So, basically to observe that it's market driven and that the government doesn't really directly control it?

So the majority of my family members are superheroes, like you seem to think this guy is. Since they have more education, does that make them better superheroes? Seriously though, way to oversell the guy. A lot of us on Slashdot are nerds, but we still know that Tony Stark is a fictional character... Plus, quite honestly, if there were a real, actual Tony Stark, whether we are talking about the comic book version or the MCU version, I would not want that guy actually running the Dept. of Energy. Did you not notice in the MCU movies how many of the threats they faced were caused directly or indirectly by Tony Stark?

So, while yes this does mean that he has education in a more technical field, you do realize that, from what you wrote, he only has a master's degree and she has a doctorate, right? I mean, if we're making it that sort of contest.

Now, I will agree that I tend to prefer people to have technical training when they are going to manage technical people. However, any job heading such a department is going to have a lot of policy and legal details to attend to as well as technical details. The head does not need to be a technical director as long as they know how to actually listen to advice from the people who know what they are talking about. Also, having ulterior motives and serious conflicts of interest tend to negate potentially positive qualities.

Now, RFK Jr. is actually a great example. He is someone who, strictly speaking, would actually be qualified for his job. A lot of policy and legal stuff involved in HHS, so he could theoretically be a good leader even without medical expertise... if he were someone who would listen to advice from experts. However, he obviously is not. He has a bunch of crazy notions and biases that he is pushing on the department, creating a huge mess.

It looks that way because it is that way. I'm pretty sure Trump pretty much said that he was going appoint him to a position in charge of health policy in exchange for him backing out of the race and endorsing Trump. I think he hedged it with a "probably", but I don't think there's any real doubt that a deal was struck.

In any case, Wright is a clear example of the revolving door between industry and policymaking. One clearly in the plutocratic upper echelons, no less. His decisions are bound to be dripping with self-interest.

No, in fact your scenario is ridiculous and contrived and devoid of all context. That's the whole reason I pointed out that the details matter. Your scenario only works if you start with the axiom that the Palestinians in Gaza are just automatically monstrous fiends who exist solely to kill Israelis. There's actually this whole history that actually applies to the current situation, there's no magically switching things around. The whole thing was just you basically saying that you think that the Gazans are scum who should be eradicated.

Not being a terrorist apologist. The actions by Hamas on Oct 7th were deplorable. Many actions of Hamas against Israelis are deplorable. Of course, many actions of Hamas against Gazans are also deplorable. Many actions by Israel against Gazans are also deplorable. There is no two wrongs make a right situation here.

Who is "you" in this scenario? Maybe 15% of the current population of Gaza?

Regarding "pointless internet comments"... I think a little self awareness might be in order.

The deal with this launch system is that it was supposed to be a game changer both for payloads to Mars and for basically everything else. Sure, Musk is a huge liar, so he could have been lying about all of the things he said it would do, like take over all satellite payloads to any orbit, or replace commercial airliners on long distance flights, etc. Saying that other payloads don't matter because it was always actually just about getting to Mars is a perfect example of the sour grapes I was talking about. I assume you're familiar with the fable?

His track record is not actually that great. Are we counting things that were promised that have not appeared yet as promises fulfilled, but not yet? I mean, what is the status of the affordable model 3? Or the Tesla with true full self driving? You know, the one that already exists, works 100% but just is not in full production yet? I mean, I would like to believe my various friends who borrowed money from me that they have the money ready to give to me but they just forgot it at home, etc. Of course I have not actually lent a friend money in over a decade, so I will be really, really, really surprised if one of them ever pays me back. I mean, it's OK, I never expected any of those particular friends to pay me back. It would have simply been a pleasant surprise if they did. The pleasant part would also mostly have been the knowledge that if they did, they were doing well enough for themselves that they could afford to. This is a bit of a digression, but the point is, I can generally recognize when statements are not true. I am often quite good at just shrugging it off. You kind of need to be in this world to avoid going crazy. When I do start to mind is liars who start to think that the people they are lying to are just gullible fools to exploit rather than just being polite. Not only does it make me think poorly of their character, it also makes me think that they're not very bright since they don't recognize that their lies are not actually believed.

