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Random shit only somewhat relevant to politics:
I was reading some shit about global warming and such. Basically by 2100 we're officially going to be dead center in the mass extinction. Right now it can be argued whether or not it's already started, but by 2100 it'll be official.

Here's some random shit about why we're not seeing such a drastic shift so far. When it comes to extinctions and such the most at risk species are small animals and large animals. Species of insects, amphibians are most susceptible and say elephants or whales are most susceptible. Anything between the size of a bird to the size of a cow isn't too susceptible but only if the individual species has something about it that makes them more likely to die; like how pandas are dying.

This is just a personal opinion, but I think what'll realistically happen is that the world won't get serious about climate change until it starts endangering the least susceptible size range. The reason being is that most people don't give a shit if a species of ants go extinct, but they will care if cute animals start to be endangered. This comment is probably going to be nega-bombed for this part, but I think the biggest extent at which we will globally fight climate change is by genetically altering all the cute animals and pretty plants to be far more hardy. It's easy to get money to save pandas, it's hard to get money to save spiders. It would be easy to get money to save pretty flowers, it would be hard to get money to save poison ivy.

Or terrible air and water quality along with increasingly scarce oil and coal will force ecological decisions.

Oklahoma police kill deaf man because he couldn't hear their commands.
According to the report, neighbors of the man tried to inform police that he is deaf.

Or neither.

Coal use has been steadily going down year by year, and the cascade is going to go down even further.

New technology is emerging that allows for deeper, more accessible, and wider access to harvesting oil. So there is going to plenty of oil to drill for yet longer.

With that in mind, there is a healthy growing demand for Electric Vehicles (EVs), as the technology around them is improving. On top of that, already a major car manufacturer, Volvo has made it clear that by 2019 they are going full electric.

China is the world's largest developer of solar, and is rapidly transforming it's energy grid to be a solar based one. Even vying to transform the Eurasian energy grid for solar that they will be largely supplying (a shrewd investment).

Consumer demand, markets, innovation. That's been the largest driving force of change in the US and around the world.

It's not that I don't think countries will try to reverse global warming and reverse pollution the problem is that a lot of countries won't be able to save animal species/afford to clean up pollution/etc because a lot of countries over the next hundred years are going to be going through absolute hell.

What I mean by this is that while yes countries that are less susceptible to economic problems due to global warming, such as the USA, European countries, Japan, etc, etc will clean up their pollution in the long run other countries shit is going to hit the fan. What I mean by this is that a while back a northern african country, I forgot which one it's the one that tore itself apart, after they ran out of oil they couldn't afford to import food or water anymore which led to famine which led to a civil war and the country is screwed.

The problem is that we've gone past the 2 degree Celsius marker for global warming. What I mean by this is that if with the amount of carbon we've pumped into the atmosphere by 2100 the global temperature would have only risen by 2 degrees Celsius it would have been totally possible to reverse global warming. Conservationists and such nowadays their goals are to try and keep the damage as little as possible.

I do think we'll eventually get serious about trying to mitigate the damages, but at the same time by the time we do get serious a lot of animal species are going to go extinct and a lot of people are going to die by then.

I guess what I'm getting at is that, while I don't think the world is going to have the absolute worst case scenario of a four degree Celsius increase in average global temperature, I do think the most realistic scenario is still pretty fucking bad. A lot of animal species are going to go extinct and a lot of people are going to die, but it's nowhere near a worst case scenario.

A four degree Celsius increase would actually endanger civilization as a whole, but fortunately that's HIGHLY unlikely to happen though.

It's also hyper speculated.
The progress towards renewable, eco-conservation, environmental clean up, is rapidly increasing year by year.

I know, but at the same time there's so much pollution in the world and so much carbon in the atmosphere that it's pretty obvious that we're not going to be able to fix everything in our lifetime. You're talking about removing hundreds of gigatons of pollution and hundreds of gigatons of carbon and hundreds of gigatons of trash and pollution.

To visualize that:

"But with future science blah blah blah"
The thing is that people confuse science with magic. Scientists are looking at engineering bacteria to digest harmful chemicals, oil spills, plastic trash, trash in the ocean, engineering phytoplankton with harder shells to withstand harsher seas, engineering plants to be able to use salt water so you can just farm with water directly from the oceans, etc BUT once we develop those things it's going to be fifty years until we start to see the damage done to the environment start reversing.

