US Politics: Mueller Monday

[Mexal]

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Yes and people constantly called out those of us who were quite sure that the orange would be inaugurated as POTUS too as unrealistic and hyperbolic.  Just as back starting with Reagan the women who anxiously pointed out that his administration was making war on women's rights including abortion and other reproductive rights -- and they said that could never happen now with Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.

Right and wrong have NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING now.  If they did, the orange wouldn't be in the oval office, for starters.

Right and wrong at a macro level is different then a judge or jury convicting a political opponent of crimes that don't have a factual basis. Any investigation into Clinton will take years. Any prosecution would take years and then added to that, they'd have to go to court and get a conviction. You can compare that to an election where half the population voted for Trump but that doesn't make it similar in any respects.

[Bonnot OG]

 

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, Altherion said:

How many people concerned about the alt-right have spoken out against illegal immigration or "diversity" initiatives in hiring or the suppression of speech on taxpayer-funded campuses or any other of the topics which brought Bannon & Co. to prominence?

Can we play spot the gullible alt right puppet?

If you believe any of the bullshit Bannon, a white supremacist, is spewing you're a fool and a bigot. 

Judging from your apologist rhetoric for the Alt Right, I'd say those labels would be fitting.


 

[The guy from the Vale]

@Sword of Doom: He's been carrying water for Trump for close to two years now. And no, I don't think he's gullible at all. I fear Altherion is a true believer.

[Bonnot OG]

6 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

@Sword of Doom: He's been carrying water for Trump for close to two years now. And no, I don't think he's gullible at all. I fear Altherion is a true believer.

Wasn't he a sanders or bust type on top of being a Trump apologist? 

So he's just a Bannon, a white supremacist, supporter? Oh that's just so sweet. We have a white nationalist here spewing his bullshit.

[James Arryn]

13 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

@Sword of Doom: He's been carrying water for Trump for close to two years now. And no, I don't think he's gullible at all. I fear Altherion is a true believer.

I'd say he sincerely cares about his primary concerns:

 

1) that straight white males are getting subjected to some levels of prejudice.

2) that Islamic immigration is dangerous and potentially destructive to the social construct.

3) that other immigrants (say Mexicans) are either illegal or the result of too little rigour in the process.

Beyond these he will make noises about elites and will suggest Trump has been ineffective and/or didn't mean many of the ridiculous things he said, and he'll also object to being labelled as racist or any kind of 'ist', but push comes to shove it's the three things above that he actually thinks are the most important and/or ignored issues, and he'll cite a lot of white anger as a result of that ignorance rather than racism. It's not a very original cover for racism, but it is probably the one most used by people in actual denial of their own prejudices, so I'd be willing to believe he means it when he says 'not me'. He's reasonably bright, though, so I'd have to assume he isn't looking too hard, but rather riding a wave of angry resentment about 1/2/3 past any uncomfortable moments of introspection. 

[James Arryn]

gavorkin wrote: It's called making a devils bargain for the greater good. 

 

No, it's called hypocrisy in pursuit of self-interest, just like with everyone else.

 

edit: when I say everyone else, I mean every expansionist/imperialist nation which does this kind of thing. Not suggesting that there aren't a great many nations that have little or no interest in being that way.

[Altherion]

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Most of these are bullshit though.
"Diversity initiatives in hiring" : although it's a thing, do you have any numbers to show that it is statistically significant in the US? I think I asked you already but I don't remember whether you delivered.
"Suppression of speech on taxpayer-funded campuses" : well, for starters, public funding for universities has been steadily going down in the last decades and as far as I can tell, it's not certain that US campuses are primarily tax-funded anymore. As for suppression of speech, again, is this really statistically significant? Because as far as I can tell, universities do welcome all kinds fo speakers ; the fact that some elicit protests might be seen as "suppression of speech" but then, not all forms speech are acceptable...

It is practically impossible to come up with numbers about diversity and affirmative action that even one of the two sides would agree on. Remember, outright quotas are forbidden by law so any programs of this nature are necessarily applied in a fuzzy way. In fact, this was a key insight of Bannon et al: the impact of anti-white discrimination is just as difficult to quantify as the impact of any other discrimination and therefore it can safely be portrayed to be as large as necessary. I suspect that a large fraction of the rage the American left displays towards Trump, Bannon and their allies is due to the latter giving the former a taste of their own medicine. It was a really elegant move.

The argument regarding suppression of speech is different: the point there is that even one is too many and there are quite a few such stories with video evidence.

5 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

He's been carrying water for Trump for close to two years now. And no, I don't think he's gullible at all. I fear Altherion is a true believer.

No. As I've mentioned several times in the previous thread, Trump & Co. ran an interesting campaign and have said things which have been practically nonexistent in American politics up until now, but their solutions leave much to be desired and while Trump did something extraordinary in winning the Presidency, his accomplishments in office have thus far been almost negligible. I disagree with Trump and Bannon about many of their positions, but I am a connoisseur of propaganda and they're pretty good at -- and, as a bonus, they also routinely manage to enrage various groups of people whom I despise (e.g. most of the mainstream media).

[Bonnot OG]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It is practically impossible to come up with numbers about diversity and affirmative action that even one of the two sides would agree on. Remember, outright quotas are forbidden by law so any programs of this nature are necessarily applied in a fuzzy way. In fact, this was a key insight of Bannon et al: the impact of anti-white discrimination is just as difficult to quantify as the impact of any other discrimination and therefore it can safely be portrayed to be as large as necessary. I suspect that a large fraction of the rage the American left displays towards Trump, Bannon and their allies is due to the latter giving the former a taste of their own medicine. It was a really elegant move.

