The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[Simfan34]

One of those times where a single word answer is no good.

Nobody died at Three Mile Island. Security measures even in 1970s standard worked. It's like pointing to a BMW accident where everyone survived as proof that BMWs are unsafe.

Fossil fuels have significant direct mortality rates associated to them where as nuclear is 0. A lot of the fear of nuclear power comes from the misconception that it has anything to do with a nuclear bomb. Nuclear power plant reactors and nuclear bombs are like comparing apples with apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers.  Blowing up a nuclear power plant cannot cause a mushroom cloud.

Even if we want to go into indirect deaths (estimations of how many people will die of cancer from radiation leaked at Fukishama), it still pales in comparison to the indirect deaths in the mining of precious metals in Africa that compose solar panels.  Or environmental displacement by hydroelectric dam construction.

The only energy that is truly environmentally safe is wind and it's wholly inadequate.  In all other scenarios, you are playing a game of risk and the sheer amount of energy nuclear can produce means per accident it's a good deal as a opposed to per accident at an oil rig, a dam, a platinum mine, a coal mine, or a wind turbine manufacturing plant.

In other words, "No."

[Simfan34]

That's not the point. The post is good because of the content, not the context.

[Simfan34]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-media-bias-email/

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Good to see Democrats won't be buying the right-wing media's anti-Hillary smears!

Most Republicans seem to constantly fall for the the "I didn't do anything wrong, the liberal media is just out to get me" non-sense, so it shouldn't be any surprise that most Democrats seem to fall for the equally absurd "I didn't do anything wrong, the conservative media is just out to get me" version.  When politicians in either party face criticism, negative news stories, or become embroiled in scandals, one of the easiest and most reliable responses is to claim or imply that it is just part of a smear campaign by the right/left-wing media.  

In reality, the media doesn't have an ideology, for example I doubt most of the commentary by the talking heads at Fox (or MSNBC for that matter) is informed by any sort of genuine ideological conviction.  Certainly nothing beyond the generic "I'd prefer for this party to win, I guess" that most voters probably have.  There are occasionally instances where the media is clearly in the tank for a certain candidate (Cory Gardner in 2014, Obama during the pre-New Hampshire part of the 2008 primaries), but such instances are few and far between.  The media isn't treating this non-story about the e-mails like a big deal because they're part of a right-wing conspiracy to bring down Hillary Clinton.  They're doing it because it is in their interest to do everything they can to create the perception that the Democratic nomination race isn't a forgone conclusion (so more people will watch their coverage of it) and because it is clear by now that their is a significant audience for stories about the Clintons that reinforce certain perceptions most Americans have of them.

At the end of the day, the media only cares about making money.  If saying stupid sh!t for attention, race-baiting, affirming the worldview of a particular party's base or certain demographic groups, sensationalized "reporting", fear-mongering, misinforming viewers, treating non-stories as Big News, etc boosts ratings and thus leads to more advertising dollars, that's what they'll do.  If such things didn't work or stopped working, they'd try something else.  

Even the media's corporatism likely stems more from the financial incentive to promote the economic interests of the companies that own ABC, NBC, MSNBC, FOX, CNN, CNBC, CBS, etc than from any sort of genuine ideological commitment to a pro-big business ideological agenda.  This probably contributes to the lack of investigative reporting a little bit, but that can probably be primarily attributed to a combination of laziness and most importantly the unfortunate fact that investigative reporting usually doesn't produce stories that attract as many viewers as CNN babbling about a missing Malaysian airplane (whose direct impact on the viewer or someone they know well can be fully explained in no more than two concise and simple sentences).  Actually, that's probably a good test for how damaging a scandal will be (how many concise sentences would it take to convey it's significance and impact to someone who doesn't follow politics at all).

Side note: This is also why affairs are such dangerous scandals compared to something like campaign finance violations.  They are easy to sensationalize and they can be easily described: "Senator ___ cheated on his wife.  If he broke his marriage vows, how can we believe anything else he says?"  With campaign finance violations you have to explain why these laws even matter, how the amount of money someone gave to Senator ___ exceeded the legal limit and that they tried to get around the law by...zzzzzzzzzzz.

