21

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 09, 2025, 05:54:07 PM »

Lol. And now he’s pausing the higher tariffs for loads of countries and China now at 125%.

It’s good that he isn’t just making it up as he goes along.

22

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 09, 2025, 02:40:31 PM »

Irrelevant. While Peter Navarro is tangentially involved, he isn't on the Council of Economic Advisers.

lol. Literally two pages ago you said he was "trade advisor Peter Novoro, a Harvard PhD" and said he was "explaining the strategy behind the tariffs". And again, even if the Council of Economic Advisers provided the formula that isn't really relevant. There's nothing wrong with the formula itself. It's just an utterly bone-headed basis for sweeping policies.

By the way, do you know how Navarro even got involved with the Trump administration?
The story goes that Trump asked Jared Kushner to find him an economic expert. Kushner went on Amazon to look at books written by economists and found one called "Death by China" by...Peter Navarro.
Through the book Navarro quotes an expert called "Ron Vara" who...doesn't exist.
Ron Vara is just an anagram of Navarro.
And now Navarro is the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing to U.S. president.

The people running your country are not serious. But I see you're back to the old thisisfine.jpg thing.

23

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 09, 2025, 01:33:51 PM »

Does it matter where the equation came from?
If you plug in the numbers and they spit out what Trump showed on his board... It's the equation used.

Right.
It's what they said they used. You can check yourself it's what they used - it's one of the things shown in that first video I posted.
I suppose it's vaguely relevant that the equation came from some economic group rather than made up on the spot on a napkin.
And the formula isn't some nonsense - I mean, it's a bit silly that they plugged in values of 4 and 0.25 which cancel out, but I guess you could argue those terms are needed because other values could be put in. But the formula does show you something. It's just not a something which you should be basing sweeping policies on. It's all based on the underlying premise that if the US is exporting less to a country than it's importing from the country then the country is in some way ripping the US off and so they need to balance the books. Which is obvious and overly simplistic bullshit.
EDIT: And I continue to not understand why Trump is being allowed to set these policies himself without it going through Congress. I've read his using - misusing really, powers that were intended to be used in emergency situations which doesn't apply right now.

24

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 09, 2025, 01:02:46 PM »

lol

25

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 09, 2025, 12:36:58 PM »

Navarro never stated that "equation," came from the Council of Economic Advisors.

Your argument appears to be with Tom, not me.

26

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 09:29:40 PM »

I gave you the name of the organization it came from, the Council of Economic Advisors. This is an Executive Branch organization which advises the President of the United States on economic policy.

Yes. So?
Are you doing an appeal to authority here? They're his economic advisors so they're very very clever and know what they're doing, is that it?
I notice you do that sort of thing on here at times but you do it very selectively.
Yes, his advisors are economists. But I looked up that dude you posted the video of. His economic ideas are not widely accepted.
Lots of other economists are queuing up to say how bone-headed these tariffs are.

Considering this, why would you keep going back to the standup math comedian you posted?

He's mostly explaining the maths of the equation. Pointing out how the terms 0.25 an 4 cancel out, which renders them pointless, and explaining what that formula means. He then opines that it's a pretty stupid thing to base policy on - he's not an economist so OK, it's just his opinion. But as I said a LOT of economists are saying it too.

Basically the underlying premise is that if a country is exporting more to the US than they are importing from the US then the country is somehow ripping the US off. But that's obvious bollocks, isn't it? It's far too simplistic. One example I heard talked about was Lesotho. They're a very poor country in Africa so consequently import very little from the US because they can't afford to. But they have diamond mines so they export a lot of diamonds to the US. They've been hit with a massive tariff because of the big difference between imports an exports. But that doesn't make any sense. Very few diamonds are produced in the US so you have to import them. So all this tariff means is prices of diamonds will go up for US citizens. Or you'll just import them less from Lesotho and more from other African countries. So that will push Lesotho further in to poverty.
Now obviously you don't care about that - the Trump version of the Bible is very much "fuck thy neighbour".
But it's an example of how stupid these policies are and how little they will achieve.

