Politics Thread: Silicon Valley Edition

[Guard Dog]

 

By rooted in reality I was more referring to acknowledging that things that are facts, as facts. Something diplomats don't really do.

see, this is what I mean

Symbolism wields tremendous power

 

Actually, it does not.

 

Edit: Sun Tzu would agree with you by the way. He wrote "War is a moral contest won in the temples before ever being fought on a battlefield".

 

In all due deference to both the great general and yourself, I disagree. Symbolic gestures that change nothing are meaningless. Outcomes and results are the only things that matter.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Guard Dog

[Epaminondas]

Symbolism is important for people who buy into the symbols. The people voting at the UN might not buy into the symbols since they're behind the curtain, but they're playing a part for an audience. The problem with the UN is that the symbolic gestures that it makes are manifestly impotent. If people cease to believe the UN wields moral authority, then it becomes completely irrelevant. I don't have much use for it as an institution, but it *has* served to provide legitimacy to many American endeavors globally and we should at least recognize that we're part of the problem when it comes to the UN.

 

I'm more interested in outcomes rather than history, but there's no way to know what will happen if we see an actual dismantling of the UN. Anyone who says he can say for certain how that all shakes down is more than welcome to propose his prognostication here. However, my prognostication is that UN pretty much continues in status quo fashion until it whimpers itself to death in a corner some considerable time from now. The alternative, that it completely crashes, makes my prognostication irrelevant because I'll be more concerned about keeping my family alive than making global predictions. That's not because the UN fell apart so quickly, but nothing has inertia like a big bureaucracy. If the UN came to a crashing halt immediately, some other horrible event will have caused it, and *that* is scary.

[Darkpriest]

UN is glorified League of Nations. It's long gone past the purpose and its real efficiency and credibility is long gone, and all due to its own decisions.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Darkpriest

[Volourn]

The UN has always been anti Isreal as evidenced by the fact way too disportional resolutions are against it. Let's be honest, if not for the US THE UN would have already  called for Isreal's total destruction.   But nazi organzations do that.

[Blarghagh]

Total destruction? How'd that go down?

[Chilloutman]

Total destruction? How'd that go down?

 

Kinda like in Germany 1940

[Ben No.3]

 

Total destruction? How'd that go down?

Kinda like in Germany 1940

he said “destruction of Israel”, not “genocide of all jews”

 

So I assume blue helmets will soon be seen patrolling Jerusalem, or how am I to imagine this?

[Malcador]

Reminds me to donate to UNICEF this year.

Edited December 23, 2017 by Malcador

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

Total destruction? How'd that go down?

Kinda like in Germany 1940

he said “destruction of Israel”, not “genocide of all jews”

So I assume blue helmets will soon be seen patrolling Jerusalem, or how am I to imagine this?

If Israel is unable to take over Palestinan land, all Jews will be rounded up and killed by the NazBol Gang.

[Darkpriest]

So first fund cuts are official - 2018 will see over 200mil less USD to UN from US of A

[Malcador]

UN is glorified League of Nations. It's long gone past the purpose and its real efficiency and credibility is long gone, and all due to its own decisions.

Which decisions ? And by UN staff or things like the Five?

[smjjames]

 

UN is glorified League of Nations. It's long gone past the purpose and its real efficiency and credibility is long gone, and all due to its own decisions.

Which decisions ? And by UN staff or things like the Five?

 

 

A whole bunch of things really, and it sort of depends on who you ask. Having countries not known for excellent human rights standards on the Human Rights Comittee is one.

 

It still functions as a place to air grievances without resorting to violence and as a nerve center for diplomacy.

 

The UN has definetly had it's impact on history and it's hard to tell at a glance whether we'd be better off without the UN or with it.

[ShadySands]

Why Some Homeowners Are Scrambling To Prepay Their 2018 Property Taxes

 

Part of the Republican tax overhaul that President Trump signed into law last week has homeowners around the country doing something unusual: rushing to pay their 2018 property taxes well before the due date.

