If Mort Divine ruled the world

[rms]

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...l-baby-yoda-s-true-origins-native-ncna1104126

Must be on my phone too much lol

 

[Dak]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1906677

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that, with the House having impeached Donald Trump, she’s in no great hurry to forward the articles of that impeachment to the Senate. Which makes perfect sense. On the other side of Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not announced even the broad outlines of how Trump’s impeachment trial will be handled. If Pelosi routes the paperwork his way now, it could either join the 300-plus bills already gathering dust on his desk or be directed straight to a paper shredder.

In other ridiculous claims:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-trump-is-not-enough-the-case-for-conviction

Let’s recall: Trump aided the efforts of a foreign power – Russia – to attack and undermine America’s 2016 election in order to help himself win; Trump publicly asked Russia to hack the emails of his campaign opponent, which Russia did later that very day;

It's hardly "hacking" when it's unsecured, and what's this "which Russia did the same day" shit, as if Russian operatives were waiting breathlessly for Trump's directive? You have all of this conflict of interest with Hunter Biden and his connections via daddy Biden, but Trump is "abusing power" by mentioning it, as if there's no questions about conflict of interest or abuse of power with the son of the former VP getting all of these jobs working with foreign corps.

I don't even give a shit about the party specifically, I give a shit about the people individually. This is why I stan Tulsi and hated McCain, for example.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1906677

In other ridiculous claims:

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-trump-is-not-enough-the-case-for-conviction



It's hardly "hacking" when it's unsecured, and what's this "which Russia did the same day" shit, as if Russian operatives were waiting breathlessly for Trump's directive? You have all of this conflict of interest with Hunter Biden and his connections via daddy Biden, but Trump is "abusing power" by mentioning it, as if there's no questions about conflict of interest or abuse of power with the son of the former VP getting all of these jobs working with foreign corps.

I don't even give a shit about the party specifically, I give a shit about the people individually. This is why I stan Tulsi and hated McCain, for example.

yea i read about this yesterday and just shook my head. But hey, like ive said numerous times they're only continuing to dig their own graves with this kind of shit. Even the average simpleton is realizing what's going on here. Looks like they're even losing support amongst democrats ...

they're foaming at the mouth so hard that they dont even see what they're doing to themselves, but hey im happy ... ive been saying it for years, they're going to destroy themselves with this type of mindest, and that is exactly what's happening. Cant wait until trump landslides and molliwops whoever they try and prop up against him.

I don't even give a shit about the party specifically, I give a shit about the people individually.

Yeah same here, i think people who blindly vote for a certain party are fucking sheep. That being said most of the people ive agreed with are usually on the right, and most of the people and ideas i cant fucking stand tend to come from the radical left. I also like Tulsi, i think shes the only decent human being on "their side" and definitely the only one with a backbone.

 

[CiG]

Cant wait until trump landslides and molliwops whoever they try and prop up against him.

Drumpf is fucking done.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

i wouldn't be surprised if the poor bastard tries reaching over the podium and sucking Trumps fingers.

 

[Dak]

Drumpf is fucking done.

A challenger approaches!

 

[Dak]

Drumpf is fucking done.

But wait, THERE'S MORE

He can't even remember Obama's name at times. Good god he's gone. I bet he underperforms on a MOCA.

 

[Dak]

Foreigner is surprised to discover that the US isn't only comprised of California and New York. Just like Californians and New Yorkers got surprised in 2016. She handles it with much more grace.

 

[rms]

you guys following the project 1619 discussion?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093

 

[Dak]

The NYT group "have been weighed in the balance, and found wanting."

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

 

[Dak]

@Einherjar86

This is related to the other conversation, but separate enough to move it here: The broad dismissal of "experts". I follow economics, and while I'm no longer a pure ancap, I'm certainly not accepting of accepted opinions in macro. I also no longer accept simple micro explanations. Why? prediction accuracy. The same reason I don't listen to Alex Jones, or other conspiracy peddlers. A broken clock can be right twice a day. Forecasters should reach or surpass this mark. Many forecasters considered experts do not, in any meaningful sense. The NYT is a joke for many reasons, but one of them is the continued promotion of one Paul Krugman. This man has made a career out of being wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...-night-2016/paul-krugman-the-economic-fallout

