Venezuela in their heyday
the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, and East Germany in the past, not only had to live to standards below countries that adopted a market economy such as the United States, They were also forced to live under power dictator of the top Communist party, and do not have the political freedom to speak and express opinions. Those who dare to resist and criticize the government will be arrested, jailed, and executed.
Yes, all of these countries had a leadership that was entrenched and unaccountable. They serve as examples of how communism does not work in practice, and why democracy is so important. But it doesn't mean that all forms of socialism are bad, and that utterly unregulated laissez-faire capitalism is the holy grail. It's not black and white, it's not either/or. There are degrees of socialism. A democratic socialism may be the best approach to create greater equality of opportunity and reduce corruption at the top. |
|
|
|
The Democrats were looking for an excuse after the 2016 loss, and they came up with the theory of Russian intervention. That can't hide the fact that the sole reason why they lost in 2016 was due to poor candidate selection. They nominated someone who can never be elected, and that too by rigging the primary polls.
Yes, to an extent it is their own fault by rigging the primaries. Yes, they selected a poor candidate. Yes, they were looking for an excuse. All true. But... this doesn't mean that Russian interference isn't also true. See my post above - there are plenty of other elections where there is evidence of Russian interference. If we think about the way that nations behave in the open (particularly Russia under Putin), and assume they are also behaving the same way in secret, and if we combine this with the fact that it is quite easy for a state actor to influence social media, then it seems - to me at least - extremely likely that Russian meddling is having an effect. |
|
|
|
This is exactly what all socialists/communists have been saying after communism failed-"The communism in USSR wasn't the REAL communism"  Then what is the real communism?Is it come fantasy/utopia that can't be implemented in real life? Yes, exactly that. History suggests that real communism can't be implemented in real life, because it is too easy to corrupt. Also, I wouldn't describe 'real' communism as a utopia. Forced absolute equality sounds extremely dull, and doesn't reward effort or talent. People would have nothing to strive for, and no incentive to try. I'm not sure what utopia might look like, but the best form of society that I can see ('best' in a moral sense) out of those that exist at the moment (and have existed previously) would be a left-leaning democracy where the excesses of capitalism are kept in check, and where there is true equality of opportunity irrespective of whether or not you are born rich. A capitalism that is carefully controlled rather than laissez faire. |
|
|
|
The ability of the government to carry out corrupt practices is not an indicator of socialism.
Using my country as a case study; social amenities such as electricity, tourism/hospitality has been privatized, with major sellouts still happening in various sectors indicating a shift from socialism. Corruption however is still widespread as they still have influence over financial structures like; budget allocation, contract awarding etc, so corrupt gov'ts can still effectively embezzle public funds.
Yes. The reason that capitalism triumphed over "communism" in the late 20th century is simply that capitalism is (slightly) less easy to exploit. I use inverted commas because "communism" as practised in the USSR was not real communism. From the other side, it is supposed that most of us live in "capitalist democracies", which is clearly an oxymoron. Capitalist systems are plutocratic, not democratic. There is less corruption in capitalist countries, but this is merely a difference of degree - the corruption is still huge. The truth really is that both capitalism and our experience of communism are anti-democratic. The closest we have to real democracies are the capitalist countries that are run by left-leaning parties. Perhaps this is the best and most egalitarian compromise that we can achieve. |
|
|
|
What a struggle it has been to get my last 20 merits to get to my 2,000.
Congratulations! I do mostly disagree with the content of your posts (to the extent that for a long time I thought you had me on ignore), but I always appreciate the threads, and you raise a lot of interesting topics. 2,000 is impressive and gives the rest of us something to aspire to. Anecdotally, yes, my experience is also that earned merit drops off once a higher rank is achieved. I was building merit quickly until I hit Hero, at which point it dropped dramatically to roughly 30 per month. I actually think this is a good thing - it suggests that merit-bestowers are focusing their attentions on worthy lower ranked users, those whose contributions have never been noticed or acknowledged. |
|
|
|
We're not saying "97% of the general population believe it, so it must be true". Also we're not really saying "97% of qualified experts believe it, so it must be true"... the part that's missing, the part that's implied, is the belief that the experts have evidence to support their claims. We are not qualified to challenge experts in a field. But other experts are qualified, and fail to produce their own evidence. So it's not really an ad populum or an appeal to authority, and relying on the evidence-based consensus of scientists is hardly antithetical to the scientific method....
