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Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

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Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#111

Post by kristopolous »

lacampbell wrote: post #107
kristopolous wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analysis ignores imperialism, transnational capitalism, colonialism, different signifiers of progress, and cherry-picks evidence from random points of history without doing any type of rigorous analysis. It ignores the vast majority of history with no functional government, no taxes, and free markets such as say, 3000BC in Moscow --- take your pick. Was there technological advancements, well maintained cities, a…

It's dishonest to accuse me of cherry picking statistics - particularly when I never claimed my short post was a rigorous statistical analysis - then reply to me with your own cherry picked statistics. Nevertheless... There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. And how does this effect the quality of life in Cuba? Life expectancy is the same [0]. Are wor…

Look I understand free market beliefs are a religion. Maybe one day you'll look past it. It's fine

About "fleeing", that's people emmigrating. Are Mexicans "fleeing" NAFTA? Canadians moving to the US fleeing Trudeau?

No, there's lots of reasons to leave and that word choice ignores this fact - especially 67 years after the revolution; that's really taking your sweet time if it's Castro's Cuba making you leave.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#113

Post by smallnamespace »

lacampbell wrote: post #109
Brakenshire wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster above was discussing attitudes towards government in Canada, it seems a bit of a non-sequitur to bring up East Germany, North Korea, and Maoist China. This is one of the very strange dichotomies which seems to exist in the US, as if when considering economics or government there are only two sides of the coin, and anything even vaguely centre left is on the same side as Communism. What didibus said applies…

Here's the crux of it - most developed countries in the world are poorer than the US. I'm in NZ, often held up as some kind of social democratic Utopia by progressive Americans. Salaries are lower, housing is unaffordable in places that are in no way comparable to San Francisco or New York, and goods are extremely expensive due to sky high import and sales taxes.

Is life for the median (or below) worker worse or better though, in terms of access to health care, housing, education, jobs, etc.?

As a counterpoint, US is only #8 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#114

Post by lacampbell »

kristopolous wrote: post #111
lacampbell wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dishonest to accuse me of cherry picking statistics - particularly when I never claimed my short post was a rigorous statistical analysis - then reply to me with your own cherry picked statistics. Nevertheless... There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. And how does this effect the quality of life in Cuba? Life expectancy is the same [0]. Are wor…

Look I understand free market beliefs are a religion. Maybe one day you'll look past it. It's fine About "fleeing", that's people emmigrating. Are Mexicans "fleeing" NAFTA? Canadians moving to the US fleeing Trudeau? No, there's lots of reasons to leave and that word choice ignores this fact - especially 67 years after the revolution; that's really taking your sweet time if it's Castro's Cuba making you leave.

It's not arguing in good faith to imply that the only reason I disagree with you is because my view point constitutes a religion, or because I simply haven't come to a certain point of enlightenment that you yourself have presumably reached.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#115

Post by kristopolous »

lacampbell wrote: post #114
kristopolous wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look I understand free market beliefs are a religion. Maybe one day you'll look past it. It's fine About "fleeing", that's people emmigrating. Are Mexicans "fleeing" NAFTA? Canadians moving to the US fleeing Trudeau? No, there's lots of reasons to leave and that word choice ignores this fact - especially 67 years after the revolution; that's really taking your sweet time if it's Castro's Cuba making you leave.

It's not arguing in good faith to imply that the only reason I disagree with you is because my view point constitutes a religion, or because I simply haven't come to a certain point of enlightenment that you yourself have presumably reached.

Look, my position is simply anti-absolutism. I don't know what will be best suited for a problem before I understand the problem. The free market isn't always best, nor is any other system. I'm not against markets - I'm against it being the square peg for all the round holes of society. If it's a square hole, then go ahead, be my guest.

I'm anti-capitalist, anti-communist, anti-statist, anti-socialist ... anything with an "ist" - these are tools to solve different kinds of problems. We need to acknowledge their applications and limitations.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#116

Post by trome »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #110
kristopolous wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pro-private, anti-democratic push by chicago school, objectivists, and other groups, to essentially slander civic institutions as terrible and "privatize" them with capital extracting robber barons. "Government" is a 4 letter word and some people are insufferable in their hatred for it - thinking that some private selfish interest of people would magically make the world ... look, it's all preposterous ... it'…

A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it? a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so…

Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in comparison!

