US welcomes King George III (The new politicks thrad)

[wufwugy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us.../22scotus.html

Upon this new Supreme Court ruling, The Land of the Free is now officially The Land for the Wealthy.

Kiss goodbye voting power, a strong middle class, and anything other than totalitarian ruling by those with the gold. Saw this coming a mile away, and it's not like we haven't been moving in this direction for quite some time; just that this new ruling now makes money = votes, and this will become known by historians as the technical game changer

Maybe if people didn't adore their own stupidity. Not like that's possible, though. Humans are, after all, monkeys with bigger brains than other monkeys.

[BankItDrew]

Shitty buzz. Move to Canada perhaps?

Or can you revolt?

[a500lbgorilla]

The worst part is that it recognizes corporations, which live much longer and hold much greater assets than any one person, as people. Fucking shit.

[Penneywize]

Aw, come on Wuf. Sure, it's a shitty ruling, but let's not get too crazy here. However this pertains to elections or lobby groups or whatever, bear in mind that money will always be coming from both sides -- particularly in a two-party system -- and you can't outright buy votes in elections. Over-saturation of advertising in political campaigns by a given party very frequently ends up working against them, so there is a natural cap as to how much money can be spent effectively.

Think of an inverse parabola; there is an optimal point of advertising, where further dollars spent would decrease in vote returns; and once this reaches zero, each dollar spent afterward would theoretically decrease votes. So it's not like one party can be like 'hey lets get all these corporations to give us money and bing blang blaow we'll buy the election'.

Then there's the game theory consideration. Should each party spend their entire warchest, reasoning that if they do not, the other party will advertise more and receive a higher 'payout'? Or would the parties be better advised to collude (explicitly or otherwise)?

For instance, say you're in charge of campaign ad spending for a party in a given election. You currently have 100M allocated to the election, out of a possible 500M. You are aware that the opposing party is also allocating 100M. Assuming that each dollar spent by either party will have the same marginal voting returns - do you increase your spending?

If you answer Yes, it is almost definitely a bad decision; your opponent is likely to match your amount -- assuming perfect information of course -- and the end result is you both receive the same "returns" from advertising, although you have now each spent an additional 400M. Clearly a worse outcome than if you had chosen not to increase spending.

So, what I'm driving at is, more money doesn't necessarily mean better outcomes for a given party. Again, don't get me wrong, it's a bad ruling and in my opinion is contrary to the principles of liberal democracy -- but to equate it to totalitarianism, the end of the voting power of individuals, the strong middle class (this made no sense in your argument by the way) etc. is just plain wrong.

[drmcboy]

It's OK, Obama will fix it

Really though, royalty had a lot going for it, may as well try again.

[Penneywize]

It's OK, Obama will fix it

Really though, royalty had a lot going for it, may as well try again.

My first act as King would be to standardize long division.

Seriously, fuck this vertical french bullshit.

[a500lbgorilla]

My first act as king would be Free Beer for Everyone!

[Warpe]

^^^
socialist

[wufwugy]

Aw, come on Wuf. Sure, it's a shitty ruling, but let's not get too crazy here. However this pertains to elections or lobby groups or whatever, bear in mind that money will always be coming from both sides -- particularly in a two-party system -- and you can't outright buy votes in elections. Over-saturation of advertising in political campaigns by a given party very frequently ends up working against them, so there is a natural cap as to how much money can be spent effectively.

But it's not a two-party system; it's a money-party system. Politicians are a facade because campaigns are won via financing, and the politicians' bosses are those who contribute the most. This isn't the beginning of campaign finance corruption, but basically the end. There have already been massive loopholes that have allowed things like the largest banks to be among the top ten biggest contributors to opposing candidates. This ruling is simply making the ability for wealth to purchase politicians and policy unlimited

Think of an inverse parabola; there is an optimal point of advertising, where further dollars spent would decrease in vote returns; and once this reaches zero, each dollar spent afterward would theoretically decrease votes. So it's not like one party can be like 'hey lets get all these corporations to give us money and bing blang blaow we'll buy the election'.

