I'm reminded of another guy who had a lot of valid complaints about the existing social and economic systems. Marx's ideas on how to address the problems were simply unworkable by human societies, and the attempts to implement them caused a great deal of suffering, but he was reporting legitimate complaints.
A certain relative of mine has a seriously autistic son, and my relative was aggressive in seeking help. She had a full-time aide assigned to her son for much of his school career. Then, as part of a discussion, we mentioned that she was a heavy user of government services. We did eventually manage to convince her, but it wasn't easy.
And poor rural areas still disfavor government subsidies that funnel money from the rich urban states to them. Speaking as a liberal, I think that helping the less fortunate is an excellent use of my tax dollars, so it doesn't bother me.
So, over three million people, mostly anti-Trump, marching in what turned out to be very peaceful marches (the DC police did not make one arrest) makes Trump supporters look better? I'd think it would make anti-Trump women look better. Or are you of the opinion that any expression of peaceful strength by women makes Trump supporters look better? Personally, if you want Trump supporters to look better, I'd recommend Vaseline on the lens or possibly a quantity of ethanol.
Can anyone - anyone! - say with a straight face that we are closer to that scenario right now than we were, say, at the height of the Cold War?
Two things.
First, we've had nuclear proliferation, and we have some unstable countries with their own nukes now, which we didn't have at the most dangerous times in the Cold War (except when Reagan decided to push the Soviet Union into war or collapse).
Second, the prospect of global warming and climate change that we're definitely going to have severe problems with even if we start doing things correctly right now is a lot more certain.
Actually, Democrats tend to be more interested in fighting climate change, and since 1980 they've been the more fiscally conservative party. Deficits have gone up under Republican Presidents and down under Democratic ones.
It's possible to have political disagreements without insults. It doesn't seem to be all that popular nowadays, but making stupid claims about liberals in general doesn't help the discussion any. Just saying. (I've done all the things you think would change me into a conservative, and I'm still a leftist. I've also learned I can't run a business worth crap, but at least I tried.)
The US military is the best ever, and it's not close (unless you're comparing it to earlier versions of the US military). It's also based in the US, and while it has great power projection it's limited. China has an economy far larger than Iraq's, very close to the US. They've also got a more impressive air force than Saddam had. They have enough subs to give the US a hard time, since they'll be fighting near their own shores where the conventional subs will be useful.
I see no reason to think the US would definitely win a war over Taiwan, say. The Chinese could put a lot more fighters into the air than a US carrier can, for example. Also, winning a shooting war with a major trading partner isn't an unalloyed blessing.
So far, we haven't had a big-assian-enough asteroid to do it for over a billion years.
A catastrophe wouldn't have to wipe out the species to be a game-changer. Modern civilization is a lot more fragile than the species as a whole, and it would not be easy to recreate it if we lost it, considering the non-renewable resources we used to get it this far.
The Chinese can afford to be patient on "One China", but if US-Taiwan relations get obviously warm to the point where it looks like the US is publicly disagreeing with "One China", China may be forced to take military action to save face. As long as everyone maintains or at least allows a fiction that China and Taiwan are one country and are moving towards peaceful reunification at some future time, nobody gets hurt.
The other risk I see is that it may embolden Putin to go too far and destabilize things in Eastern Europe or along the Chinese border that might lead to war. Global diplomacy is not a simple game.
If the sanctions were working, what the heck did we need Stuxnet for? That malware exposed a lot of hidden vulnerabilities that could have been saved for later. It wasn't cheap.
You know, you could always read their reasoning and debate that, rather than running you fingers off like an idiot and calling it elitist propaganda because you project your own political views onto it.
The risk of devastating global warming is increased by climate change denial, and they did mention climate change as a major threat they were considering. Also, we've got a lot more minor nuclear powers and wannabes than we used to. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, neither Pakistan nor North Korea had nukes.
In case you didn't notice, they classified climate change as a major threat in addition to nuclear war. We really didn't understand what was going to happen with the climate in the 1960s. We knew it was probably going to get warmer, but even that wasn't completely clear.
Also, back then there were darn few nuclear powers: the US, the USSR, the UK, France, and I can't remember offhand when China started with their own nukes. There's much more opportunity for nukes to actually get used nowadays, and it's reasonable to think that a major nuclear war has an increased chance of happening when minor powers are using nukes. The first five nuclear powers had a lot to lose in a nuclear exchange, and had strong central governments controlling their nukes, which is not the case for Pakistan or North Korean.
