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Post your early 2022 midterm predictions here. My prediction: Republicans take back both houses of congress, winning around 230 house seats and 52 senate seats
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@MisterChris
@Theweakeredge
please see above
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@RationalMadman
I dont think so, major refers to your field of study in the US. I should specify all of this is specific to the US
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@Vader
Please read this, and help me round up other young people on the site. I dont actually know how old or young most people are
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An extremely interesting and highly data driven study just dropped, and I think the findings will be highly useful to all young people on this site and elsewhere. In some sense it confirms what we all already knew, or expected, but it's still worth a look. The data is so comprehensive that you can literally search each institution and the specific majors they offer to see median salary outcomes, and return on investment relative to the median costs over a lifetime. Not all majors are present (mine wasn't), probably because some newer ones lack long term data, but the information is detailed enough that you can get a very, very solid idea about your prospects in a particular field. I encourage all young people on this site to read this article, reread it, and share it with their high school or college aged friends and siblings. Here are my big takeaways:
1) No matter what you do, complete your degree
Unsurprisingly, the return on investment is always negative if you do not finish your degree. If someone drops out of college, the superior choice clearly would have been trade school or simply working a basic job rather than spending money/going into debt for a credential not received. There are not many majors where it would be a better choice to drop out, and if you are in that situation you're probably better off spending the extra time in college to transfer to a more lucrative major. Spending another year or eighteen months in college to swap an anthropology degree for an accounting or economics degree would be well worth it in most cases.
2) STEM isn't a meme--at least, the TEM part isn't
Virtually all Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics degrees yield a positive ROI, generally above $500,000 over the course of a lifetime. Engineering in particular is impressive as 69% of degrees deliver a lifetime payoff of $1,000,000 or more. If you can hack it in one of these majors and you wouldn’t absolutely hate the next forty years or working life, you should get one of these degrees.
A lot of science majors have lower ROI's than I expected, but as the report points out, this analysis only encompasses people who have a bachelors degree and tracks their earnings. Since so many science majors pursue higher education such as medical school or graduate school, those with only bachelors degrees aren't that representative of a sample. But if you have no interest in education beyond a four year degree, a biology degree is probably a bad choice.
3) The institution does matter--but less than major
The most important decision, by far, is the choice of major. There are Harvard degrees with a negative ROI, and there are degrees from nominally unimpressive schools that return a positive ROI--some quite handsomely: "Moreover, 15% of programs at the cheapest schools (those with net tuition below $2,000) have a payoff above $500,000. At these inexpensive colleges, 82% of engineering programs, 51% of computer science programs, and 37% of health and nursing programs net their graduates more than half a million dollars."
If you can get your degree of choice at a higher tier institution, it might be worth it so long as you are confident in your ability to graduate. Unsurprisingly, the ROI of a degree is negative in 100% of the cases where a student drops out, and the probability of a positive ROI decreases the longer it takes to complete your degree.
My big takeaway is that the most important decision by far is the choice of major, followed by the type of lifestyle decisions that maximize your probability of graduation. Don't move halfway across the country to go to a marginally better school as a flex if being away from family and friends will make you miserable. State is fine, provided your choice of major is a good one.
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I pretty much only post in the politics section, but one reason I’ve been feeling discouraged from doing so is that most people there act like defense attorneys instead of real people, in the sense that they concede absolutely nothing. In productive conversations all kinds of minor rhetorical concessions get made for the sake of winnowing down the conversation to the core disagreement. It’s probably just a symptom of American politics becoming more polarized over the past five years or so but those type of good faith conversations don’t really happen here that often.
I wouldn’t say the site is dead though. I’m actually surprised/impressed by how alive it is, I definitely wouldn’t have thought it would last this long or be this active
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@Sum1hugme
There is no good evidence that the election was fraudulent. The reasons people believe that it was is:
1) People don't like admitting defeat. I don't really understand this because it's common for a politician to lose an election, and doesn't really mean much. Particularly in the case of Trump who did some serious self sabotage
2) The results DID look fraudulent at first. I no longer believe that there was significant amounts of voter fraud in 2020, but for the first two weeks or so after the election I did. Because frankly it simply did look fraudulent. A candidate is leading all night and into the morning, only for a last minute vote dump with Soviet-tier margins to overwhelm his lead at the last minute and by the exact amount necessary to give his opponent a narrow win. Seems really, really, REALLY suspicious. But then you do a little more research and find that those Soviet-tier margins actually make sense because the remaining ballots were at an intersection of several characteristics that make a voter highly likely to vote Democrat. They were mail-in ballots, the method Democrats prefer for whatever reason and concentrated in the urban cores of large cities, which also vote heavily Democratic. Then you start to look for other signs of voter fraud, such as abnormally high rates of turnout in certain areas not replicated throughout the state, etc and they just weren't there.
I do think that mail in voting is a disaster and that no excuse absentee voting should not be allowed. While it isn't technically fraudulent I think that stuff like ballot harvesting does undermine democracy but not nearly enough for me to say that the election was fraudulent. The way that the votes were counted, sometimes taking several days (or even weeks in extreme cases) was completely unacceptable and should not be allowed to happen again. I don't blame people for suspecting fraud when it appears that your opponents just keep finding ballots. In some places, this is simply par of the course and it has been swept under the rug for several cycles now. California JUST finished counting votes for it's recall election that was held on 9/14, over a month ago, and took months to declare several congressional races in 2016, 2018, and 2020. I forget the details but there was also a congressional race in New York (NY-22) that ultimately went Republican but the election administration was so incredibly poor that the true will of the voters will never be known. It took so long to be certified due to all the court cases that the district went without representation for several weeks into this session of congress. This kind of thing is not fair to the candidates or their voters. Serious reform IS needed.
