For some reason many (most?) liberals can't come to grips with the fact that there are plenty of smart people who enjoy spreading right-wing propaganda. I suppose it's noble in some sense that they're looking for an explanation other than that these are just terrible people.

Because you can be intelligent but uneducated. And even when we Americans do get educated, it's all based on profit margin. There are guys out here who could tell you all about cool new IT technology but then if you ask them about the Civil War they go off on an insane rant about Greenbacks and how the south really really wanted to free the slaves, but Lincoln wanted to charge them for each slave and they couldn't afford that (I actually got this explanation a couple of weeks ago from a very intelligent but very uneducated guy). So we learn all the technical skills we need for the degree or certification or new job, always pushing forward to maximize our profit margin, and we have largely grown historically and culturally ignorant. It turns out Liberal Arts degrees really do come in handy after all!

Dvaut correct as usual.

I'm not going to "rely" on what DT/WH say. I've already read/heard arguments from the pro-Paris side (and will look again in end). I'm going to read the DT/WH statement, read the actual Accord outline, and balance that with what everyone else is saying. I'm pretty anti-pollution in general anyhow, think the polluters get to capture the gains while passing off the externalities and incentives are out of whack, etc. (Plus unknown unkowns, etc.)

A lot of Twitter pro-Paris has simply been "Trump is a ___, Macron and Europe are better." So we'll have to dig below the level on that one as well.

I'm not saying I'll disagree with that in the end. I would guess it's a leverage/political play. Still only skimmed through both. Have become even more skeptical of the MSM the past 7 months or so, and dig down more often on issues to form my own opinions (which still = roughly MSMish plenty).

The only valid counter-point I've seen is about who gets to pollute and who doesn't (i.e. India can go on coal burning for 13 years or something and we have to cut right away, etc.). I personally prefer that **** happens far away from me and understand the difficulty for developing countries - I also see how others can make logical arguments around that (or how global mining companies could lobby/negotiate a shift of allowed mining to lowest-cost locations and argue it's about something other than their bottom line, etc.).

I know I don't know. Is looking into it bad if I'm willing to spend the time?

I think I'm being trolled. If not, I'm happy to extrapolate point-by-point. I'll lay out Joule Technologies and John Podesta as well (with emails and attorney letter). And it's not always a D or R thing in Washington DC, it's an everyone thing really - with 2 different political pathways to that swamp-power.

It means that MSNBC is owned by Comcast, a multi-national for-profit corporation. They're ultimately about making money (as executives "should" run for-profit, shareholder-owned companies). That affects their content and framing. Like all media companies.

Also, the "Russia" thing works well IMO on MSNBC and CNN in part because the viewing audiences are older and grew up during the Cold War. Russia is a pre-existing mental frame for that Orwelian threat.

(I would guess Russia and probably 5+ other intelligence agencies tried (successfully?) to hack the DNC & RNC. Who knows, I don't. Little evidence given so far. And lol @ turning away the FBI and paying Crowdstrike to come in for a few days to mess around on the DNC servers first. A Russian CTO says the Russians did it after 3+ days, so it must be true. )

I agree people can search for facts to fit pre-conceived notions. Yes, I'm sure I fall into that trap all the time.

I would also point out that it's one step worse than the above when people simply label & dismiss anyone who expresses an alternative viewpoint (our Tribe says "x" instead, so you're wrong. You're a "y" so you're wrong. Etc.). I welcome the counter-providing of a basis to fit different notions (pre-conceived or not), vs. mutual-establishment and re-inforcement of acceptable/non-acceptable tribal boundaries (I can be vague and term-happy too ).

(The other technique is taking facts other people cite, then assigning some other person's conclusion(s) necessarily to those facts.)

If "eat politics for breakfast, lunch, and dinner" = "look up new ways daily that people on my side can label and dismiss outsiders who don't conform", then... Small sample, but that's my (strong) impression so far.

To me, 2017 has been this ramped up tribalism (here comes a pre-conceived notion developed by recent experience ) where people seek to establish new groups and point fingers/yell at those who dare stand outside. On the left. I mean, I lived in Berkeley for 5 years and San Francisco for 10. And this is the most tribal I've ever seen it (IMO). Anti-Trump tribe.

He's calling out the type of people who go around showing or telling you about all the good they're doing for the World. Often based on what they think others think is important (and they'll get credit for). It could be a corporation paying $5 million for an ad campaign to tell you about the $250k they donated (and got a tax write-off for). Lawyers who take on civil rights cases "for the cause" with self-congratulatory regal, but then bill millions of dollars after the Consent Decree is entered (that the agency they're trying to "help" gets stuck with the bill). The trust funder who's grandfather made his fortune as a corporate raider/in quasi-legal financial practices, but shames others who work for Wall St. (While living comfortably off of "old" Wall St. money). Etc. There's better examples out there.