Do you know how Reagan ushered in glastnost and perestroika? He pushed an arms race with the Soviet Union that they couldn't keep up with. He put Gorbachev in a situation where the only way he could hold the Soviet Union together was to start a war. In lots of similar situations, the reaction has been to go to war We owe Gorbachev for the decision to "bust", not Reagan for pushing him to "war or bust". Reagan made nuclear war considerably more likely.
Right-wing Bible thumpers are getting their "information" from misinterpreting ancient writings and insisting they've got to be right. You can't really argue with a right-wind bible-thumper. The Doomsday Clock is set by people who study the actual facts and engage in rational discussions. They can certainly be wrong, but they've got actual reasons for what they say, and they're amenable to argument.
It is opinion, but it's the opinion of intelligent people who educate themselves on the situation and think about it.
The threats they mentioned were nuclear war and climate change. You just removed them so you could say they were vague about them, a really cheap rhetorical trick.
The world situation is already threatening to people. Climate change is going largely unchecked, and there are plenty of international tensions that could lead to war.
Nationalism may or may not be a good thing in some situations, but it does seem to foster wars. It tends to fuel arms races, which are dangerous, and it can interfere with international trade, which has a peaceful effect.
Again, you made the intellectually pants-on-fire decision to remove what they said about why Trump's comments were disturbing, and complaining about it.
Overall grade: B-. You need to work harder on your dishonesty to get to Trump levels, but you're well on the way.
The amount of carbon in the rocks is irrelevant. What's important now is the amount in the atmosphere and the oceans.
CO2 levels on Earth have been much, much higher than we have today, but modern life has evolved for relatively modern CO2 levels, and a rapid return to the old maximum is going to cause some real serious problems ("rapid", in this case, meaning faster than evolution can adapt, which is likey at least in the tens of thousands of years). Moreover, the Sun was noticeably dimmer in those days, so we'd be noticeably warmer than in those days.
She lost the electoral vote, not by much, after interference from Wikileaks, likely Russia, and the FBI director. There's statistical evidence of vote fraud in some states that were pretty close (as in counties with easily hackable voting machines seeming more pro-Trump than expected). Republican efforts to suppress votes that are probably Democratic continue. Currently, the Republicans are much more involved in manipulating elections than Democrats (although this has not always been the case).
Large government departments had pretty miserable internal IT services for some time, and there was no strong reason for Clinton not to run her own server. It's fascinating to see problems attributed to Clinton while ignoring worse ones on the part of Trump.
So far, we've managed to avoid nuclear war for over seventy years. While it would be an incredible disaster, it appears to be avoidable. Global warming and climate change are happening, and although the effects aren't nearly as bad it seems more of a worry to me. This is not 1962, when it looked like nuclear war was very likely to happen and how much the climate would change was very speculative, some people projecting that increased particulates in the air might counteract the increased carbon dioxide.
It's an evaluation of what some intelligent people think about something they've considered. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's not a matter of "not liking Trump", it's a matter of evaluating how likely he is to start a really big war. He has no apparent filtering over what he says and tweets, so in a tense diplomatic situation there's a decent chance he'll inadvertantly screw things up. His foreign policy may or may not increase the chance of war (he seems much friendlier towards the Russians than his predecessors, which could reduce tensions and/or could induce Putin to push harder and raise tensions), but he seems a lot less likely to change his policy on the basis of events. His protectionist policies are likely to hurt a lot of economies. He seems less likely to back down from a confrontation. He's likely to do things like publicly support Taiwan that could start conflicts.
In short, there are good reasons to think President Trump is more likely to get us into a nuclear war than other Presidents. The conclusion may not be accurate, but it's reasonable to believe it.
Making a good product for a good price and having a good reputation helps sales, but most companies find that advertising also helps sales. In addition, most people have some disposable income (actually, all the people advertisers care about), and can buy things they haven't heard of before through the grapevine. Every so often, I've seen an ad and decided I might want what's advertised, and those ads have positive value for me.
8. When serving ads on a touch screen, leave adequate areas for page manipulation (such as scrolling) so that even a somewhat clumsy person can avoid accidentally being whisked off to another site. (This is the single reason I installed an ad blocker on my phone. I was willing to put up with everything else.)
If you're going for a certain percent coverage, the states without much population don't count much. However, since they get disproportionate amounts of Federal support, they can get such disproportionate support for Internet connectivity if we elitists decide (and we're much more likely to, being used to propping up rural economies).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
Windows for stuff that requires it, Linux for doing real stuff. Works for me.
