...And @Ghostly wins the thread with the odd tactic of using facts and psychology tenants to remove racial confusion.

Yeah, sorry guys. Anime characters are Japanese unless drawn as American or British 'white'. Stories about Japan, set in Japan, with Japanese characters being played by white people is whitewashing. The fact that her character is now renamed "Major" should tell you something.

Major Motoko Kusanagi has always appeared 'Japanese' to me, even her cyborg face looked 'Japanese' to me. Those that think the anime character looks 'white' must also think that, in the anime world, Japan is populated solely with white people, because they all look like her except the actual Americans.

@CrushBug

Related story: during the later years of the war, when Allied air and sea supremacy made the Bay of Biscay a deathtrap, Allied torpedo boats took up ambush positions at the entrances to U-Boot bases, particularly La Rochelle. They'd get into position at night and stay just outside of range of the coastal defence batteries. Before outgoing submarines could reach deep water, they'd be plastered with hand grenades by these speed boats.

It wouldn't be able to sink a sub, but a lucky hit might damage the periscope and it did reduce the sub's sonar abilities by massive amounts, covering the entire exit area in a blanket of noise. Not to mention the psychological effect...

Anyway, just small bits of history.

Now, about this video: that small chance to be hit by a grenade chunk is surpassed by the rather noticable chance to be hit by one of roughly 6500 steel balls within a run-of-the-mill frag grenade used over here. Doesn't make the underwater experience any better though...

American Cops are trained to "keep control of the situation at all times!", which I can understand, however the only tool they're given to do that with is a fascist attitude. Imagine if they were given training for negotiation and communication psychology?

freefromharm.org/animal-products-and-psychology/i-love-my-pets-but-still-eat-meat-whats-wrong-with-that/

Please allow me to disagree on all points.....

1) Humans are absolutely animals. Some may have the mentality of vegetables or minerals, but they are still animals.

2)Instinct can be difficult to ignore, and dangerous to ignore as well. Instincts developed because they helped our ancestors survive better than those who did not possess them. Those that had less developed instincts, didn't have them at all, or ignored them died off.

3)Not all people have a conscience (or lack an ability to experience empathy...essentially the same thing), sociopaths and psychopaths for instance usually lack one at all, and many of those that DO have one consistently and intentionally ignore it.

4)I don't believe there have been psychological experiments on lions to see if they really experience empathy or have a 'conscience' or not...and I'm not at all sure what one would look like. Simply stating that other animals don't have empathy does not make it so.
For example, people have said for eons that dogs don't have emotions, but that's simply wrong, and nothing more than a self serving excuse to abuse them and ignore their needs. Actual study and brain scans have proven they DO have the same type of reactions in their brains that humans do to emotional stimuli, conclusively proving the claims that they don't have emotions false...lions could be the same, simply unstudied rather than emotionless/lacking empathy.

I find cenk and his crew difficult to listen to, but I watched long enough to listen to the actual 'meat' of their discussion (the first 20 seconds of video). They stated that the judge threw it out because the kid was unable to describe in detail what had happened. They then went on to describe how a kid that young might have a hard time testifying, and for the rest of the 12 minutes of video (I assume) added as much knowledge to the matter as any other group of people sitting around drinking beer.

IF cenk and his crew, the judge, the lawyers, or anybody in that courtroom had taken introductory level psychology in college (and I think they must have!), they would know that kids are the most unreliable witnesses possible. Their testimony should absolutely not be used as credible, because they will say whatever nonsense. For whatever deficiency anyone's college had in basic human psychology, if anyone had the computer skills to go to WIKIPEDIA, all of this could have been avoided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_memory_(child_testimony).

With all the access people have to knowledge these days, the most tragic part is that nobody involved in this thought to actually verify their laymen ideas. The critical thinking skills displayed here is in high disproportion to the level of education.

...There are of course exceptions to the rule!

In general daily life, showing anger like that is seen as sort of pathetic and juvenile (they may be on to something there). That incident in particular was only lightly reported on in-country because of how shameful most people thought it was.


