***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[plansb]

if by dumbest you mean highest IQ, then i totally agree that trump is the dumbest potus ever.

 

[blastercombo]

No rape, no murder, no sexual abuse = no ignored content

 

[mplsdunk]

Automation will continue to happen as companies push to eliminate labor.

Major players are pouring **** tons of money into artificial intelligence.

It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.

Sure for simple stuff. But you aren’t replacing a lot of these drivers like myself who drive off road all day or someone who does routes like ups backing into 200 year old loading docks made for horse and carriages.

 

[Belgium]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/26/michael-cohen-testimony-congress-1186702
Cohen will present document to criminally implicate Trump
The president's former lawyer will publicly accuse Donald Trump of a crime over three days of Capitol Hill testimony this week.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, plans to offer up a document to lawmakers that he claims will show the president engaged in criminal conduct related to a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, according to a person familiar with his planned congressional testimony.

The person said the document will refute a claim by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, that Cohen used a $35,000 a month retainer from Trump as reimbursement for paying off Daniels. Cohen — who will soon report to prison for a three-year sentence tied to a litany of tax fraud and lying charges — is scheduled to appear Wednesday in a public House hearing, and will also testify privately on Tuesday and Thursday before Senate and House investigators.

During his testimony, Cohen also plans to address a much-discussed BuzzFeed report that the president ordered him to lie to Congress about business dealings in Russia during the campaign. The story initially sparked impeachment speculation, but was later thrown into question when special counsel Robert Mueller’s office took the rare step of issuing a carefully worded denial of certain elements of the piece.

“He’ll explain exactly why he lied and how he came to lie,” said the person familiar with Cohen’s testimony.

More broadly, Cohen will go into personal and character accusations against Trump, saying the president made racist remarks in front of him such as questioning the intelligence of African-Americans, according to the person.

As word of Cohen’s expected damning accounts leaked out Tuesday morning, the White House and Trump supporters began pushing back against the president’s former lawyer, highlighting his criminal record and deceitful history.

“Disgraced felon Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress and making other false statements,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that didn’t address Cohen’s specific allegations.

“Sadly, he will go before Congress this week and we can expect more of the same,” she added. “It’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word, and pathetic to see him given yet another opportunity to spread his lies.”

On Capitol Hill, Trump’s closest allies echoed the sentiment.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted: “Tomorrow ⁦@OversightDems⁩ will hold their first big hearing. For their first big witness, they will roll out the red carpet for Michael Cohen. … Here’s the problem: Michael Cohen is going to prison in two months for several crimes, including LYING TO CONGRESS.”

Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Perhaps the most attention on Wednesday will center on Cohen’s account of a payment made to Daniels during the 2016 election to buy her silence about an alleged affair. For the first time publicly, Cohen plans to accuse the president of acting criminally in the matter, a charge Trump has long denied.

Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations for making the pay off. But court documents also implicated Trump in the scheme, saying he was a key player in the plot.

Separately, the person familiar with Cohen’s testimony confirmed a report in The Wall Street Journal that Cohen will accuse Trump of manipulating his finances for business and personal purposes, including inflating and deflating his net worth and avoiding property taxes.

Additionally, the former lawyer plans to discuss tweets from Trump that Cohen said were meant to intimidate him. Cohen was slated to go before the House committee in January, but his legal team delayed the appearance, citing threats against him and his family.

The president tweeted on Dec. 16: “Remember, Michael Cohen only became a 'Rat' after the FBI did something which was absolutely unthinkable & unheard of until the Witch Hunt was illegally started. They BROKE INTO AN ATTORNEY’S OFFICE! Why didn’t they break into the DNC to get the Server, or Crooked’s office?”

The person familiar with Cohen’s testimony said Trump’s use of the word “rat” “has a meaning for people who are in prison.”

But in a text on Tuesday, Giuliani dismissed such insinuations, insisting that the president was merely referencing media reports about potential ties between Cohen's business dealings and the Russian mafia.

“All the tweets did was to point out the allegations in the media already about his and his family connections to Russian-Ukrainian organized crime and how that is probably part of the reason that the [Southern District of New York] told the court they would not take his cooperation unless he fully cooperated," he said. "It’s absurd to say that any one of us threatened him."

 

[mplsdunk]

What evidence do you have of that?

You know how ****ing crazy it is we even have phones? You know we actually have self-driving vehicles on the road and it's only a decade old technology? Even if it doesn't completely phase out all drivers which it won't, it's completely naive to think it won't leave a huge impact.

Just a few decades ago being able to video call someone from the other side of the world in real time was crazy.

My evidence is I build the roads

Sure you can replace a small part of it but full blown automation will never happen. Driving is about 10% of my job.

 

[equality]

My evidence is I build the roads

Sure you can replace a small part of it but full blown automation will never happen. Driving is about 10% of my job.

So it's not your job? Or are you saying all truck drivers only drive 10% of the time

 

[Belgium]

Quite possibly the dumbest President ever.

Hands down, and it'll probably stay that way for quite some time. There also appears to be some form of cognitive decline at work, possibly dementia or Alzheimer's, given the difference in his coherency compared to 5-10 years ago. He has always had the same linguistic mannerisms and vocabulary but at least he managed to make it sound a bit more coherent. Now it's just a complete word salad unless he's reading off of a teleprompter. When he goes off-script it sounds like the rambling of a senile madman on a lot of drugs.

