leftyted

33 ms·

271.
by leftyted 7y ago
Our rights have been alienated when the government felt like it. Which is true for all supposedly unalienable rights. You have rights as long as you are are a recognized member of the political system that controls the territory where you
272.
by leftyted 7y ago
> Rights aren't something the govt gives so how can the govt remove them ? Rights are something that a government gives. You only have rights insofar as they are respected by the government that controls the area in which you live.
273.
by leftyted 7y ago
> Although I agree that visuals are the most important part of the movie, I don't think that there is any necessity to try to eliminate the importance of sound. I think most great movies are (perhaps surprisingly) very watchable wit
274.
by leftyted 7y ago
Petty gibes aside, Michael Bay is a good example of what I'm talking about. You can listen to his movies without watching and understand, more or less, what's going on because the characters explain everything they're doing.
275.
by leftyted 7y ago
There aren't any hard and fast rules for how to make a good movie (or how to write a good novel). But, in my opinion, movies are fundamentally visual and everything else is a layer on top. Maybe not "window dressing," but no
276.
by leftyted 7y ago
I find it unlikely that a tiny minority that most Americans find utterly repulsive could "create a new oppressive government". It's like being worried that a UFO cult will take over the country.
277.
by leftyted 7y ago
I think "Show, Don't Tell" is excellent advice and not just in writing: it's even more valuable for filmmakers. You should be able to watch a movie with no sound and follow the plot. Of course there aren't actual r
278.
by leftyted 7y ago
There are many arguments for freedom of speech. One of the most famous centers around the idea that no one should have the ability to decide what can't be said because that assumes infallability: https://en.wikipedia.org&#
279.
by leftyted 7y ago
> I really feel it was just torture renamed. "Hey, let's burn some Jews! We'll call it science!" "Ok, I'm in." Experiment result: the untermenschen died. In most cases they were doing actual science, j
280.
by leftyted 7y ago
Aren't you proving his point? Scott Adams became world famous writing a cartoon full of snark and satire. These are perfectly valid ways of communicating and in fact they make up a significant chunk of human communication. Reading com
281.
by leftyted 7y ago
> Governments lie in much more obvious, and less noble, ways than "imagining a future world and spreading it"... Perhaps but what I'm attempting to describe is something that all governments necessarily do. Also I'm n
282.
by leftyted 7y ago
It's been a while since I read the essay and I don't exactly remember the distinctions drawn. I'll venture my own opinions: Lying is necessary when trying to move through the world. Governments lie for the same reason peopl
283.
by leftyted 7y ago
I recommend Hannah Arendt's essay Lying in Politics. Summary: 1. Lying has always been considered a valid political tool. It isn't really clear how a government can operate without lying. 2. Lying is deeply related to the human
284.
by leftyted 7y ago
The insinuation that anyone who is skeptical of H1B is a xenophobe is insulting and lowers the level of the conversation. Criticisms of H1B are far older than Trump and the current political climate. If Trump does something right, it'
285.
by leftyted 7y ago
> We know Obama wouldn't have commuted Snowden -- and at any rate the Obama pardon of Manning seemed as much about the human rights issue of a transgender woman in military prison receiving fairly poor treatment -- but even if we a
286.
by leftyted 7y ago
I think there's a reasonable chance Snowden would have been pardoned. Also consider Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg made himself available for prosecution, saying: > I felt that as an American citizen, as
287.
by leftyted 7y ago
> To cover this contingency, I would like to propose an analogue to Pascal's famous wager… If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed, better housed, and happier,thanks to our effor
288.
by leftyted 7y ago
We've explicitly avoided the predictions that Paul Ehrlich made in The Population Bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager Predictions without deadlines are not useful because you can keep k
289.
by leftyted 7y ago
Cooperating or not, by being in Russia, he's helping Russia, which is why Russia has agreed to put him up. I think that -- had he faced the music -- he'd be out of jail by now and considered a hero by most Americans. I don't
290.
by leftyted 7y ago
There are two basic positions on the economy: 1. Those who focus on the beauty and simplicity of markets and the advantages of decentralized decision making. 2. Those who focus on all the ways markets create or abet undesirable conditions f
291.
by leftyted 7y ago
> Like a lot of economic critique, rent control criticism is driven from cultural allegiance to landlords and the rentier class, rather than good faith. What a bizarre claim. There's plenty of "good faith" criticism of re
292.
by leftyted 7y ago
There's a movie relevant to this topic called Captain Fantastic. It's about a father who raises his kids in the forests of the Pacific NW. I do think it's true that school is oppressive. I guess it's oppressive for the
293.
by leftyted 7y ago
It does to me. The person who made the call was sentenced to twenty years . The person who got 15 months is the one who paid the other person to make the call, not the person who made the call.
294.
by leftyted 7y ago
I never much liked Richard Stallman. But he's a freethinker, and freethinkers necessarily exist outside the mainstream. So, despite not liking him, I also don't like this turn of events. It does seem arbitrary to me that the same
295.
by leftyted 7y ago
There isn't a shortage of top talent domestically in the USA. US tech companies import workers so they can drive down wages. This isn't controversial and it's not xenophobic. The NYT has many op-eds covering this issue: 1.
296.
by leftyted 7y ago
> In my opinion, none of those things should be contingent on being paid. At least at a minimum level, it should be possible to eat nutritious food, have homely and comfortable shelter, fresh water, warmth, clothing, medical care, everyt
297.
by leftyted 7y ago
I don't think you've falsified the argument. Maybe you would have if economic growth and marginal tax rates are the only variables. I think it's pretty clear that progressive taxes create negative incentives, particularly wh
298.
by leftyted 7y ago
> there should be a big consensus for universal conditionless free education, social security and health insurance backed by the government. You allude to the best argument for these things, something like: "people are born into the
299.
by leftyted 7y ago
> I usually have a word to describe people who tend to think along these lines: young. "Ask the young. They know everything."
300.
by leftyted 7y ago
> When you include cases like that, and you should if you're trying to figure out how important it is to avoid global heating, the death toll goes way up. Should you? If we take this approach, I wonder how many people rain kills. O

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