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Biden! Trump! Anyone but Sanders!!
Update:
Oh, I'm sorry. A link!
Update 2:
Looks like Sanders can call it a day. He lost bigly. Oh well... kind of expected it, didn't we? Those Biden states are Trump states anyway. Utah was a surprise, big spread there.
When Sanders is confidently out of the way after a few more states cast there votes, Bloomberg can then drop out, and just shovel money into the Party coffers.
With Biden as the candidate, it is uncertain what the democrats will campaign on. They have no platform that opposes, or proposes to undo the last decade, so it seems like there's nothing to do but just go through the motions and welcome four more years
Update 3:
As predicted Bloomberg dropped out, Sanders is no longer a "problem".
Well, that's it for the democrat side. Nothing left to do now. What can they possibly talk about? You are free to comment of course, but what's the point? We are where we started. Without a real independence movement, we can enjoy four more years of what the Party always wanted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @11:09PM (24 children)
ICFI/Socialist Equality Party USA (Kishore/Santa Cruz 2020):
Democratic Party goes to war against Sanders [wsws.org]
Tulsi Gabbard denounces election interference by US intelligence agencies [wsws.org]
Race vs. class in the South Carolina primary [wsws.org]
ISA/Socialist Alternative USA:
The (un)Democratic Party: Why We Need a New Working Class Party [internationalsocialist.net]
In other news:
Trump ordered Assange’s seizure by British police and wanted him dead [wsws.org]
Five members of neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division arrested for targeting US journalists [wsws.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday March 03 2020, @11:14PM (23 children)
WSWS taught me that Sanders is a filthy capitalist. If only the rest of the Democratic Party understood that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by catholocism on Wednesday March 04 2020, @12:06AM (21 children)
Honestly, hes kind of a woke version of Eisenhower meaning maybe center left. The Right has moved real fucking far in the last century.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @12:09AM
Yeah, these days Barry Goldwater [wikipedia.org] would get bounced out of the Republican party for being a socialist.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:59AM (19 children)
The direction of the right is, in my opinion, almost entirely a response to the increasingly radicalized social policies of the left. For instance things like boys can not only say they are girls, but people must also play along with their fantasy. And that boys who say they are girls can now crush girls in sports, or beat them senseless in combat sports. There are also things such as advances in genetics showing that dysgenics is *very* real and, also a very real problem. For instance the latest studies [wikipedia.org] are showing that adult IQ is upwards of 80% heritable. But of course in modern liberal social values, you cannot even acknowledge these facts because it's supposed to 'racist.'
On other social topics, I always thought the hyperbole against gay marriage was exactly that - hyperbolic. My brother is gay and I've been to plenty of pride events with him not for any virtue signaling or whatever, but simply because they were fun. But once gay marriage was conquered we've gradually moved onto some rather disturbing things. A good chunk of the liberal media has been hinting towards tolerance of pedophilia becoming the next battle, and there are now things like 'Drag Queen Story Time' at libraries, where the drag queens read stories to little kids and also tend to work to sway their world view. I think there's nothing wrong at all with trying to sway adults, but this bothers me when you're starting to introduce what effectively comes down to sexual identity stuff to 4 year olds. These kids are barely self aware. This is just wrong.
I was always extremely liberal, but these sort of policies have pushed me rightward. But I can only imagine people who predicted this nonsense would have gone quite a bit more right than I am. People are missing that it's the economic policies which are driving change, but the identity and social policies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:16AM (5 children)
The problem is that IQ is straight from the bowels of the social 'sciences', which are not sciences at all. What's funny is that most proponents of IQ reject the social pseudosciences in nearly every other context. Nice cherry-picking.
We don't even have a concrete, rigorous, scientific definition of "intelligence," let alone a way to quantify it with a single number. Even if it correlates with certain things (i.e. performance in disastrous, brain-dead schooling systems, ability to make money, etc.) that people arbitrarily deem impressive, that does not mean it is a good measure of intelligence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @09:23AM (4 children)
Modern social sciences is a joke because of two reasons:
1) Horrific replication rates.
2) Near 0 predictability.