At the end of the day, the media only cares about making money.  If saying stupid sh!t for attention, race-baiting, affirming the worldview of a particular party's base or certain demographic groups, sensationalized "reporting", fear-mongering, misinforming viewers, treating non-stories as Big News, etc boosts ratings and thus leads to more advertising dollars, that's what they'll do.  If such things didn't work or stopped working, they'd try something else.  But again, even the "news" networks whose business model involves blatantly supporting one party over the other, they don't necessarily do do so in a way that benefits the said party.

Take Fox News, they don't always act in a way that benefits the Republicans politically and have hurt the party quite a bit.  Often when the Republican Party is trying to avoid jumping off a cliff, Fox works to rile up its viewers to the point that it turns a fringe position into the mainstream one within the party (even as folks like Boehner know better).  As a result, what could've been a Ted Cruz or a Steve King embarrassing himself again turns into the whole party stampeding off the cliff like swarm of lemmings.  What Fox does do very well, however, is stoke the resentments, play to the fears, exploit and encourage the prejudices, and yes, even speak to the concerns* of certain demographics (especially white men who are either 60+, evangelicals, or members of the working class) that feel like no one is fighting for them and/or that the country has changed so much they barely recognize it anymore...and that they were left behind when it did so.  Frank Luntz once observed that "We don't watch news to inform us anymore, we watch news to affirm us."  

*This is a distinctly different thing than advocating for a group's actual interests, which Fox has never done.

That's exactly what Fox News does, it makes money by affirming the worldview of certain groups and giving them a sense of validation about their fears and prejudices.  It happens that in Fox's case their audience means part of their brand will be promoting a right-wing worldview, but I'd bet a lot the more extreme, hysterical, and/or bigoted comments and personas of people like Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, etc are just schtick.  A lot of that stuff is likely just an act, these guys are entertainers in a perverse sort of way.  It’s like Beck, Huckabee, etc are screenwriters and their TV personas are the characters they’ve written for themselves.

Everyone has there own little niche at Fox (and MSNBC, for that matter).  O'Reilly is the chief race-baitor, Beck used to be Fox's "the government is out to get you" guy, Huckabee is the lead cultural warrior, Hannity does the most blatant pandering to generational animosities of older viewers, etc (although the niches all inevitably overlap at times).  

MSNBC does that same thing, but for different demographic groups such as college-educated white liberals in suburbia.  They’re just as shameless as Fox though and just as insincere in their commitment to their so-called ideology.  Also like Fox, they don't truly help the party they are associated with.  Watching the likes of Chris Matthews or Ed Schultz is like having every negative stereotype about liberals reinforced.  MSNBC's talking heads generally have a smug elitist persona and preach tolerance while promoting bigotry against minorities that don't vote how they want them to ((*cough* Lawrence O'Donnell *cough*).

They also play to their audience's class and cultural prejudices against religious and rural Americans by constantly looking down their noses at the rural poor and paternalistically acting like white southerners and the white working class are all a bunch of dumb, racist hicks who need a good educated liberal to come and tell them about what their interests are.  The liberal version of the "here in the Real America" schtick is constantly bellowed by MSNBC: "If only the dumb rednecks would listen when we tell them what's best for them, everything would be perfect in America."  

And what does this sort of non-sense do?  Well, for MSNBC's target audience, it affirms their worldview and gives them a false feeling of validation about their prejudices.  But it also ensures that anyone who watches MSNBC and isn't part of its target audience will likely come away with the impression that liberals are everything the Republicans accuse them of being: smug, arrogant, and hypocritical elitists who think they know whats best for everyone else.  MSNBC doesn't care if this hurts the Democratic brand with independents or reduces the chances of rural Americans voting Democratic again.  They only care that there is money to be made promoting their warped and distorted pseudo-reality.

TL;DR: The media isn’t babbling about the e-mails because they are part of some vast right-wing conspiracy to bring down Hillary Clinton.  They’re doing it because, for whatever reason, there is an appetite for anything remotely dramatic (or pseudo-dramatic, in this case) involving the Clintons.  Thus, it is in the media’s interest to peddle this sort of non-story and treat it as if it were a big deal.  The idea that the media has a commitment to anything for reasons other than its own direct financial self-interest is laughable.  



[Simfan34]

Lol...you're really in a bubble of eco delusion, lady.

My argument is quite rational.  Increasing quality of life can be achieved by technological innovation and/or economic growth.

Economic growth is achieved either by productivity increases or population growth.

