Stop using "facts" and "well-reasoned" arguments. You will be labeled a liberal shill (or a traitor) by the true believers. You might as well try to use "science" to prove that the world isn't really flat. The only way to get your points across this year is to make an internet meme, or a two- or three-word chant, four words max. Giant Meteor 2016!
I am shocked! SHOCKED! that crooked Hillary would try to crush her opponent as hard as she could!! How dare she PANDER to the libtards by taking on their progressive views?!?! Doesn't she know that by tricking people into voting for her she is rigging the election. I'm sure that boy scout Trump would never have said anything negative in private, or public, about his opponents. And I'm sure he has never changed any of his views, despite what the filthy LIBERAL MEDIA like Fox News might say.
Epstein is an enigma. You have to wonder about all these high profile people jetting off to shady islands and compounds. Surely not all of them were horrible people that just wanted to rape little kids. I mean, I don't care for Trump or slick Willie, but I have a hard time imagining that they'd stoop that low. So what else was going on there? The fact that Trump *and* the Clintons were all buddy buddy with the guy is sure strange.
Honestly, I know you are pointing out the absurdity of the argument, but you have a good point. There is a surprising number of things that people would be able to build consensus on. Depends on what we put in those columns. I think things like the war on drugs, or the TSA would be good examples. But it's hard to know for sure what people really would support if they knew all the facts.
The problem with looking at luxury items as things that shouldn't have money spent on them is that it fails to take into account the knock-on effects. The NFL employs a bunch of people. Sure, the fatcats at the top make more than they should, but Joe Cameraman isn't getting millions of dollars, even if he's the best out there. The old lady making the crappy pizza at the concession stand is probably eeking out a meager existence. Should we be docking their pay for a whole year so that we can finally get rid of a disease or build a new library? I don't know, but it seems like most Americans would answer no.
If we -- as a society -- wanted to cure cancer instead of watch football, people would be donating to M.D. Anderson instead of buying Texans tickets. We vote with our wallets every day.
Interesting take. I hadn't thought about this. Are the generational shifts in environmentalism in alignment with the traditional boomer/genX/millennials? If you've done actual research on this, I would be interested to read it.
I like your counter culture idea. When you think about it that way it answers a lot of questions about why this election seems so screwball. Look at organized labor and trade deals. You've got organized labor being portrayed as something to be rebelled against. Trade deals with bipartisan support are being attacked. Gay rights, abortion, immigrants, etc. These used to be the counter-culture. Ironically, they are probably still the underdog (at least in Texas), but they are being treated as a Goliath in need of a David (or Donald).
I guess the problem is, how does something go from being counter-culture to just plain culture. Nobody really thinks anymore that we shouldn't let women vote. How did that happen? It started out as a counter-culture movement, derided by many. Even some women were not for suffrage. Then it became the law. Were there a bunch of men who protested that the right for women to vote should be revoked? Were there poll taxes and tests like there were during the civil rights movement? There's got to be a way to get over the hump without waiting 50 years. We simply may not have the luxury of time.
No one (except the really silly) deny climate change.
I wish that were true, but it is not. I know several very smart people, who have bought Mr. Trump's assertions that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Of course before that, they were blaming it on the "liberal media" or the "left-wing academics." My question was always, "why would anybody be making this up?" The answers were all over the map, but they were all equally insane. These are normally the guys that say "follow the money." The problem for them is that when you follow the money on climate science, the picture is pretty clear. There is not a big industry supporting global warming research, and the denier crowd is funded almost exclusively by multi-national oil companies.
In your case you say society is being "robbed of its liberty." Who is robbing us? To what end? Who could possibly benefit from this really bad news? Does somebody benefit if I turn my thermostat up a couple of degrees or drive a little more conservatively? What is more likely, is that my grandchildren are being robbed of their future, by some billionaire businessmen in Houston, The Haugue, and Dhahran.
Look again at those historical "spikes." They are more like bulges. What we are facing now is a precipice. You are right that humanity is a blip on geologic timescales. That should make this more alarming, not less.
