US 2024 Presidential Election

[The Rogue Wolf]

President Trump threatens Canada over trade war - saying it should become 'cherished 51st state'

It comes after the US leader said he is imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico - and the two countries retaliated with their own measures.

news.sky.com

Does he realize that Canada would be such a blue state that it'd make California look like Kansas? No, of course he doesn't. He probably thinks they'd support him 100% out of "gratitude".

 

[Agema]

I worked with a guy who supported Trump before the 2016 election. He once said that if he was ever a boss, on his first day he would just randomly fire an employee just to establish how tough of a boss he would be. I'm guessing thats their mentality, establish dominance by going after a weak target to show how serious they are and once one fall the other should "fall in line".

Sure, but some people are fucking idiots.

That guy knows so little about being the boss that he doesn't even comprehend that many bosses don't actually have that power (legally, at least).

You can also go away and read up on management / leadership styles, and pretty much every guide you will find is going to tell you that that sort of stunt is characteristic of a leader who is more likely to crater his team's output than increase it.

 

[Silvanus]

That assessment is the historic commitment translated into practice. "These changes are a result of the modifications to the hiring process for ATC developed by the Barrier Analysis Implementation team."

That sentence doesn't indicate that. It's a vague statement to the effect that the hiring process was modified (in some unspecified way) by that team's work. That's it.

What were the recommendations in the Barrier Analysis Report?

The only thing different between the report recommendations and the final implementation is that they made it a separate assessment rather than an addition to the ATSAT. They deliberately designed a test to cull the majority of applicants with priority for diversity.

This is a gigantic stretch. Those recommendations you've quoted categorically do not suggest what you've accused them of-- the use of proxy characteristics in the questionnaire to target and weed out qualified candidates who aren't from minority groups.

Look at what those recommendations actually, directly suggest-- solid actions-- regarding diversity. "Consider [diversity] a high priority". "Consider RNO and gender diversity [alongside cognitive ability]'". The only other reference is that the multi-hurdle, front-loaded approach they suggest can also "maximise diversity while minimising reductions to criterion-related validity", which isn't a suggested action to do with diversity, but one potential benefit of the overall approach.

Broadly it just says their approach (multi-hurdle, front-loaded) promotes diversity and that diversity should be considered during evaluation. Nothing about proxy characteristics. Nothing about unfair exclusion.

I am not making leaps here, I am reading their words.

No, you're not. You're reading into them.

 

[tstorm823]

Oh will you stop with that horseshit. We're talking about what the data shows as observable impact. Whatever opinions you, I, or anyone else have on the test are utterly irrelevant. Your claim was that the numbers showed a causal link between the test and the number of hires. So naturally that means that what makes or breaks the case is entirely contained in those numbers and the factors that affected them.

Shall I try this a third time?

I don't think there is sufficient justification to treat the assessment as a sole cause of the drop, but rejecting thousands of qualified applicants while being increasingly understaffed seems to be negligent at best.

That I said that in my first post on the subject, and you think you've refuted my point by showing other potential causes shows you don't understand what I'm saying. Your attempt at identifying what my claim was above directly contradicts what I said from the beginning, and it's hardly surprising that you miss the point when you are deliberately avoiding the central point.

I suppose you are right on a technicality that it is avoidable: someone interpreting his comments could be extraordinarily stupid or deliberately refuse to think them through. In which case, which one are you angling for?

I think what you might mean is that Trump didn't say that controller error was definitely the cause of the crash. He also offered up other possibilities (such as the inevitability that accidents happen, or pilot error). But, you know, needlessly slandering people is probably one of the reasons that leaders conventionally wait for investigation results.

Here's what I might suggest in as specific a way I can: when he emphasizes a directive to hire the disabled for this role, you hear that as an insult to both air traffic controllers and the disabled. When a Trump supporter hears him say that, they hear it as a criticism of the priorities of the Biden Administration (assuming they don't know anything beyond what they've heard recently). The Trump voters are not going to buy into the idea that a critical safety role is the proper place for explicit diversity hires, and the vast majority of those voters are not going to see that as a fault of women, the disabled, or racial minorities. Rather, they see it as the fault of an American left that takes the normal workings of society (the price of eggs) for granted and focuses their efforts instead on social justice activism. The target of Trump's ire in those comments was almost certainly Democrats. Not unambiguously, I'll give you that, but i doubt he says Biden so many times by accident.

