Comments

  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Maybe it is all innocent (???), but shouldn't it get a little more play time that it has, and are we not at all concerned that the media has taken a side on this?Hanover

    Right now, people are too concerned with the pandemic and the economy crashing that they don't give a damn about what Hunter Biden did in another country. I don't blame them, but that is just how it is. It should be a concern for people that the media is censoring stories that they don't approve of, but many of them don't think that far ahead and in fact some of them are even cheering the move so much as they are aware of it. It's setting a bad precedent but that's how it usually starts, like the Terrorist Surveillance Program that was started in the wake of 9/11.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Trump has certainly not been establishment. Was that a good thing?Relativist

    For alot of people, yeah it was. Trump was able to fool undecided voters with his outsider status and make them take a gamble on him. Although Hillary led Trump in alot of the polls, she only ever won 45% of the vote, which meant that if Trump won a majority of the remaining voters while Clinton stayed stagnant, he'd beat her.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    He seems like a decent, if imperfect, man. I can't see how anyone could put him into the same category as Trump.Relativist

    He's not in the same category as Trump. More in the same category of being an establishment politician like Hillary Clinton, except without the toxic image, which is why he'll likely do far better than she ever did.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Isn't it interesting how popular it is to call Trump stupid. And yet he is President, and we are not. And he is rich, and we are not. And he totally dominates all forms of media almost minute by minute, and nobody gives the slightest shit what we have to say.

    And he beat every Republican, and every Democrat, all the professional politicians, all the talking heads, all the expert insiders. All of them.

    A world class asshole, yes, totally agree there. But not stupid.
    Hippyhead

    No, Trump really is stupid and everything that he's said and done in these past 4 years demonstrates that quite well. In spite of what he keeps saying about how unfair the system is towards him, the fact is he got into the White House through sheer luck because of that very system. From the billions he received in free media from the "fake news" outlets, to the "deep state" FBI saving his campaign with their October surprise email investigation, to the fact that he ran against quite literally the most unpopular establishment candidate in modern history, the fact that a conman like him could get through and become president speaks more to how broken the US is as a country more than anything else.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This story is getting crazier. Looks like “the big guy” has some explaining to do. — Literally every news story for the past 4 years
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    OK, I just watched it a couple more times and it's less clear to me that he was joking. Hard to say with this guy.Erik

    General rule of thumb is that the more horrifying the thing he said, the more serious he's likely being. Injecting disinfectant into people? Totally serious. Leaving the country? Too good to be true so probably a joke.

    Oh yeah, and he usually claims that the thing he said was "sarcasm" later to "own the media" when he's being serious so watch out for that too.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    You know, if Obama were president, the economy wasn't in shambles with no relief in sight, 200K people didn't die from a ongoing pandemic, and Trump isn't known for abusing his position in far far worse ways, then maybe the email scandal would've resonated with voters like it did in 2016.

    Eh, so much for that October "surprise". Notify me in a week or so when Trump announces a "surprise breakthrough" in a vaccine right before the election.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Agreed. At this rate it won't be until 2024 that America could see real change. Bernie's pretty much out since he's probably too old to run again, so I wonder who's gonna take over his position as the populist leftie? My guess is Yang.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Yeah Democrats shouldn't be complacent like in 2016 and I hope that they have the memories of that election in mind when it comes to this election cycle. Although I would normally be confident in a Biden victory Trump and the GOP's attempts to outright steal the election really makes the need for a landslide victory on election night all the more necessary, though I'm expecting an absolute mess no matter what.

    That said, that article that you linked to is absolute bonkers. The news outlet is a far-right libertarian conspiracy website, and the JPMorgan guy they talked to has a history of making bullish predictions on Trump's chances.
  • The web of reality
    You can still calculate invariant quantities for photons even if you cannot construct a rest frame for them. The proper time is an example.Kenosha Kid

    My point still stands that I don't think we should call it the "perspective" of a photon, certainly not the "reference frame". Then again, I feel like that is neither here nor there with respect to the topic of this thread, so sorry for derailing it.

    Literally the same in fact. The reason why you cannot have a rest frame for the speed c is that the transforms from other frames are inversely proportional to the square root of (1 - v/c). When v = c, you get 1/0.Kenosha Kid

    Exactly. I thought I missed something last night. The maths get very unhappy when you try v=c which is why the situation of an object travelling at the speed of light isn't applicable for relativity theory. That's why you need to rely on talk of the limit instead (like 1/x as x->0), but that isn't really the same as talking about the case when v=c (or when x=0 for 1/x), as I stated earlier.
  • The web of reality
    The notion of duration and distance is meaningless for a photon, yes. While you can't choose a reference frame with a velocity of c, you can see that the proper duration of a photon is zero by taking the limit v->c.Kenosha Kid

