ScienceNostalgia101

Just for clarification, I see where you're coming from; the average voter's interest is in making "market forces" protect their own wages and not someone else's; but it's still unjust to allow market forces to impoverish people who are already working harder than many if not most upper class individuals. EDIT: One thing I neglected to ask in the OP... how strong is the evidence for, or against, the idea that "diluting the labour pool" decreases wages for non-minimum-wage jobs in the first place?

Eh, can't say I have too much sympathy for an office worker who thinks he deserves to be paid more for sitting on his ass all day than some kitchen prep worker on his feet 8 hours a day making minimum wage constantly doing arduous, stressful tasks. If minimum wage isn't good enough for them, it isn't good enough for everyone. Don't count on the market fairy to do the right thing.

I keep hearing from proponents of so-called "traditional gender roles" that bringing women into the workforce "diluted" the labour pool by giving employers so many more prospective employees from which to choose. The idea, as put forth by gender role proponents, is that this so reduced upward pressure on wages that it is partly responsible for the fact that wages are low enough to make both partners need to work; and that, in turn, women in the workforce are (supposedly) at fault for women who would prefer to be housewives not having that option. Of course, I can already think of three reasons why an increase in the minimum wage sounds to me like a better solution than a "return to traditional gender roles." 1. Unless no-fault divorce is abolished and shares of the marital assets are seized proportionally to culpability for the breakdown of the relationship, having only one person collect a wage might give them too much leverage, and in turn, more opportunity to get away with mistreating their spouse than they might otherwise have. 2. So long as minimum wage exists at all, market-worshippers didn't get their way. You're not going to win them over anyway. It's such a half-measure to make minimum wage anything short of a living wage. 3. Proponents of gender roles, even when they bring this up, usually don't specify how, if at all, we're supposed to get back to "traditional gender roles." One could press them on it, sure, but one shouldn't need to. If you tell someone to unscramble an egg it should be on you to specify how to do so. So what say you, science forums? Is there any particular reason why increasing the minimum wage; and stepping up enforcement thereof; can't offset any ill effects of "diluting the labour pool"?

Part of the issue might be that the notion of "deeper understanding" is a little hard to take seriously when the same voters who elect the school board trustees (including those who, by abstaining from voting, hand the decision over to those who show up) claim in every other context to value free speech and free markets. People say they value both, then tax the masses to impose a curriculum author's portrayal of history on a captive audience of students coerced into attendance by law. One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn't belong. And then we wonder why students don't believe the education system when it warns them about the dangers of vaping.

That's noteworthy as well. I'm guessing the average environmentalist is aware that environmentalism is primarily on behalf of human beings, not animals, but some environmentalists seem to take "save the planet" way too literally and think we are obligated not to do anything that could harm animals whatsoever, even though on an individual level these animals would've harmed each other anyway. Come to think of it, the "'save the planet" mantra was a mistake too. Why the hell do people go along with these nonsensical phrases?

To determine whether or not a situation can exist in which hunting is not only beneficial, but possibly vital, to reversing the damage we've done. Since this has been determined to be possible, I see no harm in dropping the matter.

Elected officials are answerable to their voters, and business owners are answerable to their customers... most of whom, unless the business in question caters primarily to welfare recipients, are employed. You cannot hope to get around the public's share of the blame. Construction workers were invoked as an example of people who would be harmed by competition with migrant labour even if the minimum wage were raised. Well, the voting public has shown more support for anti-migrant politicians like Trump than pro-minimum-wage politicians like Sanders. If construction workers; and others like them; couldn't draw the "we don't want our wages suppressed" vote away from Trump and towards Sanders in 2016, what else is at play here?

People used to say the same about myself, you know. Colour me a little skeptical of this kind of rhetoric, even when it's being used against people with whom I disagree. The "they" in question refers to construction workers. Why should they bellyache at declining wages if they already made more than minimum wage, if they aren't willing to fight to increase it? Why should they be entitled to stay out of poverty if they're content to let people who work just as hard as they do wallow in it? The voting public is not divided exclusively into Republicans and Democrats. I sympathize usually with the left on economic issues, but I've often found myself feeling very skeptical of them on gender issues, racial issues, animal testing, and hunting. Republicans used to claim they were against adultery, especially among public officials. Now tens of millions of them voted for a repeat adulterer for President, some of them because the most mainstream alternative was to vote for the same person endorsed by the so-called social justice warriors they mistrust even more.

