Unions should extend to everyone — and they basically do.
— Mikie

No, they do not extend to everyone. — javi2541997

Unions should extend to everyone— and basically do.

My point is, some class workers (prostitutes) will not have the same back-up from a union as others — javi2541997

Of course. Prostitution is illegal in many countries. But unions basically extend to everyone else. The degree of power varies.

Unions should extend to everyone — and they basically do. They’re susceptible to corruption and laziness like any other institution. The last 40 years or so, until recently, has shown what happens when you play it safe.

I’m glad to see unions on the rise again. Despite what the numbers may say, they’re gaining power.

Trump fucked a porn star and tried covering it up before the election.

Trump also tried to overthrow an election he lost.

There — I just saved everyone the time of reading countless words of apologetic gymnastics. Both are facts; both are obvious.

I can’t help myself sometimes. But no worries— I blocked him. So I’m done. Feel free to delete my comments.

You see, without the entrepreneurs these technologies would be just like computers were in the 1970's and 1960's — ssu

The “entrepreneurs.” Yeah, those valuable parasites who know how to take technology they don’t create, put it in a pretty box, and advertise the shit out of it. So let’s worship Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Brilliant billionaire geniuses.

What a bunch of bullshit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/business/mercedes-benz-uaw-alabama-vote.html

Too bad. Alabama needs unions.

“Unions are the most powerful tool to fix the most important problem in this country.” — Hamilton Nolan

He’s speaking of wealth inequality, which underlies so many other problems. And he’s right. It’s not voting, it’s not government (although local government is a bit different). It’s really unions, and in particular their ability to strike, that serves a counterbalance to the power of corporate America and K street.

Israel is unlikely to eradicate Hamas, any more than the United States eradicated the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Vietcong in Vietnam or violent militias in Iraq.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/opinion/rafah-gaza-israel.html

Funny this even makes it to The NY Times. But of course he’s right. It’s a stupid decision, apart from being genocidal and morally disgusting. But it may get Bibi another few months of power. (Although even that is looking uncertain now, given his thin alliance is getting restless.)

@180 Proof

Just watched the Mearsheimer video in full, BTW. Crystal clear, as always— but the Q&A was especially interesting.

Two dead threads from years ago — Lionino

That don’t exist. Oh wait, they exist but they’re from years ago. Oh wait, not from years ago but 7 months ago.

I really shouldn’t engage with imbeciles. My bad. You’re going on the ignore list. Have fun talking to yourself. Bye.

Interesting…

America’s energy system has a problem: Solar and wind developers want to build renewable energy at a breakneck pace — and historic climate legislation has fueled their charge with financial incentives worth billions of dollars. But too often the power that these projects can produce has nowhere to go. That’s because the high-voltage lines that move energy across the country don’t have the capacity to handle what these panels and turbines generate. At the same time, electric vehicles, data centers, and new factories are pushing electricity demand well beyond what was expected just a few years ago.

As a result, the U.S. is poised to generate more energy — and, crucially, more carbon-free energy — than ever before, but the nation’s patchwork system of electrical grids doesn’t have enough transmission infrastructure to deliver all that renewable energy to the homes and businesses that could use it. Indeed, this transmission gap could negate up to half of the climate benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to one analysis.

On Monday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, approved a new rule that could help complete this circuit. The agency, which has jurisdiction over interstate power issues, is essentially trying to prod the country’s many electricity providers to improve their planning processes and coordinate with each other in a way that encourages investment in this infrastructure. The hope is that this new regulation will not only address the outstanding interconnection challenge and growing demand but also fortify the grid in the face of extreme weather, given that more transmission will make it easier to shift electricity from one grid to another when there are disaster-driven outages.

However…

However, the reality of the rulemaking process means that the action might not come as quickly as the moment seems to demand. Though the rule was approved on Monday, it doesn’t take effect until 60 days after its publication, and then grid operators and transmission planners will have 10 to 12 months to outline how they intend to comply with the new rule. Only then will the actual planning begin.

