OT: Politics

[pbjosh]

There is a problem in that. The government basically told us to eat a high carb, low fat for decades. Almost exactly the opposite diet. Sugar was major filler for that.

Now to turn it all around?

[PBSteve]

Pretty much agreed - though, could you expand oh these? the reasoning behind it, I am not making an argument:

Pretty simple, there are larger barriers to work than the so-called "welfare trap".

Education should be pretty self-evident.

Apart from an arrest record, childcare and transportation are probably the two biggest barriers to work. Unless you're lucky or happen to live in a well-served city, you're probably looking at a couple hours to get halfway across any given city. A 4 hour commute and no way to afford someone to look after your kids kind of kills the whole notion of finding employment before you even start. And jobs aren't often located near poor neighborhoods (unless it's a factory dumping toxic shit into the local waterways).

There's a long history of financial institutions discriminating against people of color, discrimination of government subsidies for mortgages, and an intense history of homeowners associations explicitly writing discrimination into their covenants. In fact, the very notion of a homeowner's association was originally created for the explicit purpose of discrimination. Real estate deeds were often explicitly written to bar jews, blacks and other minorities from owning them - and the courts enforced such clauses - until the supreme court struck them down in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948). Classic government overreach.

It all adds up.

[Nobody]

I will throw my 2 cents in this. Now background on me, i lean more left on most issues. I do love firearms, know their purpose, but feel that their is ambiguity in the "right to bare arms", vs the "need to bare arms" as some have taken it. Alot of this is personal belief.

First identify the problems. We can grab some big ones quick, but there will be variations and complications.

Identifying where the problem lies is fundamental. Anything else will be bandaids, covering up any true problem, waiting to rear its ugly head. That what most, IMO politicians fear to lay blame at, whether it is ignorance, collusion or they do not care as they are only farsighted in what can get them to office and keep them there. You truly need a hatchetman that could stay the course of pandering from all sides, to fix problems. If you have to make hard or painful decisions, then do so. The truth will set it free. We have yet to see that happen.

We have a drug problem. A gang problem. And an ignorance of firearms in training and related issue.

In the small scope, let's deal with these. They can be tied together, but is that just a pretty package or are they all in cahoots with each other?

Suggested ways? Hmm... Normally I look at some of these.

The Drug problem.... I can't help but look at the Portugal Solution as a better way, and variant of that. It would reduce felons and our prison population. It would reduce the stigma of prison, which also feeds gangs and related 'street cred'.

1st, no one is making money from illegal substances, except drug companies still popping out pills and the cartels that deal in the heavy substances like cocaine, heroine, marijuana and the like. You can never stop the need for these.

Could total decriminalization help? It would certainly help those people caught in the cycle. It could move resources to places where it would help better. I do know that Vancouver has places where people may do their drugs, in an effort to stop disease, help overdoses and all the associated fallout from the drug culture.

But, in today's capitalistic world, who would gain from it, where is the money being made? Narcan truly saves people from overdoses, as do other aubstances that do help stop the drug cycle, like Ibogaine. Ibogaine is a real susbatance, that has been proven to get people off hard drugs in as little as one dose, yet it is not used. Why, because why fund a cure, when you make money treating it? Small studies shown that in rats (which are actually horrible test subjects compared to humans-we don't have much in biological commonality, but rats are cheap to use) that things like nasuea, dry mouth and vomiting. Much better than death or ling term killing of yourself. And why isn't this miracle drug even tested more? Because there is NO MONEY IN CURES!

It is easier to preacribe someone with a drug addiction methadone, or have them on pain management. They will have regular, steady doses of drugs to keep them there. They do not cure anything. They do not get you off drugs. No, they merely substitute one substance for another.

So you want to stop the need for drugs, find a way to cure greed...

The Gang problem? A lot of that has to do with drugs, but also the large volume of single moms. I have seen the problem where, because of the way it is structured, welfare benefits mothers who are not in a relationship, hence penalizing young, less educated families.

http://www.heritage.org/welfare/repo...at-do-about-it.

Here is a total cultural way of looking. It i feel, stems from a multitude of sins, from the hkusing market, welfare, and cultural bias. I feel the the people in gangs see it as a short cut and are rewarded for that, because they not only have good role models, but it is what is celebrated. Look at the celebrity. The fancy cars, the total disregard for speaking proper english, and the fact that living fast and trying to accumulate as much notority, money and fame as fast as they can because they see no other way.

Yes, the education system failed, the courts failed, the parents failed because they were never taught anything than what they had, which was nothing. There have been people that gotten out, but they are not celebrated. You want to be rid of gangs, get rid of their need for them. Stop what they feed on.

I think some welfare reform in this manner would help.

So the 4th or 5th generations of people living on the dole is not some indication of that? Welfare has it place. It was intended to be there for when people had nothing, but it was there till they were able to get reestablished in society, to be able to get off it. Put a mandatory time limit on it and you stop the generations of abuse of the system.