 

That's because the new law includes a $10,000 cap on the amount of state and local taxes people can deduct on their federal returns. Before, if someone paid $24,000 in property taxes — as some people in higher tax states like New York and California do — and then paid $20,000 in state and local income taxes they were allowed to deduct $44,000 on their federal tax return. Now that number is capped at $10,000. The change could cost some people thousands of dollars.

 

"I'm sending my checks in today," says Vanessa Merton of Hastings-On-Hudson, N.Y. She estimates the law change will cost her between $6,000 and $9,000. She hopes to delay that hit by pre-paying next year's taxes before December 31 so she can deduct them on her 2017 taxes.

[Epaminondas]

Yeah, I have at least one friend who's going to be hit hard by the SALT changes. I have another friend who insists there's a new cap on capital gains, which I don't believe to be true. Capital gains are pretty much the same except that, since the marginal rate determines the Capital Gains rate, that might end up changing it. Maybe an actual accountant can speak to that. There will be some people who will pay more in taxes. I'm irritated at the carried interest loophole. I understand the idea is to encourage investment, which is the idea behind capital gains, but I think it's abused. Mostly, I prefer the government not use taxation as a means to encourage one sector or another. If a business model, service, or product provides something good, it will manage to thrive. There are cases where the government sped along an industry greatly, but, contrary to popular views, I don't think those industries would have failed, merely taken longer to get off the ground. Meanwhile, the taxes in the aggregate have gotten so confusing and so ridden with special interest loopholes that any one industry taking longer to get off the ground doesn't make up for the stupidity that is our bureaucracy. The only except, and this is because it's such a multiplier, would be if the child credit actually encouraged more people to have children. I actually doubt it does, but if we could improve our birthrate in this country, we could do something that's pie in the sky right now, which is grow our way out of deficits. Seriously, the West is in the process of killing itself off by the slow suicide of low, no, or negative birthrates.

[smjjames]

The only problem with increasing the birthrate as a solution is that you won't see them entering the workforce a year or two from now and won't help any kind of short term solution. So, if you rely on an increased birth rate as a solution to growth, you won't see growth until 16-17 (technically 15, but this is accounting for up to a year attempting to concieve and then gestation time)  years later at minimum, probably longer.

 

Given that, you have to think of solutions that help growth now and in the short to medium term because trying to boost birth rate does nothing for that and if you don't deal with the problems hindering growth now, the hypotnetical baby boom is just going to hit those same problems.

 

Also, the birth rate is actually declining everywhere, yes, even Africa, though they have a longer way to go. It's a result of developing countries catching up to developed countries. Plus some of that negative is coming from the demographic shift of baby boomers dying off.

 

Keep in mind that population growth isn't going to happen forever, it would require infinite resources. Population is going to increase until it reaches some sort of equilibrium.

[redneckdevil]

That's a good thing that population growth is actually declining though right?

[smjjames]

Good for the planet in general, yeah, but everybody is still facing the demographic shift (more of a slow earthquake really) that is coming from the baby boomers (from the last period of massive population growth) retiring out of the workforce. The US actually has a positive birthrate from immigration, but that doesn't change the demographic shift.

[Epaminondas]

Having good population growth is good for economic and geopolitical reasons. Inevitably, if populations continue to grow, our technology will have to get to the point where we can harvest resources from other places in the solar system. That's a pipe dream because I don't think anyone is seriously contemplating *real* moves. I mean, mission to Mars? I'll believe that when I see them doing something.

 

I disagree with the idea that our population declining is a good thing. It might not be bad if everyone else's were declining at the same time. I think immigration is good, but only inasmuch as the immigrants buy into societal values. However, I do agree that the population growing will be bad unless we develop technology to overcome obstacles like overcrowding, illness, and malnutrition that will arise. Right now, those are by and large regional or local conditions, but they'll become the norm unless we can figure out new ways to secure more resources.

