USCE 2024: Macklemore Is The New Michael Moore

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2024: Macklemore Is The New Michael Moore

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Crossposting from the pseudoscience thread. The bolded names are figures who also come up in my nearly-finished "To Unfrock the Charlatans" posting project on pseudoscientific racism manipulating public and scientific discourse.

Activist who led ouster of Harvard president linked to �scientific racism� journal

quote:

The rightwing activist Christopher Rufo has links to a self-styled �sociobiology magazine� that is focused on the supposed relationships between race, intelligence and criminality, and which experts have characterized as an outlet for scientific racism.

[...]

According to the newsletter�s own archives, Aporia was a March 2023 rebrand of Ideas Sleep Furiously, hitherto the personal newsletter of Briton Matthew Archer, now styled �editor in chief� of Aporia.

At that time, Aporia�s newly appointed �executive editor�, Bo Winegard, commenced his tenure with an article, titled Human Biodiversity: A Moderate�s Manifesto, in which he discussed purported �evidence that human populations vary in intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, partially because of genes�.

�Human biodiversity� gives its name to both a movement and a research paradigm that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes as the �latest iteration of a long tradition of scientific racism�.

Kevin Bird, a geneticist and a postdoctoral research fellow at UC Davis, said ��human biodiversity� is their euphemism for race science�, and added that �scientifically, Winegard has never done anything of note in this area�.

Winegard, a psychologist, was by his own account fired by Georgia�s Marietta College in March 2020 after a seminar he gave to a research group at the University of Alabama attracted protests and coverage in student media.

In that speech an audience member reportedly said that Winegard told his listeners that �people in colder climates, because of differences in brain size, have more propensity for cooperation�.

Winegard has continued to write in this vein on Aporia up to the present. In a 3 January article on the site titled �Yes, we should talk about race differences�, he wrote: �Thus, we must be honest about race. And that means we begin by noting that in the United States (and elsewhere in the world), different races have different average levels of intelligence as measured by IQ tests (and other measures of cognitive ability).�

As proof of this claim, Winegard cites researchers including the late Richard Lynn � a white nationalist, according to the SPLC � and the late Arthur Jensen, whom the SPLC calls �arguably the father of modern academic racism�.
[...]

Another Aporia editor, Noah Carl, has also been the subject of previous academic controversy.

Carl is a sociologist who in 2018 was stripped of a postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge University after the college that appointed him discovered that alongside his more legitimate work in sociology, he had simultaneously been publishing scientific-racist articles in outlets notorious for peddling scientific racism.

One of the outlets Carl published in, Mankind Quarterly, was founded �to make scientific racism respectable again�, according to the writer Angela Saini. It was for decades funded by the white nationalist Pioneer Fund, and the journal has been described as a �cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment�.

Another venue, OpenPsych, is a platform established by Emil OW Kirkegaard, a self-described eugenicist who explicitly advocates �race science�, and who serves as a senior fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research (UISR), an organization once headed by Richard Lynn � the same researcher whose data led to Winegard�s retraction.

[...]

The full article is free.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2024 16:47

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 08:15

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Kratom is not new at all. It is extremely old.

It gained popularity because it isn't illegal at the federal level and you can get an opiate-like high if you chewed a bunch of it.

I don't know the exact specifics of what NPR was talking about today, but it was a hugely popular thing to recommend in TCC on this very website way back in the early 2000's as a way to sate your pain pill cravings.

(Never take any medical advice from TCC.)

Kratom is not banned under the CSA but it's also not lawful as an ingredient in food, dietary supplements or drugs. It's not sold legally; there's just not sufficient enforcement. FDA seized the product at one of the largest manufacturers last year, though I don't think they actually shut them down; my impression is they're fearful because it's a multibillion dollar industry headed by people who make big tobacco look innocent. If you see a state bill trying to "regulate" kratom, that's the AKA trying for state legalization to interfere with federal regulation by tying their product to the state's revenue scheme.

