Alexandria ocasio Cortez is a breath of fresh air

[ElNono]

Not sure about Nono, but what I mean when I say the military is a socialized program is that it's funded via tax payer dollars and is still required to defend the "freeloaders" that don't pay taxes. The argument against universal healthcare is usually, "why should I have to pay for the healthcare of others?" Well, can't we make that same argument here? "Why should I have to pay for the defense of others?" Or even worse, why should I have to pay for the defense of Europe? (yes, Frostking posted a link that they cover about a 3rd of the costs, but still, only a 3rd). Police and fire are the same in this regard, but you never hear conservatives whine about paying for the police protection for others.

I honestly think the backlash against universal healthcare is more because it's a liberal position that conservatives have to be against.

Exactly, the military doesn't get to choose who they protect, they get paid to protect everybody against the evildoers. That's their mission. Whereas a private company might deem economically ridiculous to spend 15+ years in Afghanistan, the principal mission for the Military has to do with security, not making money. It will inherently at odds with profit motive a lot of times, but there's a higher mission. In those cases almost always the government steps in with a program, that's tax payer funded.

[DMC]

Not sure about Nono, but what I mean when I say the military is a socialized program is that it's funded via tax payer dollars and is still required to defend the "freeloaders" that don't pay taxes. The argument against universal healthcare is usually, "why should I have to pay for the healthcare of others?" Well, can't we make that same argument here? "Why should I have to pay for the defense of others?" Or even worse, why should I have to pay for the defense of Europe? (yes, Frostking posted a link that they cover about a 3rd of the costs, but still, only a 3rd). Police and fire are the same in this regard, but you never hear conservatives whine about paying for the police protection for others.

I honestly think the backlash against universal healthcare is more because it's a liberal position that conservatives have to be against.

Give me an example of a country, at any point in history, that wasn't socialist then.

[DMC]

Exactly, the military doesn't get to choose who they protect, they get paid to protect everybody against the evildoers. That's their mission. Whereas a private company might deem economically ridiculous to spend 15+ years in Afghanistan, the principal mission for the Military has to do with security, not making money. It will inherently at odds with profit motive a lot of times, but there's a higher mission. In those cases almost always the government steps in with a program, that's tax payer funded.

The military doesn't protect us from evildoers. They do what the congress and POTUS tell them. So by "extension" the congress and POTUS are protecting us from evil doers, but then that's why they are elected.

When is the last time you saw military personnel protect a US citizen on US soil? They were sent to the border against the will of the people (supposedly) so they are not there to protect the people. That's what local LEO, federal and state policing agencies do.

Since the constitution preamble starts with "We the People" and contains "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare", was the US founded as a socialist country?

There's a slippery slope ahead.

[ElNono]

Forms of socialism exist since Ancient Greece... the more modern flavors came from the social inequalities towards the end of the Industrial Revolution, in the mid 18th century. The hijacking form Marx and then expansion to communism gave it a terrible name, and to this day some people conflate socialism with communism, or equate it to Marxism–Leninism, which mostly set up a political system for what was generally an economic tool.

Whether it took the shape of fighting meritocracy, oligarchy, etc it's been pervasive in almost every society.

[ElNono]

The military doesn't protect us from evildoers. They do what the congress and POTUS tell them. So by "extension" the congress and POTUS are protecting us from evil doers, but then that's why they are elected.

When is the last time you saw military personnel protect a US citizen on US soil? They were sent to the border against the will of the people (supposedly) so they are not there to protect the people. That's what local LEO, federal and state policing agencies do.

Since the constitution preamble starts with "We the People" and contains "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare", was the US founded as a socialist country?

There's a slippery slope ahead.

The POTUS doesn't do whatever he wants either (or shouldn't). Per the Constitution that created his government (Article II, Section 2):

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States

The POTUS is the commander, but the service the Military provides is for the United States (all people), not the POTUS or Congress.

Wasn't the military deployed 4 months or so ago in US soil to protect US citizens from the alleged caravan of immigrants? They sure as heck weren't sitting in Mexican soil.

There is no slippery slope at all. You won't find the word Capitalism anywhere in the Constitution either. The closest you'll come is the 5th Amendment enshrining property rights, and even then, it provides that government still can take property as long as there is "just payment".

It's ok, there's no boogeyman. Different forms of socialism existed since before the US existed. It's also neither all socialism or all capitalism. Mixed systems are all over the world based on need, including the US.

[rmt]

Being snarky on social media does not necessarily equal good politics or good policy. There is no doubt the media has given her more power than is justified by her position as a newly elected junior representative because her constant stream of inflammatory comments have been deemed newsworthy. The irony is she is forcing the 2020 political discussion so far left that the candidate that ultimately survives the primary will probably have taken such far left positions to pass that hurdle that they will be crippled in the general election having to defend them. The attack ads will be vicious.

I want her to keep talking as much as possible.

[pgardn]

In other news, the board continues to try and pin down socialism since red team has used the term whenever.

.

[rmt]

Agreed.

The "far left" charge is simply the right trying to set the narrative. The people leveling that charge most, will be the ones who consume the Fox "news" diet of pablum, with CosmicCowboy being a prime example of that demographic, both age and income-wise.

Standard information warfare, and conservatives are pretty good at it, as it has worked for them in the past. Liberals have started getting a lot more savvy in that regard, so the efficacy of the strategy will wane.

What is funny is that the right, by being so extreme, will allow the left maneuver room to scoot slightly leftward, which will intensify the screechy charges of "socialism", in a self-defeating session of target practice at their own feet.

Conservatives have hidden behind the word and the assumption that "socialism bad" so long, their ability to make the case for why its bad has atrophied. Ask any of them to give a working definition, and then ask them to differentiate between that definition and outright communism. They can't tell the difference, and that is damning.

I doubt CC is a prime example, income-wise, of those who watch Fox.

The right being extreme is a matter of opinion.

[pgardn]

I want her to keep talking as much as possible.

Like the house of Democrats baiting Trump.

“I could do the wall whenever”

Definition of emergency please ...

[RandomGuy]

(In fairness, Obama extended them.)

Eyup. Most of them, if memory serves. Easy to put that where it needs to be, since they were up for renewal in the middle of the Great Recession. One generally doesn't raise taxes during periods of economic retraction, which is fairly sensible.

[rmt]

Like the house of Democrats baiting Trump.

“I could do the wall whenever”

Definition of emergency please ...

Why do some of you just assume everyone has monolithic stances of each side?

[DMC]

The POTUS doesn't do whatever he wants either (or shouldn't). Per the Constitution that created his government (Article II, Section 2):

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States

The POTUS is the commander, but the service the Military provides is for the United States (all people), not the POTUS or Congress.

Wasn't the military deployed 4 months or so ago in US soil to protect US citizens from the alleged caravan of immigrants? They sure as heck weren't sitting in Mexican soil.

There is no slippery slope at all. You won't find the word Capitalism anywhere in the Constitution either. The closest you'll come is the 5th Amendment enshrining property rights, and even then, it provides that government still can take property as long as there is "just payment".

It's ok, there's no boogeyman. Different forms of socialism existed since before the US existed. It's also neither all socialism or all capitalism. Mixed systems are all over the world based on need, including the US.

The slippery slope is in assuming that, because there are aspects of socialism in the US, that any other form of socialism is good. The boogeyman seems to be the fear that socialism won't take hold.

[DMC]

Why do some of you just assume everyone has monolithic stances of each side?

Team sports

[RandomGuy]

I doubt CC is a prime example, income-wise, of those who watch Fox.

The right being extreme is a matter of opinion.

Both parties have moved towards the extreme, as party identification slides. We may see an emergence of a third party at some point.

Feel free to provide that elusive definition of "socialism".

[RandomGuy]

The slippery slope is in assuming that, because there are aspects of socialism in the US, that any other form of socialism is good. The boogeyman seems to be the fear that socialism won't take hold.

Not a slippery slope argument in the formal sense.

Any definition of "socialism" for you?

I would put forth a fair working definition of "social democracy" being private ownership of capital with a strong social safety net.

[DMC]

Not a slippery slope argument in the formal sense.

Any definition of "socialism" for you?

I would put forth a fair working definition of "social democracy" being private ownership of capital with a strong social safety net.
I accept the definition in Webster or that El Nono provided. El is trustworthy, he won't try to pull a fast one.

[RandomGuy]

You think he’s smart enough to understand this topic?

Also rg, you’re closer to pedos belief system than you know.

pedo?

(assume reference to Cosmic)

We are in many ways overlapping. Where we differ is in the steady diet of Fox-based propaganda. That kind of thing takes its toll.

[RandomGuy]

It depends how far back you want to go and who to blame. Who gets credit for Social Security and Medicare? What is the biggest driver of spending?

Democrats get full credit for those two programs.

Unfortunately for your "who gets the blame for debt" though, is that both are solvent, and don't contribute to the deficit, because they are paid for by independent taxes. They are self financing.

[rmt]

Democrats get full credit for those two programs.

Unfortunately for your "who gets the blame for debt" though, is that both are solvent, and don't contribute to the deficit, because they are paid for by independent taxes. They are self financing.

Sounds like just about when (2037) some of us are ready to collect SS, we'll only get 3/4.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

[RandomGuy]

I accept the definition in Webster or that El Nono provided. El is trustworthy, he won't try to pull a fast one.

You may wish to read their entry then, especially the notes on usage relative to "social democracy" and "communism"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

I prefer that private capital and property remain in private hands (means of production), which deviates from the dictionary definition of webster. People should be able to own their own businesses and companies.

Most on the right use it interchangeably with that of "communism", which I would not support.

Does this sound about right?

I would not support outright communism. I do think we can, and should, do more for people who are struggling, and think that capitalism will have to be saved from itself.

[RandomGuy]

Sounds like just about when (2037) some of us are ready to collect SS, we'll only get 3/4.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

Ah yes, actuarial projections. Moving into my area of expertise. :D

What struck me most here from this 2010 projection was the inherent assumption that Americans would live longer. That trend has reversed. Too many guns, too many cars, too much sugar, and too many opiods.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/us-life-expectancy-drops-third-year-row-reflecting-rising-drug-overdose-suicide-rates-180970942/

Part and parcel of any actuarial analysis is its sensitivity to changes in its starting assumptions. The farther out you go, the easier it is to change that with small changes in the present.

FWIW the most recent actuarial report from 2018 for the short term:
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2018/II_D_project.html

Notable in 2010: Boomers started retiring (table is form most current report).:

Figure II.D6.—Long-Range OASI and DI Combined Trust Fund Ratios Under Alternative Scenarios
[Asset reserves as a percentage of annual cost]
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2018/images/II_project_IID6.jpg

2030 or so will be the breaking point, if nothing changes, and the longer we wait to fix the system, the harder it will be to do so.

Potential fixes: raise taxes now, increase immigration markedly. The first shores up reserves, the second increases future cash flows.

Both of which are currently violently opposed by the current Trump party.

Potential fix: cut benefits now. extending life.

More opposed by Democrats than Trump party, but would encounter a huge backlash at the polls for which ever party led the effort.

So, cutting benefits now is political suicide.

The other solutions are viable. Democrats will, once again, be forced to rescue this.

The alternative is simply getting rid of it, of course, as many on the right have been wanting for eight decades. Also not feasible, given demographics, and the fact that so many save so little. A body blow for families, and real potential for starvation for those elderly with no children to step in. (edit: forget the fantasy that private charity could step in, the job is too big)

[RandomGuy]

Not sure about Nono, but what I mean when I say the military is a socialized program is that it's funded via tax payer dollars and is still required to defend the "freeloaders" that don't pay taxes. The argument against universal healthcare is usually, "why should I have to pay for the healthcare of others?" Well, can't we make that same argument here? "Why should I have to pay for the defense of others?" Or even worse, why should I have to pay for the defense of Europe? (yes, Frostking posted a link that they cover about a 3rd of the costs, but still, only a 3rd). Police and fire are the same in this regard, but you never hear conservatives whine about paying for the police protection for others.

I honestly think the backlash against universal healthcare is more because it's a liberal position that conservatives have to be against.

Pretty much. We tried the most market-based reform, aka Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and Conservatives shit all over it, which is ironic because it was a conservative idea to begin with.

The main reason that conservatives opposed this was that the Scary Black Man proposed it. They were so hell bent on not giving him a win, they sabotoged their own idea, and will, also ironically, be forced to swallow universal health care.

[Chucho]

You think he’s smart enough to understand this topic?

Also rg, you’re closer to pedos belief system than you know.

LOL, the irony of you making the first comment.

And you're in tune to KWs rage system. Only difference between him and you is he's probably had pussy that wasnt his dead mother's.

Kill yourself, you worthless, mouth breeding, shit-for-brains worm.

[RandomGuy]

LOL, the irony of you making the first comment.

And you're in tune to KWs rage system. Only difference between him and you is he's probably had pussy that wasnt his dead mother's.

Kill yourself, you worthless, mouth breeding, shit-for-brains worm.

The crushing grip of reason. Not that I have much room to criticize anybody for occasionally losing one's temper.

[Chucho]

The crushing grip of reason. Not that I have much room to criticize anybody for occasionally losing one's temper.

What if "occasionally one's temper" is excessive, tired schtick that is there to poke and prod when bored on a troll board? That's the entirety of Bonneriffic. Dude is as one dimensional and tired as his namesake.

[Chucho]

..."occasionally losing one's temper"*

[RandomGuy]

..."occasionally losing one's temper"*

Well, now that you are here. Thoughts on other things talked about?


This is exaggeratingly alarmist. Let's look at some of the core ideas of the "increasingly radical leftist" Democratic party.

- Universal healthcare. This is bad why? Works in every other developed country in the world just fine. "B-B-But h-h-h-how are we gonna pay for it!" I think in combination with higher tax rates (on the wealthy and maybe a slight tax hike on the middle class, which will wind up paying for itself), universal healthcare supporters need to see that we are already spending the same amount of tax dollars per capita on healthcare as universal healthcare countries and ask, "Where is the money is going?" I've already speculated where the money is going. To pay for price gouged services, equipment, and medicine. The profit motive is fundamentally incompatible with "Do No Harm," as I've said.

- Higher marginal tax rates (and capital gains rates) on the very wealthy. Bad why? Worked post-New Deal/pre-Reagan fine. As we've discussed before, trickle down has had a 40 year trial. Bottom 90% growth flatlined. We can talk about globalization, technology, etc, etc, changing the economy all we want, but boiled down, the economy fully satisfied the conditions of supply side economics where the wealthy saw significant growth, and per the theory, it was supposed to neatly "trickle down" regardless of any marketplace changes. It didn't. It simply doesn't work.

- Addressing climate change. Bad why? The scientific consensus is that we need to address it. I'll buy that it's a "global conspiracy" to impose "ebil socialism and big gubbint" if you can show me some hard evidence that supports that idea. That said, I'm not a climate scientist, nor am I a dilettante blogger/youtuber who believes he's a climate scientist after reading a couple of Wikipedia articles and thinks he has the authority to state, "there is no crisis!" Yes, AOC's GND is optimistic, but that doesn't mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

- Immigration. We've come to agreement on a sensible policy in earlier discussion, which I think most Dems would favor.

Don't see how this "shit show" is going to be produced.


Too extreme? or feasible? or...?

[Will Hunting]

This is exaggeratingly alarmist. Let's look at some of the core ideas of the "increasingly radical leftist" Democratic party.

- Universal healthcare. This is bad why? Works in every other developed country in the world just fine. "B-B-But h-h-h-how are we gonna pay for it!" I think in combination with higher tax rates (on the wealthy and maybe a slight tax hike on the middle class, which will wind up paying for itself), universal healthcare supporters need to see that we are already spending the same amount of tax dollars per capita on healthcare as universal healthcare countries and ask, "Where is the money is going?" I've already speculated where the money is going. To pay for price gouged services, equipment, and medicine. The profit motive is fundamentally incompatible with "Do No Harm," as I've said.

