One school making a unilateral decision about a single incident is definitely not enough to create a "slippery slope" scenario.
Uhh, yeah, it is. That's kinda the definition of a slippery slope. It's a bad precedent that is very likely to be copied both through stupidity and through envy. "Harvard does it..." It doesn't mean that every college is going to do the same thing tomorrow, that would be the "slippery landing zone at the bottom of the slippery slope".
There 'SHOULD' be a strong divide in what people expect from a private institution vs a government run one.
There should also be a strong divide in what people expect from "private institutions" and "private institutions of higher education and learning." Any University that has liberal arts programs should be open to discussion of even the offensive ideas, since it is almost a given that a large part of political and social sciences consists of ideas that many people find offensive.
Banning "offensive ideas" from a college campus prevents the college from accomplishing the goals of higher education. It restricts the students' ability to understand the full range of ideas and how to deal with those ideas that they personally find offensive. No, "ban the offensive speech" is not the correct method of dealing with offensive ideas, nor is "create safe spaces with cookies and warm milk and stuffed toys to hide in."
We kind of expect a place like Harvard to be producing the leaders of tomorrow, and having leaders of tomorrow that cannot deal with offensive ideas is going to hurt us all.
Having a KKK march on campus is likely to creating a chilling effect on other students.
Well, what poor journalism we see here, since there was no mention of a KKK rally on campus, only offensive statements in a private Facebook group.
Please explain how comment A in private Facebook group B in any way chills speech on campus. Especially when the speech you claim is being chilled is the politically correct, popular opinion.
The institution has to balance competing freedoms.
Ok, let's balance. On the one side is the freedom of people to make offensive statements. On the other side is the freedom of people to not be subjected to offensive statements. Ummm, wait, the latter isn't a true right, but the former is. Hmmm.... the winner is...?
I'm all for bigoted cake makers having the right to refuse service to gay people.
You said that they get the right to decide. If you think that government punishment for deciding "no" is "get[ting] to decide", then there is no common language we share.
I think they probably have *some* interest in freedom of expression. I don't see them lobbying against the first amendment.
Why should they? It doesn't apply to them.
The ideas the students espoused do not seem to have any merit at all. They are not controversial or politically incorrect. They are just mean spirited.
They were "offensive". That's a very broad categorization which isn't synonymous with "mean spirited".
If I were running Harvard, I wouldn't want these assholes on my campus either.
That doesn't make it any better that you'd like to create an isolated environment free from offensive statements, too.
I would not want people expressing crude racism.
It's speech. It doesn't break bones. It brings into the open opinions that need to be identified and dealt with. You accomplish two things by suppressing such speech. 1) You hide it from view, which makes it easier to deny the existence of. 2) You strengthen the hate behind it because the people you are suppressing know you are doing it and resent you for it.
We have limited time and energy. It is not efficient use of resources to waste them dealing with trivially stupid and mean spirited points of view.
The fact that you don't have the time to respond to every comment that you find offensive doesn't mean that those comments should be eliminated from the public discourse. You can, really, ignore things that you don't want to reply to. You not jumping up and immediately arguing with the speaker doesn't mean you agree with him.
while simultaneously defending the right of a private person or institution to disassociate with people that express those things.
You might have noticed that I began my comments by saying that Harvard had the right to do that. The issue at hand is the wisdom of doing so, not the right. You would eliminate the speech because you personally don't have time to respond to it all, and allowing it would mean someone would be offended, I guess. I would rather that the people who make such statements be identified so the problem can be identified with them, and allow those who would be offended to learn how to deal with their own feelings without demanding that others be silenced to protect themselves. Today they demand that those ten be silenced; tomorrow it may be you because you said something they don't like. I think it goes something like "yesterday they came for the X, and since I wasn't X I didn't object..."
If a private institution is deciding whether ot not to do business with a client (e.g. a food vendor, a student/customer, etc), then they get to decide
Unless you make wedding cakes for a living and your "asshole" customer is gay.
There is almost no question that Harvard has the right to refuse admission to people who make offensive comments. I feel there is almost no question that them doing so is very wrong. The only upside to their action is that it is now painfully obvious that Harvard has no interest in free expression, they are only interested in providing an inoffensive campus so their students will not have to deal with offensive or upsetting ideas.
But that does not mean they cannot abide by the letter of the agreement, it only means they cannot formally enter into it.
If they make a pledge to the world stage that they will abide by the agreement, they've formally entered into it. If they just do the right thing, then no.
I just want to add that this is not a treaty. Treaties require 2/3rd Senate approval. This was sought under a sole-executive agreement by the US
What one president can enact through executive order the next one can rescind. That's how those things work.
If Obama had wanted us to be unable to withdraw when opposing politics won the next election, he should have gotten it through the Senate as a treaty. He didn't even try.
One of those agreements is that everyone has to wait three years before they can actually exit the agreement.
Exactly what would we be required to do over the next three years based on this agreement that we would not be doing anyway, if there are no requirements and no costs associated with it?
So while Trump has stated he'll be leaving, he can't actually file to leave until 2019.
So we'll just not do any of the things we weren't required to do anyway, and the difference will be... what? And if we stay in the agreement and there is nothing we are required to do, then how does it force us to do anything we didn't want to?
This is like saying that you cannot cancel your cable TV contract for three years, but you can stop paying the monthly fees and can keep the equipment. Who cares if you can't cancel then?
If your argument is Trump is the only leader wise enough to see that the agreement's problems are worse than its benefits,
Then I would have said that. If the only way you can argue with me is to create straw men to knock down, then there is no reason to discourse with you.