There's ongoing drug research on the active ingredient, but it's sufficiently obviously an addictive substance and a drug of abuse that if it gets approved it'll presumably be scheduled.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jan 31, 2024

# ¿ Jan 31, 2024 22:35

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

From the DoJ:

quote:

U.S. Government Disrupts Botnet People�s Republic of China Used to Conceal Hacking of Critical Infrastructure

Court-Authorized Operation Removed Malware from U.S.-Based Victim Routers and Took Steps to Prevent Reinfection
A December 2023 court-authorized operation has disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office/home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by People�s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored hackers.

The hackers, known to the private sector as �Volt Typhoon,� used privately-owned SOHO routers infected with the �KV Botnet� malware to conceal the PRC origin of further hacking activities directed against U.S. and other foreign victims. These further hacking activities included a campaign targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the United States and elsewhere that was the subject of a May 2023 FBI, National Security Agency, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and foreign partner advisory. The same activity has been the subject of private sector partner advisories in May and December 2023, as well as an additional secure by design alert released today by CISA.

The vast majority of routers that comprised the KV Botnet were Cisco and NetGear routers that were vulnerable because they had reached �end of life� status; that is, they were no longer supported through their manufacturer�s security patches or other software updates. The court-authorized operation deleted the KV Botnet malware from the routers and took additional steps to sever their connection to the botnet, such as blocking communications with other devices used to control the botnet.

[...]

As described in court documents, the government extensively tested the operation on the relevant Cisco and NetGear routers. The operation did not impact the legitimate functions of, or collect content information from, hacked routers. Additionally, the court-authorized steps to disconnect the routers from the KV Botnet and prevent reinfection are temporary in nature. A router�s owner can reverse these mitigation steps by restarting the router. However, a restart that is not accompanied by mitigation steps similar to those the court order authorized will make the router vulnerable to reinfection.

The FBI is providing notice of the court-authorized operation to all owners or operators of SOHO routers that were infected with the KV Botnet malware and remotely accessed pursuant to the operation. For those victims whose contact information was not publicly available, the FBI has contacted providers (such as a victim�s internet service provider) and has asked those providers to provide notice to the victims.

[...]

From related reports it appears the group was testing a set of tools and procedures that would let them selectively shut down or manipulate web traffic flowing across the Pacific at the infra level.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Feb 1, 2024

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 03:48

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Google Jeb Bush posted:

I'm going to take any pro-kratom stuff with a huge grain of salt personally, because (as mentioned in the thread) the industry is pretty sleazy and the big guy in the industry group would (and possibly does) make developing world oligarchs go "whoa man, maybe cool your jets a little". It's a legit dangerous opioid, just less so than street versions. I do agree that banning Kratos without taking a look at how to assist the people utilizing it would be a bit silly, but that just means the answer is "staple something about that to the bill / policy and also have relevant agencies and organizations ready".

fake edit: leaving that one in

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 03:54

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Once again a mod refuses to ban someone with a known history of violent abuse.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 03:57

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

FizFashizzle posted:

Kratom is a potentially incredibly addictive partial mu agonist that in some cases is harder to get people off of than fentanyl. Some people it just melts. I used suboxone tapers to get people off. And people ruin themselves financially on that stuff. It�s very fast up but also fast down and patients develop a tolerance very quickly. I had patients who were spending several hundred a day on it and losing their family�s and homes. One power contractor installed gps on their fleet vehicles because they were worried about technicians getting high off of it during work, or having all their trucks in front of a head shop.

It also causes seizures.

Dont use Kratom. Do not buy drugs from the gas station.

I believe the dominant product out there is a mix of kratom and kava. Do you have any sense of how those might interact?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 07:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Shooting Blanks posted:

Can you dive into this a bit? I'm reading that you think the FDA is fearful of the folks heading the kratom industry because they're worse than the big tobacco folks? What are they afraid of - gangland executions? Public smear campaigns? It's the federal government, kinda weird to hear about them being fearful of anyone other than other state entities.

