@ChaosEngine

I fully agree with you that rape/sexual assault is a bigger problem (in magnitude and frequency) than false accusations. And that being an actual victim of sexual assault would be worse than being falsely accused of sexual assault, although it seems a bit pointless to debate the relative extent of how much these things could fuck up lives when they are both horrendous.

That being said, there's a reason that presumption of innocence and requiring proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are the law of the land. And assuming that we follow through on those things (which I think we largely do), that's all well and good. BUT, that's all pretty strictly just in the legal realm.

False accusations of sexual assault don't need to get as far as the actual legal system to seriously fuck up a person's life. Employers, partners, friends ... these connections might choose to sever ties without requiring the same rigorous proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that the legal system does.

As much as I personally tend to believe Ford as opposed to Kavanaugh, I think that given the span of time since the incident it is nigh on impossible to prove that her version of events is true beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the hearing put his current demeanor and partisan/biased attitude on blatant display in a way that seemed to me should be disqualifying with regards to the sort of standards we require for Supreme Court Justices. Apparently the GOP disagrees, and we can hold them to account for that at the ballot box.

That's rather cold comfort given that Justices serve for life. There'd be some constitutional crisis drama if Agent Orange gets removed from office as a result of some proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt of misdeeds. Robert Kennedy's quote about the ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" seems apropos. Things have been entirely too "interesting" for my taste for the past 2 years...

*debunked
So full of misrepresentation and outright lies.
Apparently anyone who doesn't wear a MAGA hat daily is now to be barred from doing their job in the justice department and should be tried for treason if the try, and absolutely cannot be telling the truth.
What nonsensical drivel.
...and now they're trying to rewrite history again and claim Republicans didn't draft the Steele dossier. *facepalm

What they ignore is the investigation was well under way before summer 2016, so any info given them in late 2016 couldn't possibly be the impetus.
What they also ignore (and hope you will too) are all the guilty pleas....argue all you want that you don't trust the evidence or investigation, but remember that most involved have ADMITTED their guilt in these matters and agreed to supply evidence about other people's guilt, one other person in particular.

Perhaps they think that the ocean is a fucking massive place, that the crap that floats on the surface is just the tip of the iceberg, and that much like the very prominent attemps to clean up oil spills and the like it really does very little except placate our guilt. I mean sure, do both, but come on, human beans don't work like that. Some will litter with a clear conscience if they think somebody is being paid to clean up behind them. I mean, its practically job creaton right!

Movies didn't influence divorce rates. There were a series of events that led to them skyrocketing.

1. Birth Control pills. Women and Men were no longer forced to remain in marriages because of children.

2. Due to economic change and because of WW2, women became more acceptable in the workforce. This increased year after year due to varying factors and after a while, many women became less dependent on their spouses to support them. With this economic independence, women who were in unhappy marriages no longer HAD to stay in them. This also led to....

3. The rise of Feminism. With economic independence, women could start fighting for their rights. Rights that had been withheld from them for many years.

4. The Baby Boom after WW2. Most countries experienced it at some level and with a much high population, more people are going to divorce.

5. The importing and mainstreaming of new ideas in regards to relationships, spirituality, and sex. This didn't come from Hollywood, but from the East. The Kama Sutra, Mysticism, and more worldly takes on relationships.

6. Changes to existing laws, possibly one of the biggest reasons. Prior to the time period listed, divorce was a PAIN IN THE ASS to accomplish. Fault was usually required - one of the spouses must have committed a crime or 'sin' that justified the divorce. A long separation before the divorce used to be mandatory. Around the 50's, states began relaxing many of these laws, swapping to a no-fault style divorce and decreasing the separation period. By 1970, almost all states had laws allowing no-fault divorces. These laws had a great effect on the divorce rate. From 1940 to 1965, the divorce rate remained near 10 divorces for every 1,000 married women. By 1979, the rate had doubled.

7. Divorce also became more acceptable. The guilt and fault of the old divorce laws were gone. As more couples separated, divorce gradually became a normal part of life.

8. Children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced. As the number of divorced parents increases, so will the number of their children that get divorced.

These are the root factors, not movies. If you believe movies lead to divorce, you probably also think video games lead children to violent acts. We all know how wrong that is.

Short answer, yes.

