In California, the 2026 budget for homelessness programs is $1.7 billion. The homeless population is 181,000. This is an average of $9400 per person per year.

Note: some of these programs are for homelessness prevention meaning it helps far more people than just the 181 thousand, meaning the cost per person is actually much lower.

I think a random lottery for office positions is the only system I’ve ever heard of which can’t be abused by narcissists.

Steamboat Willie is an example of Copyright. Twitter is an example of a Trademark. A Copyright is much much much easier to defend than a Trademark.

https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/trademark-patent-copyright

Most people can be convinced of something. I have a lot of debates, both in person and online, and I’ve gotten somewhat decent at it. I think the most important thing is setting a realistic goal.

Did I convince a group of young earth creationists that the theory of evolution by natural selection is the best explanation for the diversity of life? No I did not. Did I convince some of them that biologists aren’t a part of a satanic conspiracy, and that they’re just trying to come up with good explanations for the stuff they see? Yes, I think so.

Did I convince a “pro-life” friend that abortion should be exclusively the host’s decision? No I did not. Did I make them recognize that drawing the line on when abortion should or should not be allowed is harder than they had assumed, and that IF the government is going to draw that line, they should at least consult some medical experts? Yes, I think so.

On some level it might feel like it’s not enough… But there isn’t anything better, so I’ll take what I can get. Good luck out there.

It’s stupid

Definitely.

they’ll lose in court

I’m not sure they will, genuinely. They intentionally abandoned the domain name for the website… and they’re no longer using the logo or name anywhere on their product, or corporate documentation.

The case that it’s up for grabs is actually decently strong.

Because I would like you to be successful in debating this issue, I need to inform you:

That’s not a very good response. It will convince literally no one. It won’t be convincing to the person you’re debating. It won’t be convincing to people who are observing the argument. It changes absolutely nothing.

The only effective replies are the ones that force people to think deeply:

• What makes this wrong, specifically?

and then, ask them to explain even more deeply every time they respond. e.g., “killing an innocent person is wrong.”

• What makes something innocent? What makes something a person?

If you can get them to at least admit that it’s a gray area, you’ve won.

Why be condescending now?

You already fucked up the point you were making. By all means, insult people’s intelligence at the start of the conversation, before you fuck up. Doing it at the same time as fucking up looks bad… but insults after you fuck up looks even worse.

There’s nothing that you can explain with that fact. Inflation is a measure of dollar value in relation to goods… including goods that you don’t actually need. Simply knowing that wages outpaced inflation tells you nothing about the economic conditions of individual people.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown, which DOES emphasize the things that everyone needs:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/comparing-the-costs-of-generations.html

Similar: having characteristics in common.

Looking similar does mean that two things are similar. You could have tried to make your point in a variety of ways, but you chose the way that can be countered by simply understanding English.

0/10

“Why techer onion are bad”

Do you know the Secretary Problem?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

Your father’s been using computers for some number of years. It’s possible he’s been using computers for longer than he will continue using computers. From his perspective, the current edition of Windows is better than anything that’s come before it, so it’s the rational choice to stick with it until the end.

To get around this, you would basically need to set up a second machine with Zorin so that he can get some context before making a decision. That way, in the very realistic scenario where he decides it’s not for him, he hasn’t lost anything.

If you have tools to mitigate the risk, then you eliminate the correlation.

No, only if you eliminate the risk. Smoking is still negatively correlated with life expectancy in Japan. The correlation exists if you only look at the USA. It exists if you only look at Japan. It exists if you look at the global population.

It matters enormously.

Not for the purpose of establishing whether there is a negative correlation between smoking and life expectancy.

Also that comic is saying that adding a third variable does not always make the model better. Also p-hacking is a thing. It’s the opposite of what you’re trying to establish, which is the existence of a third variable which improves the model. And once again, I will say that if you find two correlated variables confusing, adding a third variable is NOT going to help you.

Not relative to a public universal health care system, no.

I’m saying not at all. With public universal health care, without public universal health care… it does not matter. There is a negative correlation between smoking and life expectancy.