    Sorry, I thought you meant they were meaningless in general (a bit tired right now), though I'm still not sure about the use of phrases like "for a photon" when it seems like the very idea of a perspective for light or other massless particles just simply doesn't make sense. Talking about the limit as v->c is different from talking about the situation of when v=c. This isn't to say that light does "experience" time or space or that it doesn't but rather that the whole notion is just undefined like 1/0.
  • The web of reality
    Yes, but also the concepts of duration and distance.Kenosha Kid

    So are you suggesting that the reference frame of a photon is meaningless as well as the concept of duration and distance?
  • The web of reality
    Because of the distortion of space and time relative to motion, from the frame of reference of any given photon, the distance that it travels between whatever emitted it and your eye is zero, and the journey takes no time at all; from the photon's perspective, it exists only at a point and only for an instant,the whole of its being constituted entirely by the interaction between whatever emitted it and your eye.Pfhorrest

    Okay... So all elementary behaviours are then creation and annihilation events that, in the frame of reference of the thing being created and annihilated, take no time and traverse no space. I'd go with that.Kenosha Kid

    Wait isn't the concept of a reference frame for the speed of light meaningless? It doesn't make sense to talk about a frame where light is at rest since it's always moving at c, no?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This is bad. At this rate Clinton won't win the election.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Every 4 years the fly decides who loses the election:

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    pencefly_10072020getty_0.jpg
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Don't count him out just yet. What I see on your map representing Arizona is inaccurate as far as I can tell. There are a sea of Trump flags down the street but then again, as I have expressed in the past, we take our rights seriously and Beto O'rourke is what keeps people around here awake at night.
    There might be a shred of truth to the silent supporters that will rise up on election day.
    ArguingWAristotleTiff

    If there are silent supporters then they wouldn't be putting up flags or putting bumper stickers on their cars like that, no? In fact, if anything that may suggest silent democrat voters if the community is very vocally right. The "silent voter" phenomenon if that is a thing goes both ways and varies on a case by case basis. Honestly, given how well "silent" and "peaceful" Trump supporters can be, I can imagine not wanting to put up a sign next to them.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Boy I can't wait until the next debate. It will be like the last one except literally on steroids.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The thing is the GOP doesn't have to do both before the election. They have the lame-duck session to get Barrett through. There's no reason for them to hold up the stimulus like this especially when the Fed is giving dire warnings if none is passed. I mean I guess it's not surprising that McConnell is prioritizing filling in the courts over helping the American people (I mean the bill passed by the House was on Mitch's desk as far back as May and wasn't even taken up), but apparently Trump just gave away the game which I'm sure will help him in the election where he's 15 points down and people desperately need relief.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Indeed, which is why I won't rest easy until 2021. Who knows what Trump would try doing during those two months knowing it's over. I wonder if there's any way to kick him off sooner. There's impeachment but that may take months though.

    Then again, if the Dems manage to stall the SCOTUS nomination to the lame duck session as it may possibly be and impeach Trump when he inevitably goes crazy I kind of wonder if that would be enough to completely stop Barrett. That would be a wonderful way to end 2020.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Honestly given everything that they're doing with respect to undermining the elections, to completely ignoring the pandemic, and all this should end the GOP as a party. But I imagine in 4 years or so things will go back to normal and people will start electing them again.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    For those of you who are worried about Trump and COVID the doctors have already fixed it. They closed the border with China (very early on I must say) and now Trump doesn't have to worry about it anymore. They did everything they could.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    2. The Republicans nominate a younger more dynamic stand-in for the trumpeesmagritte

    And who would this backup cult leader be? The MAGA cult are mostly in it for Trump.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    People like Trump and his supporters who deny this reality are the new flat earthers.Punshhh

    To be fair to the flat earthers, at least their ignorance isn't causing the destruction of all life on earth. I would have no problem with them otherwise if they're not affecting me or anybody else with their beliefs. There's being stupid and there's being dangerously stupid, with climate deniers and anti-vaxxers I'd categorize in the latter.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The US is influential by virtue if its military, it's economy, and it's culture.The US has no special influence over CO2 production.frank

    I'd say given it's leverage over such matters like the economy that it has alot of influence over things like the emission of CO2.

    Meanwhile China has committed to becoming CO2 neutral by 2060. However repelled we may be by dictatorship, we have to admit that in the face of climate change, it works better.frank

    Unfortunately I have to agree there. It's hard to solve a long term problem like climate change when people keep electing idiots like Bolsonaro and Trump into power every now and then. Of course's there's also the nightmare scenario of a dictatorship which is dead set on denying science and making bad problems worse, which hopefully the US doesn't fall into.

