Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

Partly Big Energy...don't forget coal, Old Man...and partly a refusal to spend money in any manner that doesn't lead to making money, or restricts in any manner business from doing whatever the F it wants to do, damn the consequences.  It's why the EPA has been, if not gutted, at least cut well back.   They want to continue to wreck everything because it's the cheapest, fastest, and most profitable approach.  Oh, 25 years from now there's gonna be problems?  Well then it's not our problem now.  Sux to be them.

 

And heat-related deaths is only part of the issue.  Sea water surface temps rise, which promotes larger and stronger storms.  If low pressure fronts hit that hot, energetic air over land, tornadoes become stronger and more common.  Major hail, of the kind that flattens anything growing over multiple square miles.  More uplift creates larger thunderheads;  more energy means more severe lightning storms.

[Badger]

12 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Not trying to start a fight, just genuinely curious: Do people who believed in 2016 that President Hillary Clinton was no more palatable an alternative that President Donald Trump, still hold that view today?

 

Yes, I do believe she would have done more or less equally awful things, just in a different direction.  So, I don't regret my decision, if that is what you are asking.  

 

FOr what it is worth.

 

 

I knew 2017-2021 were going to be 4 awful years.  It's up to the Dems to buck up and not do anything stupid to make it 8.

[Badger]

11 hours ago, Starlord said:

As the economy goes, so goes the election in general.  Trump would be done if the economy had weakened, instead it's gotten stronger and stronger by all the standard measurable.  On average, I'd say people are tone deaf to his antics and rhetoric.  Doesn't help the Dems any that their only platform seems to be 'not-Trump' and the Clintons still seem to be their biggest voice.  Most of the media keeps telling me that they will crush the right in the midterms.  Ok.  I was told that 2 years ago as well.

 

I think in the 5 stages of grief that since 2016, the Dems have absolutely refused to reach acceptance.  The problem with that is they are focused on being "not-Trump" and cant move forward to solve that actual problem.  JUst because in 2016, I knew it would be 4 awful years, doesn't mean I want it stretched to 8.  But, the Dems do have to earn it.

[BoloOfEarth]

7 hours ago, Badger said:

 

Yes, I do believe she would have done more or less equally awful things, just in a different direction.  So, I don't regret my decision, if that is what you are asking. 

 

I disagree, based on the simple fact that she would have had to deal with a Republican-controlled Congress, and I'd bet big money they'd be even more opposed to her than they were to Obama.  And I doubt the midterm elections would have changed that majority - their base would have been energized to the nth degree with her in office.  Whether she was the Devil incarnate or the second coming of Christ, she wouldn't have been able to do much of anything. 

[Sociotard]

 

[Hermit]

Thank you, Sociotard. I may have just found a new voice on Youtube I can respect thanks to you

[Grailknight]

I'll second this.  I just watched  2 more of his videos and they both were as balanced and informative as this one.

[DShomshak]

15 hours ago, megaplayboy said:

It kinda amazes me that the worst case scenario for climate change is an increase of 5-6 degrees Celsius by 2100, and there's not even enough interest to spend even a night on it in cable news(apparently a ratings killer).  The last time average temps rose by 6 degrees Celsius was quite a while ago, in the Permian Era.  That, purely coincidentally I'm sure, was the worst extinction event in the history of the planet, with up to 95% of species being wiped out.  5-6 degrees is the level of increase that effectively puts a "?" next to "the future of humanity".  2 degrees isn't the standard prediction, it's the aspirational goal(actually some suggest trying for limiting it to +1.5, but that number will be hit by 2040, so there's not a hell of a lot of time).  We're currently on pace for +4, from what I understand.  That is uncomfortably close to that +5/6 apocalyptic hellscape threshold.  At +4 sea levels will rise faster than we can build against it(about a meter every 20 years, starting in 2100).  At +6, we're looking at melting everything by, say, 2400, raising sea level 200 feet.  