The problem with deniers is that all they need is one source for them to declare hundreds of other sources wrong. Go to the bottom of the Wikipedia article and look at the sources cited there. If that's not good enough, there are literally thousands of reputable sources to choose from. Well over 95% of which support the general conclusion that man-made global warming is real, and is really dangerous. Besides, just throwing up your hands and saying somebody else's sources are shitty doesn't make your argument for you. Where are your sources, and what yardstick do you measure shittiness by?
The car analogy is running full speed into a traffic jam. When do you start to brace -- at the latest point feasible or by reducing your speed to a decent level first?
That explains a lot about why people don't want to anything about climate change. Around here, you ride the gas until the last possible second. I can't count the number of times somebody has zipped ahead of me just to have to slam on their brakes as we both approach the traffic jam. And god forbid you ever let more than 3/4 car-length get between you and the guy ahead of you! Maybe your analogy works better than you intended.
Ever since they switched from CFCs to HFA (c. 2008), I've had to stop using inhalers. I find that the new(ish) propellant is just as likely to make mild symptoms worse, so I only take it if I'm having a real hard time (triggered normally by allergies). The good news is that ever since I stopped working near refineries, my symptoms are fairly well controlled. Oddly, my son doesn't have any issues with his inhaler. Maybe because his body never knew the old propellant?? Who knows.
I don't agree with your oversimplification, and I'm pretty sure you are trying to be a little provocative. Bear in mind that by deciding to shirk laws, Uber is putting other services that do follow the rules at a disadvantage. I think your argument is that a completely laissez-faire approach would eventually sort itself out. That may be true, but it would probably be a race to the bottom. There will always be somebody willing to give somebody a ride for just a bit more than the price of gas. Without anti-slavery laws, there can develop an underclass of people willing to do unsavory work for unsavory pay, just because it's better than nothing. (American food industry, I'm looking at you!)
Off-topic: I've really enjoyed reading your comments, and I find it striking how there are some people who just resort to name-calling rather than take issue with your points.
Let's see, a million barrels of oil would be about 10^10 cubic inches. A glass of water has a base around 10 sq in. That glass of water would be about 10^9 inches tall. That's about 1/15th the way to the moon. I don't think there is a material out there that can make a glass that tall without collapsing under its own weight. Bear in mind, you're not pulling that through a single well (as you suggested). For example, Texas produces a few million barrels a day from wells numbering in the six figure range. So you're talking tens of barrels a day, not millions. Perhaps an entire Saudi oilfield could produce that much.
Some of these predictions didn't come true precisely because they were made. Particularly the air pollution problem. Do you remember what it was like during rush hour in the late 70s early 80s? I lived in a medium-sized Texas town, and I remember the clouds of smog on a hot summer day. As an asthmatic, you learned to just not go outside when it looked like that. In China people DO have to wear particulate filters on really bad days. So frankly, this isn't too far off the mark.
Additionally, I remember in the early 80's they were saying it would get warmer in the next 30 years. It certainly has, although so slow that it has been imperceptible to those living through it. Had population continued to rise at 1970's rates (about 2.0% globally), rather than drop to about 1.6%, it's hard to say how all of this would have played out. In the US the rates are more like 1.2% down to 0.8%, but there was still a slowdown in the rate of growth. Some of the alarmists probably made life a little better for the rest of us who just don't pay attention. Hard to say.
It's a pity they didn't foresee the complete mess we have made of the oceans. At least not enough of them to change public awareness and perception.
Fly Frontier some time. You show up 2 hours early (because that's as early as the check-in counter opens up), wait in line for over an hour and a half, due to complete incompetence or malicious intent. They pretend to check in the last ten people or so, but they've already called ahead to the gate to tell them to start loading the people on standby. The plane leaves 18 minutes early, but it's your fault for missing the flight. Then you have to pay $50 per person to go through the same thing the next day. Definitely possible to check in and miss a flight. Somehow our luggage still made it to Phoenix before we did.
