uhuh, so we're not talking about legal marriage here and that's not a graph about legal marriage.

Hmm, then it seems as though you're using the term "marriage" in a highly idiosyncratic sense, one which is far removed from common usage. — Erik

Just a method to avoid admitting he's wrong. He does it regularly. It's totally inconsistent with the discussions at the start of this thread.

McCarthyism lives again. “Russi, Russia, Russia”. — raza

Totally incomparable. McCarthyism had Truman sign into law screening of civil servants for loyalty and led to a stifling of freedom of speech of US citizens and had McCarthy pursue the whole unamerican nonsense. In this case, foreign intelligence is accused of meddling and there's a suspicion of collusion also under investigation. Indicting and following the rule of law through investigating possible crimes has nothing to do with McCarthyism.

I hope you're getting paid for making all this shit up otherwise your lack of knowledge is comical.

The extremity of your position is found in your attitude to want to regulate these things.

No problem. There's a lot going on in this space as some governments are demanding it. It's then easier and cheaper just to meet the strictest rules instead of adjusting to every local set of rules. So they divest from cluster munition, child labour and such. Clients are demanding green and sustainable as well. It's not perfect but a start.

As to your take on sex; apparently I'm a social conservative then.

I found the article on adultery I linked interesting. There's something weird about people banging on about family values, abortion and promiscuity and then going about undermining them at a personal level. I get people are fallible, I hardly live up to the man I want to be (I procrastinate like a sloth), but then I don't go about demanding that people live a certain way.

Social conservatism in practice : Adultery

Cue no true scotchman...

Suggestion.

You perhaps need better security software. And the free stuff, if you use it, doesn't work particularly well. — raza

Or you have an infected computer now. In any case, disobedient media is more conspirational nonsense with stories invented by William Craddick so I'm not even going to waste my time on it.

EDIT: one of the stories Obedient Media invented: Merkel bullshit

Congratulations for getting your news from a site that contains malware. I couldn't read it as a result.

The protection racket is bipartisan. Obamas and Clintons were mere extensions of Bush Sr and Jr. — raza

Ah. The protection racket that first lets Trump win only to then beschmirch him. Totally logical. How do you come up with this shit?

This is a belief of yours. — raza

My belief is at least statistically likely whereas yours... is well... tin foil nonsense.

Who is the "Forensicator"? Does this person or persons have a name or are they in a category you mentioned earlier, that of "unknown"? — raza

He's the unknown person who started this whole theory about the download times, which apparently is being uncritically copied by all sorts of "experts" like Binney and McGovern. Who, by the way, are fucking dinosaurs that don't seem to understand how the internetz works.

So you do not think that Trump's opposition had also "already made the decision to go into war" against his bid for presidency before he won election? — raza

They might have. However, since Republicans control Congress and the Senate and are uncritical of Trump and that the intelligence agencies acted independently from Bush in the past (disproving the WMD story even), so the assumption is they would do so now again, that is neither here nor there. Not to mention, for the umpteenth time, that even if YOUR intelligence agencies would be part of some deep state conspiracy, the European ones aren't and they corroborate the facts independently as well. As I said, we pretty much have live footage of break ins by the Russians.

You can throw this in google translate: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hackers-aivd-leverden-cruciaal-bewijs-over-russische-inmenging-in-amerikaanse-verkiezingen~b32c6077/

I just discovered there's actually a special English version for this:

https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/

Have you considered changing banks? You can utilise the DJSI and other sustainability indices to inform you and then to change banks and spend your money with different companies.

See for instance: https://yearbook.robecosam.com/companies/#gold

So in the US that would be Bank of America or Citigroup (bronze group). You can also go with ABN AMRO but not sure if they offer retail banking in the US.

Here are three of these "unknown internet trolls".

1. Former National Security Agency official, William Binney.
2. Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern.
3. Former CIA officer and current executive director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi. — raza

Are any of these Forensicator? Let me help you with that: no they aren't. So it's irrelevant.

