Peterkin

It was about debt and whether debt decreases opportunity. That's pretty vague. In general, debt is people borrowing money and people lending money, at interest. How that affects the economy of a nation varies according to how much is borrowed, who borrows it, how it's used and whom it benefits. I have attempted to cover some aspects of national debt and consumer debt and how each might affect the economy. If my efforts are inadequate, at least they're sincere. Wait, what? Will you please clarify what you’re trying to say here? I'm saying that there are some government services that are funded by contributions such as paycheck deductions benefit the same people who contributed to them. Welfare programs, Medicaid, and other social services benefit people who live in the country where they pay income tax and sales tax and property tax. When they get that money, they spend it on food and rent and interest payments on their cars and gasoline and hydro and cable bills and their children's shoes. They support the businesses and sevrices in their community. Whatever tax revenues that spending generates also go to the same government. A trans- or multinational corporation can invest its profits in any country in which operates, and not pay tax on those profits in the country where the profits were made. And the individual share-holders are even more free to take profits out of the economy. Capital is mobile; government and workers are border-bound.

I've supported my claims. I'm asking you to support yours.

The 'opinion pieces' (only a fraction of the actual cost of the armaments industry) are backed up by some pretty solid numbers and research. If you see the balance tipping in favour of the American taxpayer, I'd like to see the figures. Thing 1 about government spending : how much is borrowed to cover it and who collects the interest? Thing 2 about government spending: How much does it benefit the nation as a whole? Thing 3 about government spending: What is the ratio of contribution to benefit? Certainly, the revenue for the export of military ordnance is big $ figures, but the profit goes to the shareholders of those corporations, who can use or reinvest it however they want. It might stay in the same economy that generated the profits or go wherever they take it. But the government contracts have to come from the taxpayers and the incidental costs have to be borne by the taxpayers. The other government expenditures, whether financed from contributions or with loans or a combination, the recipients of those moneys stay inside the country, spend it inside the country and create some wealth that doesn't jeopardize people or have to be neutralized later at the expense of the same people who paid for making it and paid again for moving it around and paid again for cleaning up after it and paid again for the damage it did to their environment. Maybe not, but it seems to to jump for every war. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/the-long-story-of-us-debt-from-1790-to-2011-in-1-little-chart/265185/ Not one bullet or bomb or shattered jeep is ever coming back into the US economy, but the interest payments still have to be kept up after they're gone.

I just lost an entry with three quotes, but I'll try to retrieve them. That's just making them. Then, there are the waste products And when you don't want them anymore, destroying them. That doesn't even get into transportation, storage and guarding, and it doesn't even approach the waste form the factories themselves, the cost of cleaning those up, or the health hazards they cause the surrounding communities.

Some of the money spent goes into the economy. Munitions manufacturers employ workers who pay taxes and live in the US. Does that offset the debt servicing and environmental cost the government undertakes? Half of what they manufacture is shipped - at great cost to the taxpayer - overseas to be blown up (none of that raw material or human labour is coming back into the economy). The other half (47%) is exported to foreign countries - including those unfriendly to US interests, and which sales encourage future wars and diplomatic embroilments that will cost the US more down the line. The shareholders pay as little tax as possible and take the profits wherever they want to. They also import many expensive components, shipping more tax-money abroad. And they add nothing tangible to welfare of the population ... no, that's not quite true: municipalities can buy outmoded tanks and bazookas for their police at quite reasonable prices. Their hospitals get lots of casualties. On the whole, I strongly suspect th arms industry, in spite of $multi-billion role in the economy is a net drain, if we tallied all the peripheral costs that rarely appear on ledgers. Hypothetically Hence the word "can". It has happened on several occasions, in several countries. If it happens in a major economic power, it can topple others. No, it's a problem all the time, for all parties, at all levels of government, and for a great many, if not the majority of families. The polarization of politics merely exacerbates the accumulation of debt at all levels, as does lack of regulation.