We probably will within our lifetime start annually having negative global carbon footprint but at the same point current CO2 levels are the highest it's been in 3 million years.

Tldr; humans can reverse global warming and clean the environment, but not in our lifetime. If someone says we can do it in our lifetime they're either insane or high on bath salts.

Turkey's dictator Erdogan once again has his security detail assault Americans on US soil.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump apologized to Erdogan for the assault of the Turkish leader's security crew on Americans a few months ago.

Weak!

>I know, but at the same time there’s so much pollution in the world and so much carbon in the atmosphere that it’s pretty obvious that we’re not going to be able to fix everything in our lifetime.

Indeterminate. The amount of innovation and technology that is being applied today is already having major impact n the output of pollution relative to the growing economies around the world. At a certain point, I would venture to say around by the mid 2030s, it would be far cheaper to use cleaner, sustainable and renewable resources than it is today.

>You’re talking about removing hundreds of gigatons of pollution and hundreds of gigatons of carbon and hundreds of gigatons of trash and pollution.

You don't actually need to remove the CO2 gas at all. It would be naturally dealt with by plant growth, and by the way, higher levels of CO2 gas aren't nearly as menacingly evil as high levels of Methane. Ever read about the Sahara Bloom? It is because of the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere that plants have better chances of survival, and the slightly warmer climate also means longer growing seasons. The best solutions would be to outright stop deforestation methods that aren't renewable, that aren't sustainable, like in Brazil. But such measures are already underway. In Peru, for example, the majority of trees are actually relatively young because of replanting efforts. And. In the United States, there are more trees today then there were during the colonial times. This is the right solutions, replanting forests, and sustaining those eco systems. This would be a natural way of reducing CO2 gas, without going over board.

>BUT once we develop those things it’s going to be fifty years until we start to see the damage done to the environment start reversing.

You do realize that there are some eco-friendly innovations that are actually have been already developed, and working right. Some are even being mass produced today. Yeah, there are great t hings on the horizon, and those things will come as they do, but there is already concentrated effort in reversing a lot of the damages done during the 20th century. So we get back to the question about our lifetimes. I'm 32, on average I'm going to live until 90, that's 58 years from today. I sincerely believe that by the time I am 90 a hell of a lot of eco-related issues would be well on their way to be reversed and solved, not to mention the science would be a hell of a lot more determinate than it is today regarding the offest.

>We probably will within our lifetime start annually having negative global carbon footprint but at the same point current CO2 levels are the highest it’s been in 3 million years.

Doubtful. At the rate that such technology is being developed and implimented it's highly probable that, barring some sort of global economic or diplomatic catastrophe, this trend will create real results faster than you think.

Also, I am far more concerned about pollution and trash than I am about CO2 emissions. Pollution and trash are ENGINEERING problems that can be solved with proper methodology, mechanisms, will, and resources, and are already being solved through numerous ways, mostly private.

Don't buy into the gloom and doom of what is being reported – there is a clear reason that they do it: it sells, it sells a lot, and it pushes people into action.

Instead, look around at all the damn good that is already happening and is happening, and think about creative ways that you can be part of the solution than the problem.

Since when is Erdogan a dictator? Just a quick reminder, a dictator=/=someone American politicians don't like.

Idunno; let's ask the kurds who constantly get attacked and persecuted?
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I thought of something while being about politics is more of general politics; you know how they describe political affiliation with that chart of authoritarian vs libertarian and left vs right? The reason why being authoritarian on social issues is genuinely stupid is that most social issues if you create a law against something often times it's unenforceable. What I mean by this is that countries like Iran currently they're going through bit of a social upheaval, cause they throw gay people off buildings, but how can you find out if someone is gay? It's a bit of a Schroedinger's gay paradox; unless you catch someone having sex with someone of the same sex from a evidence standpoint it's genuinely impossible to prove. The only way you can enforce such a law would be to make people scared shitless by having public executions and such but at the same time if you do such a thing it'll attract international attention which means that you could lose trade and be sanctioned against.

What I mean by this is that on social issues if a country wants to force people to follow their beliefs they have to resort to violence to make people afraid enough to follow their beliefs, but at the same time with how connected the world is becoming everyone in the world knows about what's going on and if everyone in the world can see what you're doing then that means you're going to lose money from either companies abroad cutting ties with you or sanctions against you.