- Higher marginal tax rates (and capital gains rates) on the very wealthy. Bad why? Worked post-New Deal/pre-Reagan fine. As we've discussed before, trickle down has had a 40 year trial. Bottom 90% growth flatlined. We can talk about globalization, technology, etc, etc, changing the economy all we want, but boiled down, the economy fully satisfied the conditions of supply side economics where the wealthy saw significant growth, and per the theory, it was supposed to neatly "trickle down" regardless of any marketplace changes. It didn't. It simply doesn't work.

- Addressing climate change. Bad why? The scientific consensus is that we need to address it. I'll buy that it's a "global conspiracy" to impose "ebil socialism and big gubbint" if you can show me some hard evidence that supports that idea. That said, I'm not a climate scientist, nor am I a dilettante blogger/youtuber who believes he's a climate scientist after reading a couple of Wikipedia articles and thinks he has the authority to state, "there is no crisis!" Yes, AOC's GND is optimistic, but that doesn't mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

- Immigration. We've come to agreement on a sensible policy in earlier discussion, which I think most Dems would favor.

Don't see how this "shit show" is going to be produced.
Universal healthcare will also be a boon for small business growth. The current system where employers need to provide health insurance in order to attract good employees places a significantly larger burden on small employers than it does large corporations with a huge pool of employees they can insure on a much cheaper per employee basis. A small business with only 50-100 employees regularly gets slapped with giant premium increases if it has just a few employees (or employee family members) who have significant medical costs during a policy year.

[DMC]

You may wish to read their entry then, especially the notes on usage relative to "social democracy" and "communism"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

I prefer that private capital and property remain in private hands (means of production), which deviates from the dictionary definition of webster. People should be able to own their own businesses and companies.

Most on the right use it interchangeably with that of "communism", which I would not support.

Does this sound about right?

I would not support outright communism. I do think we can, and should, do more for people who are struggling, and think that capitalism will have to be saved from itself.

The term "struggling" though implies they are attempting. Many we consider to be struggling are simply riding along for free. Having a lower standard of living because you've accepted that in exchange for a sedentary, uneducated life isn't "struggling". I think we should help struggling people, if they are indeed struggling and if their goal, their intention when they become successful is to contribute to the system that helped them get there (instead of returning all the profit to another country or horde it for themselves).

[DMC]

Pretty much. We tried the most market-based reform, aka Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and Conservatives shit all over it, which is ironic because it was a conservative idea to begin with.

The main reason that conservatives opposed this was that the Scary Black Man proposed it. They were so hell bent on not giving him a win, they sabotoged their own idea, and will, also ironically, be forced to swallow universal health care.

This is too simplistic and a scapegoat. The reason it was opposed is because the medical community opposed it as did small businesses. Obama won with a record vote, and there aren't enough black people who voted to have made that happen. Blaming everything on racism is too easy and simplistic and wrong. You should hope others in your section of the crowd have a more detailed approach.

[RandomGuy]

The term "struggling" though implies they are attempting. Many we consider to be struggling are simply riding along for free. Having a lower standard of living because you've accepted that in exchange for a sedentary, uneducated life isn't "struggling". I think we should help struggling people, if they are indeed struggling and if their goal, their intention when they become successful is to contribute to the system that helped them get there (instead of returning all the profit to another country or horde it for themselves).

Flesh that out with something that approaches data. Quantify it.

What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Your claim, your burden of proof.

[RandomGuy]

This is too simplistic and a scapegoat. The reason it was opposed is because the medical community opposed it as did small businesses. Obama won with a record vote, and there aren't enough black people who voted to have made that happen. Blaming everything on racism is too easy and simplistic and wrong. You should hope others in your section of the crowd have a more detailed approach.

The GOP's no-compromise pledge (FROM 2010)
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311


Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

They decided well beforehand what their opinion was going to be for anything he proposed. While they may not have thought Obama was a Scary Black Man, they were more than willing to go along with the sentiment and look the other way, when people wanted the Kenyan out of office.

[RandomGuy]

Universal healthcare will also be a boon for small business growth. The current system where employers need to provide health insurance in order to attract good employees places a significantly larger burden on small employers than it does large corporations with a huge pool of employees they can insure on a much cheaper per employee basis. A small business with only 50-100 employees regularly gets slapped with giant premium increases if it has just a few employees (or employee family members) who have significant medical costs during a policy year.

Canadian businesses overall are happy to let the government handle this. They do not have to spend the time or money on matching premiums, nor finding the right plan.

[RandomGuy]

This is too simplistic and a scapegoat. The reason it was opposed is because the medical community opposed it as did small businesses. Obama won with a record vote, and there aren't enough black people who voted to have made that happen. Blaming everything on racism is too easy and simplistic and wrong. You should hope others in your section of the crowd have a more detailed approach.

40% of Americans struggle to pay for at least one basic need like food or rent
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/40-of-americans-struggle-to-pay-for-one-basic-need-like-food-housing-or-health-care-2018-08-28


Last December, the same month the Urban Institute conducted its survey, the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C., released its own study of nearly 43,000 people in 38 countries around the globe that question this past spring. Residents in 20 countries said people like them were better off than they were 50 years ago, but the U.S. was not among them. The U.S was one of 18 countries in which people said they were actually worse off than half a century ago.

Some economists point to growing inequality in the U.S. and say the rich get richer, while the poor are stuck in low-paid jobs. One example: Out of 100 children whose parents are among the bottom 10% of income earners, only 20 to 30 of them go to college. But closer to 90 out of 100 children go to college if their parents are among the top 10% earners. And yet when elite colleges welcome students from poor backgrounds, academic performance at the institution doesn’t decline.

[Will Hunting]

Canadian businesses overall are happy to let the government handle this. They do not have to spend the time or money on matching premiums, nor finding the right plan.
Nor having the administrative staff / service provider needed to administer the policy for employees, COBRA, etc.

The employer based healthcare system we’ve had for decades is a much larger burden on small business than the regulations conservatives constantly talk about.

[Will Hunting]

Part of the problem though is that just like defense spending, our healthcare system serves as, among other things, a jobs program that functions as a band aid to cover up the fact there aren’t enough respectable 40 hour /week jobs for everyone in the digital economy.

If we went to Canada’s healthcare system there’d be several hundred thousand people out of a job who we’d need to have a solution for.

[RandomGuy]

Nor having the administrative staff / service provider needed to administer the policy for employees, COBRA, etc.

The employer based healthcare system we’ve had for decades is a much larger burden on small business than the regulations conservatives constantly talk about.

1/4 of every dollar spent on health care is for administrative expenses.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/us-healthcare-prices-reflect-huge-administrative-costs-6-statistics.html


It found that 25.3 percent of total U.S. hospital costs went toward administrative expenses. The U.S. had the highest hospital administrative costs, followed by the Netherlands (19.8 percent) and England (15.5 percent). Scotland and Canada had the lowest hospital administrative costs.


U.S. health care spending increased 3.9 percent to reach $3.5 trillion, or $10,739 per person in 2017
https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/highlights.pdf

We spend approximately 900 BILLION dollars on administrative overhead. Think of all the clerks in the doctors office next time you visit.

One of the prime drivers is the requirement for billing. You have to know how to code for it, where to send the bills, and what each insurance company will pay for. If you don't get paid enough by the insurance company, you spend lots of labor hours trying to recoup from the patient, often paying debt collectors a slice.

This is what I say when people try to tell me that "government is wasteful" as a counter to single payor. Our current "market based" system is vastly inefficient.

There is a REASON we spend twice as much as everybody else, and get worse outcomes.

[RandomGuy]

Part of the problem though is that just like defense spending, our healthcare system serves as, among other things, a jobs program that functions as a band aid to cover up the fact there aren’t enough respectable 40 hour /week jobs for everyone in the digital economy.

If we went to Canada’s healthcare system there’d be several hundred thousand people out of a job who we’d need to have a solution for.

My mind: Free college for nurses and general practitioners. Ramp up the supply of labor for health care jobs, since there is starting to be a critical shortage already. Not going to be for everybody, but we could definitely absorb a lot of those losses.

[DMC]

Flesh that out with something that approaches data. Quantify it.

What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Your claim, your burden of proof.

I don't need to quantify shit. You're not going to solve anything when I do. You're going to go right back to the racism/victim schtick. The numbers exist, flesh it out yourself you self righteous prick.

[DMC]

40% of Americans struggle to pay for at least one basic need like food or rent
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/40-of-americans-struggle-to-pay-for-one-basic-need-like-food-housing-or-health-care-2018-08-28

Really weird since 160 million Americans are overweight or obese.

They struggle because they suck with money, because that 1000 dollar iPhone was more important than that 1200.00 rent payment, or because 2 low income earners needed a 300K dollar home and three vehicles. So you think 40% of America lives in abject poverty?

[Will Hunting]

My mind: Free college for nurses and general practitioners. Ramp up the supply of labor for health care jobs, since there is starting to be a critical shortage already. Not going to be for everybody, but we could definitely absorb a lot of those losses.
Don't disagree, there's definitely a critical shortage of nurses in this country, but I still think the ultimate solution is the work week needs to get shortened over time.

The idea of a 40 hour work week was viewed by the oligarchs as a ridiculous thing for the working class to ask for 100 years ago during the industrial revolution even though worker productivity was growing exponentially, and the same thing is happening now. The American worker is more productive than its ever been which is why there isn't enough work to go around for everyone to get 40 hours. It seems like a common sense solution to increase wages and reduce the work week (gradually) to 30 hours.

[Pavlov]

you didn't watch lol
Why would I watch that? Some old dork who can't settle on a hair color says "You're fired" about a Rep who has been in office for a month?

:lol

[DMC]

My mind: Free college for nurses and general practitioners. Ramp up the supply of labor for health care jobs, since there is starting to be a critical shortage already. Not going to be for everybody, but we could definitely absorb a lot of those losses.

It already exists. Many hospitals will pay for your school for a commitment from you to work there for 2 years. Absolutely free = not doable long term.

[Will Hunting]

Really weird since 160 million Americans are overweight or obese.

They struggle because they suck with money, because that 1000 dollar iPhone was more important than that 1200.00 rent payment, or because 2 low income earners needed a 300K dollar home and three vehicles. So you think 40% of America lives in abject poverty?
Not abject poverty, but when I hear that the median American family of four makes ~$55,000 a year, I have no fucking idea how a family of 4 makes ends meet on that without some combination of food stamps, a "side hustle" (the PC way of saying your job pays so fucking little you need to be an uber driver too), or renting out a room on AirBNB :lol

[DMC]

Not abject poverty, but when I hear that the median American family of four makes ~$55,000 a year, I have no fucking idea how a family of 4 makes ends meet on that without some combination of food stamps, a "side hustle" (the PC way of saying your job pays so fucking little you need to be an uber driver too), or renting out a room on AirBNB :lol

It depends on where they live. Some houses in the rural, non suburban areas are cheap and the cost of living there isn't high either.

It's hard for people who've spent their entire lives in faster environments to accept that some people work and go home instead of hitting happy hour or the mall after work.

[DMC]

The GOP's no-compromise pledge (FROM 2010)
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311



They decided well beforehand what their opinion was going to be for anything he proposed. While they may not have thought Obama was a Scary Black Man, they were more than willing to go along with the sentiment and look the other way, when people wanted the Kenyan out of office.

You just moved the fucking goalpost again. Where does it say "because he's black"?

[RandomGuy]

I don't need to quantify shit. You're not going to solve anything when I do. You're going to go right back to the racism/victim schtick. The numbers exist, flesh it out yourself you self righteous prick.

So you can't support your assertions, and meltdown the first time you are respectfully asked to do so, ordering me to do your work for you. I decline.


The term "struggling" though implies they are attempting. Many we consider to be struggling are simply riding along for free.

Breezy claim made. Breezy claim dismissed. Easy to figure out how seriously to take your claims.

[RandomGuy]

Not abject poverty, but when I hear that the median American family of four makes ~$55,000 a year, I have no fucking idea how a family of 4 makes ends meet on that without some combination of food stamps, a "side hustle" (the PC way of saying your job pays so fucking little you need to be an uber driver too), or renting out a room on AirBNB :lol

It is usually by having more than one really low paying job.

[DMC]

So you can't support your assertions, and meltdown the first time you are respectfully asked to do so, ordering me to do your work for you. I decline.


What assertion did I make? I gave an opinion. I am not for supporting lazy fucks. I don't need to conduct an investigation to get the same shit response from you.


Breezy claim made. Breezy claim dismissed. Easy to figure out how seriously to take your claims.You're not a worthy debate opponent so no research will be done for you.

[Will Hunting]

It depends on where they live. Some houses in the rural, non suburban areas are cheap and the cost of living there isn't high either.

It's hard for people who've spent their entire lives in faster environments to accept that some people work and go home instead of hitting happy hour or the mall after work.
Not sure if you're passive aggressively referring to me, but it's not like I'm assuming these families buy the same overpriced clothes/food that I buy :lol, I'm just talking about basic living expenses.

They're still paying for gas and car-related expenses (way more than I pay if they're living in a rural area since I walked to work back when I actually had to come into the office and I didn't have a loan on my car), still paying mortgage/homeowners insurance/property taxes if they own a house, but the biggest thing that makes no sense to me is how they can support two kids on $55,000 a year.

For all the unnecessary shit that I buy, I'd still think a kid is going to cost more. Diapers, baby formula, daycare (if both parents are working), a bunch of clothes that don't last very long before he/she grows out of them, school supplies, food, etc.

[RandomGuy]

You just moved the fucking goalpost again. Where does it say "because he's black"?

Not sure why I need to address your strawman. Feel free to keep beating him up. Not all Trump party people are racist, but most white racists are in the Trump party. The Trump party officials quoted were more than happy to use the rank and file racism to their political advantage.

That isn't a goal post move, that is simply adding data.

But, I can see why you might object.

It shows:
1) Trump party didn't care about the merits of the policies proposed, just the politics.
2) Trump party was happy to bash the "Kenyan" in the white house for votes from racists.

[Will Hunting]

It is usually by having more than one really low paying job.
Right, but the median income for the family (i.e., the cumulative wages of both parents) is $55,000 a year. That's just not a lot of money.

[DMC]

It is usually by having more than one really low paying job.

It's common for people who feel this way to be one of those who have a low paying job. People who are doing the reaching out are often not the ones with something to offer.

[DMC]

Right, but the median income for the family (i.e., the cumulative wages of both parents) is $55,000 a year. That's just not a lot of money.

But they thought it was ok to have 2 kids.

[DMC]

Not sure why I need to address your strawman. Feel free to keep beating him up. Not all Trump party people are racist, but most white racists are in the Trump party. The Trump party officials quoted were more than happy to use the rank and file racism to their political advantage.

That isn't a goal post move, that is simply adding data.

But, I can see why you might object.

It shows:
1) Trump party didn't care about the merits of the policies proposed, just the politics.
2) Trump party was happy to bash the "Kenyan" in the white house for votes from racists.

Show the statistics to support that claim.

[RandomGuy]

Not sure if you're passive aggressively referring to me, but it's not like I'm assuming these families buy the same overpriced clothes/food that I buy :lol, I'm just talking about basic living expenses.

They're still paying for gas and car-related expenses (way more than I pay if they're living in a rural area since I walked to work back when I actually had to come into the office and I didn't have a loan on my car), still paying mortgage/homeowners insurance/property taxes if they own a house, but the biggest thing that makes no sense to me is how they can support two kids on $55,000 a year.

For all the unnecessary shit that I buy, I'd still think a kid is going to cost more. Diapers, baby formula, daycare (if both parents are working), a bunch of clothes that don't last very long before he/she grows out of them, school supplies, food, etc.

That is the common dishonest claim on the part of conservatives. "they are wasting their money on cell phones, and are rich enough to have microwaves, so they must not need help paying their bills". It is an emotional argument, made to make people like DMC feel superior and smug. Unfortunately, it lacks any real evidence or definitional relevance. Pablum for the converted, and unconvincing to anyone who understands economics, which is why no serious academic papers can be found on the subject, but plenty of clips from talking heads can be.

[RandomGuy]

Really weird since 160 million Americans are overweight or obese.

They struggle because they suck with money, because that 1000 dollar iPhone was more important than that 1200.00 rent payment, or because 2 low income earners needed a 300K dollar home and three vehicles. So you think 40% of America lives in abject poverty?

... and there it is.

