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The article reads like a 2000s internet atheist who misses the glory days of btfoing creationists online trying and failing to insert her obsession into the current conversation
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@Fruit_Inspector
If, as the author of the article states, the earliest ancestors to humans were dark-skinned Africans, then how is it false to say that dark-skinned Africans are the closest human descendants to monkeys?
Well no not necessarily. Evolution doesn’t just stop, just because early humans were dark skinned and modern day Africans are dark skinned doesn’t mean that Africans are genetically closer because they never stopped evolving. The genetics of Africans could actually be further from our ancestors than Europeans, whose to say? But I do agree with you that if it turned out, say, Asian people are the most genetically similar to cro magnons or whatever it would matter and wouldn’t be racist to point that out in a scientific context (using it to make fun of people obviously would be)
As to your article yeah it’s very dumb. You see this kind of thing with portrayals of Jesus too. Every culture makes Jesus look like someone from their culture. It’s just a natural and normal thing to do. If that’s racist, so much of human psychology is racist that we may as well scratch the whole “racism is the root of all evil” idea and start over.
I want to unmask the lie that evolution denial is about religion and recognize that at its core, it is a form of white supremacy that perpetuates segregation and violence against Black bodies.
Lmao people can and have used anything to justify racism-religion, history, science, politics. Evolution has 1000% been used to justify racism. Has the author never heard of scientific racism? This might be a troll article, idk. Sometimes I think these people need to just be told to shut the fuck up
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@Double_R
Good post, thanks. I don't think we really disagree on much, but differ on rhetoric
What I think is largely overlooked by the political right is that the circumstances we are born into has a big impact on our ability to make good decisions.
Definitely true. For some of the left I think there's a denial of bad decision making in general. One thing that really grosses me out about the left and why I object to so much of the rhetoric is that they totally remove agency from people. For every person born and raised in poverty who becomes a criminal there are many more who do not. There is always a choice. But yeah to go back to the right they do tend to disregard this more than they should. It's very difficult to even put into words what an advantage a good upbringing is, let alone actual financial assistance like paid for college and such. Don't think people should be ashamed for helping their kids at all, in fact I think they have an obligation to do it, but it's a gigantic leg up. While I don't think committing crimes or not raising your kids or whatever is ever excusable, it's way less excusable for people who have had every advantage in life
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@drlebronski
please go back to the old avi, it was perfect
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@Theweakeredge
Lmao you just did the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la I can’t hear you!”
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@RationalMadman
This is extremely true. I have agreed with the Right Wing on this for a while, non-Caucasian racism is far more masked and even entire history rewritten with a huge bias inside of such nations.The 'supremacy complex' because of where one came from is there in all races and cultures but is only weak and diluted in either Caucasian cultures or cultures that were subject to their imperial wrath (such as ex-commonwealth nations where people are sometimes not super proud of their nation and its history).
Right...Double_R asks why white people get defensive, and I suspect this is why. I know for me it's definitely why--I get defensive because I feel singled out, because we basically only talk about western civilizations faults. I hate the "Dems r the real racists" stuff but there is a weird Eurocentrism to the lefts entire historical narrative, like white men are these giants that stand astride history, all powerful and untouchable, and are the ultimate cause of almost everything. Hell, there's something close to a genocide going on right now in China and nobody seems to really care.
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@Greyparrot
I really hate the term "black-white wealth gap" considering Nigerian-Americans make far above the median household income.
Well they are a small enough group that they likely don’t impact the median that much, but yeah. Pretty weird that such a deeply systemically racist society allows so many immigrant groups to have such high incomes and levels of wealth
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@Theweakeredge
No - you cherry picked the numbers that showed TODAY black and white families get the same level of inhereitance, and that TODAY Black Americans get only 1/3 of what white people, however, you completely ignore the fact that this is a generational problem as the people who wrote the report you used literally specifcy, you know, that it causes more of the black/white gap than anything else?
