lmaooo anyone who still supports trump is actually a genuine fucking dumbass

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Originally Posted by SuperJack

I have to say those points compared to the rest of his life are incredibly picky. It's like finding a cat hair on someones jacket and come to the conclusion that they fuck cats.

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You just said this way more eloquently than I ever would have.

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Originally Posted by Ganelon

It does say he did it to undermine Iran's position (iirc Iran and Saudi Arabia don't like each other very much).
but interesting nonetheless. makes me wonder what Saudi Arabia does with that money.
Is Saudi Arabia anti-Israel?

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With all due respect, I strongly disagree with Wikipedia's assessment of Trump's intentions, taken from ABC and WSJ, two sources that are frankly atrocious. I wrote a long reply to that, but there's also a much shorter response:

The Saudi government invariably gave this money as a bribe and Trump accepted this money, presumably aware he was being bribed. He then proceeded to do things the Saudi government liked. That is, if nothing else, an objective conflict of interest, plain and simple. I cannot definitively prove that Trump accepted this money with ulterior motives, because I am not inside of Trump's head. However, I doubt ABC and WSJ would hesitate to make the very natural assumption that some other world leader had ulterior motives, were they in the same situation. I would also hope it'd at least be clear to you that Hillary Clinton would absolutely be taking that money with ulterior motives, were she in that position LMAO.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a power struggle for decades. Iran's foreign objective is to expel Western forces from the Middle East, annihilate the state of Israel and support the rise of fellow authoritarian theocracies that will resist foreign interference. The Saudi objective is to support the rise of Salafism and reign as the undisputed power of the Islamic world, by any means necessary.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have a mutual hatred of Iran, and their goals are also not incompatible. They are also strong mutual allies of the US. Hence they have a very close relationship.

Spoiler : longer reply to WSJ's assessment :

The assessment that the weapons deal was done to "counter-balance Iran" is wildly charitable. If one is concerned that a tyrannical, theocratic terrorist state is a threat to peace, one does not address that concern by funnelling billions of weapons to their more tyrannical, more theocratic and more terrorist neighbour.

The kingdom is widely suspected to have funnelled funding and weapons to ISIS and other groups fighting Assad in Syria, an enemy of theirs. There's been leaks of high-ranking US officials espousing the claim, meaning the US government has intelligence that corroborates this. Trump would have agreed to the weapons deal aware of that intelligence. There's also lots of rich Saudi individuals funding a range terrorist groups aligned with the kingdom's agenda (including Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and the LeT), which the kingdom is aware of and does nothing to crack down on.

The Saudi Kingdom is also using the US weapons to wage an illegal war in Yemen, targetting schools, hospitals and other fundamental civillian structures. Millions of people have already died, and the warring has been so ruthless that the Saudi kingdom has actually caused a famine. They are trying to crush the houthi rebels, which are aligned with Iran, in spite calls from the Houthi rebels for a ceasefire. These calls have been ignored, even in spite of the recent Corona outbreak. The weapons the US gov. have provided have played a critical role in allowing the Saudis to carry out this slaughter.

The Iranian regime, though terrible in their own right, comes nowhere close to causing the level of devastation in the Middle East that the Saudis do. It should also be noted giving the Saudis weapons to fight catastrophic wars with Iranian proxies has done nothing to actually deter Iran's influence in the Middle East. In fact, these actions have largely helped to vindicate the terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that Iran supports. A cynic may guess the US doesn't actually wish to truly destroy Iran's influence, because the presence of the Saudi/Iran rivalry creates a powerful demand for US weapons, and Iran's isolation allows the US to control the bulk of the world's oil exports.

It is, in my view, far more plausible Trump is simply swayed by the millions in funds he's personally received from Saudi Arabia, and the extensive funding Saudi and Arms lobbyists funnel to the Republican party (and the Democrats). The Saudi government also sells its oil in dollars, which lends the US major economic power. There's also the following famous Trump quote regarding the kingdom:

“Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million... Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

Current politics is the only field I think Wikipedia is absolutely crappy for, sources or not. You just cannot take it as much more unbiased than the people on this forum lol. This also applies to news, but to a lesser extent: they at least have to be neutral in some way or even FAKE being neutral, which is already a good start. Wikipedia doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Ganelon

I find that a very strange explanation because I've never searched anything like "Corona is bad" or whatever. I've always doubted it was as serious as they claimed it to be, hence why I'd find the idea of Google showing me results that I don't want to find (and that I've practically never googled) bizarre.

