at that point it’s not really about the money
everyone needs a purpose. if you take away that purpose, people will start deteriorating.
“journey not the destination”. once you’ve reached something like $50M any more money doesn’t make any real difference in your daily life.
it’s an interesting moral question
if i give someone money and that alleviates their poverty, is that an ethical action? i think so. you are eliminating harm by reducing hunger, providing shelter, etc.
if i give someone money and that alleviates their poverty, but i do it for my own personal gain, is that an ethical action? you are still eliminating harm but you are doing it for an amoral reason.
ethical action, amoral motivation
then there’s the perspective of by taking advantage of this individual, you are doing your part in perpetuating an unjust system. you are playing the role of the opiate of the masses. distracting and comforting those who are at the bottom of the pyramid.
having said all that, i think it’s still more ethical than bumfights. although i couldn’t tell you if it was ethical or not by its own
Did everyone just collectively agree to forget 2016? The polls were all favoring Clinton by a dramatic margin. CNN famously had a headline where they predicted Clinton had a 99% chance to win off of the polls.
And what ended up happening? 538 (before bought and neutered by ABC) gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton’s favor. Trump ended up winning that 35%. This year, according to polls, Trump’s odds are better than in 2016. Kamala has the upper hand, but
A) lots of things can change suddenly before the election (like the Hilary emails thing)
B) polls are not the ultimate arbiter of who will win an election- actual real votes are
C) Trump more than likely has some “extracurricular plans” in store, much like Jan 6th, that has a chance of working.
Tldr: don’t get drunk on positive news. Keep a level head and you’ll see this election is still very close to a coin flip
There are laws against excessive fees like this. In my home state of Florida, a landlord cannot charge more than 20% the rent in late fees.
And trust me, Florida is not known for its consumer protections. So chances are your state has a similar law which is probably better.
So if I were you I would look up the law and not pay.
Assuming of course you are telling the full truth- your full rent payment was late for a short period of time.
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I want to learn Russian and Chinese
I don’t think it’s taking shelter as much as trying to find an answer to something that has no answer.
For example Eistein I don’t think was trying to take shelter from reality. He wanted to look at reality as deeply as possible and he managed to peek through and see more than almost anyone ever had before.
But he still believed in a God. This is one of those reasons I always call myself an agnostic instead of atheist.
In a practical sense, I’m an atheist. I don’t think Jesus turned water into wine or the Buddha achieved enlightenment and entered a higher plane of existence or whatever.
But I acknowledge there might be supernatural or supranatural items / phenomenon/ or even beings that we can’t ever fully understand.
We can discuss what people should do all day. I’m talking about what people will do. Biden is losing this election. People are talking more about whether he is even capable of the job and nothing about the good things he can do for the country. His own party is rebelling against him, with Dems from swing states calling for his resignation.
Biden’s toast, and the DNC with him. It’s unfortunate but it is what it is.
Speaking confidence has nothing to do with lying or telling the truth. Go back 20 years ago and look at a Biden speech and compare it to today. Hell, go back 4 years ago to the last Biden v Trump debates.
Biden isn’t half the capable public speaker he was before. He mumbles and gets lost. He sounds unsure.
Trump doesn’t care if what he’s saying truth or not, he just says things with the conviction of a conman.
You have to look at it from the GOP perspective. Trump is the most popular candidate, he managed to accomplish big ticket items in his administration, and he is more “mentally there” than Biden.
Just look at debate. Trump spoke quickly and confidently. Biden mumbles and forgets what he’s talking about, stands there with mouth open staring, etc.
There’s a reason in 2020 debates, polls showed most people thought Biden won the 2 debates. But in the last one, overwhelming % of people thought Trump won debates- even democratic voters.
I think you misunderstand who is asking Biden to drop out and why.
Dems are interested in who is the DNC candidate and Republicans are interested in the GOP candidate.
Republicans as a whole are OK with Trump. He’s not incredibly popular, but he has some achievements under his belt and has a relatively small but very loyal core group of voters. The average Republican believes that a) Trump has good chances of winning election and b) will likely move forward conservative policy objectives.
Therefore, why would they want him to drop out?
If we look on the other side at Biden. A growing group of people believe that he is not 100% mentally there because of his age. Because of this, not only does he a) have lower chances of winning the election but also b) is he really competent enough to be president? Sure, there’s a sort of shadow administration behind him but people still put value in having a strong and mentally quick head of state.
Beyond that, there’s also a small group of progressive voters who are unhappy with Biden’s policies. He simply isn’t a very effective leader and is one of the most unpopular presidents in US history. He’s even more unpopular than Trump, who was also a deeply unpopular president.