That sentence doesn't indicate that. It's a vague statement to the effect that the hiring process was modified (in some unspecified way) by that team's work. That's it.

It's line 1 of the document that added the assessment to the hiring process, labeled "reason for change". Cut the crap or you're not getting another response.

Nothing about proxy characteristics. Nothing about unfair exclusion.

Not "proxy characteristics", just "additional predictors".

Do you think it's a coincidence that the barrier analysis report recommended outreach efforts to the national community, and that " RNO and gender diversity should be explicitly considered", and then the assessment had a question about where you learned about the job opportunity, and gave maximum points only to those who found out through public notice or advertisement?

 

[Agema]

Here's what I might suggest in as specific a way I can: when he emphasizes a directive to hire the disabled for this role, you hear that as an insult to both air traffic controllers and the disabled. When a Trump supporter hears him say that, they hear it as a criticism of the priorities of the Biden Administration (assuming they don't know anything beyond what they've heard recently).

Yes, I'm aware that many Trump supporters revel in, don't think about or actively blind themselves to how much of a piece of shit Trump is. It's very much suggested by the term "Trump supporter", and an important psychological defence to avoid feeling awkward about voting for him.

 

[tstorm823]

Yes, I'm aware that many Trump supporters revel in, don't think about or actively blind themselves to how much of a piece of shit Trump is. It's very much suggested by the term "Trump supporter", and an important psychological defence to avoid feeling awkward about voting for him.

Well, at least you will never have to worry about people needing to infer insults in what you say.

 

[Silvanus]

It's line 1 of the document that added the assessment to the hiring process, labeled "reason for change".

So what? It remains a general statement of priority. It still doesn't say a damn word about the actual actions you're alleging they took. And still less about the outcomes you're attributing to them.

Not "proxy characteristics", just "additional predictors".

Not proxy characteristics? That's not what you were saying here: "they can use proxies for race or gender that reach their desired outcomes".

Do you think it's a coincidence that the barrier analysis report recommended outreach efforts to the national community, and that " RNO and gender diversity should be explicitly considered", and then the assessment had a question about where you learned about the job opportunity, and gave maximum points only to those who found out through public notice or advertisement?

I mean.... that could quite easily be coincidence. The connection between those two things is pretty tenuous.

To be clear, it'd be a generally poor idea to reward candidates for how they heard about the role, regardless. I'm hoping you didn't take that detail from that blog and have some better substantiation.

 

[tstorm823]

I mean.... that could quite easily be coincidence. The connection between those two things is pretty tenuous.

Let's go with lol.

I'm hoping you didn't take that detail from that blog and have some better substantiation.

I have multiple big pdfs open on my computer, eyes to read them, and a brain to process. That is where the information I'm giving you is from. I'm not going to take anything about this as gospel without reaching the primary sources myself.

 

[Silvanus]

Let's go with lol.

Yes, when somebody is so wholly down the rabbit hole, the mundane or simple explanation seems impossible or laughable.

Looking at the options, my first thought would be that they're trying to prioritise people who're applying without prior connection. Then we have the fact the pass req was a specific score rather than proportional or by percentile. That tells us two things: 1) the pass req may have been calculated independently of some scoring questions (a common practice when employers want to reward something without disadvantaging the rest of the cohort) and 2) people scoring on that question have no impact on people who don't.

I have multiple big pdfs open on my computer, eyes to read them, and a brain to process. That is where the information I'm giving you is from. I'm not going to take anything about this as gospel without reaching the primary sources myself.
View attachment 12761

That's fine. I hope you can forgive scepticism, since the source you provided to begin with was already misrepresenting the process a bit.

 

[Satinavian]

Ok, i must say the US democracy was already in trouble with the blatantly partisan Supreme Court and having both chambers controlled by the same party as the president.

But now we get reports of Musk and his cronies operating the treasury, Trump deciding the US budget via executive orders without even bothering congress (remember : the congress alone is supposed to control federal money), various other departments also taken over by Musks cronies, all non entry level FBI personal fired and replaced with MAGA recruits without policing experience, the Secret Service busy with hunting children who posted something bad about Trump on social media, scores of inspector generals fired to get rid of any oversight (also expressly illegal) ...

This is just a fascist takeover exactly like the infamous ones in the past.

 

[Agema]

Well, at least you will never have to worry about people needing to infer insults in what you say.