[DMC]

... and there it is.

So the iPhone is racist too?

lol I said that before your post, stop acting like you predicted anything dipshit

[RandomGuy]

Show the statistics to support that claim.

I don't need to quantify shit. You're not going to solve anything when I do. You're going to go right back to the racism/victim schtick. The numbers exist, flesh it out yourself you self righteous prick.

[DMC]

That is the common dishonest claim on the part of conservatives. "they are wasting their money on cell phones, and are rich enough to have microwaves, so they must not need help paying their bills". It is an emotional argument, made to make people like DMC feel superior and smug. Unfortunately, it lacks any real evidence or definitional relevance. Pablum for the converted, and unconvincing to anyone who understands economics, which is why no serious academic papers can be found on the subject, but plenty of clips from talking heads can be.

:lol "understands economics"
:lol cannot afford to donate to charity because "muh beer money"

[DMC]

I don't need to quantify shit. You're not going to solve anything when I do. You're going to go right back to the racism/victim schtick. The numbers exist, flesh it out yourself you self righteous prick.

Exactly. You throw out baseless claims then demand stats when someone else does as if you're somehow going to provide a legit rebuttal instead of autistic screeching.

[RandomGuy]

So the iPhone is racist too?

lol I said that before your post, stop acting like you predicted anything dipshit

Unfortunately, I was in the middle of typing mine and didn't refresh the page until posting. Didn't see yours until after I posted mine.

Predictable to the last. Hostility, vacuousness, and no serious attempt at examining things you think are true.

[RandomGuy]

Exactly. You throw out baseless claims then demand stats when someone else does as if you're somehow going to provide a legit rebuttal instead of autistic screeching.

You realize that this "autistic screeching" is your words, copied and pasted, word for word, right?

:lol

[DMC]

You realize that this "autistic screeching" is your words, copied and pasted, word for word, right?

:lol

Of course. Having someone parrot you is the very essence of autism.

[Will Hunting]

But they thought it was ok to have 2 kids.
Yeah I'm not making excuses for that, I'm 100% on board with the idea that you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them (I question it when Conservatives claim to be but they want to restrict access to birth control/PP/abortions/etc., but you don't strike me as that type), all I'm speaking to is the comment about whether 40% of America lives in poverty.

I don't think 40% of the country is living in full fledged poverty (the numbers also don't suggest it), but a family of four making $55k a year isn't very far from poverty. There's definitely no money being saved for retirement or for the kids to go to college, the family is always going to be one unexpected medical bill or car repair away from needing a payday loan, and they're buying shitty, unhealthy groceries at WalMart because it's all they can afford (there's your obesity problem).

To be clear, some liberals definitely have a delusional vision about how the median American should be able to walk into a strip club and start throwing 100s around without a care in the world. It's definitely never going to be the case that the median American drives an Audi, buys their groceries at Whole Foods and their clothes at Neiman Marcus and takes a 2 week trip to the French Riviera every summer. The more realistic scenario and what IMO is indicative of a health middle class is a median family of four that makes ~$80k a year, has a savings account, 401(k), and can afford to occasionally spend money on entertainment.

[DMC]

Yeah I'm not making excuses for that, I'm 100% on board with the idea that you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them (I question it when Conservatives claim to be but they want to restrict access to birth control/PP/abortions/etc., but you don't strike me as that type), all I'm speaking to is the comment about whether 40% of America lives in poverty.

I don't think 40% of the country is living in full fledged poverty (the numbers also don't suggest it), but a family of four making $55k a year isn't very far from poverty. There's definitely no money being saved for retirement or for the kids to go to college, the family is always going to be one unexpected medical bill or car repair away from needing a payday loan, and they're buying shitty, unhealthy groceries at WalMart because it's all they can afford (there's your obesity problem).

To be clear, some liberals definitely have a delusional vision about how the median American should be able to walk into a strip club and start throwing 100s around without a care in the world. It's definitely never going to be the case that the median American drives an Audi, shops at Whole Foods and takes a 2 week trip to the French Riviera every summer. The more realistic scenario and what IMO is indicative of a health middle class is a median family of four that makes ~$80k a year, has a savings account, 401(k), and can afford to occasionally spend money on entertainment.

Being the economic expert you are though, wouldn't the rise in median income simply fuel inflation so that the effective income level would be the same?

[rmt]

And congratulations to Federer: 100 titles (20 of them Grand Slams)!

[Will Hunting]

Being the economic expert you are though, wouldn't the rise in median income simply fuel inflation so that the effective income level would be the same?
Not sure if this is sarcastic :lol

I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.

I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.

People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some douchey overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.

Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.

[rmt]

Not sure if this is sarcastic :lol

I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.

I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.

People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some douchey overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.

Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.

Andrew Yang's solution: UBI

[SpursforSix]

Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.

I can’t understand why more people don’t acknowledge this or care to think about it. Whenever I mention this irl, I usually get an eye roll and a quick dismissal. It’s like everyone associates “robot” with some big metal contraption from a 50s sci fi novel. And AI? I don’t think any significant % of the public grasps the ramifications of the gains being made. What’s disturbing is that surely most politicians know this is coming. But very little is being said about it.

[rmt]

I can’t understand why more people don’t acknowledge this or care to think about it. Whenever I mention this irl, I usually get an eye roll and a quick dismissal. It’s like everyone associates “robot” with some big metal contraption from a 50s sci fi novel. And AI? I don’t think any significant % of the public grasps the ramifications of the gains being made. What’s disturbing is that surely most politicians know this is coming. But very little is being said about it.

Most politicians are old and not as tech-savy/knowledgeable as most on this board. And it's hard to rail against robots.

[DMC]

Not sure if this is sarcastic :lol

I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.

I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.

People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some douchey overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.

Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.

Not sarcastic.

I don't think automation is something you solve for. I think it is the solution. People have to evolve past the "good enough" level of skill and adaptation. Being a jack of all trades with shade tree mechanic knowledge is going to eventually land you jobless. Those jobs are fewer and fewer these days. Still, a person with the savvy to pick up those skills can enhance them targeted education based on forecasted demand. Perhaps if people didnt' pick their own careers, but tested out and got grants to pursue needed trades they could actually do, that would go a long way toward filling the employment needs of both sides. We won't do that though, it interferes with our ability to select liberal art degrees and become baristas and bitch about income.

[Will Hunting]

Andrew Yang's solution: UBI
Yeah he's far from the first guy to propose a UBI.

I'm sure you think it's a stupid idea, and I def don't agree with it as a here and now type thing, but 50 years from now when the economy is producing the same (or more) in goods and services per capita as it does now, except that it's able to do so with only a fraction of the human capital that it currently takes, how do you propose we deal with the billions of people who won't have any skills or abilities to earn money anymore? Should they just wallow in poverty because they weren't able to compete with artificial intelligence?

I'd still prefer we simply cut the hours of a standard work week such that everyone is contributing, even if it's only for 20 hours a week, but even then, an economy where there are tens of millions of completely able-bodied people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who can't find work no matter what cycle the economy is in is closer than you realize. I'm all for allowing Jeff Bezos to reap the reward and have exponentially more money than he'll ever need, but society isn't getting enough of a benefit from automation/AI as it should be.

[RandomGuy]

Yeah I'm not making excuses for that, I'm 100% on board with the idea that you shouldn't have kids if you can't afford them (I question it when Conservatives claim to be but they want to restrict access to birth control/PP/abortions/etc., but you don't strike me as that type), all I'm speaking to is the comment about whether 40% of America lives in poverty.

I don't think 40% of the country is living in full fledged poverty (the numbers also don't suggest it), but a family of four making $55k a year isn't very far from poverty. There's definitely no money being saved for retirement or for the kids to go to college, the family is always going to be one unexpected medical bill or car repair away from needing a payday loan, and they're buying shitty, unhealthy groceries at WalMart because it's all they can afford (there's your obesity problem).

To be clear, some liberals definitely have a delusional vision about how the median American should be able to walk into a strip club and start throwing 100s around without a care in the world. It's definitely never going to be the case that the median American drives an Audi, buys their groceries at Whole Foods and their clothes at Neiman Marcus and takes a 2 week trip to the French Riviera every summer. The more realistic scenario and what IMO is indicative of a health middle class is a median family of four that makes ~$80k a year, has a savings account, 401(k), and can afford to occasionally spend money on entertainment.

Not saying 40% are in poverty.

40% are a single missed bill from bankruptcy or homelessness. It is expensive to be poor, and those people simply don't have any cash cushion for any unexpected shock, like a medical bill.

This is why one of the leading causes of bankruptcy is... medical bills. That carries a cost to the rest of us, when people default on other debts.

[Will Hunting]

Not sarcastic.

I don't think automation is something you solve for. I think it is the solution. People have to evolve past the "good enough" level of skill and adaptation. Being a jack of all trades with shade tree mechanic knowledge is going to eventually land you jobless. Those jobs are fewer and fewer these days. Still, a person with the savvy to pick up those skills can enhance them targeted education based on forecasted demand. Perhaps if people didnt' pick their own careers, but tested out and got grants to pursue needed trades they could actually do, that would go a long way toward filling the employment needs of both sides. We won't do that though, it interferes with our ability to select liberal art degrees and become baristas and bitch about income.
Agreed completely, but the industrial revolution showed us that government needs to play a significant role in making sure massive gains in worker productivity / technological advances benefit all of society instead of just those who own the means of production. What we're seeing now (a company like Amazon worth almost $1 trillion pays virtually no taxes and has warehouse workers make the same shitty $25k a year that the cashier at Border's Book Store made despite the fact Amazon put Borders out of business because its $25k a year warehouse worker is exponentially more productive than the Border's cashier was) is a repeat of the industrial revolution when we still had child labor and 14 hour shifts in dangerous working conditions despite the fact worker productivity was skyrocketing and the factory owners had more than enough income to provide improved working conditions.

As I said in my last post, Bezos is the one who created the logistics network and systems that have led to Amazon's warehouse workers being so much more productive than the Border's cashier (despite being similarly unskilled), so this isn't some Marxist opinion about how the factory worker should reap the same reward he does, but the benefit of increased production shouldn't be flowing completely to those who own the means of production, which is effectively what happens without government intervention.

In terms of how people need to evolve, no arguments in terms of here and now reasons why someone can't find work despite an economy at <4% unemployment, but I don't think that changes what I said about 50 years from now. At some point the medium skill, trade jobs that are in high demand now will also go through a phase of automation.

[rmt]

Yeah he's far from the first guy to propose a UBI.

I'm sure you think it's a stupid idea, and I def don't agree with it as a here and now type thing, but 50 years from now when the economy is producing the same (or more) in goods and services per capita as it does now, except that it's able to do so with only a fraction of the human capital that it currently takes, how do you propose we deal with the billions of people who won't have any skills or abilities to earn money anymore? Should they just wallow in poverty because they weren't able to compete with artificial intelligence?

I'd still prefer we simply cut the hours of a standard work week such that everyone is contributing, even if it's only for 20 hours a week, but even then, an economy where there are tens of millions of completely able-bodied people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who can't find work no matter what cycle we're in is closer than you realize. I'm all for allowing Jeff Bezos to reap the reward and have exponentially more money than he'll ever need, but society isn't getting enough of a benefit from automation/AI as it should be.

UBI/welfare - what's the difference? The battles on this board show the chasm between both sides and even though some of you hate my guts, the real problem is not the other side - it's the Chinese. People can rail and bicker about topics: universal health care, immigration, etc. but I'm more concerned about the Chinese. This high and mighty "principled" attitude of Google workers not wanting to work on military projects with America (which will help us maintain our superiority) at the same time that Google is helping China is VERY troubling to me (thankfully, it seems like it's been recently shut down). Some of you fight like the enemy are fellow Americans when our way of life/freedom/liberty will be threatened by the cost of all these "free" programs leading to economic problems and ultimately to China taking over as the planet's world power/reserve currency (in case some of you don't realize - they are spreading their tentacles all over the planet eg. building highways in Jamaica in return for tolls, hotels, influence).

The very thing (education) that would help in the future is the very thing some of you rail against (teachers' unions vs choice). Look at W VA - I cannot believe what took place - absolutely no charter schools - the threat of strike just completely shut down the legislation to introduce charter schools - something I feel would help lower income kids who don't have a choice and must attend the (often crappy) school within which boundary they live. Ds self-studied for AP Physics 1 and AP Chemistry (his school has crappy teachers in these subjects) and asked his charter school to allow him to take the AP exams. They not only allowed it - they are paying for them up front - with the understanding that if he doesn't pass the exams, he'll re-pay the fees (I didn't expect that - I'm willing to pay for them regardless). That would never happen in a public school - the bureaucracy - they wouldn't even entertain/accommodate students' initiative/drive.

I don't know what is to be done with the millions in transportation (I hear it's the #1 job in quite a lot of states), retail (Gymboree closing, Old Navy/Gap going only online, etc), fast food, etc. I've so far only given thought to what my kids are going into (selfish, I know). Sorry, for the rambling, but ds is coming home for Spring Break and Federer won his 100th title - I'm in a really good mood :-)

[RandomGuy]

Not sarcastic.

I don't think automation is something you solve for. I think it is the solution. People have to evolve past the "good enough" level of skill and adaptation. Being a jack of all trades with shade tree mechanic knowledge is going to eventually land you jobless. Those jobs are fewer and fewer these days. Still, a person with the savvy to pick up those skills can enhance them targeted education based on forecasted demand. Perhaps if people didnt' pick their own careers, but tested out and got grants to pursue needed trades they could actually do, that would go a long way toward filling the employment needs of both sides. We won't do that though, it interferes with our ability to select liberal art degrees and become baristas and bitch about income.

IRVdiHu1VCc

and the longer:

qzKzu86Agg0

His take on such college jobs is one that you and I probably both agree on.

[Will Hunting]

UBI/welfare - what's the difference? The battles on this board show the chasm between both sides and even though some of you hate my guts, the real problem is not the other side - it's the Chinese. People can rail and bicker about topics: universal health care, immigration, etc. but I'm more concerned about the Chinese. This high and mighty "principled" attitude of Google workers not wanting to work on military projects with America (which will help us maintain our superiority) at the same time that Google is helping China is VERY troubling to me (thankfully, it seems like it's been recently shut down). Some of you fight like the enemy are fellow Americans when our way of life/freedom/liberty will be threatened by the cost of all these "free" programs leading to economic problems and ultimately to China taking over as the planet's world power/reserve currency (in case some of you don't realize - they are spreading their tentacles all over the planet eg. building highways in Jamaica in return for tolls, hotels, influence).

The very thing (education) that would help in the future is the very thing some of you rail against (teachers' unions vs choice). Look at W VA - I cannot believe what took place - absolutely no charter schools - the threat of strike just completely shut down the legislation to introduce charter schools - something I feel would help lower income kids who don't have a choice and must attend the (often crappy) school within which boundary they live. Ds self-studied for AP Physics 1 and AP Chemistry (his school has crappy teachers in these subjects) and asked his charter school to allow him to take the AP exams. They not only allowed it - they are paying for them up front - with the understanding that if he doesn't pass the exams, he'll re-pay the fees (I didn't expect that - I'm willing to pay for them regardless). That would never happen in a public school - the bureaucracy - they wouldn't even entertain/accommodate students' initiative/drive.

I don't know what is to be done with the millions in transportation (I hear it's the #1 job in quite a lot of states), retail (Gymboree closing, Old Navy/Gap going only online, etc), fast food, etc. I've so far only given thought to what my kids are going into (selfish, I know). Sorry, for the rambling, but ds is coming home for Spring Break and Federer won his 100th title - I'm in a really good mood :-)
If you want to call UBI "welfare", I don't care. I know that word has a negative stigma to it but every society in the history of mankind that had a strong middle class had some form of welfare or another.

Not sure what any of your incoherent rambling about the Chinese has to do with anything I said.

Regarding your claim about public schools not entertaining a student's desire to take the AP exam, I call bullshit. I went to a public high school and it not only paid for but administered 6 different AP tests (calculus, english, biology, chemistry, spanish, french) to all of the kids who took the respective AP class. You can also apply to take an AP test if your school doesn't offer the class regardless of the circumstances, it doesn't require any "accommodation" made by the school you go to, you can work directly with CollegeBoard. I still remember when I took my AP calculus test there were 3 weird looking home schooled kids who had arranged to take the test at my school. They looked like it was the first time they'd ever seen daylight.

