Negatory

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/martin-gugino-buffalo-police-charges-dismissed_n_60269ba1c5b6d667582c4804 This is absurd and part of why aspects of the BLM protests were totally legitimate. I mean. It's on video for god's sake. Police should not be allowed to inflict grievous bodily harm whenever they want to without being held accountable. Cases like these show that reform is absolutely warranted and needed. And what should people do when the system doesn't change and protects itself?

Yeah, so it’s a 20% loss straight up, and market matching makes up part of it to result in closer to 5-10% assuming all goes well.

I mean, in reality, BRS is only a loss of 5-10% if you get the match (and the market works as per normal).

Yeah, I get where you’re coming from but count me as a skeptic. Where some see security and beauty, I see an imperfect technology that didn’t fulfill its original vision with significantly better alternatives (personally, for example, I believe eth will eclipse BTC in market cap in the next few years). It will be interesting to see if they can actually make second layer things like lightning network make sense or complete their rebranding to digital gold.

Entirely untrue. ADA, BCH, BNB, XRP, LTC, LINK, XLM. All have fixed max supplies, and those are just the top 10. There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies with similar structures to BTC. BTC is actually still in the process of inflation, by the way, with 18.6M currently mined and 2.4M still to be produced in the future. On a side note, tons of people - myself included - hate BTC when compared to many other cryptos. Originally envisioned as “peer to peer cash” that wouldn’t require a bank, it now takes at least 10 minutes to send most transactions and costs $20 regardless of how much you’re sending. Sending $10 to your bro? That will be $30. Oh, also, the energy costs are INSANE and entirely unsustainable, but that’s another topic. Elon Musk investing in BTC actually convinced me that it really is dumb money that makes the world go round. But if Tesla can exist with a P/E ratio of 1300, there’s apparently a lot of dumb money. People will pump whatever the mainstream media will talk about. And now that people on BO are speculating about BTC, it’s probably getting close to time to sell. Another fun fact: it takes approximately 4 times more energy to send a BTC transaction over the network than it does to charge a Tesla. Source: have a pretty wide crypto “portfolio” and have for years. Was invested in BTC but am ENTIRELY divested from it for the last 4 years. Still made a little over 1100% this year on crypto currencies that aren’t so useless.

I think we’re being baited. Masterfully.

The hypothesis was that Republicans and Democrats have a difference in the likelihood to be vaccinated. JimNTexas accurately showed that historically, as recently as 2015, there’s been little difference. Unfortunately, polls this year show that this is no longer the case. Republicans are clearly less likely to say they’ll get vaccinated for COVID-19. You show up and say that this is meaningless because they didn’t ask every American why they answered a specific question, ignoring the fact that that is entirely unrelated to the debate:

Explain the significant difference in political willingness to take the vaccine, then. Is your point that Republicans don’t trust the government more often? Because that still means that there is a political likelihood to vaccinate.

In this case, you’re source is outdated (2015). While this is generally true absent external factors, it’s not true now. As of this year, an “R” next to your name means you’re significantly less likely to get vaccinated, and it’s necessary to recognize this and understand why. Root cause: politicization of COVID-19.

I see your points, especially about things like minimum wage that are localized. I am just wary about the ability to stonewall the majority. As easily as the majority can overrun the minority, there is a tyranny of the minority that must be kept in check as well. Thanks for the response.

Who’s looking forward to living in Amazon-ville, NV? https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/nevada/articles/2021-02-04/nevada-bill-would-allow-tech-companies-to-create-governments This needs to be constitutionally outlawed.

You’re missing the point. The argument is about how the government should be to achieve our ideals. And if you think modern day American government is the same as when it created, you’re not watching. There have been more insidious and non drastic changes to our legislature that have popped up in recent history that have shifted the balance towards a differently balanced republic than originally intended. Two examples: the capping of representatives at 435 and the increased proclivity of things like the filibuster that give more power to minority states than originally intended. There, now we’ve gone full circle.

It’s kind of funny, because I would support making a smart nationalized decision for the United States. And I would 100% desire nuclear waste from New York, Texas, and California to go to places that aren’t populated. Say, South Dakota. Another example you will likely disagree with: I wouldn’t support “oil or coal states” getting to make up their own rules that counteract national policy just to maintain state jobs.

Like I said, we can agree to disagree. I would 100% vote to enact a compromise closer to direct democracy with ranked choice voting. Just saying “we’re a republic” doesn’t actually address a single argument made.

Infinitely more transparent than private credit bureaus, especially with FOIA requests. Or am I missing something?

We’ll agree to disagree. Taken to an extreme, imagine it’s 2050 and only 100 people total lived in the 21 least populated states and 100 million lived in Texas. 100 people shouldn’t be able to stonewall the rest of society. All men are created equal and deserve fairly equal representation in their government. We are at the point now where it’s not even close. There is a limit, and the system as it is now is not a universal truth.

