Random Politics & Religion #00

I would call Obama an idiot, but that would make me racist to some people.

It wouldn't make you a racist, but it would make you stupid.

Because I don't agree with you on the intelligence level of our current president? Isn't that a little biased?

You mistake intelligence for opinion. You are assessing him based on disagreeing with him, I can promise you he is way more intelligent than you are.

A) First you call out what you consider to be a mistake on my part, then you commit that same mistake by basing your opinion of the intelligence level of the president against your perceived notions of me and also from the policies of the president you agree with. Excuse me if you find offence in me pointing out that you are a hypocrite.

B) My opinion has nothing to do with it. I was calling out Zicdeh's statement.

His level of intelligence is easily measurable. Results of an IQ test he took are published as 116. That's well above average. Based on your ridiculous leaps in logic and inability to understand very simple concepts, I can promise yours is below 116. You called out Zicdeh's statement erroneously, as he was right and you are wrong.

We're doing this off of IQ scores now? Well shoot, you're all out of my league then.

We're doing this off of IQ scores now? Well shoot, you're all out of my league then.

I need to take another IQ test. Gotta make sure the 140 I got in high school is consistent with where I'm at now.

Theoretically, legitimate IQ tests should return virtually the same results at any age barring any trauma. I've taken 2 in my life with very similar results 20 years apart.

Yeah. But if it was a fluke I'd like to know. lol

A) First you call out what you consider to be a mistake on my part, then you commit that same mistake by basing your opinion of the intelligence level of the president against your perceived notions of me and also from the policies of the president you agree with. Excuse me if you find offence in me pointing out that you are a hypocrite.

B) My opinion has nothing to do with it. I was calling out Zicdeh's statement.

Offense* See, you misspelled a word, that's how I know you're stupid.

Ergo, no hypocrisy.

If you're sense of humor needs to be recalibrate, that was a joke.

Personally, I'm only saying you need a clearer picture before you call someone stupid if they're operating in such a convoluted space as Politics. I think just saying they're an "Idiot" isn't a helpful stance to take. Dismissal like that makes dismissal of your opinion even more easy, and then nobody gains any ground in the discussion and we keep voting in "Idiots."

Intelligence is more about the ability to synthesize your existing information into different solution

Correct but the ability to synthesize existing information into different solutions is based on problems they've learned in a classroom settings.

After conducting the largest online intelligence study on record, a Western University-led research team has concluded that the notion of measuring one's intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardized test is highly misleading.

The findings from the landmark study, which included more than 100,000 participants, were published today in the journal Neuron. The article, "Fractionating human intelligence," was written by Adrian M. Owen and Adam Hampshire from Western's Brain and Mind Institute (London, Canada) and Roger Highfield, Director of External Affairs, Science Museum Group (London, U.K).

For full article, images and video, please visit http://www.uwo.ca/its/brain/iqmyth/

Utilizing an online study open to anyone, anywhere in the world, the researchers asked respondents to complete 12 cognitive tests tapping memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities, as well as a survey about their background and lifestyle habits.

“The uptake was astonishing," says Owen, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging and senior investigator on the project. "We expected a few hundred responses, but thousands and thousands of people took part, including people of all ages, cultures and creeds from every corner of the world."

The results showed that when a wide range of cognitive abilities are explored, the observed variations in performance can only be explained with at least three distinct components: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component.

No one component, or IQ, explained everything. Furthermore, the scientists used a brain scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to show that these differences in cognitive ability map onto distinct circuits in the brain.

With so many respondents, the results also provided a wealth of new information about how factors such as age, gender and the tendency to play computer games influence our brain function.

"Regular brain training didn't help people's cognitive performance at all yet aging had a profound negative effect on both memory and reasoning abilities," says Owen.

Hampshire adds, "Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better in terms of both reasoning and short-term memory. And smokers performed poorly on the short-term memory and the verbal factors, while people who frequently suffer from anxiety performed badly on the short-term memory factor in particular”.

To continue the groundbreaking research, the team has launched a new version of the tests at http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/theIQchallenge

"To ensure the results aren't biased, we can't say much about the agenda other than that there are many more fascinating questions about variations in cognitive ability that we want to answer," explains Hampshire.

That Cadillac announced Sunday it would build a type of self-driving technology called Super Cruise for a 2017 model-year vehicle isn't in itself that surprising. Several automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti and Lincoln already have systems that can manage limited hands-free driving on highways, and Nissan has vowed to push for a fully autonomous car by 2020.

What's noteworthy is less what Cadillac and General Motors CEO Mary Barra said, but how: By billing it solely as a convenience feature, avoiding any suggestion that Super Cruise could make a driver safer. That's because behind the scenes, GM other automakers are concerned about the legal problems of self-driving cars and vehicle-to-vehicle tech — so much so that they have asked regulators for some kind of immunity if the industry is required to roll out devices that make decisions for the driver.

Barra said GM would offer Super Cruse on an unnamed Cadillac in 2016, likely the brand's new flagship expect to be revealed next year. She also said that the 2017 Cadillac CTS will offer a form of vehicle-to-vehicle communications, a system that lets cars exchange data to speed up traffic or warn of potential collisions, much in the way modern passenger planes do today.

"With Super Cruise, when there's a congestion alert on roads like California's Santa Monica Freeway, you can let the car take over and drive hands-free and feet-free through the worst stop and go traffic around," Barra said in a speech. "And if the mood strikes you on the high-speed road from Barstow, Calif., to Las Vegas, you can take a break from the wheel and pedals and let the car do the work."

Yet GM says the system would "increase the comfort of an attentive driver on freeways," and Barra also said Super Cruise "will keep drivers alert and engaged." That's an odd bit of phrasing — like saying your dishwasher will make you pay more attention to washing dishes — and one far less ambitious than claims from Google and other non-automakers pushing for fully autonomous vehicles that would let even blind drivers behind the wheel.

