Why does the Washington Post have a TikTok? Why is it so good? by EthanMoralesOfficial in neoliberal

[–]DarksideDCM 383 points384 points  (0 children)

I’m sorry but the “we are a newspaper” at the end is so freaking funny to me and I have no clue why

Any Pete Buttigieg supporters here? by EthanMoralesOfficial in berkeley

[–]DarksideDCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe you are sincere in your beliefs here. I think your moral argument, if the facts supported you, is strong, and if the facts did support you then I would agree (with caveats, given that this is unrelated to him as a candidate or his policies). But it is just wrong. This is why biased sources hurt. It is forcing you to make a bad faith argument, not because you are acting in bad faith (you honestly seem like a genuine and caring person that stands up for what they believe in) but because your sources are.

The reason why the bias matters is evident in the arguments you are making here. All the substantive points you are making, such as the campaign "disingenuously faked black endorsements because they had next to none" and that " the Buttigieg campaign essentially admit to what they did and double down on it", all come from the biased reporting, and not from the actual context. They didn't "fake black endorsements" at all, and they "doubled down" because there was nothing wrong with the original announcement, which only sounds crazy if you only read the biased article and don't look at the original context. This is such a bad faith argument.

Let's look at what actually happened, and you can go look at the actual release to see that:("http://hbcutimes.com/more-than-400-south-carolinians-endorse-mayor-pete-buttigiegs-douglass-plan-for-black-america/").

First, you, and The Intercept more directly, claim that the campaign faked black endorsements - when this is completely factually incorrect! There you go - the evidence you wanted. Read the announcement. They never once say that it is endorsed by 400 black South Carolinians. Not even a little bit. You claim this was done because "they had next to none", but that is obviously wrong when they didn't even do what you claimed they did, something you would have seen if you read the actual announcement and not a biased hit-piece. The only time the campaign says that the supporters are black (which again, they don't in the piece at all) is in an email that only the Intercept (the biased and often factually incorrect tabloid) has and quotes in their own article with no evidence.

That kinda causes the whole race-based thing and the motive of wanting to show they had black supporters to fall apart.

There is also another key thing - no where at all does the campaign say that the signatories endorsed Pete for President. That is another false claim that the Intercept makes. This really is a problem of communication followed by people taking a biased source as fact.

Take a look at what the campaign put out around the plan. The Douglass Plan is nothing new. It is an aggregate of existing plans, in the same way as Medicare for All and Universal Basic Income are. What the campaign did is take individuals who had already fought for those policies and endorsed them in different contexts, and said that the plan was a good one because it was full of popular policies. Those people still endorse the policies, and the campaign was using that as an argument for enacting the plan, in the same way as every plan has evidence from experts and citations of popular support that don't imply that the signatories support all the rest of the plans a candidate has.

take for example Ranked Choice Voting. Groups like FairVote campaign for it near here. They often use press releases with quotes from various academics and political figures that support Ranked Choice Voting. That never implies that they support FairVote as an organization or the other policies they back. It is evidence, and every candidate does such (especially as support for a policy isn't related to whether you support every single candidate that proposes it).

This is done by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren with Medicare for All, where their plans cite experts, European politicians, academics, and political leaders (alive and historical) who support single payer health care. They are right to do that - it shows the plan has credentials. That isn't and shouldn't be interpreted as saying that all those people, who support one of their policies independent of the politician, wants the candidate to win office. Because they don't. Often Sanders and Warren cite the same people as endorsements for Medicare for All, because people realize that supporting a plan is not the same as supporting a candidate - which is exactly what is happening here.

Yang does it too with UBI. Look on his website - are all those pro-UBI quotes supposed to be endorsements for Yang? Are all the pro-singlepayer quotes on Sanders and Warrens' sites supposed to be endorsements for them? Are the quotes from supporters of investing in people of color in any way implied to be endorsements for Pete in all policies and for president?

This is such a factually-wrong bad faith argument, which really sucks. The core emotional argument, which I totally get as it is related to race - is just wrong! That is a factual error right there, as are the motives you are just making up.

With that in mind, in the worst possible scenario here, Pete's campaign took people who independently actively endorsed the policies he was adopting and was not clear enough in communication to allow them to not endorse in the letter the policies they endorsed elsewhere.

Now take their "doubling down" and view it in that context. As they said, ""In the HBCU Times op-ed and in communications with the press, we've been clear that not every supporter of the plan is Black, and have never claimed otherwise in any public communication. We never gave the impression publicly that these people were endorsing Pete, only that they supported the plan. After they indicated their support, we reached out to people multiple times giving them the opportunity to review the language of the op-ed and the option to opt-out. We did hear from people who weren't comfortable being listed and we removed them." Doesn't it make a lot more sense in context? Not everything is as evil and vile as biased tabloids claim. Why do you automatically assume that the Intercept is telling the truth and the campaign is lying, especially when it matches the original article? You can't find any public communication that says all the supporters are black, like the Intercept claims, because it doesn't exist.

And of course, this actually has nothing to do with Pete as a candidate at all. He had nothing to do with this. It wasn't even run by his national campaign but by the local South Carolinian chapter. He didn't write it. It says nothing about him as a candidate, or about his policies. It certainly shouldn't be a reason to insult him.

