Lost in Translation

13 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

It no longer works for me to think of people as good or bad.  For sure there are people who are better than others at particular tasks.  Some of us are stronger or smarter or more beautiful than our peers.  But I´m not sure that any of that makes anybody better, more worthy of drawing breath.

This is worthy of continued meditation.

When I first met Steve, seventeen years ago on a now defunct forum, I thought I hated him. He was brash, rude, and full of insults. Over the years I continued to meet him, both here and at other forums, and since I could not avoid him, I learned to tolerate him and to eventually respect him.

Steve is like Kentucky mash whiskey. He's sour but also filled with warmth, and once you meet him you never forget him.

Goodbye, my friend. May your soul live forever in the great void.

I have said hurtful things to people on this forum, many times with malice intent.

I have operated from a place of fear and allowed my fear to become anger.

Anger never excuses harming another.

For this I am sorry.

Please accept these words in the spirit that I write them, with sorrowful contrition.

Jason
 

1 hour ago, MooNiNite said:

So I have been informed that Citizens United that was passed in 2012 is the source of all evil.

I was informed that it allows corporations to pay congress peoples unlimited monies and they dont have to disclose it.

hmmmmm

https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/citizens-united-v-federal-election-commission/

https://casetext.com/case/citizens-united-v-federal-election-comn?ref=Sb!ILRPD3

6 hours ago, Zork said:

The Japanese are the most careful and protocol dependent of all people in the world. And yet they had the Fukushima disaster.

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The original design basis tsunami height was 3.1 m for Daiichi based on assessment of the 1960 Chile tsunami and so the plant had been built about 10 metres above sea level with the seawater pumps 4 m above sea level. The Daini plant was built 13 metres above sea level. In 2002 the design basis was revised to 5.7 metres above, and the seawater pumps were sealed. In the event, tsunami heights coming ashore were about 15 metres, and the Daiichi turbine halls were under some 5 metres of seawater until levels subsided. Daini was less affected. The maximum amplitude of this tsunami was 23 metres at point of origin, about 180 km from Fukushima.

The plant was built 10 meters above sea level. The tsumai height was 15 meters! Lesson learned?

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Three Tepco employees at the Daiichi and Daini plants were killed directly by the earthquake and tsunami, but there have been no fatalities from the nuclear accident.

People died from the massive wall of water. No one has died from nuclear radiation exposure.

Quote

There have been no harmful effects from radiation on local people, nor any doses approaching harmful levels. However, some 160,000 people were evacuated from their homes and only from 2012 were allowed limited return. In October 2013, 81,000 evacuees remained displaced due to government concern about radiological effects from the accident.

No harmful effects from radiation. Sounds to me like the Fukushima reactor was designed incredibly well. In fact, if it had been five meters higher then it would have probably survived intact.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx

6 hours ago, Zork said:

It is not by chance that talks about using nuclear power in the UK died out after that accident.

This tells me that the UK government is ruled more by emotion than by reason.

17 minutes ago, ralis said:

PragerU is not a university nor is it an accredited institution. Epstein has a BA in philosophy from Duke and is in no way a climate scientist or holds any degree in science.

Seriously, though. How is this relevant?

The gist of the video is not a denial of climate change, but rather an assertion that the best way to combat a changing climate is through a better energy policy, and it lists nuclear chief among those policies. This is what I was saying just a few weeks ago so it seems quite on-point.

14 minutes ago, ralis said:

Stop wasting your time!

I have literally nothing better to do right now.

New vid dropped on PragerU this morning. It's like they read my mind!

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We face an existential threat. Life as we know it is on the line. We have 12 short years to change everything or it’s game over.

 

This is the terrifying scenario that’s used by many leading politicians to justify a “Green New Deal”: an unprecedented increase in government power focused on the energy industry.

 

The core idea of a Green New Deal is that government should rapidly prohibit the use of fossil fuel energy and impose “100% renewable energy,” mostly solar and wind.

This may sound appealing, but consider what it would entail. 

 

Today, 80% of the energy Americans use to heat their homes, farm their land, run their factories, and drive their cars comes from fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. Only 3.4% comes from solar and wind—despite decades of government subsidies and mandates to encourage their use.

 

The reason we don’t use much sunlight and wind as energy is that they are unreliable fuels that only work when the sun shines and the wind blows. That’s why no town, city, or country has ever come close to 100%—or even 50%—solar and wind.