[rmt]

If you want to call UBI "welfare", I don't care. I know that word has a negative stigma to it but every society in the history of mankind that had a strong middle class had some form of welfare or another.

Not sure what any of your incoherent rambling about the Chinese has to do with anything I said.

Regarding your claim about public schools not entertaining a student's desire to take the AP exam, I call bullshit. I went to a public high school and it not only paid for but administered 6 different AP tests (calculus, english, biology, chemistry, spanish, french) to all of the kids who took the respective AP class. You can also apply to take an AP test if your school doesn't offer the class regardless of the circumstances, it doesn't require any "accommodation" made by the school you go to, you can work directly with CollegeBoard. I still remember when I took my AP calculus test there were 3 weird looking home schooled kids who had arranged to take the test at my school. They looked like it was the first time they'd ever seen daylight.

Did your school offer to pay for an AP test for a student who didn't take their class? That's what ds' charter school is doing - encouraging students to self-study - paying for the exam if the student passes the test. This will now be school policy - open to any student who wants to take an AP exam regardless of whether the class is offered or taken at the school - and he asked on Monday (quick decision) - Friday was the deadline to sign up for exams. And this mother who railed at why he left it so late to ask is kinda proud he was able to make his case and sell it (that's another thing - availability of administration/listening to the students).

[Will Hunting]

Did your school offer to pay for an AP test for a student who didn't take their class? That's what ds' charter school is doing - encouraging students to self-study - paying for the exam if the student passes the test. This will now be school policy - open to any student who wants to take an AP exam regardless of whether the class is offered or taken at the school - and he asked on Monday (quick decision) - Friday was the deadline to sign up for exams. And this mother who railed at why he left it so late to ask is kinda proud he was able to make his case and sell it (that's another thing - availability of administration/listening to the students).
No idea, but regardless, it costs $94 to take an AP test. A charter school's willingness to pay for a $94 AP test (keep in mind, if you're taking AP tests, then you're trying to get college credit, and if you can afford college, you can afford $94) vs. a public school that might not be willing to pay for one seems like a completely arbitrary and ridiculously insignificant point that you're only making because it's specific to your anecdotal experience.

[DMC]

Agreed completely, but the industrial revolution showed us that government needs to play a significant role in making sure massive gains in worker productivity / technological advances benefit all of society instead of just those who own the means of production. What we're seeing now (a company like Amazon worth almost $1 trillion pays virtually no taxes and has warehouse workers make the same shitty $25k a year that the cashier at Border's Book Store made despite the fact Amazon put Borders out of business because its $25k a year warehouse worker is exponentially more productive than the Border's cashier was) is a repeat of the industrial revolution when we still had child labor and 14 hour shifts in dangerous working conditions despite the fact worker productivity was skyrocketing and the factory owners had more than enough income to provide improved working conditions.

As I said in my last post, Bezos is the one who created the logistics network and systems that have led to Amazon's warehouse workers being so much more productive than the Border's cashier (despite being similarly unskilled), so this isn't some Marxist opinion about how the factory worker should reap the same reward he does, but the benefit of increased production shouldn't be flowing completely to those who own the means of production, which is effectively what happens without government intervention.

In terms of how people need to evolve, no arguments in terms of here and now reasons why someone can't find work despite an economy at <4% unemployment, but I don't think that changes what I said about 50 years from now. At some point the medium skill, trade jobs that are in high demand now will also go through a phase of automation.

Sure, just like laying railroad ties isn't a good career choice, or TV and VCR repair wouldn't be a career choice. In a 40 year career span, you can easily change careers 2 or 3 times to keep up with the demand. You just have to find a way to bridge your education so that it's applicable to the next one instead of going 100K in debt again for a different degree. I know engineers who became RNs because they got tired of having to go back to school to keep up with advancing technologies or be laid off. Some are now even NPs. That's a decent salary for a job that will likely not go away in the near future. But not everyone is going to be able to transition into a medical career. In 50 years no one here will still be working, most likely. Those who are working at that time have the burden of researching and selecting viable careers. If you know that 50 years from now AI and robotics will dominate the workplace, then it's not a hard ask to suggest young people do something that involves them in AI and robotics. They should be able to see the picture come into focus as years go by, because whatever lens you are using to predict that, they'll have a better one in 10 years.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1101869456928628736

[ElNono]

The slippery slope is in assuming that, because there are aspects of socialism in the US, that any other form of socialism is good. The boogeyman seems to be the fear that socialism won't take hold.

I agree with generalizations being terrible when you're trying to have a discussion about these things, tbh. They're at the core of hand waving based largely on dogma.

And yes, there's extremes on socialism like there's on capitalism and any type of economic/political system, which disfigures the system itself. That doesn't mean they're the norm, and whenever you use any of these systems, that concern is always there.

[ElNono]

Agreed completely, but the industrial revolution showed us that government needs to play a significant role in making sure massive gains in worker productivity / technological advances benefit all of society instead of just those who own the means of production. What we're seeing now (a company like Amazon worth almost $1 trillion pays virtually no taxes and has warehouse workers make the same shitty $25k a year that the cashier at Border's Book Store made despite the fact Amazon put Borders out of business because its $25k a year warehouse worker is exponentially more productive than the Border's cashier was) is a repeat of the industrial revolution when we still had child labor and 14 hour shifts in dangerous working conditions despite the fact worker productivity was skyrocketing and the factory owners had more than enough income to provide improved working conditions.

As I said in my last post, Bezos is the one who created the logistics network and systems that have led to Amazon's warehouse workers being so much more productive than the Border's cashier (despite being similarly unskilled), so this isn't some Marxist opinion about how the factory worker should reap the same reward he does, but the benefit of increased production shouldn't be flowing completely to those who own the means of production, which is effectively what happens without government intervention.

In terms of how people need to evolve, no arguments in terms of here and now reasons why someone can't find work despite an economy at <4% unemployment, but I don't think that changes what I said about 50 years from now. At some point the medium skill, trade jobs that are in high demand now will also go through a phase of automation.

We've seen all this play out in the Industrial Revolution, including the co-opting of government by oligarchy, which ended up fueling the creation of unionization.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1101892315478544386

[CosmicCowboy]

Ocasio-chakrabrati is going to overplay her hand.

[midnightpulp]

Not sure if this is sarcastic :lol

I'm assuming your question is based off the premise that the cost of increased income would be passed onto the customer (and thus fuel inflation). I think the answer is yes there would be inflation but not so much that it completely negates the purchasing power created by the higher wages. Even if a company increased prices to completely offset the cost of increased labor such that the same levels of profitability are maintained, the cost to the customer isn't increasing by the same percentage that wages are increasing by. Most of Walmart's expenses, for example, come from cost of goods sold. COGs are undoubtedly somewhat affected by the cost of labor in transporting/warehousing supplies (plus labor costs of walmart suppliers), but it's far from a 1:1 correlation.

I think the more worrisome and valid argument is that higher wages increase the push for automation.

People don't realize how many jobs (and not just low skill jobs, medium skill jobs too) are going to be automated in the next 50 years because of digitization, AI, etc. There's a new product that can not only make McDonalds quality burgers from scratch but can also make better quality, gourmet burgers from scratch that you typically have to go to some douchey overpriced restaurant that chargers $20 for a burger to get, and there's already kiosks at some restaurants where you can place the order yourself. Before you know it, walking into McDonalds will consist of entering your order into a system that can ping the burger making software to make your order and then spit it out at the pick up window, with probably 1-2 tech guys and a manager at the store just to make sure things are operating smoothly.

Automation is what we really need to be solving for imo.

While we can never predict what road technological advancement will take over the next 50 years, I think the automation threat has been grossly overstated (I know, I'm walking back an earlier position that "feared" automation's mass displacement of workers at a disruptive scale). Why do I think this? The academic/tech industry, working through pop-sci/pop-tech journalists, are largely full of shit. The "reporting" of the efficacy of these technologies are little more than glorified press-releases that oversell the tech's capability to keep the VC/grant money rolling in. Here's a blogger whose opinion I highly respect (PhD in physics, computer science/machine learning expert). A couple of articles:

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/ai-is-not-eliminating-jobs/
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/machine-learning-data-science-what-to-worry-about-in-the-near-future/
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/ai-and-the-human-informational-centipede/

On this point, I remember Kevin Drumm at Mother Jones writing an alarmist article in 2016 about automation's growing threat, citing such examples as the "self-driving" beer truck that delivered 200 cases of beer. Turns out it was something of a farce. Here's a leading expert in self-driving automobiles, and he doesn't think we're anywhere near Level 5 automation:


Speaking of Uber they substantially slowed their self-driving program, practically killed their self driving truck program (same one that delivered a few crates of beer in Colorado in 2016 with great fanfares, a demo that later on turned out to be completely staged), and recent rumors indicate they might be even looking to sell the unit.

https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/
https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/10/29/ai-winter-update/

I'm not suggesting we be complacent, but as he said about the self-driving truck, many of these A.I. tech showcases are usually staged with a human operator in the loop (Boston Dynamics is famous for this). These technologies need obscenely controlled conditions and a human supervisor to work even half-way decently. That said, as you implied, automation will take a more boring form with self-serving kiosks and the like.

[midnightpulp]

Ocasio-chakrabrati is going to overplay her hand.

Don't disagree. The democrats need to shut the fuck up about racism and just focus on bread-and-butter policies (economy, healthcare, etc).

[ducks]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacks ICE as a 'dangerous agency'

[SouthTexasRancher]

... who happens to be running rings around Trump party officials and conservatives on social media. What does it say about conservative politicians that they are getting pwned so hard by "a walking, talking Cluster Fuck?

You are one sick motherfucker. That crazy woman is not running circles (it's circles doofus, not rings) around Donald Trump.She is a socialist wacko who has nary a clue about what she is saying and doing. Even the powers to be in the DummyRat party know she is totally out to lunch. Kid, why don't you ask your mommy to enroll you in school so you can get an education. Every post you make, you come across as someone born without any gray matter between your ears. Most likely you are one of them Antifa assholes. Anyway, like I told you before, go fuck yourself!

Oh, and for the record, AOC, is a walking cluster fuck. You are just too stupidly ignorant to realize it. Now, go fuck yourself, dickhead. :ihit

[RandomGuy]

Exactly. You throw out baseless claims then demand stats when someone else does as if you're somehow going to provide a legit rebuttal instead of autistic screeching.

I never make an assertion that I am unprepared to back up, and always admit when I am wrong about something. That is the vast gulf between you and I.

[RandomGuy]

It already exists. Many hospitals will pay for your school for a commitment from you to work there for 2 years. Absolutely free = not doable long term.

If we can sustain a trillion dollars for the military, we can probably squeeze in free college for a few thousand people per year over the long term.

This money does not vanish into the ether. An investment in people and productivity ends up paying the economy back,j especially when you are talking about someone who might not be able to afford college otherise (differential in lifetime income is greatest there). We are talking about a rather large percentage of our economy. $3.5Tn each year.

[DMC]

I never make an assertion that I am unprepared to back up, and always admit when I am wrong about something. That is the vast gulf between you and I.

Baby Jesus, is that you?

[RandomGuy]

Being the economic expert you are though, wouldn't the rise in median income simply fuel inflation so that the effective income level would be the same?

Depends on the marginal propensity to save, which increases as income does. The answer is no.

[DMC]

If we can sustain a trillion dollars for the military, we can probably squeeze in free college for a few thousand people per year over the long term.

Non sequitur


This money does not vanish into the ether. An investment in people and productivity ends up paying the economy back,j especially when you are talking about someone who might not be able to afford college otherise (differential in lifetime income is greatest there). We are talking about a rather large percentage of our economy. $3.5Tn each year.

The problem (for lack of a better term) of paid tuition is possibly the control over who learns what. If everyone qualifies, then there will be a lot of wasted money on dropouts. If you have to pass tests to qualify and then reimburse the feds if you drop out, we'd be pretty much where we are now.

Many companies will pay for your college if you get a degree in something they can use. If the feds do the same thing, you're just offering indentured servitude which, once the drama is removed, is just an arrangement to pay your debt through service. The cool thing about that is your wages don't decrease in the process, rather they increase. So should the feds pay for college and insist that you do something a board of advisors have decided they need? For example, would you be willing to work for the federal government for 2 years if they paid for your college? What about countries that require 2 years of military service? If this country required that, and as a return they paid for your school, would that make sense to you or would it remove freedoms you think you have right now (regardless if you've already served, this is a hypothetical).

[DMC]

Depends on the marginal propensity to save, which increases as income does. The answer is no.

Your idea includes wealth redistribution though, correct? Otherwise you're conjuring something from nothing.

[RandomGuy]

most white racists are in the Trump party.


Show the statistics to support that claim.

http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/1-the-changing-composition-of-the-political-parties/

Start off with simple composition. The GOP is almost exclusively white, roughly 86% as of 2016, compared to 56% for Democrats.

Given a tentative assumption that white racists are equally likely to be Democrats or Trump Party, this gives us our multiplier.

We then need the raw number to multiply.

We are hindered here somewhat by the fact that not all states require specific party registration.
We can get close though.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/2018-democrats-lead-gop-by-12-million-registered-voters
44M Democrats 32M Trump Party

24M white people are democrats, 27M whites are Trump Party

That gets you, all things equal and sheer raw numbers, to that conclusion.

Let's abandon that tentative assumption, and look at what data points we can out of various polls that would help us determine if one party or other is more likely to have views that can easily be described as racist.


Nearly half of the country (49 percent) believes Donald Trump is racist but 86 percent of Republicans say he is not, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. The same survey shows that 79 percent of Republicans approve of the way the president handles race. Other data points include:

52 percent of voters who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election believed blacks are “less evolved” than whites, according to researchers at the Kellog School of Management.
In a 2018 YouGov poll, 59 percent of Republicans agreed: “If blacks would only try harder, they would be as well off as whites.”
The same YouGov poll revealed that 59 percent of self-identified Republicans believe blacks are treated fairly by the criminal justice system.
70 percent of Republicans agreed that increased diversity hurts whites.
Republican-appointed judges give black defendants longer jail sentences, according to a Harvard study released in May.
55 percent of white Republicans agreed “blacks have worse jobs, income and housing than white people” because “most just don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves up out of poverty” according to the Washington Post’s review of data from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.
Nearly twice as many Republicans than Democrats (42 percent versus 24 percent) believe that blacks are lazier than whites, according to the same NORC poll.

https://www.theroot.com/how-the-republican-party-became-the-party-of-racism-1827779221

The data seem fairly clear.

In every poll that has attempted to measure racist views, the Trump party consistently holds those view at a higher percentage than Democrats.

I can't think of any white supremicist that has run on a Democratic ticket, even in predominantly white areas. There is a reason Representative King is in the Trump Party.

The conclusion seems a reasonable one, given what we know.

[DMC]

http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/1-the-changing-composition-of-the-political-parties/

Start off with simple composition. The GOP is almost exclusively white, roughly 86% as of 2016, compared to 56% for Democrats.

Given a tentative assumption that white racists are equally likely to be Democrats or Trump Party, this gives us our multiplier.

We then need the raw number to multiply.

We are hindered here somewhat by the fact that not all states require specific party registration.
We can get close though.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/2018-democrats-lead-gop-by-12-million-registered-voters
44M Democrats 32M Trump Party

24M white people are democrats, 27M whites are Trump Party

That gets you, all things equal and sheer raw numbers, to that conclusion.

Let's abandon that tentative assumption, and look at what data points we can out of various polls that would help us determine if one party or other is more likely to have views that can easily be described as racist.


https://www.theroot.com/how-the-republican-party-became-the-party-of-racism-1827779221

The data seem fairly clear.

In every poll that has attempted to measure racist views, the Trump party consistently holds those view at a higher percentage than Democrats.

I can't think of any white supremicist that has run on a Democratic ticket, even in predominantly white areas. There is a reason Representative King is in the Trump Party.

The conclusion seems a reasonable one, given what we know.
You spent a lot of time and energy chasing the wrong stat.

