>> ^chilaxe:

1. Fairness:
How many people do you know who follow the path I described? Even here in Silicon Valley, people like that are rare, so the world is basically just waiting for people like that to come along.
I doubt most people are genetically incapable of following that path, if that's what you're suggesting.

Genetics isn't the only thing you inherit from your parents. You also get citizenship in the country they live in, you get raised and educated in their social and economic class, and you might also be able to take advantage of their network of business contacts. And that's not even mentioning the potential differences in parenting techniques and lessons they impart.

When I say "you think life is fair", I'm mostly saying that you seem to think we all have the same paths in front of us to choose from. We don't.

I had a lot of opportunities available to me that other kids from my neighborhood didn't, not because I'd done anything to earn them, but because my parents were well off.

I had a lot fewer opportunities available to me than my classmates at school, not because I hadn't earned them, but because I wasn't the child of the owner of a multinational corporation.
>> ^chilaxe:
2. Racism:
You could call me an intelligencist if you'd like... I believe immigration slots should be given to that portion of poor people who can, regardless of ethnicity, be statistically shown to have good odds of doing well in the US, both regarding themselves and their children born here.
Remember that it's liberals who believe in institutionalizing racism. Here in California, liberals are fed up with Asians contributing so much to society, so liberals are currently seeking to restore racist discrimination against Asians in universities.
California outlawed such racism in 1996, so schools like UC Berkeley and UC Irvine are almost majority Asian. Personally, I like 21st century societies, so I think Asian studiousness is good.

There's a pretty big difference between having a debate over what the most fair (i.e. non-racist) admissions policy would be -- policies that promote racial diversity, or policies that discount race altogether -- and what you were talking about.

We can accurately predict that billions spent on trying to close the achievement gap will never succeed. We can accurately predict that hyper-liberal Berkeley will always have the highest crime rates in the San Francisco bay area regardless of legislative policy because it's sandwiched between Oakland and Richmond, which have collected genomes that are bad at complex society.

We can know that it was probably a mistake for liberals to import 80 million permanently poor people from other countries between 1970-2010.

In that short little quote you asserted:

1. Some races can't be educated, no matter how much money we spend trying to educate them
   
2. Some races will always commit lots of crimes, and no amount of policy change will stop it
   
3. Some races will be "permanently poor", and no amount of economic opportunity will change that
   

That's more or less the soul of the Jim Crow style of politics. There are good races, for whom higher education spending, and economic opportunity will work, and there are bad races, for whom such things are a waste. Therefore, the logic goes, smart policy would be to reserve that spending and those opportunities only for the good races, since they're the only ones who could ever make use of it.

Oh, and keep an eye on your valuables whenever one of those bad races comes by. You never know about those people.

You sure that all people in that kind of world can determine their ultimate fates, purely through their own individual choices? Hasn't that been disproven by history time and time again?
>> ^chilaxe:
3. Human rights:
Yes. People are free to work for anything they want.


Really, that's the only one? Rather than open that can of worms, I'll just follow through with my original line of thought -- that's a right you think everyone should have, right?

Why? Why not abolish such liberal ideas as "equal rights", and tailor our legal system to the findings of your studies?

@residue

I have several reasons as to why banning mobile phones at UNIVERSITY would be a bad idea and should never happen. However let me fully recover from being speechless - the alcoholics anonymous thing coupled with the phones in exams thing caught me by surprise. Exams are an individual test of the skill of a person using only their brain and whatever limited resources you provide, it has no place in this discussion and if you're an educator, you should know that. Let's not waste time with nonsense like that or frivolous analogies.

So, mobile phones are RIGHTLY removed from exams and they ask people not to use them in lectures because if you're making noise, or shining a bright light sometimes, it is distracting to your peers and the lecturer (which impacts on other students); one's own careless mobile phone usage hinders the learning of other students. Careful use of the internet on my mobile phone in physics lectures really helps me understand things at times - not to mention reminders and schedules for assessed work or reading.

At a university you are an adult, you've volunteered to attend, it isn't a school any more. Lecturers are not teachers and teachers are not lecturers; there is a world of difference. The lecturers at my university would certainly agree that it is not their job to make you learn, whilst school teachers have the harder job in that they in a way DO. Uni students are already interested by dint of asking to be there, school students are forced there by law and attend all subjects, not their favoured one.

Not to mention that university policies are DICTATED by students. The universities know that student satisfaction is what can make or break a university's reputation - especially for newer universities (ie. not historic establishments). I'm a student liaison for my course, meaning i go to question and feedback sessions from the students to the lecturers. One thing that gets lecturers listening is when you imply that a lot of students have a bad opinion about something. We've had many policies changed in the first year which has improved our ability to learn and solved many problems. Why do they care? Because if student reviews are bad, they slip in rankings, their uni appears less desirable. Almost all students would hate a policy of mobile phone bans, so you can see how it would go down.