To put it another way; once smartphones become used by the majority of the world's population it'll be incredibly hard for countries to be assholes and not face financial repercussions.

"Who watches the watchmen?"
The masses

American journalist and her mother were found murdered in Istanbul, Turkey. Murder tied to the Assad regime.

> Idunno; let’s ask the kurds who constantly get attacked and persecuted?

What does this have to do with anything? There were elections, he was rightly elected. If he has to wage wars, suppress separatist revolts, well, he will do it, but this doesn't qualify him as a dictator. He is a remarkably popular politician in Turkey.

@The rest of your post

The whole world knows about the Gulf states. Surprise, surprise – they're not losing any money. And they're not losing any money because sanctions never ever happen for humanitarian or any other noble reasons, only due to political considerations. The same way no one important has ever seriously cared about anything at all, human rights, hunger, global warming, you name it. Oh and the "masses" being angry about something is just hilarious. No one loses any sleep over your mighty internet activism.

Until you are convenient, you can do whatever you want to do, or be an asshole as much as you want to. The second political considerations change, well, you become dictator, the oppressor of millions. It has always been like that.

ahhh… So Trump came to my city yesterday so I joined the protesters (here are pictures I took if you are interested https://imgur.com/a/OJExq). I talked to some trump supporters and brought up russia hacking voting machines and they said it didn't actually happen. Guess what news story came out right after the protests?

State’s top election official confirms Russia attempted to meddle with Alabama’s voting systems
"A news release from Merrill’s office says that suspicious IP addresses were detected scanning activity in 27 states, resulting in potential incidents in 13 of those states."
http://whnt.com/2017/09/22/states-top-election-official-confirms-russia-attempted-to-meddle-with-alabamas-voting-systems/

Love how when stuff just sorta works out.

Oh, and Trump supporters are REALLY weird. Like, really weird. They started chanting "USA USA USA" because ? and then later telling the protesters to get a job?? what?? I genuinely didn't understand that one at all. At one point, one guy even shouted "No one on our side plays D&D!".
Its so weird. At least if the Trump supporters chanted "Trump" or "build the wall" it would make sense… but they obviously don't have much sense.

Florida Governor Rick Scott {R} deleted voicemail from nursing home w/dying patients.

Guys, you won't believe it, but Trump talked about his crowd size http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/trump_says_thousands_gather_ou.html and lied about it, of course.
A lot of people WERE turned away since the arena was overfilled (5,000 people), but thousands were not turned away. it was a few hundred at most.

Since there's such vigorous discussions about "disrespecting" the US Flag, here's a Twitter thread about the Flag Code.

People get really upset (and for some reason racist?) over a piece of fabric.

btw Merkel got reelected
just sayin'

Fun Fact:
The US Government might've been paying the NFL to include "standing for the National Anthem" in their events.

Can you really blame them though?

A lot of people in this country are very patriotic, so it'd make sense that they'd get pissed off when they feel like the symbol of the nation they love is getting disrespected. Yes, giant amounts of nationalism is bad, with examples of that leading to events like World Wars I and II, but I feel that literally none at all isn't that much better. And I feel this patriotism is at least partially warranted, because whether you're happy or not with the current American situation, you have to admit it's one of the better places to be. At least here you're not stoned to death for being gay like in several Middle Eastern countries or are jailed for saying radical political ideas like in North Korea or Russia.

Yes, those people have the right to not have to stand during the national anthem, or even attend it. Fuck, you can't even get in legal trouble for burning the flag, as we saw with the election riots. But these people here also have the right to get pissed off at them for doing that. If these people don't like what they're doing they still have the right to say "hey, I don't like what you're doing." Getting racist is another matter, but freedom of speech doesn't include freedom from consequence.

Also FYI on the flag conduct, most of those rules either are outdated or apply to using an actual flag to make the products, not just the design. I mean technically at every military funeral the U.S. military would be violating those rules because they're carrying the flag flat on a casket. Also it doesn't help that the guy literally points out that the rules say you should stand which means sitting isn't disrespectful, while saying you should do this and should do that for every other rule.

Patriotism is stupid and the fact people are more upset over a piece of fabric than the lives of actual people is pathetic.

>"At least here you’re not stoned to death for being gay like in several Middle Eastern countries or are jailed for saying radical political ideas like in North Korea or Russia."

