Today, Trump appointed Myron Ebell (a massive climate change denier) to head up the EPA.
We're so utterly and completely fucked.
Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
521–530 of 1001 posts
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#522Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…
Term limits won't do a damn thing to curtail lobbying. Lobbyists love having lots of fresh blood just looking to make a quick buck flooding the legislature.
The limits create a constantly revolving legislature that is easier to manipulate and will in general do a poorer job. If he really cared, we'd see something on campaign finance reform; but alas, he doesn't actually want to get money out of politics.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#523This can't be good for Tesla and a lot of other green companies. My hope is that despite this "contract" he won't do much... I believe the price of the energy is not longer only about the production and distribution but also its long term effects(i.e health, sustainability, climate change).
So far, oil prices are on the rise with the news of Trump winning.
It's not surprising as he heavily critiqued the deal with Iran - a deal which opened up trade of a lot of oil from the country.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
Despite being an independent left leaning liberal, I welcome this proposal, if they can actually implement it. I see wide-spread exploitation of the "Sanctuary City" Law in San Francisco, especially in the Restaurants, Construction site and Janitorial jobs. The Sanctuary Law, for those that don't know, forbids the Feds from asking employers about the immigration status of the employees / workers. This has caused 100s…
And you find that cutting federal funding entirely is a reasonable, proportional response?
Yes. Bigly.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#525He's handing America's world dominance handedly to China. Start learning Chinese folks, America is done.
How does American world dominance help the people who voted for Trump?
Free trade lowers prices for everyone. The poors won't be able to buy food if Trump follows through with protectionism.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#526cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama. I think we need some claification on what is "constitutional"
I will be replacing "unconstitutional" in my head with "against Donald Trump's business interests" for the next few years.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
In France Hollande have been moving goal posts every time these 'N days' plans failed. He's now thinking about a second mandate. Out of curiosity, in this era of disruption (for better or worse) where are the plans to disrupt politicians ? So many flaws yet we keep believing in the same democratic design every election.
> So many flaws yet we keep believing in the same democratic design every election. There are two ways of changing the fundamental issues in a constitution: 1) violent revolution, 2) changes getting done in democratic process. 1) obviously works, but rarely (you need a LOT of support in the population in order to stage a coup). 2) I am afraid to say doesn't really work in America (or for that matter any major nation)…
What if some of the super rich elites leveraged their economic might to counteract the effect of gerrymandering -- perhaps an endowment that explicitly offered a geographically sensitive housing subsidy based on a normalized model for how precincts _should_ be shaped could have significant effects if backed by the capital of a Gates or a Zuckerberg foundation?
I believe that mathematically fair models for precinct shape have been described[1] -- such model could provide the basis for estimating the gerrymander induced vote-reflects-voter-will-error -- and the subsidy system could encourage population shift to try and approximate the results that would occur if the precincts had actually been drawn "fairly" ...
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
Has it become that radical to suggest that smart, well-educated people may in fact see further into the consequences of things (particularly in their areas of expertise, but probably also peripherally), see more cognitive bias, have better critical-thinking skills, remember more mistakes from history, and all around make better long-term decisions? Why is that even offensive to anyone? Just because of someone's perso…
You should read Emmett Rensin's brilliant writing on this subject: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... He expounds on and develops this idea much more.
I immediately thought of this article while reading their post. Both sides like demonizing and trivializing the other, but it's important to remember... these political parties are composed of millions of Americans. Both parties have stupid and genius members. Priorities is the only thing that separates us.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simple thermodynamics. We get energy from coal by burning it then extracting some of the heat. The waste products are basically carbon dioxide and heat. Clean coal is about capturing that carbon dioxide, which means spending energy to separate the CO2 from other gasses, then liquefy it. This sequestration process costs about 30% of the energy originally extracted from the coal. I fully support clean coal since it inc…
While capturing and liquifying the CO2 may prevent immediate release into the atmosphere, you still have to do something with it. Where would you sequester a billion gallons of liquified CO2 each year?
That is exactly the issue. If you really want to solidify the carbon for long term storage, you'd have to spend more energy than you gain in the first place. At least I'm not aware of a process that could capture CO2 for long term storage with only a fraction of the Carbon-to-Carbon binding energy (which is what you gain when burning, minus the C-O2 binding.
Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority High brow smack (condescension) like that and "basket of deplorables" are what America revolted against. If the liberal left was truly smart, why did they allow the president to run up more national debt than all presidents prior...combined?
Has it become that radical to suggest that smart, well-educated people may in fact see further into the consequences of things (particularly in their areas of expertise, but probably also peripherally), see more cognitive bias, have better critical-thinking skills, remember more mistakes from history, and all around make better long-term decisions? Why is that even offensive to anyone? Just because of someone's perso…
Hofstadter's books on American culture and history are gems.
Broadly, the uneducated US population has historically distrusted experts and competence, preferring uneducated populists with charisma. This has generally led to the US having worse outcomes in many many areas. You can review any particular situation you know something at an expert & educated level about; usually that's in mild disarray to poorly done due to this gap between educated understanding and the electorate's choices.
This urge was understood: hence why the original US constitution had no popular vote provision for the President. It is instructive to read the rationale for the electoral college on Wikipedia.
Consequently, I'm a republic fan, but not a Republican.
I would also note that Fox News & descendants have specifically operated in a post-fact pro-opinion mode for years and years, defining the situation and the worldview of much of the uneducated populace. It lacked only a candidate to run on the Fox News/Drudge Report platform.
One could also remark that technology is inherently a political statement, and that the social media of today inherently promotes poor discourse. Elections 2016 rode in on Twitter, and disinformation campaigns flooded Facebook. It's not on Facebook to censor lies, but it's on Facebook to meditate on the modalites of media.
But, as all good nerds know, code has no politics, and politics is dirty, and politicians are liars, and politics doesn't affect them. So it's better to write code and not think about the consequences. (sarcasm, there)
Well folks, it's time to think about consequences, and ponder the events of the post-WW1 era.
Could be wise to not end up on an anti-Trump list assembled from private Facebook groups and demanded by a thin-skinned egotist.
Well, on that note, I'll be zipping my mouth on this one.
pnathan out.