*promote the common sense.

I'll agree with everyone on TYT. I like the message, but the delivery needs work.

Captain Disillusion. I enjoy debunking, but the persona and gimmick makes it hard to watch most of the time.

Thunderf00t. I enjoyed him for awhile, especially his Creationist debunking era, but then something happened and I just can't do his videos most of the time. Partly it was his stance on elevator gate, which he just pushed and pushed endlessly, but he seemed to just go off after that whole incident. I don't mind the opinion, I disagree, but he just wouldn't let it go... and never got back to what he originally was doing.

Oh and yeah, Angry Videogame Nerd I agree with. Way too much fluff...

Markplier. My kids love him, so my suggestion box is full of him for a few days after every other weekend. I love Twitch and stuff like that, but I don't find his personality at all enjoyable. He's a Pew De Pie wannabe and I can't stand Pew either.

Earthling Cinema... no. Just no. Another annoying personality, I just don't get the appeal.

Speaking of cinema related ones, Cinema Sins. They give 50 or 60, and really only a third or so actually count, even on movies I hated. I appreciate critique but I don't know, I normally can't watch a full episode.

I'll agree with others about mean spirited pranks. Truth distorters, especially when it is for financial, political or religious gain, which I guess is most of those types.

Joshua Feuerstein is a perfect example of the above.

People doing videos in cars, even if parked... there are exceptions to that, like the guy who does carpool karaoke, but most others...

Guy on the street type videos. It's been a format around for too long. How many people did you have to edit out to get a few idiots? Occasionally they'll show one person who knows among 8 others.

When otherwise smart science channels like SciShow and the like use the word "theory" in the common sense of the term and not the scientific use. It continues to distort the public image of the word. They come to a science channel, see it used where they should be using hypothesis. If they want to keep it simple and use guess or ideas. Just don't use the word theory until it's a more accepted theory. This way people don't keep saying "it's just a theory" on actual facts like the big bang, evolution, human accelerated climate change, etc.

I remember studying algorithm time complexities, where ideally the time complexity of an algorithm is a polynomial function -- like O(n)=n^2, or even O(n)=n^100. Most things that seem really hard at first are exponential, O(n)=2^n or whatever. *IF* somebody gets a brilliant stroke of inspiration, those exponential time complexity algorithms sometimes get tweaked to become logarithmic, like O(n)=log(n).

But almost never does a problem that seems really hard at first (exponential) get some brilliant solution that makes it jump into easy (polynomial).

I think we get so caught up in the abstract concepts and semantics that we tend to overlook what seems like common sense: some problems are simply harder than others, with no "magic bullet" solution. So, I think that P is almost certainly NOT equal to NP. But that quote around the 10 minute mark puts that in a pretty eloquent way that is easy to understand even to the layman -- a trait which is entirely too uncommon in academia.

BUT, I must admit that the few occasions when I studied an algorithm that seemed like it obviously couldn't get any better than exponential time complexity, only to be shown a brilliant outside-the-box solution that brought it down to logarithmic time complexity definitely taught me some humility. So, you never know.

I'm pretty sure I heard a child worriedly saying "Dad" at 1:08...as in 'Dad, what the F are you doing?'
Even if they are 'actual tornado chasers' (which doesn't mean they have any training or even common sense, just a camera and a wish to get storm pictures), they are clearly driving a normal street vehicle, not an armored storm chaser vehicle, so driving into the edge of the tornado was just dumb. They were incredibly lucky to survive that without major injury.
So, maybe not actual EIA, but certainly attempted EIA...especially if those ARE his children with him.

Um....most likely the manager took the call, and directed the employees to smash the windows...and most managers already make over $15 an hour. Perhaps if they paid $15 an hour to everyone, they could hire someone who's not overworked into a stupor or with common sense enough to stop the other idiots from following anonymous, phoned in directions without question.

you are once again mistaken. only approximately 10% of non-human animals are obligate carnivores. common sense tells you that it cannot be a high number as it would not be sustainable otherwise.

factory farmed or not, other sentient beings suffer and die for no other reason than a momentary taste sensation. unlike the Masai (of whom i have never heard of but am taking your word) all you have to do to greatly lessen the harm you do to others is to buy different products in the grocery store.

speaking of science, here is what a very wise man had to say on this subject:

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”—Albert Einstein

“Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” -Albert Einstein

Irrelevance, perhaps. Anonymity, sadly not.
Instead, she's just announced her new 'court room' 'reality' TV show, I believe ironically called "the court of common sense".
I'm not sure how she'll have the time since she's busy raising all those bastardized grandchildren.