The major driver for increasing quality of life can then be partially explained by a growing population given ample access to required resources.

Technology and innovation are making resource use far more efficient.

Labor force growth is negative in nearly all of Europe now.  That is a drag on economic growth, which puts a drag on quality of life.  Both productivity growth and population growth have slowed or reversed.  So economic growth isn't a thing anymore in Europe.  Only technology advances improve quality of life now.  If you can afford them with your dwindling resources as returns on economic activity dwindle.

The state of small rural towns in rural Germany today is a preview of what all but the most important cities will be in 20 years without major restructuring...and where theyll get the money to pay for that restructuring, no one knows which is why the rural towns have been allowed to decay rather than save some of them.

Empty shop windows...empty apartment buildings...decaying infrastructure...a patchwork of teardowns since people tend not to die in a geographically orderly fashion...

Communities will just revert backwards to less developed states.

You can deny it..but your future isn't very bright in Europe and its attitudes like yours that brought it on.

Perhaps this could go into the sulfur mine but it seems too thoughtful. Either way it eviscerates the ridiculous idea that "negative population growth is a good thing".

[Simfan34]

But that capacity is not simply a function of the size of the earth or whatnot, now is it? It's also- and more importantly- a function of technology levels. That capacity is not constant- we can't project the present onto the future as if it were. If I remember correctly, given the the capacities of the time, you would have needed around 1000 Earths to feed 7 billion people in 10,000 BC. And here we are just fine with one, "ecological necessity" be damned.

What reason do I have to believe that this trend will suddenly stop anytime soon, if ever?

[Simfan34]

So stopping as soon as possible is always the best option? So we would have been better off if we had stopped last year, or ten years ago... or in 10,000 B.C.?

[Simfan34]

So stopping as soon as possible is always the best option? So we would have been better off if we had stopped last year, or ten years ago... or in 10,000 B.C.?

No of course not to the last one, but in the present situation it clearly is important to stabilize global population at as low a level as possible. The lower level, the more natural resources per capita.

The current situation is unique in human history. Never before has billions of people had an ambition of pursuing a consumerist life style and a realistic chance of acquiring one. That is in itself fine, but we are depleting resources at a very fast rate and as populations swell, resource depletion will be exacerbated. At the same time we are facing a climate crisis that reduces important resources like agricultural soil.
Scientists predict that we'll "need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000. That is a very tall order. A fast growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources is a problematic scenario. No technological fix is likely to counter that.

As a sidenote: For me the fact that half the worlds wildlife has gone in the last 40 years play a role as well. A world where there is only room for a few species is a tragedy and unethical.

So what? What use is that if we have the technology? The reality of the misery of population decline, meanwhile, strikes again:

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-the-maritimes-became-canadas-incredible-shrinking-region/

[Simfan34]

Aren't most projections indicating that the world population will eventually level at around 10 billion and then begin to stagnate?

Yes. We're likely going to stop at 10 and be there for a good century before going downward in the 22nd century. Anecdotal declines in population like Simfan posts are just human migration.

I don't claim otherwise, but it shows what happens when a region loses population- nothing good.

[Simfan34]

Well, this thread deserves a large recap!

As you probably know, Dilma Rousseff (PT-RS) was barely reelected back in October 2014 after what was the tightest democratic election ever in Brazil's history. Most will remember the two-month roller coaster. More on the election here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=170116.0

Some will probably remember that as the election went by, Brazil's economy started to show unequivocal signs of weakness, with shrinking growth, rising inflation, a weakening currency and a federal budget out of control. The economic weakness was made worse by the fact that the financial market clearly chose Aecio Neves as its candidate, as the government was blamed for the results of a failed economic strategy adapted from 2011 onward.

Some will remember that during the election, Dilma emphatically said that there was nothing wrong with the economy, that inflation was under control and that no adjustments would be needed. She also attacked both Aecio Neves and Marina Silva strongly, claiming that they would go on with privatizations, restricting worker's rights, cutting government spending on social problems, etc.

Some will also remember that as the election went by, the largest corruption scandal in Brazil's history started to be blown wide open for everyone, as its whistleblowers started to tell the feds all they knew about a gigantic corruption scandal underway in Brazil largest state owned company, Petrobras. 2 days before the runoff, it was leaked that, according to one of the whistleblowers, both Lula and Dilma knew about the wrongdoing and did nothing to stop it.

