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When I have a political question, I'll ask it here

First off, I want to ask about mail in voting.  How is mail in voting guaranteed to be secure and safe?  Have we had it before 2020?  Given that anti-Biden posters DOMINATE social media, I sometimes can't help but wonder if the voter fraud claims could be true.  In the last two elections, did anybody here vote by mail?

Mail in voting isn't new; it's always here.  Everyone in the military uses it because they aren't at their home polling place.  It uses a signature match system.  It could be cheated, because you could forge someone's signature, but it would be a felony and it would result in only one vote.  It's just not worth it.  And there isn't evidence that this is occurring.  The likeliest thing is that people just vote on behalf of their old parents...that's probably the fraud going on, if at all.

Lots of my family does mail in voting, but I don't.  I just like the experience the tactile action of voting and getting the sticker and all that.  Plus, it's at the library where I already go pretty regularly.

You're not serious, are you?

Voting by mail goes back more than 150 years, depending on your exact criteria. Florida has had "no excuse" vote by mail for over 20 years (i.e. you don't need an excuse to vote by mail).

With the current system, there's no reason that ballots received by mail would be more insecure than those done "in person". The biggest issue with voting by mail is, unsurprisingly, the postal service (ballots not being delivered to voters, filled ballots taking too long to arrive and thus aren't counted, etc.)

As for security, there are plenty of things that could be implemented in both in-person and mail-in voting, but fraud has historically been ridiculously low in major elections, so it just hasn't been worth it. Perception is everything, though, and even though there is still zero evidence pointing to any issues with voting fraud (whether ridiculously unsecured "electronic voting systems" or mail-in ballots, or ballot stuffing, or whatever).

Unsurprisingly, accusations of fraud always come from the losers of an election. The Bush-Gore 2000 general election, for instance, saw quite a bit of fire directed at Diebold Voting Systems (in addition to all the Florida "hanging chad" fun) from the left. Now, the Diebold systems were ridiculously insecure and in violation of the law in at least some of the states where they were used, but that doesn't mean there was ever any proof of fraud. I will go on record to say that I'm opposed to this form of electronic voting that doesn't leave a verifiable paper trail, and Diebold later admitted that votes could be deleted from their systems with no evidence of tampering afterward. Clearly very bad, but - again - no evidence that the elections weren't fair.

Bottom line, no evidence voting hasn't been fair, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look into making the system more secure.

Why do Republicans dominate social media, but the Democrats dominate elections?

Neither of these is true.

Social media is geared to show you things you're likely to engage with as part of an algorithm.  So, that's what you're getting, because that's what you're into.

But also  (and this might sound biased but I believe it's true), the GOP isn't running an issue based platform at this point in their history.  It's grievance-based.  Their goal to motivate their base is to make them mad.  So, they have to constantly be outraged and angry and stoking the fire at all times.  Social media is a good tool for that.  So, you see a lot of their craziest politicians and pundits grinding that narrative.  And also because it's free.

Democrats don't dominate elections, either.  There are simply more people that align with the democratic party in the country, but the way that the maps are drawn and how people are laid out (rural areas vote conservative, populated cities vote liberal) cause fights amongst districting lines.  The only GOP president to win the popular vote in the last 35 years was George W. Bush during a war.

Therefore, the president, countrywide, while it may be close in terms of electoral votes, will go to the democrat every time, in terms of number of votes.  Governorships are 26 GOP, 24 Dem....but the Dems have made a comeback there in the last cycle....they were losing before.

GOP has the house.  Senate is essentially split right down the middle.

I have not read a positive Democratic comment on a youtube video since I can remember.

George HW Bush won the popular vote in 1992, I believe

Biden's performance in the midterms was the best by an incumbent president in a long time.   That's why I said the Democrats DOMINATED the midterms.

There's this article called 10 Covid myths by experts debunked.

One of them is about school closings.  The article claims that school closings have little to no effect on Covid

However, I found something that directly contradicts this

It was a video showing children Covid hospitalizations in Florida were rising after schools reopened.

This blatantly contradicts the claim that closing schools doesn't slow the spread of Covid

Here's the article in case you are curious to read it

https://nypost.com/2023/02/27/10-myths-told-by-covid-experts-now-debunked/

During the capitol riots, Some Democrats and Republicans sheltered in place in a cramped space.  The Democrats wore masks, the Republicans didn't.  The Democrats got Covid.

