SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
posted by
cmn32480
on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:07PM
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.
Three of the four major candidates for United States president have responded to America's Top 20 Presidential Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and Environmental Questions. The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has posted their responses online. Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Jill Stein had all responded as of press time, and the group was awaiting responses from Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 121 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection.
-- '76 Olympics
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:52PM
Call me a cynic, but the presidential candidates didn't answer these questions. Likely, they've never even seen them. Their campaigns assigned some PR flacks to cook up answers that would please their target voters. Let's look at the first question:
- - - - -
Q: "What policies will best ensure that America remains at the forefront of innovation?"
Clinton: "I will...make America the first choice for manufacturing by... harnessing regional strengths, supporting manufacturers ...and ...improving industrial energy efficiency by one-third within a decade. "
Appeal to unions by retaining manufacturing jobs - check. Appeal to greens by improving energy efficiency - check.
Trump: "...free market systems...Entrepreneurs... The government should do all it can to reduce barriers to entry into markets"
Appeal to conservatives and business people via free market economics - check.
Stein: "...our climate action plan, our free public education and cancellation of student debt proposals, and our Medicare for All plank"
Appeal to the socialists and greens (not even pretending to answer the question) - check.
- - - - -
The remaining questions are no different: each campaign is preaching to the already converted, no new information. Possibly of interest to Soylentils: the position on importing foreign workers for tech jobs:
- - - - -
Q: "Would you support any changes in immigration policy regarding scientists and engineers who receive their graduate degree at an American university? Conversely, what is your opinion of recent controversy over employment and the H1-B Visa program? "
Clinton: "we should “staple” a green card to STEM masters and PhDs from accredited institutions" [no response to the H1-B question]
Trump: "If we allow individuals in this country legally to get their educations, we should let them stay if they want to contribute to our economy. The H1-B system should be employed only when jobs cannot be filled with qualified Americans and legal residents."
Stein: "We support the H1-B Visa program. [no response to the graduate-degree question]"
- - - - -
Again, these are the words of the campaign PR people. Whether they really correspond to the candidates' personal views? That's anyone's guess...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:24PM
Again, these are the words of the campaign PR people. Whether they really correspond to the candidates' personal views? That's anyone's guess...
You are not very bright, are you?
It isn't about whether its their personal views, its about the policies they intend to enact if elected. These are campaign promises which is why clinton's got specifics and trump has his typical non-committal, unresearched, generic answers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:52PM
Specifics?
In other words, by either closing off the border to ALL imports, or by getting rid of high wages and unions.
How can America bring back those jobs when the imports are made SO much cheaper than in North America.
She is talking through her pneumonia-butt.
--regional strengths.
**What? What does that mean. That America has a bigger armed force than others and will go to war if need be (she IS a war-hawk)? That Iowa will produce steel because, you know.... steel.... Iowa.... yeah, regional strength, you know..... yeah...
--supporting manufacturers.
**Getting rid of high wages and unions (or closing off the borders to imports?)
Her specifics aren't very specific, methinks.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:04PM
Lol. You are so hilarious.
Yes not every single statement was full-blown policy wonk, so nothing she said was a commitment at all.
LOGIC!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:13PM
improving industrial energy efficiency by one-third within a decade
How does she propose to do that? I mean literally. How. Release area 51 space alien technology to allow more efficient aluminum and copper electrorefining? Or rephrased why does it take her specifically to do that? Why is Trump for example refusing to release area 51 space alien technology? Its not like picking up pennies from in front of steamrollers, there is no 1/3 of energy just laying around to be picked up. So I'm holding a 90% efficient switching power supply in my hand, she proposes some kind of perpetual motion shit to get it up to 135% efficient? I guess it extracts heat from the air and frosts over? Plug into wall and it acts like generator? Hillary is just ... the engineering equivalent of functionally illiterate or math equivalent of innumerate. Unqualified and unaware of how unqualified she is, which makes her extremely dangerous to the country.
Why is the entire population of engineers currently wasting 1/3 of all energy? Is there a vast right wing conspiracy across all industry to waste 1/3 of energy to make her look bad? Or are all of use engineers in on some kind of communist plot to make all factories 1/3 less efficient? Its just weird way to think, to insult that many people for no real reason. Its like her weird speech trying insult alt right people as a basket of deplorables or whatever. So I guess all of America's engineers are in a basket of deplorables? Maybe she wants to politically cleanse the population of engineers like how the Soviets tried to politically cleanse their military in the 30s. That worked out really well (sarcasm).
Its weird stuff like this that makes it clear that people with Parkinson's shouldn't be in the executive branch. A nice quiet retirement at the funny farm, maybe a prison term or two for all the laws she's broken... she's just not mentally intellectually stable enough to be a leader. Victims shouldn't be blamed for mental illnesses. Hillary should be pitied and taken care of in her insanity, not hated. Its the disease rotting her brain speaking, not her as a person. But fundamentally she still is nuts and would make a terribad president.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:38PM
Umm 1/3rd of (1-0.9) is only 3% so your now holding a 93% efficient power doodad.