leicsmac

... did many people here say she'd win easily? I think a lot of people saw it for what it was - variance of outcomes about 50/50, but those outcomes themselves would not necessarily be close.

On topic, it now appears to be tradition to have astronauts landing on the Moon talking exclusively to presidents either accused of or convicted of a felony.

Thank you. Without power, rhetoric and pledges is all we have to go on, but yes, it's moot now. WRT the overall matter, I hope you're wrong when you say it's too late, but if you're not, I do hope resilience programs include holding those responsible parties accountable for all the blood that will be on their hands.

Imagine living somewhere where a legislative coup attempt and being buddy buddy with Putin wasn't a political deal breaker.

It's more "will" than "could", sadly.

If you wouldn't mind mate, I'd like an answer to my question first before I address yours.

Then unless someone else takes up the slack, the future doesn't look great.

I hope that we don't have to find out.

In lighter news, the current news is boosting the alien reality tv special "Terran Shore" to record ratings on a dozen colonised systems. Apparently slightly elevated primates and their questionable decision making makes for incredible viewing.

I know I've asked you before, but is there any reason at all to suggest that business/the Chinese/AN Other will pick up the tab on ecological issues in the time needed and the manner needed? As above, really - perhaps the social consequences may not pan out, but I don't see the environmental ones ending any other way. If there's another possible outcome, I'd love to hear justification for it. Edit: This has been covered before too, but when bad things happen, the one who actually did them takes most of the blame, with the ones that tried to stop them and failed also getting a part of it, but much smaller.

Just woke up. Well, if things pan out the way they're looking to right now, then I really hope that I'm wrong about the future. If I'm not, however, then the consequences for that - for people in Ukraine, in the middle East, for LGBT people, for ethnic minorities, for the biosphere itself - will be on everyone who saw what Trump was, what he represents, and voted for him anyway in the name of their own short term self interest. There will be - has to be - a reckoning. To be fair to at least fivethirtyeight.com, they took great pains to say that even though the results modelling they had put it 50/50 in terms of victories, that didn't mean the result itself need be close.

Yeah, Harris is like Biden in that she's not even in the top fifty ideal candidates for the job. But given everything that's happened, "not Trump" and "not Repub policies" are obvious and entirely legitimate positions on their own and need no further explanation IMO.

And if people need a reminder, one just needs to think of Charlottesville in 2017 and Washington DC in January 2021.

Yeah, it's a fair question. In the UK, from what I can tell, it's rather strange that the choice has a. come to this in the first place and b. is this close now that it has, given past events.

Or perhaps BN thinks the more extreme path will let him hold onto power for longer?

Additionally, people can and should vote based on other things than what affects them and only them right now. Short term self interest is how a lot of the messes of the world start and continue.

You're spot on there. But now every time that pendulum swings, the future is gambled with it. And the odds keep tilting in the wrong direction each time.

... if the chance ever comes to rectify it, that is, given that such lies, deflections and lack of accountability on scientific matters is likely to be punished witheringly.

As much as there is evidence for this, I think socially (in a few places anyway) progress was being made until the mid 2010s. Someone would barely have dreamt of being able to be out LGBT in society and their workplace 20-30 years ago, now it's mostly accepted, for instance. That's not to say there hasn't been a real attempt by people to backside such societal views in the last few years, though.

If you present abhorrent viewpoints under the umbrella of "freedom of expression", they can should more palatable and there's less blowback if you embrace them. Because, you know, everyone should be free to air their views. Lucrative for a guy like Rogan, too.

He's already got the golf.

Given rent prices in NYC, she may still have to commute for that one. But seriously, more power to her elbow. I know there's plenty of physics grads who decided to move sideways into a different and more personally profitable (if occasionally much less ethical, forensic accounting aside) form of number crunching.

That's because people often confuse having a certain amount of business success through whatever method and therefore having money with being smart.

And isn't that a pointed indictment of the societies that are permitted to exist.

And there was me thinking I was the only one thinking this.