If this was a case of only 60% of world leaders being part of the agreement then you would have at least some argument.
Trump was not elected to represent 60% or 40% of the world's countries, he was elected to represent the US in foreign affairs, which this is. I don't care whether 40% of the world's leaders or 60% of the world's leader think an agreement is valuable to their countries, I worry about the US.
But there is no sanity in a man who thinks Trump's opinions about this agreement are far more insightful than every other executive leader in the world.
Does that straw man kiss you goodnight when you go to bed?
The costs of the employee can never be more than the money they earn, in practice.
Well, if by "in practice" you mean "no employer would ever hire someone under those conditions", I agree. But that's not what was meant. It is easy for an employee to cost more than his value to the employer, and his employment to cost more than just handing him a UBI, especially when unions or minimum wage are involved.
If every employee was worth more to the company than what he cost to employ, then there would be no unemployment. If I give you $100 for every marble that you will accept delivery of (profit from hiring every potential employee...) how many marbles would you take? If it costs you $10 per marble, how many do you want?
Even if you have to create a make-work job for them, you're still gaining something for the effort.
Nonsense. Say I have a McD's. I create a make-work job for someone sweeping the parking lot every hour. I have someone who does it once a day as part of their duties already, but that's why they call this a make-work job. I pay salary, I pay unemployment insurance, I pay worker's comp insurance, I give (or subsidize) a uniform, I buy more brooms. In exchange I get a parking lot that is swept 8 times more often than it really needs to be. What value is that to me? Do I get a flock of new customers from the other burger joints who have noticed how clean my parking lot is, so I profit from increased sales? Of course not. Do my production costs go down so I make more profit? Of course not -- my production costs have gone up. You say "you're still gaining something for the effort". What have I gained? Specifically? A warm fuzzy feeling because I'm employing someone to do something useless? That's not worth the cost. I'm losing money by having him on my payroll, I might as well just give him money to go away. If he costs me $1800/month, then I can give him $900/month for nothing and be better off. If he doesn't work for five companies, he can make $4500/month for doing nothing and all five companies will still save $900/month by not employing him.
Besides, there's always plenty of useful work to be done.
So we are at 0% unemployment, then? No, I fear not. Apparently there is not enough "useful work" for all the people who seek it, and many have simply stopped seeking it. The latter is why the unemployment numbers look good -- they don't count people who have given up.
Take a look at the WPA for a historical example. It created what you would probably call make-work for lots of people, but society benefitted.
The people who got paid. That wasn't society as a whole. I've seen one of the "benefits". It's a very study, rock walled rest stop on a state highway. Nice plaque saying how it was paid for with WPA. Or CPA, or one of those projects. It's also been rebuilt a couple of times, at a cost that makes the final project total more than dropping a pre-man building in place. Costs more to society, but it sure looks nice. The workers benefited.
2) divide up the work so nobody is working more than is pleasant
I find any work unpleasant. Just hand me money. Bingo, UBI again.
The GP didn't say that nobody would work more than he or she found pleasant.
That is EXACTLY what the GP said. NOBODY would work more than is pleasant. "Pleasant" is a subjective, individual measure. "Nobody" means not one person. The moment you have one person working more than they think is pleasant, you fail the "nobody works more than is pleasant" test.
if you hire one group of workers and pay them for 40 hours but expect them to work 60,
Then you get 40 hours. Unions are not going to let you get away with a 60 hour week. Yes, I assume you were trying to limit your discussion to only salaried employees, but salaried employees ar
The United States is now the only country on the planet who is not part of this agreement because it doesn't find the problem important enough.
Some people keep saying that this agreement doesn't cost anything because it doesn't require anything, but then complain because we are no longer a signatory to an agreement that doesn't require anything and can thus not accomplish anything.
And you are quick to assign motives that weren't actually expressed. "Didn't find the problem important enough" is your opinion. It could also be that "this agreement does nothing to accomplish the alleged goal but will cost money complying with, even if it is just 'good will' compliance." It takes an adult to look at an agreement critically and avoid the emotionalism and politics behind it, and decide that the result of agreeing isn't worth the costs. You use "warm fuzzy feelings" to get children to do things you want them to, but once they grow up you expect them to be more discerning.
This treaty is "warm fuzzy feelings" with nothing behind it. Everyone seems to admit that, even those who argue we should stay in it. The result of agreeing" is not "clean air for all and falling global temperatures", the "result of agreeing" is purely political and emotional baggage. The "result of agreeing" is handing a bludgeon to third world countries to use to browbeat the US when the US doesn't give them money to help them meet their goals. It won't be missing a required payment, it will be the court of world opinion (kinda like today) where the opinion that "the US should be paying other countries because yada yada and they agreed to it in Paris" will become the endless refrain.
It now becomes harder to get countries to work with us on just about anything if we aren't even willing to be part of a goodwill gesture that had no real consequences to us if we stayed in it.
Agreements have to have some benefits to all the parties involved. If other countries don't feel like working with the US when it will benefit them, that's called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face". It is always their choice to do that. And if an agreement brings them no benefit, I would never expect them to agree to it. But the US is expected to do so because "warm fuzzy feelings".
Or perhaps it is a lesson to other leaders of state that assumed that the US President had unilateral power to commit the US to treaties, despite the US Constitution being available to all online for their review of the actual requirements. It is lunacy to believe that any non-binding agreement with one political winner will survive a sea change in the political landscape, whether it is Angela Merkel believing it or 'ranton'. And it would be just as lunatic for Trump to believe that any non-binding promises that Angela Merkel makes on behalf of Germany would survive her replacement, especially if she is replaced by a political opposite.
