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Gotta log in to see it, maybe C+P the text in a spoiler?
In a nutshell, the FBI investigated allegations that Trump had ties with the Russian government, and they found no proof to back the claims up.
Some snippets.
Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.
And no evidence has emerged that would link him or anyone else in his business or political circle directly to Russia’s election operations.
F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 “look-up” messages — a first step for one system’s computers to talk to another — to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I. ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.
vestigators, the officials said, have become increasingly confident, based on the evidence they have uncovered, that Russia’s direct goal is not to support the election of Mr. Trump, as many Democrats have asserted, but rather to disrupt the integrity of the political system and undermine America’s standing in the world more broadly.
Just go to google and type Trump FBI Russia, then click on the first link.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/01 22:06:38
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't understand how Tungsten filament light bulbs are wrapped up in US political life.
In much the same way as bendy bananas are in the UK.
It's largely because a lot of progress just doesn't happen anymore in the US without the government getting involved to drag people kicking and screaming into the next century.
LED lights are objectively better than incandescents in pretty much every way. But most people can't see past the price tag, because the incandescent is cheaper right now, even if they have to buy it ten times over the lifespan of one LED that ends up costing less because of that. It's like the Vimes "Boots" Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness. So, in order to convince people to actually do the smart thing (buy better light bulbs, don't use lead paint, don't drive drunk, etc.) a law gets created to make it happen.
And then the other party has to dig in their heels because a) they've been paid off by the particular industry that's being adversely affected, or b) they have to oppose the other party because reasons. Usually both a and b.
In a nutshell, the FBI investigated allegations that Trump had ties with the Russian government, and they found no proof to back the claims up.
Just wait a week, they'll find some other computer connected to this while investigating, say, Pence's airplane problem because clearly someone didn't turn off their wireless device or have their tray table up, and then Comey will write a letter to Congress about it and....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/01 22:41:05
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
We have laws requiring seatbelts, banning heroin, outlawing pyramid schemes, and many more. Part of the government's job is to protect the people, both physically and economically. Sometimes that means protecting people from themselves.
Anonymous Release Bone-Chilling video of Huma Abedin every American Needs to See
Its hard to be awesome, when your playing with little plastic men. Welcome to Fantasy 40k
If you think your important, in the great scheme of things. Do the water test.
Put your hands in a bucket of warm water,
then pull them out fast. The size of the hole shows how important you are.
I think we should roll some dice, to see if we should roll some dice, To decide if all this dice rolling is good for the game.
whembly wrote: The thing is, Voter ID isn't just "show ID, get ballot on voting day". It's more than that....
It's also a state legal statute to mandate and fund periodic review/purging of the voter rolls.
It also provide means and structure for things like poll station observers.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, why do those have to be connected to voter ID? I've yet to have any sort of answer.
There's a vested state interested to setup/enforce a rigorous framework that ensures (even an appearance) of a stable, valid election process.
That's not an answer. It doesn't answer why purging the rolls has to be part of voter ID laws. And it doesn't answer why voter ID laws are necessary in the first place.
Now I'm not wholey opposed to voter ID laws, they are pointless and wasteful, but as long as the burden is on the state, go for it. But the burden must be on the state. In all these instances, it's on the people. And beyond it stopping people who want to vote, putting another barrier up is not good with out current voter apathy.
Not really surprised. Expecting there to be actual collusion it a little crazy. They are helping hi passively, and Trump loves dictators and wants to protect his business interests. And if there was actual collusion, Russia isn't going to be stupid enough to directly e-mail the Trump campaign or something. They'd use moles to push the stuff, those who can be trusted not to spill the beans, on connections that wouldn't be investigated.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/01 23:30:50
Homosexuality is the #1 cause of gay marriage.
kronk wrote: Every pizza is a personal sized pizza if you try hard enough and believe in yourself.
sebster wrote: Yes, indeed. What a terrible piece of cultural imperialism it is for me to say that a country shouldn't murder its own citizens
BaronIveagh wrote: Basically they went from a carrot and stick to a smaller carrot and flanged mace.
