The 2016 US American Election Thread

[photon]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I have watched plenty of Flat Earth videos. I've got their documents and I tested their calculations. I've spent hundreds of hours studying astrophysics and the Flat Earth theories actually corroborate a lot of Einsteinian theories of relativity.

That being said it's clear you have given very little actual thought and research into either topic.

Mmm...false equivalence. I'm going to write this down so I can follow your script for ignoring critical thought.

1. Use buzzwords
2. Groupthink
3. False equivalence

Am I missing something? Is ad hominem number 4? I bet it is.

I don't understand how any of this is a response to what I said ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

So Hillary is bringing Mark Cuban and Meg Whitman as her guests to the debate. More subtle trolling than Trump, yet better and more effective trolling too. Nothing Trump hates more than actual billionaires.

Wait Meg Whitman is a billionaire?

oh wait I msread that and thought it was Mae Whitman.

BTW all I can think of when I hear that name is

[photon]

I put this in the wrong thread earlier:

Trump speech today:
Trump says he's going to introduce a constitutional amendment to impose term limits; 6 years house, 12 years senate. Good luck.
Also a ban on White House and Congressional officials fund raising during business hours.

Where was this and his ethics stuff from yesterday MONTHS ago? These are actual things that, while are probably hard to impossible to implement and probably don't do anything for his relationship with the rest of his party would have helped him seem less like "the crazy one" candidate.

[photon]

Now this is how you respond to being mentioned in a leaked email where the email expressed their extreme dislike for him.

We all deserve privacy. The burdens of public service are insane enough without the perpetual threat that every thought shared with a friend becomes Twitter fodder.

Neera has only ever served in the public (and public interest) sector. Her work has always and only been devoted to advancing her vision of the public good. It is not right that she should bear the burden of this sort of breach.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...-attitude.html

This man should get 10x the attention Ken Bone did.

[photon]

Ecuador says they were the ones to cut off Assange's Internet access.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I have watched plenty of Flat Earth videos. I've got their documents and I tested their calculations. I've spent hundreds of hours studying astrophysics and the Flat Earth theories actually corroborate a lot of Einsteinian theories of relativity.

That being said it's clear you have given very little actual thought and research into either topic.

Mmm...false equivalence. I'm going to write this down so I can follow your script for ignoring critical thought.

1. Use buzzwords
2. Groupthink
3. False equivalence

Am I missing something? Is ad hominem number 4? I bet it is.

It is not unreasonable to argue that every question deserves critical thought.

It is wildly unreasonable to argue that every person must dedicate critical thought to every question.

Both the questions of the geometry of the planet and the veracity of national-scale voter fraud in the United States have had critical thought dedicated to them by highly qualified people and groups, and the results of that critical thinking are easily available.

The questions can therefore be considered as settled, and, absent shockingly strong evidence coming to light, further exploration can be considered a big fat waste of everyone's time, energy, and money. Time, energy, and money which could be much better spent critically thinking about other, as-yet-unsettled questions.

For example, a question I have right now, is what, exactly, you meant here:

It's the fact that you use the word conspiracy, it's a buzzword that ignores all preposition and counterpoint

A preposition being a word or group of words that is used with a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, location, or time, or to introduce an object, and my personal question being how the word conspiracy can ignore all of them. Is it that the word 'conspiracy' negates words like 'against' or 'following' in a sentence? Does it nullify 'notwithstanding'? Does it eliminate 'excluding'?

Honestly, as an English teacher, I'm fascinated by this new, syntactical effect of conspiracies. Is it a long-term goal of the lizard-people to undermine our ability to communicate with each other?

Oh ... I guess ad hominem is number four.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by photon

Ecuador says they were the ones to cut off Assange's Internet access.

Yeah by orders from Hillary!!

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I have watched plenty of Flat Earth videos. I've got their documents and I tested their calculations. I've spent hundreds of hours studying astrophysics and the Flat Earth theories actually corroborate a lot of Einsteinian theories of relativity.

That being said it's clear you have given very little actual thought and research into either topic.

Mmm...false equivalence. I'm going to write this down so I can follow your script for ignoring critical thought.

1. Use buzzwords
2. Groupthink
3. False equivalence

Am I missing something? Is ad hominem number 4? I bet it is.

This is a very thin line between complete insanity and complete arrogance.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by photon

There's also shortcuts we use every day to avoid having to think deeply about every single thing.

In principle yes something should be judged on its individual merit.

In practice there are basic things that can be used as a shortcut to tell me if it is worth the time to consider. Having been demonstrated to have used deceptive editing and dishonest tactics would be one. Being unwilling to release raw footage to be inspected is another.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If someone wants to be believed for such a claim the onus is on them to jump through the necessary hoops to convince more than people just looking for something to confirm their bias.

If I was an investigative reporter or a lawyer of course there would be more effort put into validating or refuting the claim.

But if the Society for the Advancement of Flat Earth Cosmology sends me a science book, it's reasonable to provisionally disregard it until they go to the effort of making it clear enough that it demands attention.

Another useful shortcut is the recent mathematical study that showed a conspiracy involving more than 1000 actors is impossible to contain.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0147905

[dsavillian]

Originally Posted by troutman

Another useful shortcut is the recent mathematical study that showed a conspiracy involving more than 1000 actors is impossible to contain.

And who paid for that study? The lame stream media!

That's what they want you to think!

[troutman]

Originally Posted by dsavillian

And who paid for that study? The lame stream media!

That's what they want you to think!

This work did not require specific funding, from nebulous clandestine cabals or otherwise.

[photon]

Originally Posted by troutman

Another useful shortcut is the recent mathematical study that showed a conspiracy involving more than 1000 actors is impossible to contain.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0147905

Hahaha this is awesome!

[photon]

On the idea of projection Gozer mentioned a bit ago, what if Trump being so adamant about the election being rigged is projection about him trying to rig the election (i.e. actually colluding with Russians)?

http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/201...ection/504518/

[CaramonLS]

I have no doubt the Veritas videos are absolutely skewed, similar to Michael Moore films and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Adding on to this, in addition to Foval, Bob Creamer is now toast as well, with his resignation/firing coming down in the last few hours. I would like them to release the full transcripts too, but you aren't going to get those until his series is fully completed (if they release them).

If these guys did nothing wrong, you'd hope their organizations would have their back.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Uggghhhh.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Uggghhhh.

With these videos? Are they guilty of massive voter fraud and election rigging? Probably not.

Are they involved in some quasi legal shady ####? Absolutely.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Uggghhhh.

Golden Mean Fallacy! That's on my card. Just need one more for a bingo.

[photon]

Snopes article on the videos:

http://www.snopes.com/2016/10/18/pro...ection-videos/

[photon]

Huh, he says that studies have been done about house term limits and he says that they weaken the legislative branch relative to the executive.

http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/10...mp-term-limits

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by photon

Huh, he says that studies have been done about house term limits and he says that they weaken the legislative branch relative to the executive.

http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/10...mp-term-limits

Pretty transparent.

This week: "I've been looking into term limits. I think they're pretty good. I mean, if we have them for president, we should have them for congress. Why don't we?"
Next week: "A lot of people are saying term limits are bad. I've read it all over in the last week, and people are happy that I brought it up and got people talking about it. Because nobody was talking about it before."
Nov 9: "My first act as President will be abolishing term limits for president, which is an issue that I've been raising throughout my campaign, and had a lot of support."