Laurie Penny at the DNC: "Dissent will not be tolerated. Protest will not be permitted."

boing
#327

What part of my argument does that? The whole point of advocating basic income is that productivity gains from automation will not naturally trickle down to benefit everyone, that’s why a massive redistribution scheme like basic income would be needed, so that all the people who automation put out of work would be able to benefit from the new surplus of machine-made goods.

I do think that goods made by an entirely automated process would be significantly cheaper than equivalent goods today, so the level of basic income needed for a materially comfortable lifestyle would be lower than what would be needed to have a middle-class living standard today. If you disagree I’d be happy to debate this point, but I didn’t mention it earlier so presumably this is not what you meant by “productivity gains return substantially to the economy” above.

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#328

Yes, that’s exactly what I understood her to be saying: she supports vaccinations but feels that we should be wary of FDA-approved vaccines due to lobbying.

#329

No he didn’t because we’re talking about displacing Feinstein. How many people have taken a run at her?

The local Democratic party gives her 100% support. The only way to displace her is from another party or as an independent and California voters are going to vote for her anyway.

You can say I’m bloviating but there is a reason she hasn’t been dislodged and it isn’t because no one tried.

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#330

No, sorry, it’s not truthiness. What matters is what your actual position is, not what you say to make it palatable. Her actual position is that there is controversy about vaccines. There isn’t. There aren’t two sides of this “issue” to see. There isn’t a compromise to be had. People who think vaccines don’t work are anti-science, whether they realize it or not. This is the problem.

More evidence that she is anti-science: she’s trying to make a green party presidency happen when she can’t even get a single legislator elected. A pro-science approach is called for her: do the numbers, figure out what it would take to actually put the Green Party on the map, and do that. Running for president every four years when the electoral system is set up to guarantee that you can’t win is evidence of innumeracy.

I have no desire to put Jill in a box. She’s put herself in one. I’d love to see her get out of it–I think she’s a good person, but we need more than good intentions to actually change the current stalemate.

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#331

I was talking about Clinton with respect to Obama, not Feinstein. I realize now that you were talking about Feinstein.

What you are saying about the Democratic party is the symptom. The solution is to do what Bernie did, only at the senate level in California, not the presidential level. Feinstein is awful. It ought to be possible to unseat her with a good candidate. So why hasn’t it happened? No good candidate, or nobody who can organize like Bernie?

#332

Her last primary was 2012. Open, because CA?

She got 49.5%. The next closest Dem got 2%.

You’d have to think that some of the other candidates could get behind one or two of them, instead of all running, might help. Although with that many votes, she’d still get onto the ballot. I guess most Dems just line up and re-elect her.

#333

What that tells you is not so much that her challengers diluted the field, but that none of them were able to get their message out. That’s where to focus. You can’t control who runs, but you can run a better campaign.

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#334

I don’t know what I didn’t reply to. BoingBoing’s comment/reply navigation is atrocious or I am inept. Net result is I often get lost.

#335

Yeah. That worked out really well. I mean, the best way to solve a problem is clearly to keep trying things that haven’t worked for you in the past.

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#336

is called clarification. It’s not magic. It’s not sleight of hand. You just learned that something YOU held as categorically untrue… is and was true all along. The mistake was yours, seemingly? Is it really magic? Is there any chance that a rounding error was made (most greens I personally know believe X, therefore Jill Stein believes X)?

Usually when I have been incorrect, or made assumptions, it was my own fault, or I was misled by someone else, but YMMV. Maybe you were lied to, personally, by Jill Stein. Thats always possible.

And the US system sure doesn’t like it.

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#337

Explaining a previous statement means something other than what the original statement meant doesn’t clarify, it obscures.

#338

Since when is Monsanto science?

#339

Not truthiness? OK, let’s call it something else, then.

Anyone who claims there is no controversy surrounding vaccines, or who believes that FDA approval processes aren’t corrupt, is lying. Provenge alone proves this.

But every time someone points out that you are posting lies and disinformation, you just double down. At this point it’s pretty clear that your don’t care about either truth or science, you’re just determined to push anti-green propaganda.

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#340

As I said. Ymmv. Might be your inefficiency or theirs, but if it’s always them then it’s always them. I hear ya. Other people’s biases suck.

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#341

maybe what we need is the kickstarter of voting.

everyone pools their 3rd party vote – to be fair, you allow people to select any one candidate of their choice ( not just the greens. ) if, and only if, the candidate rises above some set threshold: then everyone agrees to vote for that candidate; otherwise, everyone votes for the mainstream party.

maybe attach a dollar pledge which goes to the campaign or charity to help attach credibility to the voting pledge.

( i’m sure this is all highly illegal for some reason. )

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#342

Sounds a bit like approval voting.

Vote for as many people as you like, anyone you consider acceptable.

Whoever wins is whoever passes that minimum threshold for the most people.

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#343

Since it was founded?

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#344

It’s a corporation. It’s goal is not to further science, but to make a profit. They use science as a means to an end.

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#345

If Monsanto is science, then isn’t it “bad” or “junk” or “pseudo” science? Good science would consist of asking mother nature the right questions and respecting the answers. Bad science might be blindly pursuing some executive bullet point with bioengineering and other science-backed processes without actually engaging fully in the full scientific meaning, consequence, and harm of what their latest crash development program might create.

In other words, I don’t believe the harm to surface waters, soil, the progeny of herbicide-resistant weeds, or the toxic harm to honeybees, monarch butterflies, and bats would result if industrial agriculture were truly scientific. They aren’t. They are “science-y” in the “truthiness” sense of meaning. I fear the truth of the situation is closer to: they distort scientific truth through myopic lenses applied in the wrongful pursuit of their agenda, creating great environmental harm, and doubtless other forms of harm, including economic and monopolistic. They are irrational in the pursuit of profits, which is why the agriculture they create is unsustainable, environmentally harmful, and likely toxic to its consumers.

At best, Monsanto does “real” unethical science, based on the harmful real-world outcomes they’re creating with it. I personally would argue that “real science” and “harmful results” are mutually-exclusive, and so what they are doing is by definition “not science or scientific” any more than a tobacco company developing a new “rational” argument for why smoking does not cause cancer.

#346

Monsanto is full to the brim with good scientists - microbiologists, biochemists, plant pathologists, entomologists, you name it - doing real science. To create the products they create they need to further understand of plants and insects, the methods they use are the same methods all scientists use, and many of the people engaged in the work are driven not only by the desire to put food on the table but also by curiosity (just as academic scientists are driven not only by curiosity but also by a need to put food on the table).

You might not like some of the products the company produces, but for many big ag companies are scientists doing science is the essence of what they do, and Monsanto is one of the most sciencey of these companies.

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