You said most white racists are in the Trump party.

Illustrate how you know most white racists are even voters.

[RandomGuy]

Your idea includes wealth redistribution though, correct? Otherwise you're conjuring something from nothing.

"my idea"? What would that be? UBI?

UBI would be wealth redistribution, yes.

Little bit more on this:

Given that inflation has been curbed back, and long term growth rates have shifted from an historical 3% to closer to 2%, that would seem to indicate that inflationary pressure overall has been reduced.

Changing demographics have fundamentally altered our economy.

[RandomGuy]

You spent a lot of time and energy chasing the wrong stat.

You said most white racists are in the Trump party.

Illustrate how you know most white racists are even voters.

Hmmm. That would simply have to be an underlying assumption to be able to use voters as a proxy.

Assume: racists tend to vote at rates proportional to the general population.

One might be able to use educational attainment as a proxy, given that education and income tend to influence voting likelihood. Considering that though, one has to also account that education tends to indicate likelihood of racism for any given individual. Care to guess which party is better educated overall?

Given polling data, which merely asks whether people lean one way or another, and not specifically whether they vote, it would the question is some what moot.

If you would prefer, I would withdraw the statement,and substitute:

White people self-identifying as Republican are more likely to hold racist views than white, self-identified Democrats.

Trumps success was driven by racial concerns.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study


Even when controlling for partisanship, ideology, region and a host of other factors, white millennials fit Michael Tesler’s analysis, explored here. As he put it, economic anxiety isn’t driving racial resentment; rather, racial resentment is driving economic anxiety. We found, as he has in a larger population, that racial resentment is the biggest predictor of white vulnerability among white millennials. Economic variables like education, income and employment made a negligible difference.

[RandomGuy]

You are one sick motherfucker. That crazy woman is not running circles (it's circles doofus, not rings) around Donald Trump.She is a socialist wacko who has nary a clue about what she is saying and doing. Even the powers to be in the DummyRat party know she is totally out to lunch. Kid, why don't you ask your mommy to enroll you in school so you can get an education. Every post you make, you come across as someone born without any gray matter between your ears. Most likely you are one of them Antifa assholes. Anyway, like I told you before, go fuck yourself!

Oh, and for the record, AOC, is a walking cluster fuck. You are just too stupidly ignorant to realize it. Now, go fuck yourself, dickhead. :ihit

Ah. The adult equivalent of "you are a poopyhead".

Against such an onslaught of well reasoned and data supported assertions, I am defenseless.

We seem to have found the conservative boutons.

[RandomGuy]

If we can sustain a trillion dollars for the military, we can probably squeeze in free college for a few thousand people per year over the long term.


Non sequitur

We have sustained somewhere on the order of a hundred trillion dollars in present day money for the military, and the evidence we have is that vast amounts of that are being wasted.

Simply wasting less in that bloated budget would offer savings of billions, if not hundreds of billions, if that spending was simply shifted to cover the costs, the only assumption is that spending overall is sustainable.

Assume 20,000 people at 50,000 per year. One billion dollars. add 2% administrative overhead. $1.02Bn or .00102Tn. Current DOD budget: $3,970Bn or $3.97Tn

Seems logical to assume that we can trim 0.02% if we tried really hard.

[RandomGuy]

This money does not vanish into the ether. An investment in people and productivity ends up paying the economy back,j especially when you are talking about someone who might not be able to afford college otherise (differential in lifetime income is greatest there). We are talking about a rather large percentage of our economy. $3.5Tn each year.



The problem (for lack of a better term) of paid tuition is possibly the control over who learns what. If everyone qualifies, then there will be a lot of wasted money on dropouts. If you have to pass tests to qualify and then reimburse the feds if you drop out, we'd be pretty much where we are now.

Many companies will pay for your college if you get a degree in something they can use. If the feds do the same thing, you're just offering indentured servitude which, once the drama is removed, is just an arrangement to pay your debt through service. The cool thing about that is your wages don't decrease in the process, rather they increase. So should the feds pay for college and insist that you do something a board of advisors have decided they need? For example, would you be willing to work for the federal government for 2 years if they paid for your college? What about countries that require 2 years of military service? If this country required that, and as a return they paid for your school, would that make sense to you or would it remove freedoms you think you have right now (regardless if you've already served, this is a hypothetical).

There will be dropouts in any given program. If it proves to be too high, we can put efforts into fixing it. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. For the wider country, any such losses are vastly likely to be offset by the increased salaries of those young people who get into the medical profession, because those increases are over an entire working life, whereas the losses to dropouts are one time expenditures. Society is better off investing in its human capital in this way, especially given the huge demand for health care workers which will only increase as the population ages.

I wouldn't require any repayment if they remain in the profession for a period of time. This provides an economic incentive.

Don't really need a board of advisors to pick vocations, I suppose. Build it into the bill, and revisit occasionally, broadly structured so that the greatest demanded profession have the most slots, general practitioner and nursing likely taking the lions share.

[RandomGuy]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1101892315478544386

Trump would have to employ black staff first. Amarosa and....?

Carson? The sole token? McConnel's wife? if you want to count the cabinet as "staff".

[DMC]

Hmmm. That would simply have to be an underlying assumption to be able to use voters as a proxy.

Assume: racists tend to vote at rates proportional to the general population.

Non sequitur.

You made a baseless statement. Now you're trying to salvage it with post sale caveats.



One might be able to use educational attainment as a proxy, given that education and income tend to influence voting likelihood. Considering that though, one has to also account that education tends to indicate likelihood of racism for any given individual. Care to guess which party is better educated overall?

Given polling data, which merely asks whether people lean one way or another, and not specifically whether they vote, it would the question is some what moot.

If you would prefer, I would withdraw the statement,and substitute:

White people self-identifying as Republican are more likely to hold racist views than white, self-identified Democrats.

Trumps success was driven by racial concerns.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study

You haven't proven anything.

[DMC]

There will be dropouts in any given program. If it proves to be too high, we can put efforts into fixing it. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. For the wider country, any such losses are vastly likely to be offset by the increased salaries of those young people who get into the medical profession, because those increases are over an entire working life, whereas the losses to dropouts are one time expenditures. Society is better off investing in its human capital in this way, especially given the huge demand for health care workers which will only increase as the population ages.

I wouldn't require any repayment if they remain in the profession for a period of time. This provides an economic incentive.

Don't really need a board of advisors to pick vocations, I suppose. Build it into the bill, and revisit occasionally, broadly structured so that the greatest demanded profession have the most slots, general practitioner and nursing likely taking the lions share.

So if you wanted to go to school for engineering and there weren't any open slots, you'd either not be able to go to school for it or you'd have to pay for it yourself?

Does the taxpayer also foot the living expenses of the students? Many cannot afford to quit their jobs to go to school even if school was free.

What about undocumented illegals, do they get free school as well? If so, where will the money come from to support unlimited free education from a limited tax base?

[DMC]

We have sustained somewhere on the order of a hundred trillion dollars in present day money for the military, and the evidence we have is that vast amounts of that are being wasted.

Simply wasting less in that bloated budget would offer savings of billions, if not hundreds of billions, if that spending was simply shifted to cover the costs, the only assumption is that spending overall is sustainable.

Assume 20,000 people at 50,000 per year. One billion dollars. add 2% administrative overhead. $1.02Bn or .00102Tn. Current DOD budget: $3,970Bn or $3.97Tn

Seems logical to assume that we can trim 0.02% if we tried really hard.

This is AOC level shit. Any 10 year old can say "just fix it". We can supposedly fix everything by trimming the fat from existing budgets. So we have to pay for high speed rails, development of solar, elimination of fossil fuels AND college tuition and living expenses for anyone who wants to walk across the porous border.

Jesus you're fucking stupid.

[Winehole23]

Jamie Galbreath takes on the jobs guarantee:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/we-work-galbraith

[RandomGuy]

So if you wanted to go to school for engineering and there weren't any open slots, you'd either not be able to go to school for it or you'd have to pay for it yourself?

Does the taxpayer also foot the living expenses of the students? Many cannot afford to quit their jobs to go to school even if school was free.

What about undocumented illegals, do they get free school as well? If so, where will the money come from to support unlimited free education from a limited tax base?

1) Proposal is for health care profession.
2) GI Bill style check sufficient for most expenses including living.
3) Happy to let DACA recipients in, but otherwise no.

(shrugs)

[RandomGuy]

This is AOC level shit. Any 10 year old can say "just fix it". We can supposedly fix everything by trimming the fat from existing budgets. So we have to pay for high speed rails, development of solar, elimination of fossil fuels AND college tuition and living expenses for anyone who wants to walk across the porous border.

Jesus you're fucking stupid.

I have suggested a .02% change to the military budget to finance college for tens of thousands of people.

The rest of that will require increases in taxes.

Any 10 year old can stomp their feet and say "we can't do it". We supposedly can't fix anything because "reasons" and "lazy people with cell phones". So we pay for human misery and lower economic output.

Stupid or not, I am willing to try making things better for regular people. Not sure why that seems to enrage you so.

You can't think of good reasons why we can't do these things, so you resort to name-calling. Whatever works for you in your head. I'll be your huckle bearer.

[CosmicCowboy]

Huckle bearer :lol

[SouthTexasRancher]

I never make an assertion that I am unprepared to back up, and always admit when I am wrong about something. That is the vast gulf between you and I.

Look Bozo, you and I signed up with Spurs Talk one month apart way back in 2005. Since then you have made 16 times more bullshit posts than me. I am fully aware that you are a radical wacko, full fledged, ultra-liberal, left-wing, socialist nut job. That's fine with me. You people are so damn worthless. None of you want to work, in fact most of you are opposed to lifting a finger unless it is to spend 24/7/365 on your mommy's computer spewing the most non sensical crap out of your mouth's. You people want free housing, free education (and by golly, all of you goofballs need an education), free food (via food stamps and handouts), free energy via wind (and when the wind stops blowing???) and solar (did Hussein oBUMmer ever blow the millions/billions on solar energy with all those solar companies he gave our tax money to that went bankrupt shortly after the transfer of funds). No kid, you freaks on the extreme, far left want everything handed to you lazy assholes. I've worked my ass off for all my near adult life and adult life. I've put in more blood, sweat and tears in a month than bums like you put in in a decade. Bottom line, is I do not have the time to babysit your sorry ass. Go find someone else to hold that dainty little hand of yours. Maybe you can make him feel good by sucking his dick. I'm quite sure your little pecker is too damn small for even a Scanning Electron Microscope to locate. So bug off dipshit and once again go fuck yourself, preferably with a splintered baseball bat. What a freakin' imbecile U R.

[Chucho]

STR is Bonnerific x Spurs Homer. Sans the dead mom and silly alt.

[Spurs Homer]

STR is Bonnerific x Spurs Homer. Sans the dead mom and silly alt.


lol

rent free - still!


The native american whose people were erased - still defends a white supremacist -

that pretty much says all that is needed to say about this troll.

[DMC]

I have suggested a .02% change to the military budget to finance college for tens of thousands of people.

The rest of that will require increases in taxes.

Any 10 year old can stomp their feet and say "we can't do it". We supposedly can't fix anything because "reasons" and "lazy people with cell phones". So we pay for human misery and lower economic output.

Stupid or not, I am willing to try making things better for regular people. Not sure why that seems to enrage you so.

You can't think of good reasons why we can't do these things, so you resort to name-calling. Whatever works for you in your head. I'll be your huckle bearer.

"Just take money from budget X"

Gee, why can't anyone else think of that?

[DMC]

Non sequitur.

You made a baseless statement. Now you're trying to salvage it with post sale caveats.



You haven't proven anything.

I am waiting for you back up your assertion since you never make an assertion you're incapable of supporting. Anyone can just spew nonsense and abandon it when called out.

[RandomGuy]

Huckle bearer :lol

I was hoping someone would get the joke. Had to look up the spelling.

[RandomGuy]

I am waiting for you back up your assertion since you never make an assertion you're incapable of supporting. Anyone can just spew nonsense and abandon it when called out.

Which assertion?

[CosmicCowboy]

*

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102674404499120128

Sandy has been busy :lol

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102674404499120128

Sandy has been busy :lolYeah, I'm going to go with nothingburger.

Also, no crazy-eye picture.

This one's a dud.

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm going to go with nothingburger.

Shocker!

[Pavlov]

Shocker!Most of these FEC complaints end up that way.

Show me one that wasn't.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102660557637771264

[koriwhat]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102660557637771264

she's such a dumbass

[Chris]

she's such a dumbass

She keeps taking, talking, talking, :lol

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102660557637771264Good plan tbh.

[Chris]

Good plan tbh.

Do you look up to AOC, Pavlov?

[Pavlov]

Do you look up to AOC, Pavlov?Nope. I think it's a good plan though.

[TSA]

Yeah, I'm going to go with nothingburger.

Also, no crazy-eye picture.

This one's a dud.

:lol campaign finance violations good now

[Pavlov]

:lol campaign finance violations good nowMost of the FEC conspiracy theories you have posted here were nothingburgers.

Your record is really terrible.

Sorry TSA.

[RandomGuy]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102660557637771264

Seems to be the way to bring down a crooked real estate tycoon who lies reflexively.

Trump shits himself at every opportunity. Welcome to the three front war for an isolated sociopath, who no one is really to fall on their sword for.

This will not end well for him.

If your best hope is Rudy Guliani... :lol

[Chris]

Seems to be the way to bring down a crooked real estate tycoon who lies reflexively.

Trump shits himself at every opportunity. Welcome to the three front war for an isolated sociopath, who no one is really to fall on their sword for.

This will not end well for him.

If your best hope is Rudy Guliani... :lol

More doom and gloom from the Russian conspiracy theorist. :jack

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/drawandstrike/status/1102706387908521985

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/drawandstrike/status/1102706387908521985Oh.

Stealth Jeff says it's worse than evah.

That means it's a nothingburger for sure.:tu

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1102772522393563136

Herr Moore going off on AOC :lol

[Pavlov]

:lol Moore
:lol foreign paper company lobbyist

[Chris]

:lol Moore
:lol foreign paper company lobbyist

He smacked her down just like he smacks down climate change lunatics.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1102753132147290114

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm going to go with nothingburger.

Also, no crazy-eye picture.

This one's a dud.


Oh.

Stealth Jeff says it's worse than evah.

That means it's a nothingburger for sure.:tu

https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1102773362026196992

:lol

[Will Hunting]

Look Bozo, you and I signed up with Spurs Talk one month apart way back in 2005. Since then you have made 16 times more bullshit posts than me. I am fully aware that you are a radical wacko, full fledged, ultra-liberal, left-wing, socialist nut job. That's fine with me. You people are so damn worthless. None of you want to work, in fact most of you are opposed to lifting a finger unless it is to spend 24/7/365 on your mommy's computer spewing the most non sensical crap out of your mouth's. You people want free housing, free education (and by golly, all of you goofballs need an education), free food (via food stamps and handouts), free energy via wind (and when the wind stops blowing???) and solar (did Hussein oBUMmer ever blow the millions/billions on solar energy with all those solar companies he gave our tax money to that went bankrupt shortly after the transfer of funds). No kid, you freaks on the extreme, far left want everything handed to you lazy assholes. I've worked my ass off for all my near adult life and adult life. I've put in more blood, sweat and tears in a month than bums like you put in in a decade. Bottom line, is I do not have the time to babysit your sorry ass. Go find someone else to hold that dainty little hand of yours. Maybe you can make him feel good by sucking his dick. I'm quite sure your little pecker is too damn small for even a Scanning Electron Microscope to locate. So bug off dipshit and once again go fuck yourself, preferably with a splintered baseball bat. What a freakin' imbecile U R.
:lmao Jesus Christ, how did I miss this meltdown

[Pavlov]

He smacked her down just like he smacks down climate change lunatics.:lol he's bought and paid for

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1102773362026196992

:lol:lmao

[Chris]

Things are heating up. This gon b gud.

https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1102797366770450432

[Pavlov]

Things are heating up. This gon b gud.

https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1102797366770450432IF!

WOW!

[Chris]

IF!

WOW!

TOTAL NOTHINGBOOGER!