As for firearm training and related - I wish we could ask movies to show some sort of proper firearm safety, but that is unreasonable. The NRA is supposed to, and was formed to, provide firearm training and safety. I would like to see it focus on that more. I think a problem is a fear of firearms we have as a society, which is kind of irrational. It does't help the way they are glorified and at the same time, misunderstood.

Training should be mandatory, but that goes againt the "RIGHT" for them.

Hell, at an arcade some 10 years ago, there was a shooting game, where you had a pistol and shot bad guys. I actually saw someone turn the plastic "gangsta style". I so wanted to laugh at him. But i diegress...

Anyway, training is paramount. As one argument goes, you can kill easily with a shovel versus a pistol, but who needs training for a shovel, but it is a right to bare arms. But training gets in the way of ownership, it gets in the way of the right. But who is going to determine who gets it, who should receive it and what happens if they don't pass? Who would hold it, state or federal government? Cause that goes in the whole personal freedoms, having the government stay out of their homes, etc and so forth.

If the NRA is lax in providing training, they are at the forefront of making sure that the givernment stays out of things that could be useful. People hold the NRA is such high esteem, from having Chuck Heston as president to the long ties to firearms, but the NRA is not a non-profit organization. They wish to make money. They themselves keep the fight going because if there was no issues, why have the NRA around?they are in it for themselves, and as long as the dues are paid from the members, that is all they care about.

[Florypb505]

There is a problem in that. The government basically told us to eat a high carb, low fat for decades. Almost exactly the opposite diet. Sugar was major filler for that.

Now to turn it all around?

Yea turning it around is a first step even if it's kind of meaningless as a whole. I am for a sugar tax and a tax break for companies that make and sell food with less processing done to it as well.

I don't think the government should flat out try to ban something but try and help the healthier choices become affordable like the crap choices are and then make the crappy choices cost more to help turn people into a healthier eating style without forcing them.

[pbjosh]

Yea turning it around is a first step even if it's kind of meaningless as a whole. I am for a sugar tax and a tax break for companies that make and sell food with less processing done to it as well.

I don't think the government should flat out try to ban something but try and help the healthier choices become affordable like the crap choices are and then make the crappy choices cost more to help turn people into a healthier eating style without forcing them.

I just want to take the last sentence first: The government did do exactly that. They took 'science' and used it to justify a low fat, low protein diet. Michelle Obama was at the forefront of forcing us into 'healthier' diets for our kids. And it was under the guidance of a dietitian following government guidelines. This suggests we do exactly the same. (shoulders slump.)

ON THAT: I am fine with some tax changes, but more in the removal of subsidies for corn, ethanol and related, instead of taxing the population for a sugar tax. Right now sugar production would crash in the US if we did play around with the tax structure too much, we would lose to Brazil and other countries fairly quickly, and you would have a lot of angry farmers. It unfortunately reminds me of a comment in Accelerando about buggy whips. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...celerando.html (it is in the Lobsters chapter - and is a bit adult.)

To tackle this properly, we have to look at a full restructuring of a large portion of our farming - so much is dedicated to high carb food. But we shouldn't hold onto sacred things like the buggy whips industry when the automobile has started becoming popular. So the real work comes in retooling and retraining at the food production level, far more than tax. If not, you break the thing you need, right when you most need it.

[Unfated33]

Being able to change positions as better information comes to light is important. Anything less is illogical and unreasonable. Now, I don't know that Michelle Obama was at the forefront of any decision on diet, but if we have better information now, we should use it. Without worrying about what our sunk cost position previously was. And without throwing around blame about it, which just causes people on both sides to get further entrenched on why they are right and others are wrong. But in general, from previous discussions on global warming and here, I worry that the anti-science position you take obscures the ability to reason into better information and best positions.

But not to put you on the spot. Just to say that we should celebrate when people get better information and then change their minds because of it.

[pbjosh]

part from an arrest record, childcare and transportation are probably the two biggest barriers to work. Unless you're lucky or happen to live in a well-served city, you're probably looking at a couple hours to get halfway across any given city. A 4 hour commute and no way to afford someone to look after your kids kind of kills the whole notion of finding employment before you even start. And jobs aren't often located near poor neighborhoods (unless it's a factory dumping toxic shit into the local waterways).

I think, being a more tech savvy world, this is where automation can really come in handy. We can do far more work at home jobs than before. Remoting in can do 80% of the same work in some cases, while removing a large portion of burden of moving. In one situation I know of they use at home people to handle call centers, instead of having an office or anything. Or, again - this is why a 2 parent, 1 working parent with a bit of help would make more sense than a system where a coupled family loses benefits and that holds them back socially. With 5 kids at home I know rather emphatically just how much 2 parents is far superior to one, and we shouldn't stop supporting a structure like Nobody mentioned...

