Please keep in mind that the entire context of this conversation is human labor being more costly than automation. In this light, you're suggesting that instead of simply giving people money and automating the work they'd otherwise be doing, we ought to actually spend more money on giving people busywork.
It's not clear to me how adopting this higher-cost model is superior to the alternative. It costs more, and it results in less leisure time for people. Are you suggesting that the additional cost is worth it, because leisure time is undesirable?
Seriously, I don't see the right wing allowing a basic income (or dole) being allowed here. Instead, it will go to the "job creators" who pay their bills (purchase their loyalty).
This is a separate issue. I've already acknowledged that there are other possibilities, like allowing the unemployed to starve. I'm not making predictions about what route we will choose (or value statements about what route we ought to choose). These conversations would be much more productive if people could try to avoid making arguments that rely upon subjective claims or circular reasoning.
And what happens when that truck driver can't find another job?
GP suggested he could instead be "skipping through fields, rocking out to great bands, performing science experiments, climbing mountains and skiing down them while drinking Mountain Dew as explosions go off behind you, reading novels, or flying around in starships to go find green-skinned women to bang."
Do we guarantee him a wage?
That's one possibility. Another is that we watch him starve. There are a wide range of possibilities here.
What about his kids when they can't find a job?
Same as above.
I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.
There's also a social cost when it comes to fighting against this type of progress. For example, people have to continue working when they otherwise wouldn't need to. For some reason, we seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt by being compelled to work also.
Exactly, where are these automated factories that are displacing workers. They must be in China because all we have here is dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings.
US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Presumably these dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings are more productive than whatever it is that they replaced?
While I agree with most of your points (McDonalds, a stepping stone? To what, Burger King?), I was mostly trying to contrast our beliefs about the poor with our beliefs about the wealthy. There's this ingrained "idle hands" take on the poor, that we must keep them busy with menial labor lest they are unable to find a sense of purpose with which to occupy themselves, but that this is never a concern when it comes to the wealthy. Perhaps you're right, and that their additional wealth is necessarily required for a lifestyle that affords one a sense of purpose outside of effectively mandatory employment. However, as someone who regularly associates with the poor, I have only anecdotal evidence to the contrary. While I certainly grant that menial labor can and does provide many with a sense of purpose, I'm not confident that this can be said about a majority of the working poor. It would be interesting to see a study that seeks to quantify what proportion of working poor are afforded a sense of purpose by their jobs that is greater than they'd find from some other pursuit of their own choosing. Then again, I'm not really a product of a protestant-work-ethic society, and I recognize than many Americans are, so perhaps my bias is showing. Either way, as someone who would love to be freed from the burden of compulsory labor, I always find it frustrating to hear people opposing such plans on the grounds that I wouldn't know what to do with myself. These arguments generally take the form "well, you and I are awesome and would have no problems finding fulfilling activities to engage in, but 'those other people' must be kept occupied because they're degenerates" (slightly hyperbolic paraphrasing), which never sits well with me. Not because of some SJW reasoning, but merely because I've never seen 'those other people' make that argument themselves (regardless of who 'those other people' are -- do you know anyone that insists that they must be compelled to labor because they'd be unable to find anything meaningful to do on their own?)
Okay, well, while I don't see any evidence of this claim, let's just assume it's true for the sake of argument. In that context, I'd like to address two related topics.
First, does a fry cook at McDonalds satisfy this need for a sense of purpose through their employment? Or do they instead see their job as both a necessary evil and (to a lesser extent) an opportunity to socialize with some of their peers? If you ask a fry cook at McDonalds if they'd prefer to be paid to not show up at work, do you honestly think they'd say they'd like to keep their current arrangement?
Second, why are we so concerned about the poor, but not the wealthy? Do they not need to be assigned a sense of purpose also? How is it that the wealthy seem to get along just fine without being forced to labor simply to maintain their lifestyle? Is there a reason to think that the poor are inherently incapable of being socialites, of finding and pursuing their own interests?
How do we NOT support breeding?
We could start by ending tax incentives for breeders. Also, if we want to make data-driven decisions, we can invest in education of women (as this has been shown to be the factor that's most strongly correlated with decreased population growth rates).
But when the SJW left has so expanded the definitions of "racism," "sexism" to include saying things like...
