There is a problem with the first over the line concept, not the representative concept.

A preferential voting system solves this problem. In which case, Hillary still might have lost.

A "relative majority" or "simple majority" did vote for him.

She doesn't know if anyone else did or didn't support him since they don't have a preferential voting system.

She states at 7:44 that he won a second time around because votes went to a third candidate, yet again she doesn't know who the votes would split to.

Yeah, this is way to short to cover the topic.

Freedom / choice is worth considering but people need to treat home buying as an investment because it is often the biggest single investment they ever make. Buy low and sell high. Putting that out of your mind because you're planning to never sell is a huge mistake. You would think that other countries would have learnt the lessons of the US, but housing markets in places like Canada, Australia, big Chinese cities are just waiting to pop. The mantra of 'house prices always rise' continues.

The most obvious measure broadly is price to median incomes. Here in Sydney (and some of the other Australian capitals) it's at eye watering levels. Buying a house here right now is basically banking on preferential tax treatment (in our case, called negative gearing), restricted supply continuing forever (the main driver of house prices by the way), and heroic increases in income to forestall the inevitability of prices simply becoming unaffordable.

It's gotten to the point here where lenders are asking home buyers (who want a loan to value ratio of over 80%!) to pay so-called lender's mortgage insurance (LMI) which adds a substantial amount to their loan and guarantees the bank (not the home buyer) if the borrower defaults. The insurance company who issued the insurance contract then goes after the defaulted home buyer to recoup the payout to the bank:

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/09/7-30-report-lenders-mortgage-insurance/

From what I understand there is still plenty of reasonably priced property in the US (in some cities) but even there you have plenty of places that have become ridiculously overpriced.

This is an excellent explanation for someone of his age and his skill with video editing obviously helps a lot. It held my interest, the world needs more entertaining and educating videos like these.

My only criticism - and some youtubers have already pointed this out - is that the explanation of time dilation "..the same bodily change that happens on earth takes much longer to occur when you are moving so fast.." is wrong.

Signals sent within the body can be analogous to a clock - any fixed duration measured between two ~lightspeed reference frames will be different, including seconds measured by an atomic clock - but time dilation specifically has nothing to do with the mechanics behind how you measure the time or the time it takes a signal to travel. It's a property of the nature of spacetime. Time itself actually slows down. There's no 'trick' to understanding how or why, it's just a property that it has. We can forgive him because he'd already demonstrated that physics is the same in any inertial reference frame and there is no "preferential" reference frame; therefore the motion of the reference frame can't be responsible for the observed difference, so he obviously already really knew all this.

There's no shame in getting that wrong, because he'll be taught more and better about it as he progresses through school. Generally the arbitrary subjects are the hardest to live with because you just have to accept them as they are rather than 'understand'. Quantum mechanics is the same - you just have to accept the rules and apply the maths. Everyone struggles with it, even Feynman said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

The devil is in the details, isn't it?

For instance, what kind of guaranteed minimum income are we talking about?

The context they used (automatisation, labour supply) suggests to me something along the lines of an unconditional basic income. If that's the case, it cannot be compared to a minimum wage at all, since it has effects that go far beyond the labour market and the income situation. It's a massive reshaping of how we organise society. And it becomes a pain in the ass to even conceptualise properly once you talk about how to finance it...

A minimum wage, no matter how decent it is, doesn't even put a dent into the disparity between income from labour and income from capital. It makes life less horrible for those it applies to and it somewhat curtails the welfare queens among corporations who like their wage slaves being paid for by society. Yes, I'm looking at you, Walmart! Still, on its own, it does very little about income inequality, and nothing at all about wealth inequality.

How would I address income inequality?

In German, the words for taxes and steering are the same: "Steuern". If you want to steer the income towards a more equal distribution, taxation might be the easiest way to go about it. Treat all forms of income equally in terms of taxation. Or go one step further and treat wages preferentially to support employment.

However, redistribution will only get you so far. So why not address it at an earlier stage: distribution. Mondragon serves as a successful example of how a cooperative structure puts democratic checks and balances on the wage structure within a corporation. One person, one vote puts the lid on any attempts by higher-ups to rake in 300 times as much as the peasants on the factory floor.

Yet it doesn't do anything about the inequality between wages and capital income. Even a combination of progressive taxation and fixed income-ratios doesn't do much about it. Especially since non-wage income can evade taxation in a million different ways and most politicians in every country in the world seem more than eager to protect what loopholes they created over the decades.

So what's my suggestion? Well, progressive taxation of both income and wealth, living wage plus job guarantee, support of democratic structures at the workplace, international pressure on tax havens (which includes my own fecking country). Realistic? No. But neither was our welfare system until it was implemented.

'White privilege' as i understand it is a description of the tendency for society to be quicker to persecute dark skinned people over light skinned people, or to otherwise treat light skinned people preferentially when compared to dark skinned people.

Using myself as an example.. As someone to whom race has never been an issue (it is as unnoticable to me as hair and eye colour), why does it fall to me to "own" the tendency of racists to grant me special favour - which i never asked for - when the only reason you have to link them to me is my skin colour? Have i misunderstood?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Also, the poll isn't quite fair, as we have all the people who want images, at just different star levels, against the unified no vote. We need a preferential voting system. ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

I had that same reaction. I felt odd the entire time that she's just standing there like a slab of beef for them to look at and touch. "Look at this thing we brought out for you. Do you like it? Do you want to touch it? Oh, by the way, it happens to be a person, so treat it like a fragile little thing that you might break please."

It's a demonstration of human nature, really. That's exactly how human men are genetically encoded to treat women. But I am preferential to cultures and humans that seek to elevate human behavior beyond blindly or happily submitting to every animal instinct/impulse that oozes out of the brain.