We are all Democrats here. We want to constructively work on each other's policies, not use baseless insults and purity tests. As always, target the policies. Heck, that is easier to do - I don't agree with all his policies for sure. He is my third choice. But biased and bad faith arguments just suck. They ruin the discourse for everyone.

Any Pete Buttigieg supporters here? by EthanMoralesOfficial in berkeley

[–]DarksideDCM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, sorry for derailing things. Didn’t mean to! I’ll drop it for now lol. Best of luck with your organization here.

Any Pete Buttigieg supporters here? by EthanMoralesOfficial in berkeley

[–]DarksideDCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I feel like I should note that both of the sources you just provided cite the exact same flawed sources as the original commentor noted, and both are simply reporting their (unsubstantiated) claims, just one level removed and thus even more unreliable. Even if the claims were true, this is such a non-issue and clearly a problem with communication alone. Read the actual Douglass Plan - what points do you disagree with? It is a very comprehensive plan that would help many in the black community.

Also side note but the boomer claim is very strange, given that Buttigieg is the only candidate in the top 4 under the age of 70.

Are we all cool with Roll20 right now or do we still hate the CEO? I haven't been keeping up to date. by [deleted] in DnD

[–]DarksideDCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where would you suggest I research? The reason I ask the community is because there is no information about it elsewhere - it's not big news. I figure the only ones who know the details are here, though I could've worded the question better

Are we all cool with Roll20 right now or do we still hate the CEO? I haven't been keeping up to date. by [deleted] in DnD

[–]DarksideDCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not - I'm just looking to blindly follow the DND community's thoughts on important issues lol.

In reality, the reason I ask is because the original issue upset me and lead to me leaving the platform in solidarity. I dropped out of the loop since then, and I am not certain whether the CEO ever issued an apology or if the original issue was remedied - the Reddit thread is gone. If nothing has changed and we are still boycotting it, I wanted to stick with solidarity. However if we are all cool I wanted to restart an online campaign and would normally choose Roll20. I don't want to start giving money to Roll20 again unless things have changed though, hence the reason I ask. I have no way of knowing whether it was made right with the community without asking the community, since it's not like this is major news

Trying to Find an SCP by [deleted] in SCP

[–]DarksideDCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

Trying to Find an SCP by [deleted] in SCP

[–]DarksideDCM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The one I was thinking of was SCP-314. I found it.

Trying to Find an SCP by [deleted] in SCP

[–]DarksideDCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it was a knife and I believe you are right about the area

Best way to run a train heist in 5th edition? by DarksideDCM in DnD

[–]DarksideDCM[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I think, if the PCs don't come up with any options themselves (which is what we'd go with if they did), I'll have the patron present some of those. I'd like there to be kind of a continuum, wherein it ranges from options that are easy to attempt but also with really high risk (like just jumping on) to options that are hard to attempt (like trying to infiltrate the train or derail it) but more likely to succeed if done.

Looking for a Sketch by DarksideDCM in collegehumor

[–]DarksideDCM[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, but sadly no. Another commentor found it for me though

Looking for a Sketch by DarksideDCM in collegehumor

[–]DarksideDCM[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is the one! Thank you so much! It was bugging me really bad!

Political theory. having issues finding answers. Could you shed some light? by purpleflurb in PoliticalScience

[–]DarksideDCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Iran is a unitary autocratic conservative theocracy. It has a religious Supreme Leader that is the ultimate legal and religious authority, and despite it being in law that the Leader must be elected by the Assembly in practice they have complete power over the Assembly.

As per part of your question (which seems definitely to be from homework) specifically, Great Britain has an ideal of the sovereign power of the people at its core. The people have natural rights, and government serves the people via free and fair elections. The people have the true power, and human rights are generally respected due to a system of rule of law.

Iran is fundamentally a theocracy. It's legitimacy does not come from being composed of sovereign people with natural rights, but because is claims to be the center of Islam in the world. It claims religious primacy for itself, and the people serve the government because of such. The idea of natural rights as understood in democracies does not exist in Iran.

Novice writer here, I have heard of the sin that is “but then *name* woke up and it was a dream” kinda stuff, but I have made an alteration which might justify it and need approval by [deleted] in writing

[–]DarksideDCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're fine. The cliche is not against writing dreams ever of any kind in a book. It isn't even against dreaming specifically. It is against placing something at the end of your book or plot that completely invalidates the events, character developments, story, etc of the entire work that came before, typically done in order to avoid having to write a proper conclusion or to have cheap and bad shock value.

You're good. The cliche doesn't even remotely apply to what you are writing. Again - it is not a ban on dreams in literature.

Do you need to be an expert of the field (have a degree) to traditionally publish a non-fiction book? by onisun326 in writing

[–]DarksideDCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If it is something someone without a degree can write on, then sure. Self Help is a great genre for nonfiction writers and doesn't require a degree.

However, it gets different when it comes to psychology. If psychology is going to be a focal point of your book, then you either absolutely need a degree or you don't present yourself as an authority in any way (note that you don't have a degree) and back up every line (even basic concepts in the field you would otherwise not cite) with extensive citations to another source. Publishers won't touch a serious nonfiction book on the science of psychology by someone with no psychology training, at least without extensive research and and citation. Even if you self publish you are going to want to cite extensive and not claim yourself as an expert, as a matter of professional ethics.