Comment by nickbauman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nickbauman | Hacker News Reader

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I think we learned that fake news (used to pump up fake issues) is now a legitimate campaign strategy that works even on people who should know better.

Trump won on a mountain of fake issues:

Immigration: both conservative and liberal economists agree that immigration (illegal or otherwise) does not suppress wages and does not suppress job growth.

https://www.cato.org/research/immigration http://business.time.com/2013/01/30/the-economics-of-immigra...

Terrorism: more toddlers killed Americans than terrorists in 2015. For every terrorist killing someone on US soil, more than 4000 Americans killed each other.

http://www.snopes.com/toddlers-killed-americans-terrorists/ http://tinyurl.com/q3fqk69

Gay marriage: All it does is extend the same legal protections to people of the same sex that was already available to people of opposite sex. It doesn't take away any rights from anybody.

Who is using the bathroom: Historically virtually no jurisdictions have had laws in place to prevent men from entering ladies rooms or vice versa. There have been male registered sex offenders entering the bathroom with yours sons since time immemorial. Transgendered people are no more likely to be sex offenders than the general population.

Obamacare: While the program has its problems, the Trump administration will do nothing to address them and has said it will double-down on aspects that will make our health care system worse.

I could go on but this is plenty. Welcome to the post-factual political America.

"Fake issues" is a weird way to describe issues like universal healthcare and gay marriage that have been debated for decades. Half the country is on the other side of many of these issues, so I wouldn't call them fake.

I think he means, it isn't an issue that they will address. It is a built up for election sake, but will be ignored otherwise.

Immigration isn't a fake issue. Take a walk around Miami or San Diego. Or New York. Or London. Or Paris. Or Malmö.

Gay marriage is just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, which was already basically dead. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid hill to die on, but nobody ever accused conservatives of brilliance.

Obamacare is a disaster because it enables still more people to suck still more dollars out of the system than there are people putting dollars into the system. The people getting more than they put in are parasites; the people getting less than they put in are suckers. When you don't pay for your own healthcare, you don't care how much it costs. Go to any veterinarian's office to see the cost of medicine in a free market.

> Immigration isn't a fake issue. Take a walk around Miami or San Diego. Or New York. Or London. Or Paris. Or Malmö.

I'm the son of Cuban immigrants, born in Miami, living in New York, and have walked Paris many times.

I don't understand your claim. Are you suggesting immigration is an issue because these places are diverse? Or have you somehow tapped into swaths of illegal immigrants in these areas that I've never seen or heard of?

> Are you suggesting immigration is an issue because these places are diverse?

I think the issue is that no one voted for these sorts of changes, the situation in parts of Paris with groups of people sleeping and congregating on the streets and what is occurring in Calais are unacceptable to people accustomed to a "Western" society. I think we will see Marine Le Pen perform very well in the upcoming election in France.

I think you're right! But there's a sharp contrast between the concept of the European nation-state and the U.S. European nations are predicated on ethnic identity. The question of "What is Holland if it is no longer Dutch?" is actually a valid one. Nothing like that could be true in the US, however. The US nation-state is based on a purely civic idea, where ethnicity has no structural purpose.

America was founded on immigration and has always been a country of immigrants.

Saying we didn't vote for that is like saying we didn't vote to have a country based on commerce.

>America was founded on immigration and has always been a country of immigrants.

From Europe.

It's not like the US started out as some mix of every idea/race/culture from every corner of the earth. Every country has people who originally came from somewhere and an identity grows from that. It's disingenuous to claim that Arab immigrants would assimilate as well as the Germans and the British did.

If Paris is not inhabited entirely by Parisians, it is a problem.

Who is a Parisian, though?

I literally spend last weekend in San Diego and saw a very dynamic and happy place. What are you on about ?

Yeah, I work every day in New York. I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

This is the standard thing that xenophobes do when talking about how bad immigration is. They tell someone to take a loot at X. Where X is a place the listener probably hasn't been to and doesn't really know anything about.

It's like if I was talking to a bunch of factory workers in Kentucky about how bad marijuana is and said "just take a look at Holland!" They'd have no fucking idea what it's like in Holland but someone claiming to be an authority just told them the situation was concerning.

Step 0: Stop calling him a Xenophobe because he said something you don't agree with, or he said something wrong.

My step 0: see things for what they are and don't apologize for callings bigots bigots.

Maybe he is a bigot. But you have a choice about whether you want to make the discussion personal and permanent (you are a bigot) or transient and focused on ideas (I think one of your assumptions is wrong).

The sky is blue but it's not necessarily productive to say so in every conversation.

> The people getting more than they put in are parasites; the people getting less than they put in are suckers.

You're describing the same people at different stages in their lives.

Nope.

Some people are parasites over the course of their lives.

Others are suckers over the course of their lives.

Very few make the transition from one to the other, except that as a general rule the young suckers get screwed even harder.

