The Rothschilds were a very rich and powerful banking family who were very powerful especially in the middle ages. And they were/are Jewish. Their power is quite spread out and different descendants have different interests. The thing is that exaggerating their power and wealth is just an absolute standard with antisemites. It's part of the secret cabal of Jews who run the world thinking. Almost no one would ever be talking about them if it weren't for the antisemitism.

Well you're using all the classic misinformation tactics. False equivalence between some kind of error and full-on fake news. Anti-semitism based on garbage conspiracy theories. Instead of defending your argument on the facts, you claim you are being shouted down and then you say "actually guys i'm the real liberal LOL." The truth is we really don't need "liberals" like you running around pushing racist conspiracy theory garbage. Go join the rest of the racists in the Republican (fascist) party. I think you would find much more common ground there.

Anyway, trying to get this thread into a more educational direction. I found this video on Mel Brooks and "The Banality of Evil" to be incredibly informative:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cPPSyoQkE

idk what the Rothschilds have to do with internet hacking, but to further the derail...

In the early 1900s Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild, married to the banker Baron Maurice de Ephrussi, commissioned the design and building of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera.

The villa and its nine gardens are a stunning example of Belle Epoque grandeur, and are open to the public having been donated to the Institut de France by the Baroness on her death.

We were there last year (shortly after the horrific Nice attack that TS famously claimed to have witnessed, then contradicted himself over) - strongly recommended as a day trip to anyone holidaying in the South of France.

You should stop doing this. Just blindly believe whatever the MSM says. Not because they are always correct, but because you've demonstrated terrible ability to think for yourself. If you just care about being right and not sounding like a moron thats clearly your optimal play.

I'm pretty sure pay of federal employees is set, formulaic thing that DWS has little if any control over.

I didn't find a friends of Suzzer exception.

It's nowhere near jiggs or deuces-level constant insanity and it's very likely to be his only thread. Why is this so important to you? No one else seems that perturbed to the point they want him insta-banned.

I'm trying to show him there's a lot of other smart people who don't buy into this stuff, and it's not just my personal cognitive dissonance or whatever that blocks me from seeing the light. (Gramps has seen me at my worst tuff-fish-esque poker meltdowns - so it follows he might not think my brain is wired right.)

Also I thought there was a chance some interesting stuff would come out of it. So far there have been a few interesting exchanges. He posted some stuff on FB following the thread of a purportedly independent news story which actually originated with a partisan think tan. I thought that was interesting. Gramps maybe that would get a better audience.

Herpes isn't as bad as AIDS, but I prefer neither.

Especially when there's a trivially easy way to avoid both.

Since the guy seems like he just fell off the Breitbart comments section wagon and you acknowledge and realize that, I wonder why you care to show him and why it matters how he views you. You think he's going to spend however many years reading right-wing fever swamp stuff, but like, you'll be his redeemer or something? Literally every single right-winger zombie type I encounter just gets a smile and a nod, the patronizing fake gun point and wink in their direction, and just leave them to their nonsense. I just file them away in the "oh ****, avoid these *******s at all costs" dumpster of my brain.

Seems like you have some introspection to do about how you get caught up with your personal trainer, Chiefs Planet, Gramps, etc. etc. and seem deeply focused on their valuation of you and the prospect of salvation for them. I find it odd and you should ultimately take pride in their rejection of your values. The chances someone is going to spend years in the depths of Rothschild conspiratarding but cherish you are next to nil, but even if it worked, one wonders what we might conclude from that anyway.

You're basically making an argument against arguing politics with anyone ever. If they don't agree with me I should just brush them off.

I've known gramps personally for a long time. He's a very smart dude and definitely not crazy. This conspiracy stuff is a new development that I don't know what to make of. I'm hoping maybe he can have a moment of clarity from the replies itt. How he personally feels about me isn't that important to me except for the fact that as I pointed out - it's a lot easier to handwave off one person than a bunch of them. Well or at least while maintaining credibility.

Also his particular brand of conspiracy isn't one I've run across before and I thought might stimulate some interesting conversation on here. Even in this thread there have been a few decent posts. I mean we can still have all the Trump freakouts we want, I don't think this one thread is hurting anything. I know there's zero chance of gramps spamming the forum with Newtown-level stuff.

Plenty of people are worth talking to but very few are replacement level Infowars writers. So it's not "anyone ever" but like this category of paranoid high functioning autistic type carefully documenting the connections between Penguin Publishing and the Rothchilds is highly uninteresting.

I'd go with zerohedge instead.

