Alex_Krycek

Except big corporations tend to regularly pay less tax than small businesses, due to their lobbying power. I support lowering taxes on small businesses, not letting big businesses who rake in billions in profit pay little to no tax. I ask because he mentioned safety standards for the oil company he worked for. My perception is that safety standards are higher in the UK and EU, thanks to more robust regulation from government, unlike the US where the regulation is disturbingly absent.

Was this oil company British or American?

Most corporations in the US are driven to maximize profit, and so they make decisions based on that priority. If they can pay workers less, they will; if they can pay lower taxes, they will; if they can make an unsafe product at a lower cost and get away with, they will. And not just "if" - they work exceedingly hard to make their priorities a reality, due to their "lobbying" efforts. Morality doesn't really enter into it: "it's just business". Most CEOs and executives of major corporations are in their own elitist bubble and are immune to the consequences of their actions. Yes, I agree there are some corporations that take an ethical stance and flout convention, but they are in the minority in the US. Seattle CEO Dan Price of Gravity Payments runs one such company. He made the baseline salary for his employees 70 k USD in 2015, and interestingly has reported great success over the last five years. It seems when you treat your employees right and produce happy workers you make more money. Go figure. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.5482390/seattle-ceo-who-pays-workers-at-least-70k-us-says-it-s-paying-off-in-spades-1.5482394

Yes, "relating to or characterized by advocacy for the control of a state or organization by large interest groups" is how I was using the term. And I disagree that corporations don't tend to have monolithic interests. Primarily these are: lower corporate taxes, less legal accountability for corporations, and fewer rights for workers - anything that maximizes profit for shareholders.

"Corporatist" is a term referring to any narrative supports the interests of corporations over voters - for example, a narrative that advocates for a lower corporate tax rate but disparages the idea of higher wages as "impractical". There isn't any mention of "false" information here.

Which they do currently. However, FB, youtube, twitter, etc do not generally censor any information unless it promotes violence. Other sites, such as Parler, have risen up specifically to cater to communities that feel they are maligned, such as the right wing. Which is why I said it wouldn't be possible in a free country. Very hard to come by, these days. It's very difficult for the average person to adequately vet all the information that is presented. That's why emotional trust in the messenger overrules the information factor. Since most people do not have the time or capability to sift through all the shards of data coming at them and construct a coherent picture, they place their trust in a messenger. This is why Fox News works, and Trump, and Alex Jones. People place trust in a personality, not the information. It doesn't matter how wrong Trump is on the information - the emotional trust factor overrules it all and makes his followers feel safe. IMO, there are only a few sites out there that have a high quality of information in terms of trustworthiness: The Hill, The Intercept, and The Guardian; but even these are susceptible to bias sometimes. The Guardian omits facts from their political stories sometimes, especially if it relates to police shootings. The NY Times has a corporatist bias, and they generally twist the narrative to fit their own purposes, especially if Bernie Sanders or progressives are involved. Politico has a conservative leaning bias. Bloomberg is corporatist, and so on. That's why I stand by the idea that critical thinking and open debate are essential. The higher the critical thinking, the better the ability to parse information, to compare and contrast narratives from various sources, to recognize the inherent biases in a media organization, to see past the bias to what is probably the underlying truth, etc.

The only way to circumvent that would be to regulate the internet as a whole, with some predetermined arbiter (a government agency) determining what information people are allowed to peruse. Simply not feasible in a free country.

Of course. It's not difficult. There are numerous avenues, existing prior and subsequent to the recent censorship, for those not validated by the mainstream to discuss their views. Parler, for one, is back in full effect. Yes, the yard signs have come down, Trump isn't on the nightly news anymore, and I'm sure we're all a lot less irritated, but regardless of our own brief respite from his ramblings, the recent censorship of Trump has proven to the Trumpists that everything they originally thought was true: the government is out to get them, the tech giants are in it with George Soros, Christians are being persecuted, etc. This is why, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, censorship does not work. Unless you want to go full Stalin and start imprisoning people for their ideas, people with all different views have to be included in the discussion. To reiterate my previous statement, I believe that attempting to purge others from the discussion for holding different perspectives will only strengthen their resolve; while inviting them to participate in the discussion has a greater chance of moderating their views and eventually changing their minds. Below is a post from a Trump supporter. This is how they think. The media played right into Trump's hands by censoring him. 70 million people.

