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So you are going to ignore that from your own list there is a substantial element alignment with what is considered the progressive (i.e. non-moderate) program? Also the fact that both parties offer policies that are on the conservative side of things as they judge their constituency more conservative then they are. Also the fact that in the article you linked one of the issue is simply that moderate politicians may just not be sufficiently aligned with what voters ultimately want? To explain the issue it is probably worthwhile to point out that labels such as moderate are ultimately not helpful. The reason is that there is a significant gap in self-identification and desired policies. For example, while many minority communities share strong overlap in terms of social conservative ideologies, which could include aspects like the role of women, abortion, role of religion, LGBT issues etc. they tend to vote Democratic as a whole. The reason here is that for many the GOP stance toward immigrants and minorities can be seen as soft (or even hard) threat to them which is a disincentive for them to vote GOP. Likewise an astonishingly high number of especially low- middle income Republican voters are strongly in favour of medicare and/or universal health coverage. Yet clearly the GOP was hard on against it. They likely have to pivot now, though, as it seemingly only slowly dawns them that they were leaving their voters behind. While there is clearly a party bias, the US population as a whole is astonishingly comfortable with progressive stances (and again, as reflected with your previous list) and as such, the political continuum as represented by both parties is not representative for the spectrum found in voters. This does not mean that there is a space for moderates. As mentioned before, the moderate would have to pick and choose not from the middle spectrum, but it would be squarely in the moderate to left part of the Democratic party. The other option would try to obtain votes from the hardcore left or right base (no Immgration of Muslims, but with free healthcare for all!), which is likely not going to work for a large number of reasons.

Except among historians it is considered mostly settled and I have yet to see a serious claim to the opposite. From historians that is, not random blogs from Nazi apologists.

Perhaps from a different perspective, if we use the topics outlined by JC (which, by no means mean that they decisive topics), in many areas public opinion in fact overlap with some of the more progressive opinions within the Democratic party. More in many areas than the stance of moderate Democrats so that it would be very very difficult to find a slot that is well, more moderate but still supported by public opinion. As already mentioned, the majority favours tax brackets of 70%, with high support by Democreats and Independents (71% and 60%) vs Republicans (still 45%). While many moderate Democrats are a bit mum when it comes to the government involvement in health care, some 60% of the population think that it is the government responsibility to ensure health care coverage. Similarly, many Democrats especially tread carefully around gun rules, yet over 60% would like to see stricter control. Carbon Tax is supported by 53% of all respondents (but with a partisan lean). In the end it seems that there is little space in what you have characterized as the middle field. Rather, the imaginary successful moderate would in the end need to adopt policies that are more in line with what is considered the more extreme proposals. The background for all this is congress misjudges the positions of their voters by a fair bit. This follows some other reports which indicate that politicians as a whole think that their voter base is more conservative than they really are. I.e. if you take someone that would indeed occupy the middleground between Dems and Reps, you will have someone with less support than someone going for the actual base of each party.

JC is answering a question from Ten Oz, who requested an example set of policies to explain what position a moderate candidate in the US system may take. He misunderstood the previous question (I believe) and explained his own position, which may be different from the hypothetical centrist US person.

! Moderator Note The question is rather speculative and somewhat ill-defined. I have moved it to speculations for now. However, while the simple answer is "no" it would be good if OP could clarify what they think would constitute a "super-brain".

Or, as some predict, folks just have less children and population shrinks on its own. Which also has consequences for the society, of course.