Then there's the game theory consideration. Should each party spend their entire warchest, reasoning that if they do not, the other party will advertise more and receive a higher 'payout'? Or would the parties be better advised to collude (explicitly or otherwise)?

For instance, say you're in charge of campaign ad spending for a party in a given election. You currently have 100M allocated to the election, out of a possible 500M. You are aware that the opposing party is also allocating 100M. Assuming that each dollar spent by either party will have the same marginal voting returns - do you increase your spending?

If you answer Yes, it is almost definitely a bad decision; your opponent is likely to match your amount -- assuming perfect information of course -- and the end result is you both receive the same "returns" from advertising, although you have now each spent an additional 400M. Clearly a worse outcome than if you had chosen not to increase spending.

So, what I'm driving at is, more money doesn't necessarily mean better outcomes for a given party. Again, don't get me wrong, it's a bad ruling and in my opinion is contrary to the principles of liberal democracy -- but to equate it to totalitarianism, the end of the voting power of individuals, the strong middle class (this made no sense in your argument by the way) etc. is just plain wrong.

I'm finding this very difficult to respond to because it appears to me to be missing the point entirely. It is a hypothetical based on many assumption which, frankly, has no relevance to how our sociopolitical structure works.

It is abundantly clear that whenever allowed, money is the final arbiter in politics. No matter how you cut it, campaign finance is legalized bribery. For much of US history, there were stiff regulations that kept campaign finance in check enough to keep playing fields level WRT the individual vote. This ruling, however, is the final straw in making the individual vote as weak as possible, and the legal bribery of wealthy interests as powerful as possible. If you thought politicians were spineless now, that is nothing compared to the guys we're gonna have in the future. It's called 'being bought and paid for'

[boost]

this sucks. a lot.

[wufwugy]

The worst part is that it recognizes corporations, which live much longer and hold much greater assets than any one person, as people. Fucking shit.

Corporatocracy or corpocracy is a form of government where corporations, conglomerates or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country. This is sometimes considered to be a form of fascism.

Very few want to acknowledge it, but The Home of the Brave meets the requirements for corporatocracy.

[Warpe]

I would posit that the only reason you still have a two-party system is b/c the price of entry is too expensive for any other party to gain traction. This ruling will make it even moreso.

[Ash256]

AFAIK the UK has unlimited political donations and it's not that bad, the unions tend to throw enough cash at the socialists to keep them well funded.

Am I right in assuming that you guys in the USA don't have the same working class solidarity thing as we do?

[Hawk]

Yeah this is bad news for sure.

I wonder how long until we have to to choose between former mega-conglomerate CEO's for president.

[wufwugy]

Yeah this is bad news for sure.

I wonder how long until we have to to choose between former mega-conglomerate CEO's for president.

We pretty much already do

In 2008, we got to choose between the guy whose top contributors were financial mega-conglomerates, and the guy whose top contributors were the same financial mega-conglomerates. We chose the guy who ran the bigger campaign due to his mega-conglomerate bosses deciding he was the better choice to win

Even if Obama tried to reform stuff, if it went too far against his bosses' wishes, he would just end up being a political scapegoat like Carter.

Part of the whole game is to keep the population thinking that they're making choices, but for some reason, doing ten minutes of research on bet hedging and fact-checking Hannity is too hard for most

[wufwugy]

AFAIK the UK has unlimited political donations and it's not that bad, the unions tend to throw enough cash at the socialists to keep them well funded.

Am I right in assuming that you guys in the USA don't have the same working class solidarity thing as we do?

It's very hard to compare the US and UK like this. US really does operate under some different framework given that we're the primary center of wealth on the planet. For example: private industry corporations are exceedingly more powerful than unions in the US because this is the hub of business and private industry hates unions. In some other places, many of which are in Europe, unions are far more powerful because private businesses are far weaker. There are many other factors too, but the point is that it is clear that US sociopolitical paradigm involves throwing the non-rich under the bus for the benefit of the rich.

In many ways, the UK has been mimicking the US though. Like you guys have a higher per capita debt than we do, but, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't have things like mega-corporate tabloid 24-hour news cycle propaganda machines....