No, it doesn't. As I said, even a fairly modest non-busywork job is earning significantly more doing productive work than doing nothing,
Of course it depends on the job. If you take a job for 20 hrs a week paying $4/hr, that's only $4000 a year -- not significantly more than UBI, especially when you consider that it will have to be taxed to pay for other people who don't work but who get the free money. Then deduct travel and employment expenses (car/bike/train/bus, lunch, laundry, business clothes, etc). Lost opportunity costs because you are spending 20+ hours a week doing something that keeps you from doing something you might want to do -- like be with your kids, etc. It is not logical to assume that every job will become well-paying just because UBI is being handed out. So, to be honest, it will depend on the job whether or not you make significantly more, just like I said.
I was explained how it doesn't work as a disincentive for working, which was your claim for why people should do busywork.
Now I know your reading comprehension is completely missing. I made no such claim. I never said they should do busywork. Someone else brought up doing busywork with a guaranteed wage, not me. I actually claimed that it would be CHEAPER to just hand them free money than to deal with managing their busywork job.
You were talking about how the people who receive the UBI "contribute nothing to society,"
No. I was talking about the people who get UBI and who do not contribute to society. That is two clauses connected by a conjunction "AND", which logically requires both conditions to be true for the statement to be true. It is not a statement that "All A is B", it is a statement referring to the set of people who meet conditions A AND B. That's not all people who get UBI, and it does not include people who work jobs in management. I understand you wanted to insult management as useless and non-contributing members of society, but that's not true.
which I quoted
You quoted four words out of a phrase and ignored the conjunction linking the two conditions (A AND B) that exist for the people I referred to. "People who take UBI" AND "contribute nothing to society". Not "therefore". Not "and thus". AND. Look up a "logical and" in your logic book, maybe you'll find it next to 'ad hominem' as system of logical argument.
Ahh, when you have no logical argument, ad hominem will fill in.
the main point was that for people working 'normal' jobs under anything remotely considered for a UBI,
UBI doesn't require "working normal jobs", and according to you, nobody is excluded from getting UBI. What job is there to be considered when giving people the UBI?
you would be making significantly more if you have a job
Depends on the job, doesn't it? And it depends on the amount of taxes that need to be extracted to pay other, less work-friendly people their UBI. You cannot simply tax the rich to pay everyone a UBI, they don't have enough money, and if you do, they will learn to not have so much and you will run out of UBI to hand out.
Why are you talking about management for?
I don't think you are actually reading something I wrote. I am referring to the people who accept UBI without doing anything in return to create wealth or benefit society. If you think I was referring to "management", then you need to get over the idea that management of a workforce so that the individuals accomplish a common goal in an efficient way is not contributing to society.
Making conclusions about what is causing those changes would be easier if we could conduct experiments which would ideally include a control group, but given that's not feasible, what is your alternative proposal?
You make it obvious: abandon the scientific method and accept that "obvious" is sufficient to proclaim an end to the discussion.
That was unraveled in 1913 when the constitution was amended to provide for direct election of senators.
You're right. That one change blurred the distinction between a federation of states and one massive state to the point that nobody remembers why it was a part of the design of the US. Today, there is little difference between townships, counties, states, and the US federal system in anyone's mind, even though they are different.
And I've often said I think it would be better if we did tweak the system so that all states' votes aren't all or nothing.
There is no tweaking necessary. The "system" already specifies that the manner of choosing of the electors shall be at the discretion of the States. Article II, Section 1, paragraph 2:
2: Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors,...
You want your state to do it by random selection, go for it. Talk to your state legislature.
The solution? Have each state assign E.C. seats proportionally.
That completely removes the state input in the process and turns it into just another version of the current fictional "popular vote".
For some reason, however, nobody thought of the "Proportional Vote Interstate Compact" though there is a "Popular Vote Interstate Compact".
And the effective difference is exactly what? A bit more granular vote total, but essentially the fictional "popular vote" decides the result, and the wisdom and courage of the founders in designing a federation of states is thrown away.
If it has 5, you need to win 20%
So you would happily disenfranchise those 19% of the voters. I guess you really don't care about the 49% that you pretend to worry about.
Large discrepancies between popular vote and electoral vote are possible,
There is no "popular vote". Please read the Constitution for the defined way we elect the President of the US and notice that "popular vote" appears exactly zero times.
There are two kinds of people who keep using the "popular vote" as a bludgeon:
Those whose candidate lost if you sum up all the votes of the voters in all the states and think it is unfair that their candidate lost.
Those who do not understand the system, who missed civics class that day, and think that electing the President of the US should be done the same way they elect their local dog catcher or city council member.
There's probably a lot of overlap between the two, but the former includes people who understand the system and don't care if their candidate lost fair and square, they just want who they want, and the latter includes the ignorant ones who are swayed by the cries from the former.
leading to endless discussions such as this one.
So let's just do it the way you want to do it so we can do away with the endless demands that we do it the way you want to do it? That convinces me. Let's do it the way _I_ want it done so I don't have to keep replying to this stuff.
Sure, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe you're wrong. Either way, I'd like to find out and then deal with that.
I think that olympic sprinters would be able to run much faster if they didn't have the mass of their arms to carry along with them. We should cut their arms off and then see how the times improve. Sure, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe you're wrong. Either way, I'd like to find out and then deal with that. Who cares about the damage it would do if I am wrong, we'd learn so much! We might even be able to graft new arms onto those folks...