We're getting old.
This is how it happens, how it's always happened. Recall the days of your youth, when you looked upon the aging fossils who clung to their outdated views on social issues like these. If you find yourself on the other side today, it's because the social fabric has continued to change, but your own views have not. You've become one of these aging fossils clinging to outdated views on social issues, even though your views on social issues used to be hip and progressive when you were young. Perhaps now you can find a new appreciation for your racist uncle, your sexist grandfather, etc.
To borrow an apropos quote from Grampa Simpson from The Simpsons:
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it*, and what's *it* seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you..."
I was thinking through the recent news (last night) that Trump got Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in the US, and how I couldn't see a way to frame that in a bad light. Lo and behold! Recent comments on Slashdot manage to paint this as a bad thing.
Slashdot is hardly the only place where you'll hear a negative opinion of the Carrier deal.
Severalnewsoutlets are also taking a more skeptical view.
In the end, viewing any deal as objectively good or bad may be overly simplistic. In the case of this one, it seems like it's good for the people who won't be losing their jobs. It also seems good for other companies who now have a precedent for extracting concessions from our government in exchange for abandoning plans to offshore jobs, as well as those employees who won't be losing their jobs as a result. It seems less good (or even bad) for taxpayers who aren't invested in or employed by these companies, as they'll be effectively subsidizing these jobs to some extent, and it's not clear that the cost of this subsidy is greater than the general economic benefit gained by having a marginally stronger labor market in the manufacturing sector.
Open one tab to about:blank. Open a number of other tabs, and browse some heavy sites in those. Close those other tabs, leaving only the one open to about:blank. Check your memory usage.
I can show you Firefox using arbitrarily large amounts of memory with only a single tab open to about:blank. On any version (starting before 3, even), any desktop OS. I can't reproduce that trick in any other browser.
Another way of saying "the larger cities would basically always decide the election" is "the larger groups of people would basically always decide the election". That sounds a lot like democracy, though I can understand being opposed to it if one holds unpopular political beliefs.
I can't argue against any of those points. I was merely commenting on your claim that the profit incentive "disappears". This isn't true until taxes reach 100%. At tax rates lower than 100%, the profit incentive is decreased, but does not disappear.
I think people should vote for the person who most closely fits their worldview who actually has a prayer of getting into office. Voting for a third party candidate who might get 2% of the vote is a waste of time. It just is. If it makes you feel good I won't quibble as long as you understand that it will accomplish nothing of value.
So you're saying that an overwhelming majority of the electorate should just stay home, since they don't live in swing states and their votes have [statistically] negligible odds of being practically meaningful?
While mostly true, for a medical doctor she still willingly hinted at buying into standard anti-vaccination stupidity (whether sincere or not, that's a problem).
I'm not sure that that's accurate.
Now, full disclaimer, I'm not some anti-vaccine nutjob, and to the best of my knowledge I don't suffer from autism, nor am I very sympathetic to the argument that vaccines may somehow cause autism. I'm keenly aware that the FDA is very conservative when it comes to approving drugs, treatments, procedures, etc., and that EU nations often enjoy early access to novel healthcare products/services relative to the US. I don't intend my comment to suggest that the FDA is too cavalier in approving vaccines.
That being said, Dr. Stein has taken what appears to me to be a reasonable stance. She has never even hinted at buying into standard anti-vaccine stupidity, although it's true that she has [disappointingly] failed to denounce such stupidity when the opportunity presented itself, instead pivoting to a somewhat nuanced statement about regulatory capture (which really had very little, if anything, to do with the original question). Note, she did not express any support for an anti-vaccine position, at all, though she did fail to dismiss someone else's anti-vaccine position as irrational. In the end, I'd gladly take this sort of weak pandering over the much stronger pandering that both major party candidates are guilty of, on issues that are much more important to the country, personally.
Oh I don't deny that you did respond. If you'd actually read the contents of my post, you'd notice that I said that you didn't address any of my points. Which you didn't. But this conversation, if it can even be called that, isn't really getting us anywhere. So, again, cheers!
As to original notations, this is merely a confession of autism.
Absent context, this statement is ambiguous. In the context of the entirety of my previous post, it's ambiguous. This makes for poor communication. If you're alleging that some statement of mine constitutes a confession of autism, then you may be "interpreting" my words to mean something which they do not explicitly state. This also makes for poor communication.