[…]

Of course, these new requirements could be delayed or derailed by lawsuits — a likely prospect given the history of legal challenges faced by major FERC rules in the past. Both Powell and Phillips said that they believe that the new policy is durable enough to withstand those challenges. Powell told Grist that the rule went through a lengthy review process that involved extensive public comment. FERC went through 15,000 pages of those comments and ensured that the arguments and issues raised in each were weighed and considered before the final rule was completed.

https://grist.org/energy/ferc-transmission-rule-electricity-grid/

I’m sure it’ll be challenged— and who knows with this Trump-stacked judiciary what will happen.

Reconductoring is included and that’s a good thing too.

Funny how I don’t see them creating threads about the topics they seem to care so much about.

Even though they exist already. But no matter.

I really shouldn’t even take imbeciles seriously.

Yeah, racist genocide promoters love to divert attention from the topic of the thread. Anything to defend the Nazi regime.

Hey look! Suffering in Bangladesh! :lol: — idiocy knows no bounds.

Dabney Coleman. So strange that he popped into my thoughts yesterday while cutting the lawn. My mind wandered to "Cloak and Dagger," an old 80s movie -- and I wondered if he was still alive. At that moment, he was. 24 hours late...not. So strange.

I used to always get him confused with the Dad from A Christmas Story.

Don’t you mean “your guru Mearsheimer”? (Is that goofy ignoramus still around? I lost track after putting on ignore list.)

Anyway— Mearsheimer is spot on, as usual. I’m glad he’s getting a larger audience, thanks mostly to the internet media sidestepping mass media, which ignores him (although he did get 5 minutes on the PBS Newshour a few months ago).

Awfully little talk about the suffering of other countries on a thread about Israel/Palestine. How suspicious! It just proves that those discussing Israel/Palestine, on an Israel/Palestine thread, don’t really care about oppression, ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

And pointing this out makes me smart. It definitely doesn’t prove that one is a complete imbecile.

With its enormous economic, military and political clout, America is the colossus that stands in the way of a planetary crackdown on emissions. Congress is deeply entangled with the fossil fuel industry, and in the short term will stay that way. In time, we can hope for its corruption to wane and a belated survival instinct to kick in. But at this pivotal point, when science tells us we have to peak emissions by 2025, the only way forward is through the executive.

President Biden can’t stop oil companies from drilling on private or state lands, which are the source of the vast majority of our current output, but he can phase out oil and gas production on public lands. And he can reinstate a ban on oil and gas exports from private lands. He can stop saying yes to all new oil and gas projects — including the planned Sea Port Oil Terminal off the Texas coast, intended to increase our exports — and more exploration and drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico.

He can declare the destabilized climate to be the emergency it is and stop the billions of dollars in fossil fuel financing invested abroad, which locks in decades’ worth of extraction. He can direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. He can end the Department of Energy’s fossil fuel financing programs and require that all new vehicle sales are zero-emission by 2030. He can prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Gavin Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the clean energy transition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/opinion/climate-summit-2023-un.html

Objective: eradicate Hamas.

Since Israel is the aggressor and occupier, which has created a murderous prison for 2 million people barely surviving under its vicious regime, the way they can deal with Hamas is to free the territory from their sadistic rule.

More narrowly, they can accept a cease-fire.

There will be no eradication of Hamas. What Israel wants is apparent: cleanse the region of those “barbaric” Palestinians, who are to blame for Hamas’ actions and who don’t really deserve to be there anyway. Barely disguised racism, really. But so it goes…

I added to the list. Nutty that she’s around too.

Just added Dr Ruth. How is she still around?

Kind of like Richard Simmons— very big in the 80s, but haven’t really heard from them in a long time and just assumed they died a long time ago and I never heard about it.

But no. Still alive. Cool! :up:

I think the definition I gave is probably a good one. — Sam26

Silly and random, but good I guess.