Except, apparently, children. Or anyone that the government defines as "children". And your next comment where you try quoting me as saying I don't understand how UBI or taxes work, if some claim that you can exclude children and you claim nobody can be excluded, I'd ask if YOU know how UBI "works". (Truth: since it hasn't been created yet, NOBODY knows how it will be defined in real life, not even you.) As for taxes, since the entire program has to be paid for by taxpayers, you cannot exclude the idea that your "progressive" tax bracket for some taxpayers won't have to become > 100% to pay for everyone who takes the free money and contributes nothing to the society.
Then it isn't universal, and you increase the size of the government department that gets to keep track of who gets paid what. It's already going to be a large department, let's make it bigger, right?
Make it at least sufficient to support the survival of themselves and a child,
Then it isn't a basic income, it's enough to support two people.
and those who avoid having children then have a considerable luxury/investment income in addition to baseline survival.
So it's now a NonUniversal Luxury Income instead of UBI. Can we admit that handing out free money that actually meets UBI limits isn't good enough and we need MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!? That every program that hands out free stuff will get demands to provide MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE?
Why not just give people a basic income instead of making them do busy work?
Because to "give" people free money you have to take it away from someone else who is working and paying taxes. And that will result in a lot of them realizing that they are working 40 hours a week to get an income after taxes that is the same as (or less than) the free money everyone else is getting. Why should they work? They'll stop, and suddenly you have a lot less free money available to hand out, so you have to take more from those who are still working, leading to more of them making less and quitting.
And when the first couple figures out that they get UBI for each child they produce, you'll see the "welfare mother" effect where people have kids because they get money from the government for doing it.
The assumption that people are altruistic and will labor for the good of all for no return to themselves is just ridiculous. Some of them are. They make wonderful television as we watch their little enclaves implode. "Utopia" on Fox was fascinating, but not how a sustainable community is created. And the one on Vice with the created, "sustainable", eco-friendly community that charges interns to come live somewhere in Central America and pretends to give them a college education in return -- I don't remember the name, but there were two episodes -- was another.
Don't get me wrong, I am currently in favour of at least trying UBI
You can't "at least try[ing] UBI". It doesn't scale from small scale tests to the full blown full-society participation. If only a few people are getting it, the results are meaningless. The entire economy is based on work and income -- wages, taxes, prices, costs, all of it. And once you start handing out free money to everyone, it will never go away no matter how bad it really is.
Look, I'll happily give up on UBI if we instead
1) guarantee full employment
Which is equivalent to UBI. What do we do if someone can't find a job they can do? Guaranteed full employment means we create a make-work job for them. How is this significantly different than just handing them money for doing nothing? The costs of the employee will outweigh the money they earn; it will be cheaper to just hand them money. So your condition here is basically disingenuous. You'll stop supporting UBI if there is something just like it under a different name.
2) divide up the work so nobody is working more than is pleasant
I find any work unpleasant. Just hand me money. Bingo, UBI again.
3) acknowledge that raising children is work and merits an income so people who want to can stay home and do it
Paying people to have children has never worked out well for society. Mostly, you wind up with a lot of children being raised by people whose only qualifications are the ability to have children and can do nothing else productive with their lives. Eventually you wind up with a lot of children living upon society's largesse, which their parents will be doing by getting UBI based on having children.
4) reduce income inequality enormously.
So you'll give up on one method of wealth redistribution as long as there is massive wealth redistribution.
I'm sick of the argument that only the owner of the hotel is necessary to running the hotel and should therefore be paid thousands of times what the cleaners make.
Good thing that that's not the reason. The owner is taking the risks. That deserves a payback. But let's look at your hyperbole for what it is. A worker doing a 40 hour week at minimum, two weeks off, is making at least, umm, 2000 hours times $7.50, $15,000 a year. "Thousands of times" would be, at a minimum, 2000 times, or $30,000,000 per year. Very few "hotel owners" make that kind of salary. You can't pull $30mil out of a hotel and have it still make a profit. MAYBE some CEO of a major hotel chain -- hundreds of hotels -- might make $1mil, but that's because they are running a major corporation, a task that very few "hotel room cleaners" would be able to do.
And when you compare the costs of failure for a major hotel chain CEO vs. room cleaner, the disparity in income becomes more reasonable. A "room cleaner" who fails costs the chain a few customers, perhaps, the time of a supervisor who has to fix the issues, probably. A CEO who fails costs a large number of stockholders a lot of money -- pension and retirement funds, for example -- along with a lot of jobs when the chain goes bankrupt.
Hotel room cleaners should be paid enough to live comfortably and have plenty of leisure time.
Hotel room cleaners should be paid based on the value of their work to the company.
UBI sounds a lot simpler, and I advocate for more than just the bare necessities to be part of that.
I demand a universal basic income, as long as it isn't just a basic income...
People should be able to take part in the gains of society over time with increasing comfort and security.
Without having to contribute anything to those gains at all. Where does the gain come from when there are few, if any, people creating that gain?
Fellow Americans can get a taste of the "free" government-provided WiFi by buying an Amtrak ticket and trying to use Amtrak's WiFi during their trip...
Amtrak is quite up-front about the limits on the WiFi they provide and why. They aren't intending to be a full service ISP.
Slashdot Mirror
One school making a unilateral decision about a single incident is definitely not enough to create a "slippery slope" scenario.