I'll assume what you're saying is true, and he's a sharp guy who's intelligent, etc. This speaks to the profound cultural ignorance in this country. We aren't educated properly on our history. For example, America had an incredibly anti-Semitic period from 1930-1940's before and even during World War 2. We're often taught in schools literally "Lost Cause" false history that glorifies the Confederacy and makes the Civil War out to be about states' rights instead of slavery. We aren't educated on the huge amount of powerful, influential Americans who supported Hitler or at least supported an anti-semitic "America First" campaign which sought to essentially let Hitler do his thing as long as he didn't mess with us. We aren't educated on the Compromise of 1877 or the Age of Terror that followed. We certainly aren't educated on the failures of the Civil Rights Movement--we are taught that laws were passed in the 1960s that managed to set straight the systemic racism in this country.

Sooner or later, all this ignorance adds up to something. I work with IT guys all the time who get caught up in this false history that Beck and Infowars and others are pushing, and it couldn't happen without our profound level of cultural and historical ignorance. We need a renaissance in education. Trump is only the symptom of our broken society, and if we don't fix the root causes we'll just be putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.

The Compromise of 1877 and the failures of the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s are particularly important, but we definitely aren't taught recent history. What schools are teaching that the GOP is actively disenfranchising black voters, literally right now as we speak? Nah, instead 99% of schools are teaching that institutionalized racism is a thing of the past, and we can move on to other problems now. This ignorance lets the GOP get away with "Voter ID" which is nothing more than a Jim Crow poll tax on poor people and minorities. We are completely ignorant of all our own historical failings, and so we are doomed to repeat them.

So in what category would we put someone like Taleb - who Gramps is a big fan of? Worth talking to? Personally I find Taleb very frustrating as he's obviously smart but seems like he focuses on minutae while the house is burning down.

Things (social, political) tend to be cyclical because each generation doesn't learn and understand well enough what happened to the previous generation.

I second what suzzer said. I haven't talked politics with Gramps but know him well for a 2p2er and even somewhat irl.

Lol, thanks for pointing out where I factually did any of that with your own conclusory non-facts (oh no, confirmation bias!). I would agree that other people may take facts I look at, and draw other conclusions like you say. That doesn't necessarily make them my conclusions. Whether the basic facts do or do not not overlap.

I completely agree with your MSM part - I don't blindly believe anything they say - quite the opposite. And that's the point, read with skepticism and draw your own conclusions for facts you can drill down to (as best as possible). The MSM is one (large) voice in a sea of voices. If MSM goes a different direction with verifiable facts (or anonymous sources ), or some alt-right radio person goes some weird place with factual data points, that doesn't poison those facts per se for me to draw my own conclusions with those facts. Those that I can verify, to the best of my ability (+/-).

That's the technique people use. Sky is blue, crazy person says it means ___. I see the sky is blue, draw different conclusion. Third person comes in and says since you both say the sky is blue....therefore the conclusions are the same. (And for "conclusions" different people can be saying true, some truth to, partial energies of truth, I know-I-don't-know but am guessing, this is interesting, etc.).

In the wake of the Syria run-up/analysis, I even went back and pulled up some old Iraq editorials from the NYT and WaPo (and fake news that Mohammed Atta met with the head of Iraqi Intelligence in Prague right before 9/11). It's good for all of us to re-read history, and to build a frame to observe the World with (i.e. what history tells us factually happened, what was being said at that time about what was happening, and our history-guided impressions about what we're being told is happening right now (based on available/verifiable evidence), etc.).

In regards to my ability to think for myself, I would say that's exactly what I'm doing. Which is why, even as left of center politically, I end up in a more spread out fashion. Based on what I can actually verify, etc. Call bull**** on bull****ers (and fortunately a lot of people out there are doing it with Trump & friends).

There was a quote of some other House IT staffer (I looked up his profile on Linkedin) saying those salaries were high. Another person was quoted as saying his company bid on the work for 1/4 of their cost and was rejected (and said the cost seemed very high/that was unusual). I'd still be happy to be pointed out that it's in line for their experience.

Lol, I think Breitbart has a lot of racist and other garbage and alt facts meant to bait, clickbait, etc. Likewsie, it was a journalist in the investigative arm of Breitbart who uncovered the Clinton Uranium One scandal, buried in a Canadian mining document. I'm allowed to look for facts wherever they come from, build my own conclusions, and not have others garbage and/or hateful conclusions assigned to me for doing so.

Shouting down people for looking at any information (not conclusions) from a source, then saying your messenger sucks so those facts/info/evidence are poisoned and discarded is a special kind of lolness. I don't give a **** who finds information I can research and draw my own independent conclusions from what I can gather. If I'm a homicide detective and a Nazi convicted murderer gives me a lead that appears relevant to my case, I go follow that lead and follow up factually (to draw/not draw my own conclusions).

I follow hundreds of people on Twitter, many of whom I disagree with normally (and even some I dislike or despise). I want my viewpoints challenged and I want bits of information and history I can research on my own (which comes from all sources).

