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Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

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Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#241

Post by jamestnz »

cool_look wrote: post #239

(forced to use a side account to comment on this) You have to look at it from the Trump teams point of view. They honestly don't see that the 'free speech' argument holds water. They see it as abuse of a public position to spread falsehoods. Basically EPA employees in the Trump Team's view are perpetuating climate alarmism ( again in the TT view ). So they are stopping that. Just flip it around just for a second. I'l…

Yes, but there's a difference. Abortion is in many ways an issue of personal conscience, rather than a simple scientific determination.

Climate change on the other hand, isn't controversial in reality. It's been made controversial because some people have an interesting way of deciding what is true or false.

There seems to be a certain mindset that treats wishful thinking as equivalent in power to empirical evidence. So they start with what they want to be true, and work backwards from there. For example: "It's inconvenient for my business interests if climate change is true. Therefore it must be false."

Some people even work themselves all the way to: "... and therefore climate change is a conspiracy invented by jealous scientists to screw over successful capitalists like me".

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#242

Post by kartan »

cool_look wrote: post #239

(forced to use a side account to comment on this) You have to look at it from the Trump teams point of view. They honestly don't see that the 'free speech' argument holds water. They see it as abuse of a public position to spread falsehoods. Basically EPA employees in the Trump Team's view are perpetuating climate alarmism ( again in the TT view ). So they are stopping that. Just flip it around just for a second. I'l…

That argument holds for everything. It is the full relativism: there is not good or bad, there is not true or falsehood, there are just opinions.

That reasoning is flawed, as true facts exists and there are ways to get to that facts like the scientific method. And morality exists, not every action is just relative.

The last part is that oil industry has paid big to silence science about climate change. "Conflict of interest" is another big point against Trump teams "point of view".

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#243

Post by cool_look »

jamestnz wrote: post #241
cool_look wrote: post #239

(forced to use a side account to comment on this) You have to look at it from the Trump teams point of view. They honestly don't see that the 'free speech' argument holds water. They see it as abuse of a public position to spread falsehoods. Basically EPA employees in the Trump Team's view are perpetuating climate alarmism ( again in the TT view ). So they are stopping that. Just flip it around just for a second. I'l…

Yes, but there's a difference. Abortion is in many ways an issue of personal conscience, rather than a simple scientific determination. Climate change on the other hand, isn't controversial in reality. It's been made controversial because some people have an interesting way of deciding what is true or false. There seems to be a certain mindset that treats wishful thinking as equivalent in power to empirical evidence.…

thats why my dreamt up example included just factual statements "350 this month".

doesnt make it better though, does it ?

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#244

Post by nl »

whyileft wrote: post #42
jquery wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existing social media managers are openly hostile to the new boss, with irrelevant-to-their-organization tweets going out about the inauguration crowd-size? To your latter point regarding the fired ambassadors, it's the most scandalous thing since 2008, when Obama did the exact same thing - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/12/obama-gives-poli...

1. The National Park Service hosted the event. Seems like it would make sense to post public information about the crowd size when there was a lot of public debate and misinformation about it. I understand your frustration thinking they would always look out for the president's best interest, but this was a pretty clear fact they were posting, not some kind of political opinion. 2. December 3, 2008. That's when that…

(Non-US citizen. Very Anti-Trump. Unpaid poster. Unhappy I need to state all this.)

To my surprise, jquery is pretty much correct about it being the same thing as Obama did. This[1] is the best summary of the situation I can find:

1) Obama (and all new incoming presidents before him) did ask for the resignations of all non-career, politically appointed ambassadors.

2) Obama (and Bush) did grant extensions to some ambassadors. However, this was a (very) small number. Exactly how many it applied to is unclear, but to quote the the article I linked above:

in the past two inter-party transitions (Clinton-Bush, Bush-Obama) only about 10 political ambassadors have gotten extensions.

Basically, I'd judge that the reporting of The Independent article linked above is misleadingly critical of Trump.

I also think that jquery's point below about Obama literally auctioned off the posts is incomplete. Most ambassadorships are given as rewards (by both US parties). Most countries do the same: ambassadorships to friendly countries are political rewards and the countries actually want someone who is close to the leader of the country they represent. I don't think the moral case against that is entirely clear, but I can see arguments both ways.

[1] https://diplopundit.net/2017/01/06/foreign-service-tradition...

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#246

Post by lucajona »

marklgr wrote: post #221
lucajona wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to call a correct statement vacuous. More nuanced than it appears, and easily misinterpreted maybe. I think it's fair to point out that peer review doesn't determine scientific truth, because that would get the causal relation in reverse. Consensus has little to do with objective truth, but it is a useful heuristic as you say.

Yeah, let's put peer review into perspective. In a topic about Trump, censoring scientists. I can see the "give science back to the people" anti-intellectual slogans coming up.

Those "anti-intellectual slogans" I think you mean can also be seen as arguments for a return to enlightenment values instead of an entrenched, elitist dogmatism.

Behind those slogans is the idea that intellectual life doesn't belong to a chosen few, but to everyone who's interested and willing to engage their capacity for independent thought and critical thinking, and those who are willing and eager to engage with other people with different opinions.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#247

Post by mychael »

shshhdhs wrote: post #5

I was curious if a case could be made for First Amendment rights, but I just re-read it... "Congress shall make no law regarding..." I guess Executive Orders can bypass all of that.

Twitter accounts belonging to government agencies represent the government, not individuals. Individuals and the press are the ones whose free speech is protected.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#248

Post by timthelion »

garrettgrimsley wrote: post #93
whyileft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The National Park Service hosted the event. Seems like it would make sense to post public information about the crowd size when there was a lot of public debate and misinformation about it. I understand your frustration thinking they would always look out for the president's best interest, but this was a pretty clear fact they were posting, not some kind of political opinion. 2. December 3, 2008. That's when that…

>3. Serious question. Are you paid to do what you are doing right now? Can we please not do this here?

It is absolutely reasonable to question good faith on the internet. SPAM, bots, and paid shills have been here almost from day 1. The entirety of web2.0 was jumpstarted by services creating fake accounts to create the illusion of an already existing community.

It is a very interesting question how to fight this fact, and we need to discuss it, not silence any discussion of it.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#249

Post by lucajona »

pasquinelli wrote: post #237
lucajona wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to call a correct statement vacuous. More nuanced than it appears, and easily misinterpreted maybe. I think it's fair to point out that peer review doesn't determine scientific truth, because that would get the causal relation in reverse. Consensus has little to do with objective truth, but it is a useful heuristic as you say.

i think it's perfectly appropriate to call a true statement vacuous. for instance, a counterfactual conditional is always true; that fact makes the particular truth of a particular counterfactual conditional completely uninteresting, or vacuous . it's true, but in a hollow, empty, vacuous way. what use would there be calling a false statement vacuous?

Okay sure, I made a bad generalisation. Some true statements can be uninteresting. The point I was trying to make was more that the parent commenter was making a true statement about epistemology that is relevant and useful to the discussion.

Maybe it could have been better elaborated, but I don't think it deserves being down-voted and replies of what seems like moral disgust.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#250

Post by type0 »

cyberferret wrote: post #233
wallacoloo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one downvote a comment on HN? I thought maybe there was some reputation or age requirement, but I've been here a while now & I still don't see any option to downvote comments.

How many Karma points do you have? (top right). I don't think I could downvote until I got to about 1000 or 1500 points, I believe.

I feel that it should actually be raised to over 9000.
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