As to questioning statements, this is mindless nitpicking or autism.
Perhaps it's your writing style, but I really have no idea what you're trying to communicate here. Are you saying that questioning the statements of another necessarily constitutes "mindless nitpicking or autism"?
This does nothing to aid in rational and productive discourse.
Are you saying that questioning the statements of another does nothing to aid in rational and productive discourse? That seems outright false and antithetical to the very idea of scientific inquiry, which in my opinion is highly rational and productive. We can agree to disagree on this point.
You concede my meaning but want every little line to compile.
I don't concede your meaning (which should be evident from my words "I was questioning your original claim"). You said something which was factually false. Instead of questioning your intellect, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and asked if you simply misspoke and inadvertently made a claim which you did not intend to make. If you're saying that the claim you made (that people are being blacklisted "for even daring to support anything but the democrats") is equivalent to the claim that you now seem to be agreeing with (that people are not being blacklisted for supporting non-Trump candidates), then I've already explained very clearly why you're wrong. You don't seem to disagree on that point, but you do seem to disagree that your original point was factually incorrect. You're making an argument that is internally contradictory.
You're not a computer and neither am I. We are both much more complex and sophisticated creatures that are able to interpret meaning. To limit myself to what a computer would do would be to surrender that for nothing. Deal in meaning and be human.
You seem to be inviting me to interpret your words as I see fit. So, granted full artistic license, I interpret your words to be allegorical in nature and to mean nothing more than that you... *spins wheel of random interpretation* are imprecise with your words and that your words should not be taken literally as they're likely false. Is that what you meant?
As to write in candidates, then the notion is not especially credible. That's three for three.
So, I see you're still making unsubstantiated claims and accepting them as truth. See also: begging the question, circular reasoning.
As to coming down as hard on X as Y... Do it then. Judge both by the same standard. Calculate. Run the numbers. Process the program. Find your value for X. Do it. You want to play the "I'm autistic so I'm more rational" game... fine. Let us see precisely how rational you are... because I've played this game with other people that attempted the same ploy, and generally the logical contradictions happened almost immediately. Let us see if you're different. Execute.
Perhaps it's your writing style again, but I have no idea what you're saying here. Who's coming down as hard on X as Y? Who are X and Y? Are X and Y not supposed to be come down equally hard on? I suppose some context might help here also, but after re-reading my previous post, I honestly have no idea what this could be in reference to.
As to autism as a pejorative, you were demonstrating an inability to grasp concepts in a larger context or interrelate phrases and topics with each other. This is a sympto
WTF? You Clinton-haters usually assume that the Clintons do all sorts of evil and nefarious things without getting caught.
Broad generalization, but okay.
Now you say Hillary can't put together a decent smear campaign?
Al Capone was widely assumed to do all sorts of evil and nefarious things without getting caught. Now people say he couldn't even do his taxes right?
If the Clintons can leave a trail of bodies behind them without being accused or indicted, they can definitely do a good smear campaign.
If they haven't been accused, then why do you say they can leave a trail of bodies? Nobody's accusing them of that, per your own words. Furthermore, it's not clear that they failed to do a good smear campaign. There are many headlines about Assange being a pedophile, but not too many about how this accusation was brought forth by a non-existent entity. If that doesn't constitute a good smear campaign, then what does?
If you're too autistic to grasp the difference "will not happen because of standing conditions that make it impossible" and saying "won't happen"... then any further argument on that point is a waste of my time.
I'll note that your original comment was that they "can't win", not "won't win". The former is factually false, while the latter is a reasonable opinion. Let's not move the goalposts.
If you're too autistic to grasp the tactical and strategic difference between someone voting for a real threat to their power and someone that is voting for someone that is not a threat to their power... then any further argument on that point is a waste of my time. What is more, you're not contradicting that people are being blacklisted based on who they support in an election. Would you be so sanguine if this were applied against Hillary supporters?
