I remain awed by some Republicans - those quasi-sapient enough to dislike “all-7-deadly-sins” Trump, while claiming to love science and freedom – and yet who still clutch mantras of GOP loyalty. Even purported libertarians - who know that Republican policies and narratives are anti-freedom in all ways - recite incantations like ‘liberals are worse!’
(Libertarian hypocrisy is galling, since Dems score better on everything ‘freedom lovers’ should want, from debt and deficits, abortion rights and drug law reform to individual sexual choice, tort and contract law, separation of church/state and anything having to do with personal accountability. Plus this: red-run states (except Utah) average higher rates of every turpitude (e.g. gambling, murder, rape, STDs...) and parasitize budget support from blue America. Alas, none of that matters, apparently - only tax cuts for the nobility. That is the one and only determining issue, ever since the Party of Feudalism took over most libertarian institutions.)
We live in a complex era and ‘ostriches’ (those residually smart but in-denial Republicans and Libertarians) use modern complexity to scamper from one head-hole to the next, reciting cancellation incantations. For example, howling about “Hansen’s errors in the 90s!” in order to evade facing the current tsunami of proofs that a looming climate crisis threatens the very lives of our children.
(And yes, that one issue alone should be enough to break the spell! So the distraction incantations become frantic.)
I found one way past this tactic of frantic birds scurrying from one echo-hole to the next. Confront your semi-sapient ostrich with a list of distilled challenges, and stay focused on a few, tenaciously! Do not allow them to change the subject from that small set of fact-checkable assertions. And yes, here is where Brin repeats his challenge ad nauseam. It helps to demand wagers! Or else some other form of accountability for what’s factually and provably true.
(Here's a video by a savvy young man using wagers to gradually pry his own mom away from QAnon addiction.)
For example, if any ONE of the following is true, then today’s GOP is an insane criminal enterprise. If ALL are true (and they all are) then abetting that gang of mephistophelians is – in itself – treason to the only civilization that ever offered humanity a sliver of hope and progress.
HERE’S THAT LIST and I will accept wagers - with attorney-escrowed $$$ stakes -over any of them:
* Grand juries across the United States (mostly white retirees, mostly in red-run states) have indicted almost a hundred times as many top Repubs as Dems! And I mean that: almost one hundred times as many! With other juries delivering correlated convictions.
Now, in theory that fact could result from some grand conspiracy involving tens of thousands of Americans - from FBI agents to random citizens - conniving perfectly, without a single actual trace! That is, I suppose it could happen in a Hollywood thriller. Though shouldn't that blithe scenario demand a pretty darn steep burden of proof? Proof that is nonexistent. And I mean 100% nonexistent.
Or else, consider a simpler explanation: that this gusher of indicted/convicted felonies may result from subornation of the once-great party of Lincoln, Teddy R., Ike and Goldwater into a 'swamp' of systematic criminality. (Side bet: which party has >10x the rate of high officials nailed for child predation?)
* Pick any random 10 of Trump's 150,000 registered lies for us to wager-over. Or any non-vapor ‘evidence’ of any election 'steal.' Or name ONE fact-centered profession that’s NOT hated-on by Fox? (I can name one, but can you?)
* Now those hated fact professions include the FBI! Plus all the intel agencies and the US military officer corps. All of them used to be, not long ago, admired by all US conservatives! Now? Funny how that enemies list just happens to include all the Americans who are most hated by Vlad Putin, blaming them for the fall of his beloved USSR? Shouldn't that perfect overlap cause some concern?
Wager! Let's ask those heroes (the FBI/intel/military officers who won the Cold War & War on Terror, but who are now hated nightly on Fox) to weigh in on fact-related matters! Like the climate crisis, or January 6, or Russian influence in the GOP… or whether Vlad's “ex” commissar cronies in Moscow - and a slightly relabeled KGB - ever actually changed their stripes?
No, I mean it. Let’s ask them! Afraid that experiment might contradict what you suckle, nightly, from the Fox teat?
* Let's go together and ask a panel of those fact folks to compare Hunter Biden's whole life – assuming the worst! - vs. any random week of the Trump boys. Let's tally NDAs & hush payments! How about we join forces to demand all records from both families!
Can we agree - across party lines - to a national campaign to cancel all the NDAs, publish all the business records and let the chips fall where they may? No? Then how about at least solid metrics of who 'drained the swamp?' When do K Street lobbying firms to best? During Dem or GOP administrations?
* Come to sea with me and a pH meter! Personally and together and in person. Then let’s take our readings to a randomly chosen community college chemistry instructor for clear interpretation. Let’s bet right now whether acidification is killing the oceans that our children will need! And it can ONLY be caused by human CO2 pollution.
Are you man enough to put up wager stakes? Or even more manly… to start caring?
* Compare DEATH rates of those who took - or refused - vaccines! Side question: Were ANY Americans as beloved by the nation, ever, as FDR was and later Jonas Salk?
* Can we bet which party is ALWAYS more fiscally responsible regarding debt and deficits? And yes, I mean always! (In fact, national Republican administrations are always spendthrift wastrels, sending deficits skyrocketing, while Democratic ones are always fiscally responsible. Please rush to escrow those wager stakes. Big ones.
"Are you squirming now?" (Ask your MAGA.) "How about, as a grownup, you live with the death of a favorite meme cliché!"
* I mentioned this before, but it really hits home! Let's put up real stakes whether Red-run States (except Utah) average higher in every class of turpitude! From gambling, addiction, STDs, domestic violence and murder to teen sex, divorce and net tax parasitism on the rest of the nation.
* Throw in the failure of a single Rightist “supply side economics” prediction ever, ever to come true. Did I say ever? The sole tangible outcome of that cult has been rocketing wealth disparities favoring inheritance brats – now passing French Revolution levels - along with the deliberate war on science and the planet.
Of course, it’s futile to demand wagers from blowhard cowards, desperately repeating reassuring mantras and masturbatory incantations. No MAGA/Putinist ever shows manly guts to back up their blab, the way that our WWII grampas would've, with cash stakes slapped on the bar and an honest “let’s find out!”
Instead, alas, the blowhards always flee, amid the ruins of their macho.
So why do I recommend the tactic?
Because it is this very assertiveness of confident men and women that will cause the New Confederates to back down... especially those unhappy, uncomfortable ones with actual minds, who know that something has gone terribly wrong with their 'movement.' Those who cover their ears and eyes, or suckle from the glass bosom of Fox etc., murmuring "I know my party's gone insane, but... but... but DEMOCRATS ARE WORSE! Yeah, that's the ticket..."
It's these borderline cases who are worth the effort. And I can prove that.
Way back during Watergate, I saw the shift happen, when a critical mass of such folks - ostrich Republicans in refusal to recognize criminality - finally lifted their heads out of holes of denial, shook off the cobwebs and admitted:
"I care more about my children, the future, science, truth, America and the world than about an undead were-elephant that badly needs a stake through its heart...
".... so that a decent, loyal, factual and American conservatism* can be reborn from the ashes of this monster."
When that happens (and I have faith in my neighbors!) I will be among those who step up, congratulate them, welcome that phoenix back home... and then get back to negotiating with actual adults about our richly varied course into the future.
======
* Do you know the State of Arizona now draws 7.3% of its electricity from the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave?
Well, then, maybe if I hum a few bars....
220 comments:
1 – 200 of 220 Newer› Newest»I'm not sure if this comment really belongs here but thought it important enough to try and bring it to everyone's attention. The Heritage foundation has put out a document which is jaw dropping in its craziness (https://shorturl.at/gouQ6). Titled Project 2025 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025), it has a set of policies meant for Trump to execute (abolish Dept. of Education, make it easier for the executive to sic the DOJ on his enemies etc.). Please take a look and I apologize in advance if y'all have already discussed this document.
tl;dr: The document tries to be both traditional-libertarian (in the Reagan sense) and populist-authoritarian (in the Trump sense). This attempt to square the circle is amazing and I begrudgingly give them full credit for trying to pull this off.
MAGA-republicans refuse to engage in a discussion of facts. Facts are meaningless to them. Every fact they dislike (most of 'em) is a "liberal lie". Its hopeless in my family, and they're well educated well-to-do people. Underneath all their crazed conservatism seems to be a deep fear and hatred of "the Other", who might be a minority, a woman, gay, homeless person, drug addict, and most feared&hated these days: an immigrant of color. I can't get past that with them.
Not exactly an "ostrich" story, but, wagers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBEH8appK-Q
Dr Brin in the main post:
Alas, none of that matters, apparently - only tax cuts for the nobility. That is the one and only determining issue, ever since the Party of Feudalism took over most libertarian institutions.)
To those pulling the strings, sure. To rank-and-file Republican voters, the one most important issue seems to be what is popularly called "owning the libs", which I simply call "being mean to those they don't like." To people who think "rolling coal" is great fun, or who gleefully subject refugees to death by razor wire and drowning, the cruelty is the point, and Republicans deliver for them in droves while Democrats never will.
"MAGA-republicans refuse to engage in a discussion of facts."
So? Again and again... THIS IS *YOUR* FAULT.
I keep describing how they do it, squirming and wriggling and when something corners them shifting the topic. I offer a way to PIN them down and no one ever listens or tries it. Instead, you all SHRUG! "It's hopeless, so why bother? Why put in the work?"
What's happening here - at root - is laziness.
But not all of you. Thanks for that link, "monkeyhead."
LH you are right. Our outrage is their food.
Dr Brin:
Our outrage is their food.
Best then not to let them see anger or concern for their victims, even if we feel it. Better to show only the sort of disdain one would give a toddler who thinks he knows how the world works. Even better is disdainful mockery. Nothing throws Trump off his game more than his being exposed as ridiculous.
Of course, there's a danger in that sort of turnabout.
"Let him have it. It isn't wise to upset a Republican"
"But sir, no one worries about upsetting a Democrat."
"That's because Democrats don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Republicans have been known to do that."
"I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let the Republican win."
LH that feeds their self-flattery of macho, perhaps their most dangerous trait.
Larry,
Best then not to let them see anger or concern for their victims, even if we feel it.
I agree here… and this gets to my small difference with our host regarding the value of wagers. Challenging the he-men in front of their female relatives DOES get heads to turn when the challenged flees, but I think that value comes in second to something much more useful.
IF one of us is focused on creating wager scenarios, it is hard to fall into a sanctimonious snit. Righteous Indignation and the necessary scheming that must occur to trap the macho dude don't mix well. Anger dominates our effort at scheming. The value we creating by remaining in scheming mode is that we do NOT appear to be sanctimonious in front of the he-man's female (and male) relatives. By appearing to be schemers who would prey upon the foolishness on display before us we send a VERY different message that will get noticed by some. THIS has a chance to peel away the saner aunts married to crazy uncles as well because they'll have to consider the terms of our schemes and look for the hidden dangers their nutty male relatives appear to be ignoring.
Better to show only the sort of disdain one would give a toddler who thinks he knows how the world works.
I disagree here. Nothing pisses off adults like the understanding that another thinks they are being childish. You'll harden their opinions against you.
Even better is disdainful mockery.
No. This is the sanctimony they expect and feed upon.
Nothing throws Trump off his game more than his being exposed as ridiculous.
It does, but then he rages back and that's what his followers expect and like.
I MUCH prefer when people put him in positions where he spouts something stupid like a proposal that we all gargle with bleach to deal with covid. The folks at CLOROX were frantic about that one and spent real money to discourage people from hurting themselves. Trump actually impacted their stock price at a time when they were flying real, real high.
(From last time)
Gregory,
…if "the pace of a tortoise" is sufficiently slow that it is hard to see any actual movement, then one should not be surprised if some people (particularly those still suffering discrimination) go looking for other options.
I'm fine with that as long as they aren't killing the tortoise.
Duncan,
…but its very rare for a CEO to have an actual positive effect.
I wouldn't go quite that far. Even moderately skilled CEO's know the lesson in "There is no I in TEAM." That's the defining understanding that helps someone transition from bucket #3 to #4.
So… a moderately skilled CEO could put together a team and have an actual positive effect. Remember that for a company well up their growth S-curve, sustainment in the presence of competition IS a positive effect.
Paul SB,
Your CEO that's a real blessing is a mighty low bar.
Well… I've lead teams. One does not generate magic from the top without having a good team at the top AND a workforce willing to believe them. Most of what makes the magic work is belief that it will.
CEO's are strategic choice deciders and usually can't do well without a decent team. Beyond that they are the Chief Sales Officer and much of that has to do with Belief.
For everyone else,
My tortoise metaphor relies on the movements of a tortoise going mostly unnoticed by reactionary forces. Those forces actually oppose change, so a tortoise causing it isn't ideal… but it works if other methods don't.
Another angle on my tortoise going unnoticed is that the tortoise itself might not realize its movement causes the desired change. It sounds strange to those who would design change and act forcefully, but this is how we've largely solved abject poverty. The tortoise who did it certainly didn't know it was racing that race.
Alfred Differ:
I MUCH prefer when people put him in positions where he spouts something stupid like a proposal that we all gargle with bleach to deal with covid.
Ok, so instead of treating them as ridiculous ourselves (and being blamed for bullying and lack of empathy ourselves), it's better to let them be themselves and remove all doubt as to their ridiculousness. Monty Python's "Even the police had to stand up and take notice."
The problem that creates, though, is that "letting them be themselves" is not a mere academic exercise. They look ridiculous only when they have inevitably caused real harm.
The folks at CLOROX were frantic about that one and spent real money to discourage people from hurting themselves. Trump actually impacted their stock price at a time when they were flying real, real high.
That's one way support goes away. When they realize he's not just an entertainer or a purveyor of alternate realities, but has actual real-world consequences that harm them. I wish the news media who seem to long for their Trump-era ratings would realize that they'll be the first ones Trump destroys if re-elected.
'Course there again is the rub--real harm is required before Trump-publican support dissolves. Administration members who quietly worked to prevent Trump-induced fiascos might have inadvertently dulled the message of how dangerous the man was as president. It took Hurricane Katrina and Terry Schiavo to demonstrate to the public that W's incompetence wasn't simply endearing. I cringe to think what it might take with Trump.
But it might be necessary to endure such pain to win.
Very good point Alfred.
Though I prefer not the Tportoise image since lots of people feel progress should not be told to wait. I prefer the three piggies.
Build progress with deliberate urgency... but build it well and be prepared to share the project, even with your rash, impatient brothers & sisters.
And tell the blowhard wolf he just looks silly.
Dr. Brin, you have your way of dealing with disagreeable people, and I have mine. My approach would not work for you and yours won't work for me.
I have friends all over the political spectrum. Keeping them is not always easy. For example, right now, support for freedom of speech is causing a big divide among people I know and respect. I see the pro-Palestinian protests and I don't want to stop them, but they terrify the rest of my family. "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." That terrifies a lot of people I know. But it is not an explicit call for violence. Some people use it as a call for violence, and probably a lot of people say it without realizing its possible evil interpretation.
