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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.
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U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions
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Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One. Only it's his light bulb when he's done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:17PM
1) Stein is not a major party candidate.
2) Only Hillary has a pro-science stance. Too bad she never mentions nuclear energy as a responsible source for clean energy
3) Gary Johnson could be pro-science but his lack of a response to this questionnaire doesn't let us know. Considering this is the third place I've seen the results of the questionnaire posted since last night, it does not bode well for him in the minds of the public. Some of the snarky comments wrt Johnson I've seen are that he is too spaced out on weed, or he's too busy googling for answers to the questions. So for people wondering if Johnson is the small government pro-science alternate to Hillary a la Jon Huntsman, or another climate change denier a la Ted Cruz, nobody knows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:30PM
And Trump and all his supporters think science has an unfair lib'rul bias.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:46PM
2) Only Hillary has a pro-science stance. Too bad she never mentions nuclear energy as a responsible source for clean energy
Maybe she doesn't include nuclear energy because she has some insight about the character of the people appointed to be the responsible party for nuclear energy.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:56PM
I guess this problem is just insurmountable. There's nothing that a president could possibly propose to congress to change things. There is nobody on the planet [telegraph.co.uk] that can do this right. No technology [wikipedia.org] available that would be a better design. It doesn't matter who the secretary of energy is. There is no combination of regulation and public investment [scmp.com] that could possibly make it work [fortune.com]. Oh well. We should just give up [wired.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:06PM
Thorium reactors sound great.
But we've got such little practical experience with them that promoting them as any kind of solution to the risks of modern nuke design is not good policy. Explore, experiment, totally. But we are far from them being a viable option.
(Score: 2, Informative) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:04PM
I understand that. I guess it's a good thing that China is doing that. Americans have become cowards who jump at their own shadow while China moves the state of the art forward.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:29PM
With all due respect I think it has more to do with the protestors in the USA being seen as a great yellow journalism topic to be encouraged via propaganda then the grandstanding politicians weigh in as if they are smart enough to say anything vs in China they just shoot the protestors.
Naturally in the USA the protestors are a major PR problem, and in China they merely slightly drive ammunition sales.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:03PM
It's actually more that China doesn't give a crap about pollution or consequences for the average citizen, since all projects like this would perforce be NIMBY for the CCP. That is, they are never affected by the consequences of their actions.
BTW the CCP's vision for the future is a horribly outdated caricature of 1930's modernism. As in, discredited in every other industrialized country with the possible exception of Russia.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:26PM
While the US's CEOs' vision for the future is too rarely past the next few quarters, and hardly ever as far as 5 years.
"When will a thorium reactor turn a profit? What's the ROI, and how will it affect the stock? Not interested."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:30PM
thorium reactors can be made into bombs. It is not as safe as you think.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:16PM
You know what else can be made into bombs? Bombs.
The USA makes god knows how many of those per year and no one seems to care about that.
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:00PM
Not easily. Liquid fueled thorium reactors have a very tight neutron economy. To make a bomb you'll have to shutdown a reactor, or at least spend many years making one. There are much more practical ways to make a bomb.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:10PM
So can fertilizer.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:47PM
The problem is, everywhere we've looked carefully, whether the nuclear reactors are being run by a government or by a private company, unsafe procedures and shortcuts are taken. The design of the reactors could be improved, but that's not the basic problem The problem is the stuff is long-term dangerous, so it needs to be handled properly, but people aren't designed to properly evaluate long term risks. (They don't even do that well on short term risks, consider the popularity of betting on horse races or slot machines.)
With nuclear reactors, many "short cuts" will be safe 99 times out of 100, but the cost of it being unsafe is such that taking that short cut is an extremely unwise decision. However much of the cost of failure is not borne by those operating the plant, but is instead borne by the populace living around it. Or down stream from it, if it's on a river. So while it's true that even for those operating the plant the short cut is a bad decision, it's doesn't appear nearly as bad to them as it actually is.
If the plants were properly operated, and waste disposed of correctly (i.e. safely), then nuclear plants would be a good idea. As things are, however, it's usually a bad idea. (There are circumstances where they provide advantages that nothing else will match, and in some of those cases even their real costs [including appropriately discounted risks as a part of the costs] don't raise the cost to where they should not be used.)
OTOH, even under current operating conditions nuclear power is probably safer than coal.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:56AM
Under current operating conditions it's *certainly* safer than coal. It may even be safer than solar:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html [nextbigfuture.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:26PM
Nailed it in one.
The problem with nuclear (nook-you-lar) energy safety is not a problem with technology. It is a problem with corner cutting executive bonus maximizing MBAs or bureaucrats being in charge of a nuclear power plant.
The profit motive needs to be replaced by a safety motive. That safety motive probably exists to most levels of the power plant personnel. Except those at the very top. Safety is not a budget item on a spreadsheet that you can tweak.
The cost of an accident needs to be considered so unthinkable that it simply cannot be allowed to happen. Maybe there needs to be some kind of unthinkable personal consequences to those at the top if an accident is determined to be due to poor management.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:33PM
And, not just the nuclear industry:
my wife is an educational assistant with a public school board. On paper, a lot of the kids with special needs have one-to-one workers, but in reality don't.
There is one case she knows of where one person has 3 wheelchair bound kids on the second floor of the school.
If there is a fire, they are not supposed to use the elevator, so ONE person is in charge of getting 3 non-walking kids down the stairs and out the door.
And nothing will change unless those above are held responsible (and, of course, until something 'bad' happens...): then, maybe, something will change.
It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye: here's hoping it's the eye of someone in charge.
I told my wife she should start documenting EVERYTHING and COVER HER ASS.
also suggested reaching out to a news agency 'whistle blowing' person/website.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:39PM
Ya mean like requiring the MBA-types at the top of the company and their families to live right next door to the power plant? I think it may be worth trying.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:41PM
Problem is the MBA types would still take risks. It's like the scorpion on the back of a fox being transported across the river.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:34PM
For every MBA encouraging taking shortcuts, there's an engineer and\or an independent contractor signing off plans & work they know to be unsafe and a dozen workers cutting short their end-of-shift inspections to rush home.
You want safety at work places? Put a camera at every work stations and stream it to the open internet. Not to a manager's office or a select group of government safety inspectors that can be bribed. Better yet, set-up a bounty system where a citizen can send a complaint with a time stamped picture and get rewarded financially from the offending party.
Make industry go through the same 1984 style surveillance motorists went through, and I assure that just like how people used to run at red lights and then stopped because of traffic cameras, so will industry stop cutting corners and paying bribes.
You can't change human nature. You can place enough incentives, checks & balances in oppositions to corruption and let greed take it's natural course.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:18PM
I doubt the people at the lower levels want to sign off on work they know to be unsafe.
So why would that happen?
Because they are pressured or coerced into doing so. And who is pressuring the 'grunts' to sign off on unsafe work? Those up the chain of penny pinching management that's who.
If you don't sign off on this unsafe work, I'll replace you with someone who will.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday September 16 2016, @12:08AM
I doubt the people at the lower levels want to sign off on work they know to be unsafe.
They do it all the time. It's a way to look like a team player. It's a way to get off inspections and cut the shift short.
High and low, humans are stupid. Those at the top just get more chances to REALLY fuck things up.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 16 2016, @07:28PM
> It's a way to look like a team player.
That just repeats what I said about: Because they are pressured or coerced into doing so.
Although it may be their direct co-workers.
The culture needs to be that if it isn't safe, being a team player is to report it and not sign off on it. It's only the MBAs that want it to get done NOW. When the shift ends, the shift ends. Whether something you are inspecting is safe or not should not affect an inspector's shift.
