A question for the Americans - Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

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A question for the Americans

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n4mwd
Phoenix
Phoenix

Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Posts: 1244
Location: Palm Beach, FL

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

Quote:

Also, everyone knows that 9-11 was an inside job with ties back to Bush himself. The arabs were just convenient pawns.

Who's "everyone?" And you're giving Bush waaay too much credit here.

It was actually one of his brothers that was in charge of security for the WTC. His first order was to get rid of bomb sniffing dogs so that plastic demolition explosives could be planted without detection. That is where the link back to Bush comes from. The president just isn't smart enough to pull something like that off himself. Three WTC buildings were rigged for demolition, three planes were supposed to hit. One didn't make it and crashed in a cornfield. Three buildings collapsed. The 3rd building had to be blown because the explosives would have been detected if they hadn't.

Orwell
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:34 pm Post subject:

^ I'm actually getting kind of bored of conspiracy theories, unless you have something to back it up. Sure, you just recited a very nice story, but most of it seems to be conjecture or fabrication. _________________ WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:38 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

^ I'm actually getting kind of bored of conspiracy theories, unless you have something to back it up. Sure, you just recited a very nice story, but most of it seems to be conjecture or fabrication.

Wait, but your name is Orwell, why do you trust our governmental overlords so much with these things?

Orwell
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Orwell wrote:

^ I'm actually getting kind of bored of conspiracy theories, unless you have something to back it up. Sure, you just recited a very nice story, but most of it seems to be conjecture or fabrication.

Wait, but your name is Orwell, why do you trust our governmental overlords so much with these things?

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

n4mwd
Phoenix
Phoenix

Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Posts: 1244
Location: Palm Beach, FL

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

^ I'm actually getting kind of bored of conspiracy theories, unless you have something to back it up. Sure, you just recited a very nice story, but most of it seems to be conjecture or fabrication.

There is tons of evidence to back up many of these claims. Its all over the internet. The fact that the government hasn't explained why building 7 fell exactly in the same controlled manner as the first two is a good piece of evidence. They gave some cock and bull story about heat from the other two buildings melting interior core steel from 500 feet away, but I can't imagine anyone giving that story any credence.

Awesomelyglorious
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

Well, I am sure you knew I had to do this.

Orwell
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:53 pm Post subject:

n4mwd wrote:

Orwell wrote:

^ I'm actually getting kind of bored of conspiracy theories, unless you have something to back it up. Sure, you just recited a very nice story, but most of it seems to be conjecture or fabrication.

There is tons of evidence to back up many of these claims.

Really now. I have yet to see any.

Quote:

Its all over the internet.

Ah. And everything we read on the internet is true? A thread was just posted that shows how the "international Jewish elite" are conspiring against us, and I can find enough about Communist conspiracies and claims that the Soviet Union actually still runs our government that I would probably need to see some pretty convincing primary source documents here.

Quote:

The fact that the government hasn't explained why building 7 fell exactly in the same controlled manner as the first two is a good piece of evidence.

Actually, it is a crappy variant on the argument from ignorance, not a good piece of evidence. Maybe the government doesn't know everything, hard as that may be for you to believe. It was a scary, confusing day, and not many people really had much idea what was going on.
_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Speckles
Velociraptor

Joined: May 03, 2008
Posts: 448

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

Speckles wrote:

Orwell wrote:

Speckles wrote:

So essentially, you are only willing to invest if you are guarenteed a sizable return? You must hate the stock market.

No, a guarantee is not even necessary, but perhaps a remote possibility would be nice. As I have said, voting is not the way to social change.

To me, that is nonsensical. Voting very clearly does lead to social change.

This is simply a false statement. No country has ever voted itself freedom. Those things have to be fought for outside of Election Day for any progress to be made.

