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How are you so certain that new information won't come out about this? What do you base that on? If there's one constant in the investigations, it is the stead

by _jal 9y ago

How are you so certain that new information won't come out about this? What do you base that on? If there's one constant in the investigations, it is the steady drip of new facts. In fact, it is self-assured reactions like the above that have destroyed a lot of people's credibility on the topic.

leereeves 9y ago
Anything might be revealed in the future. Someone might prove that Trump was brainwashed and programmed by Russia, or that Hillary ordered the murder of Seth Rich. That's just speculation. We can only base rational discussion on the information available to us now.
- libertyEQ 9y ago
  Right, and we know the electoral college victory came down to 77,000 votes in 3 states.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - leereeves 9y ago
    And the two parties spent $2.5 billion on an election in which about 125 million votes were cast. $20 per vote. At that rate, even if the Russians ads we're discussing had all been targeted at the Presidential election in those 3 states (far from true), that only equals about 5,000 votes. Further assuming that 2/3's of votes aren't changeable and the $2.5 billion was spent to influence the remaining third, we're talking about 1500 votes influenced.
- _jal 9y ago
  If we're smuggling in finance terms, I'd call it closer to investment than speculation. There is a near-certainty Mueller's team isn't noodling over nothing, and the targets of their investigation are acting in ways that are consistent with there being some there there. And that's only one investigation. And I brought up credibility because one important facet that seems to be serially forgotten is that the major targets of the investigations have already destroyed their credibility, as have many commentators. I would encourage some googling to look at the past claims people make - more often than not you're hearing assertions of tribal fidelity rather than arguments based on factual exploration, and one bit of that information available to us now is a fair amount of background on motivations. > We can only base rational discussion on the information available to us now. This is false. We are planning animals. We do what-if projections constantly. In fact, we can't not do it - you did it yourself to make an implicit argument above attempting to make any forward-looking seem silly.

by _jal 9y ago

leereeves 9y ago

Anything might be revealed in the future. Someone might prove that Trump was brainwashed and programmed by Russia, or that Hillary ordered the murder of Seth Rich. That's just speculation. We can only base rational discussion on the information available to us now.

libertyEQ 9y ago
Right, and we know the electoral college victory came down to 77,000 votes in 3 states.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- leereeves 9y ago
  And the two parties spent $2.5 billion on an election in which about 125 million votes were cast. $20 per vote. At that rate, even if the Russians ads we're discussing had all been targeted at the Presidential election in those 3 states (far from true), that only equals about 5,000 votes. Further assuming that 2/3's of votes aren't changeable and the $2.5 billion was spent to influence the remaining third, we're talking about 1500 votes influenced.
_jal 9y ago
If we're smuggling in finance terms, I'd call it closer to investment than speculation. There is a near-certainty Mueller's team isn't noodling over nothing, and the targets of their investigation are acting in ways that are consistent with there being some there there. And that's only one investigation. And I brought up credibility because one important facet that seems to be serially forgotten is that the major targets of the investigations have already destroyed their credibility, as have many commentators. I would encourage some googling to look at the past claims people make - more often than not you're hearing assertions of tribal fidelity rather than arguments based on factual exploration, and one bit of that information available to us now is a fair amount of background on motivations. > We can only base rational discussion on the information available to us now. This is false. We are planning animals. We do what-if projections constantly. In fact, we can't not do it - you did it yourself to make an implicit argument above attempting to make any forward-looking seem silly.