2020 Presidential Election -- Biden v Trump: Sleepy Joe vs Dopey Don [Results begin on page 409]

[lemonlime 5503]

Oh, and the USPS, sent out this mailer in NJ which contains false information about voting in NJ this fall.

 

[LonghornSean 3941]

1 hour ago, lemonlime said:

Oh, and the USPS, sent out this mailer in NJ which contains false information about voting in NJ this fall.

 

I got one of those the other day, in Austin. Doesn't really say anything other than check the rules and don't procrastinate.

Edited September 17, 2020 by LonghornSean

[Helobious 9480]

5 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Ok- let me see if I can flesh this out to something that makes sense after a piss poor job before...

start with this fact- half of America is made up of individuals with below average intelligence... so far so good, right?  
Now, intelligence isn’t something that is a direct 1/1 marker of success, but let’s just say being smarter is generally more likely to lead to economic success and well being than being dumb. 

So far we have an absolute truth and I think  a proposition that most can probably agree with, right?

Now- many jobs- especially jobs in the new economy- require a minimum level of cerebral horsepower to be able to get and retain the job. Again, I’d like to think that we are all still pretty much in agreement here, right?

So, what kind of jobs are created by the new economy?  Coding, engineering, sales, product development, supply chain, legal, marketing etc. those are all, in the main, white collar jobs that probably require a degree, demonstrated proficiency, training, and can’t probably be done, in the main, by people that aren’t fairly sharp. Those jobs all pay pretty well. But, are they aspirational and attainable by large swaths of the middle class, middle America, and people that have an IQ of 90 or 95? My thought and argument is, probably not. 

I taught high school (regular track kids) for a couple years because I love teaching and helping people. It was something I could do, while I was going through some shit in my personal life, that I could feel good about doing to give back to my community, after I’d built a business and had enough of a nest egg where I didn’t have to worry about money for 5 years or so. And, I have to tell you, I don’t think most of my kids in those classes would have, work in the new economy in a tech company as a viable way forward for them to make money in their future. 

What is it likely they ended up doing?  Working retail, hospitality, truck driving, servicing, manufacturing, landscaping and trades. That’s what most of their parents were doing. And for a lot of those kids, that’s definitely a path to middle class (and maybe upper middle class for a few of them). But, and this is key, they were all on the outskirts of a major economic metro area in houston where these kind of jobs exist and are decent paying.  It’s a ticket to somewhere between survival and doing pretty well economically. 

But- I go to a place like my ex used to live in rural Iowa, or Polk County Texas where my wife is from and that path just doesn’t exist nor does the opportunity to go work in a new economy white collar job. 
And that’s scary and painful. 

It used to be you could go get a union job in the plant and make a middle class living doing something not intellectually challenging and attainable for the kids at the bottom of the class.  But when that goes away and dries up, and there isn’t a vibrant service/hospitality/other market created by living near an economic hub what then for the bottom half of the class? 

Not much. And the new economy isn’t creating as many of those type of jobs as the old manufacturing and extracting economy did. And that leads to lots of problems. People that didn’t used to be losers are now losers (I mean this not as an inherent personal characteristic but rather in an economic sense) And nobody wants to feel like a loser. So, you have Silicon Valley billionaires creating something that’s not going to economically benefit those people in the way manufacturing in America would, and then you start hearing people talk about white privilege and you look around at your situation in life and it doesn’t resonate or make sense and you get pissed off. And then you find out you can vote for Donald Trump and that guy thats making you feel lesser than will take that as a stick in the eye and it makes a lot of sense. 

I’ve been places like that. I know people like this. I have talked to people like this. I see the bumper stickers about making liberals cry and I totally get it and understand it- both why it happens and why it exists. In the same way I replayed to a bad teammate post in the DT today about the officer shooting in California when he asked something along the lines of “how shitty must you be at your job for people to cheer you getting shot in the face” and I said- yeah- that was one of my main thoughts because I get that too. 

