Messages

31

Or Kill Me / Re: The Profit Motive

« on: July 14, 2015, 08:38:48 pm »

What I'm saying is that we could simply get all of Saudi Arabia's oil via extortion if it were not for two things:

1.) Unlike in most former periods of history people today are actually inclined to care about gow immoral that would be

and

2.) It could cascade into a WWI style clusterfuck that might ultimately result in China or Russia nuking us. We would have to secure the permission of these other major powers before trying to extort anything from anyone with the threat of Nuclear annihilation.

The USA could threaten to nuke itself because its ashamed its not anti-homo like Russia and force Saudi Arabia to give up all of its oil for free, because reasons and geo-politics.

32

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: The Portland Airport Carpet Project

« on: July 14, 2015, 04:21:23 am »

Needs more neural network dogs.

  Please tell me how to make my own!

33

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: The Portland Airport Carpet Project

« on: July 14, 2015, 12:52:46 am »

I think it has to do with many airports looking very similar so we get attached to the parts that make it unique.

The carpet is one of the first indications that you've arrived in Portland when you get off the plane, so for Portlanders returning from many flights at nondescript first world airports, there has to be a Pavlovian link with seeing the carpet and the feeling of returning to your home town.

It also is characteristic of the design language of the late 80's and early 90's, and echoes the visuals of 90's MAX trains and buses. So this powerful sense of place wasn't just based on it being an initial cue as you entered the airport (though I'd argue that is a major part of its appeal), but also a motif that rhymed off of the larger public experience in Portland.

Throw in the cognitive dissonance of jet travel wrecking all of Portlander's efforts at being sustainable and carbon neutral and I think you have a very emotionally charged symbol. It's a 3-hit combo right in the feels. So a sense of home, nostalgia, and complex feelings surrounding sustainability are all wrapped up in a goofy carpet design.

Luckily, the new carpet is equally absolutely hideous, so the legacy can carry on.

Needs more neural network dogs.

34

Aneristic Illusions / "El Chapo" escapes prison AGAIN.

« on: July 12, 2015, 11:49:35 pm »

http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/07/150712_mexico_chapo_guzman_fuga_detalles_wbm.shtml

One year ago, after recapturing Joaquín Guzmán Loera, "El Chapo", mexican authorities assured there didnt exist the possibility that the druglord would escape again.

But it wasnt as they said.

 

A year and a half later, a mile of quality tunnels 30ft under the ground, leading directly to the showers and hes gone again.

35

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: So what's this whole Race and Gender thing all about....

« on: July 11, 2015, 01:42:39 am »

Ever notice that in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, the prince is making out with some drugged chick?

Is that wrong, or what?

 

36

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: So what's this whole Race and Gender thing all about....

« on: July 11, 2015, 01:29:05 am »

Just for reference ill copy paste the synthetized version of HRs:

Article 1   Right to Equality
Article 2   Freedom from Discrimination
Article 3   Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security
Article 4   Freedom from Slavery
Article 5   Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment
Article 6   Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law
Article 7   Right to Equality before the Law
Article 8   Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal
Article 9   Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile
Article 10   Right to Fair Public Hearing
Article 11   Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty
Article 12   Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
Article 13   Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country
Article 14   Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution
Article 15   Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It
Article 16   Right to Marriage and Family
Article 17   Right to Own Property
Article 18   Freedom of Belief and Religion
Article 19   Freedom of Opinion and Information
Article 20   Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Article 21   Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections
Article 22   Right to Social Security
Article 23   Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions
Article 24   Right to Rest and Leisure
Article 25   Right to Adequate Living Standard
Article 26   Right to Education
Article 27   Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community
Article 28   Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document
Article 29   Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development
Article 30   Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights

37

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: So what's this whole Race and Gender thing all about....

« on: July 11, 2015, 01:23:57 am »

So i thought about race and gender and how those two are just social constructs, but then i had the thought of "well, what else would you construct a society out of if not social constructs?" Hell, language is a social construct, but we'd all be fucked if it disappeared tomorrow and had to make do with points and grunts. We're all stuck playing this game called society, and social constructs like race and gender help to define the rules; give us quick and easy categories to fit each other in so we can flow through our day to day interactions. So it seemed to me, that the problem wasn't that this game we're playing has rules, but rather that the rules are decidedly unfair to large groups of players.