But similar claims can be made about beings, as well. Or experience. Or thinking. Or awareness. Or meaning. I probably couldn’t give examples of where philosophy doesn’t in some way deal with any of those things either. No reason to prioritize epistemology — that seems more a choice based on tradition. — Mikie

Hey let’s come up with a bunch of hypotheticals towards the end of justifying present-day genocide. What a fun game.

We use deductive and inductive reasoning to analyze what we believe and what others believe. — Sam26

We really don’t. Not most of the time.

The emphasis of thinking (in terms of logic), epistemology, etc — again, seems to me just a residue of tradition. Why start there? Why not start with phusis? Or what is not thought? Instinct? Habit? The unconscious.

The very idea that we walk around reasoning in a structured way, taking things in and “analyzing” beliefs— that whole story is unconvincing.

Can you give an e.g. where philosophy doesn't deal with beliefs or belief systems in some way? — Sam26

Depends on what we mean by belief. But similar claims can be made about beings, as well. Or experience. Or thinking. Or awareness. Or meaning. I probably couldn’t give examples of where philosophy doesn’t in some way deal with any of those things either. No reason to prioritize epistemology — that seems more a choice based on tradition.

So, in a very general way, it's about what we believe. — Sam26

Can be. Sounds too epistemological to me though.

Sure. It’s just funny coming from a delusional Trump supporter— as though prosecuting a degenerate con man will finally bring down America law.

Genocide apologists are not only stupid and unfunny, and fail at satire — but they’re also extremely boring. :yawn:

don't think vote spikes prove fraud — Lionino

…

so any fraud to secure such a win would be impossible not to expose. Were there also vote spikes late into the game in 2008? — Lionino

:lol: Not even aware we can go back and find what was said.

5 foot 5 in your town where the average male height is 6 feet, which is why you are so feminine (imagine using ellipsis!) — Lionino

:lol:

The 4Chan incel mentality strikes again. Obsessed with goofy ideas of masculinity and their own latent homosexuality. Thank you for displaying your insecurities about your height and manliness. Keep up with those protein shakes.

Anyway— good job deflecting away from your imbecilic claims about voter fraud. Still waiting for the evidence…oh wait, it’s just “obvious.” Nevermind. :ok:

Societies can be sick. — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah yeah, your racism is well documented. But thanks for the reminder.

Was Biden the rightful winner or not?
— RogueAI

I don't know, I am not all-knowing — Lionino

70% chance that he is — Lionino

:rofl:

Is Biden actually an alien from Neptune? Don’t know…I’m not all knowing! I give it a 20% chance that he is. Because I read Twitter.

Were there also vote spikes late into the game in 2008? https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27Q304/ — Lionino

And then links to an article completely debunking the stupid, stupid claim that “vote spikes” (for both Trump and Biden) are somehow evidence of “fraud.”

What a complete embarrassment. But please keep speaking of things for which you’re humiliatingly ignorant. It goes in line with…literally everything else you post.

Fact: the election was the most secure and clean in history.

Morons: “except for the THOUSANDS of dead voters and tourists and immigrants!”

What evidence? None, it’s just “obvious.”

Did it affect the election? No, not saying that.

Apparently some people need a course in probability and statistics.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has been monitoring election fraud cases state by state. Election fraud covers a range of activities — such as registering someone to vote and forging their signature, filling out an absentee ballot for someone who has died or moved away, voting while ineligible, or pretending to be someone else at the polling place and voting. They find that there have been 1,465 proven cases of election fraud — 1,264 of these resulted in criminal prosecutions and the remainder resulted in civil prosecutions, diversion programs, judicial findings, or official findings.

