Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

But I don't think I want to live to be 90 - http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifest...220-story.html

God exists.

And fucking hates me.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Some reading for Sebby.

Thank you. Rambling, but there's no other way to offer a comprehensive view of the subject.

On the final points...

1. Technological unemployment is not happening right now, at least not more so than previous eras. The official statistics are confusing, but they show no signs of increases in this phenomenon. (70% confidence)

2. On the other hand, there are signs of technological underemployment – robots taking middle-skill jobs and then pushing people into other jobs. Although some people will be “pushed” into higher-skill jobs, many will be pushed into lower-skill jobs. This seems to be what happened to the manufacturing industry recently. (70% confidence)

Yup. Cloudy. And there's no way to tease truly conclusive analysis out of what's available.

3. This sort of thing has been happening for centuries and in theory everyone should eventually adjust, but there are some signs that they aren’t. This may have as much to do with changes to the educational, political, and economic system as with the nature of robots per se. (60% confidence)

I'd go with 80% here. If you've dealt with consumer debt, you've seen a category of human emerge who is simply not equipped to deal with even low level complexity (loan terms, credit management strategy, etc.). And then there are loads of people who simply don't care to do so. They might be able to understand their health insurance, home insurance, or adjustable rate mortgage... but they've got different priorities.

I'd split the country into people Who Really Dig Disney and Go There on Credit, and everybody else. Robots own some blame. Education some, too. But a lot of this is self-inflicted.

4. Economists are genuinely divided on how this is going to end up, and whether this will just be a temporary blip while people develop new skills, or the new normal. (~100% confidence)

I want Option C: Keynes' Leisure Society.

5. Technology seems poised to disrupt lots of new industries very soon, and could replace humans entirely sometime within the next hundred years. (???)

This is a very depressing conclusion. If technology didn’t cause problems, that would be great. If technology made lots of people unemployed, that would be hard to miss, and the government might eventually be willing to subsidize something like a universal basic income. But we won’t get that. We’ll just get people being pushed into worse and worse jobs, in a way that does not inspire widespread sympathy or collective action. The prospect of educational, social, or political intervention remains murky.

Universal Basic Income has to happen. The rest of the fixes are too incremental for the breadth and speed of the problem. After the GOP implodes, it'll be possible. It'll spend us into insolvency with COLAS and add-ons by 2200, but... IBGYBG.

[ferrets_bueller]

If I may veer away from sebby's economics-metaphyics:

The Florida School shooting might just be a tipping point. Scalia's preposterous notion that assault weapons are something the Second Amendment allows everyone to own looks rockier than it has in years.
The NRA is looking a tad vulnerable. Having Trump, with all his baggage, as the defender of essentially unlimited gun ownership doesn't help the NRA position. So, in no particular order:

1. No private gun sales to people who haven't passed a background check. Criminal penalties and civil liability to the seller when the gun is used in a crime.

2. Civil liability for gun owners if a weapon they own is used in a crime. Try getting insurance for that one.

3. A broad based assault weapon ban, a 10 round maximum clip for bullets. Listen up: That includes currently owned assault weapons. If you can ban M-60 machine guns, you can ban M-16s. If we have to pry 'em from their cold dead hands, do it. Alternatively, allow these weapons only on private property, and require transport of those weapons to be in a disassembled state. Criminal penalties for violation. Defend your castle, but don't bring that weapon out in public. To the assertion that this would require the ban on thousands of different types of weapons, I respond: So what?

4. What happened to Rubio has to happen to every spineless political gasbag. People have to point at Rubio, in public, and tell him and others like him that half measures won't work because they are doomed to failure. Tell them that if they don't commit to a broad solution, every high school student who thinks they are wrong will make them pay politically, and drive them out of office.

5. Target politicians who are the worst NRA flag waivers. Use their own words against them. Run the mothers and siblings of victims against them. Expose them for the accomplices of murder that they are. Pick a Congressman who supports some of the idiotic positions recently taken by the NRA and force them to run on that record.

6. I'll be the old fart at the March 24 march on Washington carrying a "Combat vets against combat weapons" sign

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Because they are watering your booze?

Maybe. But I had a decent amount of wine and beer that was either opened in front of me or opened by me.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

When home do you drink every night? I think the trick is to do so, so a bit ragged becomes baseline.

Glass of wine usually during the week. More on Friday/Saturdays.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I don't get how I can drink all day in Mexico, for three or four days straight, and not feel hungover the next day...yet if I have two martinis after 8 pm at the local I feel like crap the next day.

When you're in Mexico, do you sleep until noon before heading down for some heuvos rancheros, espresso, and a bloody Mary?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

1. No private gun sales to people who haven't passed a background check. Criminal penalties and civil liability to the seller when the gun is used in a crime.

Yes on the first part, no on the second. If a seller legally sells a weapon, after background checks have been completed, his reasonable duties are concluded. You're making him warrant it won't be used in a crime. Nobody's going to get behind that.

