“The worst in the history of our country’s life.” — the stable genius with the best words

:lol:

Agreement is irrelevant. We could agree because you threatened my wife, or because we're family and I'm partial, or simply because I like you and not the next guy. These are merely economic transactions, not moral ones. You need to be deeply steeped in a capitalist society to equate economic transactions with moral ones, so the mistake is understandable but it's a rather simplistic and unexamined position. That's where almost everything goes wrong with most of your thinking. — Benkei

Yes indeed. An entire ideological system that has been so useful to the ruling class rests entirely on bogus notions of freedom, individuality, and human nature. Simplistic, transactional, soulless.

Proof is in the pudding: these people vote for, and endlessly defend, Donald friggin’ Trump. Tribalistic hacks to the bitter end.

Perceived probability is an interesting concept.

If you asked someone what the odds are of dying in an airplane or in a car, I imagine the majority would say the odds are higher in a plane. That’s the perception — and it’s wrong.

Ditto getting stuck by lightning. Turns out that your house getting hit is actually not that rare. Etc.

Probability is important. I feel like it’s the best we can do. But people’s perceptions will radically differ. It can be useful in gambling — like in poker — but otherwise it’s just irritating.

Interesting— I haven’t followed the news in a couple days and must have missed this. Not sure what to think about it— I hear Sanders and Markey were No votes, which gives me pause, although I’m generally pro-nuclear.

Just a reminder that this weather is indeed extreme. For anyone who can feel, and can read a graph, the pattern is alarming:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/extreme-summer-heat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.000.e-Vm.9B61_NeAn8_Z&smid=url-share

RIP Willie Mays. Not on my list, but should have been.

sum, President Biden is proposing extraordinarily large tax hikes on businesses and the top 1 percent of earners that would put the U.S. in a distinctly uncompetitive international position and threaten the health of the U.S. economy.

:rofl:

Always the same stupid excuses by plutocratic apologists.

Too big to fail. Too big to jail. And too big to tax.

It’s a law of nature that 90% of profits have to go to shareholders, so naturally if more goes to taxes or workers, cuts will have to be made to maintain the status quo.

Never mind that these companies are making billions in profits off the backs of their workers. Never mind that real wages have stagnated under “trickle down” economics.

Were you a professional? — jgill

Missed this. Yes, I was.

Coal is dead. Good riddance.

The first time Donald J. Trump ran for president, he slapped on a miner’s helmet and told coal workers they would be “winning, winning, winning” when he entered the White House.

Now, as Mr. Trump campaigns for another chance at the presidency, he rarely mentions America’s coal miners and has stopped making grand promises about their future.

The shift reflects political and economic realities, experts said. Top among them: Mr. Trump oversaw coal’s decline, not its salvation. Despite the fact that Mr. Trump gutted climate regulations and appointed a coal lobbyist to lead the country’s top environmental agency, 75 coal-fired power plants closed and the industry shed about 13,000 jobs during his presidency.

“Not a single coal miner went back to work or power plant saved,” said Erin E. Bates, a spokeswoman for the United Mine Workers of America, the labor organization representing coal miners.

“I think he’s realizing those promises were not met during his term and they’re probably not going to be met now,” she said. “Politically, it probably doesn’t pay for his campaign to make more broken promises.”

Two decades ago, coal produced about half of all the electricity in the United States. Today, it accounts for just 16 percent of American power generation. The industry employed nearly 180,000 people at its peak in the 1980s, but now that figure is about 44,800, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Coal began its slide around 2005 as the fracking boom started to produce large quantities of cheap natural gas, which proved attractive to utilities. In the last few years, the cost of power generated by wind turbines and solar farms has plunged, replacing natural gas as the cheapest source of electricity. Last year, power generated from onshore wind turbines and solar farms was about one-third of the cost of the electricity produced by coal, on average.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/climate/trump-coal-politics.html

Watching the Trump cultists wiggle and squirm is amazing. :rofl:

The World Will Be Swimming in Excess Oil by End of This Decade, IEA Says

Global oil markets are headed toward a major glut this decade, a global energy watchdog forecast, citing surging supplies and slowing demand growth for crude thanks to lower-emissions energy sources.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/global-oil-markets-to-tip-into-surplus-by-end-of-decade-iea-says-c85688fa?mod=mhp

Was a Trump judge. Whole thing was rigged. It was a perfect gun application.

Oh no and they restrain their prisoners? — BitconnectCarlos

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners’ limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being “a paradise for interns”; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.

Yes, it reeks of “humane.”

Do they also commit war crimes by using guns against Hamas? — BitconnectCarlos

10,000 dead babies and genocide apologists call them “Hamas.”

And they wonder why they’re internationally condemned and bleeding support. Oh wait, no…it’s because of antisemitism. :yawn:

Just your daily reminder that Israel is fighting a humane war against a genocidal enemy — BitconnectCarlos

Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.html

Within a week of bombing two schools and killing hundreds of innocent people— yet again.

So very humane. “Just your daily IDF propaganda.”