Anonymous Release Bone-Chilling video of Huma Abedin every American Needs to See
VIDEO
If that's what passes for proof, than clearly Trump is a russian spy and operative sent by Putin to remove the US as a threat to his plans. So anyone voting for Trump is a communist sympathizer. Where's McCarthy when we need him.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/11/01 23:48:58
While Trump could be in league with the Russians the level of proof is remarkably similar to many of Hillary's supposed wrongdoings. Especially considering how much vile stuff Trump has done, and the reality that Russia does not have to contact him at all in order to manipulate him, I'm surprised so many focus on this.
Because apparently nobody cares about the people he's bullied, defrauded, or lied to, the questionable sources of his talking points, his lack of a coherent policy, or his open racism. Seriously. The pass he seems to get from a significant chunk of the voting population is chilling.
I admit I was leaning towards anyone but Hillary when voting, but I just found out today my health insurance provider is raising the cost of my health insurance by 163.57 a month, and my deductible has been raised another 1000 dollars. They are citing increased costs to them due to the ACA as being the reason for these increases. Do I believe that is the real reason? No. But, they are taking advantage of a poorly written law in order to get away with it. This is the second increase over a 100 dollars in 5 months. I officially can't afford my health insurance. It kinda has decided the who to vote for president thing for me. Yes, it is a spiteful, angry, vote.
Twinkle, Twinkle little star.
I ran over your Wave Serpents with my car.
Thank the republicans for that. By refusing to give the subsides to the insurance companies they were given two choices drop out of the ACA because they would go under or raise prices.
Show of hands:
Who actually believes that, if the ACA were really repealed tomorrow, that insurance costs would actually go down to any significant degree?
Hopefully nobody raised their hands. If you did, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you, and I might even throw the Golden Gate Bridge in free.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
Peregrine wrote: I think the really interesting thing about this is how polls about each part of what the ACA did showed higher support than polls about "Obamacare". It was a rather horrifying demonstration of how a lot of the right-wing opposition had nothing to do with factual policy issues and everything to do with reflexive "OBAMA IS SATAN" rage.
To be fair, Obama and the rest of the Democrats did an amazingly bad job selling Obamacare. Lots of people to this day seem pretty ignorant about what it actually does.
But yeah, it didn't really matter what was in Obamacare, the right was gonna hate it.
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Maddermax wrote: May I suggest "mis-information voters" - voters who actually look at lots of news, but get it from highly biased sources who feed them a skewed version of reality that conforms to their own biases.
You could also call them "wilfully misinformed voters" but it's more of a mouthful.
Yeah, mis-information voters is more catchy, but it makes it sound like they've been misled by some cunning trickster. It invites us to think that if only we gave these people actual facts then they might change their views. Willfully misinformed voters is nowhere near as catchy, but it's a much more accurate, because these people play an active role in learning their nonsense, they choose to believe things that are obviously ridiculous, because it makes them feel better.
Is there a way to say 'wilfully misinformed' more succinctly?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/02 02:19:00
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
I always thought the idea that Trump was linked to Russia in a tangible, official way to be pretty dubious. I think it's provable they sometimes feed him stuff, but it's less a concerted effort and more that he's a useful idiot in that regard.
I think it's a given that Russia is behind the hacks, and I think they have a vested interest in Trump winning, but that doesn't make it a conspiracy, just a confluence of shared interests.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
d-usa wrote: I think Ryan's problem might be the same as Hillary's problem.
They are both heavy on policy, and know policy matters inside and out. But it's hard to make policy sexy, especially when you are competing against emotions and flashy catch phrases.
Explaining a policy would take just as long as explaining why "build a wall" doesn't do anything to address the fact that immigration is flat, that it's not Mexicans, and that they are not coming over the southern border. By the time you explain either policy or the failure in a catch phrase you have lost the attention span of the average voter who just follows sound bites and catch phrases.
That's fair, but Clinton despite policy being a hard sell, Clinton ran against a populist and won pretty soundly.
The Republicans who turned up with policy arguments like Jeb! and Kasich, those guys got single figure scores. There is a bigger problem for Republican policy than just the difficulty of selling policy in general - Republican policy just doesn't have that much appeal. Replacing medicare with vouchers, privatising Social Security... these are policies that very few voters actually support. In the past Republicans have offset the lack of appeal in their policy positions with populist rhetoric, racism and a highly combative stance against the Democrats. Then Trump came along, ditching the policy and instead ramping up the populism, racism and abuse.
