Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 22

[abaddon]

The Nurses I provide IT support for are by no means stupid, but critical thinking skills? Nope. There's isn't a piece of Woo-Woo nonsense the majority of them don't believe. They openly hock essential oils to each other, chat about their horoscopes, they are all super-religious within a rounding error, and most skew conservative politically.

Because they have skills, not knowledge. They can run perform (often complicated) procedures but they have no understanding of any biological process working.

It's why they are such... challenging users to provide IT support. They "know" in the absolute loosest terms how to perform route, memorized steps on a computer, but they don't know how a computer works enough to actually "use" a computer in any meaningful sense of the term.

I'd wager we see the same thing with Engineers. I'd put money on the table that the ones who sling the most woo are the ones who work in the most applied parts of engineering.

But the simple title of "Engineer" or "Nurse" gives them an air of authority to a broader discipline they might not have earned.

Yes.

I was once offered a contract to support in a primary school (I believe that would be K-12 in the US). Took a look and not only walked away, I sprinted.

But the worst was an educational class in IT for...I don't know what to call them. You know you are in the cacky when you have to explain what a mouse is.

 

[Norman Alexander]

FWIW, you can mostly eliminate Antifa from the equation. The Republicans tend to scream bloody murder about Antifa primarily as a tactical distraction and to scare the people listening to them, generally with little to no basis for their claims in reality. Of note, overall, Antifa lacks organization, backing, numbers, any significant media support, murderous tendencies, and so very much more of relevance for them to count as a side.

The boogaloos, of course, have been engaging in and and pushing for more domestic terrorism as they try to spark war, perhaps generally failing to understand how little appetite for such an overwhelming portion of the population has or perhaps hoping that that will lead to a coup going effectively unchallenged.

A more plausibly dangerous scenario is likely to be more like what happened in Chile. A decently functioning democracy overthrown primarily for the sake of giving more power to the rich and corporate interests and preventing a move feared by those rich and corporate interests towards Chile becoming more socialistic.

Since both Antifa and the Boogaloo Bros are both nebulous and mostly mythical organisations, this whole "war footing" nonsense being played out on the US national news is about as "real" as the Clone Wars were. Or Batman vs Superman. Only in the USA can whole swathes of people get SO upset over the fates of their imaginary friends and enemies. What is so worrying is that it's not just Donald Trump who never grew beyond five years old. There's whole battalions of similarly maturity-stunted dingbats out there...voting!

 

[dmaker]

Hey, I fought in a Clone War!

Total aside from this thread, but interesting tale, so I will share it briefly.

A long time ago I used to play an online game, sort of a proto mmorpg, called Meridian 59.The game was very PVP focused (player vs player). Players would rally into guilds and then you would be "at war" with other guilds, also often allied with friendly guilds. Then enemy guild members were KoS (kill on sight).

One day a bunch of new players started to show up. They would not speak anything but binary. If you walked up to them and spoke, their reply would look something like 100101000 or whatever. They did not engage in hostile activity and went about the environment gathering resources and building up their characters, just like everyone else.

What was fascinating was the player base response. People would try to engage them in conversation, but would get a friendly wave and some 10001000 response every time. Rumours abounded. From they are here to develop strength and then they are going to "take over the server", to they are just friendly visitors. They also all had names like Clone001, Clone002, etc, and they all selected identical appearance options. Visually, you could not tell them apart other than the name. Sometimes you would be out in the world developing your character and look up to see some Clone008 dude just standing there staring at you. If greeted, the response was always a friendly wave and some 10010001 gibberish. Creepy, for sure.

Some people speculated that maybe it was some phd student doing a sociology or psychology thesis around online behavior. We actually had little "war councils" where guild members would meet and discuss how to deal with the potential threat to the server. It was fascinating. Some guilds eventually declared the "clones" KoS and went about attacking them. Other guilds denounced this behavior and went to war with guilds that attacked the clones.

It was a fascinating little glimpse into the human psyche at the time. It did not take long, nor much provocation, before the pitchforks came out.

Derail over. Sorry, just felt like sharing.

 

[Pixel42]

@dmaker: Maybe the clones were speaking ASCII. Did you try decoding the binary as ASCII symbols?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII

 

[dmaker]

I did not try to decode their language. I don't recall if anyone else did. It was quite a while ago now. I think it was back in the mid to late 90's

It was a fascinating little microcosm of how tribal people can become when given no overtly hostile provocation.