I actually would afford people a certain level of respect for transparency: if someone wishes to say that they think Trump will be good for the USA and thus will support him despite the corruption and misconduct. If you want your team to win, and you understand politics is truly about raw power not norms and ethics and laws, you can just say so. If you think the USA was doing well under Trump and that the overall governance was worth the elements of corruption and chaos, you can just say so. There is a certainly a level of respect that can be afforded for honesty.

Where I have problem is when they keep pretending Trump isn't a crook, and his ethical mis-steps and corruption aren't - flying in the face of facts and reason and his past conduct, even to the level of absurdity. It's things like to deny or diminish the fact that he is a fraudster, a sex attacker, abuses power for self-aggrandisement, etc. Like downplaying of the 2020 election, of which Jan 6th was just a part.

That can be sheer chutzpah - for instance people like Trump himself who believe the only virtue is winning, and any tactic to get a step closer is worth it. But for some, it's the hypocrisy and self-delusion of refusing to apply standards they like to think they believe in. They want to think they are moral people, but deep down they know the sleaze of the administration they supported sticks to them too, and it makes them feel dirty. Ultimately, the tragedy of this is that this isn't dishonesty and bullshit to try to convince the opponents of Trump, it's the dishonesty and bullshit those Trump supporters are telling themselves to salve their own psychological pain for supporting a moral abscess.

 

[Schadrach]

He blamed everyone during the last administration. It's super effective for him

He didn't have an unimpeded trifecta last time. Presuming there is another election, there is no one to blame for anything except the GOP.

Trump Orders Schools to Ease Sex Assault Rules

The new Title IX rules will provide more protections for those accused of sexual misconduct, and eliminate LGBT protections adopted under Biden.

www.thedailybeast.com

Presuming the article is accurate in saying it rolls back the Biden changes to the 2018 version of the rules, the "easing" is stuff like the accused being allowed to have a lawyer present and being assigned a member of faculty to represent them through the process if they don't, testimony being done in live hearings (with the option to do video conference if either accused or accuser requests it), being allowed to question testimony from the accuser (questions asked by the lawyer or university representative of the accused, questions have to be approved by the judge-analog as being actually relevant) and have them answered during the hearing, the people whose roles are analogous to prosecutor and judge not being allowed to be the same person, not engaging in any punitive actions against the accused (non-punitive actions to make things easier for the accuser are allowed - for example having one or both switch classes or other such things to separate them but not functionally preventing one of them from pursuing their education) until after the hearing, the accused being allowed to have access to the training materials used to train faculty on the process so they know what to expect, that kind of thing.

I guess the big reveal here should be that Huffington Post is secretly a far-right neo-Nazi controlled opposition publication?

But those questions, on the face of it, have nothing to do with inclusivity or diversity... so you've assumed it's hidden there with unfair proxy characteristics.

And literacy tests had nothing to do with keeping black folks from voting, after all they didn't ask "are you black?" and determine the results from that.

It's wild to see an org go "we want to hire more of these demographics, but we aren't allowed to explicitly base hiring on these demographics" lead to "we implemented a test with questions of dubious value and a bizarre grading scale, in support of that goal" and not believe that the questions and scale are calibrated to promote the demographics they have said they want to hire more of.

To put it another way, if Trump had declared he wanted to eliminate DEI in air traffic controllers and took no other action to that end than changing the scoring and weights on this test, we'd have people coming out of the woodwork talking about racially biased testing and that would suddenly be obviously intuitive to the casual observer.

 

[Asita]

That I said that in my first post on the subject, and you think you've refuted my point by showing other potential causes shows you don't understand what I'm saying. Your attempt at identifying what my claim was above directly contradicts what I said from the beginning, and it's hardly surprising that you miss the point when you are deliberately avoiding the central point.

You say that, and yet you still evidently making no actual effort to understand the position you're arguing against. My point does not and never has been in any way that you claimed that it was the sole cause. Bluntly, that's nothing but dishonest waffle on your part.

My point was that the data you cited to evidence your claim is very explicitly explained by other factors. That those are the driving factors of the variance you invoked, meaning that it doesn't actually illustrate your position as you claimed.

To use an example I believe is similar to something you've argued in the past, imagine...someone citing the GDP dropping by 3.4% in 2020 to evidence the problems of the Trump administration's 2016-2019 economic policy. I'm sure that you'd agree that such a claim would be more than a little disingenuous considering that the data attributes the primary driver of that drop to Covid. The economic shock of that overshadowed pretty much everything else, and frankly meant that the economy would have taken a hit under anyone.

