I'd like to take a moment here to talk about the election.
Forget my occupation; this is a matter of personal opinion, but it's opinion that I feel needs to be voiced. I've been watching the news closely from here in Germany, and frankly I'm excited about what's going on. We have two strong Democratic candidates, and while I may have my own preference, that preference is irrelevant. I'll vote for either one, regardless of who gets the nomination.
But I have a problem. I look at the news, and see the reports that show percentages of Democratic voters not being willing to vote for anyone in the general election, save their preferred candidate. These people would rather vote for the Republican than for a member of their own party.
I don't get this. You'd rather vote for a man who can't tell a Sunni from a Shiite, who admits that he knows NOTHING about economics? You'd rather vote for a man who touts his military service, but destroyed five aircraft out of gross negligence or a simple unwillingness to take evasive action while in the cockpit? A man who visits a Baghdad market, flanked by two platoons worth of infantry, and then says that "Baghdad is safe?" By the way, 21 people were taken from that same market the day following, after which they were driven out to the edge of town, hands bound, and shot execution-style.
The mainstream media, and the Republican party want you to believe he's a straight-talking maverick. But his campaign is run by lobbyists, for lobbyists. He takes his foreign-policy cues from Bush step-and-fetch sycophant Joe Lieberman. He complains about solutions to the housing crisis as providing "rewards for people who behave badly," and yet totally IGNORES the runaway problems we have in this country with CORPORATE (read: Bear Stearns Kmart Delta Airlines) welfare.
This man is bad-tempered, ignorant, out-of-touch, and completely for sale. And you'd rather vote for HIM? For what? Some boneheaded sense of fucking pride?
This. Man. Is. Poison. Never forget it.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
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15 comments:
Rumblestiltskin, they call him.
I know there are people threatening not to vote Dem, and if they go through with it, they aren't. I think it's a heat of the moment thing, myself. Oh, some may not show up, but most will realize that McCain is poison, and will do thing right thing.
It's an easy thing to say when your candidate is still locked in a close battle. Partisans can still see a scenerio where their preferred candidate can win and that sponsors a negative attitude towards the competition. Once Obama gets the nomination (which I think is most likely at this point) and the range of possible November outcomes is narrowed you'll so those numbers decline drastically.
Mary's got a great post on cognitive dissonance up; let's hope a lot of people read it.
A good and much needed post. Of course some idiot jumped right in with the same old crap that perfectly demonstrates the point of the book.
I just started reading Fooled By Randomness which examines the ways we view events with a deterministic slant when much of what happens in the world is the result of complete randomness. It ties in nicely to the cognative dissonance thing because people want to believe that they, and others, have much more control over things, all things, than they really do. Another way of fooling yourself.
Gee, snark, sounds like religion to me!
No, not at all. It's all about probability, causality and "denigration of history". Basically, we disregard how much of our lives comes down to just dumb luck.
which examines the ways we view events with a deterministic slant when much of what happens in the world is the result of complete randomness.
I have a girl in my office who prays for there to be big checks in the mail every day, and when there are, God's got a hand in it. Never mind that a customer sends a check in response to the invoice we send. But that's not a good example, is it?
Religion is just one way humans try to impose order on randomness - I know people who aren't religious who'll talk about "omens" or coincidences, trying to do the same thing.
Are you far into the book? Does chaos theory figure into the author's thesis?
Only into the second chapter. He mentioned Chaos Theory briefly, somewhat dismissively. Sorta get the feeling he thinks it's just another attempt to fit the unknowable into a nice little box. But he clearly differentiates between certainty in the physical sciences and what people perceive of as certainty in things like economics. It's not an anti-scientific book. He was a financial guy so that's where he comes at the issue from. He's clear that the book should not be considered a scientific treatise. He presents it on a more philosophical level. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's his name. His new book, The Black Swan is on the best seller list (or was). It's a further examination of the rare random event that has life ( or history) changing effects, the black swan.
Well, as far as I know, there's not a huge consensus on Chaos Theory, but if you're going to talk about randomness, you just can't dismiss it outright. Even if you're gonna use economics as your example.
I'd have to look into the chromosomal reason for a swan to come out black - not sure if it could be dubbed "random" since to produce one, there has to be some recessive gene that somehow gets turned on somewhere along the way...
You're right, it's fun to think about, isn't it?
Wonder if we should do open threads, since we're just totally ignoring Milo's post.
Damn you, John McCain!!!
"The Black Swan" isn't about genetic mutation. It's just a reference to an old philosophical truism, "All swans are white." Apparently, that was used as an example of a universal truth. As far as anyone in the western world knew, all swans were white. Hence, a black swan was a metaphor for something non-existant. Until black swans were discovered in Australia, maybe? That just blew the whole black swan metaphor out of the water, so to speak. So now "the black swan" is used as a reference to the random earth shattering event that forces a change to the conventional wisdom.
Sorry Milo!
Milo puts up with more abuse in one hour in the Army than he does here! Toughs as nails that kid!
Wow, snark, I feel dumb, I should know about the Black Swan bit, shouldn't I?
SoS, you're right about Milo and military abuse! Still, I try to at least have some semblance of politeness...
Aw, who am I kidding, right?
Sorry Milo! We tend not to stick to the topic, as you know. It's like herding cats around here.
*Grins* I ain't trippin'.
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