I don't doubt the algorithm for determining the search hits is complex, but I'm not so sure we can put it down to something as simple as my search history.

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Is it all that strange? I'm just saying to be aware that Google will show you different results based on your search patterns.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with machine learning, but Google uses it to determine what to show you. It takes a test set (your search history) and creates a heuristic (a guess) into actual associations of what you would click on. Depending on where you click after it has made its guess, the algorithm revises its next heuristic to better match what it thinks you want.

So yes, Google search results are biased based on your search history.


Let's take my search result for example.
Some of my relevant recent searches are:
opb, intimate partner violence statistics, Uyghur, inflation, oil futures, Kyoto animation fires
I also regularly search for statistics and occasionally read the abstracts of academic papers (I know, boring).
So I don't think it was surprising that Google showed my original sources.

From oops' search results, we can probably guess he reads a lot of news. While you might not have directly searched Corno is bad/hoax, everyone -including your- search results are biased based on what their search history is.

https://www.sc2mafia.com/forum/attach...4&d=1588634348

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Originally Posted by secondpassing

Is it all that strange? I'm just saying to be aware that Google will show you different results based on your search patterns.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with machine learning, but Google uses it to determine what to show you. It takes a test set (your search history) and creates a heuristic (a guess) into actual associations of what you would click on. Depending on where you click after it has made its guess, the algorithm revises its next heuristic to better match what it thinks you want.

So yes, Google search results are biased based on your search history.

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This plays into a growing problem with social media in particular, we often put ourselves into these "info-bubbles" where we isolate ourselves from information that we dislike, and based on these algorithms (in Facebook in particular) you're shown content you're more likely to "like" and less likely to dislike. People tend to "like" content they agree with, thus Facebook shows you almost exclusively information that you agree with. This creates a sort of positive feedback loop, to the point where some people's perception of reality completely disagrees with another person's.

EDIT:
I should also talk about how this plays into the human psyche, humans are tribalistic by nature, we tend to group up with people that we share traits with, whether that be race, gender, political alignment, or interest. Machine algorithms are more than likely exploiting this aspect of the human psyche.

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Originally Posted by yzb25

With all due respect, I strongly disagree with Wikipedia's assessment of Trump's intentions, taken from ABC and WSJ, two sources that are frankly atrocious. I wrote a long reply to that, but there's also a much shorter response:

The Saudi government invariably gave this money as a bribe and Trump accepted this money, presumably aware he was being bribed. He then proceeded to do things the Saudi government liked. That is, if nothing else, an objective conflict of interest, plain and simple. I cannot definitively prove that Trump accepted this money with ulterior motives, because I am not inside of Trump's head. However, I doubt ABC and WSJ would hesitate to make the very natural assumption that some other world leader had ulterior motives, were they in the same situation. I would also hope it'd at least be clear to you that Hillary Clinton would absolutely be taking that money with ulterior motives, were she in that position LMAO.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a power struggle for decades. Iran's foreign objective is to expel Western forces from the Middle East, annihilate the state of Israel and support the rise of fellow authoritarian theocracies that will resist foreign interference. The Saudi objective is to support the rise of Salafism and reign as the undisputed power of the Islamic world, by any means necessary.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have a mutual hatred of Iran, and their goals are also not incompatible. They are also strong mutual allies of the US. Hence they have a very close relationship.

Spoiler : longer reply to WSJ's assessment :

The assessment that the weapons deal was done to "counter-balance Iran" is wildly charitable. If one is concerned that a tyrannical, theocratic terrorist state is a threat to peace, one does not address that concern by funnelling billions of weapons to their more tyrannical, more theocratic and more terrorist neighbour.

The kingdom is widely suspected to have funnelled funding and weapons to ISIS and other groups fighting Assad in Syria, an enemy of theirs. There's been leaks of high-ranking US officials espousing the claim, meaning the US government has intelligence that corroborates this. Trump would have agreed to the weapons deal aware of that intelligence. There's also lots of rich Saudi individuals funding a range terrorist groups aligned with the kingdom's agenda (including Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and the LeT), which the kingdom is aware of and does nothing to crack down on.