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#117

Post by trome »

js2 wrote: post #83
DougN7 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nailed it on the head! Everyone wants someone else to pay for services. Nobody is saying "Raise my taxes - I appreciate these services". We're all complicit.

My fellow voters and I just approved a half-cent sales tax to fund a transit plan, so that's not true. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/electio...

Yeah, returns from bus feeding commuter rail will be limited, need grade separated mass transit, or at the very least Bus Rapid Transit with dedicated lanes.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#118

Post by kristopolous »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #110
kristopolous wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pro-private, anti-democratic push by chicago school, objectivists, and other groups, to essentially slander civic institutions as terrible and "privatize" them with capital extracting robber barons. "Government" is a 4 letter word and some people are insufferable in their hatred for it - thinking that some private selfish interest of people would magically make the world ... look, it's all preposterous ... it'…

A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it? a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so…

C can be a problem. It's how the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about is structured.

"C" is what leads to things like corporate bail outs.

Parenti talked about this with Conrail in the 80s. It was a train system that was put in public trust because it couldn't make money in the 70s. Then after the public made it profitable, under Reagan, it was reprivatized - not because it didn't work, but because it did work.

"C" goes beyond this in corruption. You get "compromises" where you have private health-care paid by public taxes (obamacare) or medicare part D with prescriptions being covered but the government forbidden from negotiating the prices. Or you get private for-profit schools able to use government loans for tuition and getting to the corrupt state of affairs we have now.

No, "C" is a terrible idea because it's a giant funnel into the hand of corrupt bank accounts - it promotes the state to prop up forms of dysfunctional capitalism.

In fact if you look at the total tax burden by country, including state tax and other things (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates) You see that the US is higher than places like Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands - way above France and the UK. We pay more and get less, and it's all because of "C".

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#119

Post by aetherson »

aetherson wrote: post #53
droithomme wrote: post #9

If someone asks me my opinion about something I'm much more likely to say what I know they want to hear if they offer to pay me to say that, and I'm less likely to debate with them instead. If they aren't paying me, I'm more likely to say what I really think.

Well, the concept here is that they're asking very simple unambiguous factual questions, so if you know what they "want you to say," then you at least know the truth, even if you don't believe the truth. That is: If I ask you what's 3x3, for you to know that the answer that I want is 9, then you must know the truth. But I suppose there is some room for nuance. Like, take asking this question: "Has a human walked on t…

That said, I don't really believe the moon-landing thing.

Here's my logic:

I'm talking to Alfred, moon-landing-truther. Alfred, I feel, is open in telling me how it works. He knows that I believe that the moon landing is real. He acknowledges that there is reason for me to believe that it is real -- he understands the conventional narrative. He explicitly argues his own (crazy) counter-narrative that subsumes the conventional narrative, reinterpreting the facts that I use.

I've never heard anyone articulate a conspiracy theory around the example questions this study gave. Nobody has ever said to me -- not even online -- "Sure, it appears that inflation decreased during Reagan, but actually, here's the reason why that's a lie," nor "Sure, it appears that the deficit shrank during Clinton, but that's a lie."

The closest that I've heard is two things:

1. A general belief that the media or the establishment lie or shill for Team X, without specifics.

2. Not on "inflation during Reagan" or "deficit during Clinton," but I do sometimes hear conspiracy theories that inflation is not actually currently low because the way that they calculate it and handle new inventions is a cheat, or that unemployment is not actually currently low because the proper measurement of unemployment is workforce participation.

Re: Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions

#120

Post by rjbwork »

kristopolous wrote: post #118
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it? a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so…

C can be a problem. It's how the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about is structured. "C" is what leads to things like corporate bail outs. Parenti talked about this with Conrail in the 80s. It was a train system that was put in public trust because it couldn't make money in the 70s. Then after the public made it profitable, under Reagan, it was reprivatized - not because it didn't work, but bec…

But all those other countries you mentioned are also C, in a way bigger way. The US leans more towards B, in actuality, versus those other countries. Are you saying A is the solution?
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