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@Greyparrot
U admit there wasn't enough fraud to change the results? Who r u and what have u done with greyparrot?
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looks like i'm mistaken
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does anyone dispute this?
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it may be also worth makin colleges take on more risk... if they want to be paid back in full, they should help get their students decent paying jobs, bottom line
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@Sum1hugme
i'm talking about looking at the average salary of graduates, ten years after they graduate. of course that would make the process of determining that info very political.
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@Greyparrot
"make all learning centers on the job training centers."
that actually isn't such a bad idea.
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@Sum1hugme
i'm open to the idea of people who are really poor not paying anything if an until their income rises.
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if you make all college free, tuition will sky rocket and make it unaffordable for taxpayers. people also should bear some responsibility for their actions especially since not everyone goes to college.
total tuition should be capped over the life of the college, the average income ten years out for that degree. nurses might make 60 k in ten years, so that's what the tuition should be capped at for the life of the college. if philosphy majors only make 30 k ten years out, that's what it should be capped to go to college. this makes the cost prooportional to the marketability of the major. if it doesn't need to take four years, colleges will have an incentive to lessen the time instead of dragging it out.
as far as finanical help. the disabled should have debt discharged.
everyone else, all payments should be income based and not part of a person's credit report that would stop them from getting other loans or mortgages. people should pay ten percent of their income per year after school. after ten years, hopefully they will be paid off. if not, half of the rest of the balance is discharged, and they continue paying ten percent a year for another ten years. then the half balance is again dischraged and the process repeats until it's paid off or they die. this ensures people take responsbility for their actions while not being completely unaided.
all grants should be abolished in favor of loans
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well maybe i'm wrong on the contract clause thing... i dont know how to analyze the contracts clause versus the bankruptcy power of the constitution.
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@secularmerlin
like i said bankruptcy after the fact is problematic. for a simple yes or no, i would say no i dont support just discharging it. maybe partial discharge for some people.
it's not right to the private lenders who gave out loans with the expectation that the government would back them up like the government said it would. i suppose i wouldn't mind since lenders aren't guilt free themselves... maybe making people pay ten percent of their income for ten years, then if anything is left make them continue paying ten percent a year while half of what's left is discharged.
with all that said, discharging it would violate the contracts clause of the constitution. the government can't change contracts after they've been established. i wouldn't mind amending the constitution for a partial discharge situation, but getting an amendment like that to occur just aint gonna happen.
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@secularmerlin
i think people should take at least some responsibility for what they've borrowed. maybe everyone pays ten percent of their income until it's paid off, or maybe half of it's paid off, or until they die, whichever comes first. it's not right to make the loans discharged in bankruptcy after the fact, and it's not right to saddle taxpayers with the whole bill, and it's not fair that some people lived the high life in college while others struggled yet those who lived it up get a free ride.
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@secularmerlin
notice i also said regulate college costs and make loans/grants marketable. two years is enough for a degree. focus on STEM. that sorta stuff. make loans income based and not part of a person's credit report.
i would be open to limiting how many houses a person can own. but before we do that i'd rather allow millions more manufactured houses and trailers than zoning currently allows.
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that's why we have student loans. if the major and the person are marketable, they can afford to pay them back. if they aren't, then the person will struggle with non discharageable in bankruptcy loans. we should not allow colleges to charge so much, and we should limit grants or loans in ways that are marketable. of course, this all assumes the government should stay in the student loan business... as without it, there would be a lot of lost potential as you mentioned where people struggle just to make ends meet.
food is a negligible thing... a part time job or an extra loan can pay for that. the only people who would struggle with food are people with major issues, but they're not the ones becoming shining stars in science and such. and, that's why we have food stamps. of course, this assumes we keep food stamps for people around the edges.
shelter we just can't afford.the deficit is already out of control. in my opinioin people shouldn't have to pay more than half of their income in taxes, and while there's still room to close loop holes, i dont think even taxing that much would be enough income if all we focus on is the wealthy. after all, they say billionaires are worth 3.5 trillion in assets but the democrats want to increase spending by that same amount. how much sense does that make? i suppose section 8 should stay for the people on the fringes but that's not going to get rock star scientists into better positions. student loans are how we do that.