Most people don’t see the world beyond their own perspective. Some people can’t because they aren’t wired that way. Some people can’t because life is so hard that they don’t have time to think about things from someone else’s perspective. Some don’t want to do so. And that leads to people being easily pissed off and resentment and ugliness. 
 

now- Amazon is a different beast than the other colonies bc I’d argue that it’s not a tech company but a logistics company, and as such creates lots of jobs for boots on the street people that can be done by anyone. And those jobs tend to pay pretty decently. Sorting boxes at warehouses and delivery is the kind of thing that people I talked about getting left behind can do, make decent money (enough to support themselves anyway) and get thru life. But what kind of jobs like that are Google, Facebook, Netflix, twitter etc creating?  I don’t know. If there’s a big bunch of those jobs at places like that I’m ignorant and missing that and might well be wrong. 

final thought- none of this is an argument against creating jobs like this- it’s just a way of saying what are we going to do about those that get left behind. How does that work? What becomes of them. And what’s going to hold our society together and provide commonality for this guys?  

Because I don’t live in that world. I relate to those people (my grandpa’s both had hammers in their hands or worked the end of a broom their whole lives, my dad started out driving a bread truck and my mom was a receptionist at a doctors office before I watched them go back to school and become white collar as a tween) in my life through faith, football, country music, or asking them shit about how stuff works. Some people do that through guns. Some through cars. Some through share dislike groups perceived to be lesser. Maybe military stuff. But all that’s sort of becoming passé in the new world order/economy and what does that leave?  

Not sure how much more we’ll reasoned this is, but it’s a better encapsulation of what I was trying to say than my last shitty post that kick started the deserved deal clubbing I got trying to finish up at work. 

No one taught you the difference between average & median.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Helobious

[thepop 4409]

 

[Gengs1 2583]

1 hour ago, thepop said:

 

Dems really gonna fuck this shit up.

Get the people some masks and sanitizers and tell them to go out there and make sure they vote and are registered 

[Guest Lobo]

New round of Lincoln Project schwag just hit the market.  

https://lincolnproject.us/gear/

Shit ain't cheap, but obviously a "portion" of it goes to their political wing.  I kinda want the cognitive test t-shirt in Navy.  

Also, they're doing a free call this evening if anyone is interested.  Kind of an update on where the campaign is right now.  

If it's not cool to post stuff  like this, please delete.  But zoom info is:

Webinar ID: 923 5984 9533
Passcode: 618460

Starts at 6:15p-CDT, iirc 

[formermav43 4599]

6 hours ago, Helobious said:

No one taught you the difference between average & median.

Evidently no on taught you that median is a kind of average.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

 

first reason I’ve seen to be concerned in a while.  Someone did the math and said this is a .8% R gain.  I read that NC absentee requests surged this year and some official claims he expects NC to have 30-40% absentee voting this year.  That comes out to around a .5% haircut for the Ds.  MC is going to be very close.  This type of screwup will start adding up.  

[Dnaguy 11763]

5 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

 

first reason I’ve seen to be concerned in a while.  Someone did the math and said this is a .8% R gain.  I read that NC absentee requests surged this year and some official claims he expects NC to have 30-40% absentee voting this year.  That comes out to around a .5% haircut for the Ds.  MC is going to be very close.  This type of screwup will start adding up.  

 

Are people in NC told if their ballot is rejected?

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

1 minute ago, Dnaguy said:

 

Are people in NC told if their ballot is rejected?

 

Yes. They can be fixed.  My WAG is that maybe 10% of rejections get fixed. 

[Dnaguy 11763]

22 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Yes. They can be fixed.  My WAG is that maybe 10% of rejections get fixed. 

 

Is that because the other 90% are dead or have rounded up by ICE?

[ducks]

Edited September 17, 2020 by Dnaguy

[Voldemort86 2259]

Interesting report from 538. Kind of reflects data I’ve seen elsewhere. 
 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-where-biden-and-trump-have-gained-the-most-ground/
 

Biden seems to be solidifying Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona in his favor. While Trump has narrowed up North Carolina and Florida to the point where they are 50/50 with the GOP still being favored in both.

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

7 hours ago, Helobious said:

No one taught you the difference between average & median.

There’s actually 3 different averages if you want to be pedantic about it and they are mean, median and mode. Any of those can be referred to as average, or at least that’s the way I was taught in 1986 what average meant. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

1 hour ago, formermav43 said:

Evidently no on taught you that median is a kind of average.

