[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[warpus]

Yeah, a promissory note, right?

But that doesn't mean that money is speech. That'd be silly.

 

[Mise]

You can make the argument for speech. But you can also make the argument for compelling public interest, the will of the legislature, and precedent. In making the speech argument, one thing to keep in mind is that no persons' right to speech was infringed by the law.

Yes I understand that you believe that, but the constitution clearly has something to say about the case.

I'm not sure what's more "free speechy" than airing a film critical of a politician. Surely if free speech is to protect anything at all, it should protect the right to publish works critical of politicians. In the days of pamphlets and town criers, this meant primarily protecting individuals from state retribution. These days, these protections ought to extend to protecting publishing houses, film studios, broadcasters, news agencies and online media (and I don't see how you of all people think it shouldn't protect unions!). And since it costs millions and millions of dollars to effectively run these businesses, pay actors, pay for editing, pay for film sets, pay for equipment, etc etc etc, those dollars shouldn't count as political donations or whatever, but instead as a "cost of speech".

You can certainly make a case for public interest and so on, but the constitution seems to come down fairly strongly in favour of CU's right to broadcast a film about Hilary Clinton. If you want to change the law, citing overwhelming public interest, you'll have to do away with some of the protections that your constitutional right to free speech affords (and if it's so obvious that these things should be banned, it shouldn't be hard to convince legislature to change it). In the UK, we don't have such an enshrined right, and we don't have a high court mandated to protecting that right in a broad "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" sense. So instead, a government can ban any and all political adverts, attack ads, and so on appearing on TV, allowing only a boring 3 minute segment in which a politician stares blankly at a camera and tells everyone why they should be the next apprentice prime minister. That's pretty cool. But it also means that the government can ban all sorts of speech that most Americans believe ought to be protected. It's swings and roundabouts.

If you ask me, the best argument against CU is precisely a free speech argument: if free speech really does cost millions and millions of dollars, then very few people actually have free speech. The more dollars you have, the more speech you have; and the speech of those at the bottom will be drowned out by the speech of those with millions of dollars. The political debate will be distorted by those with the most money, and make free speech more difficult for everybody -- and near impossible for the vast, vast majority. Far from protecting free speech, it reduces free speech for the vast majority of people.

In any case, you can't possibly argue against this without saying something about free speech. You can moan all you want that corporations are not protected by the right to free speech, but that is simply wrong, both as a factual statement and as a normative statement. If free speech protects anything at all, then it ought to protect the right to publish films critical of politicians. If you want to ban corporations from doing that, then you have to significantly and meaningfully limit the right of free speech, as we have done in the UK.

When you talk about all those other things, "compelling public interest, the will of the legislature, and precedent", what you're saying is that these things in some way balance out the right to free speech. That we have to balance the constitutional right to free speech with value judgements, politician's desires, and what has traditionally been permitted. But that argument presupposes that "compelling public interest, the will of the legislature, and precedent" are up there alongside the constitutional right to free speech; that the constitutional right to free speech is on par with those things, legally.

Put another way, you are arguing that free speech be "demoted" to the level of legislation, as it is in the UK. Free speech in this country is just a legislation, that can be overridden with other legislation. You are arguing precisely that free speech in the US is, in fact, the same: they made a law that prevented certain organisations from engaging in free speech under certain conditions, and that this law trumps free speech arguments from the constitution. You are arguing that the right to free speech should be significantly and meaningfully curtailed, from a constitutional one to a legislative one. Fair enough, that's not an invalid position to hold (it's more or less worked for us, though the swings come with some roundabouts), but if you want to do that then you'll need to amend your constitution. AFAIK, nobody's really been arguing that. Instead, they've been arguing on the basis of free speech itself.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Goddamn your beautiful logic. I'm pissed now that I took the time to read that post because it might just have changed my mind. Bastard.

 

[Cutlass]

Yes I understand that you believe that, but the constitution clearly has something to say about the case.

I'm not sure what's more "free speechy" than airing a film critical of a politician. Surely if free speech is to protect anything at all, it should protect the right to publish works critical of politicians. In the days of pamphlets and town criers, this meant primarily protecting individuals from state retribution. These days, these protections ought to extend to protecting publishing houses, film studios, broadcasters, news agencies and online media (and I don't see how you of all people think it shouldn't protect unions!). And since it costs millions and millions of dollars to effectively run these businesses, pay actors, pay for editing, pay for film sets, pay for equipment, etc etc etc, those dollars shouldn't count as political donations or whatever, but instead as a "cost of speech".