Well, just one day after the election Dilma was forced to go on a full "etch a sketch" mode, recognizing the economy was not in its best state and that some sacrifice would be needed. Later that week, interest rates were increased to curb escalating inflation, and soon after Dilma announced Joaquim Levy, an orthodox economist who was part of Aecio Neves' staff as her finance minister. Levy was supposed to set forth a series of unpopular measures, such as raising taxes and restricting access to pensions, social security and unemployment benefits.

A few days later, Dilma was faced with a disaster in potential as it became clear that the federal government would run a deficit in 2014, falling well short of the budgetary target set forth by the 2014 budget. Since that would violate Brazil's balanced budget law, an impeachable offence, Dilma was forced to bargain with the Congress a change on the fiscal target before December 31st. The consequence was that Dilma lost a lot of leverage and political power.

Dilma took an even stronger hit when the new Congress was sworn in. The new Congress has a much less stable majority than the one Dilma worked with on her 1st term, specially in the House. To make things worse, Dilma tried to intervene on the race for the presidency of the House, as she tried to avoid the election of Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), one of the cunningest politicians in Brazil, a man she despises. She failed badly, Cunha was elected with ease and Dilma lost even more support in Congress.

Finally, the Petrobras scandal turns worse for the government each passing day. Right after the election, a large number of businessmen were arrested, all of them suspected of paying hefty bribes for politicians in exchange of highly profitable contracts with Petrobras. While some denied any wrongdoing and said they had nothing to tell the feds, some went rogue and started telling all they knew about the corruption scandal to the feds. This led to even more new info, deepening the investigations further. As things got bleaker, the government finally decided to sack Petrobras' president, Maria Graça Foster. The problem is, they chose a man with previous ethics concerns to replace her, scaring even more investors away from Petrobras. Remember, Petrobras last produced a valid balance sheet on the 2nd quarter of 2014.

As February came by, things started to get even worse for Dilma. First, Eduardo Cunha was sworn in as the President of the House, promising to act with independence from the Executive. From them on, things soured quickly. Dilma has angered the entire PMDB, that refuses to negotiate with the leading political negotiators of the federal government (including Dilma's Chief of Staff, Aluizio Mercadante). Things got nuclear when the Attorney General announced the name of the first politicians that will be investigated for involvement with the Petrobras scandal. The list contains the name of many PMDB barons, such as Eduardo Cunha and the President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL). Cunha and Calheiros claimed their names were on the list because the federal government asked the Attorney General to do so. As a reaction, they rallied the PMDB to make things even worse for Dilma in Congress.

Finally, the PT itself has been taking increasingly large hits. Renato Duque, a former director of Petrobras and a man known to be very close to José Dirceu was arrested late last year accused of involvement on the scandal. He was released just a few days later, but last Monday he was arrested again, as the Prosecution proved he was still laundering huge sums of money in Monaco. The latest findings show Duque was the man responsible for asking hefty bribes for the PT, bribes that were collected by a now infamous name, João Vaccari Neto, the treasurer of the PT. PT members are in panic that Duque may be desperate in prison, and that for this reason he may decide to tell what he knows to the feds. There's also increasing evidence that José Dirceu got millions from the corruption scheme, and that Dilma's 2010 presidential campaign was largely funded by bribes and laundered money. Finally, large PT names such as Senator Gleisi Hoffman (PT-PR), Senator Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ) and Senator Humberto Costa (PT-PE) emerged on the AG's list of investigated politicians.

Notice the amount of times I said things "got worse" for Dilma. It just goes to tell you how bad things got for her. It's not surprising that the latest ratings of her government are on pair with the ones registered by Collor when impeachment proceedings against him started back in September 1992. The national rating is of 62% bad/awful ratings, and even on the Northeast, where Dilma had a landslide win back in October, over 50% of the voters now say her government is bad/awful.



Thus, with a economy expect to shrink nearly 1% this year (and I'm being optimistic), inflation getting closer to double digits, a melting currency, many broken promises and a gigantic corruption scandal that's getting closer and closer to the presidency, its no surprise that many want to boot Dilma out of overnment. That's why over 2 million people took the streets of hundreds of cities last Sunday, as you may have seen on TV or somewhere on internet. Those were the largest demonstrations in Brazil's recorded history, even larger than the redemocratization demonstrations back in the 80's.