Inspectors of all people would not sign off on unsafe work unless under pressure to do so.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 15 2016, @09:14PM
You want safety at work places? Put a camera at every work stations and stream it to the open internet. Not to a manager's office or a select group of government safety inspectors that can be bribed....You can't change human nature. You can place enough incentives, checks & balances in oppositions to corruption and let greed take it's natural course.
Then you get complaints and voter outrage about government regulations hurting business...
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday September 16 2016, @08:36AM
You are today's winner of the Internet for posting the correct answer to one of the world's great problems. I'd give you a donut but I don't have any.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by fadrian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03PM
As for your point (2), the entire answer to question 11 in TFA is about nuclear energy and where it fits into an overall energy strategy. I assume the remainder of your points are as well informed.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:43PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:25PM
So she does mention it; she just doesn't pledge the exact platform you wanted.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:12PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:20PM
Yeah, but if you read Clinton's response carefully she's at no point promising to make the construction of new nuclear capacity part of her renewable energy plan.
What part of "...increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power." is hard to follow?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:11PM
What part of "...increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power." is hard to follow?
I imagine it is the part where it is Hillary Clinton saying it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:24PM
It's standard fare for an election campaign; give vague statements that hopefully don't get anyone (and especially the NIMBYs and special interest groups) up in arms, but have enough wiggle room that people will read into it what they want to hear while allowing you to deliver much less - or nothing - and still claim to have ticked the box. The stuff that leaves almost no room for doubt; that's what they actually hope to do, everything else is a "nice to have" at best, or just a grab for votes.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:41PM
Lame. Just lame. You point out a very specific point that she didn't say anything about it, to which you are proven absolutely incorrect. Now you're just embarrassing yourself trying to weasel out of being wrong.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dogeball on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:15PM
Regarding point 1, USA needs to break out of its two-party duopoly, which permits the Republicans and Democrats to collude on a wide range of issues while offering only an illusion of choice; "what flavour would you like your military-industrial complex? Religious or Corporate?".
So even though it is true that Stein is polling at 3%, dismissing her isn't warranted for two reasons:
1) Having stable 3rd party candidates is healthy and should be encouraged, and it is only through media exposure that their support can grow
2) The green party are considered by many to have cost Al Gore the presidency. A minor party needs to be taken seriously when they have enough support to swing elections.
I consider it unfortunate that many American's response to 2000 was to shy away from voting 3rd party, rather than recognise that they had seized a portion of power away from the main parties by letting it be known that their votes could not be taken for granted. It is vital to democracy that minority views are heard and acted upon by government, else you end up with a cycle of increasing tyranny and lawlessness.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:23PM
Allow a very different [wikipedia.org] third party to demonstrate how to replace an establishment party:
Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. The main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting of the general "anti-Nebraska" movement where the name "Republican" was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party.
The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan. By 1858, the Republicans dominated nearly all Northern states.The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected president.
Of course, that's only half the story. One of the establishment parties [wikipedia.org] was crumbling.
After 1850, the Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by Daniel Webster, represented businessmen who loved national unity and a national market but cared little about slavery one way or another....
The election of 1852 marked the beginning of the end for the Whigs.... The Whig Party's 1852 convention in New York City saw the historic meeting between Alvan E. Bovay and The New York Tribune's Horace Greeley, a meeting that led to correspondence between the men as the early Republican Party meetings in 1854 began to take place.
Attempting to repeat their earlier successes, the Whigs nominated popular General Winfield Scott, who lost decisively to the Democrats' Franklin Pierce. The Democrats won the election by a large margin: Pierce won 27 of the 31 states, including Scott's home state of New Jersey. Whig Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught by the defeat, exclaiming, "We are slain. The party is dead—dead—dead!" Increasingly, politicians realized that the party was a loser.
In 1854, the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the new territories to slavery, was passed. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs remained strongly opposed. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Other Whigs joined the Know-Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against so-called "corrupt" Irish and German immigrants.... [Breaking up long paragraph.]
Historians estimate that, in the South in 1856, former Whig Fillmore retained 86 percent of the 1852 Whig voters when he ran as the American Party candidate. He won only 13% of the northern vote, though that was just enough to tip Pennsylvania out of the Republican column.... After 1856 virtually no Whig organization remained at the regional level. Twenty-six states sent 150 delegates to the last national convention in September 1856. The convention met for only two days and on the second day (and only ballot) quickly nominated Fillmore for president, who had already been nominated for president by the Know Nothing party.... Some Whigs and others adopted the mantle of the Opposition Party for several years and enjoyed some individual electoral successes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LaminatorX on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:46PM
The rise of the original Republicans isn't really comparable to what we have today though. The key thing that allowed Lincoln to triumph in 1860 was that not only had the Whigs ceased to exist and been replaced by the Republicans and the Constitutional Unionists, but the Democratic Party was also fractured, held two conventions, and fielded two rival claimants as the Democratic Party nominee. It was a four-way race with no unified establishment party on the field.
No current political movement or issue is capable of fracturing one of the current parties to that extreme extent, let alone both of them at once. A split in the Republican party between the Trump-ists & the Koch-Brothers-and-Bible-Thumpers coalition might happen, you can see that in the in-fighting between the House Freedom Caucus and Speaker Ryan.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:03PM
No current political movement or issue is capable of fracturing one of the current parties
Let me start by reminding everyone that, this election cycle, The Big 2 have offered us the most-disliked candidates in USA history.
...and some good news: The Green Party has qualified for the ballot in 44 states (plus DC) and there are 3 more states that will count your write-in vote for Dr. Stein.
Graphic here [jill2016.com]
I recommend View + No Style (Blinking text)
If you want to hear Jill speaking, Eric Mann interviewed her this month.
The interview is from 3:30 - 38:00 (64 percent of the download) [kpfk.org]
From 38:00 - 46:30 is Eric commenting (80 percent)
46:30 - 50:00 KPFK stuff & L.A. Stuff
50:00 - 54:00 is about NYPD & NYC's pseudo-Progressive mayor
54:00 - 55:00 Nina Simone sings
.
For many decades, most USAians have gotten their "information" via TeeVee.
As long as access to privately-owned media remains expensive, there is minimal chance for a non-Red and non-Blue candidate to get his message out that way.
We should mention that, before Reagan, TV and radio stations were considered to be held by private parties "in the public interest" and they were required to present programming which was balanced and served to inform The People by airing differing views.
You won't hear that on Lamestream Media these days.
Amusingly, there's a "public" radio station in SoCal that has a program they call Left, Right, & Center. [archive.li][1]
I tried to listen to it and what I heard was Clearly-Right, Very-Right, and Extremely-Right.
Ralph Nader notes that 2 Reactionaries have gotten more air time than a whole slew of thinkers whose ideas you *should* be hearing. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
[1] The S/N comments engine still NEEDLESSLY fucks with punctuation in URLs.
.
What is needed to straighten out the USA is a constitutional amendment.
Some folks advocate for one that says "Money is not speech and corporations are not people".
I recently heard Ralph Nader (who has run numerous times as a 3rd-party candidate) specify a better amendment:
All public elections will be publicly financed.
Playing field leveled.
.
Additionally, Thomas Jefferson advocated a constitutional convention once a generation to review|upgrade|replace that document.
Getting rid of vestiges of 18th Century Plutocracy such as the Electoral College seems apt.
A ranked voting ballot and uniform voting|registration[2] laws across all the states also seem like great ideas.
Making Election Day a national holiday seems intelligent.
A bunch of other countries have a bunch of great ideas.
USA needs to pay attention.
[2] Even better: No registration at all; you're automatically registered on your 18th birthday.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:01AM
No current political movement or issue is capable of fracturing one of the current parties to that extreme extent, let alone both of them at once.
Right now maybe. But both parties are fracturing.
