Tim Cook's letter to customers

seebart · 03 Mar 2016, 22:20

It's very easy to sum up, the Goldman Sachs boy and other republicans are scared shitless because a polically unkown outsider is winning the race who if elected might not play ball and serve republican party interests to guys like these guys are used to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political ... h_brothers

Muirium · 03 Mar 2016, 22:25

But they need not worry, because Mrs. Wall Street is the likely winner.

Although Webwit and me squabble a lot about politics, we more or less agree that no viable candidate in this race is any threat to America's biggest money men. Redistribution (let alone socialism) just isn't what America is about. Not since FDR.

seebart · 03 Mar 2016, 22:32

Oh don't be so sure Mu, I mean Trump is no "socialist" like our old Bernie but he could still pull some crazy shit once in office. He remains somewhat unpredictable. His political track record = 0.

Muirium wrote: But they need not worry, because Mrs. Wall Street is the likely winner.

We got approx. ten months to go on that one.

webwit · 03 Mar 2016, 22:50

Muirium wrote: Get a room already! Trump knows how to stroke your feathers.

(Until you're surely stuffed!)

You know he doesn't, and my arguments are only aimed at pointing out none of those lizards do. Get rid of the lizards!

seebart · 03 Mar 2016, 22:53

Here's what they do in Tijuana, Mexico:

: 000326f6_medium.jpeg (78.32 KiB) Viewed 5628 times

People pass a pinata in the image of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Wednesday, March 2, 2016, in Tijuana, Mexico. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox on Wednesday stood by his comparison of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, saying the Republican presidential front-runner “believes in the white supremacy.” Fox is calling on Americans to “wake up” from “this Republican nightmare”. He made the remarks Wednesday in an interview taped for Fox News Channel’s “Hannity”. Trump has angered many Mexicans for his campaign rhetoric denigrating some immigrants as “rapists” who bring crime and drugs to the United States, and his promise to build a wall along the entire US-Mexico border. (Photo by Gregory Bull/AP Photo)

webwit · 03 Mar 2016, 23:04

He's got better hair there.

vivalarevolución · 03 Mar 2016, 23:22

While we are on Trump, I must mention some statistics regarding actual number of votes. Trump has become the leading candidate for the Republican nomination with votes from less than 10% of the voting eligible population. I'm sure that if you crunch the numbers of any recent presidential primaries, the leading candidate has no more than 10% of the votes of the voting eligible population, not just Trump.

Here my data on Trump's percent of the votes: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I cross referenced data from these sources for my percentages on Trump's share of the voting eligible population:
http://www.politico.com/2016-election/r ... /president
http://www.electproject.org/2016P

Trump has figured out how to inspire just enough people to vote for him to win enough of those primaries and completely capture the news cycle. This amount does not even need to be more than 10% of voters! All you need to do to become a party candidate for president in the United States is inspire less than 10% of voters to get out and vote for you! That's it. He's gamed a rigged system in his favor.

To me, this is more of an indictment of the broken political and electoral system that allows an inspired minority to choose the people that run the country. It's always been that way, though, let's be honest. Restricting women, blacks, and non-land owners from voting, intimidating third party or independent candidates, the electoral college, restricting ballot access, the winner-take-all plurality voting system, the ballot tampering down in Florida in 2000. American has never been, and may never be, a true representative democracy.

I'll be tuning out of election related news until May when I vote in my state primary, and then tune out again until November 8. In the meantime, I will focus on critiquing the system, and attempt to avoid candidate-focused discussions. Debating the candidates is a distraction from the actual root of the issue, which is both structural and strongly related to human behavior and psychology. They are best for a laugh every now and then. Until they are actually elected, then I'm scared.

And Romney is probably trying to position himself for an appointment in a Republican administration. Let's be honest. He doesn't care about the American people.

webwit · 03 Mar 2016, 23:29

Trump will change some of his rhetoric now he has to aim at a wider demographic. It has always been like that. He will be a fighter for the common man etc.

I wonder what would happen if Trump would become president. With Clinton it's pretty predictable, business as usual. Trump might be settled by the powers that be in something harshly neoliberal like Reagan, or Thatcher without the intellect. Or he might be a Berlusconi, for your special entertainment. I think we'll be pretty save from the Hitler comparisons.

seebart · 03 Mar 2016, 23:57

Oh I like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/us/po ... inton.html?