Now, can Dilma be impeached? That's something I'll discuss tomorrow.

[Simfan34]

I started working on this while Julia Gillard was Prime Minister. How's that for an effortpost?

[Simfan34]

I fail to see why Antonio would be expected to write in anything but American English, seeing as that he has no native dialect of English and that he has lived in America in the past and will again in the future. Obviously I have no problem with foreigners using whatever version of English they feel most comfortable with.

Obviously for Americans to type in non-American English is a hideous affectation. I have made my feelings on this very clear in the past. If Americans hate their own native culture so much that they are unwilling to use its language, they are free to find some other place to live.

It is not that I don't think Antonio should be allowed to write whichever way he likes, but it is a bit ironic that he as a European dislikes Americans writing in British English and use American English himself.

In Europe - and in the majority of the world outside of the Americas - the English version of English is English. It is the norm among educated people and using American English signals you mainly have your knowledge of English from US pop culture. So even if Antonio has lived in America it is a bit weird for me that an intellectual French guy writes in American English (I associate European academics using American English with faux solidarity with the working class. It is the kind of thing rich Trots do).

Your intolerant view of Americans that use British English ("love it or leave it") is a bit funny since your parents immigrated from a country that uses British English. It comes off as a bit over the top.

[Simfan34]

This thread consists of people trying to figure out why this woman voted for Obama twice and wants to meet him, largely because of the first post (She is super old but voted for him TWICE despite being from ARKANSAS?!) This is then answered by classifying her into various demographic camps that allow this kind of behaviour (she's a "New Deal" or "lifelong" Democrat) but this is still strange because she seems white, which conflicts with expected white Southerner voting behaviour. But, as it turns out, she is definitely black after all, which makes her known voting record easy to accept. Phew!

In other words.. classic Atlas thread.

[Simfan34]

Was just going to post that.

[Simfan34]

Let us pause for a moment and consider the lie of the land. Polls conducted after the (ridiculous) debate collectively show the Conservatives on between 30% and 36% and Labour on between 33% and 37%. The Liberal Democrats are polling between 7% and 12%, UKIP between 11% and 19%, and the Greens between 3% and 7%.¹ Most of the more extreme figures are from the less well regarded polling companies. There is a tendency in the media to look at this and say (as they have done for months) that the polls point towards another hung parliament. They do not. Due to the electoral system the relationship between votes polled and seats won in Britain is not absolute and is not something that can be securely calculated. Parties have won majorities with very slender leads in the past.² Mostly what the polls point to is a competitive election with an uncertain outcome. They also suggest that a large majority for any party is extremely unlikely. Any inference beyond that point is an example of using data to back up predictions already made, rather than using data to make predictions. Beware.

<sub>1. The Greens are running about sixty seats short of a full GB slate, which will knock their final vote tally down a tad.
2. And very occasionally have actually won majorities despite trailing: the last time this happened was in 1951.</sub>

[Simfan34]

I think at least another twenty-five years are needed to even attempt a guess, really. Using current trends is fruitless.

Well, 50 years ago, would they have predicted that

Gays
Abortion
Drug Legalization
Discrimination in private stores
Religion

Would be social issues?

The answer is yes.

Few would have predicted fifty years ago in the pre-Stonewall era that gay rights would be an issue. Maybe abortion, but even there many of them probably would have predicted that fight would be over expanding access to something like what many pro-life advocates are trying to restrict access to be from what it is now.

I'm with Ernest here. Let's go through the list as seen in 1965. I was a boy then, and Torie can confirm from his perspective.

Gays. As Ernest notes Stonewall wasn't until 1969, and even then middle America paid almost no attention to it other than as another piece of the countercultural revolution. In 1965 gays were nowhere on the radar.

Abortion. This was an issue in 1965, but the more prominent issue was birth control due to the availability of the pill. The Griswold decision overturning Connecticut's ban on contraceptives happened in 1965. Issues surrounding birth control have been documented throughout human history and there is no reason to expect them to go away in the next 50 years. As some have suggested genetic choices may well replace abortion as the prominent issue, but abortion will still remain.

Drug Legalization. This was a rising issue in 1965 due to the availability of heroin to servicemen in Vietnam. It reached a peak during the 70's then dropped back. Regulation of mood altering substances is, like birth control, a timeless phenomenon. What changes over time is the chemical of focus, with some cycling in and out of the nation's attention.