If your diagnosis is “we need to cut cigarette use to save lives”,

Yes, that is a conclusion one could draw from this.

but we’re ignoring the…

For the purposes of discussing this correlation, it does not matter. If we have universal health care, then cutting cigarette use will save lives. If we do not have universal health care, then cutting cigarette use will save lives. Conclusion: cutting cigarette use will save lives. That is true. No amount of discussion about unrelated third variables will make that not true.

If a third variable makes the model better, go ahead and add a third variable. But if someone doesn’t even understand the two-variable model, we should make sure they understand THAT model before we add even more stuff that they don’t understand.

Given the global response to the situation, I would bet they probably realize that you don’t think they’re significant.

Then again, there’s a chance they’re just focusing on food and water and shelter and medicine and not-getting-blown-up… rather than worrying about the opinions of people who couldn’t even pretend to be significant.

But we can see very definitively that a higher-than-average rate of education does nothing to increase the partisan character of the voting block.

Mormons have more bachelor degrees than average: Yes.

Mormons are more conservative than average: Yes.

We can see very definitively that a higher-than-average rate of education does nothing to increase the partisan character of the voting block: No.

That’s not what this shows. The two facts, together, are not enough to show a correlation between education and conservatism or to show a lack of correlation between education and liberal/leftist attitudes. To make a claim about correlation, as you are trying to do, you have two options:

1. Show a correlation or lack of correlation within this block,
2. Show a correlation or lack of correlation between average education level and average political leanings, using voting blocks as data points.

I have a perfect analogy:

I claim that smoking will decrease your life expectancy.

You claim that the smoking rate in the United States is 9.6%. The smoking rate in Japan is 16.4%. Life Expectancy in the United States is 79.8. Life Expectancy in Japan is 85.2. Therefore “we can see very definitively that a higher rate of smoking does nothing to decrease the life expectancy of the country”.

No. That doesn’t show that. Because if you look at data within Japan, you will still see a lower life expectancy among the people who smoke, and if you look at data globally, using countries as data points, you will also see lower life expectancy among the countries that smoke the most.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/smoking-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/life-expectancy-by-country

When you take broad averages like this, you very often lose useful information. In this case, just being “educated” in the abstract carries a weak correlation to political beliefs.

That’s true, but unfortunately, once you started trying to create a more complex model, you started making mistakes. And you aren’t even an idiot. Imagine your dumbest neighbors trying to make sense of this conversation.

No. I start off by giving you one variable correlated with one other variable. Once someone understands that, THEN we can start talking about nuance.

Just dropping in to say that I, as an American, also look at Europe as though it’s one country with individual states. I don’t think that’s a universal rule, but I think a lot of Americans do that, in part, because we mostly hear about politics in terms of the “European Union”.

Occasionally the news is at the country level… France’s nuclear reactors… Spain suggesting development in the military… Denmark starting conscription… but the regulations we hear about, such as regarding carbon emissions or GDPR are in terms of the EU as a whole.

Go into a red neighborhood, and the math changes

No, it actually doesn’t. Within a Mormon community, I would wager we would still see that the most educated Mormons are also, ON AVERAGE, the most liberal/leftist Mormons.

Sure, if this is the only thing you knew, there could be a Simpson’s paradox situation, but we already know what the data looks like when we count everyone as one big group. Your “exceptions” can be true, and at the same time, are not evidence against the original claim. Even IF you found that, within EVERY group, education correlates with conservatism… it would just be Simpson’s paradox, because we already know that, on the whole, education is correlated to liberal/leftist attitudes.

Average. On average, people with degrees are more liberal/leftist. As a group. Separate the degrees from the non-degrees, and measure their liberalism/leftism, and find which group has the higher average. Average.

Average.

It makes her response idiotic because it has nothing to do with the article

It’s not a rebuttal of the article, no… but it IS definitely in the same topic as the article.

Twitter is a microblogging platform… not a debate platform. If you assume that she is trying to provide a counterargument in 140 characters or less, then yes, it would seem idiotic.

Are we making that assumption?

EDIT: Just to acknowledge that I read your response, and I don’t wish to respond to it.