siosonel

Individual Retirement Account

I average about 10mph or 16kph on my e-bike, and gets passed by routinely by 'normal' cyclists going faster than my pace. E-bike users do not necessarily ride faster; I use one to help with the many hills in my area, not to go fast. I don't think it'd be fair to force me to use roads and mingle with cars just because I use an e-bike.

My wife and I got electric bikes about 8 weeks ago and they have been great for running errands in lieu of single-occupancy car trips. We live near the Interurban Trail/Aurora and the e-bikes enable much easier access to a variety of stores, restaurants, and parks, which are not easily walkable. We now appreciate the nearby bike lanes and quiet streets for making longer trips to bigger parks or neighboring downtowns like Edmonds. We recently had wanted to return to Capitol Hill to enjoy a more walkable neighborhood, but so far bikeabilty has been an excellent substitute. Plus, in four years there will be a light rail station near us to offer yet another alternative to car trips. We feel lucky to have these options in our "suburban" location.

"If you look at it too hard all "truths" become false eventually"

My opinion is that many apathetic people become that way because of being treated unfairly (in their view) or feeling helpless, and way less people become that way because of thinking too hard.

"Or worse, change their position thanks to millions of dollars ..."

Well, I see new data: lobbying $$$ that could make a previously trusted politician biased. Time to update my simplistic model on his related political ads to being less likely to true. There might be another politician who changed positions based on new or emerging body of evidence - maybe this person is more trustworthy this time. New data -> updated evaluation.

"the masses believe the lie, doesn't it become the truth"

I'm not familiar with post-modernism or Stoicism. But I sure hope that the proportion of people who believe one thing does not ultimately determine its truthfulness. The way I would initially simplify this is to rely on the likely proportion of unbiased people who hold one position versus the opposite. And by unbiased, I simplify that by not trusting greedy people, or people who have not studied the policy or history of it or other places who've tried different approaches. I think these initial simplifications will already cut down many viewpoints and voices that I do not need hear, in order to make an informed voting decision.

Did the Christians try to convince the agnostic about something? If not, nothing changes before or after they leave.

Anyway, the OP was about political ads that can affect how people vote, a decision to vote or not affects the community. Being agnostic about something (aliens) does not necessarily have the same gravity of effect as believing in a political ad.

"binary judgement of truth"

I think people should be more comfortable with non-binary truth, based on the likelihood that something is a lie or not based on historical record. I would put more trust in a statement from someone with a record of telling unbiased truth versus someone with a record of frequently spewing lies or having ingrained bias.

Otherwise, if you don't make these types of initial simplifications, it becomes too complicated to start evaluating the truth of any statement, including scientific ones. And it's okay to be make a mistaken evaluation, just reevaluate and adjust the simplified "truth" assessment model based on more recent data.

There is a danger in deferring a "truth" assessment: a community loses a sense of shared truth leading to polarization, doubt, confusion. And a so-called "neutral" person is, by not taking action, implicitly supporting the dominant narrative, which may be a lie after all.

What an unusual way to present the "progressive" ratio of taxes being paid, basing it on the total taxes paid by percentile groups. Of course a disproportionately wealthy percentile would be expected to pay most of the taxes in absolute amount or as ratios of absolute amounts between groups, if all the percentiles paid the same amount, but also EVEN IF the tax rates slide lower (i.e. are regressive) for the wealthy.

Progressive versus regressive tax rate discussions are more typically based on the ratio of one household's tax to that household's earnings. In other words, how much of what I make goes to taxes? I think this make comparisons more fair and straightforward, instead of comparing the ratios of combined absolute taxes by group.

I agree both or all sides engage in self-serving agenda and bad policies. Nobody is perfect.

But it is hard not to see that extreme ideology drives the agenda of one or a few sides, while most sides are willing to compromise with reasonable, evidence-based solutions that the ideologists reject outright. It is irresponsible to say in that case that both sides are being unreasonable - that false equivalence promotes an unhealthy stalemate and gives cover to those who blindly delay progress.

Thanks for working on the technical side of this social-equity project. Was the possibility of parent offering car pools or "walking groups" for kids included in the algorithm? I'm assuming that if volunteer parents are compensated to give carpool rides or lead walking buddies, then the negative impact would be lessened to parents who has to handle drastically different school start/end times. At the same time, it may be cheaper to compensate volunteer parents than for the district to procure or maintain more buses.

Another way to ask this question is: were there volunteer transit, ride share, or pre/post-school care incentives included in your algorithm, to balance the potential negative impacts to parents?

To me, it's definitely not the "most credit-giving way" or the "most childish thing". The Russia angle is a really big deal, it goes to the core of the legitimacy of Trump's presidency. Not only that, it demonstrates the direction his authoritarian tendencies is likely to lead the country into, with his open admiration of strongmen and inexplicable questioning of the historic goodwill within the NATO alliance.

His guilt over Russia involvement can be inferred by his constant obsession and attempts to discredit typical law enforcement investigation practices. It is a big deal to have a sitting president acting similar to how a guilty defendant would with (1) a video inviting computer hacking, (2) documented lies or rewrites of "official" statements about a Trump tower meeting of senior Trump campaign officials with the representatives of the invitees, (3) an announcement of an upcoming press briefing about contents (emails) of the hacking target made at the time of the meeting, (4) news reports of surveilled increase in hacker activities at the time of the hacking invite.

All of the above are not credit-giving or childish. At the same time, an alternative of explaining government policies and trade numbers would likely not get through the electorate, and in my opinion unlikely to change hardened or media-saturated minds.

I am one of your fellow human being. What you describe is not a prioritization of my interests, so you are not necessarily speaking for your fellow humans. My interests, and those of countless others, are best served by an ecologically diverse and sustainable future.

My viewpoint is that those who are quick to trample on the weakest, including endangered animals, will likely find it easy to trample on the rights of the poor. It is not in my interest to support that potential future where might makes right. Both my interests and non-human interests can be served at the same time, with no conflicts if viewed in the long term.

"Farms are a long way from a natural environment, the modern farming process is awash with chemicals and such."

It seems you are viewing industrial, monoculture farming techniques as a justification for what humans should be able to get away with as far as land or resource use. It is not at all self-evident that such an approach works best. There is an opposite viewpoint that traditional, diverse crop farming could produce higher quality, higher nutrition output without using too much inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

My point is that you seem to conveniently accept the "obvious superiority" of a modern approach and ignore other viewpoints or approaches wherein biodiversity fits in naturally.