Umm, yes it is. It is EXACTLY opposed to the scientific method, which is a method of critical inquiry. Okay, your argument is basically that we cannot trust any evidence that we haven't gathered ourselves. In order to determine whether humans are causing climate change, I need to become an expert, and then gather and interpret my own evidence. But of course no-one will ever be able to trust my evidence... everyone needs to become an expert and gather their own evidence. This is clearly absurd. Society and the economy grind to a halt. No-one visits doctors, dentists, lawyers, plumbers etc, and instead tries to learn the relevant skills themselves. People are injured through trying to perform surgery on themselves (because you would never trust anyone else). You are typing on a phone or a keyboard, which presumably you have not built yourself from raw materials. You trusted the experts, and bought that device... why? I cannot imagine (and have not seen) a competent scientist arguing that human contribution to atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution is a major factor in global warming. The science simply isn't there.
From earlier in this thread: For those who don't want to look at the data, or prefer extremely selective evidence that confirms their own viewpoint, then the EDF has a simple nine point summary of how we know that humans are the cause: - Simple chemistry – When we burn carbon-based materials, carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted (research beginning in the 1900s).
- Basic accounting of what we burn, and therefore how much CO2 we emit (data collection beginning in the 1970s).
- Measuring CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and trapped in ice to find they are increasing, with levels higher than anything we've seen in nearly a million years (measurements beginning in the 1950s).
- Chemical analysis of the atmospheric CO2 that reveals the increase is coming from burning fossil fuels (research beginning in the 1950s).
- Basic physics that shows us that CO2 absorbs heat (research beginning in the 1820s).
- Monitoring climate conditions to find that the air, sea and land is warming, as we would expect with rising greenhouse gas emissions; as a response, ice is melting and sea level is rising (research beginning in the 1930s).
- Ruling out natural factors that can influence climate like the sun and ocean cycles (research beginning in the 1830s).
- Employing computer models to run experiments of natural versus human-influenced simulations of Earth (research beginning in the 1960s).
- Consensus among scientists who consider all previous lines of evidence and make their own conclusions (polling beginning in the 1990s).
[POLL] Is bitcointalk (still) very skeptical towards global warming science?
The poll suggests that most people here believe the science, but the contents of the thread suggest that they are reluctant to argue the point. In retrospect I should have followed their example. |
|
|
|
Taiwan and New Zealand sure dealt with it at its best.
Add Singapore, coz I'm really impressed how they handle the pandemic situation, though clearly no one was ready for this but their strong will to be a resilient country has been tested. One reason that South East Asian countries dealt better with this, and were quicker to lockdown, is their recent pandemic experience with SARS and MERS. The West always thought itself immune to these pandemics, they were things that happened in other countries. I think once this one is eventually all cleared up, then every country around the world will be much more prepared and act much more swiftly the next time that there is a threat of a global pandemic. |
|
|
|
Possibly. Still, keep in mind that such companies may have their own (owned) buildings for office spaces or they are rented based on very long time based contracts. Also those office spaces may be customized.
All in all I expect that quite a lot of them didn't give up on those contracts yet and may not do that too soon either.
So your logic, while not incorrect, is applicable only after some more years like this.
We seem to keep agreeing with each other, but with qualifications. I do sort of agree with your statements above... except that these are special circumstances. Covid 19 has placed immense financial pressure on a lot of companies. They are looking to save costs wherever they can. Whilst I would agree that they are not going to rush into this, and a lot will indeed be tied to long-term rental contracts... I suspect this is something they will look at sooner rather than later. |
|
|
|
So was an interesting race after all.
Wow, what a race it was!
Yes, it was a great race, and fantastic to see Hamilton have to fight his way up from so far back. I can't believe after everything that happened to him, Bottas was only just ahead. It is a shame that this season most of the excitement comes from unexpected 'act of god' events such as safety cars and technical errors by the team. What we should be seeing is excitement from wheel-to-wheel racing from drivers in similarly matched cars. That is the dream for 2022. But today, yes, it was good. And I'm very happy for Gasly  |
|
|
|
No, that's not it at all. This is a simple logical refutation of the "consensus argument." Which, by the way, is the very antithesis of scientific method.
Ah. In that case, yes, I misunderstood. I thought it was a bit of a strange argument. Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not convinced by your argument, though. We're not saying "97% of the general population believe it, so it must be true". Also we're not really saying "97% of qualified experts believe it, so it must be true"... the part that's missing, the part that's implied, is the belief that the experts have evidence to support their claims. We are not qualified to challenge experts in a field. But other experts are qualified, and fail to produce their own evidence. So it's not really an ad populum or an appeal to authority, and relying on the evidence-based consensus of scientists is hardly antithetical to the scientific method. I italicised 'belief' because it does of course rely on belief, as does anything. We trust experts all the time, in everyday life. Doctors, teachers, dentists, plumbers, lawyers, etc. We believe in their expertise. Whilst it is important to challenge received wisdom, the challenge should be for them to provide supporting evidence. With human-caused climate change, the whole thing is based on evidence. The belief is in the evidence. |
|
|
|
I kind of think c programming is logic, though. Don't you?