He, personally, has done severe, possibly irreparable damage to our government and it's safeguards, and the rule of law, has been the most divisive president in my lifetime, a high bar, is driving the very companies he claimed to have saved overseas, like Harley Davidson, is starting multiple trade wars, even with our allies, wasting tens of billions already, and has been mired in criminal and moral scandals since before day negative 45 when he told the Russians he would remove sanctions over election tampering even as Obama was instigating them, well before taking office which is a crime if you don't know.
Trump himself has divided America, intentionally, with his own words and policies. Reporting on those words and policies is not slanderous or fake. If they lied about what he said, Trump would sue for slander/libel like he did over Steele, a case he just LOST. He hasn't, and he won't.

Again, you take the lying convict's word about the evidence and the law over court rulings and fact. I know you won't investigate, so you'll continue to be duped. That's a conscious choice you are making, to be wrong but righteous instead of correct and guilt ridden.
The investigation predated the Steele Dossier, and it was never a key bit of evidence or the cause of the investigation....and it is not some baseless fantasy fabrication like you believe, it beats any Trump speech for honesty and correctness by a factor of 10.

His Twitter is his official policy, they are clear about that. It is almost always bat shit, and is never civil or honorable.

As usual, you're absolutely wrong on all counts.

Manafort was convicted of repeatedly committing felonious frauds with the express purpose of hiding his massive financial ties to Russia and hide the fact that he is a foreign agent working for them and has been for years if not decades.

Paying out of your pocket to women to not say anything in order to help your campaign for president, which Trump did repeatedly (according to his personal lawyer who has released tapes of them discussing it) without disclosing it as a campaign contribution is absolutely a crime, as is making a personal contribution in those amounts.

Lying about it can also be a crime, which is part of why he cannot testify. He knows he'll also be asked about them and all the other women he's screwed and paid, and he doesn't know what they can prove, so has no idea which lie to tell. He also cannot testify about his finances without admitting many more felonious frauds. No blue dress needed when you're talking about an admitted criminal fraud and consummate liar like Trump, and btw, making a blue dress dirty wasn't a crime either....hiding it and lying about it under oath was....and Trump lies 3 times per sentence. He will never survive any interview under oath....he just isn't capable of honesty.

These are high crimes, felonies, not even misdemeanors. If Clinton had 1/10 the ties to Russia you would call her a Putin stooge and be calling for her head, and you know it. If her administration had 1/10 the convictions you would be frothing at the mouth for impeachment and be irate there was any obstruction to the special council or delay in getting her testimony, and claiming the convictions were absolute proof of her guilt. The smoking gun will be found, huh.....now that the multiple decades of investigations are over and she's been cleared of any crimes, and there's no accusations of actual criminal activity forthcoming (if you say pizzagate I'm going to assume you're actually mentally deficient and stop talking to you)...NOW the smoking gun will be found. *facepalm

If there's a log of smolder and smoke on the Clintons, there's a blast furnace on Trump. His entire upper echelon is either convicted of high crimes against the state, fired, both, or at odds with him for unpresidential actions and for trying to politicize the justice system like a despot. So much for his "I have the best people" lie, eh?

You are so blatantly hypocritical it would be funny, if only there weren't tens of thousands of you willing to say any kind of ignorant nonsense if you think it distracts from the overtly and undeniably criminal administration you support. That's pretty damn unpatriotic of y'all.

I’m shocked the cop didn’t try and say the cyclist ran into him and blew the stop sign or something. So, at least the cop was professional (or inexperienced) enough to admit his guilt and not try to screw the cyclist over. That’s going to be an expensive replacement though. Looks like an upper end bike, with Di2 (electronic shifting $$$), and carbon wheels, which will probably need to be replaced as well (at least the front). I’d say that bike could be $5k-$8k. This is why I’ve started riding with a video camera front and rear. You just never know when you might need clear evidence, especially as a cyclist.

There is a generally held belief that consciousness is a mystery of science or a miracle of faith; that consciousness was attained instantly (or granted by god), and that one has either attained self awareness or has not.