IQ offers extremely high replicability and is perhaps more predictive than any other human characteristic. The generalization of the things you mentioned would be that IQ is predictive of ability in mathematics, engineering, science, technology, and practically any endeavor where the primary tool is your mind. Crucially, the inverse is also accurate with IQ. Low IQ is predictive of everything from a dramatically increased chance of dropping out of school to going to prison to being obese later in life.
The primary problems with social sciences today are directly related to this discussion. It's primarily attracting low achieving individuals. There are certainly some people who are genuinely driven to pursue e.g. sociology or psychology, but there's no doubt that an increasingly large chunk of those who pursue these fields are there primarily because they lacked the mettle for success in a STEM field. Things like classical conditioning or IQ are indisputable valuable and sound. But these were developed long before the modern era where social science has mostly become a joke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:24AM (3 children)
Like I said, nice cherry-picking. The social 'sciences' were, are, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, junk.
It's predictive of certain qualities that we have decided to pay attention to. Which is perfectly fine, but without a rigorous definition of "intelligence," making claims that IQ quantifies intelligence (which it doesn't even claim to do on an absolute scale, by the way) is pure quackery.
There's a difference between actual mathematics, engineering, science, and technology, and the versions of those fields that you see being taught in an average school. One can do quite well in the vast majority of schools just via obedience and rote memorization, whereas intuition, critical thinking, and an actual understanding of the subjects are too often not required. Therefore, while someone with a high IQ may be more likely to do well in terms of schooling performance, there will be many among that group who possess little in the way of creativity and critical thinking skills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @02:00PM (2 children)
Ahhh! Here you are engaging in a disingenuous semantic argument along the lines of the 'bald man problem.' Is a man with 1 strand of hair bald? I think everybody would say so. 2? Yes. 3? Still yes. 1,000,000? No. There's some point in between where baldness must begin or end. Yet if you ask a million people you'll get a vast array of different answers. Since we can't agree on a definition of baldness, it must mean that baldness does not exist?
Obviously, such a notion is absurd. IQ measures, to a remarkably high degree, what most of everybody would consider intelligence. Similar to how perhaps a 'squeak test' might measure, to a remarkably high degree, baldness. If you get somebody's head nice and cleaned up and rub it and it then makes a squeeky noise - then it's probably bald!
---
In any case semantic arguments are semantic. If you want to replace intelligence with "DkenSZkR" then feel free to. The exact same argument remains that "DkenSZkR" is an absolutely crucial characteristic for success in today's world and it's driven disproportionately by heritage. Those with a high level of "DkenSZkR" will thrive in today's society, those without it will tend to do poorly. Trying to deny the existence of "DkenSZkR" is bizarre given it can be readily measured and that measurement is not only consistent but *extremely* predictive of behavior and outcomes in the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @04:11PM (1 child)
I'm rejecting pseudoscience, as you should be.
You're not helping your case here. If you can't scientifically define something, then claiming that you can quantify it with a single number is laughable. This is (supposed to be) science, not asking random people subjective questions.
'Success' is not the question. The question is how intelligence is scientifically defined, and whether or not IQ truly measures it. That hasn't been adequately demonstrated and you do not seem to dispute that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:57PM
The reason I'm not disputing what you're saying is because it has nothing to do with what I said - it is a complete nonsequitor, but I'm having some fun analyzing and noting various logical flaws and inconsistencies in it. If you'd like to get back to what I initially said, it's quite simple:
1. High IQ is predictive of lots of good things.
2. Low IQ is predictive of lots of bad things.
3. IQ is > 80% heritable.
That's all there is to it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:21AM (8 children)
Something being "heritable" does not mean that something is genetically caused. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_heritability_problem [wikipedia.org] for an overview. Therefore, saying something is genetic due to heritability alone is just unsupported by the science in light of modern sequencing advancements. There should also be no surprise that the people who say they are or use terms like "dysgenics" should expect push back, especially when most of the people who put forward such positions tend say that their race/group is the one on the higher end.
But as to some of the things you mentioned, what is wrong with women in men's sports or vice versa, as long as it grants no benefit? The science shows that the advantage for trans-people is actually mixed across different sports, especially when you compare some of the trans-women on blockers to cis-women with naturally-high male hormones.
And what is wrong with "drag queen story time" compared to something like the various religions' equivalents to Sunday School or other groups? Is there something extra-nefarious about wearing a dress and makeup? By your logic, isn't anyone reading to kids pushing some sort of sexual orientation because of their stereotypical presentation?