These may sound like big numbers, however, they must be examined in context. The findings encompass more than a decade of data during which, nationally, hundreds of millions of votes have been cast. For instance, in Texas, Heritage found 103 cases of confirmed election fraud. However, those 103 ranged from 2005 to 2022 during which time over 107 million ballots were cast. There were 11 million ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election alone. The fraud in Texas amounted to 0.000096% of all ballots cast — hardly evidence of a fundamentally corrupt system.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/widespread-election-fraud-claims-by-republicans-dont-match-the-evidence/

I guess 0.000096% is a lot when dealing in feelings. To the rest of the world, it’s not worth mentioning any more than the epidemic of getting stuck by lightning (which is more likely).

I say it how it is — Lionino

an election where thousands of tourists and dead people voted — Lionino

“Like it is.”
:rofl:

In other words: “I find this obvious because of a feeling I picked up somewhere from 4Chan about trans kids or something.”

Voter fraud that is caught is extremely rare, which is a given in your failed State. — Lionino

:rofl:

Oh I see. So there’s “obvious” widespread voter fraud— but no evidence of it because it’s never caught, despite Trump and his idiotic followers like you screaming about fraud for years and more intense scrutiny on voting than ever before. But we know there is, because Trump says so. So it’s obvious. No need for evidence — we can “feel” it.

No surprise you hold yet another stupid, stupid position. And why you still cannot provide one shred of evidence. Are you a Creationist as well?

But when it came to my attention that your schooling systems teaches sex fluidity before Europe not being a country and writing skills, it is unshocking that you graduated. The perfect cosmopolitan drone to send taxes to Israel and eat grass. — Lionino

:chin: This was almost coherent. Almost.

Keep taking your English-as-second-language courses though. You’re doing great. :up:

Let's imagine that members of this forum can magically change the past. What would you change? — Truth Seeker

I would tell myself not to read this OP.

( :wink: )

will discredit the American justice system for years to come

:lol:

Melodrama.

:up:

But the hypothesis is that UBI is successfully implemented. So what happens as a result of that is at least in part altered by that. — Pantagruel

I’m a little confused with your anaphors here.

If UBI is successfully implemented, the result is altered by its success? How does this relate to taxes?

against the interests of the elite — Pantagruel

In the same way that Medicare and Medicaid do, or giving overtime, or increasing the minimum wage, etc. Social programs aren’t loved, but since taxpayers fund them— and they mostly avoid paying taxes (or pay a lower percentage than middle class folks) — it’s not such a problem.

If, in order to fund UBI, we increase taxes on the rich — then you’d see an outcry.

But even in that case (raising taxes on the rich), the problem I mentioned remains: the decisions (in production, and by extension in government [thanks in part to Citizens United]) still remain in the hands of a power elite. Roughly the kind C. Wright Mills discussed.

What is socialism?

To me, socialism— and communism — aim for the same basic thing: freedom and democracy. That the production of a human society — the workplace, the corporation, the factory, whatever — should be run democratically, by and for the people, like the US professes to care about regarding its government— is a no brainer. No reason the same attitude we hold about government can’t be applied to production.

With that simple change — democracy at work — the rest will likely follow. No more 90% of profits going to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks, no more CEO pay of 400 times the median worker salary, no more stagnant real wages, no more key decisions placed in the hands of a board of directors, themselves chosen by (and members of) the elite group of major shareholders in the world.

So to answer the question: it doesn’t make it obsolete until you tell us what it is. By my thinking, UBI doesn’t solve the real problem, which is one of power: the decisions being in the hands of a self-perpetuating, small elite of private owners.

It’s good to revisit this thread every couple years. My own view hasn’t changed: Philosophy, to me, is questioning — particularly the asking of universal human questions.

Quite apart from a narrow view of academic tenure and professionalism — one more division of labor — this broader view affords me the ability to take equally seriously what’s often claimed as “separate” — religion, art, science, etc. Which has been very useful in my general learning and practical engagement with people in the real world.

It reminds of Descartes, but it is not strictly the same. — Lionino

I didn’t say it was the same— it has unique features. But in line with the tradition, in my view, of being an utter waste of time.