SedanChair posted:

If you look at what Western powers have done to the Middle East since the Prizes were instituted and still manage to blurt out "guh why aren't there more Muslim prize winners? Must be their backwards religion!" then you are definitely ignorant and a bigot if only through that ignorance.

I will definitely pick cherries when the cherry is a pure trope of anti-Arabism.

Chantilly Say posted:

But he's a Westerner criticizing a society for not advancing to Western standards when the West has done quite a lot to stir poo poo in the Middle East and make advancement harder. Like, just for one example it's literally Israeli policy to kill top Iranian scientists.

Dr. Faustus posted:

So you are saying the suppression of modern thought and the pursuit of secular activities and scientific research, the denial of education, and all the results of the crackdown on these pursuits had no impact on the Western powers, as you put them, "doing" what they have "done?"

SedanChair posted:

Tighten this up a bit, I can't parse it. Unless you're saying "if only those Muslims hadn't been so backwards, maybe the West wouldn't have had to come in like regretful police and institute imperialism." That seems a little out there, so I'll assume I'm reading it wrong.

Dr. Faustus posted:

I am just wondering if you could just waltz in and institute imperialism on the same culture if it hadn't stagnated and splintered and turned its back on its achievements (rather than furthering them) 400 years before the first settlements in the new world?

E for further clarification: with a head-start like that, couldn't things have gone completely the other way?

Darkman Fanpage posted:

So Charles Cooke is an idiot that doesn't understand nerd things.

Smarter than Thou
Neil deGrasse Tyson and America’s nerd problem

So I guess this makes Objectivist computer programmers not nerds?

PostNouveau posted:

The dumbest man in media is now selling financial advice! So be sure to scoop up all those penny stocks.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/30/catastrophically-wrong-forecaster-dick-morris-i/200264

Mecca-Benghazi posted:

You seem to be assuming history is linear and there's a clear arc to it all. Head start to what?

Dr. Faustus posted:

I'm gonna have to apologize and just say I have explained my current thinking on this as best I can. I'm trying to say that if you rewind the clock and imagine a world where Islam's amazing and astonishing progress in science wasn't abruptly halted by religious zealots (much like our religious zealots are doing here in the USA or would/will do given more influence), I can easily imagine a world where the sciences begun by those amazing thinkers from 800-1100 would progress on an upward trajectory to where they have dominance, today, and they're the ones giving out the prizes!

Sir Tonk posted:

Would it be possible to not get into a multi-page derail on Neil DeGrasse Tyson, of all people, in the right wing media thread?

Miltank posted:

So is the debate over whether or not religious leaders hosed up science, or whether that negatively effected the Islamic world or what?

FuzzySkinner posted:

Diversity kicks rear end.

I like the fact that the US gets introduced to new food, ideas, and traditions being brought over by immigrants.

Anybody who doesn't want that is a dickbag.

computer parts posted:

The Islamic Golden Age was mostly halted by the Mongols sacking everything (or the Reconquista, take your pick).

It was further held down though because Europeans discovered an alternate route to Asia and historically Muslim countries made their living by taxing people who went through their provinces.

Spacedad posted:

Oh no. Please protect my pork rinds from the immigrant menace.

Centripetal Horse posted:

I was recently told the George W Bush prevented World War 3 by driving up the price of tortillas. Is this a thing?

Darkman Fanpage posted:

So Charles Cooke is an idiot that doesn't understand nerd things.

Smarter than Thou
Neil deGrasse Tyson and America’s nerd problem

So I guess this makes Objectivist computer programmers not nerds?

quote:

driven by principle rather than the pivot tables of Microsoft Excel

Centripetal Horse posted:

I was recently told the George W Bush prevented World War 3 by driving up the price of tortillas. Is this a thing?

rkajdi posted:

The closest thing I've heard to that is the whole increase in global food prices was a big root cause of the Arab Spring. Food instability causes political instability in general, so I'd doubt anyone who says that driving up the price of staples helps prevent war.

Anosmoman posted:

Might be.

Mecca-Benghazi posted:

What if I loved Nova ScienceNOW as a kid, think NDT is a swell dude overall with a funny twitter, and still think his opinions about Islam and science are kinda dumb? Am I allowed to have this opinion?