2. Civil liability for gun owners if a weapon they own is used in a crime. Try getting insurance for that one.

Non-starter. You basically make it impossible to manufacture and sell guns. That would violate the most narrow reading of the Second Amendment.

3. A broad based assault weapon ban, a 10 round maximum clip for bullets. Listen up: That includes currently owned assault weapons. If you can ban M-60 machine guns, you can ban M-16s. If we have to pry 'em from their cold dead hands, do it. Alternatively, allow these weapons only on private property, and require transport of those weapons to be in a disassembled state. Criminal penalties for violation. Defend your castle, but don't bring that weapon out in public. To the assertion that this would require the ban on thousands of different types of weapons, I respond: So what?

Agreed. I see it as I do drug prohibition. Alcohol and now marijuana are legal. But heroin will never be legal. Nor should it be. Lines can be drawn by reasonable people. An automatic weapon with no use than mass casualty creation is way over that line.

ETA: Dynamite also works. You can buy all sorts of fireworks. But do we let you buy dynamite? No. That's a pretty reasonable line. Some legislator thought to himself, long ago, "I'm not sure letting laymen buy something that could kill their entire family and perhaps many of their neighbors is a good idea. I think maybe I'll pass a bill to ban the sale of things like that." And that was kind of smart. So now, today, we don't read about kids dynamiting schools. And there's no National Association of Dynamite Enthusiasts arguing for the right to keep cases of dynamite in their basement. Which is a pretty good thing.

4. What happened to Rubio has to happen to every spineless political gasbag. People have to point at Rubio, in public, and tell him and others like him that half measures won't work because they are doomed to failure. Tell them that if they don't commit to a broad solution, every high school student who thinks they are wrong will make them pay politically, and drive them out of office.

5. Target politicians who are the worst NRA flag waivers. Use their own words against them. Run the mothers and siblings of victims against them. Expose them for the accomplices of murder that they are. Pick a Congressman who supports some of the idiotic positions recently taken by the NRA and force them to run on that record.

I'd go for the easy win against these people. Make the argument you make in Point 3. Everybody but the serious nuts (5% of society, maybe?) agrees that people shouldn't be running around with assault weapons. That argument is a dead lock winner. Instead of a vague shame campaign the NRA can twist into an argument of absolutes (which it will win), the argument needs to be one about automatic weapons. Leave Lapierre to argue against that narrow point and he's got a problem.

There are endless defenses for people owning handguns and hunting rifles. None exist for assault weapons. For too long, the NRA has been able to make this a Big Debate, where it should be a set of smaller ones. Nobody's going to effect meaningful gun control if the gun control crowd keeps trying to eat the elephant in one bite. You have to chip away:

"Look. Nobody needs a fucking AR-15. Nobody shoots targets or clay pigeons with fifty rounds a minute. Nobody makes any venison or elk burgers from an animal that's been riddled with 100 rounds. Nobody needs these fucking things except serious weirdos. Frankly, that you want an automatic rifle capable of spraying bullets is the best argument for why you shouldn't have one! Let these freaks play Call of Duty, or watch the Deer Hunter for the 40th time. But for fuck's sake... Let's get the fucking combat weapons out of their hands."

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You basically make it impossible to manufacture and sell guns.

Nah. The vast majority of guns aren't anywhere near a crime, because they're locked in safe and only taken out when it's time to hunt or shoot.

Anyway, I don't want to debate specific proposals, because whatever, but we need vastly stronger incentives for more guns to live that kind of life, or otherwise not be (1) purchased for black market resale or (2) stored carelessly where they can be stolen for future criminal use. Holding owners responsible for their guns is part of that. If you lose track of your gun and don't report it, that's definitely fair grounds for some sort of liability when it turns up in the crime. Sure, you say you didn't resell it at a gun show or on the street, but the fact that you didn't tell anyone how left your possession, so I'm okay with presuming you did. It should be uncommon enough - at least where not intentional - that it shouldn't implicate the 2nd at all.

But heroin will never be legal. Nor should it be.

This is a bad analogy. You're both right about guns. But you, Sebby, are wrong about heroin, as Portugal has already demonstrated. Prohibition simply does not "work" under any reasonable definition of desired outcomes. Yes, even for heroin. The right approach for all drugs of abuse is decriminalization and treatment.

ETA: I should probably acknowledge that you said alcohol and weed are legal, not just decriminalized, as that's an important distinction.

There are endless defenses for people owning handguns and hunting rifles.

There really are not for handguns, which like assault rifles are used only to kill other human and all of the cases for owning one are built on fallacious self-defense fantasies, but now isn't the time for the handgun fight.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

This is a bad analogy. You're both right about guns. But you, Sebby, are wrong about heroin, as Portugal has already demonstrated. Prohibition simply does not "work" under any reasonable definition of desired outcomes. Yes, even for heroin. The right approach for all drugs of abuse is decriminalization and treatment.

ETA: I should probably acknowledge that you said alcohol and weed are legal, not just decriminalized, as that's an important distinction.

I absolutely agree that all drug use should be decriminalized. But as you note, I don't think heroin can be made legal. It's too addictive, and the opioid mess proves that easy access to it is a recipe for disaster.