Should I?

/ducks

In all seriousness though, no, I don't really have an answer to your question. What I like about Sanders is that he seems to call 'em like he sees 'em, instead of pandering to what he thinks will get him the most votes like most politicians (cough Hillary cough). So, I guess the best way to find an answer would be to examine what he says (and how he has voted) about constitutional issues.

I suppose that if I had to guess the most likely "constitutional right" that his opponents would call him out for NOT wholeheartedly supporting would probably be the 2nd amendment. He has said (and voted) that he is in favor of an assault weapons ban on guns that are "only designed to kill people". And that he wants "common sense gun control legislation" enacted.

Fox News would probably say that means that he is radically opposed to some of our constitutionally guaranteed rights and protections. You can decide for yourself whether you agree or not.


I should note that aside from my first line here "answering a question with a question", I'm not trying to be snarky in my reply here and wasn't trying to be in my first reply to you either. I just wasn't clear from the context of your original post if you were asking a question or if you "had an agenda". Now I get it. I think.

Well, cheers for sticking with it anyway, I really appreciate it.

It's a one hour talk on the deficit in particular, and most of what she says is based on MMT principles that would add another 5 hours to her talk if she were to explain them. With neoclassical economics, you can sort of jump right in, given how they are taught at schools and regurgitated by talking heads and politicians, day in and day out. MMT runs contrary to many pieces of "common sense" and since you can't really give 10 hour talks everytime, this is what you end up with – bits and pieces that require previous knowledge.

I'd offer talks by other MMT proponents such as William Mitchell (UNSW), Randy Wray (UMKC) or Michael Hudson (UMKC), but they are even less comprehensible. Sorry. Eric Tymoigne provided a wonderful primer on banking over at NEP, but it's long and dry.

Since I'm significantly worse at explaining the basics of MMT, I'm not even going to try to "weave a narrative" and instead I'll just work my way through it, point by point.

@notarobot

"Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations."

You don't have to take on debt. The US as the sole legal issuer of the Dollar can always "print more". That's what the short Greenspan clip was all about. Of course, you don't actually print Federal Reserve Notes to pay for federal expenses. It's the digital age, after all.

If the federal government were to acquire, say, ten more KC-46 from Boeing, some minion at the Treasury would give some minion at the Fed a call and say "We need $2 billion, could you arrange the transfer?" The Fed minion then proceeds to debit $2B from the Treasury's account at the Fed (Treasury General Account, TGA) and credits $2B to Boeing's account at Bank X. Plain accounting.

If TGA runs negative, there are two options. The Treasury could sell bonds, take on new debt. Or it could monetise debt by selling those bonds straight to the Fed – think Overt Monetary Financing.

The second option is the interesting one: a swap of public debt for account credits. Any interest on this debt would be transfered straight back in the TGA. It's all left pocket, right pocket, really. Both the Fed and the Treasury are part of the consolidated government.

However, running a deficit amounts to a new injection of reserves. This puts a downward pressure on the overnight interest rate (Fed Funds Rate in the US, FFR) unless it is offset by an increase in outstanding debt by the Treasury (or a draw-down of the TT&Ls, but that's minor in this case). So the sale of t-bonds is not a neccessity, it's how the Treasury supports the Fed's monetary policy by raising the FFR. If the target FFR is 0%, there's no need for the Treasury to drain reserves by selling bonds.

Additionally, you might want to sell t-bonds to provide the private sector with the ability to earn interest on a safe asset (pension funds, etc). Treasury bonds are as solid as it gets, unlike municipal bonds of Detroit or stocks of Deutsche Bank.

To quote Randy Wray: "And, indeed, treasury securities really are nothing more than a saving account at the Fed that pay more interest than do reserve deposits (bank “checking accounts”) at the Fed."

Point is: for a government that uses its own sovereign, free-floating currency, it is a political decision to take on debt to finance its deficit, not an economic neccessity.

"Weimar Republic"

I'm rather glad that you went with Weimar Germany and not Zimbabwe, because I know a lot more about the former than the latter. The very, very short version: the economy of 1920's Germany was in ruins and its vastly reduced supply capacity couldn't match the increase in nominal spending. In an economy at maximum capacity, spending increases are a bad idea, especially if meant to pay reparations.

