Right, but those stats are heavily biased by infant mortality rate definitions where the same baby who dies in Cuba and the US gets eliminated from the stats as never having been born in Cuba, but as a very short life expectancy in the US.
Creating a huge negative based on the fact that in the US they're extremely more likely to try and save severely premature babies than they are in Cuba is a bit ridiculous and renders those stats effectively meaningless.
In the U.S., very low birth weight babies are considered live births. The mortality rate of such infants – considered “unsalvageable” outside of the U.S. and therefore never alive – is extraordinarily high; up to 869 per 1,000 in the first month of life alone. This skews U.S. IM statistics.
Since 2000, 42 of the world’s 52 surviving babies weighing less than 400 grams (0.9 lbs) were born in the U.S.
Some of the countries reporting infant mortality rates lower than the U.S. classify babies as “stillborn” if they survive less than 24 hours whether or not such babies breathe, move, or have a beating heart at birth. But in the U.S., all infants who show signs of life at birth (take a breath, move voluntarily, have a heartbeat) are considered alive and are reflected in our IM statistics.
Except the frequency hasn't actually increased, according to the latest analysis and the other analysis (cited by the previous link in the post you responded to). So no one is forgetting about frequency, nor intensity, but according to the science, neither of those have changed, instead they've been consistent since 1900.
Sorry, I actually read the article. You should try it. We aren't experiencing stronger hurricanes on average, so there is no need to account for that in damage levels or in cause. Here's a relevant quote from the article you either didn't actually read or didn't understand:
Fortunately, scientists have invested a lot of effort into looking at data on extreme weather events, and recently summarized their findings in a major United Nations climate report, the fifth in a series dating back to 1990. That report concluded that there’s little evidence of a spike in the frequency or intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes.
Consistent with observed trends in the frequency and intensity of hurricane landfalls along the continental United States since 1900, the updated normalized loss estimates also show no trend. A more detailed comparison of trends in hurricanes and normalized losses over various periods in the twentieth century to 2017 demonstrates a very high degree of consistency.
Natural disasters only cost more than in the past because we are richer and have more expensive stuff to get damaged, at least if you believe the science and the IPCC report. The trend has nothing to do with Climate Change, despite this summary somehow deciding to attribute the entire cost of every hurricane to Climate Change, as if there were never any hurricanes before and they don't have any other causes.
No, it's easy enough to argue that racist voters in the South stayed with the Democratic Party and those who voted Republican were the ones who moved in from the North, the new wealthy suburbanites and those who were younger, all groups which were the least racist. A couple of professors wrote a whole book analyzing the change in voting patterns and disproved your myth.
The South also turned Republican starting with the least racist states first, not the other way around, the opposite of what you'd expect if it were racist voters doing the switching.
Naw, the whole southern strategy thing is a complete myth. When actually studied, the voters in the south who voted Republican were the ones who moved in from the North, the new wealthy suburbanites and those who were younger, all groups which were the least racist. The South also turned Republican starting with the least racist states first, not the other way around, the opposite of what you'd expect if it were racist voters doing the switching.
If you give it a second's thought, the idea that the racists in the Democratic Party, who stayed racist in the South for a long time past the Civil Rights bills, would be left by racist voters in favor of Republicans who were the party of abolition and who voted for the Civil Rights bills much more is silly. People don't switch to the opposite party because that party is known to be less-aligned with their views....
Sorry, but what it "should" be is not left unsaid. It's easy enough to compare to other large cities in the U.S. and adjust for COL. The later quote:
Subway workers, including managers and administrative personnel, now make an average of about $155,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is less than $100,000 in total compensation annually.
The pay for managers alone is even more extraordinary. The nearly 2,500 people who work in New York subway administration make, on average, $240,000 in salary, overtime and benefits. The average elsewhere is less than $115,000.