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@TheUnderdog
should germany erect statutes of hitler and put them up for prominent display in public areas?
if you think there's a difference in taking them down and putting them up, would you agree that there shouldn't be statutes of hitler at all? do you recognize that all reputable academic sources say the confederacy was about slavery? not just as part of the reason... that's the reason they went to war.
you say museums might not have room for the statues but would you agree that the proper place would be a museum if there was room and there was no cost issues?
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@Double_R
well i just gave u a big long list of stuff from the book 'evidence for the afterlife'. what do you think of all those things? such as blind people seeing for the first time, or out of body experiences being shown as accurate. all those things i just listed recently. that's lots of science there. all you have is a bunch of hunches, at best. i have lots of science on my side, u have just a hunch. it's not really even worth talkin to ya, if u can't even comprehend that there's a book full of evidence for the afterlife, but you wont even acknowledge it. u dont understand evidence, science, basic logic, or even common sense.
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@Tradesecret
this is a side track question... but what do you think of near death experiences? you seem like the type that would view it as new age mumbo jumbo, or maybe the work of satan, or maybe liberalism run amok.
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@Tradesecret
what's your opinion on why only healings seem miraculous these days, and the wide array of miracles that happened in the bible dont seem to happen nowadays? is god trying to leave plausible deniability to maintain faith?
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@secularmerlin
i'm a hard core theist, and i believe in miracles, but i dont deny that is a well stated post
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i dont think i can spell it out any clearer. there's only two fair conclusions that can be drawn here 1. god and the afterlife probably exist 2. atheists lack critical thinking
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@secularmerlin
That is evidence on the order of the evidence of any god ever proposed to me.
so do you also have evidence of people praying to fairies and then having inexplicable healing occur to them? do you have evidence of people who didn't believe in fairies then dying and experiencing fairies and then mostly becoming believers in fairies when they are brought back to life?
that's right, i knew you didn't have that evidence.
do you also reject the afterlife, given there's ample evidence of it, but it becomes un palatable to you given the afterlife is associated with fairies?
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@Greyparrot
strange that you find the government paying people isn't socialist.... when it fact it is the most socialist position out there in the US. yet, you find the government giving non financial welfare to be socialism.
so it's not socialist to pay someone two hundred a month cash, but it is socialist to give them two hundred a month in food stamps?
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the minimum threshold for what is rational is "god might exist because there is evidence for that proposition". "god might exist in the same way magic fairies might exist" is a rational statement, but it ignores that there is actual evidence for God while there isn't for magic fairies so there are irrational undertones in that statement. "i dont know if God exists" is rational only if they acknowledge that there's evidence for God even though they find it inadequate. "God deosn't exist" is irrational. "no evidence exists for God or the afterlife" is the most irrational statement of all
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@Greyparrot
so u think someone who wants to pay everyone a thousand dollars every month isnt a marxist?
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@secularmerlin
on a semantic point, the everyday idea of an atheist does make a positive claim, 'there is no god'. also, there are on the internet as opposed to the real world, a lot more folks who just claim to be without theism, neutral on actual believes. the problem, though, is that in practice i've never seen an atheist who doesn't make judgments about evidence and claims about their opinions of it. so as a practical point, all atheist make claims and pass judgments. i suppose in trying to give the benefit of the doubt as best i can, a-theist, those neutral ones, might plausibly be rational. but anyone who makes the claim that there is no god and considers all the evidence, is irrational. at the very least, those who consider all the evidence and says there is no evidence... is blatantly hands down irrational.
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@EtrnlVw
the one dude said he considers it evidence if it's more likely than not true. that's not how evidence works in the legal system. the key word the legal system asks is whether something is 'probative'. does it make something more likely to be true or not? if only evidence that was more likely to be true was allowed, only cases that are usually winners would be tried. if something is 25 percent likely to be true, it's good evidence. even low probability situations are evidence. i want to say there is objectively good evidence for God and the afterlife, but i try to respect others and at least try to get them to understand there's at least evidence to begin with. they can't even pass that hurdle... that there's enough to look at to call it evidence. i think they have issues with respecting truth, and they have issues with black hearts. of course, they also have issues with basic logic, but their personality flaws are what drives it i suspect.