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@Ramshutu
Asking “What caused the crash then?” Does not change the fact that MPP was neither large enough nor early enough to account for the drop.
A policy implemented to address false asylum claims is rolled out to counter a growing crisis, and after a few months false asylum claims crash. I'm open to the idea that MPP alone didn't solve the crisis. What I'm not open to is the argument that Trumps mix of policies had nothing to do with driving border crossings to a multi decade low, and that Biden repealing those policies had nothing to do with border crossings reaching a multi decade high. What's your explanation for what happened?
Compared to the preceding few years - it was not normal in volume. Compared to the previous 20 years - the timing of the rise and fall were seasonally consistent. Timing is the main argument you’re making, and I’m pointing out that the timing of the fall is consistent with other years. It erodes your timing argument is due to mpp.
Take another look at my response, because you seem to have missed it. Anything pre-2014 is not relevant to the current crisis:
" Notably, that familiar seasonal pattern also seems to have vanished around 2014. This coincides with net migration from Mexico turning negative and when Obama had to deal with a similar crisis of unaccompanied children and false asylum claims. It is entirely possible that the nature of illegal immigration has changed. Here is some data from 2005-2010, as you can see in each year over 90% of those apprehended were over the age of 18, and over 85% were from Mexico: https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-apprehensions-fs-2005-2010.pdf
So tldr you can't compare the seasonal nature that existed in the past with what is happening today, as that was mostly adults looking for work, not families looking for welfare."
“But a selection of immigrants interviewed by a right wing website, said they didn’t want to cross the border under Trump”.None of mentioned MPP as a reason, your example mentioned family separation - which wasn’t actually occurring under Trump either, and cited an decrease in wait times that doesn’t appear to be matched to any real wait time decrease.
This was in response to your point that arresting them parents for illegally crossing the border didn't deter border crossing.
October and November numbers were huge despite no change in immigration policy. Immigration was not spiking (as in other winters), but high above averages - Indicating that immigration pressure was already far higher at the end of 2020 despite no change in MPP policy. The point being that Immigration was way up on normal levels prior to any policy changes.
I try to be as charitable as I can but after reading this response I honestly don't think you're arguing in good faith. Or you just think I'm not going to call you out on it. The numbers were posted for you, and for all readers. The "huge" October and November numbers were about a third of the numbers for July, August and September, which have not been seen in decades. There was a large increase--that then tapered off. As soon as Biden took office, there was a gigantic increase that has yet to abate:
"In fact, the numbers were relatively stable from October 2020 to January 2021 rising a total of around 9%. The numbers went up 30% in Bidens first full month in office (February), 71% in his second month, and have risen 20% since then. Notably most of the rise happened long before July, further evidence that the 2000s era data showing a clear seasonal pattern is not that relevant anymore."
Perception, for sure, has a Massive part to play. It doesn’t matter whether Biden is the same, or even harsher for immigrants than Trump - if people perceive him to be more open, more people will come. This is why the right wing media painting the southern Border as completely open, that people are now suddenly just being let in, and allowed to run away into the US - when what’s happening is not much different than than under Trump (which he is being beaten up about in the left FYI) - has a far larger impact on that perception than any material impact from changes in policy.
Here are the numbers for title 42, which you cite as evidence that Biden is no different or "even harsher" than Trump. It went from over 90% being expelled to less than 50%. This is because Biden made the decision not to expel family units, essentially opening the border to all families who can make the trip. Hopefully they’re eventually expelled because their asylum claims are bogus but I’m not optimistic under a Democratic administration
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@Conway
I'm very confident that:1. Voter fraud is not exceedingly rare. It is underreported to some unknown extent.2. Voter fraud skewed the percentage minutely in 2020 for at least one state3. Joe Biden was elected President, and did not need the ballots to be miscounted.
This is pretty much my take as well. Voter fraud does exist, and exists far more than many people would have you believe (like that there are one or two votes total a cycle) but the 2020 election, close as it was, still wasn’t nearly close enough to be stolen. The margins have to be Bush vs. Gore in Florida tier for that to happen IMO.
The 1960 election is the only “modern” one where I think it’s plausible that it was stolen
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@Greyparrot
Yeah we really over corrected after the civil rights movement. Hopefully we don't overcorrect again and can just instead be normal
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@Greyparrot
According to this poll Biden is underwater with Texas hispanics, 55-37. On the border issue specifically his 66% disapprove, 26% approve with hispanics. Overall an atrocious 20% approval to 71% disapproval on the border
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@Greyparrot
What's so weird is that the major supporters of open borders and lax enforcement are wealthy whites.The vast majority of Hispanics want the door shut.Maybe the radical left is right about one thing, we really don't need all these preachy white people telling minorities what's best for them.
Yes, I was skeptical of the narrative that Hispanics would assimilate just like the Ellis Islanders did, and I'm still not completely sold on it, but that view has been taking some serious W's lately. I know that border communities are absolutely furious with Biden and I can't wait to see how they vote in 2022.
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@Ramshutu
Canada is actually pretty good at irregular border crossings: with asylum claims granted at a pretty decent rate for irregular border crossings - out of 60k in the last few years, only 16k have been rejected, with 22k accepted, and 17k still pending.We just don’t get that many crossings because, despite our insane welfare systems, because, you know, it’s not welfare people are coming for….
No, it's because you don't have a giant land border with a significantly poorer country, which itself borders even poorer countries.
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@Ramshutu
1.) MPP numbers were tiny. It only hit ~10k by June, at which point crossings were already dropping.
What do you think caused the crash, then? The numbers went from around a 15 year peak to a 20 year low, only to immediately jump to a 21 year high after Biden took office. I'll repeat what I asked Double_R... Is it seriously your position that Trump's policies had nothing to do with illegal border crossings reaching a 20 year low, and Biden reversing those policies had nothing to do with border crossings reaching a 21 year high scarcely a year later?