Ryan, master of the artful graft of pretending there's something in Republican policies for people who earn less a million, is watching his expertise get completely replaced by a new kind of Republican who doesn't even bother to mention policy.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/02 02:31:51
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Scott Adams wrote:Russian hackers are better than we thought. They stole Clinton's emails from the NSA, put them on Huma's laptop, and pinned it on Weiner.
/satire
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/02 02:34:21
Frazzled wrote: Wiki emails show DOnna Brazile fed more questions to HRC during debates, and that her mole was one of the moderators Roland Martin. The DNC should ban the CNN from ever hosting a debate again, but they won't.
While I agree what happened is a serious breach, banning CNN isn't the answer. That's just collecting a head and assuming the problem is solved. The reality is that every station employs political staffers as talking heads. Any station could have its debate preparation compromised by the hoard of political talking heads wandering the corridors, on that station's payroll. What needs to happen in the future is ensuring any debate preparation is quarantined properly away from these talking heads.
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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: If they can't explain policy in a 'simple' way, then they're not good politicians.
Your FDR was a master at getting the policy aims and goals across to the American public, and in the UK, our own David Lloyd George had the knack of getting complicated stuff to the public without dumbing it down and winning their support.
To an extent. But saying everyone should be as skilled in selling policy as FDR is a bit simplistic. It's a bit like saying that we can make sure everyone has enough for retirement by having everyone invest as intelligently as Warren Buffett.
Guys like FDR don't come along that often. The rest of the time we make do with what we've got, and what we've got is often good policy wonks that struggle to communicate their policies, or salesmen who can communicate a vision to the electorate but struggle to turn that vision in to a workable policy.
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Frazzled wrote: Federalism (I know its a dirty word to Democrats) means that the President can't actually do that.
Having a go at Democrats while explaining that the stated policy of the Republican candidate breaches Federalist principles is a bit rich.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/11/02 04:33:25
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
whembly wrote: The worst you can say about the Republican's plank, is to not really have anything on their political agenda regarding climate change. If that's it... cool by me.
Nope, that's not nothing like the Republican party position. In the Republican party platform they;
Say the plan to forbid the EPA from monitoring carbon emissions.
Oppose any carbon tax.
Plan to cancel the EPA process to reduce emissions from coal powered plants.
Declare the IPCC a purely political organisation with no scientific merit.
They aren't silent on climate change. They are actively hostile to regulations in place and to the science that has provided the justification for those regulations. You are pretending this isn't true. Stop it. Face up to what the Republican party is.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
whembly wrote: While I"m a bit surprised that Trump has "some" momentum right now...
He still need to win two of PA/MI/WI/CO and hold onto NC/FL/AZ/IA.
I don't see it working for Trump.
It probably wont work for him, my guess would be that even if the popular vote % changes a bit with Trumps current momentum, he's so deep in the hole that it probably won't change the critical electoral college results. His biggest route to winning honestly is depressing the turnout as much as possible, disgust people with the whole process that people stay home, as lower turnouts generally trend notably better for Republican candidates.
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
whembly wrote: Politicians are going to do what they've always done... they'll pick sides and "pander" for those people to get their votes.
If one politcal party picks the side supported by science, and the other party picks the side in direct contradiction with the science, it should be pretty fething obvious one of those parties is functioning well and the other is not.
FWIW, there are plenty of Climatologist/STEM professionals who are dubious to the Climate Alarmist's positions.
No, that's a fail. Among climate scientists the debate is limited entirely to the extent of the issue, and how immediate the concern should be.
The opinions of other STEM professionals is utterly irrelevant. Getting a degree in chemical engineering gives you exactly zero insight in to climate modelling. How fething bonkers would it be to have a presentation on blackholes, with a bunch of astrophysicists telling us about the accepted physics, and then have a climate scientist talk about how he thinks all the astrophysicists are wrong. This is exactly what happens when climate deniers invite random engineers and physicists to opine on climate modelling.
Nah, because end of the day the Democrats are still turning up to vote for the Democrat, and the Republicans are still turning up to vote for the Republican.
Do really think if Sanders, Biden or Kaine was running then the Trump vote would disappear? What we've learned this year is that Republicans can put up a guy buried financial scandals, who averages just short of a dozen easily disproven lies daily, and who brags about molesting women, and almost all of them they will still turn up to vote for him. And by and large they're okay with this because they have exactly zero respect for the complexity of running the country.