Interesting, you really are about as likely to get shot and killed by a cop as you are to win the lottery (meaning all 6 numbers). In Texas the odds are one in 26 million, I assume the odds are similar elsewhere. So if you play once a week, that puts your odds somewhere around 1:500,000 over the course of the year. Police shoot and kill about 600 people each year (although statistics are VERY hard to come by). That means you have about 1:500,000 chance of getting shot and killed by a cop in a year.
punch in 400000 (kt) in the yield box, and see what happens. Yeah it's big, but not as big as Texas. That would take something about 100 times the size of tsar bomba. I don't even know if that's theoretically possible.
Did you even read my comment? That was exactly my point. Trump brags that they let him do it, when in fact they were just too stunned or afraid to push him away. Can't believe I got modded troll. WTF/.?!
I listened to that speech. He never said "Mexicans are rapists." What he said was no less ridiculous, though. He said Mexico is sending over rapists and murderers, as if there's some concerted effort by the Mexican government to send the worst elements of their society over here. There are Mexican rapists and murderers, but there's no evidence that they are being sent over the border on purpose. That's what's funny, rather than attacking the stupid thing Trump actually says and means, several people attack him for a few snippits here and there that are more shocking, but easy to disprove.
This happens all the time. Like the whole Obama "you didn't build that" thing. He was saying that you should pay your fair share as a company, because you didn't build the infrastructure that helps you be successful (like roads and bridges). But the media would rather latch onto four words, because it's easier to get people's attention. The difference is with Trump, the more of the context you listen to, the crazier he seems. When he goes and tries to clarify what he meant ("I was being sarcastic, but not that sarcastic") it gets even more troubling/confusing/horrifying. Maybe not as immediately shocking but terrible all the same.
But listening to the Billy Bush tape, while excruciating, he actually brings up an interesting point that we should be talking about as a society. When a women doesn't push back say "no" when a famous person sticks his tongue down her throat, is that consent? I would argue that it is not, but clearly there is a large section of the populace who disagrees with me. I would like to have that conversation. Instead, all the press wants to do is talk about the word pussy being used, which is outright stupid. It allows Trump to deflect the accusation by saying people use that word all the time.
Similarly, if Mr. Trump has any evidence to back up his claim that Mexico is sending rapists across the border intentionally, I would like to see it. This would be a very troubling development, and something that I would expect the federal government to address immediately. Instead he gets to say "well somebody's doing the raping," since the press chose to focus on the wrong part of the horrible things that he says.
Believe it or not, there are "smart" supporters of Trump. Or at least people who support him because it is in their immediate best interest, from a financial standpoint. Automobile manufacturers, and others who compete against imports would benefit, at least for a little while. There are also some tax policies on which the two differ. I should support him, because when Hillary wins, she will decrease the threshold for the inheritance (death) tax from $5MM to $1MM. This will cost me something on the order of $1.2MM within the next 10 years or so (hopefully longer, but you never know). Nevertheless, I am not voting for him. No amount of money is worth having the country that I love run by somebody who thinks it's OK to talk about women, Mexicans, POWs, political opponents, etc. with such disregard. I want my children to grow up in a world that still has some patina of courtesy.
Yes, really. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can tell you that you don't always have the presence of mind to complain right away. You may fear retribution or violence. You may be in a no-win situation with somebody with more power/authority than you. Besides, it can be quite shocking when somebody does something horrifying out of the blue. If Trump brags about grabbing people's genitals, and that they let him do it, does not mean that they wanted him to do it or allowed it. I'm not a "only yes means yes" type of guy, but I know that "not yes" sometimes means "no." To pretend otherwise is to tacitly approve of blaming the victim (which by the way is a tradition that dates back to the Old Testament).
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Stop using "facts" and "well-reasoned" arguments. You will be labeled a liberal shill (or a traitor) by the true believers. You might as well try to use "science" to prove that the world isn't really flat. The only way to get your points across this year is to make an internet meme, or a two- or three-word chant, four words max. Giant Meteor 2016!
