US Politics: We Don’t Need No Stinking Lawyers

[Mudguard]

11 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

Greenland ice sheet that is melting will cause sea level rise of about 1 foot even if we completely stopped using oil today--its inevitable.

Nearly another foot and a half of sea level rise will occur in the next 100 years if we don't reduce carbon emissions. So inevitable as well.

We've really passed the point of no return, and the Republican party is mad about 10,000 dollars in debt relief. The party--who measurably has fewer voters than the Democratic party, still holds enough party to drive the planet off a cliff, so to speak.

Let me first state that I think global warming is real and is one of the greatest problems we face today as a species.  The effects could potentially be catastrophic over the next one to two hundred years.

That said, it is not inevitable that sea levels are going to rise a foot and a half over the next 100 years or so as the article claims.  For one, the study, which is based on a model that relies on many assumptions, specifies no timeframe in which the sea level rise will occur.  It could happen in 100 years, 1000 years, 10000 years, etc.  Other types of models have a time component, but are also associated with large degrees of uncertainty. 

Two, this sea level rise is based on the calculated loss of ice in Greenland over a specified period of time.  Presumably, this ice will eventually make it's way into the ocean.

However, there is nothing that prohibits in the future the regrowth of ice in Greenland.  This would balance out the loss of ice and reduce the future rise in sea level.

And for the millionth time, any time you hear about models in fields where predictions are notoriously difficult to make, like in climate or in pandemic disease prediction or the economy for example, take those predictions with a giant grain of salt.  The models are always based on many assumptions and are attempting to reduce an extremely complex phenomena into a relatively small number of measurable factors so that we can try and predict the future.

[Zorral]

19 minutes ago, DMC said:

Controversial take here:  I still don't have any sympathy for Hitler either.

Ah, so this is why this stuff is news for the moment:

Quote

Conservative author Jonathan Last is taking certain Republican commentators to task for turning yet another blind eye to a recent rant by President Donald Trump which he says only makes sense if Trump is either corrupt or "cognitively impaired." ....

.... 

"If Trump is serious, then he is cognitively impaired," he argues. "There is no way to accomplish the 'remedies' he proposes. The idea that someone could simply “declare” him the rightful winner of the 2020 election is preposterous... So either Trump does not have the baseline intelligence to understand how the government and the U.S. Constitution function — or he has suffered from some mental decline which has rendered him incapable of basic deductive reasoning."

Last goes on to explain that this is by far the most innocent explanation.

"On the other hand, if Trump is not serious—by which I mean that he does not actually believe that either of these remedies are even theoretically possible—then he is advocating the overthrow of the legitimately-elected government of the United States and rejecting the Constitution," he writes. ....

As well as establishing a non-prosecution and jail time, as if it will ever come to that, of course.  

He has indeed been advocating for the overthrow of legitimate elections and getting rid of the Constitution all along, guys!

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-reinstatement-2657966654/

 

[Jace, Extat]

Donald Trump is not a cult leader. He's the former president of the United States and the de facto leader of the political party that has a corner on patriotism.

Delusional and mentally ill are only two of the hilarious amount of symptoms y'all attribute to this man and his 'cult' to avoid recognizing the truth. 

They just don't like us. They'd pretty much rather kill us than live with us. And while you're amateur houring your way through personality diagnoses for these enemies of liberty they are arming themselves to give you the last diagnosis you'll ever need, delivered with a black powder detonation straight into your brainiums and out the other side before you can even sneer Fasc-

[Spockydog]

 

[Mindwalker]

He's now hired the former Florida solicitor general (is that like an AG?).

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

He's now hired the former Florida solicitor general (is that like an AG?).

A state's solicitor general is modeled after the US solicitor general.  They are, essentially, the lawyer that represents and advocates for the government.

[Argonath Diver]

I increasingly believe that we are in a colossal Truman Show simulation involving, perhaps, some heroic Secret Service agent saving the world in the midst of all this corruption. And the Trump character, any day now, is going to have his Oscar Winning Moment, breaking down completely in front of a mirror, eventually collapsing to his knees in a heavy Florida rain, weeping, as he sees the Feds striding up to arrest him. Our hero will fade into the crowd, kiss his husband, and the rest of us will be put in a holding cycle until the next season begins broadcasting.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

So either Trump does not have the baseline intelligence to understand how the government and the U.S. Constitution function — or he has suffered from some mental decline which has rendered him incapable of basic deductive reasoning."

Why not both? 

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

He has indeed been advocating for the overthrow of legitimate elections and getting rid of the Constitution all along, guys!

True, iirc, early on didn’t he say he would rather be a dictator?

[LongRider]

49 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

Our hero will fade into the crowd, kiss his husband, and the rest of us will be put in a holding cycle until the next season begins broadcasting.

