coal

>any opinions in mind on our current electoral system in the United States.  

More than I have time to write.  Probably more than you'd want to read, too.  But the point that I'd make here, is this:  the most important thing is abolishing the electoral college.  

>What are your thoughts on Jordan Peterson. Don't know if this will be taken as an insult but you guys seem similar in a lot (not most or all neccesarily) ways. 

>Trump Impeachment 

I was obviously wrong about Trump being impeached.  The reason I was wrong is because I believed that the Democrats wouldn't be such fucking cowards as they have been.  Pelosi, Schumer, and the lot of them, have demonstrated no more capability or courage or leadership than a swarm of lemmings.  There are lots of reasons why this is true, but I had higher aspirations and ideals for the Democratic leadership than they proved to have.  Maybe I was just too optimistic (and a bit too naive about justice's tendency to prevail over evil, the moral arc of the universe's bending towards justice, and all that jazz).  I oscillate between running out of patience, and throwing in the towel. 

>Why do the democratic and republican candidates seem increasingly polarized in comparison to the political climate before Barack Obama took office, particularly on societal topics, or the relationship of the people with their government? 

It's a political race to the bottom. The problem is that there is no bottom that we will ever reach, short of totally destroying the institutions of our government that have made our society as stable and prosperous as ours is.  There is no limit to the depths of hell into which the Republican and Democratic parties have plunged themselves.  Sadly, it may turn out that we will have to be in armageddon before they figure that out. 

>Do you believe in free will, the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces?

This is such a curious question, mostly because the position from which it is asked is in the context of a debate about human nature which is as old as civilization itself.  The question is especially interesting now, because even though it is an essentially normative question there have been very sincere attempts in the sciences to say something empirical about whether we as human beings have free will.  So, now the contours of that debate, and the sort of theoretical framework in which it's asked is not merely a question of, say, contrasting theological or philosophical perspectives; but also a question about the epistemological character of what science can and can not do.  Namely, is it true that we can positively describe free will in such a way that we can then empirically test it?  Is the claim that human beings have free will one that is falsifiable, and, if so, on what basis could it be falsified?

There's obviously a lot more complexity to the question than can be easily dispensed with.  Likewise, I don't think it's good enough to reduce that question ONLY to one that is nothing more than a choice between whether the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice or is determined by either physical or divine forces.  Namely, because both of those things can be true, at the same time; which is to say, that they're not mutually exclusive, which is to imply that the way that you have framed the question itself is less than ideal.  Though, that's probably not your fault, but I am going to be very clear that I reject your framing of just what exactly belief versus disbelief in free will entails.

I also think there's another dimension to that question to the effect that whether or not, from a scientific or empirical perspective, we can even sensibly talk about free will, the question itself is futile to answer because the foundation of our society and culture (at least in the West, and in every country and culture on earth that has not totally destroyed itself so far) we all ACT as if we have a degree of free will that is at least sufficient to make individuals responsible for their own actions.  So, that's at least two other levels at which the issue can be considered: both the normative question of whether as a sort of grand narrative we ought to act as if people have free will (and it is obvious that we should), and if so, to what degree?  There is also a way to positively frame that question, to the effect of "to what degree is a will free, if it is free in the first instance?" 

I'll say this:  it is very clear to me that we as human beings both do and should act as if people have free will, and it certainly seems to me like people have at least a degree of free will that is sufficient for them to be autonomous moral agents.  I think viewing the world and the people who populate it as if they lack free will to at least that degree is fatalistic and vacuous.  I also think that the so called scientific research into the subject is mostly bullshit on stilts, and the pop-sci conclusions that, for example, brooding high school misfits come to about free will from their casual misunderstandings of epigenetic research, for example, lack without limitation the ability to stand up to even modest scrutiny.  

I could say a lot more on the subject, but you just asked me what I "believed".  I told you what I thought, though not so much why I thought it.  Don't have enough time for that. 

>Do you talk to animals?

I have never met a dog I wasn't friends with, or couldn't become friends with.  And yes, some of the best conversations I've had, have been with dogs. 

>Venezuela

Russian propagandists poisoned the well, with the disinformation strategy that Trump and company were staging a coup of Maduro with Juan Guaido.  This was obviously false, but it worked.  I am disgusted with how Trump handled the whole affair.  

>Thoughts on Tik Tok?

I like that I have a lot of autonomy in what I do, that I work in an office setting that has relatively little bullshit involved, and that I don't have a lot of oversight.  I like that the people I work with are fairly agreeable, and most of them are good people or at least seem to be while at work.