[smjjames]

Well yeah, the population will grow if theres incentive for it or various factors allow for it and as I said, if the resources don't support the population, then the population will decline. We probably have to wait until the baby boomer generation passes into the ether to see the real trajectory, but it's more that the population growth is just slowing down to a more reasonable pace than the massive burst in the 20th century.

 

I think we as a species will be just fine with birth rates and there are no hints of any sort of birthrate crisis as certain people (nobody on this forum) make it out to be. Like any population, we are just reaching an equilibrium, but we still have to deal with the social and economic issues that come from reaching an equilibrium or a slow, but steady, population growth. The massive spike in population growth in the 20th century wasn't the norm for most of history.

[ShadySands]

Hmm, I've made no people. I feel like I'm letting you all down.

[Epaminondas]

I'm more looking at it from a large state power projection point of view. Population growth can only be in equilibrium if it's universal. The countries that are seeing a decline in population weren't suffering from deprivation in the first place and now some of those countries are seeing their own cultures declining as well. Some values are under attack from within those cultures and an influx of immigrants who harbor competing views. Perhaps values will change under the weight of new popular views about freedom of speech, due process, and presumption of innocence to name just a few. The problem is the left often seems to see the very idea of culture and values as a reason for ridicule or attack. However, Every group of people has shared values and something that we might as well call a culture. The difference is in western society, there's been enough room to sustain a common culture while having space for a number of powerful counter-cultures. Perhaps we're no longer so strong as once we were.

 

See, I have no doubt that our species has plenty of room to stick around and can probably sustain tremendous population growth as long as technology keeps pace. That's been the way of things for a long time, although there's the ever present danger of assuming things that have always been will always be. It's not our species that concerns me, it's our culture. It's our values. It's our ways. Sure, if those decline all is well. Almost impossible to kill ideas, maybe even completely impossible in the grand scheme of things and enough people, but one does like to see one's own side on the winning side of the battle. The wheel of time turns slowly and the pendulum can go a long way before it begins its backswing.

 

So, native population growth would be greatly beneficial for the United States, as well as assimilating immigrants, but the things that have made us great have made us fat. Our failings won't be our demise. Our successes have resulted in incontinence and complacency that might be enough. Then again, all earthly things fail eventually.

[Agiel]

Mike Huckabee went on a tear recently drawing comparisons between Trump and Churchill, evidently after having watched Darkest Hour. I think the irony of Trump's rallying cry of "America First" last being used by the crowd that was very much in favour of throwing Churchill under the bus might be lost on Huckabee.

[pmp10]

Keep in mind that population growth isn't going to happen forever, it would require infinite resources. Population is going to increase until it reaches some sort of equilibrium.

That's assuming there is anything like an equilibrium.

There is an argument to be made that decline in birth rates could be a one way trip.

[Elerond]

 

Keep in mind that population growth isn't going to happen forever, it would require infinite resources. Population is going to increase until it reaches some sort of equilibrium.

That's assuming there is anything like an equilibrium.

There is an argument to be made that decline in birth rates could be a one way trip.

 

 

Population equilibrium is not constant, as it constantly changed by new scientific discoveries, declining natural resource and living space. Also changes in climate and even changes in societal norms effect on it.

 

Birth rates and populations can decline century and then have sudden change of course and start rapidly increase for next century and then go back to decline and so on. We as species have big advantage in fact that we can actually monitor and effect on our population growth and decline and our birth rates in multitude of ways.

 

Baby boomer generation was actually very untypical thing to happen, not because of lots of babies were born but that majority of them survived to adulthood, which is thing that is new phenomenon made possible by advances in medical technologies, food production and housing. I mean world population crossed over 1 billion in 1800s and now we are closing 8 billion. Any other species on this planet cannot sustain such population growth for ~200 years without of aid from humans even then it is usually becomes soon unsustainable.

[pmp10]

Birth rates and populations can decline century and then have sudden change of course and start rapidly increase for next century and then go back to decline and so on.

Births could start to massively increase but nothing indicates that they will.

Historically fertility rates that have fallen below replacement level are almost never coming back to that point.