Several issues are occurring in confluence at FDA:

1. FDA has internal infra dysfunction regarding enforcement, an issue that's supposed to be addressed over the next year or so by a big reorganization of their food operations. I don't know the details of the problem, but it makes it hard to train and hire the people directly doing inspections and enforcement, particularly getting enough of them and getting them specialized to particular issues or product categories (and able to travel to where those products are). Union contracts may be involved, idk. A lot of that work is subcontracted to the states, which makes it harder to resolve, too. This is in part because...

2. FDA has a tiny fraction of the budget it needs. I did back-of-envelope calculations on this awhile ago and I thought they needed about a twelvefold increase in funding to adequately fulfill their obligations. In practice, every single part of the agency is conducting triage upon triage, cutting into bone in terms of what policies are getting enforced. This has been made much worse since I did that calculation because they've had several unfunded or underfunded mandates (for example, tobacco regulation and a recent, massive cosmetics regulation) that massively expand what they are supposed to do. This is the single biggest issue here, it feeds and worsens everything else.

3. They're terrified of bad precedent. FDA lost a set of court cases to libertarian groups that effectively removed their ability to regulate offlabel drug prescription practices many years ago; the resulting impact on healthcare is hard to overstate, because it's warped the entire practice of medicine (and insurance) around it, in a manner that creates a massive pile of perverse incentives and is virtually irreversible. The organizations behind that are still around and are actively fishing for similar reversals in every other area. Between this and their catastrophic lack of funding, the agency is basically in a permanent defensive crouch; very little regulation gets published as final, for example, because that would increase their legal exposure. A lot of what the agency puts out is "draft guidance," a lot of regulations aren't enforced under "resource prioritization," and they're constantly juggling responses to the latest issue crossing the public consciousness, trying to clean up the desperate compromises of the last resource-constrained decision they made.

4. It's relatively recent compared to the other issues (and not as bad as other agencies) but the agency now is developing industry capture problems. For a long time FDA was more resistant because they were set up as a pure public safety, industry regulation entity, but decades of pressure and attacks and underfunding (I can't emphasize the underfunding enough) are taking a toll, as more of the agency culture is influenced by mandates to "facilitate access" to goods.

Despite all this I gotta emphasize: with the partial possible exception of the EU and Canada in a couple areas, FDA is still the gold standard in most food and drug regulatory domains. Almost every other countries' regulatory systems on food and drugs are based on or just incorporate FDA systems by reference. To the degree that the EU and Canada do things better, it's usually because they were able to imitate the good parts of FDA and witness (and learn from) the problems.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Feb 1, 2024

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 22:03

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Jaxyon posted:

Speaking of the FDA, letting Elon but torment nexuses into the heads of human beings is a horrible look.

Initial human trials were approved, but this was after a previous application was denied. Unfortunately basically none of the specifics of applications are public. Fwiw medical devices is probably the division at FDA with the best reputation these days since they cleaned up their approvals backlog.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 22:14

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

FlamingLiberal posted:

Is there any evidence he actually began human trials other than him saying so? I say this because he loves to lie about everything, especially if he thinks it can make him money

I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about approvals in that division, but it would be relatively hard to falsify conducting a human model medical device trial, and the timeline for it fits with the public announcements of the approval and recruitment period.

PharmerBoy posted:

Only thing to add onto Discendo's post, when DEA last looked to take action on kratom, industry lobbying was able to whip up a notable amount of support in Congress to push back. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2016/09/Final-DEA-Kratom-Letter-9.26.2016.pdf

If you're already pressed for resources, taking up the cause that will get members of congress crawling up your rear end is going to look less important than other projects, everything else being equal.

Gotta love it- concerned about denying this vital "treatment" for addiction, but not by subjecting it to safety or efficacy scrutiny.

selec posted:

This creates a place for radical orgs like ALF as a necessary corrective if the institutions fail us. If we can�t use the legitimate institutions as expressions of our collective will because they are so fragile or vulnerable in the ways they so obviously are, I can�t get mad about parapolitical organizations forcing the issue.