Tariffs aren't a good thing. Or a bad thing. They're just a mechanism. They should be used strategically, not using an Excel formula.
There's nothing actually wrong with the formula in and of itself, it's just not the sole basis on which you should be making policy.
There's no strategy behind this - or, rather, it's just massively flawed and far too simplistic.
It's just characteristic of this administration. It's like how they blundered into the public sector and hacked away with no strategy.
Then they invited a journalist into a Signal chat about a live military operation.
These are not serious or competent people, they shouldn't be in charge of any country, let alone the most powerful one on earth.

27

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 07:56:21 PM »

You have no idea whether the tariff policy is actually based on that equation is the point, Copernicus, and it is incompetent for even introducing any analysis based on it.

Sigh.
They literally published the formula and said it's what they based the tariffs on.
In the video you are deriding Parker plugs in the numbers for imports and exports into that formula and manages to recreate the tariffs on Trump's chart.
So yes I do.

28

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 06:15:49 PM »

the equation is nonsense and likely generated by ChatGPT.

Correct.

And yet they based policy on it.
I’m glad you finally agree they’re incompetent

29

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 05:33:50 PM »

Good! But the only reason you are able to rail against the equation is due to the video; otherwise, you would have never even heard about it

Huh? I heard about the equation from the USTR website. I have not seen the video you keep talking about. It kind of sounds like you want me to watch it, though?

It's a Matt Parker StandUpMaths video I posted about the equation pointing out what nonsense it is and how little sense it makes to base any policy based on it.
My favourite bit is how they claimed it wasn't as simple as people were saying but included two terms into which they plugged in the values 0.25 and 4 which therefore cancel out and make it exactly what people were saying 
Now Action appears to be saying this isn't the formula they used despite me posting a link to the US .gov site where they cite the equation and explain the terms.

30

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 02:00:20 PM »

the equation for calculating the tariffs comes from the Council of Economic Advisors, not the bullshit equation you and the video you love are referring to.

It's the same equation.

31

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 01:13:06 PM »

AATW doesn't know the source of the equation

Yes I do. Tom posted a video above about it Navarro said it comes from the Council of Economical Advisors.
This is the equation they used - they have said it is and I've provided the link to the government site which says so.

People said "hang on...isn't that just the exports minus the imports divided by the imports" and they were like
"No, look, it's really complicated, look at this equation. Aren't we clever?"
Then people immediately noticed they set ε at 4 and φ at 0.25. What's 4x0.25, genius? Those two things cancel out. So it is exactly what people said it was 

They then basically put that equation into an Excel formula, or the equivalent of it, and used that to define a global trade policy.
As I keep saying, tariffs aren't bad. They're not good either. They're just a mechanism. But they should be used strategically, not just using some formula to define them.
It's just the latest example of the complete lack of seriousness and competence at the highest level of your government.

32

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 12:36:11 PM »

presented a nonsense equation

Exactly. It's a nonsense equation. And it's one they used to do these calculations. That isn't idle speculation, they published it:

https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations

The video explains why it's nonsense and I don't think you have to be an economic genius to know that tariffs should be applied strategically and not using an Excel formula.

33

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 08, 2025, 08:42:27 AM »

What in the world? Why do your arguments sound like something a eleven year old came up with?

If that is so then they should be pretty easy to deal with, but you have pretty much ignored most of what I said.

At 3:40 Peter Novoro explains that the equation comes from the Council of Economical Advisors.

Firstly Navarro (that's how it's spelled, for future reference) has very different views from most economists.
And I note you ignored the video which explained why it's a nonsensical equation. More explanation here:
https://www.aei.org/economics/president-trumps-tariff-formula-makes-no-economic-sense-its-also-based-on-an-error/

The point you are ignoring is that using any formula like this is idiotic and simplistic. This one is based on the premise that if you import more from a country than you export to a country then that country must be ripping you off in some way. That's just completely flawed logic. It's more complicated than that. Tariffs aren't a magic wand, they're a mechanism which should be used strategically. There's nothing strategic about using an Excel formula.

This isn't Trump unilaterally doing anything.

Oh cool, so when's the vote on these tariffs happening?
He's using - misusing really - powers designed to be used in emergency situations to circumvent the checks and balances which should be in place in a functioning democracy.

It's ironic that you call my arguments childish when you have basically ignored the analysis I have posted and your entire argument seems to be
"We won, you lost - nyah, nyah!"
Except that isn't true. You lost too. You have an administration inviting journalists into chats about live military operations, you have a president misusing emergency powers and making policy based on an Excel formula which doesn't even make sense with no deeper thought going in to it. Having an administration this incompetent and unserious is bad for me but it's bad for you too. You're just so deep in the cult you can't admit it to yourself, let alone us.