This is not a fair characterization. You argued that wealth for the typical household in the United States primarily comes from home equity (true) and inheritance (false.) I didn't "cherry pick" numbers--I used the numbers that exist regarding what percentage of people receive an inheritance, and what the median amount is, and did the math to figure out how much this contributes to the wealth gap between the median black and white household. Now, what you're hung up about is this statement:
By some estimates bequests and transfers account for at least half of aggregate wealth (Gale and Scholz 1994), have recently averaged 3 percent of total household disposable personal income (Feiveson and Sabelhaus 2018), and account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other demographic or socioeconomic indicator (Hamilton and Darrity 2010)
Which is a completely fair thing for you to bring up! But in my last post, I gave some reasons why I don't agree with these estimates, and how figuring this out is INCREDIBLY difficult. We have decent (not perfect) data on inheritance but anything beyond that is nebulous at best. Why don't you do some research and point out some competing numbers, because I did the math for you and it simply doesn't add up. The bolded part isn't even relevant at all to the discussion because that's talking about the total, not the experience of the median household. The second part is relevant but it is, recall, still an estimate. The study it links to is paywalled and is about baby bonds (idk) so who knows. It seems incredibly unlikely to me that intergenerational wealth in general makes up the majority of the wealth gap because as we can see from the hard data that for median households inheritance only explains around 10% of the gap. That is a loooooooot of "intergenerational transfers." If you've got numbers put em up!
Kinda' interesting how you and your sources always disagree- then I provided more evidence which you have... ignored? ...You cherry pick dude, if you're gonna use a source, actually read all of it, instead of ignoring the bits you don't like.
This is a very uncharitable thing to say. I used the source appropriately because I was citing it for the hard data on median inheritance value.
I remember when we debating immigration you got really hung up about the fact that the author of the article I used for my meat packing case study was pro-immigration. Now I admit it is a fun, cheeky thing for you to point out in a debate context and I don't blame you for it. But neither you nor he actually disputed the facts I was citing, which was about how the meatpacking industry was destroyed by an influx of cheap labor. You don't get to just say "ahh well the author illogically concludes that immigration is good anyway so your facts are wrong!" Likewise, you can't say "well sure thett, you laid out the numbers for me but your source mentions another study that might disagree, so you're wrong!" You gotta do the work.
Here is an example that may illustrate our disagreement on the use of sources...I'm sure you have heard of those famous studies about sending resumes with "black" names and "white names" to employers and seeing how the black sounding names get call backs less often. Those studies have been criticized for potentially revealing class bias and not racial bias (sure Lakisha loses to Robert Bruce III, but so would Billy-Bob.) Some researchers did a study where instead of using "black" sounding first names, they used surnames that were overwhelmingly black, overwhelmingly latino, and overwhelmingly white and used the same first names. What they found was that there was "no statistically significant differences across race, ethnic or gender groups." However, this clearly wasn't what they expected or wanted to find, and the article cites the co-author himself who isn't sure about the conclusions because he doesn't know if employers were able to know if a surname was "black" or not (although hispanic ones would be obvious), so it's possible that employers would choose to discriminate if they knew. Do you think it would be inappropriate to cite this source if you were arguing against systemic discrimination? Personally, I don't think it would be at all. We have a study with a certain methodology, and these were the results.
Ultimately it's an appeal to authority. It's a solid authority to appeal to, but I trust myself to be able to read the results and come to my own conclusions. Make sense? I've treated you with respect (and will continue to do so) and ask that you do the same for me. Picking into peoples sources is ABSOLUTELY fine, but implying that I'm an idiot or being dishonest when I'm just being nuanced isn't appreciated.
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@Double_R
What do you think should be done? I consider you to be among the most rational and fair minded people who I’ve seen argue strongly for this sort of thing so what would your plan be?
Which is part of the problem. Why are white people so sensitive to this conversation? I mean look at the freak out over critical race theory...
We aren’t. Not more than anyone else would be, and probably less. Most cultures (example: the Japanese) whitewash their historical crimes whereas Europeans seem to self flagellate these days.
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@Theweakeredge
I never once argued there wasn’t a black-white wealth gap so I don’t see why you think pointing it out is an own. You asserted that the median household in America gets their wealth through inheritance and this is why the wealth gap exists, because black people were discriminated against 60 years ago. I walked you through the numbers that showed actually no, we can compare the median wealth gap with the median inheritance (for the 30% of whites who get one) and it explains only a small portion of the gap. You have not given any competing numbers.