There is very little speech that I would prohibit. Yes, there is a lot out there that scares me. That is one of the prices we pay for valuing freedom of speech. I think these prices are worth it...societies that only allow permissible speech are doomed to failure. We learn more from people we disagree with.
But...a lot of the pro-Palestinian protestors are using the Gaza attack as the current, vogue way to advocate the overthrow of Western Civilization. I look at what Western Civ has done for the world. There are a lot of fair criticisms, but if you spend any time reading about other civilizations you realize how lucky the world is right now. There are a lot of people who want to tear things down and they have no idea what will happen should they succeed.
One reason why I don't categorically oppose Palestinian protestors is because I have Palestinian cousins. A cousin of mine married a Palestinian Christian; they got married in his village in Israel. When I talk with him, he knows far more about the situation in Israel than I ever could. He is honest and sincere. And while his facts are powerful, I don't necessarily think they are conclusive. I'd never wager about Israel/Palestine with him no matter how much I disagree with him.
Supply Side Economics has never worked
Au Contraire - Supply Side has "worked" every time it has been applied
It has performed its planned effect of enriching the very rich and enpooring the poor
GMT recent events have dissolved a million pretenses. I believe so much of it is rooted in Putin's rising panic and need to hurl at western civilization everything he had been storing up. The vaunted Kremlin hackers let him down as did those who promised he'd easily sabotage subsea cables and bring us into a crash. His axis with NKorea and Iran is now explicit and they in turn ordered the Houthis into total commitment. And the Hamas attack on Putin's birthday? coincidence?
And now Iran is swapping missiles with Pakistan in order to... what? Make India stop drawing closer to the US? This is getting bizarre. And the Saudis are making noises about an entente with Israel, in exchange for a ceasefire that ANYONE other than Netanyahu would accept, along with 2-state...
Oh, and Africa is simmering. SO much revolves around Putin & Trump. And I keep fantacizing about helicopters in fog.
And now, just when you at least thought you saw the US political landscape... with the oligarchy increasingly desperate not to have Trump be the GOP nominee... suddenly polls in NEW HAMPSHIRE show N Haley booming! Well, New England never liked Trump. And South Carolina is next. So is she (again) the oligarchy's great hope?
Head... hurts.
If Haley were nominated and chose Trump as Veep, and the ticket won the election—MAGAs would impeach her.
Alfred,
"Most of what makes the magic work is belief that it will."
- This sounds like it could be a Terry Pratchett quote.
Paul SB
Alan,
That's an unlikely situation. It asks trump to play second banana to a woman, and one of non-European ancestry at that. However much the money wants someone besides trump, the common clay of the new West won't take a substitute unless, as OGH says, their hero disqualifies himself by dropping dead, having a stroke, or fleeing to Moscow. Maybe not even then. Also, wouldn't this plan require Democratic senators to vote to impeach Haley for (no real reason) and thereby restore trump to the White House? Not seeing a lot of buy-in there.
Duncan,
Yep, that's the way it works. "He is the broker. And you is the brokee." Still, there are non-rich faithful reactionaries who believe that if they wait just a little longer, for more tax cuts....I met one in the USAF who said something like that and then caught herself and changed the subject. I think she was treading too close to reality with its well-known liberal bias. Then there was the non-rich airman who thought restricting the voting franchise to citizens of property was a fine idea - even though, it turned out, he didn't own any land. How can you volunteer to disenfranchise yourself?
Pappenheimer
Paul,
I prefer the classic:
"The essence of magic is deceit"
- attributed to Appolonius of Tyana, who should know.
Pappenheimer
P.S. pretty sure pTerry never wrote quite those words, by Granny Weatherwax was a firm believer in 'headology' and maneuvering her clients into getting better without using any actual wizardry. Not that she was a slouch when it came to the real stuff...
cor - BUT Granny Weatherwax...
Pappenheimer
NoOne,
Someone nymmed McSandberg mentioned Project 2025 very enthusiastically a while ago, but when I heard the words "Heritage Society" I didn't follow the link. Assumed it would be a prescription for returning the US to 1885, if not 1860. Will give it a look-through. Thanks!
Pappenheimer
Welp, I was wrong. Project 2025 would return the US to 1775.
Re: 2025
Read some of the various policy proposals, but Wiki popped up this gem:
"Project 2025 seeks to place the entire Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and other agencies."
I'll repeat this: "...eliminating the independence of the DOJ"
Didn't we get rid of a king once?
Pappenheimer
Didn't we get rid of a king once?
Yes
But THAT King had full authority over the Royal wallpaper - Parliament was Sovereign
The last king to actually RULE had been given a very bad haircut about 100 years before that
Well, I was going to post an argument about Steve Jobs (despite questions about his "niceness") was most certainly way more than .6 valuable as CEO.
The problem isn't that Steve Jobs gets paid. The problem is that those .6 CEOs insist on getting paid like they are Steve Jobs (and yeah, Dr. Brin pretty much beat me to that argument , too.)
However, part of the issue is pretty minimal much what we've seen happen with the movie business.
Movies got into this mindset that if I spend 100m plus on production my movie will make 1b plus. Thus...EVERY movie we make should be a 100m production so that we have more shots at a 1b movie.
Well....you can't create a 1b blockbuster simply by spending money any more than you can create a great CEO by paying someone like their Steve Jobs. The CEO pretty much has to be great BEFORE u pay him/her like Steve Jobs.
With the movie, the actors, story, script pretty much need to be great and THEN throwing big bucks at SFX might push you over the top. BUT committing 100m to SFX and assuming that the great acting, story and script will naturally follow is mystical thinking.
In the previous, David Brin said...
GB we are talking past each other. You seem to feel that my preferring action over symbolism-fetishism makes me tepid about fighting for a better world. Yet everyone knows here that I put more time/energy into that fight than anyone they know. And yes, some symbolisms matter…
I think we may in part be talking past each other, but not for this reason.
First, if you are reading with any care, things such as my recent response to Alfred make explicit that I (personally) am not a supporter of empty symbolism.
But more importantly, I find that many liberal moderates are too quick to label things as "empty symbolism" when they are not. As I noted previously about "hurtful words", if those around me use language that tells me that they believe me to be not an equal member of my community, then I have good reason to believe that they will not treat me as such, and I am not being at all unreasonably to question this, especially if these are people who have power over me and my future (instructors, supervisors, and so on).
And, yes, I agreed with you that some part of "the left" (like some part of "the right" and also "the middle") are "sanctimoy junkies", as you put it. But it does not serve progress or "the coalition" you support to follow the right and its media sources in attempting to tar everyone on the left with that brush.
Yes, nothing gets accomplished without the power to accomplish it. But even with power, goals do not get accomplished if those with power do not pursue them. Again: I do not agree with the "splitters", and would vote for any Democrat over any Republican, were I an American citizen. But it makes it much harder for someone to convince those on "the left" to join your coalition when the members of that coalition trivialize or dismiss the concerns of those on "the left". "We don't think your concerns are a priority (and some of them are stupid), but vote for us anyway!" is not a particularly compelling argument.
Just as a parlor game, I've always wondered if a little taxation ju-jitsu could make Supply Side Econ work as intended, IF said oligarch or blue chip corp could ONLY evade taxation by reinvesting their profits into the marketplace.
However, it might fly in the face of human nature. When people achieve tycoon-level wealth, they typically become much more risk adverse and happy with small but sure profits.
Economiste tend to call this "rent seeking behavior." But to me, the more pertinent point is that once they achieve tycoon status, most people want to crush u with accumulated success rather then step into the ring and slug it out in real competition. After all, they could LOSE a fair fight, but will almost certainly win if they use that fortress of money they've accumulated to drop sacks of gold on your head before u can join battle.
Elon Musk is both a weirdo and titanically wealth beyond his billionaire peers bc he was willing to risk most of his already vast fortune to chase dreams with Tesla and SpaceX.
Both ventures came close to breaking him, but Musk managed to evade the abyss of near failure to achieve absurd success. I mean seriously, BEFORE the pandemic Musk was worth something like 22b, and after the pandemic it was more than 120b. In those years, Tesla became the biggest market cap car company in the world due to their best-in class electric car tech, while producing only a tiny fraction of cars in the world market.
SpaceX had lots of failures blow up on launch pads, before their vehicles started working.
Alan Brooks:
If Haley were nominated and chose Trump as Veep, and the ticket won the election—MAGAs would impeach her.
Removal from office requires 2/3 of the Senate, and there is no way any Democratic Senator would vote to put Trump back in the White House that way.
However, if the scenario you describe were to come to pass, it would almost certainly be with an understanding that Haley resigns once in office.
But if the Dems were arrested, Haley could conceivably be impeached. Or go the way of Prigozhin in an accidental crash.
Pappenheimer:
Then there was the non-rich airman who thought restricting the voting franchise to citizens of property was a fine idea - even though, it turned out, he didn't own any land.
Once you tie the franchise to property rights, how does it continue to make sense that someone who owns one acre of land (or one share of stock) deserves the same vote as Elon Musk? The logical conclusion is "one dollar--one vote", where elections are essentially the same thing as stockholders voting their shares.
And so democracy dies (to thunderous applause).
How can you volunteer to disenfranchise yourself?
Ann Coulter famously claimed she'd welcome the vote being denied to women. The rationale is, "Better for my political goals if others like me can't vote."
If Haley refused to resign, an Enabling Act might be the result, and the Dem senators could be arrested.
John Viril:
Movies got into this mindset that if I spend 100m plus on production my movie will make 1b plus.
My wife is a realtor, and she knows that many home sellers have the same mentality. That every dollar spent on the money pit will (and should) be profitable at sale time.
Alan Brooks:
But if the Dems were arrested, Haley could conceivably be impeached.
Arrested by whom? Haley's DOJ?
Or go the way of Prigozhin in an accidental crash.
That would be the more likely scenario, and also a reason why neither Haley nor any other Republican would volunteer for the "Trump as VP" scenario. Unless, as I suggested, the idea all along is that once in office, she would resign in Trump's favor.
Alan Brooks:
If Haley refused to resign, an Enabling Act might be the result, and the Dem senators could be arrested.
Is this a serious argument, or are you just funnin' with us now? :)
Haley would sign an Enabling Act and then arrest Dem Senators so that she could be removed from office? If she was that complicit in the scheme, wouldn't resigning be quicker and easier?
Re: TASAT
WORLD WAR Z (2013) relied a lot on the "Tenth Man Rule". That's the idea that any think tank needs someone to consider the wildest of wild cards - just in case. This isn't GoLLeM territory (as I had erroneously supposed earlier); it requires true, unfettered, human imagination. Perhaps even an uplifted non-human mind.
“the common clay of the new West won't take a substitute unless, as OGH says, their hero disqualifies himself by dropping dead, having a stroke, or fleeing to Moscow.”
I am accepting odds whether DT makes it to October. The oligarchs realize if he loses, they lose… and if he wins he will likely go full brownshirt, be immune to blackmail, and then they really lose, bigtime.
But they’ll Howard Beale him in a way that suits their needs… martyrdom. God bless the Secret Service and the FBI.
------
“ How can you volunteer to disenfranchise yourself?” Standard Confederate behavior described by Mark Twain.
-------
JV: “Just as a parlor game, I've always wondered if a little taxation ju-jitsu could make Supply Side Econ work as intended, IF said oligarch or blue chip corp could ONLY evade taxation by reinvesting their profits into the marketplace.”
That’s called Keynesianism. It’s in the Pelosi bills. And it is working.
----
Gregory B, do you think I deem it empty symbol fetishism to denounce nasty, demoralizing racial slurs? You know darned well that’s not what I am talking about, even remotely. Campus loonies set themselves up as sole judges of ‘trigger warnings’ where even mention of abstract concepts – as abstractions to be appraised in class – is a class and bigotry crime. To justify this, they spread a cult of fragility that would have appalled MLK.
If you do not know this, then you have spent no time on campus in that last… forty years? But it is far worse today…
…and the TOP locus of ire is not the racists, but ALLIES who refuse to accept dominance of the movement by symbolism bullies. Again, I recommend Orwell’s works, a leftist who witnessed this sickness that ALWAYS plagues the left.
“And, yes, I agreed with you that some part of "the left" (like some part of "the right" and also "the middle") are "sanctimoy junkies", as you put it. But it does not serve progress or "the coalition" you support to follow the right and its media sources in attempting to tar everyone on the left with that brush.”
What a spectacularly dumb thing to say. You are denouncing a strawman version of me who ‘said’ things that I never said. In fact, the diametric opposite.
“But it makes it much harder for someone to convince those on "the left" to join your coalition when the members of that coalition trivialize or dismiss the concerns of those on "the left".”
Jesus.
Half-serious.
The past is fiction; the future SF.
When her car doesn’t start one morning, she might be persuaded to resign, with a promise that she’d be allowed to continue existing.
Dr. Brin,
I think he'll make it. Unfortunately. He's very well protected and if only the good die young, he'll reach Kissinger age - or that of Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice, who sent the Fourth Crusade to sack Constantinople (then a Christian city) at the age of 97.
What odds are you giving?
Pappenheimer
John Viril,
In the spirit of that parlor game, it is useful to note that Piketty got something very much correct in his big book. Those risk averse tycoons you mention put their money in the relatively safe bond market to beat the growth rate. Since government bonds fund government, they have leverage with officials even if they aren't bribing them directly.
So when you ponder alt.futures where profits are re-invested in the market, consider excluding government bonds as taxation havens. The tycoons and progressives have common cause in growing that segment of the bond market whether they like to admit it or not.
———
SpaceX had lots of failures blow up on launch pads, before their vehicles started working.
True. Those early Falcon 1's almost sank the company… but they were doing the right thing anyway. There was no way they could have done it with that same amount of money if they had tried the method used by our other space/defense contractors. Musk didn't have that kind of cash to risk.
Nowadays those rockets don't blow up and they don't fail to land. Musk hired a talented and VERY motivated team. He also got himself out of the way leaving much of the operational aspects to Shotwell. Good COO's are more important than many realize. 8)
That’s called Keynesianism. It’s in the Pelosi bills. And it is working
Well...I've always viewed mainline Keynesianism as counter-cyclical spending to short circuit a recession, but that might perhaps be due to a limited education in economics.
Those early Falcon 1's almost sank the company… but they were doing the right thing anyway.
Alfred, totally agree. Wasn't criticizing Musk. Anyone with three functioning brain cells SHOULD have expected multiple failures. It happened to early US rockets, it happened in most innovative aerospace systems, and it darn well was going to happen when u try to make space work on a commercially profitable basis.
That means the business model has to be much different than a NASA program, which meant YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF MISTAKES.
I think lots of us here are some level of Musk fan (which doesn't seem to be true in the "real" world) because we see him as one of our own (sci-fi geeks).
That whole Peter Tiel Mafia crew are sci-fi nerds who wanted to be D.D. Harriman---which in my book makes them at least somewhat useful oligarchs. And, TBH, I darn well would like to be a "somewhat useful oligarch."
Re: Universities
More and more top universities are sounding the alarm about looming insolvency. So abandoning pure science, humanities, history, anthropology, non-dogmatic sociology, and research for research's sake in a mad rush to climb into bed with corporate hucksters isn't a plan for lasting success? Huh.