This supports what the experts have said all along:  Masks don't protect the wearer, they prevent it from being spread.

Maybe the 10 myths debunked article was bullshit.  Where did you see it?  Anyone can write anything on the Internet, so it's possible that 2 people out of the 9 billion on the planet had different viewpoints on school closing.

As for COVID and closing schools:

I don't see how anyone could say that opening schools wouldn't help the spread of COVID.  It's just common sense.  Just anecdotally, my entire family basically wasn't sick for 2 years during lockdowns.  Any parent will tell you that when your kids are in school, it's just constant germ-factory and you'll all getting sick all the time.  It's just the way it goes.  Not even COVID, but just colds and flu in general.  Between my wife as a teacher and both my kids in school, we are in a constant state of passing illness back and forth.  Just as soon as you're oven it, someone else has something.  It's just the life of having young kids in school

The debate that I've ever heard was never about whether it was effective.  It was about whether it was worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FgqibrKVMY

Idaho wants to make a crime to administer mRNA shots.

Does this mean that the COVID-19 vaccine critics were right?

I got the moderna shot, which is mRNA

I don't understand why you'd make it a crime to administer one.  Can't you just make a crime to MANDATE one?

I've never seen more contradictory research on any subject like I have for Covid-19

This is simply an example of politicians being idiots. Regardless of what one thinks about covid vaccines and covid vaccine mandates, outlawing mRNA vaccines is completely moronic. I mean, even if you were a total vaccine nutter (and if you're not getting your kids vaccinated against MMR, tetanus etc, you honestly probably shouldn't have kids), making it *illegal* for others to get vaccinated (or medical personnel to administer) is just total bonkers. There's no freedom anywhere in that.

You gotta stop asking questions like this.

Facts are facts.  What is true is true.

What laws are made do not change facts or whether something is true.  What people believe in polls doesn't change facts or what is true.  Those things are fully independent of each other.

Well, do scientific studies count as facts?

Mandates should always be illegal, but we should not criminalize health care workers from administering vaccines to people who want them

No.

Science is a process.  One study isn't meaningless, but it's preliminary.  You do studies at the start of something with a lot of variables.  If the evidence is promising, you will do larger, more controlled studies with fewer variables.  Others will also have to recreate your experiments to help root out unintentional bias and random chance.

Also, COVID is a moving target.  The virus when is started is different than the virus now, which is probably different than the virus will be in a year.  Thus, it makes sense that data over time might suggest different results.




Mandates are important.  We can't have kids getting polio or rubella.  In order to go to school or join the military, you have to adhere to a vaccine schedule.  If we don't do this, we're going to get overrun with diseases.  COVID probably isn't one of the things to mandate against at this point, because of what we now know about the most common strains of COVID.

As for criminalizing people who get vaccines, that is a stunt by crazy people.  Pay it no mind and vote against those people and anyone who even remotely considers it.

I think can we clearly conclude two things


The vaccines are very dangerous.  Dozens of studies have shown this

If you survive them, they offer great protection

Other thoughts 

I thought Fauci got an unfair rap for the pandemic, but he is responsible for pushing the vaccines.  It is time to prosecute everybody who pushed for them

^ Both of those are nonsensical statements.  So much so that I'm not going to engage them.

Wherever you're getting your head filled with that kind of toxin, stop.   It makes people not take you seriously.

Great youtube comment.

How did he get elected when every single video on him has more dislikes than likes?

This supports my claim that Republicans may be dominating social media, while the Democrats are not posting.

These two are related. Can you tell how? Other than being wrong.

Social media is not dominated by Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter). Social media sites / apps like YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook are *extremely* good at suggesting content that reflects the content you have already watched, particularly if you have "engaged" with it (liked, looked at comments, commented yourself, shared, "subscribed" to the channel, or even just watched the whole thing).

