spacetime

I'd rather a trial absolutely, I would want to go down as the guy who showed that everything I was banned for was intentionally done to take others down with me and objectively cement the banning of other specific members that I won't name in this message.

you know what, fuck this site.

They have the whole world to explore, and they choose to hop into the tightest of bubbles they can find -- quite pathetic.

"There is not a single living person, in the history of humanity, who believed what they believed because it was 'rational'. People use reason to justify their opinions post hoc; what actually decides what people believe is rooted subconsciously, and is determined aesthetically. When a person converts from one religion to another, or becomes a capitalist instead of a communist, it is because that aesthetic anchor was picked up and moved, and all of their justifications and arguments then shift to reflect that. As to what can move that anchor, it can be anything from a group of friends or the surrounding culture to family and even God."

Describe your general ideology when it comes to foreign policy; particularly looking for answers from the perspective of the United States.

(1) What should US foreign policy toward Israel be? What is your general opinion of the Israel-Palestine conflict?

(2) What should US foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia be? Specifically, should it continue military cooperation/arms sales with Saudi Arabia? Should it support the ongoing intervention in Yemen?

(3) What should US foreign policy toward Myanmar be? 

(4) Should the US engage in drone strikes? Do you agree with the status quo in terms of drone strikes and with Obama's policies in that regard?

(5) What is your opinion of Noam Chomsky's foreign policy positions? (6) What is your opinion of the foreign policy positions of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders? (7) What is your opinion of the foreign policy positions of Robert Gates?

I'm actually not 100% sure about UBI. It might not be socially sustainable -- humans need meaningful employment to maintain a sense of purpose in their day-to-day lives. Maybe instead of radically overhauling our current economic structure, we should just double down on the idea of every American having a good job. But that would require some sort of collective freeze on automation and globalization, or potentially even undoing them to some extent.

I don’t buy that the effects of immigration on social cohesion are so destructive that they significantly damage the long-term sustainability of democratic governance.

 particularly given that groups of immigrants are highly likely to form and live within their own communities

Okay. I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about the US, in particular, as you are, but I’ve seen compelling evidence to the contrary (i.e., evidence that suggests that racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, such as prejudice against LGBTQ+ people, are quite prevalent even in developed countries).

However, I really don’t think it’s deniable that sexism, racism, and similar forms of oppression (e.g., caste-ism in India) are prevalent in the majority of countries in the world (i.e., developing countries). 

However, there's good evidence to suggest that a higher gas tax and carbon taxation (e.g., the $40/ton of CO2 emissions proposal) would be effective in reducing CO2 emissions. I don't see why these wouldn't be "economically sustainable." In fact, as far as I know, the majority of economists think gas tax holidays are bad policy and carbon taxes are good

In fact, the $40/ton proposal was created by conservative economists, who suggested that the tax be made roughly revenue-neutral by returning the proceeds "to the American people on an equal basis via quarterly dividend checks. With a carbon tax of $40 per ton, a family of four would receive about $2,000 in the first year. As the tax rate rose over time to further reduce emissions, so would the dividend payments."

I think immigration is probably damaging to social cohesion. I think the economic benefits of skilled immigration, nonetheless, outweigh those harms. I'm less sure about unskilled immigrants. I also think there are some evidence that racial diversity also has sociological benefits (e.g., contact hypothesis), but I haven't read the research on that idea and don't know enough, so I'll default to agreeing with you on "social cohesion."

Another thing, though, is I'm also unsure, on a moral level, about what level of obligations countries have to noncitizens. People generally agree that development aid is a good thing. Should that principle extend to creating policies for the main reason that they would benefit the immigrants themselves? I agree that countries have a greater obligation to their citizens -- the question, though, is the extent of obligation they have to immigrants and weighing the benefits to immigrants against the possibility of harms to the nations themselves. 

I don't care. I accept a free will debate against soacetime who defines it in an unloseable, completely wrong way in his description and what do I do? I know that it's unenforceable to truly go by your deacripdesc if it's abusively defined but I say fuck it, this was a noob-trap that I should merely have expose din the comments and on the forums on philosophy, not accepted. I take the L willingly even though I could have made many agree hde defined it weo gly and played as dirty as him.

(1) I believe that climate change (i.e., global warming) exists, is human-caused, and is a significant threat. Therefore, I strongly support significant climate change mitigation policies, including a significantly higher gas tax, a tax on carbon emissions on all households and corporations (exempting some low-income and lower-middle class households), significant investment in clean energy, and stronger, enforceable international agreements to attempt to limit global land-sea mean temperature increase at 2.5 degrees Celsius at least.