It wasn't stated that the Transit Union was the _only_ source of corruption for Democratic politicians in NY like Cuomo. They don't have to be large enough to elect him themselves, they're just one of a multitude of groups which are part of the patronage system in NY.
hundreds of mechanic positions have been cut because there is not enough money to pay them — even though the average total compensation for subway managers has grown to well over $200,000 a year.
Efforts to add new lines have been hampered by generous agreements with labor unions and private contractors that have inflated construction costs to five times the international average.
They stripped a combined $1.5 billion from the M.T.A. by repeatedly diverting tax revenues earmarked for the subways and also by demanding large payments for financial advice, I.T. help and other services that transit leaders say the authority could have done without.
They pressured the M.T.A. to spend billions of dollars on opulent station makeovers and other projects that did nothing to boost service or reliability
Public officials who have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from M.T.A. unions and contractors have pressured the authority into signing agreements with labor groups and construction companies that obligated the authority to pay far more than it had planned.
"It’s genuinely shocking how much of every dollar that goes to the M.T.A. is spent on expenses that have nothing to do with running the subway,”
While many politicians have contributed to the decline of the subway over the years, the problems reached a fever pitch under Mr. Cuomo, who as governor appoints the M.T.A. chairman and effectively controls the authority. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who is expected to seek a third term next year and is also seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2020
Even in the face of the financial crisis and budget shortfalls, the M.T.A. has given concession after concession to its main labor union.
Members of the Transport Workers Union got a total of 19 percent in pay raises between 2009 and 2016, compared with 12 percent for the city’s teachers union over the same period.
The labor contracts also gave members lifetime spousal health benefits and free rides on the Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. (They already were allowed to ride the subway for free.)
According to a former union president, John Samuelsen, the organization has secured better deals over the past eight years than any other public labor group in New York.
Subway workers, including managers and administrative personnel, now make an average of about $155,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is less than $100,000 in total compensation annually.
The pay for managers alone is even more extraordinary. The nearly 2,500 people who work in New York subway administration make, on average, $240,000 in salary, overtime and benefits. The average elsewhere is less than $115,000.
Union rules also drive up costs, including by requiring two M.T.A. employees on every train — one to drive, and one to oversee boarding. Virtually every other subway in the world staffs trains with only one worker; if New York did that, it would save nearly $200 million a year, according to an internal M.T.A. analysis obtained by The Times.
At this point, you're not arguing with me on the matter, you're arguing with the dictionary.
Your statement simply isn't true as regards to what Ad hominem means. You may not like that, you may disagree with the vast majority of humanity which has chosen to use that term in that way, but your addition to the definition exists only in your mind, not in the actual definition of the fallacy describing phrase as used by everyone else.
But sure, feel free to find something in either the wikipedia entry (without editing it:) or the dictionary definition which requires "which is irrelevant to the argument at hand" and point it out, but that's not part of the fallacy. The fallacy just requires attacking the person instead of the argument, period.
here's nothing fallacious about suggesting that someone who demonstrates a lack of judgement in one area should be questioned when they attempt to weigh in on others
That's exactly what the fallacy is, attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, i.e. suggesting someone demonstrates a lack of judgement. It has nothing to do with the accuracy vs. truth of the accusation being made.
Apparently you couldn't even be bothered enough to even follow the link in my comment to read the given definition:
Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.
Suggesting that if you can't even do basic research about the terms being used in an argument before misusing them means you obviously can't possibly know anything of substance about the scientific and economic question at hand because you've demonstrated a lack of ability to research anything even when it's right in front of you would be an example of an ad hominem attack in response to your comment.
Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.
I didn't use the word "insult" in my comment, so I'm not sure why you'd think that's what I was trying to say. Perhaps you are reading something into it which wasn't there?
Making ad hominen attacks on people who don't agree with you makes your side look less likely to be correct, not more likely. The natural assumption being that if all you can come up as an argument is to say "those guys who disagree with me are a bunch of idiots!", which proves precisely nothing about what you are actually arguing for/against, then you must not have any actual sound argument to provide for your side.
