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Tell me again about those so called charitable rich people…? Onwards brothers and sisters to the class war. This vid is pretty much everything I’ve said on the blog and what I rail against a on regular basis. Go Ted Talks Go.
The very notion that we are spending money on an assortment of rubber disk chasers, gravity assisted sled-fanatics and dancers-on-frozen water angers me. What infuriates me is the notion that throwing money at this motley crew will somehow enhance Canada’s standing as a nation and that “owning the podium” will bring us international regard.
What a pile of feel good nationalistic hoo-haa.
Canada should be spending its money on improving the living conditions of its people. When our First Nations have a safe and clean water supply our international standing will grow. When our homeless do not freeze to death in the streets our international standing will rise. When we eliminate child poverty our standing will increase.
Spending money to win a shiny metal disk for a 7 second soundbite on the world stage is not only stupid, it is irresponsible.
This from the article entitled How Organized Minorities Defeat Disorganized Majorities – by Seth Masket
“So how exactly does an organized minority go about defeating a disorganized majority?
1. By Learning the Lesson of the Boys Club
In 1942, political scientist E. E. Schattschneider laid out the logic behind political parties, offering lessons that still elude many political observers today. A key metaphor Schattschneider offers early in his book is that of a boys club, consisting of, say, a dozen boys who are trying to elect a leader from among their ranks. Typically, every boy will vote for himself, leaving no leader after the election. All it takes to break this stalemate is a conspiracy of two boys: one who votes for the other, and in return is promised some special favors by the future leader. Thus are two boys, properly organized, able to control the fates of the disorganized other 10. This is the essence of all political organization.
—E. E. Schattschneider, Party Government, Praeger, 1942″
I’m going to have to find and read more of what Schattschneider has to say, as he seems to be right on the money.
Browsing the time sink known as Reddit today I came across a very cool comic showing someone building a chat-bot to debate a theist. I googled the title of the comic and found the original as well a very awesome comic called Bag of Toast. I highly recommend checking it out.
The comic in question:
This made me think that I would love a chat bot to debate the theists, global warming deniers, anti-vaccine advocates, scumbags MRAs, or anyone I disagree with but constantly have to have 101 level discussions with. It would be wonderful. But then the Reddit community came through and proved there is such a thing already!
Christopher Mims at MIT Technology Review writes:
Nigel Leck, a software developer by day, was tired of arguing with anti-science crackpots on Twitter. So, like any good programmer, he wrote a script to do it for him.
The result is the Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW. Its operation is fairly simple: Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments about how global warming isn’t happening or humans aren’t responsible for it.
Sadly this chat bot has since been suspended, but given how easy it is to create twitter accounts I’m sure it is out there somewhere, debating science deniers so that we don’t have to. Finding out this bot existed has made today a good day.
Unfair? Nah.
Great from the opening statement forward.
Food for thought.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…