MeerkatBong

I'll try to give a serious answer. Here is what I think is happening: People en masse are "stupid" insomuch as large cohorts of people are defined by the greatest common factors (large, big rocks which are "general" or "broad brush") versus a least common denominator which would be more specifically defined and create too much noise. Historically these groups (most commonly two, D's and R's) trade blows via elections and majority favor every 2 years, with the challenger being rewarded for being the critic and the unprovable "I would have done X and then Y would be better (or Z wouldn't have happened, which is bad). R's doing well this election cycle, while sad for a lot of people, a) shouldn't really be surprising and b) should give you hope as that means that historically speaking, D's will be better set up for the '24 election People on this website specifically suffer from a bias of thinking that our general way of thinking is so absolutely right and naturally, ethically and morally superior that people are evil/stupid/crooks if they don't believe the same. I think this creates expectations, and even entitlements, that are increasingly irreparable at a macro level. I don't think the guy was being literal when he said "today democracy dies" and is just trying to make a point using hyperbole, but I think even that is recency bias. People have been saying this during times of national crisis (e.g. Great Depression, McCarthyism, Civil Rights era/transformation, cold war crisis, etc.) the last 100 years, I would guess, and I think it's just our turn to experience it and pretend it's unique.

Now this? This is what I can get behind!

Lots of overreacting before the final votes are even cast let alone counted. The same people had more faith in UT vs Bama when UT was a dog by 20 points, but can’t muster any faith when a dog by 1 or 2 points today.

Doesn’t the word machine usually and historically associate negative connotations when it comes to politics and voting? Or am I thinking of another word that you generally don’t want to be associated with politics?

You are right; I hadn’t looked out my south Austin window in 4 hours.

Which is interesting because both Austin and Dallas have bad weather issues.

The implication being that corporations are price gouging and are big stinky meanies who are twirling their evil mustaches while counting their gold coins is what is stupid. Also, since I’m being critical one way, I’ll be fair about something the other way— using greedflation as a means to 100% deflect blame of inflation as a political tool is really good politicking by the D’s. It’s the one thing they are doing that shows they have the same stomach to get a little dirty politically with messaging, riling up the base, etc. Also I now see @Felix The Butt hurt Cat has entered the chat. 😂

I’m not saying that. I’m saying that posting something so obviously political knowing it’s half truths and misleading, just to rile people to your way of thinking like the original tweeter was doing, is lame but understandable in politics. To put that on a nice thread which has nothing to do with that, is garbage. It’s why we can’t have nice things around here. I apologize for being a jerk then. I misread your posts tone.

Sure let me do all the work for you! Give me a second to do what you can’t do for yourself because you are purposefully being obtuse.

Sure not all; you’ll never have 100% consensus on anything in any profession, even among respected and non-loony peers. I shouldn’t have to explicitly call that out, but here we are as a society. That said, most economists agree— this one doesn’t I guess, and one wouldn’t be blamed to wonder if it has to do with his political bent or ambitions on why he’d lean away from popular professional consensus (he previously worked in the Obama administration). The post was garbage because it’s half truths meant to rile people up by manipulating their emotion and spoon feeding them something that isn’t thought to have a real correlation outside of politics. It was lazy and had nothing to do with the interesting and thoughtful discussion of this page, the deterioration of the middle class, and is brazenly political red meat for a certain political party.

Link?

“Greedflation” has been dismissed as political red meat/fake news theory by most respected economists for some time now. https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/08/02/what-is-greedflation-and-is-it-driving-higher-prices/ edit to add; your post above mine also says this: The surge in profits during the pandemic era has fueled a debate about whether price-gouging companies carry a share of the blame for high inflation -- an argument pushed by President Joe Biden’s Democrats. Most economists have been skeptical about the idea. Also commondreams.org as a site to empower a liberal conspiracy theory? That’s like someone posting something from fox news to bolster a far right conspiracy theory.

Anyone know what became of SushiHorn? Did he get a new name?

This page was a fantastic read; forgot about this conversation. Even though the necrobump post was garbage, I appreciate it for letting me reread.

True enough. But D is a big tent— you can line up a rogues gallery and have them come from all walks of life and presented aesthetics and they could all be united against R for uniquely different reasons, is my point. R’s are more monolithic (to your point) outside of Kanye and maybe Kyrie Irving one day.