I'd provide needles, methadone, education, and treatment for users. But I'd stiffen penalties for dealers.

Coke, acid, ecstacy, mushrooms, etc. are party drugs. There's a really good argument they should be legalized and regulated for adult use. Heroin is just a straight up narcotic, basically morphine. It's physically highly addictive, and can easily kill a person. I hate to say I favor jailing anyone for selling any substance to a consenting adult, but heroin dealers? There might be value in sending a strong deterrent message there.

ETA: Ever been at a party and had someone offer you heroin? You'd be a bit freaked out. "Hey, Adder! Want to tie off and hit your main line? The fentanyl cut on this shit is divine." They say it's a glorious high, but what kind of mind wants to party like it's 1899, in China, in an opium den? If you need a needle to get where You Need to Be, you need to seriously rethink whether you want to keep going at all.

There really are not for handguns, which like assault rifles are used only to kill other human and all of the cases for owning one are built on fallacious self-defense fantasies, but now isn't the time for the handgun fight.

People do use those for legitimate target shooting, and because it makes them feel safe. The biggest clips hold less than a dozen bullets. I can live with that risk. It seems very unlike an assault rifle to me. But yes, I do agree - the belief a gun will save your life is 99.9 percent fantasy. Hence, I don't own one and never will (unless this country goes full Thunderdome... and even then, I'll probably move to another country rather than arm myself).

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

People do use those for legitimate target shooting

If people want to shoot targets with handguns, they should use target shooting guns, which my, perhaps incorrect, understanding are not the semi-auto 9mms and the like people are buying for "self defense."

, and because it makes them feel safe.

It may make them feel safe, but it actually puts them in greater danger. A case we could make more strongly were it not illegal for the CDC to study it.

[ferrets_bueller]

My responses to sebby:

1. I should have been clearer: I advocate civil liability only for gun sellers who do not run background checks.

2. One of the tired lines I hear from NRA types is "Gun control? Sure. You control your gun and I'll control mine." Well, fine then. If you own a gun, secure it, control it, and make sure it isn't used in a crime. Take out insurance, and demonstrate to the insurer's satisfaction that you do so. Take the responsibility we place on car owners when they give the keys to a drunk. Enact statutes that require you to control your weapon or pay the consequences.

3. A full ban on assault weapons is way overdue. Take the issue head on; we are essentially in agreement.

4. The "purple states" are ripe for the picking on this issue. Politicians are going to have to walk away from either (a) the NRA or (b)what may become a mass movement of soon-to-be-young-voters.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

So I used "He can suck all the dicks" during a meeting last week.

I know it's not yours. But thank you. Yes, it's obvious. But still, so effective.

If you used it in a meeting, you deserve all the credit.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

People do use those for legitimate target shooting, and because it makes them feel safe. The biggest clips hold less than a dozen bullets. I can live with that risk. It seems very unlike an assault rifle to me. But yes, I do agree - the belief a gun will save your life is 99.9 percent fantasy. Hence, I don't own one and never will (unless this country goes full Thunderdome... and even then, I'll probably move to another country rather than arm myself).

There are plenty of mags for semi-automatic handguns that hold 30+ bullets. The biggest difference between them and the semi- rifles have to do with bullet speed, range, and accuracy. There are plenty of ways that you can walk into a classroom carrying as much firepower in semi- handguns as you have with an AR-15. After all, it's easier to carry a half dozen of them all easily accessible in a vest.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

My responses to sebby:

1. I should have been clearer: I advocate civil liability only for gun sellers who do not run background checks.

2. One of the tired lines I hear from NRA types is "Gun control? Sure. You control your gun and I'll control mine." Well, fine then. If you own a gun, secure it, control it, and make sure it isn't used in a crime. Take out insurance, and demonstrate to the insurer's satisfaction that you do so. Take the responsibility we place on car owners when they give the keys to a drunk. Enact statutes that require you to control your weapon or pay the consequences.

3. A full ban on assault weapons is way overdue. Take the issue head on; we are essentially in agreement.

4. The "purple states" are ripe for the picking on this issue. Politicians are going to have to walk away from either (a) the NRA or (b)what may become a mass movement of soon-to-be-young-voters.

I endorse all of this. The last thing the gun-nuts want is to be held responsible for how they keep and use their guns, even though they always argue about how great they are at taking care with them.

[ferrets_bueller]

GGG:
You are correct about the ability to carry huge amount of ammunition for a semi automatic. However limiting the magazine capacity gives you a brief moment to run or fight.

In combat, I had a semiautomatic, modified M-14 with a 20 round clip. I was taught to count my own shots so that when I got to 16 or 17, I would pause if possible, get the next mag ready, and then switch. You didn't want to be flat ass empty when you needed to switch out. In like fashion, if you hear an automatic burst, or hear a pause in a semiautomatic burst, you may want to take that opportunity to recon quickly, with a view toward moving to a position with m ore advantage. More mag switches mean more opportunities to move.