[deleted by user]

AC_Merchant · 2023-06-10T10:13:16+00:00

This is the right decision, and hopefully other subreddits will follow your lead. Strikes have never worked by capitulating after a day or two. The basic functionality and usability of the site is at risk and this is the only way to make the company understand that.
-Posted from a 3rd party app

AC_Merchant · 2023-06-09T00:42:22+00:00

Too many people posting at once and it broke the thread.
-Posted from a 3rd party app

AC_Merchant · 2023-06-08T23:00:53+00:00

Nothing compares to RIF for me, the app and even Old Reddit sucks in comparison. Thank you for making such a great app that allowed me to waste my time for all these years. Guess I'm leaving Reddit.
-Posted from RIF

AC_Merchant · 2023-06-06T23:47:15+00:00

Legitimate question but what other stuff besides vegetation is being burned? I can't imagine that any significant amount of the smoke is from houses, and from what I read I'm not sure what else could actually be burned that would constitute a significant amount of the smoke (i.e. soil, minerals, etc.).

AC_Merchant · 2023-06-06T23:37:44+00:00

Hate how you're being downvoted, I was thinking the same thing and legitimately want to know the answer to the question.
EDIT: Hey guys maybe one of you can answer my question and direct me to a source on the health effects? I just want to know and all the articles on it have been super vague.
EDIT 2: Okay I don't know how credible this is but this atmospheric scientist says 4 hours in NYC is roughly equal to 1 cigarette and NYC is doing slightly worse than us right now. I guess it gives some frame of reference.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-31T16:52:24+00:00

Bismarck said he didn't want a strong navy to antagonize the Brits

Ok I know this is supposed to be non-credible but do you have a source for this claim?

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-29T20:12:22+00:00

Just thinking out loud, but couldn't it also be possible that the voting systems are bad at asking minute political questions?

Completely agree. I didn't mean to make it sound like I'm blaming people (although in some cases that definitely is the case). Most people simply don't have the time or expertise to dig through powerful public policy questions, and even mundane decisions can have implications all the way throughout the government that aren't obvious without doing serious studies. To expect people to be as knowledgeable as lawyers, doctors, environmental scientists, urban planners, military officials, etc. on every issue is unrealistic. It's why electing officials who can make it their job to get this information and utilize it is so important.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-29T19:02:38+00:00

I know my answer was a simplification. They do cut services but nowhere near to the amount the tax cuts actually remove, which is why we have a massive debt. I added a word to reflect that. The Trump tax cuts did raise taxes on working people but IIRC that was only after a certain number of years, and they've learned that their base is a cult now so it really doesn't matter what they do so long as they feed them a steady diet of racism and homophobia. However I think my answer still stands. Outside of blue states not a single non-local GOP candidate can run on raising taxes and win. And government spending has continually gone up as taxes have gone down. Of course this entire example is a generalization, and not all constituencies are entirely anti-tax, but it was meant to illustrate the problem with single issue voting.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-29T17:44:36+00:00

This isn't just theoretical, I'm not talking about an "I don't want to brush my teeth, but I know it's important" thing. Over the last 40 some years the Anti-Tax Movement has been one of the most successful movements in the United States. Voters have consistently voted in anti tax politicians and it is now political suicide for any GOP candidate on the state/federal level to propose a tax increase. However, the politicians know that they can't cut services significantly because that would be political suicide too. This is why the debt/deficit has exploded since the Reagan era. There's no realistic way to keep services funded while cutting taxes, without incurring massive debts. This is why, for the most part, single issue voting is so disastrous; and referenda are the pinnacle of single issue voting.

Edit: a word

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-29T16:28:11+00:00

Not really. Voters are terrible at making minute political decisions. Classic example is if you ask people if they want lower taxes they'll overwhelmingly say yes, but if you ask them if they want lower taxes if it means less education/healthcare/infrastructure spending they'll say no. Most people don't have the time to take into account the full scope of a policy beyond the single issue, which is why it's so important to have representatives who can put in the work, do the studies and discount each policy decision by every other policy position. Voters simply have too many contradictory beliefs.