You can certainly make a case for public interest and so on, but the constitution seems to come down fairly strongly in favour of CU's right to broadcast a film about Hilary Clinton. If you want to change the law, citing overwhelming public interest, you'll have to do away with some of the protections that your constitutional right to free speech affords (and if it's so obvious that these things should be banned, it shouldn't be hard to convince legislature to change it). In the UK, we don't have such an enshrined right, and we don't have a high court mandated to protecting that right in a broad "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" sense. So instead, a government can ban any and all political adverts, attack ads, and so on appearing on TV, allowing only a boring 3 minute segment in which a politician stares blankly at a camera and tells everyone why they should be the next apprentice prime minister. That's pretty cool. But it also means that the government can ban all sorts of speech that most Americans believe ought to be protected. It's swings and roundabouts.

If you ask me, the best argument against CU is precisely a free speech argument: if free speech really does cost millions and millions of dollars, then very few people actually have free speech. The more dollars you have, the more speech you have; and the speech of those at the bottom will be drowned out by the speech of those with millions of dollars. The political debate will be distorted by those with the most money, and make free speech more difficult for everybody -- and near impossible for the vast, vast majority. Far from protecting free speech, it reduces free speech for the vast majority of people.

In any case, you can't possibly argue against this without saying something about free speech. You can moan all you want that corporations are not protected by the right to free speech, but that is simply wrong, both as a factual statement and as a normative statement. If free speech protects anything at all, then it ought to protect the right to publish films critical of politicians. If you want to ban corporations from doing that, then you have to significantly and meaningfully limit the right of free speech, as we have done in the UK.

When you talk about all those other things, "compelling public interest, the will of the legislature, and precedent", what you're saying is that these things in some way balance out the right to free speech. That we have to balance the constitutional right to free speech with value judgements, politician's desires, and what has traditionally been permitted. But that argument presupposes that "compelling public interest, the will of the legislature, and precedent" are up there alongside the constitutional right to free speech; that the constitutional right to free speech is on par with those things, legally.

Put another way, you are arguing that free speech be "demoted" to the level of legislation, as it is in the UK. Free speech in this country is just a legislation, that can be overridden with other legislation. You are arguing precisely that free speech in the US is, in fact, the same: they made a law that prevented certain organisations from engaging in free speech under certain conditions, and that this law trumps free speech arguments from the constitution. You are arguing that the right to free speech should be significantly and meaningfully curtailed, from a constitutional one to a legislative one. Fair enough, that's not an invalid position to hold (it's more or less worked for us, though the swings come with some roundabouts), but if you want to do that then you'll need to amend your constitution. AFAIK, nobody's really been arguing that. Instead, they've been arguing on the basis of free speech itself.

That's well argued. But I guess the point that I was not doing a good job of making is that the free speech of money drowns out the free speech of actual people. How does the common Joe get his voice heard against megabucks? That, in my mind, is the compelling public interest that the ruling in the CU case struck down.

 

[Mise]

I agree - I definitely think that the CU ruling is a Bad Thing for the country, and what you've said there is IMO the strongest argument against it. But I don't think it's a bad ruling; your constitution protects free speech and this right trumps legislation, so this is one of the unfortunate consequences of strong free speech protections. But you also get a whole lot of protection that we in the UK don't get. So as I say, to me, it's swings and roundabouts.

@hobbsyoyo: Thanks and... sorry...

 

[Cutlass]

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Agree with everything except 1, 5 and 6.

Part 1 presupposes they have 0 radiation shielding on the trip in and out and also (most likely) assumes a full rad dose on the surface (which is cut in half relative to space travel due to the planet blocking half the sky + the amount they would cut down by proper shelter buildings [which would be most of the rest]).

5 is pure speculation. I really doubt if there were bugs to catch there that they would actually be catching. Very unlikely our biology would enough like Martian bugs to get sick from them.

The MIT study in 6 is (most likely) based on the take-down done by grad students on the Mars One mission plan. And Mars One itself is so lolwtf out there that it isn't worth mentioning as a serious plan that was debunked. It was more of a clown show that was shown to be a farce that happened to be about Mars colonization.

***Standard Disclaimer - I haven't looked into any of the specific claims in the graph so prove me wrong by all means

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The isolation and crowding thing in number seven strikes me as hilarious. Any time someone visited the submarine they would always ask what happened to people who were claustrophobic. As any submariner would, I gave the stock answer; "The Navy has cured claustrophobia," said with a totally matter of fact expression. "They have? How?" "We drag you down that ladder, shut the hatch, and go to sea. You either get over it or you don't and frankly no one cares."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah I also just watched a documentary on people who live and work in Antarctica and they face much the same challenges as they do on Mars. Very, very similar.

I do acknowledge that it will certainly be a challenge that is harder than what anyone (including submariners and Antarctic scientists) has to deal with on Earth but I do find it very overblown in the media. It's always portrayed as if anyone who goes to Mars is immediately going to turn into a serial killer.