Here's what happened:

How Russian hackers stole information

Should Bush had, as he did, put all his faith in the conclusions of these intelligence agencies? — raza

Bush already made the decision to go to war and Colin Powell had to defend it in the UN based on material they and Congress believed to be true but which wasn't supported by the intelligence community. It was the CIA who debunked the WMD story in the first place.

But it is the perfect download rate for a thumb drive. — raza

and this

- timestamp after timestamp. You can take between any 2 timestamps and calculate the number of bytes involved and also, then, the rate of transfer of the data. With every file this can be done. — raza

When you copy a file, the access and create timestamp change. When you move a file, it changes the create timestamp only. So, to avoid a traceable path online the dangers of which a hacker is very aware, you download all the shit you got through your hack over the net (a hack that took weeks, not 87 seconds) on a thumbdrive and taadaa, there's your explanation for all this.

It is also quite easy and possible to bulk edit timestamps, which would be useful as ahacker as well to make it more difficult for agencies to piece together when and where the files were obtained. See: how to change timestamps

And that's not taking into account that it even would be possible to do this with a leased line (you can wiki this shit). People saying it isn't possible don't know what they're talking about. I also know from experience since I've negotiated quite a few co-location and fibre-optics agreements for financial companies and am quite aware of the available speeds in the market for enterprises.

As usual, the idea some unknown internet troll is more trustworthy than various intelligence agencies across the world is only revealing of bias and demonstrates a serious lack of critical thinking.

Michael, pray tell us. What's the speed of a leased line in the USA? :rofl:

And let's not get into the ease with which metadata can be falisified or the fact they are changed by copying them. But yes, let's let raza trust Forencicator (an unknown person) above CrowdStrike, Secureworks, FireEye, FBI, CIA, NSA, intelligence committees, GCHQ and the AIVD (Dutch intelligence agency). It's not just a deep state conspiracy but they even co-opted their international allies. What a muppet.

FYI, on your FYI, a leased line:

T1 (1.544 Mbit/s)
T2 (6.312 Mbit/s)
T3 (44.736 Mbit/s)

I have information to the contrary. — raza

Whatever tin-foiled shill. I might be replying to you but it's obviously for the benefit for other intelligent readers. You don't need to reply to me, I'll just continue to correct all your inane comments as I see fit.

No. And you're apparently totally clueless as to how these sort of investigations work. Most of the "servers" were cloud based to start with and not owned by the DNC. The DNC stopped using them and swapped out the hardware to avoid further intrusion by the Russians. Images were made of the HDs and cloud servers which were made available to the FBI. They have all the information they need. Stop spouting stupid conspiracy theories here.

The Dutch secret service already established the DNC servers, the White House and the State department were hacked by the Russians because they already hacked the Russians in 2014 and have been looking over their shoulders until the beginning of this year. Both the Dutch and the English GCHQ have informed the USA on several occassion under existing intelligence sharing programs.

I think it's absolutely hilarious that you are socially conservative, and fiscally liberal. That's literally a joke on 30 Rock. — Maw

Might seem that way to an American but we have a socialist and social conservative party in our Parliament with about 10% of the votes.

I envision an age, say, 100 years down the line when: we no longer envy the rich, we value our time more than superfluous things, we think the purpose of education involves more than its potential financial payout; etc. In other words, a shift in our collective way of being. Not poverty - simplicity. Not laziness - energy partly redirected to other (perhaps artistic or maybe community-oriented) endeavors once our basic needs are met. — Erik

In principle this is very much possible with robotics, provided the resulting benefits from robotic production are shared. As it looks like now, it will be the owners of capital capable of affording to build robots and therefore retain all the profits they generate and the chasm between haves and have-nots will only increase. We have to anticipate on this early and effectively.

