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Comment Re:Actual critical thinking? (Score 1) 224

Well that was predictable. It really doesn't matter what I say, as this is just distraction. You quibble over things that don't matter or misconceptions that got corrected and ignore everything that proves you wrong. What did any of your comment have to do with what the majority of the left believes? As I said, you can always find people on the fringe, so what.

Comment Re:Actual critical thinking? (Score 1) 224

So let's see how you list stacks up for the majority of the left.

- The inflation is "temporary" and "small".

The US did a great job controlling inflation compared to other countries. And it was temporary.

- The Steele Report is credible.

Very few on the left read the Steele Report. It was mostly a meme for pee pee jokes. As for the courts, it was one of many pieces of evidence they used to get warrants. Given the number of Trump people convicted of working with the Russians, the warrants were justified.

- The laptop is a Russian plant.

This was initial speculation by some in the intelligence community that got pushed by 24/7 news channels. People on the left quickly accepted that it was real once the details came out. Notice how this is different than the right who still think the laptop of Biden's son is a big deal. There was nothing incriminating against Joe Biden on that laptop.

- The lab leak theory is propaganda.

There was a lot of debate on this. Most on the left decided it's unknown. Of course there were lots of different lab leak theories that went from accidental to intentional attack. Most agree the attack theory is nonsense.

- Opposing long term lockdowns is unscientific.

People on the left are willing to treat it as scientific, but science requires logic and evidence. Unfortunately/fortunately, pandemics are rare...

- Biden is fully mentally competent.

The vast majority who saw the debate realized he had lost too many steps. The administration did a good job hiding it, but pivoted when the public found out. If anything, it is a positive for the majority of the left.

- Defunding police is a great idea.

The left promotes moving money to focused efforts to helping communities instead of having police do those jobs poorly. You're just parroting talking points that misrepresent positions.

- The GF riots were "mostly peaceful".

The majority of the left knows these protests had a lot of violence and many people died.

- Judging by identity instead of merit is democratic.

This is getting laughable.

- Extremely adult books in grades schools are appropriate.

Again, no, but I guess it depends on what you define as adult. Probably boils down to fear of anything gay.

- The majority of Black Americans support defunding, oppose school choice, oppose VoterID, and support illegal immigration.

I don't know what this means. I guess it means that the left thinks most Black Americans are on the left, which is true. And then the logic is they must therefore agree with the nonsense you posted above which is nonsense.

Comment Re:Actual critical thinking? (Score 1) 224

To smear moderate democrats with these folks would be ACTUAL strawmanning, but to show the far left and far right have similar totalitarian goals? Thatâ(TM)s sanity.

Sure anybody can find a small fraction of the left who support all kinds of crazy stuff. The problem is the majority of the right supports crazy, and they are in power.

Comment Re:China and India (Score 1) 110

China is a country that can be divided into two sections - a huge number of poor that make 1% of the C02 and the elite, that make far MORE coal than the average western person.

I'm sure this is true for many countries. Personally, I think it's reasonable to "judge" people on CO2 output and judge a country on the policies it uses to lower those emissions. This means per capita is a useful metric for how well those policies are doing.

You should not get a free pass for your elite because you mistreat your poor.

It's a separate issue on how they get their average such much lower than the US. The goal is to get it lower and they are currently much lower. In many ways, they are still a developing nation, and one can be concerned about the future, but I not willing to blame them for an unknown future particularly when they are making strong moves towards renewable energy.

China is the world's largest emitter in total. They produce 35% of the total carbon emissions. Merely because you also have a bunch of poor people doing nothing does not excuse you abusing the crap out of the atmosphere.

So here you go back to using an obviously bad metric. They have over four times the population of the US. This metric really amounts to saying they have too many people, but that's a ridiculous argument.

However, your other metric based on GDP is interesting. Particularly given their CO2 per dollar GDP is twice the US and that coal has roughly twice the CO2 per unit energy as gas. It also takes into account China's manufacturing for the rest of the world since that's part of their GDP.

However, many simple arguments are misleading. I'd like to see real research on this topic. It smells a little like a think tank pivot point for the energy industry. They want us to blame China, so we do less to impact their profits. Do you have an citations where they actually consider the details to support this metric?

Comment Re:Human on the loop required (Score 1) 144

If you have humans double-checking your AI, then you don't save money. Never gonna happen.