3.) Even your link shows that immigration historically peaks July or prior - then falls. Claiming the fall in June is because of policy is Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.
That's a totally dishonest way to frame the data. Yes, it does go through seasonal peaks and troughs, but the peak in May of 2019 was not at all normal, nor was the crash to the lowest numbers in 20 years, nor was the spike to the highest levels in 20 years as soon as Biden took office. Notably, that familiar seasonal pattern also seems to have vanished around 2014. This coincides with net migration from Mexico turning negative and when Obama had to deal with a similar crisis of unaccompanied children and false asylum claims. It is entirely possible that the nature of illegal immigration has changed. Here is some data from 2005-2010, as you can see in each year over 90% of those apprehended were over the age of 18, and over 85% were from Mexico: https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-apprehensions-fs-2005-2010.pdf
So tldr you can't compare the seasonal nature that existed in the past with what is happening today, as that was mostly adults looking for work, not families looking for welfare.
4.) if the 64% of crossers that came in families were not deterred by family separation, it makes no sense that they happened to be deterred by MPP.
They were deterred by it:
“First of all, he does not separate families,” one Colombian migrant said, according to a translation. “Second, one can wait less, when before it was six months. Now it goes by faster to wait under asylum.”
6.) Mexican nationals are way up too in 2021 - MPP doesn’t apply to them.
This is actually evidence that it is working since the portion of Mexican citizens, the group the policy does not apply to, doubled between 2019 and 2021. Unless you know of some other reason illegal immigration from Mexico would increase that doesn't apply to the northern triangle. Also notably, the portion of citizens from the Northern Triangle countries declined from 78% to 45% between those years. These citizens were the ones who comprised the vast majority of those who were subjected to Trump's policies, and their numbers are down, while citizens of other countries are now more likely to make a go at it. This very strongly suggests there was a chilling effect.
7.) October 2020 border crossings were 72k. That’s the highest October numbers since at least 2013: higher than 2019. It was already showing that immigration was picking up from august 2020, even with Trump and these policies all in place.
True, but you can also see a tapering off around December/January of 2021 before the numbers pick up again and completely explode to levels not seen in two decades. Moreover this doesn't absolve Biden at all. Pointing the finger and saying "actually Trump did nothing!!!" doesn't mean that there is not a crisis that he is utterly failing to solve. In fact, the numbers were relatively stable from October 2020 to January 2021 rising a total of around 9%. The numbers went up 30% in Bidens first full month in office (February), 71% in his second month, and have risen 20% since then. Notably most of the rise happened long before July, further evidence that the 2000s era data showing a clear seasonal pattern is not that relevant anymore.
9.) MPP announcement was followed by a peak of families crossing the border. If it’s valid to attribute the subsequent fall to MPP, it’s just as valid to attribute the rise to MPP too - for example: it meant families no longer had to worry about being deported back to their home countries and had the opposite effect.
First of all, I couldn't care less if more of them made the journey, as long as they weren't allowed in. So your counterfactual doesn't actually prove anything. I don't care if they are in their home countries or in Mexico, what's important is that they aren't in my country. But you have zero explanation for what caused a sudden end to the crisis. I do: the chilling effect as policies take effect and would be migrants see the impact of those policies.
The reality is that all these policy implementations - except for perhaps section 42 expulsions had little observable effects on crossings; and section 42 appears to have encouraged repeat offenders over time - with recidivism rising from 7% to 38% focused mainly on single adults.
Trump was deporting over 90% of illegals via section 42, while Biden has dropped that number down to less than half. So if you think section 42 is the most important thing, it still doesn't absolve Biden.
Like I said in the remainder of my post; the data seems to clearly point away from any particular policy change being the cause. While perception could be a factor; the single biggest data point that indicates what’s going on is recidivism; which gives the impression that it’s Trumps section 42 expulsions, which Biden is maintaining, that is having the biggest policy impact.
"In July, 27% of border encounters involved migrants with at least one previous encounter within the past year, according to CBP statistics. That was up from an average of 14% between the 2014 and 2019 fiscal years, before Title 42 took effect." https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/13/migrant-encounters-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-at-a-21-year-high/
Recidivism doubled yes, but illegal border crossings as a whole are probably 4 to 5 times the average from those years. The number of unique individuals was up 17% from 2019 which was the worst year in decades for illegal immigration, so hardly a rosy thing to compare to. "A total of 1,002,722 unique individuals have been encountered year-to-date during Fiscal Year 2021, compared to 851,513 during the same time period in Fiscal Year 2019." https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-august-2021-operational-update
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@Double_R
Why does Trump get 3 years to show progress but Biden is immediately responsible the moment he gets sworn in?
Not to be snarky, but did you even look at the graph? The numbers crashed after Trump was elected due to the chilling effect. They slowly climbed back up to the relatively low numbers seen during the Obama years, before spiking significantly in late 2018 and peaking in May 2019--the era of the "migrant caravans." Trump implemented a number of policies, the most successful of which was remain in Mexico which only began to be rolled out everywhere in March/April of 2019 that drove illegal border crossings to a 20 year low. Biden immediately reversed all of those policies.
Is your position seriously that Trump's policies had nothing to do with illegal border crossings reaching a 20 year low, and Biden reversing those policies had nothing to do with border crossings reaching a 21 year high scarcely a year later? If you look you can find dozens and dozens of interviews like this with the migrants themselves and they all have a similar theme: https://nypost.com/2021/10/12/migrants-didnt-try-to-cross-us-border-under-strict-trump-policies/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
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@Ramshutu
This is to say that suggestion that MPP or ending “catch and release” (2017/2018) had a huge impact doesn’t seem to match the data; there’s possibly some movement, but for 800k people, a few tens of thousands here and there isn’t going to make much of a dent.