The argument regarding suppression of speech is different: the point there is that even one is too many and there are quite a few such stories with video evidence.

No. As I've mentioned several times in the previous thread, Trump & Co. ran an interesting campaign and have said things which have been practically nonexistent in American politics up until now, but their solutions leave much to be desired and while Trump did something extraordinary in winning the Presidency, his accomplishments in office have thus far been almost negligible. I disagree with Trump and Bannon about many of their positions, but I am a connoisseur of propaganda and they're pretty good at -- and, as a bonus, they also routinely manage to enrage various groups of people whom I despise (e.g. most of the mainstream media).

Nah, the rage is because Trump, Bannon and their allies are clearly bigots, and you are making it crystal clear that you are as well.

[The guy from the Vale]

What solutions would you prefer then? Put your cards on the table. How do you want to achieve your goals, and what exactly are they in the first place?

[GAROVORKIN]

17 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

gavorkin wrote: It's called making a devils bargain for the greater good. 

 

No, it's called hypocrisy in pursuit of self-interest, just like with everyone else.

 

edit: when I say everyone else, I mean every expansionist/imperialist nation which does this kind of thing. Not suggesting that there aren't a great many nations that have little or no interest in being that way.

 

I was being sarcastic.

[The Anti-Targ]

We just spent almost a month negotiating with USDA to get 250,000 ready to eat meals into Puerto Rico. The bureaucratic hurdles to get these meals to a devastated territory were pretty unbelievable. However the fault cannot be laid a the Trump Administration as we would probably have faced the same difficulties under any administration. USDA is very much a rule follower and is not good at looking for flexible solutions to unique situations such as emergency relief efforts. Though perhaps with some key senior positions still being vacant, if permanent appointments to these positions were in place maybe those senior officials would have seen fit to fast track things and get the relief over to Puerto Rico more quickly. 

[LongRider]

2 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It sounds like whoever Mueller indicts first they'll try to roll it like it's taking down a crime syndicate and use the first people to get the bigger fish.  

Flynn is high on the list for being one of the first when the indictments are unsealed and he's already said he would flip.   

boing boing boing

 

[Mexal]

15 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Flynn is high on the list for being one of the first when the indictments are unsealed and he's already said he would flip.   

boing boing boing

 

I still pray it's Kushner even though I know it won't be.

[OldGimletEye]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/10/wanted-conservative-takes-on-the-robot-revolution/

Kevin Drum looks at the future of AI and wonders what might happen. Will rampant unemployment be a problem?
He then ask, are they're any serious conservative thoughts about this issue?
And I say, probably, not in this life time.
If there is any conservative thoughts about the AI revolution it's probably "in order to deal with the AI revolution, we should cut taxes for the rich...."

Anyway, interesting.

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It’s been interesting to read the feedback so far to my recent piece about artificial intelligence and robots. Four years ago, when I first wrote about it, I got a fair amount of pushback. This time around, virtually everyone who’s responded has been cheering me on. Is this what it feels like to be Donald Trump at one of his rallies?

 

[James Arryn]

44 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

I was being sarcastic.

My apologies.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I want 3 eggs-a-fryin for my Monday A.M......Manafort, Flynn, and Kushner, SUNNYSIDE UP BABY! 

 

eta: Cuff and Frogwalk all 3 of them 

[The guy from the Vale]

Why not add Donnie Jr. into the mix?

[Stannis is the man....nis]

Manafort and Flynn are going down baby

[The Anti-Targ]

23 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/10/wanted-conservative-takes-on-the-robot-revolution/

Kevin Drum looks at the future of AI and wonders what might happen. Will rampant unemployment be a problem?
He then ask, are they're any serious conservative thoughts about this issue?
And I say, probably, not in this life time.
If there is any conservative thoughts about the AI revolution it's probably "in order to deal with the AI revolution, we should cut taxes for the rich...."

Anyway, interesting.

 

Basically UBI becomes essential. If almost all factory and mining / extractive work becomes robot and AI controlled, and a whole bunch of other menial and so-called unskilled labour there are not enough jobs in other sectors were there will still be demand for people to absorb all those additional people. You can of course move people to a 15-20 hour working week along with a UBI that way people will still be in traditional paid work but they will have lots more leisure time (and energy) to be creative, have less stress and be more of a part of a community rather than simply a labour unit in a gigantic economic machine.

Every productivity revolution, starting with the invention of the wheel (and possibly a bit before that) has ultimately lead to improvements in the quality of life, particularly more time to engage in creative and enjoyable activity rather than the daily drudgery of mere survival.

While we need to be mindful of avoiding a skynet situation, AI and robotics taking over most of the shittiest and dangerous jobs (companies will finally care about workplace "safety", because replacing a damaged robot is an expense on the balance sheet for which the company is accountable to shareholders, whereas replacing a dead or incapacitated human with another human is not. People are disposable, robots not so much) should be welcomed as an opportunity.

[OldGimletEye]

On 10/29/2017 at 7:57 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

Every productivity revolution, starting with the invention of the wheel (and possibly a bit before that) has ultimately lead to improvements in the quality of life, particularly more time to engage in creative and enjoyable activity rather than the daily drudgery of mere survival.

Well, to be honest, I have no real deep answers here, as I haven't really thought about the issue that much. Historically you are right. But, all these technological improvements have always needed labor to some or a large extent. What happens though when you don't need to put labor in your production function anymore, but only capital basically?

ETA:

Sorry, I didn't catch this part (was having trouble with UBI), as I'm a little slow today (not feeling very well for some reason). Anyway,

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Basically UBI becomes essential.

That perhaps is a solution.