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Author Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée  (Read 1571114 times)

SirQuiamus

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13950 on: March 09, 2016, 10:43:34 am »

One thing I am glad about is that ethnic nationalism is very much dead, and ironically I think cultural marxists and sovereign nationalists killed it together.
...
Sovereign nationalists have been the nail in the coffin for ethnic nationalists in Europe...
This is a very bizarre claim, considering that our ethnic nationalists are nowadays a de facto subset of sovereign nationalism, which serves as a somewhat reputable umbrella term for less reputable fringe groups.

Look at Hungary, for example: Fidesz is all about sovereignty without an explicit agenda of ethnic supremacy, whereas Jobbik goes full monty with the racism, antisemitism, and general Nazi chic. And yet, the two parties have formed an unshakable coalition under the banner of sovereign nationalism, which allows them to handwave all accusations of bigotry under the pretext of maintaining national unity.

Or take Germany: In theory, PEGIDA is a general-purpose movement for national sovereignty, against Islamization and EU authoritarianism, but in practice PEGIDA rallies are always attended by armband-wearing, WhiteGenocide-chanting nutters from the fringe-right. None of the sovereign nationalists seem to have a problem with the ethnic nationalists, so why insist that there is a distinction in the first place?

And what about Finland? The True Finns make an effort to condemn racism every chance they get, but several of their MPs are openly associated with white supremacist fringe groups like SS and FDL, who are openly advocating the "removal" of foreign ethnic groups by any means necessary. Since the same bunch of people tend to attend all "nationalist" gatherings without regard to finer nuances, you'll inevitably find ethnic nationalists wherever there are sovereign nationalists.

It's also rather misguided to think that sovereign nationalists are somehow "above" identity politics, since the whole umbrella movement is ultimately made up of smaller ethnic nationalist movements which have their roots in identitarianism. In Finland, anti-immigrant attitudes are common enough among immigrants, but immigrant participation in the anti-immigrant groups is nil, for perfectly obvious reasons. If you take a quick look at any sovereign nationalist movement's Facebook page, you'll find numerous earnest calls to exterminate all minorities, with detailed descriptions of the violent methods. And better yet, these sadistic outbursts are generally written by active members of the movement, under their real names. Finnish police won't even bother with such trifling hate speech anymore, because there's simply too much of it. If you're an immigrant and want to ally yourself with these people, you must be nothing short of suicidal.

That said, there are a few diverse people who are nevertheless willing to participate – for whatever occult reason – in a "sovereign nationalist" movement, at considerable risk to their own safety. There's nothing quite like seeing an openly gay man preach "family values" and "cultural pride" to the skinheads at a "nationalist" rally – jovially rubbing shoulders with people who literally want to murder him for something as trivial as sexuality.

It could well be that the standard right-wing accusations of "white self-loathing" are largely a projection of the hate that insufficiently white and straight members of the movement feel towards themselves. After all, no-one can perfectly fulfil all the impossible standards that ethnic nationalists set for their in-group, and therefore the noblest thing that any individual member of the movement can do is to sacrifice him/herself for the glory of the Master Race. We've already seen gay homophobe-preachers and Jewish Nazis, and it's probably only a matter of time before we start seeing black white supremacists attending KKK rallies with nooses around their necks.

My point is that what Vector said about Trump supporters is kinda hard to refute when you consider that the "mainstream" and "fringe" elements of the movement are getting along like a house on fire. Trump may not be a Nazi, and most of his supporters may not be Nazis, but they are nevertheless willing to provide a political safe haven for the actual Nazis, who are allowed to flourish under the nominally respectable "sovereign nationalist" umbrella of the movement.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2016, 11:15:49 am by SirQuiamus »
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Bauglir

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13951 on: March 09, 2016, 10:46:30 am »

Read carefully: I'm not attacking the statistic - indeed I agreed that it does tell us that something is wrong. I'm attacking the way the statistic is used - I do hope you're not flat-out claiming that there is no way to use technically correct statistics to mislead people.
Oh, sure, and that's fine in principle, I think. I dispute that it's actually used that way as often as you say, but that's a different thing I'm not prepared to back up. And there are cases where it is, I won't deny that either.