I think I'm digressing again. I guess the real point is that, at this point, Musk has worn out my tolerance. I don't give him or his companies the benefit of the doubt any more.

The specific thing you were replying to was:

So the fact that it hasn't actually made an orbit yet seems relevant. It did not explode this time, but it also did not go into an actual orbit. Simple as that. No desperation needed.

That's a bit of a quibbling detail as far as the distinction between Britain and England goes. Britain, includes England, Wales and Scotland. Functionally, as of 1772, Wales and Scotland were part of the Kingdom of Great Britain which was ruled by King George IIIrd. England and Wales were under Common Law, and shared a court system. There was some question of jurisdiction but laws passed and court decisions made in English courts definitely applied to Wales as well, even if it took a bit for them to take hold. Scotland was a little less integrated. It did not have its own Parliament, but did have some of its own native laws as well as laws from the British Parliament and its own court system which applied something of a mix of its own common law and British common law. Notably, they had their own case over slavery in 1778 which likewise declared slavery illegal. Notably, the finding in both the 1772 case and the 1778 case was not about overruling slavery laws, they were rulings that essentially found that slavery was actually already illegal under existing laws. In any case, There is no coincidence in the dates of these cases being so close to each other. As long as we are quibbling over details, obviously slave holders tried to find ways to hold onto their slaves like forcing them into indentured servitude instead, shipping them out of the country, or outright ignoring the law.

As you say there were holdouts in the British empire even after slavery was formally abolished in 1833, but that has little bearing on slavery being found illegal in Britain in 1772 or, if you like, from 1772 to 1778. The whole point though, was about whether that caused concern in the British colonies, including in North America, over Britain potentially ending slavery throughout the empire soon. Those predictions were, indeed accurate. Slavery was on its way out, even if it was not in one fell swoop.

Sure, we all know this. We also know that the US still practices slavery too. It's explicitly still allowed in the 13th amendment.

It did have the same result, see above. In any case, as far as slavery ending earlier, it almost certainly would have if the US had remained a set of British colonies. Whether it is better or worse on the whole that the US gained independence is another thing completely, but it is hard to imagine it would not have ended slavery in the region sooner (except in the case where influence from American colonies delayed Britain from banning it across their empire somehow, though the American colonies had little of that kind of political influence).

What I would actually be shouting, if I were shouting, is that you've gotten completely derailed from the actual point. Once again, the point was whether happenings in Britain that were legally eroding slavery there and which looked (accurately) to many like they might spread to the colonies might have encouraged slave owners in the American colonies to want to separate from Britain to preserve slavery. A lot of factors seem to line up to support that. Not that it was the sole cause or anything. There were a lot of factors involved, but it seems pretty clear that concerns about abolition of slavery were one set of factors.

Anyway, most of the rest of what you went on with is completely irrelevant. To the discussion. You also kept writing "your king" which is a bit odd. While I was technically born a British subject, that legal status does not apply now and I would be a citizen. I mean, technically I suppose that the Queen Elizabeth II was my queen and her son is now my King, but it's not very meaningful. Also, I am not 205 to 215 years old (depending on when you count the end of George IIrds reign). If George III were "[my] king" then the same logic would make him your king as well if you're a US citizen. Just as Augustus Caesar would be your emperor or Thog, wielder of big stick would be your tribe leader.

I am quite familiar with this kind of testing. In my case there was no obvious decline in my kidney function. I went from perfectly normal kidney function in my last test, to an eGFR of 2 when I had to go into the emergency room after a month long bout of serious illness that just got worse and worse. I will note though that my labs do not include differentiated scales for African vs non-African. I am assuming that is simply because the charts I get are already adjusted for my demographic information. This is clearly something a number of systems do for "normal" ranges. For example, there were differences in "normal" ranges for various measurements between the system my dialysis clinic used to display results vs. the system my hospitals used to display results because the dialysis clinic was also adjusting for what "normal" was for a patient in kidney failure.

Quite familiar. It is actually more annoying when, since you're barely producing anything, you have to sometimes remind yourself to even try during that 24 hour period.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that there are not phenotype differences between people of recent African descent and people of European descent. Obviously there are, just as there are phenotype differences between all relatively isolated human populations. I don't really see what it has to do with project 1619 though. Most people concerned about equality and civil rights actually recognize that fairly accounting for such phenotype differences is an important part of social justice. For example making sure that diverse populations are represented in medical studies and that diseases that affect primarily members of minority groups are not ignored, etc.