34

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 07, 2025, 12:15:00 PM »

The video AATW posted is a fucking joke.

You then go on to analyse the video with as much seriousness as Trump et al used when defining the tariffs.
Which is fine, you're a nobody on the internet - your inability to understand anything doesn't really matter.
When you have someone in control of the most powerful country on earth with that inability to understand and analyse things in any depth, it matters.
Especially when that person is being allowed to set policy unilaterally - even if you approve of what he's doing, can you really not see the dangers in a single person being able to do that? A functioning democracy should have checks and balances. You have them, but he's working round them and being allowed to.

35

Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Does light naturally travel in curved paths?

« on: April 07, 2025, 09:30:30 AM »

The people you are talking about actually went out and conducted observations and experiments. You merely tried to explain it away

You are conflating "pointing out mistakes" with "explaining it away".
If someone makes an observation but makes a mistake - not accounting for viewer height, not accounting for the height above sea-level of the object they're observing and so on then that renders the observation, and the conclusion they have drawn from it invalid.

The experiments are easy, yet you have consistently refused to even look.

As the people I'm talking about above have shown, they're not actually that easy. There are lots of mistakes people make.
And as I've said, I don't feel the need to do experiments to gather evidence to prove something I already know to be true.

Your "photos of the globe earth from space" claim is not reproducible.

A fair number of amateurs have sent up balloons - the footage from that people like you "explain away".
Space tourism is still too expensive for most people but with a bit of crowd funding I'm sure a flat earther could be sent up.

Not required. Your disbelief is your own problem. The claim itself is evidence.

My disbelief isn't a problem at all. Yes, your claim is evidence. Yes, people can be convicted based on claims. But photographic and video evidence is more compelling.
And unfortunately your claim on this matter is impossible no matter what the shape of the earth.
You have provided the evidence for that yourself - you have shown time-lapse videos which demonstrate how inconsistent refraction is.
Those videos prove that your claim that "the same result comes up over and over throughout the year." cannot be true.

36

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 07, 2025, 08:23:33 AM »

It seems to me that you are just going to bend over and take this.

What does that even mean? What do you think that means?

Look. The issue isn't that tariffs are bad, they're not good or bad - they're just a mechanism. The issue is very little analysis has gone into this, they've just used a blanket formula and used that to come up with some numbers. And Trump is doing it unilaterally without any of the checks and balances that should be in place in a functioning democracy.

Some decent analysis of it all here:



You've seen how the markets have reacted. The prevailing view is that this will push prices up for people in the US and probably tip you into recession.
You voted for someone who vowed to impose tariffs AND vowed to bring down prices. Those are inconsistent things. Tariffs will increase prices for you.

This is the issue with Trump - he doesn't do things carefully or strategically. With tariffs you need to look at things carefully. For each country what are you importing and what are you exporting. As the above video explains, importing more than you export to a certain country isn't a bad thing, or a good thing in and of itself. It just means the other country has more of that thing than you do so you buy it from them. Or it means that the thing is cheaper to buy from overseas than it is to buy locally - and that is where you might want to impose a tariff to try and encourage production locally. Although that won't necessarily reduce the price locally because US workers may have better pay than people in other countries.

In brief - this is complicated and needs proper analysis, considering the trade with each country, looking at where the deficits are and why and imposing tariffs strategically.
Instead they've basically used a fucking Excel formula. This is not a serious policy from a serious politician. It's an attention grabbing move from a reality TV show star who craves attention because he didn't get enough affection from his daddy.

You do not have a serious person in charge of your country. That is a bad thing. It was a bad thing when we had bloody Boris Johnson who is also not a serious person.

37

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: April 05, 2025, 01:58:06 PM »

I am not sure what the point of all this whining is. Trump is implementing the tariffs I voted for.

So your take is:

Why are you whining that we have a moron in charge who is bolloxing everything up? I voted for the moron! I wanted a moron in charge!

Interesting position.

38

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Flat Earth Popularity stronger than ever!

« on: April 04, 2025, 12:39:30 PM »

As the content of the Wiki grew, the discussion waned, in perfect lockstep.