When the people whose job it is to use the institutions to derive fairer results tell us not to use those institutions, what�s the option?

This would be true if Neuralink weren't actually under investigation for those IACUC/OLAW issues, but they are. There is no actual justification for grifters like ALF; they aren't "necessary" in any way and provide no actual benefit. You might as well say January 6th was necessary.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Feb 1, 2024

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 23:23

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Jaxyon posted:

Why are we letting them jam poo poo into human heads if they are under investigation?

They're not under an inquiry relating to the validity of the device trial. There is no actual basis to believe that anything has gone wrong here except that people really, really want to argue in favor of the grifters for some reason.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2024 01:52

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Bar Ran Dun posted:

DV,

It�s not FDA but what I saw at USDA FGIS was a progression from full time folks to contracted part time managed by full time. Then the full time folks retired and took consulting jobs advising how-to pass the inspections done by the remaining part time staff.

WSDA did better and kept the traditional staffing model.

This is the practice to varying degrees in places all over the federal government because the agencies aren't adequately funded. Or in some cases the retirees are hired back by the government as contractors on reduced hours. It's just another form of the desperate triaging going on (and the administrative and procedural dysfunction introduced over multiple generations of such dysfunction). This is, however, part of what makes the IRS changes so important; they're in some respects a prerequisite to a lot of other potential fixes.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Feb 2, 2024

# ¿ Feb 2, 2024 04:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Why are you posting tweets from Sprinter9980.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2024 19:28

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

zoux posted:

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1753938395548516624

Obama got 89% in SC in �12. Remember this next time you see a poll with xtabs showing trump winning a third of minority voters.

The tweet you got that number from is using a cropped screenshot of the overall US democratic primary result.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 03:48

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Normy posted:

Is it really useful to draw conclusions on the general based on comparing primaries with very different fields?

Probably not, barring extreme shifts.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 04:24

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

B B posted:

There was a pretty extreme shift in vote totals. There were about 540,000 votes in the 2020 primary, and with 84% of the vote in there are only about 121,000 votes. Looks like there might be a huge enthusiasm problem, since Biden's only going to draw about 1/4th of the 2020 voters out to the polls. Pretty ominous.

Vote totals from the primary to the general are not what anyone was talking about.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 04:45

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Magic Underwear posted:

That's bait.

We are obligated by current moderation policy to treat all bait as good faith.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 05:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Dull Fork posted:

Just as a quick aside, I appreciate you bringing this up. The motte-and-bailey thing is something I have come across, but never knew there was a term for it, now I know. Thanks!

A couple other useful resources to identify this garbage:

The Alt-Right Playbook is a video essay that describes common conservative rhetorics; in practice it's describing the traits of more overt bad faith argument, which can be applied from any ideological direction, with a focus on conservative examples. Its explanations tend to be good/insightful, but bear in mind it's sometimes reinventing preexisting concepts.

I have an effortpost summarizing Hirschman's reactionary rhetorics, which can be used to sabotage discussion of a policy topic using arguments that are dressed up as coming from either the progressive or reactionary standpoint. These arguments in particular serve as a playbook for ruining discussion of a proposed reform or change.

There are a ton of different lists of fallacious or bad faith argumentative forms floating around online; the informal fallacy list on wikipedia has quick summaries of some of the highlights, and the rationalwiki page on logical fallacies has much more detail and explanations, and links to more lists. Note, however, that just searching for fallacious arguments is rarely useful in itself (and it's rarely persuasive to just point out fallacies). Note also that ultimately, claims cannot necessarily cannot be complete unto themselves in formal logic terms.

From a general terminology perspective, Toulmin's argument framework is a good introductory point- although it tends to drive people into warrant-spotting in a way that's not necessarily productive to discussion.