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

The final sentence is a stupid statement on its face. At a minimum, markets would recover under some other administration, even if simply factoring in inflation. The preceding statements are cringeworthy partisan hacksmanship. This man is one of the "elite". How can we take him seriously? How can we take the rest of them seriously? This article is on the heels of predictions that such an economic collapse was certain under Trump. It was post-ceded by declarations of economic collapse in tangling with China. Of renegotiation NAFTA. Etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/opinion/trump-economy.html

As recently as October, Krugman tried to sell a temporary divot as a crater and a portent of impending doom. Our "elites" laid bare.

https://knoema.com/jhxfibc/dow-jones-industrial-average-historical-prices-2007-2019

Of course, this is only one example, but it's an egregious and easily visible example. There's no difference between Alex Jones and "the elite", other than the particular brand of snake oil.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I love the Krugman piece about trade barriers and loss of American manufacturing. He admits for maybe the first time in his life that he was wrong about something, that bringing China into the WTO wouldn't lose millions of American jobs, then justifies his wrong prediction for the next several paragraphs before conclusively declaring without justification, in the very last paragraph, that no more jobs can possibly be lost and that Trump's trade war is 100% negative. Most of the ivory tower economists I think are smart people living untested bubble lives, but Krugman seems legitimately stupid when you put aside that his talent for inventing meaningless mathematical models, and the said promotion of them.

EDIT: To say nothing of when he predicted the internet was just a fad.

 

[Einherjar86]

@Einherjar86

This is related to the other conversation, but separate enough to move it here: The broad dismissal of "experts". I follow economics, and while I'm no longer a pure ancap, I'm certainly not accepting of accepted opinions in macro. I also no longer accept simple micro explanations. Why? prediction accuracy. The same reason I don't listen to Alex Jones, or other conspiracy peddlers. A broken clock can be right twice a day. Forecasters should reach or surpass this mark. Many forecasters considered experts do not, in any meaningful sense. The NYT is a joke for many reasons, but one of them is the continued promotion of one Paul Krugman. This man has made a career out of being wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...-night-2016/paul-krugman-the-economic-fallout



The final sentence is a stupid statement on its face. At a minimum, markets would recover under some other administration, even if simply factoring in inflation. The preceding statements are cringeworthy partisan hacksmanship. This man is one of the "elite". How can we take him seriously? How can we take the rest of them seriously? This article is on the heels of predictions that such an economic collapse was certain under Trump. It was post-ceded by declarations of economic collapse in tangling with China. Of renegotiation NAFTA. Etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/opinion/trump-economy.html

As recently as October, Krugman tried to sell a temporary divot as a crater and a portent of impending doom. Our "elites" laid bare.

https://knoema.com/jhxfibc/dow-jones-industrial-average-historical-prices-2007-2019

Of course, this is only one example, but it's an egregious and easily visible example. There's no difference between Alex Jones and "the elite", other than the particular brand of snake oil.

Are your targets public intellectuals/journalists like Krugman, or people doing research in the background? It sounds like they all belong to the same cluster, according to you; but I don't see how you can lump Krugman (or, for that matter, people like Al Gore, Obama, Biden, etc.) in with scientists doing climate research. The "elitism" you're criticizing doesn't belong the vast majority of scientists in that group. They might have benefited from educational opportunities, but they don't enjoy the same financial comforts and freedoms that the career politicians and entrepreneurs you're identifying do. We can't separate climate change from political values, and it's not untrue that some politicians probably see their political policies as the main reason for advocating climate activism; but for climate researchers, this is reversed. The facts of global warming are the justification for supporting certain political policies. You see it all as being part of the same politically-motivated scheming.

If this comes down to the metaphysical problem of other minds, then there's no way for either one of us to prove this. But my position is that as long as the research in climate science continues to accurately predict phenomena surrounding warming patterns (and it has, as I believe I've shown in the other thread), then it doesn't matter what motivates the research. The numbers match what we've observed.

At this point, our discussion in the news thread has diverged into a discussion of whether a) proposed climate policies are communist (or whether they have to be), and b) whether universities work for the government or not (a: no, they aren't and don't have to be, and b: no, universities don't work for the government--their funding isn't contingent on the results of their research, which your comments in the other thread assume). Your links to studies/editorials refuting climate change findings were either misleading or mistaken on basic facts.

 

[Dak]

You won't receive funding if your proposal assumes results before it produces them, which is what your comment suggests.

