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Author Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée  (Read 1571015 times)

mainiac

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5055 on: October 09, 2015, 01:55:13 pm »

Seldom ascribe to malice what can be expected from incompetence.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Frumple

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5056 on: October 09, 2015, 02:02:57 pm »

... incompetence of that degree is indistinguishable from malice, and should probably be treated the same way.

But nah, last I heard no one can seem to puzzle out what the hell happened there. Stories were changing rapidly and cheerfully contradicting each other.
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Bauglir

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5057 on: October 09, 2015, 02:04:40 pm »

I'm just saying that we don't know enough to 100% say that it's a war crime under international law.
Ehhh, like most crimes, ignorance isn't usually a defense against accusations of war crimes. It's unlikely the US will ever face legal consequences, of course, but that's got more to do with war crimes only ever being successfully prosecuted by the winners of a war, basically. The locals who called it in, being just as culpable, would be likelier to see that sort of thing. The US has a certain level of due diligence that it clearly failed to meet, though, unless I'm missing something important (always a possibility, that).
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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.
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At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

Reelya

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5058 on: October 09, 2015, 02:07:15 pm »

I think my main point was that "we didn't know!" is never seen as acceptable unless it's for the US or close allies.

And for war-crimes, "on purpose" is not part of the definition. Accidental killing does count, if you didn't follow acceptable rules of engagement.

Strife26

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5059 on: October 09, 2015, 02:07:34 pm »

Seldom ascribe to malice what can be expected from incompetence.

The first time.

The Afghani government and military doesn't exactly set any standards for non-corruption



I think my main point was that "we didn't know!" is never seen as acceptable unless it's for the US or close allies.

And for war-crimes, "on purpose" is not part of the definition. Accidental killing does count, if you didn't follow acceptable rules of engagement.

That is incorrect. Pretty much all modern war crime standards require a reasonable amount of intent. Rules of engagement are not a standardized, international thing.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2015, 02:10:08 pm by Strife26 »
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smjjames

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5060 on: October 09, 2015, 02:10:12 pm »

... incompetence of that degree is indistinguishable from malice, and should probably be treated the same way.

But nah, last I heard no one can seem to puzzle out what the hell happened there. Stories were changing rapidly and cheerfully contradicting each other.

All the better to have an independent investigation done on it.

Seldom ascribe to malice what can be expected from incompetence.

I was thinking of that quote too myself.

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Bauglir

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5061 on: October 09, 2015, 03:26:57 pm »

That is incorrect. Pretty much all modern war crime standards require a reasonable amount of intent. Rules of engagement are not a standardized, international thing.
Rules of engagement are not a standardized, international thing, but what's that got to do with anything? Rules of engagement that are drafted to include war crimes as SOP or to explicitly permit war crimes are still war crimes if carried out by soldiers, and war crimes on which RoE are silent are still war crimes. They're totally independent legal structures. Whether nor not the soldiers were in violation of their RoE, the United States as a government still was in violation of international law.

The relevant treaties (see the Geneva Conventions, for example) make no mention of intent. They do say things like, "Civilian  hospitals  organized  to  give  care  to  the  wounded  and  sick,  the  infirm  and maternity  cases,  may  in  no  circumstances  be  the  object  of  attack,  but  shall  at  all  times be  respected  and  protected  by  the  Parties to  the  conflict..."

War is messy business. Mistakes happen, and it's inevitable - and people will die as a consequence. I don't think that absolutely rules out the practice of warfare; there are situations in which it's still the best possible course out of many terrible ones. For me, at least, this isn't about decrying the evils of war or of the United States military in particular. They're doing the best they can, and the fact is that sometimes that's not good enough. Which is still no reason to give up.

This clearly was a mistake, and when mistakes are made they should be paid for. That's all. The correct posture in response to this isn't ass-covering.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2015, 09:14:38 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.

SalmonGod

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5062 on: October 09, 2015, 07:22:59 pm »

This clearly was a mistake, and when mistakes are made they should be paid for. That's all. The correct posture in response to this isn't ass-covering.

This is what's frustrating to me.  That the argument that it was a mistake is expected to mean anything.  If I make a mistake that costs my operation at work an extra $50 because I'm overworked and make a typo, I get fucking reamed for it, and many working class people live with daily anxiety over the idea of potentially getting fired over inevitable human errors of minor consequence, with all the serious shit that follows being unemployed.  But when someone in a position of serious responsibility fucks up in a way that ruins innocent lives, mistakes seem to be much more easily forgiven and every benefit of doubt granted in determining whether it was a mistake.  I can't blame a transposed digit on burnout, pressure, and time restraints and expect sympathy from anyone, but others can empty a clip into someone because they're on edge and that's nothing more than an unfortunate but understandable tragedy...
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Baffler

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5063 on: October 09, 2015, 08:21:06 pm »

(he's white, right? okay)
The Oregon shooter was black and everybody still calls him a lone crazy person. Same thing with the guy who shot that TV crew, and even if calling that a "mass" shooting is a bit disingenuous, it still got lots of media attention.
Dude's father is British and white as can be. No idea about the mother.