 

And yet, Green New Deal proponents say they can do the impossible—if only we give the government control of the energy industry and control of major users of energy, such as the transportation industry, manufacturing, and agriculture.

 

All of this is justified by the need to “do something” about the “existential threat” of rising CO2 levels. We’re told on a daily basis that prestigious organizations like the United Nations have predicted mass destruction and death if we don’t get off fossil fuels. What we’re not told is that such predictions have a decades-long track record of getting it wrong—and by wrong, I mean completely-missing-the-dart-board wrong.

 

For example, in 1989, the Associated Press reported a United Nations prediction that “entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” We’re now two decades past 2000, we’re not missing any nations, and human beings are living longer, healthier, and wealthier lives than ever before.

 

But aren’t things bound to get worse? Haven’t scientists established that CO2 is a greenhouse gas with a warming influence on the planet? Yes—but that’s only a small part of the big picture.

 

Although CO2 causes some warming, it’s much less significant than we’ve been told. Since we started using significant amounts of fossil fuels in the middle of the 19th century, we’ve increased the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere from .03% to .04%, which correlates with an average temperature increase of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. It also correlates with significant global greening—because CO2 is plant food.

 

All of this is far from unprecedented territory for our planet, which has existed with at least 10 times today’s CO2 levels and a 25-degree warmer average temperature.

 

What is truly unprecedented, though, is how safe we are from climate. The International Disaster Database, a nonpartisan organization that tracks deaths from climate-related causes—such as extreme heat, floods, storms, and drought—shows that such deaths have been plummeting as CO2 emissions have been rising.

 

How is this possible? Because of the fossil fuel energy that emitted the CO2, which has empowered us to climate-proof our environment with heating, air-conditioning, sturdy buildings, mass irrigation, and weather warning systems.

 

Fossil fuel energy has not taken a naturally safe climate and made it unnaturally dangerous; it’s taken our naturally dangerous climate and made it unnaturally safe. Fossil fuels are not an existential threat. They are an existential resource because they increase something much more important than the level of CO2 in the atmosphere: the level of human empowerment. Increased life expectancy, income, health, leisure time, and education are all tightly linked to increased access to fossil fuels. 

 

Does this mean that we shouldn’t look for lower carbon energy alternatives? Of course not. But the alternatives should lead us toward more abundant, more reliable power, not less.

The most promising form of alternative energy is not unreliable solar and wind, but reliable, carbon-free nuclear energy. Sweden gets 40% of its electricity from nuclear. France, over 70%. While nuclear energy is smeared as unsafe, it has actually been demonstrated by study after study to be the safest form of energy ever created.

 

And yet, Green New Deal proponents, who say that we have 12 years to save the planet from rising CO2 levels, vigorously oppose nuclear—in addition to all fossil—fuel use.

 

By opposing every affordable, abundant, reliable form of energy, the Green New Deal won’t protect us from an existential threat; it is an existential threat.

 

I’m Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, for Prager University.

https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-the-deal-with-the-green-new-deal/

Bump.

Ten days and no comments. It's too quiet.

5 hours ago, Lost in Translation said:

@Harmen The video placed emphasis on the lower trigram's movements since that trigram best represents the questioner. What about the upper trigram? What representation would movement in the upper trigram best represent?

I rewatched the video and I think I found the answer. Just after minute 19 you mention the upper trigram refers to the "surrounding environment or other parties." Is this a fair assessment?

@Harmen The video placed emphasis on the lower trigram's movements since that trigram best represents the questioner. What about the upper trigram? What representation would movement in the upper trigram best represent?

14 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

I realized a long time ago that there are basically two modes in which people operate. The first is "what actually works?" and the second is "what makes me feel good?"

Political ideologies are like a compass: they point in the direction that you want to go, but they aren't actual destinations. No one ever says "I want to go right", or "I want to go left" as an absolute statement. Rather, the desire to go right or go left is always relative to where a person already is. In addition, it must be taken on a case-by-case basis.

To illustrate this point, I bring you the Laffer Curve:  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve)

The Laffer Curve is used in government debate to open a dialog regarding the appropriate level of taxation, the assumption being a desire to maximize revenue to the government. The Laffer Curve posits two main points: at zero percent taxation the government will receive zero dollars in tax revenue ($X * 0 = $0); similarly, at 100 percent taxation the government will also receive zero dollars in tax revenue (since everyone will simply stop working!). The corollary to this is at some percentage of taxation greater and zero and less than 100 the government will receive maximum revenue. It also means that at all other points between zero and 100, the government will receive less than maximum revenue.

