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Negatory

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Everything posted by Negatory

  1. Negatory
    This illustrates my point even more. If middle class people won’t do it, why would people who actually have no money? In my experience, unless you’re getting significantly better quality for the higher cost, people dgaf where things are produced. They’ll bitch and moan about China, but it is definitely not in the vast majority of American’s minds or capabilities to actually give a damn.
  2. Negatory
    I agree with everything you said except for this. Americans don’t actually have the excess money to make market choices based on ethics or feelings - they overwhelmingly must go with the cheapest option no matter what if they want a chance at “the American dream.” You can’t blame people that don’t have excess resources for not spending them.
  3. Negatory
    If you can’t address the content of the argument, you’re not really contributing.
  4. Negatory
    This assumes that everyone agrees taxes are inherently fair, and that once money is taxed it is 100% fair and yours. The fact that things like the top marginal tax rate have gone from percents in the 90s to the 20s just since WWII, along with the amount of crying on both sides when taxes change in either direction really makes it hard to believe that anyone really agrees with your premise that the amount of post-tax money you have is inherently fair, just, or ethical. And if people dont agree with that, then they won’t agree with your point that $1B was necessarily obtained in an acceptable way just because it was obtained. To highlight this, if you make $500 an hour working 80 hours a week with no breaks, it will only take you… 481 years to make $1B. Oh also, this assumes no inflation, because in reality 480 years of inflation would mean you would have only been making $1 an hour to start out. I don’t care if you like it or not, but this is why people can easily question the morality of what, basically, amounts to taking other people’s labor because it’s nigh impossible to make $1B without exploitation and stealing of labor value. Finally, would you ever enter a poker competition where you get a $10 chip and have to play against the guy with $50k to get to the second round? Because that’s what it’s like for a baby born on the streets who’s trying to get the same opportunities as your Nantucket example.
  5. Negatory
    The argument makes sense. Also, I’d like to point out its easier to hit a nerve here on Baseops than ever before, it seems. Here’s your founding fathers takes on inheritance. Spoilers: they didn’t believe in it. Adams: “A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.” Jefferson: “I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society.” More reading bemoaning this point: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/lexingtons-notebook/2010/10/14/you-cant-take-it-with-you And no, to the secondary argument, I NEVER even partially implied that the other things in the list of 10 marxist things were good just because there were some that made sense. But I did point out that lumping together 10 disparate ideas that don’t make sense together was ineffective.
  6. Negatory
    Random thought experiment to play devils advocate. Try to justify unbridled inheritance under the pretext that all men should be created equal - a decidedly American value. Not so easy, huh? Equality of opportunity, right? Inheritance doesn’t really translate to a meritocracy. Also, good luck trying to convince Americans that public schools, regulations on drinking water, improvement of soil, and abolition of child labor is bad just because a Marxist said it.
  7. Negatory
    You guys going ad hominem because you don’t want to address the root of the arguments is pathetic. Joking about Navs is funny is funny if it’s good hearted, you guys are honestly taking it too far and need to stfu. That’s from a fighter pilot, since it matters so much to you guys.
  8. Negatory
    No, I choose to get my data from a wide cohort of studies. I deliberately do NOT pick and choose. This included me looking very closely into things like hydroxychloriquine and mask usage. And when I find out that over 90% of them agree that one thing is more likely than the other, I go with that. Science is not some way to just pick and choose whatever you want while ignoring the other side. It’s humanity’s best method to settle emotional debates - like the one you are trying to have right now.
  9. Negatory
    This argument is the perfect justification for anti-Vax moms who believe, despite evidence, that vaccines cause autism. Because feelings matter more than data! You have to realize that the whole of science is not just a liberal propaganda machine. While you may be correct that some organizations are biased, it doesn’t invalidate properly conducted studies.
  10. Negatory
    On a side note, how do you have rational discussion about origination of a virus when you’re spending the majority of your time convincing 50% of Americans that the virus is even real or is killing people? Misinformation hurts productive discourse, that much we can agree on.
  11. Negatory
    There’s a lot of complaining here about liberal media not putting credence to potential lab leak theories. I agree with that assessment, but it’s not even close to a pure liberal media issue. You guys lose your credibility when you fail to point out that Fox/OAN did the exact same thing by blindly supporting bogus claims. How many times was the virus a hoax on Fox? How many times was it going to be no worse than the flu on Fox? How many times was hydroxychloriquine touted as a miracle cure on Fox? Unfortunately, there comes a point where you have to place credibility in one source and disregard others. There is not enough time in the day to sift through every assertion from both sides, and most people take the easy route: they trust one network or group more. Yes it does. This is a ridiculous assertion. GWB lying about WMDs, Clinton lying about BJs, Obama lying about tax cuts - they all are bad and matter. Trump being a terrible leader is a large reason why Jan 6 happened and why the nations Covid response was so stupid. Words mean things. Words from political leaders mean more. To assert otherwise is absurd.
  12. Negatory
    You have to understand that, for many voters, that is productive. You don’t have to like it, but that’s the honest truth.
  13. Negatory
    Just like the economy of 16-19 was something that Obama did, but Trump gets credit for? Aside from the failed tariffs, I suppose.
  14. Negatory
  15. Negatory
    CH, you can try to sit on your moral high horse and say Democrats are destroying the country. But you’re being super two faced about it, which I guess isn’t to be unexpected in today’s society. Where were you two months ago when republicans tried to put regulations on Twitter into the Covid relief bill? Oh yeah, you support that. Where were you last month when $1.375B of spending on the border wall was put into the Covid relief bill? Totally applicable, right? Anyways, if you haven’t watched it yet, recommend everyone checks out the Social Dilemma. Explains how technology has made it so we, as a society, only see what we want to see. It’s why I’m so sure you’re wrong and you’re so sure I’m wrong. Gives a strong case for civil war in the next 20 years, with really little recourse to bring us back to common ground. Really depressing if you’re into that sort of thing. Cheers!