> Immigration isn't a fake issue. Take a walk around Miami or San Diego. Or New York. Or London. Or Paris. Or Malmö.

What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?

"The people getting more than they put in are parasites; the people getting less than they put in are suckers. When you don't pay for your own healthcare, you don't care how much it costs. Go to any veterinarian's office to see the cost of medicine in a free market."

These are all problems with any system of insurance that involves risk pooling and are not unique to PPACA's reforms.

Indeed. "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need," doesn't work.

So, no firefighters for you. No ambulances. No tax levies for public education. No child labor protection laws. No OSHA. It's just everyone for themselves.

>Gay marriage is just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, which was already basically dead. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid hill to die on, but nobody ever accused conservatives of brilliance.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you for or against gay marriage?

I think the statement should mean neither. He is saying marriage institution being a government subsidy is absurd and should be shot in the head. No one should "get married" in government standards. We should not assist someone in any way for having a child. We should enforce population control as light handed as possible. Okay that's just how I feel about everything actually, nevermind.

You're missing the point of legal marriage. At minimum, it's meant to provide a legal framework for adults who are raising children together so that the children are legally protected under the rubric of a family. Nothing to do (necessarily) with tax or policy incentives.

In order for marriage to be worth anything, it has to be a lifelong contract enforceable in a court of law. If a wife can eject from the marriage at any time, it isn't marriage. If a wife can eject from the marriage at any time _and_ take the house _and_ take the children _and_ reach into her former husband's pocketbook for years on end and possibly for the rest of his life, it isn't just not marriage, it's slavery.

Protesting homosexual marriage after heterosexual marriage has been destroyed is utterly absurd. It boggles my mind to think that anyone is that stupid.

> Gay marriage is just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, which was already basically dead.

Please elaborate.

Certainly.

Man's marriage vows: I, ____, take you, ____, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and worship, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.

Wife's marriage vows: I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.

Marriage was a lifelong contract between a man and a woman for the purpose of producing healthy, well-adjusted children in a stable family unit. Lifelong means "till death do us part". If it isn't lifelong, it isn't marriage. Also note the woman's vow to obey.

Plus, marriage used to involve virgin brides. The man would marry to get access to a woman he would not have otherwise had access to, both for sexual gratification and for sexual reproduction.

If one cannot enforce one's marriage contract, and one and possibly many others have fucked one's wife-to-be before marriage, then what exactly is the difference between a marriage and a casual LTR?

Protesting homosexual marriage after one accepts the destruction of heterosexual marriage is probably the dumbest thing any conservative ever does.

Dear lord

Do you directly pay for your roads? Do you care how much it cost?

How much of the government budget goes to roads?

About 6% of spending goes to transportation. ~$150 billion.

> Terrorism: more toddlers killed Americans than terrorists in 2015. For every terrorist killing someone on US soil, more than 4000 Americans killed each other.

Terrorism isn't a fake issue. You're ignoring the potential devastating effects that a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil could have. Terrorists are always trying to up their game and its because of this that they represent a significant threat. Toddlers, and homicidal fellow Americans, represent a fairly fixed threat compared to the unknown possibilities of terrorists (for example a chemical or nuclear weapon released in NYC).

Terrorism isn't about an attack, it's about fear. When we sacrifice our freedoms to live in fear of terrorists, they win.

Freedoms and proactive steps to mitigate an attack are not mutually exclusive.

I think the proactive steps that aren't at the expense of freedoms aren't the ones that are controversial.

Like right to bear arms?

Restricting gun availability is a proactive step against terrorism reduces freedoms that is controversial.

I see that I was not being clear, my apologies. What I meant was that retaining the right to bear arms is a proactive step against terrorism (by minimizing "soft" civilian targets) that a)preserves freedoms, and b)is nonetheless controversial.

The parent comment was making the argument that there are no freedom-preserving counter terrorism measures that are controversial. The right to bear arms is a counter example.

In that case it's unclear that it is a proactive step against terrorism (for the reason I said, domestic terrorists get guns more easily) which is a different kind of debate than cases where everyone agrees a freedom limiting step would prevent terrorism and the question is if it's worth it.

Are you statistics challenged? Even an attack on the level of 9/11 will be significantly lower than the number of Americans that shoot each other to death per year. If you want to read about the likelihood of a nuclear attack by terrorists, read Physics for Future Presidents. It's very, very low.

No need to be condescending.

Can you tell me what the likelihood of a nuclear attack by terrorists will be in 10 years, 20 years? How about if Iran develops nuclear weapons? Do you think 9/11 will be the worst terrorist attack we will ever see? My whole point is terrorists, and those that support them, are becoming increasingly competent in nearly every vector of attack, nuclear being only one. And their destructive ambitions grow even faster than their competency. I simply don't see how anyone can call it a fake issue.

This is just fear-driven speculation (which is a sign that you are being terrorized). What attacks are terrorists becoming "increasingly competent" at, exactly? What specifics are you talking about?