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102763362201624579
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102773072288010240

Oops! :lol What a dummy

[Pavlov]

TOTAL NOTHINGBOOGER!Almost certainly tbh.

[spurraider21]

:lmao this guy


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM

[SouthTexasRancher]

:lmao Jesus Christ, how did I miss this meltdown

What meltdown? That was no meltdown. Sometimes the parent has to walk into the kindergarten class and yell at the children like Chucho, Spurs Homer, Random Guy, Proxy and a few other socialists that think the magician can blow some wuffle dust on things and wham, bam, thank you mam, you've got yourself a beautiful, magical beanstalk. Are you an attention whore too? If so I can add you to the list of clowns. :violin

[Winehole23]

losing your temper in public is the *definition* of a meltdown

[Winehole23]

RG can be annoying as fuck, but suggesting he's Antifa is borderline unhinged.

[CosmicCowboy]

Chuch is Native American like Elizabeth warren is Native American. Except she is.

Not according to the Cherokee, who get to write the definition.

[Winehole23]

Not according to the Cherokee, who get to write the definition.Damn, Trump can abuse power and lie his ass off every day of the week, but god forbid a woman should be mistaken about the legal definition of who's a Cherokee.

You'll never let her live it down.

[CosmicCowboy]

Damn, Trump can abuse power and lie his ass off every day of the week, but god forbid a woman should be mistaken about the legal definition of who's a Cherokee.

You'll never let her live it down.

:lol

nope. Pretty dumb.

And it's got nothing to do with being male/female but nice little strawman to throw in there.

[DMC]

RG can be annoying as fuck, but suggesting he's Antifa is borderline unhinged.

I agree with this. No way in hell RG gets off his ass to put on the mask and actually riot. If there was an app... maybe.

[RandomGuy]

https://twitter.com/gatewaypundit/status/1102753132147290114

All AOC all the time.

Shit man fap in a napkin already and get it overwith.

[RandomGuy]

RG can be annoying as fuck, but suggesting he's Antifa is borderline unhinged.

Damned with faint praise.
(chuckles)

Antifa is the right's favorite strawman/whataboutism. It is the "go to" for getting out of admitting any fault on the part of some right wing nutter. It is one of the tropes I used to teach my kids the meaning of the word "sophism", because the louder one yammers about it, the more likely they are to be disingenuous.

[RandomGuy]

While we can never predict what road technological advancement will take over the next 50 years, I think the automation threat has been grossly overstated (I know, I'm walking back an earlier position that "feared" automation's mass displacement of workers at a disruptive scale). Why do I think this? The academic/tech industry, working through pop-sci/pop-tech journalists, are largely full of shit. The "reporting" of the efficacy of these technologies are little more than glorified press-releases that oversell the tech's capability to keep the VC/grant money rolling in. Here's a blogger whose opinion I highly respect (PhD in physics, computer science/machine learning expert). A couple of articles:

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/ai-is-not-eliminating-jobs/
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/machine-learning-data-science-what-to-worry-about-in-the-near-future/
https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/ai-and-the-human-informational-centipede/

On this point, I remember Kevin Drumm at Mother Jones writing an alarmist article in 2016 about automation's growing threat, citing such examples as the "self-driving" beer truck that delivered 200 cases of beer. Turns out it was something of a farce. Here's a leading expert in self-driving automobiles, and he doesn't think we're anywhere near Level 5 automation:



https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/05/28/ai-winter-is-well-on-its-way/
https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/10/29/ai-winter-update/

I'm not suggesting we be complacent, but as he said about the self-driving truck, many of these A.I. tech showcases are usually staged with a human operator in the loop (Boston Dynamics is famous for this). These technologies need obscenely controlled conditions and a human supervisor to work even half-way decently. That said, as you implied, automation will take a more boring form with self-serving kiosks and the like.

I agree for the most part. A lot of it is overblown, but I am cautious about predicting that we will not get a LOT better at building artificial consciousness within our life time.

There is just too much money chasing this holy grail, and there are a LOT of very smart people making incremental advancements and talking to each other in some rather synergistic ways for the past to be too similar to the future.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1103042854954418176

NOTHINGBOOGER!

[midnightpulp]

I agree for the most part. A lot of it is overblown, but I am cautious about predicting that we will not get a LOT better at building artificial consciousness within our life time.

There is just too much money chasing this holy grail, and there are a LOT of very smart people making incremental advancements and talking to each other in some rather synergistic ways for the past to be too similar to the future.

I don't think so. We don't even know how the brain really works, have no clue how to solve the hard problem of consciousness, and further complicating matters is how the computational theory of mind is pretty much bullshit. This is what happens when computer scientists try to do neuroscience and neurophilosophy.

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

Unless you define artificial consciousness in terms of a system simply imitating consciousness. Sure. That already exists in some form with animatronic chatbots like that Sophia gimmick and Alexa, but underneath it all, the system is simply doing statistics. It's not "aware" of anything.


Despite all the marketing hype coming out of Mountain View, there really hasn’t been much in the way of conceptual breakthroughs in machine learning since the 1990s. Improvements in neural networks have caused excitement, and the ability of deep learning to work more efficiently on images is an improvement in capabilities. Stuff like gradient boost machines have also been a considerable technical improvement in usable machine learning. They don’t really count as big conceptual breakthroughs; just normal improvements for a field of engineering that has poor theoretical substructure. As for actual “AI” -almost nobody is really working on this.

These days, we have Elon Musk petrified that a near relative of logistic regression is going to achieve sentienceand render him unable to enjoy the usufructs of his toils. Charlatan “thinktanks” dedicated to “friendly AI” (and Harry Potter slashfic) have sprung up. Goofball non-profits designed to make “AI” more “safe” by making it available as open source (think about that for a minute) actually exist. Funded, of course, by the paranoid oligarchs who would be better off reading a book, adjusting their exercise program or having their doctor adjust their meds.

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/ai-and-the-human-informational-centipede/

Here's what I think are two insurmountable hurdles to achieving the kind of "conscious" A.I. that has been popularized in numerous films and books over the past 50-60 some years:

"Consciousness" is an emergent property of a biological substrate made up of, well, "mushy stuff," that itself is built on carbon and molecular-chemical substrates, consisting of common elements found in all life: oxygen, hydrogen, nucleic acids, etc. A theoretical silicon based "lifeform" lacks those necessary building blocks. Some believe if you can simply copy the structure of the brain via hardware, you'll have your machine consciousness. Well, we've been making neural nets and neuromorphic chips for over 30 years. None of those systems have "waken up." The philosopher John Searle had a devastating argument here that emulating "consciousness" (I have no idea how we're supposed to emulate something we don't understand) on a computer won't translate into it having consciousness because, as I've said before, there's a vast difference between biological and silicon substrates. His example was that a computer could indeed emulate the photosynthesis process, but at the end of the day, the computer isn't converting light to sugar.

As it stands, no examples in nature exist of non-carbon/non-"stuff" based lifeforms and consciousness.

This brings me to the second huge hurdle. Some think it's simply a software problem. Just have to write the correct code and the system will "wake up." This is nonsense because this approach assumes that consciousness is dualist in nature (i.e. brain hardware/mind software).


I presume they understand that if you program a perfect Intel emulator, you don't suddenly get Halo: Reach for free, as an emergent property of the system. You can buy the code and add it to the system, sure, but in this case, we can't run down to GameStop and buy a DVD with the human OS in it and install it on our artificial brain. You're going to have to do the hard work of figuring out how that works and reverse engineering it, as well. And understanding how the processor works is necessary to do that, but not sufficient.

https://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/21/kurzweil-still-doesnt-understa

21392010870

But again, if you define artificial consciousness in the sense of a system acting conscious (i.e. the sensation of pain is something that is a result of conscious experience, but you could easily (in theory) program a robot to express pain in that when its arm is hit, pressure sensors are activated, which the CPU determines is in the range of PSI that would cause pain in human being, and then "tells" the robot's voice module to say "ouch." But again, the system is just doing statistics.

I'm actually against "beings" like this being created, because the illusion will no doubt be strong enough that you'll have people perhaps preferring these things to real people, since you can program them to act how you want. "On-demand" companionship with none of the work required that it takes to maintain real friendships and relationships.

Many researchers think progress is stalling and another A.I. winter is on the way.

1039176548719312896

Chollet is another who cuts through the hype. That said, yeah, according to the pop-sci/pop-tech rags, "Skynet" is just around the corner. And as Locklin said in his blog, creating hype like this is necessary to keep the VC and grant money flowing in. Read his scathing Nanotech (another bullshit tech) essay he wrote ten years ago. Scientists and researchers in the field plain knew they weren't doing "nanotech" as portrayed in movies and videogames. Just doing regular old chemistry, but they had to spin it as if they were working on magical microscopic robots in order to get the VCs excited.


I used to work next to the center for nanotechnology. The first indication I had that there was something wrong with the discipline of “nanotechnology” is I noticed that the people who worked there were the same people who used to do chemistry and material science. It appeared to be a more fashionable label for these subjects. Really “material science” was a sort of fancy label for the chemistry of things we use to build other things. OK, new name for “chemist.” Hopefully it ups the funding. Good for you guys.

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/nano-nonsense-25-years-of-charlatanry/

[ChumpHumper]

Yeah, there's another one.

Do you think you're killing it with these alts, derp?

Humpin' chumps, dude.

[ducks]

Damn, Trump can abuse power and lie his ass off every day of the week, but god forbid a woman should be mistaken about the legal definition of who's a Cherokee.

You'll never let her live it down.she was not mistaken
She knew she was not
She is a bad girl

[midnightpulp]

she was not mistaken
She knew she was not
She is a bad girl

Ducks with another inspiring poem :tu

[Chucho]

Chuch is Native American like Elizabeth warren is Native American. Except she is.

I'm as Native America assuredly as you're a 1 trick pony who toned down the tired long ramblings filled with school yard swears in favor of projecting homosexual fantasies onto people.

[ducks]

Bad girls need to be paddled
With the board of education
And get their butts nice and pink

[Chucho]

lol

rent free - still!


The native american whose people were erased - still defends a white supremacist -

that pretty much says all that is needed to say about this troll.

LOLies and now trying to write a narrative. Whitey mad Injun doesnt think like him. Whitey hates everyone who doesnt think like him.

How does making fun of you equate to cosigning white supremacy?

[Chucho]

Bad girls need to be paddled
With the board of education
And get their butts nice and pink

You're just asking for someone to mention your peeing in front of children with comments like this, mallard man.

[TSA]

Bad girls need to be paddled
With the board of education
And get their butts nice and pink

:rollin

[Nbadan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=79&v=eVqLkxvGQTE

[Chucho]

So youre just a self loathing fuck who has spent a lifetime bitter at the chance of being born as something you despise and resent.

That explains you simple minded belief system. You’re trying to get love and approval from people that hate you.

LOL Spurs homer rhetoric. Just stop. You're a narrow minded twit making narratives because Injun doesnt identify with dipshit cultists like you.

[Chucho]

Surprise you didnt spell out another one of your homosexual fantasies, derp jr.

[Spurtacular]

Surprise you didnt spell out another one of your homosexual fantasies, derp jr.

Blake would be proud of this effort.

[RandomGuy]

she was not mistaken
She knew she was not
She is a bad girl



Ducks with another inspiring poem :tu

Poem or a crappy haiku...

[RandomGuy]

I don't think so. We don't even know how the brain really works, have no clue how to solve the hard problem of consciousness, and further complicating matters is how the computational theory of mind is pretty much bullshit. This is what happens when computer scientists try to do neuroscience and neurophilosophy.

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

Unless you define artificial consciousness in terms of a system simply imitating consciousness. Sure. That already exists in some form with animatronic chatbots like that Sophia gimmick and Alexa, but underneath it all, the system is simply doing statistics. It's not "aware" of anything.

Regarding emergent properties, you might find this interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA5qnZUXcqo

The thing I was alluding to is that people who study cognition itself are working with the people trying to create AI brains.


he different streams of cognitive sciences, like neuro sciences or linguistics, influence AI research massively, as AI (strong or weak AI likewise) wants to mimic these processes, from speech recognition to the ability to engage in complex conversations. Hence, it is logical, to engage in research about these processes to develop technologies, that execute these rules and response patterns. Here, IBM has performed powerful pioneer work and has heralded a new era of cognitive computing: information processing in form of machine learning though deep learning, a form of AI.

https://medium.com/womeninai/human-cognition-and-artificial-intelligence-a-plea-for-science-21a2388f6e7e

The two fields of study are really starting to talk to each other.

Sure most of it is imitative at this point, such as the stillwell brain experiment above.

Given that additive feature of our ability to learn and study this, and the number of people working on it, suggest we will get there. I get what you are saying. It won't be easy by any stretch.

I don't by into the Skynet type hype. People breathlessly predicting this stuff for clicks are doing a disservice to what is actually being done.

At some point though, and I would guess within my lifespan, we will have a conscious program/machine. I think we need to start thinking well in advance of this, what the ethical implications are. Do we let it vote? If a machine truly is aware and testibly conscious, could we turn it off? What rights would such a being have? Should such a being have?

[RandomGuy]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102763362201624579
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102773072288010240

Oops! :lol What a dummy

Chris is shocked that teenagers don't pay attention to congressional votes.

[RandomGuy]

What meltdown? That was no meltdown. Sometimes the parent has to walk into the kindergarten class and yell at the children like Chucho, Spurs Homer, Random Guy, Proxy and a few other socialists that think the magician can blow some wuffle dust on things and wham, bam, thank you mam, you've got yourself a beautiful, magical beanstalk. Are you an attention whore too? If so I can add you to the list of clowns. :violin

Losing your temper is sort of the definition of meltdown.

For all your "u r dum" rantings, you haven't actually explained anything. If I am engaging in magical thinking, that should be really really easy to show.

What is funny is that people like you, who seem to be fed a constant diet of hate and outrage, seem to think that this somehow substitutes for actual thinking. What you have done here is akin to a crazy person on the street screaming at the sky.

[DMC]

Someone should create a spectrum and place everyone here on it. I'd bet you'd be near the far left along the X axis and toward the "wishcasting" portion of the Y axis.

[midnightpulp]

Regarding emergent properties, you might find this interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA5qnZUXcqo

The thing I was alluding to is that people who study cognition itself are working with the people trying to create AI brains.



https://medium.com/womeninai/human-cognition-and-artificial-intelligence-a-plea-for-science-21a2388f6e7e

The two fields of study are really starting to talk to each other.

Sure most of it is imitative at this point, such as the stillwell brain experiment above.

Given that additive feature of our ability to learn and study this, and the number of people working on it, suggest we will get there. I get what you are saying. It won't be easy by any stretch.

I don't by into the Skynet type hype. People breathlessly predicting this stuff for clicks are doing a disservice to what is actually being done.

At some point though, and I would guess within my lifespan, we will have a conscious program/machine. I think we need to start thinking well in advance of this, what the ethical implications are. Do we let it vote? If a machine truly is aware and testibly conscious, could we turn it off? What rights would such a being have? Should such a being have?

Hmm. Article is a bit puff and pop-sci. IBM's "cognitive computing" has been revealed to be a sham (at least the way it's marketed). https://www.rogerschank.com/fraudulent-claims-made-by-IBM-about-Watson-and-AI

She also referenced Markham's Human Brain project, which has been a massive failure, with Markham stepping down from the project. https://forbetterscience.com/2017/02/22/human-brain-project-bureaucratic-success-despite-scientific-failure/

I honestly don't see how this road toward a conscious machine in the next 30-50 years (guessing that's around your lifetime) is going to be paved? Again, biological and silicon substrates are drastically different, so I'm unsure how you're going to magically get a quality that is only known in biological organisms from silicone transistors, especially when we have absolutely no clue how the brain and the resulting mind even work (it's like trying to build an F35 without first discovering the Bernoulli principle, meaning we don't even have a working theory of consciousness that makes sense. And then it's trying to build that plane from Jello).

Furthermore, the more neuroscientists learn, the less they understand. It was long thought that intelligence/consciousness was simply a product of neurons, communicating with each other via electrical signals not unlike a collection of transistors. This idea persisted as computers emerged, and thus the computational theory of mind was born. Turns out it's a lot more complex than then just those 80 some billion neurons communicating with one another.