The '500 days' they talk about also assumes they won't be going one-way to a growing colony and also assumes that propulsion technology/methods won't be improved by the time Mars trips happen.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Submarines routinely stay underwater for ~500 days with only a crew of less than 10?

 

[Samson]

Spoiler :

Found at el Reg, Summary:

The stand-out finding from the research was that, if you're a man and all other things being equal, the best BMI band to be in for success with the ladies was "Overweight". Being "Obese" is not a problem either, unless you're way out into the super-obese bands; the regular just-obese blokes in the survey still did rather better with the ladies than "healthy" weight chaps did, and the fatties were streets ahead of the "underweight" skinnies.

Source paper here.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Submarines routinely stay underwater for ~500 days with only a crew of less than 10?

Nope. But they demonstrate that people who have get up and go to my job five days a week jobs are in no position to even guess what people are capable of dealing with in harsh isolated conditions. I have found that trying to explain life on a submarine to people is hardly worth the effort. They either don't believe it outright or they don't disbelieve it only because they aren't really grasping it.

What is the longest that a person can work without sleep or chemical assistance? What happens when people who don't like each other much in the first place are stuck undergoing such a sleep deprivation test together?

What happens if two people who outright hate each other are confined to chairs right next to each other for six hours at a time, day in day out for months on end?

What happens to a person who inadvertently makes everyone they are going to see for the next ninety days blazingly angry at them? What if no one ever gets over it and that person becomes a pariah but is stuck going back to sea with this same crew for extended periods for years?

Throw in constant undercurrent of potential death, punctuated by the occasional obvious and immediate threat of death.

 

[warpus]

That sorts of sounds like the same psychological issues you'd face when sending astronauts on an extended journey to another planet, say.. Mars.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That sorts of sounds like the same psychological issues you'd face when sending astronauts on an extended journey to another planet, say.. Mars.

That was my point. The person who has never dealt with it might very well say "Ten people in a little tin tube for eight months? Impossible to deal with!" But that person would also likely look at the realities of a submarine and think it was just as impossible, but it is demonstrably not. They might look at the realities of prison and think that it was just as impossible, but that also demonstrably is not. Having done both, and personally knowing hundreds of people who have done one or the other, I tend to disregard things like "oh the hardships!" when they come up.

Would a mission like that likely leave a mark? Certainly. Could it be done? Not a doubt in my mind.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Nope. But they demonstrate that people who have get up and go to my job five days a week jobs are in no position to even guess what people are capable of dealing with in harsh isolated conditions. I have found that trying to explain life on a submarine to people is hardly worth the effort. They either don't believe it outright or they don't disbelieve it only because they aren't really grasping it.

What is the longest that a person can work without sleep or chemical assistance? What happens when people who don't like each other much in the first place are stuck undergoing such a sleep deprivation test together?

What happens if two people who outright hate each other are confined to chairs right next to each other for six hours at a time, day in day out for months on end?

What happens to a person who inadvertently makes everyone they are going to see for the next ninety days blazingly angry at them? What if no one ever gets over it and that person becomes a pariah but is stuck going back to sea with this same crew for extended periods for years?

Throw in constant undercurrent of potential death, punctuated by the occasional obvious and immediate threat of death.

How does any of that demonstrate in detail that the rigors of interplanetary (not intercontinental) travel are within human limits? Arrogance, anecdotes, and assumptions are not particularly convincing to me.

Anyway,

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How does any of that demonstrate in detail that the rigors of interplanetary (not intercontinental) travel are within human limits? Arrogance, anecdotes, and assumptions are not particularly convincing to me.

It doesn't. Just like a pantywaist sitting in some office can't demonstrate that the rigors of interplanetary travel are beyond human limits by saying "Ohhhhhh, but it would be so much tougher than sitting here." The only way to find out is to go do it.

The big problem is that some of the people with the necessary spheres to make the effort may well die early on, and the pantywaist crew sitting at home will get so deep into handwringing about other people's hardships that they will obstruct further efforts.

 

[CavLancer]

Pantywaist? Define please...


No worries Tims, many nations will be going to Mars.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Pantywaist? Define please...


No worries Tims, many nations will be going to Mars.

Sorry. Archaic term.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It doesn't.

Then don't act as if you're the only expert on the bloody subject then. Your submarine experience doesn't honor you with the capability to blow off the challenges posed by space travel and strawman those with concerns as opposed to any sort of manned space travel.

TL;DR: take your misplaced attitude and shove it.

Anyway, another graph, as per the thread's purpose.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Then don't act as if you're the only expert on the bloody subject then. Your submarine experience doesn't honor you with the capability to blow off the challenges posed by space travel and strawman those with concerns as opposed to any sort of manned space travel.

TL;DR: take your misplaced attitude and shove it.

I'm in no way suggesting I'm the only expert, or even an expert. I do have something closer to applicable experience than the chartmaker from Time though, so get over of your crying snit.