(3) I'm also very pro-immigration -- in particular, I would make it much easier for skilled immigrants to come into developed countries (at least if I'm assessing this exclusively from the perspective of what policies would maximize benefit to those very developed countries). I think unskilled immigrants are also generally an economic good, but that's something I'm much less sure about (due to effects such as lower trust in communities, economic effects like loose labor markets causing wage depression and unemployment for local workers). 

(5) I support really strong animal welfare legislation. I believe nonhuman animals have much more moral worth than is accorded to them and the sheer amount of suffering inflicted by factory farming is despicable. I support really tough regulations to protect animal welfare and to reduce meat consumption, including ethical warning labels on meat packaging, potentially sin taxes on some forms of meat, and so on, complemented with significant subsidies for consumers of vegetarian/vegan products. This would reduce net suffering and help combat the effects of climate change and environmental destruction caused by meat consumption. Moreover, I support strong legislation to protect wildlife from human encroachment and devastation. 

(6) There are very real threats to democratic structures facing countries like the United States, including voter photo ID laws, limiting the number of voting days, attempting to make voting as hard as possible for low-income and minority individuals, gerrymandering,  and so on. Those are virtually authoritarian threats that need to be countered. Moreover, right-wing populism spreads rhetoric of hatred against minorities and actively blames them for unrelated societal problems and undermines critical democratic institutions such as the judiciary and the press. All of these threats to democracy and democratic values need to be fought in some manner (we could start by electing right-wing populists such as Bolsonaro, Duterte, and Trump out of office; creating independent commissions that control redistricting for elections; etc.). 

On a personal level, though not by the same magnitude on a utilitarian level, I care about social justice issues (e.g., sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, racist police brutality, racial and gender inequalities in general, affirmative action). However, these don't quite make the cut in terms of sheer importance. 

My opinion of @spacetime has radically decreased due to this.

Neither the first nor the last of these are in any way unreasonable; indeed, they are, in terms of the COC, prudent and required, respectively. I would do either of those things again, and will continue to do so.

The middle action was a mistake which I admitted to.

The hubbub over these is incredible, and is not proportional to what actually transpired.

I deleted it because it included an offensive slur, but, when Thett reposted it, I figured that it really ought to remain up insofar as it goes to moderation issues. I am on a hair-trigger in terms of those slurs due to the recurring use of them in this thread.

You are, of course, entitled to that opinion. I shall not, however, be resigning over this incident.

The message did and does not constitute moderation action. 

And your claim about Black tendency is based on statistical relations to cyclical poverty. Being poor doesn't offer many options, even whites get caught in the same thing.

It clearly does when blacks themselves are still saying it's an issue. Colin Kappernick isn't kneeling for nothing.

People lie on those things all time to appear better. How can the mid 90's be over 90% pro-same schools when that same period we saw the height of the anti-busing cause? You should see the thing anti-busing parents said at meets. It's on youtube. And clearly given the amount of racism thrown at Obama there's no way in 1997 95% said they approved of a black president. All your survey data shows is a change in open racism. Just as Atwater noted - the culture changes you can't be blatant anymore but the goal remains.

Just because something is partisan doesn't mean it can't be further exacerbated by race.

It's a bit of a work around but if you have the income, and the loan (debt) you can see there's a perception of income to debt.

As for the importance of credit score there is plenty of research on that which goes to show correlate effect that is clearly a reverberation of the past system of loans which favored whites [2]. 

Even today PoC with good credit scores are saddled with higher rates compared to whites [3]. 

And even if you argue that we should abandon any notions of racism and look at this through a purely economic lens you're just playing into what Mr. Atwater was saying, to take the issues into the abstract knowing ultimately policy crafted in such a way will hurt minorities more than whites.

You claim to acknowledge the past yet you don't seem to appreciate the economic board was set by white hands with inevitable socio economic consequences.

You seem too eager to dismiss race as a factor despite its prominence in recent history.

Trump didn't make race a polarizing issue, he capitalized on a pre-existing, one could say historical, disdain. Millions of Americans chose to believe Trump's conspiracies from birtherism "millions of illegals voting" and "Muslims celebrating 9/11" not because it was true but because it's the racist BS they've been feeling should be said aloud.