Let's try a longer version. Your point, I assume, is that an increase in the money supply leads to (hyper-)inflation. That's Quantity Theory of Monetary 101, MV=PY. Amount of money in circulation times velocity of circulation equals average prices times real output. However, QTM works on two assumptions that are quite... questionable.

First, it assumes full employment (max output, Y is constant). Or in other terms, an economy running at full capacity. Does anyone know any economy today that is running at full capacity? I don't. In fact, I was born in '83 and in my lifetime, we haven't had full employment in any major country. Some people refer to 3% unemployment as "full employment", even though 3% unemployment in the '60s would have been referred to as "mass unemployment".

Second, it assumes a constant velocity of circulation (V is constant). That's how many times a Dollar has been "used" over a year. However, velocity was proven to be rather volatile by countless studies.

If both Y and V are constant, any increase in the money supply M would mean an increase in prices P. The only way for an economy at full capacity to compensate for increased spending would be a rationing of said spending through higher prices. Inflation goes up when demand outpaces supply, right?

But like I said, neither Y nor V are constant, so the application of this theory in this form is misleading to say the least. There's a lot of slack in every economy in the world, especially the US economy. Any increase in purchases will be met by corporations with excess capacity. They will, generally speaking, increase their market share rather than hike prices. Monopolies might not, but that's a different issue altogether.

Again, the short version: additional spending leads to increased inflation only if it cannot be met with unused capacity. Only in an economy at or near full capacity will it lead to significant inflation. And even then, excess private demand can easily be curbed: taxation.

As for the Angry Birds analogy: yeah, I'm not a fan either. But all the other talks on this topic are even worse, unfortunatly. There's only a handful of MMT economists doing these kinds of public talks and I haven't yet spotted a Neil deGrasse Tyson among them, if you know what I mean.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
The drug costs $0.10 in India but, thanks to the prohibitive restrictions imposed by the FDA on the manufacture of more generic medicines like Deraprim, it's unavailable to Americans for less than $750. It's true that there are likely to be quality issues with Indian generics, but Pyrimethamine is widely available in Europe and an approval elsewhere ought to translate with reciprocal approval here. It used to cost $1 million to bring a generic to market; now it costs $10 million and that's the direct result of big pharmaceutical companies lobbying the FDA to make it cost prohibitive to bring competitive generics to the market. This is the consequence of government-created monopolies, so this is not so much a issue of "price gouging" and "CEO greed" as it is about government greed and its pursuit of an ever increasing expansion of its political power. But haters gonna hate based on preconceived biases and there's no reasoning or common sense among irrational people.

Glad to hear good old fashioned common sense still prevails at the sift.

@bareboards2
yeah.i do not understand why he was hanging around while she talked shit.

it appears he may have messed her stuff up,and was looking for something that may have dropped.

we really do not know though.could be anything.could be he gave her boobs a goose for all we know.

we DO know that she was verbally abusing him.

i know i would have walked away.i have encountered women like this all through my life.apologizing just gets you a litany of new insults,and as long as you remain in their vicinity...the insults will only continue and get even more derogatory.

walking away is the best policy.

the majority of times that sufficed to appease their inner rage demon.maybe they would throw a few zingers at my back,but i never really gave a shit.more power to her..they are just words flying out of an entitled little girl who cant behave like an adult.

but...

on a few occasions.
the girl would follow right behind me,and continue to berate and harass me.possibly seeing my retreat as a sign of weakness.i really dont know.what i DO know,is that is a blatant sign of stupidity to take your 5"3" 110lb ass and try to jam it into my face as if you were rhonda rousey.

i have never hit a woman.
but i will not allow a woman to put her hands on me,especially when she has been verbally abusive and aggressive with me.

so the girls who have thought it totally ok to escalate the situation with physical violence,i have always responded in the same fashion: they get one shot.ONE.and then i whip around (and guys who have gotten into fights understand this) and in the most threatening and physically imposing manner,plainly let her know "ok thats ONE.go ahead and hit me again.i fucking DARE you.go ahead and hit me again and see what happens.because if you hit me again you are taking the place of a man,and AS a man i will knock you the fuck out".

i actually learned that from my dad.
one of the kindest and most gentle people you will have ever met,but his advice worked like a charm.

can you guess how many of those girls went for hit # 2?

thats right...none.

ya know.people get angry.
people can misunderstand a situation and react angrily.
humans will encounter conflict throughout our lives,and it is a testament to wisdom,intelligence and patience how we deal with those conflicts.