I like the competitive aspects of litigation, and especially the strategic and tactical considerations involved at every level of the game.  I see what I do very much as a game, that I get to play with other people who may not like the game as much as I do.  That makes winning the game better for me.

There are so many levels of strategy involved in what I do, from broad-based strategies for how I want the facts to unfold, the order in which I want facts to be disclosed, all the way down to how I walk in and present myself in a room.  

Here's an example: 

I represented a company about a year ago that was engaged in some really fucked up shit.  The company had probably defrauded a lot of people, and there was some evidence out there which could have been interpreted as proof of that misconduct.  But, there wasn't only one kind of fraud... there was a lot of different kinds of fraud, misrepresentation, and general mischief.  The plaintiff's attorneys were coming at us with the force of armies, and there were multiple classes of plaintiffs involved.  

I had two strategies, and both of these were my ideas.  The first strategy was to appear to comply in good faith with court orders with respect to class discovery, and we did that; but only with information that would have made it harder for the multivariate classes of what seemed to be similarly situated consumers to satisfy the procedural requirements for what is called "class certification".  However, I gave them a TON of documents.  It took their army of associates a while to get through them, if they even bothered.  

The typical asshole-defense attorney thing to do is to bury the smoking gun among a mountain of irrelevancy.  I didn't do that, mostly was because there were about thirty smoking guns.  So, I picked the least-smoking of the smoking guns, and the second-least smoking, of the smoking guns, and turned it over to the other side.  Then, we limited discovery to certification only on those issues, while I was selectively withholding more information that I'm fairly sure would have caused the plaintiff's to re-evaluate their strategy.  Then, we released more documents that by then had set the baseline of expectation with regard to overall litigation success.  I gave them what they wanted, but the other side only saw a fraction of what was out there. The plaintiffs believed this, because I made them work to figure this strategy out.  I sent them on a wild goose chase while I could keep from them that which was most damaging to my client.  Classic misdirection.

The second aspect regarded settlement.  We were engaged in "good faith" (lol) settlement negotiations the entire time that the games I described above were going on.  I acted like a beaten animal when we were talking global settlement for all classes in mediation, and gave the plaintiff's attorneys (idiots) the appearance of making it seem like there were massive conflicts between the general counsel and this team I was on, even to the point where the partner and I faked an argument on the phone (at elevated vocal levels) outside the central conference room where everyone was meeting up.  It was all a show.  

We settled, under terms where the plaintiffs thought they put the screws to us  If the lawsuit had gone on, a post-certification settlement probably would have ended the company.  Instead, we kept the client, and this company stayed solvent (and the thousand or so people who worked there kept their jobs).  

I will get to all of these.  Meanwhile, more questions are encouraged!

Likely hives, as a response to stress or any number of other things.  Go to a doctor if it doesn't go away.

Just because I post doesn't make me relevant... lol.... 

I am irrelevant to this place. 

What is big mouth?  We used to call obnoxious people "big mouth".  Is this about an obnoxious person?  I nominate Trump.  He is a big mouth.  Bloviating fuckwit, too.  

So yeah... voting policies are what they are.... I largely don't care because I'm not going to vote anyway.  However, I would vote if I could do so with a minimal time commitment.  Ideally, I'd like to just be able to select a winner and write three sentences.  

This is the diametric opposite of what I would have argued for three years ago; two years ago, and the like.  I am totally reversing myself.  Shameless, I know... but I can do that because, again... irrelevant. 

lol

In the past I would have bitched and moaned about vote sufficiency, and all of that.  SeventhProfessor I'm sure can link my voting guide and be like "you contradictory bastard!" And... that would be true.

But I find myself in a very different place now than I was, then.  As such, I have changed.  With that change, so too has my perspective.  

The weight of Whiteflame's arguments were what they were, and I addressed the subject matters of his main points.  I think any rational voter who read that debate would come to the same conclusion.  But I don't care... the RFD was less than 4 sentences I think and the debate was probably 80k characters or so.  Fair enough.  That's not the issue.

I read a lot faster than I type.  At a desk, I'm about 95 words per minute, but laying in bed as I am now and as I typically am when reading debates (if I even do read them, which is very rare tbh because most people who are writing them are bad writers, and I don't feel like being a mentor or teacher -- which, as an irrelevant user, I am entitled to feel), I'm at about 60. 

But, i don't write the RFD as I'm reading the debate.  I write it when I'm done.  So if I have to go back and reference parts of the debates and type out what would approximate a narrative flow across four rounds (where most of what was said by later rounds was tangential anyway, because few debaters actually know how to return a cross back to the main point) ...I'm just not going to do it.