So, people want Biden to resign because they believe other people would not only a better chance of winning election, but would be more effective leaders in terms of advancing DNC policy objectives.
Greedy people are more likely to end up wealthy. Greedy people are also more likely to end up doing ethically dubious things.
Of course, any wealth at all is unethical if you’re being honest with yourself. There’s a famous passage in the Bible.
Jesus was out teaching his disciples or healing people- whatever he did. And a rich man comes up to him and asks
“Jesus, I want to follow you and go to heaven. Please tell me what I should do”
What did Jesus say? Jesus told him to a) sell all of his shit b) give that money to charity c) physically follow me around
What did rich guy do? Have an epiphany about morality and living the good life?
No, he cried. He cried because he didn’t actually want to let go of the good things he had for morality.
All of us in first world nations are guilty of this to some extent. The way our world is shaped you essentially have to be unethical to survive. There are levels to it, of course. But I think your perspective is too black and white and needs a little nuance. Seem like a teenager.
If your argument is: the Supreme Court is compromised and will intentionally ignore the constitution and the laws to protect Trump- then what difference does this ruling make?
Why did the courts not hand the election to him? He sued in many courts over the 2020 election drama. Fake votes, rigged election, etc. He lost every court case.
I think people assume the 9 justices are politically motivated but they in general hold a deep respect for the laws and the constitution. Every single decision is documented and you can read their opinions. Everything has legal reasoning, nothing happens just because
For example the Roe v Wade one. I don’t think they should have repealed it for practical purposes- but the ruling legally makes sense. The courts are not legislators. Congress should be the one passing legislation to give right to abortion, not the courts.
Why did Congress not pass anything since 1974? There were many Democratic majorities since 1974.
I wouldn’t have repealed just because of the damage it caused, but I understand the legal argument.
So to summarize: they follow the law. Not necessarily what is best for the country
everything could be viewed as official in the right lens
No, isn’t true. Insider trading? Not official. Is a crime and can be prosecuted.
And note that it is “presumptive immunity” not absolute immunity. Therefore even official actions can be criminally prosecuted on a case by case basis. It’s just that because it’s presumptive, there’s a higher threshold of evidence the state would need to prosecute.
If president had immunity, why Nixon
Nixon did not act in an official capacity. He was guilty of obstruction of justice, breaking into office, etc. These things he did not do in an official capacity.
I think a better example would be the Iran Contra affair. I think that’s a very legitimate concern. If I order the CIA to do something - is it official? What if it’s something clearly against the laws and/or against interests of the USA? Here I think there is a valid concern although that doesn’t mean the ruling is the end of democracy like people are making it out to be
It’s OK to do insurrection
He can still be held criminally liable for the insurrection. He will argue he was acting officially, it will go to a lower court, then bubble up to the USSC and they will rule.
I think it’s fairly obvious it was not official
OK to use official employee
Yeah I think this is wrong and a valid concern. Although keep in mind: they already had this presumptive immunity. The difference is now the law is clearer and there’s a process to remove this immunity whereas before it wasn’t there
denying people who actually understand the law, like professors, etc
You can find just as many legal experts who agree with the majority opinion. It was 6-3 in the Supreme Court.
But again- appeal to authority doesn’t work. You make arguments, like you did in this comment. I respect you more than almost anyone else because you took the time to read and give reasoning
I don’t believe what someone says just because they’re an expert. I listen, but I look at the reasoning. Look up “Nobel disease” . Experts sometimes say some wild things
our Congress is deadlocked
Yes they are a mess and we’re headed towards fascism. Not because of this ruling though
Pt2: had to split in two because of length. See other comment first
_______continued…
my response to this is: if there is immunity, but not for criminal prosecution, what does the immunity apply to?
moving forward, the dissenter discusses the “framework for prosecution of unofficial acts”
Quick on the heels of announcing this astonishingly broad official-acts immunity, the majority assures us that a former President can still be prosecuted for “unofficial acts.” Ante, at 15. Of course he can. No one has questioned the ability to prosecute a former President for unofficial acts Even Trump did not claim immunity for such acts and, as the majority acknowledges, such an immunity would be impossible
essentially saying, yes. unofficial immunity would be absurd.
