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[Kagus]

I daresay it probably is.

[ggamer]

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/25/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-becomes-comic-book-heroine

There are many questions I'd like to ask, such as "what even is journalism", but I'm not sure I really want any of the answers.

Is this an attempt to "Own the conservatives?"

wow, and allison flood is a rich white liberal. Imagine my complete and utter shock.

[Egan_BW]

https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/25/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-becomes-comic-book-heroine

There are many questions I'd like to ask, such as "what even is journalism", but I'm not sure I really want any of the answers.

Is this an attempt to "Own the conservatives?"

conserviCUCKS OWNED by HEART and LOGIC

[Kagus]

conserviCUCKS OWNED by HEART

Finally a use for the little brat...

[wierd]

you mean it was the strongest ring ALL ALONG!?

They could have just pushed him, terrorist style, into capital hill, and it would have ended US pollution for GOOD!?

Naaaaaaahhh

[sluissa]

I've seen this happen before, but it's frustrating each time.

I really enjoyed listening to Ocasio-Cortez when she first became a figure. She seemed smart. A little young, but if someone gave her a mic and set her on any reasonably deep topic, she could talk and not sound like a fool.

Now though, she's more myth than anything else. "Hero to the people" for some. "communist villain" to others. And she... for whatever reason, seems to be embracing this. It's gone from smart, and intelligent politician, to witty comeback machine. She's gone from "Young but surprisingly on top of things." to "Yeah, that's a kid in congress."

Part of this is media. Because they'll show pointless conflict 1000 times before they do a decent interview to ask her for a calm explanation on her economics. Clickbait loves pointless conflict.

Extra frustrating is because this is exactly the same sort of transition Bernie made in 2016. I feel like there's some sort of.... consistent sort of advice they're getting. "Stop being so smart. Just go for the witty soundbites." On one hand I'm hoping this is only a character they put on because it works, but on the other, I really don't like politicians who do that. It erodes at the trust.

[hector13]

Her comment that facts aren’t as important as being morally right made me lose a great deal of respect for her.

[Reelya]

I don't not like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, however I was watching a video by Tim Pool talking about her statement that NY could spend the $3 billion in tax credits they "saved" by not having Amazon build a HQ there on teachers, hospitals and such. This was plainly ignorant of basic facts, being charitable. Amazon's HQ was predicted to bring in $27 billion in state revenue, the $3 billion would have been offset against that. In fact, by the deal falling through, NY missed out on at least $24 billion, they didn't "save" $3 billion. Clearly that isn't how tax credits work.

Additionally, Tim Pool suggests it's confusing that she made a big deal of the fact that not all the jobs would go to "local New Yorkers" - as if the non-NY Americans were some sort of unwelcome invaders (despite the fact that by relocating, they're adding to local city/state revenue), yet she's the same person who says borders should be 100% thrown open to whoever wants to come in. She wants no national borders yet she's using "localist" language that suggests she wants to restrict worker's mobility within the nation. This kind of flip-flopping on the basic message makes it sounds like she's changing her message opportunistically based on issue rather than providing a consistent framework that all these things fall within.

At the end of the video Tim linked to AOC's Politifact page. For the things they have fact-check she has a pretty low rating: out of 7 fact-checked statements she's made so far, 4 were rated "false" with 1 "pants on fire". The verdict would have to be that she says stuff that plays well to the crowd but is ultimately not very accurate factually.

https://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/

Compare this to Bernie's track record. Not a single "pants on fire" statement and only 12% rated "false".

https://www.politifact.com/personalities/bernie-sanders/

Sure, AOC hasn't said enough that's been fact-checked against to have a strong metric, but the results so far aren't exactly promising. From what I've seen she's spouting a liberal version of the same type of populism that's infecting other types of politics. She's no Bernie.

[MorleyDev]

Probably more a matter for the philosophy thread, but I can see ways a statement of morality being more important than facts as being true: You need a moral framework you operate within using facts, and that moral framework defines the lines that you won't cross regardless and the goals you set up as good goals to achieve.

To give an extreme hypothetical example, if it was demonstrated mathematically and objectively that it would improve the economy and lives of everyone else to kill the poor, we still shouldn't do it because of morality.

So in that sense, morality does have to come prior to facts: Morality defines limits and goals, and facts determine what actions you take within those limits to achieve those goals.