I am shocked! SHOCKED! that crooked Hillary would try to crush her opponent as hard as she could!! How dare she PANDER to the libtards by taking on their progressive views?!?! Doesn't she know that by tricking people into voting for her she is rigging the election. I'm sure that boy scout Trump would never have said anything negative in private, or public, about his opponents. And I'm sure he has never changed any of his views, despite what the filthy LIBERAL MEDIA like Fox News might say.
Epstein is an enigma. You have to wonder about all these high profile people jetting off to shady islands and compounds. Surely not all of them were horrible people that just wanted to rape little kids. I mean, I don't care for Trump or slick Willie, but I have a hard time imagining that they'd stoop that low. So what else was going on there? The fact that Trump *and* the Clintons were all buddy buddy with the guy is sure strange.
Honestly, I know you are pointing out the absurdity of the argument, but you have a good point. There is a surprising number of things that people would be able to build consensus on. Depends on what we put in those columns. I think things like the war on drugs, or the TSA would be good examples. But it's hard to know for sure what people really would support if they knew all the facts.
The problem with looking at luxury items as things that shouldn't have money spent on them is that it fails to take into account the knock-on effects. The NFL employs a bunch of people. Sure, the fatcats at the top make more than they should, but Joe Cameraman isn't getting millions of dollars, even if he's the best out there. The old lady making the crappy pizza at the concession stand is probably eeking out a meager existence. Should we be docking their pay for a whole year so that we can finally get rid of a disease or build a new library? I don't know, but it seems like most Americans would answer no.
If we -- as a society -- wanted to cure cancer instead of watch football, people would be donating to M.D. Anderson instead of buying Texans tickets. We vote with our wallets every day.
Interesting take. I hadn't thought about this. Are the generational shifts in environmentalism in alignment with the traditional boomer/genX/millennials? If you've done actual research on this, I would be interested to read it.
I like your counter culture idea. When you think about it that way it answers a lot of questions about why this election seems so screwball. Look at organized labor and trade deals. You've got organized labor being portrayed as something to be rebelled against. Trade deals with bipartisan support are being attacked. Gay rights, abortion, immigrants, etc. These used to be the counter-culture. Ironically, they are probably still the underdog (at least in Texas), but they are being treated as a Goliath in need of a David (or Donald).
I guess the problem is, how does something go from being counter-culture to just plain culture. Nobody really thinks anymore that we shouldn't let women vote. How did that happen? It started out as a counter-culture movement, derided by many. Even some women were not for suffrage. Then it became the law. Were there a bunch of men who protested that the right for women to vote should be revoked? Were there poll taxes and tests like there were during the civil rights movement? There's got to be a way to get over the hump without waiting 50 years. We simply may not have the luxury of time.
No one (except the really silly) deny climate change.
I wish that were true, but it is not. I know several very smart people, who have bought Mr. Trump's assertions that climate change is a Chinese hoax. Of course before that, they were blaming it on the "liberal media" or the "left-wing academics." My question was always, "why would anybody be making this up?" The answers were all over the map, but they were all equally insane. These are normally the guys that say "follow the money." The problem for them is that when you follow the money on climate science, the picture is pretty clear. There is not a big industry supporting global warming research, and the denier crowd is funded almost exclusively by multi-national oil companies.
In your case you say society is being "robbed of its liberty." Who is robbing us? To what end? Who could possibly benefit from this really bad news? Does somebody benefit if I turn my thermostat up a couple of degrees or drive a little more conservatively? What is more likely, is that my grandchildren are being robbed of their future, by some billionaire businessmen in Houston, The Haugue, and Dhahran.
Look again at those historical "spikes." They are more like bulges. What we are facing now is a precipice. You are right that humanity is a blip on geologic timescales. That should make this more alarming, not less.
But how do you kill a corporation or throw it in prison? Maybe we should ask Mitt Romney...