Nobody cares if you or anyone else who wants to uses solar instead of coal power. What they care about is if you propose to force them to waste a bunch of their resources to pay your buddies in the solar industry off instead of allowing them to use less expensive energy sources.
In terms of being a "little bit richer, in a few years", that's the key to the argument. Because of the way economic growth compounds over time, anything which slows down economic growth now has an exponential effect on future wealth. Even if all the anthropomorphic global warming predictions were true, it'd be wiser to not do anything now to slow down economic growth, but instead spend resources on remediation when there is an actual problem, because with the much higher future wealth level, that'd cost less than literally wasting the resources on it now.
The NYC conductors sit there and open and close the doors. You know, what the train operator also does in every other part of the world. They don't have anything to do with fare enforcement, that's the NYPD. It's a sinecure, a make-work job for the purpose of having more Transit Union members on the payroll.
NYC is half the population of the State. Their predominant party controls 2/3 of the State government. You're telling me NYC has no influence on what NY State government does? That the same Party bosses who give favors to the Transit Union are only a State Government phenomenon and who the voters in NYC vote for in State government doesn't influence that? What incentive do rural NYers have to vote for corrupt politicians at the State level whose corruption is focused on ensuring jobs and cash for NYC Unions?
They consistently give money to the Transit Union members, like two highly paid employees per train (double anywhere else), for example, rather than spending on capital repairs and improvements (and what they do spend, they waste most of it on political patronage).
Until the residents of NYC vote in a different set of people who aren't in the pockets of certain influences (Unions, ecowarriors, etc...), they're never going to have a cost effective Subway.
When the NYC Transit system cuts down useless staff like having an operator and a conductor on every train (unlike the rest of the world, who run things just fine with one person per train), then there might be a reason to believe there is some sort of cash crunch there. Until then, it's obvious their solution to every "problem" is to ask for subsidies and not ever consider how they can actually save money.
The "legacy of slavery" theory would be a lot more convincing if it explained why blacks in the U.S. were steadily improving on lots of things like income, poverty, jobs, family stability, out of wedlock births, etc... from the civil war up until Johnson started his "War on Poverty".
It's a lot more difficult to explain why slavery and resulting racism somehow has a worse effect on black prospects today than it did on them 60 or 70 years ago.
Not to mention the differences in outcomes between native blacks and immigrant blacks with similar starting demographics and IQ. Do the evil racists take the time to figure out what country their victim is from before deciding to hold them back or not?
It's primarily culture driven by "well-meaning" government-encouraged destruction of black families, not genetics, not racism.
Predictably, this will make them less likely to hire people who are likely to become the target of sexual harassment. Any time you raise the cost of hiring people with a discernible shared characteristic (and a bigger risk of suing is a big potential cost to average out), people naturally hire less of people who share those characteristics.
Same reason maternity leave laws, and similar laws ended up reducing job prospects for the people they were supposedly helping.
You appear to have a lack of reading comprehension in this thread, not understanding the words you're replying to, which makes it amusing that you'd call someone else daft. For example, I never made any statements to the effect that all nor even any kids need cell phones at school.
Apparently you're looking for a fight with someone, rather than a discussion. If not, try and read better next time, perhaps, rather than just randomly insulting people?
The point is you figured that out and made adjustments based on your kids unique circumstances and needs.
What are the odds that a one-size-fits-all rule decided politically or via cultural shaming is going to happen to fit everyone's kids unique needs? Pretty slim.
Slashdot Mirror
The rest of the infant mortality gap is primarily explained by the age of the mother increasing low birth weights, i.e. teen births.
Stating the fact that difference countries measure infant mortality differently is "known nazi propaganda"????
Wow, you really need to work on your trolling to at least make it a little bit plausible...
If you disagree with the facts provided, then feel free to provide a different set of facts and source.
But simply resorting to insulting people, countries and organizations just demonstrates you have no actual argument nor knowledge on your side.