Each neuron has a tree of dendrites, and these can number from anywhere between a few to one hundred thousand per neuron. Scientists long believe they existed as kind of a "passive wiring" in the brain. Now they've discovered that dendrites actively process information. Beforehand, scientists would attempt to estimate the brain's "processing power" by equating neurons to transistors (i.e. a current i7 has about 8 billion transistors vs. 80 billion neurons in the brain). Now that they've learned dendrites aren't simply passive, the "processing power" of the brain is likely orders of magnitude more. Quote one neuroscientist: "It's like finding some piece of alien tech and discovering what you thought were just wires are actually tiny computers."

But wait, there's more. Glial cells were also once thought to be passive and merely acted as insulators for neurons. Turns out they play an active role in processing information (scientists don't really know how, yet) and communicate with neurons through releasing calcium waves. There's about 60-80 billion glial cells in the brain. So the brain's "processing power" increases again by orders of magnitude. But wait, a bit more. The concept of neuroplasticity. Your brain is constantly changing its structure by the second as you go about interacting with the world. Our proposed conscious machine will need to have some type of hardware that does similarly (i.e. the bridge between the cpu and ram constantly making a variety of different hardwired connections). We can say the software might be able to handle this dynamic process, but again, I think software being the key element to creating a conscious machine is nonsense because it assumes dualism.

We have no such semi-conductor technology that is plastic in this way (we also don't know how neuroplasticity really works, either). I mean, we can't even cure the most common of mental illnesses, which should give insight into how little we really understand the brain/mind problem. As I implied before, the hard problem of consciousness is also a significant, likely insurmountable, hurdle to creating a truly conscious machine. The brain/mind problem is totally at odds with our physicalist model of the universe, which some neurophilosophers have called "mysterianism." I'm not suggesting anything supernatural at play, just that this paradox seems unsolvable. What I'm talking about, of course, it how "meaning moves matter." Typically, an external force (whether that be energy or mass) is needed to "move" some other thing.

In matters of the mind, though, meaning, which is immaterial and without physical mass or measurable force, is what moves the "stuff" around in your brain. When someone speaks to you, it's not the physical soundwaves that are connecting with your mind, but the meaning of the words. Consciousness literally does seem to be decoupled from physical law (not in a dualist sense, but in it not being subject to hard physical laws with regard to action and reaction, in the Newtonian sense). A thought experiment. Say you invented a Laplace Computer that can track the position of every atom in the universe. Because of this, it can make 100% correct predictions about the future. If the Laplace Computer revealed to you that you're going to die in a car accident that morning, you can simply consciously will yourself to not drive anywhere that day, thereby decoupling yourself from the hard casual chain physicalism/determinism implies. We'll have to figure out how this phenomenon works before any attempt at building a conscious machine is viable. I don't think we will figure it out. It's like trying to figure out what preceded the Big Bang.

I just don't see what are essentially machine learning parlor tricks evolving into something (a conscious being) that the world's best scientists don't understand in a few decades (one prominent neuroscientist thinks it'll be centuries before we understand memory). The reason "A.I." has seemed to advance at a high rate over the past decade is not because there were new conceptual breakthroughs, but because of the Internet and social media, those algorithms now finally have large enough data sets to work with (in combination with more processing power). Hell, some companies are even going back to older "A.I." learning methods:


Deep learning isn’t the only AI technique, and companies are already exploring alternatives. Though techniques are closely guarded within the industry (just look at Waymo’s recent lawsuit against Uber), many companies have shifted to rule-based AI, an older technique that lets engineers hard-code specific behaviors or logic into an otherwise self-directed system.

That basically puts back in the 70s, conceptually speaking.


In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, the neuroscientist Kenneth Miller suggested it will take ‘centuries’ just to figure out basic neuronal connectivity.

[Chucho]

Lol. What a sorry worthless piece of shit you are.

You hate your ancestors, that’s on you. But disbelieving truth and hateful resentment of people that supposedly look like you, makes you pathetic

Seriously, you serve no purpose, kill yourself

LOL, projecting what your dead mother told you habitually. Your schtick sucks, you're a God damned retard and your narrative has hella holes. You're a racist homosexual, kill yourself.

[Spurtacular]

jesus you’re a fucking moron. No wonder you identify with chuk and all he calf tat cocksucker

You identify with a cuck and a psychopath.

[Spurs Homer]

So youre just a self loathing fuck who has spent a lifetime bitter at the chance of being born as something you despise and resent.

That explains you simple minded belief system. You’re trying to get love and approval from people that hate you.

Boom.

You should charge the alleged injun some fees for therapy! This is spot on.

He hates himself and worships the white man who is the cause of his own hate.


:lmao

[Trill Clinton]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102989269264678912?s=19

[Spurs Homer]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1102989269264678912?s=19

Idiot says he has a gun in his back pocket - then says

"i don't know if its illegal to pull it out?"

Maybe those guys should not be allowed to conceal carry?

[RandomGuy]

Someone should create a spectrum and place everyone here on it. I'd bet you'd be near the far left along the X axis and toward the "wishcasting" portion of the Y axis.

You would definitely be towards the high end of the "total dick" axis. Personally I think you don't like me, because I stand up to you. That tends to enrage bullies. Just a guess.

[RandomGuy]

I am waiting for you back up your assertion since you never make an assertion you're incapable of supporting. Anyone can just spew nonsense and abandon it when called out.

Anyone can indeed, especially if they are looking at evidence, and care about the evidence.

Sort of looked back through it, and I would have to say I am wrong. Most white racists are not Republicans.

The sheer number of independents would seem to make that almost impossible.

I was wrong.

What the evidence does show, is that, all things being equal, Republicans are more likely to hold racist views. We seem to have some consistent polling data showing that.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1103392313827454976

[Pavlov]

Moar stats without links.
https://media.giphy.com/media/d5mI2F3MxCTJu/200.gif

[Trill Clinton]

Damn, Trump can abuse power and lie his ass off every day of the week, but god forbid a woman should be mistaken about the legal definition of who's a Cherokee.

You'll never let her live it down.

Especially when people who are 1/15th Native American claim to be native to reap the benefits or for whatever other silly reason. Nobody ever bats an eye to them.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1103416523920732160

Holy shit :lol

[spurraider21]

oh look, funny picture

[rmt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=79&v=eVqLkxvGQTE

"The reason that the Supreme Court upheld the ACA is because they ruled that each of these monthly payments that everyday Americans make is a TAX. And while it may not seem like we pay that tax on April 15, we pay it every single month. Or we do pay it tax season if we don't buy these plans off the exchange. So we are paying for this system - we, Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is and we're also not talking is why aren't we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who die because they can't afford access to healthcare - that is part of the cost of our system."

1. It's not the monthly payments that Americans make that is a tax. The tax is the penalty one pays for FORGOING paying for insurance. Surely she cannot think that a paltry $695 penalty can cover insurance for an adult.

2. Most of the plans sold on the exchange are heavily subsidized by the federal government - what people are paying in premiums is not the true cost.

3. It's not like having healthcare gets rid of funeral costs since we all die. Not wishing early death or being morbid but funeral costs (traditional burial) are cheaper now than it is later on because of the scarcity of land as time goes on.

4. What's worse than Obamacare - this girl using twisted ACA info to sell her Medicare for All which would be xxx times worse than ACA and this guy and I'm sure others - swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Please note that I stopped watching the video after he proclaimed that this was the best explanation he'd every heard - better even than Bernie - so I cannot comment on the rest of his video.

It's amazing she's moaning about education when I'm sure she's a strong supporter of teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education they might need to get that good education instead of being stuck in the local school. Renewable energy that is going to save this planet - are you listening China? India? the rest of the planet sans Europe? Please stop your development and keep your pollution on your side of the world/over your countries.

[midnightpulp]

"The reason that the Supreme Court upheld the ACA is because they ruled that each of these monthly payments that everyday Americans make is a TAX. And while it may not seem like we pay that tax on April 15, we pay it every single month. Or we do pay it tax season if we don't buy these plans off the exchange. So we are paying for this system - we, Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is and we're also not talking is why aren't we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who die because they can't afford access to healthcare - that is part of the cost of our system."

1. It's not the monthly payments that Americans make that is a tax. The tax is the penalty one pays for FORGOING paying for insurance. Surely she cannot think that a paltry $695 penalty can cover insurance for an adult.

2. Most of the plans sold on the exchange are heavily subsidized by the federal government - what people are paying in premiums is not the true cost.

3. It's not like having healthcare gets rid of funeral costs since we all die. Not wishing early death or being morbid but funeral costs (traditional burial) are cheaper now than it is later on because of the scarcity of land as time goes on.

4. What's worse than Obamacare - this girl using twisted ACA info to sell her Medicare for All which would be xxx times worse than ACA and this guy and I'm sure others - swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Please note that I stopped watching the video after he proclaimed that this was the best explanation he'd every heard - better even than Bernie - so I cannot comment on the rest of his video.

It's amazing she's moaning about education when I'm sure she's a strong supporter of teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education they might need to get that good education instead of being stuck in the local school. Renewable energy that is going to save this planet - are you listening China? India? the rest of the planet sans Europe? Please stop your development and keep your pollution on your side of the world/over your countries.

:lmao Every other developed country in the world has a universal healthcare system. This alarmist nonsense isn't based in fact. Our shitty for profit system is working splendidly!

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/06/healthcare%20ranking%202.jpg

Explain in detail why Medicare for All would be XXXXX times worse?

[midnightpulp]

And Cortez is right again. We write blank checks for wars with goat herders and outdated conventional weapons programs, but republicans don't bat one eye at egregious and wasteful defense spending, because, "Dat dem thar ISIS gon' get us!"

[rmt]

IT WILL BANKRUPT US - the mother of all programs - please show me a government run program that costs anywhere near its estimates (and the Dems won't even put a number on this lest it scare people off like Vermont and Colorado). People contribute their entire working lives to Medicare, get covered after 65 and the program is running into trouble. Yet, some of you think that we can cover everyone for their entire lives for less than what's being spent now - does that make sense? It doesn't to me.

[baseline bum]

Surely she cannot think that a paltry $695 penalty can cover insurance for an adult.


Yo Wild Cobra, your retard president thinks it costs $180 a year.

[DMC]

You would definitely be towards the high end of the "total dick" axis. Personally I think you don't like me, because I stand up to you. That tends to enrage bullies. Just a guess.

I don't dislike you. How can I, since I don't even know you. I feel like your energy to change things ends at your keyboard though. People like you are a dime a dozen.

[rmt]

Yo Wild Cobra, your retard president thinks it costs $180 a year.

You think that attempt at identity doubt bothers me? Anyone who's been paying attention knows it ain't so.

[baseline bum]

You think that attempt at identity doubt bothers me? Anyone who's been paying attention knows it ain't so.

Yeah it does since you never criticize Trump's idiotic ideas faggot

[pgardn]

IT WILL BANKRUPT US - the mother of all programs - please show me a government run program that costs anywhere near its estimates (and the Dems won't even put a number on this lest it scare people off like Vermont and Colorado). People contribute their entire working lives to Medicare, get covered after 65 and the program is running into trouble. Yet, some of you think that we can cover everyone for their entire lives for less than what's being spent now - does that make sense? It doesn't to me.

Where are we headed right now?


Do you like the red team replacement system?

We are at a point where we have too many people who will feel any healthcare cost in the hundreds of dollars as catastrophic.
So now they want everything paid for. But you saved properly and they did not, so tough luck. It looks like a significant portion of people dont even have a means of saving. They cant absorb what you consider setbacks. This is what happens when wage earning in a society gets so skewed.

You and I WILL pay one way or another. We cant have masses of kids in early years getting ill. We might be producing a chronically unhealthy underclass.
And they will become dependent adults. Dependent on those who have the means.

[midnightpulp]

IT WILL BANKRUPT US - the mother of all programs - please show me a government run program that costs anywhere near its estimates (and the Dems won't even put a number on this lest it scare people off like Vermont and Colorado). People contribute their entire working lives to Medicare, get covered after 65 and the program is running into trouble. Yet, some of you think that we can cover everyone for their entire lives for less than what's being spent now - does that make sense? It doesn't to me.

Why does it work in other countries? Are they just magically smarter than us? These other countries have provided more than enough "proof of concept" that universal health care can work.

No, it will not "bankrupt us." Do you think the cited extra 3.2 trillion dollar price tag (an estimate from a :lol Libertarian think tank) is going to be just added on to existing healthcare costs? No. We already spend 1.1. trillion in tax dollars on healthcare. "Well, how are you going to find that extra 2 trillion?" For one, we could cut defense spending in half, which gives another half-trillion to work with, but what actually drives up costs is how drug companies, medical equipment companies, and hospitals arbitrarily price gouge because they know they have an open tap to do so. Government run healthcare would lead to strict price controls in these areas. Look here. After our Lord and Savior St. Ronnie took office, our healthcare spending significantly outpaced other countries:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009/07/08/business/economy/08economix.chart.2.jpg

I don't believe we need an extra 2 trillion and the money is already there. Healthcare "costs" are at an artificially high level as a result of price gouging. I'll simplify how our bullshit system works.

Let's say the US is a town with 100 people (using low numbers to make the math easier). The tax expenditure on healthcare in the town is 100 dollars (dollar per person) and the spending with private insurers is also 100 dollars (this 50 percent divide represents about what the US spends on healthcare from both the public and private sectors). The mayor wants to implement a universal health care system. People are outraged because this means taxes are going to be raised, and how can we possibly pay for it since our town's budget is only 180.00 per month! Here's where price controls come in. The reason healthcare costs 1.00 per person in this town is because pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, and hospitals are charging 100 dollars in total for goods and services that could be sold at half the cost. See this graph. (Look how much less Japan pays for goods and services (and they're a densely populated country. Other countries pay much less, as well.):

http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/10/02/US_health_spending_is_much_greater_for_all_categor ies_of_care_slideshow.jpg

Another graph showing how healthcare expenditure has far outpaced economic growth:

https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/2013_09_HealthCareCosts3.png

Some might argue these rising costs are due to our comparative unhealthy lifestyle. Disagree. The UK and Australia have similar obesity epidemics and costs are still kept reasonable.

So where does that leave us? The government taking over the healthcare industry results in half the tax expenditure toward health care, meaning this frees up that additional 50% that was being paid to cover price-gouged goods and services to put toward covering the previously uninsured. Main point: The money is already there. But since the for-profit model demands more and more profit, the money isn't primarily going toward quality and efficacy of care, but to increase profits for shareholders. Quote one pharmaceutical CEO: I raised prices by 400% because I have an obligation to my shareholders.

That sums up how our shitty system works.

[pgardn]

Why does it work in other countries?

Careful there buddy.
You gonna bring out the waiting in lines and other horror stories any country has ever had.

[midnightpulp]

Why does it work in other countries?

Careful there buddy.
You gonna bring out the waiting in lines and other horror stories any country has ever had.

And death panels!

[apalisoc_9]

Democrats love to shoot thesmelves in the foot.

Republicans will win 2020, again. Easy

[boutons_deux]

"teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education"

goddamn, you're fuckin stupid

low income kids have underfunded school, high teacher turnover, shitty neighborhoods, poor role models.

unions? fuckoff

[pgardn]

"teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education"

goddamn, you're fuckin stupid

low income kids have underfunded school, high teacher turnover, shitty neighborhoods, poor role models.

unions? fuckoff






But do you want her dead?

[FrostKing]

"teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education"

goddamn, you're fuckin stupid

low income kids have underfunded school, high teacher turnover, shitty neighborhoods, poor role models.

unions? fuckoff





Teachers are overwhelmingly in support of increased migration and many times from poor nations. Further increasing the underfunding, shitty neighborhoods and increase in job competition for role models working night jobs/2 jobs.

[SouthTexasRancher]

Losing your temper is sort of the definition of meltdown.

For all your "u r dum" rantings, you haven't actually explained anything. If I am engaging in magical thinking, that should be really really easy to show.

What is funny is that people like you, who seem to be fed a constant diet of hate and outrage, seem to think that this somehow substitutes for actual thinking. What you have done here is akin to a crazy person on the street screaming at the sky.

