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    Sean BrodyHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:07am

    Hey, Hamilton
    Speaking of commenters. When are Kinja doing a profile piece like this?

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/20…

    In recent years, a core group of commenters have helped to transform The New York Times for the digital era. Their voices have enhanced our journalism, offering new information, insight and analysis on many of the day’s most pressing issues.

    These frequent commenters have also become a community, one that has its own luminaries.

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      Hamilton NolanSean Brody
      11/24/15 11:08am

      I would assume when we commit some terrible crime and management wants to punish us severely.

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      KinjaNinjaHamilton Nolan
      11/24/15 11:12am

      Does the Hogan sex tape count? I’m ready for my profile. Let’s call it “Life in the Grays”

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    ManchuCandidateHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:09am

    Next thing you’re going to tell me is that supply side economics is bullshit, tax cuts generally benefit the rich and that peace is more beneficial to the economy than war...

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      Cestrumnocturn1ManchuCandidate
      11/24/15 11:23am

      Wealth trickles down like pee!

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      10" Rubber BilboCestrumnocturn1
      11/24/15 11:28am

      Well MY pee blasts skyward in a mighty arc, its fulsome velocity more than sufficient to escape earth’s gravitational pull. Ever looked at a picture of the Eagle Nebula? Actually my frozen space-pee.

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    dellaroccokcmoHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:06am

    Jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams - IT’S ECON 101.

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      Abe Lincoln's Robotic Machine Gun Armdellaroccokcmo
      11/24/15 11:15am
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      The_Snark_Knightdellaroccokcmo
      11/24/15 11:27am

      Certain groups are inherently just more violent - IT’S ECON 101.

      (btw, the people who love to use this typically are the first to speak against higher ed... which they are accidentally endorsing by using the “101” designation for introductory university courses)

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    I Curse Zoidberg!Hamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:20am

    Both my wife and I have PhD’s in the social sciences, and this type of shit bugs me to no end. Everybody thinks they are an economist, or political scientist because they have watched Mad Money and O’Reilly. They say shit like it is a scientific fact, and even though I am a legitimate goddamned expert on this stuff, their opinion is held by society to be equal to mine.

    But, if say I had even an associates degree in pharmaceutical assistantship (or insert another BS low-level science degree in here), I’d be the biggest expert in the room and no one would ever question anything I had to say about any sort of science, in or out of my area of expertise.

    This is an epidemic in our society, we all think that we are smarter than the real experts. It’s like people with a goddamned meteorology degree (which is basically just learning how to look pretty and copy and paste NOAA reports) being treated in the same regard as atmospheric scientists or climatologists in the debates on climate change.

    As I’ve said a million times before, the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know shit. We need to stop thinking we are all the smartest person in the room, and start giving goddamned some respect to the real experts.

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      PeabodyHereI Curse Zoidberg!
      11/24/15 11:21am

      You’re comparing Mandarins to Navels.

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      ColonialSaabI Curse Zoidberg!
      11/24/15 11:42am

      Dunning Krugered to the max.

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    Rom RombertsHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:12am

    I like it when the graphs have two lines that touch

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      Johnny ChundersRom Romberts
      11/24/15 11:20am

      The frisson you feel when this happens is a true delight.

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      sleepiestRom Romberts
      11/24/15 11:40am

      That can never match the passionate will-they-won’t-they dynamic of parallel lines, though

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    Scranton's Banana ProblemHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:11am

    I find “you’re fucking wrong” works best on me. Don’t provide any sort of facts, just tell me that I’m wrong in the strongest terms possible. Insults and calling me a liberal makes me reassess my opinion.

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      dclocalScranton's Banana Problem
      11/24/15 11:23am

      even better when they use the term lib-tard. That definitely makes me think “You’re so right, you’re clearly espousing a more cogent argument than I can muster.”

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      PyramidHatScranton's Banana Problem
      11/24/15 11:32am

      I find that being called a “libtard” usually makes me re-evaluate my position. “Un-American”, as well...

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    GregoireHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:10am

    I do prefer Home Economics 101. The food’s definitely better.

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      HubcapJennyGregoire
      11/24/15 11:17am

      Always mix the dry ingredients first! It’s Home Econ 101!

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      Syphilitic Scalia SaysGregoire
      11/24/15 11:37am

      Butane doesn’t melt crème brûlée, it’s Home Ec 101.