Uhh, yeah, it is. That's kinda the definition of a slippery slope. It's a bad precedent that is very likely to be copied both through stupidity and through envy. "Harvard does it ..." It doesn't mean that every college is going to do the same thing tomorrow, that would be the "slippery landing zone at the bottom of the slippery slope".
There 'SHOULD' be a strong divide in what people expect from a private institution vs a government run one.
There should also be a strong divide in what people expect from "private institutions" and "private institutions of higher education and learning." Any University that has liberal arts programs should be open to discussion of even the offensive ideas, since it is almost a given that a large part of political and social sciences consists of ideas that many people find offensive.
Banning "offensive ideas" from a college campus prevents the college from accomplishing the goals of higher education. It restricts the students' ability to understand the full range of ideas and how to deal with those ideas that they personally find offensive. No, "ban the offensive speech" is not the correct method of dealing with offensive ideas, nor is "create safe spaces with cookies and warm milk and stuffed toys to hide in."
We kind of expect a place like Harvard to be producing the leaders of tomorrow, and having leaders of tomorrow that cannot deal with offensive ideas is going to hurt us all.
Having a KKK march on campus is likely to creating a chilling effect on other students.
Well, what poor journalism we see here, since there was no mention of a KKK rally on campus, only offensive statements in a private Facebook group.
Please explain how comment A in private Facebook group B in any way chills speech on campus. Especially when the speech you claim is being chilled is the politically correct, popular opinion.
The institution has to balance competing freedoms.
Ok, let's balance. On the one side is the freedom of people to make offensive statements. On the other side is the freedom of people to not be subjected to offensive statements. Ummm, wait, the latter isn't a true right, but the former is. Hmmm.... the winner is ...?
I'm all for bigoted cake makers having the right to refuse service to gay people.
You said that they get the right to decide. If you think that government punishment for deciding "no" is "get[ting] to decide", then there is no common language we share.
I think they probably have *some* interest in freedom of expression. I don't see them lobbying against the first amendment.
Why should they? It doesn't apply to them.
The ideas the students espoused do not seem to have any merit at all. They are not controversial or politically incorrect. They are just mean spirited.
They were "offensive". That's a very broad categorization which isn't synonymous with "mean spirited".
If I were running Harvard, I wouldn't want these assholes on my campus either.
That doesn't make it any better that you'd like to create an isolated environment free from offensive statements, too.
I would not want people expressing crude racism.
It's speech. It doesn't break bones. It brings into the open opinions that need to be identified and dealt with. You accomplish two things by suppressing such speech. 1) You hide it from view, which makes it easier to deny the existence of. 2) You strengthen the hate behind it because the people you are suppressing know you are doing it and resent you for it.
We have limited time and energy. It is not efficient use of resources to waste them dealing with trivially stupid and mean spirited points of view.
The fact that you don't have the time to respond to every comment that you find offensive doesn't mean that those comments should be eliminated from the public discourse. You can, really, ignore things that you don't want to reply to. You not jumping up and immediately arguing with the speaker doesn't mean you agree with him.
while simultaneously defending the right of a private person or institution to disassociate with people that express those things.
You might have noticed that I began my comments by saying that Harvard had the right to do that. The issue at hand is the wisdom of doing so, not the right. You would eliminate the speech because you personally don't have time to respond to it all, and allowing it would mean someone would be offended, I guess. I would rather that the people who make such statements be identified so the problem can be identified with them, and allow those who would be offended to learn how to deal with their own feelings without demanding that others be silenced to protect themselves. Today they demand that those ten be silenced; tomorrow it may be you because you said something they don't like. I think it goes something like "yesterday they came for the X, and since I wasn't X I didn't object..."
If a private institution is deciding whether ot not to do business with a client (e.g. a food vendor, a student/customer, etc), then they get to decide
Unless you make wedding cakes for a living and your "asshole" customer is gay.
There is almost no question that Harvard has the right to refuse admission to people who make offensive comments. I feel there is almost no question that them doing so is very wrong. The only upside to their action is that it is now painfully obvious that Harvard has no interest in free expression, they are only interested in providing an inoffensive campus so their students will not have to deal with offensive or upsetting ideas.
But Obfuscant's long comment basically boiled down to "every developed country was getting the shaft and only Trump realized it."
Bullshit. That's your straw man, your deliberate misinterpretation of what I wrote. You own it, lock, stock and barrel.
The fact of the matter is the Paris Climate deal is the best our species is capable of at this time.
More bullshit. Pathetic rationalization.
But that does not mean they cannot abide by the letter of the agreement, it only means they cannot formally enter into it.
If they make a pledge to the world stage that they will abide by the agreement, they've formally entered into it. If they just do the right thing, then no.
China and Europe are taking over leadership of the world.
If the US wants to be a world leader, then the US has to do what Germany and China and the UN tells them to.
I just want to add that this is not a treaty. Treaties require 2/3rd Senate approval. This was sought under a sole-executive agreement by the US
What one president can enact through executive order the next one can rescind. That's how those things work.
If Obama had wanted us to be unable to withdraw when opposing politics won the next election, he should have gotten it through the Senate as a treaty. He didn't even try.
One of those agreements is that everyone has to wait three years before they can actually exit the agreement.
Exactly what would we be required to do over the next three years based on this agreement that we would not be doing anyway, if there are no requirements and no costs associated with it?
So while Trump has stated he'll be leaving, he can't actually file to leave until 2019.
So we'll just not do any of the things we weren't required to do anyway, and the difference will be ... what? And if we stay in the agreement and there is nothing we are required to do, then how does it force us to do anything we didn't want to?