Discrimination in private stores. In 1965 this was about black-white racial relations and not much else. If someone made a prediction that this would be an issue in 50 years they would have assumed that it was a racial issue only. Yet by the late 80's I heard little debate on the topic. Unless there is a specific group that is newsworthy in the 2060's I don't think it will be an issue. That said, I'll put out my future spin on this, the discriminated group in 50 years will be people without electronic IDs on their person and it will be a privacy vs safety issue.

Religion. Another issue that is as old as recorded history. In 1965 a discussion of this was likely to be about mixed families of different Christian faiths (I come from one). The other big issue then was prayer in school since it was in 1962 that SCOTUS ruled against NY's mandate for prayer. The existence of the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment insures that religion will continue to be a matter of debate.

[Simfan34]

I actually think that, over the course of the last month, Ed has become damaged goods.

The narrative even within the party seems to have gone from 'He means well and could surprise people' to 'When's his next misstep due?'.

The irony in the events of the last month seems to be that Heywood has scared the PLP so much that it's damaged Ed more than Clacton's damaged Cameron. There's a lot in saying that the Tories expected to lose Clacton.

There's a bit of fear that 2010 wasn't Labour's floor. That it could sink further below what it got. The polls themselves don't show a great deal of CON to LAB switchers. There's an over-reliance on Lib Dem 2010 voters leaking back to Labour where it counts and an over expectation that UKIP won't damage them. What you could find is that in traditionally suburban seats like Bolton West that Labour hold by a gnats wing, the Lib Dem voters who have stayed with them from 1997, could leak disproportionately back to the Conservatives, gifting them the seat from Labour. There is also a problem in Scotland, which while it may be fleeting, currently shows Labour performing as badly (and the SNP performing as well) at Westminster as they are at Holyrood, with voting intentions at 2011 levels. While Labour are maxed out in Scotland, they can't really afford to fall back.

[Simfan34]

I agree that Leip's lackadaisical approach to this site is kind of astonishing and he needs to prune plenty of boards. But many of the complaints from people who keep sucking AAD's dick are pretty unpleasable, and if what a lot of you guys really want is some sort of social club, your time for an elections focused site has long passed and this forum will be better off without you. What is worst about this site, by far, is its people devoted to "Atlas culture." That aspect of this site is a cesspool. The attachment to the stories from Bushie or Libertas are honestly sort of gross, and if you mainly stick around a place to take glee in someone's absurd self-destruction, just go watch reality television.

I mean, let's take Lief's complaints. What are they, even? His posts about CCSF highlight that he's all over the place. He wants trolls banned, until he doesn't. He wants active moderators, until he doesn't. What do some of you guys actually want? I'm genuinely curious. It's easy to chime in with complaints all the time, but what do people actually want done?

I was coming to post this.

[Simfan34]

There's a stereotype of Canada, that Canadians don't know what their national culture is, except that they're not the United States.

There's a stereotype of Americans, that Americans think everything has to do with them and that everyone is defined by them.

I don't object to America's existence any more than I object to Canada's, but I do object to the way they act when they travel abroad.

Yes, but the thing about Canada does not seem wildly off the mark, either.

[Simfan34]

After conducting some initial research into the basis of rights, I've concluded that animals cannot have rights and that this is a category error. Using Rawls' "original position", I'd claim that there can be no basis for animal rights because humans cannot be born as animals; there's no intuition that allows for a defense of animal rights rooted in practical reason that's removed from contingent concerns or utilitarian logic, which can't properly be the basis for rights. In my view, Rawls' addition to Kantian logic allows for a full defense of rights for the disabled that does not locate rights in autonomy alone but rather the potential for autonomy: rights are considered on the basis of a position where individuals cannot know whether they will be born disabled or not. This logic is quite sensible: the disabled should be protected by rights, not because they're capable of autonomous decision-making beings, but rather because there's some sort of abstract consensus that this is a virtuous decision, guided by the intuition that any one of us could have been born disabled or become disabled given different contingencies.

In short: there's no basis for applying deontological ethics to animals because there's no manner of applying "pure reason" to determine principles or rules for treating animals. This is the case because deontological ethics are rooted in some idea about being able to independently appraise the value of some act on the basis or rubric of a "de-situated self". We cannot imagine or abstract or reason through what it would be like to be an animal; there's no intuition we can access for that.

