SkepticalButOpenMinded @ SkepticalButOpenMinded @lemmy.ca

Posts

2

Comments

506

Joined

2 yr. ago

For context, this article is from the conservative/libertarian Reason.com, and it addresses some conservative counter-arguments.

Alas, I’ve read tons of comments, even on this community, about how the US is “too big” for trains or walkable cities to work. I think the car-centric mindset cuts across the political spectrum — or put another way, the topic hasn’t been fully politicized yet.

It’s worth noting that in most other rich countries, pedestrian deaths have been falling. And before anyone says something stupid about how America is uniquely big or new, even Canada has 60% fewer traffic fatalities.

It depends on who is moving. It doesn’t help Dems to run up the score in California and New York, so having people leave might actually help. If some of those educated progressive knowledge workers move to cities in the south, it could make a huge difference.

I’m sure some did, but there’s no reason to think a leaver of NYC is vastly more likely to move upstate. I’m sure most would move to another city, for one thing, because most people live in cities in general, and all the more if you once lived in NYC.

All the exceptions are fake. How long does a rape conviction take to secure, assuming the perp is actually found guilty at all? Longer than a few weeks, that’s for sure!

The critic rating is better than the audience rating. I’ve never seen a film with a high critic rating that didn’t have something worthwhile about it. But I’ve seen a lot of audience hits that were garbage.

Having lived there for a few years, I don’t think this describes Japanese child raising culture at all. I’m not sure how you can infer so much about the culture based on a single visit to Japan without any ability to speak the language. You may have just had culture shock.

I think saying “good” about the death of so many Russian soldiers has a hint of “fuck Russians” in it. That loss of life is senseless and tragic, not good.

Why do you say that media bias fact check is baseless propaganda?

edit: One of the most left leaning but highly factual news sites I go to is Fair.org. This site is almost always against the major mainstream media consensus, but backs up its claims with lots of high quality reasoning and evidence. MBFC rate it left-center and high factual reporting.

It gives Jacobin, probably one of the biggest left leaning news sites in the US, a left leaning and high factual reporting score. Jacobin calls themselves left leaning, of course. For anyone who knows history, it's right in their name. So what's the problem there?

Meanwhile, it gives all the major right wing news sites poor ratings. Fox News, Breitbart, Epoch times, etc. get an extreme right and Mixed factual reporting score.

So I understand why you would besmirch MBFC if you're some rightwinger. But, from the left, I don't understand. Reality has a left leaning bias.

What super majority?

That's good to know. Though I wish people I knew, both apple and android, would switch to Signal instead.

One of the common definitions of “regularly” is “frequently”. E.g. “We used to meet regularly, but less and less as time went on.” This is also why frequent customers are called “regulars”.

edit: "Happening or doing something often" is even the first definition of the Cambridge English dictionary. Misinterpreting OP's use of "regular" just feels like Stack Overflow level pedantry.

The problem is that, in the US and Canada, android users don’t tend to use those apps en masse. The vast majority use SMS.

I see people on the internet often criticize the sample size of studies, but I think this is a misunderstanding. Due in part to the central limit theorem, sample sizes can be surprisingly small, provided the sample is actually representative. And if the sample isn’t representative, then a larger sample won’t necessarily help.

For example, there are about 60 million 18-29 yr olds in the US. With a sample size of 300, and a confidence interval of 95%, that gives us a margin of error of just ~5%.

Edit: to clarify, the study might still be wrong because the sample is biased, but not because the sample is too small. And it might also be wrong by chance, despite no methodological problems. 95% is still a 1 in 20 chance of a long tail result. D&D players know: critical failures happen!

Criticism is not a scarce quantity to be preserved. It spreads, like a fire. Take literally any social movement, like #metoo or BLM. People don’t suppress smaller stories to “save” criticism for bigger stories. The small stories add up. Right now, the F150 is one of the best selling cars in the US. The average American is no where close to criticizing it. But everyone already makes fun of the cyber truck. We can use that.

“Let’s not criticize this dangerous truck design because we should save our criticism!” is the worst way to get people to criticize dangerous truck design.

“I don’t like x but it can’t be worse than y” is a construction which serves to minimize how bad something is. Instead, let’s scrutinize both: “This cyber truck is ridiculously dangerous. While we’re at it, let’s also regulate the 4 feet tall wall of grill on other trucks.”

Implying they would be giving up their famous “quality” now? You need a certain quantity for quality. The burgers now are so small, with such paper thin meat, that the proportions and texture are all wrong. The value proposition is terrible either on quality or quantity.

Your wording makes it sound like the existence of even more dangerous trucks somehow excuses this dangerous truck. Both the 4 ft wall and the sharp metal blade edges are dangerous and irresponsible designs.

Canadians are considering voting in conservatives at every level of government. I would love for it to be true, but what makes you think Canadian voters are pining for more left leaning policies. If anything, absurdly, voters seem to want to punish Trudeau for going too far left!