I will hold my fire a bit in this regard- they change up how math is taught so frequently that it’s possible he was taught differently than we were. 
But yeah- that’s a cringe when you come over the top with a pedantic “correction” like that and step into a giant “well, actually”. 

[honolulu horn 6157]

1 hour ago, formermav43 said:

Evidently no on taught you that median is a kind of average.

No, it's really not. It simply divides the top half of a sample or population from the bottom half. 

However, in the case of intelligence (Wulaw's post), they are the same. Intelligence as measured by most standardized tests is normally distributed in the population, meaning median and mean (average) are the same. Although the premise of intelligence being normally distributed in America seems more and more far-fetched as this administration and its moronic followers continue to live and procreate. 

[Bookman 4610]

I was taught that “average” means mean. But I was also taught that “alot” is proper, that evolution is “just a theory,” and that the Civil War was about state’s rights.

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

7 minutes ago, honolulu horn said:

No, it's really not. It simply divides the top half of a sample or population from the bottom half. 

However, in the case of intelligence (Wulaw's post), they are the same. Intelligence as measured by most standardized tests is normally distributed in the population, meaning median and mean (average) are the same. Although the premise of intelligence being normally distributed in America seems more and more far-fetched as this administration and its moronic followers continue to live and procreate. 

Don’t know how old you are but I’m 42 (I think former is at least that old) and when I/we were kids we were taught that all 3, mean, median and mode could be interchangably used to mean “average” and that when someone said average they should further clarify what they meant. 
As in all three of these sentences could be considered correct:

the average of 3,5, 5, 5 and 12 is 6 mean

the average of that above sentence is 5 (median) 

the average house in my neighborhood is pink or, the average kid at my kids school is a kindergartner if pink houses are most common or kindergarten has the highest enrollment (mode). 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Johnny Cougar likes your area. 

[honolulu horn 6157]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Don’t know how old you are but I’m 42 (I think former is at least that old) and when I/we were kids we were taught that all 3, mean, median and mode could be interchangably used to mean “average” and that when someone said average they should further clarify what they meant. 
As in all three of these sentences could be considered correct:

the average of 3,5, 5, 5 and 12 is 6 mean

the average of that above sentence is 5 (median) 

the average house in my neighborhood is pink or, the average kid at my kids school is a kindergartner if pink houses are most common or kindergarten has the highest enrollment (mode). 

I see where you are coming from, but they are all different mathematical concepts. When people use "average" they are generally referring to the mean, at least in my experience. 

I don't know why this became the hot topic from your post. I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff in there to attack 😉

 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

6 minutes ago, honolulu horn said:

I see where you are coming from, but they are all different mathematical concepts. When people use "average" they are generally referring to the mean, at least in my experience. 

I don't know why this became the hot topic from your post. I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff in there to attack 😉

 

I respond to what other people respond to. There’s nothing further for me to talk about at the moment.  I went all brisket and posted a TL/DR post and that was the feedback from the first paragraph. 
An argument for mode used interchangeably as average that we use all the time

The average resident of the valley is Hispanic. Nobody would bat an eye at that statement. 
the average Texan drives a Ford F-150

the average blue eyed person has blond hair. 
really all you mean in any of these sentences is “most common”. 
the primary definition in google omg refers to mean median and mode all as average. Or, you could look at this link from wiki which has them all in the first paragraph. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

[Voldemort86 2259]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I respond to what other people respond to. There’s nothing further for me to talk about at the moment.  I went all brisket and posted a TL/DR post and that was the feedback from the first paragraph. 
An argument for mode used interchangeably as average that we use all the time

The average resident of the valley is Hispanic. Nobody would bat an eye at that statement. 
the average Texan drives a Ford F-150

the average blue eyed person has blond hair. 
really all you mean in any of these sentences is “most common”. 
the primary definition in google omg refers to mean median and mode all as average. Or, you could look at this link from wiki which has them all in the first paragraph. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

I always assume everyone on the road whose driving a truck is a trump voter.  Realistically it’s probably 75/25 for trump tho. Republicans love pickup trucks.