Yea…. when you have to compare your country to countries like North Korea to prove that its a great place… its probably not doing that great.

The reason these people are pissed off is by disrespecting the flag, they are disrespecting those people who have died for them, along with every other facet of the nation. When you decide to disrespect the flag of a nation, you can't just pick and choose what part of the nation you are disrespecting. By disrespecting the flag, you disrespect the nation as a whole.

And you can't argue that these people aren't disrespecting it. They wouldn't do this if it didn't disrespect it.

While we're on the subject, since you were not that happy about the comparison I made, how about we do one that could be considered better, like Britain.

Well, Britain is currently facing a horrible immigrant crisis that is threatening to spark an ethnic war between the immigrants coming in with their own culture opposing that of the native people. And better yet, having any concerns over this can possibly get you arrested for "hate speech." For fuck's sake, acid attacks are becoming a commonplace event there now. Can't really say the same is currently happening in America right now.

I didn't say America was perfect (as evident by the great racial and class tensions in current society), but I will say that if I had to choose which country I was currently living in, I'd say America.

>The reason these people are pissed off is by disrespecting the flag

what a bunch of crybabies. Maybe they should actually get mad over the disrespect of actual people not some fabric.

> they are disrespecting those people who have died for them, along with every other facet of the nation.

No, they are not. They are showing disrespect toward the president because of his words.

>When you decide to disrespect the flag of a nation, you can’t just pick and choose what part of the nation you are disrespecting. By disrespecting the flag, you disrespect the nation as a whole.

What retard nonsense is this? I have no words. It is absolute nonsense. The idea you can either unconditionally love or hate a country.

>And you can’t argue that these people aren’t disrespecting it. They wouldn’t do this if it didn’t disrespect it.

Whats next? Yelling on twitter because someone disrespected their anime waifu? Get over it.

>I didn’t say America was perfect

OMG ARE YOU DISREPECTING AMERICA BY POINTING OUR FLAWS???

>but I will say that if I had to choose which country I was currently living in, I’d say America.

How brave

>The reason these people are pissed off is by disrespecting the flag,
You know what's really disrespectful to the US flag?
Flying the Confederate Flag instead, claiming "heritage".

poochyena said:

…hacking voting machines and they said it didn’t actually happen.

Which it didn't. Per your article:

This information shows Alabama’s system protections and preparations were successful in thwarting attempted hackers from breaching state networks and voting systems during the attacks.

And as for the general attack on the states.

In only a handful of states, including Illinois, did hackers actually penetrate computer systems, according to U.S. officials, and there is no evidence that hackers tampered with any voting machines.

@NFL
I don't know why everyone's mentioning the flag. The controversy's not over the flag or proper flag etiquette, it's over the national anthem. The NFL's really shooting themselves in the foot by taking Trump's bait. They should have kept their mouths shut and not made a big deal about another Trump tweet that would have been forgotten the next time him and Un engaged in a shitposting competition.

Instead, they do a press release, have the owners blab to the press, and have a bunch of protests at games to rile up the media. Next thing you know, handegg's become the next theater of the culture wars and has hemorrhaged 14% of their ratings over last year (which were already low) because people don't want to watch sports for political crap.

@xTSGx
>Which it didn’t.
wtf, you literally even quoted the sentence yourself
"In only a handful of states, including Illinois, did hackers actually penetrate computer systems, according to U.S. officials" So they DID hack the systems, its just unclear what exactly they did.

>They should have kept their mouths shut and not made a big deal about another Trump tweet that would have been forgotten

Hey how about we DON'T normalize this insane behavior by the president. The fact that THE PRESIDENT is attacking people and calling them to be fired for expressing their right to protest is absolutely disgusting and should not be normalized.

poochyena said:

Hey how about we DON’T normalize this insane behavior by the president. The fact that THE PRESIDENT is attacking people and calling them to be fired for expressing their right to protest is absolutely disgusting and should not be normalized.

Not only that, it's also a felony.

@poochyena

Conveniently leaving out the literal next part "and there is no evidence that hackers tampered with any voting machines."

penetrating computer systems isn't the same as penetrating the database that would keep track of this data. As the article continues to say there is no evidence that tampering took any place. Because maybe, the computers that were penetrated had nothing to do with the voting software, or anything to do with even whatever the electoral database software they use.

Additionally, the comment regarding patriotism.