That seems part of the conclusions, yes. Unfortunately that is indeed a talking point that comes up every now and then and really is just a variation of putting blame on others so one has not to deal with it. You can take a look at the Oxfam report "Extreme Carbon Inequality". Currently the vast majority are in OECD countries, roughly one third of them live in the USA. Based on 2008 data, the average emission of a person in the richest 10% of China was about the same as the average footprint of someone in the poorest 40% of Europeans. The reason for the stark difference when comparing net emission is because much of the CO2 produced in China is actually for lifestyle consumption outside of China. For India, the richest 10% produce about 25% of the poorest in the USA. With increasing wealth that may change in the future by a fair bit, though. That is always a good question. It seems the general criticism is that the UN uses a rather simple projection and there is quite some criticism on the methodology as some consider it too crude. Basically the main components (from a cursory view, I am no expert either) seem to be based on projections of fertility, death rates and migration, if you look at the report. Some researchers such as Lutz from the IIASA have added modifications, such as education expansion for women. In these models under no education expansion the population size in 2060 would reach 9.8 billion, 9.34 under average expansion and 8.87 under fast expansion. They also found that connected to that fertility rates are already dropping faster than projected. Under these assumption, the world population would peak by 2070. How accurate these models are depend a lot on what is happening, of course. If female education is expanding rapidly, the tentative consensus seems to be short term increase (but lower than projected without incorporating education levels) and potential decline toward the end of the century.

The models basically say that reducing population has (eventually) less impact than lifestyle. Especially if critical targets are to be met, the focus must be on the former. As part of it, lifting folks out of poverty will take care of overpopulation, but richer folks also pollute disproportionately more. It is one of the guiding principles behind measures such as carbon taxes. But as expected they are also politically contested.

There is an interesting article outlining why overpopulation is not that much of an amplifier as one might think. In studies a similar point has been made. the richest 10% of the world account for about half the CO2 production. And those richest 10% are also those with the lowest number of children. There is also a book out by Bricker and Ibbitson (Empty Planet) which I have not read yet, but they make a point that by incorporating e.g. empowerment rates of women, the number of projected children declines much more rapid than anticipated, with an estimated 9 billion midcentury and a decline from then on.

Bill Clinton had a weird trajectory. Started off with middling approval ratings had a similar rise as Reagan, but remained relatively high. There are likely many factors at play here, but one is that probably a majority considered the whole lead-up to the impeachment process as a private affair (heh). Nowadays, it would face a whole different level of backlash, in my opinion. However, I do think that the rise of partisanship, as part of Gingrich's strategy as well of the increase of the weird right, including the tea party faction, it would not have mattered whether it was Obama or any other democrat to face similar issues. The race aspect in my mind played a bigger role in the extreme crazy aspects. though.

There are folks who were disappointed that he ran on a seemingly (but overall muted) progressive platform of hope and change but in the end was very moderate. On the other side the demonization was feasible due to a strong racist base on the far right. There was just so much crazy around that some of the otherwise ridiculous parts somehow became reasonably (such as characterizing his policies has extreme far left). However, his approval ratings at the end were fairly high, all things considered. The problem with being moderate is that the loudest factions on either side have plenty of ammunition to lob at him. I do not think that there were issues because he was scandal free, rather, it does not matter if you are not.

That is some impressive selective reading. The first sentence in your link (my bold): Also you posted the links in response to: So it seems that it was your assertion that she is a democratic leader.

Not at all. I am saying that in order to assign morality to wars we first have to figure out how we assess morality in the first place. This framework, whatever it would be, would have to be universally applicable and not only through an historic lens.

What you refer to is called exposure therapy. While this is not the only approach, some meta analyses indicate that they have generally the strongest effect. However, with regard to frequency, that depends highly on the individual. Usually a specialist that can assess anxiety and progress can help fine tune these types of therapy. That being said, generally more sessions correlate with outcome, though there is a point of diminishing returns.

The degradation is often incomplete and if fed sufficient amounts they can exert various actions. Note that for some of these actions the molecule may not have to be fully intact, either.

You are missing the point of the argument. You are anchoring your arguments on historic events and conduct a post-hoc justification. However, you are missing the background or framework on which the morality of the war is being justified on. Since you mentioned that they can be questioned, it alludes to moral relativism. An that is where my though experiment implies. Here, we got an example where a higher moral claim is made to justify war, the main difference here is that it takes a situation where folks may think they are on a moral high ground, and flips it. What would be the basis to evaluate whether a war is just then? Or to put it differently, do you apply your personal moral principles to declare a war just? And if so, what if someone else uses their values to declare it unjust? Under these circumstances, how can war be objectively just and hence, moral?

