Basic human empathy?

I can't predict the future accurately, but I can say that there is a high probability (certainly more likely than not) that climate change is going to hit humanity hard.

Now I suspect we'll get through it. We've survived ice ages and so on. It's just gonna suck for a few decades/centuries.

In fact, the only real solution I see to climate change is to significantly extend the average human lifespan. If everyone alive was suddenly going to be here for the next 200 years, you might see some actual policy change at the highest levels.

Bob said that her line of argument (selling regulation policy changes for self enrichment), is less of an obvious motivation for someone who enters politics already wealthy.

That's a perfectly fine statement to make, as there is less to gain.



Net effect wise, nothing has changed for the average person. So I would argue that POTUS is more ineffectual than able to make things exponentially anything.

-scheherazade

@Mordhaus I agree with you, and I didn't mean to say that was the ONLY pinpoint that was worth noting. But as someone who graduated in 2002, I've seen a steady gradation of change over the past 16 years that can in a large part be traced back to those policy changes.

I'm also not blaming the textbook companies for being for-profit companies. But, much like healthcare in this country, education is something people NEED. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. I'm of the opinion that it should be treated like the social service that it is and the blame rests with lawmakers that force schools into patronage of testing producers with little or no oversight written into the law.

On your 1-5 list:

1) That can be a difficult subject, you're oftentimes doubling the cost of wardrobes for poor families, and it's the kid who can only afford 1 uniform that's full of tatters that gets bullied anyway.

2) I'm not anti-standards, but the way that those standards are assessed are not reflected in the tests the students take. Moreover, VERY FEW jobs (if any) require a person to answer A B C D over and over as a way to make a living. In other words, answering multiple choice questions is not a skill most people need.

3) Yes. My average classroom size is 28. 50 minutes with 28 kids in a room, you do the math on the individualized attention they get.

4) I've seen some counties near my locale that have instituted a no cell phone ordinance, banning them from the campus. It's possible, but one needs the support of the community.

5) Send your kid where you want, but I don't think my tax dollars should go to pay for Johnny to go to religious institutions. It feels, in that circumstance, that the government is endorsing a particular religious viewpoint to do so.

It wouln't be funny even if you weren't working directly for Putin and against America, just sad that you would do his bidding for free.

Working with Russia in your official capacity as Secretary of State to create international treaties, even bad ones....that is not collusion, it's diplomacy.
Working with Russia to reform American policy before you're in office...that's subversive collusion, and admitted to by Trump's cabinet.

Who's colluding with Russia? Apparently at least Manafort while he ran the Trump campaign according to the indictment....oh, and Flynn who's eventually admitted (when his lies were proven false after the tapes surfaced) that he illegally made multiple policy change agreements in December with Russia contradicting the government's positions, like a promise to remove sanctions, which is a crime called subversion and could be/is treason.

Edit: Before you try to trot out the DNC partially paying for the 'Trump dossier' as some form of collusion, remember it was conceived and created by the RNC and only later sold to Clinton's camp after Trump took the nomination, and it's not even nearly as bad as what Jared thought he was going to buy directly from the Russian government in his meeting that he falsely claimed was about adoption until the email surfaced proving that was another lie.

you ppl are awesome...I lurk enough on YouTUbe & the likes, but I live on my phone which is dreadfully slow, and a pain in the ass to upload a video from, so by the time i get to my laptop, my "find" is already "found". I'll work through it; no policy changes need per my option. I'll just be more here here. Cheers

Yeah, that wasn't really directed at you, but more at the whole "give us an objective review" cry that's been going around.

For the record, my two favourite gaming sites are bluesnews (that's how I found the sift in the first place) and rockpapershotgun, for different reasons obviously.

The reason I like blues and the issue I have with news in video format is time. I can read a days page of news on blues in well under a minute, spawning tabs of interest as I go.

Your video is 6:25 long.
First up is the BAFTA awards: it's a fairly dry list with no commentary on it. If I want that information, a link to http://awards.bafta.org/award/2015/games is a much more succinct way of presenting it.