Popular publications and platforms have published data that contradicts the consensus; you linked to some. Scientific journals don't prohibit this data, as long as it appears well-researched. Science works by fact-checking itself, and this is how studies that both contradict and reinforce the consensus have been found wanting. If it's harder to publish contradictory data (i.e. data that contradicts the consensus), that's because science has been able to weed out faulty methods.

Sounds like that "Fast Science" Sobel is doing. Pretty sure he's not funding that study out of his pocket.

Science works by peer review, funding, and demonstrably repeatable results. A "consensus" isn't science. A consensus is utilized when things are not easily demonstrated. EG, with things like climate, or the economy. No one talks about a "consensus" regarding how gravity works on earth. I'll get to this in more detail, but the reason I mentioned Krugman is partially due to the economy being the closest exclusively human made corollary of the earth's climate processes.

I find this utterly unconvincing. Markets reflect people's beliefs about what something's worth. As long as people tend to believe that things will be fine, then markets will mirror that belief. Even people who say they believe in anthropogenic climate change still want to believe the future will be okay. That's all the market predicts. It's not some magic divining rod.

No, it's not. It's because you can't just flip the switch on nuclear. We need to plan and prepare for going that route. It's also because alternative solutions can provide us with a lot of energy. I know people personally who've gone solar--in New England, of all places--and they've been able to power themselves almost entirely through the winter and reduce their energy costs in the long run (after a couple initially high bills). These routes aren't fools' errands.

I'm not saying that urbanization isn't to blame, but the solution isn't "damn all cities."

Also, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry are gargantuan.

There's more to the economy and markets than animal spirits. On the one hand, you have individual consumers, who made be either hopeful (your average person) or hypocrite (Obama cadre). On many other hands you have a multitude of investors, corporations, and entrepreneurs looking at varying timelines trying to determine how best to navigate the future in 10, 20, 30 years etc.

We can't "flip a switch" on nuclear, but 4Gen Nuclear is much safer, quicker to build, and more scalable than old tech nuclear, can be metldown proof, and it can actually burn what has been considered nuclear waste, eliminating almost all negatives. On the flip side, with these other techs, you have the issue of massive mining, manufacturing, transportation, maintenance, and later replacement of all aspects involved in other electric generation and storage of electricity.

There a difference between the sprawl of an LA. Atlanta, a Houston, a New York, etc etc when compared with cities with populations under 200k, which good medium density, modular, mixed use zoning and elimination of roads in the interior of the city could compact into a small, walkable environment. Add on to that close down net-negative cities, including pretty much emptying most of the Southwest and other net negative cities like New Orleans.

You're right, it isn't fair; and this unfairness is part of what policy-makers have to deal with (e.g. Henry Shue's Climate Justice and Simon Caney's "Human Rights, Responsibilities, and Climate Change").

Unfortunately, the climate doesn't give a shit about differences in GDP. Even if the U.S. has decreased, it's unfair to ask developing countries to forsake the benefits of industrialization unless Western powers are willing to help offset the losses.

If the U.S. acts in other countries' interests, but other countries continue to act in their own interests, then you're right. That's why we need global communication. At this point, national interests have a limited time table.

If the climate doesn't care about GDP, why does the US need to care about developing countries (somewhat GDP reflective)? This is a contradictory position. Separately, you're seem to be under the 1990s era impression that the US holds all the cards re:national interest. They don't. China holds a lot, is gaining more, and has demonstrated they do not care about the climate if it's at the expense of becoming the new superpower.

Are your targets public intellectuals/journalists like Krugman, or people doing research in the background? It sounds like they all belong to the same cluster, according to you; but I don't see how you can lump Krugman (or, for that matter, people like Al Gore, Obama, Biden, etc.) in with scientists doing climate research. The "elitism" you're criticizing doesn't belong the vast majority of scientists in that group. They might have benefited from educational opportunities, but they don't enjoy the same financial comforts and freedoms that the career politicians and entrepreneurs you're identifying do. We can't separate climate change from political values, and it's not untrue that some politicians probably see their political policies as the main reason for advocating climate activism; but for climate researchers, this is reversed. The facts of global warming are the justification for supporting certain political policies. You see it all as being part of the same politically-motivated scheming.

If this comes down to the metaphysical problem of other minds, then there's no way for either one of us to prove this. But my position is that as long as the research in climate science continues to accurately predict phenomena surrounding warming patterns (and it has, as I believe I've shown in the other thread), then it doesn't matter what motivates the research. The numbers match what we've observed.