I have more important shit to do... or at least stuff I'm more interested in, like my AMA (although I invest almost no time in that either).  The reality is that I can type up an AMA answer even at considerable length a lot faster than I can type up an RFD because the ideas are my own; I'm not evaluating two other people's ideas, and I don't have to deal with their ideas on their terms when I'm in my AMA.  Fact is that I'm more interested in my ideas than I am in judging other people's (frequently poorly articulated, incoherent, contradictory, tangential, and generally bad -- like Whiteflame's opponent's) ideas. 

So, returning to the point... 

The return on time investment for me just isn't there.  It's not going to be there if I have to spend more than about 45 seconds writing an RFD, which is about how much time I spent on the RFD that was removed.  Maybe that makes me a bad member who is unwilling to contribute to "the community" or whatever.

But I'm an irrelevant user (note my username).  I was the most prominent member on DDO for years, and the driving factor behind most forum discussions of substance and many debates (and the judging of many debates).  Here, I'm just some guy who randomly pops in to talk about some stupid old broken debate site and how important I was on that, like it mattered at all (note: it did not... everything crashes, burns, and is destroyed in the end).

More questions are encouraged. 

I will probably get it one day. 

Israel won't nuke Saudi Arabia, because they need to keep playing Saudi Arabia against Iran.  However, Israel is and has been trying to provoke a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran for years.  Sadly, they have failed.

In an ideal world, Iran marches across Ryad, takes the Saudi "king" and MBS hostage, hangs them from a crane, and then Israel goes in and levels whatever remains of Saudi Arabia after the Saudi military has bought everything the US was willing to sell them... in vain. 

Then, weak and destitute, Saudi Arabia can return to the bedouin shithole it was before oil was discovered there. 

All those Saudis who want to leave and join the modern world shall be free to do so.  All those who want to live by wahabist Islam can be lined up and shot.  

I would rather buy oil from a sissified wannabe french boy (Troudeau) than terrorists (Saudis).

When MBS meets the same fate as Gaddaffi, I will be satisfied.  Saddam Hussein didn't even execute children. 

The degree to which progressives (not Liberals) act as apologists for Islam's crimes against humanity in the name of so called "multiculturalism" or any other stupid postmodern idea is enough to make any thinking person vomit in the street in repulsion.

Progressives are moral cowards, as are neocons on Saudi Arabia; albeit for different reasons.  Progressives want to bitch about Western cultural imperialism or other nonsense, when people like me talk about forcing the Middle East into modernity.  Neocons bitch about the impact to oil prices.

Any country that beheads a 16 year old boy and a 19 year old boy for exchanging WhatsApp messages discussing a pro-democracy protest is a country that needs to be purged from this earth. 

>Iraq

We can wipe ISIS off the map while we're at it... they're no different than Saudi Arabia. 

MBS deserves a fate worse than Gaddaffi. 

The Saudis are as bad as Iran, if not slightly worse, in my book.  

While I would like to see the Iranian government removed, I'd prefer to see every member of the Saudi government driven into the sea. 

As some of you may know, Saudi Arabia once again has reaffirmed why it is a terrorist state whose government's members should be lined up and shot, Romanov style. 

They beheaded a 16 year old boy for sending WhatsApp messages about protesting governmental abuses. 

Each of the so called "terrorism" suspects were tortured; their confessions came from duress, and the mass execution is reminiscent of Soviet "great purges".  

And yet, the Trump administration sells weapons to them.

If you continue to engage in unreasonably provocative behavior do not expect for me to engage with you on any issue.  

That is an absurd and unreasonably provocative comment. 

I am not complaining here or even suggesting that any vote I have cast which was removed was wrongly removed.  I'm just stating something that might not have been considered. 

I read whiteflame's debate with the new guy, whatever his name is, and while Whiteflame won and the other guy lost, there were numerous aspects of the debate that I simply don't have time to write out a comprehensive RFD for.  

In the past I know I have argued for sufficient RFD's and for tougher voting standards and so I know how hypocritical it is for me to be saying this now, but this is the reality: an RFD which imposes upon me 30 plus minutes of typing (which is probably what it would have taken for an RFD that passes the new voting policies given what that debate was) is prohibitive for me to vote on it.  It wouldn't have been when I was in graduate school or even law school, but now that I have a job and my whole day gets eaten up with work stuff... and given that I am exhausted by the time I get home, I'm too tired to do anything. 