How about Occam's Razor? It takes only 10 drops of benzine to contaminate 50,000 gallons of drinking water. Will you vote for the candidate that will protect our drinking water no matter what? Is this making any sort of impression on you how this whole terrorism thing actually works?

> Will you vote for the candidate that will protect our drinking water no matter what?

I think you are making a straw man argument. Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough about this, but I’m not saying terrorism is the biggest existential threat or that it’s the only issue that matters or that it’s worth sacrificing our freedoms for or that certain groups should be discriminated against. I’m just saying that its something that should be taken seriously. Every political candidate takes it seriously and I think for good reason. I’m also not advocating some of Trump’s extreme rhetoric. I didn’t even vote for him. I also don’t believe that I’m personally being terrorized. I don’t think about this stuff on a daily basis. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want my government to think about it.

> What attacks are terrorists becoming "increasingly competent" at, exactly?

The obvious one: aircraft as a weapon. Then there’s Chemical/biological. Historically, used by sovereign militaries and now starting to be used frequently by terrorist organizations. ISIS recently started using chlorine and possibly mustard gas. The fairly recent poisoning of schoolchildren. The recent use of other poisons such as rat poison. Another big one is Cyber attacks. Recent ISIS attacks on power grids show show increased capabilities. The department of homeland security thinks this is a new major threat to US infrastructure. BTW, the FBI and Homeland Security have published a detailed list of possible attack vectors which includes a lot more than the few I’ve mentioned here. As far as nuclear attacks go, terrorist organizations like al Qaida have expressed their desire to obtain these weapons specifically to attack the US. Shouldn’t we do every reasonable thing within our power to stop them?

Right, but we're human beings who have evolved in a specific environment to have specific wants and desires and fears.

And one of those is the fear of terrorism.

You can, I guess, beat on the statistics drum until the sun swallows the Earth, but human beings on planet Earth, largely, do not agree with your model for assessing the costs of international terrorism.

Your model assumes that, hey, a death is a death is a death, no matter the cause; but most people care more about some types of deaths than others.

You seem to think you just need to educate those people, but the difference is deeper than that.

Why are you measuring the number of people that shoot each other, vs. the number killed? Why only look at 2015? Your statistics are just as suspect. I'd recommend reading this:

slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an-outlier-story/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...

Obama's quote from the article you posted: "We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so."

I agree with Obama's overall point about guns. But from what you've written, I'm under the impression you think he's wrong about terrorism.

> I think we learned that fake news (used to pump up fake issues) is now a legitimate campaign strategy that works even on people who should know better.

This, I think was the real genius of Trump's campaign. One role a journalist has in an open society to objectively seek the truth. I feel that Trump effectively defeated journalism through an utter disregard for it. Putin does the same.

Which objective journalists are you thinking of? Wikileaks showed how many of these journalists were colluding with Hillary

What do you mean by "fake" issues? Do you mean "issues where there is no disagreement" or "issues where I don't perceive any reasonable disagreement"? The former is a reasonable definition of fake issues, so that's the one I'll use.

> Immigration

If conservative and liberal economists agree, then this is the only issue that qualifies as "fake" by the above definition I mentioned. However, I don't think that the Cato position represents a right-wing consensus.

> Terrorism

You're not employing the statistics you cited correctly. First, terrorist attacks are black swans[0]. Saying that terrorism killed very few this year or even past ten years is misleading at best. Second, most of those firearm deaths are suicides. Certainly sad and need to be addressed, but also dishonest to compare directly against terrorist attacks and using the word "deaths" to obscure the difference between suicide and murder rates.

> Gay Marriage

May be clear cut to you, but is still contentious within the broader population and therefore not a fake issue. Also, there has certainly been conflicts with freedom of association. You can claim that restricting those rights is worth it, but you cannot claim they are not being restricted. There's also plenty to criticize in the legal reasoning behind the supreme court ruling.

> Bathrooms

Who uses what bathroom has largely been a matter of culture and custom. You can claim that such customs are wrong and need to be changed, but if you mandate that change through law and you are going to have a bad time.

> Obamacare

Not a fake issue.

[0]http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/31/terrorists-vs-chairs-an...

Welcome to America where the news are fake and polls don't matter.

Funny, I'd think the lesson is that near-total mainstream propaganda actually generates pushback. See also: Britain, Germany (where press in universally suppresses and labels any opposition as "neofascist").

Also consider the possibility that many people voted not for Trump, but against Clinton and her fake issues (like the discredited wage gap myth).

The wage gap hasn't been discredited. Science shows it is there. Much of the variance is unexplained.

And some of the "explanations" of variance that has been accounted for are themselves sexist. If job titles women tend to have get paid less than job titles men tend to have, that means we value women's work less than men's. Your assumption is that work must be worth objectively less, but the only proof we have for that is "the market said so" which I find unconvincing.

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