Yeah these are the ones who are forced to live simply. I find the free choice to live in such a way to be admirable. Maybe I'm insane but it has a lot of appeal to me. To not have a price? To not act obsequiously towards the wealthy and connected? To look forward to working at something you love until the day you die, even if you make less money doing so? To me, those are indications of a genuine and noble freedom. There's even an aristocratic element to it imo, with the obvious proviso that this only holds true for cases where it's freely chosen rather than imposed through less elevated reasons (lack of work ethic, lack of intelligence, etc.)

And again it doesn't necessarily involve living like a pauper. One has to forego many things, there's no denying that, but what they gain may make it worthwhile.The big thing, I think, is particular to our context: the complete lack of social recognition. It's a matter of shifting perspectives. Not an easy task, obviously, especially given the various (powerful) forces shaping images of "success" - these things are historically contingent. — Erik

Actually, I share a lot of this as well and I'm not alone. I'm working on a technical implementation of an idea I have that will save the European pension industry about 3 billion EUR a year. The solution, if it does what I and my partners say it does, is "pure gold" as some market participants have described it.

Yet, when writing our bottom line, my partners and I said, regardless of whether this becomes a financial success what we want to win from it is 1) acknowledgment, 2) attempt to build ourselves and 3) leverage that to have the freedom to choose jobs in the future. We're not in it for the money, we're in it because it's an exciting new idea that nobody else thought of. We're doubly excited because it avoids a huge social cost. Only after those considerations do we entertain ideas of becoming rich (not in the least because there's still a zillion hurdles to cross before a start up is a success). But we think even when we fail, we can still reach our goal number 3).

Trump derangement syndrome — fishfry

Wow, you totally called that one: Trump derangement syndrome

Note that he (BitterCrank) doesn't establish the labour participation of women as the cause of declining wages but declining wages as the cause for labour participation of women as a necessity.

I didn't say they were lazy nor that they have to work twice as hard individually. — Agustino

I'll let you think on how those people who chose to be single with half a salary compared to what they used to have have to do, while at the same time insisting they're spoiled and have 1001 second chances and their entitlements.

It is the entitlement generation. Who ever decided corporate managers are entitled to those insane salaries? (I'm actually reading an interesting book on how it's economically reasonable to leave money on the table when your skin or soul is in the game: Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb

Although his ethical groundwork is a mess, he does make some interesting points and a seemingly conservative writer as well. (Yes, I don't shun what the "other" side has to say).

Ever heard of inflation? It's a simple question of supply v demand. — Agustino

You quite clearly didn't read the research paper I included. It's also not a simple question of supply vs. demand as income leads to increase demand for the very goods those women help to produce. The stagnation of income is exploitation by the capitalist bourgeouisie as explained and predicted by Marx.

I live in society, it's affecting me, as it happens all around me. My children will live in society too, it will affect them, and so on so forth. You're behaving as if I lived on a mountain, and not sorrounded by the activities that other people engage in.

I will address the other parts of your post at some other time, since they require longer answers. Need to get back to work now. — Agustino

Aha, so you want to limit other people's freedoms for selfish reasons. Talk about "individualism".

It's always surprising to me how unaware you are of these sort of contradictions in your thoughts. It's also prevalent when supporting Trump while insisting on honesty and character with a sort of "the end justifies the means" by destroying everything and then hoping people will come up with something "better" (where better is something you like).

Cue rationalisation why it isn't really contradictory.

I think one of our key areas of disagreement would be my, I guess you could call it bottom-op approach, which would seek to change opinions rather than laws. I'm skeptical of government dictating things like sexual behavior - I think that's a horrible idea in fact - but I don't think individual freedom necessarily leads to hedonism or precludes a sense of communal responsibility. — Erik

I agree with this. I appreciate the freedoms I have and allow others to exercise them as they see fit even though I don't agree with half of the shit going on. I don't like the sexualisation of women we have seen and continue to see but then I see movements in society that try to combat this. A silly but likable example: Project Body Hair

I see a resurgence in collectivist programs as well. With a practical implementation through the sharing economy. Although quantitative research on size and growth is sparse, it's definitely here to stay and might account for 50% of the economy eventually (its seemingly maximum potential according to PwC).