People have already been arrested for stealing the lecterns and stuff like that, but I haven't heard of people being arrested specifically for shouting "hang Mike Pence." If it wasn't protected under freedom of speech, wouldn't putting away people who aren't above inciting violence take priority over putting away people who aren't above stealing? No, the impeachment is not off topic. It is closely tied to whether or not what these people did constitutes protected speech.

Not really. "Humans need to take a hands-off approach to nature from now on" (I don't recall the exact wording, but I've heard rhetoric similar to that from activists on the news) is a general statement, and therefore should be addressed as such. If it doesn't apply generally, they should've worded it in a way that doesn't imply it applies generally.

But these officials, for the most part, are looking to get re-elected. As such there is a delicate balance between getting enough funding to campaign and getting enough popular support for their ideas to have something on which to campaign. I didn't claim to know whether it was an emotional response or not, but I would rather err on the side of treating rationality as the default. Treating a given group of people as irrational by default risks ending pretty badly if popular opinion disagrees with you. If construction pays better than minimum wage, they haven't a leg to stand on in complaining about their wages going down. Just because you're lifting a bunch of heavy scaffolding doesn't mean you're working any harder than some kitchen prep worker lifting a heavy tray of potatoes. The minimum wage should be high enough for anyone to live off of. Period. If tipped workers are making less than minimum wage, we need to fix that ASAP. They don't call it a "gratuity" for nothing; that word itself implies you're supposed to be making that on top of what your employers pay you. I'm not sure how there are voters to whom that isn't obvious.

Poor choice of words on my part, granted. I meant more severely so. Those examples were only of where the role of hunting was disputed. I cannot think of examples in favour of or against the more generalizable "we need to take a hands off approach from now on" point. (Although in involving the food chain, the seal hunt one comes... relatively closer.)

Well, if there is no one size fits all answer, does that mean that, at least in theory, hunting can be a not only valuable but vital ingredient in repairing the damage we've done, and anti-hunting activists who make such generalizing statements as "humans need to take a hands-off approach to nature from now on" tarnish their own credibility?

Not quite. But as someone proven to have gone to law school, he comes a hell of a lot closer than the rest of us. And if what Trump did doesn't fall under First Amendment protection... doesn't that mean that literally every person who shouted "hang Mike Pence" during that riot can be arrested for incitement to violence? If so, how come they haven't? I thought Trump was guilty on the Ukraine thing too, but isn't claiming to know better than the people who were in that impeachment room a little like claiming to know better than the people who were in the jury room?

The specific examples that come to mind where the role of hunting in the ecosystem is disputed are seal hunting and wolf hunting. But I presume to those more familiar there are more examples. There are so many reasons for bias in each direction it's not clear how if at all one can cut through the fog. I'm aware hunting isn't the only factor, the only question is whether hunting can be not only beneficial, but necessary, to prevent the unstable equilibrium we destabilized (whether through hunting or otherwise) from destabilizing any further.

Geraldo Riviera went to Brooklyn Law School and says Trump's acquittal is as inevitable as the impeachment itself because what he said was covered under the first amendment. If both that and expressions of love are covered under the first amendment, by what standard do we distinguish which we get to discriminate against? Again, this is meant only for those who opposed that baker's right to discriminate and supported Facebook and Twitter's right to.

Gah, forgot to follow up on how that case turned out. Never mind, then. Yeah, if they won that one I guess they don't have as much of a leg to stand on when libs won this one.