We used to have several threads on this sort of thing. They've all been sabotaged over time by one means or another.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Feb 5, 2024

# ¿ Feb 4, 2024 21:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

There would be no harm and much benefit in making election day a holiday and working to normalize it actually being treated as such, in addition to any early voting setups; as others have noted holidays aren't obligatory. Early voting in various forms (mail or otherwise) is good for access, but does raise potential issues when events occur that may change electoral opinions during the period.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2024 05:20

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Leon has provided a summary of the problems of the current asylum system here:

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

The border is pretty much boned until we fix the legal immigration process or people stop wanting to come to America. You can try to militarize the border and that might make it more orderly, but it is just going to result in the pre-2016 status quo of people sneaking across en masse instead of turning themselves in at the border - which is worse both in terms of the journey for the people and also likely to result in more illegal immigrants untracked and unsupported in the U.S. for the people who want to keep them out. Although, I guess it would be a success of stopping videos of huge amounts of people turning themselves in at border crossings if that was your goal.

The main problems with the border right now are:

- The ways to legally get into the U.S. for the sole purpose of making money/improving your quality of life are almost all totally shut out and the few that remain either require an employer sponsor or take 7+ years.

- Claiming asylum will stop you from getting kicked out of the U.S. temporarily, but "my quality of life would be much higher" doesn't qualify for asylum.

- This results in basically everyone claiming asylum because it is the only way to not get turned around right away.

- The asylum process was always slow, but it was also only meant to process groups that are 1/10th the size of them coming across right now.

- Trying to crack down on all the people claiming asylum "just" because it would significantly improve their life or economic situation leads to people with real asylum claims getting massively screwed.

- The asylum process has become the weird de facto official immigration process and it basically encourages people to mass the border and lie, which requires huge amounts of effort to handle and verify.

There are several options you can do:

- Fix the normal immigration process and guest worker/economic green card/H1-B Visa processes. They are currently capped at 85k per year, which is less than 10% of the total demand each year. That will allow more people into the country and take the huge weight off of the asylum process to better handle actual asylum cases.

- Make it basically impossible and horribly punishing to attempt to cross the border illegally or to try and claim asylum unless you have 100% proof and hope that doing this for a period of years will crush demand by making sure you have successful enforcement as high as possible so people think it isn't worth it.

- Massively expand the asylum system to meet capacity and basically just use a really broken and unwieldy system that was not intended for it as the "unofficial official" immigration process.

Several of those things are basically impossible and nobody wants to do all three of them at the same time, so . Instead, we just kind of hobble along with an outdated system and every attempt to update it since 1987 (37 years ago!!!) has failed.

Many Republicans just object to the idea of letting more of the "wrong" people into the country, so expanding the legal processes is a non-starter and can't even be negotiated. Most Democrats want to be compassionate and help people in the immediate-term, so the focus has been entirely on asylum-seekers and how to basically use the asylum process for an unintended purpose.

That sort of makes sense in the short-term, but it also hobbles the legal process in the long-term and results in both sides basically just attempting to inefficiently use the asylum process to weaponize their preferred political outcomes at the expense of legal and undocumented immigrants and actual asylum seekers who all get stuck in one inefficient process together because people kind of gave up on comprehensive immigration reform. It also teaches people who want to come to America that they need to use the asylum process and lie instead of going the legal route because the legal process is a complete waste of time unless you have 7-12 years, some money, and a lot patience to gamble that it works out for you.

...and discusses some of the perverse incentives of the current asylum program here:

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

They technically do. The people claiming asylum, whether they are being detained directly, put up in hotels, or placed with a sponsor, all get housing. Even the people being detained can leave and be deported whenever they want, but they are there voluntarily to try and wait out the process.

I really doubt most immigrants come to the U.S. with the dream of being a welfare queen. I don't have any official surveys that prove that, though. Even slaving in the kitchen somewhere for $13 an hour under the table is likely a massive improvement in their income from places like Venezuela where the median salary is $142 per month.

The vast majority are coming for financial reasons, but that isn't a valid reason to claim asylum or get a green card on its own. So, they try to come in via the asylum process and hope that the backlog/inability to verify whether they really are going to be persecuted will let them stay. The next biggest chunk are actual legitimate asylum seekers who are looking to escape imminent bodily harm.