So the 4th or 5th generations of people living on the dole is not some indication of that? Welfare has it place. It was intended to be there for when people had nothing, but it was there till they were able to get reestablished in society, to be able to get off it. Put a mandatory time limit on it and you stop the generations of abuse of the system.

With a system that works well with a couple, you give the kids a huge advantage over a single parent.

[Florypb505]

I just want to take the last sentence first: The government did do exactly that. They took 'science' and used it to justify a low fat, low protein diet. Michelle Obama was at the forefront of forcing us into 'healthier' diets for our kids. And it was under the guidance of a dietitian following government guidelines. This suggests we do exactly the same. (shoulders slump.)

ON THAT: I am fine with some tax changes, but more in the removal of subsidies for corn, ethanol and related, instead of taxing the population for a sugar tax. Right now sugar production would crash in the US if we did play around with the tax structure too much, we would lose to Brazil and other countries fairly quickly, and you would have a lot of angry farmers. It unfortunately reminds me of a comment in Accelerando about buggy whips. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...celerando.html (it is in the Lobsters chapter - and is a bit adult.)

To tackle this properly, we have to look at a full restructuring of a large portion of our farming - so much is dedicated to high carb food. But we shouldn't hold onto sacred things like the buggy whips industry when the automobile has started becoming popular. So the real work comes in retooling and retraining at the food production level, far more than tax. If not, you break the thing you need, right when you most need it.

What I am saying in my last sentence is not to spend money on advertising but to use taxes to help adjust the price of foods that people buy. If sugary crap is expensive and healthier fresh fruit and such is cheaper then you can help swing consumer consumption without really telling people to eat healthier or banning things that a person should be able to buy, if they choose it.

I agree with you that to transition to a "healthier" model of eating we need to seriously look at farming and how to aid in the transition for farmers to start growing the proper products. I won't say I know much about farming or the struggles they endure so I wouldn't be much help on the subject to be honest.

[pbjosh]

But in general, from previous discussions on global warming and here, I worry that the anti-science position you take obscures the ability to reason into better information and best positions.

But not to put you on the spot. Just to say that we should celebrate when people get better information and then change their minds because of it.

My position is not anti-science. That is a mistake in reasoning on your part. My positions are contrarian, I am a skeptic, but the report I linked to by Michael Mann basically upheld EXACTLY what I have been saying for over 15 years. Michael Mann's work with proxies is why we had the Kyoto Accord, almost 20 years ago. I have stated for decades that the models run hot - and decades later those assertions I have held true also.

I am a researcher, I like knowing a subject. And on this subject, with admissions from Mann and otherwise, my skeptical position was correct and upheld. That being said, I tend to try out a contrarian position first to almost all claims, and if I find evidence I wait it out to see. In this case:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/an...05c15e2341159f

Even leading alarmist Ben Santer, lead author of a paper in Nature Geoscience, now admits the world isn't warming as predicted by global warming models. Even Michael Mann, who produced the infamous hockey stick, has put his name to this paper.

From the abstract:

In the early twenty-first century, satellite-derived tropospheric warming trends were generally smaller than trends estimated from a large multi-model ensemble.

The problem is the models on which the global warming scare is based were simply wrong:

We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.

I know the equation and the forcing and the amount in wm^2 that are in this paper. There is nothing that has contradicted my decades long position. Please, look back at where I said the issue was not the 200yo claims on CO2 warming, which is a strawman, but on the FORCING that is caused by the models using a 3X factor for water vapor.

The problem is one of generations. Science goes out, problems are seen, but it takes a generational change for them to evolve or change.

Science doesn't turn on a dime, but on a generation. Max Plank said:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

My position was and is correct, the problem is the generation hasn't caught up yet. People on here think just as Michael Mann did, based on his evidence actually, and he IS a leading climate scientist. That doesn't mean I am anti-science, quite the opposite, I just pivoted early. Mann and others are pivoting now. If anybody here would need to change their position, it wouldn't need to be me.

[pbjosh]

What I am saying in my last sentence is not to spend money on advertising but to use taxes to help adjust the price of foods that people buy. If sugary crap is expensive and healthier fresh fruit and such is cheaper then you can help swing consumer consumption without really telling people to eat healthier or banning things that a person should be able to buy, if they choose it.

This brings up a thought. Taxation as punishment. To control culture. I dislike it - while I know it works, it tends to burden those who are poor or make bad choices in general.

And it brings up a counter point: High taxes are used as a deterrent. To punish. To stop behavior.

Which begs the question: Why do some of you support high taxes on business? We have the highest Federal tax in the developed world. We are at 39.5%, where as everybody else in the OCED is lower. Canada is 25%, even China is 25%.

Then, if a US based business is doing business in China, we also tax them an extra 14.5%.

That is just punishing a business, as if they are doing something wrong. The US Government is acting as if it wants to stop the bad behavior of...business.

It seems very short sighted to me.