread... er time. Just a few advances with regards to ageing and we'll be all set.
"More and more of the internet is sitting behind fewer and fewer players, and there are benefits of that, but there are also real risks..."
Every form of media is being centralized so that greater control as well as consistency of message is possible. This is why the nation was better off when one person couldn't own too many media outlets. Deregulation of that was as disastrous as banking deregulation but, as the media will not turn itself in, was not reported on. The noose tightens...
Discrimination - the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
If you have a policy of providing perks to certain favored classes then by definition you are mistreating the groups that didn't get the perks. It really is that simple. The civil rights movement was ~50 years ago. What has happened since then is a systematic process of giving perks and benefits to protected classes solely on the basis of their race / gender. Obama's daughters will benefit from affirmative action even though they probably have more "privilege" than anyone else on/. If that system sounds wise, well thought out, or fair then just let me know and I'll drop this conversation.
I had to laugh when you said include more people. Much of life is a zero sum game, such as who gets the job or a admitted to a given college. You are excluding some people to include your favored groups. You most certainly are not including more people. Moreover the current thinking among the SJW crowd is how dare white people even speak unless it's to lament their privilege in a strange form of self flagellation. That doesn't sound like including more people either. Moreover it cheapens the results of those who do succeed since it's hard to know where their merit ended and the perks started. To use a sports analogy, would you subtract a few tenths of a second from a swimmer who was from an underrepresented group? If you did and based on the modification to their time they won, would the spectators accept that as a valid win or would it always have a footnote by it that said they won only due to a modification?
1963 - I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
The thinking today is the direct opposite of this.
If I could wave a wand and make all the lobbyists, visa loopholes and bad politics go away, I'd do two things:It's not a union, it's a merit-driven guild -- and that distinction would have to be very clear to appeal to the overwhelmingly libertarian crowd who populate IT jobs in large numbers.
Interestingly anything merit driven is undermined by a legal concept known as "disparate impact", which is anything that is neutral but still has a sorting effect on protected classes. So your merit driven concept is great both in concept and practice until it hits the SJW tool of disparate impact and must effectively dismantled. It's one of the reasons why the US can't have nice things.
After all, if black people want to only rent to black people that'll be OK as long as we call it a safe space. I suspect that other protected classes could get away with this too. As long as it's not ever a white male because then it would be bad. Logic is definitely a weak point among the PC crowd. It's either wrong to discriminate or it isn't. Anything along the lines of you can do this but he can't are just a new flavor of discrimination.
Don't forget the negative modifiers...
If you are poor/from a poor background subtract 1
If you are a disadvantaged minority -1
If you are a woman -1
If you get sick -3
"Disadvantaged minority" isn't what most think. In fields with very few of X, where X is a government sponsored class, you definitely get a +5. Although we hear about white privilege the reality is that the ever hated white male gets exactly zero help while the rest get some form of advantage. The most extreme case I heard of first hand was a black speech therapist that a friend worked with. Not many of those I can assure you. She was able to openly sit and do nothing at work with zero consequence and only had half the case load of everyone else. The most extreme example of her incompetence was when she was caught at her lie of speaking spanish. She was adding an 'o' to the end of words as if that made them Spanish. No she wasn't fired nor even demoted and she does still work for that district. You can get away with a lot if you're a protected class.
But Elon promised us it was safer than human driving!
It can both be safer than humans while still not being perfect. I only expect that over time self driving cars will reduce accidents, not eliminate them. Anytime you're moving at high speed there's an element of risk.
They should all burn. I don't give a shit who spilled the beans, I want the decision-makers at the top to be thrown in jail for this.
Alas we have already reached the point where despite being caught in lies and multiple smoking guns government itself now openly admits that the connected are above the law and that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case". So while I agree that they should hang for treason it won't happen. They can do whatever they want and can do it more openly and brazenly than ever before.
When we do the reboot of the US let this election show that one ballot option always needs to be "None of the above" and force another vote with new options.