It’s like bad satire…

:lol:

Hunter Biden found guilty! Oh no! Lol

Must all be rigged, judge was a republican, we’re a banana republic, etc.

Oh wait…no one cares. And Joe Biden says he’ll respect the ruling.

my search for my soulmate — Bob Ross

Mistake.

I wonder: are there any good ways to meet an intellectually substantive partner (viz., perhaps a philosopher)? — Bob Ross

No. There are no philosophers anymore. And if there are, you won’t find them.

Both are silly mistakes. No soulmates; no philosophers. Who would even want that?

Looks like you need a nerdy girl. They’re probably the best ones anyway, in the scheme of things.

Good luck out there.

.

Do you or do you not want to see America fall? — BitconnectCarlos

:rofl:

Because you totally know that the NYPD reporting procedures unlike those idiots (including the police themselves) who bring up this point. — BitconnectCarlos

No, nor do I care. I never once mentioned New York— not that it matters, since your feelings triumph because you see lots of stuff being under glass. So crime must be rising.

I'm serious. — BitconnectCarlos

Oh I know. Which is why it’s so hilarious.

Apparently in NYC the police won't even file a crime report for anything short of murder. — BitconnectCarlos

I already said: just go with your feelings and vibes and anecdotes.

You don't even like the US. — BitconnectCarlos

:lol:

Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden

55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

It’s prices that matter to people, apparently— the cost of living. Not inflation, despite what’s claimed.

But mostly just media consumption shaping one’s feelings.

Crime data in the US has been manipulated for years for political gain. It's an open secret. I walk into stores and see items locked up due to pervasive shoplifting. — BitconnectCarlos

Oh I see— so the stats can’t be trusted, but your anecdotes should be.

Funny — I walk into stores and almost nothing is locked up. Nothing that hasn’t been locked up since the 1990s anyway.

I don't recall it being like this a decade or two ago. But that's surely paranoia, right? — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah, basically. Because shoplifting really hasn’t increased much nationally. But Fox News runs stories every night, so I can see how your brain would be effected that way.

Violent crime has declined nationally since jumping in 2020, but trends in retail theft are more difficult to assess, in part because of varying data collection and theft reporting methods. That said, the available crime data and industry figures cut against claims of a national increase in retail theft, despite notable spikes in some cities.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/myth-vs-reality-trends-retail-theft

Oh wait — no stats matter, only vibes and anecdotes do. Let’s go with those I guess. In which case: stock market at all time low! America is being overrun by immigrants! Etc.

:yawn:

Good god— is this really what braindead right wingers find funny?

The crackhead jab was the only one not reliant on a stupid, nonexistent premise (crime is actually down) or Fox News bromide.

Reminds me of these polls where conservatives say the stock market is way down when it’s at record highs. Just living a fact-free existence. What can you do? Let stupid be stupid I guess.

Bill McKibben on Project 2025:

They also promise to reach back to 2009 to reverse a crucial finding from the EPA that carbon dioxide causes harm, a position that undergirds much federal environmental regulation. Their plan would even abolish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which measures the damage we’re doing to air and water—because those findings are “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

[…]

And it’s even worse than that. The climate crisis—unlike most of our political woes—is a timed test; past a certain point, we can’t repair the damage. Once you melt the Arctic, no one knows how to freeze it back up again. And that “certain point” is approaching: Climate scientists have made it clear that emissions need to fall by half by 2030; Trump’s term would end in January of 2029, giving his successor… 11 months. Good luck.

The Planet Could Bear the Scars of a Second Trump Term… Forever

Project 2025: Roadmap to Venus.

What’s so sad is that, much like tobacco companies before them, they really don’t care about the externalities of their products. “Climate change alarm industry” :lol:

I do say that this country has not been the same since the CIA blew his brains out in broad daylight on behalf of the deep state. — fishfry

So you’re with Oliver Stone on this one I guess.

Seems silly to me. I don’t care that much, to be honest— could be true. What actually changed my mind was NOVA’s assessment:



Worth watching. They dismantle a lot of misinformation.

Chomsky is full of shit on the JFK assassination by the way. — fishfry

Does he say much about it? I recall him focusing more on Vietnam and Cuba.

Anyway…Your credibility continues to wane. First repeating conservative talking points, then echoing Oliver Stone conspiracy theories, now claiming Noam Chomsky is a “CIA asset.” Oof..

Wallace Shawn is fantastic. Great scene.

Dare I ask why you say that? — fishfry

But nevermind. I don't necessarily need to have this conversation. — fishfry

Fine. Chomsky says it better than me, though (at 1:36):




Also recommend “Rethinking Camelot.”

"Leader" isn't a character trait, but a social position. Leaders have followers. — Moliere

Okay, sure. But whatever the traits are that a leader possesses, it’s usually not passivity. Being confident, outspoken, have clear goals, being persuasive, perhaps even arrogant, manipulative, and domineering (if one is a bad leader, in my view).

It’s a shorthand.

