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Is the Florida thing a matter of needing to run more locally-appealing candidates? Nelson’s incredibly old and boring, and I loved Gillum, but he feels like a national politician, not a specifically Florida one. That said, tbh, I think it’s safe to assume Florida as red in the next Presidential election and plot a course without it.
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Nov 11, 2018 20:23
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I feel like 3 states unexpectedly tipped the election to Trump. (PA, MI, WI) and those are the three states most likely to tip the next one away from him. Florida just feels too old, too red, and too unpredictable to really bet any hopes on.
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Nov 11, 2018 21:54
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dwarf74 posted:Hey, remember all the fanfic about how Melania was actually cool and good and how everyone felt sorry for her? 1) I don't think anyone ever said that; the closest I heard was people speculating that she's a victim of an abusive marriage. That's not exclusive with being a racist or a bad person. 2) Ironically, getting rid of John Kelly would actually be cool and good though.
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Nov 13, 2018 20:42
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VitalSigns posted:Ironically, I actually do believe that the Democrats taking the House could be good for Trump. If he were to go to Pelosi for a massive $3T infrastructure bill with enough goodies to peel off rural Republican senators, his approval ratings would go through the roof. Imagine if he went to her to fix Obamacare or pass Medicare For All. Or a minimum wage increase like we saw pass in Arkansas and Missouri. True true if Trump were a totally different person than Trump then something that's obviously bad for Trump would be great for Bizarro Trump.
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Nov 14, 2018 21:02
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Trump is fundamentally right though in that Pence is absolutely in no ways loyal.
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Nov 16, 2018 19:05
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Handsome Ralph posted:Is it possible Mueller has a cooperating witness that no one is aware of at this point? John Barron strikes again!
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Nov 27, 2018 02:28
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axeil posted:Government-owned social media companies freak me out even more than privately-owned ones. Imagine what Trump could do if he had access to everything Facebook has. Government-owned social media is a dystopian nightmare. The better thing is to create laws which meaningfully hold them accountable for their harm, which will, in turn, kill them off and force them to radically transform to survive. Social media as we know it is inherently a bad thing and unsalvageable.
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Nov 27, 2018 20:01
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The really amazing thing about Trump is that you never stop thinking "Our President is so loving stupid". Like, you keep thinking at some point, you'll just get used to it, but nope, there it is, good god, he's SO loving STUPID.
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Nov 28, 2018 05:28
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on the other hand, Trump's funeral is going to be the one that breaks the 'speak decorously of the dead' custom
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Dec 11, 2018 07:48
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The thing about Youtube's algorithms is that they're fundamentally susceptible to clickbait and provocation, which in turns lets provocative content rise to the top. There was an article about how going down a Youtube rabbit hole on ANY subject leads to radicalization, like if you start looking up vegetarian recipes you'll end up at furiously political veganism, if you look up running you'll end up at medically-dubious ultra-running, etc etc. The problem isn't that the algorithms prioritize conspiracy content, it's that people are drawn to shocking, provocative and extreme content, and any model that relies on curating based on clicks is going to push those to the top. You can see this in the children's Youtube debacle of last year, where basically "kids naturally click on hosed up poo poo that makes them scared and uncomfortable", so Youtube kids was full of like CG Pregant Batman Getting a Root Canal. What you need isn't just algorithms, it's active moderation to suppress that content, i.e. gate-keeping.
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Dec 19, 2018 20:33
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Quorum posted:Yep, and silicon valley in general is absolutely allergic to that. The whole mindset that a better algorithm will fix everything means that they view "hiring people to make decisions" as giving up, and refuse to do it. It's not just that (though it's a big part of it); you could absolutely make algorithms that filter out clickbait and bury provocative, controversial content. But that content is an absolutely vital part of the attention economy, so 'fixing it' is directly at odds with their business model. Like, Twitter is a conflict engine; that's what fundamentally drives its engagement, is people arguing, harassing, and attacking each other, and then being angry at things other people say. A "better" Twitter is an unprofitable one. Basically, asking these companies to fix their algorithms is like asking drug dealers to sell less addictive drugs. There's zero chance of them doing it unless forced by law.
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Dec 19, 2018 20:44
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Kale posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one that has determined that this is in fact twitters actual business model. Holy gently caress did the level of arguing over the stupidest loving poo poo explode on the internet after twitter took off. Twitter is the social media platform I have the most overall contempt for out of any of them and refuse to even sign up for. I never got a good feeling off the whole "hey let's deliberately limit the number of characters a person can use to communicate a given thought at a time" model, and for me it's the one that ultimately tipped the balance of social media over from possible tool for keeping people in touch to readily exploitable propaganda dissemination platform and corporate method for dividing and conquering people. Twitter is uniquely awful both because of the limited communication and because the nature of quote-tweeting means people are constantly amplifying awful takes in order to argue with them, thus spreading them far and wide.