 

[carlitos]

Since both Antifa and the Boogaloo Bros are both nebulous and mostly mythical organisations, this whole "war footing" nonsense being played out on the US national news is about as "real" as the Clone Wars were. Or Batman vs Superman. Only in the USA can whole swathes of people get SO upset over the fates of their imaginary friends and enemies. What is so worrying is that it's not just Donald Trump who never grew beyond five years old. There's whole battalions of similarly maturity-stunted dingbats out there...voting!

I don’t know where you got the idea that the Boogaloo guys are mythical. One literally just got arrested for the murder of two federal agents. Here is an article if you want to look into it.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...ng-santa-cruz-cop-and-oakland-federal-officer

 

[Dr.Sid]

I don’t know where you got the idea that the Boogaloo guys are mythical. One literally just got arrested for the murder of two federal agents. Here is an article if you want to look into it.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...ng-santa-cruz-cop-and-oakland-federal-officer

People who identify as Boogaloo or Antifa are not mythical. Even groups of people. But the organizations themselves do not exist. There is no website, no leader, and just vague rules.

 

[carlitos]

I am aware that many right wingers are painting antifa as an actual organization. I was unaware that anyone had claimed the same for boogaloo types.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I am aware that many right wingers are painting antifa as an actual organization. I was unaware that anyone had claimed the same for boogaloo types.

In many important ways, the Boogaloos are an organization in the sense that they follow a particular playbook. And that entails attacks that are set up to be, superficially, acts by "Lone Wolves", but are in furtherance of the overarching goal of "liberating" the US through violence.

 

[Tero]

Back to polling:
Politico
But pollsters see a real risk this year that the mistakes of 2016 will be repeated. Their colleagues still are not accounting for the fact that voters with greater educational attainment are more likely to complete surveys — and more likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/17/trump-polls-biden-324210

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Hey, I fought in a Clone War!

Total aside from this thread, but interesting tale, so I will share it briefly.

A long time ago I used to play an online game, sort of a proto mmorpg, called Meridian 59.The game was very PVP focused (player vs player). Players would rally into guilds and then you would be "at war" with other guilds, also often allied with friendly guilds. Then enemy guild members were KoS (kill on sight).

One day a bunch of new players started to show up. They would not speak anything but binary. If you walked up to them and spoke, their reply would look something like 100101000 or whatever. They did not engage in hostile activity and went about the environment gathering resources and building up their characters, just like everyone else.

What was fascinating was the player base response. People would try to engage them in conversation, but would get a friendly wave and some 10001000 response every time. Rumours abounded. From they are here to develop strength and then they are going to "take over the server", to they are just friendly visitors. They also all had names like Clone001, Clone002, etc, and they all selected identical appearance options. Visually, you could not tell them apart other than the name. Sometimes you would be out in the world developing your character and look up to see some Clone008 dude just standing there staring at you. If greeted, the response was always a friendly wave and some 10010001 gibberish. Creepy, for sure.

Some people speculated that maybe it was some phd student doing a sociology or psychology thesis around online behavior. We actually had little "war councils" where guild members would meet and discuss how to deal with the potential threat to the server. It was fascinating. Some guilds eventually declared the "clones" KoS and went about attacking them. Other guilds denounced this behavior and went to war with guilds that attacked the clones.

It was a fascinating little glimpse into the human psyche at the time. It did not take long, nor much provocation, before the pitchforks came out.

Derail over. Sorry, just felt like sharing.

So...who were they?

 

[dmaker]

So...who were they?

Sorry, but I don't really know. I didn't really stick around to the end. I was in University at the time and had exams to worry about and was playing far less and never really went back to that game. It ended shortly afterwards, iirc.

I do remember things getting very chaotic before I stopped playing. Guild alliances were broken as groups took sides in what was being called the clone wars.

If it was an experiment, I think there would have been much to confirm about human behavior.

That I did not see the eventual end to it might be why it remains as such a distinctly interesting memory for me.