Remember, Trump didn't come out of the blue. Eight years ago Sarah Palin was made VP. This election season Ben Carson led the primary for a stretch, and he's perhaps the one guy in politics that makes Trump seem knowledgeable. And what now seemed like a much happier time, GW Bush was regarded as about as stupid as a presidential candidate you could get. This is kind of a thing for the Republican party now.
And it became a thing because governance and policy more or less stopped mattering in the Republican party. Governance stopped mattering when the party declared the country was falling apart, and they'd engage in any matter of disruptive and disfunctional efforts to save the country from something or other (debt ceilings, blocking supreme court nominations, Republicans stopped caring about accepted governance practices). Policy stopped mattering much more slowly, but having failed to update any major element of their policy position from its 1980s heyday, it became something of a purity test on potential candidates instead of a belief statement in how the party intends to actually improve the welfare of Americans.
What replaced it was conservatism as a kind of persona, and it became a very stupid persona when it reached the wrong hands. In 2008 conservatives looked at McCain's long record of service to the country, in the miliary and in the senate, and his perfect record on conservative issues like abortion, and they gave a collective meh. But when Sarah Palin started her folksy attack on Washington elites, the base of the party loved her.
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whembly wrote: Just like "the science is settle" BS that's used to shut down dissent?
It doesn't shut down dissent. It doesn't stop people making their claims about climate science. It merely puts those claims in context, establishes that the person making them is either grossly ignorant on the state of modern climate science, or lying.
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whembly wrote: So, only the experts in their field should be taken as gospels?
Um, yeah. That's how expertise works. When you have a heart condition, you ask a doctor, and if you still have some doubts you ask another doctor. You don't get a second opinion from a plumber. On the other hand if you have a leaking pipe, you call on the plumber because, you know, he's the guy who does that for a living. If you were to go and book the doctor in to fix your leaking pipe because you value alternative opinions or something, people would consider you totally fething bonkers.
Climate science is no different.
No second or third opinions allowed?
Not from people who aren't fething trained in that field. Holy gak man.
That's an old, long disproven lie. Please fething stop returning to sources that keep lying to you.
Anyhow, there's been a lot of studies in to the conclusions of climate scientists.
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amanita wrote: Having just read the last page or so I find the climate hand-wringing rather dubious...
Was it not the belief in the 70's that the world was undergoing global cooling? A scant few decades later the panic is in the opposite direction?
In the 1970s climate science was a very new field of science. One theory based on the very limited data of the time showed a possible cooling, this was picked up in a current events magazine, but quickly rejected within the field as the body of evidence in the field grew.
The field has developed considerably in the last 40 years.
The real problem is incredibly complicated and even the most conscientious climate expert will tell you that there are so many variables they can't possibly be sure what is going on.
Except it is possible to recognise that while you cannot model every element of an incredibly complex system, you can establish broad patterns and use them to make reliable predictions. We can't tell you whether it will rain on Tuesday three weeks from now, but we can tell you that summer will have an average higher temperature than winter. Do you get the difference?
The biggest contributor of heat to the earth is the sun. Solar flares that grow and ebb, usually over about an 11 year cycle. But even that is debated.
The pattern of solar flares is debated, but the impact of flares on earth's temperature has long been rejected. We have observed constant temperatures on every other planet on earth... this means we are expected to believe that solar flares are heating just the earth. Its nonsense.
The icebergs are melting. No wait, the ice shelf in Antarctica has grown considerably since the late 70's. Look it up if you think I'm lying. Or does not this fact fit your paradigm?
Arctic ice has melted, antarctic ice has expanded. You are right that the reasons at this point are speculative (changing weather patterns, changing ocean flows, it isn't known at this point). You are utterly wrong in thinking this somehow disproves anything about climate change. One of the biggest issues with climate change is that its impacts are unpredictable.
Coast lines change ALL the time. Some models 10 years ago predicted the Marshall Islands would almost vanish by now...except they have more land mass/shoreline now.
A single volcano in a day dwarfs the planet's man-made emissions in a year.
This is junk. Activity from man emits 30 billion tons of CO2 a year. Volcanoes are estimated at most to produce 300 million tons, and the amount could be less than half that.
But the Chicken Little crowd needs to get a serious reality check.
This isn't about chicken little. This is about knowing the science or being ignorant.
