Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Mischief Maker]

Far be it from me to rehabilitate Bush jr, but geez Trump's people are not only evil, they're douchebags.

On the other hand, the fact that fucking Paul Ryan's pulling the chute and retiring early tells me Trump is in some deep deep shit.

[BryanM]

Technically he's Obama's person as we've established one post earlier. Trump is just borrowing him for now. He has to give him back later when he's done playing with him.

[quash]

Fuck you, small businesses and startups!

Net Neutrality dead by a 3-2 vote.

But it's those migrant fruit pickers who are the real drag on our economy.

Yeah, I'm sure the small businesses known as Facebook and Google are really feeling this one.

[Mischief Maker]

Fuck you, small businesses and startups!

Net Neutrality dead by a 3-2 vote.

But it's those migrant fruit pickers who are the real drag on our economy.

Yeah, I'm sure the small businesses known as Facebook and Google are really feeling this one.

I just wanted to reply to your post and preserve that amazing comment before you had a chance to delete it.

[quash]

What's there to delete? It's already nearly impossible to run a small business online without utilizing Google or Amazon in some capacity, and it's like that by design. It's nearly impossible to start a new ISP for the same reason.

If you still think this is a clash of industry instead of a clash of government, you need to look deeper into why we even have the internet to begin with.

[Mischief Maker]

Yeah, and ending net neutrality to create a pay-to-play two-tiered internet isn't going to CEMENT their monopolies or anything.

Looks like Pai's douche-chill video is down over a copyright claim, but it's worth noting if you watch on one of many mirrors that one of the people dancing with him at the end of the video was one of the conspiracy theorists pushing pizzagate.

Pai, why can't you just take the sack of money then retreat to your bunker and slowly rot away into a cyborg lich like Dick Cheney? At least you'll be the most hated man in America with some shred of dignity left.

[BryanM]

The middle men puppets are excellent at their jobs of being lightning rods for hate. Ajit is the guy who's gonna get shanked by some angry patriot, not the people actually responsible for his actions.

[Rob]

If you looked at the "this will be Norway" map in the OP, you'll notice Alabama youth voted for Hillary.

"This will be Norway"?

I'm really curious to hear an explanation. "If we somehow survive this and everything else coming at us, we'll become Norway part 2." How anyone could ever type these words.

[quash]

Yeah, and ending net neutrality to create a pay-to-play two-tiered internet isn't going to CEMENT their monopolies or anything.

The propaganda is only half correct. ISPs will be charging more, but in all likelihood they won't be charging the average consumer, rather the content providers. The big three use more bandwidth than the rest of the internet combined, and they certainly have the money to pay up. If anything, it will be Google and co. that will be charging you more and shoving more ads down your throat, not your ISP.

Not that they wouldn't be able to do such a thing, but for the foreseeable future it wouldn't make sense for them to do so. Public goodwill towards ISPs is at an all time low, and nothing would get people off their home internet plans faster than paying more for less. While there certainly isn't much competition in the home internet space, there is in mobile, and seeing as most people are on their phones more than anything these days, it wouldn't be particularly hard for most to jump ship.

But, I digress: the FCC has landed a strike on the CIA. We'll see where this goes from here.

[BulletMagnet]

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation's top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases in any official documents being prepared for next year's budget. [...] The forbidden words are "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based."

I don't care what your politics are, just those last two should be enough to open your ears to the rest of the planet laughing its ass off at how much we've debased ourselves.

[Mischief Maker]

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation's top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases in any official documents being prepared for next year's budget. [...] The forbidden words are "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based."

I don't care what your politics are, just those last two should be enough to open your ears to the rest of the planet laughing its ass off at how much we've debased ourselves.

It's because of condescending comments by smug SJWs like you that Trump won.

[Rob]

I don't care what your politics are, just those last two should be enough to open your ears to the rest of the planet laughing its ass off at how much we've debased ourselves.

Yeah, it's dumb, but this is super rich coming from the type of person who freaks the fuck out about IQ studies, crime stats, etc.

[Mischief Maker]

IQ studies,

(excuse me for touching the poop, but I want to make sure any casual readers of this exchange understand some actual facts before Rob starts spewing eugenics pseudoscience.)