[Reelya]

The problem is that AOC's errors are more than not remembering to dot I's and cross T's. They're glaring errors of reasoning about huge sums of money and basic accounting facts:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/dec/03/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-scale-pentagon-acco/

"$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained.’ $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon. And that’s before our premiums."

So that's the thing she claimed in a tweet. However, read the Politifact article. The $21 trillion was "accounting errors" over a certain period that involved the Pentagon. But it wasn't lost or mispent money: the entire Pentagon budget for the time period involved was only $8.5 Trillion. It was money that didn't exist. It was misplaced decimal points, etc, and money that accidentally got counted multiple times, because people made paperwork errors.

[Reelya]

The problem is that AOC's errors are more than not remembering to dot I's and cross T's. They're glaring errors of reasoning about huge sums of money and basic accounting facts:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/dec/03/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-scale-pentagon-acco/

"$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained.’ $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon. And that’s before our premiums."

So that's the thing she claimed in a tweet. However, read the Politifact article. The $21 trillion was "accounting errors" over a certain period that involved the Pentagon. But it wasn't lost or misspent money: the entire Pentagon budget for the time period involved was only $8.5 Trillion - a fact that allows us to apply a "reality check" on the claim automatically. The "$21 trillion" never existed, it's just the figure you get when you sum the size of all the accounting errors across every department. Much of it included accidentally double or triple-counting the same money due to departmental confusion.

Fixing the problem means the $21 trillion dollars would probably approach $0 - since it didn't actually come from anywhere in the first place and was purely a phantom created by scatty paperwork - not give you $21 trillion dollars to fund medicare. In fact, by targeting easy "moral" solutions like this and saying that the facts don't matter, she's undermining the real-life hard decisions that need to be made. That's why facts are more important than "morals". Morals based on faulty facts cause us to misplace effort and create faulty solutions, while rejecting actually viable solutions, since our faulty facts make the best solution seem sub-optimal.

The "gas the poor" analogy is about different "value systems" not about matters of fact. AOC is being called out about getting the facts of many matters wrong on a basic level.

[MorleyDev]

Yeah, that one looks like someone seeing the title and skimming and not noticing the accounting errors weren't actual missing money. Which isn't uncommon for people to do, unfortunately, but definitely a bad habit for a politician to be going on record with before double checking.

I guess what I was trying to say is that I can see an argument that with healthcare, the moral is that it is wrong for people to go untreated for ill health or have to pay large amounts of money they can't afford for treatment, the value system is thinking wider society should be set up in such that you can prevent that, and the facts are the numbers about the different ways one can go about getting closer to that system. Importance is a nebulous term, so I was just going by which ones comes prior there. Though I guess seeing that there is a problem, which ideally requires facts to establish the problem exists (e.g x number of people do not receive adequate treatment or at risk of not doing so due to the finances), comes prior to the moral reaction to the problem so...

Hence my 'probably more for a philosophy thread', since I wasn't even thinking about AOT in particular I just got prompted by a "facts vs morals" thought and went on my own little tangent there xD So basically, IGNORE ME

[Reelya]

We're getting into philosophy there however.

Facts are tagential to value systems, unless your value system is that lying is good. So it's apples and oranges in the first place. Maybe our value system is that we hang murderers. Is that more important than facts, such as whether you're guilty?

But my point was that whether it's ok to "gas the poor" to help the economy isn't a matter-of-facts question, it's a matter of whether you value the poor's lives vs the economic data, so it can't be presented as an example of a "facts vs morals" question. Facts are about what is true, values are about what is important. Something being important doesn't change whether it's true or not and vice-versa.

[MorleyDev]

If they aren't guilty, they aren't a murderer, so even in that moral system it's wrong to hang them

Facts are tagential to value systems, unless your value system is that lying is good.

I mean, that is the morals of the USAs current sitting president

But yeah, arguing either is more important is an odd thing to do since you need both in an effective system: Morals to define goals and limits, facts to identity problems and carry out more optimal actions.

[SalmonGod]

On the Amazon HQ issue, you also have to contend with the costs incurred locally by a spike in work and stress-related health problems and responding to an increase in mentally ill behaviors that follow from a prominent local employer having extremely toxic workplace policies and culture.