Now I want you to imagine that in response to you explaining as much, they respond by pointing to the trade war with China (2018-2019), claiming that it was the result of obviously stupid policy, that your invocation of Covid is you just trying to rationalize backwards from the numbers and that, by contrast, the person you're arguing with is just trying to identify the effects of the aforementioned "stupid policy".

And then, when you explain to them again that the data shows that the drop is pretty firmly because of Covid, they turn around and say that you clearly don't understand what they're saying because they never said that Trump's policies were the sole cause, Therefore, they argue, your explanation about Covid being the driving factor of the very drop they they invoked doesn't actually refute their point.

See the problem yet? Because that's exactly how this exchange has gone.


Putting it directly, are you familiar with the concept of a null hypothesis? A null hypothesis is a default assumption that a given two phenomena are not linked (e.g., you being born didn't cause it to rain that day). This is contrasted with an alternate hypothesis, which claims that two phenomena are linked. An alternate hypothesis is not on equal standing with a null hypothesis. It has to provide a strong case that it explains the data better than the null hypothesis. If it can do so, then you reject the null hypothesis and the alternate hypothesis becomes the new null hypothesis. If, however, the alternate hypothesis does not make a strong case that explains the data better than the null hypothesis, then the alternate hypothesis is rejected and the null hypothesis remains.

This exchange has been you positing an alternate hypothesis (a relationship between the hiring of 2013-2015 to diversity initiatives), and me walking you through how the delta you're citing as evidence is in fact already covered by factors accounted for in the null hypothesis (see again the previously linked reports) that your alternate hypothesis had overlooked, leaving no substantive support for the latter.

You cited this data specifically to exemplify how "the pursuance of diversity lead to, or at least meaningfully exacerbated under-hiring". The data, however, does not actually demonstrate that, with the delta you were highlighting actually being long accounted for as the result of other disruptive factors. As such, your presumption that this data evidences how diversity initiatives "meaningfully exacerbated under-hiring" is poorly founded at best.

 

[Silvanus]

And literacy tests had nothing to do with keeping black folks from voting, after all they didn't ask "are you black?" and determine the results from that.

Quite a lot of context missing from this equation. Such literacy tests tended to be implemented in specific areas where the impact would be clearly disproportionately impacting one group. Where there is plenty of evidence it correlates with demography in such a way as to disadvantage some more than others.

Whereas here, we have questions that have no demonstrated link whatsoever, such as... hearing about the posting from an advert.

The fact that proxy characteristics have been used before is not evidence that other characteristics must also be proxies. You need to actually show the proxy value and provide some substantiation for the targeted nature.

It's wild to see an org go "we want to hire more of these demographics, but we aren't allowed to explicitly base hiring on these demographics" lead to "we implemented a test with questions of dubious value and a bizarre grading scale, in support of that goal" and not believe that the questions and scale are calibrated to promote the demographics they have said they want to hire more of.

Things will seem wild if you misread them, generally. I'm not saying the hiring process was in no way adapted to promote diversity. I'm sure it was-- they said as much. But there are specific claims flying around about how that was implemented, how it disadvantaged/ excluded other people, and how it contributed to understaffing a decade later. All of which require leaping far beyond anything they said they did, and anything the data shows.

 

[Agema]

I guess the big reveal here should be that Huffington Post is secretly a far-right neo-Nazi controlled opposition publication?

Holy shit, HuffPost actually still exists?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

This is just a fascist takeover exactly like the infamous ones in the past.

 

[tstorm823]

See the problem yet? Because that's exactly how this exchange has gone.

I showed you the stupid policies (which I think everyone willing to acknowledge that test agrees is rather stupid), the explicit motivation of the policies, the intended result of throwing out most of the applicants, and the hiring trends that were down in that period, with the stated commentary that it might not cause that trend, but throwing out extra piles of people who pass the traditional exam is at least questionable policy in the face of that shortage.

 

[Cicada 5]

Trump Orders Schools to Ease Sex Assault Rules

The new Title IX rules will provide more protections for those accused of sexual misconduct, and eliminate LGBT protections adopted under Biden.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

These kids are between 18 and 24 years old

 

[Cicada 5]

These kids are between 18 and 24 years old

At the risk of looking like a Musk defender, the screen captured comment did suggest doxxing those people.