I'm not even going to get into your claim about the "liberal media" hinting about any push for "tolerance of pedophilia" because I've literally never seen an example of that anywhere. Maybe the fact you have says more about the fear-mongering circle-jerk to which you've been exposing yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @01:36PM (7 children)
You said a lot so let me hit on things one at a time. First on the pedophile stuff. If you haven't seen any examples, it's probably because you're not looking:
https://slate.com/technology/2012/09/stop-childhood-sexual-abuse-how-to-treat-pedophilia.html [slate.com]
https://gawker.com/5941037/born-this-way-sympathy-and-science-for-those-who--want-to-have-sex-with-children [gawker.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/i-pedophile/278921/ [theatlantic.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/pedophilia-a-disorder-not-a-crime.html [nytimes.com]
These are not cherry picked examples. Quite the opposite, it was a quick ddg search for pedophile + site, and a quick perusal to ensure they were what I was looking for. You can find hundreds if not thousands of other articles, most likely even more extreme (unless I somehow randomly stumbled into a primo selection). What I said very much *is* happening. And it's disgusting. A number of sites are actively hiring pedophiles to write for them to try to 'humanize the problem'.
---
Similar for your other stuff. The science is limit on trans has been quite poor to date. I would hypothesize that's largely because it's currently taboo in the US to speak negatively of trans and researchers, especially in the social scientists, tend to be extremely far leftwing which makes negative considerations even more taboo. Numerous [biorxiv.org] studies [bmj.com] from outside the US have been published indicating unsurprisingly that men retain substantial advantages over women.
I say unsurprising because of another way you can approach this issue. How many men are competing in women's sports? Right now the numbers are extremely low, yet you have men as world champions in women's cycling, lifting, etc. My favorite example is Cece Telfer. Telfer was a mediocre collegiate athlete as a man ranking 390th in 2017. So he decided to call himself a girl. And now he's the women's NCAA champ in that exact same event. This is absurd. [wikipedia.org]
---
The reason the transvestite thing is absurd is twofold:
1) You generally want to encourage children to participate or be inspired by behavior that will positively affect their lives. This is why you have e.g. engineers, astronauts, authors, etc speak to children. I think people should feel free to become a transvestite if they want, but it's hardly something you should ever actively encourage, implicitly or explicitly, anybody to do. Trans*ism in general tends to be strongly correlated with drug use, unlawful behavior, suicide, and other lovely characteristics. I obviously see the reverse argument that such correlations are because of social ostracization and so normalization could help these trends fade. However, that is easily contradicted by looking at regions where trans* behavior is vastly more normalized, such as Thailand. The negative correlations remain.
2) Trans stuff in particular has 0 value of achievement or merit. It is simply a sexual matter. For instance I think it would be equally absurd to have 'Javier -I've fucked 7,893 women- Machismo' talk to kids. What he has to say is irrelevant as his entire identity is one of sexualization which has no place, regardless of normative or deviant, being pushed on little kids.
---
Finally on heritability vs genetics. I suspect you may not appreciate the nuance of your own argument. You are absolutely correct that heritable != genetic. For instance, somebody who suffers extreme malnutrition as a child is certainly not going to grow to be tall (or intelligent). And indeed as environmental characteristics become more equal, everything approaches 100% heritable since that would be the only difference. The problem with IQ is that it shows such an extremely large heritability rate *in spite* of tremendous social environmental differences on factors we'd think should ostensibly influence it. This suggests that not only is it genetic, but it is *disproportionately* genetic relative to other traits. As for pinpointing the precise genes, read your own link, #8 in particular. This is the 'height gene' or this the 'intelligence gene' was always an absurdly naive notion. It's like opening up a computer running an arbitrary program and trying to divine the 'performance bit'. It makes no sense. Yet the apparent lack of a performance bit obviously does not somehow then suggest that programs' performance is not a product of their own code.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:34PM (5 children)
And *none* of those links *advocates* pedophilia. At most, they attempt to look at pedophilia as an issue to be addressed by finding ways to help those with such urges to *not* abuse children.
So no, they aren't *advocating* pedophilia. They're advocating using science to help stop children from being abused.