You can see an incredibly clear impact of all the Trump policies that were slowly rolled out in 2019 in the numbers, as well as the massive spike that began immediately upon Biden winning. MPP was conceived in early 2019 but it was not fully implemented at that point, it was slowly rolled out to other sectors. It made a gigantic difference and pretty much ended the crisis of people hopping the border to make false asylum claims and then disappear.
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@Greyparrot
I don’t have words for how much I hate birthright citizenship. Just pure stolen citizenship
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@Greyparrot
@Ramshutu
I was hesitant to post this story because it confirms all of my biases so strongly that I HAVE to be skeptical, or I'm not being honest. But it seems to be very well corroborated, including charges against the student.
Apparently, a "transgender" male student raped a mans daughter in the girls bathroom. He was arrested for trying to tell his story at a school board meeting, and his name was included on the list submitted to the attorney general to sicc the FBI onto concerned parents.
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@Double_R
Trump did a lot to change what he called “Catch and Release”, and Biden rolled back these policies almost immediately upon taking office: https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/biden-admin-relaunches-catch-release-181832444.html
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@Double_R
Problem is every time I hear someone talk about this all they provide are anecdotes. Can someone please explain what the claim is exactly and support it? Would really appreciate the enlightenment.
The short answer: illegal immigration is at multi decade highs largely because economic migrants have figured out how to exploit US asylum laws. Basically you are entitled to a hearing and if someone crosses the border they are typically released into the US with a court date. Problem is, those court dates take years because the system is so backlogged, and when their claim for asylum is denied as it almost always is, there isn’t really enforcement that makes them leave. The numbers have risen so much under Biden that his administration released 50,000 people without even a court date. Hard to see a scenario where these people EVER leave the US: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.axios.com/migrant-release-no-court-date-ice-dhs-immigration-33d258ea-2419-418d-abe8-2a8b60e3c070.html
Trump faced a similar crisis in late 2018 and early 2019, but negotiated the Remain in Mexico policy with the Mexican government. Essentially what that meant was that asylum seekers who weren’t Mexicans pleading asylum from Mexico would remain in Mexico until it was time for their hearing. Since virtually none of these people were actual political refugees or dissidents but were instead economic migrants this totally destroyed the incentive to cross the border. You can see this reflected quite clearly in the numbers. Biden ended remain in Mexico a few weeks into office. Fortunately a court has ordered him to restart it due to the negative impact his end of the policy had on border states.
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@zedvictor4
Is the Republican Party really about vision?Or is the Republican Party about looking backwards?
Not really, it mostly serves as an empty vessel for people opposed to leftism without a firm vision of its own. Part of the reason why recent GOP Presidents have been so mediocre. But there are certainly non leftist people out there (like me) who have a vision of the future, and would like to see things arranged just so. I'm hoping that it eventually morphs into something less pathetic and more compelling
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He’s beloved by the base because he’s the first politician In a long time to give them a taste of what they wanted. Imagine being a conservative Republican and getting…George W. Bush. Trump’s star is slowly fading and we will see if it can fade enough in time…the Republican Party has to decide if it wants someone with a vision for the future in 2024 or if they want someone to endlessly relitigate the 2020 election.
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@Ramshutu
In terms of Policy; what the Republicans broadly, especially the senate republicans, do so much better than Democrats - like Jesus H Christ we’d be in trouble if the democrats started doing it - is not giving the first flying fuck how bad things look, or are, or the impact of what they do, providing they win. 6-3 instead of 5-4 is a case in point. The Democrats Hem and Haw about the fillibuster, knowing if they lose power, they may not have any other option - but no reasonable person would expect that Mitch McConnell would even blink for a second before removing the filibuster if control of the senate hinges upon some legislation he could not pass by other means.The debt ceiling, is a particularly good example of this aspect. Debt was used as a cudgel to beat democrats to death with and sweep into broad power on the back of it - recall the tea party - there were shutdowns, the US credit rating was downgraded. When Trump won; this was forgotten almost overnight - big tax cuts, increases in the military, and surprisingly little complaints other than people like Rand Paul making a big show of opposing things at the last minute before voting for the bills. Between November 2016, and November 2020, the debt ceiling was an irrelevance - and is all of a sudden now an issue again. Indeed, it isn’t the first previously nonpartisan, pro forma task that has been turned into a partisan struggle.This is what I refer to as the Weaponized hypocrisy of the right. It’s straight up piss on your head and tell me it’s raining ridiculousness, for which simply having cover to say something is true is all that is required, no matter how untrue it actually is. This extends almost across the board; democrats continue to have the normal amount of hypocrisy; republicans have it weaponized. Trump specifically was the epitome of “I’m going to say and do whatever I want, regardless of it’s truth.” The likes of Fox News, OAN, newsmax, etc follow that pattern too in a way that is not emulated to as substantial degree by other left wing outlets.
Here's former majority leader Harry Reid, when asked if he regrets knowingly spreading lies about Mitt Romney not paying taxes: https://time.com/3765158/harry-reid-mitt-romney-no-taxes/
“Well, they can call it whatever they want,” Reid said. “Romney didn’t win, did he?”