So when you ponder alt.futures where profits are re-invested in the market, consider excluding government bonds as taxation havens.
Alfred,
Good point. I gleaned enough about estates and trusts to know that tax free bonds are the bedrock staple of most long-term trust plans. If your goal is to follow that "rule of thumb" standard of spending 3% of principal per year while getting richer in real dollar terms, you need consistent (and tax sheltered)vehicles like that.
David, my head hurts too. We both want to save civilization but there are a lot of stupid people who want to throw it all away.
Alan Brooks:
When her car doesn’t start one morning, she might be persuaded to resign, with a promise that she’d be allowed to continue existing.
Any Republican who runs for president with Trump for VP would have to already know that the eventual plan would be for her to resign or die. If that wasn't the plan all along, why for gosh sakes would she choose Trump as veep? And if she goes ahead with eyes open, I don't see why she would then refuse to resign.
But if she did--if she decided she liked the job after all and decided to keep it--I certainly don't see why she would then arrest Democratic Senators so that the remaining Republicans could evict her from that very office. That's not science-fiction; it's idiot-plot farce.
…and the TOP locus of ire is not the racists, but ALLIES who refuse to accept dominance of the movement by symbolism bullies. Again, I recommend Orwell’s works, a leftist who witnessed this sickness that ALWAYS plagues the left.
Yes. This drives me nuts. That is why the three university presidents deserved to be condemned for their answers to the trap questions asked by that House Rep. They were stating the ideal position for the way free speech and DEI policies should interact on campus, not the way they are actually interacting. It does not free them culpability. At best, they were ignorant. Most likely, they were lying at the behest of their legal advisors who could not let them tell the truth.
I believe in freedom of speech. I believe that this means accepting some unpleasant speech. But you can’t have a system where some people are free to say whatever they want and others will be forced to silence with threats to their careers and their public standing.
David said...
[quotes are what I wrote]
“And, yes, I agreed with you that some part of "the left" (like some part of "the right" and also "the middle") are "sanctimoy junkies", as you put it. But it does not serve progress or "the coalition" you support to follow the right and its media sources in attempting to tar everyone on the left with that brush.”
What a spectacularly dumb thing to say. You are denouncing a strawman version of me who ‘said’ things that I never said. In fact, the diametric opposite.
“But it makes it much harder for someone to convince those on "the left" to join your coalition when the members of that coalition trivialize or dismiss the concerns of those on "the left".”
Jesus.
I guess I can only answer with a question: what do you want, and what are you trying to accomplish?
What do you want to happen to the "Campus loonies"? Some "campus loonies" have been around for as long as I can remember, and I suspect a lot longer than that. Attacking them will not make them disappear.
I think that they are a small minority, and you have a good chance of bringing the non-loonies into your coalition, but not if you (along with other liberal moderates) are too quick to condemn as "campus loonies" anyone who does not fall immediately into line.
And if they are not a minority, then attacking them seems even more counterproductive to building a coalition.
What is your goal, and how does railing about "campus loonies" help to achieve it?
Looks like we won't have Ron DeSantis to kick around any more.
GMT-5 8032:
the three university presidents deserved to be condemned for their answers to the trap questions asked by that House Rep. They were stating the ideal position for the way free speech and DEI policies should interact on campus, not the way they are actually interacting.
I suspect they were answering in a manner similar to the way religious people answer poll questions like, "Do you accept the theory of evolution?" Their answers have little to do with scientific assessment. What they're hearing and answering is, "Do you renounce God?"
Likewise, I suspect the university presidents, receiving questions from right-wing whackos about pro-Palestinian protests being anti-Semetic were answering the question, "Do you admit that pro-Palestinian rhetoric should be censored?"
Myself, I don't think all sympathy for Palestinians equals hatred of Jews, but neither do I think that actual hatred of Jews counts as protected speech while hatred of Muslims or terrorism or MAGAts does not.
But you can’t have a system where some people are free to say whatever they want and others will be forced to silence with threats to their careers and their public standing.
But didn't you just assert that university presidents themselves should be forced to silence with threats to their careers and public standing?
Pappenheimer,
Esme Weatherwax was an interesting mouthpiece for Pratchett, but I thought Tiffany Aching has more potential. Not so jaded.
Paul SB
I agree with Dr. Brin more with every passing day, especially when he says that it’s futile to demand wagers from those who routinely engage in the cowardice of moral relativism, as in the case of Seattle WA which stopped investigating & prosecuting adult sexual assaults (2022), Portland OR which decriminalized the possession of drugs like fentanyl & heroin (2020), and San Francisco CA which decriminalized retail theft under Prop 47 (2014).
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/seattle-police-halted-investigating-adult-sexual-assaults-this-year-internal-memo-shows/
https://apnews.com/article/oregon-drugs-decriminalization-pushback-bb209e6ba9835c69f95b093c8ee00279
https://growsf.org/blog/prop-47/
Furthermore, it's simply not possible to compare relative crime statistics between the various US states anymore, since 21 out of 50 states -- with a clear democrat blue state preponderance -- simply fail to record and/or report their crime rates to the US federal government. This is the Three Monkey Approach written large.
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2023/08/09/states-that-do-not-report-crime-to-the-fbi/
By virtue of this Three Monkey Approach, our no_seeing, no_hearing & no_speaking liberal-progressive caste can now simultaneously deny the incredibly obvious evils that their well-intentioned policies create, while remaining absolutely steadfast to their preferred artificial narrative, and this renders them incapable of even a modicum of objectivity.
Willfully, our liberal-progressive caste have chosen to become REALITY DENIERS, and you'd have to be literally insane to enter into any kind of binding contract or wager with them because they will never ever admit to even the smallest loss.
Best
Vladimir Putin appears eager to rewrite the past. He signed a decree rendering the sale of Alaska illegal. Like declaring void all treaties guaranteeing Ukrainian independence... or mergin Soviet flags and emblems with the Czarist escutcheons he spat on, back when he was an 'idealistic' Leninist KGB agent, now raising statues to Nicholas II whom Lenin 'righteously' murdered. And you wonder where Orwell got his ideas?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-stokes-tensions-with-us-declares-1867-sale-of-alaska-illegal/ar-BB1h1lcT
“Some "campus loonies" have been around for as long as I can remember, and I suspect a lot longer than that. Attacking them will not make them disappear.”
I have experienced these jabbering bullies for 40 years. They are no friends of enlightenment or even actual, pragmatic liberalism. They will NOT accept any alliance with the likes of me. Indeed, many of them are eager for liberalism to fail, so the revolution can come. Others get off at screaming - and since there are few rightists on campus and those simply smile at the screams, the nutters instead go after allies.
It is not my fault that you utterly and repeatedly ignore my very clear meaning.
I am not trying to make anyone ‘disappear.’ I aim to get young liberals to realize these crazies are not role models and that pragmatic politics can achieve the power to do more good… like the Pelosi miracle bills that ignoramus radicals denounce without even a glint in their actual ignorance.
“I think that they are a small minority, and you have a good chance of bringing the non-loonies into your coalition, but not if you (along with other liberal moderates) are too quick to condemn as "campus loonies" anyone who does not fall immediately into line.”
They ARE a minority… and they relentlessly bully the non-loonie majority to adopt every crazy symbol or word-obsession and hammer mercilessly at any failure, thus helping the confederate cause. And your absolute refusal to see my meaning is an example of the problem. Dig it, these cretins will NOT be appeased or drawn in. ALL they do is harm the cause. And your blindness to that is the real problem here.
Our side's nutter bullies ARE far fewer than the Mad Right... but they are almost like a fifth column, actually HELPING that treason.
“LGBTQ and feminists for Hamas!!” read a recent banner. Uh… seriously?
----
Locum cites actual examples of actual complaints against actual leftist policies. I will shrug aside the fact that these are inflated-exaggerated out of all sense or proportion. Or that it is long past time to take further steps out of the damned drug war. Or that these are straws for him to cling to… amid an ocean of confederate insanity and crimes.
References from news articles are of little value, especially in the internet age. Almost any opinion, on almost any topic, can be found out there. Better to argue from axioms, first principles, and speakers who have been tested by the centuries.
"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus & Thucydides, for Newton & Euclid; & I find myself much the happier."
Jefferson to Adams, Jan 21, 1812 (National Archives)
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-04-02-0334
Naturally, it’s half-serious.
Still, I don’t rule anything
out—have not since ‘16.
Haley has to go by a certain MAGA script.
The X-Files explain what happened to Buffalo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XG2WdP2R4U
I remember the leftist loonies around the Ohio State University in the late 70s. They had their posters plastered everwhere. They had an image of an angry young woman with a scowl on her face and a clenched fist in the air and it would announce some rally: PATTY PRESCOTT AND THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST YOUTH BRIGADE.
A brigade, huh? Did they have an S-1 Personnel Officer like me? S-2 Intelligence? S-3 Operations? S-4 Logistics? S-6 Communications? S-8 Fiscal? If not, what kind of brigade are they?
They will never admit to even the most infinitesimal loss?
Dr Brin:
“LGBTQ and feminists for Hamas!!” read a recent banner. Uh… seriously?
Also, "Hands off Yemen!", though not "Hands off Ukraine". Wonder why?
I am more and more convinced that there must have been a "Jews For Hitler" faction in 1932 Germany.
We can’t expect more from a retired physician concerning these matters.
Nor can we expect c 18- 25 yr old university students to be wise re politics; esp if their radical elders are giving them bad advice—filling empty heads.
He’s angling for a cabinet appointment.
This article illustrates how Haley is between a rock and a hard place. A flaw in the piece is towards the end, when it concludes that she is not aggressive enough. Yet such wouldn’t be ladylike enough for the GOP:
https://spectator.org/haley-made-strategic-blunders-theyre-costing-her-the-campaign/
Hello all. I am a very recently retired chemistry professor (37 years teaching and research in Physical Chemistry at an R1 state university). I've been following this group on and off for a number of years, and I've been following David Brin for a lot longer than that: I read Startide Rising on a train ride taking me from grad school to my postdoc position. Somebody asked for a chemist, so here I am.
British climate scientist James Annan has been making (and winning) wagers with climate deniers for a couple of decades now: https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-science-bet. Google "Annan climate bet" and you'll find more examples. Basically, the climate deniers now either ignore him or offer ridiculous conditions (Richard Lindzen wanted 50:1 odds).
Regarding ocean acidification, I really like this article by three oceanographic chemists from New Zealand: https://skepticalscience.com/docs/OA_not_OK_Mackie_McGraw_Hunter.pdf
It starts out at the level of high school chemistry, but takes you a lot farther into the details than most popular articles do. The basic principles are simple but the details get messy - multiple coupled chemical equilibria in regimes where the standard textbook approximations aren't valid. One thing that surprises a lot of people: the formation of calcium carbonate shells in the ocean is a net *source* of atmospheric CO2, not a sink. Conversely, weathering of rocks contains carbonate is a sink for atmospheric CO2.
Thank you Robert P! You are welcome here any time.
I have two followup questions:
1. I often challenge denialist cultists to come with me to sea (if the loser pays all expenses) to measure ocean Ph and/or take samples to a randomly chosen community college chemistry prof. No one ever accepts and that refusal is the lesson. Still if someone does accept, IS there a way to do that trip well and generate a result that chacks the available online sources. I know that local variations in currents and effluents and all of that will likely muddy the results, unless it's done in many different places/times!
2. Before 500 M years ago Earth's average oxygen levels were lower, If around 18% is it true that there are no open fires? Or would life likely have evolved different flamability before that?
Anyway, thankd for all that.
db
Nice to meet you, Robert_P.
We can always use an actual chemist, even though I have already tried to explain the limitations of an aqueous Bicarbonate Buffering System to these mechanical science philistines for many years.
What, then, is your opinion of direct CO2 capture and conversion of hydrogen ions into gaseous hydrogen using water solubilized magnesium nanoparticles under ambient conditions, especially when one recognizes that the magnesium cation is the second most common metal found in seawater?
It offers an ancillary buffering pathway to ocean acidification & CO2 degradation not considered by our current crop of simple-minded climate clowns. Links follow.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/sc/d1sc01113h
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/ta/c7ta02457f
Best
______
PS: Our fine host has trouble accepting that freshwater zebra mussels & shellfish can thrive at a neutral aqueous pH of 7.0, so could you please explain to him how life-sustaining freshwater naturally possesses a much lower pH than high solute concentration seawater?
freshwater zebra mussels & shellfish can thrive at a neutral aqueous pH of 7.0, so could you please explain to him how life-sustaining freshwater naturally possesses a much lower pH than high solute concentration seawater?
For the same reason that sheep can eat grass and cats can't
The bloody things have EVOLVED to survive in that environment
David Brin said...
It is not my fault that you utterly and repeatedly ignore my very clear meaning.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I think that your meaning (and that of many others) is not, in fact, "very clear", and that is what I am trying to get you to understand.
As I said earlier:
“I think that they are a small minority, and you have a good chance of bringing the non-loonies into your coalition, but not if you (along with other liberal moderates) are too quick to condemn as "campus loonies" anyone who does not fall immediately into line.”
But I don't think it is so simple as to say:
they relentlessly bully the non-loonie majority to adopt every crazy symbol or word-obsession and hammer mercilessly at any failure, thus helping the confederate cause.
I haven't spent any significant time on college or university campuses since I left academia some twenty-five years ago. But I do converse regularly with current students and recent graduates, and have a number of friends who are currently professors or instructors, so I don't think I am completely ignorant.
The thing is, it is not just "bully"ing, but to some extent convincing others, because the complaints from the "campus loonies" contain at least some truth. Far too many - particularly "elite" - schools are not particularly diverse, equitable, or inclusive, and far too many students (among others) continue to experience discrimination.
I can't speak for everyone, but if I were a black student, and the professor in one of my (let us suppose, required) courses refused to take a "loyalty oath" agreeing that diversity is good and racism is bad, then I would have some serious concerns about equitable treatment. And, no, someone merely saying "I treat everyone equally" is not a sufficient response, because there are far too many cases of persons saying this, but not doing so.
Something similar is true of "trigger warnings". If someone argues that a student should not be slapped in the face with something like depictions of sexual violence, then a lot of current students (and others) will think that this makes a lot of sense. Yes, a survivor of sexual assault may be somewhat "fragile" in this area, but you are unlikely to win any friends by telling them to grow a thicker skin.
Yes, some 'DEI', "trigger warning", and "woke" claims can be silly, but one will not win people over with blanket claims about "DEI loyalty oaths" and "fragility" or any other (right wing) framing of the issues. In my view, you are far more likely to drive people away from your coaltion by doing so, as they will see you attacking things that they think are important to defend.
“LGBTQ and feminists for Hamas!!” read a recent banner. Uh… seriously?