I mean, I would go with a different word/synonym for conspiracy that has less negative meaning associated. Conspiracy is usually used to discredit someone and what they're saying. (And if you're a MSM article trying to discredit a person or idea, you'd use a reverse pyramid article structure + linguistic technique of implicature to refer to a "fake conspiracy" in the headline - which necessarily implies that a conspiracy exists, and stick that idea + implication in peoples' minds while also claiming near the bottom that you don't know for sure. )

I still disagree with things Taleb writes (and how he writes/says them). He also doesn't give a **** what other people think, and is willing to challenge convention, call bull**** and draw his own conclusions after doing his own research. And a lot of what he writes (often researched from the ground-up) is phenomenal. (IMO, of course)

What's wrong with reading someone who says things you disagree with, then improving your ability to counter-logic when challenged? Maybe eventually incorporating a challenge or two into your thinking while agreeing to disagree with the rest?

Flipping the channel to Comcast Cable News because they only make fun of people you don't like while using "safe themes" is the Newscorp Cable News echo-chamber move. (and Newscorp's median viewer age may be 68, but 59 is not exactly peak open-mindedness either... )

For example, in the news this week was Trump and the Paris Climate Accord. Instead of relying only on what other people tell me it is/should be, I'm spending a day or two to actually read the document, and actually read the White House statement on their stance/walkaway from the deal as constituted. My opinion of the matter may or may not change as a result. Oh noes!

What you're actually saying here is that you're going to rely on what Donald Trump tells you, unless you add some other sources into your reading list that will offer you some fact checking on the White House statement.

Gramps,

Regarding Paris, given that every single country in the world signed it except for Nicaragua who said it was too weak and Syria which is too broken to care, what are you going to think if you read it over two days and your first thought is that you wouldn't sign it? Are you going to think you're right? Maybe in the face of such overwhelming agreement you could allow that you might be wrong.

Sure, for a lot of things most people can be wrong and the MSM or other parties could have hidden agendas, but in this case I'd think you'd give everyone else in the world the benefit and be able to tell that Trump is a ****ing moron and him wanting the opposite is another indication that signing is the right thing to do.

I mean, the guy just brought up the uranium one deal as some sort of scandal. Why even bother engaging after that?

There's a ton of projection here. And what is Comcast Cable News? Er, what does that last paragraph even mean?

Do you really think everyone on this forum are a bunch of politics fish who don't incorporate a challenge into our thinking? I've read every single one of your FB posts. Some of them even made me seriously stop and think - like the think-tanks -> news one.

As I've mentioned on FB - "draw his own conclusions after doing his own research" is way too often a euphemism for "found something on the internet to justify his pre-conceived worldview". Which anyone can always do. It's trivially easy.

Obviously yes, there's still a chance the person who found something on the internet is right, and a bunch of other very smart people who eat politics for breakfast, lunch and dinner are wrong. But do you think that's even remotely the most likely scenario? If you found yourself on the wrong end of that equation, shouldn't that give you pause? I sure don't see any self-reflection in your replies in this thread.

Please take this with love, but do you think there's even a tiny chance that you're in the "if you can't identify the fish at the table it's probably you" scenario? My first time playing no-limit, I still didn't know **** about how to really play poker. But I sure thought I did. I looked around at the collection of people at the table and said to myself "I'm smarter than most of these people, probably all, how hard can it be? It's 2 freaking cards and I'm used to playing with 7".

Are you 100% sure that's not you, with politics, right now?

I know you're familiar with the idea of grasping poker concepts along the way - like *win a bunch of little hands, lose a big one*, balancing ranges, leveling, heading down a dark tunnel w/o a plan, hand-reading, soft skills, etc - and a ton of stuff I'm forgetting or never even grasped. None of that stuff comes instantaneously unless you're durrr or something.

Politics is very similar imo. It takes a long time to get the different levels that are going on. E.g. - the vagaries of human nature and how they can be hijacked by slick propaganda, motivated actors doing predictable mundane things is always the most likely scenario, knowing there's a massive gulf between reality and a campaign promise from the minute it's uttered, seeing how politicians dumb down complex issues - on both sides, knowing that emotional triggers pretty much drive everything, getting that it's all bull**** but still somehow works out. The more you know, the less you know. Etc.

To walk into a room of political junkies and accuse them all of tribalistic cognitive dissonance is kind of foolish imo. Read the death of the democratic party thread in this forum to get an idea of how much introspection and navel-gazing is going on.

Anyway - what specifically do you disagree with Taleb about and what points/general themes do
you agree with? You posted this article as a "mic drop": https://medium.com/incerto/the-merch...e-b548762658f0 What exactly resonates with you? I will give him a ton of credit for the anti-fragile stuff - he completely nailed that. But that virtue thing, I read it and have no idea what he's trying to say.

And you never answered my question about your ultimate hypothesis in all this - do you think Trump has a chance to do good things if the Deep State would get out of the way? Zerohedge seems to think so. Do you agree/disagree/no opinion?