I don't really have an interest in arguing over which side is scummier, hypocritical, and more dishonest broadly. They both are, because their job is to do so. It is particularly odd that you say Mitch McConnell would abolish the filibuster if he had the chance when he had the chance and did not. I don't have an interest in defending Mitch McConnell but I do have an interest in honesty generally. In this case I actually think the Republican position is pretty reasonable, especially now that they have given the democrats some more time. The Democrats aren't entitled to Republican votes, if they want to govern as if they have LBJ style majorities despite barely winning against an incumbent who did absolutely everything he could to sabotage himself and his party, they need to be willing to pay the political price for that. Or simply make concessions. If Democrats truly didnt have time to raise the debt ceiling via reconciliation I would agree it's a horrible move, but they do. "I don't wanna!" doesn't cut it for me.
There’s various flavours - from the QAnon crazies, to the bill-gates-is-microchipping-me brigade; with a fair amount of overlap in all the various sub groups.I could talk about the causes, the history, blame, and patterns over time (I have 0 doubt that the vocal supporters of Trump today, are the same ones that shouted at me for being a Terrorist Sympathizer for suggesting that Iraq likely doesn’t have any big stash of WMDs is going to turn into a shit show ; way back 2002) - but there’s a surprisingly large group of Trump supporters have created shortcuts for rejecting any information that disagrees with them.Any news they don’t like is fake; politicians say something they don’t like - it’s the swamp; any member of the civil service speak out - it’s the deep state; democrats say something; they’re evil and trying to destroy the country; private sector individuals - they’re shills. And in many cases, any engagement is deflected towards prepared, comfortable talking points. These are the people I’m talking about. Similar to 2009 creationists; Ken Hams and Kent Hovinds.
I too can construct a caricature of a particularly obnoxious version of a political opponent and then proudly proclaim that MY side doesn't have those types of people! But I won't because that isn't productive. Fortunately, most people are not overly political and there is no smart or stupid party, because politics (at least in the US) is largely not based on logic but based on loose coalitions of groups based around interests, beliefs, and identities. The fact that a persons vote can be so accurately forecasted with basic demographic data should tell you that: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/11/03/how-to-forecast-an-americans-vote I have a pretty deterministic outlook on this which is why casting aspersions on any group really rubs me the wrong way
But more importantly this doesn't actually address my criticism at all. Whatever other mental flaws may be present among many "rightists" a blind trust in authority is absolutely not among them. The fact that you cite so many conspiracy theories used to filter out unwanted information is proof enough of that.
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@ebuc
1} not all humans choose to get vaccinated, ergo children can infect them, just adults can, --stop the spread by masking adults and children when appropriate anad neccessary,
Yeah but if someone chooses not to get vaccinated that is on them. Children over the age of 12 actually can get vaccinated at this point but unless they have severe medical issues they don’t really need to. covid poses blessedly little risk to children, a risk far lower than it does to adults. The evidence on school mask mandates impact on community spread is extremely weak for the pro mask side: https://polimath.substack.com/p/the-case-against-masks-in-schools
Get off your trumpeteer chaos for all mentality and act like a mature adult who cares about hunamitym irrespective of the looming end-date-of-humanity, 2232.Please try and have a little bit of intellectual integrity also
Ok I will. Also, what’s the deal with the 2232 date?
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@ebuc
A child, vaccinated or not, can transmit a virus to other humans. Only idiots continue to think masks do nothing to prevent transmission of virus { viral load }.
That’s why I added the caveat “a vaccine has been available for adults for months.” I would be opposed to masking children no matter what but if teachers couldn’t get vaccinated I would understand thinking otherwise. But they can. And thankful, covid is significantly less of a danger to children than the flu so there is no need for such an extreme measure such as forcing a six year old to wear a mask for eight hours a day
At this point the only people are risk from covid are those who have chosen not to get vaccinated. So I don’t see why there should be any restrictions at all.
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@Greyparrot
The slightest pushback has been indoctrinated into these people to be seen as violence and aggressions. Now they want the FBI to be their safe space from all these angry parents. It's ridiculous how much America coddles teachers and puts up with it. And I am saying this from the perspective of having taught in various public schools for over 10 years.
I mean at this point knowing what we know about the risk covid poses to children (basically non existent) and the fact that there is a vaccine that has been available to all adults for over half a year forcing children to wear masks is nothing but child abuse. I don’t blame parents in that situation for being angry, because by implementing a mask mandate the school board is proving that it’s unfit for its duties as they aren’t able to use critical thinking, and prioritize their own cowardice over the well-being of the students
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@Ramshutu
I searched “school board meeting arrest” on google news, on the first page I found three instances of people being arrested for not wearing a mask and one instance of two people being arrested for trying to force their way into a meeting that the board wanted to have “virtually.” Doesn’t sound like a crisis worthy of a federal response to me.
Maybe instead of tricking people into committing crimes the FBI could focus on helping to fix the abysmally low clearance rate of homicides, which actually are increasing
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@Ramshutu
The lie being peddled here, that the small minority of angry, shouting, abuse - occasionally violent - anti-mask protesters, and those rallying against are just exercising their rights and should not be intimidated, is just a load of old horseshit - just as much as portraying all the protesters in Portland as peaceful.
Actually all of those things except for “occasionally violent” are people just exercising their rights.
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This is a good litmus test for who is worth having a conversation with. There is no crisis of death threats and violence against school board members or administrators. Certainly nothing that can’t be dealt with by local law enforcement. This is so CLEARLY an intimidation move. And now that the FBI, whose job in the modern day seems to be talking people into committing crimes, is involved no doubt there will be an actual problem now, which will be used to justify the intervention in the first place. If someone can’t see that they’re gone.
The Biden administration really has been mask off openly authoritarian. There’s this, absolutely throwing open the border, the vaccine mandates, and trying to monitor all transactions over $600.
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@Double_R
I doubt that, but if that were the case it would only be because people lack understanding of how government works, not because that makes sense.If the US actually defaulted it would happen with every Democrat voting to pay our bills while every republican votes to default. It can’t get any simpler then that.