Depends on what the AI is doing. If it's predicting a rare event, then humans double checking for that event can be inexpensive. You calibrate the model so that it has a small positive rate on a hold out set and then have humans check the live positives. Since it's a rare event, there are only a "small" number of images to check. If the false positive rate is too high, then you are checking like crazy and you need to fix/recalibrate your model. Notice the humans ignore all the events that system predicts as negative.

Comment Re:Study California, Florida, and Louisiana (Score 1) 144

This (probably intentionally) echoes the Critical Theory pedagogy fad that claims standardized tests are racist and âoegamedâ - but this is a fad which, in reality, many California schools ascribe (one example among many: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Fcalifo... [latimes.com]) not Florida.

I think you misunderstood. It's not the actual test that would be gamed but the administration of the test. Only a random sample of students is tested from each school and some schools might not participate. One could use this to bias the results though the NCES tries to control for it.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnces.ed.gov%2Fnationsrep...

I was actually quite impressed that Florida was doing so well given the perception that their schools are so bad. I just happened to talk to retired teacher after reading those post, and they mentioned that the test could be "gamed", so I looked it up.

If the Florida results holdup, other states should follow their example. However, before investing in such an overhaul, it should be studied and confirmed. Note, I have no proof they are gaming the test administration, but Florida does have a history of similar shenanigans.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimate.law.columbia.e...

Personally, I think there is something to your claims. It's just so dramatic that it needs to be confirmed. Even if they are bending the rules a bit, there probably is some merit to their strategy.

Comment Re:Study California, Florida, and Louisiana (Score 1) 144

In the meantime Florida, which has foregone the above approaches, ranks around the top 5 in K-12 per the NAEP rankings, and number 1 per U.S. News.

Unfortunately the NAEP can be gamed since they sample from schools. Given the track record of states like Florida with things like covid, it's plausible they would do this. Personally, I think the strategies you mention would be effective, but I'd like to see some real research to back up this surprising result. But this is unlikely in the near future...

Comment Re: Why people voted for Trump (Score 1) 264

The way I see it, Republicans try to minimize the average unhappiness, while Democrats try to minimize the maximum unhappiness. So Republicans focus on majorities and Democrats focus on minorities as a result.

Maybe that is their public facing position. Both parties are aligned with helping corporations (you need money to win elections), so it's sometime hard to see a substantial difference. The side project of the Democrats is to help the marginalized while the Republicans are all in with the corporations/rich.

It helps to have the corrupt media machine that Roger Ailes helped create. This allows Republicans to lie with little push back from their core base, though there are limits in terms of how far they can go. You can see the beginnings in the Nixon memo. He learned from his failures and created something that lasted passed his death. Social media has just amplified the problem.

Comment Re:So many things that contribute to this (Score 1) 215

It is sadly true that the left wing side of the country is every bit as intolerant as the far right wing. They are one coin, with two different sides. Not identical, but far left and far right are consumed by their core values.

OK, but the size of the far left is much smaller than the size of the far right. You are basically comparing a fringe, which always exists, to a sizable chunk of the current Republican party. Just because conservative media makes a stink about them and their twitter posts doesn't mean they are truly significant.

Comment Re:Don't worry, when Trump finds out... (Score 1) 209

So I return to my original statement. If I routinely provided my employer with inaccurate, unreliable reporting I would get fired too.

It's this kind of rationalizing that is the problem. You have no idea how the report is created or how it is updated. Instead, you focus on a naive argument based on how your job works. Why do you spend so much time typing this stuff instead of just looking it up? Why do you defend Trump by imagining an justification for him instead of just listening to what he says?

Comment Re:Don't worry, when Trump finds out... (Score 2) 209

Please remind me of the last time we received a jobs report that did not get revised significantly.

They always get revised. This was a big revision, but it's just following a process and is not cooking the books. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Fb...

What's more problematic is Trump lying about it. This and his new choice have people concerned he will start cooking the books. These types of games will destroy our economy.

Comment Re:"Harmful" response? (Score 1) 76

Nope. The bullet would be causing harm. Just think about it. If you tell the killer, "please kill this SOAB" or "Do you job now" or "Shoot him", the result will be the same. However, the words are all different. So, which of these words are causing harm? Which are more harmful?

Just a head up, don't try this in court. You will get a life sentence.

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