It says that whenever the President acts in a way that is “‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’” he is taking official action
they are arguing that the statement is too broad. that it would be effectively impossible to distinguish an item from “official” to “unofficial”
so their problem is not that there doesn’t exist a method to prosecute a president for criminal actions, but that the proposed framework is not going to be effective in doing so
to conclude: i’ve read a couple dissenters and i’ve read a couple of the majority. i personally don’t think this ruling is as important as everyone is making it out to be
why?
the president already has these powers, except it has been in a gray legal area up until now. it is essentially writing down active policy. the president had presumed immunity for official acts before this
it creates a framework to determine whether or not a president is acting in his official capacity. this power gets thrown to the courts.
what this does is it gives the legislative branch [edit: judicial] a check against the president. i support more checks against the president because i think the executive is too powerful in general
now, i understand the viewpoint that should the courts want to, they could rule everything the president does as “official” and therefore the president is effectively immune should the court politically be aligned with the president.
however, i would repond that is the courts are politically aligned, they would have inevitably ruled in the same manner should this case have come up 10 yearse from now.
this case, while important in the sense that it officially reinforces this precedence, it doesn’t functionally change anything going forward
now that i’ve written out my reasoning, if you disagree with any specific points, feel free. i’m not an expert i’m a layman with a mild interest in constitutional law. i’m more than happy to admit i’m wrong. i’m not a conservative so please believe me i’m not partisanly motivated to see one side or another here. i’m going off of my own independent interpretation
Pt1:appeal to authority means nothing to me, and it shouldn’t to you, because experts and authorities can be wrong just like anyone else. i care about the merits of the argument, as everyone should
and for that, we need to critically think and analyze reasoning on its own merits.
so let’s actually read the court opinion, which you can easily find on the supreme court website if you’re actually curious.
Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts
so essentially - that’s exactly what i said. president has immunity for official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts. what is the court’s reasoning?
Article II of the Constitution vests “executive Power” in “a President of the United States of America.” His authority to act necessarily “stem[s] either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.”
It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power.
So, the court’s opinion is that when a President is within his constitutionally defined powers he cannot be held criminally liable. Otherwise, for example, virtually every president for the last few decades could be held criminally liable for some crime. I brought up the examples of the classified document mishandling previously, but there are many more should you go looking.
Not all of the President’s official acts fall within his “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The reasons that justify the President’s absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of his exclusive constitutional authority do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress. To determine the President’s immunity in this context, the Court looks primarily to the Framers’ design of the Presidency within the separation of powers
So, not everything a president does falls within this immunity bubble. How do we decide what is official and what isn’t? Well, first we look at the seperation of powers outlined in the constitution. You know, the stuff you were taught in elementary school. 3 branches of government. What is within the scope of the executive branch, president has authority over.
The Framers designed the Presidency to provide for a “vigorous” and “energetic” Executive. The Federalist No. 70, pp. 471–472 They vested the President with “supervisory and policy responsibilities of utmost discretion and sensitivity.” Appreciating the “unique risks” that arise when the President’s energies are diverted by proceedings that might render him “unduly cautious in the discharge of his official duties,” the Court has recognized Presidential immunities and privileges “rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history.”
Essentially, the argument is: the President should not be afraid to act because of fear of criminal prosecution. For example, if something like killing a political leader of an enemy state is deemed critical to national security - he has the ability to choose this course of action without fear of being charged for murder. If we did not allow for this, the president’s office would be weaker. The opinion shares many court cases and items of the constitution that reinforces this authority the president is granted.
At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”
So he can actually be prosecuted for specific acts if the proseuction can show that it doesn’t impede on the use of his constitutionally appointed powers.
As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decisionmaking is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct.
Again, like my previous comment - unofficial acts do not hold immunity. Items outside of his legal presidential powers are not protected.
The first step in deciding whether a former President is entitled to immunity from a particular prosecution is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions. In this case, no court thus far has drawn that distinction, in general or with respect to the conduct alleged in particular. It is therefore incumbent upon the Court to be mindful that it is “a court of final review and not first view.”
So, how do we determine what is “official” versus “unofficial”? Well, the courts decide. However, as the Supreme Court is intended by the constitution to be a “final destination” the process must start at the lower courts and work its way up to the Supreme Court.
So essentially, the decision states a) president has immunity for official acts, b) does not have immunity for unofficial acts, and c) it presents a framework and process for determining the difference between the two
the decision was ruled 6-3
so what did the dissenters say? well here’s justice Sotomayor
Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President
They are saying that the argument that the president neesd to act “bold and unhestitatingly” as specified by the constitution is not enough reason to warrant immunity.
the next couple pages, which i won’t quote here for brevity, outlines the crimes that Trump committed circa Jan 6th. None of this has anything to do with the argument above, but has more to do with how Trump blatantly broke the law during this event and lists several examples
The Court now confronts a question it has never had to answer in the Nation’s history: Whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution.