1) People don't understand how the government works, when things go badly the party in power gets blamed rightly or wrongly. In this case, failing to perform such a basic function when you have the house, senate, and presidency would reflect extremely poorly on the governing party.
2) They can raise the debt limit alone via reconciliation or through a filibuster carve out. They are not entitled to Republican votes, if they want them they either need to make concessions or use one of the ways they have to circumvent the Republicans. This is just basic politics stuff, it's not "holding the economy hostage." It's holding the reconciliation process hostage, I guess.
The debt ceiling was raised 3 times while Trump was president, each time with more democrats voting for than republicans. This is purely a republican thing.
If this is true this significantly raises my opinion of congressional Republicans, making me regain a modicum of respect for them. I honestly assumed that they en masse cynically dropped their concerns about "the deficit" as soon as Trump got in office and went on a spending and tax cut binge. If a sizable contingent of them stuck to their guns and defied their own President's attempts to raise the debt limit, that is impressive. Even though I tend to side with Dems on most fiscal issues, I like consistency
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@Ramshutu
I’m sure many people, including perhaps a substantial number of people in this thread - actually do believe this, but in the same way that people unswervingly believed that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.Orwell’s Ministry of truth wasn’t about changing the facts so that intellectually honest people were mislead - but changing the truth so that the people that blindly believed in the party could maintain their own self deception.In this respect, Tucker Carlsons rants, or Mitch McConnells Letter are not about trying to convince anyone, but to give their supporters the fig-leaf they need to maintain their belief that the party is always right.I think various individuals here truly believe that republicans did nothing wrong every bit as much as they would unswervingly believe that the democrats are economic terrorists unreasonably holding the country hostage under threat of economic catastrophe if they did the same thing in 18 months.
self identified Republicans are evenly split on their approval of Republicans in congress, compared with Democrats who approve of their congressional leaders by a 36 point margin: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/23/views-of-biden-and-congressional-leaders/
Say what you will about Republicans but being brainwashed into cult like enthusiasm for their congressional leaders is the opposite of the truth. Democrats have a reasonable degree of skepticism as well, I don't think accusing Democrat voters of just going along with whatever their party establishment says would be a fair attack at all, but it's a completely ludicrous one to level against Republicans.
This is quite simple and has nothing to do with your opponents being brainwashed devotees to the party. Republicans want to force Democrats to use reconciliation to use up a bill, use up some of their time, and own the scary sounding debt ceiling number for obvious reasons. Democrats do not want to do these things for equally obvious reasons. Neither party is holding the country hostage, and the US is not going to default. It's a game of chicken over whose political project suffers a minor setback and whose does not, and it's a game that Republicans have the advantage in because the fact is that the Democrats do have the votes. They may not want to do it that way, but "we have the presidency, the house, and the votes in the senate but didn't want to do it the way Mitch made us" isn't going to hold up at all in the court of public opinion if the US actually defaulted. The fact that the 7 Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump are firmly in McConnell's corner on this should suggest something to you regarding this issue.
The reason that people (of both parties) would change their positions if the situation was reversed is because all of this rules drama is just the means to an end, the means themselves are not inherently right or wrong so it makes sense that people don't actually care about the rules. What they care about are the ends. This is why 32 Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, signed a letter in support of the filibuster under Trump but many of them want to abolish it now: https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/senate-filibuster-rules-letter/index.html
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@Double_R
By calling it a punishment when it’s not, you’re being manipulative and intellectually dishonest because you’re using that connotation to make your point where the connotation doesn’t actually apply...And BTW, of course it’s a stick, we ran out of carrots. The vaccines were made free and readily available everywhere. We set up Q&A centers where people could talk to medical experts before deciding to take the shot, we even tried lotteries and literally paying people. If you haven’t gotten it yet, there’s nothing left for us to try.
"The phrase "carrot and stick" is a metaphor for the use of a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behaviour."
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@Double_R
1. Please provide one example of an approved vaccine that was known to have long term side effects. Anywhere. Ever.
I don't believe that there is a long term side effect. I'm 99% sure that there won't be one. However, to me, that isn't nearly sure enough that I'm willing to force people to take it. The fact is that there IS no long term data
2. Please explain how getting vaccinated is a net negative to the health of any one group.
I already did, if you have natural immunity than you don't need the vaccine. Therefore any risk, no matter how small, results in a negative cost-benefit analysis. There's also at least some evidence that for people at almost no risk from Covid (specifically, healthy young men under the age of 40) the known vaccine side effects may be more risky than the virus itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M&t=23293s
"When you look at the balance of risks vs. benefits [of the vaccine] we really start to see the risk of myocarditis being higher in males under the age of 40.”
It’s not. Punishment, by definition, is carried out for the purpose of being punitive. Mandates are for the purpose of improving public safety. Besides, Biden isn’t even mandating the vaccine, if you don’t want to take it you can get tested weekly, so this argument fails in more ways than one.
The mandate for federal contractors, federal workers, or active duty military, which encompass millions and millions of people, does not have a testing provision. It remains to be seen if the testing provision will actually be allowed by companies as it will no doubt be expensive. I seriously doubt that if Biden had ordered a mandate without a testing provision any of you would be against it because of that.
Arguing that it isn't a punishment to lose your job for not wanting to take the vaccine is pure sophistry. The mandate is a stick, not a carrot.
Here is why I believe the vaccine mandate is unjust. Essentially, I think the policy needs to cross three thresholds in order to be proven just and I believe that it fails on all three:
1) Is not taking the vaccine an act society ought to punish?