At this point, our discussion in the news thread has diverged into a discussion of whether a) proposed climate policies are communist (or whether they have to be), and b) whether universities work for the government or not (a: no, they aren't and don't have to be, and b: no, universities don't work for the government--their funding isn't contingent on the results of their research, which your comments in the other thread assume). Your links to studies/editorials refuting climate change findings were either misleading or mistaken on basic facts.

Ok, now we come back to Krugman. I mentioned Krugman as one particular standout for repeatedly bad predictions, but also because economics is very similar to climatology in that it is very complex with so many constantly shifting inputs across the globe. However, unlike the climate, due to central banking, there is *more* control over national economies than there is over climate at the national level, and central banks have tended to coordinate in crisis. Yet, there are multiple schools of economics, and economists are regularly quite wrong. Furthermore, Krugman can hardly be handwaved as a "public intellectual", while some graduate lackey labors behind the scenes doing "true work". The man has a Nobel in his discipline. Of course, it's one thing to be wrong about random neutral-ish thing X. But when one picks a political side, then there is higher scrutiny. Then when one makes apocalyptic predictions, the scrutiny goes higher. One cannot hide, period.....unless one is Alex Jones or Rachel Maddow, and claim that everything they say is for entertainment purposes. I obviously can't lump Krugman in with politicians re: climate change research, but I can lump them all in together when it comes to making apocalyptic claims that always neatly line up in the same way, and being wrong. It is in fact, the apocalyptic claim that spurred this whole thing to begin with. You claimed that global warming (or climate change, whichever you said, but I prefer the latter) was an existential threat that warranted removing Trump from office, to which I reacted. So I will now go through my view of things at this point:

1. We agree that the planet is likely warming currently.
2. We disagree about how much is problematic, and we disagree about the point that I have "basic facts" wrong or things are "misleading". You think that a counter study finding is proof positive. Without looking at both studies in detail, we simply have two findings at odds (which both might in fact be true - eg, when one study was done it was correct, and then the later study was also correct. Which makes the point I was making possibly less strong, but also introduces significant variability, which supports). Then we have the Hansen issue, which supports my knock on alarmism, except you find any warming alarming.
3. I pointed out that the "apocalyptic" predictions are repeatedly wrong, and you think basically any warming is apocalyptic, but also noted that it's not really an existential threat, just probably not good for various animals and poor people.
4. You don't understand how science (questions drive answers) and Fed grant funding works (have to ask the questions that are funded) apparently, since you completely denied and strawmanned my point. Furthermore peer-review can reject things for running afoul of reviewer biases in completely unethical and unscientific ways (I've seen this first hand). I can't completely hold it against you though because both BU and Harvard are private and well endowed, so their economics are different, but that's an anomaly in the US university system. Also because you don't get to see reviewer comments on scientific papers.
5. You note that "researchers support the policies because of what the climate research shows". Yet climate researchers aren't experts in politics and economics, so A. Why should they put forth opinions into the public sphere in those domains and B. Why should anyone listen to them. Insofar as we see that the policies they support line up with policies repeatedly wrong "experts" in economics and politics support, why should anyone listen to them? To repeat an earlier point, when you have government funded research generating findings that support the same government expending policies from multiple disciplines, why shouldn't one be suspicious? Anymore so than people are suspicious of oil or pharma funded studies?

My whole point on this is about the repeated failing of alarming. I started with Hansen, but there is headline after headline after headline for the last 5-40+ years predicting we are always 10-30 years away from a global catastrophe if we don't simply hand more control to government, whether national or the UN. The alarmism predates our contemporary political timespan (ie, late teens on, year ~2000+) so it seems new. But it's not. So, this idea that A. Trump is some unique threat for not having the US even further outpreform most of the rest of the world and B. That regardless of anything else he might have done or would, this is the thing that makes him "unelectable" is ridiculous (and although it's not impeachable worthy, he "deserves to go", so that seems a bit out of both sides of the mouth). There's plenty of real problems both with Trump as a person, and with what Trump does or doesn't do, but grandstanding on this multidecade grift is ridiculous.