You can be absolutely proud to be living in and contributing to a country and society that stresses certain values that we all recognize as good: individual liberties, rule of law, secularism. You can be proud of being able to shape and affect change in profound ways in this society. That's patriotism, that's being proud of your country because what your country stands for, and what it strives to achieve is somehow noble.

At the same time, you can be proud to also live in a country where you can make a massive and radical political statement without the fear of being put in jail.

It doesn't mean that the country is perfect, or that there isn't room for improvement, after all, being patriotic also means you so love your country you want it to improve.

It doesn't mean you also have to be a blind zealot to your country, without recognizing that there are also flaws (as there always are).

patriotism isn't stupid.

@poochyena
Basically what I'm getting here is your entire argument is "these crybabies need to just get over it" when it comes to these people disrespecting the flag.

Couldn't the same be said about Trump's tweets?

@Tyranid Warrior #1024649049375

Trump is president of the united states and is attacking people for expressing their rights. The flag is a piece of cloth. If someone showing disrespect to some fabric triggers you, then you have a sad life.

@Chewybunny

>Conveniently leaving out the literal next part “and there is no evidence that hackers tampered with any voting machines.”

I'm unsure what this and the next few lines are in response to exactly. None of what you say contradict what I said.

>Additionally, the comment regarding patriotism.

patriotism: having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support for one's country.

Patriotism is crossing the line of liking the country you like and treating your country like your favorite football team. I don't like the USA any more or less than most other first world countries. I don't understand why anyone would. It crosses the irrational line or "I was born here there for it must be the best!" similar to a football team.

@poochyena
You're naive to believe that the flag is merely a piece of fabric. It might be to you, but to many other people in America it's more than that. It's the symbol of the nation they care about and love. You're basically doing what you just accused Trump of doing, "attacking people for expressing their rights." Don't people have a right to show patriotism for their country? Would it then be right to mock them and call them crybabies when the symbol of the country they love is disrespected and they get mad over it?

@Tyranid Warrior #1024649049375
>to many other people in America it’s more than that. It’s the symbol of the nation they care about and love.

It is a symbol. It is also just a flag. It is just a symbol. It is just fabric. Just a bunch of snowflakes to get upset over it.

>You’re basically doing what you just accused Trump of doing, “attacking people for expressing their rights.”

I'm not the president of the country, and I'm calling people idiots for crying so much over a symbol, not calling people's 1st amendment right to be taken away or punished for expressing their right.

> Don’t people have a right to show patriotism for their country?

Yes, and I'm not threatening, nor have the power to, limit their rights The president is and does

I've strangely started to like Jesse Ventura in the past year or 2.

Video is from a year ago, but extremely relevant today.

I think my post got eaten.

So it turns out more than likely the Syria war will end in a stalemate. Now that the last major metaphorical fortress for ISIS has fallen the Kurds and the loyalists are rushing to push them out of the Euphrates. It's not that the war can't continue, rather that since Assad's forces control so few bridges across it they try to win completely trying to expand into Kurd territory would be extremely fucking hard. Battles to control bridges not already under your control are almost always extremely bloody battles.

The question is whether or not Assad is actually a madman.

Possibilities:
1)Stalemate
2)Another five years of war

In some non-US political news, Merkel's party won the most seats in the German election, although the far-right Alternative for Germany ate away a lot of her support. She'll now enter what's likely weeks or months of talks with the libertarians (Free Democratic) and greens (Green, duh) to form a coalition government since her previous partner, the Social Democrats, appear to not want one after also suffering big losses.

poochyena said:

So they DID hack the systems…

You said "brought up russia hacking voting machines and they said it didn’t actually happen." They are correct. Russia has not hacked any voting machine or tabulator in any state.

Hey how about we DON’T normalize this insane behavior by the president.

Here's a better idea: how about we don't turn every single thing into another front in the endless political war? You really want to not "normalize" (whatever that actually means) this stuff? Ignore it. It would have been another few tweets in the endless shitposts Trump does and a few lines in another crazy rally. It would have been nearly completely forgotten by Wednesday.

Instead, it gets front page articles in all the newspapers, gets talked about in all the news stations plus all the sports ones now, gets multiple KYM articles, etc. Tens of millions have heard of it and half think one side's right and half think the other side's right. It'll be referenced and talked about for weeks and months. If the NFL's rating continue to decline or increase, guess what'll be debated for a paragraph in the articles and comment sections? If there's some bullshit of some sort involving the NFL, guess what will no doubt be mentioned? It just becomes another normal part of the endless political war that modern society has formed.