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if ya'll want a start in researching out of body experiences, 'evidence for the afterlife' by doctor jeffrey long does a short literature review of some highlights. there's lots of studies that look at the accuracy of those experiences and they're always shown to be accurate. there's whole scientific journals out there dedicated to this stuff, the evidence is basically too overwhelming to just ignore. that's why atheism is irrational.
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it's also good evidence that the same sorts of NDEs happen to people who have never heard of these experiences, and to children who are too young to know about it either.
it's also good evidence, that across all cultures, the themes in the experiences happen the same. that is, tunnels, light being, life reviews and such... all these things happen at the same rate regardless of country or culture. i realize humans are similar, so the argument that we just have similar experiences is possible. but if this just a brain going hay wire, it wouldn't be so consistent and would be a lot more like random images or random experiences.
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another good piece of evidence is that when experiencers are surveyed, they say their 'life reviews' are always accurate, 100% of the time. if this was just a brain going hay wire, we'd expect lots of false memories.
i think this also goes along with the idea that if this was a brain going hay wire, people would experience lots of random images, like a hallucination or dream. instead, they see lucid clear after life experiences that they have no doubt about and that are more real to them than their earthly lives.
also, people often see images in their life review, that they've long forgotten. it's not as likely just a brain going hay wire if it's showing the whole life even the forgotten stuff.
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another piece of evidence is that experiencers almost always see relatives when dead, and almost never see someone who is still living. it's possible people just have a strong connection to their families and automatically think of the dead when dying... but if this was just a brain going hay wire, we'd expect lots of random people in the experience, both living and not living. the consistency of this is good evidence.
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@Amoranemix
" You are mistaken. Others have also presented counter-evidence, that you have skillfully ignored."
what evidence am i ignoring? i think the most specific anyone has gotten is to argue that all humans are similar in design, and that there's a survival gene, therefore they claim that it's to be expect that we hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when we die. talk about jumping to conclusions. and this argument lacks specificity in science.... they dont show an afterlife gene or something in our brain, all they do is say it's possible to draw on science to explain NDEs. all this stuff boils down to, is a hunch. it lacks science. whereas, 'evidence of the afterlife' is great evidence, as well as all the studies published in journals about out of body experiences being accurate. it's also just common sense, which ya'll lack... to not think that it's common to hallucinate a bunch of elaborate afterlife experiences when we die, if there's no good evidence to justify that argument.
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In my first book I had nine lines of evidence for the reality of near-death experiences. What’s most persuasive to me as a physician-researcher is a little bit different than the lines of evidence that are most persuasive to the public. The public is very persuaded by a near-death experiencer who was totally blind from birth and yet had a highly visual NDE—it was the first time she ever saw. And they are also persuaded by out-of-body experiences. In a little over 40 percent of my surveys, NDE’rs observed things that were geographically far from their physical body, that were way outside of any possible physical central awareness. Typically, someone who has an NDE with an out-of-body experience comes back and reports what they saw and heard while floating around, it’s about 98 percent accurate in every way. For example, in one account someone who coded in the operating room had an out-of-body experience where their consciousness traveled to the hospital cafeteria where they saw and heard their family and others talking, completely unaware that they had coded. They were absolutely correct in what they saw. These types of out-of-body experiences are very persuasive to a lot of people.
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@FLRW
just because you have trouble being coherent or accurate doesn't mean i have a low intellect
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@Amoranemix
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not indicative evidence."
indicative evidence is still evidence. i can respect not being a theist, but declaring that there's no evidence for God is irrational.
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@FLRW
telepathy is where thoughts are transferred or automatically known between people. i'm not sure why you are going on this detour of calling it transferring languages, which no one ever says is telepathy. it looks like u r just being difficult, obtuse. but i guess it's possible u just aren't very knowledgeable about this stuff.