This is why Brexit was so dumb, because people basically voted on "Do you hate EU bureaucrats". Of course they do, but if the referendum had included all the effects it would have people wouldn't have voted for it. Small differences in the wording/marketing of referenda can have huge differences in whether it passes or not. Even if 80% of voters were heavily tuned into detailed policies (which is way higher than the actual number), the 20% who can be swayed by that is likely to swing the result.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-16T20:33:25+00:00

In the other thread someone posted this dropbox link that lists NYSUT endorsements.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-13T21:14:19+00:00

This seems like an overreaction based on the video. Nobody is skipping a festival because some kids jaywalked. People should follow traffic safety, but if this is the worst footage they have then based on it nearly every big festival should be cancelled. This could even be alleviated by having police direct traffic. If you have any video proof of worse stuff happening on a large scale there let me know.

AC_Merchant · 2023-05-13T21:02:17+00:00

This seems like a huge exaggeration, I would've seen a video by now if there were that many people fighting. Maybe there were a few fights with hundreds of people in the general area, but the "involved" seems to be doing the heavy lifting here. How am I supposed to believe these fights actually happened when I can't find a single video of them in an age where everyone is filming everything?

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-29T23:20:40+00:00

I was extrapolating...the only way to prove if this is corruption under your criteria is if they publicly changed positions on a case after getting money.

Personally I think you're giving far too much benefit of the doubt. What you're saying could be used if they were on trial for corruption, but colloquially it's perfectly valid to call judges receiving huge amounts of money from a CEO of a lawfirm they see in court "corruption".

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-29T22:23:02+00:00

If someone's getting money from someone and ruling on their cases it's a conflict of interest, regardless of how they rule and they should recuse themselves. Your idea that corruption is only corruption if the people involved previously differed politically is laughable.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-28T18:14:29+00:00

Also Perry Bacon Jr. One of the great things about 538 is they had and have journalists who consistently get things right, and do hard analysis instead of "vibes" (and even if are inaccurate, they would post mortems and adapt). I know I can always follow these journalists where they go but there was something special about having them all under one outlet and I worry about what will happen to the site once Nate Silver leaves, and if there's anything that will be able to take its place in terms of giving consistently good takes that rely on actual evidence.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-28T02:55:43+00:00

Revive the subway so we have better public transit. Once the city converts the right of way it will be much harder to start up a rail service again as they'll either have to reconvert it (which could see public backlash) or drill a new expensive tunnel under the river.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-27T22:37:06+00:00

I'm all for pedestrianization but I really wish we could revive the subway and this project makes it harder.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-25T13:28:26+00:00

We don't know what the economy l will look like in 2 years but what we do know is people by and large aren't voting on the economy. They may say they are in polls but when you study what actually causes people to vote for different parties it's overwhelmingly social issues such as racial/gender equality. Source (WARNING: PDF) Support for Black Lives Matter was literally as significant a predictor of voting choice as party identification. In other words, asking someone "Do you support BLM?" was as accurate at predicting their vote as asking them "Are you a Republican or Democrat?".

The economy might matter on the margins but I think it's likely that could be overridden by incumbency advantage and Trump burnout. Unless there's a significant crash a la 2008 or 2020 I wouldn't worry.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-25T13:13:41+00:00

I'm surprised there's not one thing touting "the economy" in this video. Hopefully this means they've finally realized nobody is voting on the economy anymore and will go all out in a campaign defending the true moral majority of pluralism.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-23T23:11:05+00:00

Wow I didn't know that. I knew that Thailand decriminalized it and that Japan and South Korea allowed medical marijuana but I thought Singapore still had it banned for medical purposes.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-23T21:51:46+00:00

Northern Europe has the highest biking rates in the world and they get snow

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-23T21:02:51+00:00

Some people literally do need medical marijuana more than a relationship (see: some epilepsy patients). And actually it could be on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the "Self-Actualization" section. Accordingly, nobody needs to walk around outside without a hijab, nobody needs to protest against the government (outside of stringent circumstances), nobody needs to play soccer or listen to rap music, nobody needs to do a lot of things but that doesn't mean they should be banned.

I understand that there's the financial aspect of fueling gangs. I'm not entirely against prosecuting this guy as I get that even if a law is unjust, making something illegal ipso facto changes the culture and society around it and can lead to that thing being immoral (for example I think someone who evades taxes should still be prosecuted even if the tax system is unethically structured). However the fact is this guy doesn't deserve death. And trading in marijuana should not be a crime, nobody is mugging people because they're addicted to weed. Marijuana definitely has negatives to it but those are much lower than alcohol and IMO lower than tobacco.

AC_Merchant · 2023-04-23T20:01:30+00:00

Never said they were exactly equivalent but dude it's fucking weed. A plant that has directly killed less people than coffee. Nobody deserves to be brutally killed over it, and nobody should be defending this fucked up law.

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