I'm more objecting to sluissa's apparent argument that there isn't a "real" wage gap, which 3/4 of those sources seem to be supporting. Only Politifact allows that the statistic actually has worth. Should've made that clear!
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Helgoland

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13952 on: March 09, 2016, 10:53:35 am »

I'm more objecting to sluissa's apparent argument that there isn't a "real" wage gap, which 3/4 of those sources seem to be supporting. Only Politifact allows that the statistic actually has worth. Should've made that clear!
I think that was my claim, yeah. See Ispil's post - 7% is a little on the high side as far as I remember.
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sluissa

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13953 on: March 09, 2016, 11:03:51 am »

Read carefully: I'm not attacking the statistic - indeed I agreed that it does tell us that something is wrong. I'm attacking the way the statistic is used - I do hope you're not flat-out claiming that there is no way to use technically correct statistics to mislead people.
Oh, sure, and that's fine in principle, I think. I dispute that it's actually used that way as often as you say, but that's a different thing I'm not prepared to back up. And there are cases where it is, I won't deny that either.

I'm more objecting to sluissa's apparent argument that there isn't a "real" wage gap, which 3/4 of those sources seem to be supporting. Only Politifact allows that the statistic actually has worth. Should've made that clear!

I won't deny there's a wage gap, I even said that I have no problem with that statement. My argument is against what that wage gap means. As some people have put it, it does NOT mean that having a penis gets you more money. And that the apparent solution to all of this is not simply a flat "give women higher wages."

There are a lot of factors, some of them are a result of choices women tend to make and some a result of circumstance, bad luck, and traditional expectations of women in society. I'm more for fighting the latter than the former, but even the former needs some attention.
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13954 on: March 09, 2016, 11:05:19 am »

"Latter" and "Former" work only between two items. You have given us three.
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sluissa

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13955 on: March 09, 2016, 11:11:37 am »

"Latter" and "Former" work only between two items. You have given us three.

Two groups, things that are a result of womens choices, and things that result from circumstances they have no control over.

I'd rather fight harder against the things they have no control over, but I'm not completely dismissing the fact that women deserve to have choices (such as the choice to have a kid) and not end up in poverty as a result.
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Helgoland

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13956 on: March 09, 2016, 11:12:53 am »

"Latter" and "Former" work only between two items. You have given us three.
It works with up to four if you include latmer and forter.
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Arguably he's already a progressive, just one in the style of an enlightened Kaiser.
I'm going to do the smart thing here and disengage. This isn't a hill I paticularly care to die on.

mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13957 on: March 09, 2016, 11:14:39 am »

Read carefully: I'm not attacking the statistic - indeed I agreed that it does tell us that something is wrong. I'm attacking the way the statistic is used - I do hope you're not flat-out claiming that there is no way to use technically correct statistics to mislead people.

I guess what I'm claiming is that people objecting to the 77 cent figure are in fact making the more misleading claim.  With the Asimov article I linked before he said the worst thing isn't to give an incomplete model, the worst thing is the deny the validity of the incomplete model.  People nitpick the 77 cent model so much that they blind themselves to the much greater error.

If I recall, isn't it that the wage gap when compared across equal job pay (that is, rather than comparing median wage for men vs women, comparing median wage across specific areas of employment) then it falls to about 7%, which can be explained by wage negotiations? I think that's what it was; I might be wrong though.

Something like that.  But the thing is there are biases in the system beyond that one bias.  That is the most flagrant bias, the most clear cut bias.  But that is not all of the bias!  That is just the most offensive minority of the bias.

We expect so many qualifiers and premptive surrenders from the feminist movement that the bullshit claim "gender discrimination is only %5 or %7" is acceptable while the claim that "women make only 77 cents on the dollar due to a sexist culture" is considered irrational.  The irrational thing is the smaller figure.  We know that discrimination is more then 7%.  It's just that you can't pin it down and draw a nice easy to understand circle around anything but the 7%.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13958 on: March 09, 2016, 11:22:01 am »

Why does it tell us something is wrong? What's wrong with women and men having different priorities in jobs? Or more women wanting to stay at home (say, with the children) and more men wanting to work?

And this is exactly the sort of assumption that is the problem.

We have turned the problem into two "chunks".  We started with 23 cents.  We decided that 6 cents was the fault of what we called "sexism" but was actually "sexism that we can easily isolate the occurrence of".  So now we have 17 cents left to explain.  And what do we do?  Do we really dig into the details of the social pressures and whether they are fair or not?  Do we look at the science of how people are judged in countless marginal cases?  Study inequal opportunities?