A split in the Republican party between the Trump-ists & the Koch-Brothers-and-Bible-Thumpers coalition might happen
I'd say the most significant split is between those members with political or economic power ("establishment") and their marginalized followers. Same goes for the Democrat party side.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:40PM
Most voters can only think in the short-term, so all they seem to be willing to do is vote for 'the lesser of two evils'. But decades and centuries of a corrupt duopoly will do far more harm than several 'greater evils' getting into power, and that is why most of our effort must be focused on changing our voting system, and the best way to do this appears to be to terrify the two parties by using the perception of the spoiler effect as a weapon. Unless someone thinks that mindlessly voting for the 'lesser evil' in every election will somehow be more likely to motivate The One Party into giving up its monopoly on power, but I would be very interested in how that would happen.
But terrified and irrational people (most voters) will probably not do this in the foreseeable future, as they are too focused on what is happening directly in front of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:23PM
if you think hillary stayed up all night with her "summertime pneumonia" writing those responses you are delusional. i doubt that any of them wrote their responses. that might also explain johnson's lack of a response. maybe he has less staff for this purpose.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:46PM
1. Hillary: Give me nukes, give me nukes, give me nukes 'til I puke! (apologies to the memory of Gilda Radner)
2. The Donald: Stop plate tectonics!
3. Jill: Save the whales!
4. Gary: ????
5. Profit!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:29PM
1. Hillary: Give me nukes, give me nukes, give me nukes 'til I puke! (apologies to the memory of Gilda Radner)
Please do give me more of the safest, C02-free energy on the planet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:14PM
Jill: Make sure EVERYBODY has a job and is contributing to the economy (The Multiplier Effect).
When businesses aren't hiring, build|expand public infrastructure[1].
Make sure that everything you do WRT job creation is GREEN.
[1] With interest rates at historic lows, USA should have been doing this since The Bush-Obama Depression started.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:29PM
Parent has no sense of humor
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:34PM
When I see that idiotic "-- OriginalOwner" link at the bottom of the post, I know that I can trust the comment to be avidly socialist and entirely humorless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:18PM
When I see that idiotic "-- OriginalOwner" link at the bottom of the post, I know that I can trust the comment to be avidly socialist and entirely humorless.
I'm perfectly fine with the former, but the latter is just so wrong. Sigh.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:02PM
1) Stein is currently polling at about 4%. That doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that's about 10 million people. She's the 4th most popular presidential candidate right now, so give her some respect.
2) Both Clinton and Stein are obviously pro-science.
3) I agree Johnson needs to do better as a candidate. He really missed an opportunity with "What is Aleppo?".
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:42PM
3) I agree Johnson needs to do better as a candidate. He really missed an opportunity with "What is Aleppo?".
He could've at least gave some vague politician answer instead of outright demonstrating his ignorance. Or he could have handled the aftermath by saying that what happens in some third world shithole is less important than the violence and issues back home, indicating that he's opposed to preemptive warfare.
But he, like you said, wasted the opportunity. It's frustrating that Johnson seems to squishy and bumbling in an election year where he could probably get a significant amount of votes by third party standards if he wasn't handling everything so ineptly. It's almost like he doesn't think about anything or do any preparation whatsoever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:22PM
There are 43 million USAians with student debt (over $1 trillion in total).
Dr. Stein advocates zeroing-out that and adopting the Scandinavian model.
If all those folks would simply vote in their own self-interest, they'd vote for Jill.
Instant plurality?
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:56PM
One of the basic facts about US politics is that most people do not vote for their own self-interest. Fredrich Engels (y'know, Karl Marx's homie) observed over a century ago that all the US needed to do to turn itself into a socialist nation was for the working classes to realize they were the majority and vote for their self-interest. So you can be darned sure that those with power have done everything they can to prevent that outcome.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:48AM
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury."
--atrrib. Tytler et al.
http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html [lorencollins.net]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:49PM
I would be in favor of free higher education on the condition that we require the colleges and universities that qualify to have extremely high standards; nothing like what we have now where just about any know-nothing loser who has just enough motivation to get through a few years of schooling can get a degree. The gap between the top schools and the mediocre and worst schools should not be so tremendously large.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:35AM
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:30PM
Her response to question 11:
Meeting the climate challenge is too important to limit the tools available in this fight. Nuclear power – which accounts for more than 60 percent of our zero carbon power generation today – is one of those tools. I will work to ensure that the climate benefits of our existing nuclear power plants that are safe to operate are appropriately valued and increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power. At the same time, we must continue to invest in the security of our nuclear materials at home, and improve coordination between federal, state, and local authorities. We must also seek to reduce the amount of nuclear material worldwide – working with other countries so minimize the use of weapons-grade material for civil nuclear programs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:40PM
> 2) Only Hillary has a pro-science stance. Too bad she never mentions nuclear energy as a responsible source for clean energy
Did we read the same article? Question 11 is on nuclear power. You might try re-reading the first two sentences of her answer.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:56PM
The major candidates are
1) Trump
2) Clinton
Then a distant third would be some safe senator from one of the parties - chosen if the two major candidates drop out of the race/die/are assassinated.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:44PM
There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of “climate change.” Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.
In other words, Trump says there is no climate change problem, except one that has been manufactured by the MSM and the Chinese government. [twitter.com] And Trump will save the coal industry. [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:07PM
And in spite of the flame war it will spawn with people of similarly low intellectual quality here: that position is goddamn fucking retarded.
There's no really precedent you can put on the rates of temperature changes we've seen in the 21st century except by comparing them to changes that happened coincidental to major asteroid impacts and supervolcano eruptions. In all of earth's history.
The great oxygen crisis(you know, the thing that caused us to be theoretically possible organisms) took tens of thousands of years to radically alter the earth's climate. The start of the Carboniferous which cooled the earth a mere 4 degrees C, took millions of years. "The climate has always changed" is missing that changes on the scale we're talking about now were mass extinctions, and took orders of magnitude longer than this thing we're doing ourselves will.
It's my opinion that you have to be utterly brainless to dismiss something like that.
(Score: 5, Informative) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:28PM
Shows that gentle meander of normal geological climate change since the last glaciation quite nicely vs. the last century and change, I think. I was rather surprised to see that the "little ice age" - AKA the "Maunder Minimum" for those more clued up - wasn't more visually apparent though, which seems to support the theory there was more going on than just a short term temperature fluctuation. Interesting...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:32PM
If you find that XKCD informative then you a should have a look at the ice cores [wikipedia.org] and the geologic evidence right below it.
Pay attention to how steep the gradients are and how they suddenly turn and drop. Ask yourself why it does that again and again according to the data (and on all scales by the way, from daily to gigayears).
It is the best data we have and there's so much we do not understand about it. Some of what we think is probably right and some of it is probably wrong.
One of the direct interpretations of that data is that we're close to another ice age either naturally (cyclic) or perhaps foreshortened by rising temperatures (caused by human activity or whatever; nature doesn't care who or why) triggering whatever mechanism has repeatedly led to a rapid decrease in temperature for a significant amount of time.
People who don't know what feedback [wikipedia.org] is or what it can look like should probably start with that (Wikipedia probably falls short but it's a start).
Remember not to pet the polar bears, they always eat you :P
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(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:38PM
Not gigayears, that's (perhaps not so) obviously far too much time :( (brain farts like that are embarrassing).
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:53AM
As I said once before, that sediment-cores chart looks like an oscillation that's getting out of hand.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:35PM
Yes, by the planetary cycles figuring we should be entering another ice age. It should have started awhile back. And the best guess is that increasing CO2 first stalled it and then overwhelmed it. See Milankovitch cycles.