You are a disingenuous prick.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @04:40AM (4 children)
Interesting how you have to straw man what I said to try to argue against it, isn't it? I said, "A good chunk of the liberal media has been hinting towards tolerance of pedophilia becoming the next battle..." Those articles are all doing exactly that, among many more. The NYTimes article goes as far as to suggest we add pedophilia to list of the civil rights protections. And again I would emphasize that was not some cherry picked list. In any case, outright advocacy comes only once the media works to move pedophilia into the Overton Window [wikipedia.org] which is what's happening right now.
I would add one final thing. I think the reason you strawmanned me is because you *want* what I said to be wrong, but I suspect you realize it is not. Quite the conundrum, eh? Not really. You can support an ideology in general while condemning certain aspects of it. This all or nothing attitude an increasingly large chunk of people have is absurd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @05:03AM (3 children)
From the NY Times opinion piece (from six years ago, no less) you linked:
Nothing in the opinion piece advocates child abuse. Rather it attempts to address the underlying causes in a constructive way, in an attempt to *reduce* acts of child abuse. It's sad that you can't see that. Man you're dumb.
So. Based on you "assessment," you're against trying to limit the opportunities for child abuse, and drive those who could go through life *without* hurting children further underground, denying them access to treatment and opportunities to control their urges? Which would almost certainly make them *more*, not less likely to abuse children.
What's your solution? Shall we just shoot anyone who has ever viewed a photo of a naked child? How about alcoholics? They can't help themselves and kill hundreds, if not thousands every year drunk driving. A couple bullets in the back of the head would do us all a world of good, eh?
It's irrational, uninformed scumbags like you that make this world *worse*. Fuck off you troglodyte scumbag!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @06:29AM (2 children)
And again, you continue to straw man. I said specifically that the media is now pushing for "tolerance" of pedophilia as the next big battle. When trying to normalize a deeply unpopular thing, you don't immediately advocate for it. Instead you try to chip away at intolerance of it before gradually moving to a more neutral position and then, and only then, starting to gradually advocate for it. I actually think the NYTimes is jumping the gun here since overtly pushing for pedophilia to be added to the list of protected classes under the civil rights act is like "tolerance" taken up a dozen magnitudes. It would force people to tolerate pedophilia, or go to jail.
You may be okay with tolerance of pedophiles. The vast majority, including myself, are not - regardless of the justification. This is what I meant when I said that current liberal policies are increasingly pushing people rightward. Contrary to what I assume you might assume - I have never been conservative. However, at some point I feel that the modern democratic party started to move away from the values of liberty and freedom and towards a much darker placer. I don't claim to have any idea what that is, but "we"'ve gone from the party celebrating freedom and liberty to the one pushing for censorship, suppression of speech, intolerance of inconvenient science, tolerance of pedophilia, and more. I mean wtf is this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @07:01AM (1 child)
You're the one with the straw man, not me.
I don't support child abuse. But I don't advocate punishing people for their *thoughts*.
I'm all for locking up child abusers. I'm also all for taking whatever steps are possible to *reduce* the likelihood that someone might abuse a child. And if that means giving folks who have such thoughts treatment and support to *not* do those things, then I'm all for it.
And if that stops just one person from abusing a child, it's a win.
That's not "normalizing" anything. It's expanding the scope of potential options for *reducing* the child abuse that happens.
And that's exactly what the author of the article said.
You, apparently, just want to stick your head in the sand and ignore the issue until *after* children have been abused.
You're a heartless piece of shit. Fuck you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @08:07AM
There is a difference between actions and rationale. The latter is not so relevant, because you can rationalize anything.
Suggesting we turn pedophilia into a protected class to protect children is akin to suggesting we should grant wolves special protections to protect hens. It's inherently illogical and supported by dubious logic. The reason is that the goal is not protect children, it's to protect pedophiles and to try to begin the process of normalization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @04:53AM
On the heritability of genetics I'd also add another simple logical issue. If intelligence were a matter of a relatively small number of isolatable genes, we would likely not be the only meaningfully intelligent species. The less complex a characteristic is, the more likely it is to emerge by random mutation in any species. And it's also somewhat interesting that intelligence somehow correlated with a physical deterioration of our bodies. What I mean is that primates tend to be stronger, faster, more agile, and superior to humans in practically every single way - except intelligence. Yet, in terms of survival a human who was not only intelligent but intelligent and strong, or intelligent and hyper-agile, would seem to have had a markedly better chance of survival than one who was merely intelligent. This question is something that I've always wondered about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:59AM
Your post is a waste of space, and time! Spacetime! You have exceeded your allotment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:36PM (2 children)
Oh yeah? Where? When? Who?