I do grasp the tactical and strategic difference between someone voting for a real threat to their power and someone that is voting for someone that is not a threat to their power. That's exactly why I was questioning your original claim that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats". To the best of my knowledge, nobody is being blacklisted for supporting non-Trump candidates, specifically because [in my opinion] non-Trump candidates are not perceived to be a real threat to Clinton. Indeed, I'm not contradicting that people are being blacklisted based on who they support in an election, because that wasn't your original claim. I'm contradicting that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats", when it is clear that supporters of non-Trump candidates are not being blacklisted. Furthermore, I would be very happy to see Hillary supporters blacklisted right alongside Trump supporters (as I clarified in my last post), but I'm not sure how this is relevant to the thread.
How many times in the history of the United States of America has a national write in Candidate won the national election? If you have a point then this happens with some frequency. If it doesn't then you're throwing out more irrelevancies. I can't tell if you're going out of your way to be obtuse to argue points in bad faith or if you're so autistic that you honestly think these are valid points.
I don't believe a write-in candidate has ever won a national election in the US, but two US Congressmen have. However, it's not clear how that's relevant, there is no requirement for previous write-in candidates having won for a future write-in candidate to win (and if there were such a requirement, it could never be met, even in theory). While I acknowledge that the likelihood of a write-in candidate winning is negligible, that's not sufficient grounds to claim that it is not possible. Furthermore, the viability (or lack thereof) of write-in candidates has no bearing on the fact that there are at least three choices for President actually on the ballot in all 50 states, which contradicts your claim of only "two choices". I understand that the other candidates are exceedingly unlikely to win the election, but voters may choose them just as easily as they can choose a Democrat or Republican, and for this reason your claim is factually false.
Because you're either being intentionally obtuse or unintentionally autistic, I suspect you won't acknowledge that were the shoe on the other foot the existing political and social orthodoxy would not be comfortable with Hillary supporters being given the same treatment.
I have no problems acknowledging that the existing political and social orthodoxy (where Democrats increasingly outnumber Republicans) would probably not be comfortable with Clinton supporters being given the same treatment. This is consistent with my view that people are generally being self-interested duplicitous hypocrites when they're allowed to be. What I don't understand is why you seem to think I'm less critical of Clinton supporters than I am of Trump supporters.
P.S. Kudos for repeatedly using autistic as a pejorative. Also recommended: retarded, gay.
That's objectively false. They're both on the ballot in sufficiently many states to be able to win. It's overwhelmingly unlikely that they'll win, but strictly speaking, they can win. I'll forgive this on the basis of likely hyperbole and not a statement intended to be literally true.
There's no reason to blacklist people that throw their votes away.
Presumably "people that throw their votes away" are people who vote for someone other than the two major party candidates? If that's the case, then you seem to be agreeing with me that your original claim that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats" is false, since you seem to be claiming that people who support Stein or Johnson (who are not Democrats) are not blacklisted.
Politics is not an ice cream parlor where you get to choose your favorite flavor. You have two choices typically and neither one is what you'd choose if you had control over everything.
This is a flawed analogy on multiple counts. Since 43 states (including all of the populous ones) allow write-in candidates, most voters can indeed choose anyone they want, literally. Furthermore, the remaining 7 states offer at least three choices this year, so it is
Look, you feel entitled to blacklist people possibly for voting for one thing or another. Fine. You would naturally have no problem with someone blacklisting anyone that supported Hillary then?
I feel entitled to blacklist people (from what?) for any reason I see fit. I would similarly have no problem with blacklisting anyone that supported Hillary. That is correct. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, though.
Wait a minute here. You start your rant basically saying "there's not enough regulation; we need protection!", and end it with "They're assaulting us with onerous regulation!"
What on earth do you actually want?
To have his cake and eat it too. Meet the electorate, and understand why we're fucked.
Slashdot Mirror
Are there no workhouses?
Please keep in mind that the entire context of this conversation is human labor being more costly than automation. In this light, you're suggesting that instead of simply giving people money and automating the work they'd otherwise be doing, we ought to actually spend more money on giving people busywork.
It's not clear to me how adopting this higher-cost model is superior to the alternative. It costs more, and it results in less leisure time for people. Are you suggesting that the additional cost is worth it, because leisure time is undesirable?
Seriously, I don't see the right wing allowing a basic income (or dole) being allowed here. Instead, it will go to the "job creators" who pay their bills (purchase their loyalty).