Did it? I've looked, and I can find no evidence of any such banner. I would think that this would be all over the right wing news and easy to find. I can find "Queers for Palestine", but that is not the same thing. Yes, I can find various right wing comments saying how stupid it is for queers to support "Hamas" or saying "just how incompatible the values of the Western left are with the Islamic right they so readily champion". But of course, supporting Palestine or Palestinians is not the same as supporting "Hamas" or "the Islamic right". Indeed, I know quite a number of people who support Palestine (to one degree or another), and not a single one supports Hamas or Islamists.
Again, picking up (and amplifying) right wing talking points does not seem like a good way to bring (non-looney) left leaning people into your coalition.
https://www.workers.org/wp-content/uploads/queersforpal-e1700273733302-678x495.jpeg
Right-wings around the world *love* assertiveness. They love being able to give their thinking to the loudest, especially if he tells them who to blame.
It is almost as important as identity politics.
There isn't a third characteristic that is nearly as important.
@Alan Brooks,
I think gregory's point is that "...for Palestine" is not the same thing as "...for HAMAS". That there's a difference between sympathy for a population under fire and support of terrorism.
(Though I have a hard time squaring that with the observation that, "If elections were held in Gaza today, HAMAS would win.")
Democrats might be willing to deal with Mike Johnson to pass Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan/Border Security bill. If they can overcome Trump-structionism.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jan22-5.html
...
Now some Democrats are openly talking about an unthinkable deal: If Johnson puts the Senate bill up for a vote, they will save his hide when MTG introduces the MTV. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said: "Our job is not to save Johnson, but I think it would be a mighty pity, if he did the right thing ... for us not to support him. Up to this point, he's been a fairly honest broker." What he means is that although Johnson is more conservative than Kevin McCarthy, he is not a sleazy creep who breaks his promises all the time. In politics, an honest opponent with whom you disagree on policy gets more respect than a bad-faith weasel who says what you want to hear and then double-crosses you.
...
The mere fact that Democrats are now openly talking about this deal shows how desperate they are. Not only would passing a bill be good policy, but it would also defuse one of Trump's main arguments in the general election: Biden didn't do anything about the border crisis. For that reason alone, Trump will never support any bill relating to the border, even if it gives Republicans everything they want. Trump cannot tolerate a Biden victory on this sensitive matter. It would take the wind out of his sails.
...
Larry Hart said...
@Alan Brooks,
I think gregory's point is that "...for Palestine" is not the same thing as "...for HAMAS". That there's a difference between sympathy for a population under fire and support of terrorism.
Indeed. The fact that I wrote 'I can find "Queers for Palestine", but that is not the same thing', should be something of a hint.
Does the Rainbow flag, aka the Gay Pride flag, count? That flag is commonly on display at anti-Israel / pro-Palestine demonstrations. But maybe some subtle point has gone right over my head? The evidence seems very clear to me. The LGBTQ community has been well represented at these demonstrations. And anyone that has trouble seeing the irony in that is trying too hard.
Is this good evidence that the LGBTQ community as a whole supports Hamas killing innocent Israeli and foreign national civilians, including babies, in horribly barbaric ways? No. Probably just a small percentage of their more extremist / delusional, just like any other group.
But it is ironic. As hell.
Any activists that are demonstrating because they have sympathy for Palestinian civilians caught up in a war should be careful not to associate themselves with folks shouting slogans like "By any means necessary," and "Globalize the Intifada," and who celebrate HAMAS's initial attack by passing around posters if an image of a HAMAS terrorist in a paraglider on his way to earn his 72 virgins. And guess what. Lots of these delusional western activist types aren't being that careful. Including many (with respect to the group "demonstrators") university students and people who identify with the Gay Pride flag.
This, from an Anti-Defamation League, says it pretty well, I think.
"Let’s be clear: It is possible to care about Palestinian civilians without supporting Hamas or whitewashing their slaughter, pillaging and kidnapping. It’s possible to criticize Israeli actions and policies without calling for the eradication of the Jewish state. It’s possible for advocate for your point of view without feeding into the escalating anti-Jewish atmosphere that has engulfed so many of our campuses and big cities.
To be sure, we cannot ascribe specific intent to all those attending these demonstrations. At the same time, we can say that by joining or affiliating oneself with any such protest or slogan or chant, you are associating with its message. Those who have joined should ask themselves: am I comfortable being complicit in the negative impact of these words and the real-world harm they cause? Or do I want to be associated with efforts that are about working for peace, justice and finding a solution to this unbearable crisis?
We all want a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians, but that hope, that call, is not what you will get at these demonstrations."
Darell E quotes:
"Let’s be clear: It is possible to care about Palestinian civilians without supporting Hamas or whitewashing their slaughter, pillaging and kidnapping.
Especially since the current round of anti-Israel protests are about actions responding to Hamas's slaughter, pillaging, and kidnapping.
They seem to assert that the terrorist attacks of Oct 7 were retroactively justified by Israel's military response.
Someone above said there must have been Jews for Hitler:
Here you go
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews
The founder apparently went to a concentration camp later. Face, meet leopard.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
...Jews for Hitler:
I would say "Words fail me," but unfortunately I'm not at all surprised.
After all, we've seen "Blacks for Trump" and "Women for Trump". And the ludicrous Muslim "Abandon Biden" movement who hate the individual so much that they say they know full well they'll get Trump instead and don't care.
"Jews for Hitler" is only a bit funnier.
...not to mention that guy in Life of Brian hanging upside down in the dungeon going, "Great race, the Romans!"
Duncan_C makes the brilliant observation that freshwater zebra mussels can thrive at a neutral aqueous pH For the same reason that sheep can eat grass and cats can't (as) The bloody things have EVOLVED to survive in that environment.
What he describes is called evolutionary adaption, and most consider this a good thing, unless they subscribe to the Fukuyama 'End of History' School which assumes that our current environment & all the living creatures it contains are now perfect in every way and need not ever change again.
Too bad, so sad, that the evolutionary principle does not work that way, as it neither supports such a hubristically self-important worldview, nor does it stop when the likes of Fukuyama & Duncan_C cry 'hold' and demand an end to further evolutionary adaption.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
Best
______
Embrace this absurdity, Pappenheimer. Called 'Todestrieb' by Freud, the self-loathing trope is true, made ever more apparent by one's relentlessly perverse support for socialism, marxism & the US democrat party, too. You choose the form of your destructor because you must choose, and so you choose.
Larry,
Funny? It's hilarious! Mel Brooks would be chuckling darkly. If I'd been there at the end of "Planet of the Apes" instead of Charlton Heston, I wouldn't have been able to stop laughing. It is a flaw in my character.
Paul SB,
I found Esme Weatherwax to be inspirational. Jaded or not, and knowing exactly what people are like, she did the right thing. Liking them was optional. She knew she could have been an EXCEPTIONAL bad witch.
Pappenheimer
Re using WAGERS effectively, one of you offered: “British climate scientist James Annan has been making (and winning) wagers with climate deniers for a couple of decades now: Google "Annan climate bet" and you'll find more examples.”
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-science-bet.
Regarding ocean acidification, I really like this article by three oceanographic chemists from New Zealand:It starts out at the level of high school chemistry, but takes you a lot farther into the details than most popular articles do. The basic principles are simple but the details get messy - multiple coupled chemical equilibria in regimes where the standard textbook approximations aren't valid. One thing that surprises a lot of people: the formation of calcium carbonate shells in the ocean is a net *source* of atmospheric CO2, not a sink. Conversely, weathering of carbonate rocks is a sink for atmos CO2.
https://skepticalscience.com/docs/OA_not_OK_Mackie_McGraw_Hunter.pdf
----
Dang locum is really trying very hard! Still a nutter but far less of an unpleasant one! And offering citations, too. Marginal, but of actual interest.
As for saltwater ph vs freshwater... um? Almost completely separate biomes. One is vital to land life - folks now catch healthy fish from piers in PITTSBURGH, thanks to 'liberal' legislation - but freshawater eco does not after the whole ATMOSHERE and planetary habitability, the way debasing of the oceans clearly is on course to do.
---
GB... yes, you just doubled down on “I think that they are a small minority, and you have a good chance of bringing the non-loonies into your coalition, but not if you (along with other liberal moderates) are too quick to condemn as "campus loonies" anyone who does not fall immediately into line.”
And since you doubled down, instead of listening to my complaint that it was an utter misinterpretation of what I say... I must conclude that my protests mean nothing no you, nor honesty nor curiosity or decency.
A ceased reading at that point and I am done talking to you about this.
You are behaving as an utter asshole. Come back when you are a grownup willing to behave like a decent person.
---
Pappenheimer:
If I'd been there at the end of "Planet of the Apes" instead of Charlton Heston,
If Taylor had had a gun, those damn dirty apes would never have taken him prisoner.
'Course if Moses had had a gun...
Loc,
" perverse support for socialism, marxism & the US democrat (sic) party"
It's not surprising that you use the incorrect form of the Democratic Party - it's a bit sad, though. You seem well educated. You do realize that knowing hungry children exist - and I saw plenty in India when I was growing up - and wanting to do something about it does not make one perverse? Alfred may well be right that the tortoise's approach gets more lasting results, but in the long run those kids may be dead of curable illnesses or alive but with irreparable IQ damage.
You do realize that those are three different things? That Marx would look at the Democratic platform and say, "Nope, not what I meant"?
Pappenheimer, off work due to flu-ish illness and contemplating homemade potato soup. Gods bless the spouse.
P.S. "...Fukuyama 'End of History' School which assumes that our current environment & all the living creatures it contains are now perfect in every way and need not ever change again." By all the Gods, man, lay off the hyperbole. That stuff'll kill ya.
David Brin said...
GB... yes, you just doubled down on “I think that they are a small minority, and you have a good chance of bringing the non-loonies into your coalition, but not if you (along with other liberal moderates) are too quick to condemn as "campus loonies" anyone who does not fall immediately into line.”
And since you doubled down, instead of listening to my complaint that it was an utter misinterpretation of what I say... I must conclude that my protests mean nothing no you, nor honesty nor curiosity or decency.
Just so you understand, David, what I am saying is not about your beliefs, but about your words and how they are likely to be interpreted. If I thought you meant that interpretation, then there would be no reason to criticise.
A ceased reading at that point and I am done talking to you about this.
So you are not interested in what I mean, then?
You are behaving as an utter asshole. Come back when you are a grownup willing to behave like a decent person.
Your site, your rules.
I don't think that attempting (what I see as) constructive criticism is being an "utter asshole", and will probably not change that, so I will probably not be back.
Pappenheimer:
...contemplating homemade potato soup.
My wife has digestion trouble with cow. Not "dairy", but cow milk, cow cheese, and beef itself. Goat milk, etc. is no problem.
So for her sake, I learned how to make a decent loaded baked potato soup using goat milk and goat cheese. The things we do for love.
I looked it up, the “activists” who made the banner are Communists. Whether they’re Communists or Islamofascists means little—as they want most of all to kill, to:
eliminate opposition
and
reduce the population.
Oh, yes, Dr. Brin drives off another measured, mild voice of criticism from his left. No long-time reader or commenter is surprised by the latest.
Gregory, I gave up trying to argue *any* issue from a liberal or progressive point of view here. The host will strawman, insult, and then lie about it later. And then insult again when he issues a non-honest apology.
This is from The Emergency National Association To Kill Many People, or whatever. Sure there’re well-meaning ‘activists’ among them, as there were countless well meaning nazis. Albert Speer for example was kindly and talented. But the overarching goal was—and is—to KILL. Humans aren’t grass-eaters.
https://www.workers.org/wp-content/uploads/ww2023nov23_web.pdf
For what it's worth,
I didn't get an "asshole" vibe off of gregory byshenk. Your site, your rules, Dr Brin, but I have to call 'em as I sees 'em. At worst, I could see you getting fed up with his repetitiveness. The solution to that is to stop reading his posts, not to accuse him of being worse than locumranch, who you poke fun at but don't call names.
I would typically refuse to comment one way or another on an internecine conflict between people who aren't me, but I kept hearing a voice going, "First they came for gregory, and because I wasn't gregory, I didn't speak up."
Hope I don't offend, at least not too badly.
@Albert Brooks and that pro-HAMAS publication,
President Biden is in the position that Britain was in after Hitler invaded Poland. They were sworn to defend an ally, and therefore had to engage in a war. Biden did what any US President would do under the circumstances after Oct 7. Support for Israel in such circumstances is not something specific to Biden.
That Muslims would rather punish Biden by helping elect Trump 2.0 makes a mockery of their so-called cause. Biden would not approve the message that that cartoon of Netanyahu is delivering, but you know who would? Trump and any Republican president.
Duncan_C makes the brilliant observation that freshwater zebra mussels can thrive at a neutral aqueous pH For the same reason that sheep can eat grass and cats can't (as) The bloody things have EVOLVED to survive in that environment.
What he describes is called evolutionary adaption,
TRUE!! - and if the changes were happening over millions of years then that would be a sensible argument
But as they are changing over DECADES - its a bloody stupid argument
"Albert Brooks"? Duhhhh.
Sorry, Alan.
I know all that; you’re preaching to the choir.
Apology accepted, don’t do it again.
Larry Hart: The things we do for love
Got me thinking. Our first date movie was MOONSTRUCK (1997, Directed and produced by Norman Jewison). Been together ever since. Funny how you can owe so much to someone you never met. Jewison died on the weekend, RIP sir.
1987, not 1997
Alan Brooks:
I know all that; you’re preaching to the choir.
I wasn't arguing with you. Just directing comments at the article itself.
scidata:
Our first date movie was MOONSTRUCK
My wife's and my first date was exactly 30 years ago this coming weekend. And strangely enough, we saw a movie called The Postman, although it was not the one based on our host's novel. It was an Italian film actually titled Il Postino.
Dr Brin's novel of the same name does have a place in our dating history, though. Shortly after we first met, she flew to California for a weekend to visit relatives. Wanting her to be thinking of me, I lent her my copy of The Postman to read on the flight. So when I talked to her by phone I asked how far she had read, and she said she had finished it on the plane. Understand, it had taken me a month or so to read that book the first time. Needless to say, we have very different reading speeds.
For decades I’ve talked with Muslims, Communists (and other of that sort). They have varied interests, but the main interest is in killing. “It is the West that is pointing the gun!” exclaimed a Muslim grad student. He wishes for self-determination for his people so they can accomplish many impressive achievements. Above all lying in wait to ambush infidels. His is a religion of Peace; after the Infidels are killed, allegedly will come peace.
Hitler wanted peace: after the grainlands of the East had been seized and the population of Europe had been reduced.
He succeeded in the latter goal.
@scidata,
Oh, and as we married in summer, we didn't want to go tropical for a honeymoon, so we went to Toronto instead. Good times.
Alan Brooks:
Hitler wanted peace...
Now, I can't resist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64DCO2sI7fI
Pol Pot wanted peace,
after the last Cambodian had died.
Hmmm...my first 'date' movie was 'Fantasia', and I got the girl, but not permanently. still, it was a nice. 'head-over-heels' relationship, and we are still friends. Maybe I should have taken her up on the 'same time next year' half-joking offer she made when we last parted*.