Once people take the effort to know what science is being put forward by major scientific institutions, then we can start to take sensible, measured steps to control the problem. As long as people are happy to fall for the junk science like you've posted above, then the debate ends up in the hands of the climate deniers on one side, and the chicken little nutters on the other side.
That's what zerohedge is doing with its time now? I mean, it's a step up from convincing all those people to gak their money away investing in gold, but still...
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whembly wrote: While I"m a bit surprised that Trump has "some" momentum right now...
He still need to win two of PA/MI/WI/CO and hold onto NC/FL/AZ/IA.
I don't see it working for Trump.
It's unclear if it's momentum caused by anything, such as Comey's announcement, or if it was just a natural swing back to Trump after his disasters with the recording of him bragging about molesting women and his woeful debate performances. The swing back to Trump began before the Comey announcement, after all.
I think it is likely just a continuation of the pendulum we've seen polls throughout this campaign. Candidates are even, Clinton slowly builds a strong lead, then polls naturally move back until polls are almost even, then Clinton pulls out again. The question is whether this current momentum will get another point or two by election day, in which case Trump will be pretty close in enough enough states, or if this mini-swing stalls out, in which case Trump is little chance unless the polls are miles wrong.
This message was edited 9 times. Last update was at 2016/11/02 09:41:04
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
The opinions of other STEM professionals is utterly irrelevant. Getting a degree in chemical engineering gives you exactly zero insight in to climate modelling. How fething bonkers would it be to have a presentation on blackholes, with a bunch of astrophysicists telling us about the accepted physics, and then have a climate scientist talk about how he thinks all the astrophysicists are wrong. This is exactly what happens when climate deniers invite random engineers and physicists to opine on climate modelling.
They may not have the scientific understanding to question the facts directly, but they'll be familiar with the peer reviewing process and critical analysis, which will allow them to make a reasonably informed interpretation of the papers.
Being a highly skilled bio-chemist doesn't make you qualified to do brain surgery, let alone challenge a brain surgeon's methodology for a new technique.
Understanding peer review and critical analysis don't compensate for a weak understanding of a field. I'm a Historian, but I'd be idiotic even to go and try and offer a professional opinion on a field as closely related is Archeology. The processes are different, the requisite knowledge is distinct, and even if I were to train in Archeology, I'd likely never be more than a highly educated amateur. Because our fields are closely related, I can offer a lot to an Archeologist, and an Archeologist can offer a lot to a Historian, but we're not the same and it's foolish to pretend that our expertise in the field we specialize in translates directly into the other. Hell, a climatologist can help a historian because major climate events have had historical impact (the little ice age for example), but that doesn't mean a climatologist can explain to me the significance of Ottoman Land Laws and absentee land lords to the successful Zionist movement.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/02 10:11:07
The opinions of other STEM professionals is utterly irrelevant. Getting a degree in chemical engineering gives you exactly zero insight in to climate modelling. How fething bonkers would it be to have a presentation on blackholes, with a bunch of astrophysicists telling us about the accepted physics, and then have a climate scientist talk about how he thinks all the astrophysicists are wrong. This is exactly what happens when climate deniers invite random engineers and physicists to opine on climate modelling.
They may not have the scientific understanding to question the facts directly, but they'll be familiar with the peer reviewing process and critical analysis, which will allow them to make a reasonably informed interpretation of the papers.
Being familiar with the peer review process and general critical analysis does not give them the specialised knowledge to disprove the findings, unless there is a very obvious mistake.
As an example, you are unlikely to find an electronic engineer who can critically review an astrophysics paper examining General Relativity and the solutions to Einsteins field equations. They will most likely lack the required mathematical basis to be able to even interpret the equations used in the paper as Tensor calculus is not something that an electronic engineer is generally required to use in their career. As such following the methodology used and being able to interpret the results is going to be very difficult at the least, let alone coming to a different conclusion which is actually correct.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/02 10:15:31
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Sebster: can you reduce the size of that graphic, it's doing terrible things to my browser.
Anywho, so there's some new info about the early voting in Florida. 28% of *Republicans* are voting for Clinton in early voting. Only 6% of Demacratic early voters are going for Trump, which is about normal.
Seems the Never Trump movement, and Latinos/Cubans in particular, may have the last laugh here. Without Florida, there is zero chance of a Trump victory.