Unlimited corporate finance in the US means that the wealthiest entities on the planet are given free reign, whereas in many other countries, the wealthy interests are much smaller relative to median wealth of the population.

Here's a list of the year 2000 top 100 world economies. Notice that 51 of them are not even countries. When the few people who own Wal-Mart have as much GDP as entire nation of Turkey, shit is really, really wrong

http://www.corporations.org/system/top100.html

[Deanglow]

we never really had rights in the first place so....

[Penneywize]

But it's not a two-party system; it's a money-party system. Politicians are a facade because campaigns are won via financing, and the politicians' bosses are those who contribute the most. This isn't the beginning of campaign finance corruption, but basically the end. There have already been massive loopholes that have allowed things like the largest banks to be among the top ten biggest contributors to opposing candidates. This ruling is simply making the ability for wealth to purchase politicians and policy unlimited

Let me put it this way. I'm not arguing that you're wrong about the inherent corruption involved with corporations donating vast sums to their preferred political parties. My point was that money would still come from both sides, and the effect of the legislation, while undesirable, is likely to be far less serious than you're making it out to be.

In past elections, Republicans and Democrats have ended up with fairly similar war chests (I think the Dems had an advantage last time if I recall correctly). This will not change outright because of this one piece of legislation; as you said, there already were loopholes to sort of get around this. Companies were still getting money to the candidates they favoured.

Two parts of your argument are outright incorrect - one, that money equals votes and that a party can 'buy' elections, and two, your premise of the totalitarianism, loss of voting power, and vastly weakened middle class that would result from such legislation (the last point, again, has no reasonable grounding whatsoever).

I'm finding this very difficult to respond to because it appears to me to be missing the point entirely. It is a hypothetical based on many assumption which, frankly, has no relevance to how our sociopolitical structure works.

It is abundantly clear that whenever allowed, money is the final arbiter in politics. No matter how you cut it, campaign finance is legalized bribery. For much of US history, there were stiff regulations that kept campaign finance in check enough to keep playing fields level WRT the individual vote. This ruling, however, is the final straw in making the individual vote as weak as possible, and the legal bribery of wealthy interests as powerful as possible. If you thought politicians were spineless now, that is nothing compared to the guys we're gonna have in the future. It's called 'being bought and paid for'

As I've already said, money will not determine elections on it's own. I've shown why this is the case with two well-grounded and rigorous arguments which you seem to either not understand or simply want to avoid. Saying I've missed the point, and that the arguments are not relevant to our sociopolitical structure, means nothing unless you can explain why the arguments do not apply.

To simplify, my points were that:
A: Advertising in elections, in terms of dollars spent, will reach a maximum usefulness at a certain point. That means the returns you're getting on the last dollar spent will eventually cease to be as valuable as the one previous. It's a simple concept called decreasing returns, and definitely applies here.

B: That optimality in campaign finance, as it pertains to advertisement, does not necessarily involve the spending of as much money as possible.

There are definitely other angles to approach this. But I think I've done enough to show that the conclusions you've drawn are at best precarious, and at worst, completely ignorant.

By the way. I'm pretty sure McCain and Co. spearheaded the campaign finance reform bill in the first place, and this was done fairly recently (last 10-15 years?). So before this bill existed, corporations were legally allowed to donate however much they wanted or could afford to... Does this mean every election prior to the existence of this bill was a sham? I don't think so. When it comes down to it, it's still up to the voter to decide who to put into power. Money might help spread a message, but people tend to figure out whether they're being fed bullshit or not.

[Penneywize]

Yeah, just looked it up, the piece of legislation is called the McCain-Feingold bill (or the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act) and it came into effect in 2001. Signed into law by Bush, it limited donations of "hard money" to 2k$ per organization. This is the one that was overturned by the supreme court.

Is that an Oops, Wuf? Or did good ol' 'W' save us all from totalitarianism back in '01?

Here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform

By the way -- Warpe nailed it. One of the main reason I'm against the overturning of this bill is that it does create barriers of entry to smaller parties. IMO, multi-party systems own.