Alfred Binet invented the IQ test. It was a standardized test to measure an individual student's current level of learning compared to the average of other kids his age. An 8-year-old who scores at the 8-year-old average is given an IQ of 100.

If you're a parent, you may be familiar with phenomena where a kid may lag behind his peers at reading for years, then suddenly surge ahead and begin reading at a level way above his age. That's just one reason behind Binet's scorn for the idea of IQ being a fixed quantity for life.

Binet intended for his IQ test to facilitate creating new education methods to better serve students who fell behind, not to wall-off whole swaths of the population as undesirables.

[Rob]

I want to make sure any casual readers of this exchange understand some actual facts

Good call. Libs don't like science or evidence when it doesn't align with their worldview. Any half-intelligent person can do their own research and find out for themselves.



How clever is it to dismiss IQ tests? (answer: not very)

[Mischief Maker]

How clever is it to dismiss IQ tests? (answer: not very)

Hey genius! From the article you just threw in my face:

People make the mistake of assuming that intelligence is immutable because it has been linked to genetic and neural features, and because it seems highly stable across the lifespan. One’s IQ score, they think, is set in stone, condemning you to a poorer life if it’s below-average. This is a mistake. There’s nothing in principle to suggest that we can’t raise people’s IQ scores, at least to a degree (though many recent attempts to do so have been non-starters). Indeed, IQ scores have been rising inexorably across the years, in a process called the Flynn Effect, for (non-genetic) reasons that aren’t yet clear. Another mistake is to think that anyone has ever claimed that an IQ score ‘sums up’ a person. This is another falsehood, since all IQ researchers would readily accept that personality, motivation, and a host of other factors – including luck – are all crucial for success in life.

Thanks for backing up my point. Maybe next time read your own articles beyond the title.

[BryanM]

Can't we just have huge arguments over Star Wars sucking/not sucking or about the more useful fart sniffers, like the Less Wrong crowd?

Racelording is in the past. Sesame Street killed it, and, much like a statue honoring a traitor of this fine country, belongs at the bottom of the sea.

[BulletMagnet]

In case you'd forgotten, MM, we've been through this cycle already; a few short pages ago he was spouting the following about the native tribles who, just a few pages before that, were, like everyone else he'd supposedly prefer to leave to rot, completely responsible for their own collective squalor because their people and the culture they created is just that innately shitty, and anyone who'd argue otherwise is "ignoring the science" and "making excuses":

And do you feel that it's our place to tell any of them that they should make a sacrifice for the good of humanity while we have benefited and continue to benefit amply from resource extraction? Maybe if they could improve their living conditions a bit there would be less of a problem with rape, depression and suicide.

There is no coherent thought process going on here, let alone any guiding philosophy or cohesive worldview, beyond "what can I pull out to poke somebody in the ribs with?" You are being led in circles; you are being trolled. All anyone who actually takes stuff like this seriously can hope for is that the "casual observers" we're supposedly posting on behalf of got exasperated with this nonsense and stopped paying attention long before we did.

[Rob]

Thanks for backing up my point. Maybe next time read your own articles beyond the title.

Yeah, I read it and considered quoting that bit for you. You were countering an argument no one has made. I suppose that's a good tactic when you have nothing.

[Mortificator]

It's amusing to see that Rob has not only been unable to convince anyone in his audience, they've generally concluded that he's too brain-dead to formulate rational arguments. Damn. Critical failure.

[Rob]

There is no coherent thought process going on here,

I think the reason you can't identify a "coherent thought process" (and so on) is because I post something, it enters your mind and exits scrambled (at best). I would be interested in learning of any actual contradiction so I could clear it up, but they would have to be things I actually said. Not a thing I said and a series of invented things. For instance:

their people and the culture they created is just that innately shitty

Never said this. Never would say it.

[quash]

All this talk about intelligence really got me thinking.

[BulletMagnet]

Never said this. Never would say it.

Head on back to my last gasp at ascertaining a cohesive worldview from you on page 197 - and the link therein to the time before that - and feel free to tell me how the things you said don't say precisely that. Oh, and before you attempt to resurrect the "but unlike the immigrants, they have rights to the land" qualifier, I would very strongly to advise you to very carefully consider where that one leads. Personally, I'm waiting for Zen's "you didn't directly quote me, you just accurately paraphrased me, that doesn't count!" play to make a reappearance.