Pappenheimer
*And maybe not. Old embers can burn pretty hot if rekindled. Damnit, now I remind myself of Jurgen...
P.S. Hitler's goals changed between 1944 and 1945 to "Germany has failed me, so they must all die." Unfortunately a number of high-level Nazis bugged out rather than offing themselves, which gave the Israeli secret service something else to do in the post-war years.
P.P.S. It's funny, the Moslems I used to live next to and went to high school with weren't obsessed with killing anyone. Of course, Damansara Heights was a tony neighborhood; maybe there was a local ordinance about leaving severed heads to roll around.
No one worries about the Moslems you were in HS with; and I don’t worry about the goodfellas I went to school with.
As long as one remembered the two most important things, everything was cool:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pAQXDstXAZQ
1. It could be troublesome. There's a lot of stuff in seawater that could interfere with the simple pH meters you'd find in a college lab. pH meters rely on ion selective electrodes - you want an electrode that responds to H+ and not to other ions. (That electrode is how Arnold Beckman made his fortune). They work fine for laboratory solutions, rivers, or groundwater but as I said there's a lot of complicated stuff in seawater, and the pH shifts due to ocean acidification are small (less than 0.1 pH unit - but remember that pH is a log scale so 0.1 pH corresponds to 30% change in H+ concentration!) A spectrometric method might work better - you can get really precise spectrophotometers relatively cheaply these days. Add a pH-sensitive dye to the seawater sample and compare the absorbance to a reference sample.
Here's something anybody can do, though: if you stick a pH meter into distilled water, you don't get 7, you get about 5.5 - because of the dissolved carbon dioxide. You have to boil the water for a couple of hours to get the pH up to 7.
2. Combustion - I didn't know the answer to your question when you posed in a previous thread (combustion chemistry is horribly complicated and computational models typically contain thousands of reactions). But I did chase down a couple of references - here is one: "Limits for Combustion in Low O2 Redefine Paleoatmospheric
Predictions for the Mesozoic", C. M. Belcher and J. C. McElwain, _Science_ vol. 321 p. 1197 (2008). They did experiments on mixtures of pine wood, moss, and other things and concluded that the lower limit was 15% oxygen - earlier work had proposed 12%. These things are dominated by kinetics, not thermodynamics - you have to get free radical chain reactions going into positive feedback loops.
Gregory Byshenk,
...so I will probably not be back.
I would consider that a loss. I enjoy debating with you and have had to sharpen my arguments because you back your POV with your own arguments.
Your call... but I'd rather you didn't split.
(My prior comment is a reply to David Brin about halfway up this thread.)
To locumranch: you need to distinguish between the element magnesium, which is what's involved in the papers you cited, from magnesium ions. Elemental magnesium reacts spontaneously and vigorously with hydrogen ions and hence with acidic solutions, making hydrogen gas. This is a classic high school chemistry experiment. I have done a lecture demonstration in which you build a battery out of magnesium strips and orange juice. I took a quick look at the papers you cited and they each relied on oxidation of elemental magnesium, either as a driving reaction or as part of a catalytic cycle. The magnesium in seawater is in the form of Mg^2+ ions, which have already been oxidized (lost their electrons) and are perfectly happy to sit around as ions. They might indirectly influence other reactions through ionic strength factors but they're not going to participate directly. They are certainly not going to take electrons out of water molecules to make hydrogen! Take a look at the article I cited by the New Zealand guys, or look up some introduction articles online - Woods Hole, Scripps, et al all have a lot of good stuff online.
In support of anyone wanting to make US Federal Public Debt wagers, I updated my spreadsheet and re-drew the graphs up through the first derivative. The rate of change has become remarkably(!) choppy in recent years.
https://sta.sh/018hoq21aegq
If you want the spreadsheet, just give a shout out.
Funny how many people in such a small sample saw a movie for their first date with their to be spouse. I did too. We went to see Nightmare On Elm Street. Not sure what that might say about us. That date was a hilarious disaster. More like a steady string of them, each combining synergistically to create a truly cringeworthy experience. Hilarious now, mortifying at the time. I've no idea why she gave me a second date, but that's all it took.
Darrell E:
Funny how many people in such a small sample saw a movie for their first date with their to be spouse
Well, back in my day, "dinner and a movie" was just kinda "generic date material." If the point was just to ask someone out for the first time, that's what you did.
Now that my wife and I know each other better, "dinner and a book store" often suffices.
scidata:
Funny how you can owe so much to someone you never met.
"Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand.
He made my baby fall in love with me."
They should stop the counting right now. :)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/us/politics/dixville-notch-new-hampshire-haley-2024.html
The first votes in the New Hampshire primary have been cast in the township of Dixville Notch.
All six of them.
Nikki Haley took 100 percent of the vote, with 100 percent turnout. The polls — or poll, in this case — opened just after the clock struck midnight, as they have here for 64 years, to great fanfare. And 10 minutes later, the voting was done.
...
Pappenheimer,
I don't know when it was that American conservatives started to conflate Stalinism with Marxism, but it seems to go way back. In a way it's understandable, since Stalin's propaganda insisted that what he built was Marxist, even though it was pretty obvious it wasn't even close. Stalin had Russian editions of Marx heavily edited, but he couldn't do that in the rest of the world. Anyone who bothers to read Marx would know that not one country anywhere on Earth ever became what Marx prescribed. But it provides the right-wing fascists with a convenient scapegoat, and scapegoating has been a key Republican strategy for a long, long time. Hitler provided them with a great model.
As to Esme Weatherwax, yes, she was chock full of wisdom, but if you required the care of a witch, would rather have a terse old lady or a cute young one who has genuine warmth and compassion, and doesn't work to hide it. I'll take Tiffany any day. Weatherwax was a great character to read, though.
Paul SB
Paul SB:
I don't know when it was that American conservatives started to conflate Stalinism with Marxism,
Both ideologies are atheistic, which gives the right leverage to insist that God endorses capitalism.
Always seemed to me that capitalism is at least as atheistic as Marxism. Neither one invokes God or gods of any kind, but then materialism is as dirty a word to many believers as atheist is. At least if we are comparing the socioeconomic aspects of Marxism to capitalism, which only makes sense. And, given that we are talking about Marx's Marxism and not any of the myriad sects and philosophical musings that spawned from there.
Nevertheless, I agree. I'm just saying that, surprise, surprise, their reasoning is wrong.
I think Lenin is the one who first brought godlessness into Marxist philosophy as an explicitly necessary feature. Stalin just turned up the volume, probably because he found it very useful to use the ancient tools and attitudes of religion to replace God with himself.
Didn't Marx say that religion was the opiate of the masses?
IMHO, communism rejected religion for the same reason 1789 France did. The reason is not economic in nature. When you're rebelling against a system propped up by the church, you have to reject the church.
The western right's use of the term "Godless communism" is opportunistic. Darrell E is correct that the practitioners of capitalism show little concern for any sort of morality, let alone that preached by Jesus. But they knew that their audience could be ginned up against any system that advocated atheism, and thereby convinced that God loves communism's opposite.
For starters, Abrahamic Faiths aren’t pacifistic. Christian scripture commands that “all trees that do not bear good fruit must be chopped down and thrown into the fire.”
The Quran command the Believer to lie in wait for Infidels, and attack them.
(My friends in the Cosa Nostra said: “snitches get their asses whupped.”)
No ambiguity there.
Thanks Robert P!
Re Greg B:
“ …don't think that attempting (what I see as) constructive criticism…” There was no such thing. The fact that you made no effort at all to see how you were lying about me, but instead have now TRIPLED-down says it all. Your rudeness is exacerbated by utter incuriosity about strawmanning or hurting others.
The yammer by Matthew says it all. You are peas in a pod. (‘Driven-away’ Matthew? I see you here. And any time you offer things that aren’t nasty lies I always respond to the content, not the man As I’ll respond to B… after I cool off from his damned lie.)
I will say this. If you speak of my behavior in this episode elsewhere, with the same justifications that you have whined here, then a voice will be on your shoulder murmuring “LIAR!”
Larry,
Darrell E is correct that the practitioners of capitalism show little concern for any sort of morality, let alone that preached by Jesus.
Ugh. You make it sound amoral.
It isn't.
Next time you are served a coffee or food or pass through a cashier's aisle, check to see if the one serving you smiles properly. You'll see the fake smiles some put on, but if you keep your eyes open you'll also see the genuine ones. The fake ones are there because the genuine ones actually work to create repeat business.
People are people whether they engage in capitalism or not. The bring with them their sense of ethics. Capitalism at its root relies on this because repeated trades (going back for another meal, book, or latte) IS what makes the system work.
When you find those genuine smiles, ask yourself if that's what drew you back to those places? Chances are high you had other options.
Larry,
If the point was just to ask someone out for the first time, that's what you did.
Yah. Between movies and bars, that was kinda the standard. I wanted to differentiate a bit and hung out at a used book store that had coffee and espresso drinks. I got a little help from the owner when he pointed a cute one in my direction to help her distinguish the good from the riff raff. She whupped me good at Scrabble and came back the next night to repeat the punishment. I was hooked.
Our first 'date' that looked like one involved going to see a local band. CAKE. She was into the lead singer. I didn't think much of them, but came around years later when I paid more attention to them than her.
Alfred Differ:
People are people whether they engage in capitalism or not.
Sure, but the same is true if they engage in communism or not. Actually, I don't think we're talking about the same thing.
My point was that there is nothing inherently religious or God-fearing about capitalism. The demonization of communism as "Godless", and the implication that God therefore promotes capitalism is a cynical manipulation.
Not exactly on point, but close: I remember a line from the movie Chariots of Fire. It takes place around the 1924 Olympics. A British athlete who is Jewish refuses to run on Saturday, and the Brits don't want to have to beg the host country, France, to move the event. One stogy old conservative Brit harrumphs, "In my day, it was king first and God second!"
Larry,
My point was that there is nothing inherently religious or God-fearing about capitalism.
Oh. Yep. I completely agree with that. The demonization of Communism as godless was pure politics with a big dash of inter-branch conflict too. The SCOTUS was recognizing how passive support of religions violated the Separation Clause while Congress went deep into their post-war paranoia.
There is an amusing twist on the partial connection between religion and government and capitalism, though. Back in TR's day there were many who noted our motto "In God We Trust" on coins being used for... less than ethical behaviors in foreign countries. TR got the motto removed on the newly designed double eagles (St Gaudens) and Congress flew into a snit. The motto was made required by law on all US coins shortly after that and TR chose not to fight it.
Our god-fearing behaviors in the economy aren't really about capitalism, though, as you point out. They say more about us than the system.
Lena 6:11:
If I _needed_ a witch, then I'll take Esme Weatherwax over Magrat Garlick or Nana Ogg, for the same reason that if I needed a doctor, I'll take Dr. Gregory House over Dr. Feelgood. Weatherwax won't make my visit pleasant, but she'll make it effective.
According to Pratchett, Garlick is Nice and Good but not Right, Ogg is Right and Nice but not Good, and Weatherwax is Good and Right but not Nice. Take your pick.
If I had my way, the currency would be marked "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash". That's American folk wisdom.
“LGBTQ and feminists for Hamas!!” read a recent banner. Uh… seriously?
This comment brings to mind a teacup controversy that Dawkins blundered into eight years ago when he tweeted a link to a song lampooning the similarities between extreme feminists and islamists. Despite pointing out he was using it to refer to the extreme elements, he still ended up getting cancelled for his pains.
I'd be fine with LBBQT and feminists for Palestinians. I suspect some would still rather I wasn't.
Robert_P makes an important point about the "troublesome" nature of the simple pH meter, as "there's a lot of stuff in seawater that could interfere" with the accuracy of these devices, but he doesn't elaborate near enough.
The most widely used 'pH meter' to which our fine host refers is called ISFET (aka 'ion-sensitive field effect transistor'). Invented in 1970, it has been in common use for only about 35 years and it still possesses a margin of error AVERAGE of 0.005 pH units, which ranged from −0.030 to 0.083 among operators.
From 1934 to 1989, seawater pH was typically measured in a laboratory setting using Beckman glass electrodes with uncertainties of as much as 0.1 pH units, but the most commonly used pre-ISFET field test was Litmus Paper (aka 'pH test strips') with an average margin of error of 0.2 pH units.
Wait! What?
Then, what's the why & how of our current Oceanic pH being 8.1 & our pre-industrial Oceanic pH being 8.2 with MOEs like these, according to climate science?
In lieu of measured pH, global studies of seawater pH have been relying on values calculated from other seawater CO2 chemistry variables. The modern day surface ocean pH distribution was recently described by Takahashi et al. who calculated pH (adjusted to 2005) using a gridded partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) data product from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (utilizing ~6 million observations), and total alkalinity (TA) estimated from gridded sea surface salinity and nitrate. The historical and future pH distributions can be directly extracted from Earth System Models, but the surface ocean pH distributions in models are controlled by the modeled processes and do not always closely reflect the true ocean state.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55039-4
BOOM!!!!
These Oceanic pH values are calculated using a data set for pCO2, ESTIMATED alkalinity and ESTIMATED nutrient concentrations in surface waters (depths < 50 m), which is built upon the GLODAP, CARINA and LDEO databases.
And, that's Ocean Acidification for you:
It's a non-empiric model for Oceanic pH calculated from atmospheric pCO2 data that supposedly "proves" that the calculated Oceanic pH model correlates with the atmospheric pCO2 data that the Oceanic pH was calculated from, and it's a circular argument.
Best
______
And, speaking of other circular arguments, I tire of this endless 'No True Marxism' fallacy that insists that (1) 'Marxism is great' and, when challenged with (2) 'Stalin & Mao's Marxism was not-great', invariably counters with (3) 'No True Marxism is not-great'. Such stupidity, it burns.
Paradoctor:
If I had my way, the currency would be marked "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
How about Gott Mit Uns?
It sounds better in the original German.
To mangle a line from RED PLANET (2000):
Uh-oh, we're gonna talk about FETs now aren't we. Cause if we are, I'm gonna need another pop [reaches for the laboratory screech].
The (to me) intriguing topic of MOSFETs, from their 1925 Canadian patent to the 1922 American CHIPS and Science Act is not really suitable for CB. I'm a (very minor) guest here.
Understanding MAGA.
Not wanting to bury the lead, Here is the money shot. I'll post some of what he's referring to afterwards.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jan24-3.html
Conservative lawyer and Trump hater George Conway read the piece and said that it's the "most illuminating thing I've ever read about Trumpism." He continued:
This New Hampshire GOP voter is angry. But he doesn't really know what he's angry about. He wants to be angry. He does know whom he is angry at—the people who he thinks run the country and who he thinks think themselves better than he. He wants to harm them, even if it harms him, and even if it harms the country—indeed, especially if it harms the country, because he thinks harming the country is the best way to harm the people he wants to harm.
That very much gets at the heart of the matter.
Understanding MAGA. What the above bit is referring to...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Jan24-3.html
...