self explanatory, we’re going back to the topic at hand
The majority makes three moves that, in effect, completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability. First, the majority creates absolute immunity for the President’s exercise of “core constitutional powers.”
i disagree with the statement “completely insulate presidents from criminal liability”. as we showed before, there is a framework for prosecuting presidents should they act in a manner outside of their constitutionally protected powers. the next statement, of course, is just a rehashing of the decision. president has immunity for his “core presidential powers”
a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution.
this is patently false. if they act in an unofficial manner, they do not get immunity. the courts have the power to determine acts “unofficial” and prosecute him
The Constitution’s text contains no provision for immunity from criminal prosecution for former Presidents
well, this is up for debate and interpretation. it’s been widely recognized that presidents have immunity for official acts. this has been the accepted situation for very long time. if you want to read about the history of this precedence: https://constitution.findlaw.com/article2/article-ii--presidential-immunity-to-criminal-and-civil-suits.html
that article from way before this court case, goes over both the constitutional basis for the precedence as well as supreme court cases that reinforced the precedence
so while the constitution does not explicitly state that the president has immunity, it can be implied that these powers arise from both the powers and responsibilities vested to the office of president
the dissenting judge says as much in the next statement
Of course, “the silence of the Constitution on this score is not dispositive.”
essentially saying - the lack of explicit mention does not by itself necessarily mean the opinion of the court is incorrect.
they then make the argument, which i will summarize for brevity, that a) the framers of the constitution provided for limited immunity for legislators and b) state constitutions at this time period had immunitities
therefore, the framers would have been aware of this and would have explicitly mentioned this if they intended this. therefore, they argue it was not intended by the framers of the constitution
my statement is - this is a valid argument. perhaps the framers not only did not intend for immunity, they left it explicitly unmentioned because they did intend for the president to have immunity.
however i believe this statement alone is not enough to justify a dissent with the opinion. mainly because there’s a lot of things that framers intended or didn’t intend that we have modified since. i don’t think i have to elaborate here.
then the dissenter goes on
Aware of its lack of textual support, the majority points out that this Court has “recognized Presidential immunities and privileges ‘rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history.’” Ante, at 10 (quoting Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 749). That is true, as far as it goes.
essentially saying - yes, the majority points out the established precedence that the Supreme Court has on this topic, and they are correct in using that as an argument
Nothing in our history, however, supports the majority’s entirely novel immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.
however, nothing in the precedence applies explicitly to criminal prosecution. essentially saying - the precedence holds for presidential immunities but not from criminal prosecution.
Acts done in an official manner are immune. So for example if the president orders assassination of political leader of another country (what Trump did with Iran’s Suleinami (I’m probably butchering name)). Protects president from prosecution for murder or whatever if there is evidence it was done in the interest of the state.
Another example is something Biden / Trump and even Hilary are guilty of. The misuse or mishandling of classified materials. Since they are acting in an official manner, it isn’t a crime like it would be if a normal citizen mishandled the documents.
Acts done in an “unofficial manner” are not immune. So let’s say a Mr President does some insider trading while president to enrich himself personally. That presumably would still be illegal and he could be charged.
So who decides what is official and what isn’t? The courts. Lower courts make a determination and presumably it would go up to the SC if necessary.
It’s an interesting question. For example- Reagan’s Iran-Contra episode. Where his administration was smuggling cocaine in order to get money to covertly supply weapons to Iran. Would that be official or unofficial?
I think people need to realize the president has had broad powers to do a lot of dubious things for decades. This doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease his power, but creates a potential pathway to either prosecute or acquit him. Whereas before, it always stayed in the legal gray zone (in Reagan’s Iran Contra)
We’re not talking hobbyists. We’re talking top level athletes. Men aren’t just stronger. There are dozens if not hundreds of items they outperform women on.
The sports where women can actually compete with men are rare. For example marksmanship or long-distance marathon. Virtually every sport men have distinct and significant advantages.
Men have larger hearts, more lung volume per body mass, more red blood cells, more clotting factors which means they recover quicker and have a higher pain tolerance.
Testosterone allows for more rapid muscle gain as well as better recovery. So two people training the same exercises an identical amount of time, the man would have gained significantly more muscle mass and strength.
Men have higher blood pressure, which means they feel fatigue less than women. Men don’t lose iron to menstruation, which means there’s more iron for oxygen circulation in the blood.
These items basically make it so men are much better at almost all sports.
For example soccer. The US Women’s national team lost to a team of high school age boys.
Men can kick harder, sprint faster, run longer, train longer & they gain more from training & they recover faster from training so they can do it more, they feel less pain so they can stay at max exertion longer, they can convert oxygen into energy faster so they can sustain all of this more than women,
Etc
There’s a reason we have women’s leagues. If we didn’t have it, women wouldn’t get to compete at a high level.
