USA Politics

[JBS]

The important thing to understand about Trump's taxes and the debate is that neither told us anything important that we did not know, or should not have known, before. At most the supplied details to fill in or confirm what we knew before.

[greg]

The one person who keeps talking about IQ here is also one of the most stupid, non-thinking posters.

Oh, saying something critical. This statement must be true! Because it sounds very confident and aggressive.

Nothing in his mind "seems to be connected to brains." I.e. he is unaware that even the stupid things one does, like blowing one's nose, are "connected to one's brains."

Wtf? lol

Of course the man he's so interested in who at some point long time ago scored IQ 195 is a conspiracy theorist who says Bush staged 9/11 and he's also an antisemite.

I didn't hear about this guy until a few days ago. And didn't know about those two things.
"Of course he's so interested in"- what a "stupid, non-thinking" thing to say.



And we continue the everflowing pattern of Politics discussion life:
Poster A: points out opinion
Poster B: points out fact
Poster C: makes nonsense personal attack on Poster B

Productive discussions are always fun. 

[BasilValentine]

The important thing to understand about Trump's taxes and the debate is that neither told us anything important that we did not know, or should not have known, before. At most the supplied details to fill in or confirm what we knew before.

No, we did learn new things: The extent and persistence of Trump's failure in business and that his major source of (legal and publicly acknowledged) revenue in recent years came from playing a successful businessman on "reality" TV. We also learned that he likely committed tax fraud again (this time within the time limit of the statute of limitations) and that he might be liable for a $100 million penalty. Or did you know  all of that?     

[Herman]

It would be best to call off the next two debates.

People have seen enough.

[71 dB]

Spot on  -- at least in most cases.

Thanks! 

There are also some who are quite intelligent, but support Trump because they fear that any Democratic president will be beholden to the left wing of their party and move the country further toward socialism. There are good reasons to believe that socialism will not work well in the U.S. (And there is also an irrational fear of the Red Menace that is still with us since the Cold War days.)

Well, Biden won't move the country "further toward socialism." He is a firm centrist corporatist. That's the problem! We know this by looking at his long political career and his current rethoric. He rejects most social democratic ideas of the progressives. He is FAR from a socialist. Biden is actually a moderate Republican, but the Republicans have moved so far right... Of course socialism would work in the US in areas where "socialism" works elsewhere such as fire department. Surely you don't say the fire department doesn't work in the in the US and should be totally privatized? The US needs to move left, a lot. That doesn't mean socialism. It means becoming more like Nordic countries which have great mixture of capitalism and socialism (social democracy) and kick the ass of most other countries including the US.

[Herman]

I didn't hear about this guy until a few days ago. And didn't know about those two things.

That's your standard defense for the stupid things you post.

"I didn't know..."

You keep posting you're so super-smart and yet you keep posting things you have not checked, but just happened to run into.

Your constant theme is education is no good; people don't use their "brains" it's all just random or "vibe". One problem is you don't know what "brains" do.

In reality most people do spend some time thinking about life choices, and even about whom they are going to vote for. Will candidate A help them or hurt them? Let's check what he or she said. It's often not a matter of simple likes or dislikes.

Sure there are people who vote for a candidate "whom they'd like to have a beer with" or just because there's some superficial thing that appeals to them. But these are the low-info and low-intelligence voters who often get lost on their way to the voting station, and you appear to be one of those, in spite of your continued boasting of your IQ.

[JBS]

No, we did learn new things: The extent and persistence of Trump's failure in business and that his major source of (legal and publicly acknowledged) revenue in recent years came from playing a successful businessman on "reality" TV. We also learned that he likely committed tax fraud again (this time within the time limit of the statute of limitations) and that he might be liable for a $100 million penalty. Or did you know  all of that?   

Let me repeat my last sentence, since you seem not to have noticed it. [Corrected a typo as I quote myself.]

. At most they supplied details to fill in or confirm what we knew before.