Disagree with his degree of enthusiasm for blowing up/decentralizing institutions (agree to some point the small vs. over-centralization, hidden risks, blowups, etc.). Of course, he grew up in a Civil War where Assad's father blew up his family's house, his Dad got shot in the back, and a lot of his classmates were killed, so maybe he's more comfortable with the consequences of chaos.

His attack on academia I agree with to a point (growing up in a college town with a Dad who was a professor who had some research-oriented experience dead-on with what Taleb hammers on). That said, I'd argue there's societal benefit in that/those structures, and would also say I know I really don't know there (that's not a good articulation, would have to think more and flesh it out).

And going full f-bomb, etc. is not my taste. Am okay with the reaction to some extent given the shade/shame cast his way, and also think he uses it as cover to treat the ego as well. I do respect that he says what he thinks and challenges convention.

Probably some other examples, but would have to see it in real time.

BTW, his comment on the Podesta Group taking Saudi & Russian money during the 2016 campaign is what starting me down the path of doing my own research to follow the $$ in DC politics (because the MSM really. ****ing. sucks. at that). Looked it up myself, and the Podesta Group even took the Russian bank $$ from their NY subsidiary and didn't file as a Foreign Agent (which would look bad in an election - they had to post-file b/c it was still a Russian parent company). I never heard MSM mention the Podesta (group) Russian/Saudi money once during the campaign. (Lobbying firm John founded with his brother Tony, who still runs it)

As some people say, follow the money. Always drill down to the money source in DC (it's often obfuscated for a reason). And yes, it's often still possible for a person to find and verify it online.

I'd flip it and say the "good thing" he has (had?) a chance to do something about is just that - the permanent goverment (or whatever you want to call it). I agree with Bannon on (among many disagreements). There's insufficient check against the IC & it's power IMO. Doubt that Bush Sr. *actually* dialed back much in his year as head of the CIA (Mockingbird, Church Committee, etc.), and the powers keep expanding (even under Obama).

I also hate seeing any elected official get undermined by all the innuendo leaks trying to paint him as Putin's stooge, etc. (if he cuts a deal with Russia to end conflict in Syria, he goes against IC, Pentagon, etc. orthodoxy there). I'd rather we be allowed to elect who we elect, live with the consequences and correct next election. Like a (at times sucky and imperfect) Democracy does. We always love Democracy until we don't (at home and abroad).

I'd also like to see the US curtail it's involvement in interfering in/overthrowing governments and political movements across the Globe. We're literally the World-leader in that category, and it's not close. When Trump talks about cutting aid, etc. I take it (maybe incorrectly) as curtailing USAID, NGOs, Political Action Group/Special Activites Division, etc. I'd rather invest in the less devious forms of soft power (i.e. winning with culture) than the current state of affairs. There's a whole littany of things we do and spend money on that's spectacular (but virtually never gets reported in MSM). And more transparency about lobbying/propaganda efforts at home and abroad (i.e. not making amendments to the Smith-Mundt Act to then fund Think Tanks, lol).

Who knows.

Flynn was supposed to be the one guy willing to take the IC on in Syria and elsewhere (he clashed and got canned). Because what could possibly go wrong with arming foreign jihadis to fight a proxy war to overthrow a guy you don't like? (sorry Europe about that migration crisis from Syria and Libya)

This kind of turning away from legitimate mainstream sources and turning to conspiracy theory sites and Russian propaganda sites like zerohedge is exactly what Trump and Putin would love. You are a useful idiot.

Anyway, if you want some real intelligence (I know you don't) read this instead:


https://twitter.com/selectedwisdom/s...77129783373825
https://warontherocks.com/2016/11/tr...our-democracy/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyjVT1BywAw

Taleb is dumb as **** and his fanbase are all idiots who desperately want to feel smart without doing the hard work of being smart, suzzer.

suzzer no offense but your friend here is just horrifically ill-informed and potentially going through a bad stretch here. If you care about "fixing" him you need to talk to his family about getting him back on his meds, you aren't going to solve decades of paranoia and lack of education with a point well argued.

qft, but from what I can tell, he's kind of dumb-smart. Either has a 120 iq and thinks it's 150 or has a 150 iq for some things combined with patches of a profound lack of self-awareness. I've never seen a smart, informed person say anything good about him personally. Sam Harris has savaged him. (Fly may not like Sam Harris, but he's legit.)

Also, you're spot on about Suzzer's friend. He seems to jump from a to b to q to k without thinking about the steps. He also uses many of the standard tropes of truly bad information sources that denigrate the Mainstream Media. I guess one can criticize various MSM outlets, but there is almost always another publication, which the criticizer doesn't read or know about, from NTY to Vox, the New Yorker, NY/London Review of Books, Economist, WA Monthly, to journals, that have better information. I sometimes disagree with articles from those publications, but I don't blame "the media" so much as the difficulty involved in understanding and characterizing reality.