The Saudi Kingdom is also using the US weapons to wage an illegal war in Yemen, targetting schools, hospitals and other fundamental civillian structures. Millions of people have already died, and the warring has been so ruthless that the Saudi kingdom has actually caused a famine. They are trying to crush the houthi rebels, which are aligned with Iran, in spite calls from the Houthi rebels for a ceasefire. These calls have been ignored, even in spite of the recent Corona outbreak. The weapons the US gov. have provided have played a critical role in allowing the Saudis to carry out this slaughter.

The Iranian regime, though terrible in their own right, comes nowhere close to causing the level of devastation in the Middle East that the Saudis do. It should also be noted giving the Saudis weapons to fight catastrophic wars with Iranian proxies has done nothing to actually deter Iran's influence in the Middle East. In fact, these actions have largely helped to vindicate the terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that Iran supports. A cynic may guess the US doesn't actually wish to truly destroy Iran's influence, because the presence of the Saudi/Iran rivalry creates a powerful demand for US weapons, and Iran's isolation allows the US to control the bulk of the world's oil exports.

It is, in my view, far more plausible Trump is simply swayed by the millions in funds he's personally received from Saudi Arabia, and the extensive funding Saudi and Arms lobbyists funnel to the Republican party (and the Democrats). The Saudi government also sells its oil in dollars, which lends the US major economic power. There's also the following famous Trump quote regarding the kingdom:

“Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million... Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

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I really don't think your post deserves that spoiler around that juicy, juicy information. The US conflict in the middle east is very complex and that information helps enlighten us about it. I do have two problems with your opinions in the spoiler though..

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"It is, in my view, far more plausible Trump is simply swayed by the millions in funds he's personally received from Saudi Arabia"

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The US government has been backing Saudi Arabia for quite a long time. Obama and Bush's administrations also sent them weapons and money while not building hotels or whatnot there. While I believe your statement to be true, I don't think this point deserves the same amount of attention as for the other reasons the US backs Saudi Arabia. More prominent reasons are the economic and political ties to that government.

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"The Iranian regime, though terrible in their own right, comes nowhere close to causing the level of devastation in the Middle East that the Saudis do. It should also be noted giving the Saudis weapons to fight catastrophic wars with Iranian proxies has done nothing to actually deter Iran's influence in the Middle East."

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First, I find that evaluation of their "destructiveness" to be unfair. Considering all of Saudi Arabia and Iran's proxies, I would say that it's about equal. Iran's government also seems more ambitious in its goals and had they more resources, I believe they would create greater humanitarian crimes.

Second, supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons does deter Iran's influence. It's true, Iran has nonetheless greatly expanded its field of power, but I think it would have been much bigger had Saudi Arabia had less support from the US government.

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Good post yzb.

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

This plays into a growing problem with social media in particular, we often put ourselves into these "info-bubbles" where we isolate ourselves from information that we dislike, and based on these algorithms (in Facebook in particular) you're shown content you're more likely to "like" and less likely to dislike. People tend to "like" content they agree with, thus Facebook shows you almost exclusively information that you agree with. This creates a sort of positive feedback loop, to the point where some people's perception of reality completely disagrees with another person's.

EDIT:
I should also talk about how this plays into the human psyche, humans are tribalistic by nature, we tend to group up with people that we share traits with, whether that be race, gender, political alignment, or interest. Machine algorithms are more than likely exploiting this aspect of the human psyche.

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Y E S. The conclusion of this post is "Facebook sucks" imo. For business reasons maybe (since everyone is on it apparently), but outside of that, it's bad and untrustable. :(

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Originally Posted by secondpassing

From oops' search results, we can probably guess he reads a lot of news.

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My results were in incognito mode using a VPN, so they weren't influenced by any search history.

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Originally Posted by oops_ur_dead

My results were in incognito mode using a VPN, so they weren't influenced by any search history.

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So I guess not. Maybe Google expects more people to want to read news then.

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Originally Posted by deathworlds

This plays into a growing problem with social media in particular, we often put ourselves into these "info-bubbles" where we isolate ourselves from information that we dislike, and based on these algorithms (in Facebook in particular) you're shown content you're more likely to "like" and less likely to dislike. People tend to "like" content they agree with, thus Facebook shows you almost exclusively information that you agree with. This creates a sort of positive feedback loop, to the point where some people's perception of reality completely disagrees with another person's.

EDIT:
I should also talk about how this plays into the human psyche, humans are tribalistic by nature, we tend to group up with people that we share traits with, whether that be race, gender, political alignment, or interest. Machine algorithms are more than likely exploiting this aspect of the human psyche.

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I have a lot of respect for this post.