Then some news about Hawken: cool! Hawken is awesome and I've been hoping to hear more about it.

Elder Scrolls: don't care.
Nintendo licensing agreement: don't care
Nintendo's next console: don't care

Steam refund policy change: Interesting.
Kojima to leave Konami: interesting.

The point is not what I care about or don't care about, that's going to be different for everyone. The point is I have to fast forward to the news I'm interested in and as presented, it's an inherently bad format for that.

Maybe instead of one long video have a series of shorter videos linked via annotations? Or even timecodes in the description. That way, we can jump to the stories we're interested in.

HTH

The NHS is a non-theistic universal health care system.

Still the pride of the nation despite corrupt politicians trying to sell it off, and creating confusing policy changes and overhauls to try and slow it down and clog it up to make it look like it needs privatisation.

Are you trying to play down the positive influence that atheistic people have had on the world? Because even the pope would call you an imbecile for trying to suggest that the world would be better off without contributions from those who worked under an atheistic remit (i.e. one which was prepared to challenge the traditional, often religious answers). And vice versa - the problem with the world is people who can't find the value in things they don't understand or agree with.

How very small minded of you to think that a life without theism is a life not worth living. I'm sure an alcoholic would say the same to a teetotaller. I couldn't find meaning in a life without god =/= there is no meaning in a life without god.

I tell you what; i'll have a life without meaning as long as you're a coward who is crippled delusional by their fear of the possibility they will one day cease to exist. Do you think your god approves of your behaviour?

If there is a god, he'll prefer my company over yours - i didn't need the promise of sweets later to be good now. I did it because i'm good.

Sam Harris has some interesting thoughts in this blog post: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun

"We could do many things to ensure that only fully vetted people could get a licensed firearm. The fact that 40 percent of all guns in the U.S. are legally purchased from private sellers without background checks on the buyers (the so-called “gun show loophole”) is terrifying. Getting a gun license could be made as difficult as getting a license to fly an airplane, requiring dozens of hours of training. I would certainly be happy to see policy changes like this. In that respect, I support much stricter gun laws. But I am under no illusions that such restrictions would make it difficult for bad people to acquire guns illegally. Given the level of violence in our society, the ubiquity of guns, and the fact that our penitentiaries function like graduate schools for violent criminals, I think sane, law-abiding people should have access to guns. In that respect, I support the rights of gun owners."

Dang.

Thanks for the info.

But daaaang.

In reply to this comment by TheFreak:
So if you don't live in Colorado you're missing half the story.

Due to a recent policy change, failing to vote in any election removes you from the electoral registry. So if you didn't vote in the last state election, for example, you are not a registered voter in Colorado. This policy is recent enough that many people preparing to vote in November will not realize they are no longer a registered voter.

Not to worry, if you go to vote and find you're not registered, you can register at the polling site. All you need is a photo ID.

Add to that the recent attempt by Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler (Republican) to purge voters by challenging their citizenship. Seems ironic that the US sends monitors to other countries to ensure fair elections.

So if you don't live in Colorado you're missing half the story.

Due to a recent policy change, failing to vote in any election removes you from the electoral registry. So if you didn't vote in the last state election, for example, you are not a registered voter in Colorado. This policy is recent enough that many people preparing to vote in November will not realize they are no longer a registered voter.

Not to worry, if you go to vote and find you're not registered, you can register at the polling site. All you need is a photo ID.

Add to that the recent attempt by Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler (Republican) to purge voters by challenging their citizenship. Seems ironic that the US sends monitors to other countries to ensure fair elections.

yeah, we really need to separate the money from politics.
not just reversing citizens united, but making fundamental changes to the election system...
a reasonable taxpayer funded campaigns with limited duration would ultimately cost a lot less than what we're currently paying at the other end.

when we have separated money from politics, only then the meaningful policy changes are possible.
the way it is now, it's almost impossible to beat the lobbies on any issue.