To which she replied:

I really think that a lot of this digs into an underlying question, which is "why can't people live and identify as they want to, and not as their happenstance of biology dictates"?

which led to:

Yea, and i feel like the end goal of social justice should be to create a society where people can do whatever they like as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. Like a more benevolent Hammurabi's code of law, i guess. tho that also leads me to another interesting question. If, in this hypothetical social justice utopia i am positing, almost no discrimination based on race gender, sexual orientation, creed etc. happens, would we not have to reach a point where all those things stop mattering, to a degree? Like, not that we stop having them somehow, but that they become extraneous details that people don't necessarily focus on, like the color of you hair or your middle name. Like, not only do people NOT decide whether you should have a job based on your race, but that your race is seen as such a nonfactor that people are infinitely more interested in the fact that you enjoy nude bungee jumping or whatever.

Followed by:

Yes, I think they could continue to matter, but in a much less relevant way; more as "oh, your grandmother went to school in Budapest? How interesting!" kind of way, rather than the current "your skin color makes you Other" kind of way. A person's cultural heritage is an important part of who they are, but not necessarily particularly relevant to other people in  most settings; it is highly personally relevant to my friend that she is Jewish, but that fact doesn't significantly shape our friendship or her job or the way she interacts with most people.

and finally:

I think that will happen slowly as people become more connected and the sharing of details like that becomes more and more common. Perhaps as more and more peoples experiences become shared, whether it be the experiences of different races, homosexuals, intersexuals, etc. become commonplace, things like race and gender will become like white noise amongst all of the formerly "weird" things that now everyone will grow up knowing about.

[/quote]

Id like to argue that the building blocks of "social constructs" is language, and whatever is built from those blocks is the real problem, id say that your argument is conflating the wrong use of a tool with an argument of origin and causality.

Then to what the Mezosoic answered of why cant we just identify regardless of biology, is that each purist definition of identity (read: uniform) has privileges, groupality and/or power politics involved.

Then start talking of "social justice" and i personally thats a weak way to frame the debate... ive been working on a 25 page article and this has vague resonances with it... like, id rather personally argue for and thru the perspective of human rights, because social justice seems like much more polisemic and ambiguous, and its a subset of sticking to human rights anyways. Right?

And whats the primary obstacle to human rights? The dehumanization and treatment of groups as second class citizens.

Does this make sense?

38

Or Kill Me / Re: The Profit Motive

« on: July 07, 2015, 09:02:08 pm »

I'd like to ask if it's really greed or if greed is a symptom of something even greater, the zeal for feeling superior to others or the desire of power over others and being able to do with others as if they were puppets?

39

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: PICS VIII: 10% LARGER THAN PICS VII

« on: June 30, 2015, 12:52:47 am »

I have not had any sleep in days, and last night my significant other's dog bit me on the eye-brow.  See what I mean...

Maybe the dog got tired of your sonambulistic Parmedian ramblings and wanted to put an end to you?

40

Or Kill Me / Re: So you fucking think fry cooks don't deserve a higher minimum wage?

« on: June 25, 2015, 06:50:11 pm »

Twahck, what the fuck is wrong with your paragraph spacing 

Even my transcription of your stupid video has better format and that just shows that you write things out of compulsion and for yourself rather than to have a real conversation with others. You seem to conversate to others rather than with.

41

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: HAY THE JOHNNY

« on: June 25, 2015, 01:10:39 am »

Depends on the zone that you will traverse thru, like, the city is not huge in terms of kilometrical size, but it is in terms of density of things, places and people; traffic and trasportation can become an issue, for example, travelling from southmost to northernmost usually takes 2 and a half hours because one needs to mix buses with metro and vans to get thru, while travelling from westmost to easternmost takes only 30-40 minutes because one only need to use the metro.

42

Or Kill Me / Re: So you fucking think fry cooks don't deserve a higher minimum wage?

« on: June 24, 2015, 06:33:36 am »

So what is your argument, exactly, Thwack? Because so far the only thing you seem to be willing  to commit to is that bad economists exist, which everyone seems to commit to. You SEEM to be saying that economics isn't a science because of this. Is that what you are saying? If it isn't, would you care to clarify your opinion? Because otherwise, you're just kind of snarking from the sidelines. Which is fine if that's what you want to do, but if it IS what you want to do, I'd appreciate knowing  that so I can ignore you from here on out.

"I've got a hard time calling economics a science. If we say something is a science, we're giving the impression that it follows the scientific method. Economics seems to miss out on the whole section of analyzing results to see if the hypothesis held up. I mean, you still hear economists arguing for trickle down economics."