N.B.: There are other contributions, such as the position of Greenland controlling the size of the opening into the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, etc., but (most of?) those don't change in a regular manner.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:32PM
Oblig XKCD [xkcd.com] on earth's temperature changes from just a couple days ago.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:57PM
All of that can be true. And I can agree with it. But I almost guarantee you're not going to like my candidate analysis:
So lets look at "the plans"
Hillary doesn't get that the problem is whats in the atmosphere. Hillary wants to pretend to reduce rate of increase, but you know it'll be corrupt and accomplish nothing (lots of ignore the man behind the curtain, look at this small scale greenwashing that does jack all not this new Chinese coal burning power plant). Her first goal is technologically illiterate and impossible. It does nothing to solve the problem other than reduce the rate of increase by half if it were possible in star trek land. Her second plan is idiotic because cutting waste is already automagically profitable, where does she think she's going to squeeze a third from? Its technologically illiterate and impossible. If on star trek land it were possible it would not fix the problem merely lower rate of increase by a third. Her third point is equally trash. And she wants to increase taxes to create (government) jobs. But historically the .gov has been the biggest polluter and waster. Hmm. And she wants to launch a nebulous plan that will do unclear things with relatively little money to accomplish probably nothing other than pay off campaign donors. So Hillaries plan is to expand the government and produce more meaningless Pravda style fake statistics while emitting more CO2 than ever. Also Hillary always lies even when she doesn't have to, so her statement is meaningless.
Johnson's plan is probably the best response. A country that is not F-ed with is a stronger country, global warming is going to massively F things up, and a strong country has the best odds of helping both itself and others when things are Fed up. So congrats Johnson your "This candidate has not yet responded" is by far the most intelligent plan provided.
Stein wants a world war to magically wave wands over stuff and make star trek utopia happen. She makes Hillaries pipe dreams look sober, from a technical perspective. I mean, its like having a NASA aerospace policy that boils down to asking Congress to repeal the law of gravity to make booster requirements easier. Seriously, she's so out of touch with technological engineering reality that she thinks merely passing a climate change treaty will make the climate stop changing, what a freaking idiot. Nothing short of a world war with gigadeaths is going to do that... Literally a village out there is missing its idiot. Mostly she wants to hand out a lot of money. She has some political weirdness about wanting energy to be a human right so she's going to take it away from some people and regulate and tax and control the hell out of it, but still call it a "human right" which in 1984 doublespeak language would be funny to read her take on "free speech as a human right". End all sources of energy but solar and wind... sure... Ironically it doesn't matter. If you're trying to prevent CO2 in the air she's going to have to nuke China to get them to stop, otherwise they'll burn what we're too cucked to burn ourselves. The only pragmatic way to stop emitting CO2 is nuclear winter and I don't think that'll see on the campaign trail. She's also strongly racist and anti-white, look at her concern only for "communities of color". F her and her racist anti-white people. Racists suck so Stein sucks. In summary she's a racist fairy tale teller completely disconnected from reality.
Trumps plan is very managerial. We have no actual solution to the overall problem and we need to keep investigating to find a useful long term plan. Frankly a little temperature change isn't as important as other battles we're currently fighting with mother nature, like lack of drinkable water, diseases, lack of food. We can and should actually do something about short term lack of drinking water, for example. Thats something within our realm of control and influence. He's probably the most honest of the bunch that we still must decide what to do because greenwashing and idiocy as usual isn't going to actually fix the real problem. I like his goal that our lives should be better, safer, and prosperous. Compared to Steins "F you if you're white" or Hillaries "I won't fix anything but you'll love the greenwashing press conferences" I like Trumps answer the best. Although its not as good as Johnson's plan.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:12PM
It's not that simple. Many people are knowledgeable in their areas of expertise, but outside of it quickly adopt the beliefs they learned before entering school. More people are only knowledgeable in a rather small number of areas. E.g., "What's the difference between Expressionism and Impressionism?" is a really basic question in art and art history that I would not be able to answer. And if their major area of interest isn't science, or even isn't meteorology, it's quite easy for them to believe quack experts (expert quacks?).
For an explicit example, my wife has sound views on science because I tell her what to believe, but they are quite shallow views, because that's not her field of expertise. And I have sound views on harmony theory because she tells me what to believe, but they are quite shallow views, because that's not my field of expertise. Some places, e.g. perspective, I'm better at theory than she is, but she's better at practice than I am. And some places I refuse to follow her lead, even though I know that she's much more likely to be right than I am (if I stop to think things over).
It's all very well to say the evidence is clear, but who do you trust to provide the evidence?
I happen to agree with you that global warming is the existing climate change, and that it's extremely rapid, but I'm accepting the words of particular experts and even of http://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com] . I have reasons for choosing the experts I chose to believe, but if I'd started of believing other experts I'd find it quite difficult to switch.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:31PM
Many people are knowledgeable in their areas of expertise, but outside of it quickly adopt the beliefs they learned before entering school. More people are only knowledgeable in a rather small number of areas.
The bottom line is, most people are NOT curious. They are intellectually dead. New information that requires thinking or may indicate something inconvenient is their enemy.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:59PM
You should have a look [soylentnews.org] at it (sorry about the gigayears error).
XKCD is giving you 22 thousand years out of a 5 million year picture, in other words less than half a percent of the available geologic data and a little less than three percent of the ice core data (800 thousand years).
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:28PM
I'm not quite sure what your point is. You could be implying that XKCD censored data that didn't conform to their storyline, but I've assumed that they just compressed a chart that was already too long to be convenient. But you could also be implying that it's more dramatic than they are depicting, because they elided a bunch of material. That seems more probable to me, but the reason seems to be that the chart was too long to be convenient.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday September 30 2016, @05:37AM
Sorry for such a late reply, this became a longer post than I anticipated and it is probably misleading or wrong of me to say it like this but my main point is that we as humanity do not have a good grasp on our own knowledge, the existing data, and any explanations, and people like the IPCC are acting as if we know things for certain when we plainly don't and when the way forward (no matter what) is to admit to it (and embrace it as science that needs doing and doing well) rather than pretend that there is nothing to discuss (as XKCD also does and most likely on purpose out of conviction) and that "the science is settled" when it so obviously is lacking one way or the other.
The Milankovitch cycles you mentioned in one of the other comments perfectly illustrates that we must be missing something [wikipedia.org], likely many things, from our basic or intermediate understanding of how the Earth's climate functions. The climate change "story" is riddled with holes, assumptions, and even strange decisions and nothing much is being done about addressing any of it because nearly all the focus and effort goes to a political or politicized effort at defending pseudo-religious dogma, if anything over time there only appears more questions and errors in all related scientific disciplines.
That's a very bad place to be if we're facing a huge problem, and we might (or we might not but we might in the future so either way).
The vast majority that pays any attention at all do not seem to utilize hardly any critical, questioning, or investigatory abilities or approaches at all, something which is self-defeating for all no matter what "side" they're on. So that's first and foremost what I would love to contribute to (in anyone) because that's the basis of (possible) learning and understanding. Not that I know all that much, I only know that I almost always end up with unanswered objections or a lack of explanations.
It's ironic (as well as tragic) but I'm starting to think the good fortune humanity has had in combating Ozone depletion might be why people think that any massive climate change will be or is all about another handful of "nasty chemicals" and that this time it's all about CO2 rather than Halogens and so on. This despite the fact that it ought to be obvious even if one thinks we've got it all figured out and even if one uses the IPCC reports themselves that it's not CO2 that is the problem but H2O because it is H2O vapor/clouds which acts as the glass in greenhouse through climate forcing [wikipedia.org].
I mean what the fuck? Where is the focus on humidity? Not that I'm advocating doing the mistake all over by just replacing "CO2" with "H2O" or that I think it will be that simplistic in any way but at least they would be listening to themselves that way.