This is like saying that you cannot cancel your cable TV contract for three years, but you can stop paying the monthly fees and can keep the equipment. Who cares if you can't cancel then?
If your argument is Trump is the only leader wise enough to see that the agreement's problems are worse than its benefits,
Then I would have said that. If the only way you can argue with me is to create straw men to knock down, then there is no reason to discourse with you.
If this was a case of only 60% of world leaders being part of the agreement then you would have at least some argument.
Trump was not elected to represent 60% or 40% of the world's countries, he was elected to represent the US in foreign affairs, which this is. I don't care whether 40% of the world's leaders or 60% of the world's leader think an agreement is valuable to their countries, I worry about the US.
But there is no sanity in a man who thinks Trump's opinions about this agreement are far more insightful than every other executive leader in the world.
Does that straw man kiss you goodnight when you go to bed?
The costs of the employee can never be more than the money they earn, in practice.
Well, if by "in practice" you mean "no employer would ever hire someone under those conditions", I agree. But that's not what was meant. It is easy for an employee to cost more than his value to the employer, and his employment to cost more than just handing him a UBI, especially when unions or minimum wage are involved.
If every employee was worth more to the company than what he cost to employ, then there would be no unemployment. If I give you $100 for every marble that you will accept delivery of (profit from hiring every potential employee...) how many marbles would you take? If it costs you $10 per marble, how many do you want?
Even if you have to create a make-work job for them, you're still gaining something for the effort.
Nonsense. Say I have a McD's. I create a make-work job for someone sweeping the parking lot every hour. I have someone who does it once a day as part of their duties already, but that's why they call this a make-work job. I pay salary, I pay unemployment insurance, I pay worker's comp insurance, I give (or subsidize) a uniform, I buy more brooms. In exchange I get a parking lot that is swept 8 times more often than it really needs to be. What value is that to me? Do I get a flock of new customers from the other burger joints who have noticed how clean my parking lot is, so I profit from increased sales? Of course not. Do my production costs go down so I make more profit? Of course not -- my production costs have gone up. You say "you're still gaining something for the effort". What have I gained? Specifically? A warm fuzzy feeling because I'm employing someone to do something useless? That's not worth the cost. I'm losing money by having him on my payroll, I might as well just give him money to go away. If he costs me $1800/month, then I can give him $900/month for nothing and be better off. If he doesn't work for five companies, he can make $4500/month for doing nothing and all five companies will still save $900/month by not employing him.
Besides, there's always plenty of useful work to be done.
So we are at 0% unemployment, then? No, I fear not. Apparently there is not enough "useful work" for all the people who seek it, and many have simply stopped seeking it. The latter is why the unemployment numbers look good -- they don't count people who have given up.
Take a look at the WPA for a historical example. It created what you would probably call make-work for lots of people, but society benefitted.
The people who got paid. That wasn't society as a whole. I've seen one of the "benefits". It's a very study, rock walled rest stop on a state highway. Nice plaque saying how it was paid for with WPA. Or CPA, or one of those projects. It's also been rebuilt a couple of times, at a cost that makes the final project total more than dropping a pre-man building in place. Costs more to society, but it sure looks nice. The workers benefited.
2) divide up the work so nobody is working more than is pleasant
I find any work unpleasant. Just hand me money. Bingo, UBI again.
The GP didn't say that nobody would work more than he or she found pleasant.
That is EXACTLY what the GP said. NOBODY would work more than is pleasant. "Pleasant" is a subjective, individual measure. "Nobody" means not one person. The moment you have one person working more than they think is pleasant, you fail the "nobody works more than is pleasant" test.
if you hire one group of workers and pay them for 40 hours but expect them to work 60,
Then you get 40 hours. Unions are not going to let you get away with a 60 hour week. Yes, I assume you were trying to limit your discussion to only salaried employees, but salaried employees ar
The United States is now the only country on the planet who is not part of this agreement because it doesn't find the problem important enough.
Some people keep saying that this agreement doesn't cost anything because it doesn't require anything, but then complain because we are no longer a signatory to an agreement that doesn't require anything and can thus not accomplish anything.
And you are quick to assign motives that weren't actually expressed. "Didn't find the problem important enough" is your opinion. It could also be that "this agreement does nothing to accomplish the alleged goal but will cost money complying with, even if it is just 'good will' compliance." It takes an adult to look at an agreement critically and avoid the emotionalism and politics behind it, and decide that the result of agreeing isn't worth the costs. You use "warm fuzzy feelings" to get children to do things you want them to, but once they grow up you expect them to be more discerning.
This treaty is "warm fuzzy feelings" with nothing behind it. Everyone seems to admit that, even those who argue we should stay in it. The result of agreeing" is not "clean air for all and falling global temperatures", the "result of agreeing" is purely political and emotional baggage. The "result of agreeing" is handing a bludgeon to third world countries to use to browbeat the US when the US doesn't give them money to help them meet their goals. It won't be missing a required payment, it will be the court of world opinion (kinda like today) where the opinion that "the US should be paying other countries because yada yada and they agreed to it in Paris" will become the endless refrain.
It now becomes harder to get countries to work with us on just about anything if we aren't even willing to be part of a goodwill gesture that had no real consequences to us if we stayed in it.
Agreements have to have some benefits to all the parties involved. If other countries don't feel like working with the US when it will benefit them, that's called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face". It is always their choice to do that. And if an agreement brings them no benefit, I would never expect them to agree to it. But the US is expected to do so because "warm fuzzy feelings".
