Ten oz
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Everything posted by Ten oz
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We know they believed they were meeting with people who represented the Russian Gov't and that Russia was interested in helping them. Does it matter what info actually changed hands? Also, Trump and his people have repeatedly denied such things ever happened at all. Only when caught red handed did Flynn fess up, did Sessions fess up, and etc. At that they downplay events while confessing despite months worth of denial and lies. It is safe to assume this lone meeting of Don Jr, Kushner, and Manafort wasn't the only contact. Just as it was safe to assume Flynns phone call wasn't the only contact or that Sessions meeting during the RNC wasn't the only meeting. We now have a clear pattern where several bouts of vehement denials have been proven to be lies. As for what Trump himselfs knows vs what his team knows, he refuses to say. Trump still refuses to say whether or not he accepts that Russia interfered in the election. Even as his Sec of Defense, U.N. Ambassador, Sec. of State, VP, and etc make public statement after public statement that it was absolutely Russia Trump continues hedge and play stupid. The man is the President of the United States of America for goodness sakes. Plausible deniability via omission really shouldn't apply; not when the actions of his people are public. He is either in charge and capable of managing his team or too incompetent and as such totally compromised. We know for 100% he knows now and what is he doing about it? Kushner is still in the WH and his wife just sat in for Trump at the G20 for meetings with world leaders. As for Don Jr. he is receiving tweets of support from POTUS. If somehow or someway Trump wasn't aware at the time his current actions show that he wouldn't have cared. He is implicit to his teams actions. Jeff Sessions was caught on tape lying to the Senate still is Trump's Attorney General. Kushner falsifying his clearance formhas been know for a couple month now and nothing has been done. It is absurd to offer Trump the alibi of not knowing things at the time when he does absolutely nothing in realtime when those things come to light.
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It is only a crime if something valuable is exchanged? Many of undercover narcotics and prostitution police officers arrest people on solicitation alone. Terrorists have been arrested for planning to commit acts. Intent was there and that is what's necessary to prove a crime. As for whether or not Trump personally knew; it is his campaign, his staff, and his relatives. People he is still leaning on to handle matters for him now. Trump himself is on record saying he fired Comey to make the investigation go away. Back when Watergate went down Nixon legitimately knew nothing about it but was impeached for trying to make it go away once he learned. Additionally Nixon won the popular vote by 18 million in that Election as opposed to lost it by 3 million. So claims that the illegal behavior by the campaign made no difference were more clear.
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Now that it is indisputable that the Trump campaign sought Russia's help to get illegally obtained material with the belief that Russia want to help Trump win can we all agree Trump has obstructed justice in the investigation into such matters? Part of the denial of Trump's obstruction of justice was based in the notion that there was no initial violation to obstruct justice with regards to. Seems Don Jr has confirm both the collusion and obstruction of justice simultaneously.
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Jr is his own words admits to attending a meeting with Russian agent for the specific purpose of receiving help for his father. Kushner and Manafort were with him. Trump himself continued to use the hacked material, direct his supporters to the material, and "joke" about wishing Russia would hack do more hacking for months after being privately briefed that Russia was behind it and interfering with the election. Alone just based on those 2 things we know Trump's campaign solicted Russia for help and was implicit in distributing Russia's illegally obtained material. What people are really saying when that fain no evidence is that they simply do not care. Saying "no evidence" is equal to saying "so what" at this point.
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Are we Living Inside a Simulated Universe?
