Lurker > snake1989

Languages for sure. Especially since the randomness is weighted toward the most widely used languages, at least 3-4 of them would probably be immensely useful and could lead to some interesting careers.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Unquestionable C, and I don't even like Aerosmith that much. Dude is great.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

It doesn't look terrible, but I still don't see any reason for me to watch it. I must have watched the original hundreds of times as a kid, and it's one of the best movies of all time. Is this basically just a CGI remake with a duller color pallet and a cast of generic current celebrities?
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Naoto, but I am completely biased. Rise is a lot of people's favorite, and if you haven't chosen her before it's a pretty good route from what I remember.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Topic title/headline are a lie, unless I missed something. There is no evidence, at best there is new testimony which doesn't even match the original testimony, per the line at the end of the article, which should raise some flags. And even at that, it is the testimony of only one side in this case raised after the fact and with no proof. That isn't evidence, that's allegation. Further, per the article's AP source, only 6 of the 41 survivors are making this allegation.

I condemn the actions of the ship/captain if true, but this source seems biased AF and I don't think we're getting the full story.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

It would remove the temptation for me to get a PS4 Pro, so sure, I'd be in favor of it.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Depends on how you define a socialist program. A well-funded government program isn't necessarily socialist imo. Socialist in the true sense would mean programs that specifically attempt to seize private property or wealth for the sake of collectivizing or redistributing it, and I think that is self-evidently going to be oppressive. Even the best arguments in favor of true socialism typically can't get around that inherent oppression, the most they can do is argue that the victims deserve it or the beneficiaries need it to survive.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Anteaterking posted...

I don't consider regulation to be takeover, but these regulations in question are all based on questions of the general citizen. I don't see similar laws enforcing requirements on private companies based on the regulations of public officials. It is perfectly legal and constitutional for Gamefaqs to block communications between private citizen users and for those same private citizen users to block communications to others. Gamefaqs obligations shouldn't change because a public official chooses to use it. Only that public officials' use should be restricted.

I agree with you that similar laws don't exist in terms of regulating private companies, but the problem I see is that Twitter being a public forum is brand new territory. I don't think we can fully lean on established law in these cases, since there's never before been a privately owned space that was considered a public forum as well. The question now is which takes precedence when the two come into conflict, which is why I tried to think of examples of citizen interest winning out over private interest.

Perhaps one solution is allowing banned accounts to still tweet at politicians and be seen on their page, since that would allow them the right to engage with their representatives while still allowing Twitter to regulate content elsewhere on their site. This also has me thinking - can Trump freely block non-US citizens, since he isn't their representative and they aren't protected under the constitution? I couldn't tell from the ruling.

Anteaterking posted...

I just think it's a stretch to go from "Government officials can't block because they're public officials" to "Twitter shouldn't be able to ban people for violating the ToS". And I do think that elevating Twitter to "They can't ban anyone because ALL of Twitter is a public forum" would involve the govt publicly taking over Twitter.

Hmm, I honestly don't think ToS violations are as much the issue, at least from my perspective. I don't think Twitter has to allow people to say whatever they want, including abuse and obscenity. When it comes to political opinions, though, there's a difficult line to be drawn since many people are offended by different opinions. I think it's better to err on the side of free speech if we're going to establish court precedent that Twitter is a public channel. I'm also wary of granting these corporations the right to block people from their site and remove them from the public dialogue, because I think eventually you'd find a President who's willing to buy them off (either with direct money or favorable legislation) in favor for having them censor detractors that he isn't able to legally censor himself. Hell, they might even do it for free if they like him and his policies enough. I'd rather that not be possible at all.

I didn't mean to post so much in response, but you've given me a lot to think about. This has been a good discussion.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Anteaterking posted...

I'm saying that none of your examples have to do with protecting speech. It's protecting those actions, which yes, can only be facilitated through speech, but in a world where we didn't have any inherent protections of free speech those laws would still hold. It would be just as silly to say that anything to do with contract law is about protecting free speech.

If we're thinking in terms of actions, in this case it would be protecting the action of communicating with elected representatives as well as other citizens on the page itself, which can also only be facilitated through free speech.

Anteaterking posted...

The ruling in question makes no claims about how essential these channels are in their decision, and they even state that the damages in question are minimal, but that previous court cases have established that even minimal damages with regards to first amendment are enough to grant jurisdiction for injunction.

Per the article the judge agreed with the Knight Institute. Alongside the organization that authored this article, they argued the following, emphasis mine:

"In a brief filed in round one, we argued governmental use of social media platforms to communicate to and with the publicand allow the public to communication with each otheris now the rule of democratic engagement, not the exception. As a result, First Amendment rights of both access to those accounts and the ability to speak in them must apply in full force."