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    NewYorkCynicHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:09am

    I would like to add this to the list of bullshit Econ 101 platitudes I’ve heard too many times:

    If we pay restaurant servers a living wage they won’t do a good job because they will have no incentive to work hard. It’s Econ 101.

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      HubcapJennyNewYorkCynic
      11/24/15 11:16am

      Whereas CEOs need ever-increasing multi-million-dollar bonuses in order to get them to even look like they’re working. Econ 101!

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      rmric0.wedding.photographerNewYorkCynic
      11/24/15 11:16am

      Some idiot ‘friend’ of mine of Facebook (I think he is trying to open a restaurant) bemoaned the fact that it will just crush all those small businesses because it will raise the price of meals. No it fucking won’t, because your customers were already paying your labor costs with tips.

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    GMOCHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:37am

    If you raise the price of something demand will fall says economics....except when it doesn’t like shitty Rolling Rock beer. They raised the price of this cheap corn swill and suddenly people thought it was a premium beer and bought more of it. I don’t know what is dumber in this case, economic theory or the dumbasses that suddenly thought Rolling Rock was good because it cost more....

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      PyramidHatGMOC
      11/24/15 11:44am

      Thou shant speak ill of the golden dew that springs from the glass-lined vats of Latrobe, PA. You make it sound like it’s Yeungling, or something.

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      GMOCPyramidHat
      11/24/15 11:53am

      It’s now made in Wisconsin. I believe it was G Heilman that bought them years ago which was bought by Stroh’s, which was bought by Pabst. Not sure if they took the glass tanks with them....33

      I had all that shit written out and then checked Wikipedia to learn I was totally wrong, they were bought by AB and it is brewed in New Jersey....

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    benjaminalloverHamilton Nolan
    11/24/15 11:25am

    Econ 101 statements treat economic self-interest as if it is operating in a vacuum. But people who receive social welfare aren’t choosing it as an alternative to a middle class job, but as a means to break barriers between themselves and those opportunities. We all repeat the lie that these programs not only don’t work, but are actively harmful to those whom they purport to help. However evidence suggests that they are more effective than the status quo narrative allows for in staving off the worst ills of poverty, even if they haven’t maintained the overall level of economic mobility. Maybe we should start being more honest about these programs; they’re not designed to incentivize work, and they’re not failing by disincentivizing work, because that’s NOT WHAT THEY ARE FOR.

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      PyramidHatbenjaminallover
      11/24/15 11:40am

      Away with you and your well though out, spelled, punctuated and capitalized bullshit! You have no business here...

      OK, bullshit aside, you nailed it. Now consider this: Could the folks that are so against social programs feel that way because they don’t want certain peoples lives to get better?

      Someone (I think it might have been Louis C. K.) relayed a story about flying on Jet Blue. The woman in front of him was complaining about no first class section on the plane, despite Jet Blue being a fairly nice airline. He then realized what the issue was: She wasn’t allowed to be “better” than the rest of the passengers by getting something that they couldn’t have. I think there’s a lot of that in play, here...

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      benjaminalloverPyramidHat
      11/24/15 12:07pm

      Yup! That’s a perfectly fitting anecdote. I think a great portion of resentment of social welfare programs on the part of those who do not need them is blind spite. It’s an emotional, not rational stance, but strangely enough these people feel themselves to be most rational.

      Your Louis C.K. anecdote reminds me of my own. I have a boss with dual citizenship with whom I got into a heated argument about health care. He said that in the event of a catastrophic health crisis, he’d go to the U.S. for treatment. I took the position that part of what makes our system in Canada function is the presence of demanding, privileged, squeaky-wheel rich people like himself (okay I didn’t put it quite like that) because everyone is in the same boat, but the rich can affect change more effectively for everyone, and function as a quality assurance for the rest of us. On and on this went, until he finally admitted that it was the idea of getting the same care as everyone else that ultimately bothered him. He felt like he would be more confident in the best American care than the best Canadian care, because even if it’s the same, it is more exclusive. In actuality, the free care he’d hypothetically receive might in many cases be superior to that which he’d have to pay for, but the exclusivity of the American system, in his mind, was a proof of quality in itself. When my dad goes to the cancer clinic and sees a poor person on his right and a rich person on his left, I find that comforting. Apparently to others, this is a scary idea.

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