Hopefully that season gets canceled due to poor ratings. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

And what is Trump if not a cult leader? It's just on scale we've never experienced here.

Yes, and we call those people religious leaders. The difference between a cult and a prophet is just how many people believe. 

Point being that when you're told over and over how great you are and how godlike you are, it is not remotely weird or delusional to believe them.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

That's certainly a take. 

Try and imagine a time when religion was a given in society. If you said things against that religion, or even implied it was wrong and that there was no God, that would be wildly out of range with norms. It would take a very different kind of human to disagree with all other people at the risk of ostracism, harm or death. 

It was considered a mental illness to be outwardly homosexual; one of the reasons is that it was intensely dangerous to do that. Things we do now will be considered delusional in 50 or 100 years. You cannot separate delusion from the people around you.

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

Let me first state that I think global warming is real and is one of the greatest problems we face today as a species.  The effects could potentially be catastrophic over the next one to two hundred years.

That said, it is not inevitable that sea levels are going to rise a foot and a half over the next 100 years or so as the article claims.  For one, the study, which is based on a model that relies on many assumptions, specifies no timeframe in which the sea level rise will occur.  It could happen in 100 years, 1000 years, 10000 years, etc.  Other types of models have a time component, but are also associated with large degrees of uncertainty. 

Two, this sea level rise is based on the calculated loss of ice in Greenland over a specified period of time.  Presumably, this ice will eventually make it's way into the ocean.

However, there is nothing that prohibits in the future the regrowth of ice in Greenland.  This would balance out the loss of ice and reduce the future rise in sea level.

And for the millionth time, any time you hear about models in fields where predictions are notoriously difficult to make, like in climate or in pandemic disease prediction or the economy for example, take those predictions with a giant grain of salt.  The models are always based on many assumptions and are attempting to reduce an extremely complex phenomena into a relatively small number of measurable factors so that we can try and predict the future.

As the saying goes, which I think I read here first: all models are wrong, but some are useful. The question is not if the model is accurate, it's whether it is useful for helping us decide what to do and how urgently we should do it.

Whether melting Greenland will lead to 15cm, 30cm or 45cm sea level rise in 100 years or 200 years is relatively trivial, because sea level rise is only one of several undesirable effects of climate change, several of which are already playing out, including sea level rise affecting people living on land that is close to, at or below sea level, esp on coastal land.

[Ormond]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It can be more nuanced than that. Just take Hitler for example. I can on the one hand acknowledge he's one of history's greatest monsters while on the other recognize that based on his own accounts and of those around him that he was dealing with some serious mental health issues made worse by a rough upbringing. 

Hitler and Trump both have emotional problems that were made worse by bad upbringings (of course, two very different sorts of bad upbringings in terms of their financial and social class status.) But the bad behavior that grew from that came because they really were NOT "dealing with" their issues. If one really deals with one's issues, one strives to understand them and evaluates one own's behavior and reactions in a way which modifies them to make it less likely one will hurt other people because of them. Neither Hitler nor Trump did that. To me, they became monsters precisely because they didn't "deal with" their own personal issues but denied they even had them. 

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Let me first state that I think global warming is real and is one of the greatest problems we face today as a species.  The effects could potentially be catastrophic over the next one to two hundred years.

That said, it is not inevitable that sea levels are going to rise a foot and a half over the next 100 years or so as the article claims.  For one, the study, which is based on a model that relies on many assumptions, specifies no timeframe in which the sea level rise will occur.  It could happen in 100 years, 1000 years, 10000 years, etc.  Other types of models have a time component, but are also associated with large degrees of uncertainty. 

Two, this sea level rise is based on the calculated loss of ice in Greenland over a specified period of time.  Presumably, this ice will eventually make it's way into the ocean.

However, there is nothing that prohibits in the future the regrowth of ice in Greenland.  This would balance out the loss of ice and reduce the future rise in sea level.

And for the millionth time, any time you hear about models in fields where predictions are notoriously difficult to make, like in climate or in pandemic disease prediction or the economy for example, take those predictions with a giant grain of salt.  The models are always based on many assumptions and are attempting to reduce an extremely complex phenomena into a relatively small number of measurable factors so that we can try and predict the future.

I posted a link to that article in the climate change thread.

In that thread, I pointed out past efforts on my part to calculate the increase in sea level from the melting Greenland Ice Sheet. The best-case result, assuming that the melt rate does not ever get any more severe than it is right now and occasionally drops to near zero, still resulted in ocean levels increasing by about 9 inches by the end of this century. (It also included Antarctic ice melt - the situation there is almost as bad). 

The best case, though, is almost certainly way optimistic. When I tried to allow for even a partial collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet (erosion from below by rivers) ... well the worst case (not likely, but possible) was a five-foot increase in sea level by the end of the century. The most likely case was an increase of about a foot and a half by 2100.