What does this mean?

It means that "lower taxes" (the right's mantra) is not always correct. It also means that "higher taxes" (the left's mantra) is also not always correct. 

This is really important, since it shows that the correct path (the middle way, if you will) is somewhere between the left's ideological society and the right's ideological society. It shows that it is possible to go too far. You push all the way to the left and you get North Korea and zero freedom. You push all the way to the right and you get anarchy. Neither is good for a society. But somewhere between the two (the exact location is debatable) there is a point of maximum freedom.

@joeblast Two words: focus.

I realized a long time ago that there are basically two modes in which people operate. The first is "what actually works?" and the second is "what makes me feel good?"

It's scary to make the transition from the latter to the former, since it means giving up all the pretty ideas of childhood and living in the reality of adulthood. It's the difference between "I'm a good person, I deserve better than this" and "What am I doing wrong and how can I change?"

Hexagram 61 ䷼ - Chung Fu / Inner Truth

The Gentle (Wind/Wood) sits atop The Joyous (Lake). The eldest daughter in communion with the youngest. 

THE JUDGEMENT

INNER TRUTH. Pigs and fishes.

Good fortune.

It furthers one to cross the great water.

Perseverance furthers.

THE IMAGE

Wind over lake: the image of INNER TRUTH.

Thus the superior man discusses criminal cases

In order to delay executions.

(Wilhelm/Baynes)

This hexagram came up last night in my reading. It was static, with no changing lines. Such readings are always challenging to me.

Wilhelm writes "In dealing with persons as intractable and as difficult to influence as a pig or a fish, the whole secret of success depends on finding the right way of approach. One must first rid oneself of all prejudice and, so to speak, let the psyche of the other person act on one without restraint. Then one will establish contact with him, understand and gain power over him."

This in particular interests me, since it implies that to influence another, one must first allow oneself to be vulnerable, by "let[ting] the psyche of the other person act on one without restraint."

Let them have their fun. Truth will smack them hard in the face when it is 4:00 AM, they have had zero sleep, and the newly changed diaper is magically filled with poop again...

1 hour ago, MooNiNite said:

YouTube now has PregorU on their Restricted List.

That's nothing new. PragerU sued Google last year over the same issue. Congress is holding hearings on this very subject.

16 minutes ago, Zork said:

You really don't understand. It is basic economics. They might be or they might not depending on many factors.

You are assuming the answer.

I'll grant that there is not universal agreement on this. That said, here are some quotes on the subject:

This article discusses the relationship immigration has on wages, particularly low-skilled immigration as seen by illegal migrants.

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We don’t need to rely on complex statistical calculations to see the harm being done to some workers. Simply look at how employers have reacted. A decade ago, Crider Inc., a chicken processing plant in Georgia, was raided by immigration agents, and 75 percent of its workforce vanished over a single weekend. Shortly after, Crider placed an ad in the local newspaper announcing job openings at higher wages. 

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216

This article discusses the elasticity of wages as pertains to illegal aliens. The gist is that illegals will work for any wage, no matter how small.

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We normally think of both income and substitution effects when thinking about wages. The first is the idea that there's some income we think we need to make and we'll work until we do so. The second is that we find other things interesting in life as well, over and above work, and what we get paid to work has to be higher than that value. Otherwise we won't work. Near perfectly inelastic means that the income effect is entirely dominating here: there's almost no substitution going on. Even if we offer $2 an hour and that's the only work going then the illegals will do that rather than going fishing as we would.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/03/24/illegal-immigrants-depress-wages-so-make-them-legal-immigrants/#7acdb3963fea

Here's an article that claims uncertainty regarding the wage debate as pertains to illegals. It's from NPR, a source I consider heavily biased towards the left, but I am including it out of intellectual fairness.

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The question:

Have immigrants taken jobs from and lowered wages for American blue-collar workers?

 

The short answer:

Economists disagree whether or how much an influx of immigrants depresses wages. Some have found that new immigrants depress wages for certain groups, such as teenagers or workers with a high school diploma or less. Others say the overall effect on the economy is tiny, and an influx of immigrant workers vitalizes the economy overall.

Either way, the forces driving wage reductions for blue-collar workers go far beyond immigration.