I’m generally with you but come on, just stop with this. It shows very little self and social awareness, at worst— at best a “hope springs eternal” optimism and kool-aid drinking that I suppose is a survival mechanism, so I can’t blame you. Peace to you, but let’s not lose credibility with the over selling of something.

That tells half the story. Using the data from that tweet.NY might have 20% less crime per 100k, but it has 100%+ more population (2x). Therefore: 18,320 violent crime victims in OK versus 32,760 in NY. And if most OK live outside the heat mapped part of OKC and Tulsa that has the worst crime, that makes sense. Politically for me, both OK and NY have crime problems, so I’m in agreement with you on Red state OK not having room to talk.

Hmmm. What does a Dem look like? How can you tell someone’s political affiliation in 2022 by appearances? Green hair and a bone in their nose? Lots of people voting D these days might not look like what you’d think…

I was reading today that even a "red ripple" (losing less seats than in the past) could still be disastrous because the margins of majority are much slimmer. edit to add link below. I bolded the part I was referencing. Democrats across the country scrambled Thursday to bolster candidates in places President Biden carried safely in 2020, the latest sign of panic that they could face major losses in next week’s midterm elections. Vice President Harris and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton held a joint rally in an effort to rescue New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who faces a close race in a state Republicans haven’t won in two decades. Biden traveled to New Mexico and Southern California to support vulnerable Democratic incumbents — bypassing Arizona and Nevada, where officials fear he could be a drag on senators in tight races. Biden and Harris plan to spend part of the weekend in Illinois, boosting House candidates in suburban districts that have been trending back toward Republicans since 2020. As Republicans have focused on inflation and crime to go on offense in Democratic territory over the past month — competing in traditionally blue districts in California, Oregon, New York, Illinois and elsewhere — there’s a growing sense among Democrats that there’s little they can do at this point to combat the combined forces of history and economics. “There’s a general malaise that’s hanging over the country,” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist. “What you’re seeing is an angry electorate that keeps kicking the people in charge out. They did it in 2016. They did it in 2018. They did it in 2020. And, if things hold to what it’s looking like, they’re probably going to do it again in 2022.” While many Democrats have privately believed for months that Republicans were likely to take the House, they have expressed increasing fears in recent days that voters could hand the GOP a significant majority — an outcome that would amount to a major rebuke of the party in power. In some cases, the party appears to be conceding seats it previously competed for, a retrenchment that strategists worry could signal a “red wave” of widespread Republican victories on traditionally Democratic turf. While the battle for control of the Senate remains closely contested — with both parties pouring millions of dollars into a handful of states that will determine whether Democrats maintain, or even add to, their slim majority — in the House the debate has shifted to predicting how large the new Republican majority will be. Democrats have 220 seats in the House now, and need 218 to maintain control. One House Democratic strategist said that if Democrats hold 200 to 205 seats, they will consider it a good night. If the party ends up with 190 seats or less — a loss of 30 seats that would require several districts Biden carried by double-digits to flip — that would reflect a big red wave, said the strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Biden allies are preparing to spin even a defeat as a win for the president, since President Barack Obama lost 63 seats in 2010 and President Donald Trump lost 40 in 2018, and Biden is not expected lose as many. But because Biden began his presidency with a much smaller majority than his predecessors, even modest losses could leave Democrats with fewer seats than the 193 they had in 2011. The party has continued to express confidence about holding the Senate, where elections are historically less dependent on the national political environment than House races. Still, a number of competitive contests have tightened in recent days as Republican candidates have continuously linked their opponents to Biden, who faces stubbornly low approval ratings. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/03/democrats-midterm-election-fears/

Every OU frat learns it from old Johnny Rebel songs I've heard. OU sucks.

Hope springs eternal.

You can buy a condo pretty cheap right now at The Independent (sub one million), which I think is because it's no longer the shiniest new toy and tallest building in Austin anymore, so prices are coming down?

yes roku device. thanks!

We are in the storming phase; things will settle and everyone will move on and either figure out how to co-exist with the new normal of Twitter or they will leave and a nice new venture will have spawned off from it. Either way, win/win and not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The only people who seem to have emotional investment are those who just really liked Twitter as it was and didn't want it disrupted.