Then they should be mad at their neighbors who disproportionately commit many crimes. Why are young black males so often targeted by police? Perhaps it's because they commit a shockingly high number of crimes. While the US is known to have high crime rates what is less known is that if you subtract out the number of crimes that black people commit our crime rates resemble Europe.
If you want to change the stereotype then instead of complaining about racism how about not living up to the stereotype.
I love your logic and analogies. Unfortunately the people likely to play the race card have a severe allergy to facts and quite simply cannot reason well so while I can see your point they will dismiss it with vague accusations (white privilege and such). Racism has reached a 30 year high under Obama.
I still stand by my personal theory that the media is deliberately agitating everyone as a response to we are the 99%. Divide and conquer is alive and well.
And on the plus side maybe they can tell me who robbed me three years ago
If they were trying to solve crimes perhaps but this mass surveillance has little to do with solving crime and a lot to do with supporting the police state that we draw ever closer to. Stasi would be proud. Keep in mind that we spend billions on perceived problems while actual mundane real problems get ignored. For example, illegal immigrants have killed far more US citizens than terrorists yet we spend many times more dollars "fighting terrorism". The illegal immigrant drunk driving deaths exceed 9/11 every year.
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In California, the night before the primary election, there was an announcement on the news that Clinton had won. Guess what, turnout of Democratic electors was lower than expected. And the claim that Clinton had already won: false. Was that false claim an accident? I don't think so.
Maybe that was the Russians too. Man those guys are everywhere.
I've never owned, much less flown a drone. But I get the impression they just might be able to carry 2 lbs payload. So, say 1 lb low energy explosive (cuz they can't get C4 and such), and 1 lb bbs. Not seeing how that can do much damage, out side of the fear factor.
The whole point of terrorism *is* the fear factor. All someone has to do is pull this stunt on a large mass of people, say a stadium during a sports event, and you will see the US go collectively crazy. If we really had terrorism (hint, we don't) then this would have been done already.
Regarding how little real damage is done, recall that every month cars kill as many people as 9/11 did. Moreover every year illegals kill that many US citizens between murders and alcohol related car crashes. In the US we don't do a good job of evaluating absolute damage or risk. The absolute damage isn't important, just the novelty of it. Bonus points if it shows well on TV.
The groupthink is to support a set of universal "human rights", with an emphasis on groups at the most disadvantaged end of the scale. This emphasis on universalism has removed any emphasis on the rights of local populations if their rights status is judged "higher" than other groups.
And the calculus of judging rights status of groups is kind of weighted, which is why you see groups who at face seem oppressed (ie, white poor, unemployed Appalachian coal miners) judged as "privileged" by universalists who weight some criteria (like race) as privilege status above others (economic power).
Regional disadvantages are disregarded because privilege and power are aggregated and its presumed that all regional members share these. If the US is a rich country, then all US citizens are presumed to actually possess these privileges, even if specific members of the US don't share any of these.
My observation is that people who don't care about borders or the impact of mass immigration don't care because it will never affect them. Their kids, if they have any, go to private school. They don't live near illegals instead being in very nice, likely gated, communities. Since they are removed from the downsides they then come in on a moral high horse say that we should all be happy to do our part. However they can be so cavalier about it because they have no skin in the game. It's no different from a general telling the privates about to die to be brave and do their duty.
Comparing the US to the Swiss is a false equivalency. IMHO, the biggest is that many of the Swiss are distantly related to each other, unlike the US. When half the country is part of your extended biological family, you feel far different towards them than the "melting pot" situation here in the US. I'm not condoning the US's attitude, but it's just a very basic and probably pre-human part of our evolution. All animals are more helpful to fellow family / tribe members.
Add to that the media doing its level best to stir up trouble. My personal theory is that "we are the 99%" scared the powers that be. Their solution was to fragment the 99%, thus BLM got more media attention than Trump. Add to that a steady stream of white privilege crap, throw in some incendiary stories on illegals and you have very successfully fragmented the 99%. Now the 99% squabbles among itself and the 1% continues on unopposed. All the while the middle class continues its steady decline but who cares because we have big issues to discuss, like what a football player does during the national anthem. Ugh...
