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The smug style in American liberalism

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Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#412
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this reasoning (and by extension, any system where there's a possibility to opt out of healthcare) is that if you have a serious ailment that you can't afford to treat, we have to let you die. But I believe even in the USA you will get (emergency) treatment and the bills racked up, right?

The problem with insurance is that literally everyone will have a serious ailment one day. Very few people die instantly, huge majority of deaths are from cancer and cardiovascular

Cardiovascular problems aren't necessarily expensive. Sometimes people just drop dead. There's the cost of an ambulance ride and some hubbub in the ER, but that wouldn't make a dent in the amount they paid in.

The real problem with insurance is there are people with long-term, expensive medical conditions who will never, in their entire lives, make enough money to pay for their treatment. That just doesn't work under an insurance model.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#413
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that social desirability bias is a thing, and that those with views considered socially unpopular are less willing to share them. But for a hypothetical Shy Tory effect to have an effect on polling you'd need something like all of the following: * Tories to be unwilling to admit to voting Tory (plausible); * Tories to claim to be voting for someone else, instead of refusing to answer, as if they refuse to answe…

So what are you suggesting for why the all polls were wrong? What do you think contributed to the inaccuracy of the polls?

I already gave an answer earlier in the thread that is true for the two similar polling misses in the UK and my best guess for what happened in the US: differential turnout. Trump supporters voted with higher probability than they had historically (or Clinton supporters voted with lower probability, which seems more plausible looking at the turnout figures). So even if people's preferences for president were completely honest and recorded correctly, the projected "likely voter" poll results were wrong.

This is known to have happened in Britain, because there was a very thorough postmortem by the pollsters' professional body after the 2015 miss.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with insurance is that literally everyone will have a serious ailment one day. Very few people die instantly, huge majority of deaths are from cancer and cardiovascular

Cardiovascular problems aren't necessarily expensive. Sometimes people just drop dead. There's the cost of an ambulance ride and some hubbub in the ER, but that wouldn't make a dent in the amount they paid in. The real problem with insurance is there are people with long-term, expensive medical conditions who will never, in their entire lives, make enough money to pay for their treatment. That just doesn't work under…

imho the problem with insurance is that it only serves to take money out of medical care, while inflating the costs. It makes sense to insure against terrible driving or burning your house, but taking insurance against something very likely to happen is simply giving money to insurance industry for nothing. Single payer models appear to be more effective.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#416
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't claim to support Hillary; see link. David Duke did, however, endorse Trump.

I understand. They claimed to have donated $20,000 to Hillary. The website claimed the claim is false. We will never know, but more importantly, the voters didn't really care who the KKK was supporting, as the election results have shown.

We know that David Duke supported Trump. We don't know of anyone associated with the KKK supporting Hillary. That the voters don't care is to their discredit.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember my Facebook feed from 8 years ago - my liberal friends were celebrating, and my conservative friends were disappointed, but trying to be (somewhat) conciliatory. Now, my conservative friends are celebrating but my liberal friends attitude is "screw America, I hope you choke in your own vomit, you racist bastards".

This is a meaningless, useless anecdote. My experience eight years ago was that conservatives were foaming at the mouth in anger when Obama won. They had literally just spent the last year calling him the antichrist and saying that he was literally not American. And today my experience on facebook is literally frowny emojis from liberals and not much else. Edit: LITERALLY

It's almost like the previous person forgets the(fairly serious) talk of secession after Obama won again 2012.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#418
post #409
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like a creationist, when you finally stop going around in circles, you end up questioning the motivations of your opponent as a shaming attack, even as you insist they are not your business. This is what religion looks like.

First, I did not question anyone's motivations, simply expressed curiosity, because the scientific questions that interest yummyfajitas are so unusual. It was through him that I first learned of contemporary scientific racism, and I am truly and honestly curious about this. E.g., how far do they go? Do they also think we should investigate whether people of Irish descent are more intelligent than people of German des…

If your curiosity is genuine I can tell you the answer.

First, a casual perusal of any human biodiversity blog will tell you that they do in fact care about differences between Germans and Irish as well. Or Tamils and Gujuratis, or a variety of other groups that exhibit interesting differences.

Intelligence is particularly interesting relative to other traits since it explains so many social outcomes, but many other traits are interesting. For example, clannishness: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/how-inbred-are-euro... Some people just find human biology intrinsically interesting, and don't have the same negative emotional reactions to it that you do.

If you want a more traditional "give me a grant" motivation, here it is: public policy. Consider racial disparities across fields. One possible cause of such disparities is disparate treatment - e.g., judging white job applicants more harshly than Asian ones. Another possibility is disparate ability - e.g. a greater proportion of Asian people than white people are smart.

Different causes of disparities would significantly change what policy you would choose. For example, if disparate ability is the cause and equal outcomes is your goal, you would choose a quota system to cap the number of Asians.

and to anyone who shouts them down, calls them racist and attempts to get them socially ostracized, they say, "why are you trying to hide the truth?

Fixed that for you.

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#419
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.ht... You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and…

I've never understood this argument. Why doesn't that apply to feeding and clothing a new born? If you give birth to a child and let them die in the cold that is seen as murder. Why does a parent have to provide for a child before they were born and not after. Also many societies have concepts where people are required to care for others, parents and close relatives. I just don't agree, I think if the violinist has o…

The difference wrt kids is that you have an option to refuse care in the long run, eg by giving up kids for adoption. In the violinist example, if lets say a suitable volunteer is available but needs time to come to the hospital, then yes, you need to stay attached for a short while and disconnecting would be immoral. But if this choice is not given to you, can you be expected to sacrifice an important chunk of your life for someone else?

Otherwise, should you be compelled to donate one of your kidneys?

Re: The smug style in American liberalism

#420
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. They claimed to have donated $20,000 to Hillary. The website claimed the claim is false. We will never know, but more importantly, the voters didn't really care who the KKK was supporting, as the election results have shown.

We know that David Duke supported Trump. We don't know of anyone associated with the KKK supporting Hillary. That the voters don't care is to their discredit.

We do know of Hillary's mentor, he claimed to have left the KKK. We know of other KKK Grand Master who have claimed to have donated to Hillary. It's all just claims and accusations to smear the opposite opponents in the election cycle. These are not important issues. Voters knows these are just election smears.
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