Please. Look at what's happening in the Ukraine. Can you see the US invading Mexico or Canada and keeping the territory because our President was a megalomaniac?
Even when we do invade somewhere to take out someone like UBL, Saddam Hussein, or Noriega; when we're done we clean up, rebuild some infrastructure, and leave.
No other nation on earth in history has restricted the wars it fights in such a principled way, rather than using them as excuses to just take more territory.
Of course Clapper isn't going to be punished. Holder was held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling on Fast and Furious, but since pursuit of his punishment would require action from an Obama political appointee, nothing will happen.
No one went to jail for the Wall Street fiasco.
No one was fired for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq.
We still don't know anything about Benghazi while some poor sap who published a video rots in jail as a scapegoat... no one will suffer consequences.
No one in this administration will cooperate in determining the origins, extent, and details of the IRS attack on conservative political groups.
The list of government protecting its own goes on forever.
Why is anyone surprised that things are the same for this particular scandal? Particularly with this administration that gets a lot of political cover from the press?
Each house of Congress has inherent contempt powers and can jail people, in the Capitol if necessary. They haven't exercised that power since 1934, these days they refer contemptors to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The older power still remains though and is on very firm Constitutional grounds (though for a cabinet official there are issues of executive privilege).
More generally it's hard to take Congressional complaints of executive overreaching seriously when Congress refuses to utilize any of the many tools at its disposal.
Thing is, though, I don't think Clapper would fit into this slot. Unlike other examples, he testified, the only problem is that he lied in it.
Our Founding Fathers were very careful to separate executive and legislative powers, very much different and in reaction to the Westminster parliamentary system they had after all rebelled against. So I don't see the Congress having the power to go beyond jailing someone to force them to testify (their being the nation's Grand Inquisitor is part of our small 'c' constitution if not explicitly in the written one).
If you want to see Clapper clapped in irons, elect a non-Democratic Party President with a spine, and hope he doesn't get a pardon before then.
There have been several cases over the years of punitive contempt (as opposed to contempt to compel testimony) by Congress. In fact, in early US history it was most often used to punish bribery attempts.
When you work in a body with a 13% public approval rating, you'd think there would be little effect political suicide could have.
More seriously: I think it'd be a wild-card maneuver, but I honestly don't know that it would be political suicide. Some people are angry at Congress for being ineffective. Some people are angry at the administration for failing to check the powers it has been given along lines of "decency" and restraint. I don't think those people would be sad to see Congress start using its authority as a non-executive branch.
Who cares what the public thinks? They'll worry over how their party and the opposing party will react to it. There's probably a reason it hasn't been done in almost 100 years. It would be political suicide because they would likely be shunned amongst their own peers.
When you're in theater, you don't kick the other actors off the stage. The others might do the same to you.
Never mind the press going crazy over the silly headlines they'll be able to craft regardless of the actual situation.
Henrich’s work with the ultimatum game was an example of a small but growing countertrend in the social sciences, one in which researchers look straight at the question of how deeply culture shapes human cognition.
It's so sad that academics in the social sciences fields are terrified to ask honest questions that they might not like the answers to.
I guess that's the reason that social sciences get disrespected so heavily.
The funny thing is that the REAL question that these people don't want to face is "Are these differences more than just cultural? Are they genetic?"
They'd as soon ask that question as a Baptist congregation would seriously ponder Occam's Razor and a need to posit a deity.
Please drop the stereotype of the social sciences. And yes, there's been plenty of studies on genetics in the social sciences.
I always find the hostility some HN members have towards the social sciences to be rather weird. Half of what HN is here for is firmly in the bailiwick of the social sciences. A/B testing? Better marketing? Understanding your employees better? Taking care of yourself so you don't burn out? All of this stuff is the much-maligned social sciences.
Some people have this stereotype that all psychologists are touchy-feely hippies, and they're really not.
Please drop the stereotype of the social sciences.
Did you read the article? These researchers were legitimately frightened at how their work would be received and in my opinion it's only heretical in a minor way... AND THEY'RE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS!
I always find the hostility some HN members have towards the social sciences
Yeah, that's why my original post (that in a computer analysis context wouldn't have raised an eyebrow) is being moderated into the dirt.
This comment breaks at least three of the HN guidelines: it's uncivil ("Did you read the article?"), uses all caps for emphasis, and complains about being downvoted.
>The funny thing is that the REAL question that these people don't want to face is "Are these differences more than just cultural? Are they genetic?"
Only if you consider American to describe a particular set of genetics does this question even make sense.
edit: Western and American are not descriptions of genes. Unless Westerners or Americans cluster in their responses to a test based on how closely related they are, this "question that these people don't want to face" is code rather than honest question.
Only if you consider American to describe a particular set of genetics does this question even make sense.