Looking for a club in Brisbane, Australia? Come and enjoy a game and a beer at Pubhammer, our friendly club in a pub at the Junction pub in Annerley (opposite Ace Comics), Sunday nights from 6:30. All brisbanites welcome, don't wait, check out our Club Page on Facebook group for details or to organize a game. We play all sorts of board and war games, so hit us up if you're interested.
Pubhammer is Moving! Starting from the 25th of May we'll be gaming at The Junction pub (AKA The Muddy Farmer), opposite Ace Comics & Games in Annerley! Still Sunday nights from 6:30 in the Function room Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else!
The opinions of other STEM professionals is utterly irrelevant. Getting a degree in chemical engineering gives you exactly zero insight in to climate modelling. How fething bonkers would it be to have a presentation on blackholes, with a bunch of astrophysicists telling us about the accepted physics, and then have a climate scientist talk about how he thinks all the astrophysicists are wrong. This is exactly what happens when climate deniers invite random engineers and physicists to opine on climate modelling.
They may not have the scientific understanding to question the facts directly, but they'll be familiar with the peer reviewing process and critical analysis, which will allow them to make a reasonably informed interpretation of the papers.
Being familiar with the peer review process and general critical analysis does not give them the specialised knowledge to disprove the findings, unless there is a very obvious mistake.
As an example, you are unlikely to find an electronic engineer who can critically review an astrophysics paper examining General Relativity and the solutions to Einsteins field equations. They will most likely lack the required mathematical basis to be able to even interpret the equations used in the paper as Tensor calculus is not something that an electronic engineer is generally required to use in their career. As such following the methodology used and being able to interpret the results is going to be very difficult at the least, let alone coming to a different conclusion which is actually correct.
But then they may also ask questions that may seem obvious to experts and identify inconsistencies that might be overlooked? My power of ignorance is quite well valued in the reviews I do
They've also got a reasonable chance of saying "hey, this statement here, I don't know what it actually means, but no-one seems to have explained or agreed with it".
Herzlos wrote: But then they may also ask questions that may seem obvious to experts and identify inconsistencies that might be overlooked? My power of ignorance is quite well valued in the reviews I do
They've also got a reasonable chance of saying "hey, this statement here, I don't know what it actually means, but no-one seems to have explained or agreed with it".
This is theoretically possible, but incredibly unlikely. The only mistakes that an outsider will be able to spot are the kind of massive flaws that shouldn't get through peer review in the first place. For anything more subtle than that the outsider simply isn't going to have the necessary knowledge to have an informed opinion one way or the other. So yes, maybe you've asked some relevant questions, but a critical review from a fellow expert would have found those same problems.
And of course this is especially true in the context of something like climate change, where the relevant papers have been obsessively studied in a desperate search for any possible error. These are not obscure papers with single-digit readers we're talking about, they're high-stakes policy stuff at the core of the field. Blatantly obvious mistakes are not going to have slipped through to this point. As an outsider about all you can say is "yep, that's what the scientific consensus is".
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There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Herzlos wrote: But then they may also ask questions that may seem obvious to experts and identify inconsistencies that might be overlooked?
It's foolish to presume that experts in a field have produced inconsistencies of which they are not aware. Inconsistencies don't go unnoticed for long in academics. Jared Diamond's first book wasn't even out a week before other Anthropologists were tearing it down for being a lot of well worded nonspeak (and even that didn't stop the guy from thinking he could play at being a historian and getting a similar result).
They've also got a reasonable chance of saying "hey, this statement here, I don't know what it actually means, but no-one seems to have explained or agreed with it".
Pretty much every field has it's jargon, and no one in them when writing to academics in their own field is going to stop and explain them for the people not in their field who probably shouldn't be reading their work with a poor understanding of them in the first place.
I'd never actually write any history if I had to stop and explain every single aspect of historical epistemology, methodology, and theme to everyone who came through telling me "you never explained it and no one seems to agree with it." There generally exists a vague line between academics who work in a field, and academics who develop a field. The former uses established models and takes their accuracy as an assumption because methods are pointless if no one is using them. The later develops methodologies, either because they think the current ones don't work, or that there's a better way to go about doing things. Most fields will have people who engage in both to varying degrees, but at the end of the day many assumptions are simply taken for granted because it's the only way to get any actual work done.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2016/11/02 10:40:56