Lawrence Lessig's talk on campaign finance reform:
http://fora.tv/2012/01/17/How_Money_Corrupts_Congress_and_a_Plan_to_Stop_It

found a shorter version on sift here =)
http://videosift.com/video/Laurence-Lessigs-New-Lecture-On-Money-In-Politics

Today we are adding another rule: No suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.
we have banned all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children ...
We're concerned about the slippery slope from banning one specific type of content to banning other types of content.

The problem isn't the slippery slope leading to banning some other type of content, but rather how do they define what they're banning now? How many debates have we had here about different posts that may or may not be considered pornographic. Now throw in another variable about the age of the people in the video. Are they kids? Do they look like kids? Are they acting childish? And those are the easy ones.

Do they prohibit certain Calvin Klein ads? Or movies like Hard Candy, Lolita, and Kids? What about novels like Shardik, or even clinical textbooks on how to deal with issues of child molestation? All of the examples I mention in this paragraph probably fall under the ban they've described, though it's hard to say because they are fairly vague about defining the proscribed content ("suggestive"? wtf does that mean?).

I'm definitely not suggesting that Reddit allow itself to be a network hub for child pornographers. They claim that they did not "make this policy change lightly or without careful deliberation." I imagine they did struggle with the decision, but it doesn't seem they spent much time figuring out just what it was they were banning.

I think his idea that the monetary system is going bankrupt is quite possibly true, especially in Europe. I don't see how Obama is pulling the strings of a big nuclear, pardon me, thermonuclear war conspiracy. His influence on any meaningful policy changes has been stunted by the ineffectiveness of congress.

[edit - After watching past 32:00:00] OMFG, this guy is nuts. Colonizing Mars? Galactic radiation threats? This is cult logic on a epic, Branch Davidian/Scientology scale. Crazy like a fox, perhaps. A retarded fox.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.
We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealthy to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)
Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).


Well said sir, in my view no department is inherently bad or good, the value of the department depends on who is running it, how it is used and how policies governing the department are made. If the Department of Education is causing harm to the education of students then this could be fixed by resolving the underlying issue which is one of corrupt policy making. Look at Bill Gates for example, he's playing his part to destroy and privatize the education system so he can have Windows on every school computer and influence the public education budget. He's allowed to do this because of policy changes and enormous amounts of lobbying money (which go hand in hand).

Here's an interesting read about some of the sweeping changes he's been able to introduce via lobbying:
http://techrights.org/2011/09/09/new-york-times-and-washpo-on-edu/

Plus of course all the other issues dystopianfuturetoday mentions - these won't go away just by removing a couple of departments - the core issues of corruption and lobbying have to be fixed first.

Is Ron Paul going to fix these? Hell no. Even if he was strongly in favor of these sorts of real changes, he wouldn't get support for them under the current system, the GOP would block everything, the Dems would keep talking about how bad the GOP is for blocking everything, and everything would continue to get fucked just as badly, or worse, than it currently is.

i've been involved in my local occupy movement, this is my opinion.

5) nothing changes in the immediate, but communities are created and begin to solve their own problems locally. texas occupies are working on online actions and compiling lists of local, independent businesses to disperse ... encouraging people do their xmas shopping there. the goal of the online ops for several occupies we're working with (online) is to cut into 4th and 1st quarter sales. they're starting to work with permaculture farms and local farms and community garden activists. these ideas and works are instantly shared with other occupy groups. these ideas are shared instantly online to people who support the cause but can't camp out on the sidewalk indefinentely. I don't think occupy will compel any real policy change in the immediate. it would take a constitutional amendment to meet their major demand. perhaps politicans will begin to adjust their rhetoric a bit, but the collective political conscience of these groups is high enough to see through that. nothing major will happen. but, i do think communities are being made. and communities are what change people lives.

also, to address the winter statements.... texas occupy is working with our friends in northern states to invite them down here for the winter! i'm sure other states with more moderate winters are doing the same. they may have to migrate, but i dont think it's going away that quickly.