So I won't probably be casting many more votes on more complex debates.  That would mean that someone like me, whose job it is to make decisions on the basis of the strength or weakness of arguments (and who charges hundreds of dollars per hour do do that, which clients pay) will not be voting when I otherwise might. 

Should the policy be changed to accommodate me?   Without discussing the individual merits of whether I think the voting policies are good or not -- which I make no comment on either way -- policies generally should not be modified to fit one person; because they are set for what is best for the site, generally, not particular users.  However, we run into the same problem: I'm not voting because I don't have the time to type out an RFD when I have the energy, or the energy, when I have the time. 

Is this best for the site?  Idk probably overall because most of the people who are going to be voting have more time than they know what to do with, and that is exactly the kind of person whose votes should be evaluated with particular scrutiny.  I wonder if Whiteflame's debate will be voted on, nevertheless.  Will the RFD that isn't deleted get the right result for the right reasons?

Maybe.  Maybe not.  But what incentive does that provide for debaters? 

I suppose if they're debating for the mere satisfaction of debating, they're already well and good.  But that's not how I roll.  When I debate, I play for keeps... always.  Maybe others aren't as competitive.  Who knows. 

>Thoughts on incels?

I'm tired tonight so this is going to be a stream of consciousness response.  Hopefully, it makes sense.  

Before I give you my thoughts on incels, I want to be clear on what we are talking about when I say "incel".  The term as it is used to describe boys and men who cannot find members of the opposite sex (as the overwhelming majority of them are heterosexual) with whom to engage in sexual relations.  So, they're usually horny teenage boys and sexually frustrated young adult males who don't have a lot of, or any, romantic prospects.  There's a pretty wide spread between them in terms of their attitudes towards women, but they range from vaguely sexist to outrightly anti-woman, if not anti-human.     

Overall, a person who self identifies as an incel is going to have problems, though; be it socially, romantically, interpersonally, economically, and any and all of the foregoing and other problems.  In passing, I've joked before that the only boys who grow up to become incels are the ones who weren't spanked enough as children, because they grew up thinking that they were due something from the world in general and women in particular that they simply aren't owed. That's not good.  More generally, there are a couple of different pathologies that tend to manifest with incels.  They're usually highly self-absorbed, they usually were not properly or meaningfully socialized as young children or teenagers.  They're usually socially outcast from their peers.  Part of the problem with the internet is that it has enabled these similarly situated boys/men to connect with each other, and then develop something approximating a philosophy of what you might call "sexual entitlement", whereby they develop wildly idiotic ideas about what relationships ought to be, how women ought to be subservient to men, or any number of other stupid things. 

Your typical incel at 16 is going to be the kid who goes to school, sits alone at lunch, has maybe three friends but rarely hangs out with them, plays a lot of online video games, has very little social engagement outside of school, is not meaningfully involved in extra curricular activities, does not play sports, and probably is going to get mediocre grades or worse.  He's got serious self confidence issues, that underlie everything he does.  This is the kind of kid who got started on a bad path from an early age, most likely.  It could be that his mother was distant, or maybe his dad was abusive.  Maybe his dad walked out and the mother's boyfriend hit him a few too many times, or it could be that the parents were never around and never involved themselves in his life; provided no direction, and generally no guidance.  There are any number of factors, but their common denominator is "not good".  By this point, however conceited or arrogant this kid may be, he's probably not beyond redemption, and he probably won't be beyond redemption until he's about 23-25.  

Your typical incel at 23-25 is a much tougher nut to crack.  This is the guy who either did not attend college, or attends college and has never been able to "score" with a girl; not even always because he's not physically attractive enough, but because more commonly than not he never had the self confidence to ask a girl out, he never formed a meaningful or committed relationship with a girl and now that he's an adult he is seriously emotionally and sexually less mature than most of his peers.  He likely has the attitudes and mannerisms of what you'd expect from a fairly immature 17 year old, and by now he has a seriously negative view of all women.  But, the reason he's got this anti-female bias is likely to be a lot less to do with women, generally, than with his own subconscious awareness of the fact that he wasn't "man" enough to even ask a girl out.  So that sense of shame, being projected onto women in general, is how we get to your typical 23-25 year old incel. There is still some hope of unfucking a 23-25 year old incel, but not much.

After 25, there's almost no hope, because by then they've developed an ideology around their experiences and an identity to match it. 