If the median income in your country in $142 per month, then working 60 hour weeks for $13/hour allows you to make 21x the median income in your home country and live an okay-ish life* in the U.S. with enough money to send back home via remittances that helps your family live a solid life there. That is why most of the people coming are single men under 45. They are coming for work and economic opportunity to provide back home and possibly bring family with them.

*(Relative to where you came from at least. Staying in a house with 8 other dudes and working 60 hours per week isn't exactly the dream scenario, but that is a small price to pay for the chance to make 21x the median salary in your home country and support your family.)

Main Paineframe goes into further detail on burdens and polling here:

Main Paineframe posted:

The border authorities really are getting overwhelmed, though. That's why his "shut down the border" offer is paired with literally doubling the current asylum officer workforce and increase the number of immigration judges by about 50%, so they can start whittling down the ~1 million pending asylum applications still in the queue and clear the massive years-long immigration court backlog. Especially since polls are showing that voters think immigration is one of the most important issues to them coming into this election.

1600 new asylum officers and 375 new immigration judges doesn't sound like much, but the US currently has 1600 asylum officers and ~600 immigration judges, total.

The average wait time to get an asylum application heard right now is around four years. The system desperately needs either more resources, a reduction of the number of people coming into it, or a major rework to decrease the administrative workload of each case.

GJB corrects the record on the form of the "offer" to "shut down the border" here:

Google Jeb Bush posted:

If I'm reading summaries correctly, the "shut down the border" clause (which is a weird way to put it, which is part of why I looked into it, but apparently that's the verbiage Biden went with so) refers to a formalization of the CBP/president being able to rapidly expel immigrants that cross the border at illegal points if there are 4k+ encounters in a day, and required to use that protocol if there are 5k+. It also has an interesting bit about if this is in play, then X number of immigrants (plus asylum seekers) must be allowed to approach legal border crossings per day. Not sure how that one's going to be properly implemented.

also that's a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand by Biden, if I'm reading correctly he wouldn't have a choice about whether to 'shut down the border' if the bill was passed under current immigration numbers

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bi...0matter%20said.

All of which is to say, the details of the actual policy situation and public perception have been explained in detail, in the last two weeks, including to some of the same people ignoring these explanations now. Please do not require them to be reexplained from scratch, again.

Gnumonic posted:

Like, my in-laws are liberal Muslims. They're all democrats. They all voted for Biden in 2020. They realize he's not going to make a total break with US policy w/r/t Israel for the past 50 years. But they're absolutely convinced that he sees Muslims as subhumans, and they feel like they've been used for their votes and then discarded. Even if he can win w/o their votes, that's unacceptable.

How have your in-laws been convinced of a falsehood?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2024 00:33

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

mobby_6kl posted:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/06/metro/fake-biden-robocall-nh-primary-texas-company-election-interference/?s_campaign=audience:reddit

Maybe I missed it but I don't think this's been posted. I wonder if this "Walter Monk" is the same person as Jacob Wohl.

No, it's someone separate. The company's in "polling" and have been cited by FTC in the past; they have a ton of proxies and are basically as scummy as you'd think. Monk is, iirc, very old and may not be the one actually managing it, but we'd need to know who their client is.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2024 02:25

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Arizona Company and CEO Sentenced for Illegal Distribution of Tianeptine and Other Drugs and Ordered to Forfeit $2.4 Million

quote:

Centera Bioscience, d/b/a Nootropics Depot, was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Talesha Saint-Marc to three years of probation. The company�s CEO, Paul Eftang, 38, was sentenced to one year of probation. The defendants have also paid a $2.4 million forfeiture and surrendered all drugs seized by the FDA and Customs and Border Protection. On October 30, 2023, Centera and Eftang pleaded guilty to the introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.

[...]