Ten oz replied to Simulated Science Guy's topic in General Philosophy
Maybe, but is there any reason to assume it is? If it were I not sure it would matter unless there were a way for us to exist and interact beyond it. I also am not sure free will exists beyond our own conception of it or that it requires greater than noraml amounts of "brain-power" simulation or not. -
"President Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., admitted Sunday to meeting last summer with a Russian attorney because she "might have information helpful to" his father's campaign. The meeting was first reported by the New York Times and occurred just weeks after Trump secured the GOP nomination. It was also attended by Trump's then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who would later briefly serve as campaign manager, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who now serves as a White House senior adviser." http://www.npr.org/2017/07/09/536345533/trump-son-admits-to-meeting-russian-lawyer-with-offer-of-helpful-info-for-campai
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No one believes the wall will get built. It is and was symbolic. Discussing it provides millions the platform to scratch the itch they have to demagogue immigrants. Trump's wall has already delivered on everything most of his supporters of it wanted. The bullying we see at school of minorities, the increased negative visceral we see posted on social media, Trump great wall has already given millions more than they ever hoped it would. Already been a huge, huge, huge win. I think those of us participating in this side discussion about disinformation and liars need to find a way to circle it back around to taxation. I don't want to hijack the thread. My initial point was that in a democracy where different views are represented within the govt money collect from taxes will inevitably end up going towards things many disapprove of. I don't want one dollar spent on private prisons yet billions are. I don't blame taxation I blame bad politics and bad voters.
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I posted that machines do not and cannot. I mean that as a reference to the here and now. I am not implying they never will. The camparison made was a fly to laptop and not theoretical AI tech. I personnally do believe conscious machines will eventual exist.
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Yep, not everything a person wants and every choice a person makes is reasonable.People often knowingly vote against the greater good if they think doing so may scratch some personal inch they have.
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Yes and they do so sober and self aware. Not as confused victim of misinformation or lies.
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I agree with th elast part of your post but not the highlighted portion. A fly is a product of natural biology. Every individual fly must survive independently and be successful enough to reproduce. A fly grows to be and lives 100% autonomously. They have been doing so for millions of generations. Your laptap is not autonomous and does nothing independently. Even machines we (humans) build to mimic autonomous behavior do not have the ability to grow, develop, adapt, change, and etc as a fly does. People absolutely project magical properties on to consciousness in my opinion. One error is separating the mind from the body. The two are one in the same in that both are required for awareness of any kind. As such an man made device, even one designed to be autonomous, cannot oversee their own physical changes, reproduction, and adaptation.
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Exactly, I just don't understand the attitude that if Hillary had just wore different shades of lipstick or what that people would have voted for her. Additionally people with that attitude insist that the candidate with millions more votes was the one with a popularity problem. It makes no sense.
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People not being aware of their options isn't what is happening. People willfully elect liars. We just saw the clearest example of it. People in this very forum argued that Trump was a liar and incompetent then went out and voted for him anyway. You cannot tell me they were simply victims of misinformation. They weren't. And it is hardly just those who voted for Trump. The same is true for all the people we see, using this forum as an example, who acknowledge climate change but then still support politicians who don't. It simply isn't true that liars and fakes get elected because people don't know better. People do know better and do it anyway. It is a regular part of life. Only is a perfect world amongst perfect people can we really blame lack of knowledge for people bad choices. It is like when people down play horrors of history by excusing peoples behavior by saying that is just how things were then. People attempt to imply people just didn't know slavery of bad or abusing women was bad. People knew.
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Which is my point. The needed course correction here is with voters.
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And what if you chose to do this over and over and over? At what point is it your own fault for continuing to chose me to represent you?
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People keep saying this but I don't think it is true at all. Hillary Clinton received the second most votes for any Presidential candidate in history. Only Obama in 08' received more. For some perspective Hillary Clinton received nearly 7 million more votes in 16' than John Kerry and Al Gore did in 04' & 00'. Meanwhile Trump only received about 800k more than Bush did in 04' and just 2 million more than 00'. Hillary Clinton did not shrink the base or receive less votes than was expected. Hillary Clinton received 3 million more votes than Trump yet is called a "lousy campaingner" and Trump is celebrated as "clever" based on the outcome alone. It makes no sense to me because it is unprecedented in history what happened. In my opinion the failures were logistical on the ground level and not with Clintons "first grade teacher" look. Repblicans do a better job identifying pockets which will vote against them and making it inconvenient as possible for those people to vote. In many cases how easy it is to get registered and vote in more important than the pageantry. Groups that have to traverse greater distances and wait in longer lines tend to have lower turnout percentages regardless of the appeal of the candidates.