Business debt is the least of it. The two big problem areas are national and household debt. The first is largely spent on military ordnance, which returns no benefits or profits, but the interest can grow to be crippling to the entire economy. Even before that, it's used by conservatives, who pay the least tax, to reduce social services to the working people who pay most taxes, and defund government agencies like FEMA and CDC. In a natural or man-made disaster, such agencies are incapacitated and the damage mounts up, so that governments have to borrow even more. On the household level, student debt or mortgage debt can very severely restrict an individual's or family's freedom to take advantage of opportunities that involve any financial risk. Marginal earners, with insecure employment, have to get to work - often two part-time jobs in opposite directions. They either rely on the inadequate-to-execrable public transport (that we 'can't afford' to improve because of municipal, state/provincial or national debt) or have to buy a car. They don't clear enough to make large monthly payments, so they buy used cars at a much higher interest rate than well-to-do people with good credit, and pay out more over time than they would have on a new car that didn't need so many repairs. For the repairs, they resort to credit cards at $25-30% - they have no choice: if they can't get to work, they lose the job and the car is repossessed - but they still have to pay off the credit card, only with less income. So they get sick, and of course marginal employers don't provide health insurance and low-paid workers can't afford private plans. One ambulance ride or hospital stay, or even just tests and drugs, can wipe out the foreseeable finances of a whole family: they spend all of their disposable income paying off massive debt. No education for those kids! No better apartment, and no risk-taking for the parents: they'll have to take whatever job they can get and put up with whatever it entails. Meanwhile, the money-lending industry makes stupefying profits, without creating any material wealth. The shareholders can do as they please with those profits: they are under no obligation to reinvest any profit in the country that produced it. After whatever tax they can't evade, they can take that money to China or bury it in Bitcoin or salt it away in secret offshore accounts. When the investment industry overheats and causes a depression, millions of debtors default. Manufacturing is already a shrinking and soon-to-be extinct source of employment with benefits and salaries as robots take over. Career opportunities expand in professions with long, expensive training, that add nothing new to the GDP, even though they funnel large quantities of money from one bank to another, many of them increasing consumer debt. There is a good chance of a single climate event or political folly collapsing the economy.

Curbing interest rates might help, as well. Fundamentally, Capitalism runs on debt: having to pay your investors back with interest is an incentive to grow (whether growth is needed or not, beneficial or harmful), which tends to generate more debt, etc. But it can be kept functioning for quite a long time with commensurate taxation and very strict regulation. Those are the somethings that need to be done in the very near future. Whether they can be done is a different matter:the opposition is powerful and growing.

Yes, but they rarely come armed with carefully selected counter-data. In this instance, the question was: It follows a scatter-shot refutation of some of "these claims". Anyone want to address this part?: I shudder even to contemplate it. I realize that's a reflexive, emotional reaction rather than a scientific one - it's just that I'm partial to whales.

That ^^ certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Maybe not Siberia. But that certainly poses a threat to all of us. Of course, many of the migrants will die along the way and not be recorded as victims of heat. In fact, record-keeping will become impossible as fatalities mount up from the cumulative effects - including energy system breakdowns as the demand for cooling grows in industrial nations. Of course, an even bigger question is: What will all those people drink and eat? But, never mind, they might not even be able to breathe. The fact of an occurrence being not unusual doesn't preclude its size, intensity and frequency being unusual. Sorry about repeating myself there; can't seem to edit out the mistake.

You can't see the difference in glaciers? Or the polar ice? Why would NASA fake this data? Why Russia for fires, cyclones in Australia, and hurricanes in the US? Why not fires in Spain, droughts in India, floods in France? ... Better still, why not compare overall predictability of weather, or change in patterns in any one place over time, or a combination of extreme summer and winter weather on one continent? Or insurance statistics in one country? There are so many factors in climate change, so many kinds of manifestation and so many sources of information, it's hard to get a clear overall picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1p9mE9RBw

He understood far more than the concept: he understood the importance of faith as a unifying force - which Jesus apparently had not, but Paul did and Constantine used. Of course, that was before Christian sects broke away in all directions and started fighting one another. The language of prophets is not an issue, since they speak to different peoples, under different historical conditions. I think we've pretty much exhausted any commonality between religion and physics.

I didn't say both were correct. I said the analogy of Newton-Einstein and Jesus-Muhammad was good: in both cases, the person who lived later had the other's ideas to draw on. However, With science, we can test hypotheses and measure the degree of accuracy of any prediction. With prophets, we have no way of measuring or testing the "correctness" of their pronouncements and denouncments. We have no standard of comparison for any two prophets' degree of accuracy; we don't even know how to interpret the meaning of their prophecies.

Yes, I knew that. So was the ice-water bath to cure hysteria, but that didn't work and had to be replaced by lobotomy and elctro-shock therapy, which didn't always work either. Does being invented by professors automatically make something scientific? Have the results of the two products (as distinct from authors' credentials) been compared in scientific studies? I mean the kind where you make a prediction based on a theory, then set up an experiment to test it. Is there any measure of the accuracy of either method from outside the psychometrics community? Does 'scientific' = 'accurate'? For that matter, where do psychology and psychometrics rank on the rigour scale of sciences? Is there literature on this? I don't know the answers - I'm skeptical about the validity of all personality classification and testing.