Instead of doing very cursory commentaries on 4-10 MAGA voters, Kruse decided to approach the piece by zooming in on a single MAGA voter, namely a resident of New Hampshire named Ted Johnson. Johnson is a 22-year veteran of the armed forces who retired as a lieutenant colonel. He has a high-paying job that allows him to work from home. He has a family and owns his home, whose value has increased 25% since Joe Biden became president. In short, he is in no way someone for whom "the system" is not working. And yet, he wants to burn it all down.
Where does Johnson's anger come from? Even he does not really know, to the point that Kruse didn't even bother to ask. Johnson voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump in 2020. He was a Doug Burgum supporter for a while during this cycle, then switched to Nikki Haley before deciding she was phony. At that point, it was back to Trump, because Trump is the only one who can "break the system" and "take care of the average guy."
As you might imagine, Johnson is a loyal Fox viewer; surely at least some (most?) of his wildly oscillating rage comes from that. For example, consider this passage from the story:
Johnson started talking about "Russia-gate" and "Biden's scandals" and Hunter Biden. What, I wondered, did Hunter Biden have to do with Nikki Haley? "She's not going to hold anybody accountable for what they've done," Johnson told me. "People need to be held accountable. That's why you've got to break the system to fix the system," he said. "Because it's a zero-sum game right now. And to be honest with you, the Democrats are genius. They did anything they could do to win and gain power, even if they lie, cheat, steal... What they're doing is they're destroying the country. Who could bring it back?" He answered his own question: "Trump's the only one."
...
@Larry Hart,
These lunacies may balance out - the Chiefs' win over Buffalo ensures that millions of 20-somethings will vote Dem solely because of Taylor Swift.
The 40th anniversary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
The 40th anniversary...
NERD!
LH:
"Gott mit uns" and "In God we trust" are in some ways opposite. The first says God's with us, the second says we're with God. The first is pride, claimed without evidence; the second is faith, from personal testimony. How would "In God we trust, all others pay cash" sound in German?
I just looked it up. In Google Translate it's
"Auf Gott vertrauen wir, alle anderen zahlen bar"
Blessed be the noosphere! The world's widest library, one mouse-click away!
Paradoctor:
"Gott mit uns" and "In God we trust" are in some ways opposite. The first says God's with us, the second says we're with God.
That may be true literally, but as slogans, both mean "God is on our side." They're both meant in-your-face to those who don't qualify as us/uns.
...
As a nerd, I might credibly claim that "with" is an equivalence class. That is, if A "is with" B, then B "is with" A. Order doesn't matter.
Or to put it another way, what "we trust" in is that "God is mit uns.
Paradoctor,
I like to support new, small businesses. I still choose Tiffany.
Paul SB
Regarding the No True Scotsman fallacy:
Consider the following trilemma:
1. McDougal is a true Scotsman.
2. No true Scotsman would wear such a kilt.
3. McDougal wore such a kilt.
Choose at most two!
Any two of those clauses imply the negation of the third. Therefore the trilemma is three syllogisms in one.
LH: with equal nerdishness, I can credibly claim that trust may be unreciprocated. We might trust God, but God might not trust us, because God knows us better than we know God.
Lena: Do as you wish. I might visit Tiffany first, to save money; but if her herbal remedies fail, Nana might be next; but in a pinch, I'll swallow my pride and endure Esme's efficient headology.
@Paradoctor,
In the abstract, your 1) and 2) could be used to disprove 3), but 3) is an allegation of fact. It is either true or it isn't depending on what McDougall done or didn't done done.* Using 1) and 2) to disprove 3) is like "proving" that heavier-than-air flight is impossible.
If 3) is irrefutable fact, then that alone falsifies assertions 1) or 2).
If 3) is untrue, then of course, it is possible for 1) and 2) to both be true. But it doesn't prove that they are.
Paradoctor:
We might trust God, but God might not trust us, because God knows us better than we know God.
Ah, but I didn't claim that "trusts" is an equivalence class. I made that claim only about "is with".
My * above was meant to note that "done done" or "didn't done done" is a very old Li'l Abner reference.
In the US I've seen the motto used both ways. Some are quite convinced they are correct about things and others hear that as pride. One has to listen carefully to a speaker's tone of voice and body language to discern the difference.
It really shouldn't be on our currency, but I can live with it. The Abolitionists wanted an Amendment declaring the US as a Christian Nation in exchange for their support of the Union in the Civil War. This motto on the coins was a bone thrown to them by a Treasury Secretary. It slowly morphed into a tradition that TR tried to oppose with a double eagle redesign.
Now it's law and probably can't be challenged because we don't have standing in Court. (Newdow tried.) The motto doesn't really do any of us any harm... so no standing sufficient to argue the Judicial should overrule the Legislative branch.
scidata,
...not really suitable for CB.
Might be more fun than our usual politics stuff. Most of us are pretty set in our ways, so a cross-border spat might distract us from our usual soapbox positions. 8)
I'm going to bundle Li'l Abner, cross-border, Scotsmen, politics, and transistors in one blurb.
In Li'l Aber, the Skonkworks still turned old boots into moonshine. 'Screech' is a form of Canadian moonshine. Skunkworks came from skonkworks (long story). The skunkiest skunkworks I know of is the SELDON I psychohistory processor, that benefits from a gazillions of transistors on-a-chip architecture. Some of DT's old 'friends' have emerged from under the bus to form the new legal firm "Torridon", which is Gaelic for "transfer of". Ominous news for the Orange One.
Larry,
Pretty sure you were never in a service, because the key fact about:
"Ted Johnson. Johnson is a 22-year veteran of the armed forces who retired as a lieutenant colonel...."
Is right there in the sentence. He was passed over for promotion to full bird, had to retire, and no one salutes him any more. So he is bitter, everybody hates him and the world has to burn.
Pappenheimer
Now as to WHY he was passed over, I dunno, but if he sounded then like he does now, I might have a clue...
"If you want the world to burn - TRUMP 2024!"
Now we get to see how many voter-Americans think that way.
Pappenheimer
It is darkly hilarious that he guys who marched with "Gott Mit Uns" on their belt buckles got trashed in two world wars back to back. I don't think it's on the current German military belt buckle...yep, removed in 1945. Quelle coincidence, like the owners of the Titanic promising that their next ship would be "quite sinkable, really."
Pappenheimer
Before you all jump up and down too much regarding the retired Lt Col (who WAS obviously passed over)…
Where does Johnson's anger come from?
Not hard to understand for someone passed over. It's "anger with the system" with a high degree of probability.
Johnson voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump in 2020. He was a Doug Burgum supporter for a while during this cycle, then switched to Nikki Haley before deciding she was phony.
This is enlightening. Always remember that Obama's first campaign sold itself as a Hope campaign. For what? Change. Of What? Use your imagination.
This suggests that Johnson less a Trump supporter than he is a 'hype' supporter. There are a LOT of US voters like that. We want something to change. What? Use your imagination because politicians who who give too short a list of these things wind up with too short a list of voters in November.
"She's not going to hold anybody accountable for what they've done," Johnson told me. "People need to be held accountable. That's why you've got to break the system to fix the system," he said.
THIS is probably the crux of his issue with his early retirement. Someone did him wrong. Someone should be accountable for that and he lacks the power to make it happen. So… shit rolls downhill. Our anger spills out of its bucket like this ALL the time. (PSB can likely give brain chemistry details explaining why.)
Alfred Differ:
This suggests that Johnson less a Trump supporter than he is a 'hype' supporter
The article said as much. The guy had supported a long string of candidates of both parties before currently alighting on Trump.
But what sets me in opposition to him is that his aim is to destroy the system--the only system I've evolved to thrive in.
. I am happy with New Hampshire. Trump should get the nom – tho I am taking odds on whether he’ll make it to October, given that the oligarchy is likely pondering martyrdom. But Haley wounded him. She drew blood and if she does it again in SCarolina (unlikely) he will go into full tizzy and (at-minimum) damage her for 2028.
====
Things that become ‘sacred traditions can become ongoing sores.
Can you believe the wretched-awful tattle-tale “Elf on a Shelf? We should answer “Go elf yer-self!”
=====
“Is right there in the sentence. He was passed over for promotion to full bird…”
unless he admirably came up through the ranks, in which case he timed out. But yeah, I have known several who got jettisoned just before birdie.
===
Locum’s swerve TOWARD sanity (long way to go, yet, but great!) is most welcome. Sure his PS is another raving strawman, when no one here extolls Marx and I am on record being severely critical of that deeply flawed future wish fantasy (though his past-oriented historiography was a huge contribution. And his scary story frightened the 1930sw aristocracy into accepting reforms that saved Western Civilization!)
What came before the forgivable (this time) PS-strawman raving was a buncha stuff critical of the notion that I can win bets about ocean acidification by daring MAGAs to come with me to sea to measure it, ourselves. It was a tasty taunt! But I always knew the odds were low that dipping a Ph meter into cups of seawater would prove anything.
Okay, you got me on that. Only… one problem…
You are using that to imply invalidation of the actual scientists who are issuing spectacularly clear data and warnings about oceanic debasing, correlating it (also conclusively) to decays in oceanic food webs. And THAT is a bridge, way, way too far, fellah.
These are among the smartest and most meticulous chemists on the globe and ALL of them can clearly see what’s happening. And no amount of cribbing from online MAGA shill sources will change that.
Just as the meteorologists who brought us the miracle 10 DAY weather forecast (it used to be 2 hours) that YOU rely upon use the same data and equations and models as the climate folks, over different time frames. And to find a “meteorologist” who swallows denialism, you have to tune in to the ‘weather gal’ on Fox.
So, Nah. But dang, he’s getting more cogent in stages, right guys? Good on you, son.
"to find a “meteorologist” who swallows denialism, you have to tune in to the ‘weather gal’ on Fox."
Gods, I wish. There were plenty of them at my last AF weather post, but those guys have probably all retired. I had one explain to me that the coastal inundation of an Indian Ocean island was being caused by its slow drift* towards a subduction zone. I couldn't even. Even.
Pappenheimer
*Talking inches/year sideways, not down.
Pappenheimer, PROCEDURAL weather guys are not scientific meteorologists. But yeah. Good story.
My similar concern? While the US Military Officer Corps is showing intense loyalty to the Constitution and civil society and law... Fax blares in the noncom ready rooms. They are the ones with guns.
Dr. Brin,
Good news, then. Fox no longer glares from screens at the local base gym, and appears to be off in the waiting rooms at the base clinic - but that's just one AF base (Fairchild)
And you are right about the lack of advanced training among the old civilians/ex AF, myself included. Fluid thermodynamics was not my friend. But, you know, hawks and handsaws....and the wind was right.
Pappenheimer
I love this guy! (And he’s honored me by liking some of my stuff.) A force for wisdom in this crazy world. Accompanied by lots of surprising laughs. Here he takes on the gloom and pessimism that enemies of civilization are spreading, to demoralize us:
“And yet, with all of this doom and gloom, everything is getting better by every metric we have. Things are getting better if we don’t destroy the planet with global warming and if Donald Trump doesn’t blow things up or Putin blows things up — those are the biggest “ifs” anyone’s ever said. But fewer people are starving. More girls are educated. Fewer people die at the hands of other people than ever in history. Those are big milestones. And some people argue — and they might be right — that art was part of that because the idea of reading a novel and putting yourself in someone else’s position, that (was) a huge deal.”
Truly, read this interview with Penn Jillette, one of the most wise-guys of all wiseguys.
https://www.cracked.com/article_40871_penn-jillette-wants-to-talk-it-all-out.html
DR. Brin,
To a chemist, that argument might make sense. But, to a biologist, the ocean getting more acidic associated with food web impacts is pretty obviously significant.
Lower food yields from the ocean, and you've got problems that will spread through the trophic levels. Btw, yes circular arguments are unsound in the humanities.
But, locum seems unaware that scientists FREQUENTLY make presumptions and test them against known data.
For example, you construct a model presuming CO2 acidifies the oceans, then test your model against known data.
Then, you shift the conditions, and see if the measured data shifts as the model predicts. So, while this LOOKS like circular reasoning, it's really not
Instead, it's a hypothesis tested against objective data.
This, btw, is the methodology problem I object to when it comes to critical race theory.
CRT asserts that 1) law and culture are CREATED to maintain a race hierarchy thus 2) racism can be maintained even if individual actors aren't "racist."
The minute you try to "test" this hypothesis vs. objective data, a CRT theorist tells you that the data is racially biased, thus you must turn to narrative.
That's one big honking problem, because any lawyer worth their salt can manipulate narrative however they please. Hell, they're all trained to do it.
Plus, tell a person that their story is part of the "good fight," and you'll bias their recollection. Thus, the lawyers who created CRT KNEW ALL ABOUT THESE SHORTCOMINGS.
Rather than consider it a weak point and test it against objective data, they then try to SUBJECTIVIZE their info. Someone seeking truth can apply such methods, but when your primary goal is political activism....
Well, power has a way of corrupting any truth-seeking venture.
Educational to read here on magnesium and phosphorus, etc, though I understand but a fraction of it.
You’d all make decent professors—if you aren’t already.
JV
The way to check for the effects of racism is simple - look at the RESULTS
No need for any lawyer stuff - just look at the results
And when you do "Racism" and its effects on people is horribly horribly clear
Just one example
Drugs possession - numbers charged and penalties awarded
CRT is as real as gravity
I'd also look at
1) what neighborhoods were used to route highways through
2) how the GI Bill was written with input from Southern Democrats (their sons are now GQP) to exclude as many returning colored GIs as possible (I think I mentioned this before)
3) FHA and farm loan policy
There have been some pretty hard studies, as I understand it; do you want me to do some research for you? It's not a long stretch for me to agree that a lot of US law has been written to align with a racist agenda, because many of the policymakers boasted about it. It's like ignoring the various state's articles of succession in 1860-1861 specifically mentioning slavery as the reason for succession, and then arguing that we can't be certain what the Civil War was all about.
Pappenheimer, who grew up in India and Malaysia and knows something about racist laws in other countries that in some ways mirror our own. Maybe the Philippines is different; if so, more power to it. At the very least, US immigration policy (the old Quota System) has been explicitly racist. One British officer who decided to emigrate to the US after WWII found out his application was being repeatedly denied because, as an ex-Gurkha officer, he was being classed with Nepalese applicants. Some calls to the UK embassy, and Bob was his uncle!
the Cromwell Discount Special.
A boa constrictor is squeezed:
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/1/25/russia-jails-nationalist-critic-igor-girkin-for-four-years-over-extremism
Dr Brin:
[FOX] blares in the noncom ready rooms.
Back in the mid 00s or so, progressive talk host Ed Schultz tried to get his show onto Armed Forces Radio to combat the three hours of Rush Limbaugh that was broadcast there. The view of the military, at least at that time, was that he might as well have been asking that our soldiers be subjected to three hours of Tokyo Rose. The attitude was that Rush was uplifting whereas liberal talk would have been demoralizing.
Dr. Brin:
About "seven deadly sins" Trump:
It's thanks to him that I memorized the list. Pride, envy, wrath, avarice, gluttony, lust, sloth. He does every single one. Fortunately! For his sloth keeps him from realizing his full potential for evil in the other six sins.
