sykhic

With demographic and economic changes and the power/scale of social media the U.S. is facing, I think the intermediate future does not look good for political discourse.

I think you missed my point. I was responding solely to the above quote that you made.

It's gotten quite bad in the U.S. Common political discourse has devolved into a back and forth of insults, hyperbolic accusations, and sometimes just plain insanity. I agree with you that this will probably be something that will last a while.

If only we could get people to realize that believing something to be true merely because it reinforces a pre-conceived idea or because it's plausibly true is not a path toward finding the truth. How do you have a discussion with someone who believes the political equivalent of a flat Earth?

I do not sweep under the rug the ills our society and government have done. Nor do I diminish their accomplishments. Indeed I don't do this for any nation now that I understand that the blind patriotism I was raised with is a destructive thing.

Empires come and go. The American empire is in decline. It may rise again to greater heights and glory. It might not. Eventually it will be replaced. There is no longer any moral superiority in our leadership.

It seems foolish to decry Google doing business in China whilst importing billions and billions of dollars of Chinese made goods. Google works with the American government to do mass surveillance on its citizens. I'm not going to get in a tizzy if they decide to do the same in China.

It's not necessarily that morality has gone down in the U.S; it's that trust in the morality of America's leaders has gone down. I see this as a sign of a decline in the faith of America's institutions. Also with globalization the distinction between nation-states begins to erode. This is especially so in the case of business.

I do not have proof in the mathematical sense that Michelle Obama is a woman. I merely have an overwhelming preponderance of the evidence that she is a woman and absolutely no evidence to the contrary. Indeed, interestingly enough you wrote:

...you can genuinely say SHE is a female?

Emphasis mine. I do not need definitive proof. Collect all the statements you believe to be true. Now collect all of the statements you can actually, definitively prove true. The intersection of these two sets is quite small. This is true for everyone.

You have to give a better example if that's was your best shot to make Jones looks like a loon.

You believe that Alex Jones thinking Michelle Obama is a man is not sufficient evidence that he is a loon and you have the temerity to claim that my approach to reasoning and facts is precisely what's wrong with the country.

Thank you for your post. It was instructive, illuminating, and hilarious all at the same time. That is a rare feat.

Do you have evidence that this happens in the ER? When my wife did her ER rotation it wasn't like this.

We have a study that shows women with heart attacks do worse in ERs unless they are treated by a female doctor. You are presenting facts (without attribution) about surgeons. ER doctors are not surgeons. So what evidence do you have from the ER that contradicts the apparent conclusion of the study?

Is funny that those who fight gender biases the most are some of the most biased.

It's quite ironic that you wrote the above sentence given your post. The only evidence you provide is about surgeons and conclude that male superiority in medicine is the most likely reason for the statistics in the study. That is quite a stretch there.

It seems clear to me that if there were only 5 million people in the world then human caused climate change wouldn't be an issue. Isn't that obvious? I'm not advocating that we get to that level. I'm just pointing out that there exists a number for the population such that human caused climate change would no longer be an issue. I don't think it's disputable that this is so.

I'm not advocating mass killings or anything like that. Just pointing out an obvious thing. If where were way less people then pollution, etc. would not be an issue.