This is a separate issue. I've already acknowledged that there are other possibilities, like allowing the unemployed to starve. I'm not making predictions about what route we will choose (or value statements about what route we ought to choose). These conversations would be much more productive if people could try to avoid making arguments that rely upon subjective claims or circular reasoning.
Go to CAST website.
I googled. Do you mean:
Center for Applied Special Technology, something for people with disabilities?
Google Cast, now called Chromecast?
Cast software, something for SQL?
CAST LA, a group trying to end slavery?
Council for agricultural science and technology, which also has nothing to do with space propulsion systems?
In short, what are you talking about?
And what happens when that truck driver can't find another job?
GP suggested he could instead be "skipping through fields, rocking out to great bands, performing science experiments, climbing mountains and skiing down them while drinking Mountain Dew as explosions go off behind you, reading novels, or flying around in starships to go find green-skinned women to bang."
Do we guarantee him a wage?
That's one possibility. Another is that we watch him starve. There are a wide range of possibilities here.
What about his kids when they can't find a job?
Same as above.
I am not against progress, but there is a social cost that partially offsets the gains. We seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt in the name of progress.
There's also a social cost when it comes to fighting against this type of progress. For example, people have to continue working when they otherwise wouldn't need to. For some reason, we seem to regard this a collateral damage and want to ignore the people that are hurt by being compelled to work also.
Exactly, where are these automated factories that are displacing workers. They must be in China because all we have here is dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings.
US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Presumably these dilapidated and abandoned industrial buildings are more productive than whatever it is that they replaced?
While I agree with most of your points (McDonalds, a stepping stone? To what, Burger King?), I was mostly trying to contrast our beliefs about the poor with our beliefs about the wealthy. There's this ingrained "idle hands" take on the poor, that we must keep them busy with menial labor lest they are unable to find a sense of purpose with which to occupy themselves, but that this is never a concern when it comes to the wealthy. Perhaps you're right, and that their additional wealth is necessarily required for a lifestyle that affords one a sense of purpose outside of effectively mandatory employment. However, as someone who regularly associates with the poor, I have only anecdotal evidence to the contrary. While I certainly grant that menial labor can and does provide many with a sense of purpose, I'm not confident that this can be said about a majority of the working poor. It would be interesting to see a study that seeks to quantify what proportion of working poor are afforded a sense of purpose by their jobs that is greater than they'd find from some other pursuit of their own choosing. Then again, I'm not really a product of a protestant-work-ethic society, and I recognize than many Americans are, so perhaps my bias is showing. Either way, as someone who would love to be freed from the burden of compulsory labor, I always find it frustrating to hear people opposing such plans on the grounds that I wouldn't know what to do with myself. These arguments generally take the form "well, you and I are awesome and would have no problems finding fulfilling activities to engage in, but 'those other people' must be kept occupied because they're degenerates" (slightly hyperbolic paraphrasing), which never sits well with me. Not because of some SJW reasoning, but merely because I've never seen 'those other people' make that argument themselves (regardless of who 'those other people' are -- do you know anyone that insists that they must be compelled to labor because they'd be unable to find anything meaningful to do on their own?)
A sense of purpose is important.
Okay, well, while I don't see any evidence of this claim, let's just assume it's true for the sake of argument. In that context, I'd like to address two related topics.
First, does a fry cook at McDonalds satisfy this need for a sense of purpose through their employment? Or do they instead see their job as both a necessary evil and (to a lesser extent) an opportunity to socialize with some of their peers? If you ask a fry cook at McDonalds if they'd prefer to be paid to not show up at work, do you honestly think they'd say they'd like to keep their current arrangement?
Second, why are we so concerned about the poor, but not the wealthy? Do they not need to be assigned a sense of purpose also? How is it that the wealthy seem to get along just fine without being forced to labor simply to maintain their lifestyle? Is there a reason to think that the poor are inherently incapable of being socialites, of finding and pursuing their own interests?
How do we NOT support breeding?
We could start by ending tax incentives for breeders. Also, if we want to make data-driven decisions, we can invest in education of women (as this has been shown to be the factor that's most strongly correlated with decreased population growth rates).
But when the SJW left has so expanded the definitions of "racism," "sexism" to include saying things like ...
We're getting old.