I'm reminded of another guy who had a lot of valid complaints about the existing social and economic systems. Marx's ideas on how to address the problems were simply unworkable by human societies, and the attempts to implement them caused a great deal of suffering, but he was reporting legitimate complaints.
A certain relative of mine has a seriously autistic son, and my relative was aggressive in seeking help. She had a full-time aide assigned to her son for much of his school career. Then, as part of a discussion, we mentioned that she was a heavy user of government services. We did eventually manage to convince her, but it wasn't easy.
And poor rural areas still disfavor government subsidies that funnel money from the rich urban states to them. Speaking as a liberal, I think that helping the less fortunate is an excellent use of my tax dollars, so it doesn't bother me.
So, over three million people, mostly anti-Trump, marching in what turned out to be very peaceful marches (the DC police did not make one arrest) makes Trump supporters look better? I'd think it would make anti-Trump women look better. Or are you of the opinion that any expression of peaceful strength by women makes Trump supporters look better? Personally, if you want Trump supporters to look better, I'd recommend Vaseline on the lens or possibly a quantity of ethanol.
Two things.
First, we've had nuclear proliferation, and we have some unstable countries with their own nukes now, which we didn't have at the most dangerous times in the Cold War (except when Reagan decided to push the Soviet Union into war or collapse).
Second, the prospect of global warming and climate change that we're definitely going to have severe problems with even if we start doing things correctly right now is a lot more certain.
Actually, Democrats tend to be more interested in fighting climate change, and since 1980 they've been the more fiscally conservative party. Deficits have gone up under Republican Presidents and down under Democratic ones.
It's possible to have political disagreements without insults. It doesn't seem to be all that popular nowadays, but making stupid claims about liberals in general doesn't help the discussion any. Just saying. (I've done all the things you think would change me into a conservative, and I'm still a leftist. I've also learned I can't run a business worth crap, but at least I tried.)
The US military is the best ever, and it's not close (unless you're comparing it to earlier versions of the US military). It's also based in the US, and while it has great power projection it's limited. China has an economy far larger than Iraq's, very close to the US. They've also got a more impressive air force than Saddam had. They have enough subs to give the US a hard time, since they'll be fighting near their own shores where the conventional subs will be useful.
I see no reason to think the US would definitely win a war over Taiwan, say. The Chinese could put a lot more fighters into the air than a US carrier can, for example. Also, winning a shooting war with a major trading partner isn't an unalloyed blessing.
So far, we haven't had a big-assian-enough asteroid to do it for over a billion years.
A catastrophe wouldn't have to wipe out the species to be a game-changer. Modern civilization is a lot more fragile than the species as a whole, and it would not be easy to recreate it if we lost it, considering the non-renewable resources we used to get it this far.
China has a GDP close to that of the US. They're plenty big enough to be dangerous.
The Chinese can afford to be patient on "One China", but if US-Taiwan relations get obviously warm to the point where it looks like the US is publicly disagreeing with "One China", China may be forced to take military action to save face. As long as everyone maintains or at least allows a fiction that China and Taiwan are one country and are moving towards peaceful reunification at some future time, nobody gets hurt.
The other risk I see is that it may embolden Putin to go too far and destabilize things in Eastern Europe or along the Chinese border that might lead to war. Global diplomacy is not a simple game.
If the sanctions were working, what the heck did we need Stuxnet for? That malware exposed a lot of hidden vulnerabilities that could have been saved for later. It wasn't cheap.
You know, you could always read their reasoning and debate that, rather than running you fingers off like an idiot and calling it elitist propaganda because you project your own political views onto it.
The risk of devastating global warming is increased by climate change denial, and they did mention climate change as a major threat they were considering. Also, we've got a lot more minor nuclear powers and wannabes than we used to. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, neither Pakistan nor North Korea had nukes.
In case you didn't notice, they classified climate change as a major threat in addition to nuclear war. We really didn't understand what was going to happen with the climate in the 1960s. We knew it was probably going to get warmer, but even that wasn't completely clear.
Also, back then there were darn few nuclear powers: the US, the USSR, the UK, France, and I can't remember offhand when China started with their own nukes. There's much more opportunity for nukes to actually get used nowadays, and it's reasonable to think that a major nuclear war has an increased chance of happening when minor powers are using nukes. The first five nuclear powers had a lot to lose in a nuclear exchange, and had strong central governments controlling their nukes, which is not the case for Pakistan or North Korean.
