The difference is Ioffe's article references one anonymous source compared to the entire CNN article being based on one anonymous source.



ped·ant
ˈpednt/Submit
noun
a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules



You're mistaking a trend for a categorical claim. I believe there's a trend of media figures taking the Russia thing way too far. You read that as me saying "lol literally every reporter ever is utterly ridiculous yo". It's much easier to argue points you created yourself.

As for 2, sure, I wouldn't be so conceited as to pretend I'm a right-thinking, clear-minded perfect rationalist with a perfect ability to estimate factuality. Far from, in fact. The way you're talking makes you seem as if you believe you can, though, which is terribly funny.

Yes, her "math" (by which I believe you mean Colin Stretch's testimony) was perhaps the most preposterous dishonest thing in the article. For a website with 2 billion active users, the amount of Russian-backed contact as an amount of Facebook's total content could not be less relevant, and it's obvious why a representative of Facebook would represent it in those terms.



That's what the debate is about, and, as Adam Schiff and others claim in the CNN article, that something the various intelligence committees and the Mueller investigation are trying to discern.



If you're talking about that now, you're changing the subject (about the truthfulness of Gassen's description of the CNN article, and the merits of her arguments vs. those of CNN's anonymous sources).

Does it matter? You probably fall on the "Everyone just be reasonable can't you see that my views are clearly right?" part of the spectrum.

Again, where do you think the content of this article comes from?

Do I even have views?

Er - it doesn't matter? "Perspective doesn't matter." Okay.



Sure - that's fine, and what they come up with they come up with. You see, nobody at all ever in this discussion has claimed Russia didn't specifically targetted those people - the point was exactly what Gessen said, that CNN's claim didn't have the same evidence for it that there was evidence that Russian trolls are really, really disorganized and dumb.

You do this often, where you literally just make up **** and impose that on other people.


I don't know what you're on about, that was never the subject about what I was talking about, you're the one that got that hardon and started rambling about sources, missing the point of Gessen's article and the point of everything anyone was talking about.

But I'm appropriately concerned with details.

Oh, right, the DMs themselves. I mean, Trump Jr. did confirm their legitimacy and even gave us more, but usually with these things - when you have an actual document, you can trust your gut as to whether they're real. Still better than "sources say" - for instance, if Julia Ioffe had written that, "anonymous sources say Wikileaks asked Trump Jr. to leak his dad's tax returns" - it would still be truthful, but less trustworthy than the unfiltered DMs.

I quoted the Gessen article and made some specific points about the text I quoted, and you responded defending her. That initiated a discussion, and now you're ending it prematurely because you can't handle the scrutiny.

The fact that you think you aren't ideological and just pursue the truth is exactly what makes your thinking so dangerously skewed. Do you honestly think you're just evaluating "facts" and that your selective biases don't shine bright when you read this stuff?

They could be fabrications. You don't know they're real. You have to trust anonymous sources.

Wait - ending what discussion? What are you even talking about? You and I seriously operate on different wavelengths, because I don't seem to pick up on whatever devastating arguments you think you provide.

I was asking. What are my views?

Sure - that possibility is always there, but again, Trump Jr. confirmed their validity, so, they're not anonymous, dude.

Don't know, don't really care.

More like, "perspective is something that needs to be taken into consideration".

I think you think that because CNN's sourcing isn't the best, that somehow I believe the content is false. No, it just means you weight how trustworthy it is. Like, even if Trump Jr. hadn't confirmed the validity of the DMs, Julia at least specified that the DMs were collected by congress as part of the investigation: i.e., she's implying who leaked them was someone involved in that investigation. That tells us at least something - CNN literally just said "anonymous sources" - who?

Yes, exactly, maybe you should start by recognizing you have your own biases and ideologies, even if you choose not to label them.

Hahah. What are they?

It says "four sources with direct knowledge of the situation". Perhaps CNN wasn't permitted to say, "several congressman", or something more specific, because it would've made it too obvious who the sources are. Either way, I don't see why it makes a huge difference to what extent the two articles provide details about who the anonymous sources.