And as we all know, correlation is the same as causation

People have realized that there is content there that they would have to catch up on and rebut. They can't, so they don't.

lol

39

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Flat Earth Popularity stronger than ever!

« on: April 04, 2025, 09:54:59 AM »

Probably 100 years or so

OK, well that is unarguable. But Action seems to have started this thread on the basis of the page views going up on here recently, which we talked about before and you agreed it was most likely bots. So my response to Action starting this thread on that basis is: lol.

of course it's been a continuous upward trend over the last 20, and particularly accelerated in the last 10. Over the last 5, it's been slower, but steadily trending up.

Has it? Continuous? Over 20 years I'd agree there's been a massive growth but I'm not convinced it's been continuous and I'm not convinced it's continuing.
As I said I have struggled to find decent data on that but if you have any then I'd be interested to see it.
By what metric is it continuing to trend upwards and what data can you point to which demonstrates that?

Incorrect. You just happened not to be involved.

You're being a bit pedantic. That's like someone saying that 30 years ago the internet wasn't a thing and me saying "well aktualley...."
Because sure, the internet did exist then, I was using it - but I did Computer Science at Uni, I'm an outlier. I checked and apparently about 16 million people were online in 1995. So it was certainly becoming a thing and growing exponentially. But most people outside of the tech world didn't use it. It wasn't ubiquitous like it is now.
So fine, I'm sure FE was a "thing" 20 years ago, but it was very niche. I'd argue it still is in a way, but it's certainly far more in the public consciousness now than it was 20 years ago. No argument there.

Look, I don't mean this to sound too mean, but what you do or don't hear about is not really that significant.

Not as an individual but I'd suggest public awareness of FE is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. Can we agree that?
Now all I need is to see some data to demonstrate that it is continuing to grow. I'm not even sure what a good metric of that is. Belief in FE? Awareness of it?

My guess would be TikTok. It's the current mainstay of FE proliferation among younger people, and people are doing great there - probably similar in success to what this place has been 10 years ago.

OK. I don't know how to easily measure that. I had a quick look and found this data on the flatearth hashtag
https://ads.tiktok.com/business/creativecenter/hashtag/flatearth/pc/en?countryCode=US&period=7
That's a bit of a blunt metric though. I'm too old for TikTok so I don't really know how to get meaningful data from it.

But you don't need to look - I've done the looking for you. I have, time and time again, shown you studies which clearly indicate it.

You've shown me a couple of one off surveys. You don't need to post any links, I know which ones you mean.
What I'm not seeing - and I don't think exists - is a set of surveys over time which demonstrate a continuous and continuing growth.
Every 10 years there's a census in the UK which means you can quite easily track population growth and demographic change over time.
I'm not sure that level of data exists for FE. Which isn't a criticism, it just makes it harder to assess how it has grown over time and whether it is continuing to.

It's certainly true that conspiracy theories in general have gained popularity over the last couple of decades - fuelled by the internet and, honestly, people's ignorance.
I found this from a 2021 survey into conspiracy theories more generally:

https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/conspiracy-vs-science-survey-us-public-beliefs

10% agreed that the earth was flat, 9% unsure.
But compare that with 9% who believed that vaccines inject microchips and 19% who were unsure if they did.
Sheesh!

I dunno... would it help if I sent you the same list of links again?

If they contain different data to these then maybe. But I think these are the ones we've talked about before:

https://www.gallup-international.bg/en/40990/how-many-people-believe-in-flat-earth-and-everything/
https://www.sciencealert.com/one-third-millennials-believe-flat-earth-conspiracy-statistics-yougov-debunk
https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/09/10/how-many-people-think-the-earth-is-flat-and-doesnt-move/

I've never said I haven't seen those. What I've said is I don't think that demonstrates a continued and continuing growth.
It's just a couple of snapshots of opinions in specific places and times. If you had a comparable survey every year for the last 20 years then it would be easy to track the growth of FE belief over time, I'm just not sure that exists.

FE belief has definitely grown over the last 20 years. You think that's good, I think it's lamentable. I just don't know if it's continuing to grow or whether it's had its day.
I'm not even saying it isn't growing. I just think it's a bit complicated to measure.

40

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Terrible Political Memes

« on: April 03, 2025, 12:41:21 PM »