If we really are facing catastrophic climate change then there's going to be much more to it and if one looks solely on waste heat (all energy ends up as waste heat sooner or later) then even the 11% of total power (2012 [wikipedia.org]) coming from nuclear power would play its part. If we really are facing trouble then we need to approach it all in a much more sensible fashion where criticism is embraced —aka science (and engineering too)— we'll need to engineer a global cooling system/heat sink/radiative pathways and it needs to be something that can be switched on and off as needed as we discover new interactions. In a situation of impeding catastrophe the alternative is 7 billion deaths and that's just stupid, wasteful, and unimaginative.
Back to the comparison to the Ozone holes and Halogens I have to underline the point and fallacy caused by the problems having very different scope and complexity. Just because we lucked out in one non-laboratory setting doesn't mean we should assume we'll do it again in another much more complex and poorly understood non-laboratory setting where we're nowhere close to accounting for and fully understanding even that which we know about. A statement (on paleoclimatology) like "The exact cause of the variation of the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is not known" [wikipedia.org] illustrates the general problem we face on so many different details; we often simply don't know how and are often merely guessing at why.
If we're in trouble we could easily be in much bigger trouble than "AGW" but we could also be in much lesser trouble in the first place. What troubles me the most is that as far as I (an outside observer) can gather we're not actually finding out or preparing to do something that would work nor checking our assumptions (those who do are usually thrown to the wolves).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 30 2016, @07:38PM
Water is different, because the surface of the oceans is so huge that you basically have all the water that the air can hold all the time. How much it can hold depends on a lot of things, with temperature being predominate, but also air speed, rate of diffusion over the continents, etc. And the world isn't a smooth ball that's the same temperature everywhere. So basically you don't use water as a determining factor in your models, you use it as an environmental feature.
Methane is a lot different. It fluctuates wildly depending on how fast it's emitted, and how fast it's converted into CO2 (which is essentially constant), so you say, e.g., that methane it 10 times as significant a greenhouse gas as CO2, but it only lasts 50 years before being converted into CO2. (Those numbers are probably wrong, and the conversion step is a half-life conversion anyway, not an absolute limit, but they're roughly correct.)
And it's been known for about a century that CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, because it's transparent to visible light, but approximately opaque to infrared.
You can say that water is an important greenhouse gas also, but for reasons mentioned in the first paragraph you don't treat it that way, instead you use it as a feature of the environment in your model.
N.B.: This is for a global model. When you deal with more local areas you DO need to treat it as a greenhouse gas, but when modeling local areas the features of adjacent areas are usually more significant than greenhouse gases. It matters more whether warm air or cold air is blowing in from next-door. The larger the area you're considering, the less true this is.
Yes, there *are* a lot of unknowns. Weather is complex. Weather was the inspiration for chaos theory. And we still can't really handle it, not even with lots of daily measurements.
I don't even know if I've mentioned the same of the continents, the width of the openings into the Arctic Ocean, or other such important features. These all play into the models, and lots of things I don't know anything about.
P.S.: I am not a Climatologist. I don't build climate or weather models. I just read a bunch of popularized science. So there's going to be lots of specialized things that are common knowledge in the specialty but which I don't know. People spend their entire lives studying those sciences, and are still periodically surprised by things that other people already know well.
Sorry, the world is complex, and 100% certainty about anything is an illusion. *ANYTHING* But there are many things that are fairly certain, and if you wait for complete certainty, you'll never do anything. And don't assume the world will hold still while you're waiting to decide, because it won't. Not deciding to act is itself a decision, so you do the best you can, but ignoring the evidence because it's inconvenient or because it isn't 100% certain is likely to lead to disaster.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday October 13 2016, @09:12PM
Sorry for yet another late reply ;_;
This gets a little bit ranty and off topic at the end but none of it is aimed against you or anyone specific; it's general and I don't feel like I can claim some kind of pure conscience either (after all what/how little am I doing myself despite having a tiny carbon footprint?). Worse is that we're having plenty of other big issues that this all ties in to. I don't feel nor think I have a solution to anything/any of it.
I'll try to explain myself a little better but I agree with a lot that you write and I do adhere to the precautionary principle (although I don't actually like "principles" or anything else that reeks of excuses for dogma; it's what it always ends up as and current climate science displays and illustrates that perhaps better than anything else). I'm also a layman or merely someone interested and I'm certain to be wrong about a lot of things but I do have a somewhat unusual background where I'm comfortable with real epistemology (not the politicized stuff that has appeared the last decade or at any rate pollutes all search results so that I can't find a really good paper I once read on the epistomological aspect of all of this) and theory/philosophy of science (I studied it at university in a "past life"/decades ago). That doesn't mean that I'm any more right or anything like that (would be a fallacy) but it explains the main angle I come at it from.
The way I see it the problem with our current understanding of the climate in the form professed by "anthropogenic climate change" isn't that it's "not 100%", instead the problem is that it is "almost 0%". Outright 0 as far as the epistemology goes meaning it has no proper scientific value at all i.e. on par or perhaps even below the epistemological value of things such as phrenology or intelligent design, that's how bad it is; none of the climate change models return results one can have any confidence in at all, not even backwards in comparison with past data.
What does that mean? It means we know we're doing it wrong. It means we know we don't know. It also means that as long as we obfuscate or deny that we don't know we will continue to hinder most or maybe even all efforts at nailing down and learning what we still do not know. It could serve as a general definition of "anti-science".
Another way to try to express my point is the straightforward mathematical example of multiplication of errors/uncertainties also know as propagation of errors/uncertainties and confidence limits and how it accumulates very fast beyond what most people initially find intuitive. With a high likelihood of multiple hidden variables and/or interactions the confidence is zero; we're not in a laboratory environment/abstract space, we're not dealing with idealized gases, we don't even fully understand hydrodynamics and need physical tests whenever we want to make absolutely sure (wind tunnels, flow tanks etc.) thus we don't really understand mixing all that well (hell try on Brownian motion for size and we think we can predict the global climate?), the interactions between the different layers and temperatures of the atmosphere (tropo, strato, meso, thermo, exo, etc.) is a set of very young and maybe one should say nearly non-existing fields of science no more than roughly fifty or sixty years old, we're dealing with a system complexity of immense size i.e. an immense number of variables all with their own potential errors, we are not a closed system neither "in" and perhaps more importantly "out", and we know that there are many things we don't know (like the "function"/impact of sprites in the mesosphere).
All together the "sum" remains lesser than it's parts and that's not a basis upon which to start considering the science as settled in any way or form or to base policy upon in the way politicians now almost unanimously do. It's no cause for making everything about carbon dioxide or any other "scapegoat chemicals" because for all we know carbon dioxide might actually be the trigger for the negative feedback loop that starts the cyclic cooling. We don't have a clue! We could be doing precisely the thing that will ensure that which is being attempted to avoid.
I'm mostly annoyed that climate scientists aren't making these points or arguments similar to them themselves, loudly in internal but public/open scientific debate/discussion/quarrel (it's usually not pretty when scientists argue), because that's what would earn them the standing of being actual scientists :( Instead it's "always" people from other fields who raise the alarm about all kinds of errors, mostly statisticians but also some meteorologists and chemists.
Very simplified the whole "climate change" thing is it's own nemesis for as long as this continues. Considering how bad and how much worse any potential climate change could be (no matter if it's warming or not) this fact is what really ought to make people worried and not the current speculation presented as "science".
If that wasn't bad enough there has been a huge opportunity costs from making climate change the top priority and pretty much destroying environmentalism and conservationism (which should have a lot more attention given our technological possibilities; seed banks are good but we really ought to have or work hard towards 99% complete non-proprietary genomic data banks and "conservation banks"). We don't actually have any excuses for losing any biological diversity on account of climate change (and this would be a true application of a precautionary principle). We've pretty much not explored the deeps of the oceans and the life there yet deep sea mining is going ahead, likewise the ecological/biological niches of the Earth's crust, and there probably isn't a single ecosystem we fully understand to every detail and every life form within it (grab a butterfly net or garden tools and a microscope and you're likely to find uncatalogued life in any back yard). But we could and should.