Right, but those stats are heavily biased by infant mortality rate definitions where the same baby who dies in Cuba and the US gets eliminated from the stats as never having been born in Cuba, but as a very short life expectancy in the US.
Creating a huge negative based on the fact that in the US they're extremely more likely to try and save severely premature babies than they are in Cuba is a bit ridiculous and renders those stats effectively meaningless.
For example:
This report just means that the global economy is finally recovering in a decent manner. So it's actually good news.
Except the frequency hasn't actually increased, according to the latest analysis and the other analysis (cited by the previous link in the post you responded to). So no one is forgetting about frequency, nor intensity, but according to the science, neither of those have changed, instead they've been consistent since 1900.
Sorry, I actually read the article. You should try it. We aren't experiencing stronger hurricanes on average, so there is no need to account for that in damage levels or in cause. Here's a relevant quote from the article you either didn't actually read or didn't understand:
Let you claim this is an outdated analysis, here's the most recent analysis of that very thing published in Nature just yesterday. From the abstract:
Natural disasters only cost more than in the past because we are richer and have more expensive stuff to get damaged, at least if you believe the science and the IPCC report. The trend has nothing to do with Climate Change, despite this summary somehow deciding to attribute the entire cost of every hurricane to Climate Change, as if there were never any hurricanes before and they don't have any other causes.
No, it's easy enough to argue that racist voters in the South stayed with the Democratic Party and those who voted Republican were the ones who moved in from the North, the new wealthy suburbanites and those who were younger, all groups which were the least racist. A couple of professors wrote a whole book analyzing the change in voting patterns and disproved your myth.
The South also turned Republican starting with the least racist states first, not the other way around, the opposite of what you'd expect if it were racist voters doing the switching.
Naw, the whole southern strategy thing is a complete myth. When actually studied, the voters in the south who voted Republican were the ones who moved in from the North, the new wealthy suburbanites and those who were younger, all groups which were the least racist. The South also turned Republican starting with the least racist states first, not the other way around, the opposite of what you'd expect if it were racist voters doing the switching.
If you give it a second's thought, the idea that the racists in the Democratic Party, who stayed racist in the South for a long time past the Civil Rights bills, would be left by racist voters in favor of Republicans who were the party of abolition and who voted for the Civil Rights bills much more is silly. People don't switch to the opposite party because that party is known to be less-aligned with their views....
Sorry, but what it "should" be is not left unsaid. It's easy enough to compare to other large cities in the U.S. and adjust for COL. The later quote:
It wasn't stated that the Transit Union was the _only_ source of corruption for Democratic politicians in NY like Cuomo. They don't have to be large enough to elect him themselves, they're just one of a multitude of groups which are part of the patronage system in NY.
It took me literally 2 minutes to find some recent quotes from the famously right-wing NY Times:
At this point, you're not arguing with me on the matter, you're arguing with the dictionary.
Your statement simply isn't true as regards to what Ad hominem means. You may not like that, you may disagree with the vast majority of humanity which has chosen to use that term in that way, but your addition to the definition exists only in your mind, not in the actual definition of the fallacy describing phrase as used by everyone else.
But sure, feel free to find something in either the wikipedia entry (without editing it :) or the dictionary definition which requires "which is irrelevant to the argument at hand" and point it out, but that's not part of the fallacy. The fallacy just requires attacking the person instead of the argument, period.
That's exactly what the fallacy is, attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, i.e. suggesting someone demonstrates a lack of judgement. It has nothing to do with the accuracy vs. truth of the accusation being made.
Apparently you couldn't even be bothered enough to even follow the link in my comment to read the given definition:
Suggesting that if you can't even do basic research about the terms being used in an argument before misusing them means you obviously can't possibly know anything of substance about the scientific and economic question at hand because you've demonstrated a lack of ability to research anything even when it's right in front of you would be an example of an ad hominem attack in response to your comment.
No time to follow the actual link in my comment?