Please be specific.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:07PM (1 child)
Read more, post less. Scroll up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:29PM
I did read this stuff. And a lot of it was painful too.
There are no links to (or discussion about, in this journal, except you) *anyone* advocating or hinting at advocating pedophilia.
You're so full of shit your eyes are brown.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @01:28AM
Better not click the ISA link. They're filthy, pseudo-left, chair-throwing, brown-shirted Bernie Bros. Only a bold Marxist-Leninist-Shrekist program like Swamp Maoism [libcom.org] can save us!
(grin)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:57AM
There, those two words summarize the entire democrat platform (other than Bernie) for 2020. Pay attention to the talk, and hear what they are really saying.
There's nothing where they talk about how they will make anything better for you. No discussion on what they will fix, or what they will change. Their sole campaign point is merely: beat trump.
If they are not going to tell you what they are going to do or change to help you, why should you vote for any of them (besides Bernie)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @10:59AM
That other site should never have links to it posted.
Some of us still wish to maintain the boycott of that other site. And that is disturbed when you post unlabeled links to that other site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:37PM (10 children)
From today:
Ten days ago, you said [soylentnews.org]:
and this [soylentnews.org]:
And then you blathered [soylentnews.org]:
And so it's clear. You've been hoisted on your own petard and shown to be the fully principle-free, goalpost-moving, shitposting, talk-out-of-your-ass dickhead we know and love.
Fuck off, jackass.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:45PM (9 children)
Whatever, go nuts if you like. Sanders was the target all along. The speculation is what Bloomberg would do if Sanders got the nomination, which still holds, but it's moot. So are you!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:04PM (8 children)
How is it moot? Sanders is *very* much alive and will likely have a delegate *lead* once results from California are fully reported.
Keep talking out of your ass, Fusty, it saves your mouth for sucking that limp Trump cock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:18PM (7 children)
:-) such a trash mouth! Well you keep that itty bitty DNC hard on of yours going as long as you can. I hope you're well stocked up on that little blue pill!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:25PM (6 children)
You inspire me, Fusty!
gobble that Trump cock, boy. Tasty, tasty!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:31PM (5 children)
Ah, so that's how you get it up! You should make movies!
I have to say, you got a real winning campaign there. You will definitely get the male prostitute vote, which makes sense, you all being brothers in arms and everything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)
You're adorable Fusty!
Are you available for parties?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 05 2020, @01:19AM
Donner Parties, hopefully...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @08:12AM (2 children)
[Sung to the tune of Frosty the Snowman [youtube.com]. With apologies to Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson]
Fusty the moron was a venal idiot
With an ass that talked and a mouth stuffed with Trump cock
And the political ideas of a child
Fusty the moron is a Internet shill, they say He was made of dog shit but the children know
How he came to troll one day
There must have been some Trump jizz in That old cock he sucks
For when he placed it in his mouth He began to talk out of his ass
Oh, Fusty the moron
Was a dickhead through and through
And the soylentils say he could blather fact-free crap
Just the same as khallow and ari
Fusty the moron was a venal idiot
With an ass that talked and a mouth stuffed with Trump cock
And the political ideas of a child
Fusty the moron is a Internet shill, they say He was made of dog shit but the children know
How he came to troll one day
There must have been some Trump jizz in That old cock he sucks
For when he placed it in his mouth He began to talk out of his ass
Fusty the moron
Knew less and less each day
So he said, "let's troll
And I'll be a dickhead
Now before I'm completely ignored"
Fusty the moron
We wish he was on his way
But he shitposted more and said
"I won't go away until I prove I'm brain-damaged"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @02:50PM
Heh, the girls are out in force tonight!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 05 2020, @02:58PM
Are you the tranny bitch? Or the "I wish I were a boy" bitch?
I wish the two of you would get together and make sweet love in front of the camera.