There is preliminary evidence linking spending of pain killer manufacturer with increased use of pain killers and increased drug abuse. The current rate are about triple that of the UK, so there is at least some indication that public system may be a bit better. That being said, even in public systems there was probably oversubscription of pain killers. It was treated as an easy fix rather than a last resort approach. Only recently there folks are rethinking the issue in the face of overdose deaths.

Depends a lot on the types of drugs. Pain medication are highly connected to opioid abuse. There is a general difference in frequency of drug abuse across the board (though the gap is diminishing). It appears that there are societal issues resulting in lower rates of drug abuse in women.

The removing the morality of individual actions part is based on the framework used to establish the "just war" argument. A war is considered an act between nations, and that is were the just war argument shifts the morality. A person killing another person on the individual level is generally judged by factors such as motivation. E.g. killing in self-defence. However, even then killing is considered an extreme action. In a war, however, it becomes an accepted element. I.e. soldiers do not kill to defend themselves per se, but they are following orders. In the just war doctrine, the soldier is therefore blameless, and the war as a whole is judged based on two main aspects that I mentioned before. A) the justification of the war and B) following conduct of war. However, there are (as usual) quite a few problems with this framework for morality. A fundamental one is the issue that this framework eliminates the morality of individual actions (as mentioned). Other issues exist when dealing with situations outside of two accepted nations. On top of that is the quasi legal framework that governs the right to go to war as well as conduct. The US, for example is not part of the international criminal court and as such undermines the very same framework that would ensure that point B would be followed within a just war doctrine. As in the example I mentioned earlier, there is often also no objective measure to determine justification unless some legal system is applied. However even that is problematic as the case in disputed areas, for example. Some views are therefore shifting away from the just war framework and are looking into alternative moral theories, including shifting to individual actions again. But as a whole, it is quite a conundrum and I am sure one can spend year (as some have done) to explore this issue. Either way, it is a deeply worrying system in which individual actions are freed from moral constraints and collateral damage is an expected outcome. I do find it dangerous to think oneself in a position of moral superiority while engaging these actions, as it makes the loss of human life trivial. In my mind, war even engaged out of necessity or considered just should be conducted with extreme regret.

Let's turn it around. Let's say there is a wonderful utopian nation who decides that the way the world is run is detrimental to its people. After "liberating" all regimes they turn their eyes on the US which in their eyes is a humanitarian disaster. There is too much poverty, wholesale criminalization of swathes of the population and even state-sanctioned death penalties. This entire against their Utopian (tm) sense of morality and they decide to invade the US in order to supplant the system with a system that ensures more freedom, less property and all the good stuff. In this hypothetical scenario would it be moral? And what is it based on? The humanitarian outcome? Or the established laws of the nations?

! Moderator Note Evolution has nothing to do with religion. However, I am hesitant to move it to the Biology section as a) this topic has been repeated a fair amount of time and b) is rarely discussed in good faith. I have moved it to Speculations instead and encourage you first to describe what evolution is and at least try to read up on the involved mechanisms.

Slightly off-topic but a number of articles have recently popped up (including one at 538) showing how this is a bit of a myth, as Perot seemed to cut deeper into Clinton than into Bush Sr. I think the NY times reported a similar analysis of the exit polls then. i think the decision of where the voters go to is in the end more complex than the distribution on a single axis (left vs right). Some working class (left folks) were successfully recruited to vote for the GOP due to fears of globalization and increasing diversity, for example.

Google Home, Alexa, Cortana and Siri are already there. A big disadvantage of smart features is the lack of continuous support in many cases. Sooner or later vulnerabilities won't get patched and allow access to home network. There are also already attempts in the wild to gain control over smart devices to create botnets.

How do you evaluate immorality of a regime? As for defending, is any action in retaliation moral? Say, there is a contested area and Nation A moves in to secure it. Nation B views is at an attack. Does Nation B now the moral authority for killing every person sent by Nation A? Guerilla fighters may see themselves as victims of unjust occupation. Are they in the right in all killing of whom they consider occupants? Actual situations are likely going to be extremely complicated and again, if we remove the morality of actions away from the individual, we have to ask ourselves how do we judge the morality of a nation? What if the group is not a formal nation, does it change the equation? If so who in the end determines that?

Rtings also has extensive information specific to TVs.