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541321716/fact-check-have-low-skilled-immigrants-taken-american-jobs

Here's an article that seems biased towards the right. Maybe it's just the unpolished writing.

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Do illegal immigrants take jobs from American workers?

Yes, illegal immigrant workers have taken millions of jobs from
American workers.

 

If illegal immigrant workers had been kept out of our country, the
employers would have had to pay higher wages to attract American
workers.

 

The American workers are unable to work for the low wages that many
illegal immigrants are willing to work for.

http://jobsback.com/do-illegal-immigrants-take-jobs-from-american-workers/

Here's an older (30 years) article from the General Accounting Office (GAO). This is probably the fairest treatment on the issue.

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1. Do illegal alien workers depress wages and worsen working conditions for native and legal workers?

 

With regard to the first question, our answer is a qualified “yes.” Our major finding, based primarily on results from nine case studies, is that illegal aliens do, in some cases, exert downward pressure on wages and working conditions within low-wage, low-skilled jobs in certain labor markets. The four case studies that supported this finding examined illegal alien workers in competition for the same jobs with legal or native workers. Competing native or legal agricultural workers, food processing workers, and janitors in specific labor markets suffered depressed wages or worsened working conditions as employers in these sectors began to hire a higher percentage of illegal workers.

 

In three other sectors and labor markets, the effect of illegal workers on legal or native workers’ wages and working conditions overall could not be determined. The five case studies on these sectors or markets provided evidence that the increased supply of workers for some job categories, in some business and industry sectors such as the garment industry, depressed wages for some native or legal workers but, at the same time, by stimulating business, also expanded employment opportunities and wages for other legal and native workers in complementary, usually skilled occupations. None of these studies, however, permitted an assessment of net effects. This suggests that the effects of illegal workers on the wages and working conditions of native or legal workers are not automatically in the direction of depressing those conditions, and that those effects depend on a number of factors, of which the illegal status of the workers is one.

 

We found that two other types of evidence-wage data on illegal workers and wage data on workers in communities that differed on the presence of international migrants-were overall not useful for addressing the first question. Although some of these wage data were consistent with case study evidence indicating that illegal alien workers can exert downward pressure on wages within low-wage, low-skilled jobs in certain labor markets, they are open to different interpretations. We examined wage data on illegal alien workers and wage data on workers in communities that differed on the presence of international migrants because they are used in policy debates on the effects of illegal alien workers on the labor market.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/80/76971.pdf

This article staunchly rebukes the notion that illegals work on sectors that citizens do not work.

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The defenders of illegal aliens — ethnic advocacy groups, business lobbyists, and some religious organizations — often assert that illegal aliens only take jobs Americans “will not do.” This is patently false because they are working in jobs in which U.S. workers are also employed — whether in construction, agricultural harvesting, or service professions. In fact, as one study demonstrates, “of the 474 civilian occupations, only six are majority immigrant (legal and illegal).”

This article details the effects of illegal aliens on wages, jobs, and job conditions.

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It is often said by supporters of illegal, low-skill immigrants that the U.S. economy needs such laborers because they do the kinds of work that Americans will not do. But Cappelli calls that assertion a “complete myth.” Immigrants have been hired to do such jobs in such large numbers, not because Americans refuse them, but because Americans are not willing to perform such tasks where the wages are lower than they would otherwise be, where work rules may not exist and where the working conditions may be hazardous. Many employers seek illegal workers for the simple reason that it keeps costs down and means the companies do not have to invest in equipment and other capital improvements. Relative wage levels for low-skill and unskilled American workers, according to Cappelli, have plummeted over the past generation and show no signs of rising.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-immigration-debate-its-impact-on-workers-wages-and-employers/

An article detailing the downward push of illegal workers on jobs and wages. This article seems amateurish, so it's probably biased.

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The MSM report ad nauseam that illegal aliens are only "doing work that Americans won't." This mantra is mercilessly bandied about by illegal immigration supporters and echoes throughout the halls of Congress and the White House whenever the topic comes up. What is never mentioned, however, is that the illegal aliens are artificially depressing compensation and that illegal aliens are the only ones who will do the work at such low wages. In actual fact, illegal immigration distorts the law of supply and demand in a capitalistic society. Additionally it is grossly hypocritical to want to raise the minimum wage on one hand while the other hand winks at illegal aliens working at far below prevailing wages.

http://www.usillegalaliens.com/impacts_of_illegal_immigration_jobs.html

This wasn't really how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning... 