It doesn't, and Gessen isn't making a big deal about it either, which is why your comment about her dishonesty was so dishonest.

No it wasn't? She cited an article from CNN and claimed it said something it didn't (when I pointed this out, you called me a pedant for some reason). She cited an employee from Facebook who made an incredibly poor and misleading argument about the quantity of Russia's targeted ads. I don't see what's dishonest about that.

Because your defense that the article did was so poor and missed the point that it amounted to pedantic screeching than a real issue with what she said. That CNN article is misleading because it leads people to believe there's, you know, real weight to what they're saying, or that there's some evidence beneath the claim, not the second hand account of an unknown source.

As for the second part, you don't have to "cite" an argument to repeat such a simple argument. You call it "incredibly poor and misleading" but I don't agree, maybe if you offered evidence I would have a chance at knowing what's going on in that brain of yours.

Maybe if you didn't call me a pedant I would have had an opportunity to present a lengthier description of why her argument is weak? For someone who constantly emphasizes a wish to have a well-intentioned debate (sorry, "discussion") of the facts, you jumped from 0 to raging polemical pretty quickly.

As for your second point, I did make an argument above for why I find it misleading. I can't copy and paste it and past it now because I'm on a phone and that'd be annoying, but it's there. You dismissed it as me saying "perspective doesnt matter", which isn't the force of the argument at all.

This? An assertion that it's dishonest and irrelevant?

Can't believe you're making me do this...

You have a funny idea of what constitutes an argument.

Hold on, let me give an argument: your argument about the relevancy of the claim is irrelevant.

Oh! Well with such a compelling counter-argument I guess the case is settled.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Will you two just **** already so the rest of us can drink in peace?

I'm just here because I got spoiled for Battlefront in the games thread.

Good, now you don't have to buy it.

I did. I think it looks good.

Don't give money to Hitler! You just don't do that!

Hitler has the Star Wars license. I have literally no choice

I believe Origin has a 24 hour refund policy. More than enough time to experience everything the game has to offer.

You can get your money back, but you can't get a full refund.

I got it on PS4 for abt $25. Don't think I can get a refund.

Will report back re: whether it was worth it.

One of the goals of Republican tax reform is repatriation of trillions of dollars held overseas by US companies, right? Let's say it happens. What do you guys think might be the macroeconomic effect of US companies bringing that much money back?

When Bush II signed AJCA in 2004, American corporations repatriated roughly half of their overseas holdings, or $362 billion. It had no measurable effect on investment. It also didn't stimulate hiring, other than temporary accounting and legal jobs for implementing the repatriation. Virtually all of the repatriated money was spent on stock buybacks.

US corporations are now holding some $2.5 trillion overseas. That would be enough money to buy 10% of all S&P 500 stock, which might have some interesting effects. On the other hand, S&P 500 companies have been spending on total $500-$600 billion a year on stock buybacks recently, so I'm not even sure how much a $2.5 trillion buyback would move the needle more than it's already moving. Regardless, I think it's a foregone conclusion that stock buybacks are where this repatriated money will go, rather than reinvestment - and CEOs have publicly said as much.

So, I think we need to assume that stock prices will rise. How much? Dunno. But any way you cut it, that's still a sizable amount of money to dump into the stock market all at once.

Usually an increase in stock prices stimulates spending by stockholders. Usually unwise spending. This is something called the wealth effect. And usually an increase in demand in one sector causes price bleed over into other sectors, which is called cost disease. A sudden large infusion of discretionary cash spent tactically to bolster share prices far in excess of fundamentals (moreso, I mean, since companies have already done this) could inflate bubbles in unexpected places, potentially far removed from the initial stimulus. Maybe even a new housing bubble, which of course would demand a new debt bubble, since illiquid shareholders will need to finance their purchases somehow.

Share prices are already a tremendous moral hazard for the US, with the vast majority of workers dependent upon share prices for retirement savings. The more money goes in, the worse the moral hazard becomes. There's something oddly fascinating about watching the US government throwing gasoline on it.