It's also notable that summer temps will go up by about double whatever the increase is, so at +6, you're looking at average summer temps going up by 10-12 C/20+ F.  That's a massive number of heat-related deaths.  

How did this get to be a partisan issue?  "We'd agree with the science, but, y'know, we're Republicans, so we can't."

A variety of reasons, I think. Or at least so I've heard.

 

I heard an interview with a scientist who's moonlights trying to explain climate science to Evangelicals; she considers herself devoutly Christian as well. She said that many Evangelicals see the whole environmental movement as pagan Earth Worship, so they disbelieve anything they associate with it.

 

I have also seen plenty of letters to the editor in my local newspaper from Christians who insist that humans cannot possibly change God's creation on such a scale.

 

If you admit that humans are so mighty, Evangelicals see this saying that God is not Almighty, and that is blasphemy. All within the broader context of the conflict between "Things happen because of natural law that doesn't care who you are or what you do" and "Things happen by the will of a God who cares a great deal who you are and what you do."

 

So if many Evangelicals see climate science as stealth paganism, there also seems to be a camp of conservatives (or libertarians who caucus with them) who see climate science as stealth Communism. It's all a ploy to undercut capitalism and impose a tyrannical World Government that will dictate everything you do and crush the heroic entrepreneur.

 

Again, there's an element of power struggle over who gets to be recognized as a social authority figure. Do a bunch of goddamn liberal ivory tower academic scientists get to tell rich successful captains of industry what to do? And there's a populist spin as well: Do those elite scientists get to say you can't have your SUV? Again, I've seen letters to the editor that angrily declare that "Nobody tells me what I can and can't drive or what light bulb I should use!"

 

There may be other camps within climate change denialism (besides the pure self-interest of the fossil fuel industry), but these are the two I've encountered.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Iuz the Evil]

 

Sums it up pretty well. 

[megaplayboy]

My only hope is that, as the symptoms/evidence mounts(and turns some skeptics into believers), and as electric cars and renewable energy gain in market share(and lobbying power), that there will be greater political equilibrium, a counterbalance to the forces opposing major action on climate change.  Already coal's share of the electricity market has dropped and wind and solar risen.  Tesla is set to produce 250,000 cars a year this year or next.  

[DShomshak]

Oh -- and I've encountered a few people who argued, "The world is so big and humans are so small. How can anything we do affect it?" This comes, I think, from an instinctive innumeracy held over from the 99.9% of human history when no community exceeded a few hundred people, and the total human population was in the millions. Look at the Earth from space at night, and you realize that seven billion of us (and rising fast) are no small thing.

 

As a further addendum, I don't doubt that some people on the left do use climate change as a screen for their own social/political/spiritual agendas. But that's not the fault of climatologists. And some people on the left show their own areas of science denial, for reasons that are just as irrational as anything on the right.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Scott Ruggels]

On 10/17/2018 at 10:37 AM, Lord Liaden said:

Not trying to start a fight, just genuinely curious: Do people who believed in 2016 that President Hillary Clinton was no more palatable an alternative that President Donald Trump, still hold that view today?

 

Was not entirely happy to vote for Trump at the time, as Ted Cruz was my candidate. At the time it was "Anyone But Hillary", for me.  Now I am actually pleased with Trump's accomplishments and policies. Living in SoCal, the thought of a wall, is real.

[archer]

On 10/17/2018 at 5:28 PM, Old Man said:

 

There's one party in particular that clearly does not consider all Americans to be "Us".

 

Don't keep us in suspense! Which party would that be?

[Pariah]

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Oh -- and I've encountered a few people who argued, "The world is so big and humans are so small. How can anything we do affect it?" 

 

I posted something on the Book of Face a few weeks ago to which one of my friends responded "Yeah, I don't think us puny humans can do anything to affect the Earth." To which I had to reply, "One puny human over the course of a single human life time? You're probably right. 12 or 15 or 20 billion humans over the course of two and a half or three centuries? You'd have to be crazy not to at least consider the possibility."