That was where I first brought up my view on this, and where you decided you needed to start making unfounded personal attacks. Now, are there good examples of economics out there that actually follows the scientific method? Sure, there is without a doubt. What I'm saying is that following the scientific method... Coming up with falsifiable predictions, analyzing data and experiments about them, and using that data to analyze your original hypothesis... That is not a common feature of the field of economics. Too much of mainstream economics, as taught by academia and accepted by professional society has abandoned these activities which are at the core of what it means to be a science.


This has been my stance the whole time, my arguments have all been to this end, you just keep derailing the discussion with ad hominem, straw men, and non sequiturs.

Except... you're just plain wrong, if you examine the academic field of economics. Or read any of the links that LMNO and I have provided. But when I explained that economics is indeed a social science and is practiced as such in academia, you simply pointed to the GOP, pundits, etc. as if that were some kind of valid rebuttal. Your goalposts shifted endlessly, so I simply resorted to making fun of you.

Have you ever been here before? 

The mention of the GOP happened very early on, but your comments about economics being a social science pretty much get at the heart of my take on economics as not being a science... That being that I tend to agree with Feynman's take... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaO69CF5mbY

Because of the success of science, there is a kind of uh, pseudo-science that social sciences are an example of, a science which is not a science, they don’t do scientific, they follow the forms, uh, you gather data, you do so and so and so forth but they don’t get any laws, they haven’t found any, they haven’t got anywhere yet, maybe someday they will, but it isn’t very well developed.

But what happens is and even more mundane level, we get experts on everything, sort of of scientific expert that, they're not ??? they sit in a typewriter and makeup something like, oh, food grown with, fertilizer that is organic is better for you than food grown with fertilizer that isn’t organic, maybe true but it might not be true, but it hasn’t been demonstrated one way or another, but they sit there in the typewriter and they make up all this stuff as if its science and then become an expert on foods, organic foods and so on, there's all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over the place.

Now, I might quite wrong, maybe they do know all this stuff, but, I don’t think, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking your experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourselves, I know what it means to know something and therefore I, see how they get their information, and I can't believe that they know what they haven’t done the work necessary, haven’t done the checks necessary, I have a great suspicion, that they don’t know that this stuff, and intimidating people, I think so, I, I don’t know the world very well, but that’s what I think.


*************
*************
*************

SIT ALL DAY ON THE TYPEWRITER, WRITTING ABOUT LETTUCE AND ORGANIC FERTILIZER, YOLOSWAG.

43

Richard Nixon's glittering half-life sarcophagus / Re: HAY THE JOHNNY

« on: June 24, 2015, 04:20:21 am »

One day apperance? I'm sure I can make it, it would be interesting, although currently I live in Querétaro, which is quite close. The city is a huge monster, but I lived there for 7 years, so I know some stuff about it if you need to know anything.

44

Or Kill Me / Re: So you fucking think fry cooks don't deserve a higher minimum wage?

« on: June 23, 2015, 06:51:37 pm »

Dog is man's best friend.
A dog bit me.
That dog isnt really a dog cause it bit me and isnt my best friend.

:C

45

Techmology and Scientism / Re: Regret's Economics thread

« on: June 22, 2015, 08:33:39 pm »

Hasn't the GOP since the start of Reagan proven that there's no need to look at your predictions to see if they came true as long as you can pretend they did, or blame the other guy when you can't even pretend?

Are you positing that economists = GOP?

I am starting to wonder if you fuckers even know what economists are.

No, just saying that actually showing predictions to be true or false is something that is ignored in politics today, and most of what you hear regarding economist is political in nature unless you're in the financial industry yourself.

That's also true of ecology, but that has nothing to do with the validity of the field, it has to do with the fact that most people are exposed to science and the world around them only through a 42" 16:9 ratio.

Blaming YOU being a sheltered, uninquisitive dumbfuck on the information available through major media makes as much sense as declaring that the field of economics is represented by the GOP.

Considering that I don't rely on the media for my information on economics, I find your view on me and my stance to be as uninformed as you accuse me of being.



If economics does follow the full scientific method, why do we still have experts in the field advocating viewpoints that have been shown false according to the data provided by real world experimentation?

For the same reason homeopaths and mediums advocate viewpoints that have been shown to be false according to the data provided by real world experimentation.

Bad economists = paid advertising by people in power
Homeopaths = naturalists hippies that dont trust the western Man^tm medicine
Mediums = special snowflakes that can talk to people we cant.

By comparing so liberally three different things you are cheapening analysis of the things themselves.

economists =/= bad economists =/= homeopaths =/= mediums