EDIT: I did google Meridian 59 & clone wars this morning out of curiosity. All I found was a brief exchange on some forum from 2011 that went (rather hilariously) something like this:

Poster A: Anyone else remember the clone wars?
Poster B: I went on holidays during that time, couldn't even log in and live for 30 seconds
Poster C: What are y'all like 70 now?



The game was from the mid 90's.

 

[Bob001]

The ultimate strategy: Trump sabotages enough state elections to push the election into the House of Representatives, where he wins.

The 12th Amendment states that if the Electoral College does not reach a majority, which is 270, the election then goes to the House of Representatives. How could that possibly happen with Trump and Biden in 2020? The answer is the rabidly right-wing legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida say that there is so much voter fraud and that the mail-in ballots are not to be trusted. Trust me, those states are going to do things such as misprint ballots. Many "mistakes" are going to occur in those red states.

So the result could be that Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida do not certify their electors, and Biden has lost those three states' votes. There are still not enough votes for Trump, but Biden does not hit the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be elected president.

The 2020 election now goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets a single vote. New York, California and Illinois each get a vote. Wyoming, South Dakota and Oklahoma each get a vote. Who wins? Most state delegations are majority Republican, even though the Republicans don't control the House and have far fewer voters in America. But by the rules of the Constitution, Donald Trump could be re-elected even if he loses both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/15/in...heres-how-trump-will-steal-the-2020-election/

 

[Mader Levap]

If this actually happens, USA deserves revolt.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Let's also be careful, remembering 2016.

The ultimate strategy: Trump sabotages enough state elections to push the election into the House of Representatives, where he wins.

The 12th Amendment states that if the Electoral College does not reach a majority, which is 270, the election then goes to the House of Representatives. How could that possibly happen with Trump and Biden in 2020? The answer is the rabidly right-wing legislatures in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida say that there is so much voter fraud and that the mail-in ballots are not to be trusted. Trust me, those states are going to do things such as misprint ballots. Many "mistakes" are going to occur in those red states.

So the result could be that Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida do not certify their electors, and Biden has lost those three states' votes. There are still not enough votes for Trump, but Biden does not hit the 270 threshold in the Electoral College to be elected president.

The 2020 election now goes to the House of Representatives, where every state gets a single vote. New York, California and Illinois each get a vote. Wyoming, South Dakota and Oklahoma each get a vote. Who wins? Most state delegations are majority Republican, even though the Republicans don't control the House and have far fewer voters in America. But by the rules of the Constitution, Donald Trump could be re-elected even if he loses both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

https://www.salon.com/2020/06/15/in...heres-how-trump-will-steal-the-2020-election/

If Biden can pick up MI, PA, and AZ, then it's game over regardless of those 3. That's one point CNN made in an article. Biden has many more paths to 270 than Trump at the moment.

And yes, I know there are five months to go and who knows what's going to happen. I also think a difference between 2016 and now is that Trump is a known quantity.

 

[Bob001]

If this isn't actually treason, it sure sounds close.

President Trump appealed to China’s President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 election by increasing the Chinese government’s agricultural purchases from American farmers, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his bombshell forthcoming memoir.

During a one-on-one meeting at the G20 Summit in 2019, Trump “stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes, according to an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...tion-bolton-writes-in-bombshell-book?ref=home

 

[Bob001]

If Biden can pick up MI, PA, and AZ, then it's game over regardless of those 3. That's one point CNN made in an article. Biden has many more paths to 270 than Trump at the moment.

And yes, I know there are five months to go and who knows what's going to happen. I also think a difference between 2016 and now is that Trump is a known quantity.

Exactly. Most of us recognize that Trump is capable of anything. Anything.

 

[Mojo]

If this isn't actually treason, it sure sounds close.

President Trump appealed to China’s President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 election by increasing the Chinese government’s agricultural purchases from American farmers, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his bombshell forthcoming memoir.
During a one-on-one meeting at the G20 Summit in 2019, Trump “stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes, according to an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump...tion-bolton-writes-in-bombshell-book?ref=home

I’m sure Trump and his supporters agree.

 

[Trebuchet]

Also according to Bolton, Trump said the US has too many elections and he should be able to have more than two terms.

 

[Armitage72]

Also according to Bolton, Trump said the US has too many elections and he should be able to have more than two terms.

He publicly retweeted people who said his term should be extended to compensate for the investigation and impeachment, so it's not surprising.