[Karl Henning]

And, on the lines of Trump being Trump:  As he does every day, he gibbered:  "In Europe, they live, they have forest cities, they're called forest cities. They maintain their forest, they manage their forest. I was w/ the head of a major country, it's a forest city. He said, 'Sir, we have trees that are far more - they ignite much easier than California'"

[drogulus]

It would be best to call off the next two debates.

People have seen enough.

     I don't think the debates need to be called off from a "view from nowhere". How a participant chooses to sabotage the ostensible reason for the debate and attack the moderator and the election is good information to have, and I'm not bothered by the redundancy of most of it. Many people don't tune in to politics until quite late in the process.

     

[greg]

Can you explain what you meant by posting that a guy who at some point in school had an insane high IQ score is a Trump fan?

IMO, a smart person should feel lukewarm at the most about both candidates. But if that guy is a huge fan of one candidate, maybe I'm wrong about thinking about it that way.

I was responding to the poster saying that all Trump fans are idiots. Just pointing out that is wrong... same would go for Biden, it's not candidate-specific, I'm interested in the concept, not the people.

Unless someone considers liking something "dumb," which would stray from the traditional meaning of intelligence.

You keep posting you're so super-smart and yet you keep posting things you have not checked, but just happened to run into.

I tried to only bring that up once. Totally in self-defense because of being attacked like I'm dumb.

Your constant theme is education is no good;

What? lol
Not sure when I said this, especially as someone that has a degree.

people don't use their "brains" it's all just random or "vibe".

It mostly seems to be that way the more I observe this stuff, yep.

When people decide to join the tribe, I mean, political party, critical thinking (if it was there in the first place) gets replaced by attack and defense, mostly.

Why do people bring up negative facts about the candidate they hate when if their loved candidate did the same thing, they would be on defense about them?

There's much more than logical facts going on, it's body language, demeanor, etc. that draws people to candidates that they end up liking, or perhaps the whole party as a whole, that they like.

Whichever party gives the person the most good "feels" will win them over, and that seems to be somewhat related to personality traits (there are studies and polls on this).

Sure there are people who vote for a candidate "whom they'd like to have a beer with" or just because there's some superficial thing that appeals to them. But these are the low-info and low-intelligence voters who often get lost on their way to the voting station, and you appear to be one of those, in spite of your continued boasting of your IQ.

I'm not boasting, but thanks for mentioning it.

Maybe try to have the awareness of what is going on as you read people's posts. Why do certain things matter when they guy they don't like says them? Would it matter as much if someone else said them, or did the thing? Would they believe the negative things said about them as easily? If the guy they hated were on their team, what would they think of them?

[Kontrapunctus]

I'm a little surprised that it didn't end up in a physical brawl and that Biden kept his cool as much as he did. It must have been so hard to concentrate with that infantile moron (and my apologies to the other morons out there) shouting at him most of the time. Even a Republican spokesperson said Chris Wallace should have muted his mic! Sadly, that would only affect the TV audio and wouldn't actually silence him live. Perhaps they should have someone standing by with a muzzle during the next debate.

[71 dB]

I didn't hear about this guy until a few days ago. 

Really? I thought Langan was a famous man in the US (like Marilyn vos Savant). I have know about at least him for  10 years. The man is clearly very smart, but also strange and has some weird ideas so I'd take the man with a grain of salt.

[71 dB]

I'm a little surprised that it didn't end up in a physical brawl...

WWE presents:

Bragging Rights 2020

Main Event:
Trump vs Biden

[Karl Henning]

Another measure by which Biden won: Democrats see fundraising boom following wild debate between Trump and Biden.

[greg]

I'm actually still laughing at being called "non-thinking." That was unexpectedly funny. 

Actually being able to turn off my brain would be a nice skill to have. It's very difficult.

Even when young I took several hours each night to fall asleep due to overthinking. And still nowadays it takes a while to fall asleep even when dead tired.

When I used to mow the grass each week, somehow I caught myself in the stupid habit of thinking about big metaphysical questions during the whole hourlong session, totally pointless and I wish I would stop and just become a happy robot for a bit.

I still have the problem of my mind wandering a lot when watching shows/playing video games to the point where I'm starting to replay/rewatch a lot of stuff because I don't remember what happened, because the entire time it's like having someone sitting next to you commenting on it and coming up with questions and ideas constantly.