The problem with deniers is that all they need is one source for them to declare hundreds of other sources wrong. Go to the bottom of the Wikipedia article and look at the sources cited there. If that's not good enough, there are literally thousands of reputable sources to choose from. Well over 95% of which support the general conclusion that man-made global warming is real, and is really dangerous. Besides, just throwing up your hands and saying somebody else's sources are shitty doesn't make your argument for you. Where are your sources, and what yardstick do you measure shittiness by?
It will eventually. Try building something out of steel on Venus!
The car analogy is running full speed into a traffic jam. When do you start to brace -- at the latest point feasible or by reducing your speed to a decent level first?
That explains a lot about why people don't want to anything about climate change. Around here, you ride the gas until the last possible second. I can't count the number of times somebody has zipped ahead of me just to have to slam on their brakes as we both approach the traffic jam. And god forbid you ever let more than 3/4 car-length get between you and the guy ahead of you! Maybe your analogy works better than you intended.
Ever since they switched from CFCs to HFA (c. 2008), I've had to stop using inhalers. I find that the new(ish) propellant is just as likely to make mild symptoms worse, so I only take it if I'm having a real hard time (triggered normally by allergies). The good news is that ever since I stopped working near refineries, my symptoms are fairly well controlled. Oddly, my son doesn't have any issues with his inhaler. Maybe because his body never knew the old propellant?? Who knows.
... blown horribly out of proportion; most are nothing but FUD and hand-wringing.
... People will die because of the next president's policy.
Irony?
I don't agree with your oversimplification, and I'm pretty sure you are trying to be a little provocative. Bear in mind that by deciding to shirk laws, Uber is putting other services that do follow the rules at a disadvantage. I think your argument is that a completely laissez-faire approach would eventually sort itself out. That may be true, but it would probably be a race to the bottom. There will always be somebody willing to give somebody a ride for just a bit more than the price of gas. Without anti-slavery laws, there can develop an underclass of people willing to do unsavory work for unsavory pay, just because it's better than nothing. (American food industry, I'm looking at you!)
Off-topic: I've really enjoyed reading your comments, and I find it striking how there are some people who just resort to name-calling rather than take issue with your points.
I'm really confused. I haven't seen an insightful back-and-forth exchange of ideas in so long. Am I still on Slashdot?
Let's see, a million barrels of oil would be about 10^10 cubic inches. A glass of water has a base around 10 sq in. That glass of water would be about 10^9 inches tall. That's about 1/15th the way to the moon. I don't think there is a material out there that can make a glass that tall without collapsing under its own weight. Bear in mind, you're not pulling that through a single well (as you suggested). For example, Texas produces a few million barrels a day from wells numbering in the six figure range. So you're talking tens of barrels a day, not millions. Perhaps an entire Saudi oilfield could produce that much.
Some of these predictions didn't come true precisely because they were made. Particularly the air pollution problem. Do you remember what it was like during rush hour in the late 70s early 80s? I lived in a medium-sized Texas town, and I remember the clouds of smog on a hot summer day. As an asthmatic, you learned to just not go outside when it looked like that. In China people DO have to wear particulate filters on really bad days. So frankly, this isn't too far off the mark.
Additionally, I remember in the early 80's they were saying it would get warmer in the next 30 years. It certainly has, although so slow that it has been imperceptible to those living through it. Had population continued to rise at 1970's rates (about 2.0% globally), rather than drop to about 1.6%, it's hard to say how all of this would have played out. In the US the rates are more like 1.2% down to 0.8%, but there was still a slowdown in the rate of growth. Some of the alarmists probably made life a little better for the rest of us who just don't pay attention. Hard to say.
It's a pity they didn't foresee the complete mess we have made of the oceans. At least not enough of them to change public awareness and perception.
Sociologists spend a lot of time paying attention to other people. Maybe that's why they're all so poor.
Fly Frontier some time. You show up 2 hours early (because that's as early as the check-in counter opens up), wait in line for over an hour and a half, due to complete incompetence or malicious intent. They pretend to check in the last ten people or so, but they've already called ahead to the gate to tell them to start loading the people on standby. The plane leaves 18 minutes early, but it's your fault for missing the flight. Then you have to pay $50 per person to go through the same thing the next day. Definitely possible to check in and miss a flight. Somehow our luggage still made it to Phoenix before we did.