"I know best how to teach students" is an old fashioned and i would even say negligent line to tow. I do not intend that to be an insult, i've tried to be quite polite here and have a civil discussion but i believe this is true based on my experiences. One of the key focuses of our lecturers is that lectures can and should be tailored to best deliver the course content to those present, that is why our lecturers offer us key choices and respond to our feedback, and i believe that is why our university's physics department is growing and becoming world renowned. I think that in all walks of life, it is wise to always be open to adjustments or improvements, and to never ever think that you have finished learning.

This is not important but i feel i should offer this information - i have a teaching family (30+ years in teaching, all of them), school teachers but no uni lecturers. My opinions on schools comes from my life with them and my uni opinions comes from my involvement with my uni. I hope it is at least an "educated" opinion, no pun intended.

/walloftext, sorry, but i did try to present my ideas and opinions well for you.

Thanks, Hybrid.

In reply to this comment by Hybrid:
*doublepromote

Good point, but stupidity and lack of education often go hand in hand, and some cultures are tailored around preying on functional societies. The point is, a proper risk evaluation wasn't done when considering immigration. Ideology above all reason. Tragic really.

Populist opponents of liberal immigration laws use foreign aid as an alibi, but even that is ruled by ideology and opportunism. Only fair trade works. (not the hippie brand - actual trade with proper wages being the rule)>> ^hpqp:

You're amalgamating two quite separate things: terrorism and crime. The latter has everything to do with lack of education (including basic civic behaviour sometimes), of money, and/or is a result of immigration with purely criminal intent (yes, that exists too). The former, however, needs only nationalistic or, in this case, religious ideology to be its fuel. Most (if not all) recent Islamist terrorists have come from middle-to-upper class families, have usually been well educated and had no "criminal gain" (i.e. $$) to be made from their actions.
>> ^Smugglarn:
You make the same mistake as the media in Sweden and Norway; labeling all immigrants and refugees as "foreigners". The problem with terrorism, crime, rape etc is fairly specific to different ethnic and religious groups of refugees: Somalis, Iraqis, Albanians etc. Not all of them, but they are dramatically over represented. I happen to know a an MP that is of Iraqi descent, but she is an atheist and I would guess from, if not upper class, then upper middle class. So that would be dominating factors, but knowing that - importing violent, uneducated fanatics?
The right wants cheap labour. The left wants votes to bring down the right. The middle and lower classes lose - including a lot of immigrants that have done nothing but being well mannered citizens of a secular democracy.
Oh, and do not think for a minute integrated immigrants feel sympathetic with the criminal element. Only left wing stooges do that - often in the media.
>> ^Yogi:
So now foreigners can't even be trusted in countries because they have bombs and they're there to blow up people? Even if it turns out to be a foreigner how the fuck do you two explain all the foreigners that day who DIDN'T blow anything up? The country is full of fucking morons and only a very select few of them post here, remember sifters there's tons of motherfuckers who actually think like this.
Also why does anything even genuine sentiment on Twitter sounds like you're being an asshole?
"I fear that many 100s could be dead. Poor poor poor guard that worked in the first floor. ,"

Ah ok, well always nice to be proven wrong Keeps you alert!

It seems her videos are tailored to getting herself a job, so that does explain why this is so showy. Nothing wrong with that, people gotta eat!

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^yellowc:
Not to be a downer but it is one thing to learn to use nunchucks as a performance tool, than it is to use them as a weapon. Her movements to me don't suggest martial arts training or very loose training, seems to be some dance orientated thing.

>> ^swedishfriend:
Pretty cool but does suggest stunt work reel rather than actual martial arts. I want to see her in some protective gear real time sparring with another nunchaku practitioner if she was trying to show off martial arts skills.
-Karl

I actually thought the same thing when I saw this video, but after a quick google, it does seem she's the real deal.
http://www.amy-johnston.com/Bio-Resume.html
Problem is, it turns out that teaching a good martial artist to act well is far more difficult than teaching a good actor to do some believable martial arts scenes. Not that any action movies ever feature much in the way of believable fight scenes anyway.

No I was not aware they were capable of breaking unemployment rates down by race. I looked up how they actually determine unemployment rates. It is by a finding a pool of people they feel represent demographics the census shows them and calling them to ask if they are working or not.....basically. Then they use that to state the overall unemployment rates. I read that they don't use the number of people drawing unemployment benefits, I mention this because I suspected the unemployment fluctuations were because lots of people were being dropped from the counting when they exhausted their benefits. However I now believe that the way they sample could account for a pretty big fluctuation considering they might get a sampling that isn't true to reality.... I couldn't determine any other kind of metric they employ that even sounds remotely like they verify anything they claim as fact.