I also find it extremely implausible that substantial wealth from the 1950s or before still exists in typical white families, although I did admit to you it’s very difficult to parse this out. But just go plug very small numbers into a TVM calculator. If the median family was able to hold onto even a small amount of wealth that long and not spend it everyone should be rich by now (compound interest = life) and yet we don’t see that. Where are your numbers?
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@Theweakeredge
The one misunderstanding is you. The assertion that the wealth of the median household in America is derived from inheritance is simply false, because the median household regardless of race does not even receive an inheritance. Of the household wealth that exists currently, most of it does not date back to the 1950s or earlier. If you want to prove me wrong put up some numbers and do the math.
You like the appearance of being right, try to actually be right next time - jeez.
Try treating other people you’re conversing with respectfully. What I wrote to you was a well reasoned discussion of ideas, in good faith
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@Double_R
The argument is not that white slave owners became wealthy all because they owned slaves and now those slave owners have to give that wealth back. The argument is that black people were systematically kept from being able to attain their own wealth for centuries, and then unleashed with nothing into a society where wealth begets wealth.
Wealth does beget wealth—if you can hold onto it. I think you’d be hard pressed to find families of any color that held onto wealth that long. I just don’t view slavery as relevant at all to modern day personal finance. If you want to prove me wrong cough up some numbers, I would be genuinely fascinated to see them.
I really don't understand what is so complicated about this. Do you believe a child born into poverty is more or less likely to remain in poverty thoughout their life? All you need is to understand the fact that the answer is yes. From there it's just basic math.
Of course, so without intervention we would certainly expect black outcomes to lag white outcomes, at least for a few generations. The question now becomes how long can you reasonably attribute problems to the past? It’s reasonable to me that Jim Crow laws have at least some extant legacy, but slavery? Come on. That was what, 6 generations ago? My problem is there actually has been significant intervention for quite a while now (affirmative action, great society programs, special minority only scholarships) but things aren’t getting better.
In Charles Murray’s new book “Facing Reality” he presented ironclad evidence that the gap between black and white standardized test scores narrowed significantly between the 1950s and the 1980s only to stagnate ever since. So it seems that racist laws were holding black people back and once those laws were eliminated there was significant improvement—that then stalled out. Something else happened. I know it’s currently in vogue to argue that the US is a white supremacist society but I don’t buy that whatsoever.
There’s another variable here, IMO it’s the total destruction of traditional family and community life that hit lower socioeconomic status Americans extremely hard starting in the 60s/70s along with the decline of working class jobs. That’s not something that is fixed through reparations or whatever but through rebuilding communities and a healthy economy. In fact all this racial politics stuff just makes the situation worse by dividing workers and obfuscating the real issue
In probability there are always outliers, but based on the law of large numbers it's a statical impossibility that an entire race of people systematically kept in poverty will within 150 years catch up to the race that started off literally owning everything, so to say that you think it's just coincidence is absurd.
Siri, what was the Shtetl?
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@Theweakeredge
From your own source - this is literally a repeat of our debate.
Too bad you forfeited. Hopefully we can debate again sometime!
By some estimates bequests and transfers account for at least half of aggregate wealth (Gale and Scholz 1994), have recently averaged 3 percent of total household disposable personal income (Feiveson and Sabelhaus 2018), and account for more of the racial wealth gap than any other demographic or socioeconomic indicator (Hamilton and Darrity 2010).8
Yeah I have seen this info before because this is a subject that really interests me. I find the claim that inheritance/gifts is the genesis of up to 50% of private wealth in the United States incredibly dubious, to say the least. For one thing, the wealthiest people in the country got that way through holding shares of their companies (think people like Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates, Musk) which was wealth that didn't exist a generation ago. But to be sure, there is a lot of inherited wealth in the United States...but the point is that it is heavily, heavily skewed towards the top, whatever percentage of the total it is. This is why we use medians, which are not skewed by the tails. 70% of whites receive no inheritance at all, and for those that do the median inheritance is quite modest. I walked you through the math in my last post, it accounts for very little of the wealth gap between the median black and median white household.
You see- wealth is accumilated over multiple generations - with things such as college degrees enhancing the likelyhood of increased wealth. Considering that black families were heavily segregated since even before the 1920s. and generations are considered around 30 years on average, I'd say 3 generations to accumliate wealth, not considering the already heavy lead white families had - is more than enough to account for it.