I feel that a judge agreeing that social media is "Now the rule of democratic engagement" marks it as fairly essential. And to build on what I said above, this is a big part of why I think that it is necessary to protect speech on social media as a byproduct of the need to protect the action of engaging in democracy, in accordance with the judge's ruling.

Anteaterking posted...

I think that government intervention would be appropriate in this case mainly because of telecommunication/infrastructure laws, not because of public forum considerations. If an email client refused to deliver emails to .gov addresses, I would not consider government intervention to be warranted.

That's a fair point of disagreement. I concede that legality is the primary reason for that, but I think it should apply to telecoms for reasons of principle outside the law. But unlike telecoms Twitter has now been ruled a public forum, at least it is some of the time. I think as a point of principle Twitter should be publicly examined in terms of how it selects trending hashtags, the process by which users are banned and shadowbanned, and address the use of blockbots/blocklists by users on its platform. I'm sure there's congresspeople out there using such tools, and that's something Twitter should crack down on as well.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Anteaterking posted...

So the way it should work is that any private organization that the president chooses to use is then taken over by the government?

No, but any private organization that runs an essential channel of communication with our elected representatives should keep that channel free of undue interference. And as this court ruling determined, Twitter is becoming the primary means most people have of accessing their representatives. Likewise, if it came out that telephone companies were blocking citizens' phone calls to representatives, I would think that it is completely appropriate to demand that they cease that action, and petition the government to intervene if they don't. That doesn't require the government to step in and take over, at least no more so than they already do with regulations on food safety, allowing employees lunch breaks, truth in advertising, etc. Unless you consider all regulation a takeover?

And in response to others quoting this exchange, I am not saying we should hold twitter to the same standard we hold our elected officials. The standard our government is held to is the first amendment. The standard corporations are held to is not based in the constitution, but we still regulate businesses to provide to their customers many of the protections guaranteed therein (being free of discrimination, for example). This is a socially derived standard that is more flexible, but my opinion is that if Twitter wants to benefit from being an official channel of public communication, that also requires action and responsibility on their part. Otherwise, people (including the government representatives) will eventually realize that there are better options for speaking to their constituents, and Twitter could find itself abandoned by them. For its own self interest and public interest, rather than a constitutional obligation, it should be kept free and open if it wishes to be that sort of platform.

Anteaterking posted...

The NLRA is not about "free speech". It doesn't appeal to the First Amendment at all, but rather to the commerce clause.

I never mentioned the first amendment, and my entire point was that the government already intervenes in private industry in ways that ensure free speech is protected even when the issue is outside of the first-amendment protections. Various legal protections for whistleblowers are another example of the same principle.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

I don't think Trump should be able to block people. Now make Twitter and Facebook follow the same rules. If we take the analogy that social media is the new town hall for communicating directly with those in power, which this ruling does, then Twitter and Facebook are acting like thugs at the front door, restricting people's right to access their representatives in the first place.

We already have laws in place that prevent private companies from restricting free speech (such as laws protecting the right to organize unions or reveal your salary to coworkers), so we have precedence for the government needing to regulate businesses in order to protect free expression and communciation. Let's apply that here as well.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Malcrasternus posted...

snake1989 posted...

Wow people really turned on this game lol.

I'd say it depends why you stopped playing in the first place. It has all the typical flaws of a Bethesda game, but to my taste is still their most "complete" package, especially with mods, and Dragonborn is a lot of fun if you haven't played it before.

I'm biased for sure though, I play through it about once per year, once it gets nice and wintery outside.

See that's the damndest thing. I can't remember, lol. I think it was a mixture of fatigue from life and newer games that caught my attention better that put Skyrim on hiatus. From memory the combat was bearable, or at least I never said "Well f*** this then" at any point during a fight. Plus I never got a chance to check out the mods, so there's that to consider.

If I could recommend one mod, Ordinator is a truly great revision of the base perk trees. It doesn't directly improve the combat, but notably improves build variety and has some very cool new abilities, and made it a lot more fun for me to experiment with different playstyles.

But either way, enjoy the game if you decide to play it again! There's nothing else quite like it.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Darklit_Minuet posted...

snake1989 posted...

Well, they have to remove people from the rolls eventually to account for people who die/move away

...why?

People who die won't vote, why even bother removing them?

There's no reason to ever remove people other than voter disenfranchisement

There's plenty of reasons. All that voter info has to be stored somewhere, and plenty of information and material is mailed to voters regularly. The bloat and cost from all that information, physical or digital, would get ridiculous to manage after a few generations with no pruning, especially given how often people move around these days.

And they'd still be mailing voting pamphlets or even ballots to thousands of dead/out of state people every year, which would also waste a ton of resources in terms of time and materials. Plus, I live in a state with mail-in ballots, and if they never purged the registry, someone could be voting under my name 100 years after I die if they move into my old house. Hell, in 1000 years whoever lives there might be receiving dozens of ballots each election for each prior tenant.