There's an undercurrent to move to basics, more natural life styles as well. There's a lot of initiatives going on that are voluntary that allow people to meet up with like minded people.

I agree. The social liberalism and degradation of cultural matters when it comes to family, sex, respect and the like feeds into the consumerist and individualist mindset that has been ingrained in many young people already. — Agustino

The celebration of culture, widespread access to culture and history, and the development of culture are at an all time high. Yes, it's less Bach and Swan Lake and more spoken word, movies and Banksy. There's no "right" culture in this respect and enjoy all of them. Families (and not just the marrying kind!) are safer with less rape, less abuse, less incest and when it does go wrong, more courts that recognise victims instead of protecting perpetrators. All thanks to liberals.

A counter-movement against the sexualisation of the female body has been going on for some time and is gaining traction (just compare mainstream hiphop videos now with 10-20 years ago), which I think is a healthy development.

So, really it's the reverse, social liberalism has emancipated the weak and has evolved institutions to hold the privileged accountable.

They have heard the narrative of emancipation, freedom after the devastation of the two world wars, enjoying life, social mobility, you can pull yourself by your own bootstraps, 1001 second chances, etc. It is very difficult to shake this now, because it is self-reinforcing. They have other people who they see behaving like this, which, whether you like it or not, psychologically makes them feel secure in their way of life.

Ah right, so people's salaries were halved and they have to work twice as hard now but they're still lazy fucks. Which one is it? Make a choice.

It is indeed the crowd that prevents any sort of persuasion from functioning. And without breaking up the crowd, it is impossible to make any forward movement.

That should suit you just fine then as it suggests nothing ever can change. Yet it does. Weird huh?

As to your second post:

I live in the world man! Go speak to some young people, and see what they say. Around me, most guys I know aren't interested to get married. Even those who have girlfriends, even in cases where the girlfriends have asked them to, they refused. And some are well into their 30s. Their reason is simple: independence. In virtually 100% of cases that I know. There are some guys I know who got married early, but they are a minority. — Agustino

Anecdotal evidence. Useless.

Simple. Double the labour force, half the salaries.

This claim is false. Salaries didn't half. They did stagnate and the increased profits as economies grew went to the already affluent (you know, the kind of economics that come automatically with most social conservative parties such as the GOP). Here's an opportunity to read up:

life time incomes over 6 decades

Personally, I don't think women should stay at home, women should work, since work is an important aspect of life. But working does not imply lack of family values or getting married late. As I have explained, prior to the Industrial Revolution, women also worked in trades - away from home - or even farming (which didn't always occur on their own farm, many people didn't have this privilege). — Agustino

Prior to the industrial revolution women worked unpaid. They were farmers but their men or families pocketed the money. The main difference is that their salaries are now their own. So it gives women more choices and therefore also the possibility to decide to marry late. They're still welcome to marry early but they don't. I don't see what the problem is with that and you haven't made clear what's wrong with marrying late to begin with.

Sure, and many have, unfortunately, taken it. Why have they taken it? Because of increased individualism, consumerism, and selfishness. So the causality goes the other way around. — Agustino

Not unfortunately. Thankfully. Their choices are first of all not forced on them by circumstance. Secondly, with age comes wisdom, so presumably they chose for better reasons. You apply motivations to it that are just your personal assumptions and not based on reality. Why can't women chose family life by planning to have children at a later age and to have less children? The two are not mutually exclusive you know.

Now with regards to birth control, some people use birth control to avoid having children in order to foster intimacy with their partner in marriage or in a committed relationship. BUT most uses of birth control aren't for this - they are to promote fornication and sexual promiscuity. — Agustino

And? Nobody is forcing you to have sex. How exactly is this your problem?

I see smaller families as the effect of less kids, not the other way around. — Agustino

Not quite. Since women have more and different choices, having a zillion kids doesn't rate high among it any more. So there's a social change to have less kids, so you can start later.