[Pancho 44437]

4th grade math talk not going away..,

[Dark Horse 2263]

Just now, Voldemort86 said:

I always assume everyone on the road whose driving a truck is a trump voter.  Realistically it’s probably 75/25 for trump tho. Republicans love pickup trucks.

Not from Texas? 
 

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Jesus with the 4th grade discussion on average.  LITERALLY EVERYONE KNOWS ALL THIS SHIT.  

[Eastwood 4394]

Y'all argue about the weirdest shit.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

1 hour ago, Dnaguy said:

 

Is that because the other 90% are dead or have rounded up by ICE?

[ducks]

Probably should duck.  NC has the most effective and deliberate voter suppression efforts in the country.  That should always be your suspicion there. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

2 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Jesus with the 4th grade discussion on average.  LITERALLY EVERYONE KNOWS ALL THIS SHIT.  

Apparently not, since Helobious “corrected” the post demonstrating he didn’t. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13049]

35 minutes ago, Bookman said:

I was taught that “average” means mean. But I was also taught that “alot” is proper, that evolution is “just a theory,” and that the Civil War was about state’s rights.

One addendum:

That the phrase “vast majority “ shall be used with no corresponding clarification whenever someone wishes to make a wild ass guess. 

[gmr548 16482]

Probably should duck.  NC has the most effective and deliberate voter suppression efforts in the country.  That should always be your suspicion there. 

The key difference now is NC has a democratic governor, democratic board of elections, and democratic supreme court

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

14 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

One addendum:

That the phrase “vast majority “ shall be used with no corresponding clarification whenever someone wishes to make a wild ass guess. 

Or in presidential terms, the phrase “I’ve heard.”

[Helobious 9480]

I was just pointing out that average (mean) doesn’t always equal half. Median by definition always does. Didn’t know it would kick off a firestorm. 
 

I honestly didn’t even read past that point in wulaws post, I was pet peeve triggered. I’m sure there were far more valuable and interesting discussions to be had from it.

[Dahobbs 17420]

1 hour ago, Voldemort86 said:

Interesting report from 538. Kind of reflects data I’ve seen elsewhere. 
 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-where-biden-and-trump-have-gained-the-most-ground/
 

Biden seems to be solidifying Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona in his favor. While Trump has narrowed up North Carolina and Florida to the point where they are 50/50 with the GOP still being favored in both.

I question your ability to read.

GOP favored in Florida? He has Biden at 60.7% as of Sept. 16.

He also has North Carolina going from favored for Trump on Aug. 12 to Biden leading at 52.9% by Sept. 16. 

The only two states that Trump has positive momentum in are Florida and Missouri. 

[BradInATX 9208]

Interesting report from 538. Kind of reflects data I’ve seen elsewhere. 

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-where-biden-and-trump-have-gained-the-most-ground/

 

Biden seems to be solidifying Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona in his favor. While Trump has narrowed up North Carolina and Florida to the point where they are 50/50 with the GOP still being favored in both.

All the chatter and discussion and punditry around the map and it is and was always going to come full circle. The states that matter are MI/PA/WI, just like last time. The rest is noise.

 

[Mole 4319]

Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics contains a chapter on the slipperiness of the word “average.” It’s most commonly used to describe mean, but it could also correctly be used to describe mode or median. “Average” is a useful word when we want to introduce vagueness into our language and use of numbers. Sometime the context clarified the use, but sometimes we’re left guessing.

[SydneyCarton 47836]

18 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I question your ability to read.

GOP favored in Florida? He has Biden at 60.7% as of Sept. 16.

He also has North Carolina going from favored for Trump on Aug. 12 to Biden leading at 52.9% by Sept. 16. 

The only two states that Trump has positive momentum in are Florida and Missouri. 

I'm not going to sit here and say you can't read. But I will say the two bolded points confused the fuck out of me as they seemed contradictory, so maybe I can't read. 

[Guest Lobo]

Who's the tribe in the South Pacific that doesn't have numbers?  They simply use (in their language, of course)..."One", "Two", and "Many."  They only have the concept of "Two" to represent pair-bonding.  Anything more than "Two/Couple" is described as "Many."  To me, "Many" is a useful descriptor of the stupid shit that Trump supporters believe.  Because it usually starts out with just three, and then because of instant buy-in over social media/the news...95% of them believe it within a few days.  Having said that, "Many Trump Supports are Idiots."  