I could probably think of more, but that's just a few non-suppression reasons off the top of my head.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Wow people really turned on this game lol.

I'd say it depends why you stopped playing in the first place. It has all the typical flaws of a Bethesda game, but to my taste is still their most "complete" package, especially with mods, and Dragonborn is a lot of fun if you haven't played it before.

I'm biased for sure though, I play through it about once per year, once it gets nice and wintery outside.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Can't comment fully on the specific studies mentioned in the OP since I have not read them, but from my experience working in research I think it's important to add that part of the problem is that "nothing/negative" results are incredibly hard to get published. They're also harder to levy for securing funding for future research.

A lot of the money and attention goes to studies that can say "we expected to find X, and we did!" rather than those who were proven wrong, and so lots of negative results that are still scientifically valid and interesting go unpublished or unread because there's little financial or professional incentive in it. Even without any sort of ideological push, that can severely limit how well we actually understand the world via research.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Darklit_Minuet posted...

snake1989 posted...

That seems pretty reasonable to me, but maybe there's something I'm missing.

The fact that they're removed at all is unreasonable

Well, they have to remove people from the rolls eventually to account for people who die/move away. I feel like 3 elections over 7 years is a pretty generous time frame, but do you think more is necessary?
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

So if I'm understanding this correctly, first someone has to not vote, reply, or make contact for 3 years, then they aren't even removed until two additional federal elections have passed. According to the APM report Georgia is counting 2-year federal elections. So say someone voted in 2012, but skipped 2014. They would enter the process for removal in 2015, but still be able to vote in 2016, and then 2018, before they would finally be removed if they hadn't voted in any of those three. So it takes missing 3 elections over 7 years and also not replying to any notices or contacting them yourself. Anyone that got purged in 2017 when this occurred hadn't voted since 2010 and couldn't be contacted for 7 years. That seems pretty reasonable to me, but maybe there's something I'm missing.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Forlorn_Ass posted...

SauI_Goodman posted...

Nah, once a cheater always a cheater is a true adage.

Never forget this

Yup. No one ever cheats just once. Even if it's the first time they ever have, they will do it again.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

It is hypocritical in two ways, both what DarkTransient mentioned as well as the fact that "sacrificing everything" doesn't really match with the reality that the entire kneeling controversy and the Nike contract is the best thing to happen to Kaepernick in his entire sports career.

I don't really mind him standing up about the issue though, I find it weirder when people idolize the man himself tbh. It's possible for a flawed messenger to still communicate a valid message, and I think this case is a good example of that.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Don't feel bad, think of it like you gave free pizza to the staff (at least if it's like most places)

Though maybe you could call and ask them to change it to delivery? Never tried that but it seems plausible.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Homeless guy walking around at the hospital. Hallway he was walking down reeked of sour milk and piss for several full minutes after he walked by.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Robot Alchemic Drive

I used to play that game all the time. I'd love a PSN re-release. Still have never played a mecha game that captured the scale and feel quite like that one.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

It's alright. The art direction and designs are great, but the characters feel sort of half-baked and the main trio feel like a less likeable fry/leela/bender.

I also feel like they often rush to tell a joke as fast as possible every scene, which means they often lack setup or feel forced. Things did pick up a lot in the last couple episodes though.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45312217

TC confirmed nostradamus

Didn't love McCain but R.I.P.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

nemu posted...

I hate when they apologize. Don't do that. It's not offensive at all.

This. It's like saying "Fake news" to make fun of Trump fans. Nobody reserves the right to not have silly things they say become a meme, and certainly isn't any sort of phobia.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

If their reason has to do with things Jon said during the destiny debate, I disagree with them. While Jon said things he shouldn't have, he acknowledged that and walked back several of his statements.

Whether someone likes Jon or not, he was willing to put his views out there and stand up to an actual live debate, and sometimes that ends up with someone having egg on their face or saying something in the moment that they later regret. It doesnt feel right to me when anybody who has never taken that risk in their life decides to hold it against someone who did, especially when it's completely unrelated to a hypothetical episode of youtube comedy.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

ssjevot posted...

Government service/expenditures/taxes/redistribution etc. has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism is about who controls the means of production (the workers in socialism). Welfare-state capitalism, sometimes called social democracy, is designed to prevent the claimed needs for socialism. Those European countries people call socialist are all massively capitalist, but people's understanding of political ideologies in America is awful.

This pretty much.

I'd also add that socialist justifications for expansion of government power/increased spending generally revolve around the idea that those can be used to help create a more perfect society. Whereas military spending is generally justified based on security/power vs foreign threats, and so doesn't typically focus on the internal progress of a country. A big part of socialism is the philosophy behind it imo, and part of why I think people feel differently about different forms of government spending.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

I like salsa without guac, but find guac without salsa nearby a little lacking. Had to vote salsa.