Redmaus · 04 Mar 2016, 00:27

Sounds good all the commies move to Canada and Trump makes America Great Again(or not)

fohat · 04 Mar 2016, 01:48

More like this:

vivalarevolución · 04 Mar 2016, 02:46

webwit wrote: Trump will change some of his rhetoric now he has to aim at a wider demographic. It has always been like that. He will be a fighter for the common man etc.

I wonder what would happen if Trump would become president. With Clinton it's pretty predictable, business as usual. Trump might be settled by the powers that be in something harshly neoliberal like Reagan, or Thatcher without the intellect. Or he might be a Berlusconi, for your special entertainment. I think we'll be pretty save from the Hitler comparisons.

Well, of course he will change the rhetoric. Whatever works to win the primary (which take the impassioned support of a measly percent of voters), then whatever works to gain traction in the general. Insults, charm, and vague policy proposals go a looooong way in America.

Business as usual, good way to put it. Clinton doesn't scare me at all, she probably should scare whatever measly country we go after next within striking distance of our aircraft carriers.

I've wondered about what a President Trump would do. He is a textbook case of a person with one or two Cluster B personality disorders and that is not my evaluation. How a person like that in a supreme position of power will make decisions, I would not expect benevolence. The power will feed the ego to new heights. I don't know enough to predict how he will behave, but I'm not exactly excited to find out.

Giant ego is not anything new to the presidency, it's almost a prerequisite to run in the first place. But this brand of ego, I'm not sure we've seen anything like it before.

jacobolus · 04 Mar 2016, 08:47

Trump is pretty similar to other authoritarian populist bullies, e.g. Mussolini, Perón, Chavez, Berlusconi. Maybe Putin, except Putin is smarter and a lot scarier.

He doesn’t have any kind of coherent political or policy beliefs, other than slapping opponents around with his (self-proclaimed) big dick. If elected, he would be a total wildcard. I could imagine the GOP rallying around him and becoming his personal party, over the protests of big donors, or I could imagine the party completely collapsing on itself.

I think he’s very unlikely to do well in a general election though.

Muirium · 04 Mar 2016, 10:26

Putin is the vital one. He'll be running Russia for decades to come, and his popularity there is based on a similar strong man image to Trump's attempts. Putin is genuinely smart, however, and could also beat the living shit out of old wiggy in a fight. With two leaders like that, such a scenario is not entirely unthinkable!

This is my worry about Trump's potential win. He'd squabble and rant on domestic policy where he has no power. But the world is his oyster to duck around with. Using the mightiest military on the planet. Anyone really think that's not his style?

Trump needs bullied. The republican bigwigs are now beginning to do that — realizing he's a fast growing tumor in their party — but they're running out of time and need to find a message that will resonate with his voters. I hear they're pressing hard for his tax return: to expose him as a poor man! That could ruin him if they can force it in time. Another one would be to convince people his genitals are as underdeveloped as his personality.

Quite how Hillary will deal with him while not coming over as a scary mother figure, well, that's the handicap that women politicians always face.

andrewjoy · 04 Mar 2016, 10:51

Muirium wrote:
Quite how Hillary will deal with him while not coming over as a scary mother figure, well, that's the handicap that women politicians always face.

Hillary is a horrible person, so is trump , both are crap.

Clinton is a career politician backed by big business and lobby groups, expect companies to fuck you over even more if she gets in.

Trump is an idiot but he is a product of the system of corrupt career politicians like the lady above, he has his true flock i am sure but i think quite a percentage of the vote for trump is the fact that they are fed up with the current system of bribes, lobby groups, political correct special snowflakes and safe spaces.

If clinton wins things will stay the same, if trump wins everyone will shit a brick and try to work out what went wrong and hopefully try to reform the messy system, trump himself will not do a dam thing to change anything he is the symptom not the cure.

Not saying this is a good thing mind you but it is what it is.

Muirium · 04 Mar 2016, 11:10

The system will not change. The constitution requires an ammendment to alter it. And those require the support of 2/3 of both houses of congress (dominated by Republicans from small states) and then 3/4 of the states themselves. No chance. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

But there is this artful hack…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_ ... ate_Compac

Still stuck in the wilderness though. Still requires the support of certain turkeys.

scottc · 04 Mar 2016, 11:15

Do you guys ever get the idea that Trump is only there to make Clinton look less bad? The voting system of the USA is so useless that most people have to stragetically vote for who they think might win, not the people that they want to win. If Clinton beats Trump, I'm sure the general consensus will be "well at least we didn't elect TRUMP".