Yes... although you should see some of my early code, it really stretches the definition  https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/pointers.pngOr perhaps you didn't understand the parallel in my argument and refutation of yours?
Maybe I didn't. I thought your argument was: It's not true that 97% of climate scientists believe that humans cause climate change... because bitcoin. I still don't think that a non sequitur is a powerful argument. You are suggesting that, if humans cause climate change, then bitcoin is a part of that human-caused climate change. Yes, agreed. I'm not disputing that. Humans cause climate change. Bitcoin contributes to that. |
|
|
|
It will be another boring week dominated by Mercedes, nobody can compete.
No rain, temperature around 25°C so tires can't be destroyed, they already won.
Yes, this does look likely. And even within the Mercedes team... once again, if Hamilton gets through the first few corners in the lead, he wins the race. Bottas isn't willing to challenge in the way that Rosberg used to. I would add that this is the first race where qualifying 'party mode' had been banned, and the Mercs had a huge advantage in qualifying... but this was expected anyway at this track, so may not be of much impact at the moment. Mercedes do seem very confident though and are saying no 'party mode' means they can run the cars in a more powerful mode all the time now. If true, this will just increase their already huge advantage. ^ Their car obv sucks. And not enough development can be done on it to improve their performance with the season shortened and all.
It's gonna be a tougher season for them next year as they'll be back on the drawing board. All those years of development wasted... Vettel was supposed to win a championship with them by now.
And next season with limited development will be tough, too. As for Vettel... I think the last few years have shown that he's not really that great a driver. Even when Ferrari were briefly better than Mercedes, he still couldn't challenge them properly. It's starting to look like those 4 championships flatter him somewhat, with his talent being purely to be in the right place at the right time - Red Bull from 2010. |
|
|
|
COVID-19 cases have been increasing. the government wanted to normalize the life of daily wagers and economy, therefore, it decided to ease lockdown and kept the economy before a life of people.
This is certainly true. Covid19 has demonstrated quite clearly that most governments value their economy above the health and wellbeing of their citizens. Lockdowns were implemented too late, and are being lifted too early. In the UK, the government has re-opened schools based on some disingenuous reasoning that Covid19 doesn't affect children very badly... omitting of course the fact that the children will carry the virus back home and infect their more vulnerable parents/grandparents etc. Also they are pushing for office workers to stop working remotely and return to offices, in order that businesses that rely on city centre foot traffic can make some profit... despite the fact that this will cause the virus to spread more rapidly. it is also the responsibility of each and every person of this nation to limit their desire of going out for some time, stay at home and follow government instruction.
Individual people must act responsibly, yes... but often this means going against the irresponsible government advice. |
|
|
|
If the 97% argument has merit, then we should all NOT INVEST OR USE BITCOIN OR CRYPTO.
*although this subject isn't contentious - there's a 97% consensus amongst experts
I do hope that my phrasing it this way has helped clear up this crock of shit argument.
Not really. You're using a moral argument to try to refute a logical argument. That doesn't have any effect. I believe that humans are causing climate change, and I also believe that bitcoin is the future... and will concede that bitcoin contributes to climate change. Similarly, I only give a very small fraction of my income to families from poorer parts of the world, when I could afford to give more. Also I spend money on buying myself a phone or a PC, when the money could be much better spent my say buying mosquito nets. I said that there is a consensus amongst experts that humans are causing climate change. I didn't say that I was morally perfect. |
|
|
|
~
All true. And yet, even if (hypothetically) productivity were somewhat lower due to remote-working, it would still be financially beneficial to the company to persist with it, because there would be a huge reduction in overheads due to no longer having to maintain an expensive physical office - or from closing the big office and opening a cheaper smaller one if running a hybrid office/WFH model. This is why I think WFH will continue in certain industries, even if only partially. The cost-saving from not running the office is the biggest benefit. If there is no noticeable productivity drop (or even a small drop) due to WFH, the it's still the preferred option. |
|
|
|
-snip-
Many people want to continue to remote-work, companies have noticed that productivity has remained consistent during lockdown, and that continued remote-working offers huge financial savings... perhaps the death knell has been sounded for the culture of presenteeism.
-snip-
Source? I mean where/which companies found that the productivity remained consistent? At least from what I have seen, productivity fell down a lot. Things became harder and every step kinda created confusion. Working at physical office, it was easy to follow the chain of command. But things becoming virtual caused a problem to pass information from one point to another and get instant answers/results. I can tell you from my own experience since I now regularly have to deal with people working from home (while i have to go to the office!) and it is not easy. Was supposed to say the same thing when it comes to productivity differences which its totally different compared when you are working on an actual office than doing jobs remotely.