Apparently he's mixed race, his mother is black. Which I guess makes me wrong too.
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5064 on: October 09, 2015, 08:33:48 pm »

Well yay, add some more (national) debt to the pile.
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smjjames

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5065 on: October 09, 2015, 08:44:46 pm »

Well yay, add some more (national) debt to the pile.

With a very real chance of defaulting on our 18 tril debt in November.......

What exactly would happen, economically (nevermind the social and political ramifications), if we defaulted though? I know everybody is like DOOM AND GLOOM about it, but we were the same about our ratings downgrade and that ended up not being that bad.

I don't think it'll be a picknick either because it'll be one thing for a smaller country to do that, but quite another for a major global economic engine to do so.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2015, 08:49:07 pm by smjjames »
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Culise

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5066 on: October 09, 2015, 09:22:49 pm »

Well, to start with, Treasury securities will likely go poof, and with those trillions, banks worldwide would go under.  Social Security is significantly paid for through federal bonds; that would drop the bottom out of the existing pension net.  The Federal Reserve will lose all except 9% of its value, because it's backed by American treasury notes: that is the primary way through which the dollar would die.  Furthermore, when the Federal Reserve collapses, the Federal Reserve notes also lose all value.  All sorts of money funds break apart, and this isn't a matter just for rich people; anyone who's planned for retirement through a Roth IRA or similar plans is going to get hammered almost as badly as Social Security people.  China possibly tanks as a third of the People's Bank's reserves threatens to vanish into the aether, which could tip its construction bubble and any other less-obvious instabilities in the economy over the edge; Japan's banks dream of the days of stagflation as it realizes a fifth of its value is similarly at risk (by the bye, this is part of the reason why these two nations were among the most vocal the last time this came around in 2013).  European banks are not exactly stable yet, either, and will not be pleased to have the bottoms drop out from under them again.  Anything that runs on the dollar is going to go through a hiccup; dislocation in the energy market through the break of the petrodollar will likely hurt Iran and Russia less than Venezuela or Nigeria, but this is likely more of a short-term issue unless multiple potential reserve currencies attempt to secure dominance (say, the Euro versus the Ruble).  The US, as a major market, will stop importing as much as domestic production for export becomes more competitive with a weakening dollar (no storm cloud without a silver lining...) and also as domestic consumption in an unstable market tanks under a sort of "mattress-stuffing mentality" (...which is sometimes incoming lightning), hurting any economies that export significant amounts to the US - China, Mexico, Canada, and the combined EU most prominent among them.  The biggest issue is that interest rates will rise globally because one of the fundamental underpinnings of the modern global investment system, the "risk-free" nature of U.S. Treasury bonds, will vanish.  Everyone who holds those, which is to say, everyone will try to unload them somewhere, and there aren't going to be that many buyers.  As interest rates rise, economic recovery will vanish as investment slows. 

It does, however, depend significantly on the scale of the default.  For example, if the US writes off its foreign debts without touching its domestically-held debts, it doesn't solve everything, but it does still cause vast amounts of harm abroad which will rebound domestically in terms of not only loss of diplomatic credibility, but economic credibility - there's no reason why, with the precedent set, a second default couldn't wipe out the rest of those promissory notes.  It's something that can be recovered from, as we can see from the EU's slow recovery, but as you say, it will be no picnic. 
« Last Edit: October 09, 2015, 09:25:21 pm by Culise »
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mainiac

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5067 on: October 09, 2015, 09:25:21 pm »

While it would be bad, it wouldn't be that bad.  You are assuming that all bonds are defaulted on and permanently.  More likely would be a partial default on just under 10% of bonds.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Culise

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5068 on: October 09, 2015, 09:25:47 pm »

Sorry, I indeed did try to edit that in at the last second, but you slipped in ahead of me.  Ooh, down to the second, no less. :3
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: American Election Megathread- Voting Trump/Wallace in '168
« Reply #5069 on: October 09, 2015, 09:30:15 pm »

I want to slap each and every member of Congress right now.  (Because the debt is mostly their fault.  Oh and the lobbyists...)
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