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@FLRW
usually people who experience say they all communicated telepathically
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@Double_R
all you've shown is that you are good at creating elaborate theories to deny basic observation, basic evidence. ockam's razer is that if people die and tell us of the afterlife, the most simple explanation is that they died and experienced the afterlife. you have a tendency of defining yourself to be right by definition... "nothing can't exist outside the universe" "the supernatural can't exist". i can relate to thinking experiencing the afterlife is too good to be true, but that's what it looks like. and, all your counter ideas for why it's not authentic experience, is that you have a hunch. that's all the skeptic counter arguments amount to, a hunch. there's scant science attached to it. read 'evidence of the afterlife' by dr long or read studies on out of body experiences... we have lots of science on the pro authentic side, and mere hunches with scant science attached to it on the anti authentic side.
per your counter points. you say it's too subjective to be authentic... that's just a weak theory, a hunch. plus, it ignores that almost everyone who has the experience believes in the afterlife afterwards, even if they didn't before the experience. and the large majority of atheists who have the experience end up believing in God. (those who dont change just didn't get any insight into the matter.... it's pretty much never the case that a theist becomes an atheist or that an atheist gains knowledge that there is in fact no God) plus experiencing God is common (along with Jesus experiences, i might add), experiencing a wide array of religions is so rare that i doubt you can even provide hardly any examples of it. so it's not as subjective as you claim it is, is what i'm getting at. but even if the experience is subjective, it all revolves around an afterlife experience, which nothing we know of drugs dreams hallucinations etc, doesn't replicate. i've said it many times, but the idea that we hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when we die, is as stupid an idea as it comes.
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@Fruit_Inspector
well, it has risky side effects. i suppose that's all i can say for sure. that, and that animal doses are for sure unsafe.
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@Fruit_Inspector
the consensus within science is that ivermectin is unsafe. also, you would have to cite credible authority to back up all your claims, cause there's so much misinformation floating around that dupes stupid people, that we can't just assume information we find on the internet is true.
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@FLRW
a person isn't dead when they're under gas. people experience the afterlife when they die... so maybe they have to be dead to experience it. pretty straight forward though... you have to be dead first before you can experience the afterlife.
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analogy. if someone provides evidence that the speed of light is constant, the default position isn't that they're bullshitting you. the best position is that, maybe, the speed of light is constant. it's okay to be skeptical, but the default position isn't always the most skeptical position. and it's irrational to argue the speed of light isn't constant when presented with evidence that it is.
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"people die and tell us of their afterlife experience" this is a fact. i realize ya'll like to poke holes in it, but it's still a fact. a stubborn fact. i think ya'll can't deal with it, cause it's so blatantly clear evidence that contradicts your worldview.
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@Double_R
i'll break it down for you. people die and tell us of the afterlife. how is that not evidence for the afterlife? i can see insisting that the afterlife isn't proven, or that you want more evidence to embrace the conclusion, or that you like alternative interpretations of it... but how can a sane person say there's no evidence for the afterlife?
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the evidence theists provide indicates something. they indicate that there's an afterlife and that miracles happen to theists. i can understand if someone wanted to remain a skeptic, as if they needed more evidence to embrace the conclusions fully. but to pretend there's no evidence for the supernatural or God or any of that, is objectively wrong. that's why atheism is irrational.
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@Double_R
You either don’t understand what evidence is or don’t understand what atheism is.The problem is of course that you understand both of these, so this comment demonstrates your ultimate flaw - this isn’t about reason and logic. The quote made you feel good, so you put it out there. That speaks volumes about your approach and why you ultimately believe the way you do.
atheists have a rebut able presumption. good evidence is provided by theists. bad evidence, or no evidence, is provided by atheists to rebut. that's why i say there's insufficient evidence to be an atheist.
we see people die and come back to tell afterlife stories. we see out of body events being described highly accurately under scientific study. atheists have no good evidence to say what's happening is anything other than what we observe... the best they have are vague theories, but with scant science attached to it.
we see praying theists with inexplicable healings but we have no evidence that these things happen to atheists... atheist healings as far as i can tell are always explicable. all we have is atheists telling us to assume the same things happen to them too.
this is very plain evidence provided by theists. yes it's possible to remain a skeptic, but it goes against the evidence... it's skepticism for the sake of skepticism. you cant come up with coherent counter theories, cause you just dont understand science or logic.