Because I believe in the efficacy of the vaccines, and because Covid is quite clearly going to be endemic at this point, I don't see why people should be forced to take it. In England, which has better data than the US due to the NHS, only 0.8% of deaths of fully vaccinated people "involved" COVID: https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-vaccine-fully-vaccinated-death-breakthrough-cases-ons-2021-9
And keep in mind that "involving" covid does not mean "died of Covid" as opposed to "died with covid" so the actual number is likely even smaller. The vaccines provide amazing protection to the vulnerable, therefore not taking it does not aggress on another persons rights. Moreover, there are no doubt people, no matter how small of a percentage they may be, where the risks of the vaccine do outweigh the rewards and forcing them to take it would be unjust, but that is exactly what the mandate does.
2) Is the penalty just? The penalty for not wanting the vaccine is being fired from your job, and potentially being made all but unemployable depending on how rigorously enforced the vaccine mandates are and what career a person is in. For many, this amounts to being thrust into poverty, or at the very least experiencing some severe financial straits. A fine is an infinitely more just penalty for such a minor infraction. The risk an unvaccinated person poses to a vaccinated person is probably equivalent to or less than the risk a speeder or red light runner poses to a safe driver, crimes that carry significantly lower penalties than losing your job and being barred from employment in all major companies.
3) If it's an act that ought to be punished, and the penalty is just and proportionate, is a Presidential mandate the appropriate mechanism to implement the punishment? I say the answer is CLEARLY no. We have democratic and judicial oversight for a reason, and although the mandate is likely legal that's only because of the complete abrogation by congress of its powers. This mandate is something that would be extremely unlikely to be passed by congress, and if it was the penalty would be subject to the 8th amendment provisions against cruel and unusual punishment and would likely be struck down on that basis. That the mandate is NOT subject to this oversight in my mind speaks for itself.
Indeed this type of mandate is another worrying step in the direction of a merger of state and corporate authority (quite literally the definition of fascism) that neatly circumvents the older checks that were placed on power. No, it's not a *punishment*, it's for "public safety" and not related to the law at all! No, you aren't being censored, these are just private companies removing posts as is their right. Why yes, they do take their guidance on which types of speech represents a "domestic terrorism threat" from the federal government, why do you ask?
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@FLRW
That’s exactly what I’m saying, thanks for the useful comment
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@Double_R
I don’t understand why you don’t understand that you continue to make my point. The very fact that you are framing this as of it’s one or the other demonstrates the very problem I am pointing to. The implication is that if we determine that, say blacks are genetically inferior to whites, then the result of this finding is that we can now chuck away all of our history as well as everything black people are pointing to with regards to racism and how it impacts them in order to just proclaim that blacks are where they are because of their own inferiority and walk away. That implication is not just wrong, it’s grotesque.
There’s no implication. You’re just assuming that past discrimination has a substantial impact without attempting to quantify what that is, explaining how we can do this,
I on the other hand have given a coherent framework. If the median black person with a given IQ performs similarly to a median white person with a given IQ, or a median Hispanic person with a given IQ, than the argument that there is large discrimination today is not tenable.
If you believe that the entirety of the IQ gap, which is simply a fact, is due not to nature but due to past discrimination (in reality it’s likely a mix of nature, history, and environment) you need to defend that claim as well as provide a framework for how we figure out when the problem is solved. I don’t understand why you’d expect me to accept preferential treatment for one group in perpetuity. If there is any difference due to nature, even if it’s small, equality will never be reached. If policymakers and scientists aren’t allowed to know/study this than we will never know at what point further intervention is no longer necessary but becomes unjust
I never said the knowledge would be pointless, I said the knowledge would be irrelevant to what public policy should be because I find the notion of public policy adjusting for the collective intelligence of a race to be absurd.
Well the public policy implications would just be a lack of policy, not having interventions like affirmative action or special treatment for minority businesses
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@Double_R
When there’s a vaccine available I don’t think they need to do anything. Let people choose. Being made unemployed and unemployable for not wanting a vaccine for which there is no long term data, and for which if you’re in certain classes (natural immunity or young and healthy) is a net negative to your health is a grotesquely disproportionate punishment.
I don’t think the President should be able to implement this punishment (and that’s exactly what it is, no matter what euphemisms people choose to use) with no due process and no legislative input
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@Double_R
You think the emergence of a pandemic that has killed 700k Americans in just over a year might have had something to do with that?
That has nothing to do with what the president has the power to do, no
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@RationalMadman
That could explain the grades, but standardized tests are basically IQ tests and there is very little evidence that you can raise your score on an IQ test through studying. I've heard that recent changes have made the SAT less of an IQ test and easier to study for, which could explain why Asians have pulled away even further in test scores over the past decade, but they have been doing better ever since we have had an Asian-American community sizable enough to sample. I would put money on it being genetic
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@Double_R
So in other words, if it turns out that black people are genetically stupider than other races, we can just ignore America’s history of oppression and proceed as if the playing field was always level.You’ve made my point.
Actually the point being made here is mine. If it turns out that disparities between races are due to oppression then drastic action is necessary. If it turns out those disparities exist simply as a fact of nature, than no action is needed. I truly don't understand how you could think it's unimportant to know. It isn't even that hard to find out, all it would take would be a few longitudinal studies comparing the outcomes of people of various races with identical IQ's to determine if discrimination exists. The Bell Curve analyzed the data on this and found that once you adjust for IQ, the disparities between blacks and whites went away (that is, a 100 IQ black and a 100 IQ white had similar outcomes, as did an 85 IQ white and 85 IQ black, or 110 IQ, etc.) but that was in 1994, so I would be very pleased if a similar analysis was performed today. If the outcomes were still similar, it would be strong evidence that oppression is not a significant force impacting life outcomes so we would have to try to figure out what is causing the current IQ gap.
I would put a huge amount of money betting that the average 110 IQ black person does *significantly* better than a 110 IQ white person these days btw. The black person would be able to secure an ivy league education if they wanted it. What do you think?