Why would it be any different than with e.g. a robot that replaces workers. If you have 10 people working at 40 hours, replacing 5 workers by a machines does not mean that they now work each 20 hours at the same pay (minus the cost of the machine).
I think they were talking about government workers, so the math is more like 10 people present for 40 hours but working about 5-10. The goal is to change this to 20 people present for 40 hours but working about 15 min. And they all want to retire at age 40 with full benefits. They never want nor plan on savings.
Actually there is a migration out of California among US citizens. While the overall population is growing due to immigration , both illegal and legal, this is a case of losing people that you want and not getting a replacement of equal value. The business climate overall is down for most things. The hubris of California and large cities there like SF, LA, etc is amazing. I look forward to the fall.
I never meant to imply that there couldn't be racism. My point was that these numbers showing racial outcome of a test do not alone do not prove any racism. You actually have to do the work of controlling for competence, rather than simply assuming every population is equally competent.
You assume they are looking for actual answers to real problems. People who cry racism generally to anything they can to avoid an actual discussion with facts and dispassionate analysis. Logic and consistent thinking is not the strong suit of this crowd. On the one hand they want to complain about discrimination but their solution is always more discrimination. The "racism" was predetermined and anything you say contrary just proves how racist you are. It's a modern version of a witch hunt.
Obviously nothing about being American is genetic - we're a genetic soup, but we have our own culture. Less so now than 40, 60, or 100 years ago
Not only less so than 46, 60, or 100 years ago but diminishing rapidly. Culturally my grandfather would probably not have recognized the US and my dad might not have. There are numerous times I hardly recognize the place. With regards to the topic, it's just the usual blame the white guy. I've seen *far* too many cases of all Asian companies to give much weight to this. When they get some pressure to change then I'll take this complaint seriously. Until then it fits in the bucket of "it's only wrong when a white male does it".
Way to conflate Globalization and Capitalism.
Let me guess, you also will be first in line to say that more white people use welfare too right? On a per capita basis white people both use welfare far less as well as have far less drunk driving. In absolute numbers since white people as a group outnumber other groups they commit more incidents of these despite a lower per capita rate. Consider reading up on statistics. After you learn how to write your name of course.
This notion couldn't be more incorrect. Illegal immigrant supporters are like gamblers who only tell you about how much they won, not their losses. To be honest if a person has half a brain they could reason that the costs *have* to exceed what minimal sales tax and fake social security number taxes illegals pay. Pro immigrant people ignore the costs of immigrant children, both those born here as "citizens" as well as those who are not citizens. Here is a great paper that lays out the costs as well as the receipts. For California alone we're in the hole by $8.8 Billion (citation below). Texas lost around $10.8 Billion (citation below). Add in the other states and we're probably over $40 billion. Note that both papers show that some taxes were received but they were woefully short of the costs. This doesn't count the human toll as illegal immigrant drunk drivers kill more people than the 9/11 terrorists *every year* (citation below). 9/11 killed 2,996 but illegals kill around 3,000 a year with car drunk/careless driving and another 2,000 by crime. Citations: California costs: http://www.fairus.org/site/doc... Texas costs: http://www.fairus.org/DocServe... Illegal immigrant caused deaths: http://unlicensedtokill.org/
Is it just me or are we moving towards the movie "In Time"? Now we get paid daily for our daily bread ... er time. Just a few advances with regards to ageing and we'll be all set.
"More and more of the internet is sitting behind fewer and fewer players, and there are benefits of that, but there are also real risks..."
Every form of media is being centralized so that greater control as well as consistency of message is possible. This is why the nation was better off when one person couldn't own too many media outlets. Deregulation of that was as disastrous as banking deregulation but, as the media will not turn itself in, was not reported on. The noose tightens...
If you have a policy of providing perks to certain favored classes then by definition you are mistreating the groups that didn't get the perks. It really is that simple. The civil rights movement was ~50 years ago. What has happened since then is a systematic process of giving perks and benefits to protected classes solely on the basis of their race / gender. Obama's daughters will benefit from affirmative action even though they probably have more "privilege" than anyone else on /. If that system sounds wise, well thought out, or fair then just let me know and I'll drop this conversation.
