Oh noes, socialism!

Sign me up. We are the only first world country WITHOUT single payer, and we have the most fucked health care. I don't think that is a coincidence.

I surely hope that we make it to a single payer system in my lifetime, but there is no way in hell that you could have gotten something like that passed out of the blue.

think of obamacare as a road towards single payer. a shitty road perhaps, one filled with potholes, but one that i am happy to take nonetheless.

So you would support a measure requiring all foods packaged by black folks be labeled as such? So those who don't want to eat such foods could avoid them? Oh, you don't? How is it different?

As for passing horse meat off as beef, well that's flat out lying, and clearly different. If they want to sell it as 'meat' without specifying the animal, that's fine by me.

i do not think that word means what you think it means. we should all HEARTILY dismiss homeopathic remedies, because they are quite literally selling you filtered water. a 13C homeopathic solution means whatever active ingredient used to be in the original solution has been diluted 1:10^26. (Avogadro's number is on the order of 10^23). homepathic companies should all be lined up and shot in a ditch for being horribly evil - those who purposely give false hope.

elderberry extract, ginseng, valerian root, etc etc are natural herbal remedies, which is NOT the same as homeopathy. herbal remedies are a mixed bag, because anyone can slap something in a bottle and call it an herbal remedy - and many companies do just that. certainly, SOME herbs do have beneficial effects on the body.

The concern is that people would avoid GMO products based on fear and prejudice rather than any actual science behind it.

What if we required labels that said 'this product was packaged by black people' ? I mean, what's the harm in putting a label that factually describes an item?

If there is no factual relevance to the labeling, then there is no reason to require it on the packaging.

Whether GMO falls into this camp or not is a separate debate, but if you accept that GMO foods are just as safe as anything else (signs point to yes in most cases), then labels should not be required.

good luck finding a geological marker for any of those things you mention.

the geological timescale cares very little for your opinions on culture or our ability to insert tab A into slot B enough times to create an airplane.

no, the dawn of the HUMAN age is the topic. the nuclear bomb just happens to be a nice easy geological marker for that.

note that the epoch is called the anthropocene epoch. anthopo, meaning human.

we aren't calling it the nuclear epoch.

the detonation of the atomic bomb is a perfectly reasonable way to mark the beginning of a new epoch, because there is a very real and easily identifiable geologic marker for that event (radioactive isotopes & plastic in the topsoil.) if millions of years from now aliens discovered our planet and looked through geological data, and wanted to classify periods based on that data, it's a safe bet that the sudden proliferation of radioactive isotopes and appearance of an entirely new substance (plastic) would be something that they noticed.

as for the necessity of defining a new epoch - would you deny that humans have profoundly changed the planet? no value judgements being made here, just straight facts, the planet is WAY FUCKING DIFFERENT than it was 1000 years ago due to human population explosions and human construction. also, lots of newly-extinct species.

but, i at least agree with you about nuclear power being the solution to a lot of our problems, if we would stop being such pussies about it. that has nothing to do with the topic at hand, though.

that's because humans are terribly bad at sticking to a gameplan or making 'random' decisions.

the correct play in many situations is going to be something like "based on the current size of the pot, and that it costs $X to call, i should raise 20% of the time, call 40% of the time, fold 40% of the time" because that is what a simple lookup table will tell you. math doesn't lie and can't be bluffed or intimidated.

a computer is shockingly effective at sticking to a gameplan like that and otherwise completely ignoring the opponent's actions. humans, not so much. the computer simply cannot be exploited and you cannot out-strategize it. the best you can do is break even.

note that perfect-play only means 'dont ever lose' which is totally different from 'win the most you can.' a really good human poker player is going to be much better at fleecing noobs than this bot, but this bot will always slowly beat anyone, even the best of the best, unless they also play perfectly (and thus tie.)

you will be bled dry before you hit a big hand. we are talking heads up short stack. you can only afford like 10 - 20 blinds total before you are out! good luck waiting on AK!

the ironic thing is, you will probably hit your AK after you have been bled down to like 2x the big blind. congrats, you just doubled up! your opponent is still sitting on a stack 10x your size. better hope your next two hands are AK too!

if hand = [2, 7] {
            int x = Math.random();
            if (x > 0.97) {
                            raise();
            }
            elseif (x > 0.9) {
                            call();
            }
            else {
                            fold();
            }
}

there, you just got bluffed by a robot. easy peasy!

the robot is actually far better at making rational decisions than you are. the robot is not intimidated, cannot be bluffed. it does not care what you do, it just makes the best play in every situation.

the best play will not be 'if my hand is X and the table is Y, always fold'. you are correct that you could potentially exploit completely predictable behavior. that would not be a perfectly-playing robot.

the best play will be 'if my hand is X and the table is Y, fold 75% of the time, call 15% of the time, raise 10% of the time'

you cannot outsmart that strategy, you cannot trick it, you cannot even 'read' it - the best you can do is also play the odds perfectly.

otherwise you will slowly lose all your money.

none of those things are acceptable either. 'legal' and 'acceptable' are not the same thing.

this is very clearly unacceptable. it was legal, but it was fucking terrible, and should be called out as such.

mattel has the right to produce terrible products, and everyone else has the right to mock and berate them for doing so. free speech runs both ways.