Functionally, whether it’s an actual 24 hour reading or a pushing of the entire agenda by 41 senators, it’s the same. The founders intended on majority rules in the legislature. That’s how the constitution is written. That’s no longer a thing. Now, less than 15% of the population of the US (the population of the least populated 21 states) can stonewall all legislation. I get that that is nice for conservatism and not changing anything. Is that in line with the intent of government? Should Wyoming votes count 68 times more than California votes when it comes to legislation? Or do you defend it because it benefits “conservatism?”

Ok dude. Tell me - even talk down to me - how “it’s clear” my understanding is flawed.

We can agree to disagree. Personally, I believe that our current form of government is most definitely not optimal and should be updated. Many of you will say that is not the case. Some of you will say that’s not the case because it was designed this way from the beginning. Malarkey. I have read the federalist and anti federalist papers, and I’m not convinced they have as much foresight as you think. I personally believe that - hot take - the founding fathers couldn’t actually predict everything that would happen in a complex modern society. And I believe their glorification is actually counterproductive to discussions about how to change things to work better in a society that no longer resembles 1770s New England. I mean, the original government of the US only had to represent the ideals of a couple million homogenous white American males who all lived in the same place and did the same thing for a living. It’s more akin to the governance of Delaware, New Hampshire, or Vermont than a multicultural, 4000 mile wide nation with vastly varying interests, beliefs, and economic factors. And we are feeling the cultural issues with non-homogeneity and have been ever since our country expanded. A few obvious mistakes: the original constitution still enabled the oppression and non-representation of women and slaves. The founding fathers knew that a two party system would be a terrible thing for government, yet they couldn’t do anything or have any foresight to stop its formation. Additionally, I must say that our government since the early 1900s has taken sharp turns away from the original founding with both formal laws and amendments and informal changes, whether it comes to how/how many electors are appointed, how senators are chosen, tactics to stonewall legitimate legislation and appointment of officials, or powers of the executive/legislative branch. “We the people” used to mean a lot more when they had proportional representation, yet it was casually changed just so it was easier to deal with. And my point is that the changes that have led to the current American government are not necessarily a good thing. You could call me pro-reform. Pragmatically, we don’t stand a chance of uniting and making valid national change to strategy without a new boogeyman. The World Wars and Cold War were the only thing that brought Americans together over the last century, and without them, we resort to infighting. For many Republicans, their only policy is that they want to “own the libs.” Beyond that, they’re stumped. Many Democrats just want to expel “fascist Republicans” and sing Kumbayah. And now we on this forum are fighting about whether or not it is a valid tactic to read a cookbook for 16 hours because the majority of people don’t agree with your point. YGBSM. Maybe the actual governmental system is f*cked if people have to do that as a “balance of power.”

What specifically does this mean?

I don’t think you understand. I don’t support Democrat or Republican filibusters. They’re all horseshit, and your opinion article doesn’t present any real reasons for them. And youre delusional if you think its current usage is whatsoever in line with effective governance. Also, it’s so-called “nuclear” usage in the past 40 years is new. With it especially peaking in... checks notes... the senates of the Obama presidency. The only thing it actually does is stop legislation when the house and the senate aren’t the same color. That’s when filibusters happen, and it’s not conducive to any legislative effectiveness. But I guess, overall, policies that aren’t conducive to legislative effectiveness help the Republican mantra that the government is ineffective. Mind you, republicans support policies that hamstring effectiveness because it limits scary change. Oogabooga!

You’re really grasping at straws if you think that a grown man reciting Shakespeare or reading a recipe book for 24 hours is a constitutional way to force a majority to not pass legislation. My eyes immediately glaze over when I hear that someone supports the holy filibuster. Imagine the founding fathers in the senate when this happens. A lively debate brews. A majority of 51 votes is obvious. An idiot gets up front and runs the clock out by reciting the dictionary for 18 hours. “WTF is happening?” asks Ben Franklin. “Well, we tried,” says John Adams. “No, I give up. These guys are f*cked,” ends Thomas Jefferson.

I’ll entirely agree that the whole of QAnon are not Republican voters. But the majority are.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/npr-misinformation-123020 https://www.wbur.org/npr/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories And that’s called statistics of a representative sample size, brother. It’s not casual and I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is. Legitimately, that many people, plus or minus a few %, are there in their belief system, whether you like it or not. Maybe THAT’s what’s wrong with political discourse in this country.

Oh, this ones easy. I think you draw the line somewhere between the 16% of Americans that think “A group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” and the 12% that think “Several mass shoutings in recent years were staged hoaxes.” So you can choose between 39-53 million people. I mean, I get why the Republican Party has a hard time disavowing these people, it’s a lot of idiots!