Of course Herman will find a way to spin that into a personal attack when I post something he doesn't like.

I'm a little surprised that it didn't end up in a physical brawl and that Biden kept his cool as much as he did.

I'm still waiting for them to kiss each other passionately on live TV in order to ease the tension. Now THAT would be hilarious.

Really? I thought Langan was a famous man in the US (like Marilyn vos Savant). I have know about at least him for  10 years. The man is clearly very smart, but also strange and has some weird ideas so I'd take the man with a grain of salt.

Yeah, just found out about him from a random youtube video popping up.
But it does tie back into what you said earlier, I think (if i understood correctly) ultimately politics is an idealistic thing, right?

Would you say that for politics, the idealism is the seed and the trunk of the tree, and logic/facts are the branches? Or would you disagree?

Also, what I would distinguish about someone being 195 IQ and also antisemitic: something like that isn't technically related to IQ, that is also idealism. It's like hating a composer so much you want to get rid of all of their music from the world. Nothing logical about it. Sure, he can explain "why" he hates them, but ultimately hatred is just a feeling, and he would probably try to throw out some facts to appear "right," but if you don't have that same hatred, then they just don't matter (as in this case, they shouldn't matter).

If his feelings, and everyone else's feelings, were based on logic (rather than the other way around), then whatever logic he would present to other people would surely convince them as the superior logic, and as a result, the correct way to feel, considering his logical skills from high IQ.

Hating jews is just a (strong) (non)preference. But I would be surprised if he actually thought committing a second genocide would be beneficial in any way. Obviously attempting to do such a thing would only backfire. Which would be non-logical.

[Kontrapunctus]

[BasilValentine]

I'm a little surprised that it didn't end up in a physical brawl and that Biden kept his cool as much as he did. It must have been so hard to concentrate with that infantile moron (and my apologies to the other morons out there) shouting at him most of the time. Even a Republican spokesperson said Chris Wallace should have muted his mic! Sadly, that would only affect the TV audio and wouldn't actually silence him live. Perhaps they should have someone standing by with a muzzle during the next debate.

Sound proof booths.

[greg]

What made me think about the facts vs. feelings/candidate support thing was watching the livestream of the debate on the NBC channel.

They had a live fact-checker on the stream. Cool.

So when Biden made a statement, the fact-checker said it was "halfway true." Not "halfway false."

When Trump said something, it was "mostly false," not "partially true."

They don't bring up the video of Biden calling the military he was speaking to "stupid bastards." They could have said it's true, and linked the video. Why not?

Biden supporters, is this video a problem or not?

My personal opinion is neutral, it could be he was trying what he thought was "military speak" or whatever to appeal to his audience (seems to be a common practice on the left)- which is not a bad thing. But it could also be that he is trying to insult them. If you support Biden, it is probably the former. If you don't, it's probably the latter.

But the idea here is that people use facts are guided more by their feelings, whether they know it or not. After all, why bring up certain facts or dwell on certain facts more than others? Especially if it is something being said which doesn't affect you personally.

[Herman]

If you watch the final minutes of the debate again, when Wallace's question about acquiescing in the outcome was supposedly answered, it's pretty clear that my idea about fights around voting locations are encouraged by Trump.

He was talking about people going in to "watch" the voting "very carefully". I.e. not give people any privacy. These will be Proud Boy types and guys in pseudo military gear and they will try to make voting hard for people they expect to vote D.

The other thing is Trump was talking about being okay with "the Election" but not with "the ballots". As if these are two different things.

He's been laying the groundwork for calling the election on the night of November 3rd and this is part of it. He's going to call the mail-in votes illegal and not part of the election. And have the SCOTUS decide. And there's nothing you can do about it. He's got Bill Barr, the SCOTUS, and Squi.

[krummholz]

Another measure by which Biden won: Democrats see fundraising boom following wild debate between Trump and Biden.

I'm still cautious about trying to glean anything about outcomes from fundraising figures. In elections, numbers matter far more than amounts.