Tatum Girlparts posted:

People legit can't grasp the idea that a man who's smart about some things can be stupid about other things. Like, they look at it like a box to check "Smart guy, Yes or No" and that's it. NDT is a smart guy in his field and seems to be a genuinely nice and funny dude in his personal life, but he's kinda dumb as poo poo about history as shown in a few lovely revisionist things in Cosmos (Bruno was executed for his science views, apparently, and those silly Chinamen burning their books centuries ago literally destroyed science there, weird!). Like, at best he was ignorant about those things and at worst he purposely lied to appeal to a certain kind of 'I loving love science' fan and push an agenda, and that's shady as poo poo. Regardless, one of those statements doesn't make the other not true.

rkajdi posted:

The closest thing I've heard to that is the whole increase in global food prices was a big root cause of the Arab Spring. Food instability causes political instability in general, so I'd doubt anyone who says that driving up the price of staples helps prevent war.

Centripetal Horse posted:

Nyarlothotep posted:

Plus there seems to be a tendency with people from the exact sciences who think the humanities are easy and then go on to embarrass themselves with laughably simplistic analyses of history/literature.

Spacedad posted:

Also - When you find out the kind of culture white supremacists are presumably trying to protect, it's all just a bunch of boring fake cowboy hillbilly stuff.

Oh no. Please protect my pork rinds from the immigrant menace.

Centripetal Horse posted:

It's been a couple of weeks, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but it went something like this: the massive ethanol subsidies of a few years back were not intended to encourage development of a bullshit go-nowhere alternative fuel. Rather, they were intended to get everyone growing corn, and then turning that corn into something that is not food in order to drive up global tortilla prices. This led to some kind of tortilla madness, which had people rioting in the streets in tortilla-dependent nations. I think maybe this all had something to do with those nations not wanting to trade oil in US dollars, anymore. Apparently, we flexed our bread-basket muscle and brought everyone back in line.

Beowulfs_Ghost posted:

And G W Bush didn't plan any of that any more than he planned gasoline to cross $4/gal, the real estate market to collapse, banks to fail, etc.

quote:

I feel ashamed, too. Of you. I feel ashamed you would feel more compassion for folks who shouldn’t be here than the folks paying the bills who already are here. I feel ashamed you somehow feel we aren’t doing enough. I feel ashamed you think that processing them and feeding them and clothing them and for likely years now looking after them is not enough.

I feel ashamed you think enrolling them in schools here at great expense to towns that can’t afford it here, isn’t doing enough here. I feel ashamed you have it in your heart to suddenly care for all of these illegals who just show up here, but apparently not in your head to explore how the heck they got here. I feel ashamed you seem to have now just discovered there even is a border, let alone what’s happening at that border.

I feel ashamed you somehow think illegals live in the shadows here, yet mention nothing about the illegals who showed up in broad daylight to protest outside the White House for rights they shouldn’t even have here. I feel ashamed, Congresswoman, you’re perfectly fine granting 1.4 million illegals with licenses in your state next year and cannot fathom how that is driving many legal Californians nuts in your state.

I feel ashamed that you would somehow imply it’s racist to say stop, when it’s more reckless to say nothing.

And I feel ashamed that you would condone allowing illegals to cut in line and prefer taxpayers here to shut up and cut a check. I feel ashamed that you would forget that and forget us.

I feel ashamed that you would find us all so embarrassing when it’s our money, our schools, our towns, our municipalities and our increasingly meager resources behind all this processing and all this providing and all this paying.

I feel ashamed that we apparently shame you. But you know something, Congresswoman? I feel far more ashamed for the fools who voted for you.

Mehuyael posted:

But all these things are Obama's fault???

FuzzySkinner posted:

"Cowboys" were originally blacks, hispanics and poor whites too.

They can't even lay claim to that.

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

What's that somewhat reasonable globalism is imperialism sign doing there? Or are they just stupid and not realize they're condemning neoliberalism with it?

computer parts posted:

Nativism is not an exclusively right-wing thing. NAFTA had a lot of opposition from all sides of society (it's a major part of what Perot ran on).