In any case, there are certainly phenotype differences between humans, just as there are in any species, but your view on that paper seems to be very skewed. Basically all of the examples provided in that paper of a myth about differences in physiology between white people and black people does indeed appear to be a myth. Black people do not naturally have thicker skin or higher pain tolerance, or lower lung capacity. They certainly do not have the made up condition drapetomania. The paper is about non-existent racial differences that were used as part of what is often referred to as "scientific racism". The majority of the supposed racial differences mentioned in that paper were ones that were basically invented to justify harsh treatment of slaves: thicker skin, higher tolerance for pain, low lung volume which hard labor would increase, drapetomania which could be reduced by harsh punishment and denigration, etc. Even when a researcher might have actually been in earnest when examining subjects such as high pain tolerance, any decent modern researcher would have recognized that having been beaten and whipped regularly for ones entire life is a significant confounding variable when trying to isolate a cause for higher pain tolerance. Honest though it seems pretty unlikely many of them were truly earnest and unbiased.

The point is, you choose to read the article a particular way, but most of it is pretty clear that it highlights claimed physiological differences used as justifications for hash treatment of African slaves and for the enslavement itself that are simply not real. While there are real differences in physiology and the paper might do itself a disservice by not addressing those as well, what it actually does directly address is actual myths about physiological differences and the horrors those myths have enabled.

In terms of actual factual accuracy, there seems to be nothing valid to criticize the paper on. The point of the 1619 project is to look at history honestly from a perspective that is frequently ignored or minimized in other perspectives on history. It seems to accomplish that just fine. Just like any set of works, it is certainly open to various forms of criticism. Simply dismissing it as "bullshit" or "revisionist garbage completely devoid from any historical pinning that can be attributed" is nonsense though.

The problem with your scenario is that If the Palestinians in Gaza suddenly, instantly had all of the weapons that Israel has (possibly including nukes) they still would have a very hard time wiping out Israel whether they want to or not. They don't have airfields, so every weapon that needs a plane to deliver it would basically do nothing for hem. They would still be in a small territory, surrounded by walls and an army. They would still have a very small actual military force vs. the enormous one in Israel (not just the current military, but virtually all of Israel's adult population except for the ones with exemptions such as disability or religious. Not to mention that, while weapons are important, there are other obvious supply problems. The relevant quote is "an army marches on its stomach" I believe. Oh, and of course the relatively huge land area. Not to mention that aside from lacking the military training that the average Israeli receives that I mentioned earlier, they also lack any trained officers. So,, simply from a practical point of view, if we ignore the will to do it, it might be a lot harder to actually do it than you think.

Now, if we address the will to do it in isolation and look at what the Palestinians in Gaza in general would want to do to the Israelis, there are a lot of facets to consider. If we think of the analogy of a much smaller person being held down by a much bigger person and relentlessly beaten (completely ignoring for now the details of how this situation came to be) with all indications that the bigger person will continue until the smaller one is dead, it would be pretty normal for the will of the smaller person to be to reverse the roles up to and including killing the bigger person. So, just out of sheer self-preservation at this point, it would not be unlikely for there to be a lot of Palestinians in Gaza who would indeed want to do more or less what you said if the roles were reversed.

If we look at the will to do what you say, just in terms of some sort of general urge to do so, not based on the immediate situation, I think you would see a lot fewer Palestinians in Gaza willing to do so, though still a significant number, but also with the actual will to do something a bit fuzzier and less specific. I can't even count the number of times, for example, that I've heard regular people in the US, who go about their lives, not really being affected by the people they want to murder, suggest various forms of genocide. You could say they are not serious in the sense that they personally typically won't expend any real effort on it, but they're not joking either. Whether it's "nuke the entire Middle East to glass" (which I have frequently heard in my time in the US, and which, I should note, includes Israel), or killing all LGTBQ+ people, or the homless, or the French, etc., etc. I have heard plenty of people express these views with no shock or immediate condemnation from the people around them. A significant portion of any population, including those that have experienced basically nothing but peace in their lives like the citizens of the US, is pretty bloodthirsty and quite apathetic to the lives of anyone else outside their sphere, if not literally in favor of killing them. So, for populations that have not experienced peace, those attitudes can solidify and be strengthened by rage. One of the things about rage is that it makes people think that they are righteous and just, with the rage being the only justification they need. So, sure, given all that has happened between the Gazans and Israel, I am sure there are plenty of them, possibly even a majority who might feel the way you depict them right now. That's pretty normal in Wars.