Well first of all, as you acknowledged, we don’t have all the facts. If and when the science can definitively say whether gaps in intelligence between races is a real thing and severe enough to explain the disparities we see, then we can have this conversation.Second, it’s not about blaming everything on our history. It’s about recognizing the fact that what happens today impacts tomorrow, so you can’t pretend that centuries of oppression wouldn’t have a lasting impact especially in a society that has done really nothing to make up for it.We don’t know if genetics plays any significant role, but we do know that history does. So if someone is not willing to acknowledge the latter then I have no interest in hearing their views on the former. That’s really it.
We don't have all the facts, but I'm the one who wants to seek them out whereas you have argued that the knowledge would be pointless. I really do think this is quite revealing. The gap in intelligence between the races in America is a well documented fact, the question is puzzling out the cause. You should be welcoming research into this subject to own the racists.
Also it isn't obvious to me that jim crow laws should be considered that relevant considering that it was generations ago at this point and the ensuing half century of affirmative action, gigantic wealth transfers, and overwhelmingly positive media representation. That's a proposition that needs defending just as rigorous as race realism does. The most successful group in the world, pound for pound, was being thrown into ovens about 15 years before Jim Crow ended.
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@Ramshutu
Distribution of intelligence would be expected to correlate at some geographic level, rather than at a broad racial level. Like, say, Masai being smarter than Zulus; Anglo Saxon’s being smarter than Slavs; rather than correlating on a larger racial basis.
We don’t disagree then because I agree that race is too fuzzy to be a scientifically rigorous concept. India is a great example of this with the IQ’s varying widely by ethnicity. But I am pretty sure that at least some of the difference in IQ between East Asians and caucasians in the US comes from genetic differences rather than environmental. This is probably true between other groups. It’s important to know this stuff because otherwise you get some really bad policies stemming from bad assumptions. East Asians having higher SAT scores than whites isn’t due to anti white discrimination
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@Greyparrot
It’s already almost impossible to get trucks booked for product at work, I’m dreading even further constraints on the labor force
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I’m still so flabbergasted at the idea of the President ordering private citizens to get a vaccine or lose their jobs. I could not have even imagine that occurring two years ago. The Overton window has shifted to authoritarianism incredibly quickly. I really hope whatever regulation OSHA comes out with (if this whole thing isn’t just a scare tactic that’s memoryholed) is toothless
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@Ramshutu
The short answer, focusing specifically on the cognitive (though it does broadly apply elsewhwre) is that while I have every reason to believe that various alleles for intelligence are generated through mutation, are selected for, and have spread through various geographic populations via drift and selection, there is no reason to believe that the occurrence and prevalence of these alleles should correlate directly with the presence of certain other alleles for facial structure and skin tone.
Selection pressures haven’t been the same everywhere though, to the point that there have been pretty radical differences in phenotype. There is also pretty large differences in admixture with other hominids, Europeans and East Asians having high Neanderthal admixture which is close to zero among sub Saharan Africans. Don’t know what affect this has or on what but it has to mean something. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that the alleles for traits intelligence, athletic ability, sense of rhythm, sense of direction, pain tolerance, etc are perfectly evenly distributed
Given this, and given that we can show environmental factors that we have been able to causally establish impact intelligence; it’s way, way more likely for racial IQ gaps to be overwhelmingly the result of the environmental differences. With only a very limited geographical - rather than racial - distributions in IQ attributable to genetics.
From what I’ve read IQ is estimated to be around 50% heritable. So it is definitely important to improve the environment for disadvantaged people to make sure that they can reach their full potential. But there could well come a time in the future when by all reasonable accounts the environmental issues have been solved and the chips still might not fall in the way people want them to. I just want people to be prepared for that possibility
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@Greyparrot
They assume a 99.7% survival rate is for ALL people individually regardless of individual risk factors such as age and obesity when it is clearly not the case.
Agree with everything in your post except this part, the average person definitely thinks the survival rate is far far lower than this.
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I’m very pro vaccine because my wife is a nurse who works with covid patients and they are almost all unvaccinated. Many of them have died when their deaths were totally preventable and meaningless. However there are probably groups where the risks of the vaccine, low as they are, are greater than the risk of covid and I don’t see how forcing someone to do something that’s bad for them is justifiable. People really don’t understand just how severely age correlated with covid deaths and how little risk healthy young people are at
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Here it is https://youtu.be/WFph7-6t34M?t=23293
“When you look at the balance of risks vs. benefits [of the vaccine] we really start to see the risk of myocarditis being higher in males under the age of 40.” In case it didn’t link properly the statement begins around 6:28:30. How is a negative cost/benefit analysis not a valid reason to not want the vaccine???
People are 100% justified in wanting to see long term data before taking the shot. I think the vaccine is a very good thing, especially for people at risk for covid, but the President of the United States forcing private citizens to get a brand new vaccine or lose their jobs is so incredibly over the line
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@Double_R
And once we answer that question… so what? What policy difference would that possibly make? Are we going to declare one race to be inferior to the others and base policy around that idea, perhaps to give the inferior race an advantage to make up the difference?
I can give you a policy example right now. If the reason that black students are underrepresented in students with high grades and high test scores, and Asian students are over represented, is not because of oppression affirmative action is not necessary.
That’s obviously an absurd proposition, which is kind of the entire point. The only path this conversation goes down is to excuse our history and blame all of our inequalities in on Mother Nature. So when someone who refuses to acknowledge that history wants to go down this path instead while proclaiming they’re not racist, that just wreaks of disingenuousness.
But some inequality almost certainly is caused by Mother Nature. I don’t see why I should accept blaming everything on “our” history without considering all of the facts.
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