I took this statement to mean you were suggesting another approach besides using logical and critical thinking. What exactly did you mean by this statement? How did it make it harder? If anything it fueled his movement to find alternative pathways to continue their discussions. In the context of Germany after WW1, merely censoring Hitler would have accomplished nothing. The deep rooted causes of Nazism: economic despair, widespread racism, an indignant national psyche - all of these would have manifested regardless of one particular leader, and censorship would never have been able to quell it. Neo nazis are a group that espouse a primitive racist ideology that I believe most modern citizens reject. To censor them would be to validate them as powerful, and to me they are not.

Disagree. Logic and critical thinking, in the context of an open debate, is the only viable solution. The alternative is censorship, which simply doesn't work. Censorship is an attempt to expunge incorrect ideas (or those that are perceived to be incorrect), from an "intellectual ecosystem" (society, a political discourse, etc). The arbiter responsible for the censorship believes that it purifies the ecosystem and upholds its integrity. But this is an illusory process, and serves only to strengthen the views that have been censored - be they right or wrong. Take Trump, for example. Throughout his presidency, Trump repeatedly made false statements about numerous issues. For most of his presidency he was not censored by the media. He was able to publicize his views on Twitter, through press conferences, etc. Only late in his presidency did certain media outlets begin to make editorial decisions about how to censor Trump (cutting away from his speeches, informing the public about erroneous statements, etc). Ultimately, after he left office, Trump was banned from Twitter, his primary means of direct communication with the American public. The question is: did this censorship of Trump, this "purge", change anything regarding the views he promulgated? I highly doubt that it did. Those supporting Trump are now increasingly compartmentalized into their own self-reinforcing echo chamber (all 70 million of them). Most have sought out alternative channels of communication to discuss their views - be it on Parler (which was removed from Apple's App store, but will be back soon) and other platforms. So censorship will have had little effect on Trump supporters: they believe even more fervently than before, and feel justified in their perception of the mainstream media as a repressive liberal machine. The next step after censorship would be arresting people that don't hold the correct views, but of course we don't do that in a free society. So in short, censorship is counterproductive. It excludes people from a dialogue that might otherwise have changed their minds. Even if their minds aren't changed right away, being included in a group with different views has an effect on such people over time, such that they are become less extreme in their thinking and become more open to other possibilities.

Couldn't agree more.

My problem with that is it's a slippery slope. Pretty soon you would have some arbiter deciding which theories are correct or incorrect and stopping further discussion. This is already happening in the political sphere with youtube: certain content (left and right) is being deemed unworthy and is being demonetized. There's some people arguing for flat Earth theory on youtube - they're wasting their own time, not mine. Incorrect theories/positions should be refuted with facts, logic, and critical thinking, not censorship or quelling of debate.

It's a good point - with the impending "deep fakes" and other artificial data, even entirely fabricated websites, the government will likely have to step in and regulate the quality of information being propagated.

yep, that's what I stated: That being said, a private media outlet has the right to determine what information is shared on its platform, and legally there is no argument against corporate censorship

I'm against censorship of any theory or information unless it actively encourages violence, in which case it should be removed. Shutting down open debate is never a good thing. That being said, a private media outlet has the right to determine what information is shared on its platform, and legally there is no argument against corporate censorship, odious as it may be. Ultimately, as long as the internet remains free and accessible to all, such efforts to quell free speech won't be successful.

I created this schema to better understand the problem. Reforming the police would require dismantling the main nodes in this system thus eliminating the secondary and tertiary consequences.