Otherwise, you're just an animal that happens to walk upright.

*promote

I agree with his point about Brand's position being rubbish. Voting matters even when the decision is between a lesser evil.

@Jerykk

But the thing is, the number of people with radical or highly partisan positions is quite low, just like the number of people who watch Fox News is relatively low. Many (probably most) do have fairly divided opinions or on the whole are too politically apathetic to be able to toe a party line.

I do kinda agree. If there were no parties there would be presumably more candidates and therefore more positions. A good comparison would be say Israel where parties emerge and die out, and where most governments are large coalitions with generally very varied positions.

Thing is, you still naturally get fairly stable coalitions and coalescing of view points into conservative or liberal positions (usually 2 or 3 distinct groups) simply because you still need majorities to win, and coalitions are much easier than trying to grow a minor party into an absolute majority winner. Even if the 2 party system weren't so entrenched in the US and there was preferential voting, you would still likely have that kind of result.

I recognize this branch. It's oddly very white.
All the non-whites seem go to McDonalds across the street.
My guess is this guy is homeless and though he would be gifted a free meal from Jeebus for being white and homeless. In n Out has been accused for being, shall we say, a white preferential hirer. I mean seriously, look at the people slowly moving out of the way, notice something ?

I'm starting to see a pattern of pissed off religious Americans.
This guy looks identical to this other christian gay bashing loser.

Since it's bad for productivity if their personnel keeps "analysing" pornographic pictures, GHCQ gives preferential treatment to pictures with faces in 'em.

So to increase your chances of remaining undetected, your webcam should be pointed at your genitals -- and you should be nude. Just like Chatroulette.

What is the effective difference between an all out dis-engagement which is essentially a shunning vs him being removed from the community when it is known that he is here only to push a product? There is no difference except for one. If he sticks around,there is always going to be someone who falls for the trap and we get to go through this all again. I say remove the trap. There are plenty of other places on the internet to fall for shillery. This doesn't have to be one of them.

It's not about profiting. yes we all are here to "get something out of it" The difference is that shiny admits that he is selling something.

Are you selling something @bareboards2 ? Am I? Is it your sole mission on the sift to press a particular viewpoint? Or are you just a little bit more multi-faceted than that?

I think it's rather hypocritical to not allow spam bots and marketing shills on here, but when someone shills the bible...suddenly it's ok.

I appreciate what they're trying to do. This site has an obvious left slant, but this is a misguided attempt to artificially balance it out. Yes, I said artificially.
It's the same bullshit the media tries to pull by giving airtime to both sides in order to pretend to be "balanced" regardless of how much evidence one side has over the other.

If anything, the sift gives Shiny preferential treatment because of his beliefs. He's become the poster child of the religious viewpoint here and so it doesn't seem to matter how he conducts himself or how intellectually dishonest or fallacious he is. He gets a pass. He certainly knows how to play the victim. You devote your entire existence here on the sift to pushing any other message and I bet you'd probably get kicked out.

To play into the liberal stereotype that the conservatives have. I bet you anything if someone started posting constantly about how great Obama is to the same extent Shiny posts about God/religion, even on a left leaning site such as this they'd eventually get kicked out for spam. At the very least, even us godless liberals would get sick of it and would find such a sifter to be annoying and ignore them.

This is not about atheist vs religion, this is not left vs right. This is about people who contribute to the community in good faith and those that do not. It's about holding people's feet to the fire.

If nothing else, you have to admit there are people out there who can represent religion FAR better than Shiny ever could. So if the sift really feels they HAVE to have a designated, artificial, religious "representative" to balance us "out of control liberals" There are people out there far less disingenuous and not one trick ponies like Shiny.

>> ^lantern53:

I guess the GOP will continue to lose until fiscal responsibility, limited gov't and free markets are not seen as 'white' values.


Or until the GOP learns fiscal responsibility, supports limited government in personal/moral affairs and "free market" means more to them than a code word for corporatism and preferential treatment for the financial elite.

Or we could ALL culturally accept the values of selfishness, xenophobia and...selfishness.

I was just listing the major reason why I am not a republican. I generally agree with conservative values, and I take conservative positions on most social issues, but I also disagree with a few things so that's why I'm not a member of that party. In regards to Mitt Romney, he seems like he does care for the poor. I think he is a pretty likeable guy, for the most part. That's isn't the reason I am not voting for him, however. The reason I am not voting for him is because he is an elder in the Mormon church. His family has been connected with it since the church started, and one of his relatives helped construct the first temple. A Romney presidency means that the elders of the Mormon church will be running this country, and that isn't something that I as a Christian can support.


In reply to this comment by deedub81:
If Romney doesn't care about the Poor, why has he spent his money AND HIS PERSONAL TIME serving and helping them?

In reply to this comment by shinyblurry:
>> ^cosmovitelli:

Shiny and QM face facts: you're both too smart to stick with these evasive, ideologically motivated destroyers for much longer.
Sadly, the actual, mediocre, boring effort to do things as well as possible is all there is for us.. No amazing plan, no secret trick to simultaneously give & keep trillions, no 'wealth creators'..
Just a big pile of flawed people, some of whom are trying to make the world more relaxed, open and productive.
And some are solipsists who want OUT in any way they can imagine it might be possible - extreme wealth, private land, preferential treatment by the supernatural, sexual conquest, fame, power over others..
..or all of the above and then still desperately hurting defenseless hungry uncared-for children to acquire ANOTHER billion.. (and then trying to flee further from the anger and the pain they have unthinkingly perpetuated..)
Ryan and Romney are taking fuck you to the next level.


I'm not on board for the Romney/Ryan ticket. I'm not a republican because they don't care about the poor and a few other reasons. I'm not a democrat because it is the party of secular humanism. I cannot in good conscience vote for either candidate this election.