I didn't use the word "insult" in my comment, so I'm not sure why you'd think that's what I was trying to say. Perhaps you are reading something into it which wasn't there?
Making ad hominen attacks on people who don't agree with you makes your side look less likely to be correct, not more likely. The natural assumption being that if all you can come up as an argument is to say "those guys who disagree with me are a bunch of idiots!", which proves precisely nothing about what you are actually arguing for/against, then you must not have any actual sound argument to provide for your side.
Nobody cares if you or anyone else who wants to uses solar instead of coal power. What they care about is if you propose to force them to waste a bunch of their resources to pay your buddies in the solar industry off instead of allowing them to use less expensive energy sources.
In terms of being a "little bit richer, in a few years", that's the key to the argument. Because of the way economic growth compounds over time, anything which slows down economic growth now has an exponential effect on future wealth. Even if all the anthropomorphic global warming predictions were true, it'd be wiser to not do anything now to slow down economic growth, but instead spend resources on remediation when there is an actual problem, because with the much higher future wealth level, that'd cost less than literally wasting the resources on it now.
The NYC conductors sit there and open and close the doors. You know, what the train operator also does in every other part of the world. They don't have anything to do with fare enforcement, that's the NYPD. It's a sinecure, a make-work job for the purpose of having more Transit Union members on the payroll.
NYC is half the population of the State. Their predominant party controls 2/3 of the State government. You're telling me NYC has no influence on what NY State government does? That the same Party bosses who give favors to the Transit Union are only a State Government phenomenon and who the voters in NYC vote for in State government doesn't influence that? What incentive do rural NYers have to vote for corrupt politicians at the State level whose corruption is focused on ensuring jobs and cash for NYC Unions?
Go ahead, pull the other leg now...
They consistently give money to the Transit Union members, like two highly paid employees per train (double anywhere else), for example, rather than spending on capital repairs and improvements (and what they do spend, they waste most of it on political patronage).
Until the residents of NYC vote in a different set of people who aren't in the pockets of certain influences (Unions, ecowarriors, etc...), they're never going to have a cost effective Subway.
When the NYC Transit system cuts down useless staff like having an operator and a conductor on every train (unlike the rest of the world, who run things just fine with one person per train), then there might be a reason to believe there is some sort of cash crunch there. Until then, it's obvious their solution to every "problem" is to ask for subsidies and not ever consider how they can actually save money.
The "legacy of slavery" theory would be a lot more convincing if it explained why blacks in the U.S. were steadily improving on lots of things like income, poverty, jobs, family stability, out of wedlock births, etc... from the civil war up until Johnson started his "War on Poverty".
It's a lot more difficult to explain why slavery and resulting racism somehow has a worse effect on black prospects today than it did on them 60 or 70 years ago.
Not to mention the differences in outcomes between native blacks and immigrant blacks with similar starting demographics and IQ. Do the evil racists take the time to figure out what country their victim is from before deciding to hold them back or not?
It's primarily culture driven by "well-meaning" government-encouraged destruction of black families, not genetics, not racism.
Predictably, this will make them less likely to hire people who are likely to become the target of sexual harassment. Any time you raise the cost of hiring people with a discernible shared characteristic (and a bigger risk of suing is a big potential cost to average out), people naturally hire less of people who share those characteristics.
Same reason maternity leave laws, and similar laws ended up reducing job prospects for the people they were supposedly helping.
You appear to have a lack of reading comprehension in this thread, not understanding the words you're replying to, which makes it amusing that you'd call someone else daft. For example, I never made any statements to the effect that all nor even any kids need cell phones at school.
Apparently you're looking for a fight with someone, rather than a discussion. If not, try and read better next time, perhaps, rather than just randomly insulting people?
The point is you figured that out and made adjustments based on your kids unique circumstances and needs.
What are the odds that a one-size-fits-all rule decided politically or via cultural shaming is going to happen to fit everyone's kids unique needs? Pretty slim.
What's your prior on nature vs. nurture? On environment/circumstance vs. genetics?