I had to laugh when you said include more people. Much of life is a zero sum game, such as who gets the job or a admitted to a given college. You are excluding some people to include your favored groups. You most certainly are not including more people. Moreover the current thinking among the SJW crowd is how dare white people even speak unless it's to lament their privilege in a strange form of self flagellation. That doesn't sound like including more people either. Moreover it cheapens the results of those who do succeed since it's hard to know where their merit ended and the perks started. To use a sports analogy, would you subtract a few tenths of a second from a swimmer who was from an underrepresented group? If you did and based on the modification to their time they won, would the spectators accept that as a valid win or would it always have a footnote by it that said they won only due to a modification?
1963 - I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
The thinking today is the direct opposite of this.
If I could wave a wand and make all the lobbyists, visa loopholes and bad politics go away, I'd do two things:It's not a union, it's a merit-driven guild -- and that distinction would have to be very clear to appeal to the overwhelmingly libertarian crowd who populate IT jobs in large numbers.
Interestingly anything merit driven is undermined by a legal concept known as "disparate impact", which is anything that is neutral but still has a sorting effect on protected classes. So your merit driven concept is great both in concept and practice until it hits the SJW tool of disparate impact and must effectively dismantled. It's one of the reasons why the US can't have nice things.
After all, if black people want to only rent to black people that'll be OK as long as we call it a safe space. I suspect that other protected classes could get away with this too. As long as it's not ever a white male because then it would be bad. Logic is definitely a weak point among the PC crowd. It's either wrong to discriminate or it isn't. Anything along the lines of you can do this but he can't are just a new flavor of discrimination.
Anything you really put your heart into, you're going to be at least good enough to get by.
A lot of those useless degrees we joke about (art history anyone) depend on people believing this lie, unless by "get by" you mean minimum wage.
Don't forget the negative modifiers... If you are poor/from a poor background subtract 1 If you are a disadvantaged minority -1 If you are a woman -1 If you get sick -3
"Disadvantaged minority" isn't what most think. In fields with very few of X, where X is a government sponsored class, you definitely get a +5. Although we hear about white privilege the reality is that the ever hated white male gets exactly zero help while the rest get some form of advantage. The most extreme case I heard of first hand was a black speech therapist that a friend worked with. Not many of those I can assure you. She was able to openly sit and do nothing at work with zero consequence and only had half the case load of everyone else. The most extreme example of her incompetence was when she was caught at her lie of speaking spanish. She was adding an 'o' to the end of words as if that made them Spanish. No she wasn't fired nor even demoted and she does still work for that district. You can get away with a lot if you're a protected class.
But Elon promised us it was safer than human driving!
It can both be safer than humans while still not being perfect. I only expect that over time self driving cars will reduce accidents, not eliminate them. Anytime you're moving at high speed there's an element of risk.
They should all burn. I don't give a shit who spilled the beans, I want the decision-makers at the top to be thrown in jail for this.
Alas we have already reached the point where despite being caught in lies and multiple smoking guns government itself now openly admits that the connected are above the law and that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case". So while I agree that they should hang for treason it won't happen. They can do whatever they want and can do it more openly and brazenly than ever before.
When we do the reboot of the US let this election show that one ballot option always needs to be "None of the above" and force another vote with new options.
Damn I miss the Weekly World News.
If you want to change the stereotype then instead of complaining about racism how about not living up to the stereotype.
I still stand by my personal theory that the media is deliberately agitating everyone as a response to we are the 99%. Divide and conquer is alive and well.
And on the plus side maybe they can tell me who robbed me three years ago
If they were trying to solve crimes perhaps but this mass surveillance has little to do with solving crime and a lot to do with supporting the police state that we draw ever closer to. Stasi would be proud. Keep in mind that we spend billions on perceived problems while actual mundane real problems get ignored. For example, illegal immigrants have killed far more US citizens than terrorists yet we spend many times more dollars "fighting terrorism". The illegal immigrant drunk driving deaths exceed 9/11 every year.
citation:
http://www.wnd.com/2006/11/39031/