Canada has a pretty novel way of dealing with campaign finance. There's a hard limit on contributions of corporations to political parties, obviously, but here's the kicker: Every political party receives federal money for every vote they receive in a given election. Parties literally get something like 5-10 (not sure on the amount) dollars per year, per vote they receive.

So if you moved to Canada, Wuf, and started the Party for Dissident Emo Americans and somehow got 1,000 people to vote for you, you'd be entitled to a yearly budget of like 5,000 to 10,000$. Not bad?

[wufwugy]

But it's not a two-party system; it's a money-party system. Politicians are a facade because campaigns are won via financing, and the politicians' bosses are those who contribute the most. This isn't the beginning of campaign finance corruption, but basically the end. There have already been massive loopholes that have allowed things like the largest banks to be among the top ten biggest contributors to opposing candidates. This ruling is simply making the ability for wealth to purchase politicians and policy unlimited

Let me put it this way. I'm not arguing that you're wrong about the inherent corruption involved with corporations donating vast sums to their preferred political parties. My point was that money would still come from both sides, and the effect of the legislation, while undesirable, is likely to be far less serious than you're making it out to be.

In past elections, Republicans and Democrats have ended up with fairly similar war chests (I think the Dems had an advantage last time if I recall correctly). This will not change outright because of this one piece of legislation; as you said, there already were loopholes to sort of get around this. Companies were still getting money to the candidates they favoured.

Two parts of your argument are outright incorrect - one, that money equals votes and that a party can 'buy' elections, and two, your premise of the totalitarianism, loss of voting power, and vastly weakened middle class that would result from such legislation (the last point, again, has no reasonable grounding whatsoever).

Sorry dude, not the case

The money does not come from 'both sides' as you put it. The money comes from those who have it and put it to use defending their interests. Those who do not have money (the public) end up shit oh dear. The more money involved in politics, the less of a 'one person/one vote' paradigm under which we operate

You're also caught up on one party vs another, dem vs repub. This is a clear example of not knowing how American politics works (maybe all politics, but I don't know anything about politics other than American, so I won't guess). One example of this is how the many of the top contributors to politicians hedge their bets and contribute to BOTH SIDES. Politicians do what their funders want because if they don't they lose their job. This is not opinion, but fact based on the data. One example is Joe Lieberman. The guy has a conflict of interest in health insurance success and MAGICALLY he does everything he can to benefit those who pay him. The line between Democrat and Republican is becoming an illusion. If this wasn't the case, then the Democrats worst enemies wouldn't be other Democrats who accept assloads of contributions from corporate interests

You claim that money doesn't 'buy' elections, and I'm sure you would claim that money doesn't 'buy' policy. This is blatantly false. It's called lobby and campaign contributions, and they are the primary factor in forming policy. The fact that money rules American politics is actually very basic stuff.

As I've already said, money will not determine elections on it's own. I've shown why this is the case with two well-grounded and rigorous arguments which you seem to either not understand or simply want to avoid. Saying I've missed the point, and that the arguments are not relevant to our sociopolitical structure, means nothing unless you can explain why the arguments do not apply.

To simplify, my points were that:
A: Advertising in elections, in terms of dollars spent, will reach a maximum usefulness at a certain point. That means the returns you're getting on the last dollar spent will eventually cease to be as valuable as the one previous. It's a simple concept called decreasing returns, and definitely applies here.

B: That optimality in campaign finance, as it pertains to advertisement, does not necessarily involve the spending of as much money as possible.

There are definitely other angles to approach this. But I think I've done enough to show that the conclusions you've drawn are at best precarious, and at worst, completely ignorant.

I understand your point just fine. I'm just literally baffled at how to address this since its a weird red herring of sorts.

One example is that you're assuming that the amount of funds we're dealing actually involves drastic diminishing returns. The problem is that's just simply not true. Do some research on money in politics. The amount of money put into politics from general/public interests is not even remotely close to that from special private interests.

And I'm not sure where you get the idea that more money from one side isn't going to be put to great use. The market of advertisement and propaganda isn't even close to saturated.

