On the topic of trade, I suspect #China is happier about Trump’s #TradeWar than many suppose. Sure, China will feel some short to mid term pain from these disruptions; however, the United States is leaving behind a very large vacuum in the international community. /1
While America is off attacking everyone coming and going, China is quietly offering to provide leadership on trade. There are many trade deals taking place where America is on the outside looking in; thus, China stands to win big in the long-term application of the trade war. /2
Trump and his supporters misunderstand something paramount about foreign policy. They see lone wolf schoolyard bullying as the ultimate exercise of foreign policy power. /3
Good foreign policy is about building alliances. A street analogy here is building gangs to deal with that schoolyard bully. China is currently growing its influence while America obsesses over schoolyard bullying antics. So, I think China is pretty content right now. /end
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One problem that seems common on the right and left is aversion to valid criticism of arguments. Many people seem less interested in finding truth than they are looking for reinforcement of their world views. This environment is very exhausting, and it's damaging to our republic.
The difference between the republican party and the democratic party on the issue of racism depends upon which party the south selects to run on. The logical error people make is assuming that because the south selects one party, all people in that party must be racist by def..
Republicans like @TomNichols who have to deal with many of these political realities and hedge these kinds of problems are misunderstood, and if I'm honest, they are sometimes mistreated by liberals. This creates hostilities that makes a republic like ours very difficult to run.
The amount of damage that has been done by the lack of interest in cyber security is incalculable. The interference in our election isn't even the most dangerous thing that I see. The most dangerous thing is the billions of records we are losing on our civilians every year. /1
These records are almost certainly being capture by governments like Russia. The reason that is dangerous is because machine learning tactics can be used to manipulate and discover weaknesses in our society. /2
For example, Russia could data mine all our data to discover people who are most likely to run for office in the future. They could data mine to find a list of people most willing to spy on their behalf. They can fine tune propaganda and tailor it to cause confusion and doubt. /3
If one isn't careful with circumstantial evidence, he or she can construct a therefore, because of this fallacy. One has to drill down on cases that can cause the ground to be wet. For example, did your wife decide to water the lawn? /1
In computer systems, there are many different cases where things can go wrong and produce inconsistent output. This is why investigations have to be done by experts in the field because they not only have to know the cases but rule them out. /2
I've been involved in investigations of entire data centers going haywire. It's essentially an Apollo 13 type situation for an organization. One thing you do not do in these situations is guess based upon circumstantial evidence. /3
Computer scientists have been trying to engage the public on cyber security issues for a very long time. In fact, we have been yelling fire for a very long time. Unfortunately, the public doesn’t want to listen. /1
And congress shut down the office of technological assessment in the mid 90s. The issue isn’t that we have been silent; instead, the issue is people like this person who doesn’t want to listen. They prefer the story of snake oil salesmen because it’s convenient. /2
On the topic of circumstantial evidence, non-experts do not have the capacity to weigh evidence because after all, they are not experts. They do not have a clue to the significance of anything or to the potential causes. /3
[RANT] I wish people realized how much they do not know.
The reason experts are important is because of limitations of human beings. In the universe of knowledge, mankind collectively knows a subset of it. Individuals only know a subset of what mankind knows. /1
Although it's common to hear people say what "we" know when discussing topics like science, truth is much of what "we" know is taken on authority. We have very limited lifespans, memory, and intellectual ability. /2
At this point in my life, I'm exhausted by the typical #conspiracytheory about global warming, vaccinations, government, or anything of any complexity at all. These are nothing more than attempts to conjure felicities where human limitations don't exists. /3
I should start sharing the zillions of comments I use to get with when I use to have the energy to put a lot of effort into promoting egalitarianism in the south just to provide perspective.
One thing you'll notice very quickly is that people have a very different viewpoint of the confederacy. In addition, you should expect a lot of arguments dressed up with social desirability bias.
When you quote primary sources on the confederacy, you're not going to get the response you'd expect. You'll get a lot of whataboutism arguments, and my personal favorite, it's your interpretation arguments.