It's actually the opposite of this. Most families LOSE their wealth after 3 generations. I find the numbers in this article a bit dubious (found it after ten seconds of googling) but there's a reason "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is a saying https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/generational-wealth%3A-why-do-70-of-families-lose-their-wealth-in-the-2nd-generation-2018-10
I mean do you really think that there is a significant degree of wealth in the median white household that dates back to the 1950s? It's super difficult to get information on this but that doesn't seem plausible to me AT ALL.
They are also more likely to have a parent with a college degree. Since higher levels of education are associated with higher levels of wealth (see, for example, the Bulletin article), this association suggests White and other families are likely to have wealthier parents than Black or Hispanic families.
This is an explanation for the wealth gap that isn't grounded in systemic racism. If white people generally have higher levels of education, it makes perfect sense they would be wealthier on the aggregate, for the same reason that Asian-Americans are wealthier than white Americans are. Now if you want to argue that minorities don't go to college because of discrimination that's a different point. Considering affirmative action and all the special scholarships they have access to this isn't convincing to me.
It's very likely imo that in the future as the boomers die the inheritance and wealth gaps between black and white Americans will widen further. Inequality in general is widening. But it isn't going to be from wealth gained in the 1950s during Jim Crow and Redlining. The vast majority of people who were adults in the 1950s have already died and their inheritances have already been passed down--and we can see that the median one wasn't all that impressive. What the boomers leave behind will come from wealth generated mostly in the 1980s-2000s. I know it's your opinion that we are still in a racist country but surely you'd agree that it's a tougher sell to argue that black people had no opportunities in the 1980s and 1990s than during Jim Crow, no?
Anyway, given the information we do have on median inherited wealth, it is not plausible at all that this is the driver of the median black-white wealth gap. The math simply does not check out. Median families of all races for the most part didn't have their wealth handed to them, but instead earned it.
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@badger
Are there lords and dukes and such in Ireland or is that reserved for the UK?
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@badger
My country is the only country in the world with less of a population today than it had in 1850, as a result of the famine. That's less loosey-goosey, sure, but it's a little crazy to think there's not a knock-on effect. 150 years is not a long time.
Yeah I remember seeing that statistic and it blew my mind. The Irish diaspora is ridiculously huge, although you have lots of Americans or Canadians who are like 1/4th or 1/8th Irish or something in that number
Europeans and Americans have a different mindset about what constitutes a long time. For us 150 years is over half our history, for you that’s like a newer than average church. But yeah it’s hard to figure out everything. I don’t think there’s no effect from history but it just isn’t from inheritance. It just isn’t. People suck at holding onto money that long!
Also another difference between euros and Americans actually. There are tons of aristocratic families in Europe who have held onto wealth for generations but it seems to be so much less common here
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Also reparations are a terrible idea because after a few years everyone would end up right back where they were. Most people, white or black or really anything, are not trained to handle lump sums of money and usually end up losing it after a short period (go ahead and look at the long term outcomes of many lottery winners for example). All that would happen would be a TON of bad blood
The best way to help black people would be to rebuild a pro-worker American economy where you don’t have to go to school for 16 years to get a decent job and where there is still an industrial base. Go ahead and start this rebuilding process in disadvantaged and poor areas, it would help black people disproportionately without having to be racially based
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Never understood why people arguing for this go for slavery instead of Jim crow laws and other things for which some of the victims are still alive, instead of the last ones dying nearly a century ago.
I think a lot of what we argue about is downstream of media narratives which is a problem when they are trying to generate clicks instead of advocating for actual policy. Huge reparations for slavery, something nobody alive suffered from (and very few living people are old enough to have even met a former slave) is a lot more controversial than some kind of targeted payment towards living people who were actually wronged in a tangible and quantifiable way
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@Double_R
Question; do you think it’s just coincidence that the same race who enslaved and thereby built their wealth on top of the free labor of black people, today have a median net worth that is 20 times that of the median black household?
Yes. There is close to zero wealth left in white hands from slavery. Most of that wealth was wiped out during and after the civil war, and what little remained would have been squandered or dwindled over the years as few families can retain significant wealth over that many generations. Of the tiny handful of family fortunes that exist from the antebellum period few if any got their wealth from slavery.