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There are certian projects that only the government is the customer for and as such no cost comparison for what those projects would have cost a private customer. No private customer has commissioned a nuclear aircraft carrier or multi thousand miles of interstate. Maybe costs would be less but that is purely theoretical. In my experience it is an exaggeration when people say everything costs the govt more. It all depends on the context. The govt is the only purchaser of various things. Separately private projects have cost overages and deadline failure too. A personal example, I purchase a condo during construction that was due to be completed and ready to live in by June of 2016 but that didn't happen. I wasn't able to move in till March of this year. The builders fell behind. If it was a govt build than we'd be calculating in the costs of housing everyone elsewhere for those 10 months and the whole project would be way over budget. I am not saying waste doesn't happen, it does. My point is there is waste in everything. Countless private companies have failed to thrive or folded because of bad deals and waste too. Government spending is not somehow inferior or worse.
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If freely elected officials make these deals is it still a rip-off? While I hating seeing govt money exploited by wealthy contractors other people hate seeing food stamps given to families in need. There are tens of millions of voters which would rather see govt money be spent on bloated arms deals than healthcare. Sadly enough people support the military industrial complex and our criminal justice industrial complex that their advocates successfully win elections. So popular are those institutions that no successful politician I can think of here in the U.S. campaigns outright on cutting either. The lanuage is a little different on each end of the spectrum but the common message is always bigger, stronger, and privatization will or could help accomplish X, Y, and Z. We have the govt we elect. It is that simply. Trump bragged that not paying taxes makes him smart and that he planned to significantly increase military spending and wants to privatize many more prisons and schools. Not just Trump but Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and etc. There is a segment of our (USA) population, a large segment, that simply doesn't care. They rather see contractors get rich than see a single person exploit a social program. Better to give billions to Academi (formerly known as Black Water) than see a single person exploit food stamps by using them to buy cigarettes or whatever. It is voters who must change. It is voters who are currently to blame for the govt they have.
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I use to but no longer believe that. Between forums like this, Facebook, Twitter, and people I personally know I witnessed hundreds of people who voted for Donald Trump despite having acknowledged he should not be President for a long list of reasons. People who insisted prior to him winning the party nomination they'd never support him yet fell right in line once he did. Put who openly acknowledge every policy position he had was a lie. They Supported him not because they were misinformed or bought into his lies but for other more absurd and less excusable reasons. Sure there is corporate media bias and all that but in my opinion uniformed people have themselves to blame. They abdicate there responsibility to society. In 2017 with the internet people have 24/7 access to facts and information. Society has never had more access to the truth than it does today. I can't blame corperations for people not taking things like climate change serious. Plenty of quality info is out there. Many people, at the individual level, simply do not care. Yes, there are country in this world which do a better job servicing their people but those countries tend to be less diverse enthically and religiously. Societies that have things which divide identity tend to always have a punitive wing or group, typically calling themselves conservatitive, within their governments. The need to punish and cast out identities differfent from there own become top priorities for members of that wing. Whether is it Sunni vs Shiite, White vs Black, Muslim vs Jew, Christian vs Muslim, or etc those petty identity wedges take precedence in the hearts of millions. Create attitudes where people rather burn the whole place down than see it changed. And that spirit long pre-dates corporatism.
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Aren't these problems a result of voters and taxation? I dislike private prison and bloated military spending too but candidates win elections celebrating those things so we get stuck with them.