This is how it happens, how it's always happened. Recall the days of your youth, when you looked upon the aging fossils who clung to their outdated views on social issues like these. If you find yourself on the other side today, it's because the social fabric has continued to change, but your own views have not. You've become one of these aging fossils clinging to outdated views on social issues, even though your views on social issues used to be hip and progressive when you were young. Perhaps now you can find a new appreciation for your racist uncle, your sexist grandfather, etc.
To borrow an apropos quote from Grampa Simpson from The Simpsons:
"I used to be with it, but then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it*, and what's *it* seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you..."
I was thinking through the recent news (last night) that Trump got Carrier to keep 1000 jobs in the US, and how I couldn't see a way to frame that in a bad light. Lo and behold! Recent comments on Slashdot manage to paint this as a bad thing.
Slashdot is hardly the only place where you'll hear a negative opinion of the Carrier deal. Several news outlets are also taking a more skeptical view.
In the end, viewing any deal as objectively good or bad may be overly simplistic. In the case of this one, it seems like it's good for the people who won't be losing their jobs. It also seems good for other companies who now have a precedent for extracting concessions from our government in exchange for abandoning plans to offshore jobs, as well as those employees who won't be losing their jobs as a result. It seems less good (or even bad) for taxpayers who aren't invested in or employed by these companies, as they'll be effectively subsidizing these jobs to some extent, and it's not clear that the cost of this subsidy is greater than the general economic benefit gained by having a marginally stronger labor market in the manufacturing sector.
Open one tab to about:blank. Open a number of other tabs, and browse some heavy sites in those. Close those other tabs, leaving only the one open to about:blank. Check your memory usage.
it uses less memory than other browsers
I can show you Firefox using arbitrarily large amounts of memory with only a single tab open to about:blank. On any version (starting before 3, even), any desktop OS. I can't reproduce that trick in any other browser.
Since GP only used 10 unique characters, I'd say 127 is more than enough.
Another way of saying "the larger cities would basically always decide the election" is "the larger groups of people would basically always decide the election". That sounds a lot like democracy, though I can understand being opposed to it if one holds unpopular political beliefs.
I can't argue against any of those points. I was merely commenting on your claim that the profit incentive "disappears". This isn't true until taxes reach 100%. At tax rates lower than 100%, the profit incentive is decreased, but does not disappear.
when taxes get too high the profit incentive disappears and people won't want to operate businesses.
The profit incentive disappears once taxes reach 100%. I don't think anyone is proposing taxes higher than 99.9%, so this is a moot point.
I think people should vote for the person who most closely fits their worldview who actually has a prayer of getting into office. Voting for a third party candidate who might get 2% of the vote is a waste of time. It just is. If it makes you feel good I won't quibble as long as you understand that it will accomplish nothing of value.
So you're saying that an overwhelming majority of the electorate should just stay home, since they don't live in swing states and their votes have [statistically] negligible odds of being practically meaningful?
While mostly true, for a medical doctor she still willingly hinted at buying into standard anti-vaccination stupidity (whether sincere or not, that's a problem).
I'm not sure that that's accurate.
Now, full disclaimer, I'm not some anti-vaccine nutjob, and to the best of my knowledge I don't suffer from autism, nor am I very sympathetic to the argument that vaccines may somehow cause autism. I'm keenly aware that the FDA is very conservative when it comes to approving drugs, treatments, procedures, etc., and that EU nations often enjoy early access to novel healthcare products/services relative to the US. I don't intend my comment to suggest that the FDA is too cavalier in approving vaccines.
That being said, Dr. Stein has taken what appears to me to be a reasonable stance. She has never even hinted at buying into standard anti-vaccine stupidity, although it's true that she has [disappointingly] failed to denounce such stupidity when the opportunity presented itself, instead pivoting to a somewhat nuanced statement about regulatory capture (which really had very little, if anything, to do with the original question). Note, she did not express any support for an anti-vaccine position, at all, though she did fail to dismiss someone else's anti-vaccine position as irrational. In the end, I'd gladly take this sort of weak pandering over the much stronger pandering that both major party candidates are guilty of, on issues that are much more important to the country, personally.
Oh I don't deny that you did respond. If you'd actually read the contents of my post, you'd notice that I said that you didn't address any of my points. Which you didn't. But this conversation, if it can even be called that, isn't really getting us anywhere. So, again, cheers!