Anyway thank you for "triggering" me XD I hope I'm not being crass or wildly unpleasant (although I'm likely very dumb and slow, arrogant for sure). These days these topics are so much more pleasant than so many other things that when I finally get around to attempting to keep up with SoylentNews replies it's a plain relief :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:07PM
In other words, Trump says there is no climate change problem
More like he says its a very low priority problem compared to our other issues with mother natire.
For example there was another el nino crop failure in Africa this summer and 50 mil are gonna starve unless we burn lots of petroleum to send them USA grain. And we probably will. Or we'll "save the climate change" and let them starve to death. One way or another "climate change" and greenwashing and treaties that accomplish nothing are not very important compared to things he does list like, say, feeding people.
Something that tends to be very telling is what very specifically to do about climate change varies between progressive neocon globalists and rational people. When someone says they've solved the problem because there's an international treaty that does nothing from an engineering perspective and if only we'd sign it the problem would be fixed, you know they're progressive neocon globalist democrats. Trump's response is more rational. OK we'll feed those 50M people today and meanwhile try to study some way to REALISTICALLY fix problems.
Its basically the same answer he gave for the research question. TLDR is something like yeah well everything's got a fanboy who thinks their pet project is the most important but a good manager tries to maximize overall productivity which usually results in a balance in effort much to the chagrin of ALL single issue fanboys oh well.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:40PM
More like he says its a very low priority problem compared to our other issues with mother natire.
I guess all those direct quotes from the man claiming it's fake are all just jokes. Additionally, putting scare-quotes around "climate change" in his response to the question also must just be a joke.
We'll just let VLM tell us his actual, totally-real, stance and just ignore all the words coming out of Trump's mouth.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:56PM
Well thats kinda cheaty referencing stuff outside the response and historical.
As a practical matter do beliefs about something unimportant, of low priority compared to more pressing problems, really matter?
Say he flipflops on his position WRT the Investiture Controversy of 1102. Should that matter? Its really important to folks in the field and people who are into certain identify politics use it as a litmus test of who gets to belong and who doesn't. But being irrelevant and of low priority does it really matter?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:17PM
Yes, ignoring very basic and easily provable science is a very large problem for someone who is supposed to be making important decisions.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:58AM
Or as I summarized the interview for someone elsewhere,
1) longwinded rambles that say nothing, but government will fix!
2) realist who speaks directly
3) no answer
4) idealist with many fine ideas but no sense of reality
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by CirclesInSand on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:21PM
Hillary: Science cannot exist without government and taxes. Government needs to be more involved in research. In fact, more government is the solution to everything. We promise free stuff.
Trump: Science flourishes under the free market, so let's increase government involvement until we have a free market.
Gary Johnson: No response.
Jill Stein: Science gets in the way of our natural utopia with no electricity or plumbing. We promise more free stuff.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:21PM
Man, I feel like I need that on a plaque or something.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:43PM
Man i feel like you probably have that on a plaque or something (hanging above the fireplace maybe?)
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:22PM
OK, Johnson wins this round.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:40PM
My Summary
Hillary: As president she promises to do $X over and over. As $PREVOUS_GOV_POSITION she was already tackling this issue. Public taxes pay for research and then that research is transferred to private companies to build products. Basically more of the same. Notable exceptions being she would increase defense spending on cyber warfare (probably means more spying). H1B is great and expand visa/green card stuff. Her answers were typically several paragraphs. Took a snipe at Trump during one of her answers.
Trump: The government only has so much money so we'll put it where the priorities are. Crazy people shouldn't be in prison. End government spying. "Climate Change" isn't something to worry about. Tighter fiscal responsibility. His answers were typically one short paragraph to the point.
Jill: Cutting down trees isn't bad as long as it is sustainable. Tear down the entire oil industry. Tear down the nuclear industry. End war on drugs. Remove all funding from cyber warfare and drastically reduce military spending (but not downsizing, so this would probably just be less R&D and offensive stuff. Think less foreign bases and F35-type projects). Help create a UN force responsible for policing cyber attacks at a global level. Free (higher) education. Her answers were usually more technical and not much politics involved.
On a more personal note, I was more for Jill before reading her answers. But her answers made me feel like i was going to need to get a bicycle to survive her administration. I realize though her proposed changes are actually good, just drastic. If more of the country was on electric cars i would be all for it. But i feel like she was the only candidate that was looking for long-term solutions. I'd like her to push for better nuclear though and not just tear it down.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:11AM
"But her answers made me feel like i was going to need to get a bicycle to survive her administration. "
Only if you're a normal person of course, at least that's how the Greens that are in power where I live do it (they're called watermelons for a reason, they've kept this attitude from before they were green. And yes it's copypasted straight out of the USSR & Mao's China where everyone truly important enough had a car and a driver).
And even with that in mind Jill Stein still beats Hillary and Johnson by a huge margin in my opinion! Likewise Trump easily wins over all of them.
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:09PM
I think that gives Stein short shrift. I found her answers the best, informed and to the point. Hillary's answers were wonky, empty drivel. Trump's were half Republican reflexive, "laissez-faire!!!" but he did make some solid points. I especially liked his answer on government surveillance.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:56PM
Here's the ScienceDebate statement by Trump:
Now let's look at some other stuff:
Trump sides with Rubio over Cruz in NSA surveillance debate [thehill.com]
Trump Says He Supports Reauthorizing Patriot Act, NSA Metadata Collection [truthinmedia.com] (same story, longer quote)
Trump calls for bringing back surveillance of Muslim communities [politico.com]
Both Trump And Clinton Suggest Expanding Mass Surveillance, Bogus Watch Lists After Attack In Orlando [techdirt.com]
Donald Trump made some confusing remarks about an internet shutdown or ban, but he appeared to be describing a counterterror plan. [snopes.com]
This clown is an authoritarian just like Hillary. Don't be fooled.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:24PM
I feel as if you probably didn't read any of the responses. If I hadn't read the responses I'd probably have guessed answers sort of like the ones you said they provided, but that's not what I got from reading them. I did feel that Stein was being to optimistic, that Hillary was frequently being vague, and that Trump was much more reasonable than his speeches (faint praise indeed). And I thought that both Hillary and Trump were lying, but Trump more than Hillary (based on historical records more than internal evidence).
Hillary actually did more hand waving than did Jill Stein, but neither presented a workable program. Trump didn't even present an unworkable program. And I really doubt that Jill Stein would be able to implement her plans, to the extent that they are explicit. Hillary might be able to get much of what she said implemented....perhaps. How much she'd try is another question. I can't make a similar analysis of Trump, because he basically didn't promise to do anything, he mainly said whether he thought things were important or not. And he may even have been telling the truth.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:37PM
Gary Johnson: I'm sorry. I'm still trying to figure out what an aleppo is.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:59AM
Haha, I like your summary even better than mine :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(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. I have always been here. ---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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:56PM
I am from and live in the E"U" (The European "Union"). Sometime ago I noticed all media with foreign ties here have been systematically smearing Trump (I learned his existence from a report about some naughty thing he did or other), sometimes by the most ridiculous of posts. So this got my attention and I decided to learn what he is about by following his uncut and unedited talks in youtube.
In my personal views, I am an anarchist; I despise all government and I strongly believe that no human being has any right to enforce opinions to another at show "the right way to live" and all that. However, pragmatically speaking, I can see that a socialist, almost to the point of being communist, is the only viable and semi-just solution (for the people) for a government 'enforced' as an institution from above (and legitimized by the process of voting) as far as internal politics are concerned. All this, of course, is viable only if accompanied by a well-intended and sincere cooperation between different nation-states doctrine to handle external politics, and not any of that "sphere-of-influence" stuff.