My experiences with their department is that they just routinely gave me wrong information or sent me documents in error. Causing me to have to contact them to find out what was going on....and having to call them 2-3 times to actually get in contact with someone who would take the time to answer my questions. And then those answers were 50/50 on their accuracy as well. It's one thing to be overburdened, it's another to create more work and hassle for yourself and everyone else involved.....it may have been a stalling tactic but it ain't fun to be denied by letter, then told on the phone you were eligible....filling out your weekly form to find out you were actually denied. Spending the week getting that straightened out, waiting a week because they say it'll take a week. Then find out your denied again.....spending another week straightening it out and a month has gone by before you get forward progress.

Didn't go to a college that had frat houses that I was aware of, and I commuted so I didn't spend a lot of time on campus as it more of a commuter heavy college. They certainly didn't have anything greek "official" within sight of campus. Didn't care if I was in a frat, club, or group. I'm just saying it was announced on the college radio that these clubs were around for these folks....not based on interests such as chess or even a greek/frat system.

And I don't really care what races Im around as long as they are on an even footing with me and have the common courtesy to take showers, wear deodorant, and try to control their breath or at least not get up in my face with stank mouth. Oh and if they must speak a foreign language at least try to include others in the conversation if we're working on a group project or having a group conversation. I've been trying to pick up other languages, but man...native speakers when they get going I can't tell what the hell they are saying.

And....what is "white culture" if everyone is included? Like.....country clubs? I figured they were more "rich culture".

>> ^longde:

@<Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people. As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.
Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I think your unemployment office offers a pretty good slice of the overall picture, at least where female employees are concerned. My theory (if you could call it that) is that women take those jobs because they're used to being underpaid for shit work. They're also used to being treated like shit by people they serve, and to society having a negative view of them in general. And I'm not talking about the experience of a lot of todays pampered little princesses. I'm talking about a deeply embedded genetic instinct. Perhaps the situation of the black employees could be similar.
One thing's for sure, the women in the office you go to aren't there because of some female affirmative action plan, and yet they're still out of balance with the local population.

It's a possibility. And I can't prove one way or another as I could never find any specific information on what I'm about to repeat from others.


The state I am in requires people to work for their food stamps, medical coverage for their kids, any cash they may receive towards rent and other costs. They are called "Work Experience Program" (WEP) workers. When they are categorized into that program, they are basically required to work a fixed amount of hours each month or they get cut off to some extent. For single women these hours are drastically less (I would guess half or more) if they have kids because they would rather them be with their kids than have to pay for daycare. For instance some guy told me he was laid off from a job working for the county, they refused to pay unemployment and they could do so by law. So he didn't have any unemployment to buffer him while he looked for work and he had to go on welfare. Since he was married and had 2 kids, he was eligible for medical coverage on the kids, food stamps, and cash to help cover costs. For that he had to work something like 150 hours each month at Goodwill as a "WEP worker". So basically he was working a full time job and he told me it worked out to under 4 dollars an hour if his kids didn't need any medical stuff...which I will admit medical coverage could be a huge cost if his kids had something bad happen. So there's incentive to find work if you're a man because you're basically getting screwed hard for your time, but you're also required to work so many hours it's hard to find time to look for work unless you do it at night. He said they scheduled hours for him and he could miss hours and make them up on the weekends and sometimes in the evenings, but only if they had work for him and only if he got permission. Otherwise he fell short on his hours and would be potentially booted.

So for a single mother, these hours are cut down to half maybe more because they are expected to work only if they have someone to take care of their kid or while they are in school allowing for time for them to be there when they leave and be there when they get home. Which if they are forced to ride the bus, their hours are going to be even shorter of actual "work". But they would still get the same benefits as the married man from above. Now......there's another program I've heard about from my parents where one of their renter's claimed to be in it after she alluded otherwise. And it was semi-confirmed by a friend of my dad whose mother gets a home health care provider provided to her by the state.

I don't know the name of the program, but it basically puts single women receiving welfare into the role of home health care provider to some degree. Where they go to the senior citizens houses and stay there some portion of the day for some period of each week. Where they do some picking up, organizing, make sure the senior citizen is generally OK as far as they are able to determine and help them with tasks they might be able to do. The friend of my dad...his mom's home health care provider overdosed on pills while she was at his mom's house. Died on the couch. She called him up and told her the lady was dead on her couch and called 911 to tell them...then went to bed. There are suspicions of mine and my parents that these ladies steal drugs from the old folks and use em or sell em....they had problems with a lot of "visitors" at their rental when a lady there claiming to be a "home health care provider" on her application but then later admitted it was a government program...no idea what it's called. I have never heard of a man being in or being asked to be in this program.