I don't believe any of that. I believe like all things in biology, consciousness evolved to maximise a benefit, and occurred gradually, without any magic or mystery. The closest exurb1a gets to that is when he says at 6:28:

"Maybe evolution accidentally made some higher mammals on Earth self-aware because it's better for problem solving or something"

We need to know what other people are thinking and this is the problem that consciousness solves. If a neighbouring tribe enters your territory then predicting whether they come to trade, mate, steal or attack is beneficial to survival.

Initially this may be done through simulation - imagining the future based on past experience. A flood approaching your cave is bad news. Being surrounded by lions is not good. Surrounding a lone bison is dinner. Being charged by a screaming tribe is an upcoming fight.

We could only simulate another person's actions, but we had no experience that allows us to simulate another person's thoughts. You may predict that giving your hungry neighbour a meal may suppress their urge to raid your supplies but you still can't simply open their head and see what they are thinking.

Then for the benefit of cooperation and coordination, we started to talk, and everything changed.

Communication not only allows us to speak our mind, but allows us to model the minds of others. We can gain an understanding of another person's motivations long before they act upon them. The need to simulate another person's thoughts becomes more nuanced and complex. Do they want to trade, or do they want to cheat?

Yet still we cannot look into the minds of others and verify our models of them. If we had access to an actual working brain we could gradually strengthen that model with reference to how an actual brain works, and we happen to have access to such a brain, our own!

If we monitored ourselves then we could validate a general model of thought against real urges, real experiences, real problem solving and real motivations. Once we apply our own selves to a model of thought we become much better at modelling the thoughts of others.

And what better way to render that model than with speech itself? To use all of our existing cognitive skills and simply simulate others sharing their thoughts with us.

At 3:15 exurb1a referenced a famous experiment that showed that we make decisions before we become aware of them. This lends evidence to suppose that our consciousness is not the driver of our thoughts, but a monitor - an interpretation of our subconscious that feeds our model of how people think.

Not everybody is the same. We all have different temperaments. Some of us are less predictable than others, and we tend to avoid such people. Some are more amenable to co-operation, others are stubborn. To understand the temperament of one we must compare them to another. If we are to compare the model of another's mind to our own, and we simulate their mind as speech, then we must also simulate our own mind as speech. Then not only are we conscious, we are self-aware.

Add in a feedback loop of social norms, etiquette, acceptable behaviour, expected behaviour, cooperation and co-dependence, game theory and sustainable societies and this conscious model eventually becomes a lot more nuanced than it first started - allowing for abstract concepts such as empathy, shame, guilt, remorse, resentment, contempt, kinship, friendship, nurture, pride, and love.

Consciousness is magical, but not magic.

No...he admitted to drinking at the dinner he was coming from, a legal reason to field test by itself. There's no question they can field test you for any suspicion, even no reason at all, and fail you for any tiny missteps they determine indicate impairment, then verify with a breathalyzer. Failure to submit to that impartial test is considered admission of guilt in most places.
He was let off most likely because he denied 'refusing' the test and they couldn't prove otherwise without recordings is my guess.

Why not intentionally waste their time and annoy them? Because defending yourself against charges that could be easily avoided is a pain, as he describes. The officers involved won't care if the charges stick, their point is made, they'll show you who can waste who's time and money more effectively, with little fear of consequences.
Edit: there's also the possibility that the police didn't show at the final trial appearance, which could also end up causing a dismissal of the case.

When you're illegally parked/stopped on a freeway shoulder you should expect to be looked at with suspicion, imo.

This is about where the line is...or if there's no line at all.
If some dude patted your behind, would you try to have them charged with rape, or even sexual assault? Would you even report the assault, or might it be unworthy of reporting?

What I take issue with is you repeat it doesn't matter until people get ridiculous prison terms or death, but when lives are ruined over nothing, or at most an innocent misunderstanding not corrected, too bad. Many, myself included, find that irrational and over-reactionary.
If someone treats you badly, you can't lambast them in the media from an anti nambla rally without some comeuppance, I think rightly.
Warning others outside of that guilt by association context is another matter.

Interestingly, as I read it, he's already admitted guilt regardless of whether he was on his phone or not. He admitted driving while seated, completely unable to see where he was going, compounded by the claim he continued to do so after being warned it wasn't safe. Sure seems like he was failing to operate his boat with due care by any measure.
I hope he has good insurance, because they should all win their lawsuits.
That's one expensive day on the water.

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