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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#331

Post by Miraste »

kbenson wrote: post #263
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, when the disagreement is about turning the planet into a hollow cinder for naked protection of wealth accrued in an unjust system and justified by Puritanical memes of free will and individualism, it's either a naughty word ascribing malice or one ascribing stupidity. (Consequentially, the difference is sadly zero.)

> turning the planet into a hollow cinder There is disagreement about the magnitude of things, but this is hyperboloic. > for naked protection of wealth An opinion on their motives. > accrued in an unjust system There's so much that can be discussed there. But simple, name one system that isn't unjust in some way. You can optimize for advancement though capitalism, or you can optimize for equality though communism, o…

>> turning the planet into a hollow cinder

>There is disagreement about the magnitude of things, but this is hyperboloic (sic)

It's not hyperbolic. The Earth's new homeostasis after an unchecked greenhouse effect has run its course looks like Venus. If the effect is not stopped the question is not whether this will happen but how long it will take. Quite a while, certainly, but the environment will become inimical to humans much sooner.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#332

Post by Miraste »

aniro wrote: post #215
bhickey wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has it occurred to you that life has succeeded on the planet primarily by a fantastical luck of getting dosed with EXACTLY the right amount of radiation, carefully controlled by an atmosphere that literal took a millennia of millennia in order to develop? Well, no. We aren't in some mystical radiation balance with nature. Heritable point mutations are primarily driven by DNA polymerase errors and repair failures, n…

I gather all of that evidence was collected from Martian samples? Maybe Venus? Was it derived from DNA developed on the Moon? What does make Earth just right for you to have developed in order to be aware, gain such knowledge, share such knowledge? Untold eons of carefully controlled radiant energy emitted by our blessed Sun. The Sun and its ilk are massive emitters of radiant energy. Light is a form of radiation. He…

You know that we can measure and control for radiation in experiments, right? And that radiation levels are not constant across the planet?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#333

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #197
wombatmobile wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats and liberals on issues such as immigration, criminal-justice reform and limiting U.S. intervention abroad, where he thinks common ground can be found. He has partnered with organizations including the LeBron James Family Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and even a handful of Democratic state legislative campaigns. In 2019, he renamed the Koch netw…

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats A pragmatic choice given that a Democrat just won the White House. He can sit it out, or try to work with them and possibly influence their position.

[deleted]

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#334

Post by wombatmobile »

rootusrootus wrote: post #197
wombatmobile wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats and liberals on issues such as immigration, criminal-justice reform and limiting U.S. intervention abroad, where he thinks common ground can be found. He has partnered with organizations including the LeBron James Family Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and even a handful of Democratic state legislative campaigns. In 2019, he renamed the Koch netw…

> Mr. Koch is now trying to work together with Democrats A pragmatic choice given that a Democrat just won the White House. He can sit it out, or try to work with them and possibly influence their position.

Wouldn't it be quicker for him to just buy them?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#335

Post by Miraste »

pydry wrote: post #207
rurounijones wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), I mean, if we are going to be bringing up a single datapoint then allow me to raise a counterpoint. Nuclear energy is still safe. For example, it is still safe against possible natural disasters (Onagawa) [1] [1] https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear...

It's also, like, 4x more expensive per kWh (probably 2x more expensive with variability taken into account) than wind or solar and is uninsurable without a government backstop. I really wonder why people are so keen on it. It made sense to build them 40 years ago to deal with global warming. Today it's only financially viable if it's massively subsidized compared to wind/solar. What is it that makes that extra cost s…

The biggest thing it has going for it is constant power without fossil fuels. The grid needs backing power. I've seen a lot of other efforts at this, but (correct me if I'm wrong) there are still none that work, scale, and are affordable.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#336

Post by heavyset_go »

gamblor956 wrote: post #68
chub500 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a brief synopsis about how the federalist society is a conspiracy against democracy? I thought it was about originalism which seems to me to be pro-democracy by maintaining proper separation of powers etc.

See a transcript of Alito's speech this week. It's a hour of ranting against democracy. He didn't even hide the fact that he doesn't care that gay marriage or other issues were approved by voters; he would judicially end gay marriage in the name of "religious freedom." But this freedom only extends to particular forms of Christianity, as Alito is quite comfortable with restricting the religious practices of Muslims a…

> See a transcript of Alito's speech this week.

Does anyone have a link to the transcript? I can only find video clips of the keynote speech.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#337

Post by heavyset_go »

lostdog wrote: post #188
karaterobot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Supreme Court justices are appointed for life is so they are independent. That cuts both ways, protecting both people I agree with, and people I disagree with from having their verdicts influenced by outside forces. Sometimes this is inconvenient for me, but on the whole I prefer it over the alternative. The key is to hold the people who nominate and confirm these justices to account, since they are electe…

Give them a term limit, and then send them back to their life appointment on the district courts (with a higher salary if you want to sweeten the deal a little).

> (with a higher salary if you want to sweeten the deal a little).

After being on the SC, they'd be set with high-paying speaking and book deals for life, along with deals as paid commentators on all sorts of issues and platforms.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#338

Post by dnautics »

aniro wrote: post #233
dnautics wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water..." Real talk: Which do you think is worse, fukushima, or one atmospheric nuclear test?

Real talk: Doses of radioactive elements from high atmosphere Nuclear weapons testing persist in trace amounts in all living things on Earth today. Dispersal of radioactive elements would be faster and point source radioactivity thereby reduced by that due to the nature of the medium into which it was released and the very short duration of the release. Fukushima because it lacks these characteristics. Blow up all th…

You're just not counting all of the worldwide idiopathic cancer events.

It's an easy fallacy to undercount one thing because it's effects are not localized.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#340

Post by bcrosby95 »

RickJWagner wrote: post #48
arcticbull wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. Each registered candidate with more than a certain number of signatures of support should be given a budget of money and pre-paid airtime on all major networks by the FEC, and that's it. Once it's out, it's out. All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be ill…

What about Hollywood and athletic endorsements? Would those be in-kind?

It's an interesting question. Celebrity endorsements in the USA are big money. E.g. Kim kardashian supposedly charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single instagram endorsement.
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