It really reminds me of the "grab her by the pussy" comment. That would have completely sunk any other candidate. It would have imploded the Republican ticket. But because the media endlessly brought up every little controversy and tweet Trump made, it was just one more run of the mill thing that happened. His poll numbers only dropped three points after the story broke.

By generating hundreds of articles and debates trying not to normalize this stuff, all that's being accomplished is the creation of a new normal.

BrentD15 said:

… it’s also a felony.

No, it isn't. It says "takes or withholds, or offers or threatens to take or withhold, an official act." If Trump said "hold the RNC's convention (a "partisan political affiliation") at this stadium or I'll veto ("an official act") this law" then it would be violating 227. Asking supporters to boycott something is not an official act of the United States government nor could it likely be a "partisan political affiliation."

poochyena said:

…not calling people’s 1st amendment right to be taken away or punished for expressing their right.

The players 1st amendment rights' would not be taken away. The NFL is a private institution and, thus, can punish its employees for any speech or activity they deem inappropriate. In fact, they do it quite frequently.

@LurkerLurking
Turkey, Assad, and Iraq might team up in a bid to stop the Kurds. If their previous struggles for independence are anything to go by, it's sadly not likely any major power will come to their aid.

>Russia has not hacked any voting machine or tabulator in any state.

"“In only a handful of states, including Illinois, did hackers actually penetrate computer systems, according to U.S. officials""
hack:use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system.

"You really want to not “normalize” (whatever that actually means) this stuff? Ignore it."

Ignoring it is normalizing it. That is practically the definition of normalizing.

> It would have been another few tweets in the endless shitposts Trump does and a few lines in another crazy rally. It would have been nearly completely forgotten by Wednesday.

This is not ok at all what so ever. It should NOT be forgotten. Why do you think it should be? What pathetically low standard have you set for the president of the united states in which you can ignore threats of breaking the 1st amendment? Stop treating him like some nobody troll on twitter. Seriously, this site went nuts over gamergate, but doesn't care about things that ACTUALLY affect their lives?

>It really reminds me of the “grab her by the pussy” comment. That would have completely sunk any other candidate. It would have imploded the Republican ticket. But because the media endlessly brought up every little controversy and tweet Trump made, it was just one more run of the mill thing that happened.

Explain to me how it would have hurt trump more if everyone just ignored it.

>The players 1st amendment rights’ would not be taken away. The NFL is a private institution and, thus, can punish its employees for any speech or activity they deem inappropriate.

I'm sorry, was it the NFL that made this tweet? https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911655987857281024 Sure does look like the president's twitter page to me. The government calling people to be fired over protesting is the 2nd closest thing you can do to breaking the 1st amendment, right next to actually firing them yourself.

Russian operatives used Facebook to exploit divisive issues during 2016 election, including BLM and Muslims.

I can tell you know that it was more than just Facebook. Twitter, Tumblr, Grindr, you name it, they had their fingerprints all over it.

This is called non-linear warfare. You do this by exploiting your target country's domestic population. They sought to divide us to conquer us.
Then again, they already did have the framework laid down. They just took what was already there and weaponized it.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller may begin interviews with current & former White House staff members as early as later this week.

You know what I don't get? How communists for the last seventy years have claimed that the USA was "on the verge of a communist revolution". If you've been trying to turn a country to a different economic model for seventy fucking years I don't think you can say that it's "about to happen".

While yes I do agree that the USA is changing economically and governmentally we're becoming more of a technocracy than a communist country. Computers are more and more controlling the stock market and the everyday going on of businesses/the government on some levels. What I mean by this is that in say twenty years the most likely way the USA will end up is that CEOs of companies will do very little in actuality other than figureheads that collect money for their positions.

"But that's redistribution of wealth and therefore communism"
Not really; chances are there will still be CEOs worth hundreds of billions of dollars; the poor will still be poor and the wealthy will still be wealthy, politicians will still be corrupt; it's just that it'll be much harder for a company/congress to drastically fuck up.

Yeah companies and such will continue to fuck up, but at the same time if computers are handling the companies' finances it reduces the risk of bankruptcy.