Interesting, you really are about as likely to get shot and killed by a cop as you are to win the lottery (meaning all 6 numbers). In Texas the odds are one in 26 million, I assume the odds are similar elsewhere. So if you play once a week, that puts your odds somewhere around 1:500,000 over the course of the year. Police shoot and kill about 600 people each year (although statistics are VERY hard to come by). That means you have about 1:500,000 chance of getting shot and killed by a cop in a year.
punch in 400000 (kt) in the yield box, and see what happens. Yeah it's big, but not as big as Texas. That would take something about 100 times the size of tsar bomba. I don't even know if that's theoretically possible.
Did you even read my comment? That was exactly my point. Trump brags that they let him do it, when in fact they were just too stunned or afraid to push him away. Can't believe I got modded troll. WTF /.?!
I listened to that speech. He never said "Mexicans are rapists." What he said was no less ridiculous, though. He said Mexico is sending over rapists and murderers, as if there's some concerted effort by the Mexican government to send the worst elements of their society over here. There are Mexican rapists and murderers, but there's no evidence that they are being sent over the border on purpose. That's what's funny, rather than attacking the stupid thing Trump actually says and means, several people attack him for a few snippits here and there that are more shocking, but easy to disprove.
This happens all the time. Like the whole Obama "you didn't build that" thing. He was saying that you should pay your fair share as a company, because you didn't build the infrastructure that helps you be successful (like roads and bridges). But the media would rather latch onto four words, because it's easier to get people's attention. The difference is with Trump, the more of the context you listen to, the crazier he seems. When he goes and tries to clarify what he meant ("I was being sarcastic, but not that sarcastic") it gets even more troubling/confusing/horrifying. Maybe not as immediately shocking but terrible all the same.
But listening to the Billy Bush tape, while excruciating, he actually brings up an interesting point that we should be talking about as a society. When a women doesn't push back say "no" when a famous person sticks his tongue down her throat, is that consent? I would argue that it is not, but clearly there is a large section of the populace who disagrees with me. I would like to have that conversation. Instead, all the press wants to do is talk about the word pussy being used, which is outright stupid. It allows Trump to deflect the accusation by saying people use that word all the time.
Similarly, if Mr. Trump has any evidence to back up his claim that Mexico is sending rapists across the border intentionally, I would like to see it. This would be a very troubling development, and something that I would expect the federal government to address immediately. Instead he gets to say "well somebody's doing the raping," since the press chose to focus on the wrong part of the horrible things that he says.
Believe it or not, there are "smart" supporters of Trump. Or at least people who support him because it is in their immediate best interest, from a financial standpoint. Automobile manufacturers, and others who compete against imports would benefit, at least for a little while. There are also some tax policies on which the two differ. I should support him, because when Hillary wins, she will decrease the threshold for the inheritance (death) tax from $5MM to $1MM. This will cost me something on the order of $1.2MM within the next 10 years or so (hopefully longer, but you never know). Nevertheless, I am not voting for him. No amount of money is worth having the country that I love run by somebody who thinks it's OK to talk about women, Mexicans, POWs, political opponents, etc. with such disregard. I want my children to grow up in a world that still has some patina of courtesy.
Yes, really. As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can tell you that you don't always have the presence of mind to complain right away. You may fear retribution or violence. You may be in a no-win situation with somebody with more power/authority than you. Besides, it can be quite shocking when somebody does something horrifying out of the blue. If Trump brags about grabbing people's genitals, and that they let him do it, does not mean that they wanted him to do it or allowed it. I'm not a "only yes means yes" type of guy, but I know that "not yes" sometimes means "no." To pretend otherwise is to tacitly approve of blaming the victim (which by the way is a tradition that dates back to the Old Testament).
Except in the US where the women would 100% destroy the men's team.