Or perhaps it is a lesson to other leaders of state that assumed that the US President had unilateral power to commit the US to treaties, despite the US Constitution being available to all online for their review of the actual requirements. It is lunacy to believe that any non-binding agreement with one political winner will survive a sea change in the political landscape, whether it is Angela Merkel believing it or 'ranton'. And it would be just as lunatic for Trump to believe that any non-binding promises that Angela Merkel makes on behalf of Germany would survive her replacement, especially if she is replaced by a political opposite.
Depends on the job, doesn't it?
No, it doesn't. As I said, even a fairly modest non-busywork job is earning significantly more doing productive work than doing nothing,
Of course it depends on the job. If you take a job for 20 hrs a week paying $4/hr, that's only $4000 a year -- not significantly more than UBI, especially when you consider that it will have to be taxed to pay for other people who don't work but who get the free money. Then deduct travel and employment expenses (car/bike/train/bus, lunch, laundry, business clothes, etc). Lost opportunity costs because you are spending 20+ hours a week doing something that keeps you from doing something you might want to do -- like be with your kids, etc. It is not logical to assume that every job will become well-paying just because UBI is being handed out. So, to be honest, it will depend on the job whether or not you make significantly more, just like I said.
I was explained how it doesn't work as a disincentive for working, which was your claim for why people should do busywork.
Now I know your reading comprehension is completely missing. I made no such claim. I never said they should do busywork. Someone else brought up doing busywork with a guaranteed wage, not me. I actually claimed that it would be CHEAPER to just hand them free money than to deal with managing their busywork job.
You were talking about how the people who receive the UBI "contribute nothing to society,"
No. I was talking about the people who get UBI and who do not contribute to society. That is two clauses connected by a conjunction "AND", which logically requires both conditions to be true for the statement to be true. It is not a statement that "All A is B", it is a statement referring to the set of people who meet conditions A AND B. That's not all people who get UBI, and it does not include people who work jobs in management. I understand you wanted to insult management as useless and non-contributing members of society, but that's not true.
which I quoted
You quoted four words out of a phrase and ignored the conjunction linking the two conditions (A AND B) that exist for the people I referred to. "People who take UBI" AND "contribute nothing to society". Not "therefore". Not "and thus". AND. Look up a "logical and" in your logic book, maybe you'll find it next to 'ad hominem' as system of logical argument.
because you are obviously too busy jerking off
Ahh, when you have no logical argument, ad hominem will fill in.
the main point was that for people working 'normal' jobs under anything remotely considered for a UBI,
UBI doesn't require "working normal jobs", and according to you, nobody is excluded from getting UBI. What job is there to be considered when giving people the UBI?
you would be making significantly more if you have a job
Depends on the job, doesn't it? And it depends on the amount of taxes that need to be extracted to pay other, less work-friendly people their UBI. You cannot simply tax the rich to pay everyone a UBI, they don't have enough money, and if you do, they will learn to not have so much and you will run out of UBI to hand out.
Why are you talking about management for?
I don't think you are actually reading something I wrote. I am referring to the people who accept UBI without doing anything in return to create wealth or benefit society. If you think I was referring to "management", then you need to get over the idea that management of a workforce so that the individuals accomplish a common goal in an efficient way is not contributing to society.
Making conclusions about what is causing those changes would be easier if we could conduct experiments which would ideally include a control group, but given that's not feasible, what is your alternative proposal?
You make it obvious: abandon the scientific method and accept that "obvious" is sufficient to proclaim an end to the discussion.
That was unraveled in 1913 when the constitution was amended to provide for direct election of senators.
You're right. That one change blurred the distinction between a federation of states and one massive state to the point that nobody remembers why it was a part of the design of the US. Today, there is little difference between townships, counties, states, and the US federal system in anyone's mind, even though they are different.
And I've often said I think it would be better if we did tweak the system so that all states' votes aren't all or nothing.
There is no tweaking necessary. The "system" already specifies that the manner of choosing of the electors shall be at the discretion of the States. Article II, Section 1, paragraph 2:
You want your state to do it by random selection, go for it. Talk to your state legislature.
The solution? Have each state assign E.C. seats proportionally.
That completely removes the state input in the process and turns it into just another version of the current fictional "popular vote".
For some reason, however, nobody thought of the "Proportional Vote Interstate Compact" though there is a "Popular Vote Interstate Compact".
And the effective difference is exactly what? A bit more granular vote total, but essentially the fictional "popular vote" decides the result, and the wisdom and courage of the founders in designing a federation of states is thrown away.
If it has 5, you need to win 20%
So you would happily disenfranchise those 19% of the voters. I guess you really don't care about the 49% that you pretend to worry about.
Large discrepancies between popular vote and electoral vote are possible,
There is no "popular vote". Please read the Constitution for the defined way we elect the President of the US and notice that "popular vote" appears exactly zero times.
There are two kinds of people who keep using the "popular vote" as a bludgeon:
There's probably a lot of overlap between the two, but the former includes people who understand the system and don't care if their candidate lost fair and square, they just want who they want, and the latter includes the ignorant ones who are swayed by the cries from the former.
leading to endless discussions such as this one.
So let's just do it the way you want to do it so we can do away with the endless demands that we do it the way you want to do it? That convinces me. Let's do it the way _I_ want it done so I don't have to keep replying to this stuff.
Sure, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe you're wrong. Either way, I'd like to find out and then deal with that.