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Dec 19, 2018 21:13
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Remember how for years the adage was that the Internet + anonymity made people into jerks they wouldn’t normally be? Well the last decade of social media has put that idea to rest. IDK a lot of the worst of the internet is still done by anonymous harassers, egg avatars, etc. I mean, that's not to say people AREN'T dicks/bigots on Facebook, but the anonymity is still very much a factor.
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Dec 20, 2018 00:11
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Like, 'your uncle posts a MAGA rant and shares some racist memes' definitely happens on Facebook, but stuff like sending cavalcades of rape threats and Holocaust pics is still very much an anonymity situation.Silver2195 posted:I'm not saying there shouldn't be real-name-only spaces on the Internet, but anonymous places (like this forum) are important too. Agreed, but I think there's a definite case that the massive 'public square' spaces ala Twitter and Youtube shouldn't be anonymous.
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Dec 20, 2018 00:24
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Riptor posted:Tell me more, noted real person name Z. Autobahn SA is very much NOT a massive public square? I use my real name on Facebook and Twitter?
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Dec 20, 2018 20:17
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Kaal posted:It's unlikely that Democrats will regain the Senate soon, if ever, given the realities of our oligarchal system. The Dems have a pretty good shot at the Senate in 2020, especially if the next two years continue on the trend of the last month. ME + CO + AZ are easy pickups, and they just need one lucky break in any other state. It's not a lock, by any means, but I'd put it at the 40% mark right now, and those odds are only going to get better.
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Dec 22, 2018 00:37
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VitalSigns posted:yea I'm sure the Chicago police graciously dropped a case against a black man because they figured he'd suffered enough and paid his debt to society, that sounds like them. Well, the Chicago police didn't drop the case, they're furious about it being dropped, it was the DA acting pretty clearly in defiance of the police? Like, yes, DAs are usually "cops" in the functional sense, but in the specific here it feels like two distinct groups? (Not disputing that the CPD is 100% guilty of some sketchy poo poo here, just that the narrative of them being the ones to drop it isn't quite wrong)
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Mar 27, 2019 04:53
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Like tbh there is enough weird contradictory poo poo with this case that I don't think there's any easy explanation for what happened, so at this point the best call is to just wait for more information
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Mar 27, 2019 05:02
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VitalSigns posted:I mean sure, we'll never know what happened that night without more information, but we do know that all of the evidence implicating Smollet of a crime was fabricated by the notoriously corrupt and despicable Chicago PD, so I don't think "well we don't know the black guy didn't kick his own rear end, maybe all the non-fake evidence didn't make it into the leaks" is the reasonable default anymore given what we know. Right, I agree, the "he totally faked it" narrative doesn't make sense, but the "CPD framed him from the start and the case is being dropped to protect the CPD" narrative doesn't make sense either given how hard they're fighting the case being dropped. Like my best guess at this point is a Coen Bros-esque poo poo-show where a variety of people have all made stupid or sketchy choices, even when they're at odds with each other; we just don't know which people those are or what their choices were. Like there's no single narrative anyone's offered that adequately explains the actions involved, so there has to be SOME poo poo going on we're not seeing.
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Mar 27, 2019 07:42
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VitalSigns posted:Sure it does: given that they know they've hosed the case so hard the DA will never bring it for the sake of her own career no matter what they say, they have no reason not to continue lying and blaming the whole thing on her to deflect from their handling of the case. You’re saying the whole thing today was kayfabe and the cops are in on it with the DA? It’s not impossible, but it feels like a bit of a stretch; contesting the DA so publically and aggressively feels like it’s calling attention to something they want buried, and I don’t know why the DA would go along with it when it likely means the end of her career
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Mar 27, 2019 08:00
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Turtlicious posted:Are you familiar with the crimes of the Chicago Police Department? I’m not denying it on grounds that they’re too ethical, obviously, I’m saying this plan doesn’t make sense. If you just got your rear end covered from a bunch of your illegal poo poo being aired, why would you the draw way more attention back onto it while also burning the one person covering your rear end? It’s like when 9/11 truthers defend their poo poo with “Well the CIA did lots of evil stuff in South America”. Yes, it’s absolutely true, but there’s a huge difference between doing corrupt poo poo in secret when you think you can get away with it, and publically faking a dispute between the city’s mayor and its DA for a national audience. Z. Autobahn fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 27, 2019 08:06
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VitalSigns posted:No I'm saying that the DA has perfectly good reasons for not wanting to bring the case, and the cops are lying about it because there's no downside to lying about a case they know the DA would probably be disbarred for trying to prosecute. Her career is functionally torched by this already. A DA hated by the local cops is done, especially one blasted by the mayor. Like, the whole problem with DAs is how tightly embedded they are with the local cops. She doesn’t have to prosecute Smollet to defend herself, but given that the cops and the mayor are going scorched earth on her, she could absolutely defend herself by revealing the sketchy poo poo the cops did (or having her office leak it). Like.... there absolutely is a huge downside to antagonizing her (if she has incriminating poo poo on you and she’s covering your rear end). You’re saying the cops are deliberately biting the hand protecting them, which I just have a hard time buying.