Many people in favour of hunting as well as many against it alike seem to agree that hunting practices from the past brought too many species to the brink of extinction. Yet while hunting is supposedly so often the problem... it's also supposedly often the solution. The reasoning follows directly from the food chain itself; you drive down the population of a predatory species, all the animals they used to prey on thrive, and now you have to take their place as the new predator. You drive down the population of a prey species, and the animals that used to prey on them starve... driving up the population of the other animals they preyed on. And again, now you have to take their place as the new predator. One thing that stood out to me in undergraduate math is that in almost every course, the real-world examples they picked drew from physics and chemistry; with the sole exception of differential equations, which had a strong emphasis on animal populations. I do not recall the precise examples, but they used differential equations to represent both the positive feedback loops (more of that species, more of them can breed) and negative feedback loops (more of that species, more of them can be preyed upon; or if predator species, more strain on prey populations). I can only imagine how much more complicated it gets for all the interactions between different prey species preyed upon by the same predator species. And yet, you know there are biases in either direction. You know the anti-hunting types will be biased against the idea of killing such adorable creatures, and you know the pro-hunting types will be biased against the idea of killing good-paying jobs. (Or, failing employability as one, a good source of food.) So how can we hope to get around such biases to determine when, where, why, or how, a particular hunt against a particular species at a particular point in time, will do more harm or good? And if we were to ban hunting altogether, would nature eventually recover from us, or would our prior perturbation of nature's delicate balance eventually drive whole species to extinction that could've been saved from extinction by hunting, and wouldn't have been driven to extinction if humans didn't exist?

What I'm wondering is...how is the converse less hypocritical? How is it that social media is allowed to discriminate based on customers' political opinions, while bakeries aren't allowed to discriminate based on who their customers are dating?

The "they" in question are business owners themselves. They do donate to political candidates, which obviously gives them somewhat-disproportionate leverage, the only question is how much of it. As for the voters, their actions don't really tell you their intentions, when there are multiple explanations for the same set of actions.

I don't agree with the way they go about it, but I don't think there's adequate evidence to claim to know what their "real" intentions are either. If it's supposedly business owners' disproportionate leverage holding minimum wage increases back, how did their disproportionate leverage also not hold anti-immigrant rhetoric back? They clearly depend heavily on migrant labour. If it's not just Democrats sticking up for immigrants, it can't just be Republicans who have a problem with them either.

The Penn&Teller:Bullshit episode had a recurring theme of "we need guns so we can commit armed rebellion against the government every 20 years!" I don't recall seeing Penn Jillette in handcuffs following the broadcast of that episode. If there are laws against incitement of violence, social media platforms aren't the only ones against which they are enforced. I'm not sure how one would "measure" shifting goalposts, but I remember back when the Internet was debating the same thing in the context of TV Tropes forumers posting Trump-esque opinions (though usually more of the racist variety than the inciting violence variety) before Trump even made it big. The debate was over whether TV Tropes had a moral obligation to allow people to post such content, and/or to allow other users to be rude to the individuals posting it. Usually the people who supported one opposed the other and vice versa.

Let's not forget what started America down this dark path that led to a coup attempt; a Presidential candidate fearmongering about immigration. They spoke of "come back legally" (and then broke the law) but somehow making it easier to immigrate legally wasn't considered a legitimate option. One thing that always struck me as odd about America's usual opposition to making it easier to come legally was the notion that they'd "take our jobs." (Which they can do anyway.) A: Whatever happened to the idea that one isn't owed a job? B: Why not just raise and/or better enforce the minimum wage, then? If they can afford to hire migrants at higher wages, they can afford to higher locals at those wages, unless the migrants are BETTER at those jobs, in which case T. S. People always speak of how the minimum wage is an impediment to economic freedom. But in that case, isn't limiting WHO an employer can hire; or from where they can recruit employees; also a restriction to economic freedom? Why is it considered better to (supposedly) keep working class wages up by keeping out migrants; despite the myriad of other circumstances than being a migrant that could make you vulnerable to employers who would underpay you; than to raise and/or better enforce the minimum wage and force an increase in working class wages THAT way?

No one owes you a platform. HOWEVER. I do find it awfully suspicious that, over the years, the left has gradually shifted the goalposts from "not obligated to provide your ideas a platform" to "obligated NOT to." If the latter were their real opinions, why didn't they say so the first time?

So I was recently watching this video and I'm kind of left wondering why the cop doesn't just kick the leader of the pack down the stairs. The guy looks frail enough that the cop could've easily applied enough torque to make the guy lose his balance, which could serve both as a physical obstruction to continuing to climb that staircase and a deterrent against continuing to do so... especially if the falling leader of the pack ends up knocking over other rioters like dominoes.