The rule is "Leaders have followers" -- so if someone doesn't want to do anything because it won't matter anyway and everyone else follows them then "waiting around for something to happen" is the state of affairs, not the rule. The rule is "Follow the leader", and the leader has various disgruntled reasons for convincing everyone to not put in any effort. — Moliere

:chin:

Well in that case, you’re right: there are a lot of leaders after all!

What rating & time control? I'm around 1900/2000 level on chess.com at 10 minute. I wouldn't typically mention this in conversation. — BitconnectCarlos

Nice.

It varies because I often play stupidly just to try new things, because it’s fun and I don’t care much about the points. I think I could play at 1950 or so at 3 minutes consistently, which is my favorite time, if I played to win every game (which sometimes gets boring because it involves taking advantage of little gains).

Anyway— like I said, not amazing. Maybe above average, but I’ve never studied it formally and would be destroyed by anyone who has.

Incidentally, I have played a few guys in New York at the famous Union Square for money, and won each time. But again — that just likely proves they’re not that good and are used to taking advantage of random people.

I also find that there many different types of intelligences (social, emotional, mental, etc.) — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah, me too. But I don’t see many taking the lead on anything— I guess that’s the point. Everyone’s waiting for something to happen.

I do think that being a big fish in a small pond does elevate some to be big fishes in big ponds as well. — Hanover

Good point— but I wonder how often. I would think mostly they’re just crushed.

You have to have passion or you just won't do it. — Hanover

Yeah, and maybe that’s all it comes down to: few have truly any real passion. Or I haven’t encountered it much in life. Maybe just bad luck for me, who knows. But I wonder.

And regarding chess, you sound like a big fish in a small pond. — BitconnectCarlos

Without question. Playing on chess.com shows me that. Above average, but nothing exceptional. Even @Hanover beat me for God’s sake. But the point being that in situations less amenable to real proof, one can go on wondering…

A good lounge topic.

I have no idea what it’s called.

This is what makes it disappointing - to see intelligent people rationalizing the despicable
actions of Trump and his flunkeys. It’s depressing. — Wayfarer

This and climate change. Those two issues are so easy and so obvious that a child can understand them, and yet individuals who would otherwise fool you into believing they’re sharp thinkers simply cannot grasp them.

To me, both are a kind of litmus test. I used to think it was belief in God (“how can anyone rational really belief this?”), but that’s changed. Actually it’s rather similar, since the dogma and brainwashing of Christianity has largely shifted to politics, and so to education, science, medicine, etc. A lot of overlap. But still, I’m much more forgiving of religious beliefs these days — seem almost quaint and harmless compared to the Trump cult, anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, book banners, etc.

It is indeed depressing, but shows how easy it is to get lost and let irrationality take over. Happens to the best of us.

In Fishfry’s defense, he’s certainly far from the worst of it — just skewed on where the emphasis gets placed and a lot of false equivalence — and there’s a lot of truth in it, to the both-sides stuff. Always has been. Because there really IS a lot to criticize in either party, and the hypocrisy that gets pointed out IS real.

For example, it’s true that there was some violence and destruction of property in the 2020 protests, yes. It’s true that the people who generally agreed with the values downplayed a lot of it, despite condemning it. It’s true that the conservative media ran NOTHING BUT these negative stories, to the point where you might have been convinced entire cities were being burned down and the world was falling into anarchy and being consumed by fire.

But most of us are already beyond that analysis. Getting stuck in the endless hypocrisy accusations is boring and tiresome and regressive, and usually serves as nothing more than a cover for one’s thinly-veiled partisanship. If you want to pretend you’re independent but deep down feel that one side is a bigger threat, then that will eventually come out. Look where the emphasis gets placed. I do this too. But I don’t hide it under the cover of “both sides.” The Republicans and Trump are more dangerous in my view— period. So I vote against them because I don’t want them in power. Why? Because it makes it that much harder to make any progress. But that’s not an endorsement on Biden or the Democrats, whom I loathe. But they’re NOT the same.

Eh…rambling over. Bottom line: stop overthinking things. Stop the gaslighting. Forget the culture war nonsense. And for God’s sake, enough with the fucking both-sides Nickelodeon analysis.

You'll ignore a summer of deadly rioting — fishfry

Hysterical. Childish.

Handful of unarmed clowns in costumes. Guess you missed the leftists interrupting Kavanaugh hearing. — fishfry

:rofl:

Totally unbiased analysis. Very convincing.

Since November 22, 1963. — fishfry

Oh Christ. Yeah, the day one of the worst presidents in history gets shot — all downhill from there. Please.

Another excellent explainer by Vox. Goes to show how silly the US's system is.

Would you rather live in a world run by Israel or Hamas? I think we both know the answer to that. — RogueAI

You mean Likud or Hamas. Neither, because I dislike terrorists.

Would I prefer to live in Israel or Gaza? Israel, hands down. But that’s exactly the point.

If you have the right belief system, killing people is fine.

Like the US in Iraq: spreading freedom and democracy. The “right” values. You have to burn a few babies alive to spread your superior Western values? Thems the breaks I guess.

How sickening.