Umm ...

wikipedia wrote:

* 1946 Faroese referendum
* 1967,1993, 1998 Puerto_Rico_status_referenda
* 1980 Quebec referendum, unsuccessful.
* 1990 Slovenian independence referendum, led to independence of Slovenia.
* 1991 Croatian independence referendum, led to independence of Croatia.
* 1991 Macedonian independence referendum, led to independence of the Republic of Macedonia.
* 1991 Ukraine independence referendum, led to independence of Ukraine.
* 1992 Bosnian independence referendum, led to independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to Bosnian war.
* 1995 Quebec referendum, unsuccessful.
* 1999 East Timor,UN organised referendum led eventually to acceptance of East Timor independence.
* South Ossetian independence referendum, 2006
* Montenegrin independence referendum, 2006, a successful independence referendum that reestablished independent country of Montenegro.

link

Quote:

Forget government legitimacy. I don't really care about that, and I didn't bring it up. I'm just saying that when you don't vote, you invite politicians to ignore you. Seriously, read and try to understand iterated prisoner's dilemma. Think about voting in those terms. It's not a very difficult analogy to draw IMO.

I understand your analogy, but I've already pointed out why I think it's a lousy analogy. At this point we're just arguing in circles.

Umm, I just read over your posts, and I have no idea what you are talking about. Please restate your arguments to be clear, just to humor me.

Quote:

Don't you see the hypocracy of praising the free market in one arena, then cursing it in another?

When have I cursed the free market? Quote me.

Right now. Democracy is essentially a free market for political power. While the amount of voting power an individual has is fixed, they are free to try to convince as many people as they can. The most attractive and most promoted ideas come to the forefront and determine how the country should be run.

How exactly is this different then the free market? Why should the invisible hand of the marketplace all of a sudden stop working, just because the currency has changed?

Quote:

Fundamentalist Christians hold a dispropotionate influence, because politician know that they're almost guarenteed to vote in large numbers over issues, because their holy men tell them they have a duty.

Or rather, the leaders of fundamentalist Christians hold disproportionate influence because they have convinced a significantly large voting bloc to vote the way they tell them to.

Well no, it doesn't quite work that way. The leader still has to convince his followers to endorse a certain idea. None of those leaders could suddenly start arguing for abortion and retain their power. They have to keep appeasing their supporters, or lose their power to another leader who will.

I don't understand the relevance of your distinction.

Quote:

And I've already countered the "no incentive to change" issue with iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

I found your counter inneffectual, for reasons outlined earlier on the thread. The issue is that this really is not a Prisoner's Dilemma situation unless you make other assumptions that I have already refuted.

But you just admitted that Fundamentalist Christian hold a disproportionate influence, because they vote in large blocs. You aren't making any sense.

Quote:

And as said, I can deal with the status quo. It's really not all that bad a situation we have now, so why should I spend my life working futilely for a minute chance to produce the slightest change? I have better uses for my time and energy, not only for myself but also for society at large.

Fair enough. But again, by the ideals of the free market, that means that the views of the people who are willing to spend the time should be the ones to decide.

"Should" is debatable, but they will be the ones to decide. And I'm not even rejecting activism entirely here, I'm just pointing out that voting specifically is useless. You are attacking a strawman by failing to understand the distinction between voting and other possible actions.

Okay, what other actions? What action would you propose that does not ultimately lead to violence or an attempt to make people vote a certain way?
_________________
I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
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Posts: 14174
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:05 pm Post subject:

Speckles wrote:

No it isn't. The free market is the free market for political power. Democracy is demagoguery, and the difference between democracy and the free market has been shown by public choice economics, and studies on biases in political leanings.

The difference is that there is no currency, there is no rational calculation, there is no direct incentives, there is no individual choice. It is NOT a market.

Quote:

Okay, what other actions? What action would you propose that does not ultimately lead to violence or an attempt to make people vote a certain way?

Agorism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism

Speckles
Velociraptor

Joined: May 03, 2008
Posts: 448

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

Quote:

Not only that, but after 8 years of having our economy BushWhacked, a large percentage of Americans are going to vote for McCain who promises to continue Bush's current policy of warmongering. Hopefully he's lying as all politicians do, but I'm not taking any chances.

I'm cautiously optimistic that Obama may be lying about all of his proposed policies. I don't even know what McCain's stances are, he's too much of a flip-flopper to tell with any certainty.

Well, there is some evidence that some of the anti-NAFTA stuff may be rhetoric.
Link

I'd be somewhat pissed if he goes back on some of his ethic reform promises though. His measures for dealing with corruption are the primary reason I'd vote for him if able.
_________________
I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

Speckles
Velociraptor

Joined: May 03, 2008
Posts: 448

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Speckles wrote:

Please link or define, I'm not familiar with the language, and I probably won't have a long enough stretch of time today to just find what you mean by googling and reading until I get it on my own.