It's not about having the exact same genetics.
For example, it might be about sets of genes or functionally equivalent sets of genes that function in a similar manner despite appearing in members of ostensibly different "races".
The article mentioned that students are chosen for these experiments. Maybe students self-select for having particular genetic sets so you end up with homogenous-enough results that are going to differ radically from the results obtained from genetically isolated groups in other parts of the world.
You start talking about genes, and people panic and worry that you're talking about race. Genes are more complex than that.
And BAM, there goes the moderation hammer for uncomfortable thoughts.
If we were talking about whether flaws in a computer system were because of the data fed in, the software running it, the hardware, or impurities in the silicon -- we'd all be very clinical and think about it rationally (minus a few Linux/Windows/Mac flames).
But when talking about analyzing basic differences in people, there are elements in the community that can't even hear the blasphemy.
Sadly, this is why the social sciences will never make progress. A fear of really looking in and doing the Science is why the social sciences will always resemble a cargo cult in its lack of real value.
Go ahead, mod me down until this text is one with the background. It won't improve or validate your religious-like belief system because it just isn't good Science.
Meh, and you'd think that a singer as popular as Justin Bieber actually produced good music.
Bitcooin like any tool from the invention of fire
Well, yeah... Mr. Stross doesn't trust people to make their own decisions about using something like bitcoin, but he seems to advocate trusting those same people to vote for government overlords who will create rules that all of us should live by.
Big government socialist type doesn't like financial decentralization and a monetary system that can't be strictly controlled. Wants it to die quickly because ultimately free people might decide that it's worth keeping and using. News at 11.
I seriously doubt Charles Stross is skeptical of bitcoin because he hates and fears freedom. That kind of hyperbole only serves to feed cynicism about bitcoin and its community, particularly given the assumption that the article wasn't even worth a glance for you, because obviously "not liking bitcoin" = "globalist shill."
If someone's not going to like Bitcoin, at least give better reasons than crappy strawman ones like, it's being used for illicit markets (what currency isn't?), it's uses a lot of electricity (what bank doesn't?), criminals outsource mining to botnets (along with other illicit activities like pushing spam which existed before Bitcoin mining, your point?)...and then downright puerile remarks like tickling a gold fetish? Jesus christ. If he's not a "globalist shill", he definitely has next to no societal context on Bitcoin and has gotten his information from CNN and the like who equally don't understand it.
Meh, I have never owned a bitcoin. Never mined one. Don't intend to do so soon.
I'm pretty ambivalent about bitcoins. I view them as something people want to trade with each other. They're an interesting experiment in new ways to break free of some problems of fiat currencies and precious metal currencies. If they survive it's because people find some value in them. Good for them.
I read Stross's article because I was curious about arguments against bitcoin. All I read was a bunch of knee-jerk emotional dribble about carbon footprints, lack of taxability, and the dreaded "some people own too many".
tl;dr mixed-market capitalist says Bitcoin is problematic because it's a vapid libertarian talking point disguised as a currency. HN user replies with vapid libertarian talking points.
I really like this author's writing style. The prose flows and is fairly tight yet colorful.
That said, his angst seems to be misplaced.
When younger, he seized upon Sagan's rules as though they were The Way(tm)... and now he's disillusioned that they haven't made him invincible. Then he tries to use mostly logical argumentation to explain how the Baloney Detector Kit is flawed. That's ironic.
I guess he has a brain that wants really badly to see everything in black and white - but at least he's smart enough to reason past that.
I would argue that the baloney detector kit, his skepticism, and similar logical mechanisms are all that has kept this individual from going over the ideological cliff into unshakable belief syndrome.
That manifesto completely contradicts itself mostly. I'm not sure which of my contentions (that OWS was protesting against the huge bailouts or that they are of the same ideological bent as the Tea Party) you're referring to but there are enough points in the linked manifesto to support either including :
We are living in a world controlled by forces incapable of giving freedom and dignity to the world´s population (if, indeed, they ever were). A world where we are told ‘there is no alternative’ to the loss of rights achieved through the long, hard struggles of our ancestors.
Yes, point 1 is clearly socialist in nature but point 2 is clearly democratic in nature. This is the inherent problem of trying to singularly define a movement that is made up grassroots organizations, each with their own agenda. But the theme behind all of them is the social and economic inequality that resulted from the bailouts. The societal themes that brought both OWS and the Tea Party to life were the same. How they went about addressing them may have been different but the underlying hopes were very similar.
Even when we do invade somewhere to take out someone like UBL, Saddam Hussein, or Noriega; when we're done we clean up, rebuild some infrastructure, and leave.
No other nation on earth in history has restricted the wars it fights in such a principled way, rather than using them as excuses to just take more territory.