Dipshit, I ain't losing my temper at all. I toy with imbeciles like you. On the other hand I don't have time to waste on people like you. Instead of putting in a hard day's worth of work you spend all of your worthless time making silly posts. One thing I can agree with is not many, if any posters, like you. You seem to go out of your way to make people dislike and even to some extent, hate you. You like the socialists way of life because you think you'll get everything for free (housing, education, food, meds, etc.) but, if you would take the time to really learn about socialism and even communism, you might start wising up. Then again researching would take you away from your 24/7/365 on Spurs Talk and most likely a few gay porn sites. Bottom line is you think AOC is your savior. Fine! You and her can go down the tube together. That's fine as well. However, I will always fight against socialism. So go argue with others. You know where I stand and I know where you sit. Stay on your computer and keep making a damn fool of yourself. It just doesn't impress me.

[Will Hunting]

Dipshit, I ain't losing my temper at all. I toy with imbeciles like you. On the other hand I don't have time to waste on people like you. Instead of putting in a hard day's worth of work you spend all of your worthless time making silly posts. One thing I can agree with is not many, if any posters, like you. You seem to go out of your way to make people dislike and even to some extent, hate you. You like the socialists way of life because you think you'll get everything for free (housing, education, food, meds, etc.) but, if you would take the time to really learn about socialism and even communism, you might start wising up. Then again researching would take you away from your 24/7/365 on Spurs Talk and most likely a few gay porn sites. Bottom line is you think AOC is your savior. Fine! You and her can go down the tube together. That's fine as well. However, I will always fight against socialism. So go argue with others. You know where I stand and I know where you sit. Stay on your computer and keep making a damn fool of yourself. It just doesn't impress me.
:lol another meltdown

[midnightpulp]

Dipshit, I ain't losing my temper at all. I toy with imbeciles like you. On the other hand I don't have time to waste on people like you. Instead of putting in a hard day's worth of work you spend all of your worthless time making silly posts. One thing I can agree with is not many, if any posters, like you. You seem to go out of your way to make people dislike and even to some extent, hate you. You like the socialists way of life because you think you'll get everything for free (housing, education, food, meds, etc.) but, if you would take the time to really learn about socialism and even communism, you might start wising up. Then again researching would take you away from your 24/7/365 on Spurs Talk and most likely a few gay porn sites. Bottom line is you think AOC is your savior. Fine! You and her can go down the tube together. That's fine as well. However, I will always fight against socialism. So go argue with others. You know where I stand and I know where you sit. Stay on your computer and keep making a damn fool of yourself. It just doesn't impress me.

I'm with you, brother. I'm tired of socializing the profits of Boeing, Lockheed, Colt, and Northrop Grumman, and real tired of socializing wars with goat herders.

[SouthTexasRancher]

:lol another meltdown

Little twerp, you are not worthy of a response from me since your whole vocabulary seems to be "Meltdown". Good show dumb ass but, little dipshit assholes like you do not impress me at all. Now that you got a response from me you will get no more. If I need anything from you in the future I'll send some liberal socialist down into the Houston sewer system and get one of your turds and come fertilize your parents lawn. And for your final meltdown, Go Fuck yourself, girlie-boy.

[SouthTexasRancher]

I'm with you, brother. I'm tired of socializing the profits of Boeing, Lockheed, Colt, and Northrop Grumman, and real tired of socializing wars with goat herders.

:bobo

[Will Hunting]

Little twerp, you are not worthy of a response from me since your whole vocabulary seems to be "Meltdown". Good show dumb ass but, little dipshit assholes like you do not impress me at all. Now that you got a response from me you will get no more. If I need anything from you in the future I'll send some liberal socialist down into the Houston sewer system and get one of your turds and come fertilize your parents lawn. And for your final meltdown, Go Fuck yourself, girlie-boy.
No response warranted yet here you are with another meltdown :lol

[Nbadan]

No response warranted yet here you are with another meltdown :lol

Me thinks someone doesn't know the difference between socialism and democratic socialism.
...

[Chris]

A Republican political operative was sent to prison for 2 years in 2015 for doing precisely what AOC and her campaign manager did: directly controlling an "independent" PAC's activities to support her campaign in violation of the law banning coordination.

[Pavlov]

A Republican political operative was sent to prison for 2 years in 2015 for doing precisely what AOC and her campaign manager did: directly controlling an "independent" PAC's activities to support her campaign in violation of the law banning coordination.Which Republican?

[Chris]

Which Republican?

Look it up on your Google.

[Pavlov]

Look it up on your Google.Just link whatever tweet or page you got that from.

"Imprisoned Republican operative" gets too many hits.

[Nbadan]

No one is alleging that Ocasio-Cortez did anything wrong or that she even knew about the arrangement. The story in WaPO is not about her. It's about Saikat Chakrabarti.

https://www.followthemoney.org/entity-details?eid=44209287&default=contributor

[Nbadan]

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1103288452815167488

[Chris]

Just link whatever tweet or page you got that from.

"Imprisoned Republican operative" gets too many hits.

Sure thing faggot.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/feds-want-nearly-4-year-sentence-for-republican-operative-convicted-of-illegal-coordination/2015/06/11/7ecbdc72-0ed0-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?utm_term=.d282983ddbba

[Pavlov]

Sure thing faggot.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/feds-want-nearly-4-year-sentence-for-republican-operative-convicted-of-illegal-coordination/2015/06/11/7ecbdc72-0ed0-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?utm_term=.d282983ddbbaDoes n't actually look the same tbh.

I'd ask you to explain but you'd just shit yourself.

[Chris]

Doesn't actually look the same tbh.

I'd ask you to explain but you'd just shit yourself.

Just a big nothingburger, no explanations needed.

[Pavlov]

Just a big nothingburger, no explanations needed.That is exactly what it looks like. It's cute that you're getting all excited about it tho.:lol

[ElNono]

Why does it work in other countries? Are they just magically smarter than us? These other countries have provided more than enough "proof of concept" that universal health care can work.

No, it will not "bankrupt us." Do you think the cited extra 3.2 trillion dollar price tag (an estimate from a :lol Libertarian think tank) is going to be just added on to existing healthcare costs? No. We already spend 1.1. trillion in tax dollars on healthcare. "Well, how are you going to find that extra 2 trillion?" For one, we could cut defense spending in half, which gives another half-trillion to work with, but what actually drives up costs is how drug companies, medical equipment companies, and hospitals arbitrarily price gouge because they know they have an open tap to do so. Government run healthcare would lead to strict price controls in these areas. Look here. After our Lord and Savior St. Ronnie took office, our healthcare spending significantly outpaced other countries:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2009/07/08/business/economy/08economix.chart.2.jpg

I don't believe we need an extra 2 trillion and the money is already there. Healthcare "costs" are at an artificially high level as a result of price gouging. I'll simplify how our bullshit system works.

Let's say the US is a town with 100 people (using low numbers to make the math easier). The tax expenditure on healthcare in the town is 100 dollars (dollar per person) and the spending with private insurers is also 100 dollars (this 50 percent divide represents about what the US spends on healthcare from both the public and private sectors). The mayor wants to implement a universal health care system. People are outraged because this means taxes are going to be raised, and how can we possibly pay for it since our town's budget is only 180.00 per month! Here's where price controls come in. The reason healthcare costs 1.00 per person in this town is because pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies, and hospitals are charging 100 dollars in total for goods and services that could be sold at half the cost. See this graph. (Look how much less Japan pays for goods and services (and they're a densely populated country. Other countries pay much less, as well.):

http://www-tc.pbs.org/prod-media/newshour/photos/2012/10/02/US_health_spending_is_much_greater_for_all_categor ies_of_care_slideshow.jpg

Another graph showing how healthcare expenditure has far outpaced economic growth:

https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/2013_09_HealthCareCosts3.png

Some might argue these rising costs are due to our comparative unhealthy lifestyle. Disagree. The UK and Australia have similar obesity epidemics and costs are still kept reasonable.

So where does that leave us? The government taking over the healthcare industry results in half the tax expenditure toward health care, meaning this frees up that additional 50% that was being paid to cover price-gouged goods and services to put toward covering the previously uninsured. Main point: The money is already there. But since the for-profit model demands more and more profit, the money isn't primarily going toward quality and efficacy of care, but to increase profits for shareholders. Quote one pharmaceutical CEO: I raised prices by 400% because I have an obligation to my shareholders.

That sums up how our shitty system works.

well, well now... don't be bringing up facts here...

[ElNono]

Dipshit, I ain't losing my temper at all. I toy with imbeciles like you. On the other hand I don't have time to waste on people like you. Instead of putting in a hard day's worth of work you spend all of your worthless time making silly posts. One thing I can agree with is not many, if any posters, like you. You seem to go out of your way to make people dislike and even to some extent, hate you. You like the socialists way of life because you think you'll get everything for free (housing, education, food, meds, etc.) but, if you would take the time to really learn about socialism and even communism, you might start wising up. Then again researching would take you away from your 24/7/365 on Spurs Talk and most likely a few gay porn sites. Bottom line is you think AOC is your savior. Fine! You and her can go down the tube together. That's fine as well. However, I will always fight against socialism. So go argue with others. You know where I stand and I know where you sit. Stay on your computer and keep making a damn fool of yourself. It just doesn't impress me.

Aaron-Jew-holding-bag-goods

[midnightpulp]

well, well now... don't be bringing up facts here...

:lol 1500.00 for "carbon fiber" walkers. This kind of shit is where the money is going. You cut out the price gouging, the per capita tax expenditure falls dramatically and thus frees up a significant amount of money to put towards Medicare for All.

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2014/02/high-cost-free-unnecessary-medical-equipment.html

[RandomGuy]

"The reason that the Supreme Court upheld the ACA is because they ruled that each of these monthly payments that everyday Americans make is a TAX. And while it may not seem like we pay that tax on April 15, we pay it every single month. Or we do pay it tax season if we don't buy these plans off the exchange. So we are paying for this system - we, Americans have the sticker shock of healthcare as it is and we're also not talking is why aren't we incorporating the cost of all the funeral expenses of those who die because they can't afford access to healthcare - that is part of the cost of our system."

1. It's not the monthly payments that Americans make that is a tax. The tax is the penalty one pays for FORGOING paying for insurance. Surely she cannot think that a paltry $695 penalty can cover insurance for an adult.

2. Most of the plans sold on the exchange are heavily subsidized by the federal government - what people are paying in premiums is not the true cost.

3. It's not like having healthcare gets rid of funeral costs since we all die. Not wishing early death or being morbid but funeral costs (traditional burial) are cheaper now than it is later on because of the scarcity of land as time goes on.

4. What's worse than Obamacare - this girl using twisted ACA info to sell her Medicare for All which would be xxx times worse than ACA and this guy and I'm sure others - swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Please note that I stopped watching the video after he proclaimed that this was the best explanation he'd every heard - better even than Bernie - so I cannot comment on the rest of his video.

It's amazing she's moaning about education when I'm sure she's a strong supporter of teachers' unions which imo are what's stopping low income kids from getting the CHOICE in education they might need to get that good education instead of being stuck in the local school. Renewable energy that is going to save this planet - are you listening China? India? the rest of the planet sans Europe? Please stop your development and keep your pollution on your side of the world/over your countries.

Sorry.

"it doesn't work" is stupid, because it does work in EVERY other advanced country.

Pop quiz:

How do we ration health care in this country?

[RandomGuy]

For all your "u r dum" rantings, you haven't actually explained anything. If I am engaging in magical thinking, that should be really really easy to show.


Dipshit, I ain't losing my temper at all. I toy with imbeciles like you. On the other hand I don't have time to waste on people like you. Instead of putting in a hard day's worth of work you spend all of your worthless time making silly posts. One thing I can agree with is not many, if any posters, like you. You seem to go out of your way to make people dislike and even to some extent, hate you. You like the socialists way of life because you think you'll get everything for free (housing, education, food, meds, etc.) but, if you would take the time to really learn about socialism and even communism, you might start wising up. Then again researching would take you away from your 24/7/365 on Spurs Talk and most likely a few gay porn sites. Bottom line is you think AOC is your savior. Fine! You and her can go down the tube together. That's fine as well. However, I will always fight against socialism. So go argue with others. You know where I stand and I know where you sit. Stay on your computer and keep making a damn fool of yourself. It just doesn't impress me.

So your response to me saying "you can't really explain why" is another "u r dumb" rant. :lmao

Pop quiz: how is health care rationed in the US?

[KenMcCoy]

Pop quiz: how is health care rationed in the US?

Let's see what HuffPo article RG read today :)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-geyman/does-the-u-s-ration-healt_b_11296230.html

[RandomGuy]

Let's see what HuffPo article RG read today :)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-geyman/does-the-u-s-ration-healt_b_11296230.html


That is how we ration health care in this country. Ability to pay.

Been saying this for about a decade, probably a bit longer.

new, old, either way, it is still as true today as it was then.

[KenMcCoy]

Been saying this for about a decade, probably a bit longer.

new, old, either way, it is still as true today as it was then.

Agreed. But I don't think rationing healthcare is a bad thing (whether through private insurance or gov't). Way too many unnecessary tests and procedures are performed today.

[RandomGuy]

Agreed. But I don't think rationing healthcare is a bad thing (whether through private insurance or gov't). Way too many unnecessary tests and procedures are performed today.

Yes. Service per fee means that incentives are to err on the side of more. We would do well to pay doctors straight salaries.

[SpursforSix]

Yes. Service per fee means that incentives are to err on the side of more. We would do well to pay doctors straight salaries.

and what the fuck with vets now??? Took my 16 year old dog in for shots and they recommended a liver/kidney panel. Tried to make me feel bad that she'd never had one.

[KenMcCoy]

Yes. Service per fee means that incentives are to err on the side of more. We would do well to pay doctors straight salaries.

You also have to get rid of/limit malpractice. A lot of doctors run additional, mostly unnecessary, tests for fear of malpractice suits.

[KenMcCoy]

and what the fuck with vets now??? Took my 16 year old dog in for shots and they recommended a liver/kidney panel. Tried to make me feel bad that she'd never had one.

16 years...I'd say that dog already won the lottery.

[SpursforSix]

16 years...I'd say that dog already won the lottery.

she lived almost 2 more after that. I mean...what was I supposed to do if the panel came back positive for something? Put her on the transplant list?

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1103767101909561344

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1103767101909561344Are you outraged?

[Spurminator]

Slow news day in AOC Hysterialand, I guess.

Props to Chris for continuing his voluntary government work anyway, despite the lack of compelling material.

[RandomGuy]

You also have to get rid of/limit malpractice. A lot of doctors run additional, mostly unnecessary, tests for fear of malpractice suits.

Were that true, then the states wherein such limits were placed would have seen lower costs, such as Texas. That hasn't happened anywhere it has been tried, strongly suggesting that the effect is not material.

I can also say that doing such thing would tend to let dangerous quacks keep practicing.

Part of my stint as an auditor was of a medical malpractice insurer, and part of that work was reading the case files for claims. Some of what I read still makes me shudder. I will spare you the graphic details.

Limit doctor liability at your own risk, quite literally.

[RandomGuy]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1103767101909561344

Hail Satan. He is pleased with your work, little demon.

[Chris]

Hail Satan. He is pleased with your work, little demon.

Say that one more time and I will add you to the ignore list with boots and Nono.

[Pavlov]

Say that one more time and I will add you to the ignore list with boots and Nono.https://68.media.tumblr.com/fd4a88d6c5e21cd697dde13e4f4d6277/tumblr_oof6k3HqoO1ukan8ko4_500.gif

[Chris]

Alright Pavlov wants on the list. Who's next?

[Pavlov]

Alright Pavlov wants on the list. Who's next?Are you outraged?

Surrendering in the face of Satan memes seems counterintuitive tbh.

[Nathan89]

yikes


https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1101223632360083456

https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1103725887801966592?s=20

:lmao

[Pavlov]

https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1103725887801966592?s=20

:lmaoThere's more than one and they're probably allowed to speak.

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1103725887801966592?s=20

:lmao

:lol

[Chris]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1103777626617872384