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Mar 27, 2019 08:16
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VitalSigns posted:The sketchy stuff the cops did already leaked dude, they tried to say a check to personal trainers for personal training was a payment for a fake lynching. The check thing was dumb as hell, but it’s standard cop poo poo; cops reach all the time, it’s not a scandal. To justify a hard 180 pivot on a case this spotlighted would require something a lot more damning. Which, to be clear, I think likely happened! But I also think cops are fundamentally cowards who look after themselves and want to get away with their poo poo. And I cannot wrap my head around “the cops orchestrated a massive public hit-job, including the mayor, purely t antagonize the person who is actively protecting them and could hurt them the most”. That’s not stupid/dishonest, that’s just lunacy. VitalSigns posted:Are you not American or something, have you not seen cops throw absurd temper tantrums and try to burn people who are normally on their side when things don't go 100% their way all the time Sure absolutely, but in this scenario, things *are* going their way: the DA is protecting them from being exposed. The alternative is, it goes to trial, and they’re hosed. So that’s where I’m genuinely not able to follow this narrative: Are the cops *actually* mad at the DA? If so, why would they be mad at the person taking a huge career hit to shield them? Or are they faking being mad, in which case, what do they gain from drawing more attention to this and risking more exposure? Z. Autobahn fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 27, 2019 08:24
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VitalSigns posted:They're *actually* mad at the DA because they are used to fabricating evidence, railroading suspects, torturing fake confessions out of people, and getting away with it because everyone in power worships the cops. Okay, that makes the most sense; the DA isn’t covering for the cops, she just correctly sees this is a losing case and the evidence isn’t compelling. VitalSigns posted:*clutches pearls* "Mayor Black Site Torture Facility would never do anything crazy!" I mean, I don’t think running black site torture facilities is crazy. Monstrous and evil, yes, but not crazy in the same sense as “attack the person protecting you”. But again, if the DA isn’t protecting them, just genuinely not prosecuting a losing case,’ it adds up.
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Mar 27, 2019 08:37
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tbh I feel like 95% of the people still insisting the story is fake are just because it "feels fake" and are being guided by their intuitions. Not the idea of a gay black man being attacked, obviously, but the specific details. Like I remember during the Kavanaugh thing there was a Twitter thread by a professor who specializes in hoax claims, and she listed her list of things to look for as a way of showing that Ford's testimony was legitimate, things like how hoaxes tend towards overkill and clean easily followable narratives (the perps yelling exactly how they knew him and why they were doing it), while real claims tend to have lots of unrelated or even 'narratively contradictory' details (like how in the Kavanaugh case, the other boy falling on Brett is a bit of almost-slapstick). Like there's zero evidence that it was fake at this point, but I think a lot of people just think it 'feels fake' and that's a hard feeling to shake (Worth noting that it's entirely possible the attack was 'fake' in the sense that it was some people, like the brothers, loving with Jussie and he's still the victim who had nothing do to with it; this almost seems like the most plausible scenario at this point). Z. Autobahn fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Mar 28, 2019 |
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Mar 28, 2019 01:01
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Gyges posted:It's a well worn saying that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. *unless the ham sandwich is a cop
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Mar 28, 2019 17:48
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Your Parents posted:"While the term “recusal “ was used when it was announced she was stepping away from the Smollett case, a Foxx spokeswoman said, “it was a colloquial use of the term rather than in its legal sense." Seriously, this is Burn After Reading level Coens at this point
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Mar 29, 2019 18:28
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FYI if you’re certain that Jussie faked it then you should be extremely mad at the CPD for loving up thr investigation so badly
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Mar 30, 2019 18:50
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edit: wrong thread
Z. Autobahn fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 18:25
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Charlz Guybon posted:I'm really worried about this. I'm pretty sure we're going to see a brokered convention. I feel like he's conflating two different things. An outcome where the vote isn't decided til the convention because no one has 51%+ is pretty likely. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a contested convention. Like if any candidate has a lead of even 3%, that candidate will win, because the Dems are stupid but not suicidal. The only scenario where it's contested is if it's an actual straight-up tie, but that's much less likely.
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Apr 15, 2019 19:02
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Rigel posted:Thats true if the final result is like 46-43-(11% others), but what if its like 29-26-20-15-10? I still think in that case the person with 29 walks away with it. Like so long as any one person can say they're a clear and unmistakable leader (and 3% points ahead qualifies), I don't think the party will be sufficiently suicidal to try to steal it (or alternately, that the leftists will band up to block the centrists). The thing about a contested convention is that it's basically mutually assured destruction; even if you win, you're gonna lose. Like, if it's a 28.7 vs 28.5, we may be in shitshow territory, but I think the desire (and pressure) to avoid a massive incident will ensure that the leader is crowned even without a majority.
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Apr 15, 2019 20:55
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