Tianeptine, adrafinil, phenibut, and racetams are pharmaceutical drugs not approved for use in the United States. Racetams include piracetam, aniracetam, coluracetam, and phenylpiracetam. The defendants imported approximately $7.4 million worth of raw material for these drugs from China between April 2017 and September 2021. The defendants earned approximately $35 million from selling these drugs during that same time period. The defendants sold the drugs across the United States, and at one point used Mexican intermediaries to ship the products.

During this investigation, Customs detained several shipments of adrafinil and racetams addressed to Centera Bioscience or one of its subsidiaries. These shipments included 20 barrels of phenibut hydrochloride from Shanghai Norky Pharmaceutical, 40 barrels of piracetam from Shanghai Soyoung Biotechnology, and 20 barrels of phenibut hydrochloride from Qingdao Sincess. The company�s Strategic Director, Paul Sheard, represented to Customs that the shipments were supposed to be used for laboratory analysis and research only, and were not intended for human consumption. The customs paperwork also incorrectly labeled the imports.

The defendants also maintained an active online presence to advertise tianeptine, phenibut, and racetams, including a sub-forum on the website Reddit. Eftang himself posted regularly on Reddit under the username �MisterYouAreSoDumb.�

He's posting through it. No, I don't get why they are forfeiting so much less than they've made.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2024 17:21

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

That episode always bugged me for multiple reasons, but in particular that the presence of fake money in the amount Joker inherited would have reduced his taxable income (and also possibly shifted liability).

# ¿ Feb 9, 2024 00:52

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2024 02:51

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Google Jeb Bush posted:

e: also if you're worried about the DNC Putting Its Thumb On The Scale in future elections state conventions select the vast majority of the DNC, anyone who fearmongers about the dnc and doesn't show up for their local convention is unserious (or has a serious schedule conflict)

Is this a moderation policy or an invitation for continued fearmongering about the dnc?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2024 03:22

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Professor Beetus posted:

That kinda fucks with me because man, he looks like poo poo

Biden and Trump both don't drink. This is genuinely probably a big factor.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2024 05:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

On trade, Trump committed to a much more severe trade war with China if reelected.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2024 06:53

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Edward Mass posted:

As an IK for the gambling sub-forum here on the SA Forums, I have some authority in saying that while sports gambling can be legal, it needs to be regulated like similar vices. If states can legalize recreational cannabis usage and control its distribution, they should also be able to do the same for SpendKings.

States have not been able to legalize recreational cannabis usage and control its distribution. It�s been a shitshow free-for-all.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 08:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Main Paineframe posted:

The reason there's a bunch of sexualized content on Twitch is because it has two dedicated sections for softcore near-porn, and the reason that this sexualized content skews heavily female is because the site's userbase skews heavily male and isn't exactly a LGBT haven.

"The algorithm" has become a convenient boogeyman, but I think people have become far too quick to pin blame on it, because the algorithm is very rarely the actual root problem. Social media algorithms tend to amplify and exaggerate problems that already exist, but it's very rare for them to actually be directly responsible for creating the problem.

I think amplifying and exaggerating existing problems is a causal mechanism of sufficient significance to be worthy of direct blame.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 18:21

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Main Paineframe posted:

It can sometimes share part of the blame, yes. But I think there's an increasing tendency these days to use "the algorithm" as a thought-terminating cliche, where people simply blame things on "the algorithm" and don't bother to investigate the root cause of the problem or the ways in which the algorithm impacts it.

I think it stands out really well in this particular case. Twitch is a major camming site with a mostly-male userbase and a dedicated swimsuits section. It's not surprising at all that there might be a lot more sexualized women!

Yet someone's immediate response to this was to blindly blame "the algorithm", without even the slightest effort to explore other potential causes.