On a semi-related note, I listened to Dan Carlin's latest (now 6 week old) Common Sense podcast, which I have more or less given up on, and I was pleasantly surprised to see him dealing with some failures in his worldview. His diagnosis for political ills has always been some kind of vague "corruption", which I felt was shallow and something of a dues ex machina. He didn't support Trump, but he was closer than he should have been because he was in favor of someone "shaking things up." Anyway, he basically said that he was rethinking some things in light of the current series of unfortunate events. To be fair, however, wanting someone to shake up the systems doesn't imply some kind of orange cheeto nihilist tornado con-artist clown.

I'd also note just from his own personal anecdotes about his mom, his personal trainer, and his planned invasion of ChiefsPlanet, etc. is that the ultimate narrative arc here in this thread is really about suzzer. Because gramps is just writing a bunch of boiler plate woke right-wing nonsense. As suzzer notes, you can just go to the zerohedge comments section and find thousands of these guys. Far more interesting than anything gramps wrote is a story about suzzer and his "redeem a mouthbreather" fetish on display again.

Suzzer, you don't go to Vegas and call the ladies on the cards they hand out and try to bring them to a pastor and stuff, do you? Because that usually says far more about the saviorbros than the ladies just trying to make some money.

I want to reiterate here that talking about politics can be a very fine a hobby, a very entertaining hobby but you have a strange infatuation with this type of character and your ability to salvage them.

Maybe Suzzer is like a "resting state" moderate conservative (or, more likely just "suspicious") but he knows a fair amount, so it pulls him leftward, like a dynamic equilibrium between knowledge and inclination rather than a true resting state.

It's much easier to reach people who are apathetic or hopeless about the system rather than people who are deeply engaged in right-wing conspiracy thinking (or even people who voted for Trump). I would suggest focusing on those people.

On a related note, cp is convinced that London is completely overrun with Muslims.

I'm gonna stop you here - this isn't true, but it's one of the few "facts" you're already starting with for your decisions about whether Paris is good or not.

This is why you shouldn't be doing this independent investigation stuff - you're bad at it, and it's making you less informed than you would be than if you just read articles and **** like everyone in this thread is telling you to.

It should be a gigantic red flag to you that the very object of your independent research - knowing **** about the world - has been a total failure, but it's not, because the real goal is this image you've built up of the evil biased MSM and your personal quixotic crusade to outsmart them.

This is a bunch of smug nonsense. For chiefsplanet and the trainer I find a interest and value in observing the other side in their native environment. I think most here seem to agree the CP perspective is an interesting window into the other side - which you're not going to get from the few right-wingers left on this forum, or reading New Yorker articles about Trumpfans. Yes sometimes I get sucked into heated arguments with them, but the primary motivation is to observe the parallel universe politics forum.

Gramps is not a mouth breather lol. And yeah I've been pretty clear in my motivations for getting him to start this thread.

Standard, goofy making it personal.

Gramps,

I haven't read the Paris agreement, but mutt impression is that it does not specify details like who gets to burn coal. And the agreement does treat developing countries differently by allowing them to grow in cleaner ways.

Can you imagine an agreement which forces people who cause a tenth or a hundredth as much carbon emission as an American or European to cut back?

Actually Gramps,

I'm sure the Paris agreement substantially favors the US. A more equitable, though still not necessarily just, agreement would be to set a world wide sustainable limit per capita on emissions attributed to the end user (we don't get to buy from China and attribute emissions all to them) and set a time table for getting there.

When you read it you can correct me if this is wrong, but I expect the agreement is much more lax on the first world and asks more of the developing world than that.

Ok I take back saying Taleb was smart. This is some grade A pseudo-intellectual BS. People should freak out about terrorism because... people freak out about terrorism.

He's like the Sklansky for the whole US - spews a bunch of haughty-sounding nonsense, yet always comes to the conclusion that yes, surprisingly [right-wing talking point] turns out to be logically correct.

It seems difficult to me to find a copy of the complete text that is definitely the final version, but none of the ones I've looked at are that granular.

This one contains some text that I imagine forms the basis of the claim though:

And so on. Search for "developing" in the document and you'll basically get the idea. But, I don't think it's that easy to project how the agreement actually gets implemented in practice.

I read an article that said the full US commitment would cost $10 per person.

I'm sure we can start a GoFundMe or something to meet that goal. There are enough liberals to pay double to make up from the denier shortfall.

Dunno what that cost would be about, but there was some $15M commitment we were supposed to make (I'm sure just planning/studying) and Michael Bloomberg offered to cover it.

It was our $3 billion commitment to the green climate fund if I remember correctly.

Yeah Max's post about uncritically believing the MSM produced like, a non-response paragraph of gibberish, but it was honestly the best advice Gramps has gotten in this thread or will ever get.

The greatest burn in politics history is BoredSocial dropping "please stop trying to think outside the box... The box is for you." on steelhouse, and Gramps, the box is for you, too.

If your efforts to EXPAND YOUR MIND and ESCAPE THE MSM STRANGLEHOLD produced rambling posts about how Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is a sleeper agent for Pakistani intelligence, might be time to go back to like, CBS Evening News. They aren't great but they hit the high points.