1 minute ago, Zork said:

You don't understand. The burden of proof is on you, not me!

I cannot deny it but since you cannot support it you should have never mentioned it in the first place.

Let's think this through. There are hundreds of thousands of illegals entering the country each year. They take many jobs, and generally we know what sectors they work in. Do you really think that absent the illegal aliens those jobs would not be filled? That's an absurd assertion. Of course they would be filled, by US citizens! Employers would need to adjust, likely pay more money, but the jobs will be filled.

Just now, Zork said:

There is no way one can find evidence to support this. It is a claim that cannot be verified or negated.

If that is true then so is the opposite: the claim cannot be denied. Let's call it stalemate.

5 hours ago, Zork said:

What he is saying is that depending on circumstances on the political scene of the US, the same people could be either encouraged payed legal workers or unwanted illegal immigrants while doing virtualy the same jobs.

I understand that, but it's a disingenuous comparison, since the waves of 100's of thousands of illegal migrants swarming into the country each year are not making a bee-line for the farming sector. Rather, they are dispersing throughout the entire country, into large, 'sanctuary' cities where they meld into the general populace, working all manner of generally blue collar jobs from restaurant workers, landscapers, construction, auto mechanics, machine shops, laborers, etc. These are jobs that US citizens absolutely would do, but are being denied the opportunity because of the downward wage pressure.

2 hours ago, C T said:

The bigger picture might include needing to understand why domestic labour, although more than plenty to fill the various sector demands, have not been properly incentivised. Instead, it got so out of hand that a significant percentage of available and healthy domestic labour would rather live off social assistance than taking jobs they don't fancy. With this vacuum created, can anyone be foolish enough to assume labour-intensive sectors, driven by profit and maybe greed, will abide strictly to hiring only legalised workers?

This is exactly the problem. We have a process to verify worker status. It's called E-Verify. But that system is compromised in a couple key ways: first; not all employers use it, even though it is required, and second; there is a huge market for illegally acquired social security cards. In other words, identity theft. Even if an employer runs the numbers they often come back clean.

12 minutes ago, gendao said:

Yes, cheap foreign labor has ALWAYS been a part of what "MAG" (economically) - from Black slaves, to Chinese railroad workers, to Mexican farmhands, etc. 

I'm not sure where you are going with this. There is a big difference between slaves brought here by force and migrant laborers, even if the migrants were often treated very poorly. On the issue of slavery, the US literally fought a bloody civil war to rectify that wrong, That debt was paid in blood over 150 years ago.

As for cheap labor... do you often pay more for something than you need to? Business runs on the bottom line. They don't spend more than necessary. The best way to drive up wages is competition, which gives potential employees options and forces hiring managers to pay higher wages to acquire talent.

2 minutes ago, gendao said:

On 7/16/2019 at 5:49 PM, Lost in Translation said:

If you pay for illegal aliens then you get more illegal aliens.

Indeed.  And the US actually had a formal program importing Mexican farmhands for 22 years up until 1964 because American citizens wouldn't do that hard labor.

A "formal program importing Mexican farmhands" is a program to import legal laborers. Legal laborers are not the same as illegal aliens.

7 hours ago, MooNiNite said:

I wonder if these leftists can ever get past the fact that communism fails at every turn. 

But that was never real communism! If I were in charge I would do it correctly.

I am for anything that maximizes freedom of choice. Sometimes that means supporting left of center policies, such as social welfare  programs (unemployment insurance, social security, for example), but more often than not that means right of center policies (religious liberty, freedom of speech, right to keep and bear arms, for example). I think that individual leftists often come from a place of well meaning, but well meaning is not enough to ensure maximum freedom. That requires consciously choosing freedom and making it a priority, which is something that I do not see in the left.

Out of respect for the OP, I shall refrain from further comments in this thread. I am sure that anyone who cares about my opinion will have no problems finding it elsewhere on this site.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

Hey , you come to my house .... expect the same .

I respect that.

However, if I invite someone to my house with the purpose of having a conversation, then I have necessarily given up a certain control. I can rightfully expect that person to speak politely, and I can rightfully expect that person to speak truthfully - to the limits of their ability, but can I rightfully expect to control the specific words that person says? Once that line is crossed we are no longer having a conversation.