Muirium · 04 Mar 2016, 11:19

That's rich, coming from the Irishman!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/el ... ic-ireland

I agree, though. First past the post is moronic. But every system — even STV — is flummoxed when the people give politics the finger!

andrewjoy · 04 Mar 2016, 11:20

He has done a good job of covering up her terrible racism with his even worse racism.

And yeh i think people will think that.

If trump gets in people will also think at least we did not get clinton.

If clinton does win i wonder if she will have sexy times in the oval office ? Carry on the family tradition .

EDIT , i also said , hopefully things will changes

seebart · 04 Mar 2016, 14:21

The latest round of bickering, it just get's better and better...

GOP Debate, 11th Republican Presidential Debate in Detroit, Michigan 3/3/2016

vivalarevolución · 04 Mar 2016, 14:24

Muirium wrote: That's rich, coming from the Irishman!

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/el ... ic-ireland

I agree, though. First past the post is moronic. But every system — even STV — is flummoxed when the people give politics the finger!

scottc wrote: Do you guys ever get the idea that Trump is only there to make Clinton look less bad? The voting system of the USA is so useless that most people have to stragetically vote for who they think might win, not the people that they want to win. If Clinton beats Trump, I'm sure the general consensus will be "well at least we didn't elect TRUMP".

Plurality voting, boys and girls!

The current voting system does some wonderful things for the preserving the power structure. Part of the power structure is the two parties, and the two parties control the votes that could modify the way we for president. So good luck with that.

Some local governments have eliminated the "first-to-the-post" system around here in favor of other voting systems, and that is where movements always start in this country. The federal governments and political parties usually respond to what is happening at the state and local level, they rarely lead the charge on domestic policy.

There are ways around it, though. Somewhere in this video my boy Ralph talks about a state by state movement to modify the electoral college: https://youtu.be/e0OnOpgaAjg

Not a silver bullet, but a start.

Muirium · 04 Mar 2016, 14:33

The project I mentioned. It actually is a silver bullet. But it only kicks in when enough states have signed it into law. (It's dormant until they have 50% of the electoral college.) Which means a long, long wait.

jacobolus · 04 Mar 2016, 14:42

Using national popular vote vs. electoral college only makes a marginal difference to anything. Big problem is overall level of wealth/power inequality in the society, something increasing everywhere in the world, as rich selfish people figure out how to game every institution.

There are two potential changes to US politics that would have dramatically more impact than national popular vote for president: (1) Supreme Court composition change leading to enforcement of campaign finance laws, to kill the flood of “dark money” into elections. (2) Real teeth given to voting rights laws, including disallowing the gerrymandered-to-hell house of representatives and state legislature districts. And a possible (3) public financing of elections. It would also be nice if states would get rid of their term limits on legislative office, and if direct elections of state judges were changed to appointments.

Finally, not political changes per se, but better enforcement of workers rights, stricter regulation of the financial sector, a boosted minimum wage, and hikes on capital gains taxes and new top marginal income tax brackets would make a big positive difference to the level of citizen political engagement compared to elite engagement, and would provide a big boost to the economy.

berserkfan · 04 Mar 2016, 15:14

I loved reading the last page so much (about the US election) that I made my own poll! Check it out. off-topic-f10/trump-v-clinton-who-do-yo ... 13216.html

BTW I really wasn't intending to read Tim Cook's letter. Am generally not interested in the BS that CEOs say to their customers. We care about you, yeah right, we care about your pocketbook.

Clicked by accident and found the same geekhackers talking politics that they no longer talk about on geekhack. Is it because gh now has too many kids, and DT has an older and more educated audience?

seebart · 04 Mar 2016, 15:40

berserkfan wrote: Is it because gh now has too many kids, and DT has an older and more educated audience?

Of course that's why.

Actually we have a good mix. A little of every demographic makes for superb "offtopicthority".

Redmaus · 04 Mar 2016, 15:43

Yeah on reddit the threads are only connected by single comments and on GH they don't allow this kind of discussion derailing.

DT for life

berserkfan · 04 Mar 2016, 15:58

Jacobolus,

Electoral college was intended to create a distance between the president and the people, so that demagogues would not find it so easy to win by popular vote alone. And I certainly think it works. Each state differs by its domestic laws, but in many states the representatives can choose not to follow the popular vote, which adds another check to the US political system.