By the way. I'm pretty sure McCain and Co. spearheaded the campaign finance reform bill in the first place, and this was done fairly recently (last 10-15 years?). So before this bill existed, corporations were legally allowed to donate however much they wanted or could afford to... Does this mean every election prior to the existence of this bill was a sham? I don't think so. When it comes down to it, it's still up to the voter to decide who to put into power. Money might help spread a message, but people tend to figure out whether they're being fed bullshit or not.
Yeah, just looked it up, the piece of legislation is called the McCain-Feingold bill (or the Bi-Partisan Campaign Reform Act) and it came into effect in 2001. Signed into law by Bush, it limited donations of "hard money" to 2k$ per organization. This is the one that was overturned by the supreme court.

Is that an Oops, Wuf? Or did good ol' 'W' save us all from totalitarianism back in '01?

Human society is already totalitarian. You and I happen to have been born in the small fraction of those with some freedoms and some power

And this decision did much, much more than just overturn the very limit Feingold-McCain Act. Overturned lots of other campaign policy

And please don't come at me with naivety about 'people tend to figure out whether they're being fed bullshit or not'. That's just a big fat LOL. Actually, it's not a lol, it's a sadface. Meanwhile, WMD in Iraq, God exists, Evolution is false, Global Warming doesn't exist because it's cold in the winter, oil is unlimited, starving people are responsible for their starving, and government is the big bad wolf.

The last thing people are good at is understanding mildly complex subjects

By the way -- Warpe nailed it. One of the main reason I'm against the overturning of this bill is that it does create barriers of entry to smaller parties. IMO, multi-party systems own

FWIW, this is a different topic, but one of the reasons for a two-party system in the US has to do with the MASSIVE development and focus on politics (way more than any other country), and the fact that the more refined politics gets the more necessary it becomes to merge agendas.

[sweetlemon69]

Wasn't Obama and Ron Paul one of the first presidential elects to raise the most amount of monies, ever, for a campaign via the Internet from the people? I'm pretty ignorant in US Politics, but you two seem to have a strong understanding. It sounds like some old school mentalities want to have big dollars to create commercials, and put signs on every single lawn in America. But us being in the 21st century, the Internet greatly reduces that cost. I guess they can pay for Google (tho i doubt they'd do this) to put their face or bio at every google ad displayed. Or even have their face splashed in every advertising banner on every website. Although, if they did put bigtime money into awesome www.jibjab.com (http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals lol) flash clips, they could definitly buy my vote lol.

[wufwugy]

Wasn't Obama and Ron Paul one of the first presidential elects to raise the most amount of monies, ever, for a campaign via the Internet from the people? I'm pretty ignorant in US Politics, but you two seem to have a strong understanding. It sounds like some old school mentalities want to have big dollars to create commercials, and put signs on every single lawn in America. But us being in the 21st century, the Internet greatly reduces that cost. I guess they can pay for Google (tho i doubt they'd do this) to put their face or bio at every google ad displayed. Or even have their face splashed in every advertising banner on every website. Although, if they did put bigtime money into awesome www.jibjab.com (http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals lol) flash clips, they could definitly buy my vote lol.

Yes he raised about 500MM from about 6MM people in small donations. This is only a fraction of the amount of money that his administration sees from private interests, though.

The point, however, begins and ends with money = votes. The 6MM who donated were 100$ or below each, yet we see private industry pumping vastly more than that into the system. Most of it comes in the form of lobbying, but we'll now see more in the form of campaign contributions now.

Obama out spent McCain 4:1. That is why he won. Votes are important, but money is what gets those votes. Per capita, the public sector that contributed was worth <100$, but per capita, Goldman Sachs was worth about 500k (and this is only campaign, not lobby which involves vastly more funds from private interests than campaigns)

This ruling gave corporations very strong 'freedom of speech' in campaign contributions. Effectively, the fucktards Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas think that richies and industry has more freedom of speech than actual people

[Warpe]

By the way -- Warpe nailed it. One of the main reason I'm against the overturning of this bill is that it does create barriers of entry to smaller parties. IMO, multi-party systems own

FWIW, this is a different topic, but one of the reasons for a two-party system in the US has to do with the MASSIVE development and focus on politics (way more than any other country), and the fact that the more refined politics gets the more necessary it becomes to merge agendas.