It is more difficult to have kids with age. In addition, the body's maximum reproductive capacity occurs much earlier, which means that the best time to have children is missed. So I disagree that longer lifespan means you don't have to hurry. — Agustino

Factually wrong. If you define "best" as meaning the best chance for the health of the infant, then the “best age” for first birth, based on USA national data, looked at a different measure of a baby’s health—rates of overall infant mortality rather than birth defects— is at 32. If you only look at birth defects, the age is 26.

First off, I didn't need evidence of later ages of marriages but evidence that it's because people "are opposed to "getting tied to someone"".

Not worth the price. — Agustino

What isn't?

increased labour participation of women

And that's why nowadays it takes 2 people working to sustain a family, whereas in the recent past 1 was enough (100 years ago). Labour participation of women though is a very anachronistic concept - it makes it sound like women never did any labour at all in the past, and simply stayed at home. But that's simply not true, at least it's not true for most of human history. Before the Industrial Revolution women worked alongside men. Women were also farmers, women were also involved in the trades, and so on so forth. This didn't prevent them from getting married though. So labour participation of women isn't sufficient to account for this. Maybe the fact that some women have become more individualistic and value their career more than getting married, now that's a different story and has nothing to do with labour participation of women. The is true for men.

First off, I never said staying at home doesn't entail labour but since it isn't recognised as such and unpaid, it doesn't allow for independence for women. The causal link between the increased paid labour participation for women and this resulting that two people are necessary to sustain a family is lost on me. Care to explain?

Second, as a social conservatist you refer to a time when women worked along side of men. So which past are you gunning for now? Are women supposed to stay at home or not?

My take, in any case, is that the increased labour participation of women has led to their independence allowing them a third choice next to marriage or celibacy and living with their parents.

Finally, I never suggested a single cause for later ages of marriage either. Increased labour participation and the related independence for women was one of several causes.

In fact, in the Eastern European countries it is women who want to get married early, and men who put it off. Why do men put it off?

I'm sure there are all sorts of cultural differences across the world but since your graph pertained to the USA, let's ignore Eastern Europe for now.

If you call the joke University education has become today as "higher levels of education", oh well... Maybe on paper they are higher, but nowhere else.

No, I call an education better than no education allowing more people to develop skills to make better decisions. Such as: don't get fucking pregnant at 16 and get forced in a marriage you don't want!

And higher levels of people who live on benefits.

Irrelevant. The point about welfare is that it's safer to have kids at later ages as well.

Has positive and negative consequences, but it has tended towards the negative. All our use of technology tends towards the negative, that is why even most new technologies are developed for military uses first, before they are introduced for civil use.

This is empty of content. What negative consequences? What military application for the pill?

Don't see a correlation...

Longer lifespans means you don't have to hurry to get married and get kids.

Smaller families also means less kids, which also means you can start later.

Finally, many people choose to live together instead of getting married and it's not a given those relationships are any less stable than marriages.

I agree. The social liberalism and degradation of cultural matters when it comes to family, sex, respect and the like feeds into the consumerist and individualist mindset that has been ingrained in many young people already. They have heard the narrative of emancipation, freedom after the devastation of the two world wars, enjoying life, social mobility, you can pull yourself by your own bootstraps, 1001 second chances, etc. It is very difficult to shake this now, because it is self-reinforcing. They have other people who they see behaving like this, which, whether you like it or not, psychologically makes them feel secure in their way of life. It is indeed the crowd that prevents any sort of persuasion from functioning. And without breaking up the crowd, it is impossible to make any forward movement.

So that is the difficulty. It's not a matter of reason. It's simply a matter of will. — Agustino

Why don't you start a thread about this instead of in the Donald Trump thread. I think it's quite apparent social conservatist are a vocal minority.