Trump does have some great skills in spite of his ignorance. He's excellent at branding, convincing millions around the world of his business accumen in spite of his inheritance, the multitude of bankruptcies and the string of awful business moves that resulted in those failures. Over time Trump seemed to focus mostly on licensing deals, which suits his strengths more.
He's also strong in whipping up a crowd etc, as evidenced by the cult-like devotion of a significant part of his support. When he said he could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th avenue and not lose any voters I don't think he was far off the mark.

Regarding his rambling, this example became an instant classic.
“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

 

[RustyShackleford]

My evidence is I build the roads

Sure you can replace a small part of it but full blown automation will never happen. Driving is about 10% of my job.

You remind me of one of those economist in 1999 calling the US recession proof. Better yet, like a coal miner in the 1970s thinking things will always be wavy. Completely ignoring the flank

Famb, billions of dollars are being spent to make this happen. You can't assume that money is on a fool's errand.

Even if it won't wipe out all those jobs, autonomous freight vehicles gives companies more leverage to suppress wages and break unions.

Keep human in the trucks to handle small road city driving, then you autopilot features for highways. The machine is doing half the work, so why should the human get all the pay.

 

[23kidd]

Yang2020

 

[equality]

Yang2020

That immigrant mentality

 

[RIP sleazyy]

Why would humans get less pay for the same amount of time spent in the vehicle though

There's more to truck transport than driving point A to B

 

[boris]

Sure for simple stuff. But you aren’t replacing a lot of these drivers like myself who drive off road all day or someone who does routes like ups backing into 200 year old loading docks made for horse and carriages.

They can be and they will be. There is so much money being invested in autonomous vehicles.

Companies will do anything they can to maximize profit.

 

[RIP sleazyy]

Autonomy will be used to assist drivers more than take away jobs. There's some things an autonomous vehicle just can't do on its own, period.

It heavily depends on what the truck is for also IMO.

I'm speaking for the coming decades btw. Beyond 20-25 years who knows what will be going on.

 

[iamdef]

If automation is going to assist more than replace the next thing is going to be training to handle said automatic trucks.

 

[RIP sleazyy]

If automation is going to assist more than replace the next thing is going to be training to handle said automatic trucks.

Yup. Even the developers of the trucks themselves say they will require humans on board for a long time ahead and some tasks a truck just won't be able to perform on its own period.

I used to think how some folks in here think but actually being in a position where I have to drive a CDL vehicle I've looked more into it and it's not the big bad boogeyman it's been made out to be. At least not yet.

Travel industry should be more worried about autonomy than truck drivers.

 

[dacomeup]

 

[elpablo21]

Even when Repubs commit Fraud, it's still the Libbies' fault

 

[getback]

Autonomy will be used to assist drivers more than take away jobs. There's some things an autonomous vehicle just can't do on its own, period.

Are we sure about that though? I just saw a Verizon commercial for a surgeon performing heart surgery remotely via a Skynet T-800 looking robotic arm

I'm starting to think any damn thing is possible.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Why would humans get less pay for the same amount of time spent in the vehicle though

There's more to truck transport than driving point A to B

In simple terms:
If you do a job and now say 20% of that job is eliminated, why should I still compensate you equally for that time. Especially when I have to pay for the capitial that is doing the job now?

Even with high demand for the sector, the wages don't reflect what they should. That points to drivers not having sufficient market power. So when companies roll out these systems, they have the power to suppress driver wages to pay for them. Maybe even to the point they come out ahead overall.

I am not saying that truck drivers will go away, but their jobs will change in a way that could lead to lower wages. A lot lower.

 

[getback]

Especially if it's a job where your only duty is to be "present."

One of my jobs when I was younger had an overnight crew who got paid less simply because their main role was to be present while the clientele slept.

If your job is to sit shotgun while the robot commandeers the truck, why would you paid the same rate as if you were doing the commandeering?

 

[RIP sleazyy]

Are we sure about that though? I just saw a Verizon commercial for a surgeon performing heart surgery remotely via a Skynet T-800 looking robotic arm

I'm starting to think any damn thing is possible.

I'm just telling you what some developers of the technology think. The future of robotics and autonomy are crazy but machines will never be perfect until they start designing and making themselves lol

In simple terms:
If you do a job and now say 20% of that job is eliminated, why should I still compensate you equally for that time. Especially when I have to pay for the capitial that is doing the job now?

Even with high demand for the sector, the wages don't reflect what they should. That points to drivers not having sufficient market power. So when companies roll out these systems, they have the power to suppress driver wages to pay for them. Maybe even to the point they come out ahead overall.

I am not saying that truck drivers will go away, but their jobs will change in a way that could lead to lower wages.

I've read before that the recouped money on fuel costs is one way to offset what you're talking about. There's a lot to it that I think folks don't consider.

Here's a good article about the subject.

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/how-drivers-and-autonomous-trucks-could-work-together-move-freight

The jobs will change depending on the needs of the companies. There will be losses but there may be gains depending on the industry. But like my job, not a thing will change. There's very little of my job that could be automated

 

[Mark Antony]

Yup. Even the developers of the trucks themselves say they will require humans on board for a long time ahead and some tasks a truck just won't be able to perform on its own period.

I used to think how some folks in here think but actually being in a position where I have to drive a CDL vehicle I've looked more into it and it's not the big bad boogeyman it's been made out to be. At least not yet.

Travel industry should be more worried about autonomy than truck drivers.

Yeah still a lot of nuance to it, ie fog, right now AI can't see through fog like we can.

However people need to start adjusting to automation and not fight it, it's going nowhere, makes too much business sense.

 

[dacomeup]

 

[Mark Antony]

@deuce king

 

[frshstunna]

Harford county, no surprise there...Even tho its in the Baltimore metro its basically has every sterotype u think about southern hillbillies and racism