To the degree that the creation of the swimsuit section is the product of deliberate decisions reflecting pursuit of the outcome measures selected for by the design of the site, that response seems valid.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2024 19:41

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

May be tied to the Russian diversion of starlink systems.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2024 19:53

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

oh, another finance/hedge fund guy. Should have guessed that.

at least he's not a total ghoul like all the others

Leon is significantly understating, and weirdly eliding, a lot of stuff about Soros that makes him unique. First, Soros is 93 and literally fled the holocaust (this ties into the antisemitic conspiracy theories). Second, he was a grad student of the critically important political and scientific philosopher Karl Popper (heavy promote of the concept of pluralistic liberal democracies and basically the reason we now understand science and knowledge in terms of hypothesis testing. Soros attributes his entire economic success and subsequent philanthropy to operationalizing Popper's theories; his organization, the Open Society Foundations, is named for a Popper book and revolves around promoting liberal democracy around the world- this makes him a target for autocrats, because he's basically indirectly eroding the social systems that empower them. Third, Soros made an absolute fuckton of money relative to his generation of hedge fund people (even if the amount is "small" relative to the Musks of today), and has actually spent most of it down, predating and outstripping the whole Giving Pledge grift.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 00:22

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Young Freud posted:

I found that the rise of Soros-targeted conspiracy theories correlates with the ascension and consolidation of power in Russia by Vladimir Putin. Considering that Soros and the Open Society Foundation supported Solidarity party in Poland, which led to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact and later the Soviet Union, I don't think that's a coincidence.

Yeah, Soros's longest-running efforts have been in Eastern Europe and essentially against what Putin represents.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 01:19

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I like Duckworth for 2028.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 23:07

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

The distinction regarding how "transformational" a president can be, at least in a positive sense, continues to be how much of Congress is aligned with them.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2024 02:21

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Tatsuta Age posted:

Counterpoint: nothing changed after Sandy Hook, or the dozens of other child slaughters that have happened since. America doesn't give a poo poo about children, adults, anyone except Business as Usual and Capital

The issue is not "America". It's conservatives, and who actually holds office and has legal power. Action on these issues is not futile- and the very argument that it is somehow baked into our natures is the primary tool of the people trying to prevent gun control.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 00:14

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Tatsuta Age posted:

Oh OK, so as long as half this country exists, we can't do anything about it, but that's not "America"

No, half the country does not have to stop existing. The normal process of politics and representation needs to be brought to bear on the general consensus among the population that gun control is necessary. You do not need to catastrophize this or present it as futile.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 00:39

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

L. Ron DeSantis posted:

Hardcore anti-gun-control people definitely represent less than half the country but as long as half the country will vote for politicians who espouse that view no matter what, it is not unreasonable to present progress as futile.

The entire loving point is that political outcomes can change policy, that voting practices and espoused views are subject to change. Demanding that we accept your "no matter what" is just making GBS threads on the possibility of political change or discussion of the specifics of how it occurs.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 01:10

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Google Jeb Bush posted:

Article says it was from the Burmese junta. although now that I think of it I'm not sure how they'd have plutonium, just uranium

e: they're working towards nuclear power generation with Russian assistance but there's no public ability to enrich uranium or make plutonium

There was a report a number of years back (I can't find it atm) alleging the junta was working on its own weapons program; I'd not seen later substantiation, but maybe it was real.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 07:00

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Mendrian posted:

I would argue this is true and it's worse: as people in general become poorer, the white reactionaries are easier and easier to rile, because they expect minorities to be even worse off than them. As our material conditions degrade, the more people get sucked into the racist whirlpool and the more racist they become.

I'm not excusing this as economic anxiety, mind. I think that white middle class racists could choose to put that energy toward you know, capitalism, and they actively decide to blame others rather than hold the system to account.

"Economic anxiety" as expressed in Trump supporters is not a function of actual economic security; it's a function of status. The support base for MAGA continues to be correlated with income.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2024 01:22

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 08:15

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

To be clear the post-trump polling correlation was very slight- being a bit wealthier was only slightly more likely to make you an R. Also to be clear, there are entirely valid measures of economic anxiety, but even in those cases it's a perceptual construct that's linked to actual economic insecurity, not the same as actual economic status. The underlying point remains- "material conditions" were never the driver here, nor capitalism, except in the broadest and most unfalsifiably useless sense whereby it contains literally all expressions of material and social status and power.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2024 02:23

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