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an artist has an image in his head, but he still chooses to paint the picture. was it novel to the artist to paint the picture?
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both parties deserve blame for it.
the dems are in control right now, so they deserve a little more blame.
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@oromagi
my main point to all of you is that progressives are bad for the democratic party. i'm not necessarily arguing abotu specific bills. when they push 'universal everything', that's a major problem. your points on the bill are irrelevant to that. but i will address your points about the specific bill.
the fact that the current bills are so watered down, shows that the full versions the progressives want, would never be feasible. it shows that the democrats tending are more moderate than the far out progressives.
just because congress spends too much on the military doesn't justify spending so much elsewhere.
there's still too much waste even in your examples. but the thing is, congress should get the deficit under control first, before finding new ways to tax and spend. even if they're raising taxes for new spending, the deficit should have come first.
some examples of waste:
-i dont mind child care tax credits for poor people... they shouldn't be paying taxes if they can't afford child care.
-they shouldnt spend so much on buildings for a select few people. all that does is add to the lottery system that is the public housing system, where only a select few get assistance. they could give loans that are paid back for more housing, and bully localities to allow cheaper and more housing. i know you made the point that i tend to accept, that we can't just pool poor people in shelters due to social costs like drug use.... but if we have no choice there are cheaper ways to get people under shelter than shelling out so much to buy buildings and pay people's rent. HUD already spends enough to seed whatever initatives congress has.
-paying people's tuition isn't efficient. they need to regulate college costs by not allowing colleges to charge too much. if all you do is throw money at it all, it will just ramp up costs even more. they also need to stop subsidizing arts degrees and such... my point is that there's lots of ways to make it all more efficient than just throwing money at it.
-universal pre k is a waste of money. all that program is good for is giving parents child care so they can work. but public school is much more expensive than child care. i've never seen a good example of public child care, but getting people to watch each other's kids doesn't have to cost a lot if parents and all levels of government are chipping in. id rather pay for child care than schooling.
-i dont mind universal broad band since internet is so crucial
-there's no good reason to pay for family leave... congress should just require busiessnes find a way to provide it themselves.
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@oromagi
The Senate passed a massive bipartisan infrastructure bill in early August after months of negotiations.In total, the deal includes $550 billion in new federal investments in America's infrastructure over five years.
However, the package would add $256 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report.The bill must be approved by the House before it can head to President Joe Biden's desk. But House progressives don't want to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure legislation before also voting to pass a separate $3.5 trillion spending bill that would remake a lot of the country's social safety net system -- and also likely raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
maybe i'm missing something but that CNN article makes it look like there's an infrastructure bill, and a separate three and a half trillion social bill.
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@SkepticalOne
the 3.5 trillion is in addition to a separate infrastructure bill. it doesn't make sense to to increase spending when we have such high deficits. it's like what republicans do just opposite, they cut taxes even if spending isn't under control. the bottom line is that spending needs to become under control and all they're doing is adding more and more.
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i'm a life long democrat supporter, but i'm considering switching sides if these multi trillion dollar budgets keep getting passed.
most democrats are pretty conservative. they are moderate, at least. they aren't run away liberals. but these radical progressives believe in all the things that we know republicans dont believe in, and that most democrats dont either. things like universal child care, universal housing, universal tuition... they just throw money at problems even if their methods suck. there are lots of constructive ways to adddress those issues without throwing money at them. plus, they pour fire on race relations calling everything racist. being woke is okay if all it means is you are aware of racial injustice, but not when you are actually being reverse racist. most people dont vote based on transgender rights or any of that garbage.
i wrote another thread on it, but healthcare is my main issue. it's possible to raise taxes for a universal plan, that the republicans would just cut the taxes, leaving us bankrupt. the only way that makes sense to get costs down is to regulate costs, and then find a way to get the uninsured under a plan. none of the dems talk this way.... they just want to throw money at the problem, as usual.
democratic socialists, is what they are. but they are no better than libertarians in their radical ways. i'm strongly anti economic libertarian.... those guys are clowns. but democratic socialists are just clowns coming from the other direction.
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