What GM and other automakers have already begun to grapple with is the potential for self-driving tech to make drivers pay even less attention than they do already. After years of fighting distracted driving with sloganeering about hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, automakers now find themselves pressured to design and sell systems that tout the ability to do just the opposite. Last month, a German magazine demonstrated how easy it was to set the Super Cruise-like system on an Infiniti Q50S and climb into the back seat while the car was on the freeway. A couple of automakers have added sensors so their cruise system shuts off if it doesn't detect a driver's hand on the wheel for a short period — but that also begs the question of what the tech's for in the first place.

And as the U.S. government begins writing the rules that will govern vehicle-to-vehicle technologies, automakers have warned that such tech would be slowed greatly if the industry wasn't given some kind of legal shield from customer lawsuits. A report from the world's nine largest automakers in 2012 noted that other industries had similar protections for offering better safety technology, such as cellphone carriers who offered expanded 911 service. (Among the other examples: swine flu vaccines, aeronautical mapmakers and nuclear power plants.)

Given how slowly regulators move, it's likely that automakers will have many more Super Cruise-like systems on the road before lawmakers catch up, and that eager lawyers will test automakers' defenses of only helping attentive drivers in court. With so many directions to turn, someone will have to grab the wheel.

It's looking like bad news for the rest of the UK's political establishment

ANDREW GRICE Author Biography POLITICAL EDITOR Monday 08 September 2014

In the two-year Scottish referendum campaign, Whitehall and Westminster have been in denial about the prospect of Scotland voting Yes to independence. Suddenly, as the opinion polls show it as a very real prospect, the London-based political establishment is anxiously thinking about the implications.

“The consequences, not just for England, but Wales and Northern Ireland, are frankly unimaginable,” one senior Whitehall official said today. This is not an obscure debate about more devolution: some MPs fear the peace process in Northern Ireland, or at least order on the streets, could be at risk, and that there could be new demands for a united Ireland. There would inevitably be calls for a stronger Welsh Assembly, more devolution to the English regions and even an English Parliament.

If Scots vote to walk out of the marriage, there is no guarantee of an amicable “velvet divorce”. Alex Salmond could afford to be conciliatory in victory. He would invite a vanquished Alistair Darling to join all-party talks to ensure a smooth transition to “independence day” in March 2016.

Yet an angry public mood in the rest of the UK, especially in England, could push the political parties into rejecting a friendly separation. Cabinet ministers already describe the SNP’s timetable as “completely unrealistic,” when there are complex issues like the Trident nuclear weapons base on the table. Speaking privately, they suspect that there would be trade-offs, and that Mr Salmond might ditch his “non-nuclear Scotland” policy in return for concessions in other areas.

But it is now dawning on MPs that a public backlash from English voters against the Scots could force the Government to take a much harder line than ministers expect. If the Scots reject enjoying the “best of both worlds” - more devolution and the security of the UK – then why should the remaining UK do them any favours during the divorce settlement? Yes campaign material as the campaign ahead of the Scottish independence referendum continues Yes campaign material as the campaign ahead of the Scottish independence referendum continues

Such pressures could force the Conservatives to take a hardline stance on the negotiations in their manifesto at next May’s general election. A Scottish breakaway would provide yet more ammunition for Ukip. If Nigel Farage demanded a tough line in the talks, the Tories might have to match it. In turn, that could put pressure on Labour to follow suit.

Who would be leading the Tories at the time? We don’t know. Mr Cameron has dismissed the idea that he would have to resign after presiding over the end of the 300-year Union. But he has to say that now. If he were to hint at anything else, it would allow the SNP to shout: “Vote Yes to kick out the Tory Prime Minister.”

Cameron critics on the Tory backbenches have already started to discuss amongst themselves whether a Yes vote next week could be the trigger for a coup against him as party leader. They would need the votes of 46 of the 304 Tory MPs to force a vote of confidence. Opinions are divided over whether this would be the right moment to strike. Some Tories want to wait until after next May’s general election. If there were a hung parliament and Mr Cameron tried to continue in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, then Tory rebels say he would be “toast”. The Better Together leader Alistair Darling campaigning in Edinburgh, where he met voters and set out his case for a No Vote in the Scottish Referendum The Better Together leader Alistair Darling campaigning in Edinburgh, where he met voters and set out his case for a No Vote in the Scottish Referendum

Would Cameron fall on his sword after a Yes vote? “I think his instinct would be to carry on and steady the ship,” said a long-standing friend. “What could save him is that the general election is not far off. But if things got really awful, and there was economic turmoil, then it might be different.”

There is already speculation in Tory circles over who might succeed Mr Cameron. The rumour mill suggests that George Osborne would be ruled out because his nuclear weapon in the referendum campaign – that Scotland could not keep the pound – backfired on the No camp, adding to Mr Salmond’s list of threats, bullying and bluffs. With Boris Johnson unlikely to return to Parliament until next May, William Hague, the Commons Leader, who led the Tories from 1997 to 2001, is seen as the most likely caretaker.


A Yes vote next week could provoke calls for next May’s general election to be delayed, on the grounds that there would be little point in electing 59 Scottish MPs for 10 months until “independence day.” That would require legislation to overturn the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. But it might prove too controversial, as it would allow Ukip to accuse the Tories and Lib Dems of clinging on to power.

In the long run, some Labour figures fear they would struggle to win another Commons majority without their solid block of Scottish MPs - 41 at present. The gossip among Blairite MPs is that their hero could still “win” England, but that a left-leaning leader could not. A Yes vote could be very bad news for Ed Miliband.

Source.