PBS programming when I was a kid. They had shows that were entertaining and science based such as 3,2,1 Contact! and Mathnet (a spoof on Dragnet where detectives solved crimes using math). That, and my Dad had one of the first Macintosh computers, which had science based games on it. I remember one game in particular allowed you to pilot a space-shuttle, performing tasks such as docking and maneuvering a robotic arm. There was also a museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I lived, called the Discovery Place. It was a huge science museum on 3-4 levels with an endless array of exhibits in every conceivable area. They had interactive exhibits, live demonstrations, a massive Omni-Max theater with science based programming. We'd go there about once a month on Saturday morning and it was always fun.

Interesting ideas. I see some similarity with the construct outlined here and the work of Roland G Tharp, who wrote Delta Theory and Psycho-Social Systems. Some advice: your visual schema is somewhat hard to follow and could be clarified for greater effect.

Thanks - I'll check it out. My position from the beginning has been that more training would equal less likely use of force. But when force is required it would be applied judiciously and effectively to result in the least possible harm. By training I mean both psychological, physical, and tactical.

A few more recent articles from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/pentagon-ufos-leaked-photos-uap https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/cia-thousands-documents-ufos-cache

Probably moral again. I was thinking more generally in regards to the average citizen's life, not in terms of SAS / SEAL Team 6 missions or encounters with ISIS.

There's a report due out later this year about these UFO / UAPs, thanks to a clause in the first COVID Relief Bill. It will be interesting to see what information is disclosed. Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/299157 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/10/us/ufo-report-emergency-relief-bill-trnd/index.html Excerpt: A stipulation in the bill’s Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2021 mandates, under the heading “Advanced Aerial Threats,” that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defence draft a report outlining everything the American government knows on the subject of UFOs. The report must be made available to the pubic, according to the stipulation, and must include details analysis of the UFO phenomena, including data and intelligence from the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and the FBI. Former intelligence director John Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo last week that when the government report on UFOs is released it “will be big.” “Frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public,” Ratcliffe said. “The report could document sightings from all over the world,” Ratcliffe said. “There are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen… And when that information becomes declassified, I’ll be able to talk a little bit more about that.”

Recently a paper was published in Cell confirming the successful creation of human / monkey chimera embryos. Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00305-6 Introduction: Interspecies chimera formation with human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) represents a necessary alternative to evaluate hPSC pluripotency in vivo and might constitute a promising strategy for various regenerative medicine applications, including the generation of organs and tissues for transplantation. Studies using mouse and pig embryos suggest that hPSCs do not robustly contribute to chimera formation in species evolutionarily distant to humans. We studied the chimeric competency of human extended pluripotent stem cells (hEPSCs) in cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) embryos cultured ex vivo. We demonstrate that hEPSCs survived, proliferated, and generated several peri- and early post-implantation cell lineages inside monkey embryos. We also uncovered signaling events underlying interspecific crosstalk that may help shape the unique developmental trajectories of human and monkey cells within chimeric embryos. These results may help to better understand early human development and primate evolution and develop strategies to improve human chimerism in evolutionarily distant species. Bioethics: There are significant ethical considerations involved in generating and studying human-animal chimeric embryos, particularly when non-human primates are involved. Different guidelines exist at the state, national, and international levels, and it is important for scientists, bioethicists, policy makers, and funding agencies to stay engaged in keeping these guidelines up to date with the relevant science as well as for the welfare of society. For the studies presented here, extensive reviews of research plans and protocols were conducted in advance. Ethical consultations and reviews were performed both at the institutional level and via outreach to non-affiliated bioethicists with experience in state and national bioethics policies regarding these matters. This thorough and detailed process helped guide our experiments, which were focused entirely on ex vivo chimeric embryos. Furthermore, we limited our studies to early-stage chimeric embryo development. Questions for Discussion 1. What is your view as to the morality of these experiments? Acceptable or not, why? 2. Do you see any ethical considerations that would preclude moving the experiments to late-stage chimeric embryo development?

In that instance I think its moral.