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Public money is nearly the only way public infastructure gets done. Yes, some politicians give the public's money to private companies to do the work and get over billed but the work still gets done. So whether the govt over pays our under pays for an interstate highway or national park is sort of relevant to expectations because no way would any private organization pony up the money for them. The public is the only purchaser in the market to build a variety of infastructure. Same goes for public vs private education. Take public money out of the equation and we'd have nearly no schools private or otherwise. Majority of private schools relay on public money. Only wealthy people would be able to afford even minimum levels of formal education without public money. Just look at daycare costs in the U.S. public money isn't involved and families are coughing up $10,000 a year on average just to have people watch their kids. Not educate them or etc but just to provide the minimum service on ensure they don't run off and get hurt. As for security I wasn't really referencing the military specifically. Security is a large spectrum of things from local fire fighters or food and drug inspectors. Yes, costs can always be better managed and there will always be debate over whether or not private companies should be awarded contracts and how. People broadly don't see eye to eye on a plethora of issues and that creates a modicum of choas and disorder. However many things only can exist thru taxation and public spending. Even a poorly contracted, slow constructed, and over priced interstate is better than none at all if that interstate is used by millions. The value to a locality, over time, of infastructure is nearly always enormous. From home property values to logistical advantages for business the public costs for infastructure, education, and security are just about always worth it. Even when managed in less than ideal fashion.
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Such is life. Even within a persons own family budget there is disatification and charges of waste and or not enough transparency. My wife regularly complains that I waste money by buying cheap shoes which don't last very long which causes me to need shoes more often. Meanwhile I complain she wastes money by buying shoes she never wears. There simply isn't a system for sharing or resource management which is ideal for everyone all the time. End of the day though money is nearly always better utilized when pooled together. Despite our disagreements my wife and I are much better off financially sharing our incomes and assets than we'd be if we attempted to separate them. Likewise a country, provence, state, county, etc is better off when their people pay taxes. It allows for infastructure, education, and security.
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Are there any real life examples of countries thriving in the absence of taxation? There are 196 countries in the world. That provides 196 real world examples we can use to shape our perspective. To my knowledge countries which enjoy basic freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom to pursue employment/education of their choice all have standardized taxation both nationally and locally.
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I started a thread very much like this thread in back in 2014: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83542-a-vegetarian-future/?hl=vegetarianism My position was a bit different than yours. I posited that in the future (couple hundred years) people will most all be vegatarian because it simply takes more resources to create edible calories from meat which makes it less efficient. My food calories can be grown using less energy and water per acre than meat can be raised. Hydroponics and local gardens provide people the ability to produce food without having to clear fields and alter what little natural habit we still have. Seems like a no brainer. I was surprised by how many negative responses I received. Many people insisting humans evolved to include meat in our diets and will basically always eat meat. Other pointed out the neccessity for b12 and insisted it was proof of our need for meat. Humans are in fact omnivores. We have eaten meat for hundreds of thousands of years. It has been our main source of b12. However I think people exaggerate the scale. Humans do not have the physical strength to catch and kill most other mamals without tools. Not only that but our teeth and jaw muscles are too weak for us to take a bit out of most mamals. Plus our stomatchs lack the bacteria and enzymes to digest many raw meats. So while it is true we evolved eating meat the most common meat we ate was most probably insects, eggs, and fish. Not meats like beef and pork. During the last ice age as humans found themselves in colder environments where wild edibles didn't grow as abundantly, incests were less prevalent, birds flew south, and reptiles were nonexistent they (humans) had to eat the larger game animals available. The need for such a diet no longer exists. Eggs (bird, fish, reptile, insects), milk, seafood, etc could easily supply humans with the required amounts of b12 and iron while a variety things like beans, nuts, and etc are good sources of protien and fat. Eating insects, shellfish, drinking milk, and etc isn't vegan though. So my position is different than yours. My view doesn't consider empathy. Rather it focuses of efficiency. I believe in the future humans will all be something akin to a pescetarian. We'll primarily eat fruits, veggies, and grain but will have a variety of protiens in our food developed using fish and or insects. Habits are hard things to break so I doubt expect to see a shift in my life time. First we'll see people slowly eating less meat as water shortages drive the cost of meat ever higher. Then we will see more cities adopt hydroponics and public gardening.