At a lower level, like hobbyist or local leagues the story may be different. There’s more variance among the general population than amongst top athletes.
Serena Williams, #1 woman tennis player, can’t hold a candle to the 203rd best man. Look up her interview about it. She’s under no illusions about this
Women make up roughly 15% of USCF members yet they only make up roughly 1.5% of grandmasters.
That means they are underrepresented by about an order of magnitude. Women on average are about 200 ELO lower than men. It’s a very large difference and there has been research done to figure out why.
There are no real conclusive findings (as with much of this type of sociological research) but we have evidence for various different reasons. One, women are not encouraged to play chess at the same level that men are. Similar reason that more men go into Computer Science or Physics. It’s not a built in biological difference, but a cultural one.
Another one is that women are younger by 11 years on average, so their ratings haven’t peaked yet. So we should see this gap close in the coming decades. There are also various other inequities between men and women (like for example stereotype threat).
So that explains at least some of the gap. What I’m trying to say is that beyond these factors, there is also a biological difference that results in men being overrepresented in the top chess players. Notice I’m not saying average chess players, but specifically the best in the world (the grandmasters).
Why?
Well, there’s evidence for something called the "greater male variability hypothesis”. Think of every person sitting somewhere on a normal distribution. Pick a trait like aggressiveness or competitiveness.
There are the extremes on both sides of the bell curve. On the left, super passive and on the right super aggressive. Most people clump at the mean, in the center of the bell curve.
There’s evidence that more women cluster around the mean relative to men. Men are overrepresented at the extremes of the bell curve, even though the average is the same as women. Only by a little bit, but it’s statistically significant. That means that if you took a sample of all the super-aggressive and super-passive people, the majority would be men.
When you look at top chess players, they are more likely to have extreme attributes (being ultra-competitive for example helps you get better at chess).
This same effect is also theorized to be why we see that vast majority of prisoners are male. Vast majority of homeless, etc. Because extreme attributes tend to either be really good or really bad.
So that’s one biological difference. The other is the visospatial intelligence. Men tend to score better on visospatial tests when compared to women. This effect is already visible by 2 or 3 months of age, so it’s unlikely to be some sort of cultural effect.
Visiospatial cognitive ability is positively correlated with chess ability. Another biological difference between men and women that likely has some non-zero effect on chess ability.
So why are women underrepresented in grandmasters when compared to males? There is evidence for both
a) external social factors
and
b) innate biological factors
Nobody knows what % of the difference is due to a) or b). We just know there is some non-zero effect for both.
I encourage you to fact check every claim I’ve made. Don’t just look for one research paper that confirms your argument. Each claim I’ve made I’ve seen multiple studies on. There are studies that will say the opposite, but look at it in aggregate. Look at metaanalysis studies.
It’s a question of
How much effort (man hours which ultimately translates to $$$) versus how much revenue lost (people not buying because of Firefox bugs)
In my experience this depends on your specific application. Sometimes there are weird bugs or behavior where you have to really hunt down what’s going on. Other times it’s as simple as changing a few css lines or something.
I view India as a rising power that has the potential to rival China and the USA. I think the culture is backwards in many ways and advanced in others. I don’t like your current administration, but I do think India overall has interesting politics. I mean, you guys have an active Maoist insurgency. Pretty wild for the 21st century.
I tend to get along well with Indians I meet in the states. I appreciate India long history and cultural impact (Buddha came from India for example). There were democracies in India before Athens was a thing.
All in all India’s a rising power with a lot of potential. Unfortunately I don’t think they will reach China-status anytime soon because they don’t exercise as much central control as China does.
In some ways this is good, Cultural Revolution wasn’t exactly a great experience for a lot of people. But in other ways it means the Indian government doesn’t have the power to reshape India in a way where it can successfully rival the European powers.
it’s the OS that virtually every server uses. even Microsoft servers slowly switched away from Windows roughly a decade ago. Today majority of their servers run Linux
it’s not indie- it’s big and corporate. the difference is there’s a weird serendipitous intersection of OSS and corporate interest that has arisen in a way that allows regular joe schmoe to run software you can actually control. so that your computer actually belongs to you
imagine with your car. would you be OK with ads in your rear view mirror? with your car constantly sending data about how you drive to some nameless corporation? your car randomly turning on and updating itself while you sleep? taking away features you may want or adding features you don’t?
that’s the path we’re going down with cars right now. and it’s partly because people are content to sit on their laurels and cede all of their collective power to companies like Microsoft