 

Human beings are notoriously bad at understanding really big numbers.

[Starlord]

[Old Man]

I don't understand.

[dmjalund]

16 hours ago, Pariah said:

Human beings are notoriously bad at understanding really big numbers.

 

10 hours ago, Starlord said:

 

[Starlord]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

I don't understand.

 

You're getting old.  

[Old Man]

More like you guys are too young to get my jokes, but that's okay.

[BoloOfEarth]

I got the joke, but then again, I'm old too.

[Cygnia]

 

https://www.kansas.com/news/business/article220286260.html

 

Quote

WICHITA, Kan.

Access to the ballot box in November will be more difficult for some people in Dodge City, where Hispanics now make up 60 percent of its population and have remade an iconic Wild West town that once was the destination of cowboys and buffalo hunters who frequented the Long Branch Saloon.

At a time when many rural towns are slowly dying, the arrival of two massive meatpacking plants boosted Dodge City’s economy and transformed its demographics as immigrants from Mexico and other countries flooded in to fill those jobs.

But the city located 160 miles (257 kilometers) west of Wichita has only one polling site for its 27,000 residents. Since 2002, the lone site was at the civic center just blocks from the local country club — in the wealthy, white part of town. For this November’s election, local officials have moved it outside the city limits to a facility more than a mile from the nearest bus stop, citing road construction that blocked the previous site.

“It is shocking that we only have one polling place, but that is only kind of scratching the surface of the problem,” said Johnny Dunlap, chairman of the Ford County Democratic Party. “On top of that, not only is it irrational and ridiculous that we have only one polling place, but Dodge City is one of the few minority majority cities in the state.”

 

 

[dmjalund]

Hey @Cygnia   - what’s with the vertical text?

[Cygnia]

I think I fixed it now...

[unclevlad]

On Hilary...

 

As early as summer 2015, I actually liked the thought of Trump winning the Republican nomination because I felt any Dem could beat him........EXCEPT Hilary.  She'd energize the Republicans, she was an easier target, she really doesn't come across well.  The last, I think, was the clincher...she was in fact a terrible campaigner.  Had she won, some things would be different but the gridlock in DC would have been horrific.  I suspect we'd be in a government shutdown right now, for example.

 

On the global warming, yeah.  It doesn't apply to all of them, but a good chunk of evangelicals simply turn their brains off.  The Bible holds all truth that matters;  their brains don't have shutters, they're tucked inside a neutronium shell.  

 

And yes, lots of people have no idea of the scale of things.  Like how the US burns, IIRC, about 20 MILLION gallons of gasoline every day.  They also don't understand how the system works...how little carbon there actually is, as a percentage of the atmosphere.  (I had a notion of a character who drew in and recombined the gases in the air, to make stuff like Kevlar, or creating a graphene-sheet armor.  On the one hand, all you need is carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen for a LOT of useful materials.  Turns out...to get 1 gram of carbon, you need 7 cubic meters of air.)  So it doesn't take that much to start messing things.  Plus, over the centuries, we've extensively altered the biosphere.  We've stripped the rich, complex old growth forests which had extraordinarly dense biospheres.  And this has happened on a scale of thousands, even tens of thousands of square miles.  So we have massive output of carbon that had been, by and large, locked in place for millenia, AND a reduced absorption capacity.

 

It's pessimistic to say this, but...the best case I can see is that the measures we're allowed to take are always a step shy of what's needed when they are allowed.  I simply don't think we'll bite the bullet hard enough to make the moves that will be needed.  And I do mean best case....because in all honesty, I think we're 2 steps shy of what's needed NOW.  The situation is only getting worse, and this at a time when we're even more divided than ever.

[Cygnia]

Ugh...

 

Trump Administration Is Considering New Rules to Flat Out Deny Transgender Identity