Regardless, that is a LOT of US coastal real estate in serious jeopardy. I occasionally wonder - what happens with the likes of Miami or Galveston when even at low tide the streets have half a foot of sea water on them? Do the people stay or go? Try to build a seawall? What of the economic impact? How would the state governors (especially the R ones) handle these situations?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, KalVsWade said:

Yes, and we call those people religious leaders. The difference between a cult and a prophet is just how many people believe. 

Sure, just like how Russian billionaires are oligarchs while American billionaires are job creators. Functionally there's not much of a difference. 

Quote

Try and imagine a time when religion was a given in society. If you said things against that religion, or even implied it was wrong and that there was no God, that would be wildly out of range with norms. It would take a very different kind of human to disagree with all other people at the risk of ostracism, harm or death. 

It was considered a mental illness to be outwardly homosexual; one of the reasons is that it was intensely dangerous to do that. Things we do now will be considered delusional in 50 or 100 years. You cannot separate delusion from the people around you.

These examples are true to their times, but we can now say they were 100% wrong. No sane person is going to look back at this period and argue that Trump and the MAGAs were actually right all along. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

47 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Hitler and Trump both have emotional problems that were made worse by bad upbringings (of course, two very different sorts of bad upbringings in terms of their financial and social class status.) But the bad behavior that grew from that came because they really were NOT "dealing with" their issues. If one really deals with one's issues, one strives to understand them and evaluates one own's behavior and reactions in a way which modifies them to make it less likely one will hurt other people because of them. Neither Hitler nor Trump did that. To me, they became monsters precisely because they didn't "deal with" their own personal issues but denied they even had them. 

By dealing with I meant being afflicted with numerous maladies. I don't even think one could expect Hitler to deal with all his issues all things considered, and even if Trump tried I doubt he'd get anything out of it. There's no point in applying modern sensibilities to what could have been done during the formative years for these two, especially when we consider how extreme the two cases are. This Simpsons clip actually hits hard for both of them:

 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Firebrand Jace said:

They just don't like us. They'd pretty much rather kill us than live with us.

Just who here on this forum do you think don't know this, don't know that we're up against the wall and shot very soon if They get all Their way (if we're actually lucky, since Their degenerate ideas of pleasure for pain, humiliation and degradation are bottomless ?  Why are you yelling at us? It's getting tiresome.

[Jace, Extat]

35 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Just who here on this forum do you think don't know this, don't know that we're up against the wall and shot very soon if They get all Their way (if we're actually lucky, since Their degenerate ideas of pleasure for pain, humiliation and degradation are bottomless ?  Why are you yelling at us? It's getting tiresome.

I am annoyed because the right is going to win. You compete with one another to be the most dismissive and most sweeping in your disdain for an enemy that, uh, ain't bringing words to battle. 

It does not make sense to me. You all seem to acknowledge the threat, but are unwilling to discuss meaningful steps towards favorable resolution. You've heard of Nero fiddling?

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, Firebrand Jace said:

Donald Trump is not a cult leader. He's the former president of the United States and the de facto leader of the political party that has a corner on patriotism.

Delusional and mentally ill are only two of the hilarious amount of symptoms y'all attribute to this man and his 'cult' to avoid recognizing the truth. 

They just don't like us. They'd pretty much rather kill us than live with us. And while you're amateur houring your way through personality diagnoses for these enemies of liberty they are arming themselves to give you the last diagnosis you'll ever need, delivered with a black powder detonation straight into your brainiums and out the other side before you can even sneer Fasc-

There is definitely a conservative faction that would do that, given the opportunity. However, they are a tiny faction, even amongst other conservatives. In reading the comments sections of political articles, I come across quite a few posters saying they want to 'ban all democrats' or 'destroy the democrat party' (among other slogans apparently not permitted here). Point out that they are talking about 80+ million people and query *how* they would go about this, and they sputter into silence. 

From their comments, these people seem to be 'misfiring on all three cylinders' with severe grammar and logic problems, along with a complete inability to anticipate consequences. Example being the R politicians who championed the full abortion ban - only to get hit with a severe backlash. 

At this point, even with a sympathetic Trump/DeSantis president and compliant supreme court, the worst we could expect from this bunch would be multiple repeats of 1/6 with varying degrees of success followed by arrests and accompanied by a blizzard of disinformation. They simply do not have the numbers for a campaign of mass genocide.

 

 

 

 

[DMC]

38 minutes ago, Firebrand Jace said:

You compete with one another to be the most dismissive and most sweeping in your disdain for an enemy that, uh, ain't bringing words to battle. 

You're "bringing words to battle" just as much as anyone else.  You know why?  Because it's a fucking internet forum.

[Jaxom 1974]

Soooooo...no Special Master then, I guess...