Now, there are more forces in play than just individual pathologies; the social and environmental conditions which in many respects cause those pathologies are very much a part of this picture as well, and ignoring them would be at the peril of anyone who wanted to understand who incels are and why it is that they are what they are.  The emphasis on girls' achievement to the exclusion of any interest being placed on boys advancement, the emphsis on integrating girls into historically boys' activities, and the absence of similar efforts to integrate boys into girls activities, from elementary school through college all come into play.  The reason is because when girls compete with boys on the same level, boys stop playing the game.  Good or bad, when girls and boys are on the same playing field, boys stop showing up.  That's why women outnumber men in colleges by 3:2 and why women outnumber men in grad school by 2:1.  

If you conceptualize a scale of harms of the breakdown in gender roles, not all boys are equally harmed and so there's a scale from least harmed to most harmed.  At the least harmed would be the boys who get socialized, who are meaningfully engaged, and who have good and committed parents.  They can sort themselves out and navigate through the world.  Closer to the pole of "most harmed", you find incels.  That is not to imply that women's rights have caused incels.  But it is to say that the reworking of gender roles in the society has changed how those most vulnerable to the effects of that change find their place in society.

I see there are many questions.... I'll answer them in time.  Meanwhile, keep asking away. 

There is no hangout 

Obviously, not.   You are not even reading words on this page.  Instead, I am an apparition, which is only a "thing" in a metaphysical sense; and, in that way, not a "thing" because there is no such thing as a metaphysical thing. 

No one really knows what impact automation is going to have, precisely at least. 

Automation will continue to displace workers, as it already has to a considerable degree.  It will also probably bring back managerial and administrative jobs to the United States.  We are probably 20-30 years away from stage 6 fully autonomous vehicles.  So, that means that transportation will still, to some degree, require humans for at least one more generation.  After that, transportation is probably not going to require human beings. That is probably going to cause the biggest disruption to American labor markets, because about 15% of US workers jobs depend on the transportation industries. 

Automation will not take all jobs, however.  Construction and engineering jobs are quite safe from automation, for the most part.  The reason is because even with the most sophisticated visual image processing software, radar, lidar, and everything else; you need a person to pour concrete into a building foundation, remodel an office space, or do any of the things that construction people and workers do.  Especially the more sophisticated work in commercial and mixed use properties.  There is some very complex and sophisticated stuff that goes into building them.  Now, we can barely get robots to do the most simple form of brick laying. While the exact limits aren't quite defined, the more complicated and sophisticated a task, the less likely a robot will ever be able to do it.

The hardest hit by automation, I think, is going to be developing counties.  Namely, India, Pakistan, China, and the South Pacific.  The whole thing that automation potentially offers is in replacing low-skill wage labor with something much simpler, and, which involves a higher capital investment in the short term, will be dramatically more productive in the long term with much less risk.  For example, robots do not require workers compensation insurance (as human beings do, in the first world), because they do not get injured on the job; they only get broken, and can be repaired or replaced, the cost of which involves an insurance that is a lot likely to cost companies a lot less than comp insurance does now.   That among other costs has already driven most manufacturing jobs out of the first world, though.  But now, sweat shop labor will be less economical than automation.  That's going to have serious consequences for a lot of places. 

Yes, you can. 

Maybe people should do a hangout... I might join.  I might not.  You never know with me. 

I don't have plans, but i'll probably be doing something with the boyfriend. 

This was amusing to read 

No.

I don't get road rage.  That's...  a waste of energy.

>Have you ever back handed someone in the face?  If not was there a situation where you really wanted to or thought someone deserved it?

Back handing isn't my style, so, no.  I have, however, gotten physical when it was necessary and have no reservations about doing so.  The times where I have wanted to get physical but have refrained from doing so are too numerous to count. 

Phillip DeFranco.

i don't really watch UFC... sorry bud.

No.

I will answer you, but it's going to take a while.  In the mean time, think of more questions lol

Chic Filet, about five weeks ago.

I am the league of shadows.

No.

Btw., the way I get Conservative Politico is by asking these questions:

1. Who do I know that was on DDO who has not yet revealed themselves on DA?  That narrows the scope pretty considerably.

2.  Of those people, who at or near my last interaction with them would have understood me to be (a) preachy, (b) yet who also would have regarded me as an old friend, and (c) in our "past life"? That cuts the set of what remained after the first question into about 1/8th of what it was before. 

3.  Whose activity not just in relation to me would want me to go searching for them on DDO?  Someone who would know that there would be a history to find; not an insignificant one, and someone who views their prior contributions as significant? 

That brings it down to two: Imabench and ConservativePolitico. Note: I'm friends with Ima on Facebook, so he wouldn't fit. 

Must be ConservativePolitico.  90% confidence.