Lots of companies gone bankrupt yet there are things which arent efficient even if done remotely and its never been an easy thing even if you are on the convenience of your own
home i cant still find myself to be effective or efficient on my work.
There have been a few studies: one survey, of 2,000 global firms and 5,000 professionals, found at least a third of them productivity had increased – with less commuting time and fewer distractions top contributing factors. For some companies, such as Twitter, the experiment has been so successful that they have said their employees can work from home ‘forever’. Lockdown has proven that the ‘presence culture’ that so many firms held on to is not indicative of productive work. https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/covid19/what-100-days-of-lockdown-has-treated-us-about-productivity-and-mental-health/Also see: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/increase-in-productivity-and-risk-since-the-covid-19-lockdown/https://www.microbizmag.co.uk/productivity-statistics-coronavirus-lockdown/I appreciate that this is from the employee point of view, and results may be offset by people answering that they have been more productive because they want to be able to continue to work from home in future... but a lot of big companies - particularly tech companies - have said that remote working can continue in the long term. They are not going to say this if they've seen a productivity drop. The point about companies going bankrupt - this isn't because their employees are working at home, it is from a loss of business during lockdown due to closure of physical stores (and reduced footfall since re-opening), and from supply chain issues with closure of businesses further upstream. I appreciate a lot of it depends on the industry. Much IT work is certainly well-placed to be done remotely. |
|
|
|
Leeds have signed a Glasgow Rangers player from Valencia for £ 27 million. Of course this will add quality sharpness to the front line. If you look at this player is pretty good after I look at his profile, well hopefully a move to the EPL will have an impact on both of them.
The difficulty for newly promoted teams is that they can't get what they need - which is a decent English premier league player who has a proven history in the English premier league... those sorts of players are generally too expensive, and unwilling to move to a 'lesser' team. This is why we often see rich newly promoted teams buying expensive foreign players who are unproven here. It's a gamble, but it's the only way they can get good players in... find someone who looks good, who has a proven record in a different league in a different country... and then just hope they fit in here. |
|
|
|
And do you still believe that Hillary lost as a result of the so called "Russian intervention"? If that is the case, then I pity on you.
It was certainly a contributing factor. Russia works to improve the strength of Russia relative to its opponents/rivals. The easiest way to achieve this is by weakening or destabilising those rivals. Russia has been implicated in election manipulation quite a few times, it's not just US 2016. Here in the UK for example, Russia were involved in supporting Scottish independence during the referendum (Scotland seceding from the UK weakens the UK). Russia were involved in supporting the Brexit vote (the UK leaving the EU weakens both the UK and other European nations, as well as the EU itself, and NATO). Whether you're a Trumpist or not, it's difficult to deny that he polarises opinion and has led to infighting and civil unrest within the US, as well as weakening the US's reputation and standing on the global stage - exactly as Russia would desire. The modern world is connected and global, and the internet - particularly social media - is largely anonymous. It's easy to create fake 'people'. And it's difficult to believe that Russia can be stopped from interfering. |
|
|
|
To the naysayers, I'd like to reaffirm the scientific credibility of the 97% claim. It is a statement supported by NASA (among others). Major organizations agree on the matter that global warming is a real phenomena and that it's affected by human activity. I suppose the question here to all the fossil fuel lobbyists doubters is - if you disagree with 97%, then what of level of consensus would convince you? It's obviously a big subject, with a lot of papers published, and a lot of nuanced argument, so it's easy to challenge the figures, as we are talking about people who can be considered to agree, rather than those who have explicitly stated agreement. Arguing whether it's 97% or 85% or 92% is fair enough - but this is a few percentage points, it doesn't negate the overwhelming consensus. With any contentious subject* when we are considering bias or lack of impartiality, it is important to consider the underlying motivations of experts who are promoting certain viewpoints. Obviously for fossil fuel lobbyists climate-change deniers, they represent vested interests who stand to lose if the truth is accepted (see also the "smoking doesn't cause cancer" argument). I've yet to see any convincing argument for why the "humans cause climate change" experts could be biased. "Big Oil" is real. "Big Wind" is not (apart from in an unfortunate dietary sense). * although this subject isn't contentious - there's a 97% consensus amongst experts |
|
|
|
I'm a little surprised that Leeds is spending so much, as I know they are so dominated last season, they will certainly be at least equal to many clubs.
The financial benefits of playing in the premier league are so huge that it's not surprising that teams will try to spend all the money they can in a bid to survive there. I think some teams overdo it, though. The aim for a newly promoted team must always be to not get relegated. Anything beyond that is a bonus. I think for that first season, they should try to supplement their promotion-winning team with a few established and experienced premier league players, to build a solid basis and a team that can stay up. After that, with a solid team in place, the next year is the time to perhaps spend big, bring in untested young players and foreign players without premier league experience. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