Do you have evidence that the descendants of people who owned slaves 150 years ago are wealthier than the descendants of white people who didn’t own slaves, and if so, where that gap came from?
If you do then let’s perform the following experiment; let’s spend, say, the next 400 years enslaving every White person and building the nations wealth on their free labor.
The nations wealth was not built on slavery, which was a net economic detriment to the benefit of the slave holding caste. The entire country would have been wealthier were it not for slavery, except the slave holding caste. https://www.aier.org/article/slavery-did-not-make-america-richer/
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@Theweakeredge
For minorities are heavily discriminated against in the job market that isn't quite so easy, let's use black people specifically shall we? Wealth is primarily built through home value and inheritance - typically called generational wealth.
Not exactly. Whites are indeed substantially more likely than black people to receive an inheritance (around 30% vs. 10%), and the median amount received is about the same for both groups, a little under $90k. If you make inheritance equal, an additional 20% of black families would get a median of ~$90k. The black-white household wealth gap is $164k so this accounts for around 10% of the wealth gap (90k x 0.2)/164k. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm
As far as I can tell, very little housing wealth from the 1950s and 1960s remains in private hands. It's plausible to me that redlining is responsible for a small portion of the black-white inheritance gap (which itself is a small portion of the black-white wealth gap), but puzzling out exactly how much is beyond my pay-grade. Considering reported median net worth and reported inheritances, it doesn't seem plausible at all that the majority of household wealth in the US comes from inheritance. What do you think?
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I support public funding for education (of the parents choice) but I would absolutely argue that $50-100k per child invested on the day of their birth and inaccessible until retirement (or whatever), followed by the government throwing up it’s hands and saying “sorry you’re on your own for education” would be better than the status quo
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Lmao I looked up the per pupil cost per year at my old school district, which was about the same as the cost per pupil in Detroit, multiplied it by 12 and then divided it by two to be conservative. If the “cost” of my public education, which began in 2000, had been dumped as a lump sum into the S&P with dividends reinvested it would be worth over $350k right now. Hmmm which would you rather have, $350,000 in your mid twenties or an education from the Detroit public schools? What a waste lol
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@Greyparrot
Public schools exist for the same reason institutions like the New York Times exist: the take the economic priorities of the ruling class and translate them into moral arguments. I can see why people wanted public schools but it’s an experiment that has obviously failed.
I mean you mention poor blacks, a little known fact is that some of the absolute worst school districts in the country actually have more than enough funding. Detroit spends almost $15k per student per year: https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/detroit-schools-spend-more-educate-less-than-other-us-urban-districts and the results are pitiful. Obviously it’s not working and if parents were given the choice if they had any sense at all they would use the money to better their kids in some other way. Imagine if every child had $150,000 to spend on technical school or apprenticeship programs. Or even just dumping that money into a retirement account lol, I 1000% would’ve taken that over my public education and mine was actually extremely good. It’s all so tiresome. If the government should be involved at all they should just be distributing money so that everyone can buy an education.
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I don’t think I could put into words how in favor of it I am. It’s probably my #2 issue right now and I really hope that the next republican president does something with school choice. I’m extremely biased on this topic because I know that 1) I want to have as many kids as I can afford and 2) they will not be attending public schools.
The public schools have gotten so infiltrated by pseudo-religious zealots that I basically view it as a religion tax. I have to pay for these institutions even though their express purpose is to turn children against me and my values. And if I don’t want my children to be indoctrinated I have to pay for them to be educated privately even though I’m already paying for public schooling. I don’t think this is how things should be in a multi religious/multicultural society. There will never be peace until we collectively decide to stop trying to force our ideologies and religions down each other’s throats and let people associate as they wish. Unfortunately I’m not sure that will ever happen /: but school choice is a good and important start
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@badger
Are there still old people who have better Irish than English or is it entirely a secondary language at this point?
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@badger
If I were Irish I would almost certainly be a native English speaker, but I would speak first to all strangers in Irish and if they were not able to answer me I would give a sad, slow shake of my head and then switch to intentionally broken English
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RIP to a real one. Killing yourself after making sure that if you killed yourself it would spawn conspiracy theories. Posting the giant Q after his death was beautiful as well. Shit posting from beyond the grave. Absolute, A+ level trolling.