[Dahobbs 17420]

5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm not going to sit here and say you can't read. But I will say the two bolded points confused the fuck out of me as they seemed contradictory, so maybe I can't read. 

Maybe you can't read. Trump doesn't lead in either North Carolina or Florida. He does have positive momentum in Florida in that he has narrowed Biden's lead, but Trump is still not favored there.  Read the 538 article. 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Dahobbs

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

All the chatter and discussion and punditry around the map and it is and was always going to come full circle. The states that matter are MI/PA/WI, just like last time. The rest is noise.

 

And trump is in horrible shape in all of them. Along with some other places he won. Which is why this race has been over since corona wrecked shop. He has nothing to point to positive about his term in office. Except maybe world affairs (no shooting war- Middle East stuff) but that’s not moving through needle when domestically it feels like we are on fire, and he comes off as a clown in matters of world affairs. 

[Dnaguy 11763]

1 hour ago, Pancho said:

4th grade math talk not going away..,

[Dahobbs 17420]

Just now, Wulaw Horn said:

And trump is in horrible shape in all of them. Along with some other places he won. Which is why this race has been over since corona wrecked shop. He has nothing to point to positive about his term in office. Except maybe world affairs (no shooting war- Middle East stuff) but that’s not moving through needle when domestically it feels like we are on fire, and he comes off as a clown in matters of world affairs. 

He is a clown. Period. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

8 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm not going to sit here and say you can't read. But I will say the two bolded points confused the fuck out of me as they seemed contradictory, so maybe I can't read. 

He’s got positive momentum in Florida but still likely to lose (he being trump). He was down 10 on the middle of the third quarter and kicked a field goal. Still likely to lose, but has positive momentum. 

[Pig Bellmont 8691]

I think grandparents not seeing their families for a year including holidays will ultimately fuck Trump in FL. 
 

Another prediction: Trump will be behind in in-person vote tallies in states like PA, AZ, WI, and all of a sudden we will hear about how he wants to count every mail in ballot. 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

He is a clown. Period. 

Sure. That was meant to specifically apply to world affairs but it accurately describes everything he does. 

[BradInATX 9208]

4 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

And trump is in horrible shape in all of them. Along with some other places he won. Which is why this race has been over since corona wrecked shop. He has nothing to point to positive about his term in office. Except maybe world affairs (no shooting war- Middle East stuff) but that’s not moving through needle when domestically it feels like we are on fire, and he comes off as a clown in matters of world affairs. 

He's definitely not in horrible shape. Biden leads by ~4% in Pennsylvania and Michigan. On this date in 2016, Hillary was ahead by 6.2% in Pennsylvania.

 

[Wulaw Horn 18968]

Just now, BradInATX said:

He's definitely not in horrible shape. Biden leads by ~4% in Pennsylvania and Michigan. On this date in 2016, Hillary was ahead by 6.2% in Pennsylvania.

 

With almost no undecided voters and almost nothing that could move decided voters off their current preference and a record that is what it is. That’s really awful shape. 

[BradInATX 9208]

6 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

With almost no undecided voters 

That's true, and encouraging. But 4% is within "shenanigans" range and they're coming. You know it.

[Pig Bellmont 8691]

6 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

With almost no undecided voters and almost nothing that could move decided voters off their current preference and a record that is what it is. That’s really awful shape. 

Exactly. 
 

 

[Brisketexan 104537]

2 hours ago, Voldemort86 said:

Interesting report from 538. Kind of reflects data I’ve seen elsewhere. 
 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-where-biden-and-trump-have-gained-the-most-ground/
 

Biden seems to be solidifying Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona in his favor. While Trump has narrowed up North Carolina and Florida to the point where they are 50/50 with the GOP still being favored in both.

Y'all know Trump's going to win Florida, and thus win the election, right?

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Y'all know Trump's going to win Florida, and thus win the election, right?

He’s basically a coin flip to win FL, and if he does, he’s a coin flip to win the election, databoy

[Red Five 40627]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Y'all know Trump's going to win Florida, and thus win the election, right?

Trump has to win Florida to have even a chance of winning the election. Biden doesn't need it.