So you're not going to address any of my points and prefer instead to talk shit? I'm okay with that. Cheers!
As to original notations, this is merely a confession of autism.
Absent context, this statement is ambiguous. In the context of the entirety of my previous post, it's ambiguous. This makes for poor communication. If you're alleging that some statement of mine constitutes a confession of autism, then you may be "interpreting" my words to mean something which they do not explicitly state. This also makes for poor communication.
As to questioning statements, this is mindless nitpicking or autism.
Perhaps it's your writing style, but I really have no idea what you're trying to communicate here. Are you saying that questioning the statements of another necessarily constitutes "mindless nitpicking or autism"?
This does nothing to aid in rational and productive discourse.
Are you saying that questioning the statements of another does nothing to aid in rational and productive discourse? That seems outright false and antithetical to the very idea of scientific inquiry, which in my opinion is highly rational and productive. We can agree to disagree on this point.
You concede my meaning but want every little line to compile.
I don't concede your meaning (which should be evident from my words "I was questioning your original claim"). You said something which was factually false. Instead of questioning your intellect, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and asked if you simply misspoke and inadvertently made a claim which you did not intend to make. If you're saying that the claim you made (that people are being blacklisted "for even daring to support anything but the democrats") is equivalent to the claim that you now seem to be agreeing with (that people are not being blacklisted for supporting non-Trump candidates), then I've already explained very clearly why you're wrong. You don't seem to disagree on that point, but you do seem to disagree that your original point was factually incorrect. You're making an argument that is internally contradictory.
You're not a computer and neither am I. We are both much more complex and sophisticated creatures that are able to interpret meaning. To limit myself to what a computer would do would be to surrender that for nothing. Deal in meaning and be human.
You seem to be inviting me to interpret your words as I see fit. So, granted full artistic license, I interpret your words to be allegorical in nature and to mean nothing more than that you... *spins wheel of random interpretation* are imprecise with your words and that your words should not be taken literally as they're likely false. Is that what you meant?
As to write in candidates, then the notion is not especially credible. That's three for three.
So, I see you're still making unsubstantiated claims and accepting them as truth. See also: begging the question, circular reasoning.
As to coming down as hard on X as Y... Do it then. Judge both by the same standard. Calculate. Run the numbers. Process the program. Find your value for X. Do it. You want to play the "I'm autistic so I'm more rational" game... fine. Let us see precisely how rational you are... because I've played this game with other people that attempted the same ploy, and generally the logical contradictions happened almost immediately. Let us see if you're different. Execute.
Perhaps it's your writing style again, but I have no idea what you're saying here. Who's coming down as hard on X as Y? Who are X and Y? Are X and Y not supposed to be come down equally hard on? I suppose some context might help here also, but after re-reading my previous post, I honestly have no idea what this could be in reference to.
As to autism as a pejorative, you were demonstrating an inability to grasp concepts in a larger context or interrelate phrases and topics with each other. This is a sympto
WTF? You Clinton-haters usually assume that the Clintons do all sorts of evil and nefarious things without getting caught.
Broad generalization, but okay.
Now you say Hillary can't put together a decent smear campaign?
Al Capone was widely assumed to do all sorts of evil and nefarious things without getting caught. Now people say he couldn't even do his taxes right?
If the Clintons can leave a trail of bodies behind them without being accused or indicted, they can definitely do a good smear campaign.
If they haven't been accused, then why do you say they can leave a trail of bodies? Nobody's accusing them of that, per your own words. Furthermore, it's not clear that they failed to do a good smear campaign. There are many headlines about Assange being a pedophile, but not too many about how this accusation was brought forth by a non-existent entity. If that doesn't constitute a good smear campaign, then what does?
If you're too autistic to grasp the difference "will not happen because of standing conditions that make it impossible" and saying "won't happen"... then any further argument on that point is a waste of my time.
I'll note that your original comment was that they "can't win", not "won't win". The former is factually false, while the latter is a reasonable opinion. Let's not move the goalposts.
If you're too autistic to grasp the tactical and strategic difference between someone voting for a real threat to their power and someone that is voting for someone that is not a threat to their power... then any further argument on that point is a waste of my time. What is more, you're not contradicting that people are being blacklisted based on who they support in an election. Would you be so sanguine if this were applied against Hillary supporters?