That said, I have to admit that I like Trump. Even though he has declared his textbook-capitalistic position and describes a political system that I am directly opposed to, he is the only one answering straight to the point and giving practical answers. He also is the only one that seems to be aware that you cannot aspire to set the "neighborhood" in order, if you do not set your own house in order first; and he is the only one that has declared that he desires peace.
With Hillary it is clear that it will be "business as usual": she is a mere sock puppet for a parasitical government that answers to no one, centralizes everything and treats people as cattle. She acts as if she is elite, and behaves as she is the president already. Her answers are all blahblah paragraph after paragraph, squirting ink and "outbreaks" this and "global challenges" that, so "vote for me since you are scared" is the clear message here. Every educated EU teenager can see right through this. She is a representing a system (with footholds to both parties) that has systematically and consciously worked to bring the US to the point where it is now for decades, she is losing control and getting angry and sloppy.
That other "green" lady I don't even know were she came from. I tried to find some background but there is nothing really. Is she supposed to be a last-moment socialist/ecology competitor or what? Her bulletpoint presentation pretends to be a purposefully concealed New Age cry for help to mother Earth, but not concealed enough so the "awakened ones" can see it. Sure, some of the points make sense, but most are like a kindergarten wish list, or a "how to use less water" campus brochure. I suspect that she was jumped along the wagon to siphon-off votes from Trump from the environmentally-but-also-Hillary-conscious, as she has zero chance of being elected, and by the way she answers I am deeply convinced she has no idea what she is talking about.
In all, I like it how Trump is not buying into "well known" and "established" (from the media) "scientific facts", and that he stands his ground; his rhetoric is centered on the individual, not some around some abstract notion or institution; I prefer his kind of straight answers (f.i. 'Internet':"The United States government should not spy on its own citizens. That will not happen in a Trump administration.") and the fact that the media is obviously against him makes me like him even more.
Sure he is promising too much: I can tell you right now that he will 100% absolutely fail to deliver all that he promises and that he will be merciless smeared for it, because I have seen this happen before. But even if he does half, or even 10% of what he claims it will be far, far better than Hillary's "business as usual" that have granted the US the infamous title "Butchers of Peoples", something quite rude but often heard in almost every anti-war rally inside (and outside) of the EU.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:12PM
I'm curious, how do you go from being an anarchist to thinking socialism/communism is more just than capitalism? Or even dictatorship? I mean it is hands down the most oppressive form of government possible from an individual liberties perspective.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:29PM
Lol. The very definition of begging the question... "I'm curious. How do you deny reality?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PocketSizeSUn on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:37PM
Seems to me he must be thinking of socialism/communism as their theoretical goals and not as their actual implementation.
The implementation of communism transitions to an authoritarian oppressive regime in only a few years.
Socialism takes a bit longer.
Anarchy (the fairest of any system) unfortunately is so highly susceptible to a dictatorship that it can be guaranteed to transition to one in less than a generation. Realistically it only works for very small communities with no outside threats and lasts about 3-5 years.
So a mix of socialism and capitalism is the best we have in terms of multigenerational stability that provides some level of fairness and individual freedoms. Unfortunately all of these systems are prone to being co-opted so long as humans are drawn to greed and power to which there is apparently no cure :-).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:54PM
It was Plato who already stated ("The State" is the work to look for) that any form of democracy will be followed up by tyranny. The type of economic foundation (Capitalism, Communism, Anarchy/Free market, Socialism) does not matter in this. I'm however not sure, that Capitalism can transcend into Oligarchy first (enough examples worldwide).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:54PM
I'm curious, how do you go from being an anarchist to thinking socialism/communism is more just than capitalism? Or even dictatorship?
You are right, the application of socialism/communism is in practice no different, if not worse, than declared capitalism: worse because it has the added element of being done "in the name of the people" and used as an excuse for the establishment of control and oppression.
First off, I do not believe that the examples of say USSR and others were true communism: those were travesties not unlike the "democracy" in place now in the EU. None of communist/socialist founding concepts were actually applied in practice, like those of representation and decentralization. In fact, one can claim that the systems in the EU and the US are actually worse, because control and oppression are disguised as the freedom gate-keeper.
For the 'anarchist' part of your question, I am afraid you misunderstand: as I stated, anarchism is my personal conviction. In an ideal world where everyone is aware of their boundaries, there is not really a need for a police (or worse, a world police). Personally, I do not need policing or "guidance" from any such institution, nor do I wish to police or be part of said "guidance" system myself.
In practice, and since this is non-applicable, the "next best thing" if you will, is a system where representative election or even lottery or rotation takes place, and the governing bodies are as local and as decentralized as possible each dealing with local issues, never given a chance to transform themselves to any sort of monstrous, federal government-like centralized administrative structure or establish themselves in a parasitic form.
So if we HAVE TO have a system, it should be one that is as representative and fair as possible. So far communism and socialism (in theory!) fit this goal better than others, and if you have another one that I have not heard of I will entertain any suggestion.
Enforcing systems, especially federalism, cannot work: it never has, and it never will, and is a ticking time bomb
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:30PM
[...] one can claim that the systems in the EU and the US are actually worse [...]
Yeah, but no. Not yet.
You (mostly) don't have a secret police that can detain you at any moment (at least in the EU), you can rise up to top positions without being a party member, you can create (almost) any art you like and express yourself in (almost) any way*, ...
*) Local rules and regulations may apply, e.g. no child and animal porn, no walking around naked in places of worship, no swastikas on the territory of the FRG, etc.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:03AM
You're conflating capitalism and federalism here. They're not even sort of one and the same and there are a lot of "states' rights" types out there who will be only too happy to explain the difference to you.
As for fair, there is nothing fair about socialism. It is, by definition, tyranny of the masses. That's the oppression I was speaking of in socialism/communism rather than the top-down oppression which is really far less oppressive.
Fair would be "what you earn, is yours" and "what what is yours, none make take from you". Liberty-based fairness is actually fair instead of the twisted into loops definition of fairness necessary to call taking from the hard working to support the indolent fair.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:17PM
Hey, you can have all the liberties you want in both, as long as it's for the good of all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:05PM
These answers are written by the campaign organisers, just like party programs in many European countries.
You're right about Hillary. I don't expect much from her as well (notice the length of the text, which is much wool, but little content).
Trump's parts are much shorter, it's much about what he wants to do (many things aren't feasible), yet fails in most cases to give concrete solutions on how to tackle it.
Stein (from the "greens") is not completely unknown if you looked a bit deeper into the USA election (even from Europe). When Bernie failed to become the candidate for the Democrats, she was promoted as the candidate for Bernie voters. "Her" replies are IMHO the best. They are bullet pointed solutions that you could check off after her term, so see what she has really done (This does not mean I agree with all her points though).
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:09PM
I am an anarchist
Dude, as long as you don't vote AfD, we can be friends.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:25PM
only one answering straight to the point and giving practical answers
Hiillary always lies, even about ridiculous shit that doesn't matter like if she has a cold or the flu, she's just crazy. Like literally insane. That makes her a very scary candidate. If she wins can she be controlled?
The energy policies stated by everyone but Trump were very specific but technically from an engineering perspective insane. Very Dilbertian pointy haired boss. Trump's answer was very engineering / businessman like in an truthful but general sense.