All that said, it does not somehow make it right for you to feel the same way. The simple fact is that people in such conflicts end up crazy and irrational. Thinking that you are justified because of your rage does not excuse killing children, let alone adults. There is a reason that group punishment is a crime against humanity. So what if the people of Gaza elected Hamas nearly twenty years ago. Hamas is a violent gang that subsequently eliminated any semblance of democracy and operates pretty much like organized crime in Gaza and suppresses all dissent. The average lifespan in Gaza is 40.5 years. That pretty much means that nearly half the population wasn't even born back when Hamas came into power. A large percentage of the rest were still just children. Since not even everyone able to vote chose Hamas at the time, only a small minority of the current population had anything to do with selecting them.

In the end, no matter what claims you make, they don't excuse attempts at genocide. It is not OK for Gazans to do it. It is not OK if he Israelis do it. It is not OK if anyone does it. This should not be a very difficult concept to understand.

If the roles were switched is a pretty vague statement. Do you mean if, right this moment the Israelis suddenly merged into a smaller group of individuals and magically transported to the locations that currently have Palestinians and the Palestinians magically duplicated to match the number of Israelis and magically transported to where all of the Israelis are? Or do you mean some sort of Alternate history where the ancestors of the modern Palestinians were spread throughout Europe in the 1930's and 1940's while the ancestors of the Israelis were occupying what is now Israel at the same time, then history happened as it had otherwise just with the roles reversed? Or do you mean some other situation? In any such situation, I can say with pretty good certainty that the majority of those of us who are against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians in Gaza now would be equally against the same situation if the roles were reversed. We also deplore what Hamas did on Oct 7th. We also deplore what the Nazis did the Jews, the Roma, the homosexuals, the disabled, political dissenters, and others in WWII. Most of us who object to this sort of thing object to genocide in general.

Olympic sports like boxing, weightlifting, wrestling, judo, taekwondo separate by weight classes, Somehow, a 55 kilo weightlifter can still win Olympic gold at the same time as a 109+ kilo weightlifter. Weird how that happens.

Well, of course, real manly men don't wear masks for that kind of thing. I've personally seen it on numerous occasions. They also don't wear masks or eyegear when welding either (even though it puts them out for days lying in bed with a severe headache, vision problems, and constantly on the verge of vomiting - which I have also seen). I mean, most of those people have respiratory problems/lung cancer/etc. now, but at least they were manly, manly men.

So, in other words, it's not relevant to the discussion at all.

Question for you. I am sure that you are aware that the 1619 project is reactionary right? Can you tell me what it is a reaction to, and can you let us know if you have the same harsh criticisms for what it is a reaction to?

Your history is a bit off there. Or, at least, you lack precision in your statements. Britain abolished slavery across the entire British empire in 1833. Slavery was actually declared illegal in Britain itself in 1772. Remind me again of the date of the US War of Independence from Britain. How much of a coincidence is it that "the shot heard round the world" was just three years later? So, if you want to use dates of historical events to try to prove that the abolishment of slavery in Britain was unrelated to the timing of the revolutionary war, I think you've failed. After 1772 the writing was on the wall that slavery under British rule was on its way out. Also, you talk about Britain not abolishing slavery in the colonies until 1833, but that means that, if the war had not happened, slavery would have ended in what is now the US 32 years earlier than it did. So it looks like your argument is the poppycock.

Also, I know this is completely unrelated since it was from the war of 1812, but I've always been interested in this line from the US national anthem (usually omitted):

Because, while it may have been a bit cynical, the British freed slaves in exchange for enlistment to fight on their side against the US. Francis Scott Key, a noted racist, appeared to have little sympathy for those fighting for their freedom when it was not white colonists fighting for freedom from England.