I do grasp the tactical and strategic difference between someone voting for a real threat to their power and someone that is voting for someone that is not a threat to their power. That's exactly why I was questioning your original claim that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats". To the best of my knowledge, nobody is being blacklisted for supporting non-Trump candidates, specifically because [in my opinion] non-Trump candidates are not perceived to be a real threat to Clinton. Indeed, I'm not contradicting that people are being blacklisted based on who they support in an election, because that wasn't your original claim. I'm contradicting that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats", when it is clear that supporters of non-Trump candidates are not being blacklisted. Furthermore, I would be very happy to see Hillary supporters blacklisted right alongside Trump supporters (as I clarified in my last post), but I'm not sure how this is relevant to the thread.
How many times in the history of the United States of America has a national write in Candidate won the national election? If you have a point then this happens with some frequency. If it doesn't then you're throwing out more irrelevancies. I can't tell if you're going out of your way to be obtuse to argue points in bad faith or if you're so autistic that you honestly think these are valid points.
I don't believe a write-in candidate has ever won a national election in the US, but two US Congressmen have. However, it's not clear how that's relevant, there is no requirement for previous write-in candidates having won for a future write-in candidate to win (and if there were such a requirement, it could never be met, even in theory). While I acknowledge that the likelihood of a write-in candidate winning is negligible, that's not sufficient grounds to claim that it is not possible. Furthermore, the viability (or lack thereof) of write-in candidates has no bearing on the fact that there are at least three choices for President actually on the ballot in all 50 states, which contradicts your claim of only "two choices". I understand that the other candidates are exceedingly unlikely to win the election, but voters may choose them just as easily as they can choose a Democrat or Republican, and for this reason your claim is factually false.
Because you're either being intentionally obtuse or unintentionally autistic, I suspect you won't acknowledge that were the shoe on the other foot the existing political and social orthodoxy would not be comfortable with Hillary supporters being given the same treatment.
I have no problems acknowledging that the existing political and social orthodoxy (where Democrats increasingly outnumber Republicans) would probably not be comfortable with Clinton supporters being given the same treatment. This is consistent with my view that people are generally being self-interested duplicitous hypocrites when they're allowed to be. What I don't understand is why you seem to think I'm less critical of Clinton supporters than I am of Trump supporters.
P.S. Kudos for repeatedly using autistic as a pejorative. Also recommended: retarded, gay.
Gary can't win.
Jill Stein can't win.
That's objectively false. They're both on the ballot in sufficiently many states to be able to win. It's overwhelmingly unlikely that they'll win, but strictly speaking, they can win. I'll forgive this on the basis of likely hyperbole and not a statement intended to be literally true.
There's no reason to blacklist people that throw their votes away.
Presumably "people that throw their votes away" are people who vote for someone other than the two major party candidates? If that's the case, then you seem to be agreeing with me that your original claim that people are being blacklisted for supporting "anything but the democrats" is false, since you seem to be claiming that people who support Stein or Johnson (who are not Democrats) are not blacklisted.
Politics is not an ice cream parlor where you get to choose your favorite flavor. You have two choices typically and neither one is what you'd choose if you had control over everything.
This is a flawed analogy on multiple counts. Since 43 states (including all of the populous ones) allow write-in candidates, most voters can indeed choose anyone they want, literally. Furthermore, the remaining 7 states offer at least three choices this year, so it is
Look, you feel entitled to blacklist people possibly for voting for one thing or another. Fine. You would naturally have no problem with someone blacklisting anyone that supported Hillary then?
I feel entitled to blacklist people (from what?) for any reason I see fit. I would similarly have no problem with blacklisting anyone that supported Hillary. That is correct. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, though.
Cheers!
Mod parent up. This is the most transparent smear campaign I've ever seen.
Wait a minute here. You start your rant basically saying "there's not enough regulation; we need protection!", and end it with "They're assaulting us with onerous regulation!"
What on earth do you actually want?
To have his cake and eat it too. Meet the electorate, and understand why we're fucked.
I'm not sure what you're asking here. Are you suggesting that Johnson and Stein are blacklisted for supporting themselves?