  16. Negatory
    It’s short sighted. You can push the timeline back indefinitely and say that the science isn’t good enough or we need more research. When is science good enough? I don’t believe that’s a policy. We have already likely caused irreversible grievous harm to the long term climate. We likely had by 1990. How much more do we accept before we start doing something? What is your stance when you realize that virtually all scientists agree that renewables will never be more economically feasible than fossil fuels? No amount of science can come up with a perfect solution for the problem that we’re faced with, so I don’t believe waiting for science to magically come up with a perfect solution is a strategy. We have solutions that are ready to be developed and implemented now. Put another way, we can marginally improve our short term 5 year capabilities against China by upgrading our F-16s. That will keep us flying F-16s until 2050 at the cost of diverting funds from other research. The bad news is we’ll be f*cked in 10 years as we neglected the long term outlook. The truth is maybe we need to cancel those F-16 AESAs today, accept a short term capability loss, while diverting time and energy to future capes like NGAD. Also, the random side bar about how world leaders have to take jets to meetings is a distraction from the point of the conversation and not in line with the argument. No shit, leaders fly in airplanes to get places safely and quickly. I never saw you complaining about Trump taking Air Force One when he could have flown commercial.
  17. Negatory
    Long term, the pipeline would definitely be worse for the environment just due to economic incentives to keep using oil once a pipeline like that existed. Ill say it bluntly. If we want to do something about climate change, we have to stop developing oil and coal infrastructure in 2020. Put another way, the F-16 was great, but putting an AESA in its nose isn’t going to help us win against China nearly as much as 5th/6th Gen solutions. But, sure, the F-16 solution would be a helluva lot quicker and easier. I get the feeling that doing something about climate change really isn’t near the top of your list of policies. The keystone pipeline would further entrench us in the usage of low quality oil for decades, which is extremely counterproductive to any long term modernization. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/tar-sands-climate-impacts-IB.pdf Also, your statement assumes the only way the American economy continues is by using the exact same amount of oil in the future. The Biden administration also strongly is pushing for the electrification of the majority of cars by 2030, reducing dependence on oil and negating most of your point. It’s a short term loss for a long term gain. I’m curious, you say you recognize that climate change is real and you aren’t a denier. What, then, is your strategy for climate change? Or are you more aligned with Tucker Carlson here, who totally “believes” in the science?
  18. Negatory
    Hopefully this isn't pedantic, but it's 2.5 x monthly base pay, not annual. Amounts to a ballpark 20k.
  19. Negatory
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/martin-gugino-buffalo-police-charges-dismissed_n_60269ba1c5b6d667582c4804 This is absurd and part of why aspects of the BLM protests were totally legitimate. I mean. It's on video for god's sake. Police should not be allowed to inflict grievous bodily harm whenever they want to without being held accountable. Cases like these show that reform is absolutely warranted and needed. And what should people do when the system doesn't change and protects itself?
  20. Negatory
    Yeah, so it’s a 20% loss straight up, and market matching makes up part of it to result in closer to 5-10% assuming all goes well.
  21. Negatory
    I mean, in reality, BRS is only a loss of 5-10% if you get the match (and the market works as per normal).
  22. Negatory
    Yeah, I get where you’re coming from but count me as a skeptic. Where some see security and beauty, I see an imperfect technology that didn’t fulfill its original vision with significantly better alternatives (personally, for example, I believe eth will eclipse BTC in market cap in the next few years). It will be interesting to see if they can actually make second layer things like lightning network make sense or complete their rebranding to digital gold.
  23. Negatory
    Entirely untrue. ADA, BCH, BNB, XRP, LTC, LINK, XLM. All have fixed max supplies, and those are just the top 10. There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies with similar structures to BTC. BTC is actually still in the process of inflation, by the way, with 18.6M currently mined and 2.4M still to be produced in the future. On a side note, tons of people - myself included - hate BTC when compared to many other cryptos. Originally envisioned as “peer to peer cash” that wouldn’t require a bank, it now takes at least 10 minutes to send most transactions and costs $20 regardless of how much you’re sending. Sending $10 to your bro? That will be $30. Oh, also, the energy costs are INSANE and entirely unsustainable, but that’s another topic. Elon Musk investing in BTC actually convinced me that it really is dumb money that makes the world go round. But if Tesla can exist with a P/E ratio of 1300, there’s apparently a lot of dumb money. People will pump whatever the mainstream media will talk about. And now that people on BO are speculating about BTC, it’s probably getting close to time to sell. Another fun fact: it takes approximately 4 times more energy to send a BTC transaction over the network than it does to charge a Tesla. Source: have a pretty wide crypto “portfolio” and have for years. Was invested in BTC but am ENTIRELY divested from it for the last 4 years. Still made a little over 1100% this year on crypto currencies that aren’t so useless.
  24. Negatory
    I think we’re being baited. Masterfully.
  25. Negatory
    The hypothesis was that Republicans and Democrats have a difference in the likelihood to be vaccinated. JimNTexas accurately showed that historically, as recently as 2015, there’s been little difference. Unfortunately, polls this year show that this is no longer the case. Republicans are clearly less likely to say they’ll get vaccinated for COVID-19. You show up and say that this is meaningless because they didn’t ask every American why they answered a specific question, ignoring the fact that that is entirely unrelated to the debate:
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