I think that olympic sprinters would be able to run much faster if they didn't have the mass of their arms to carry along with them. We should cut their arms off and then see how the times improve. Sure, maybe I'm wrong, but maybe you're wrong. Either way, I'd like to find out and then deal with that. Who cares about the damage it would do if I am wrong, we'd learn so much! We might even be able to graft new arms onto those folks ...
By definition, a UBI can't exclude people.
Except, apparently, children. Or anyone that the government defines as "children". And your next comment where you try quoting me as saying I don't understand how UBI or taxes work, if some claim that you can exclude children and you claim nobody can be excluded, I'd ask if YOU know how UBI "works". (Truth: since it hasn't been created yet, NOBODY knows how it will be defined in real life, not even you.) As for taxes, since the entire program has to be paid for by taxpayers, you cannot exclude the idea that your "progressive" tax bracket for some taxpayers won't have to become > 100% to pay for everyone who takes the free money and contributes nothing to the society.
Only pay a UBI to adults.
Then it isn't universal, and you increase the size of the government department that gets to keep track of who gets paid what. It's already going to be a large department, let's make it bigger, right?
Make it at least sufficient to support the survival of themselves and a child,
Then it isn't a basic income, it's enough to support two people.
and those who avoid having children then have a considerable luxury/investment income in addition to baseline survival.
So it's now a NonUniversal Luxury Income instead of UBI. Can we admit that handing out free money that actually meets UBI limits isn't good enough and we need MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!? That every program that hands out free stuff will get demands to provide MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE?
Why not just give people a basic income instead of making them do busy work?
Because to "give" people free money you have to take it away from someone else who is working and paying taxes. And that will result in a lot of them realizing that they are working 40 hours a week to get an income after taxes that is the same as (or less than) the free money everyone else is getting. Why should they work? They'll stop, and suddenly you have a lot less free money available to hand out, so you have to take more from those who are still working, leading to more of them making less and quitting.
And when the first couple figures out that they get UBI for each child they produce, you'll see the "welfare mother" effect where people have kids because they get money from the government for doing it.
The assumption that people are altruistic and will labor for the good of all for no return to themselves is just ridiculous. Some of them are. They make wonderful television as we watch their little enclaves implode. "Utopia" on Fox was fascinating, but not how a sustainable community is created. And the one on Vice with the created, "sustainable", eco-friendly community that charges interns to come live somewhere in Central America and pretends to give them a college education in return -- I don't remember the name, but there were two episodes -- was another.
Don't get me wrong, I am currently in favour of at least trying UBI
You can't "at least try[ing] UBI". It doesn't scale from small scale tests to the full blown full-society participation. If only a few people are getting it, the results are meaningless. The entire economy is based on work and income -- wages, taxes, prices, costs, all of it. And once you start handing out free money to everyone, it will never go away no matter how bad it really is.
Look, I'll happily give up on UBI if we instead 1) guarantee full employment
Which is equivalent to UBI. What do we do if someone can't find a job they can do? Guaranteed full employment means we create a make-work job for them. How is this significantly different than just handing them money for doing nothing? The costs of the employee will outweigh the money they earn; it will be cheaper to just hand them money. So your condition here is basically disingenuous. You'll stop supporting UBI if there is something just like it under a different name.
2) divide up the work so nobody is working more than is pleasant
I find any work unpleasant. Just hand me money. Bingo, UBI again.
3) acknowledge that raising children is work and merits an income so people who want to can stay home and do it
Paying people to have children has never worked out well for society. Mostly, you wind up with a lot of children being raised by people whose only qualifications are the ability to have children and can do nothing else productive with their lives. Eventually you wind up with a lot of children living upon society's largesse, which their parents will be doing by getting UBI based on having children.
4) reduce income inequality enormously.
So you'll give up on one method of wealth redistribution as long as there is massive wealth redistribution.
I'm sick of the argument that only the owner of the hotel is necessary to running the hotel and should therefore be paid thousands of times what the cleaners make.
Good thing that that's not the reason. The owner is taking the risks. That deserves a payback. But let's look at your hyperbole for what it is. A worker doing a 40 hour week at minimum, two weeks off, is making at least, umm, 2000 hours times $7.50, $15,000 a year. "Thousands of times" would be, at a minimum, 2000 times, or $30,000,000 per year. Very few "hotel owners" make that kind of salary. You can't pull $30mil out of a hotel and have it still make a profit. MAYBE some CEO of a major hotel chain -- hundreds of hotels -- might make $1mil, but that's because they are running a major corporation, a task that very few "hotel room cleaners" would be able to do.
And when you compare the costs of failure for a major hotel chain CEO vs. room cleaner, the disparity in income becomes more reasonable. A "room cleaner" who fails costs the chain a few customers, perhaps, the time of a supervisor who has to fix the issues, probably. A CEO who fails costs a large number of stockholders a lot of money -- pension and retirement funds, for example -- along with a lot of jobs when the chain goes bankrupt.
Hotel room cleaners should be paid enough to live comfortably and have plenty of leisure time.
Hotel room cleaners should be paid based on the value of their work to the company.
UBI sounds a lot simpler, and I advocate for more than just the bare necessities to be part of that.
I demand a universal basic income, as long as it isn't just a basic income...
People should be able to take part in the gains of society over time with increasing comfort and security.
Without having to contribute anything to those gains at all. Where does the gain come from when there are few, if any, people creating that gain?
Fellow Americans can get a taste of the "free" government-provided WiFi by buying an Amtrak ticket and trying to use Amtrak's WiFi during their trip...
Amtrak is quite up-front about the limits on the WiFi they provide and why. They aren't intending to be a full service ISP.