Do you know how Reagan ushered in glastnost and perestroika? He pushed an arms race with the Soviet Union that they couldn't keep up with. He put Gorbachev in a situation where the only way he could hold the Soviet Union together was to start a war. In lots of similar situations, the reaction has been to go to war We owe Gorbachev for the decision to "bust", not Reagan for pushing him to "war or bust". Reagan made nuclear war considerably more likely.
Right-wing Bible thumpers are getting their "information" from misinterpreting ancient writings and insisting they've got to be right. You can't really argue with a right-wind bible-thumper. The Doomsday Clock is set by people who study the actual facts and engage in rational discussions. They can certainly be wrong, but they've got actual reasons for what they say, and they're amenable to argument.
It is opinion, but it's the opinion of intelligent people who educate themselves on the situation and think about it.
The threats they mentioned were nuclear war and climate change. You just removed them so you could say they were vague about them, a really cheap rhetorical trick.
The world situation is already threatening to people. Climate change is going largely unchecked, and there are plenty of international tensions that could lead to war.
Nationalism may or may not be a good thing in some situations, but it does seem to foster wars. It tends to fuel arms races, which are dangerous, and it can interfere with international trade, which has a peaceful effect.
Again, you made the intellectually pants-on-fire decision to remove what they said about why Trump's comments were disturbing, and complaining about it.
Overall grade: B-. You need to work harder on your dishonesty to get to Trump levels, but you're well on the way.
We aren't going to turn into Venus.
The amount of carbon in the rocks is irrelevant. What's important now is the amount in the atmosphere and the oceans.
CO2 levels on Earth have been much, much higher than we have today, but modern life has evolved for relatively modern CO2 levels, and a rapid return to the old maximum is going to cause some real serious problems ("rapid", in this case, meaning faster than evolution can adapt, which is likey at least in the tens of thousands of years). Moreover, the Sun was noticeably dimmer in those days, so we'd be noticeably warmer than in those days.
She lost the electoral vote, not by much, after interference from Wikileaks, likely Russia, and the FBI director. There's statistical evidence of vote fraud in some states that were pretty close (as in counties with easily hackable voting machines seeming more pro-Trump than expected). Republican efforts to suppress votes that are probably Democratic continue. Currently, the Republicans are much more involved in manipulating elections than Democrats (although this has not always been the case).
Large government departments had pretty miserable internal IT services for some time, and there was no strong reason for Clinton not to run her own server. It's fascinating to see problems attributed to Clinton while ignoring worse ones on the part of Trump.
So far, we've managed to avoid nuclear war for over seventy years. While it would be an incredible disaster, it appears to be avoidable. Global warming and climate change are happening, and although the effects aren't nearly as bad it seems more of a worry to me. This is not 1962, when it looked like nuclear war was very likely to happen and how much the climate would change was very speculative, some people projecting that increased particulates in the air might counteract the increased carbon dioxide.
It's an evaluation of what some intelligent people think about something they've considered. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's not a matter of "not liking Trump", it's a matter of evaluating how likely he is to start a really big war. He has no apparent filtering over what he says and tweets, so in a tense diplomatic situation there's a decent chance he'll inadvertantly screw things up. His foreign policy may or may not increase the chance of war (he seems much friendlier towards the Russians than his predecessors, which could reduce tensions and/or could induce Putin to push harder and raise tensions), but he seems a lot less likely to change his policy on the basis of events. His protectionist policies are likely to hurt a lot of economies. He seems less likely to back down from a confrontation. He's likely to do things like publicly support Taiwan that could start conflicts.
In short, there are good reasons to think President Trump is more likely to get us into a nuclear war than other Presidents. The conclusion may not be accurate, but it's reasonable to believe it.
Making a good product for a good price and having a good reputation helps sales, but most companies find that advertising also helps sales. In addition, most people have some disposable income (actually, all the people advertisers care about), and can buy things they haven't heard of before through the grapevine. Every so often, I've seen an ad and decided I might want what's advertised, and those ads have positive value for me.
8. When serving ads on a touch screen, leave adequate areas for page manipulation (such as scrolling) so that even a somewhat clumsy person can avoid accidentally being whisked off to another site. (This is the single reason I installed an ad blocker on my phone. I was willing to put up with everything else.)
If you're going for a certain percent coverage, the states without much population don't count much. However, since they get disproportionate amounts of Federal support, they can get such disproportionate support for Internet connectivity if we elitists decide (and we're much more likely to, being used to propping up rural economies).