Paradoctor:
About "seven deadly sins" Trump:
He's also broken just about all of the Ten Commandments. Not sure about murder, but if he were to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, that would be a wrap.
From the Penn Jillette interview linked above. Sounds like a good liberal :)
He thinks a lot about a lot of things, but he’s not sure he’s right about any of them. That’s where talking comes in for Jillette — it allows him to try a rough draft of a stance that maybe he’ll later refine. In other words, he’s someone who can change his mind — like when he recently renounced Libertarianism after long being one of its most public champions.
He does honor his father. That is, his father’s memory: his dad told him that no one can be trusted.
"He thinks a lot about a lot of things, but he’s not sure he’s right about any of them."
I've occasionally seen it noted that this is a reason why liberals are 'out-enthused' by reactionaries who know they are right, whether reality (with its liberal bias) backs them up or not.
Pappenheimer
P.S. there are, however, a number of things I'm sure I'm right about, for instance, "You have no more knowledge of the existence a divine being than I do." Will have to check out Jillette - I've enjoyed earlier work by him
Re: Rush in the ready room
Occasionally used to bring a copy of "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" into our break room, just to break the ice.
Pappenheimer
He had such respect for the martial institution, he was married four times.
Sorry! Marital. Think of him as a man of great appetites; he enjoyed the boxes of cigars fans sent him—to the Very Fullest.
I used to be a huge Vermeer fan. I'd even travel to other cities if there were any of his few (36 I think) paintings on display. A guard once asked me to 'move along' when he became concerned that I'd been staring at "The Love Letter" for too long. For me, the Rijksmuseum was the centre of the world, although I only visited it once (I'm a lower middle class farm boy, not a lofty art historian).
Then came Penn Jillette's "Tim's Vermeer" documentary (2013).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPL7D0Ha1kQ
It turns out that Vermeer was not so much an artistic genius as he was a brilliant technologist. He knew more about optics than anyone in his world with the possible exception of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. That's the astonishing subject of Penn & Teller's film.
I gave up on such hero worship and renewed my interest in the only technology where I was way above average in proficiency - FORTH. Perhaps that's why my favourite character in FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH was the soil guy.
GOP opposition to the compromise Ukraine+Border Bill is not about the Border. It is about Ukraine. The (very large) portion of Republican politicians who are pulled by Kremlin strings are under orders from an increasingly. desperate Vlad Putin. By autumn, EU defense industries will be up and running full throttle... and Trump will have torched Putin's fifth column in the US, the GOP. So Vlad must have this and it must be now.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/24/conservative-gop-senators-border-ukraine-donald-trump/72341172007/
I know Biden won't do this, but I wish he would invoke the "Article II says I can do whatever I want," clause and sign a treasury department check for a trillion dollars to Zelenskyy.
What are the Trumpers going to argue? That the president can't do whatever he wants?
From the Penn Jillette article linked above. The money shot? Or at least A money shot.
I don’t think we’ve ever experienced a time in human history where there wasn’t a shared reality, even if that reality was false. I’d rather everyone believed in Christianity than what it’s turned into.
Amusing and kinda creepy – and way over-flattering – AI Christmas updates of historical characters. No no NOT Mona Lisa!
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Christmas-History.mp4?_=1
Some showed way too much teeth. Ayway. I come away both amused and – kind of upset by this.
But, locum seems unaware that scientists FREQUENTLY make presumptions and test them against known data. For example, you construct a model presuming CO2 acidifies the oceans, then test your model against known data.
As an outstanding critic of 'revealed knowledge', John_V speaks some fine & truthful words about science being "a hypothesis tested against objective data" which, unfortunately, is simply NOT the case when it comes to the circular Climate Change hypothesis, as these climate change modelers (not 'scientists' by any stretch of the imagination) admit to the DELIBERATE FABRICATION OF NON-EMPIRIC & NON-OBJECTIVE DATA.
Again, I quote:
"In lieu of measured pH, global studies of seawater pH have been relying on values calculated from other seawater CO2 chemistry variables. The modern day surface ocean pH distribution was recently described by Takahashi et al. who calculated pH (adjusted to 2005) using a gridded partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) data product from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (utilizing ~6 million observations), and total alkalinity (TA) estimated from gridded sea surface salinity and nitrate. The historical and future pH distributions can be directly extracted (estimated) from Earth System Models, but the surface ocean pH distributions in models are controlled by the modeled processes and do not always closely reflect the true ocean state."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-55039-4
As admitted in the above excerpt, there is literally NO 'objective data' here to test this pseudo-scientific hypothesis 'against' as global studies of seawater pH have been relying on values CALCULATED from other seawater CO2 chemistry variables, in lieu of actual pH value measurements (and) these surface ocean pH distributions are modeled processes that do not always closely reflect the true ocean state.
Be that as it may, I'm a reasonable man, so I'll allow both Dr. Brin & John_V to show me the RAW DATA, consisting of millions of empirically-derived Oceanic pH measurements, using a reproducible pH measurement technique with a documented Margin of Error, dating back from before the Industrial Age to the present day, after each sample has been corrected for any potential Salt, Solute, Temperature, Pressure & Protein discrepancy errors.
We can discuss 'p values' & statistical relevance at a later date.
Best
And when you do "Racism" and its effects on people is horribly horribly clear
Duncan, you're from the UK, correct?
It's not as clear as that data makes u think, and part of it is bc CRT is a uniquely American social theory. Its importation into Europe astounds me, bc I'm uncertain how well it works outside its US context.
Let's start with some different factoids, and I'll get to that drug conviction argument.
The biggest honking problem is the theory asserts that American law and culture exist to create and maintain a race hierarchy with whites at the top.
So, how's it doing?
List the most successful ethnic groups in the US by average income, single parenthood rates, incarceration rates, and educational achievement and you'll find whites aren't at the top.
The top earners are pretty much Jews and various Asian groups: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Indian Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans plus Jewish Americans cluster at the top of the list.
So, if the entire structure of American culture exists to maintain a racial hierarchy with whites at the top, are we to believe that the powers that be in society conspired within their lodge of privilege to promote Asians and Jews?
How can that possibly make sense?
CRT scholars hand wave this problem away a number of ways. One is to claim such data is racially biased and therefore unreliable (isn't that convenient?)
Another is to claim that "whiteness" is a cultural idea and not based on genetics. Thus, somehow Asians and Jews have become beneficiaries of "whiteness" by adopting its "cultural norms."
However, if adopting cultural norms can lift an ethnic group to the top, then what is the problem?
Blacks and Hispanic purveyors of CRT.argue that racism still prevents them from rising by adopting cultural norms, thus they are categorically excluded from "whiteness."
In the early papers of CRT in the law journals, Jews and Asians were ethnic allies...now they're gradually being grouped in with "white oppressors." In part, it's bc silicon valley tech bros became elevation vehicles for a lot of Jewish and Asian "school nerds" to join the ranks of white oligarchs.
We can see this play out in campus battles where Jewish students get attacked as colonial oppressors due to Gaza. Whereas Jewish intellectuals tended to line up with university elites, now they're targeted as oppressors...and we can see them now bearing the brunt of cultural bullying in that micro-environment. Asians are getting excluded from student slots in many elite universities.
Blacks (and their Hispanic allies) insist they're categorically excluded from rising in society, yet blacks dominate the biggest sport in the US (NFL football), where 70% of the players are black. We can get into endless arguments here, but it seems to me there are serious cracks in the fundamental CRT hypothesis.
I can go on endlessly about the role of sports in US society, in fact I wrote a baseball novel about it that I'm trying to get published. Though the book is NOT an allegory about CRT at all (at least it's not intended that way).
__________
See part 2
Re: drug prosecution rate disparities (part2)
This is a favorite factoid of CRT advocates that they constantly pound, bc it looks good for them.
And yet, boy do they apply this in an abusive manner.
Consider any conversation about violent crime rates in the US. Here we have some of the biggest disparities in social behavior between whites and blacks (to simplify the conversation).
Stats show that the violent crime rate of blacks vs. white is much higher among blacks. The murder rate is about 6 to 1.
Now...CRT advocates almost immediately respond with the disparity of black conviction rates for drug offenses despite similar use rates to imply that violent crime stats are similarly skewed.
When a CRT advocate goes there, they are trying to lie with statistics. Why? BC they've switched decks on you. Drug use and violent crime are two different things, and the presumptions they wish u to make isn't true. What's more, is the person making this argument DAMN WELL KNOWS THEY ARE LYING.
Data shows that people usually kill within their own ethnic group. Around 70% of blacks are murdered by other blacks, white by whites and so on down the line. The only exception to this are Asians. If you're Asian you're more likely to be the victim of a violent crime by a black person than another Asian, but we're talking about a razor thin percentage margin (it's like 25.6% vs 25.3%).
Largely, we can look at the identity of victims to get a sense of violent crime rates among groups. Blacks are far and away most likely the victims of violent crime...most often killed by another black person.
At least SOME of the disparity in drug conviction rates is law enforcement pursuing a drug case to get someone to roll over on a violent crime case. Now, I'm completely open to the idea that violent crime disparities might be the consequence of racism, but it's something of an attenuated effect.
One could argue that racial minorities get involved in illegal businesses (drug dealing) due to economic marginalization. One into this black market economy, they can't use law enforcement and this are left with "self-help" (violent crime).
However, now we get into tribal family behavior (you killed my son, brother, father ect) and violent retaliation---which then get embedded into a group's culture.
At this point, the problem could become self-perpetuating to the point that removing the original racism doesn't stop it.
Trying to untangle it becomes a chicken and the egg rabbit hole argument.
BTW, I'll post the link to my baseball manuscript in case anyone is curious.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aiD1QfIG0c_WFTTlVwg7J_Q4Ejkx0BMY5xwcD9bhsss/edit?usp=drivesdk
I'd really like feedback from any of the very smart denizens of this blog, bc I want to see what they make of it. I'm reluctant to talk to much about what I'm writing about, bc well a book needs to stand on its own.
However, in a broad sense, it novel is titled The Unnatural and it's set in the late 90s steroid era of baseball. It gets into the role of sports in our society and the collision of meritocracy with oligarchical owners.
The Unnatural tells the story of Jordan Gil, a 26yo career minor leaguer who finally gets a shot at making a major league roster.
He becomes a catalyst that transforms a moribund franchise (The Kansas City Jesters) and he gets involved with the team owner's daughter, who happens to be his formerly out-of-reach college dream girl.
As far as I've seen, no one has looked at it, despite our gracious host stumping for me. Id REALLY APPRECIATE any comments---even if they are painful
His tantrum just guaranteed Haley will stay in the race: (1) If DT's delirium tremens worsens before the GOP convention July 15 in Milwaukee - either via his natural decline (plummet) or else induced somehow by the oligarchy who no longer deem him an asset - she will have positioned herself as the emergency go-to... at Milwaukee or else in 2028. She gains nothing by dropping out.
(2) Almost alone among those he has bullied into craven obeisance, NH at least has some cojones to resent and fight back to hurt him, over his hateful slurs. Oh, she's also a monster. But the Masters likely view her as a controllable Bush-type monster, and not the thing Trump II has promised to be if he gats back in: full brownshirt, bent on revenge vs. both the left and his former masters.
Vlad & co. likely "still think you can control him."
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4428567-haley-trump-threw-a-temper-tantrum-in-new-hampshire-speech/
@John Viril,
I've clicked on the link to your novel, though it will be a while before I have any length of time to look it over.
Some of us work for a living. :)
* * *
CRT asserts that 1) law and culture are CREATED to maintain a race hierarchy thus 2) racism can be maintained even if individual actors aren't "racist."
I think it's going too far to say that maintaining a race hierarchy is the entire raison d'etre of law and culture.
I do think it's pretty evident that they've evolved over time to favor maintaining a racial hierarchy. And yes, progress has been made away from that. Though sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back, and recently it feels like ten steps back.
For example, current law frowns upon suburbs refusing to allow non-whites and Jews from purchasing a house, but such was common even within my lifetime. When my parents sold the house they bought in 1960, they realized that the deed had a restrictive covenant in it (which I guess shows how "well" those things worked even in 1960).
Current laws regarding social security and pensions are no longer designed to implicitly exclude black people, but they were originally. Probably not within my lifetime, but within my parents'.
The minute you try to "test" this hypothesis vs. objective data, a CRT theorist tells you that the data is racially biased, thus you must turn to narrative.
This is one of the ways the vocal left leaves me cold and even a bit angry at them--not so much that I'd vote Republican, but I can see how some people would swing that way. I've even heard arguments that the very concept of "testing a hypothesis vs objective data" is a white colonialist construct which other cultures should not be bound by.
In the early papers of CRT in the law journals, Jews and Asians were ethnic allies...now they're gradually being grouped in with "white oppressors."
That may be because Jews and Asians are perceived as succeeding in intellectual pursuits. In other words, we've adopted the white colonialist constructs of logic, math, and science.
Dr Brin:
She [Nikki Haley] gains nothing by dropping out.
As long as the Koch money is backing her. It's going to be their decision as to when to give up the fight.
L doubles down from a denialist incantation site and with the underlying absurdity that the THOUSANDS of chemists and meteorologists working on all this with skill, brains and passionate dedication, do not understand the incantation that L clipped.
Again bets?
But beyond the entire (insane) "All scientists are stupid lemmings!" narrative... there's one even more devastating.
If you are right and they are all - tens of thousands of the smartest, most competitive beings who ever lived - all uniformly worng - then what have we lost by investing in making the world cleaner amid a vast wave of ecellent jobs and stimulated tech?
But if they are right and YOUR cult is wrong, then the yammering shrieking and lying of Denialism will have murdered at minimum millions, caused vast extinctions,triggered the near un-inhabitability of the US southeast and led to millions of climate refugees being given the denialists' homes. (And oh yes, you make us angry enough over your cult's deliberate harm to our children and we... will... do.... that.)
Locum,
I'll admit I'm no oceanic expert and am relying on the academic modellers getting it largely right (having dabbled a bit in environmental modelling in grad school).
First of all, it's bloody hard. Second of all, while specific predictions atre difficult bc small input errors can lead to large swings in outputs, usually the general spread of outcomes gives u a solid sense how the input can affect the whole ecological system.
However, systemic c error CAN happen. Usually it's because some underlying assumption is incorrect as well as positional subconscious bias operates on an entire profession (see the systemic blindness during the 2008 financial crash).
Hence we get the term "groupthink," which smart organizations try to fight but will always fail at a certain point.
I've clicked on the link to your novel, though it will be a while before I have any length of time to look it over.
Some of us work for a living. :)
LH. Good to hear. Thanks for telling me the link works.
I appreciate it. Sometimes giving feedback can be uncomfortable and painful to receive, but it's how we get better at anything.
If you're not familiar with Google docs, that system enables you to make comments on the text by selecting it and typing in a bubble. You can see comments from one the indie writers from my writers group, who REALLY gave detailed analysis.
