231–240 of 459 posts
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What is the idea?
It would probably not be healthy for my karma to go deeper.
This is impressive, but what is more impressive to me, and this is a non-partisan statement, is how people are not afraid of being blocked and ostracized by their partisan friends and just pick the opposition party to run for anyway.
In our current climate, being blocked and ostracized has lost all meaning. Look at the Lt. Governor race in Virginia last night. Black woman, ex-marine, homeless shelter operator ran as GOP and won. Twitter mob and media blames it on "racism" as usual. > "When you overuse an accusation and everyone can see it's just a cynical and self-serving weapon of character assassination rather than an actual conviction, you tri…
So it is interesting to see these election results reported as a consequence from elected officials attempting to actually go further left.
Regarding your observation about the Lt. Gov, it is nice to see more independent and random amalgamations of American ideals within black American candidates, as people have overly discounted the possibility of any minority objectively prioritizing a political goal above physical attributes they were born with, which is an extremely discriminatory assumption that people are still comfortable making.
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> how NJ got into this predicament? Possibly due to attitudes like describing an average citizen beating a career politician as “a predicament”
I know right, we’re watching democracy in action. This is what a really good system looks like
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Blocking the faces of children in the prime of their life, where they need to develop social skills through interaction and facial expression, is madness. The covid risk for children is a rounding error. This is not prudent risk management; mind-boggling for someone from the tech industry who should be able to do a cursory look at statistics and dismiss this practice out of hand.
> Blocking the faces of children in the prime of their > life, where they need to develop social skills through > interaction and facial expression, is madness. [Citation needed.] I am unable to find a single reliable source that says mask wearing has any sociological or psychological effect on children or anyone else. Anecdotally, I haven't seen anything like that. Just typical kids. > The covid risk for children is…
You are looking for the wrong thing. Look for what the benefits of things like smiling and seeing smiling faces has on people's emotional health.
> A happy face signals positive emotions, as well as attachment availability, care, support, and credibility [7,8,9]. Recently, Tamir and Hughes [10] argued that positive social signals such as smiling faces not only serve ultimate goals (e.g., forming strong bonds) but they are also rewarding in and off themselves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356968/
https://www.healthline.com/health/baby/when-will-my-baby-smi...
Hiding the main part of your face - the smile is not healthy for people, and especially not for kids whose entire social skills development heavily relies on these things.
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You take guns away and they use knives and cleavers. Look to London for what would happen with guns being banned. The solution is to not ban an object but provide opportunities for people. Jobs, education, paths that pave roads to a career. Nothing drives more people to crime than feeling like they are in a hopeless situation.
> knives and cleavers or vans here in Canada. According to the FBI homicide stats for US, 297 people were murdered by a rifle in 2018 in the US. 1,515 on the other hand murdered with knives, 443 from blunt hammers, 672 with hands, feet: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-... EDIT: I specifically stated "rifle" not all guns. Because saying we need to take away all guns is pie in the sky thinki…
Holy misleading data excerpts batman...
there were 10k homicides by gun, but you choose 1 type of gun and not the most common.
2014 - 2018 knives 1545 -> 1515 Blunt objects 431->443 Hands, feet 668->672 Guns 7803->10265
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Kids have the most psychological development from looking at people's faces, emotions and smiles. Saying that's a "minor inconvenience" is silly. Especially since there's negligible risks for them. And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". EDIT: In my last sentence, I wasn't referring to masks. I was referring to vaccine mandates whi…
> And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". They have studied this though. Actual scientists, not people on Youtube or Facebook, and they have found that masks diminish the transmission of COVID-19. This is kind of what you'd expect with something airborne.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.long
Why does everyone promote cloth masks, instead of proper N95 masks?
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You say that like the war on drugs is the solution? Do you think that any of these people don't use drugs because it's a crime? It's just making their life worse.
As I've gotten older I've realized that there's something to be said for the discouraging effect that laws have on certain behaviors. Yes, people are still going to do drugs if they're illegal; but some proportion of the population is less likely to take the risk. Is it enough to justify the drug war? Maybe not. But I don't think it's quite as cut an dry as "legalize all drugs to end drug abuse" or "ban all drugs to…
https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...
A Republican just won an election in Seattle City Government for the first time in three decades. This election has seen some big shifts in the electorate, even in some deeply-Democratic areas. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/republica...
A "Republican" who has previous run as a Democrat and has voted for Democrats in all recent presidential elections. This says less about any shift in the electorate than it does about the extremism of the Seattle left.
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The vast majority of elected offices in the United States are unpaid.
Do you have a citation for that? Interesting if true, however 100% of State and Federal legislators are paid.
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By how much, and is it worth it? The first is a scientific question. The second is a political question. Americans fail because neither side recognizes the difference. Other developed countries are not masking kids as young as we are doing. Countries like France are rescinding mask mandates now. For us, there is no end in sight, even in highly vaccinated areas.
We went to Italy over the summer, and mask usage was ubiquitous. Nothing fancy, just the basic surgical ones. They are required in schools there because children come into contact with adults. "Is it worth it" is an ongoing question; at some point, it's probably not, but we're not there just yet. Our vaccination rates are still pretty low. And remember: the bellowing about masks started before we even had vaccines.
Not really, 221 Million have had it-least 1 shot in the US and another 73 Million are under 18 and are at almost no risk (558 total deaths).