I'm hoping he left behind some kind of deadmans switch with interesting information but who knows. His wife is still out there...
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@Wylted
Is there a limit on campaign contributions you can make, in wylted bucks?
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I nominate Wylted, but also object to the entire process. Wylted is the legitimate president
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@badger
Imagine owning Mike Tyson.
H-here are your freedom papers Mike…no hard feelings haha r-right?
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@Wylted
you can read ex-slave narratives that were recorded in the new deal era. There are hundreds of them and they are publicly available. Lots of Stockholm syndrome type stuff “my master was so good and kind, he only beat us when he had to!” Reading a lot of those for the first time really blew me away. I guess even slaves are nostalgic for their youth.
I don’t see why anyone would ever defend slavery, even saying something like “the slaves loved their masters” while that was (surprisingly) true in a lot of cases it’s not really in good taste to bring up
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@EtrnlVw
One thing that really struck me when I watched it (compared to modern shows) was the lack of sex scenes. They would just close the door and that was all that needed to be said. If it were made today there would be graphic sex scenes that I don’t want to see and that take up tons of time
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@HistoryBuff
which is based on what exactly? the available evidence says they are safe and doctors recommend taking them. But right wing media keeps perpetuating the idea they are unsafe. Some of it is quite fascinating really. I watched trump try to take credit for the vaccines and then immediately after that spread anti-vax bullshit about them being unsafe. The double think is fascinating.
Why speak with authority on something you, self admittedly, have no idea about? You don’t spend time with right wingers or watch right wing media so you don’t really know what causes the concern. Trump in particular hasn’t said anything anti vax. Like I said it mostly comes out of distrust of the regime
have you ever met someone who wasn't a liar. In this case, his lies were usually for a good reason. IE not making a rush on masks when they were critically needed for healthcare workers. I agree he shouldn't have lied, but at least he had good intentions.
There are absolutely public servants who don’t flagrantly lie and weren’t wrong at every turn, yeah. Fauci was actually above average in terms of bureaucratic leadership. At least he didn’t turn on a dime and suddenly endorse mass protests because he believed in the cause. After 2020 I don’t blame the right one bit for being distrustful of the powers that be
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@HistoryBuff
I don't spend much time in right wing areas of the internet (like parlor or whatever) but i'm pretty sure there are lots of people who believe bill gates is a villain and is messing with the vaccines. They might not all believe the "brain chip" thing, but their beliefs are also stupid and crazy.
I do spend time on the right wing internet, and you’re wrong. Nobody believes that, there is a lot of fear about unknown potential side effects of mRNA
I believe Harris said she wouldn't take it just based on the government's say so. But if doctors recommended getting it she would be 1st in line to take it. Guess what, doctors recommend getting it
Yes because people like Fauci are people that Democrats trust even though they have long since demonstrated untrustworthiness. That’s the entire point. They’ve done studies and vaccine hesitant people are way more comfortable with it when their family doctor recommends it. At the end of the day people know their limitations and outsource complicated questions like this to people they trust. When the authority figures are all proven liars, what do you expect?
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@HistoryBuff
I agree fauci has contradicted himself. Some of that was that the information changed. Some of it was clearly lies. But the people refusing to get vaccinated usually cite stupid reasons like brain control chips. Most people refusing to get vaccinated don't even have a specific reason. Right wing media has just led them to believe they are unsafe or not necessary. I've seen stories of lots of people who are dying of covid who simply refuse to believe the doctor that they have it because they are convinced it doesn't exist.
The brain chips thing is a leftist meme.I have never seen anyone actually say that. Most of the concern about the vaccine stems from the fact that it is a new technology and not fully tested. People can get over this, but not when the figures pushing it are people they don’t trust. Hong Kong also has a large vaccine skeptical population and I wouldn’t say they are right wing in the American sense. What it comes down to is trust in the regime, if you’ll recall back in October or so It was Democrats (including Kamala Harris) who said they wouldn’t get a vaccine
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@coal
Also I don’t think I could put into words how much I resent the fact that social media companies were banning people for suggesting that covid was made in a lab and then whoops, turns out that’s what probably happened and we aren’t going to ban you anymore! without the slightest apology. I never want to hear from the “but it’s a private company!!!!” Dumbshits ever again, let’s red tape the sh*t out of these companies
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@coal
t is worth considering why there are large segments of the population that refuse to get the vaccine...