It can be done on a phone, but is easier to do on a computer.
TY again.
John,
"The top earners are pretty much Jews and various Asian groups: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Indian Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans plus Jewish Americans cluster at the top of the list.
So, if the entire structure of American culture exists to maintain a racial hierarchy with whites at the top, are we to believe that the powers that be in society conspired within their lodge of privilege to promote Asians and Jews?
How can that possibly make sense?"
- It makes sense if you account for diachronic variation - as time passes, societies change. It would be ludicrous to claim that American institutions were created specifically to enforce a racial apartheid, but those institutions were created by men who mostly wanted that, on top of everything else they wanted. However, the culture of the nation has changed quite a bit since 1794. In those days the "superiority" of Caucasians was assume by all who were in power, as well as male "superiority." Today even flaming bigots and misogynists declare that they are not bigots.
The primary lower social group that has had Republicans in arms since the dawn of the 20th Century has been African-Americans, who, like immigrants, have been stereotyped as criminals or lazy welfare leeches. Hitler did exactly this with the Jews when he described them as parasites in the second chapter of “Mein Kampf,” and both Nixon’s “War on Crime” and Reagan’s “War on Drugs” and his constant harping on “welfare queens” were always targeted primarily at black people. Nixon said very specifically that, “Everyone knows it’s all about the blacks, but we can’t say that in public.” Then there’s that quote from Reagan’s chief advisor and Bush’s campaign manager, Lee Atwater: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “N----r, n----r, n----r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n----r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N----r, n----r.” More recently, the Black Lives Matter movement, where 96% of protestors were peaceful, has been painted to be nothing but rioters by right-wing media. Fox News even ran out of footage of American cities burning, so they started putting footage of burning cities in Somalia. I guess they figured their 99% white audience wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
John, con.t
The Atwater quote makes the point about cultural change, to say nothing of the degree to which they manipulate people. Today, in a very different cultural climate, we have a whole lot of wealthy people immigrating from Asian countries, bringing their wealth with them, and using that wealth to increase their own here. Meanwhile, the result of Supply-side Economics reintroduced to America as "Reaganonmics" has impoverished the middle classes, who are predominantly Caucasian. In the 19th Century, a rich person from China or India would not likely live too long, as the "superior" white people would rob and kill them. It's not that there are fewer rich white folks - quite the contrary. It's that rich Asian people have joined the mix in a society that tolerates there existence far more than it did in the past.
We don't see this pattern as much with African-American people, because they mostly grew up here, the descendants of slaves, the ultimate in poverty. And just today the news announced efforts to put an end to Digital Red-Lining, in which Internet service providers charge higher prices and provide lower-quality services in poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods than they do in wealthier neighborhoods. Things are already stacked against anyone who was born into poverty. Melanin makes it worse, and still does today, in spite of all the White people who deny it.
Paul SB
Forced bussing was the first (of several) spectacular suicides by liberalism that kept the GOP alive.
JV
CRT - does NOT say that the system is designed to keep WASP's on top - although that is almost certainly one of the "goals" of those who created it
Instead the "Aim" is much much simpler - to keep Brown and especially Black people at the bottom
And it works SUPERBLY!!!
You comments about violence are 100% correct - but you miss the point - the REASON for the extra violence is that those people are POORER - simple as
The Drug conviction rate is just ONE on the mechanisms to keep them poorer
I'm in NZ now - I have lived in the USA and I was brought up in the UK
There is racism EVERYWHERE - but the USA TODAY is worse than the UK was back 50 years ago
NZ is not as bad (as the UK) but even here the Maori are overrepresented at the bottom of society - todays laws (here) are NOT biased - but we have decades of history when they were biased
It would be ludicrous to claim that American institutions were created specifically to enforce a racial apartheid
Lena/Paul SB,
Yet, isn't proving that claim the whole point of the 1619 project?
If Asians and Jews can freely rise within the system, is that system "racist?"
More bc the more pertinent question is if blacks started behaving like Asians as a group, to what extent will they replicate Asian results? And, more importantly, to what extent is a black individual blocked by his/her/their ethnicity?
BLM's answer is, "So much that the entire system need to get broken. If you don't line up behind us, You're a white supremacist oppressor."
Notice how convenient this social position is for BLM leaders. Everyone MUST line up behind them or else be crucified as a white supremacist. So is it a "social justice" movement or a self-promotion movement that favors BLM leaders?
Probably the answer is that somewhat both things are true.
If the American Black people undertook cosmetic surgery to LOOK like Asians then it is possible that they would not be arrested and convicted at the current high levels
But it would need to be very effective cosmetic surgery!!!
As long as "being black" is a life threatening condition in most of the USA then BLM needs to be supported
Racism is inbuilt -
Saying THAT "race based" attempts to help people do help to feed the racists amongst us
IMHO the best way to help is to have policies and systems to help ALL of the poor people - something like a UBI would be far more effective than any type of "reparations"
Duncan,
I would agree there's inbuilt racism, but it's hard to fault cops on the beat when the facts on the ground are that a black person is 6x more likely to be a violent criminal.
Even Jesse Jackson recognized this.
As for helping all poor people, Bernie Sanders suggested this, and I think he had it right. But, he was shouted down by BLM/CRT activists. I can't help but point out that policy left them no role at the top.
If you want a real cynical take, BLM and CRT profs scream for reparations as their primary goal. Certain oligarchs support them...and the reason is quite sick.
They probably will go for a lump sum settlement, and if it ever happens, in about 20 seconds, it will be converted into a wealth transfer from the affluent class to oligarchs.
Look what happens to lottery winners and mist NFL rookies...they're broke in 4 years.
Just who do you think gets that $$$?
The oligarchs. Very few people have the social and life infrastructure to handle sudden wealth. Every position in the social ladder has a skill set involved in functioning at that level.
In very real terms, handing a lot of them a bag of gold leads to a "babe in the woods" situation where oligarchs who have built organizations to extract $$$ from fools end up the final recipients.
Thus, your BLM reparations program becomes oligarchs using social ju-jitsu to get the power of government to use the state's ability to point a gun at the head of its citizens to extract taxes (paging Chairman Mao) and funnel it into elite pockets.
In such a scenario, the BLM/CRT leaders gain admittance to oligarchy in return for delivering elite enrichment.
Racism in the US is now intertwined with class. Blatantly, racial minorities who are educated, articulate, well-spoken have many compensatory counter-biases that can work in their favor, if they exploit them with some savvy. This is greatly expanding representation in visible realms like the arts and most professions. And politics. Anyone remember BHO?
This does NOT mean racism has gone away:
1. Not everyone can crest to levels that are " educated, articulate, well-spoken." A MAJORITY can't and the response of many youths is to shrug off the large, successful minority as having nothing to do with their own hopelessness.
2. "Why should I always have to SHOW that I am " educated, artculate, well-spoken? And even when I do, I often have to 'reassure' whites that I am one of 'those' and not one of 'THOSE."" That burden just has to be grating and it certainly is a type of racism that only slowly seeps away, with growing daily familiarity.
A conspiracy-minded person might assert that the drawing-in or suborning of the smartest Blacks etc. into middle ... or even upper-middle... class life is a PLOY designed to deprive the majority of their savviest leaders for serious rebellion.
Of course that's nonsense, since the very presence of those successful folks among white professionals in work - and their kids at school - shreds racial stereotypes over time, even more than Hollywood has. Still, CLASS arguments make racial ones seem less implausible.
Indeed, one has only to tabulate minutes and hours on Fox & pals... even between the lines dog whistles re race are pretty rare, compared to relentless and pervasive hate campaigns against the fact professions. Against nerds.
So, yeah. Marx had kinda a point.
I sometimes skim over the comments on my lunch to break the routine and bounce the awareness around, reflecting on CRT, Science Fiction, and sports novels which lead to the intersection of Harry Crews, Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burrows CRT and Apple’s Foundation and things that offend everyone.
JV’s plug for criticism on his sports novel, got me thinking. Two of my favorites are “End Zone” by Don DeLillo and “Knockout Artist” by Harry Crews. Also first half of “The Gypsies Curse” before it goes off the rails.
Harry Crews: From an article in the New Yorker: “We often wonder why a writer fades from prominence, but with Crews it’s easy to chart the course to his obscurity. There’s so much brawling, drinking, domestic abuse, disease, mutilation, racist talk, racial violence, rape, sociopathy, and womanizing in his work that no algorithm could design an author more certain to fail the Bechdel test, the DuVernay test, the Vito Russo test, and any other test to which art is subjected these days. But Crews wrote about what he knew, not as endorsement or even by way of explanation—it was simply the wellspring for his writing.”
Full article. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/a-childhood-is-one-of-the-finest-memoirs-ever-written.
Does Crews a pass? Probably not, despite the last line of the passage I quoted.
That got me thinking about Robert Heinlein and “Farnham’s Freehold.” You probably don’t want to recommend this one to anyone you know in polite society. Was Heinlein’s too popular an author to attempt to write about degenerate survivalists with sexist and racist characters? What if Octavia Buttler or Samuel R Delany had written a book with the same plot? Would they get a pass? Is the story any less ugly if the actions remained the same but genders and races were reversed (Apple’s Foundation.)
Maybe the latter is going to be the new trend.
Meanwhile, "To kill a Mocking Bird" gets taken off Library shelves and reading list from both extremes. But Disney figured out how to keep making money off Edgar Rice Burrows. Tony Warner’s article “Racism and stereotypes: how the Tarzan dynamic still infiltrates cinema” underscores how Disney sanitized the racist source material for the 1999 animated feature by removing ALL the human Africans from the story and instead characterized the animals.
Full article https://weareorlando.co.uk/page13.php
I have no problems reflecting on history through different lenses. What I find offensive is insincerity.
One of my in-my-head-and-will-probably-stay-there projects is a science-fiction show called "The Viridians". It's set in an Earth embassy on planet Viridia. The inhabitants have green skin; but not all the exact same tint of green. The Viridians call those with slightly lighter green skin-tint 'white', and those among them with slightly darker green skin tint 'black', and they're super-racist about it, against the 'blacks'. Insert social commentary here.
The color difference is subtle, and it varies by sun exposure, so the humans often screw up the difference. Sometimes the humans confuse the general with the janitor. Insert comic chaos here.
The humans are enlightened and advanced and unprejudiced... sort of. The humans got around the race thing by mastering the art of recoloring skin. You go to the coloring machine's control panel, you select a color, and you walk in. It lights up, it goes VWAUUUMMM, and you walk out with skin the color you chose. It's called the McBean Machine, in honor of "The Sneetches" by Seuss.
The human ambassador's wife is a vain fashionista, who changes her skin color often. She's light brown, dark brown, blue, violet, orange, neon yellow, chartreuse, crimson, light green, dark green, chalk-white, and coal-black, depending on her mood and her aesthetic judgement. For instance she might change her skin to match her hat. We never see her natural skin tint.
Most humans are more conservative in their skin color choices. Few venture beyond what the Viridians call brown. Some keep their natural color.
The ambassador's wife humble-brags about how much her McBean Machine costs. She quietly pities her subordinates for being too poor to afford their own McBean Machines. Thus the humans defused skin-tint injustice by dissolving it into the One Injustice To Rule Them All: MONEY.
To the Viridians we're all naturally brown. They look at us with bafflement. How to relate to beings so alien and fluid in, quote, race, unquote? Which human is inferior and which is superior? The humans insist that the human race is one; and even more infuriating, that the Viridian race is one. Eventually the Viridians figure out that the humans discriminate on the basis of money, so the Viridians learn to grovel to and bully the humans accordingly. A few quietly buy their own McBean Machines, in order to social-climb.
That's the tale. This is Star-Trekian social commentary, with a satirical edge. This is not a utopia. Really the humans are no better than the Viridians, they just changed games.
Feel free to steal this story.
John Viril:
If Asians and Jews can freely rise within the system, is that system "racist?"
If we are required to "rise" in order to achieve parity, then isn't that system racist?
More bc the more pertinent question is if blacks started behaving like Asians as a group, to what extent will they replicate Asian results?
If I were a betting man, I'd bet on "no". I'm not black, but I get the idea that black people are wearying of being whitesplained about how the should behave in order to not be discriminated against or shot. Especially when those rules keep arbitrarily changing. "Protest should be non-violent," but look what happened to Colin Kaepernick.
No one says that Ashli Babbit should have just obeyed commands from police and she'd still be alive. Black people get told that all the time. And yet, when they're commanded to produce their license from a pocket, they are still shot and killed as if they were reaching for a gun.
And, more importantly, to what extent is a black individual blocked by his/her/their ethnicity?
Black Senators have been pulled over for Driving While Black. I'd expect that even Michael Jordan experiences it occasionally.
BLM's answer is, "So much that the entire system need to get broken. If you don't line up behind us, You're a white supremacist oppressor."
I thought BLM's message was "Don't kill us." Your conflation of that movement with Black Separatist or Black Militant movements is disturbing.
Notice how convenient this social position is for BLM leaders. Everyone MUST line up behind them or else be crucified as a white supremacist. So is it a "social justice" movement or a self-promotion movement that favors BLM leaders?
Are there "BLM leaders"? I'm under the impression that anyone who grabs a microphone can claim to speak for the movement.
More to the point, whence this "must line up or be crucified" of which you speak? The entire movement has been vilified in the mainstream media. Legitimate protests over a torture-murder in 2020 have been portrayed as riots that set cities aflame. FOXites blame BLM for faking January 6. "Black Lives Matter" has joined "woke" and "politically correct" as objects of ridicule.
Aye, and even if ninety percent of those indicted are guilty, there remains the unfortunate 10%. This is one factor to consider:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pNPSo1gK8G0
Innocent suspects clam up and call their attorneys ASAP, as no rational person wishes to take a chance in being railroaded.
I shouldn't post right before bedtime. Confusion between bold and italics for quotes means nothing more than I'm falling asleep.
By noting that US Blacks make up less than 13% of the total US population but 37% of the US prison population, Duncan_C self-identifies as a numerically illiterate hypocrite, as NZ Maoris make up less than 17% of the total NZ population but 50% of the NZ prison population, which means that the US & NZ have near identical racial inequality rates regarding imprisonment.
Kiwi pot, meet US kettle & cognitive dissonance.
This is the same kind of 'doublethink' that allows Dr. Brin to discount climate science's self-stated reliance on calculated non-empiric models, as quoted directed from reputable climate science sources, as 'denialist incantations', and this makes me suspect that there will be no 'raw data' on seawater pH measurements forthcoming.
Because not everyone can crest to levels that are 'educated, articulate, well-spoken' (inherent inequality), my take on these & other hot button cultural issues is that wagers are ineffective, further talk will prove futile and the time has come for the continuation of political intercourse by other means.
Just remember that the Eyes of Texas are upon you, all the livelong day and, despite all our words & doubletalk, none of us will get away.
Best
____
@John_V: Three chapters in on your baseball yarn & it's an odd mix of first person narrative (present & past) and omniscient with maybe too much exposition. Haven't found a reason to identify with, care about or like your protagonist yet.
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