Trump is offering actual leadership, management, but traditionally questions like what were proposed are to generate cool soundbites for the news to propagandize. So he's not playing along any more than Johnson is (the guy who refused to respond to any questions). Stein and hillary are playing along the traditional roles of spouting bullshit in response to stereotypical questions.
pragmatically speaking, I can see that a socialist, almost to the point of being communist, is the only viable and semi-just solution
You'd have liked Bernie. I liked Bernie. I wouldn't vote for him, being extremely far right, but I respected him as an honest rational respectable statesman. I feel sorry for the left because Hillary stole the nomination from Bernie Bro. Bernie is/was a stereotypical NYC Jewish communist and I don't agree with almost all of his beliefs, but at least he was honest and somewhat practical and had his heart in the right place even if all his methods were probably wrong. He was their only chance to beat Trump.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:55PM
Hiillary always lies, even about ridiculous shit that doesn't matter like if she has a cold or the flu, she's just crazy. Like literally insane. That makes her a very scary candidate. If she wins can she be controlled?
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton/ [politifact.com]
Trump is offering actual leadership,
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/ [politifact.com]
Hmmm...I'm sorry VLM, what was that you were saying?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:07PM
Complexity is for losers and liars!
As we all know, any software over 20 lines long is really just a trick so that programmers can get paid more.
Trump!
Trump!
Trump!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:14PM
I think he means Trump will run the country like a business, tight control over spending and get rid of the fuckoffs. Cliton will just do business as usual, spend money that doesn't exist while filling the pockets of fat slobs that have never put in a hard days work, AKA politicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:26PM
Yeah, cuz facts are for suckers, amirite?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:36PM
BAU politics is 100% smiley happy face and you propose stuff by tossing out nebulous unachievable goals plus or minus content free sophistry. People generally hate it.
Trump style leadership is business leadership. Business is at least 50% talking tough and threatening not just smiling. So Trump does his usual thing and people expecting a speech about skittles candy flying out of a unicorns butt get all confused and freaked. Businessmen propose stuff by tossing out the most ridiculous possible negotiation point they can imagine. Wait wait you're not supposed to specify how they're gonna pay for a border wall in detail with a valid budget, politicians are supposed to talk about how we're all citizens of earth and have to get along while protecting our borders from terrorism by leaving them wide open or some such literal doublespeak style nonsense.
So imagine leader Hillary and leader Trump are in charge of a famous space rocket company who two failures ago had an outsourced liquid oxygen / helium tank support strut snap in midair leading to a rather impressive midair explosion.
Now lets imagine the Hillary response. Well I have a detailed plan to fix the fuel tank strut weakness problem which includes increasing taxes to hire more FAA regulators, getting rid of all the white people in rocket science and encouraging more people of color to become rocket scientists because I hate white people and that message sells well to my segment of the electorate, I'm gonna make the strut 1/3 lighter and manufacture it completely out of organic hemp seed and natural soy oil, and finally we're going to take down the American flag at the assembly plant and replace with the communist party flag and/or the UN flag because everyone loves gloablism. All very specific and sound bite compatible and said with a smile and pretty much the kind of idiocy you'd expect from a politician.
Now lets imagine the Trump response. OK as super-CEO I'm trying to prioritize this and I will try to squeeze a little more money from finance to tide us over the interval before next flight and I've talked to legal and I think we're OK and I'm going to keep a fire lit under the VP of engineering until they figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, or I'll fire the whole department top to bottom and hire new people who can figure it out. Meanwhile as a negotiation point how about I start with asking the failed strut mfgr for ... 100 billion dollars. Either that or I build a wall around their building. That seems a nice place to start negotiations. I mean, how does a dying legacy news media even report something business-like such as that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:38PM
Paying for the border wall will be easy. Just tell pres Nieto all U.S. aid to mexico will be paying for the wall if they don't build it. And perhaps tax imports and close loopholes for businesses using mexico for manufacturing. It's not that hard to think of a solution.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:29PM
Perhaps stop crap like this... Ford moving all production of small cars from U.S. to Mexico http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/09/14/ford-moving-all-production-small-cars-mexico/90354334/ [usatoday.com]
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:28PM
Why else was he was so upset after his meeting with Trump?
Seems logical to me that you hit the nail on the head there.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:01AM
Paying for the border wall will be easy. Just tell pres Nieto all U.S. aid to mexico will be paying for the wall if they don't build it. And perhaps tax imports and close loopholes for businesses using mexico for manufacturing. It's not that hard to think of a solution.
Foreign aid to Mexico (US$417,000,000) [google.com] constitutes approximately .0003% of Mexico's GDP (US$1.144,330,000,000) [tradingeconomics.com]. What's more, given that according to Donald Trump, US$24,800,000,000 in remittances come to Mexico from the US [politifact.com] US Foreign aid to Mexico is ~1.6% of that.
As such, I imagine that the Mexicans aren't all that dependent on US foreign aid.
As for tariffs and taxes, starting a trade war with Mexico would be highly detrimental to the US (admittedly, not as much as to Mexico) and would face stiff opposition from a broad range of interests, not to mention that it would place upward impact on the prices of all manner of good sold in the US. According to the Congressional Research Service [fas.org]:
So that's not such a good idea either.
That really sucks, doesn't it? I guess that makes me a huge asshole for ruining a perfectly good rant with facts. Shame on me!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:33PM
I know one thing for sure... Since Ford is sending all of their car manufacturing to Mexico, putting more American workers out to pasture, it's going to piss off a lot of people. Plus... Even though Fords are already a pile of shit, they're going to be an even bigger pile of shit. Not to mention they'll probably use manure as seat filler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:50PM
Trump is offering actual leadership, management, but traditionally questions like what were proposed are to generate cool soundbites for the news to propagandize.
I have some cool-aid I think you will find refreshing! trustme! This will cure what ails you!
Seriously....Trump has no plan for jobs. If you think he can create good paying factory jobs for middle class workers with little education that allow them to create things that other people can actually afford to buy you are delusional.
Putting together a TV by a team of people each paid $30 per hour will cause your TV to cost $6000. Sure! those people will now be earning a "middle class income" by today's standards, but they won't be able to buy anything because all the prices will have skyrocketed. Tariffs cause higher prices. Building a wall causes higher prices. Your income won't go up at the same rate as prices.
Blaming the decline in factory jobs on illegal immigration or factories in China is just plain stupid. There is a reason that TVs in the 1970's cost a significantly higher percentage of the average income than they do today. The reason is that more TVs are built today by fewer people....aka productivity... If this country wants to become more productive, they can't sit around swilling beer and watching football and seeing who can burp the loudest. The people of this country need to become more educated in how stuff works, and then creative in how to make it work better.
A factory with thousands of workers sitting on assembly lines making things that are affordable just ain't gonna happen. Deal with it.
Personally I am voting for Hillary on the small chance that she really is sick and won't make it through the full term. I can't stand her and my best case scenario is that the VP gets to make more decisions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:16PM
Dear America you are fucked in this round of elections. But don't worry NZ isn't that far behind you our current PM is basically the male version of Hillary; thankfully our Trump is on the down and outs at the moment.
What I like about Trump: His uncensored speech and direct style.
What I dislike about Trump: Everything he actually says.
What I like about Clinton: ????
What I dislike about Clinton: Her bullshit double speak on everything; she comes across as dishonest by default. Thus she can't be trusted.
Who the fuck is Jill Stein?
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:42AM
Who the fuck is Jill Stein?
Concerning science, Jill Stein has a theory [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday September 15 2016, @04:50AM
Dear America you are fucked in this round of elections.
Dead Abe Lincoln, is that you again [balancedrebellion.com]?
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:38AM
That is a tough choice; a lying sack of shit vs a mad man.
Though if I was in the US and had no other option and was forced to vote. I have to say it would be Hillary; for the only reason that Trump speaks far too loosely about using nuclear weapons. The use of the most devastating weapons ever created is not something to speak flippantly about or make jokes about when you are trying to become the person who has the final say about using those weapons.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.