Great post from this point. When you base a public health campaign on lies and when the public health experts have been proven wrong again and again it makes sense that some people are skeptical of potentially getting burned a third time
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@coal
It’s absolutely wild to me that in places like Texas or Florida things have pretty much been back to normal since last summer. I started going to restaurants again in June, never stopped seeing friends, never wore a mask outside…life was very normal for me. There are states that still have restrictions, long after every adult who wanted a vaccine could’ve gotten one. I saw an absolutely wild stat the other day, people who have been vaccinated were MORE likely to wear a mask than unvaccinated people. No doubt there are vaccinated people still self quarantining
I would say that my stance on covid was pretty sane generally. The only thing I was wrong about was that I was absolutely in denial about how bad things were in January and February. I was so ready for it to be over that it wasn’t until a few days ago that I checked the numbers again and was surprised. But look: that came after a year of off and on restrictions and masks. I’m not as confident as you are that they did NOTHING but I’m confident the difference was marginal. The only way out was through immunity either by catching the disease or vaccinations.
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@HistoryBuff
then you probably live deep in trump country. Half your neighbors probably don't even think covid is real. So what those people think has absolutely no bearing on electoral results because they are going to vote for their cult leader no matter what the democrats do.
I live in a purple county in Texas. I think coal said all that needed to be said in his reply to you, but I don’t appreciate the dismissiveness.
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@HistoryBuff
Well where I live the restrictions have been over since last May, except for the mask mandate which ended a few months ago. There doesn’t seem to be any appetite whatsoever for tightening things up, and wasn’t even during the peak this winter. All but the most diehard lockdown activists will be long since over it soon (again, barring another extreme surge which is highly unlikely.)
Unfortunately for Dems the demographic most likely to be in favor of permanent lockdownism (neurotic, educated white people in urban areas) are the group that has the biggest disproportionate influence on the parties rhetoric and policies. There’s definitely a danger of backlash if Dems resist things going back to normal
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@HistoryBuff
If things get really bad again then yeah the politics of it would be different than what I’m saying. But there is a very serious danger for Dems of failing to read the room and going full lockdown if there’s a minor resurgence, or even just trying to make some things permanent (Oregon is considering making its mask mandate permanent for example) which would be a political disaster
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@HistoryBuff
People are over it. Unless we go back to January-February levels (extremely unlikely now that we have the vaccine) any restrictions aren’t going to fly in my opinion
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@coal
If there is even a modicum of covd restrictions left by 2022 democrats are so screwed
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@janesix
Come on now. You must believe in SOMETHING really out there
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@Wylted
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@coal
Missed this. Great post, agree with every word of it. Your first point, about identity politics, is just so obvious. Like you say, not a conspiracy although people may say it is to discredit it
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@Double_R
Joe Biden won by 7 million votes, yet 45k votes in 3 states would have given Trump the election. Hillary won by 3 million votes and lost the EC. Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 elections yet have held the White House for the same number of years as republicans. This isn’t complicated, please stop projecting.
Lots of democracies choose the head of state by methods other than the popular vote. See the 2019 Canadian election where the consvervatives won the popular vote, but Trudeau won anyway. As recently as 2012 the electoral college favored democrats:
“But in the past five elections, Democrats appear to have opened up a bit of an edge. They could have won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote four of five times. Still, in that streak was 2000, when Republicans won the Electoral College without winning the popular vote.”
If you are against the electoral college that is totally fine. But it isn’t an undemocratic system designed to favor republicans. As coalitions change parties advantage ebbs and flows. Personally I believe that the electoral college (and the senate) incentivizes running up small margins in lots of different places rather than massive margins in a few places, and sort of forces compromise so I like the system.
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@badger
You might find this interesting. There was a theory based on a lot of circumstantial evidence that this account was hers. It’s an extremely influential account that was a moderator of some major subreddits and had the 8th most upvotes of all time. It was loudly denounced as a conspiracy theory but the decade old account went inactive a day or two before she was arrested and has not posted since
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