jerryskids

Yeah, I thought the link would be a map that draws out a route to a warmer state.

In case you never get around to those Freakonomics podcasts, one of the data points they make is that immigrants themselves are net negatives on the economy. Their children, and their children's children, are a positive, moreso than the original generation was a negative. So the net result is an economic positive, but it takes 3 generations to get there. They are currently discussing (I haven't quite finished) how the Feds unduly benefit from leaving the bulk of the integration cost for the first generation on the states, but gladly collect those sweet tax dollars later. This seems to conflict with your consistent assertion that immigrants are a positive to the economy. At least, my interpretation of your assertion is that you believe they are a positive from the get go.

Skating is one of the sports that impresses me in the olympics. Like gymnastics, it's mostly mental. You know your routine, you just need to go do it. That's it. Simple, right? Obviously not. Major head games. Looking forward to the Paris games (yes I know, skating is in them).

Wow, I know we're supposed to make fun of such athletes here, but that was freaking impressive!

I can see this argument. I think part of it is how you define "advancements." For instance, the raw increase in the number of transistors on an advanced computer chip in the past 25 years would dwarf the number in all years prior, because of Moore's Law and the way size increases in development. But is this a bigger development than the invention of the transistor? Of the integrated circuit? Of the basic semiconductor process still fundamental to manufacturing today? One could argue, and I'm inclined to do so, that going from zero to any number is an infinite increase, and more important than the subsequent improvements. It is a difference of revolutionary vs. evolutionary, or research vs. development. When I got my first engineering job in 1989, I worked on two different projects that came out of our research labs. These labs were funded to hire brilliant people to go explore new, revolutionary things, many (most) of which would never come to fruition, but some might. Large companies like IBM, Bell Labs, etc. attracted the best and brightest for such speculative work. Fast forward to today though, and you don't see this. Guys like Beach Guy, the finance expert, took over companies, and shareholders no longer would support "wasting" money on projects which couldn't be tied to improving the bottom line. As such, most pure research today is limited to academia and government, two institutions full of people with little to no real world experience. Of course, we do have AI creating revisionist history with black vikings, so we've got that going for us...

By the way, I just looked it up: Excel was introduced in 1985, which for the math challenged, is > 25 years ago.

Of course I'm happy we've developed immunotherapies. I wouldn't exactly put that in the same league as antibiotics and vaccines though, in the giant scheme of things. Sheesh, I can't believe I'm having this debate with a guy who thinks a significant tech advancement is a new suite of macros in Excel.

So you are a bean counter, gotcha. Uses technology? If at least you said you create technology, your credentials might have non-zero value in this discussion. Let's see, off the top of my head, prior to 25 years, we had... vaccines, antibiotics, pasteurization, printing press, planes trains and automobiles, Newton's laws, Maxwell's equations (define electromagnetism), special and general relativity, transistors, computers, nuclear fission, quantum theory, cell phones. In the past 25 years we've had... another iPhone, this one titanium!, and 46 different genders and growing. I'm good with my position.

Happy early birfday, old geezer!

Duly noted. Some of it might tho, depending on the competitiveness of the market. Also, the additional money could funnel into additional investment, new jobs, etc.

He's an engineer, as am I. Thanks for the technology lesson though. What is it you do again?

What I got from this thread is that @Mike Honchobelieves that if you raise taxes on corporations, those costs pass through to the consumer. Duly noted, for future tax discussions.

True, it would be a great development. I read stuff like this though: and think hmm, with the climate "crisis" as motivation, we ker-chunk along at a snail's pace, adding a few seconds each year to the sustained plasma. But 80 years ago, before computers, when we thought the Germans or Japanese might do it first and destroy us, we went from nothing to two functioning nuclear bomb technologies in less than two years. It's all about the motivation... or lack thereof.

To each their own. I would have told Tim to fock off and we'll decide in November. To me, the spirit of the bet was that. I don't view that a win. It's not about the money, it's about being right. Like the bet in Trading Places for $1.

That's a pretty good description..

Yes, there is no context. I see this: and then, @Engorgeous George saying that since Biden isn't officially the candidate as of today, he wins and you lose, and you agree. Without context, that seems like a dumb position upon which to end the bet. I would need to see these other discussions to form an opinion.

I have a little time now; where do I go to read what happened? Is it all in this thread, or elsewhere. If here, what pages/exchanges?

What does this mean? Like, somebody who finds flabby moobs attractive on a guy would be a gynosexual?

I don't know when Jewish holidays are. It was historically shown during Passover, not sure when it became an Easter thing. More cultural appropriation, arrgghhhh#@~!

It's a Passover movie

We post pics and videos of women here all the time. Also, any pre-pubescent kid sees a woman dressed as a bunny dancing around. Grow up or leave

I've started drinking outside of Chase Field before the Dbacks game, so I'm not comfortable moderating anything, especially a $2K bet. If this is still in question tomorrow, after Easter activities, I'll try to chime in.

The 2014 came from the pods. I have no other supporting info.

Freakonomics has a wonderful podcast series out right now about our broken immigration system. Politically, the host leans left, but it seems to be presenting valid points from both pro and anti immigration: https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/the-true-story-of-americas-supremely-messed-up-immigration-system/ I'm not quite done with it but I've learned a lot. It'll take a few hours to listen to it all, but worth it IMO if you want to learn the history as well as pros and cons. The history in a nutshell is: we haven't always been receptive to anyone but western Europeans and German protestants. My one concern that they haven't addressed yet is the problem of attributing old data to the current situation. The "old" data indicates that immigrants cost us money, but their kids and their kids more than make up for it in tax revenues, so it is a net positive. But they also discuss that in 2014, around the advent of social media, word got out to people that if they (and their families) just come and manage to get into the country, there is a good chance that they will stay for life, so the numbers have exploded. I'm not convinced that the old data (something along the points that @5-Pointsmade early in this thread) still apply. This is too nuanced for @The Real timschochet, who just sees the data and concludes that all immigration is good.

The only child he's sharing it with is you. Grow the fock up.