I like poking at the algorithm every once in a while and YouTube Shorts (their attempt at TikTok) has such a short memory that it is very easy to see the effect of various actions. For instance, I watched one baseball short that came across my feed and looked at the comments. The result was that almost 20% of my feed was baseball-oriented, despite me skipping the vast majority most. This obsessive, short-term behavior resulted in several categories of my preferred shorts actually getting booted completely from my feed (it almost feels like there's a limit to how many categories it can handle). While attempting to rid myself of baseball shorts, I watched a few "tool hacks" and some takes on them (and looked at comments, because I couldn't figure out wtf the tool was supposed to do) and the result is that now I'm getting inundated with "tool hacks".

It's the same with the other social media platforms, but YouTube Shorts just seems to react faster (and more). It's a pretty bad algorithm, IMHO.

Try watching a few of those "lost ancient civilization" vids and pretty soon your feed will be dominated by "experts" claiming that there was an extremely advanced globe-spanning civilization 12000 years ago that could, among many other things, cut stone using some sort of vibration "magic" that we don't even know of today.

Or try watching a bit of Andrew Tate (on second though, no, please don't) content and the next thing you know, your feed is filled with "Sigma" bullshit.

These algorithms don't serve you content that you agree with. They serve you content to maximize engagement. And, at least currently, that means serving you heaps of the same shit, whatever shit that might be. So if the algorithm decided you are likely to engage with "leftist" shit, that's pretty much all you'll see. Conversely, if the algorithm decided "rightist" shit is the kind for you, THAT is all you'll get. And since "centrist" content, on average, engages audience much less, no one gets that. It's all just extremist, exaggerated shit.

This kind of algorithm-served content is a HORRIBLE way to get news, but it is an increasingly common way for large segments of society to do so (particularly young people).

I did not say they were related.

THESE two are related

1a) Every Biden video has more dislikes than likes, while EVERY SINGLE COMMENT on them is negative

1b) Biden keeps owning it in elections, as he won in 2020, while having the best midterm performance of any president since 2002.

2) Republicans dominate social media, the Democrats are not posting but dominating elections.

If I was Dr. Fauci, after the midterms, I would have made a speech like this:

One side listened to me

One side didn't.

The side that listened to me had the best results in the midterms.

KISS MY ASS.  ;D

Has anybody here actually participated in any sort of political survey?

^Yes, I have.

No, *I* said they were related and proceeded to ask if you could tell how - and then proceeded to tell explain how, just in case there was any doubt.


"THESE two" followed by 3 points, where 1a and 1b are very oddly "named" in that they appear to be not related in the slightest.

I'm not sure you've understood any point I've tried to make in any of my posts. Ever.

As for your claim in point 1a above (every Biden video has more dislikes than likes + overwhelming majority of negative comments), I'm struggling to verify it. What platform are you observing this phenomenon on?

Youtube

I'm confused.  What I say is clear.

Biden is universally deplored across youtube and social media.

Yet, he still keeps owning it in elections.

Something is not adding up.

You have 2 statements there, one is a fact, one is an opinion.

Biden keeps winning elections (or outperforming expectations) - fact
Everyone hates Biden - opinion

Soo .. if those two statements don't add up. Do you think the fact is wrong, or your opinion is wrong?

That's not what I said.

I said almost every comment on every Biden video is negative and most have more dislikes than likes.

THAT is a fact.

You're just looking at videos tailored for you that have an anti-Biden bias.  We told you this.  It's algorithms.  It's also the type of videos, probably.  I have no interest in that kind of stuff so you won't find me in the YouTube comments.

But if you go on the Reddit front-page, you'll see plenty of anti-conservative talk.

Social media isn't the same from place to place.


But also, social media isn't real life.  The vast majority of people will never comment on a YouTube video as long as they live.  You're just looking at a fraction of a fraction of one type of angry online person.  That isn't reflective of people who go to actually cast a vote.

It is what you said .. literally. Stop moving the goalposts.

Also your revised statement is full of logical flaws as well.

1 - You only look at videos bashing Biden. People that like Biden aren't posting up videos for people with your browsing history to downvote. - Your sample size is tiny, your search criteria are suspect and you are using anecdotes as facts, which they are not.
2 - You see biden bashing because that's what you've watched before, so youtube gives you more of the same.

The fact you asked those first two questions should preclude you from asking any political questions until you actually inform your opinion(s). Your level of ignorance is breathtakingly stunning.

We got another pandemic possibly on the way with Avian Flu

Is Biden taking the time to stockpile medical supplies?

Are we preparing for mass testing? 

I don't think so.