No, we just leap to this conclusion that nothing is wrong.  Which is absurd!  We wouldn't accept this kind of thinking in plumbing or car design or food service!

We know that there is a 23% paygap.  We shouldn't assume that anything that isn't proven to be malicious is benign.  We have a fuckload of circumstantial evidence pointing the exact opposite way.  But simply stating 23% without preemptively surrendering 17% is considered the radical statement.

It's not.  The radicals are you mainstream people who assume without a shred of evidence that 75% of the problem doesn't exist.  That isn't being neutral.  At best it is just not thinking things through.  At worst it's well, you know...
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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sluissa

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13959 on: March 09, 2016, 11:29:03 am »

Read carefully: I'm not attacking the statistic - indeed I agreed that it does tell us that something is wrong. I'm attacking the way the statistic is used - I do hope you're not flat-out claiming that there is no way to use technically correct statistics to mislead people.

I guess what I'm claiming is that people objecting to the 77 cent figure are in fact making the more misleading claim.  With the Asimov article I linked before he said the worst thing isn't to give an incomplete model, the worst thing is the deny the validity of the incomplete model.  People nitpick the 77 cent model so much that they blind themselves to the much greater error.

If I recall, isn't it that the wage gap when compared across equal job pay (that is, rather than comparing median wage for men vs women, comparing median wage across specific areas of employment) then it falls to about 7%, which can be explained by wage negotiations? I think that's what it was; I might be wrong though.

Something like that.  But the thing is there are biases in the system beyond that one bias.  That is the most flagrant bias, the most clear cut bias.  But that is not all of the bias!  That is just the most offensive minority of the bias.

We expect so many qualifiers and premptive surrenders from the feminist movement that the bullshit claim "gender discrimination is only %5 or %7" is acceptable while the claim that "women make only 77 cents on the dollar due to a sexist culture" is considered irrational.  The irrational thing is the smaller figure.  We know that discrimination is more then 7%.  It's just that you can't pin it down and draw a nice easy to understand circle around anything but the 7%.

The issue is that people have shouted out the larger number as the problem and when the real problem shows itself to be much smaller people think, "Oh, that's not as bad as we thought." If the movement had started with more accurate numbers then maybe they could get somewhere easier instead of fighting this admittedly pointless fight.

If the movement had started (or moved on, since that 77 cent number, or at least the methods to reach it originated in a fairly old study, iirc.) with a number closer to 10% instead of the ridiculousness of 23% we'd probably be having a much easier discussion about it. As it is, you might as well just go with the ~40% number some perspectives give, then you could say women are worth 3/5th of a man and are thus equivalent to slaves in US society. That would rile people up.


EDIT: I'm actually letting myself get dragged fairly off topic here and into the realm of hyperbole and speculation. I'm letting my statement stand, since it does display my mindset to some degree, but I think I'm being about as ridiculous and unbased in reality in this post as I'm claiming the otherside to be as well and that's unfair and wrong. Sorry.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2016, 11:36:16 am by sluissa »
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Helgoland

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13960 on: March 09, 2016, 11:37:51 am »

Why does it tell us something is wrong? What's wrong with women and men having different priorities in jobs? Or more women wanting to stay at home (say, with the children) and more men wanting to work?
Wrong in the framework I assumed for this discussion. In a perfect discrimination-free world, we'd probably still see a pay gap, I agree - but a) it wouldn't be nearly as big as the one we currently see, and b) it's irrelevant for the topic at hand, because 'nature vs nurture' is just a whole different barrel of fish.

We decided that 6 cents was the fault of what we called "sexism" but was actually "sexism that we can easily isolate the occurrence of".  So now we have 17 cents left to explain.  And what do we do?  Do we really dig into the details of the social pressures and whether they are fair or not?  Do we look at the science of how people are judged in countless marginal cases?  Study inequal opportunities?

No, we just leap to this conclusion that nothing is wrong.  Which is absurd!  We wouldn't accept this kind of thinking in plumbing or car design or food service!
Naah, you got the labels wrong. The 6 cents are 'discrimination happening on an individual level', the 17 cents are 'discrimination happening on a society-wide level and/or the effect of culture and/or biology'. The thing is: The causes for the 17 cent difference have nothing to do with income (at least directly), so treating the 17 cent difference as an income inequality problem is counterproductive. Maybe right-wing folks use the labels you describe - at least for the US that is rather plausible -, but that doesn't mean a center-left progressive like myself has to shut up about the shitty phrasing of the left wing just to distance himself from the even shittier phrasing of the right wing. Wasn't that one of the points that Orwell was trying to make in Politics and the English Language?