Why does this matter? I'd argue that rights must be considered through the lens of deontology, a utilitarian defense of rights is contradictory and supposes that rights are useful instruments or conventions, which defeats the logic of rights as overriding principles designed to govern communities.  The case for animal rights has to be seen in some form of utilitarian logic. Animals are "sentient" beings and therefore must be taken into consideration when measuring utility. That's all well and good but utility can't be a basis for the overriding guiding principles that rights are intended to be.

I'll take this a step further and critique the very attempt to apply utilitarian logic to animals: how can we ever attempt to measure the "utils" of an animal's life? What kind of scale can be applied to animals? Are chickens worth more than frogs? Are dogs worth more than pigs? Does the quick execution of some farm animal create less disutility than the entire process of factory-farming? I'd argue that even the logic of utilitarianism can't be reconciled with a concern for animal welfare: there's no way to measure or assess the value of pain inflicted on sentient beings because we can't survey an animal or understand an animal; we probably lack that intuition and we certainly anthropomorphize animals when we engage in this process.

Note: I'm not attempting to throw the kitchen sink at animal rights. I'm pretty committed to the practical use of reason to determine rights in a manner that isn't based on the contingencies of everyday life. I just can't comprehend how animal rights makes any sense. I do think that concern for animal welfare makes sense; there's some sort of value to human beings when we apply our altruistic sensibilities to the natural world, I think that it promotes some sort of virtue. Obviously, there are still prudential reasons to place strict restrictions on industrial farming: it's bad for human beings when poop lagoons pollute streams and methane is released into the atmosphere. Again, I'd separate this concern from concern for animal welfare. It's certainly not sufficient to justify a duty for vegetarianism or whatever.

[Simfan34]

Would northern and southern United States be better off going their separate ways?

After all, their economies differ significantly. In the north, what you have is an economy that's shifting towards industrialization, while the south seems Hellbent on sticking with 'King Cotton'. Economies aside, the south is culturally and political different as well. While you have the planter elite, slaves, and 'crackers' below the Mason-Dixon line, to its north is a much more open, free, and diverse society. Slavery, obviously, is one of the big issues that divides these two different regions, but there is much more.

If you look at the last election, it could be said that the country isn't even holding the same elections! While Lincoln battled Douglas in the north, Bell was Breckenridge's only opposition for the slave states.

Ultimately, I think that the north and the south should simply part on good terms. They obviously are too different to form one nation, and I don't think anything's going to ever change that."

You could say that the south is more socially conservative while the north is more fiscally conservative.

An oldie but goodie.

[Simfan34]

Oh, what a bunch of BS.

Face it: these guys have always went along with whatever idea coming out of conservative America that is conveyed in the strongest and loudest terms possible. They're not "paleoconservatives" or "populists": they're know-nothings and low-info voters. When Reagan was the strong man, they went along with him. When Buchanan was, they went along with him. When Bush II was, they went along with him. Now, they're going along with Trump. Perot was never a strong man - he merely had the support of know-nothings and disengaged, low-information voters because neither candidate was appealing to their cretinous tendencies in the general election (however, for that reason, it is a very apt comparison). It has nothing to do with the ideas so much as it has to do with blind partisan hatred and whoever can present the most concentrated form of messaging that taps into their raw emotions.

Trump is the best at doing such in a very long time (maybe ever), whereas low-energy losers like Buchanan never got anywhere in the end. Buchanan never had a near-majority of GOP voters in his corner.

There is arguably nobody who better embodies the vulture-capitalist, government bribing, outsource-loving elements of the Republican Party in the race today than Trump, based on who he actually is and what he has actually done - not what his chose du jour happens to be in terms of talk. Hell, he may be the best embodiment of that ever; even Romney didn't make billions off of moving capital to and fro around the world and artificially generating value in arbitrary ways back home, conflating it with wealth...only to lose it all and make billions right back again because the people to whom he owed money didn't want their own fortunes to be harmed by his utter failures spilling over into even more into their own finances (and into the collective psyche of the public, further showing the people that they're all nothing more than vultures).

Donald Trump was the original bailout.

[Simfan34]

Memorialise this for the ages:

Re: Post something that makes no sense--

Donald Trump will become the next President of the United States.