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[mainiac]

I hope it's true what they say about toads being mood altering.

[Flying Dice]

That's only if you lick them, I hear. I'll calibrate my chillness on my own, I think. 

[wierd]

Now, lets stop the meta-commentary. (First rule of fight club, DONT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB! lol)

Let's go back to the stated topic-- How about that "Totally my real hair!" trump guy?

5 hours ago:

Trump mulls charging CNN for debate appearance.

Because, like-- the debate is TOTALLY not about getting your brand advertised and embedded in the electorate's mind, and totally something that you should be PAID for, instead of PAY for.

[Flying Dice]

The thing that scares me about Trump is that I've had the same sort of reaction before, the whole, "Whoa, no, there's no way that they'll manage to get the nomination, never mind win the general election!" thing... for people who were subsequently elected. It was a funny joke earlier in the cycle, but now I'm genuinely worried that the views he's espousing (regardless of whether they're genuine or a persona) will be enough to GOTV on the far right, and that'll mesh with voter apathy in the center and left at exactly the wrong time.

President Trump honestly sounds like the prologue to Idiocracy, or perhaps to a cyberpunk future.

[wierd]

If president trump were to become an actual (horrible!) thing, all I can say is that we would get the president that we deserve. (the US as a whole, that is.)

Perhaps after he destroys the country and makes north korea look progressive in comparison to us, we will start making more sensible decisions and take voting more seriously.

(I can dream, right?)

[mainiac]

The thing that scares me about Trump is that I've had the same sort of reaction before, the whole, "Whoa, no, there's no way that they'll manage to get the nomination, never mind win the general election!" thing... for people who were subsequently elected.

A black swan event happens every once in a while.  And sometimes we misjudge something to be a black swan event.  But it's confirmation bias, we really remember the black swan events.  Ironically because the black swan events are so memorable we even sometimes make the rules around the outliers and ignore the normal cases because they aren't as memorable.

[Baffler]

I almost want to see what will happen when he wins, as long as I can do it from a safe vantage point.

[wierd]

What alarms me, is not so much trump--- But the appalling degree of popular support for his suggested policies.

Really, the things he has proposed are so unworkable, that they should have been addressed as such and discarded LOOOONG ago in this primary debate session. That so many people still think that they are good ideas, is terrifying to me.

I almost want to see what will happen when he wins, as long as I can do it from a safe vantage point.

Did you get selected as a Mars One candidate?  If the kinds of horrendous foreign policy that Trump is advocating actually happens, (especially given the high profile nature of the US economy on the global stage) you are basically lighting the fuse on a possible world war 3...  Better be off planet, just to be sure.

[Baffler]

If only. I was thinking some random island that nobody has any real interest in but is still settled. I hear good things about Ascension Island, though the air force facilities there are sort of worrying.

[Bauglir]

A black swan event happens every once in a while.  And sometimes we misjudge something to be a black swan event.  But it's confirmation bias, we really remember the black swan events.  Ironically because the black swan events are so memorable we even sometimes make the rules around the outliers and ignore the normal cases because they aren't as memorable.

i mean, yeah, but this is a pretty classic problem

it's relatively simple to design a model that just ignores extraordinary events and is generally correct, but the ability to predict extraordinary events is one of the most compelling reasons for having a model in the first place

take the case of an intelligence operative abroad. the safest thing for them to do every day is report that the situation is normal and will probably proceed as was expected the day before, but they were presumably deployed for the sake of detecting the days that isn't the case

that is, when somebody's fear is of a black swan event, you need to do better than explain the psychological fallacies that black swan events create in general in order to demonstrate that this isn't one of those events

mind you, i still don't think he has a chance, and plan to caucus for him next year on this basis, but i'm willing to reevaluate that as events unfold

[mainiac]

If only. I was thinking some random island that nobody has any real interest in but is still settled. I hear good things about Ascension Island, though the air force facilities there are sort of worrying.

Be a dwarf, make a mountainhome.

[wierd]

Contemplated that.

Sadly, nearly every place on earth that can be habitated by humans, already has somebody landlording the physical real-estate.

Hundreds of miles of woodland in the US? BLM!
Random islands out in the pacific? UNESCO and pals.
Uninhabited parts of Canada? The canadian version of BLM.

etc.

Unless I make a submarine, and dive to a seamound that is just deep enough to not have a coral reef on it (and thus not qualify for being a heritage site.) but shallow enough that I might could, possibly, make it into a stable foundation for a synthetic structure that can withstand harsh ocean weather conditions--- and have the millions of dollars to do that-- I am pretty much out of luck if I want to do that in a legal fashion.

Unless you know of some place that is handing out homesteads to foreigners. (Some African countries are offering homesteads, but NOT to foreign nationals.)

[Culise]

Contemplated that.

Sadly, nearly every place on earth that can be habitated by humans, already has somebody landlording the physical real-estate.

Hundreds of miles of woodland in the US? BLM!
Random islands out in the pacific? UNESCO and pals.
Uninhabited parts of Canada? The canadian version of BLM.

etc.

Unless I make a submarine, and dive to a seamound that is just deep enough to not have a coral reef on it (and thus not qualify for being a heritage site.) but shallow enough that I might could, possibly, make it into a stable foundation for a synthetic structure that can withstand harsh ocean weather conditions--- and have the millions of dollars to do that-- I am pretty much out of luck if I want to do that in a legal fashion.

Unless you know of some place that is handing out homesteads to foreigners. (Some African countries are offering homesteads, but NOT to foreign nationals.)

Head to the Egypt-Sudan border.  There's over 2000 km² of uninhabited land neither side is willing to claim, because doing so would de facto surrender their claims to the much larger and actually-worthwhile Hala'ib Triangle.  You'd have to fight off a whole bunch of other similarly-styled Internet conquistadors, however, and be fond of farming sand; as far as I know, there's no known economic merit to Bir Tawil whatsoever. 

[mainiac]

Can you be a moisture farmer there?

[smjjames]

Yeah, the whole Trump phenomenon is kind of like people gawping at a trainwreck or car accident, just the whole curiosity of seeing what happened/what will happen.

What alarms me, is not so much trump--- But the appalling degree of popular support for his suggested policies.

Really, the things he has proposed are so unworkable, that they should have been addressed as such and discarded LOOOONG ago in this primary debate session. That so many people still think that they are good ideas, is terrifying to me.

They SHOULD have been, yes, and initially were challenged, but everybody was expecting Trump to collapse on his own. When that didn't happen, they tried to out-Trump Trump, didn't work and mostly backfired. It wasn't until recently that anybody tried to go after him HARD.

Part of it is people in the campaigns being (understandably) clueless on how to fight trump when he is flaunting the usual things that have destroyed campaigns before and at the same time, trying to get Trumps base, which requires them to go further to the right.

You have to wonder how much of what he says he actually believes or wants to do.

Can you be a moisture farmer there?

lol, good one.

Also, there haven't been any new polls in a little while for whatever reason. Thanksgiving break maybe?