Hummus is better than both though imo
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

COVxy posted...

snake1989 posted...

Given that IQ is strongly correlated with lifetime success, I believe it is definitely measuring something very important, though.

Important to note that if you remove the influence of SES and education, the predictive validity of IQ drops pretty darn low.

While true, the challenge I see with this is untangling parental IQ, which does seem to be heritable, from the fact that parental IQ can also be correlated with the SES and educational opportunities the child will have.

It seems to me that the benefits of IQ can be passed on to children in two ways, both genetically and environmentally, but that already having it genetically increases the likelihood of simultaneously receiving it environmentally, whereas the opposite may not be true.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

There are absolutely differences in average IQ when comparing across racial lines. Enough studies have been done that I feel comfortable with the idea that this is the case.

However, I'm not sure what TC means by "natural". Even if it could be determined that specific genes are causing the disparate IQ scores among races, there is no way to determine what the "natural" state of any group is, since there is always some degree of cultural/environmental feedback that could be in play as well. And that's true of both individuals and their wider cultural systems.

Then you get into the issue of whether IQ actually measures intelligence, since intelligence itself isn't easy to define. Given that IQ is strongly correlated with lifetime success, I believe it is definitely measuring something very important, though.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Dash_Harber posted...

It's sort of blah looking back. That was the heyday of morality systems, and it was before we realized that it was literally just "choice A, where you continue the story like a normal human being" or "choice B, where you randomly become a self serving sociopath who likes to punt babies just for fun".

I'd be inclined to agree in most cases, but in a game where you can become a fullblown evil empire sith lord, that actually fits perfectly imo.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Good. He's entitled to march there if he wants to, but I want people like this as far from the military as possible.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Chilled grapes are my go to. Only around 60 calories per cup, and they're sweet, crisp, and refreshing. You can eat an entire bag of grapes and not feel bad.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

lmao I thought the original set of tweets was bad, but the sheer volume of tweets she made like this is a bit mind boggling. This person has to have some deep-seated mental issues.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

darkphoenix181 posted...

@snake1989 posted...

I'd be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was "counter-trolling"

Why?

What had she done to earn benefit of the doubt?

Is "counter-trolling" by saying such things even a thing? I don't think it is.
So...

I took it to mean that she got angry and decided to bite back. In that sense, it absolutely does happen. Again, I could forgive that happening once. But since it was a pattern of behavior, I don't buy her excuse.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

I'd be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was "counter-trolling" if she had done so for just a bit before finding it unproductive as she claims, but given that the tweets spans from 2013-2015 makes me doubtful that was the whole story.

Plus, her defense of the UVA rape hoax doesn't give a strong impression of her journalistic credibility. The NYT has the right to defend her and she had the right to say what she wanted to say, but I think that they made a poor choice with this hire given the current climate.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

I loved the atmosphere and I find it very nostalgic, but it definitely hasn't aged great. I'll always have a soft spot for it though.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

I completely forgot this was happening. Awesome.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Absolutely deplorable, even if I understand why they feel it is justifiable. SA is going to have a rough future ahead of itself.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

hollow_shrine posted...

...over the past year.

https://www.propublica.org/article/worker-charged-with-sexually-molesting-eight-children-at-immigrant-shelter/

The case, initially investigated by local police, is now proceeding through U.S. District Court in Phoenix. Pacheco had worked at Southwest Keys Casa Kokopelli shelter, one of eight the company runs in Arizona, since May 2016.

Casa Kokopelli was cited by the Arizona Department of Health Services in 2017 for failing to complete background checks, including fingerprinting, to ensure that employees hadnt previously committed sex offenses and other crimes, records show. Pacheco worked for nearly four months without a complete background check, according to documents and an agency official. Those records did not show any previous arrests or convictions for sex offenses, they said.

I'd like to believe this wouldn't be possible if we viewed these immigrants as people and treated them the way we treat ourselves.

As awful as this person is for abusing these kids, given that Catholic priests molested children from their very own communities I don't think anti-immigrant sentiment is the most likely factor in cases of abuse like this. It seems to be more an issue that comes with giving people authority over children without additional supervision.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan

Good move by him imo. Despite what some on the right say, I still think Obama was definitely not a socialist, he was a liberal with a tendency toward growing government. He doesn't have to endorse Cortez if he disagrees with her, and I think anyone liberal would have to disagree with her on the basic principles of how she proposes solving problems.

That's not to say her ideas have no merit or she deserves no support, but her ideas and her supporters are both staunchly opposed to the current and historical liberal system, so it wouldn't make sense for such a huge figure of that system to endorse her, and it would kinda look like him selling out his own principals if he had.
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"A man chooses. A slave obeys."-Andrew Ryan