You also have to compare the cost in energy of solar equipment to the cost in energy of equipment for whatever system it's replacing. And then figure in the lifetime of the equipment in both cases. Solar panels and batteries are improving all the time: I understand they're lasting 25 years now - during which time, nothing needs to be replaced by men in cherry-pickers. (And you'll have no power outages, or poles or live wires falling on your car during the big storms coming at us more frequently each year. )

You can't make a potential romantic interest or friend take a personality test. In social and intimate relations, we all fly by the seat of our pants most of the time. One exception: I got to know my SO through old-fashioned mail correspondence. Something to be said for pen and paper vs email: handwriting and unspellchecked style tell you much about a personality. A personnel manager can simply ask: "How well do you work on a team?" "Can you function effectively in a noisy room with other people?" "Would you be happier with a male or female supervisor?" and like that, depending on the conditions of that particular work-place. An interview can focus on the specifics of the desired "fit", where an anonymous test can only classify in broad terms. For instance, someone who rates high on Neuroticism may be perfect for the position of archivist if they're anxious, shy and depression-prone - not if they're suspicious, hostile and angry. These categories are not tailored suits; they're kaftans. PS If I were to choose one, I'd also prefer M-B over B5, even though it was panned as unscientific, while B5 gained credibility because it was made by academic professionals. There are many, many other personality tests that don't get as much respect at the monet.... but just wait till Walmart starts marketing their own version and watch it become the industry standard overnight. If you've ever worked for, as or with executives, you'll know how quick they are to clamber onto any bandwagon labelled Better Management. My objection is not so much to the test itself, which seems harmless, but to the reliance being placed on it, rather than exercising judgment. Sure, everybody limps sometimes - and they should sit out that race. And personnel managers who can't assess potential employees by listening, probably should have some other assignment. It would be interesting to see how many employees who had been hired on the basis of such a test are still happy in their placement five years later.

Actually, that's not a bad analogy. In a linear history, events and ideas draw from and add to preceding events and ideas. Einstein had the writings of Newton and many other earlier scientists to learn from and build on. Jesus had some education in scripture - whatever was written about and by the prophets of Israel before him - and drew from that tradition, then added his own advice to his people in his own time. Muhammad followed about 600 years later, bringing the example of Jesus, plus the Roman and Egyptian versions of Christianity as they developed after Jesus, and adding his own advice for his own people. Caveat: Whether a prophet is "correct" is considerably harder to test and judge than whether a scientist is correct.

He didn't need to; it wasn't part of his ministry: he was just doing the host of the wedding feast a favour. (It was the popes who later turned wine into his blood, because he had one time used that as symbol of commitment to his disciples.) Jesus had nothing to to do with Muhammad: he was not even in the same society that Muhammad later wanted to reform. Jesus was looking a whole different set of problems, from a different point of view, in a different nation, in a different time.

No, Muhammad himself had very few problems. Though an orphan, he had a good upbringing and varied work experience - including camel driver and a stretch with a Bedouin tribe, which gave him insight into how Arabs were living, thinking and feeling. He was a successful businessman and married a rich (?widow) much older than himself - because she trusted him to run her considerable enterprise. In his travels and dealings, he learned about the Hebrew and christian belief systems, and realized that religion can be a powerful uniting force. It's exactly what his own people needed. If he forbade alcohol, it was to save them from a potentially serious threat. Not just alcohol - all intoxicants.

The five are so vague and general, they're more like descriptions of a behaviour pattern than individual traits. For example, Extraversion means that someone prefers to be with other people, is talkative, assertive, energetic, seeks activity and bustle. It doesn't tell you why they chose those responses. So, this can be someone who's afraid to be alone, or someone who wants to rule the world, or just a bluff, hearty fellow who likes a good time. Or, as in my case, someone who lied on the test. Neuroticism includes even more behaviours and attitudes that can stem even more varied sources and do not necessarily occur together, but will be rated as if they all meant the same thing in terms of one's job performance - all of which applicants would probably conceal.