I think that modern Psychology tends to think that snapping as a result of suppressed emotion is overplayed in TV / movies in comparison to real life. But here in Thailand, when people do (rarely) pop off it seems like it does tend to get more extreme / heated than in the US. Maybe people figure that once they've crossed the line a little, they might as well go full throttle. I dunno.

Were this to happen to me, I would gleefully turn around and file charges against the women for filing a false police report and start a civil suit against both the women and the state for lost wages, psychological damages, etc.

The prosecutor is a complete and total idiot for bringing this to trial. They had the tweets, they knew in advance there were no threats so... wtf? What exactly was the argument the prosecutor tried to make here? That calling someone a "fat ass" is sexual harassment because, you know, it uses the word "ass"???

Seriously hope this guy turns the system to his advantage and pwns everybody involved in this case.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

As psychologist Nicolai Sennels explains, "Mohammed, the prime example for Muslims, married Aisha when she was six and had intercourse with her when she was nine. Besides, according to the Quran (4:24), Muslims are allowed to have sex with female slaves[.]" In addition, "uncovered women are in many Muslim cultures seen as a kind of prostitute, and if a man is aroused by such a female, then – partly due to the corrupted logic of responsibility within Muslim psychology – the female is blamed for being raped (and will therefore often face execution)."

Andrew C. McCarthy, in his book entitled The Grand Jihad, described rape by Muslim immigrants as the "unspoken epidemic of Western Europe." Six years later, it continues to expand and sweep across the continent. Ingrid Carlqvist documents how Sweden is now the rape capital of the West, and when "Michael Hess, a local politician from [the] Sweden Democrat Party, tried to warn his nation that 'it is deeply rooted in Islam's culture to rape and brutalize women who refuse to comply with Islamic teachings' he was charged with 'denigration of ethnic groups'" – a crime in Sweden.

According to Islamic clerics, a woman who fails to wear a headscarf is asking to be raped. Consequently, in the eyes of Muslim men, Western women are seen as "promiscuous, loose, and willing," and since no one in the Islamic community refutes this, they engage in the violence and abuse of power that rape represents. In Australia, Lebanese gangs threaten policemen's wives and girlfriends with rape. In 2006, the mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al Hilali, maintained that "women who do not veil themselves, and allow themselves to be 'uncovered meat,' are at fault if they are raped."

In Rotherham, England, some 1,400 British children as young as 11 were plied with drugs before being passed around and sexually abused by Muslims. As shocking as this was, it is the fifth sex abuse ring led by Muslims

In Nigeria, Boko Haram seized 300 schoolgirls in order to sell them on the open market.

In Pakistan, the police do nothing as Hindu and Christian children as young as 7 years old are gang-raped and sold as prostitutes or slaves to wealthy Muslim families. From 2011 through 2014, approximately 550 Egyptian Coptic Christian girls were abducted and sexually abused by Muslim men.

I could go on and on, but the point is that in Islam, a women is considered to be a subservient and second class person. Men are supreme and women who do not dress appropriately (per Islamic standards) risk things happening to them. This is nothing new, it is part of their culture. Exposing them to women not raised in that culture is going to lead to incidents.

Now, please note that I do not think that we should not accept refugees. But I do think that we should make sure that women are aware of the situation and we should absolutely be enforcing the law in regards to the people breaking it, refugees or not.

I've always been under the impression this is way more a psychological thing than being fit. I'm guessing there are loads of people fit enough that don't make it as a seal.
Although i guess that doesn't answer your question.

As bad as this commentator is, it's one of the better videos. I don't mind a misguided and slightly irrational voice if I can understand his psychology and reinterpret what he's saying according to my understanding.

Food is 50% psychology. All those Wine-Experts are just people dumb enough to trust their brains.
And this comes from a guy who sold Cassismousse as Mousse au Chocolat in a blue lit room and got away with it.

Your brain lies.

Ummm....yeah, what s/he said. They all seem like late-adopters to me.

And frankly, I have never understood the "burn on the way out" myth/phenomenon. It must be psychological, or my taste receptors suck all the capsaicin away at first contact.

Personally, I just get the hick-ups when I approach my limit.
BTW, my preference is for the naga bhut jolokia. Chiles for Life!

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