"refined" isn't the word I would use, far from it. The problem with the two party system as it currently exists in the US (even moreso now) is that it's a zero-sum game. One party gains power and the other loses it, so the battle is always about the next election.

There's no equivalent animal to a minority government as exists in Canada right now, nor a coalition government, nor any other possible iteration that require cooperation and compromise between the various parties in order to run the business of the nation and get things done. In a multi-party system, the merging of agendas actually takes place on an issue by issue basis, with alliances shifting as required.

While this might seem unweildy to American eyes, this process has resulted in some very effective governments around the world as well as, admittedly, some dysfunctional ones, but dysfunctional is probably how a lot of Americans describe their Congress right now.

When the Republicans and Democrats are always fighting for the brass ring of power, there is no incentive for them to actually make government work.

[wufwugy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKZKETizybw

[spoonitnow]

Hi last nail, meet coffin.

[wufwugy]

Edit to add: in case of confusion, POTUS = president of the US, SCOTUS = supreme court of the US



I would like to add that this can be changed. I'm far more gloomy than most, but I also know that there is a realistic way to change course

That way is for the 'left' (US left is often more centrish, but whatever) to not lose fervor, and to continue fighting diligently for POTUS elections. The reason this is of paramount importance is because POTUS indirectly runs the country via SCOTUS nominations. SCOTUS is by far the most powerful body in the country (and world), and they essentially determine any law they want. In fact, the courts are so powerful that law isn't really law until the courts rule on it.

For the longest time, we've had 3 liberals, 4 conservatives, and 2 moderates on the bench (with a conservative Chief). These nine people have decided everything from medical procedures to who 'won' the 2000 election.

If we are able to keep retards (GOP) out of presidential office then the court will change based on nominations, and the laws of the entire country will change.

Just imagine what it would be like with a SCOTUS of Sklansky, Dwan, D'Amato, Frank, and Chief Justice Xianti; all forms of online gambling would be explicitly legal within just a couple months. So imagine how different the country will look in 20-40 years if all SCOTUS nominations came from the more level-headed part of politics like Obama than from the propagandists extremist corporatist monarchists like Bush

In fact, had the SCOTUS not already been so corrupted by the previous couple decades of nominations from the right-wing, they would not have 'illegally' ruled that Bush won the election, there would have been a recount, Gore would have won, then the places of fucktards Roberts and Alito would be taken by jurists more like Sotomayor

Just that one tiny change and the court would be 5-4 in favor of more reasonable stances instead of 5-4 in favor of extremist ideology, the case in the OP wouldn't have even been heard, and much, much more

I forget which jurist it was, but one of them once said 'SCOTUS isn't final because its infallible, its infallible because its final'.

[Penneywize]

Wow, forgot about this thread

Well I'll definitely have to fashion up a reply

Agree, somewhat, with what you said about supreme court nominations; it's a pretty shit system to have these people appointed for life. And yeah, if you elect your party of choice repeatedly (and get lucky in terms of when the justices end up stepping down / dieing / whatever) you will eventually fill it with justices that are ideologically aligned with your favourite party. But forgive me if I disagree with equating republicans to propagandists, extremists, corporatists etc etc. They aren't all bad.

If McCain hadn't run for pres, you would probably still like him for being centrist and not toeing the party line on every issue. Back in '04, he appeared on the Daily Show and was received very warmly, standing ovation and all. Jon Stewart, of all people, even said "you see, that's what happens when people actually respect a politician". If he did become president (and if he had run against Gore or Kerry instead - might've actually happened) I doubt he'd be appointing any extreme-right justices, given his own ideological background.

But yeah. There are plenty of religious nuts on the right who still want to dig up old, divisive issues like abortion and such. Sadly we're still likely a generation or two away from these types of people "going away" or otherwise coming in step with reality.