No, it doesn't. Your own personality determines how you communicate - including whether you can adapt your communication style to different personalities. The fact that a lot of executives buy into something doesn't prove that something is useful; it just means that executives tend to latch onto the latest fad, buzz-word and "cutting-edge tool" in order to avoid making actual independent decisions and make fewer attributable mistakes. Of course it is. It's also quite common to to believe that the sun goes around the earth and the Corona virus vaccine contains nannomikes. No, that's not a fair comparison. Executives are not wingnuts; they're just conformist and credulous. They'll buy whatever they can be convinced will improve their effectiveness. Since the psychologists are committed to this fad, the executives take that as proof that it works: after all, it's Scientific. .... is it?

That, I do understand. I wonder, though: isn't that snake eating its own tail? Does a psychologist really learn anything new about how people think and feel by shoving them into boxes of his own construction? I'm not convinced that it's either wise or informative to reduce the most complex computing system in the universe to plane geometry. I didn't miss it; I echoed it and elaborated on it: It's the purpose of the test I'm curious about. At work, you see their work habits and you set their tasks. That's what you communicate about. The rest of their psyche is - or should be - off limits to the employer. If you're a a co-worker, you already which of your peer can't be approached before lunch; which chew their fingernails, which spill the sugar and don't wipe it up; which contribute to the retirement present. As a supervisor, you already know whether they're conscientious or haphazard, careful or reckless, fast or slow learners. If you want to communicate better, try talking differently - it's not going to be solved by sitting them down with a form to fill out. Besides, you can't change your own personality or communication style to suit every category of worker. I don't think so. I think they categorize for many reasons, one of which is organizing the data we have about the world for convenience of comparison and and fact-checking of fresh data. Categorizing people by type (or gender, or race or income) doesn't help understand the world; it only puts them "in their place" in some particular hierarchy of value. That's why I'm especially leery of the use of such tests by personnel officers. I think i'd hire just the candidates who refuse to take the test. None of those jobs are assigned on the basis of a personality test. The process is either far more rigorous (astronaut, spy) or far less (ambassador).

Of course you can. They're all closely related. Judaism is a construct, that took many generations of nomadic pastoral life to construct from the ancient Middle Eastern mythologies, and then another 1500-1800 years to develop as a national belief system. Christianity was born of Judaism under the Roman occupation, and was later elaborated into its european form by Roman empire. Muhammad, as a young man, knew both Judaism and Christianity. His ideal was for "the people of the book" to respect one another, and their slightly different relationships to the same Creator. How you pray in public is cultural: a set of rituals were laid down and became traditional. How you pray in private is personal: it's entirely a matter between you and your deity. BTW, if you want the stories behind Judaism and christianity, here is a pretty good bible https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-Chapter-1/

Why do you need a test to realize that everyone isn't the same? You identify dominant behaviours in the people you witness acting in a particular environment. Those same people may differently - that is, exhibit more of a different set of their traits - in another environment. They may not always have behaved the same way before some transformative experience or pivotal event or the influence of a cult. Had this person been brought up in India, where some of his traits were disapproved of, he would have learned to suppress those traits and develop the ones that are rewarded. People to a different part of the world have to learn this in adulthood and are less successful, just as they are with a new language, but children do it automatically, without even knowing it. Then there is deliberate presentation of self in various situations: in the classroom, or doctor's office, or football pitch, people put on an appropriate personality, some of which is not entirely genuine. That goes triple for taking a personality test administered by a potential employer. They're not exactly hard to fake! Those categorizations have little in common. How many categories of and distinct characteristics do soft-drinks have? But it's easy to find similarities among all canines or all bovines and differences between canines and bovines. However, humans are a single species with going on 8 billion variants. Why do you need to classify them at all? For determining people's peronality traits even in a rather rough and not comprehensive manner. I got that part. But - What is the purpose of determining their personality type? If you need to know what somebody's like, why can't you just have a conversation with them? Body language, tone, facial expression, eye movement, word choice and inflection are infinitely more difficult to fake than a multiple choice standard form. In what language? How well does it translate? Yes, I can see its usefulness to the psychology industry and the personnel files of corporate offices. I just can't see its usefulness to people.

I question the value - and perhaps even the validity - of classifying "personality" in the first place. What, exactly is a personality type? Every intelligent entity has a personality made up of innate and learned traits, early childhood stimuli, experience, memory, associations, education, environmental and physical influences. I don't believe any adult character can be reduced to five or six vaguely defined factors. In comparison to what degree of calm is a person neurotic? Is the same behaviour agreeable in Manhattan and Sensai? In what culture is extraversion admired and in which is it seen as pushy? What I'm really asking is : What is this test for?