    The reason we should drop talk of "doom" is that it isn't based on science. When that's the primary message coming from climate change acceptors, it undermines their cause. The climate is changing. We will change with it.frank

    Though I do think that a more positive message on climate change and adopting more sustainable technologies and practices would be more effective, I wouldn't say that the talk of "doom" is unwarranted since the scientific projections right now are incredibly bleak. We're already past the point of no return and humanity is gonna have to bear the brunt of their actions to a certain extent. It's just a matter of how much they can mitigate it right now before things get better.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The US puts out less than 20% of total human generated CO2, so we aren't in control of that. Nobody is.frank

    The US is the most influential nation on the planet and the fact is Trump pulling out of the Paris Accord and leaving a vacuum of leadership on climate action has led to other countries following suit. Even if they won't outright admit it, they see the US's inaction as an excuse to not do anything themselves as seen in last year's COP25.

    I don't know how far Biden would go to implement legislation on climate change but at least he would be better on the world stage than the guy who thinks we should rake the forests to stop forest fires.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ...in some private capacity where he can't create problems for anyone else ever again.Pfhorrest

    That's a nice way of saying prison.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Yeah, yeah, 200K dead. We all know about that already.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Holy shit Trump tested positive for covid let's gooooooooooooooMaw

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  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This makes me think Trump isn't really trying to get more people to vote for him as much as he is just trying to stop people from voting in general. Make things as uncertain and chaotic as possible so enough people get paralyzed and don't vote.darthbarracuda

    Honestly I feel like that's gonna backfire on him more than anything. People would just be more motivated to kick him out then they would before. That's the main reason why they're voting for Biden honestly.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    But it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, only who garners more support.darthbarracuda

    Kind of curious as to what you mean exactly by "garnering more support". I don't think that Trump has ever tried to expand his base much, focusing on just feeding red meat to his cult of supporters. That explains why his numbers have never moved much during his entire presidency.

    If you mean who came off as being more aggressive then certainly Trump did, but I think he took the whole thing way too far to the point of turning off most people so I can't say that it helped him.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    He's been showing who he is for 4 years. To be honest it's amazing that some people are even surprised at how much of a moronic jackass he can be when that's all that we've been hearing about him since 2015.

    If the next debates are gonna be the incoherent mess that it was two days ago, then people are just gonna tune out which would probably just help Biden since he's in the lead and Trump's the one who needs to change up the race.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    Not all but most. Trump is still riding high with a lot of self-described "conservatives" no matter what he does.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Well I'm not really looking for a serious conversation with these folks since I can tell they're a lost cause. I'm mostly just in it to mess with them :razz:.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Personally I think that the reliability of the source matters quite a lot when we're talking about trusting news reports, but apparently you think otherwise.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    In review, [Project Veritas]'s videos are edited in a way that makes them difficult to fact check. Often his information is debunked, but it is too late as the information has already been watched by thousands or more. In general, the narrative created by [Project Veritas], whether edited or not is to portray liberals in a negative light.
    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/project-veritas/
  • Amy Coney Barrett's nomination
    She's apparently had remarkably little judicial experience (all of it in appeals court), and practiced law for a scant three years. She's an academic who spent sometime clerking before being appointed to the 7th Circuit in 2017. I prefer that Supreme Court Justices have more experience of how the law actually works, and it's impact on actual people.Ciceronianus the White

    None of that matters when the only reason she's on there is because she's a religious nut who's gonna 100% vote against abortion. Everything else is irrelevant. They're gonna rush the filling of one of the most important positions in the country in record time and the American people may have to live with that for decades to come.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    Conservatives are at their heart believers in law and order. I understand the left's position that the right's concept of law and order amounts to suppression of certain groups, but the point remains that a conservative is committed to protecting the status quo and the existing institutions. For that reason, the fear that there will be a conservative rebellion in any literal sense is unfounded. Those criticisms are better levied against the left and is evidenced by the fact that is the left that speaks of radical rule change (elimination of the electoral college, increasing the size of the Supreme Court, and defunding the police) and who literally takes to the streets with riots, looting, and violence.Hanover

    I wouldn't take issue with any of what you've said... except for the fact that the person who all conservatives are rallying behind is a man who embodies the exact opposite of the things they claim to believe in.

    The right is not collecting their guns and building their fences in preparation of an offensive attack but they are holing up in anticipation of defending themselves from the zombie apocalypse they fear will make it out to the suburbs and countryside where they reside.Hanover

    But they're also against lockdowns, masks, and social distancing, helping to spread a virus from a very real pandemic that could well kill millions of Americans, which BTW also killed 200K people already in the US because their president intentionally downplayed the threat.
  • The Road to 2020 - American Elections
    Get rid of the ballots and there'll be a peaceful … it won't be a transfer frankly it will be a continuation. — Trump

    Translation: Get rid of democracy and I'll be dictator forever.
  • Add up and down voting


    Why would it be beneficial? Upvoting and downvoting comments just seems like a cheap way to engage in a conversation personally, and the whole system would just discourage any productive discussion because of it. If you want to tell people that you like or dislike their comment, then you can do it already through a response :up: .