I am pleased to see that increasing numbers of people are recognizing the importance of the wealth/power inequality that you mentioned. It’s for that reason that I have said many times, a shake up of the US political system is needed. The entire world needs to see that shaken up, and it will undoubtedly have trickle down effects on other Anglophone countries where income inequality has shot through the roof just because of ‘globalization’. We need to coddle our banksters less, we need to tax our major corporations more, and we need to have real, enforced minimum wages not mass immigration. This WE refers to anybody really – not just USA, but also UK, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, pretty anyone who’s active in the Global trading/ Global funds flow system.

How can anyone not fathom that this whole thing about legalizing mass immigration, is really to depress wages to hell and to keep the average worker in thrall to his employers. In my part of the world, where land is very scarce and human beings are not, it is obvious that real estate interests in Singapore and Hong Kong are enthusiastic supporters of mass immigration policies – and the poor average Zhou is called a xenophobe or racist for opposing these policies.

I find it outrageous that the media wants South Africa to accept more immigration from other African countries. South Africa has a 25.5% unemployment rate for its black population. It has five million migrants. If South Africa reduced the migrant number to 1 million and gave 4 million jobs to the blacks, the black unemployment rate can be reduced to under 10% (same as US black unemployment rate now). How does impoverishing your own countrymen lead to greater prosperity for the country as a whole?

When the British left Hong Kong, 80,000 people lived under the poverty line. Now Hong Kong has at least 1.1 million more residents – and 980,000 are under the poverty line. Real estate is so expensive that tens of thousands live in tiny cages stacked on top of each other – and they still have to pay rent for their cages that, at over USD $10/sf/month, are more expensive than renting in London or New York!

I agree that some of the US Supreme Court’s most asinine judgments need to be revisited. This whole BS about corporate personhood and corporate freedom of speech aka buying votes and politicians needs to end. But I do not understand why you think it would be nice for states to get rid of term limits. Wasn’t one Strom Thurmond bad enough?

jacobolus · 04 Mar 2016, 20:28

berserkfan wrote: Clicked by accident and found the same geekhackers talking politics that they no longer talk about on geekhack. Is it because gh now has too many kids, and DT has an older and more educated audience?

Yeah, no. The political discussion on Deskthority is sadly totally clueless. Especially when it comes to American politics, everyone is out of touch and misunderstands the basic context. (No offense guys. I would be similarly unprepared to talk about e.g. German domestic politics. This is also nothing unique to Deskthority. From time to time I read European newspaper analyses of American politics, and they are almost always weirdly misinformed.)

As for immigration: Immigration is a huge boost to the US. The xenophobic, racist, nativist politics is entirely counterproductive if the goal is helping working-class whites.

Redmaus · 04 Mar 2016, 20:46

jacobolus wrote: As for immigration: Immigration is a huge boost to the US. The xenophobic, racist, nativist politics is entirely counterproductive if the goal is helping working-class whites.

Why

jacobolus · 04 Mar 2016, 21:27

US has no shortage of land, look at this map of world population density:

(admittedly a bit out of date, but giving a reasonable broad-strokes overview)

US also has abundant natural resources, more capital than we know what to do with (interest rates fallen through the floor), and high labor productivity. GDP is still sky high, the money just all goes to hedge fund managers and corporate executives.

There have been plenty of studies of the effect of immigrants on labor markets, and in general the effects are broadly positive for the economy overall, with negative impacts mostly limited and localized to particular industries. On the flip side, much of American agriculture is 100% dependent on immigrant labor (and has been for 60+ years), and would collapse without it.

The economic problems in the US are about distribution of profits, not quantity of input factors. That is, political erosion of labor rights, shifting of the tax burden away from the rich and toward the working class, explosion of housing, healthcare, and education costs (due to a mix of bad zoning/urban planning, poorly considered college loan structure, completely broken health insurance model, etc.), parents all working full-time but without proper national childcare benefits, a strong dollar depressing US exports and boosting the prices of non-tradeable goods, a dramatic reduction in the real value of the minimum wage, centralization of corporate control in many markets (e.g. healthcare, banking, media, food production, communications, etc.), poorly maintained infrastructure, a broken criminal justice system, huge amounts of money wasted on the middle east wars of the 2000s, and so on.

Most proximately, to a lesser extent than in Europe but still annoyingly counterproductive, national fiscal policy is being pro-cyclically constrained during a recession, instead of used as a counter-cyclical balance (Europe of course has this much worse; most European finance ministers are either morons or criminals, IMO). The US federal government should be targeting an inflation rate of 3–4% or more, boosting federal infrastructure spending and diverting money to save state governments whose state constitutions disallow deficit spending, to prevent them from cutting government jobs in the middle of a recession.