[wufwugy]

GOP wasn't always extremist, but they are now

That's what happens when political strategy revolves around bigotry and superstition with corporatism at the helm. Some GOPers like to think that they're not extremists, but reality is that they either are and are deluded, or that which they support indirectly effects into extremism

[Ash256]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...e-1882349.html

Johann Hari agrees with you wuf


Also check out http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...i-1664368.html because it's one of the best articles I've ever read

[wufwugy]

Yeah, I remember that Dubai article being very good. I will never, ever travel to a region that fucking tyrannical and horrible

[Warpe]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/...gby-james.html

[a500lbgorilla]

Why would anyone support a party that acts in unbreakable unison?

[wufwugy]

Because it's God's party

Christianity, The Bible, God, whatever, are about as fucked up as it gets, but that doesn't stop retards from believing it all. The GOP must act in unbreakable unison because the only other option is giving Satan a blowjob

[surviva316]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/american-parliament-by-digby-james.html

this article makes me a sad panda

[a500lbgorilla]

Why would anyone support a party that acts in unbreakable unison?

So I shot an email to my conservative father asking basically this and his response was "because if they don't work as a team, the Democrats will absolutely ruin America. You will be thanking them in 30 years."

They're either too dumb to know better or too smart to think they can be wrong. An impossible nut to crack, I tells yah!

[boost]

[quote="a500lbgorilla"]

or too smart to think they can be wrong.

unpossible imo.

[wufwugy]

Dunning-Kruger effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning...3Kruger_effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

— Bertrand Russell

[a500lbgorilla]

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Ha! So what does that say of the self-proclaimed smartest person in the history of the planet? :P

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...10.html#970614

[wufwugy]

Obvious joke was apparently not obvious. Next time I'll add more silliness to the 'genius janitor apples guy' line

But in any case, the DK effect is simply stating the old adage "The more I know, the more I know I don't know". That's all. Intelligent people knowing they're intelligent doesn't collide with the DK effect. It is simply illustrating the phenomenon that when somebody doesn't know much, they don't know that they don't know much; but when somebody does know much, they know that there is much more out there to know. It also attempts to explain that stupid people can be more confident because they identify reality from their own perception and don't often fall prey to overestimating others, while smart people fall prey to overestimating others all the time and effectively consider that a personal intellectual flaw

The effect doesn't suggest that somebody like Richard Feynman would think he's dumb or that if he thought he was smart he would actually be dumb, but that Feynman was smart enough to be doubtful of his thoughts, whereas Sarah Palin is too stupid to think that anything that she could ever think wasn't brilliant

So if I say I think I'm smart, it may come from a place of discovery based in doubt, not from a severe lack of metacognition. And all things considered, I severely underestimate myself. When I examine my results I see how intelligent I really am, but when I go about day to day I think I'm a moron because I notice and conflate every little flaw

[wufwugy]

Might as well turn this into the politics thread instead of clogging up the rando thread


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc1gE...ayer_embedded#

I fucking hate this cunt so much

FWIW, a GOP win in 2012 would probably begin a couple years of good times for the US white upper-middle class, similar to Bush. It would all come crashing down and fuck over poor-middle class and minorities again, but I'm sure they'd grind up the Third Reich war economy and some new bubble to get everybody to think everything's hunky dorry. They got a retarded sock puppet with Darth Jar Jar, and are obviously doing everything they can to beat that record with Palin

[a500lbgorilla]

http://www.sarahpalinisafuckingretard.com/

For you, wuf

[wufwugy]

yessssssssssssssssss

it appears to me that the obama admin is beginning to loosen up their rhetoric. maybe. it's about time, though

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/...rah-palin.html

[Ash256]

^^ nice

Brief UK hijack: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...m-mohamed-case

MI5 complicit in torture, gov tries to cover up, judiciary shits on gov

[wufwugy]

this is why nobody takes the British seriously

The judges – Sir Igor Judge, the lord chief justice; Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls; and Sir Anthony May, president of the Queen's Bench

[Ash256]

i lol'd hard