Back to matters of actual importance, modern conservatism once again shows that when you're lining up for blowjobs from everybody less affluent than you, nobody, not even the moderates and mavericks, needs to know jack shit.

[Mischief Maker]

All this talk about intelligence really got me thinking.

Hey, good article, quash! A little old, though. Sure there are arrogant consultants with Harvard degrees so convinced of their own genius they'd brush aside everyone from panicking former Bernie staffers talking about their experience on the ground in "firewall" states to former president Bill Clinton. I've experienced that attitude first-hand when I worked for the DNC during the 2004 Kerry campaign.

But part of it is simply corruption within the party's incentive structure for these connected consultants. Knocking on doors and talking to voters is the most effective strategy in terms of securing votes, but it doesn't pay nearly as much of a percentage to the top consultants as godawful prime time TV ads of little girls wordlessly frowning at the TV while clips of Trump using potty mouth play. Check out this 5-minute video of Nomiki Konst using profanity on CSPAN while discussing all the money being shifted away from state parties to these top 5 consultants. Republicans aren't the only smart people willing to play dumb when stupidity is profitable to them personally.

And if you want to unify the Democratic party right now, I don't see how anyone could object to purging these consultants and the incentive structures that incentivize their incompetence. If you're still 100% a Clinton loyalist, these consultants fucked her. Had they run a less glamorous and expensive campaign of door-to-door canvassing, Clinton would never have been in a wobbly-enough position to get knocked over by Comey's letter.

[Rob]

Oh, and before you attempt to resurrect the "but unlike the immigrants, they have rights to the land" qualifier, I would very strongly to advise you to very carefully consider where that one leads.

I have a guess, but what in the hell are you talking about?

Personally, I'm waiting for Zen's "you didn't directly quote me, you just accurately paraphrased me, that doesn't count!" play to make a reappearance.

No, you didn't do this either, buddy. Not even close - and, yes, I know what I've typed and haven't typed and not asking for you to repost my entire posting history that doesn't say what you say or think it says. You simply invent colorful fictions. At this point I'm thinking you might just be totally unaware of this obnoxious habit of yours.

[BulletMagnet]

Natives like money too. They like indoor plumbing, nice schools for their children and all of the things that we enjoy, which are made possible by resource extraction on land they have rights to.

Again, feel free to try to elaborate on that one, but especially in light of other things you've said (all of which, naturally, are being deliberately misinterpreted and taken out of context ) you don't have anything resembling a leg to stand on, not like that's even the point (which, as observers with a pair of brain cells to rub together will note, you're rapidly leading us away from, yet again, before you can be bothered to so much as acknowledge it).

[BryanM]

Had they run a less glamorous and expensive campaign of door-to-door canvassing

Those Hillary outposts were ghost towns man. That one youtube video of a Trump supporter visiting one, with about four old people inside, argh. They were so excited someone was gonna volunteer. A young person, no less!

The sadness on their faces when he said "So, you guys looking forward to losing to Trump?"

On the presidential level where people have years of information on a candidate, door knocking is the last squeeze of the turnip. It would have been a billion times more efficient to have a product that you can sell to begin with.

Consultants did a good job though. The democratic party exists to make republicans viable and to launder money. Think how stoked the Kochs are in their investment of the DLC. That's paid them dividends thousands of times over.

[Rob]

...which are made possible by resource extraction on land they have rights to.

Again, feel free to try to elaborate on that one,

Drilling area would be upper right. Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (Inupiaq/Inupiat) have subsurface rights to the area.

[BulletMagnet]

...yeah, anyone who thinks this is still a serious discussion, you go right ahead. More fool me for poking my head back in like a sap.

[Mischief Maker]

New poll idea, BryanM:

Will Trump fire Robert Mueller this Christmas break?

[BryanM]

I think I'd rather kill myself than swim the murky waters of "Who do you think Trump's gonna fire on this week's episode of the Apprentice?!" Terrifying psycho Omarosa getting drug out by force by the secret service in last week's episode was probably the high point for this season.

TV shows have really gotten into a rut. That's why I can recommend The Next Generation clone The Orville to people - for all its flaws, in the current environment it's a radical ray of sunshine.