In say twenty years if a company goes bankrupt in the USA or if there's another recession whoever fucked up would have intentionally done something malicious with the intent on causing havoc…. There are CEOs/government officials that do that sadly, cause whenever a company goes bankrupt or if there's a recession it is possible for a person of wealth to gain money off it.

2037 bankruptcy hearing;
"Wait so how the f did your company go bankrupt? The business-o-tron computer is genuinely infallible"
"Later bitches! I'm going to Cancun!"

It's not that I don't think there will be future recessions, depressions or businesses going bankrupt, rather that with computers' growing role in managing companies and such it would be apparent that it was a intentional act.

2037 hearing into a future recession;
"Wait so how the f did the recession happen? The government-o-tron computer is genuinely infallible"
"Fuck the poor!"

poochyena said:

hack:use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data in a system.

I'll say it one last time: Russia has not hacked voter machines or tabulators. They hacked voter systems (such as databases, administration computers, etc.).

Ignoring it is normalizing it. That is practically the definition of normalizing.

Actually, the definition is "bring or return to a normal state." What's more normal: having something become a regular part of a discussion or debate, or nobody even remembering it? I don't think you could consider Hermin Cain's 9 9 9 Plan as having been normalized because everyone forgot about it.

It should NOT be forgotten. Why do you think it should be?

Two reasons: 1) the more attention you give to this stuff, the more normal the behavior seems. The more it gets talked about, debated, embedded in the public's mind, the more it just becomes another regular part of the right vs left arguments. Your attempt to point out how outrageous and not normal this is just becomes another normal political debate.

2) It lessens the impact when some real shit happens. Every tweet and statement gets broken down, debated, hashtagged, etc. so people start to dismiss it as just more political crap that's ultimately pretty meaningless. When something big does actually happen (like the pussy grab comment), it's lost in the sea of all the minor things that have been inflated. It's a "boy who cried wolf" sort of thing.

Explain to me how it would have hurt trump more if everyone just ignored it.

It would have hurt Trump more if people had ignored the minor things (like his DNC Leak joke, the Mussilini retweet, etc.) instead of inflating them into much bigger things than they were. That caused people to be more dismissive and accepting of Trump's gaffs as just another normal part of his campaign.

The government calling people to be fired over protesting is the 2nd closest thing you can do to breaking the 1st amendment.

I'm glad you agree that players' first amendment rights would not be infringed if the NFL elected to punish them (which seems pretty unlikely at this stage).

>I’ll say it one last time: Russia has not hacked voter machines or tabulators. They hacked voter systems (such as databases, administration computers, etc.).

That is an incredibly minor distinction to nit pick.

> What’s more normal: having something become a regular part of a discussion or debate, or nobody even remembering it?

neither? Forgetting something has nothing to do with if something is normal or not. Only weird and abnormal things are discussed. You aren't going to get a news story about how Chick fil a didn't open on sunday. When something is ignored and not talked about it probably means it is normal.

>1) the more attention you give to this stuff, the more normal the behavior seems. The more it gets talked about, debated, embedded in the public’s mind, the more it just becomes another regular part of the right vs left arguments.

This is just so opposite to logic that I don't know how to respond. How do you possibly define not normal? Who is having debates over things everyone consider normal and common behavior?

> When something big does actually happen (like the pussy grab comment), it’s lost in the sea of all the minor things that have been inflated. It’s a “boy who cried wolf” sort of thing.

How are you possibly measuring what "something big" is? How are you predicting what the biggest thing is? Why should Trump not be held accountable for minor things he does just because he does bigger stuff?

>It would have hurt Trump more if people had ignored the minor things (like his DNC Leak joke, the Mussilini retweet, etc.)

None of that was minor. Stop acting like Trump is just some random nobody. Actually set the president of the united states to a higher standard than a street bum.

>I’m glad you agree that players’ first amendment rights would not be infringed if the NFL elected to punish them (which seems pretty unlikely at this stage).

did… did someone suggest otherwise?

FUCK GOP

In the 8 years Obama was in office he never caused any conflict, actually he ended US foreign conflicts.

And once a republican gets in office….. we are going back to war.

what a coincidence…..hmmmmmmmmm?

>In the 8 years Obama was in office he never caused any conflict, actually he ended US foreign conflicts.

Tell that to the 2014 Iraq intervention, tell lybia, syria and the everywhere else he subjected to bombing campaigns.