and there is never a time where it is ok to put your hands on another person,except for in self-defense.

so when a woman puts her hands on a man.
i dont care what level the rage meter is at,she should never put her hands on him.

for a few reasons:
1.its wrong.
2.you dont get a free pass because you own a uterus.
3.violence is never the proper choice for conflict resolution.
4.and most important.would you ever in your life walk up to a grizzly bear with a stick and start poking him? would you cry and whine about the unfairness of it all when that bear rips your face off?

use a little common sense and everything will be fine.

and did ya'all catch this womans glee?
the mere idea of her male friends killing this dude made her flush with excitement.that is a tad disturbing,but expected with such low quality females such as these.

experienced a bunch of women in that category as well.

but thats a story for another day.

simply put:this woman escalated the situation by making it physical and got popped in the mouth.
and thats all it was..a pop.
got her attention though didnt it?

so advice to all my lady friends here on the sift.
you have a right to your anger,your outrage and your indignation.
you do NOT have the right to be hitting,smacking or punching guys willy nilly without consequences.

and while i agree with BB (and others) that the dude should have just walked away,i will not put that responsibility solely on him.how is it HIS responsibility to control this womans actions.she hit.she got popped.
end of story.

Open carry is the straw that breaks the bouncers' backs? Um, no. It's not suddenly Blazing Saddles here. If you're licensed to carry, most have enough common sense NOT to carry openly in our bars because drunks are temporarily or permanently dumb. The bouncers still fear the nut-jobs with knives, brass knuckles, and ice picks tucked into their boot - it's not about the weapon, it's about the person holding it. Once the mentally challenged get into the parking lot, all bets are off and whatever can be used as a weapon often is. Bat, chain, antenna, canoe paddle, road flare etc.

If you're in the mood for some economic common sense, Michal Kalecki's insightful paper on the political aspects of full employment (what would it take, what stands in opposition) is always worth a few minutes.

That's MMT/post-Keynesian economics, published in 1943. The fact that it took close to seven decades before the likes of Adair Turner pushed this back into the mainstream makes me want to sent whole economics departments at universities into the bogs to cut peat with nothing but a spade.

Um...try reading again. I see now that the English language is apparently hard for you. Here, I'll go ahead and quote it for you...."I re-read my entire post, and not a single vulgar word IMO. One abbreviation of a vulgar word." I guess when I wrote "one abbreviation of a vulgar word" you read that as "no sign of vulgar language, even abbreviated". You might want to go back to Cambridge and take English 101.

Ahhh, I see...well then a big old F- You right back to you for all your ridiculous vulgar insulting bullshit.

You might want to learn English as it's used...and you might want to look in a mirror. I'm WRITING to someone who not only seemingly doesn't know to read or use the English language, and he's been a smarmy douche about it to boot. "Fuck you" is vulgar, "Hillary is not a convict" is not vulgar. By your definition, your entire post thread is vulgar, as it is certainly lacking sophistication or good taste, is totally unrefined, ignorant, hateful, now vitriolic, sesquipedalian in the extreme, completely devoid of fiscal responsibility or even consideration, and is lacking in all common sense. It is, indeed, the exact mindset of people in a Fox bubble. (Yeah, Fox, you know, that world wide political news giant you claim to have never heard of...talk about ignorance...holy crap, that's not just ignorant, it's ignant. Look that one up.)

So you know what people mean when they say -Vulgar : Making explicit and offensive reference to sex or bodily functions; coarse and rude:

Perhaps you forgot that you clearly wrote that what you specifically meant by 'vulgar' was "cursing", not "Lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined"...obviously you didn't read your own post, or thought I didn't have the capability to remember. So sad for you. Again, just like Fox bubble people, when your argument is torn to shreds, you just change what you claim your argument was and move on to make more unsophisticated argument.

I'm pretty sure you've broken or burnt out your bulb there, buddy. You WERE amusing until you were contradicted and you got angry and decided to move from being just smarmy on to silly, infantile, completely wrong ad hom attacks against someone you don't know rather than discussion. It's totally not above me to aggravate someone of such a '6 year old spoiled little girl' disposition, but it's not something I intend to spend much time on.

I think you better quit the internet, you're totally doing it wrong.

You've just lost a 'friend' here, one that's helped you repeatedly here already. You can go stamp your feet and scream at the walls in your room now. Expect no further help from me in navigating the site...and expect to be banned if you continue the ad hom attacks against me.