So...they have programs which seemed to be tailored to women. I am more likely to believe that they also give preference to women in hiring. I will tell you one thing I did see while I was at those offices though. Young women especially if they are in fairly attractive get treated poorly by a lot of the women there. They also never once had any sort of training program, employment hunting assistance (beyond searching on their system yourself), or anything else to offer or suggest to me when I asked. But I heard them repeatedly tell women they offer programs to help find part-time work....if they are successful or not, I have no idea. I don't know if preference is given to people who have kids or not....didn't go around asking everyone if they had kids.

@Porksandwich I can sympathize; but did you know that the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites? I think the demographics of this shitty government agency reflect the fact that, before the downturn, whites who have better options in the workforce chose not to take those jobs. And during the downturn, the public agency you saw just happened to be one which didn't have much turnover. I bet they laid people off though, and the inefficiency you witnessed is due to individual employees doing jobs meant for 2 or 3 people.

As far as college groups, there are indeed white groups that exclude others. Just take a walk down frat row for instance, where you may see the occasional token in some of the houses. The asian/black/latino groups you saw cannot exclude white people, and in my college experience, some white people did join those groups to get exposure to other cultures. But most whites didn't; they either ignored or complained about the groups.

Also, it seemed like every year, there were whites who started a Whites Club----but these organizations never lasted, because what's the point? The damn campus is majority white, and everything is tailored towards white people and white culture. And, as I said above, if you really want to be around whites only, there are plenty of options on campus to do so, not limited to frats. This truth, incidently, extends to greater society.

I dunno. I think the one-season thing makes this even more special in a way. If only US television learned to make shows that are just tailored to 1 season, more like the way the Brits work. If a show gets cancelled, tough luck, try something new. I don't like how every new show just assumes it will run indefinitely and never resolve anything, while everyone knows it's hard work not getting cancelled.

>> ^raverman:
It's time to make a clear distinction between Media coverage and news journalism.
99% of all written and televised content is media coverage... They quote opinions from twitter and show you tube videos. They are hosts and MC's, and maybe even broadcasters - but not Journalists.
Also: If it's openly called Propaganda when media is forced to broadcast message by threat of force...
What is it called when media is willing to broadcast propaganda by choice?


propoganda isn't defined by forcing someone to broadcast a certain message... or even by limiting discenting viewpoints... its simply information tailored to get a specific result... support this war, demonize this group, etc etc... there has been propoganda in North America at the same time as free press actually meant something

What is it called when media is willing to broadcast propaganda by choice?
failure of democracy?
corruption

Picard lost alot of weight since he had is space suit tailored.

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

Kind of like the choose your own meat steakhouse where you point at parts of live cows and they harvest the meat for you. >> ^deathcow:

What a great way to make fur coats. Prototype them fully alive and have the customer wear them. Once the pattern is pleasing, and the fit to the customer is exquisitely tailored, execute the animals in place.

What a great way to make fur coats. Prototype them fully alive and have the customer wear them. Once the pattern is pleasing, and the fit to the customer is exquisitely tailored, execute the animals in place.

Sounds like the soundtrack was done by Wax Tailor. (i.e. Awesome.)

>> ^imstellar28:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/guymontage" title="member since July 18th, 2009" class="profilelink">guymontage
Who said you have to be an engineer? What I said is I very much doubt anyone in this thread is qualified to comment on the consequences of a plane hitting a skyscraper. To think you can just waltz in here and quote "Inertia" because you heard it in 8th grade science class is just ridiculous.
What argument is rcyhan making? The guy in the experiment started with the hypothesis "thermite can cut steel" and then conducted an experiment and proved that yes, it can cut steel. What is not scientific about that? As far as I understand it, that is the exact implementation of the scientific method. The fact that the conclusion is "widely known" (rychans words) has no bearing on this video. Clearly, it is not "widely known" if a mainstream television show is conducting experiments and concludes that thermite can not, in fact, cut steel.
Everyone on the internet thinks they are an expert, but who in this thread even has a college degree much less one in civil engineering? Even if someone has a degree in civil engineering who has the experience with skyscrapers or even the particular design of this tower? It's retarded to think anyone here is anything even resembling an expert on the physics of this particular situation.


He claims much more than "Thermite can cut steel". He implies that there are widespread media biases or conspiracies. He implies that the official explanation for the WTC collapse is wrong and that his experiments support this claim. If he narrowly tailored his claims I would have no problem with this video. It has fun explosions, after all.