You could curve the proportion to income to scale impact to something more equitable. How you decide what’s equitable would be another problem to solve, but I imagine it would involve benchmarking around the middle class and poverty line. Right now fine rates are okay for the middle class, so keep the proportion similar, fine rates really fuck up poor people, and fine rates mean nothing to the upper class. So imagine you you feel would be a fair impact for a fine and scale it accordingly.

They offer reputation. Career advancement is highly dependent on publication history and impact. Getting into a prestigious publication means your work will more likely be read and cited. Because highly reputable journals can charge high publication fees (because it’s in such high demand), they get to set the industry norm, which other less reputable journals/publishers get to follow. It does cost money to develop and maintain that reputation for rigour and impact (i.e. good science). But yeah it’s exploitative AF. There are attempts for less profit-motivated publications… But making those rigorous while still being democratic is hard

China’s EV’s putting brakes on oil demand

I appreciate your statement and generally agree. However, there is nothing complicated or contradictory about the harm caused in rape or the need to protect children from predators.

All good points. Sorry I’m coming from a non US perspective where climate change denialism is present, but less fervent. I like your definition of “truth from a rarified point of view”, though I might also considered non-rarified or pervasive, and factually well substantiated truths can be used as propaganda as well. The 95%+ consensus of scientists on climate change is both factually/meaningfully/importantly true and also used with a propagandistic flavour in many examples of political persuasion for example.

My post was more aiming at acknowledging propaganda as a vehicle of persuasion for any and differing representations of reality (political groups) that exists in parallel with the the establishment of facts of reality. Some representations will adhere more or less with the factual arguments.

An interesting exercise is to replace “Communism is bad” with “Climate change is coming” and interrogate how we feel about that and why.

It is interesting to reflect that propaganda is involved for all kinds of policy application, including science. As someone trained in sciences, it’s always a bit uncomfortable seeing folks extolling science as the exclusive solution to everything. The role of science in society is deeply tied up with values, norms, and policy. I think it’s always good to have a healthy dose of critical self reflection, so we can engage better on the level of humanized reasoning, rather than on the level of regurgitated propaganda.

The difference is less that it’s in some circumstances only marginally better. Rather, it’s more that when you advocate for better coverage in EU, the pushback might be more along the lines of “that’s too expensive or an inefficient use of highly limited taxpayer dollars, but I’m open to continuing to evaluate the impact and economics of it”. In the US, sometimes the pushback is “you don’t like it? Then GTFO, you communist traitor!”

Gotta love how the more “Applied” a field is, the more “Impure” it is.

Ukraine is doing fine building their own drones. They seem to have a fast iteration cycle with their growing drone industry. Their priority for foreign aid is artillery shells, missile systems, and vehicles/planes which is harder for them to produce en mass

Not defending Subway overall, the price increases are nuts. However that experience of yours is definitely an individual franchise problem, not a “corporate culture” problem.

Well yeah, they asked for a simple example, I gave one. What’s wrong with that? The discussion is already in the realm of “military dictatorship” which aren’t exactly known for respecting human rights/freedoms of non-citizena. The question was about the sustainability of such systems for those deemed citizens.

It’s not that they throw a ball around really well, it’s that the NBA brings in over 10 billion in annual revenue because of these players. How much are you willing to pay someone to bring in that amount of money?

Looking at it a different way, that would be like a photographer taking a photo of the sandwich and proclaiming “I’m an artist” or a director telling a chef what to make, telling a cinematographer/camera operator how to shoot it, and an editor how to cut it to create a short film of a sandwich and proclaiming “I’m an artist”. Art can be made from a series of creative and purposeful decisions that result in a piece of expression. It might not be good art, it might not be effortful art, it might even be unethically made art, but it’s not not-art.

Again, if we read it as he literally said that, then sure I’d agree the behaviour is not okay. Given the context of the quote, I’d want more evidence to take that quote literally.

It just reeks to me of him being jealous of people who don’t have kids and/or him regretting being a parent?

Perhaps. I don’t think there’s much here to substantiate that reading though, even with the context. I’d want a bit more evidence if I were to incorporate that into my appraisal of him.

You can judge someone to be morally repugnant without interpreting everything they say/do as an extension of the things that make them repugnant. It doesn’t lessen the repugnance.

This has nothing to do with going easy on JD. It has to do with the things we chose to criticize on principle. It’s about who we choose to be. You gave two great examples of things we should judge him for. I’m happy to focus on those and the next oppressive thing he says. If you want to be someone who criticizes parents for getting exasperated by their kids, that’s your perogative, but that’s not me and I don’t think people should.

Might be an unpopular opinion While JD has said plenty of horrible things, this reads more like someone relating how they felt in the moment than reciting what was actually said. I’m sure most parents have felt this way at some point. We don’t need to make this mole hill into a mountain. There’s already a whole mountain range of his shit that’s actually egregious.

They don’t care about walking anything back. They don’t have consequences because their voter base always backs them. They will say whatever they think will work in the moment and then move on to the next double think. Literally taking 1984 for a manual.

“Don’t we try to categorize everything though”

That sounds like a you problem :P

Enter constructivist relativism

You can have a surge of support while still behind… That’s how you catch up! They are just starting in Florida. Not sure if they can make up the large gap, but they damn well better try!