The age people get married at in Western societies is increasing. Why is that? Because more and more people are opposed to "getting tied to someone", since they perceive it as impinging over their individual liberty. — Agustino

How about some evidence? This doesn't have anything to do with increased labour participation of women, higher levels of education, higher levels of welfare, better birth control and longer lifespans at all?

potatoes and sheep and some various works by Sigmund Freud for company. — Baden

And we all know where Freud, sheep and lack of women lead to. :zip:

The technological, social progressive, Democrat, global elite along with most who work for them (corporatists) have a vision of society that is totally antithetical to more "rooted" values. On the other hand, the traditionalist, conservative, Republican, rural folk have a completely different worldview which values local community, family ties, social conservatism, etc. significantly more. — Agustino

This is mostly perception and plays into the dichotomy where it concerns social progressivism or conservatism only. Both parties, however, work for the highest bidder (e.g. corporations) and whether you vote Democrat or Republican is a "same difference" where it comes to what laws and regulations would be passed.

It makes the perceived juxtaposition rather tragic.

Do I think he would knowingly say something that he knows is not true? Nah, I don't think it is his style and for what purpose would he lie? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

He knowingly lied about raising additional billion of dollars from NATO members. It's impossible for a reasonable person to conclude that from the joint statement. Joint statement

If you submit an article for a magazine, there isn't a "nice try but no fish" page either. Some leeway is already given with respect to non-native speakers. I'd say good riddance if post deletion means you throw a tantrum.

The Dutch intelligence agency actually found proof of Russian meddling in the US elections by hacking the Russian computers back in 2014 already. They discovered break ins at the White House, DNC and state department.

By now you'd think it would've passed all this partisanship given the available evidence.

Call it what you will. There are guidelines, you had a shitty OP and it was merged with an OP dealing with the subject already. I really don't see why we need to have a discussion about this other than you getting to stroke your ego and grandstanding as if you're here to defend philosophy from this insignifcant corner of the internet.

I move to close this thread if any moderator is reading this.

Yes. It basically called for stating what you love about Trump and was in General Philosophy. The OP for the Donald Trump covers that already and is at least in the lounge as the philosophical content was absent. Here's Marcus' OP verbatim:

When somebody takes off their clothes, a 'real' body is exposed. I love Donald Trump. I love him in the sense that he is actively exposing the myth of intellectual progress. His are truths that are held by the herd. The dangerous ones within the herd are those who do not know they love him. He has a veritable army of supporting non-supporters who swarm to join in the fun of stone throwing.

There is little to be gained by the self serving refutations of his intellectual primitivism. The sycophants to reason and even old philosophy, are in the queue with their non thinking rocks in hand.

Let us be courageous and honest in a Christian way; and post here what one loves about the man.

The naked truth of the self!

M

It's a bit silly to dare moderators on a point that the guidelines state will be deleted. Crappy threads get deleted, moved or merged as the moderators see fit.

Why don't you read up on Triffin's dilemma, have a think about this and try posting again?

I hope you're right but I doubt it. Even our eminently reasonable Hanover is unfazed by Trump his Helsinki show as far as I can tell.

@Baden why it's going to be Trump again

EDIT: also, check out the comments section on Breitbart: Breitbart

It's the same type of insanity raza is peddling here.

Well, I think you underestimate partisanship, short term memories, special interests and the propaganda machine. It will go the way money wants it to go and they'll choose the tax breaks. The average natural person in the USA is immaterial.

You're shifting the goal posts. We were talking about Bush and Trump being different, not whether Republicans are critical of him. As I said before about that, that's just air until they plan to do something about it.

How high the Mueller investigation has been played is greatly in favour of Trump as well. If he isn't found guilty of something, he'll leverage it as proof he's not a traitor, quite the opposite: the Democrats will be painted as such.

I agree with your analysis and Wayfarer that they are different. But starting a war on fabricated evidence killing thousands is worse and nobody cared enough to vote him out. By election time they'll close their ranks again and this will be unimportant. Your analysis and my agreement to it are immaterial as I'm not the social conservative you need to convince.

Everybody said the same about Bush Jr. I'm more optimistic about the house and senate elections coming up. Maybe that will make impeachment possible.

As before, mass immigration to Canada didn't happen either. People will complain but they'll rarely act on it.