Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Ambar: I would ask you to explain how such beleifs are "inherently disruptive", but I need to know what you consider "disruptive" first. The Alberta Code (and I) consider it to be behaviors that prevent he pursuit of truth, the advancement of knowledge, and teaching, from occurring in the classroom. How could the expression of any belief, regardless of what it was, if done in a non-intimidating or overbearing manner, prevent learning? I feel that I can teach and advance knowledge even in the face of such expressions, through the methods I have outlined above. Cant you?
@Raneh: I'm simply suggesting that a more precise use of terminology might assist the group of you in debating with each other.
edited 14th May '18 8:49:30 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I'm less interested in the my fist vs. your face rights discussion. It's a clear-cut case of authority and no authority. Fascists or anarchists, you have no right to just start disprupting a class. If a student wants to ask a question, like, "why is liberal democracy even desirable in the first place?" That is 100% legitimate.
Soapboxing is not legitimate and in fact takes away from the education of all otehr students.
If they want their Fascist Club or to talk with the professor about racial supremacy, they can do it outside of class.
All of the countries Obama expanded the war on terror into are cooperating with the US. Also, that basically describes the entirety of military action so it's not really a change from now.
If we were just bombing them with conventional aircraft, I don't think you'd hear nearly as much about it. Drones make for good headlines.
They should have sent a poet.The numbers of civilian casualities is a legitamite cause for concern. I forget who it was exactly, I think it was the former director of the NSA, who described in his bio how he had to decide whether or not to assassinate a terrorist leader with a missile, in face of the fact that it would in all likelyhood also kill a very young child. He eventually decided to go ahead with the strike, and the child was killed. That is a very disturbing anecdote, regardless of how you feel about the war in general.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Of course some beliefs are inherently disruptive. Would you feel comfortable sitting in a classroom with someone who raised their hand and said, in all apparent seriousness, that they were just curious if America would be better off as a white ethnostate?
It doesn't matter if the student follows the class participation procedure to the letter to ask that. The belief itself is disruptive to the learning environment of the other students. Sure, if you can say 'that's not an appropriate question' and count on them not bringing it up again, sure, don't kick them out; but at some point an educator has a duty to the majority of the students who are there to learn the actual material.
Also, there seems to be an assumption of good faith or pure-minded ignorance on the part of the hypothetical questioning student, like they really are just asking for thought experiment purposes. That's never going to be the case, and if it somehow is a case of someone making it all the way to college without the critical thinking skills to question whether genocide is ever societally acceptable, that's something to be handled outside of class, when you're not burning the other students' class time to teach something that should honestly be basic decency.
edited 14th May '18 9:13:27 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.
I'm pretty sure that's the plot to Eyeinthe Sky.
But yeah, the level of collateral damage is disturbing. It's gone down as we've gotten more comfortable with drone warfare, but it's still unacceptably high.
They should have sent a poet.I'm pretty sure it was Michael Hayden, but I cant find the reference now.
What's scary is that no one even debates it anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. There are news reports that under Trump, drone strikes are becoming more common, and more indiscriminant in killing bystanders.
@Red: If they cant abide by the rules, "kick them out" is exactly what you do. Ignore them, you don't.
edited 14th May '18 9:39:35 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.No one suggested "ignoring them". We said "don't let them speak." Not every disciplinary action is going to end with expulsion and when they come back to class you are not obligated to call on them. Not everyone deserves a second chance, and no one deserves a second chance at the expense of their fellow students.
Once someone has announced their allegiance to fascism, anything else they might have to say is utterly useless to the discussion, at best, actively detrimental at worst. I am no more obligated to engage with their lunacy than I am to engage with flat-earthers. I am not going to waste my time or the time of my other students by exposing them to that. I value the other students more than that.
I am not Jesus. I am not in the soul-saving business. My job is not to bring around the irredeemable, it's to protect the rest of the student body from them.
edited 14th May '18 9:48:19 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Hope nobody minds me responding to a line from a few pages back.
Oh, I think it's not all that complex. It essentially comes down to the idea behind this cartoon
◊. Almost everybody wants things to change, but far fewer want to either work to make it happen or change anything about themselves, their surroundings, or their family.
As a for example, there were plenty of people who wanted lynching and racial violence in the South to end in the 60s, people who would say "How horrible!" when a couple of young black girls were blown up in a church, but ask them to have their children go to school with black children, to see black people walking around the same neighborhood as though they belong there, to see their daughters talking to young black boys or simply to truly contemplate and accept that black people are fellow sentient beings who were exactly the same as and equal to them? That was a whole other story.
Passing a law feels good and responsible and like something is getting done... preferably done somewhere else, out of sight and mind, while you can sit comfortably without it effecting your daily routine. A law that someone else can pass, someone else can enforce, and which other people can deal with the repercussions of is a hell of a lot easier on me than changing a point of view, rethinking what's right and wrong, and certainly easier than actually having to act on doing what I know is right.
A decent amount of my cynicism is formed out of 20+ years of paying attention to the news/politics and seeing the American public say they want something, then either refuse to do the necessary follow through, ("We want more and better government services, but we won't pay a single penny more in taxes to get it!") or forcibly turn against the very thing they said they wanted once they get it because it requires them to actually do something. ("We said we wanted healthcare without it being socialist government healthcare, but now we have to actually pick between plans and educate ourselves about insurance? This sucks! Lets vote for the other party next time!")
So I feel like I can perfectly understand people who can want two completely, fundamentally opposing things at the same time, and who will vote in favor of a change in law and then refuse to actually enforce it or live up to it. And they can turn vicious if you try to actually enforce something they supposedly wanted in a way that inconveniences them.
edited 14th May '18 11:41:28 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Speaking as some one who is just wrapping up a masters in machine learning, I couldn't laugh harder at this.
It is something that EXISTS NOW.... My entire job is based around it.
Now I am going to assume you mean something human like, a General System rather then an Expert System.
Even then its about 20-30 years off by current estimates within the field, and even the worst case "we run into every problem ever conceivable" estimates put it at less then 70 years off......
It is something we are going to have to deal with in our lifetimes, and to be honest is something we should start working on the political ramifications of now, because dealing with them as an after fact is just going to be a horrible mess.
The machine learning tech that most people have experience with is already hilariously outdated, and current generations of it can pull out absolutely horrifying amounts of information.
edited 14th May '18 11:37:01 PM by Imca
Sooo, let me get this right, you would disagree with an astrophysicist on the nature of space? Or a chemist telling you that mixing things together is a bad idea?
I have dedicated the better chunk of a decade of my life to the study of self learning machines, I think I know a bit more about there feasibility then some one basing there argument on reading Roger Penrose's consciousness work.
AI is here now, and General Systems are on the doorstep to say otherwise is just a denial of technological process.
edited 14th May '18 11:45:02 PM by Imca
That is actually a question that is up for debate, because "sentient" is not something we can actually test for..... Human like machines will exist before the end of our lifes though.
Well, not entirely human-like, AI is kind of alien to us, and it does need a market to even be made in the first place, tech doesn't exist just for its own sake, but...... it is going to get to the point soon enough where we start having to go through some very uncomfortable questions.
Which is why I am glad the EU has already adressed the situation, and wish other countries would as well.
Though preferably not this administration, it has way too major of consequences to trust Trump with.
edited 15th May '18 12:12:38 AM by Imca

Yeah, but it's misleading to think of GAI when you hear AI, because that's basically the realm of sensationalist news stories 90% of the time, whilst any applications for AI aren't. Basically every use for AI and thus arguments based on the capability of AI are unaffected by the possibility or impossibility of GAI.