Right or wrong you may think his actions the man was definitely not a dove.

Besides the bombing campaigns, Obama's "red line" when it came to Syria was a massive blow to the US foreign policy and our perceived power projection. It forced Obama into a bad situation when the red line was indeed crossed and 1400 people perished to a sarin attack by Assad. The line in the sand was crossed, but the US failed to act – sent signals to the rest of the nation states in the region that are our allies, and some of our European allies like France which wanted the US to interject.

What's worse, is that the political reasoning for it was far less that the US was already war-weary and there was a bi-partisan opposition, and far-far-far more the fact that we were in the middle of negotiations with Iran, which threatened to stop negotiations if the US bombed Syria, it's ally in the region.

The signal was as clear as day: The current US administration is far more willing to cozy up to Iran, which are the enemies of our allies in the region (Arab gulf-states and Israel), than to enforce a geo-political position…at great costs.

This also signaled to Putin that the US would be weak on Syria, and he himself can intervene in the only ally Russia has in the region. And what a great geo-political victory that would be: Putin coming in cleaning up the mess the US is incapable of, and bringing peace to the region. On top of the fact that this is a great way for Russia to display to the US and the world it's current military power. On top of the fact that other regional powers could look unto Russia as backing up it's diplomatic ties with action rather than words.

President Obama may have been a decent President, despite me disagreeing with 80% of his policies. But his foreign policy during the second term was disastrous to say the least. And tbh, President Trump is slow on restoring it.

Your continuous insistence that the US is above the international law and that the said law could not even potentially be a reason (I know it wasn't) why Obama hasn't committed an act of military aggression against Syria is slightly infuriating.

First, from practical perspective the US is above most if not all international law. It is the US that is the ultimate enforcer of said law. And certain countries are too powerful to obey int. law.

Why does US, or other major super powers follow most of international law even though it doesn't have to? Diplomacy, and international perception.

However, Assad was breaking international law, the French and the British were totally behind US intervention, we had every justified cause to interceded in the name of humanitarianism, and enforce international law there. But we didn't. Because Obama desperately wanted to maintain negotiations with Iran, over enforcing what was a break in international law.

Of course the US is above international law. I don't have any illusions. It's like not wanting to be a pushover when you're a small insignificant country. Too bad – you will always be a pushover. That's not the point. Obviously super powers will never follow the law.

The point is, you would expect people to get mad about how things are going. You would expect marches, protests, shit like that. Instead we have idiots wearing vaginas protesting… what exactly were they protesting? Or even people like you outright defending blatant disregard for international law and war crimes. All while, for instance, Bush and other people responsible for the Iraq war are walking freely instead of sitting on a death row. At the very least, you wouldn't expect people to complain that more laws weren't broken and more blood wasn't spilled.

Only the UN can sanction any military action against sovereign states. Not the French, and not even the British.

> we had every justified cause to interceded in the name of humanitarianism

You always have a" justified cause in the name of humanitarianism" which always ends in a disaster. Political decisions are never made in the name of humanitarianism, to even suggest that is preposterous.

Acknowledging the practical reality and limitations of international law doesn't mean I somehow endorse international law to be broken. I absolutely have cynical and pessimistic outlook on international law, certainly, but that doesn't mean that I believe such law should be outright ignored. I don't hold idealistic views on international relations, just realistic.

You brought up the idea that the US, in 2013, would have been breaking international law by bombing Syria, when in fact it would have been enforcing international law on using chemical weapons. Not only that Obama would have gotten international support to intervene in Syria – to the exception of Russia and Iran, for obvious reasons. If you're going to complain about US breaking international law, at least bring up a better example.

>Only the UN can sanction any military action against sovereign states.

A) UN can't enforce anything. B) The UN has two permanent council members that out of politics refuse to cooperate with the US. C) The UN is a political tool, far more often than a legal forum of international diplomacy. D) it has no authority over the US Congress

>You always have a" justified cause in the name of humanitarianism" which always ends in a disaster.

Except in this case there was clear international law broken, and yeah it was humanitarian law i.e. using chemical weapons on your own citizens is a violation of international law.

>Political decisions are never made in the name of humanitarianism, to even suggest that is preposterous.

Except in the case in Syria, Kosovo, Operation Provide Comfort which saw to intervene and protect Northern Kurds from Iraq, and 2011 military intervention in Libya.