It's not.  The radicals are you mainstream people who assume without a shred of evidence that 75% of the problem doesn't exist.  That isn't being neutral.  At best it is just not thinking things through.  At worst it's well, you know...
Yeah, this sounds suspiciously like 'You're not fighting for progress in the same way as I am, so you must be one of THE ENEMY!'. I get the sentiment, but still I'd rather you didn't.
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Arguably he's already a progressive, just one in the style of an enlightened Kaiser.
I'm going to do the smart thing here and disengage. This isn't a hill I paticularly care to die on.

Lord Shonus

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13961 on: March 09, 2016, 11:56:26 am »

And what do we do?  Do we really dig into the details of the social pressures and whether they are fair or not?  Do we look at the science of how people are judged in countless marginal cases?  Study inequal opportunities?

No, we just leap to this conclusion that nothing is wrong.  Which is absurd!  We wouldn't accept this kind of thinking in plumbing or car design or food service!


Bull. Shit. What we are saying is that "Maybe making more television programs like SciGirls and making sure that Sesame Street features more female construction workers and such is a better use of our time and energy than trying to solve the problem through lesgislation that doesn't address the real issue."

"The problem is not what you're saying it is."  ≠ "The problem is an illusion, go about your business."
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RedKing

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13962 on: March 09, 2016, 11:58:47 am »

Politifact is like that "smart" kid sitting at the front of history class saying "well actually" every five minutes.  And I should know, I was that kid.
You still ARE that kid.  ::)
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mainiac

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13963 on: March 09, 2016, 12:02:58 pm »

The issue is that people have shouted out the larger number as the problem and when the real problem shows itself to be much smaller people think, "Oh, that's not as bad as we thought." If the movement had started with more accurate numbers then maybe they could get somewhere easier instead of fighting this admittedly pointless fight.

No, the real problem is that someone pointing out evidence that your views are wrong is labeled as misleading.

Naah, you got the labels wrong. The 6 cents are 'discrimination happening on an individual level', the 17 cents are 'discrimination happening on a society-wide level and/or the effect of culture and/or biology'.

You are now agreeing with the radical feminists that you said were the problem before.

And Helgoland, keep in mind that society wide problems happen both ways.  For instance women enter college at a higher rate.  So maybe the bias is bigger then that 17%, maybe it's actually 25%, including 8% to balance out the biases that are making men underperform in highschool.  So now not only is that an even bigger bias against women that is weighing down our society but also a bias against men.  So that 23 cent figure is in fact soft selling the case.

Of course our society has absurdly decided to call the position of stating the facts as the far left position so there isn't even a label for what I just said.

And what do we do?  Do we really dig into the details of the social pressures and whether they are fair or not?  Do we look at the science of how people are judged in countless marginal cases?  Study inequal opportunities?

No, we just leap to this conclusion that nothing is wrong.  Which is absurd!  We wouldn't accept this kind of thinking in plumbing or car design or food service!


Bull. Shit. What we are saying is that "Maybe making more television programs like SciGirls and making sure that Sesame Street features more female construction workers and such is a better use of our time and energy than trying to solve the problem through lesgislation that doesn't address the real issue."

"The problem is not what you're saying it is."  ≠ "The problem is an illusion, go about your business."

Bull.  Shit.  You were not saying that.  You were saying that the number was bullshit.  You labeled anyone you disagree with wrong preemptively and reserved the right to retroactively justify your views later.

Which is exactly the sort of radicalism I expect from the zealots in the anti 77 cent camp.  After all, you are the guys who reject neutral statistics in favor of assuming that anything about your position not proven to be wrong is correct.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Bauglir

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Re: Donald J. Trump's Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams 2016 Megathread
« Reply #13964 on: March 09, 2016, 12:07:20 pm »

It works with up to four if you include latmer and forter.
14545 replies and i've finally learned something

but i can't find any other sources for either

also, which do you use if you have only 3?
« Last Edit: March 09, 2016, 12:10:31 pm by Bauglir »
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
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