As a PS, here's a brief sample of more alarmism (some by very prestigious "experts") that absolutely did not come to fruition, capped with a more recent future proclamation.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102074798

A gradual rise in average sea level is threatening to completely cover this Indian Ocean nation of 1196 small islands within the next 30 years,

Spoiler Alert: You can still go vacation there!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver
(This whole article).
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/

In the years 2007, 2008, and 2009, Al Gore made statements about the possibility of a complete lack of summer sea ice in the Arctic by as early as 2013. While Gore attributed these predictions to scientists, they stemmed from a selective reading of aggressive estimates regarding future melting. The comments became a popular talking point for human-cause climate change deniers in 2014 and onward when the predictions, which in some cases were overstated, did not pan out:

Aw damn, predictions that didn't pan out which were the basis of demands were held accountable?? The nerve!
https://e360.yale.edu/features/tipping_point_arctic_heads_to_ice_free_summers

Peter Wadhams, who heads the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge and who has been measuring Arctic Ocean ice thickness from British Navy submarines, says that earlier calculations about Arctic sea ice loss have grossly underestimated how rapidly the ice is disappearing. He believes that the Arctic is likely to become ice-free before 2020 and possibly as early as 2015 or 2016 — decades ahead of projections made just a few years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Remember, the climate doesn't care about GDP. What's worse? Poor people don't get nice things, or they die?

 

[Dak]

https://www.thenation.com/article/california-fires-urban-planning/

If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership.

Can't have people not completely dependent on the bureaucracy and multinational corps! Because muh climate change.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism

Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism.

This emergent radicalism is already taking people by surprise. The Green New Deal (GND), a term presently most associated with 29-year-old US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has provoked a wildly unhinged backlash from the “pro free market” wing, who argue that it’s a Trojan horse, nothing more than an attempt to piggyback Marxism onto the back of climate legislation.

The criticism feels ridiculous. Partly because the GND is far from truly radical and already represents a compromise solution, but mainly because the radical economics isn’t a hidden clause, but a headline feature.

"Wildly unhinged" claim that the GND is piggybacking marxism onto climate change legislation......because the GND isn't radical but radical economics is exactly what it is?? Genius right here folks: "these people are crazy to think this thing is radical marxism because it's not, but it absolutely is".

On and on and on.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

From the early years of this continent-wide republic, federal policies such as the Homestead Act of 1862 rewarded private home ownership and pioneering activities such as making individual claims on land.

I love it, go right for the heart, attack the single greatest bill in the history of our entire nation wrt transfer of wealth to middle and lower class citizens. Fucking bugpeople and their incapacity to live outside of hives.

The vulnerable affluence of Porter Ranch and Granada Hills, and the exposed tranquility of Paradise, are two representations of the same westward-expansionist frontier thinking that underlies modern life in the United States. This is the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal, transmuted through the urban, petrochemical century.

You're goddamned right it is you fucking subhuman.

 

[Dak]

 

[Dak]

I live in the middle of my university town yet I live among countless trees. I see deer, turkey, egrets, great herons, owls, turtles, and various sundry other wildlife while running within 1-2 direct, "as the crow flies", miles of my multi-bedroom abode, which has both a front and back yard, for a fraction of what pods cost in absolute urban squalor. These bugwo/men don't even know.

 

[Dak]

https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarted-progress-toward-cure/

In more than two dozen interviews, scientists whose ideas fell outside the dogma recounted how, for decades, believers in the dominant hypothesis suppressed research on alternative ideas: They influenced what studies got published in top journals, which scientists got funded, who got tenure, and who got speaking slots at reputation-buffing scientific conferences.

This stifling of competing ideas, say a growing number of scholars, is a big reason why there is no treatment for Alzheimer’s. (The four approved drugs have no effect on the disease, providing only a temporary memory boost.)

The scientists described the frustrating, even career-ending, obstacles that they confronted in pursuing their research. A top journal told one that it would not publish her paper because others hadn’t. Another got whispered advice to at least pretend that the research for which she was seeking funding was related to the leading idea — that a protein fragment called beta-amyloid accumulates in the brain, creating neuron-killing clumps that are both the cause of Alzheimer’s and the key to treating it. Others could not get speaking slots at important meetings, a key showcase for research results. Several who tried to start companies to develop Alzheimer’s cures were told again and again by venture capital firms and major biopharma companies that they would back only an amyloid approach.

“The amyloid hypothesis has been one of the most tragic stories [in] disease research,” said neurobiologist Rachael Neve of Massachusetts General Hospital.

I'm sure this same scenario couldn't happen in any other field, say, climate science.