Quote:

Okay, what other actions? What action would you propose that does not ultimately lead to violence or an attempt to make people vote a certain way?

Agorism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism

Yeah, that might work. Though from what I can see it would mean giving up on any kind of government support or large projects. So, nothing like landing on Mars, or billion dollar research projects Sad

. Plus, how are you going to stop people from breaking from the ethics of the movement? What's to stop pro-statist groups from forming buying or supply blocs, and just restarting the whole state problem?
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Orwell
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:49 pm Post subject:

Speckles wrote:

Quote:

I understand your analogy, but I've already pointed out why I think it's a lousy analogy. At this point we're just arguing in circles.

Umm, I just read over your posts, and I have no idea what you are talking about. Please restate your arguments to be clear, just to humor me.

You have yet to demonstrate convincingly that higher voter turnout leads to an optimal result. Therefore, there is no basis for referring to this as a Prisoner's Dilemma.

Quote:

Or rather, the leaders of fundamentalist Christians hold disproportionate influence because they have convinced a significantly large voting bloc to vote the way they tell them to.

It does pretty much work that way, as these people will often follow their leaders even against their own beliefs up at least to a certain point. Fundies could probably compromise on abortion if their leaders told them to.

The distinction is that you are trying to personify a crowd, whereas I am pointing out that the issue is a particular individual in a position where they can exercise some degree of influence. It's not the masses that generally drive social movements, but rather specific powerful and charismatic figures.

Quote:

But you just admitted that Fundamentalist Christian hold a disproportionate influence, because they vote in large blocs. You aren't making any sense.

You'll have to point out the contradiction more explicitly for me.
_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Awesomelyglorious
Destroyer of worlds, reaver of souls
Phoenix

Joined: Dec 18, 2005
Posts: 14174
Location: Omnipresent

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 9:54 pm Post subject:

Speckles wrote:

Please link or define, I'm not familiar with the language, and I probably won't have a long enough stretch of time today to just find what you mean by googling and reading until I get it on my own.

Public choice economics are studies on how governments work. They show things such as rent-seeking, problems with the expression of public will through things such as democracy and things like that. And the research I reference on biases refers to the work by Bryan Caplan, showing that the masses typically and systematically do not listen to the expert ideas for their own ill-informed understandings, and these understandings usually have particular skews.

Quote:

Well, I think libertarianism is a philosophy opposed to governmental actions in these things as well. The issue is that in order to restart the whole state problem, they would need a *lot* of power. As for the ethics of the movement? Well... who cares what people choose to do? If you aren't screwing with other people then they won't screw with you. Buying blocs and selling blocs would need a lot more power than easily conceivable to actually take effect, a lot more so than any democracy.

n4mwd
Phoenix
Phoenix

Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Posts: 1244
Location: Palm Beach, FL

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:12 pm Post subject:

Orwell wrote:

n4mwd wrote:

There is tons of evidence to back up many of these claims.

Really now. I have yet to see any.

Now you are being silly. If you can't see, then maybe you need glasses.

So which is a more plausible explanation for building 7:

A) The heat from the fire in the main towers was so intense that it melted away the steel core of building 7 miraculously without even scorching the exterior. The fire itself was the result of magic jet fuel that kept burning long after its supplies were exhausted and also got hotter than the laws of physics allow.

or

B) Building 7 was rigged with explosives and demolished in a controlled manner.

skafather84
Platypus God
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Joined: Mar 21, 2006
Age: 28
Posts: 11156
Location: New Orleans, LA

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:29 pm Post subject:

n4mwd wrote:

Orwell wrote:

n4mwd wrote:

There is tons of evidence to back up many of these claims.

Really now. I have yet to see any.

or

C) During the collapse, the damage sustained to building 7 scooped out a large portion of the supporting floor. This combined with internal fires lead to a structural failure.

still waiting for pictures of that damaged side of building 7 but that's what the latest claim is. Fire damage combined with the physical damage inflicted from the collapse of the (i think) south tower (might be north...whatever one is closer).

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